Desire by Amanda Quick Page A

and she and Clare had stayed up very late every night. They had talked for hours, discussing every conceivable subject.

    But Joanna was right. As intelligent and learned as Abbess Helen undeniably was, she had never been a wife.

    She could not know much about the intimate side of marriage.

    Clare studied the tip of her quill while she tried to find a tactful way to ask her next question. "Did you ever develop any feelings of, uh, warmth for Sir Thomas, Joanna?"

    Joanna snorted. "Few women find passion in the marriage bed, Clare. Nor should they seek it. Tis a frivolous thing, passion. A woman marries for other, far more important reasons."

    "Aye, I'm only too well aware of that." But still, she had hoped to find some warm feelings in her marriage bed, Clare thought wistfully. And with Gareth's kiss still burning her lips, she sensed she might find such feelings with him.

    How could that be? she wondered. Other than the ability to read, which Gareth claimed to possess, he did not appear to be made up of any of the ingredients she had specified in her recipe for a husband.

    She could not begin to comprehend why she had responded so unquestioningly to his embrace.
    "I shall be honest with you," Joanna said. "Thomas was thirty years older than me and he had little patience with a new bride. Our wedding night was unpleasant but bearable, as it is for most women. One gets past it and it is done. After that, I grew accustomed to the business and so will you."

    Clare groaned. "I know you are trying to encourage me, Joanna, but you are not succeeding."

    "It is not like you to complain about your responsibilities, Clare."

    "I do not complain without reason. Sir Gareth has virtually ordered the wedding to take place the day after tomorrow. Thurston's letter gives him the authority to insist."

    "What did you expect?" Joanna sighed. "Tis no surprise, I suppose."

    "Nay." Clare got to her feet and went to stand at the window. "I wish I had more time. It is the one thing I crave most at the moment. I would pay dearly for it."

    "Do you think that time would make much difference? Sir Nicholas grows more encroaching by the day. You have lost the last two shipments of perfumes to thieves. You have said yourself that Desire needs a lord who can protect it."

    "Aye. But I need a husband whom I can tolerate in my bed and at my table for the rest of my life." A strange panic welled up inside Clare. The rest of her life.

    "What makes you think it will be impossible for you to tolerate Sir Gareth?"

    "That's the problem," Clare whispered. "I simply do not know yet whether he and I can come to some sort of accommodation. I have only just met the man. All I have learned about him thus far is that he meets only one of my requirements. Apparently he can read."

    "That is something."
    "I need more time, Joanna."

    "What will that buy? You have known from the first that you were unlikely to contract a marriage that was also a love match. Few women in your position enjoy that opportunity."

    "Aye, but I had hoped for a marriage that would be based on friendship and the pleasures of shared interests." Clare chewed reflectively on her lower lip. "Perhaps that was too much to ask. Nevertheless, if I just had a bit more time, I believe I could . . ."

    "Could what?" Joanna eyed her uneasily. "I do not like that expression on your face, Clare. You are scheming again, are you not? You are concocting plans in the same manner with which you create new perfumes. Do not trouble yourself with the effort. In this instance I fear there is no time for such alchemic cleverness."

    "Mayhap, but it occurs to me that I might be able to delay events if I could convince Sir Gareth that he must allow himself some time."

    Joanna looked astonished. "Time for what?"

    "Time to discover whether or not he will be truly content to settle down here as lord of Desire." Clare recalled Gareth's cautiously neutral attitude toward the rose-scented soap he had used in his bath.