A knock on the door saved Leonie from answering. “Come in.” The maid entered with a tray of fresh bread, jam, and tea. She excused the servant and then set about serving herself and her guests.
The door had barely closed when Willa pushed the subject again. “Well? Was it wonderful? Or terrible? I’ve heard both.”
How could Leonie say she didn’t know?
In the end, she didn’t need to say anything because Cassandra decided for her. “It was wonderful, wasn’t it? Everything the poets claim.”
“The passion flower of ecstasy,” Leonie murmured, taking a bite of bread spread thickly with butter and plum jam.
“Exactly,” Cassandra said with a satisfied sigh, and sat back against her chair. “That is what I thought. When I saw him carry you up the stairs—” Her voice broke off as if words failed her.
“It was amazing,” Willa said solemnly. “And then you didn’t come back down. Who would have thought it? I had gained the impression from my limited acquaintance with him that he was rather staid.”
“He’snotstaid.” The words shot out of Leonie because Roman did deserve her loyalty.
What her defense elicited from her friends was snickers. “He isn’t?” Cassandra teased. “Tell us more.”
“I’m not going to tell you more,” Leonie answered. The thought that everyone at the party yesterday had assumed that she and Roman had spent the afternoon consummating their marriage embarrassed her. No wonder Yarrow had a strange look on his face. He must think her quite wanton.
And if any of them knew the truth, it would be even more lowering.
“I don’t believe this is fair or kind of you to not share,” Cassandra said. “You are the first of our group to marry and it seems only right you should give us some inkling of what to expect.”
“I see no need.” Leonie dropped a lump of sugar in her tea. “Roger Edmonds, the poet, has already done so for you.”
Willa and Cassandra exchanged glances and then burst into delighted giggles as if they could scarce believe what she was saying.
They had so much to learn.
Always before, when groups of debutantes had started speculating about the marriage act, Leonie had quickly made herself scarce. In truth, if she told Willa and Cassandra what she’d discovered about what happened between a man and a woman, they would lose the bread and jam they had been eating and swear never to marry—which had been exactly what Leonie had thought she had planned...
“You do seem different,” Willa said.
Ah, different.
Leonie knew that wasn’t true. After Arthur raped her—
She stopped, surprised by her own thoughts. She’d used the word “rape” without hesitation. She had never used it. The word sounded too horrible.
But it was the truth.
Arthur had done to her the worst thing a man could do to a woman short of murder. He’d taken away her purity, her childhood, her whole sense of herself as a good person.
Yes, she had been foolish to let him badger her into eloping with him. She’d been naive.
However, he’d been brutal.
Roman’s words came back to her.He was not a gentleman. You were protecting yourself.
He was right. Who knows what would have happened if she had not found the pistol?
“Iamdifferent,” she said to Willa.
“Because of Lord Rochdale?” the always dramatic Cassandra asked.
Leonie set her cup in its saucer and gave that question some thought. The answer was a surprising, “Yes.”
Leonie also wasn’t certain what that meant. However, twice now, Roman had come to her rescue. First, by claiming he’d shot Paccard in a duel, and secondly, by hiding her drunken state. If anyone outside of her family knew of how she’d been yesterday at her own wedding, she would be mortified.
