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She drew the pendant and chain over her shoulders and held it for him. Albion moved behind her and latched the clasp. The intimacy of the moment left her quiet and contemplative.

“It is truly an honor,” she told him. “And I shall be as proud to be Lady Hooradech mak Teer as I am to be Lady Albion Higgins.”

After bidding Albie a reluctant good night and retiring to her own set of rooms for the evening, Diana took a moment to catch her breath.

As if her splendid supper with Albie hadn’t been enough, he had provided a veritable pleasure garden here.

Looking around, she wondered with a slight chuckle if this was how her husband had processed her request that their marriage include romance.

The room was overflowing with fresh flowers in crystal vases and a surfeit of the softest, prettiest lace-trimmed pillows plumped and waiting for her on the bed.

On the marble vanity table—cut in a gorgeous Florentine style with gilded corners—were face creams and powders that would have been the envy of the finest apothecaries in the Burlington Arcade.

But these delights were far from the most extraordinary aspect of Diana’s new bedchamber.

A modiste’s dream awaited her in the walnut armoire: two exquisite ball gowns of satin and silk, skirts overlaid in gauze and similar in hue to her preferred golden dress, alongside a half-dozen carriage and day dresses, well-made if humbler then their dearer sisters, in various shades of her favorite colors, yellow and blue.

She tugged on the brass handles of the drawers below the main compartment to find all the fripperies she might desire—gloves and stockings of cotton and silk, as well as dainty garters.

The thought of Albie sliding his enormous hands over that delicate material strapped around her thigh made her flush with excitement.

This sensation was only heightened by her subsequent discovery: a new night rail fashioned from gossamer silk.

She ran her fingers over the diaphanous fabric, thinking the garment would rip at the slightest touch.

Perhaps that was the idea. The decision about whether she might permit Albion to tear that gorgeous silk from her body rested entirely in her hands.

A rap on the door disrupted her fancies.

Izzie came in to help her out of her evening gown.

She wore a tidy black dress and white apron, less formal than her uniform in Bloomsbury, where she also donned a starched bonnet and tight collar.

Izzie unlaced her quilted corset before presenting her with the sleeveless peignoir that awaited on the canopied bed.

Then she smoothed Diana’s hair with a mahogany-handled brush.

Diana worried the pendant at the base of her throat, its brilliant sapphire catching the crystalline light from the candles around her room. A spasm of guilt troubled her stomach. While Lillian worked as an angel of mercy in Chamberly, Diana had every possible wish fulfilled.

Well, almost every wish. There was but one left, and Diana needed only to say the word, and that too would be satisfied. More than satisfied, she knew.

Her mind occupied, she took several minutes to realize that Isabel remained strangely silent. The two of them had come to a comfortable routine at the end of the night when Izzie assisted Diana in getting ready for bed.

“You’ve nothing to share about your first day under this roof? Are you feeling poorly?”

“Oh, no. Fit as a fiddle.”

“You seem quiet this evening.”

“I am grateful for the opportunity,” Izzie told her. “I’m happy as a clam to be here. I was only wondering if I should call you ‘Daisy,’ the same as Lord Albion does.” Izzie shut her mouth abruptly. “I would still say ‘your ladyship’ in company.”

“If it pleases you.” Izzie freely called Diana by her given name when they were alone. At first, that had been a mistake on Izzie’s part, being relatively new to domestic service, but Diana had found she liked it.

Now, she tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I hadn’t considered whether others call me Daisy. I shall ask my husband about the Orcan custom.”

My husband. How pleasing to refer to Albie as such.

“You want to be a true Lady of the Hidden Realm, then?” Izzie said. “Following their ways and all.”

“It is appropriate, is it not?”

Izzie leaned in closer. “His lordship seems plenty plump in the pocket. I saw those latest gowns in your wardrobe. All beauties. Aren’t they just? Slim in the hip and full in the bosom, as they should be.”

“Izzie!”

She shrugged. “They’ll pair right nicely with your new bauble. But I wonder if you might try the Orcan styles. If you could find a dressmaker willing to give them a go.”

“Oh!” Diana thought of the Dowager Duchess’s finery at Iris and Duncan’s wedding, the cunning cut of her sleeves. She decided she would ask Albie for more information as she’d no doubt he could describe the latest fashions of the Hidden Realm and conceivably even assist her in drafting patterns.

