“You’re right,” he said suddenly. “I haven’t had an affaire in two years because I came to the same conclusion you did. I threw away years of my life on tawdry little encounters with doxies, married or not. I’d even agree with Shakespeare about the wasteland of shame, or whatever that phrase was.”
She pressed her lips together. What sort of victory was this?
“But you oughtn’t to make fun of my love for Sylvie, nor for Lady Godwin either,” he said. “Probably they were too chaste for the likes of me, but they showed me a way out of the dissipation. Desire is always there, after all. There’s always another pair of beautiful eyes, or an alluring smile…”
He was talking more to himself than to her. Josie had a metallic taste in her mouth that suggested she might lose the tea she just drank. One could only suppose it was her own future he was describing, married to a man who found the world full of alluring smiles and endless desire.
“But after I fell in love with Lady Godwin, I suddenly saw how stupid all that pleasure was. How pleasureless, in a way. And then it was the same with Sylvie.” That wasn’t anger in his eyes; it was self-loathing.
“Don’t you think you’re exaggerating?”
“In what way?”
“Honestly, I don’t think pleasureless is the right word to describe your experiences. Or for that matter, the experiences of your inamoratas.”
“What?”
She had to chase away that look in his eyes. “I don’t think bedding you is pleasureless or stupid. I could easily become addicted to the practice. I can see why you spent twenty years doing it. The truth is that I would probably throw away my life doing exactly the same, were it only permitted for women.”
He threw up his head and stared at his young wife, startled. She looked unbearably young and desirable. “You don’t understand,” he said slowly.
“For the kind of pleasure you’ve given me in the last week, Garret…I would do anything for that. Throw away my life, my reputation, anything you asked for. Partly, I got so angry because I am so jealous of all those other women.”
“You are?”
She nodded. “I want you to make love to me in secret chambers at the palace. And in the kitchen garden at a ball. And—”
“I never made love to anyone in a kitchen garden,” he snapped. “That was made up by the author.”
“Wherever. The truth is that I hate every one of those hundred lovers you had. I covet every moment they spent with you.”
A harsh laugh came from his chest. “You were likely in your cradle when I made love for the first time.”
“I do have to take into account that it’s a good thing all those women came before me, because I’m sure they taught you many things about pleasuring a woman.”
The bleakness was out of his eyes. “So what you’re saying is that there was a good side to all my debauchery.”
“Am I thinking too much of myself?” she asked, sinking back onto the bed.
He followed her, of course. “A woman has to look out for her own pleasure.”
“A thought I’ve had many a time,” she said with satisfaction.
“You’re making a mistake, though,” he said. “There’s a difference between the kind of pleasure you and I share and that—”
But she was tired of this conversation. It made her heart stop when she saw that look of self-hatred in his eyes. So she covered his mouth with her hand and told him, quite severely, that men should always obey their wives without the slightest objection. She didn’t take her hand away until she was quite certain he understood what she was saying.
And then she lay back against the pillows and told the Earl of Mayne precisely what it was that he should do.
He seemed to understand all right, because he said in a jaded tone, “I’m sure I’ve seen this bedchamber before. It’s time for me to flit on to another bed.”
Josie smiled at him and then put one finger under the little sleeve of her afternoon gown. It was a pale lemony yellow, with a glorious strip of lace running just under the breasts. She played with the little scrap of fabric as if it were too tight. “I might let you go tomorrow,” she said.
His eyes were getting that wild look again, so she snuggled even farther back against the pillows, which meant that the delicate yellow fabric strained over her breasts. She didn’t need to look down to know that her nipples were framed against the fabric. She could feel them longing for his touch.
“No lady can hold a rake for long.” But his voice didn’t sound convinced.
She felt as if someone should be caressing her breasts, and he wasn’t, so she did it herself. She could hear his breathing. “But I’m no lady,” she told him. “Not an angel.”
“No,” he breathed.
“Not a chaste scrap of the cloud either.”
For a moment he was distracted and frowned at her.
“As Hellgate describes his dearest love,” she clarified.
“I can’t see a cloud in this room,” he promised.
“In fact, I’m a bit of a reprobate,” she said, coming up on her knees. “A strumpet.”
A strumpet would take her own pleasure, and Josie was enjoying that. In fact, her own hand felt almost as good as Mayne’s—
But maybe he saw that thought in her eyes, because a second later he pushed her hand away, and then…
40
From The Earl of Hellgate’s Memoirs,
Chapter the Twenty-sixth
I realized then that I had mistaken the nature of love. Love has nothing to do with desire; it’s the quest for the divine, found on earth. It’s finding a woman whose soul preserves a shard of heaven, and worshipping her…worshipping at her feet. I was a new man.
T hurman had never seen his father looking like this. He looked…old. Tired. Even desperate. Thurman felt like curling his lip, but he didn’t. He bowed and offered his father a cup of tea. “An unexpected pleasure.”
Henry Thurman sat down heavily and waved Cooper out of the room. Then he braced his hands on his knees in that way Thurman always hated, because it just wasn’t something a gentleman did. His father still had a smell of the printing press around him, for all his grandfather was the one who started the enterprise.“There’s no way to put this easily,” he said.
Thurman sat down opposite him. He had just been about to go for a drive in Hyde Park, and he wanted nothing more than to lope out of the room and leave this perspiring, heavy man behind.
“We’re ruined.”
“What?”
“Ruined. I borrowed some money, and thought it would come through in the percents…” The story tumbled out. One name kept drumming through the flood of miserable language from his parent. Felton. Felton. Felton.
“Who is Felton?” Thurman finally demanded.
His father broke off and blinked at him. “Lucius Felton. Runs most of London, on the financial side anyway. He closed the loan…” And he was off again.
Thurman had the gist of it. Lucius Felton had ruined his family. Lucius Felton was responsible for the loss of the house in Kent—for that was what his father was saying now—and the loss of his allowance, obviously, and the loss of his racing curricle.