Chapter 30

Charley tensed. "Don’t," she shivered out, mortified beyond belief that he could say something like that to her at all after last night and especially in front of his housekeeper.

"We are alone." He smiled briefly at the way she flicked her startled eyes to the place where Nina had been standing. "She beat a hasty retreat when you blushed so charmingly." And it is too late to keep your virgin status on our wedding night a secret, amore. There was blood on the sheets.

The shockingly abrupt announcement froze the color out of Charley’s face.

"You did not notice?" Leaning himself away from the door, he started moving towards her. "One of the maids surely will have done it when she remade the bed after you left it."

Charley flinched when the sleeve of his shirt brushed her arm as he reached past her to pick up her discarded piece of pineapple.

"No comment," he mocked when she still said nothing. "I admit, when I saw it, it made me feel positively medieval." He put the pineapple into his m