Wicked in the Regency Ballroom: The Wicked Earl / Untouched Mistress. Margaret McPhee

thought to utter and asked a man to come into her bed. They lay stiffly side by side. Each on their backs, careful not to look at the other, determined that no part of them should actually touch. His warmth traversed the space between them, so that the full stretch of the left-hand side of her body tingled from his heat. She wondered that he could have brought himself to marry a woman that he found so … lacking. For all that she was neither his social nor financial equal, he did not despise her, for surely something of that would have communicated itself in his manner? When he touched her she felt warm, happy, breathless with anticipation. Clearly Lucien did not feel the same. He did not want to touch her. The gap between them widened. That was when a glimmer of understanding dawned upon Madeline.