Chapter 2
Verity’s stomach was fluttering with excitement as she cast a surreptitious glance at her husband across the dinner table.
Husband.
Oh, how she adored that word, the world of change that accompanied it.
King’s dark head was bent, his attention directed to his plate as he methodically cut a piece of salmon. She liked watching his hands. They were large and masculine and capable. The hands that had saved her.
The hands that held her heart.
His movements were graceful. Elegant. He was a careful man. Concerned with his dress, with his words, with details in his household, from the most minute to the largest, everything from the dinner that would appear on his plate to the wall coverings.
As if he could hear her thoughts madly whirring through her mind, he glanced up, his warm brown gaze upon her. Although she wasn’t seated near enough to detect the striations of bronze that flecked his eyes, she knew they were there, mixed with hints of gold.
“Do you dislike your dinner?” he asked solicitously.
She glanced down at her own plate, realizing she hadn’t touched a bite.
She had been far too distracted by the excitement of the day and what was to come later.
The wedding night. She could scarcely think of anything else.
The yearning she felt for him seemed to emerge from somewhere deep within her very soul.
“Of course not,” she denied, smiling. “Your chef is quite excellent.”
King had a habit of surrounding himself with the best. The food on her plate had been exquisitely prepared and exactingly arranged.
“Then why are you not eating?”
Because all she wanted to do was launch herself at him across the table.
But she couldn’t say that. Could she? Best not, she decided.
The truth was, she was rather dismayed they had spent the day since their arrival at his town house just as any other married couple would.
She had been introduced to his domestics.
They had toured the home. He had excused himself to give her time to settle her belongings and acclimate herself to her new surroundings.
And then they had reconvened in the drawing room prior to dinner.
Somehow, she had thought her husband would be more romantic. That he would sweep her into his arms and carry her up the staircase to his bedroom.
Foolish, she realized now. How would he have done so with the servants looking on in scandalized horror? He had continued to treat her with the polite respect he always showed her. Silly of her to be disappointed for all the rational reasons, and yet Verity was.
She cleared her throat and took up her fork. “I am eating.”
Verity carefully avoided the salmon on her plate, forking up a bite of haricot verts instead.
“But not the Saumon à la Mornay,” he observed.
She bit her lip, thinking it odd that he would neglect to recall such a detail about her. Had they not held conversations about her refusal to eat fish? Perhaps he had somehow forgotten.
“Not yet,” she said brightly, hoping he wouldn’t press her on the matter.
She didn’t want to call attention to his lapse in memory, for she had no wish to hurt his feelings.
He raised a lone dark brow. “Do you intend to?”
Suddenly, Verity recalled walking along the stream at Riverdale Abbey, a wrap pulled around her for warmth, a hat shielding her face.
The air was cool, the sky light blue and filled with the promise of early spring. She wasn’t alone, the companion at her side steadfast and comforting.
She loved him. The ease between them was one born of familiarity and true devotion. Oh, how fortunate she was to have a beau like him.
She was laughing, happy and carefree. “You will not judge me for my lack of appreciation for poisson, I hope?” she asked her companion.
The sun blotted out his face as he responded. “Not at all. I cannot abide scaled creatures of any sort myself. I simply refuse to eat fish.”
As quickly as the memory had appeared, it faded, leaving Verity to jolt back to the present in time to watch as King took another bite of salmon, chewing on it thoughtfully.
“You don’t like fish,” she blurted.
King’s brows drew together. “Of course I do.”
“But you don’t,” she insisted, more certain than ever. “That is what you told me. Because I don’t like fish either, and it was a topic upon which we could agree. Do you not recall? It was by the stream at Riverdale Abbey.”
Sometimes, it was difficult for her to discern the difference between a fragmented memory and a dream.
But she simply knew she was not wrong about this.
They had walked together, hand in hand. Birds had been singing above, trilling from branches, and she had thought to herself that she didn’t recall ever having been happier.
“Ah, yes,” King said smoothly. “I do believe I remember now.”
“But if you do not like fish, then why don’t you tell your chef that he ought not to prepare it?”
“Perhaps I’ve developed a new appreciation for it,” he suggested.
