Page 15 of The Prince’s Wallflower Wife (The Wallflower Academy #4)

Daphne waited as they were served their opening course, a pea soup that smelled delicious, but apparently there was no more to be said.

Christoph started to consume his soup, his focus fixed on the soup plate.

What should she say? And how could she say it, with two footmen in the room, standing by the walls and staring fixedly before them as though they were pieces of furniture?

‘You will have to excuse me.’

She looked up. ‘Excuse you?’

‘I…my English…it is good, but I do not always get it right,’ Christoph said quietly, a wry smile on his lips. ‘You will have to excuse me if I sound abrupt. I mean no disrespect.’

Sympathy washed through Daphne. Of course—it was easy to forget that her husband spoke in his second language.

Daphne cleared her throat and looked at the footmen. ‘You…you don’t need to remain here. Thank you. I mean, bring in food, yes, good, but…but you don’t have to…’

Her voice trailed away. She had never ordered servants. She’d never had to. That was what Miss Pike did. Miss Pike would have come down very hard on one of the wallflowers at the very idea of one of them ordering around a servant. So how was she supposed to manage it?

Christoph glanced up and Daphne’s face burnt as he sighed. ‘That will be all, thank you.’

The two footmen bowed and stepped out of the dining room. The silence that fell after the door clicked felt friendlier, somehow.

Daphne let out a long exhale. Good. Well, that was half the battle.

‘I…last night…’ she began awkwardly.

Christoph did not look up from his soup. ‘Yes, very satisfactory.’

Satisfactory? Satisfactory? For a moment, she was in half a mind to throw her spoon at him. Perhaps the soup too. Satisfactory? Was that truly all he could say about an evening during which she had laid herself bare, he had brought her to ecstasy twice and poured into her what could make a child?

Daphne wet her lips. For a heartbeat she thought Christoph’s gaze flickered to her mouth, but she must have imagined it, for he was still staring resolutely at his soup. ‘I thought we could…we could talk about…’

‘There is nothing to talk about in…in that regard,’ Christoph said shortly. ‘We knew what we needed to do. We did it. As agreed, there is no further requirement in that…direction.’

Daphne’s fingers knotted together in her lap, her soup forgotten.

But I want more , she wanted to say, her rigid control over her inside thoughts preventing them from being spoken.

I want further requirements in that direction.

I want to understand how you made me feel so…

so good. So desired. So beautiful. I’ve never felt that way before and I don’t want to go through my life never feeling it again. Tell me. Talk to me. Show me.

But she couldn’t say that. Instead, she said, ‘It was just, I thought—and I might have been wrong, obviously—but I thought… I wondered if there was something.’

Christoph looked up. His expression was uninterested. ‘Something?’

Something between us . ‘Something different.’

‘Different? Yes, we are man and wife now. That is the difference, I suppose,’ said Christoph vaguely. ‘Are you finished?’

She had barely started, but Daphne could not summon the strength to point this out. She nodded.

Christoph rang a silver bell on the end of the dining table that she had not noticed before. The footmen returned, removed their soup plates—hers almost full—and returned with platters of roast pheasant and vegetables. They served the couple, then departed. All this was conducted in silence.

Daphne watched as her husband began to eat. This was the first meal they had ever shared, just the two of them. It should be…well…filled with conversation. A growing understanding between each other. Something. Instead it was emptiness.

‘You’re not hungry?’

Daphne started. Christoph was looking up at her, his plate half-empty. Hers had not been touched. ‘Oh. Oh, yes.’

She picked up her fork and for a moment, a mere heartbeat, she saw something on Christoph’s face: a smile, a look, warmth, something that had not been there before, and she looked up. It was gone. Christoph was looking blandly down at his plate as he cut his food, though his cheeks were pinking.

Daphne’s stomach twisted as she returned to her own food. A spark had perhaps been there, but it was just as possible that she had dreamt it. Or wished it to be there.

So, conversation… Miss Pike had given her over a decade of lessons on conversation. Surely she could think of something? ‘What splendid weather we’ve been having,’ Daphne said quietly.

Christoph did not look up. ‘It rained all day.’

Had it? Bother.

‘In that case, I hope you did not get too damp on your errands, Your Highness.’

She had not intended to call him that. The honorific was one that Christoph disliked, and had asked her not to use. Daphne was not quite sure why she had used it.

It garnered absolutely no reaction. Apparently, he wanted the distance, the distinction, of rank. ‘I did not.’

‘I’m glad,’ said Daphne quietly, pushing her food around her plate without really looking at it. ‘That’s good. Good.’

Why was this so difficult? The man had seen her naked, after all—the thought burned the back of her neck—and she had seen him just as naked. She’d felt him naked. Yet the closeness she had presumed would come from such an encounter was entirely absent.

And the secret place between her thighs was aching for him.

