Phoebe had to lean in toward Cato to give the man room to work. Her cheek brushed his emerald velvet shoulder, and all her indignation vanished like straws in the wind. Her heart began its drumbeat again. His scent of wine and lavender and the pomade that made his hair glow burnished in the candlelight set her senses reeling. The servant deftly removed Phoebe’s napkin and replaced it with a clean one.

“My thanks,” she murmured faintly. She was suddenly aware of how her legs on this high seat didn’t quite reach the floor so that her feet were swinging at about the level of Cato’s calves. She felt silly and clumsy and overwhelmingly inexperienced.

When she saw Cato and her father exchange a nod, she felt her cheeks grow hot. Lord Carlton gestured significantly to Phoebe’s aunt, one of the two female relatives who’d risked the journey from London across the war-torn Thames valley to attend their niece’s wedding, and to assist in the essential ritual of putting the bride to bed.

Phoebe swallowed. “Is it time?” she whispered.

“Aye, it’s time,” Cato replied softly. “Go with your aunts. They will look after you.”

Phoebe regarded the aunts bearing down upon her shoulder to shoulder. They were a grim-faced pair, sisters of the mother Phoebe could not remember. They had adored Diana. And without exception, those who adored Diana had little time for Phoebe.

Phoebe cast Olivia a desperate look. If only Olivia could be beside her at this sacrificial rite. But it was a ceremony to be conducted only by women who’d gone through it themselves.

Cato rose to his feet, took his bride’s hand, and courteously assisted her to stand. All eyes were upon her. He raised Phoebe’s hand to his lips, then stepped aside, passing her over to her aunts. The guests were smiling; knowing little smiles, and in some cases broad anticipatory grins with a touch of lasciviousness that brought them close to a leer.

Phoebe’s face flamed anew. She hated to be the focus of attention. Usually it was because of some awkward or embarrassing faux pas, but this was worse than anything. She wanted what was about to happen, wanted it with a bewildering urgency, but she couldn’t bear to imagine the thoughts going on behind those drunken prurient grins.

Olivia took something from her pocket and laid it carefully and prominently on the white cloth above her plate. Phoebe gazed at it. It was Olivia’s friendship ring, one of the three that Portia had made all those years ago by twining their three locks of hair into a circle. Phoebe’s hand went to the tiny pocket in the skirt of her gown and closed over her own ring. The moment of panic receded. She gave Olivia a half smile and allowed herself to be swept away on the tide of her aunts.

She stood still in the middle of Cato’s bedchamber. She’d never entered this room before. Everything in it seemed dark and massive. The armchair drawn up before the blazing fire, the carved chest at the foot of the bed, the mahogany sideboard against the wall, the huge armoire with its great brass key. The curtains at the windows were of dark red velvet, hanging from massive oak rods. The floor was of almost black oak, highly polished, scattered with embroidered Elizabethan rugs.

Her gaze moved almost reluctantly to the bulk of the carved bed with its tapestry hangings. It seemed very high and she saw the little footstool that had presumably been put there for her benefit. Cato would hardly need it. The head and feet of the bed were carved in a tangle of what looked like serpents and dragons. The coverlet was of rich dark blue silk. Phoebe felt pale and dwarfed.

“Come now, child, there’s no time for gawping,” Lady Morecombe scolded, beginning to unhook Phoebe’s gown. “Your husband won’t expect to be kept waiting.”

Phoebe shivered and moved closer to the fire, while her aunt followed her flapping her hands as she tried to finish unhooking the gown.

“Keep still, do!”

Phoebe came to a halt in front of the fire and then stood, still and mute as a doll, while the two women bustled around her, handing her clothes to the maid who stood ready to receive them. When she was naked, they brought a wet washcloth from the nightstand and sponged her body from head to toe, even though she’d bathed that morning. She was dried briskly.

“Now, rinse out your mouth with this essence of cloves,” one of the aunts instructed, passing Phoebe a small cup filled with dark brown liquid. “Fresh breath is most important in the bedchamber. Make sure you remember that.”

“But don’t expect your husband to remember it himself,” Lady Morecombe declared with asperity. Her own lord was a renowned drunkard who smoked a pipe and had a passion for pickled onions.

Their words washed over Phoebe. Obediently she rinsed out her mouth and spat into the basin. Then they dropped the soft white nightrail over her head and buttoned it at the back.

