Edie kept to her corner of the carriage all morning, ignoring the stultifying conversation Gowan was conducting with a bailiff. She certainly had nothing to contribute. Instead, she brooded over what had happened the night before. Or rather, what hadn’t happened. It wasn’t so much that she had failed at the petit mort yet again; she was beginning to believe that it wasn’t likely to happen for her. But she felt awful about the way she had handled it. Lying to her husband. Dissembling— She cut herself off. It was just plain wrong, and she knew it. And—she peeked at Gowan—she was starting to like him. That was a good thing for a wife to feel toward her husband. The aversion she felt about the marriage bed? That was not a good thing. She had to tell him the truth. After the carriage had stopped for luncheon (served and eaten at a galloping pace), she put her hand on Gowan’s arm. “I would like to speak to you.”
