Beaumont’s interior was as impressive as the exterior. White plaster walls curved in barrel shapes, soaring high within the main entry hall. Ornately plastered medallions accented the ceiling and heavy mahogany furnishings upholstered in gray and dark blue were strategically placed throughout the massive space. A hundred people could easily fit inside just the foyer space.

Beneath Ivy’s heels, exquisite Italian marble floors gleamed brilliantly white and delicate porcelain urns filled with massive arrangements of lilies, roses, and snapdragons sat displayed atop several pier tables in the hall. The heady perfume of the florals blended with the scent of lemon oil and beeswax polish, all familiar scents of a well-loved home.

Annie chattered, giving directions to Lizzie on the unpacking of Ivy’s trunks as the group ascended one side of a massive, double curved iron staircase. On the opposite side of the stairs, a contingent of under-footmen carried the baggage up. Reaching the third landing, the entire group veered to the left. Annie’s commentary of the manor’s attributes was the only conversation as they trekked toward the earl’s wing of the manor. An impasse was realized once a set of dark stained oak doors came into view. Where exactly to place Ivy’s belongings?

Two huge apartments with a massive dressing room connecting them lay beyond those doors and without a mother to impart advice on such matters, Ivy had no idea what to do. Should she select the lady’s chambers or would Sebastian decide for her? Everyone stood, ill at ease. Even Sebastian frowned, unsure of the correct move. When alive, his parents shared the master apartment, the other used as a makeshift nursery until he outgrew it, and then later, it was not used at all.

Annie’s cheerful observation broke the awkward silence. “Here now, it is no trouble to move your trunks wherever you’ve a mind for them to go, milady. We will place them in milord’s rooms for now. If you change your mind, then quick as a flash we’ll move them again.”

Ivy appreciated Annie’s assurance, aware of Sebastian shooting her a peculiar glance over the housekeeper’s head of grey curls.

It was suddenly overwhelming. Staring about the room, Ivy did not feel well at all. Vertigo, swift and dizzying, swooped about her stomach like swallowtails diving for dragonflies. Her bottom lip was being chewed to ribbons again. This room…it reminded her of Sebastian’s suite at Ravenswood Court in London. What she could remember of it, anyway. Odd, how the walls seemed to be closing in on her. Taking a deep breath, she quickly laced her fingers together to conceal how they trembled.

“The countess and I require a moment of privacy,” Sebastian said quietly.

Within seconds, the bedchamber was empty.

Ivy blinked in astonishment. Even Annie, in the midst of directing the placement of the trunks, clamped her mouth shut, rotated on a heel, and exited the room.

When the door closed behind the last servant, Sebastian leaned against it. Arms crossed, he regarded Ivy with a raised eyebrow. “Well, Ivy?”

With slow deliberateness, she removed her gloves. It gave her time to think, to steady herself and regain her balance. Which did he want her to choose? The master’s suite or her own? What was a newlywed countess supposed to do? Tossing her gloves onto the lid of her trunk, she turned to him, swallowing back her nerves.

“What do you wish me to do?”

Sebastian grimaced, not liking the direct question. “As a gentleman, I should insist you take the other chamber. As your husband, I demand you stay here.” His eyes blazed hot, like glowing sparks of coal. “What I want most of all…is that you allow me to strip that gown from your body, lay you on my bed and thoroughly make love to you. But I know you do not want that…not yet anyway. The question is what do you want?”

Ivy squared her shoulders, her stomach swooping again with his words. “I want you to wait… before expecting me to share your bed. I need time to adjust to this. To being your wife.”

“I’ll not have my rights denied.” Sebastian’s jaw tightened, his annoyance held in check. “I’ve waited too long to make you completely mine.”

“Not denied.” The silk of her gown was now a twisted, wrinkled mess. “Just…delayed.”

Silence trembled between them until Sebastian scowled, “Damn it. How long?”

“I don’t know.”

He pushed off the door, shrugging out of his coat and subjecting Ivy to an unfathomable glance. Disappearing into the dressing room, he emerged with a fresh, white linen shirt and pair of dove gray breeches. Flinging the items onto the bed, Sebastian’s eyes held hers as he unknotted his cravat, pulling it free so it dropped to the floor. The shirt was stripped away next, pitched into a chair with the previously discarded coat.

Bare-chested, he opened another door at the opposite end of the chamber to reveal a spacious room. Inside, Ivy saw an enormous porcelain clad bathing tub. Tracing down the wall, a streamlined network of piping attached to two gold spouts in the shape of dolphins with levers feeding directly into the tub. Close to the tub, a large basin sink sat mounted on a mahogany stand with two additional dolphin spouts jutting from the wall above it.

Taking a cloth and a bar of soap, Sebastian stepped to the sink, spun the levers and within seconds, water poured from the dolphin’s mouths. Steam rose in curling ribbons as he washed away the grime of their journey from his face and upper torso. He did not care she witnessed his actions. He did not care she imagined dragging that cloth across his skin, her hands slippery with water and lather sliding over his flesh...

