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foliage.
    “Veracity,” he said with a shrug. She could tell he was stung.
    “I apologize.”
    “No, no. I didn’t mean to be flippant. I know this can’t be easy for you. I’ve never been married, much less . . . well. I shouldn’t jest.”
    That hurt more, his being kind for the sake of her feelings. She couldn’t allow that. “No, you’re right. By all means, let’s get into the spirit of the thing.”
    “Are you sure—”
    “Quite sure, Mr. Hardison.”
    “Dexter,” he reminded her.
    Charlotte was glad for the night, for the cover of shadow in the secluded little lover’s nook. Dexter had been so unfailingly kind, so courteous and thoughtful, these past few weeks. Ushering her into and out of steam cars, holding her chair, opening doors and fetching her drinks. Making painfully polite conversation with her mother and her mother’s friends, always behaving as though he were eager to get back to her side.
    He was the hero who had brought her out of mourning, the knight in friendly bear’s armor who had won her from her dark castle of grief with his gentle, determined charm. For a novice, Hardison seemed brilliant at the long game.
    Charlotte’s mother had exclaimed with joy when Charlotte confessed to her—per the plan—that Dexter intended to propose at tonight’s ball. And she had completely mistaken the reasons behind Charlotte’s subsequent tears.
    Charlotte had known Reginald for eight years, been courted by him for two of those years, and was married to him for fewer than seventy-two hours. Three nights. Theirs was a reserved but friendly courtship, and she had enjoyed his company in bed by that third night.
    She had loved her husband, and welcomed his affections eagerly, if shyly. But she had never felt
this
. Charlotte had never felt a fraction of the huge, unnamable
thing
that overcame her when Hardison was anywhere in the vicinity. She had never breathed Reginald in, or felt his absence like the absence of some essential element in the air whenever he left her side. During their courtship, she had never missed Reginald like a limb when he went home for the day, or even when he went off to spend several months in Europa. Perhaps because she had known him so long, she had been unable to imagine that he might not return.
    Reginald had never
loomed
the way Hardison—Dexter—loomed over her now without even trying, in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with the sheer physical magnitude of the man. Immense though he was, Charlotte couldn’t lie to herself about the real reason he seemed so terribly real, so terribly
present
next to her in the dark.
    She wanted him. She
lusted
for him, even though she knew she shouldn’t.
    It was new to her, such uncontrollable physical desire. And like all things she couldn’t control, she distrusted it. She distrusted herself when she felt the pull of it, and she felt guilt beyond measure for never having felt this way about her actual husband. What had she been depriving Reginald of, by not responding this way to him? How had she deprived herself? Had Reginald known what they were missing? Surely he must have, men always seemed to know those sorts of things, no matter how new they were to the whole business. Had he cared? Whether she wanted to or not, Charlotte found
she
cared. Now, after the fact, when it was too late by five years. She cared very much.
    It didn’t matter. It couldn’t. Her marriage to Hardison was to be a sham, a ploy, she reminded herself. His interest was in the technical novelty of his mission, and hers was in regaining the plans and helping ensure the French got no further in building their dreadful weapon, as she field-tested the stealth potential of the
Gossamer Wing
.
    Here in the romantic dark, however, Dexter leaned over her as they sat side by side on the lover’s bench . . . and it might have been real. For a moment, it seemed real.
    For a moment, Charlotte decided, she might even let herself