Usually, when he slept with a woman, he was focused on his own pleasure.But now he kept thinking of her exclamations, her praise, for him—the way she had so frankly enjoyed their encounter.He had never believed women before who had said they enjoyed bedding him, and he certainly had put in little effort to make that be the case.But he believed Beatrice when she said that she wouldn’t lie to him.He believed that her pleasure had been real.
It warmed him, that knowledge, and kept dragging his attention from his book.He gloried in how well they had seemed to fit together, how natural she had made even awkward, messy things feel, like that infernal, soiled French letter.
She had said nothing about his cock.Or his lack of erotic skill.Which gave him slightly more confidence.
He heard a click from across the room.
And found Beatrice striding into his room.
“My God,” she declared, “I forgot how addlepated one is at eighteen.She was completely foxed!She had her face in the chamber pot and then fell, completely insensible, on her bed.”
She came up to his bed, slid onto it, and crossed her legs over the coverlet.She was wearing, as far as he could tell, only her shift and a dressing gown.
“Of course, I was as much of a thickhead at eighteen as any.Sally is a daydream compared to me at that age.But still.It is shocking to see up close.And I nearly forgot all about it because she is usually so sensible.”
She seemed completely unaware that she had invaded the sanctity of his bedchamber.Usually, his mistresses remained almost completely on the other side of the adjoining door.
But it seemed that he had missed his opportunity to inform her of this rule.
And, worse, he wasn’t even sure that he didn’t want her here.
“It is true that it is a trying age.Although Charles is a strikingly mature lad.”
“Did you see the way he was staring at Sally?I beg to differ.”
He smiled.“I did see that.But you can’t blame a boy for that.”
“I suppose not.I suppose that you were the only sensible eighteen-year-old the world has ever seen.”
“No,” he said, laughing.“Not in the slightest.And if I would have been bad on my own, my friends made sure I was even worse.”
“What did they have you do?”
“Oh, the usual things.Brothels.Dueling.Ever more than five or six glasses of champagne.”
“I would scold you for being predictable, but I was hardly better myself.”
“What were your youthful sins?”
“Ruining myself, of course.Exactly what the well-bred girl should not do and so I did it.As wild, well-bred girls often do, when they cannot bear to live quietly.”
“Was it worth it?”
“For him?Not at all.For what came after?Most definitely.But, of course, for some time, I thought my life was truly over.My father was ghastly.If it weren’t for my mother, he would have cast me out.”
He winced at her matter-of-fact recounting of events that, surely, must have been far more painful at the time.“I am sorry that you were put in such a position.And that you were so ill-used by your father.”
She shrugged.“It is what men of his class do.Would many men of your sphere—or you yourself—behave differently?”
If she had asked him last week, his answer would have been no.Now, however, he was not so sure.
“I could never cast my child out of my home.”He paused, needing to know the answer to a question but not sure how to ask it.“Who was he?The man who took your virtue?”
“Lord Gilchrist,” she said, in the same straightforward manner.“He was a viscount or, well, he was to be.Not a particularly wealthy one—their estate is hardly larger than Parkhorne Hall.But the family was very puffed up on their title.They insisted it was one of the oldest in England.”
“I don’t know him.”
“No, I suspect that you wouldn’t.”
