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“ T hese roses are marvelous,” Arabella murmured, extending a careful finger to touch one.

William laughed. “You act as though you believe it’s going to bite you.”

“Roses have thorns!” Arabella said with a laugh. “You can’t just lay hold of something because it’s beautiful. There are unintended consequences that must be considered.”

A shadow crossed William’s face at the sound of her words.

Arabella suppressed a sigh. She wanted to tell him that she hadn’t been trying to weave a metaphor—she had simply been talking about the literal roses right in front of them—but she suspected he had read something more into her words.

The most frustrating thing about her husband, she decided, was how difficult it could be to communicate with him.

She enjoyed his company quite a lot, but she also found herself constantly having to guess at what he was thinking which she did not enjoy.

Whatever conclusion he had drawn from what she’d said about roses and thorns, she wished he would just come out with it.

If he refused to do so, she knew that thoughts might be attributed to her that she didn’t really have, and that was an unpleasant notion.

William reached over her shoulder now and plucked one of the roses from the bush.

“You can’t do that,” Arabella objected.

He laughed. “Can’t I?”

“These aren’t your roses. They belong to the Duke and Duchess of Loxburgh.”

“Well, I trust you aren’t going to report me.” He handed her the flower.

Arabella was charmed in spite of herself. She accepted the flower. “That’s beautiful.”

“So, you’re not going to tell Seth and Lavinia that I’m a flower thief?”

“Oh, you know I won’t,” Arabella laughed. “But I do think you should mend your ways. I am an impressionable young lady, after all, and you might have a bad influence on me.”

He laughed aloud at that. “A bad influence! That’s rich.”

“Why is that funny?” she asked him, caught off guard by his reaction.

“It’s funny to think that you would be easily influenced by anybody at all when you are perhaps the most stubborn lady I have ever known in my life,” he explained.

“Me, stubborn? I’m not.”

“You don’t think so?”

“I agreed to marry you, didn’t I? Would a stubborn person have done that?”

“You only agreed to it after ensuring that the conditions of the marriage would suit you,” he reminded her. “If you hadn’t had your terms agreed to, I have no doubt whatsoever that you would have told me no.”

“Well, perhaps I would have,” she agreed.

“You see?” His chin lifted in triumph. “Stubborn. And then there’s the way you respond to everything I try to do for you.”

“Now, hold on a moment. That’s unfair. I’ve allowed you to do many things for me.”

“Is that the way you see it?”

“I have!” she insisted. “Just because I’m particular about which things I want done for me, that doesn’t mean I don’t accept kindness. You purchased the gown I’m wearing today after all.”

“Over your objections.”

“Your finances are in a mess, William, I’ve told you this. You shouldn’t be making extravagant purchases. But I did allow you to do it.”

“Allow me,” he laughed. “As if you could have prevented me. You are my wife, you know, and sometimes I think you forget that because I’m so generous with you. Sometimes you speak to me as if you had power over me.”

“I do have power over you,” she told him.

His eyebrows lifted.

Arabella felt a surge of triumph at the knowledge of how correct she was in what she was about to say.

“Ladies may have power over their husbands for any number of reasons,” she informed him.

“That’s something I’ve learned in my life.

Oh, you’re right that you have the freedom to do as you wish, and no one can stop you.

But as your wife, I have the power to influence what you want to do.

If I want to alter your actions, all I must do is find a way to make you want to do something different. ”

“Oh, really?”

She could see by the look on his face that he was amused with her, so she continued, “It’s what happened when you gave me the pendant.

You could have forced it upon me. You could have insisted that I wear it.

You would have been well within your rights to do that, and I could have done nothing to stop you. But that wasn’t what you did. Why not?”

“Because you told me you didn’t want to wear it,” he replied. “You told me that it made you uncomfortable, and I didn’t want— oh .”

“You see?” she said. “I changed what you wanted to do.”

“You’re saying that you manipulated me?”

“That makes it sound as if the whole thing was designed to trick you. It wasn’t that at all.

But you must understand that this is the way a lady navigates the world.

It’s not enough to simply tell gentlemen what we want from a situation.

We must help them see the way we feel about it.

You are a good man, and you didn’t want me to feel uncomfortable.

That was what changed your mind about the pendant.

But you wouldn’t have changed your mind if I had simply refused to wear it without letting you know why.

If I had done that, you might have tried to make me. ”

“I don’t think I would have,” William told her. “But I do take your point. It did make a difference that I understood your feelings about the matter.” He laughed. “And she says she isn’t stubborn,” he said to no one.