“But that’s absurd. One doesn’t suddenly acquire an appreciation for fish.” Heavens knew that she never would. It was impossible. The very notion of a salmon or some trout on her plate was enough to make her bilious.
“According to you.” He shrugged, grinning. “One is always capable of changing one’s mind.”
With that, he took up another bite of fish, lifting it to his perfectly sculpted lips.
She felt faintly queasy, hoping he didn’t intend to kiss her with that mouth. At least not until he had either consumed something that would mask the flavor or thoroughly brushed his teeth. She certainly didn’t want to avoid kissing him. She’d thought of scarcely anything else in weeks.
An interesting conundrum, indeed. Something nettled her still, some sense of an itch that would not be scratched.
Was it that he now enjoyed fish when he hadn’t previously?
Was it the cavalier way in which he had acknowledged the change?
Or was it her memory, which was hazy and indistinct? Had she misremembered?
“You are displeased.”
King’s statement cut through her thoughts.
Perhaps she was being churlish about the fish.
Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps it didn’t matter at all.
Today was her wedding day, the day she had been anticipating for so long that this very moment itself felt something like a dream.
She must cling to that, to the reminder she had wanted nothing else, and forget about the stirrings of memories, real and forgotten and otherwise.
“I’m not displeased in the slightest,” she denied, smiling brightly. “How could I be anything but content? Today, I married the man I love, and tomorrow is the first day of our life together.”
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, but she knew him well enough to catch the sign that something in her words affected him.
Was it her reference to love? Of their life together?
Verity knew King better than she knew anyone.
He was the other half of her. And yet, sometimes it still felt as if he were a stranger.
In some ways, she was still learning him.
“That sounds almost ominous, angel.”
His words were teasing. Light. But secrets only he could unlock lingered in his dark eyes, belying his tone.
“Hardly ominous.”
“Mmm.” He reached for his glass of wine. “The first day of our life together. What is it you think that we shall do with this life of ours?”
The intensity and intimacy of his gaze and voice made a frisson of something decadent dance down her spine. Then there was a memory, a shadow at the edge of her thoughts. One she couldn’t quite catch or make sense of.
She reached for her own glass. “We must have discussed it before the fire. I recall making many plans, but the details are hazy and indistinct now.”
“Perhaps we ought to plan anew, then,” he suggested, his eyes dipping down to her untouched plate. “Over the next course.”
He rose from his chair, went to the bellpull, and rang for the butler he had dismissed earlier so that they might dine privately. Retrieving a bottle of wine from the sideboard, he moved to her side, refilling her glass, near enough that she could feel his heat.
Near enough that his scent wrapped around her, one unique to King.
Musk with hints of fresh meadow and an undercurrent of lemon, reminiscent of spring days redolent with promise.
Of course, he would pay the same exacting detail to his scent as he did the rest of his dress, but she couldn’t deny that each time she caught a hint of it, the ache within her grew.
She thanked him, eyes on his long, elegant fingers again as he finished pouring. “You needn’t dance attendance on me, you know. I am fully capable of seeing to myself.”
“And miss the pleasure that tending to you brings me? I think not, angel.”
He returned to his chair as the butler arrived. Pierpoint was dressed in dapper black with a stiff, starched collar, his graying hair pulled back from his high forehead. With his aquiline nose and stern expression, the butler rather resembled a bird of prey.
The butler bowed elegantly. “Your Graces.”
“Pierpoint, Her Grace has expressed an ardent dislike of fish,” King announced. “Please do consult with Mrs. Sendall so that Monsieur Barreau refrains from the use of poisson in any future dishes.”
“None, sir?”
“Not one.”
“Very good, Your Grace,” Pierpoint intoned, unmoved. “I will inform Monsieur Barreau and Mrs. Sendall directly. Would Your Graces prefer the next course?”
“Yes, please,” King said.
With a nod and another bow, the butler took his leave.
“But I thought you had developed a new appreciation for fish,” Verity objected when Pierpoint had quietly excused himself, not wanting to deprive her husband of a meal he enjoyed.
“I can have fish elsewhere if I choose,” King said smoothly. “If my wife doesn’t like fish, we shan’t have fish.”
A soft warmth spread through her. Perhaps he was making amends for forgetting that small detail.