Nothing of note was happening. Laura traced the grain of the thick oak table beneath her fingertips, following it under heavy cream linen, and sighed as hard as she could without coughing. Her husband woke with a start, his napkin sliding down his chest and crumpling on his knee.
'She's the very wife of the devil, Lamb' spluttered Paul, hoping the new addition to his young wife's ladies in waiting was still the topic of her grumblings. There was always something wrong. Paul couldn't understand how a young, comely woman like Laura could find so much to complain about, with all her life stretched out before her. In the short time they'd been married he'd felt the pleasures of those soft thighs only once and she'd avoided his eye then, too.
Long gone were the days of Maria, his first wife. She'd welcomed him home from years bathing in the blood of the French with open arms, legs and everything else. The night he'd returned, aching and tired, she bathed his wounds and distracted him from the pain well. He'd left her a timid maid, barely speaking a word of English and had returned to a woman who spoke perfectly, in a warm Spanish purr. In the years since her death in childbirth he'd been alone until Laura was sent his way, rich in land but poor in title. Twenty two, a widow at twenty and apparently barren. Her father had practically begged him. She was a year older than his son.