Free In for a Penny by Rose Lerner Page B

later, truly.”
    She shrugged. “It’s quite all right. It is irrational to object to the truth. I should rather thank you for not feeding me Spanish coin.”
    She really had a way of making him feel small. “I never feed anyone Spanish coin. I’m not clever enough.”
    One of her brows arched in delicate skepticism, but she smiled. “I don’t know quite how these titles work. Would it be improper for me to call you Nev, still?”
    Nev had been determined to leave every scrap of his old life behind and start anew, but—his nickname sounded so right on her lips. It sounded comfortable, and intimate. “I don’t see why. No one new will be Lord Nevinstoke until—until we have a son.”
    “Nev it is, then.” She sighed. “I’m ashamed of being so frivolous, but—there is something about a title, isn’t there?”
    He felt faintly self-conscious. “In my experience, girls prefer a scarlet coat.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “It would put you in your place if I agreed with you.”
    Nev smiled. “It would, but I suspect you would rather die than be suspected of being officer-mad.”
    “I hope I am not so immoderate. However, I have always felt that choosing a pleasing form, easy address, or an attractive costume over sense and character is unpardonably foolish.”
    “But can’t one choose both?”
    “Surely a good, sensible man must always be pleasing.”
    Nev was opening his mouth to scoff when he realized he could not do so without sounding like the worst kind of cad. The full extent of her innocence crashed down on him. It really had never occurred to her that there might be a good and sensible man whom she did not wish to take to her bed. Apparently she never thought of taking men to her bed at all.
    And tonight he had planned to deflower her. He had never been with any woman who did not know exactly what she was doing. How painful was it, the first time? He knew there was often blood, but how much? What if he hurt her? What if she found the whole business unsanitary and repulsive? What if she cried?
    Worse yet, what if she endured his lovemaking with the same expression of patient forbearance she sometimes wore when he talked? What if she said, Never mind, I expect it will not be so very bad when I am used to it ?
    Nev wished that he were a man of good sense and character. Then he would know what the devil to do.
    When they finally pulled into an inn yard for the night, Penelope was starving and exhausted. And there was another whole day of this to endure on the morrow! Her remark that a good, sensible man must always be pleasing had effectively silenced her husband. He had looked very doubtful, but refrained from contradicting her. How did he contrive to makeher feel a puritanical schoolgirl, when she knew that it was he whose too-lively mind had been led astray by bad company and worldliness?
    She sighed. She could hardly give herself airs of superiority when she herself had chosen a pleasing form over every dictate of reason.
    Feeling penitent, she said nothing when he left her standing in the hall while he saw to the stabling of his horses. By the time he came back, she had fallen half-asleep leaning against the wall.
    She opened her eyes to find her husband regarding her with an unreadable expression. “How much did you sleep last night?”
    “Not very much,” she admitted, then realized that might not be politic.
    He gave her a crooked smile. “Come along, I’ve engaged a room and a private parlor. Supper should be along at any moment.”
    Supper! She gazed at him gratefully.
    Supper was a silent affair. The food was good, but as the meal drew to a close, Penelope’s nervousness increased. She could hear her abigail in the next room, laying out her night things. In an hour, or perhaps two, she would no longer be a maiden.
    She glanced at her husband, but he was not looking at her. He hadn’t been looking at her any of the admittedly hundreds of times she had glanced at him throughout the last half