Regency Surrender: Wicked Deception: The Truth About Lady Felkirk / A Ring from a Marquess. Christine Merrill

the reason for his happiness could be traced back to last night. She held out his cup, ‘Coffee?’

      He took his usual seat and accepted the cup. ‘Thank you.’ Perhaps it was an ordinary thing for her, or had been so before the accident. If that was true, then damn him for forgetting so much. He leaned closer to her, catching her eye and smiling. ‘And thank you for last night as well.’

      The delightful pink of her cheeks clashed with the reds in her hair. ‘You are welcome.’ She glanced down at the table. Toast?’ She pushed the toast rack closer to his plate, as though appeasing one appetite would make him forget the other.

      He ignored her offer of bread and continued on his original topic. ‘I enjoyed what you did for me, very much,’ he said, thinking the words oddly polite. But they seemed a match for her reserved response.

      ‘I am glad,’ she said, sending the marmalade pot after the toast with a nudge of her finger.

      He ignored that as well. ‘Did you enjoy it as well?’

      To this, she gave him an odd look, as though it had not occurred to her to have an opinion about it. ‘It makes me happy when you are happy.’ Then the placid smile returned.

      ‘That is not what I asked,’ he said. ‘I want to know if you enjoyed touching me.’

      She glanced around her, as if to remind him that they were in the breakfast room, not the bedroom. She looked down at her plate as though trying to decide if it might be possible to pretend she had not heard. She took up her knife and fork and began slicing the sausage on it into ever smaller bites. Then, as if she’d noticed what she had done to the rather significantly shaped meat, she set down her utensils with a clatter and said, in a rush of words, ‘Enjoyed it? Of course. Why should I not? You are my husband, after all, and it is my goal...’