“That’s very pretty,” Lady Barett said. It was the first word of approval Phoebe could remember hearing all day. “Now, let’s take down your hair.”

Phoebe sat on the chest at the foot of the bed while they unpinned her hair, and then both stood aside as the maid brushed the long light brown hair with strong rhythmic strokes until it rippled down her back in gleaming strands.

“Now, get into bed.” The aunts both turned down the coverlet, smoothing their hands over the crisp sheet beneath and the white cover on the bolster. Sprigs of lavender had been strewn over the pillows.

Phoebe climbed in with the aid of the stool. They told her to sit up against the pillows, and they smoothed the coverlet over her and arranged her hair over her shoulders.

“There, you’ll do,” they announced almost in chorus.

Lady Morecombe turned to the maid, “Clear away the mess, quickly now, girl. We shall go down and tell Lord Granville that his bride is ready for him.”

With one last inspection of the sacrifice they had prepared, they left Phoebe alone to wait.


Lord Carlton was regaling his immediate neighbors with a particularly ribald joke as the aunts returned to the great hall. Cato’s expression bore a look of faint distaste of which he was unaware as the gales of drunken laughter gusted over the gentler sounds of the minstrels in the gallery.

“Your bride awaits you, Lord Granville,” gravely announced one of the aunts.

“Ah, to business!” bellowed Lord Carlton, pushing back his chair with such vigor that it crashed to the floor. “Come, gentlemen, let us accompany the groom to his feast.”

Raucous laughter greeted this sally. Cato’s smile was a mere flicker of his lips and came nowhere near his eyes.

They encircled Cato, sweeping him before them towards the stairs, flourishing their wine goblets, and singing and laughing as they escorted him up the curving flight to the landing above.

Phoebe heard the gusts of merrymaking, the loud laughter, the chanting voices. She sat bolt upright in bed, sick with apprehension and a strange excitement. The tangle of lusting dreams that had plagued her nights for so many weeks was about to become unraveled.

The bedchamber door burst open. A crowd filled the doorway. She stared at the blur of red glistening faces in shock and horror. Sitting up high in the big bed, she felt as exposed as if she were naked, bound to the stocks on the village green.

Then Cato turned to the crowd at his back and with a great shove with both arms, slammed the door closed on the face of the throng. He threw the bolt across as a hammering protest began on the far side of the oak. He waited, his arms spread wide across the door, hands firmly planted on the frame at either side. Finally the hammering ceased and the sounds of ribaldry drifted away as the wedding guests returned to the bottles below.

Cato turned back to the room. “For some reason, weddings make animals of men,” he observed, coming over to the bed.

He regarded Phoebe keenly. If she was frightened and tense, it was going to be a messy and painful business.

His first wife, Brian Morse’s mother, had been a widow, and the wedding night had been notable mostly because of his own inexperience. At seventeen he’d had relatively few sexual encounters, and all of those had been mere fleeting grapples leading to a short burst of satisfaction. He had had no idea of how to please a woman.

Olivia’s mother and then Diana had both been virgin on their wedding night. And both nights had brought little satisfaction to any of them. On both occasions he’d tried without success to please them. Olivia’s mother, Nan, had tried to disguise her dislike of the conjugal bed. Their marriage had been a deeply affectionate one, but Nan had never enjoyed the hungry grapplings of sex. Diana had never even tried. She had simply performed her duty.

It seemed that women of breeding, the women who became wives, disliked bedsport, and Cato had learned not to expect the uninhibited responses he enjoyed on occasion with women for whom lusty sex was both profession and pleasure. He had learned not to linger.

He turned away and eased off his boots against the bootjack.

Phoebe felt the first wash of disappointment. He hadn’t said anything to her. He’d just looked at her in that speculative, almost cold manner, as if sizing her up. Then he’d turned from her as if finding her wanting.

She watched as he removed the emerald green doublet and threw it carelessly onto a chair. He wore no sword, only a small dagger sheathed at his belt. He unfastened the belt and tossed it onto the chair. His long, full britches of the same velvet as the doublet were fastened below the knee with wide black ribbons. She watched as he unbuttoned them at the waist, bent to unfasten the ribbons, and pushed them off his hips, stepping out of them in one fluid movement.