Page 27

T he ball ran very late, and Sarah and Daphne were pressed to stay the night, for the sake of propriety perforce to share a room. Which, given the nature of their strained relationship, was decidedly uncomfortable.

Based on the information Sarah had gleaned this evening, it seemed more and more likely that she had been wrong about Robert and that the blame for her entrapment lay squarely at Daphne’s feet.

Her fury with the woman had abated not one whit, was in fact more surely stoked.

It hurt that someone she had thought a friend should betray her so.

It hurt even more because she felt so in need of a female friend to help her sort through her very confused emotions about Robert.

She rolled onto her side away from Daphne and tried to get comfortable. Light from the candle flame on the bedside table danced against the wall. She was tired, her feet and back ached, yet she couldn’t sleep.

“Will you never speak to me again, Sarah? It’s not very Christian of you.”

Sarah bounced up in indignation, her tiredness forgotten. “How dare you invoke Christian principles over me after what you did to me!”

Daphne sat up, pushing her night cap back off her face. “I did it for your own good!”

“You did it for your own benefit! I know exactly to the shilling what you stand to gain from it, so don’t you dare try to make this about me!” said Sarah.

“With you refusing him in a freak of distemper, what else was I supposed to do? Vicar’s daughters don’t refuse dukes when they propose! It’s unheard of!”

“Well, I did, and you had no right to interfere!”

“It is what Aunt Agnes wanted for you! I cannot believe you would throw over a fortune and the prospect of marriage to a man of Troubridge’s quality for some absurd notion that he doesn’t care for you!

Particularly when it is obvious to the blindest of fools that he is more than a little enamored of you. ”

“He doesn’t care for me!” Sarah’s deepest fear burst out.

For whatever he said or did, that was the truth she always came back to.

It is my money he wants. He is trying to make the best of it by being nice to me, and heaven help me it is working.

I can feel myself falling for him all over again, but what will happen when he gets tired of pretending?

“He isn’t enamored of me at all!” she insisted.

Is he? Unable to resist asking, she said, “What makes you say so?”

“He is a very reserved gentleman, he is not going to wear his heart on his sleeve, Sarah.” Daphne retied the strings of her night cap. “Jerome says he truly esteems you, Sarah. He wouldn’t have made you an offer if he didn’t. He is notoriously fussy.”

“Jerome?”

Daphne looked coy. “Ravenshaw.”

Daphne’s flirtation with the marquess had progressed if they were on first name terms. It was a scandal.

Papa would surely not approve of Daphne carrying on with the marquess under Sarah’s nose.

Which just added to the weight of things she shouldn’t forgive Daphne for.

But there was no one else to seek guidance from, and she desperately wanted some right now.

“I am aware that the duke has lowered his standards to offer for me,” said Sarah stiffly.

“Sarah, that is nonsense!”

“Is it?” Sarah wiped her eyes with the sheet. “Then why did he ignore me for most of the night?” Despite her conversation with Ashford, she wasn’t reassured.

“As the host, he was busy with his guests, you couldn’t expect him to dance attendance on you all night.”

“I didn’t—it’s just—” she stopped.

Daphne took her hand and patted it. “What? Did something happen between you that has made you think all these dismal thoughts?”

She had never missed her father so much in her life. He would know the right thing to do. She suspected he would prompt her to forgive Daphne, too, even though she wasn’t quite ready to do that yet. But she did need her advice.

“He kissed me! And things got a little heated!” said Sarah, blushing furiously. “And then he stopped and sent me away and didn’t come near me again all night!”

“Oh, Sarah!”

“Does he have a disgust of me, do you think?”

Daphne smirked, her eyes dancing. “Not at all, you silly girl! He’s protecting you of course, and himself, from temptation. The duke is not the sort of man to anticipate his vows.”

“Anticipate his—” Sarah broke off, scandalized. “He wouldn’t. I wouldn’t.”

“Of course not, which is why he left you alone. My dear, this is even better than I had hoped for you. Sarah, there really is no need for this long face, I assure you.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.” She had an inkling, but she wanted more plain speaking. She was tired of dancing round the point.

“My dear, hasn’t your mama spoken to you about these things?”

