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Her words trailed off, and Lydia’s cheeks blushed a deeper red for an entirely different reason. The last time she had seen Juliet was the day they had seen Sophia slap Ezra. Little did any of them know that less than half an hour later,shehad been consummating her ownmarriage in the rain and the mud of Mayfair public park. Arousal coursed through her at the memory of how they had gone from being furious with each other to tearing off one another’s clothes.

It had been exciting, taboo, thrilling; everything the “talk” she had given to Alice before her wedding and would have given to Juliet was not. Still, she felt a sense of guilt that Juliet had hoped to speak with her first. It was her duty to help prepare her for such things, and she had failed.

“Darling,” Lydia said apologetically, taking Juliet’s hands, “Forgive me for not making more time to help you prepare for your future life. You know, perhaps itisbest that I did not give you that speech. I believe Alice was right about that. There is more,somuch that happens between a man and a woman than I could have ever described from my previous perspective.”

Lydia heard her unintentional confession slip from her lips before she could stop it, and immediately turned red.

“Um, anyway the food is getting cold, perhaps we should…”

“Previousperspective?” Juliet asked, her voice rising into a squeak of excitement on the final note.

“Oh, good heavens, I amnotgoing to talk about this,” Lydia laughed, going to the table.

“Our husbands are in the dungeons right now questioning an attempted murderer, should we not be more concerned about that?”

“No,” all four of her friends said in unison.

Lydia gave them a pleading look and they ignored it.

“You and Ezra actuallylikeeach other?” Barbara asked, hurrying to take a seat by her side.

When Lydia only smiled and began to butter her toast, Barbara gasped and added, “Oh, my God, you drive him mad, don’t you? You minx! You secret little minx!”

“Oh, like you were any better?” Lydia laughed, “Was it not you as well that swore off men? Yet you have shared some delightfully wicked stories of Ambrose and how you make him go cross-eyed.”

“Pleasedo not share them now,” Helena pled as she and the others came to the table.

“I won’t if Lydia shares her details,” Barbara answered, wagging her brows.

“No one is sharing anything of the sort,” Lydia replied as firmly as she could.

“Now, Iwillshare the details of where I went yesterday and why, and the events leading to such, but that is all.”

“Will you at least tell me in private?” Barbara whispered at her side. “Ihaveto know what he is like.

Lydia rolled her eyes, smiling, and reached for her tea.

“No more, please,” the man begged.

Blood dribbled from his lips, nostrils and several cuts on his face. His powerful body, the one that had knocked Ezra into his weapons, now hung limp, bruised, and sweaty; his arms outstretched and hanging by chains and thick, iron cuffs.

“I imagine if I had begged you for that last night you, would have ignored me,” Ezra replied calmly, washing his bloody hands in the nearby basin.

The man groaned.

“I thought as much,” Ezra replied, rubbing his hands dry with the blood-spotted towel.

He tossed it onto the table where his friends now sat, then turned on his heel to deliver a left hook into the man’s jaw. Blood and a tooth flew from the man’s mouth with a pained cry as his head shot to the side. Ezra caught him by his hair and yanked him up, forcing him to meet his eyes.

“We have not even started the interrogation yet,” he said calmly, his rage pouring off him in palpable waves, “This is simply retribution for my wife.”

Still holding firmly onto the man’s hair, Ezra cuffed him hard with his other hand.

“Your wife?” the man choked out, more blood splattering over his beard. “I did not touch your wife!”

“Was she your next target?” Ezra asked, forcing the man’s head up again.

The silent, swelling panic in the man’s brown eyes was all the answer Ezra needed. He raised his left leg swiftly and kicked the toe of his boot forcefully into the man’s testicles. A scream erupted from the man’s lips as he tried to buckle into his chains and catch his breath, then proceeded to vomit from the intensity of the kick.