Page 34 of A Gentleman's Wager

“But why ever for?”

“Oh, I don’t know, but they clearly despise one another.”

Bella considered this a moment with her head cocked. “Did he hurt you, Lou?”

Her friend mirrored her position. “Pennerley?” She sucked her lips together. “It’s embarrassing, mostly. Bella, he took advantage, but I can’t entirely put the blame at his feet. He knew what he was doing, but so did I. It all happened so fast. I was so devilish mad. I suppose I wasn’t thinking at all straight. Afterwards, he said I started it, and you know I can’t for definite say that I didn’t. It wasn’t that I actively sought to kiss someone else as Frederick had done, only that I… Oh, I don’t know. I suppose this is why my aunt keeps me so tightly shackled.”

“Don’t say that,” Bella soothed. “Never say that. Not every man is rakehell like Pennerley. If your aunt allowed you a little freedom, you might be better at telling the difference between the good ‘uns and the bad.”

“He’s bad?”

“Very, very bad.” Bella had no evidence of that fact, only a gut level instinct and a great many whispered rumours on which to base her judgement.

“And Lord Marlinscar?”

“Hm,” Bella considered with her lips puckered.

“Mr Aubrey?”

“Is just a buffoon.”

“And your brother?”

The suggestion startled a laugh from Bella. Joshua, a rakehell! “Lah-Louisa you are a hoot. Joshua never did a rakish thing in his life.”

“But you know he—” Her mouth flapped wide a moment without any sounds coming out. “—You know he fornicates with your maid. I… I saw them.”

“Shh!” Bella hissed. “You what?”

“I saw them.”

“When?” How the devil had Louisa seen anything remotely licentious? Joshua was the picture of decorum around her.

“Weeks ago, before we went to Lauwine. I woke in the night and went to find a drink. I saw well, everything.” Her eyes shone in the dark, wide as saucers. “A great deal more than I should like to have done. He had his man-stick out—”

“His man-stick,” Bella tittered, torn between her desire to know all and revulsion over picturing her brother in such a fashion. “You mean his prick?”

Louisa’s jaw dropped towards her chest. “I can’t call it that.”

“His cock, then? Ramrod?” Bella suggested, a thousand other euphemisms already collecting on her tongue, each sillier than the last, but then, it was a rather silly organ. Fine indeed when it was upstanding, but pitifully disappointing when at rest.

“Well, I suppose that was what he was doing with it,” Louisa said, making Bella howl.

“Oh, lord, stop it,” she clutched her sides. “It hurts. You’re talking about my brother, Lou. I don’t want to hear about him swiving anything, and if you don’t want to witness it, perhaps you ought not to creep about at night spying on them. Or stick around to watch when you do stumble on them.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Louisa protested, slamming her hands down upon the eiderdown, leaving them both uncovered and fast reaching for the blankets again. “I hardly knew what I was seeing. And I was shocked. I think my feet rooted to the floor. You know, Bella, I’m not altogether sure I’d want to do that. Although, I suppose one can get rather distracted when one is being kissed and fondled in a certain way, that maybe having such a thing shoved inside one won’t seem so horrendous.”

“Louisa Stanley!” Bella clapped her hands together. The noise overloud enough to cause them both to freeze, then nervously giggle. “What are you—” Bella held the pause. “—confessing to exactly. Who has been fondling you to such distraction? Frederick, perhaps. Or… Surely not. You can’t mean to suggest what Pennerley did was in any way welcomed or distracting? Or was it?”

Her friend blushed a very vibrant shade of magenta, so that even by candlelight the colour was quite apparent. Louisa did her best to hide behind Bella’s handkerchief, but Bella snatched it from her fingers and tossed it over the edge of the bed. “Tell me,” she demanded. “What did he do?”

Louisa chewed the inside of her cheek. “Nothing. Not really. He kissed me. And touched me, in one or two… interesting… unexpected, places.”

“Are we talking about Wakefield or Pennerley?”

Louisa hmmed a vague affirmative.

“Touched in what way? Not with his—”