He took her hand. Her right hand. He looked at it.
Her right hand. A wave of nausea passed over her. But if he saw that the nail on her fifth finger was bitten down, he said nothing.
He left shortly afterwards, briefly pressing his lips against hers once more, promising to get permission from her father to take her out for a drive on Wednesday.
Still no stirrings down below with that final kiss. And to have to wait until Wednesday until she saw him again? Ugh.
What an impatient, needy girl she was.
Alone in the drawing room, she flopped onto a sofa. Her mother was sure to admonish her. Nothing had been settled about the wedding date.
But a house party? And to meet his mother? That must mean a short engagement. And if not, perhaps she could induce him to compromise her? A house party would be perfect for that. But he would see through her. She was no good at connivance. She was transparent, as George always said.
And what did it mean that she had been more upset Thornwick might have seen her bitten fingernail than she had been over the idea she might have betrayed him with George?
Because she couldn’t believe what George and she had done together yesterday was wrong. It had felt natural. Intensely thrilling but natural. It felt like what men and women were meant to do together. Now she wondered why people were not copulating all the time since it was so pleasurable. In fact, it would be lovely to be naked in bed with George right now.
She wrenched her hand from her mouth. The nail from her left pinky was now gone, too. Drat.
She needed soothing, but chewing her fingernails was not the answer. Fifteen seconds of pleasure and relief and then two weeks of guilt while waiting for the nail to grow again.
But she might pursue soothing of an entirely different sort.
Because how comfortable this sofa was. And the door to the drawing room was closed. She sighed. It seemed the more she satisfied her urges, the more insistent the urges became. But it would be such a delightful way to keep her hands busy and out of her mouth. She pulled her skirts and petticoat to her waist. She put a finger in her cleft. She took her other hand and wedged it into the top of her dress, getting her fingers under the cup of her stays and on top of her bosom.
It had been such heaven when George had sucked at her breast. She couldn’t do that for herself but she could pluck at and rub her peak while she rubbed her other place. Oh, and how George had kissed her as he touched her. And then when she had felt his hardness against her cleft before he had penetrated her. And how exciting that penetration, that coupling had been. Yes, it had hurt but it had still been thrilling, to know how aroused he was and that he was inside her and to have him on top of her, so close. And how beautiful George was, his chest and his arms and how he kissed her and squeezed her bottom and how delicious his smell was and how much she had wanted to touch him everywhere but particularly on his head and, oh, George, George, George, George, George,huh, huh, huh.
Curled over herself, a clenching passed over her body like a gust of wind. And then . . . a peaceful emptiness. She felt clean. She felt light. She was a piece of dandelion fluff wafting in the air.
For three seconds.
Suddenly, for absolutely no reason she could fathom, she began crying. Big tears rolled down her face and fell on her still exposed thighs. Sobbing, she quickly pulled her skirts down. She felt a huge wail coming on so she turned and muffled her face into one of the embroidered cushions.
She was going mad.
Eight
George wallowed in a deep vat of misery. Oh, to go back in time to when he had only been discomfited and blissfully ignorant of the reason why he was out of sorts.
Because now he knew the source of his unease and his bad feelings. And his bad feelings were no longer bad, they were harrowing.
Phoebe.
It was all to do with Phoebe.
He cursed himself. Why hadn’t he seen it earlier? Why had he been so bloody blind? How could he have missed noticing his Phoebe’s charms? Her kissable lips. Her marvelously expressive face that betrayed her every thought and emotion. Her lush body that was everything feminine and beautiful.
The time he had wasted, the chances he had wasted. Those hours he had spent trying to outmaneuver her on the chessboard when he should have been fondling her, kissing her, undressing her.
He spent the night sweating and flipping from side to side, seeking a comfortable position on the mattress. But Phoebe’s scent on the sheets and the pillows taunted and teased him. He would fall asleep for a few seconds only to jerk awake, thinking she was next to him and he needed to grab her to keep her from getting up and leaving his bed.
Finally, morning came and he pulled himself up and dressed and walked to get his horse. He rode for several hours, the already warm air presaging another hot day. But no escape from his suffering was found on the back of Apollo, rampaging over Hampstead Heath.
Phoebe flooded his thoughts in a way no other woman ever had.
Her touch on his head. The taste of her mouth and her skin. Her huff with her release. How right she had felt against him, under him, surrounding him. As if she had been made for him.
Maybe she had been.
