“He is. Lockhart is a good sort, you know.”
“Yes. So you’ve said,” Lily said softly. “But I do know his reputation, after all, don’t I? And Alice is so innocent.”
“Well,Imarried a rake. Finn’s sister Marianne did, as well. And Lockhart’s cousin, Clarissa, married one, too. It’s a rogues gallery turned fine husbands. I assume Lockhart will be the same.”
“Except that you’ve only named love matches to prove the value of a marriage to one of those from the rogues gallery,” Lily mused. “This is not. It’s an arrangement and seems to be nothing more, if my sister’s letters are to be believed. So while a rake might be tempted to heel by his heart, I do wonder if he would do so for a woman he doesn’t love. And if he continues all his wicked behavior without thought for what he has at home, what Alice will feel as a result.”
Esme slid a little closer on the settee and touched her hand and suddenly there was sadness in her gaze. Almost pity. “I know your marriage wasn’t happy, my dear. It would be impossible for your thoughts not to be painted by that brush.”
“I suppose that’s true.” Lily sighed. “But it’s more than the sting of my own past intervening. I so wish to protect Alice. She is very dear to me and since I’ve been all but removed from her life as of late, I feel this is the best I can do for her. At least once I meet the man, talk to him, I’ll have a chance to judge him for his own words and actions, not whatever I believe his character to be. Or, as you put it, through the lens of my own past with Thomas. God or the Devil rest his soul.”
Esme snorted out a laugh. “I vote for the Devil, but I’m biased. I do look forward to talking to you about Lockhart again when Finn and I join the party in a week.”
“Yes, hopefully I’ll be able to greet you with worries washed away and only happiness for my sister remaining.” Lily smiled, but she feared that wasn’t going to be the case. She feared a great deal, truth be told.
“Enough about that, have you thought about the other thing we discussed the last time we were together?” Esme set her cup and plate aside and arched a fine brow at Lily.
A hot blush was the response Lily couldn’t control, for the topic Esme breached was no more comfortable than her worries about Alice’s marriage. Perhaps even less so. “Trust you to bring it up so directly.”
“I must,” Esme said with a little laugh.
“Why?” Lily laughed with her, despite her discomfort. “Inevershould have asked you about it in the first place.”
“Asked me about the wonders of physical pleasure after you saw a little too passionate a kiss between my husband and me?” Esme clucked her tongue. “There isnothingwrong with that.”
“Well, your experience in the marital bed is far different than my own, I fear,” Lily said with a sigh as she tried not to think of the awkward groping she had endured and certainly didn’t miss.
“Yes, that’s too bad.” Esme pondered Lily’s face then. “I’ll repeat what I said to you in that last conversation, youdeservethe same passion and pleasure and desire as anyone. Before we wed, women of our station are so often told that it can’t exist for us. That we shouldn’t expect it, but desire is as much the feeling for a woman as it is a man.”
“I will likely never know, though. After all, I have no intentions of marrying again.”
Esme pressed her lips together. “But youarea widow. You have freedom not just financially, but far more with your body. If you took a lover, whether as a longer-term arrangement or something just for a night or two, you couldn’t be judged for that.”
Lily’s cheeks were burning now at the turn of this conversation. It was one thing to talk about the generalities of passion, but to speak of her own? Untenable! “You are being outrageous.”
“I’m not even close to being outrageous, you can ask Finn about that,” Esme said with a little laugh. “Why do you resist the idea so much? Is it just a lack of experience?”
“Yes.” Lily threw up her hands. “Not just in the whole act you’re talking about, but in the idea of how one would even find a partner for such a scandalous thing. Does one just enter a club and start shouting for a lover?”
Esme cocked her head. “You’re so pretty, that would likely work, yes, but it wouldn’t be very subtle. I see your point, though. It isn’t easy. Except in places where it is.” She worried her lip a little. “Have you…have you ever heard of a hell called the Donville Masquerade?”
Lily blinked. “No. I’m not all that familiar withanyhells. Is it a gaming establishment?”
“No,” Esme said slowly. “There issomegaming there, but it’s…oh, how do a put this to a lady such as yourself? I am rubbish at this part now.” She pondered a moment. “Honesty is the best policy, after all. It’s a club forexactlythe kind of assignations you and I have been discussing.”
“For…for sex?” Lily gasped and covered her mouth with her hand as if she could call back the word and the thoughts that followed it.
Esme nodded. “Exactly so. It’s well run and managed by a man who does not allow it to be anything but debauched pleasure. Those within its walls are safe, which would be important. But they are also very public, which is my only hesitation. If you went, well, you’d see a great deal more than I think you’ve ever even imagined. If you wanted to just watch, you could. If you wanted to choose yourself a lover and burn off some of the tension before you ran off to the wedding, you could do that too.”
Lily’s mouth dropped open. “Are you talking aboutmegoing to this place? And goingtonight?”
Esme shrugged. “If you wish it, I could make all the arrangements. It would be no trouble, for I know the owner and his wife.”
“You cannot be serious.” Lily’s head was beginning to spin with the sudden turn of this conversation. “Whether I have more freedom in my life or not, certainly my going to a place like you’ve described would end in my shunning.”
“Certainly if you weren’t careful in places that these, there would be a scandal. But you’d use a false name, you would be masked. No one would know it was you, and even if someone guessed, Marcus Rivers, the proprietor, is very clear about whatever happens in those walls not leaving them. It would be a night without consequences.”
Lily blinked. This topic was fraught, but Esme was being entirely seductive about it. And truth be told, it had been changing to watch her friends fall in love and obviously share a passion with their husbands she had never imagined possible for a woman like her. When they talked about it in quiet whispers with dark blushes and bright eyes, she ached a little.Wanted.
