If there was one thing Kip Pilgrim remembered about his wedding night, it was the heat; the intolerable heat.

Katrina was beautiful, excited, wonderful; Kip was hot, burning up, tired, afraid.

It was as though all the warmth in her body had gathered in one spot, and he was repulsed by it. It felt wrong, it felt wrong, too hot, too many coals, too much glowing metal, red tongs, this is torture.

He never felt it but for that one day; but something about the heat shamed him. It stained her wedding gown with scarlet, painted the marriage bed incarnadine; every night after, fear came again, anticipation of the warmth and the fire.

He never realized that he had a fever, and that Katrina was just as afraid as he was; afraid of the cauterization of love's first touch.