Jack felt the ice grow thinner beneath his feet. “Are you saying you don’t like the ladies?”
That garnered a reaction from his brother. “Of courseI like women. I just don’t throw my seed here and there. I have responsibilities to the title. I don’t want to breed bastards. Furthermore, the woman I marry must be a virgin. How else will I know that the child she carries is mine? Why should she not expect the same from me?”
Jack hummed his thoughts. “That statement sounds like Father.”
“He was giving me good advice. Just the other day, my friend Rovington confided in me that he is having some difficulty with his ‘private parts.’ He has a good wife but he has been pursuing some actress. He says he can’t have enough of her. Now he worries he has too much of her. Father warned me that those things could happen. A man could lose his peter.”
“He warned me as well, but it hasn’t happened to me. I mean, I was never one to poke everything that came along, beyond that girl when I was fifteen. I learned it is good to be discerning. You have to find a clean woman, Gavin. You just don’t”—he searched for the right word—“go at one with scurvy or sores. But there are women who are as cautious as we are.”
“And then what?” his brother asked.
Whoa. Jack didn’t think he would need to explain this much. “You have an understanding of anatomy, the differences between us?”
“Of course I do,” came the testy reply.
Jack wasn’t so certain he did. However, he knew it was wisest to be careful of insulting his twin. The ducal pride was an entity unto itself. “Well then you have at it,” Jack explained. “Let nature take its course. Enjoy the moment.”
“But how do I reach that moment? I can’t pounce on the woman. I don’t want to do anything that shows how green I am. I take it from listening to others that a measure of clumsiness is accepted when we are young and brash, but at my age, well, it is assumed I know what I am doing. I mean, my friends assume I’ve done it, albeit I’m very private about personal matters.”
“As we all should be. Gavin, youwillknow what you are doing when the time is right,” Jack assured him. “Bed play is not like studying for exams and worrying about marks. It is gift from God and meant to be fun.”
“Fun?” Gavin repeated.
Perhaps his twin did not know what fun was? Considering all he’d been through over the years since their father had died, that was quite possible.
“Yes,” Jack answered. “It is also the most blessed act between two people in love. Don’t fear it or make it complicated. We are supposed to enjoy our bodies, Gavin. And your friends like Rovington and my compatriot Rice, who are indiscriminate in their sexual lives, well, they aren’t you. Let yourself fall in love. Court your lady and learn her heart. Then when you consummate your marriage, you’ll have the right spirit between the two of you. By the way, there isn’t a man on the face of the earth who didn’t wonder if he knew what he was doing the first time, but we all gain the hang of it.”
“I don’t know if I can wait for courtship. When I am around her, I feel ready to burst. Does that sound terrible?”
“No, but it does sound like how I felt for Mary Swanson when I was fifteen.”
“Oh gawd.”
Jack laughed and his twin joined him. Gavin picked up the reins but before he moved the horses, he said, “Thank you.”
“For?”
“I don’t have anyone I can trust. We were always at odds even as boys but you have always understood me in a way others haven’t.”
“I do. You must learn to silence Father’s voice in your head. It will take time. It took me years. You are a good man, Gavin. An honorable one.”
“As you are, which is amazing. When you were fifteen, I would not have thought you would be a lawyer.”
“I’m a good one.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Gavin looked at the reins in his gloved hands and then said, “It hurt when you left. I was angry for a long time.”
“You are still angry.”
“Perhaps. I missed you.”
“And I missed you as well,” Jack agreed. “Until the next argument.”
Gavin laughingly conceded the truth of his statement. He flicked the reins. The horses moved forward.
They rode in companionable silence until they were in sight of Menheim and then Gavin said, “I dine with Lord and Lady Hurst this evening. Join us. He is on the Committee for Colonial Affairs in Lords.”
“He is exactly whom I wish to meet.”
