He was glad that the girl appeared to be rather strange. She liked to protect the privacy of her person, Roger had explained. Roger thought it a joke that she was willing to give her body and still felt that there was some privacy to guard. But Ralph understood. The girl had chosen to make her living on the stage and in the beds of wealthy men. But there was still a person who would not be at all visible in either activity. The girl was not just a dancer. She was not just a whore. She was a person.
She did not like to be seen or heard, Roger had explained. She would receive him, heavily veiled, in a darkened room. She would speak only in a whisper. In the bedchamber she would have all light excluded.
Roger had even had to have the window draperies changed so that no glimmering of light from the street outside would penetrate the room.
His cousin had been amused and apologetic about the eccentricities, but Ralph had raised no objections. In fact, he quite welcomed the conditions the girl had set down. Sally, her name was. Sally Shaw. He must think of her by name. She was a person. She had a name. He would accept her wishes. He had no real wish to see her. He had been rather repelled by her artificial appearance onstage. He had no real wish to converse with her. He wanted to touch her merely. He wanted her as a woman.
Or did he? The carriage drew to a halt, and Ralph felt a queer lurching of the stomach. He had only to make a move now, and he was irrevocably committed. He drew a deep, steadying breath and vaulted out of the carriage as soon as the postilion opened the door.
Georgiana had set the single candle on the mantle across the room from where she sat and some distance from the doorway that led from the sitting room into the bedchamber. She had had the fire piled with coal so that it gave very little light. There was no fire at all in the other room. She did not believe that her disguise was at all penetrable. She wore a black crepe gown and gloves. She had removed her wedding ring before slipping out of the house by the side entrance unbolted by her maid. Her head and face were completely covered by two heavy black veils. In fact, the room looked quite impossibly dim through them.
The chamber beyond the doorway was in readiness, the sheets turned back from the heavy four-poster bed. She wondered fleetingly how many assignations had taken place in just these two rooms. But she pushed the thought from her mind. She did not wish to speculate on Roger and his love life at the moment. He had done a really splendid job of preparing everything according to her directions. And he had conveyed her here a short while ago after ascertaining that Ralph was indeed at White’s.
She wondered if Ralph would come, or if he would take fright at the last moment. Part of her wished for the latter. Her hands felt cold despite the fire. And then she heard the knock at the outer door, silence, and the sounds of the bolts being drawn back by the one servant Roger kept on the premises. Her hands felt clammy. Her heart began to thump uncomfortably against her ribs.
Georgiana rose to her feet when Ralph came into the room. He had left his hat and coat with the porter. He looked very familiar and strangely dear standing rather hesitantly in the doorway, his eyes adjusting to the dim light. She held out her gloved hands to him.
He came across the room and took them. His face looked somewhat strained, Georgiana could see now that he was close. She felt suddenly naked. How could she have expected that he would not know her? He was looking directly at her. But his expression did not change.
"Miss Shaw," he said, "how kind of you to agree to see me."
She nodded and squeezed his hands. How typical of Ralph to be so courtly in such a situation.
"Have you been dancing tonight?" he asked. "You must be very tired."
Georgiana shook her head. Her heart had begun to palpitate with alarming rapidity. Otherwise, she might have found his conversation amusing.
"I understand that you want to remain unseen," said Ralph. "I respect your wishes absolutely, Miss Shaw, and will not try to take advantage of the liaison that may develop between us. I understand your desire to retain your privacy."
She nodded and squeezed his hands again. "Thank you, my lord," she whispered.
"Shall we...?"he began. "Do you wish to sit down for a while?"
"No, my lord," she whispered, and she released one of his hands and led him by the other to the bedchamber. She opened the door wide and stood to one side so that he could see by the dim light from the sitting room the arrangement of the furniture. Then she led him inside and shut fast the door behind them.
"I shall undress, my lord," she whispered, and crossed to the bed, which was exactly nine paces from the door, as she had discovered earlier. She felt her way around to the other side of it. She had laid a nightgown on the bed and undressed hastily now. But when she had picked up the nightgown, she hesitated and dropped it to the floor. Did men's mistresses wear anything in bed? She did not know, and it was the one thing that she had not summoned the courage to ask Roger about. She climbed onto the bed.
Ralph joined her there a few moments later. They met in the middle of the great mattress. He was warm, Georgiana felt, as her hand came in contact with his bare chest. She was shaking with the cold of nervousness. He put his arms around her and drew her against him, pulling the blankets up around them as he did so.
"You are cold," he said against her ear, and he cradled her against him, rubbing one hand along her back for several minutes until she felt warmth envelop her. She felt her body relax. Yes, this was Ralph as she knew him to be: gentle and tender, considerate of her comfort. She snuggled closer.
And then returned to her senses. She was an opera dancer engaged to provide certain services for part of the night. She feathered her fingers over his chest and twisted her hips closer to him. She suddenly felt more than just warm.
Ralph's hands moved from her back. He explored her body: her breasts, the curve of her waist and hips, her thighs. His hand was warm and gentle. She could picture it: long and slender, sensitive. She turned over onto her back.
She did not know how a practiced mistress proceeded in such matters. She knew only as much as she had learned on her wedding night. And that was not a great deal. But she would not give in to panic. After all, he knew no more. When he lifted himself across her, she moved to accommodate him, spreading her legs, raising her knees, and setting her feet flat on the bed. As he lowered his weight onto her body, she guided him until he was at the entrance of her womanhood. She closed her eyes very tightly, bit down on her lower lip, and pivoted her hips.
And then she was drawing blood from her lip. It was the only way she could keep from crying out. She did not know if the pain or the shock was the greater, but she did know after a few moments that triumph and delight were taking the place of both. She was in her husband's deepest embrace. She was becoming a wife. She held him inside her.
Georgiana threw back her head on the pillow and smiled up into the darkness as he moved in her with deep, intimate strokes that aroused no physical excitement but brought great emotional satisfaction. The moment she had awaited weeks before in some trepidation and ever since in impatience had finally come. And now she was receiving it with eagerness. She truly wanted to be Ralph's wife. She closed her eyes, still smiling. This, then, was what it felt like, the long-dreamed-of, much feared intimacy of man and woman.
And then it was over. Much too soon. She wanted more. She wanted him to continue thrusting and thrusting into her. But he was still, warm and relaxed on top of her. She held him very close, stretching her legs alongside his, laying her cheek against his soft hair, willing him not to notice that she was having difficulty breathing beneath his weight.
And too soon again he stirred and lifted himself away from her. He lay beside her for a few minutes before reaching out a hand to find hers.
"Thank you," he said. "You are very beautiful."
It was only then that she remembered again that it was not his wife to whom he had made love. Not her. Just a dancer. She stared up into the darkness and said nothing. She waited for him to remove his hand, for the loss of all contact again.
