Chapter 2
The next afternoon found Lord Sebastian Lyons at his club, studying knots in the wood paneling of a quiet room off the library.
“I thought we wouldn’t see you until next month,” said Lord William Ranlaegh, dropping onto the arm of a chair beside his best friend.
“Needed to make a purchase,” said Sebastian, not fully attending to the conversation.
“A trinket of apology for the bride?” Ranlaegh asked.
Sebastian looked up sharply. “I will not discuss my lady wife with other gentlemen.”
“Easy, my friend. You wouldn’t be the first husband to smooth over wedding night tears and hysterics with a new bracelet for the bride,” said Ranlaegh.
“She was—I am not discussing Jane at the club!” said Sebastian.
“I wouldn’t dream of drawing you into a conversation about your wife here in this den of iniquity,” said Ranlaegh, tapping on the cover of his favorite snuffbox. “I suppose you wouldn’t have similar objections to discussing Mrs. Meers, her chaperone of late?”
“And what do you know of Mrs. Meers, you cad?” asked Sebastian, standing from the leather armchair that had served him well the whole morning.
Lord Ranlaegh threw up his hands in mock surrender. “I know nothing of Angelina beyond the very decorous conversation on the coach ride to your wedding breakfast yesterday!”
“Angelina…you are unbelievable,” said Sebastian. “I didn’t know her Christian name until now, and I just sent a set of jewels to her this morning.”
“I say,” said Ranlaegh, now rising from his perch, “who is the dog now?”
“Easy, William, just providing some small token for a job well done. Too well done,” Sebastian muttered.
“Ahh, no tears then. Jane bore your attentions in the wifely manner to which all brides are instructed?”
“She unmanned me in all of thirty seconds while remaining the most perfect angel,” said Sebastian.
“I woke and found that the idea of doing anything other than following her around and, well, debauching my wife in every one of those eighteen rooms in our new townhouse was flavorless as workhouse gruel. I’d be a menace to her, a threat to the peace of our home!
And all the while, she was so innocent, so accommodating, so understanding as I lost control after only three pumps.
Should matrons come to tea today to giggle over the marriage bed, she’ll have no more experience of ecstasy to divulge than before our wedding! ”
“I hardly see a problem, Lyons,” said Ranlaegh, now studying the wood paneling as well to maintain control of his face. A man complaining about the excellence of his wife in the marital bed, imagine! The club walls had likely never heard a conversation such as this!
Lyons stood from his chair, resolute. “She deserves more! Jane deserves everything,” he said. “But I can’t treat my gently bred wife like a…a common woman.”
“Who is to say that you can’t gently breed your lady wife and enjoy the marital bed with her, even if it occurs outside the bedroom?” said William, finding himself drawn to marriage for the first time.
“Indeed,” said Sebastian, tapping out a rhythm with his shoes before he seemed to brace himself for action. “Should Jane find she enjoys my attentions in this direction, who is to say that we are in the wrong?”
“Tell Lady Lyons hello for me, ideally before you test this theory,” said William.
“I am not discussing my wife at the club!” exclaimed Sebastian before stalking off to collect his hat and coat so he could storm home.