Beatrice nodded.“I thank Mrs.Westmore for her generous offer.And I acknowledge her right to make it, under the circumstances.I hope it won’t come to that.But it is very much appreciated.”
“Thank you, my dear,” her mother said, wiping a tear off her cheek.“I do not know why I am being so silly.”
“Perhaps because it is a very kind offer.And it shows how much Mrs.Westmore loves you.”
Her mother nodded rapidly and smiled despite her tears.
Beatrice embraced her mother.And she tried to put into that hug all of the love and understanding that she could.She wanted to say,I am glad you are happy.After all of her years of misery with her father, she deserved many more with her Daniella to make up for it.
Later that night, in bed, she relayed her conversation with her mother to Leith.
“Really?And you had no idea before today that Mrs.Westmore was more to your mother than a friend?”
“I know it is ridiculous.Perhaps I did not want to see.But once Malcolm told me, I felt exceedingly foolish.I realized it was obvious.Are you terribly shocked?”
“I may have been untutored in certain things when we met, Beatrice,” he said, with a smile.“But I am far from an innocent.Two women living together in such a fashion is not at all a thing that shocks me.Monty’s sister has a wife—or so all their family considers her.”
Beatrice absorbed that piece of intelligence.“I had no idea.”
“Well, perhaps we have discovered one way in which you are more innocent than myself.”
“Absurd.You have been with many more women than I have men.”
“I suppose that is technically true.But you know what those connections were.”
“I do.And I suppose it is useless to cast myself astoonaïve after today.”
He smiled.“I never would have guessed you would have been such a natural with the riding crop.Although I suppose I did have some sense, because I did buy it.”
Before climbing into bed, they had shared a bath in the large copper tub in the corner of the room.His hair was still damp and it gave her the strange sense of what he must have been like as a boy.Sweet and a little bit bashful.It made her feel all the more tenderly toward him.
“Did you really enjoy it?”she asked.“Being spanked?”
“Beatrice, do you need to ask?”
No, she didn’t.She had seen how much it aroused him.
“I suppose not.I quite enjoyed it myself.”
“I must admit, however,” he said, “that was not the only thing I bought that day.”
She gasped.“We were to buyonething—and I thought you wouldn’t even do that!And here I am to believe that you boughttwo?”
He began laughing and covered his face with his hands.
The sound filled her with glee.When she had first met him, all his smiles had been sneers and he had hardly laughed.And now he laughed before her with abandon.
“I couldn’t decide,” he said.“And so I thought, well, I might as well purchase both.”
“And what is it?”
“You will laugh.”
“Did I laugh at the crop?”
“No, but we were—in the moment.”
“Please, get it.”