Sarah flushed and shook her head. “Mama said that things might be a little painful at first, but that if my husband was considerate, things would be vastly better with time and even enjoyable.”

“Did she explain the mechanics at least?” asked Daphne.

“Um, in the broadest terms.” Sarah hesitated and added, “Being in the country, I have, um, observed farm animals. Mama said it was similar.”

Daphne swallowed, and Sarah just knew she was trying not to laugh, which was mortifying but also funny. She giggled, partly with nervous embarrassment. Which gave Daphne permission to laugh also.

“So, you’re in possession of the basic facts but not much else,” said Daphne, wiping her eyes.

Sarah plucked at the sheet and took a deep breath. “Yes, I feel as if there is much more to know. Is there?”

“A great deal, my dear, much of which I can’t tell you because I don’t know myself. My experience is not vast, but I do talk to other ladies, and I do know it can be a great deal better than it was for me at first. Things did improve.”

Sarah looked at her slightly puzzled. “Can you explain what you mean by that?”

“Gentlemen have a requirement for regular physical—release. It is considered a wife’s duty to provide the means for that. In so doing we may, if so blessed, conceive also.”

“So, the duty is double—to provide release as well as children?”

“Indeed. Hubert, my husband, was kind and quite patient with me, but the first time was not felicitous. We eventually reached an accommodation that was satisfying for us both, but it took some time and, ah—experimentation.”

Sarah looked at her helplessly. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Daphne, pink cheeked, waved a hand to cool her cheeks and said, “Well, it turns out that ladies can experience this—ah, release, too! I didn’t know that when I was a bride.

I thought it was all on the gentleman’s side and that ladies were supposed to—endure, I suppose.

” Sarah widened her eyes and Daphne went on.

“The release, my dear, is extremely pleasurable.”

“Oh.”

“And” she added, as if conveying a deep secret, “it is possible to achieve it alone as well as with a gentleman.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know, and I’m not going to give you the details. It will be the duke’s privilege to introduce you to those pleasures, as I am sure he will.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Gentlemen prefer it if the lady participates in the pleasure. It heightens it for them, too.”

She recalled the viscount’s words: he would most assuredly welcome it. That would seem to support Daphne’s statement.

“So, you think R—the duke is leaving me alone because he finds me too tempting?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. But I’m not the pretty one, that’s Deb!” she protested.

“You don’t have to be beautiful for a man to find you desirable.”

“No?”

Daphne shook her head. “Physical attraction is governed by more than symmetry of features.”

“But it surely helps?” Sarah thought of her infatuation with the duke, provoked almost entirely, originally, by his considerable good looks. She was beginning to feel very shallow.

“Certainly. One has to find the other person desirable, and beauty can enhance that likelihood, but there is a factor that cannot be calculated for, an instinctive thing.” Daphne flushed again.

“It can overwhelm one in an instant and be very powerful, and have nothing whatever to do with the other person’s appearance. ”

“Oh.” Sarah considered that moment in the duke’s arms when she felt that rush of warmth, that instant of soul connection.

And then moments later, the rising desire that made her want to do wicked things.

She still wasn’t sure what those things were really, she only knew the feel of his body pressed against hers had made her frantic for something more.

More kisses, more touches, more of his hard heat and something to assuage the aching tingle between her legs.

She began to understand that if she felt that way it was not beyond the realm of possibility that the duke felt the desire to put something between her legs. She flushed all over with that notion. That hot, hard something she’d felt pressing into her belly.

“Thank you, Daphne, I think I understand a little better now.” She sank back against the pillows. “But does any of this have anything to do with love?”

“In the best of all possible worlds, yes, but regrettably it often does not. At least not for gentlemen. Men,” said Daphne with emphasis, “require regular release and will often seek it wherever it is available. Emotions frequently play little to no part in that process. That is why many gentlemen keep a mistress, for that very purpose.”

“I–I see. Does the duke have a—”

“Mistress? I believe so. She is rumored to have a house in Clarges Street, paid for by the duke naturally. Her name, I understand, is Madeleine.”

“Do married gentlemen keep a mistress also?”

“Some do, some don’t.”

“I see.”

“Don’t ask him, my dear. It’s not the done thing for a wife to acknowledge that she knows about her husband’s mistress.”

“And yet the wife is expected to tolerate this?”