Marianne's Marriage Of Convenience

“Yes,” she said, her voice unsteady. “We did.”

The clerk reached over and dropped the room key into Lance’s open palm. “Mr. Burnside, Mrs. Burnside. Congratulations again. And sleep well,” he added with a smile.

Marianne looked up. Oh, my Lord, we are married, she thought. And tonight we will be sleeping in the same room together.

Of course “together,” you goose.

She stared into Lance’s oddly tense face. For some reason it was hard to adjust to being married. She glanced down at her left hand. With a wedding ring and everything.

Lance took her elbow and guided her up the stairs to the second floor. When they reached the landing he laid a hand on her arm and brought her to a stop. “Marianne?”

“Y-yes, Lance?”

“You didn’t really think about...this part of being married, did you?”

She pivoted to face him. “N-no, I didn’t.”

“You wanted me to marry you, remember?”

“Yes.”

“So I did.”

“Yes,” she said in a small voice. “You did.”

He drew in a careful breath. “Well, you didn’t think much beyond the wedding, I guess. About what would happen afterward, did you?”

She bit her lip. “I—I thought I would go to the bank and claim my inheritance.”

He studied her for a long minute and then bent toward her. “I mean what did you think would happen tonight?”

Right before his eyes Marianne Jane Collingwood changed from an efficient, hardworking boardinghouse taskmaster into a shy, unsure-of-herself girl.

“I didn’t think about tonight,” she said slowly. “I suppose I just thought it would be a marriage of convenience until...”

“Until what?”

She looked everywhere but at him, at the patterned carpet runner on the floor, the blue-flowered wallpaper on the ceiling overhead, at the hotel room key in his hand. Finally she looked up into his eyes.

“Until...until you kissed me.” Her eyes darkened to an unforgettable shade of green, like a dew-misted meadow.

“Yeah?”

“Something changed when you kissed me,” she confessed.