“You were very young.”
“It doesn’t matter.The way he loves her…I didn’t understand.”
“None of us did,” said John.“But he also didn’t particularly tell us either, you must remember.He downed an incredible quantity of spirits and let the scandal sheets broadcast his supposed taste for debauching maidservants.”
Leith shook his head.It wasn’t that simple.“I would understand if heneverforgave me.I hardly think a ball thrown in his honor and a few months’ time have done the trick.”
“But this business with Miss Salisbury.It’s a different affair altogether.Do you really believe that Monty would think you would try and force ‘depraved predilections’—whateverthatmeans—in the bedchamber on a woman?”
“I don’t know.And I don’t want to find out.”
John paused, his expression thoughtful.“You know best about Monty.If you say nothing has been the same, I believe you.I thought he had gotten over the note.He seems so happy with Olivia.But perhaps you are right.”
“So, you think I am right?That I have no choice but to tup her?”
John laughed.
“I think youwantto tup her, even if you say she is too rustic for your taste.”
“Damn you.”He paused, trying to figure out how to articulate this next part.It was the question that had brought him to Breminster House.“Before you were married to Catherine, when you were traveling in the countryside with her, you wanted to bed her but knew you shouldn’t.You told us that at the time.But you ended up bedding her anyway.Why?”
John looked at him, his green eyes somehow growing both more serious and more mirthful at once.
“I had about as much hope of resisting Catherine as I did of living a quiet and moderate youth.If fate had placed me in that situation with her a thousand times, I would have bedded her in every single one.Catherine was made for me—by whom or why, I cannot say.All I know is that resistance to that fact is futile.”
For once, Leith found himself actually listening to one of his friends’ soliloquies about their wives.
“In short, only you know if you can resist Miss Salisbury.”
Leith tried to imagine Beatrice—with her prickly, decided demeanor, and her lush dark hair and equally lush bosom—living in his townhome in St.James’s for a fortnight and not bedding her.
His mind drew a blank.
He wasn’t sure what that meant, of course.If it was a matter of the woman herself or just his own weakness.
“If Monty finds out that I have done it…”
“Then take care he doesn’t.In the case of Trem and Henrietta, I would have given quite a bit to have remained ignorant of their—” John stopped short, seemingly at a loss for the right word.
“Obvious passion?”
He winced.“Precisely.”
“But you don’t think that is deceitful?That it isn’t wrong?”
John shrugged.“With Henrietta and Trem, I learned that despite being her brother and her only protector in this world, I did not get to make her choices.If this Miss Salisbury has determined on bedding you, and you are willing, it is not Monty’s right to interfere.”
Leith nodded.John’s reasoning seemed sound to him.Yet he still did not like the notion of going against his best friend.
Nevertheless, leaving Breminster House, he knew.A little voice inside of him spoke the truth.
He could push it off, he could delay, but at some point, over the next two weeks, if she remained so willing and eager, he would bed Miss Beatrice Salisbury.
Yes, because she was threatening him.
But also because, as was becoming clear, he wanted to do it.
On the carriage ride back from Breminster House, he imagined thrusting himself inside of her.His bollocks ached at the thought.
