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ice after the first freeze of the season? Delicate, toe-first steps that measured the danger beneath them.
    “Perhaps I am,” he said, honesty restoring some of his equilibrium. Now to find the words to leave her. Sleep well? Would that be seemly in such a circumstance as a wedding night?
    Perhaps he’d be better off saying something vulnerable, revealing the extent of his need. Take me to your bed. Touch me . No, that would be too revelatory.
    He might promise to leave her alone as long as she offered him comfort of another sort. Let me watch you sleep and marvel at the simple beauty of it. Or hear the sound of your breathing and coax the next breath with each inhalation of my lungs.
    For a few hours there would be nothing hideous about the night. Davina would not transform to anothercreature, would not become bloody and snarling. She’d remain just as she was, beautiful and sane.
    “Are you lost?” she asked again, and this time she stood back and opened the door wider.
    Another man might see this as an invitation, but he was somewhat wise in the ways of women and recognized it as a test. She would judge him in the next few minutes. If he placed his hand on the door and pushed it open, she’d label him a barbarian. Yet if he stood where he was and allowed her to dictate the pace, he’d be seen as weak. So he opted for a third course, one that suited his nature better and perhaps the circumstances as well. He simply spoke to her.
    “I’m not lost, Davina, but I wondered if I’ve given you enough time to prepare.”
    “To become a wife and not simply a bride?”
    At his smile, she continued. “My aunt says I am not tactful enough. My father would agree with her, I think. But I’ve never seen the virtue in hiding behind words, Your Lordship.”
    “Marshall,” he corrected. “At this juncture, I think we should dispense with formality, don’t you?”
    “We do not know each other, Your Lordship. Would calling you by your Christian name delude you into thinking that we are friends? If so, I shall be glad to call you Marshall.”
    In that instant he capitulated to temptation. Raising his left hand, he pushed against the door gently. Davina stepped back, allowing him to enter her chamber, turn, and close the door.
    Only then did Marshall allow himself to look at her completely. The furnishings of the room paled in drama and beauty to her.
    She was attired in a white frothy material that swathed her from the throat to toe. She looked like a delicious French confection, the impression only strengthened by the fact that the fabric hinted at shadows, the darkness of her aureoles and the hair at the juncture of her thighs.
    Someone had misjudged her and furnished her with a perfume that was too strong for her, hinting at spices from the Orient. Or perhaps the perfume was part of his madness, and she smelled only of her soap.
    “You should have married long ago,” he said. Was he blaming her for being here, for being his wife, for being vulnerable to his insanity? “You should have married and found love, either before the union or from it.”
    She blinked at him, and then frowned. “My father used to say that the past could not be changed, and the future may never come. I can only live in the present, Your Lordship.”
    This time he didn’t correct her. Perhaps he wanted that extra bit of formality between them. But how formal was it when she stood half naked in front of him?
    “Then shall we, too, begin to live in the present, lady wife?” He extended his hand to her, and she, looking bemused, took it with all the eagerness of a felon being led to the gallows.

Chapter 6
    I nstead of leading her to the bedchamber, he remained in the sitting room, selecting an overstuffed chair beside the fireplace.
    She’d stood beside him in the chapel and sat with him at dinner. But in neither place had he looked quite so large. He seemed to dominate the sitting room, to the extent that she forced herself to stand erect,