Prologue
Twenty-five-year-old Mary Lovelock Vaughan, the Viscountess Tregaron, leaned over and picked up a flat stone from the shingle.
“You may have seen something shocking today at the inn,” she said and tried to skip the stone across the water, but the waves were too rough.
Arabella said nothing.
“You know men and women lie down together, don’t you?” Mary’s voice was light, and her tone was almost playful, but her face was serious. She continued walking down the beach, and Arabella followed her.
“Yes.”
“Do you know why they do that?”
“To have children?”
“Not entirely. In fact, that is just a very small part of it. David and I haven’t had any children yet, and still we lie together.”
“You weren’t lying down today!” Arabella burst out.
“No, he was standing. And I was kneeling, wasn’t I? You weren’t meant to see that, of course.”
Arabella stayed silent.
“As your sister, I’d like to talk to you about what you saw, but I also don’t want to force you to talk about it.”
“I want . . . I want to talk about it.” Arabella stooped and picked up a pink shell.
“You’re seventeen, aren’t you? I am trying to remember what I wanted then. I remember thinking kissing would be very enjoyable. And guess what, Arabella?”
“What?”
“It is.” Mary smiled just a little. “And I thought I would like to press my body up to a man’s body and have him hold me. And that turns out to be very enjoyable, as well. And I thought I might like to do the same thing but without clothes. And that is . . .”
“Enjoyable too?” Arabella felt rather like squirming while talking to her half sister about this, but she also wanted to understand.
“Not enjoyable. Ecstasy.”
Arabella looked up at Mary’s face. Calm, willowy Mary, married to the very controlled and elegant David Vaughan, the Viscount Tregaron. Mary’s dark eyes were far away now, pointed towards the sea, her mouth open slightly, her skin flushed, her dark-brown curls pushed off her face by the wind.
Then she came back from wherever she had been. “With certain things, it is true there is some pain the first time, but it goes away quickly. And most things have no pain, only pleasure.”
“Why do the things that cause pain, at all?”
Mary laughed. “Well, as luck would have it, the painful thing is the one that produces children, and it’s nothing to be frightened of, even the first time, if you are with a good man. And it is the thing that makes me feel the closest to David.”
“So David is a good man?” Arabella pushed her own windswept golden tendrils off her face and looked up at the much taller Mary.
“David is the best man. For me. You will find your own best man.”
They walked along the shore, Arabella holding her shell in her hand, running her thumb over the ridges.
“I didn’t think much of the men I met last Season in London.”
“No,” Mary said.
“And here with you . . . I mean I am enjoying the trip, but I don’t think I am going to have any Season at all this year. Do you know why Mama sent me away from London?”
“No, but I am sure it has nothing to do with you, only with her. And you will have other Seasons. I hope you will be patient.”
“Yes. I know that not everyone is lucky enough to meet their husband at their first ball in their first Season,” Arabella teased.
Mary’s lips curved into the smallest of smiles, her dimples barely showing. Mary had done exactly that, of course, five years ago.
The two women walked a bit farther and then turned around to walk back.
“Do you touch yourself, Arabella?”
Arabella was glad they were walking side by side so Mary would not see her blush. Mary was wholly unembarrassed about all of this. Perhaps that was what being married did.
“Yes,” Arabella finally answered.
“Good. You should. When you are married, you will know what you like, what you want. No one’s feelings get hurt by acts of self-love as it is the most private of actions. It is your concern and yours alone. And you cannot get with child from it.”
“What is the exact thing that gets one with child?”
“You don’t know?” Mary turned to look at Arabella.
Arabella shook her head.
“You’re old enough to know. You should know.
I’m surprised Mama Katie hasn’t talked with you.
Perhaps she has some difficulty since you are the youngest of us.
She wants to keep you a girl. But you are a woman, and women your age are getting married every day and having children.
After all, Queen Charlotte married at seventeen.
You should know about making babies, about coupling. ”
Arabella suddenly felt very aware of the breeze on her chest and arms, how the tops of her legs rubbed together as she walked.
Mary went on, her voice clear and calm,“You have seen the phallus on the statues of Greek gods in museums, haven’t you? A husband puts his phallus inside the place from which the wife’s monthly courses issue. He will rub himself there and put his seed in the woman.”
“That’s the thing that hurts?”
“Just the first time or the first few times. When you are married to the right man, you will want it. More than that, you will hunger for it. And the man is always hungering for it.”
“And only married people couple?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“But it’s better to be married. And not just because it avoids scandal and bastards, but because everything is better if you are having this kind of pleasure and intimacy with someone you love. I wouldn’t want to do it with someone I didn’t love.”
“Then why do men go to brothels?”
Mary stopped walking, so Arabella stopped, too.
“It is troubling, and I can’t speak for men,” Mary said slowly. “They have very peculiar notions about it all. They have difficulty with delaying their gratification. And they can be rather stupid.”
“I see,” Arabella said, not seeing at all.
They walked on, with Mary explaining why she had been kneeling and David had been standing and other variations on the pleasures a man and woman can provide to each other.
That night, in her own bed, Arabella made a vow to herself.
I am not going to marry a stupid man.