He rubbed his left thigh. “She does now. She and Lord Wakefield also know that I had men I was about to report.”
“You didn’t tell them why, did you?” Anthony’s eyes were wide at the thought. He was the only other person who knew, not because he had been there, but because he’d heard him in his delirium and again when he’d yelled out in his nightmares.
“No, I did not. To say it aloud would spread it like a disease. It is enough I must live with it and the ramifications of my injuries. As it is, I’m afraid my nightmares may return after talking around it today. Be sure no one is in my wing tonight.”
“I understand.”
As the silence grew, his mind started to wander back to that fateful day, but he refused to allow that. “I bought a horse for Lady Beaumont.”
“You did? It seems there is much I’ve missed in a short time period. Tell me about it.”
Thankful that Anthony was accepting of the change in topic, he proceeded to tell him of his time with Mariel while he was away.
Maybe if he could stay focused on her, he could keep his equilibrium. And maybe he could plan another opportunity to show her that making love was the ultimate pleasure.
Chapter Thirteen
Mariel opened theIllustrated Pleasures of Seductionand turned past the opening pages and dedication to the images of a naked man and a naked woman on facing pages. She always skipped dedications, finding them of little import. She had stopped on the facing sketches last night before deciding daylight would make it easier to read the explanations that went with the images.
If there was a way to cure her barrenness, she wanted to know. It concerned her that almost a sennight had passed since being with Marcus at Tattersall’s. She’d expected to see him before the ball planned to celebrate their reunion, but he hadn’t called.
She stared at the pages, unseeing. She needed to know if there was hope before next they were in each other’s company.
Looking upward, she spoke to the empty room. “Belinda, I know you never talked about having children as if you knew you never would. Yet you always spoke about the games we played and how I would teach them to my daughters. If there is any guidance in this book to cure my barrenness, please help me find it.” Closing her eyes, she remembered Belinda as a child as they acted, or attempted to act in one of Joanna’s plays. Her sister’s laughter was so clear that she opened her eyes looking for her. Shaking her head at her fancy, she gave the book her full attention.
From the title, she imagined that having pleasure helped with procreation. That gave her hope since she felt much pleasure when Marcus kissed her lips and other places on her body. She flushed at the memory of what he’d kissed in the coach. Having his love made her feel so different from her late husband. Now, she was anxious to learn more.
Settling herself on her armchair in her room, she cradled the book on her lap. The sunlight streamed in behind her, making the drawings very clear. She studied the man first. Her husband had always worn his night shirt, so all she’d seen of him was occasionally his skinny bowed legs. When he’d been drinking late into the night, he’d just unbutton the fall of his breaches, and she’d wake to find him between her legs.
The man in the sketch resembled Marcus, or how she would guess he looked without clothes, much more than George. The sketch was of a man of about thirty with dark hair and a smattering of hair on his chest. Did Marcus also have that? What would it feel like? The hair on his head was very silky and she rather enjoyed touching it. She’d seen a couple naked chests in her life, mainly by accident, but the sketch gave her a chance to study it. Unlike Amelia, she had not studied nude statues in Italy and unlike Joanna, she hadn’t known how procreation happened until she’d married.
At that thought, she moved her gaze lower to study that piece of a man that made him such. She swallowed down the bile that rose in her throat. She was well aware of the flaccid state. George would call her a cold fish when his manhood didn’t work as he wished, while she had always thought those times were a relief.
As she examined the man’s legs, she knew that Marcus would have limbs that were much stronger. He was terribly athletic with all the riding he’d done as a young man and most assuredly as an officer. Would she ever see his legs? Even in the coach she’d seen nothing of him while he’d seen as much of her as her late husband.
Moving her gaze to the facing page, she found the image much more familiar. The naked woman sketched there had her hair down as if getting ready to plait it before going to sleep. Her breasts and waist and legs were very much like her own, except her hips were much more rounded than the sketch, at least from the few times she caught her own image in the looking glass after bathing. She generally avoided the sight as it didn’t seem proper.
