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"Well, sir?" Her voice brought him back to reality.

"My tale," he began, his cheeks flushing as he wondered if she might have guessed his thoughts, "is a relatively simple one. When my uncle, Henry Howard, was but fifteen, he had a pretty lover. She was not his first, mind you. I, myself, had caught Henry beneath a hedgerow with a milkmaid when he was just twelve. This girl, however, found herself with child. When her family realized it, they sought to learn the father's identity. All the girl would say was that her lover was of the duke's family. She sought Henry out in secret and pleaded with him for help, but he was afraid of what his father would say. He sent the girl away. The poor little wench hung herself. When her outraged family came to my grandfather to demand remuneration for loss of their daughter, I accepted the blame for my uncle's crime. I did not want the boy saddled with that burden. He was so young."

"Not so young that he could not dip his wick in any honey pot conveniently offered to him," Nyssa said tartly.

"I should have allowed Henry to take his own punishment," Varian de Winter continued. "It never occurred to me that the scandal would not be allowed to die down after so many years."

She did not know whether she believed him or not. Were men in this day and age really that noble? Perhaps he was just lying to her in order to gain her sympathy. Did she dare to trust him? She wasn't certain. "How could your grandfather have allowed you to take the blame for his son's crime?" she asked him. "It was very wrong of him, my lord. Your uncle was but a boy. He would have eventually been forgiven, but certainly a grown man could not be. Only a true villain would do what you are alleged to have done. I am not surprised no decent families would allow their daughters to be associated with you."

"My grandfather," the Earl of March said quietly, "cares only for his family, and their advancement. He does what he believes he must do on their behalf. Still, for all his faults, he is a loyal Englishman."

"Who is the other woman?" she asked suddenly, changing the subject entirely. "Who is the woman the duke would make queen? The woman for whom I was sacrificed?"

"My cousin, Cat," Varian de Winter replied.

"Ohh, poor Cat!" Nyssa said softly as her eyes teared.

He brushed her dark hair away from her face, agreeing, "Aye, poor little wench, but if I tell you she is willing, will you be very surprised, for willing she is."

Nyssa shook her head. His soft touch had startled her. "Nay," she answered him. "I am not surprised. She has the Howard ambition, does Cat. Perhaps she will make the king happy, though."

"Are you still angry with me?" he asked her.

She turned her head so that she might look into his face, and was a bit nonplussed by how close his lips suddenly were. "I am not certain if I am yet angry with you, my lord," she told him honestly. "I think we both be victims of Howard ambition. When my service to Queen Anne is at an end, then we may go home and be done with Howard ambition. Your mother may have been a Howard, but you, my lord, are a de Winter. It is time that your ambitions were reserved for the de Winters, and not for the Howards."

All his life he had felt that there was something missing, and now he knew what it was. It had been a woman. Not just any woman, but a woman who would put his interests, and the interests of his family, above all else. That influence had never been there, and he hadn't even missed it until she had spoken so strongly to him. He had tried so hard for his grandfather's sake to be a Howard, but he was not a Howard. He was Varian de Winter, the fifth Earl of March.

Smiling down at her, he said, "My grandfather has thrown us together for expediency's sake, Nyssa, but he has done me the greatest kindness ever, and he does not even know it." His dark green eyes were suddenly warm.

"What kindness has the duke done you?" she asked him, shifting nervously in his lap. She could not break the gaze between them.

"He has given me you," Varian de Winter said low, and then he took a lock of her dark hair between a thumb and a forefinger, rubbing it between the two digits, enjoying the sensuous softness of it. Then raising that lock to his lips, he kissed it.

Her throat felt suddenly tight, and her heart beat a quick tattoo. She was very, very aware of their closeness to each other.

Slowly he reached up and unfastened the gold frog closures on the rose velvet cloak she wore, pushing the heavy fur-trimmed fabric back, exposing her chemise. His hand caressed her face, his fingers trailing lingeringly down the smooth, warm column of her neck. "The king has ordered that we consummate this marriage tonight, Nyssa. If it were in my power, we would get to know one another better first. I wanted to court you properly, the way a man courts a woman he admires and hopes to wed one day. When we first met, I hoped to have that opportunity, but your family was so protective of you. Now we are legally bound together as man and wife, and none of it is as I would have had it. The king will have proof that our union is made complete on the morrow nonetheless. If he does not get it we will end up in the Tower."

"How fortunate for Henry Tudor," Nyssa said sharply, "that the Duke of Cleves did not demand such proof of his sister's consummation from our hypocritical sovereign." She was beginning to grow a trifle frightened. Varian de Winter was handsome, and he was being most charming, but he was still a virtual stranger.

"Tell me what your mother has told you of passion between a man and his wife," Varian de Winter said as he tipped her gently from his lap and stood up. Taking her cloak from her, he laid it across the chair, then, undoing his own garment, he put it with hers, the dark green and rose velvets lying against each other, the sable and ermine furs mingling.

Nyssa stared at him, wide-eyed. "My mother thought no knowledge necessary until my marriage contract was settled," she said, recovering herself. "The women in the queen's apartments gossip, of course, but I know not what is truth and what is not. I fear, my lord, that I am woefully ignorant of such things as passion, having never before experienced it. I have never had a suitor."

She is a true virgin, he thought. Of course she would be. It was to be expected of a respectable maid from a good country family. When he had kissed her earlier in the evening, it had been for the benefit of the king. When their lips had briefly met at the command of the archbishop at their wedding, it had also been for the benefit of others. Now he tipped her heart-shaped face up, kissing her for their mutual benefit and pleasure. Her mouth softened beneath his. It was a good start.

She did not close her eyes when he kissed her, he saw, amused, as he opened his. "It is nicer when you close your eyes," he said.

"Why?" she wondered aloud.

He thought a moment, and then said, "I do not know, but it is, Nyssa. Would you like to try again with your eyes closed?"

In answer to his query, she closed her eyes and pursed her lips up at him. When he chuckled, her eyes flew open. "What is the matter?" she demanded of him. "Why do you laugh at me?" As if I were not nervous enough, she thought indignantly. He doesn't have to be so damned superior.

"I am not laughing at you," he swore to her. "But you are so absolutely adorable, sweetheart, you make me happy. Now, close your eyes again." When she did, he kissed her tenderly, pressing her against his chest. He struggled with himself that he not hold her too tightly. He recognized her own inner battle to stay calm in an unfamiliar situation, and for her, a possibly frightening one.

For the briefest time she felt dizzy, and she clung to him as his lips warmly met hers. She sighed deeply. Itwasnicer when you closed your eyes, although, like the earl, she could not have said why. In a sudden spurt of courage, she slipped her arms about his neck. He took her head between his hands, covering her face with soft, feathery kisses. His lips touched her fluttering, closed eyelids, her forehead, her cheeks, the tip of her nose, and finally her lips once again. His mouth pressed more firmly on hers this time, but Nyssa found it very pleasurable. She stood upon her tiptoes, straining to prolong his kiss. She was tingling all over, and had never before felt quite so . . . so . . . oh, why could she not find a word to describe how she felt?

His hands moved from her face, and clasping them about her waist, he lifted her up so that at first she was level with him, and their kisses deepened; and then he raised her up so that she was looking down into his face for a brief moment before he set her blushing back upon her feet. "You have never really been kissed before, have you?" he said, and not waiting for an answer, continued, "You learn quickly, sweetheart."