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“My mother’s healer,” he said, his thumbs making gentle rounds as they pressed. “She has terrible headaches from time to time, and this helps alleviate them. You seemed tense. I thought this might help you relax.”

Her shoulders tensed. “So that I’ll let my guard down and you can have your way with me?”

“Never,” he said firmly, his fingers tracing down her neck and kneading her shoulders. She should have stopped him, or at least objected, but she didn’t. “I swear to you, Isabella, I will never lay a hand on you without your leave.”

As if to demonstrate, he lifted his hands away from her shoulders.

“No, please. Don’t stop what you were just doing.” The sweet ache his clever hands released was too much to bear. She needed his touch to soothe it away, even if it left her boneless and lethargic. Her grip on the poker had loosened considerably, though she had no intention of letting it go.

Martin pressed his thumbs into a mass of muscle between her shoulders, and she gasped. “Yes, please, that.” She couldn’t form a sentence.

He chuckled softly. “Someday, I’ll make you say that in our marriage bed.”

His words made her bristle, but whatever magic he was working with his fingers immediately smoothed the tension away.

“We are in our marriage bed,” she observed in a breathy voice she hardly recognized as her own.

“Not in the way I mean.” His lips were so close to her ear, they could have brushed it. Why was she disappointed that they didn’t? Whatever battle he was waging, she was clearly losing.

“And what way do you mean?” She probably shouldn’t pursue this line of questioning, but curiosity was too deep. And her mind was addled by the steady rhythm of his hands on her back.

“Is it possible that no one explained this to you?”

Her head began to loll as his hand continued their magic work.

“My mother said there would be blood, but not why or from where.”

Hence the poker.

“I see. Do you remember the part of our vows where we said, ‘With my body, I thee worship’?”

His thumbs dug into a mass of muscle at the base of her spine, and she couldn’t help but let out a low, “ Mmm .”

“Well,” he continued, “a good man will do exactly that. He would worship every inch of his woman’s body with hands and lips and tongue until she cries cry out with pleasure.”

Something inside her clenched at his words. Heat pooled between her legs in a way she hadn’t experienced before. Why there, she wondered?

“Only when the honey of bliss overflows and you are aching to be filled, will he cover you with his body, resting between your legs, sliding his hardened cock inside you and then moving within you until he spills his seed in your womb.”

She could hardly breathe. So that’s why that part of her had grown warm? Even more so that was the mystery of the bedchamber about which everyone was so tight-lipped. Her body knew, even if she didn’t.

While she’d never seen a naked man, she had seen little boys and knew that they were shaped differently from girls. The thought of a man’s…thing…growing hard and moving inside her sounded thoroughly absurd, and yet the way he said it made her want to experience it for herself.

Except for one thing.

“And what about the blood? Mother said there would be blood.” She tightened her grip around the poker.

He continued to press and knead her back, soothing away the sudden tension. “When a woman welcomes a man inside her for the first time, there is often some pain and bleeding. But if a man has properly prepared her, it should be no more than a passing pinch.”

“And if he hasn’t?”

His fingers gripped her tightly for a moment before letting go and returning to their rhythmic movement.

“There are many men who fail to live up to their marital duty and think only of taking their pleasure, never of giving it in return. I pray that you never find out what that feels like. But with me as your husband, you would be perfectly safe.”

“But you will no longer be my husband once we arrive in Winchelsea.” God willing. She had to find a way out of this.

His fingers paused. “We shall see.” He combed his fingers through her hair and began to braid it back up again. “But for now, I think it is time for you to sleep. It has been a long day.”

“It has,” she said, stifling a yawn. Having her entire life turned upside down had drained her of the will to fight anymore, at least for tonight.

He tied off her braid with the piece of ribbon that had originally held it bound, then slid off the bed and went to face the corner of the room.

“You can change out of your gown,” he said without turning. “You have my word I will not look.”

Warily, she put down the poker on the bed and took off her gown, leaving her in her linen shift. She folded the dress and put it away in her trunk, then retrieved her weapon and climbed beneath the covers, hugging the rough metal against her. “Where will you sleep?”

If he answered, “the bed,” she would run him through on the spot.

“I think I’ll settle on this stool and lean against the wall.”

Wise man. It sounded terribly uncomfortable, but that was hardly her problem. It was bad enough she would be forced to endure an entire night with him in the same bedchamber.

Hugging the poker close, she closed her eyes. “Don’t try anything or I’ll run you through,” she said through a yawn.

“I know you will. Sleep well, and dream of me.”

And God help her, she did.