Turning the page, she found images on facing pages again, but this time they were enlarged sketches of the area between the legs. Shuttering at the male image, she focused on the woman and frowned. Could that be right? There were multiple folds and a peak that she wasn’t sure she had. The identification of each area was clearly marked with a brief explanation. One such marking remarked it was a “pleasure point” and another marking simply stated “sheath, where the penis enters.”
Anything about a man entering a woman’s body gave her the chills and she quickly turned the page. Sucking in her breath, she stared in shock. It was a man procreating with a woman and they were both naked. Surely that couldn’t be it. Had she not conceived because George and she had not been naked? More importantly, if she and Marcus were naked, could she become with child? She needed to ask one of her sisters. Joanna? No, definitely not. Definitely Amelia. But at the thought of her youngest sister’s reaction to her question, she negated that idea. Hopefully, the book would explain everything.
A phrase from Joanna’s letter floated through her mind.I’m sure that you know much of what is between these pages, but I have it on good authority that even the most knowledgeable person can find something new.Shaking her head, she whispered. “I am far more ignorant than you think. But it’s time I learned more.”
The only words on the page were “Before this.” So she turned it to find a man and woman clothed with the man kissing the woman below her ear. Not a little confused, she read the caption. “There’s this.” It took her a moment to sort out what the author meant. It sounded as if kissing was indeed supposed to come before procreating.
Excited that she’d already learned of two reasons why she hadn’t got with child while married, she quickly turned the page. As she read and studied, the couple in the sketches were slowly devested of their clothing, touching and kissing each other as they went. The author explained how the man could tell a woman was pleasured, which included hard nipples, short breaths, rapid heartbeat, and moans. She couldn’t imagine herself moaning. George had told her she shouldn’t make a sound, yet he grunted like a wild boar. Had he really known so little about getting a woman with child? Was that why at his age he’d been so desperate?
She had felt guilty that she’d been unable to fulfill her part of the marriage settlement before he’d passed, but now it was clear that neither of them knew what they were doing. She finally understood Joanna’s zeal for teaching and learning. Did Marcus know how everything was to be done? Based on what he’d shown her, she was quite sure he understood, which meant the possibility of having a child was much better.
Happier than she’d been since Marcus left for the war, she turned the page, anxious to know it all. “Oh.” She pressed her hand to her chest, but quickly dropped it as her arm brushed her own breast. The sketch now had the couple lying down, she on her back with her legs spread. He leaned on an elbow while his other hand showed a finger disappearing between her thighs.
Though she’d felt flushed before, her breathing now grew shallow and a strange moisture gathered between her own legs. A little worried she might be growing ill, she forced herself to read the page in case she’d have to put the book away for a few days. “If your woman is not wet and slick inside, then you need to stimulate more pleasure. Move your finger to her pleasure point and gently rub, while taking a nipple into your mouth as seen on the following page. The more moisture she produces, the more pleasure you both will have.”
Feeling herself growing hotter, she wished her clothes off, which made no sense. Quickly, she flipped the page. The sketch was exactly as indicated. The written material stated that only when the woman was hot with need, was it appropriate to slip inside. Noting the page she was on, she closed the book and set it on the side table.
She was reacting like the woman in the sketches and Marcus wasn’t even with her. She rose and opened a window. The slight breeze and growing clouds made the air feel cool against her heated skin. There was so much more to having children than she’d imagined. She walked to her dressing table and retrieved her fan, opening it and cooling herself.
Sinking onto the chair before her looking glass, she stared at herself as she continued to ply the fan. Her cheeks were flushed as was her chest above the neckline of her beige day dress. Was this the result of what the books called making love? She already loved Marcus. She obviously was able to feel what she was supposed to feel. No, she didn’t like the idea of being “penetrated,” but if they did it right, she could possibly give him an heir.