“Deuces, if that isn’t a sharp idea!” Dear Lord, she sounded like Albie. But why shouldn’t she? For all the shallow pretense he affected for Society, one could not deny the joy he took in this life. A joy Diana hadn’t experienced in far too long. “You will help?”

“My talent’s more in baking than sewing, but I’ll do what I can.”

“Brilliant.” She caught Izzie’s eye in their reflections in the mirror. “But that is not all you wish to say to me, is it?”

Izzie bent down to brush the long ends of Diana’s hair, which fell to the small of her back when undone. But not before Diana caught the start of a smile quirking her maid’s lips.

“It isn’t to do with gossip from below the stairs, is it?” Diana asked. “Do you like the staff here? Does Isaac?”

“Oh, that lot’s the same as any other household. My brother and I have learned little out of the ordinary. Although they have all observed something odd about his lordship.”

Diana’s brow furrowed. “I hope this is not some cruel gossip regarding the Lords of the Hidden Realm.”

“Heavens, no! His lordship pays twice what other gents do and owns an amicable demeanor on top of that. No, nothing of the sort.”

“I should think not. Out with it, then.”

“The staff here are saying how mad his lordship is for you. They spotted him pacing the place before we arrived, looking all out of sorts. And then, once he saw you, his eyes lit up like fire. And his smile. They say he smiles often, but this one was straight from his heart. The genuine smile of a besotted gent, they say.”

The rush of power in hearing these words, knowing she wielded some dominion over Albie’s thoughts even when she was not present, only enhanced her already aching desire.

Diana hunched over one of the jeweled earbobs on a glass tray atop the vanity.

Married woman or not, childhood lessons still lingered in her thoughts, and she dared not let anyone see her preoccupation with sensual matters. Not even Izzie.

“But I’ve something else on my mind, too. Especially seeing how we get on. It’s just that you and his lordship … and with your mother not available as such.”

Izzie’s words were tinged with a care Diana found touching.“Speak plainly, please.”

“I wondered if you were aware of how … I shouldn’t go poking my nose in things,” Izzie continued. “Only there are ways to not have children.” She lowered her voice. “If you don’t want them, that is. At least not right away.”

Under ordinary circumstances, her sacred duty as Albion’s wife was giving him as many children as her body could produce, their laughter and little sorrows making for a proper home.

This duty was drilled into her from the time when her first baby dolls were provided for play.

Even the papering on the nursery walls was designed to mirror her future role as a mother.

That her own womb had failed her after but two children, and daughters at that, played no small part in both her mother’s reliance on drink and the failing nature of her parents’ marriage.

Which meant that the question of children inevitably sprang to her mind. Yet Albie had mentioned nothing of the sort when he proposed the “fun” marriage might entail. Though she knew comparatively little of the Hidden Realm, she safely assumed such intimate affairs were handled differently there.

When Diana composed herself and looked up once more, she caught Izzie’s eye in the looking glass. Isabel was quite right. Her mother had never initiated such a conversation.

“No harm in knowing as much.” Diana’s voice trembled slightly. “Do tell me more.”

After this discussion, Diana took a short but brisk stroll outside her set of rooms. Such was hardly her practice before bed, in a state of half-dress, no less, but she wanted space to contemplate Izzie’s words.

She’d had no idea how simple it was to prevent a child from coming.

A pessary seemed astounding upon first hearing but sensible on reflection.

And Izzie had been more than willing to agree to a discreet trip to an apothecary she knew, whose wares were not among those to be found in the modish areas of London.

The idea of taking pleasure freely with Albion intensified her excitement such that she halted at the head of the staircase to catch her breath, grasping the stone newel post and staring at the foyer below.

At first blush, the color of the paint and the strangely empty walls had appeared bland to her eyes.

However, she had only seen them during the day.

At present, moonlight filtered through the tall windows, casting shadows on the walls opposite.

The leaves on the tree branches outside were crisply outlined and quivered gently in the breeze, creating portraits far grander than those in any gallery.

Temporary yet lovely and ethereal as only nature could be.

Even were they to decide to part ways, as so many married couples in the ton did, she could enjoy whatever time she did have with Albie. And take from it a memory to cherish for the rest of her life.