Ivy’s face grew hot, her cheeks burning as she gazed at Sebastian’s broad back, the muscles rippling as he bathed. The scent of sandalwood and spices drifted with the steam and she grew unaccountably lightheaded. The intimacy, the casualness of such ordinary things as undressing and bathing brought home an unavoidable fact. She was really and truly married to this man.

Married…

And, in the eyes of English law, his to treat however he pleased. An exercise of his husbandly rights did not require her permission. He could throw her on that massive bed, take his pleasure and she could not do a blasted thing to stop him.

Briskly drying himself with a fluffy towel, Sebastian exited the bathing room to sit on a dark blue velvet tufted bench at the foot of the massive bed. Methodically removing his boots, he allowed them to drop one by one. Ivy’s rapid pulse gave an answering thud of apprehension and, God help her, excitement as each boot hit the floor with ominous thumps. She could not look away when he slowly stood to his full height, eyes dark and unreadable and locked on hers, hand resting lightly on his hips. For what seemed an eternity, he regarded her while Ivy tried remembering how to breathe, her lungs aching as if ready to burst from her chest.

Light from the late afternoon sun spilled through oversized windows, dancing about the large room to bath Sebastian in gold. He could be a pagan lord from another time, with his raised brow and wickedly sly smile. His fingers hovered over the fastening of his breeches and in slow motion, the buttons slid from their holdings, his eyes holding hers as the fabric shimmied down his hips and lower, revealing the vee-shaped indentations above his hipbones. When the breeches dipped past the point of indecency, Ivy gave a muffled cry, whirling to present her back.

A sharp bark of laughter echoed behind her. “It’s not anything you haven’t seen, or touched before.”

There were the rustling sounds of Sebastian redressing in fresh clothing. She heard him pulling back on his boots, the slide of fabric against fabric as he tucked the shirt into his breeches. Ivy closed her eyes, heart pounding, blood thrumming through her veins. As if a charge of electricity jolted her, she tingled from head to toe. The image of his chest, the ripple of muscles, the leanness of his hips as the fabric slid lower and lower. It all burned into her brain until she wanted to shake her head to dislodge it.

Sebastian gripped her shoulders, spinning her to face him. It startled her when he released her just as fast, stepping away as if he did not trust himself to touch her an instant longer than necessary.

“Sleep where you will, either my bed or in your own. But understand this.” He paused and Ivy swallowed hard, pinned to the spot by the heat of his gaze. “You have experienced the act of lovemaking twice. The first I forced upon you. The second, you were so damned intoxicated that I can’t imagine you remember much at all, although the night of the Faringdon’s Ball is forever burned into my brain. I know you found your pleasure; however, I assure you, the full experience of it, minus the fog of alcohol, is something you cannot comprehend. And you won’t, not until I show you.”

Wordless, pale, hating the memories crowding her mind, Ivy stared at him. Sebastian was wrong. She remembered. Every moment. Like a silky web, his words wrapped about her, holding her in place. A tiny victim waiting to be devoured.

“I shall convince you that my bed is where you belong. I will not force you. However, I will use every weapon I possess to persuade you. To draw you to me. To prove you belong to me.” Leaning closer, his face mere inches from hers, Ivy had nowhere to look other than his stormy eyes. “I will entice and seduce and tempt you until you surrender. Eventually, you will beg me to take you. You will beg to become mine in every sense of the word. You will beg to have me inside you, plead for me to taste you, to caress you, to discover every hollow and curve of your body with my tongue and fingertips…”

Swallowing hard, his voice dropped to a husky whisper, “While patience and desire war with each other, my temper is another matter entirely. I would never physically hurt you, nor could I bear to seek another’s bed, but I am merely a mortal man. Not a bloody saint.” Sebastian brushed past her, jerking the door to the suite open. Giving her body one last scorching sweep of a glare, he exited, slamming the door with enough force to shake it on its hinges.

Ivy involuntarily jumped at the violence of his departure, tears stinging her eyes. His voice echoed from the hall, barking orders at the little army of servants gathered there before his angry footsteps stomped away. There was no time to regain her composure before the door cracked open to reveal Annie’s weathered face.

Moving to the window, Ivy stared blindly over the perfectly landscaped grounds, not wanting the housekeeper to see her tears.

“Milady?” Annie let herself in, motioning for Lizzie to enter as well. Two footmen hovered in the hall, waiting to see if the trunks would find a home in the countess’ apartments or be left in the middle of the earl’s bedchamber. They whispered to each other.

“Still slamming doors,” Annie chuckled, bustling about the room, retrieving discarded clothing and the used towel. “Drove his mother to distraction, it did, God bless her. Don’t you go bothering your lovely self about it, my dear. Milord doesn't hardly mean anything by it, and I vow, when you see him next, he’ll have forgotten why he was banging things about in the first place.”

Ivy stared at the housekeeper over her shoulder, choking back a laugh when Annie gave her an audacious wink.

“Ah, a smile. That’s better, it is.” The older woman grinned. “The best way to keep a man’s interest is give him a reason to slam a door. “Giving a man something to slam doors about is the best way to keep him interested.”