Chapter 12 #3
Richard was being kind, showing her how one recovered from all that wonder and intimacy. With sweet, silly words. With a conversation that wasn’t conducted face-to-face, but rather, in an embrace that was close, while leaving both parties an odd privacy.
“Somebody opined that rushing was not called for,” Mabel said, stifling a yawn. “I forget who said that, or in what context. I like that.”
“This?” He passed his hand over the curve of her hip and cupped her derriere.
“That.”
He elaborated, kneading and squeezing a part of Mabel’s anatomy that she’d taken very much for granted.
“You are so fit,” he said. “You probably went half mad in London from sheer inactivity.”
London. The very word was a serpent in the garden of Mabel’s contentment. She captured Richard’s all-too-capable hand and wrapped his arm about her waist.
“The whole business was exhausting, truth be told. We stayed awake until all hours, standing about at somebody’s rout, or pretending to be enthralled with some violinist at a musicale, then rising early to attend fittings or tend to invitations and read the Society pages. I saw no point in any of it.”
“And the violinist was seldom very accomplished,” Richard said. “And yet, the entire country is run by people who view that nonsense as critical to their happiness and success.”
“They did not view me as critical to anything, for which I became grateful.” And that was quite enough about London Society. “We should eat.”
“I am in need of sustenance, but, Amabel, might I ask you a question?”
He’d tightened his arm about her, preventing her from rolling over to face him, not that she was inclined to.
“Of course.”
“Was your knowledge gained consensually?”
Mabel needed a moment to sort out what that delicate, carefully neutral question was asking.
“Oh, yes. Absolutely.” Heat spread from her neck to her cheeks as her past paraded before her. “I was a willing and even enthusiastic participant on every occasion.” She’d also been hopelessly ignorant, misled, and manipulated.
And more than a little hurt, especially now, when she had just been shown how selfishly the author of her ruin had conducted himself. The terms cad, knave, and scoundrel applied.
“Good,” Richard said, giving her a hug, then loosening his hold. “A lady should be enthusiastic when it comes to intimate pleasures. If ever you can’t muster that enthusiasm, you must promise to tell me.”
He was complicating what Mabel had thought was a simple business.
Men liked to rut, and gentlemen married ladies who then patiently accommodated that urge when necessary.
If marriage was not part of the bargain, then women who sought plain coin for their favors were recruited for the gentleman’s convenience.
She’d known nothing and understood less than nothing. She hadn’t even understood how vast her ignorance had been.
“I will tell you if I am in want of enthusiasm,” she said.
“I suspect you are too polite to tell me that you are in want of ham sandwiches.” Perhaps trysting followed some order of precedence.
Just as high-ranking guests were expected to leave a social gathering first, perhaps in Richard’s Rules of Romping, the lady was supposed to be first off the bed?
“I could fetch the hamper here.” Richard turned loose of her and shifted to his back. “We could dine sur le matelas instead of en plein air?”
“I refuse to get crumbs on the mattress, and you are being fanciful.”
“Yes, and smitten. Also putting off the inevitable. Did you enjoy yourself, Amabel?”
She bestirred herself to roll over and prop herself on an elbow to regard him. What courage he brought to his encounters, what gentlemanliness.
And skill.
“You daft man, if I had enjoyed myself any more intensely, I would have yodeled the sheep from the hillsides. Your right hand knows things that… Well, yes, I quite enjoyed myself.”
“Then I enjoyed myself even more.”
He ruffled her hair and bestowed a smile on her of such smug fondness, Mabel felt it in places a lady didn’t have names for.
“That was just the beginning,” he said. “The sheep had best run for their byres.”
He was off the bed in the next instant, leaving Mabel with an odd, bereft feeling to go with all the other unexpected, conflicting emotions.
She had set in motion the day’s plans because she’d wanted…
she knew not what. Revenge, vindication, memories, pleasure, proper frolicking on her terms…
Something of Richard to keep for herself.
“Boots,” he said, kneeling by the side of the bed, “and stockings and garters.”
“Must I? Might I not dine alfresco and barefoot?”
He looked up, his hair slightly disheveled, his cravat still in its tidy knot. The contrast was symbolic somehow.
“An inspired notion. Let’s be about it.” He held out a hand. Mabel found herself drawn to her feet, then held in a warm embrace. “Thank you, Amabel.”
“What are you thanking me for?” Shouldn’t she be thanking him?
“For pleasure, for joy, for trust, for hope that we might share more of the same.”
She rested against him, felled by the sincerity of his words and the generosity. “I’m sure we will.”
She was equally sure they’d part before she was ready to, but the pain of that thought was another serpent, one she was not prepared to acknowledge after she’d been well and truly cherished by a lover for the very first time.