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She heard his words, and then suddenly she was lost, caught up in a rainbow-hued vortex that was spinning out of control, taking her with it. She was a butterfly, soaring, trapped in a maelstrom of passion so great that she had no control at all. "Varian!" She cried his name even as the feeling of pressure building within her exploded in a starburst of incredible pleasure at the very moment of his own release.

He could feel his love juices gushing forth in a great discharge of sweetness that overflowed her womb. He fell forward atop her body, exhausted, yet filled with a contentment he had never before known. He struggled to raise his head, looking down into her beautiful face. She was pale and seemed to be scarcely breathing, but then she opened her lovely violet-blue eyes slowly, focusing upon him.

"I love you, sweeting!" he declared passionately, and his look was one of great tenderness toward her.

Nyssa burst into tears. "Do not say it!" she begged him. "I do not love you. I do not even know you! It is not fair! Fate has made us man and wife, but I do not know what love is. How can you love me, Varian? How can you love a woman you do not even know? Such things only happen in children's tales of old. It cannot,does not, happen in our time."

"I love you, sweeting. I told you so last night. The moment I first saw you at Hampton Court I knew you were the only woman for me, Nyssa. I do not understand it myself, but when my grandfather so coldly suggested giving you to another man, I knew I could not let that happen. I could not allow anyone else to have you, to kiss your sweet lips, to plow a furrow in your love fields, my darling. You are mine, Nyssa. In time I will teach you to love me, I swear it!"

He lay his head upon her breasts with a sigh, and Nyssa gently stroked his dark head. Can love be taught? she wondered. Her mother had certainly learned to love her father. Blaze had not even known Edmund Wyndham when she became his wife. And had not her stepfather Anthony secretly loved Blaze, even when she purported to despise him and held him responsible for Edmund Wyndham's death? Yet eventually her mother had come to love her stepfather deeply. This was the way of her world. Still, it seemed so strange that Varian should love her when she had not even considered him as a husband.

Suddenly she realized that she was hungry. She had not eaten since early that morning, and then she had had nothing but some bread and wine. "I am starving, my lord," she told him. "Have you eaten?"

He raised himself off of her and then drew her up onto her feet. "Has my love for you not satisfied your hunger?" He teased her with a smile. "Thou art a greedy wench, I find."

"My stomach is hollow, sir," she told him. "My aunt keeps a good table wherever she may reside. She has been here for months now, and the cooks are well-trained by her at last."

"Let us call Tillie and have her bring us a full repast," he suggested. "I find making love to you ravenous work, madame."

"Cover your nakedness, my lord," she told him, climbing back into bed and pulling the coverlet well up. "My Tillie is a good girl. You must not shock her."

He pulled his breeches back on before calling for their two servants. Then he instructed Tillie, who wide-eyed went to fetch them a good meal. Toby was instructed to empty the tub and refill it for the earl.

Tillie returned, two kitchen maids in her wake. The girls could not help but giggle at the sight of Lord de Winter in naught but his breeches, bare feet, and bare chest. Tillie rapped them both sharply on the back of their heads, admonishing them, "Mind yer manners!" She directed them to lay the food out on a long, narrow oak table which was set along the window wall. Then she placed a decanter of red wine and a pitcher of foaming ale upon the table, slipping the goblets from her apron pocket. With a curtsey to her mistress and new master, she quickly shepherded the kitchen maids from the bedchamber. Toby, having finished his task of emptying and refilling the bath, was already gone.

"Will you bathe first, or eat?" Nyssa asked her husband.

"The water is too hot," he said, perusing the contents of the table, and then he observed, "Your aunt does keep a good table. I hope you will do so as well, madame."

"You will not find me lacking in housewifely skills, my lord," Nyssa told him. "Is your home very grand?"

"Nay, 'tis but a modest house. I have scarcely ever lived in it. You may find it old-fashioned, but it is yours to decorate as you will, Nyssa. I want to spend the rest of my life at Winterhaven with you, and with our children. I often think how lonely my father must have been there. He waited until he was practically an old man to marry, and then he lost my mother in childbirth. From the time I went to live with my grandfather, I spent only Midsummer's Day until Mid-Lammas with my father. After his death I only came in September to hunt." The earl took his plate and heaped it high with beef, capon, raw oysters, bread, and cheese. Seating himself upon the bed, he asked her, "What was it like to grow up atRiversEdge? Your father's hospitality was famous. My father often remarked on what a fine gentleman he was."

"I do not remember Edmund Wyndham," Nyssa said quietly. "I was not quite two when he was killed. My stepfather, Anthony Wyndham, is the father I have known. Growing up atRiversEdgewas wonderful. I wonder now why I ever left it. I have five brothers, and twin sisters born six months ago. I will hardly recognize them when we go home. They were but a few weeks old when I left for court. I had ponies, and later on horses, and of course dogs, to play with as a child. My cousin, Mary Rose, was my best friend. We ran barefooted in the summer months, and rode our horses upon the frozen river in the wintertime. There is nothing special about my growing up."

"You had a family about you, Nyssa," he told her. "A mother, a father, and a houseful of siblings. Your aunts and cousins live nearby, I know, for they are my neighbors too, and your grandparents also. You are very fortunate, my darling, in all your relations."

"Were you very lonely, Varian?" she asked him, suddenly aware of how hard it must have been for him, a small, motherless boy given over to his power-hungry grandfather to raise. There would have been no abiding love in the Duke of Norfolk's house, or even time for it. Even the duchess had separated from Duke Thomas, and did not speak kindly of him.

"Lonely?" Varian thought a moment, and then said, "Aye, I was lonely, Nyssa. People never thought of me as the Earl of March's son and heir. I was always the son of Duke Thomas's bastard daughter. Nonetheless, being brought up in my grandfather's shadow was an education in itself. I had no time to feel sorry for myself, sweeting. He is a hard man, but he is also an admirable one in many ways. Still, I am of no real value to him, I realize. I do not like the games he plays, and he knows it. Now that I have a wife, it is time I returned to Winterhaven and took up my own responsibilities. The estate is large, and has not been properly managed in years. I will have much to do." He looked at her. "You are not eating," he said. "You will need your strength, sweeting. I do not intend to let you off so easily as I did last night."

"Is that why you swallow oysters so greedily?" she demanded. "I have been at court long enough to have heard of their restorative powers. Is it true, my lord?"

He grinned wickedly at her. "You shall soon see, madame," he promised her. "I advise you to fill your own belly while you may."

She flung back the coverlet on the bed, and sliding from the bed, walked naked over to the table where the food was laid out. She smiled to herself, hearing his sharp intake of breath. It pleased her that she was able to affect him so. Taking up a plate, she took a piece of capon, a braised artichoke, some bread and butter. Setting her plate in the window seat, she turned back to him and said sweetly, "Wine or ale, my lord? Tillie has brought both."

"Ale," he managed to croak. Jesu Lord she was tempting, and he knew she was very much aware of it. He was suddenly amused.

She filled a goblet and brought it to him.

"I do not think I have ever been served in such a fashion," he told her, chuckling. "Will you always serve me thusly, madame?"

"If it pleases you, my lord," she answered him demurely.

"Eat your supper, Nyssa," he told her. "I am almost through with mine. I have another appetite that will shortly need satisfying."

"First you must bathe," she told him. Then she bit into the piece of capon's breast she had taken for herself.