“I’m not sure how to begin,” Bernadette said. “At Valaria’s wedding, I suppose...or perhaps before that."
"Begin wherever you’d like.” Flora folded her hands in her lap. “Take your time.”
“For a long time, I accepted my life on Kent’s Row,” Bernadette started at last. “I was a widow, I had a life I enjoyed, and once you moved into the place and then Valaria, I was content that I had friendships enough to fill my heart and soul. But you two…ruined it.”
“We ruined it?” Flora gasped. “How?”
“By falling in love,” Bernadette said with a laugh. “Or I suppose more specifically by taking lovers. All of a sudden I saw you both awash in pleasure and excitement, and a door I’d long thought closed cracked open.”
Flora’s expression softened. “Oh. I understand. You wanted to be desired and have fun and play.” She shook her head. “I know that feeling. When I started with Roarke, it did feel like someone turned a light back on in my life.”
“Exactly, only there was no light yet for me. Just a desire to find it again. And so I…determined that I would find a lover.”
Flora’s eyes went wide. “What?”
“You judge me?”
“No, not at all, but allow me to be shocked.” Flora grabbed her hand again. “You are the sweetest and sometimes the most innocent of the three of us. But I love that you got this idea in your head. It means you haven’t entirely decided to surrender yourself to staid widowhood at all of twenty-eight. Did you…did you find someone for that purpose?”
“I…tried,” she said, slower now because she’d reached the point where she’d have to decide if she wished to tell Flora about Theo, or just leave her lover as a faceless gentleman who made her toes curl.
Flora worried her lip. “Tried how?”
“I…went to a place called the Donville Masquerade. It’s a hell specifically for, er, physical sin?”
Flora was staring at her, eyes impossibly wide. “Roarke told me about that place. You went there? What was it like?”
“Entirely hedonistic,” Bernadette gushed. “Wild and wanton, I’ve never seen anything like it. But though I hate you and Valaria seeing me as innocent, in this I suppose I was. I felt over my head in that place, dizzy with too much stimulation. However, a gentleman did approach me, and I…we…”
“Bernadette!” Flora clapped her hands and then slapped one over her mouth when she realized how loud that exclamation had been. Together they giggled, and then she said more softly, “So you did take a lover. Despite your misgivings. He must have made you feel safe.”
Bernadette lost her breath for a moment as her mind turned to Theo. Theo who always required consent for any new act, Theo who provided gentle care after any intense interaction, Theo who made her laugh even in the midst of passion. Just…Theo.
“He…he does,” she whispered. “Very much so.”
Flora’s expression changed, all teasing leaving it. She tilted her head. “It’s Theo, isn’t it?”
Bernadette should have denied the charge. She should have told Flora she was being ridiculous. But all she could do instead was stare. “How—how did you know that?”
“The moment you two are in a room together, your connection is clear,” Flora said. “It’s electric.”
“You simply see our long friendship,” Bernadette said, but the words sounded weak to her own ears. “And I suppose that does help in making this new…this new connection a little easier.”
“I’ve had many friends in my life,” Flora whispered. “I’ve never become lovers with any of them.”
Bernadette winced. She wanted Flora to help her strengthen her position that this affair would be nothing more than simply that. But she was doing the opposite. She was trying to make Bernadette lean to a side that was not safe and couldn’t take her anywhere but pain.
She straightened up and lifted her chin. “Theo and I are lovers, nothing more. We’ve even defined the relationship as such and declared it won’t last beyond when Callum and Valaria get back to Town.”
“Why that date?”
“I suppose we were trying to avoid all of you nosy friends finding out what we were doing.” She sighed. “So much for that.”
Flora smiled a little. “My apologies for prying. Though….no, I’m not sorry. I’m glad to have found out this secret. And now I have other questions.”
“Which are?”
Flora lifted both brows. “How is it?”