Try as she might, Daphne could not completely ignore it.

Having him so close, the scent of him filling the small dining room, was…

distracting. It made her think of those delicate caresses, those wonderful words he’d whispered and the way that he’d seemed to know exactly how she liked to be touched. How she wanted to be loved.

‘You look very pretty.’

Daphne almost dropped her fork. ‘Do I?’

‘I mean—yes, very pretty.’ Christoph’s face was red now, and there was a look in his eye which could have been embarrassment or could have been… Did he desire her? ‘Your gown. Your eyes.’

Her eyes? Heat blossomed through Daphne’s chest at the moment, a frisson, something in the air between them that spoke of promise, the future and…

‘By the way,’ said Christoph quietly, ‘I have invited someone to come and stay with us.’

Daphne blinked. ‘Stay?’

‘Yes. Her name is Laura.’

Daphne had never felt heartbreak before. When one had not had any opportunities for love, one had no opportunities to be betrayed. And she did not love Christoph—certainly not—but they had shared all that a husband and wife could share. He had bedded her, and most thoroughly.

And now…now another woman would be coming to live with them?

‘Laura,’ she repeated, her voice hoarse.

Christoph nodded. ‘Make her welcome, will you? She’ll be staying with us indefinitely. Now, if you do not mind, I have some business to attend to.’

‘I…’

It apparently did not matter whether she minded or not.

Swallowing hard, Daphne attempted to regain her equilibrium, but her world was rocking so completely that it was impossible to think.

Another woman — Laura —c oming to stay. Indefinitely.

Perhaps she should have tried harder. Daphne could almost hear Miss Pike in her ear, criticising her for her insufferably bad conversational skills.

You’ll never get a husband like that!

Well, she’d managed to get a husband, but her skills had still not improved. Daphne picked at her food, abandoning her knife and fork, for the food was lukewarm now, taking small mouthfuls of the roast pheasant smothered in gravy.

Was this how it was going to be with Christoph for the rest of her life? Would he remain distant, cold, uncommunicative? Inviting his mistress to live with them the day after their wedding!

So, Laura was his mistress.

The thought had barraged through her mind before Daphne could stop it and, now that she had thought it, she could not unthink it.

Laura. As a name it did not give much away. Yet she was to come and live with them. Surely Christoph would not… Surely no man would move his mistress into his home mere days after his marriage?

Daphne picked up a roast potato, examined it and put it down. She would have thought not, but what did she know about married men? The only married men she knew were her father—not a paragon of virtue—and her friends’ husbands, and she barely knew them at all.

You are the Prince’s wallflower wife, she reminded herself. You have a fortune. You have freedom. What else could a woman want?

This time yesterday, she would have wanted absolutely nothing else. Now, after sharing such an encounter with Christoph, she wanted…more.

A chair moved—it was Christoph. He was…leaving? ‘Well I… I hope you sleep well.’

She started. Christoph had stridden over to the door and gone right through it, before poking his head round the door as though waiting for an answer. It was a face that was…well…perhaps ‘anguished’ was too strong a word.

His smile was awkward. ‘I… I do not pretend to be an expert in the matter of husbands, Daphne. It is all new to me. I do not know how to… I want to be a good husband to you.’

It could not be clearer that the man wished to say more, but perhaps did not have the words. His hand was clasped round the side of the door so tightly that she could see the white of his bones.

Was he nervous? What did a man like him have to be nervous about?

Daphne swallowed. ‘And I wish to be a good wife to you.’

‘We will find a way to get along, I am sure.’ Christoph did not sound sure.

Was he attempting to convince her, or himself?

She nodded. ‘Y-yes. Yes, we will.’ And, with that, he disappeared back behind the door.

Daphne barely slept that night. When she awoke, it was with a fresh purpose.

She was going to make an effort with Christoph.

Precisely how, she did not know, but she would be pleasant, entertaining.

They were not in love with each other, to be sure, but she could make their life together enjoyable.

Perhaps, she could not help but think, then invitations to Lauras would not be necessary.

The breakfast table only had one place laid. Clearly no one was to join her.

‘Erm…excuse me,’ Daphne said to a man who had to be the butler.

He turned. ‘Yes?’

Daphne almost took a step back, but she managed to hold herself in position. It was not the sort of reaction she had expected. ‘I… Where is Prince Christoph?’

‘Gone.’

She sat rather hurriedly on a chair at the breakfast table. ‘Gone?’

‘Gone for a few nights, he said,’ the butler replied coldly. ‘Didn’t tell me where, and didn’t tell you, by the look of it.’

Daphne swallowed, her hopes deflating. ‘I… I see.’

And she did. This was to be her life, and she had been a fool to hope for anything else. There was no romance in this marriage and no hope of any.

The sooner she accepted that, the better.