“All right,” she allowed. “Perhaps I am if all it means is that I know what I want and how to get it for myself.”

“That is exactly what I mean by it.”

“I suppose I can live with that, then,” she said. “But I stand by what I said at the beginning of all this.”

“Which was what? I can hardly recall how this conversation began, it’s taken so many twists and turns.”

Arabella smiled. “I do like that about conversations with you,” she told him. “They are rarely a straight and narrow path.”

“And you like that?”

“I find it scintillating.” She paused. “We began with me telling you that you might be a bad influence on me.”

“Ah, yes. And I went on to say that of course I am no influence at all—not over such a headstrong lady as yourself.”

“Unless, of course,” she said, “I allow myself to be influenced by you.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just the same as what I described to you.

Ladies may have power over gentlemen if those gentlemen allow their minds to be changed.

And by that same token, a particularly stubborn lady may find herself swayed into new behaviors, new ways of thinking, by a gentleman if she permits him to have that power. ”

“And you permit me to have that power?”

She looked up at him, her breath feeling as shallow as if she had just run a great distance. Was she truly saying these things aloud?

“When it comes to you,” she murmured, “I find myself permitting all kinds of things.”

In the back of her mind was the answer she thought he might give her.

He might say that she didn’t permit anything at all, that she argued with everything he wanted to do.

He might say that she was stubborn all over again or that she was disagreeable or that she didn’t know what she was talking about.

He said none of that.

He reached out and stroked her cheek—slowly, gently, tenderly. As if he had found a treasure and was now allowing himself a moment to learn the details of his discovery. As if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing and had to touch it just to make sure.

It made Arabella feel like something precious to him.

But how could this be happening?

Could she have gotten everything wrong?

She had never fully understood his reasons for marrying her. He had never explained. But from the very beginning, he had been kind. He had always treated her well. And he had never wavered in the fact that he had wanted to be married to her.

What if…

It was so impossible to believe that she couldn’t even bring herself to think the words. She didn’t want to let them into her mind because they couldn’t be true.

But what if they are?

What if he had seen her that day at the ball, in the library, and it had sparked something within him? What if he had discovered that day that she held an unexpected appeal for him?

What if he had married her, not because he had to but because he had wanted to?

His dark eyes searched hers, and she could tell that he was looking for something. Some sign. She didn’t know what it was.

If she had, she would have given it to him.

Whatever this was—whatever was happening—she wanted it to continue.

She was so thankful for the tall bushes surrounding them. So thankful for the fact that they couldn’t be seen. It felt private, this moment, and she wouldn’t have given it up for anything.

He leaned close to her—so close that his forehead nearly brushed hers.

Not close enough.

She stood on her toes, closing the remaining distance between them, and as if they had both planned it all along, their lips met.

Arabella felt it like her first breath of oxygen.

The kiss filled something within her that she hadn’t known was empty, some lack she hadn’t known she was experiencing. She leaned forward, searching, seeking more, and his arms wrapped around her and pulled her close.

His lips were warm. Firm, but soft. Inviting.

Her body was flush against his, and she wondered how anyone ever stopped doing this once they had begun.

Her heart sang with joy that her marriage would now include this beautiful new element, because surely this kiss was the first of many.

Surely when they returned home this evening there would be more kisses—slower ones, more patient ones, and then…

well, she didn’t know exactly what would come next, but she knew that it would be something wonderful. This was only the beginning.

He broke the kiss and drew back from her, looking at her as if to gauge her reaction. She smiled. It had been wonderful, of course—did she say that? Was that the proper thing to do? Tell him how much she had loved it? Could she initiate another kiss? Or perhaps it would be better to wait?

He stroked her cheek again. “I’ve been thinking about doing that for some time now,” he murmured.

She couldn’t think what to say. It wasn’t often that words quite simply failed Arabella, but that was what was happening now.

He smiled lightly. “Shall I give you a moment to collect yourself?” he asked.

She nodded, numb.

“I’ll be out there, watching the Pall Mall game,” he said, and then a slightly predatory glint came into his eyes. “Don’t make me wait too long, Arabella, or I’ll have to come back and find you.”

He left it to her imagination what would happen if he had to come back and find her. Her whole body gave a pleasurable shiver, and she was half tempted to force the issue so she would get the chance to find out.

He disappeared, and she sank onto a nearby bench, lifting her fingers to her swollen lips and recalling the pressure of his there—like nothing she had ever felt in all her life.