Page 120 of A Story of Love

Fast told himself not to feel like she’d just slapped his face. He’d known all along that she had a proud, prickly side. Evidently the gift giving had brought that out in her.

She came toward him slowly, and with an entirely un-Lorelei-like hesitancy in her step. “I’m sorry, Fast.”

The sense of ill-use he’d been feeling disappeared at her abashed expression. “Come here, you darling hedgehog.” He slid a hand around her waist and pulled her to him. She came willingly, all but flinging herself at him, her soft body as taut as a bow. Fast stroked her back and held her close. “You are trembling! What is wrong, my love?”

“I have to tell you something embarrassing.” Her words were muffled as she spoke them into his coat. When Fast tried to move back so he could look at her, she shook her head. “No, I don’t want you to see me when I say this.”

“Very well. I’m listening,” he said, resuming his stroking.

“I was a tomboy when I was a girl. In fact, until I was thirteen, I refused to accept that I wasn’t just another boy.

Fast smiled, easily imagining a younger, more coltish, version of Lorelei. “What happened at thirteen.”

“I grew breasts.”

She sounded so woeful that he was glad he hadn’t laughed.

Her arms, which had been tight around him like bands of wire, loosened and she set her hands on his hips and moved back enough that she could tilt her face and see his. “You probably think that is amusing.”

“I think I’m glad you grew them, but I can certainly understand how it made it difficult for you to be just another lad.”

“I still tried, but it became more and more difficult to fit in with the group of boys who’d been my playmates. When I turned sixteen my sister-in-law, who’d all but raised me, convinced me to go to a dance—ball is too grand a word—at the local squire’s house.” She chewed on her plump lower lip, her expression pensive as her gaze slid again to his. “The boys who’d been ignoring me suddenly noticed me.”

Fast’s hands tightened on her slender waist; he would just bet they did.

“To make a not very interesting but intensely mortifying story shorter, the local lord’s son—I don’t want to use his real name, so I’ll call him William—singled me out for attention. William was the leader of the group I’d always tagged after, so it was something of an honor to gain his notice. At first it was just small things he did to distinguish me. He brought me some boiled sweets, or a book I wanted but couldn’t afford, things of that nature.”

Again, she chewed her lip, this time so viciously that he wanted to stop her before she hurt herself, but he didn’t want to interrupt whatever was so difficult for her to say.

“My brother kept only one old horse—a relic of his youth—in his small stables and allowed me to ride the poor beast. When poor Dancer came up lame on one of my rambles, William said that it would be no bother to mount me from his father’s stables. His lordship breeds horses and had more than his family could use at any given time.

Not convinced by William’s offer, my brother approached his father. His lordship very kindly said I would be doing him a favor by riding one of his horses as he’d otherwise need to have one of his grooms exercise the animal. Yet still my brother wasn’t comfortable accepting such an offer.” Her lips twisted into a bitter smile. “I now know exactly why that was, but at the time I begged and pleaded and badgered poor Jeremy.” She cut Fast a guilty look. “I was a little toad and essentially shamed him into granting his permission by not so subtly hinting that I should not suffer for his inability to buy me a proper horse.”

She inhaled deeply, and then went on, “William and I were childhood friends who’d always ridden together, usually in a group with other neighborhood children. The only difference was that I now rode a horse from his father’s stables.”

Fast’s stomach tightened when she paused. He slid a hand around her jaw and tilted her face to his. “You don’t need to tell me this if you don’t wish to, Lorelei.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, but…I want you to know why I am so wary of men.”

He nodded, but the unease in his belly grew even worse at her words.

“More and more when we rode out William managed to separate me from the others. I felt some unease about what we did—a bit of touching—but…he told me that he loved me—that he wanted us to be together and was only waiting until his last term at Eton was over to divulge the truth about us to his father.”

Her hands idly caressed Fast’s hips in a way that he would have enjoyed if he’d not dreaded where this story was headed.

“You became lovers,” he said, hoping to save her some pain.

She snorted. “I don’t think the clumsy, hurried, and ultimately humiliating fumblings we engaged in made us lovers.”

His hands tightened on her shoulders. “Lorelei, did he—”

“He didn’t force me. Everything I did with him, I did willingly. If I sound bitter, it’s only because I regret being so foolish and believing that he ever loved me.”

I am falling in love with you…

Fast’s words from the night before came back to him, and he suddenly understood why she was telling him this story.

“It’s not foolishness to seek love and affection, Lorelei. It just means you are human. For anyone—a man or a woman—to use the promise of love to get what they want is…well, it’s reprehensible.”