Chapter Two
This was killing him. He was going to die here in the study of a cottage in Gloucestershire discussing the sexual explosion of heads.
He didn’t know why he wasn’t better braced for such a conversation.
Tha?s Magdalene was carnal-minded and foulmouthed on her most demure day—he’d spent enough time in her periphery to know this. And he was not going to learn how to properly make love if he couldn’t bring himself to talk about it.
But he loathed doing anything he wasn’t perfect at, and the act they were discussing—one that seemed to come by other men most easily of all—was outside his natural gifts.
He could perform the basic mechanics to the desired conclusion well enough, if pressed, but the animal nature of it filled him with a paralyzing dread. He preferred to relieve his urges by his own hand, once a day, immediately upon waking. The matter dispensed with, he could go undistracted about the activities of his life that he was better at.
And he was better at most things. He strove to achieve perfection in everything he undertook. Looking after his investments and estates. Enacting legislation. Advocating for reform. Until recently, raising his little sister.
But now his sister was grown and married, and with her gone, his house was far too quiet. He wanted to fill it with a family of his own. He wanted a companion, and he knew he could be an excellent husband. He liked the company of women and enjoyed homely things like children and dogs. He was steady, responsible, rich, and capable of kindness—even love.
But he was inept in this one matter. And he couldn’t in good conscience invite some poor young woman to his life knowing he was consigning her to a fate of being perfunctorily bedded by a man ashamed of his own inability to please her.
Such glaring imperfections were not to be tolerated.
He had to fix this deficit in himself.
And he had to do it before the season opened in a month and he was plunged into the marriage mart. He planned to quickly familiarize himself with the young ladies coming out, court whoever was most suitable, and be married by year’s end.
So he needed an education, and quickly.
A month with Tha?s was the ideal solution: enough time to take lessons from an expert he could study with in secret, without the entanglement of taking a mistress. That he knew and liked Tha?s was an added advantage. She was a good friend of Rafe and Cornelia. He’d spent a week with her at a country house party the previous year. He was certain he could trust her.
And thank goodness.
He was desperate.
“Well, we have a plan,” he said. “I’ll show you to your room and have the footman carry up your luggage.”
“My room?” she asked. “We won’t be sharing a bed?”
The idea had not occurred to him. He’d never—not once in his life—slept beside another person.
“Need we?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Would you not share one with your wife?”
He had not considered the question. He supposed it would depend on his wife’s wishes. Though, left to his own preferences, he could not imagine such a custom would benefit either of their sleep.
“Perhaps let’s table the matter until we... progress to later in the course of study,” he suggested.
“As you wish,” she said, though he gathered she frowned on his choice.
He gestured out the door. “Follow me.”
He led her into the main room, pointing out the features of the cottage. It was pleasant but small. Downstairs, a kitchen, a parlor, and a windowed alcove for dining. Two bedrooms and a necessary above. He showed Tha?s to the larger of the two rooms, which had a sunny little nook overlooking the roses in the front garden.
She looked around. “Very nice. But no dressing room?”
“I’m afraid not. Do you need one? We won’t be going anywhere of note.”
“I packed for a month with Camberwell,” she said. She gestured out the window, where five enormous trunks sat outside the carriage waiting to be hauled into the house.
Good God.
They’d barely fit up the stairs. And even if they did, they’d fill up Tha?s’s entire room. Maybe the entire upper floor.
“I hate to inconvenience you,” he said. “But perhaps you can take what you need from them, and we’ll store the rest in the stables.”
She did not look particularly enthused about this idea but nodded.
“As he wishes.” She turned to go downstairs. “Send a maid to help me sort them out?” she called over her shoulder.
He gritted his teeth. He’d thought the bare-bones accommodations he had made for this month were adequate: he’d hired enough help to look after their needs in comfort without attracting undue attention from local strangers wondering why a supposed holidaying teacher would spend lavishly on servants. He’d not considered Tha?s would be expecting a lady’s maid.
So much for being perfect. It seemed he was already failing as a host.
“I’m afraid I have no maid,” he said. “Just a serving girl who comes in the morning to tidy and make breakfast.”
Tha?s whirled around, agape. “You can spend twenty-five thousand guineas on a whore, but not spare a maid’s wages? I’d have brought my girl from London if I’d known.”
“I’m sorry. For the sake of discretion, I’d hoped to keep those who see us together to a minimum. I trust my servants, but the risk of gossip in this instance is too high. As for the serving girl, she thinks I’m a tutor taking a holiday in the countryside. A poor relation of Camberwell’s. I’d appreciate it if you would not say otherwise.”
“And who does she think I am? Assuming you don’t mean to keep me locked up here in hiding.”
“Of course not. I told her I was expecting my sister. A governess visiting from Lancaster.”
She snorted and pointed at her reflection in the looking glass. “Me, a governess? You’d better hope your serving girl is blind and stupid.”
Tha?s had a point. Even in her relatively modest traveling dress, her appearance was dizzying. Her prodigious breasts, either through some magic of corsetry or anatomy, swelled up and out over her neckline, promising to be unlike anything he’d ever seen except in the exaggerated drawings of his erotic books. Her waist nipped in dramatically, her hips and arse swelled bounteously, her plump arms promised of plump thighs to match. And her hair. That glorious, riotous red hair, set off by green eyes and skin so milky white it made him thirsty. And then, my God, those freckles along her nose and collarbone.
He was not one to covet women for their looks—his attraction tended to grow out of friendship—but there was a reason Tha?s was famous.
She simply glowed. One could not look at her without imagining what she might be like in the nude. Feel like in one’s arms. Or, at least, he couldn’t.
And then there was the flirtatious spirit she exuded. The way she held her body, the way she moved, the way she talked.
One took a single look at her and knew she was a fille de joie. A proud one, who reveled in the role of courtesan. Hattie Hart might, indeed, suspect Tha?s was not a governess. Especially if she went about dressed as she was now. But perhaps with limited contact and more modest gowns...
“You’re a late riser, are you not?” he ventured, remembering how at Rafe Goodwood’s house party, Tha?s had stumbled yawning from her room at noon, complaining it was not yet two. “Hattie arrives at seven. I doubt you’ll even meet her.”
Tha?s clapped her hand over her mouth, eyes huge. “Oh no,” she said from behind her fingers.
“What is it?”
“You said she cooks breakfast. Who cooks the other meals? Not me, I hope. You’ll never see your marriage bed as you’ll die of pure starvation.”
He laughed. “No, of course not. Hattie leaves a picnic for the midday meal, and I’ll prepare our suppers.”
She raised her auburn brows. “You?”
He nodded. “I enjoy cooking. It’s quite soothing. I’ll teach you, if you like.”
She shook her head emphatically. “No thanks, unless it will help you in the bedroom.”
Despite his stress, her pique amused him. “I tend not to prepare meals in the bedroom.”
She threw up her hands, like this was all too much to endure speaking of a moment longer. He hoped it was not condescending that he found her irritation charming.
She was the most shocking person he had ever met, but he’d innately liked her since the moment they’d been introduced. She was warm but blunt and prone to irritation, crass but more funny than rude. As spirited a woman as he had ever met.
“I’ll go down and rummage through my trunks,” she grumbled in a rough accent that he suspected was her native one. Her speech was usually more refined, if always florid. It became less genteel when she was vexed.
“Let me help you,” he said, following her downstairs.
She marched outside and over to her trunks, which she began unlatching, muttering to herself.
She ruffled through the first and pulled out a handful of transparent garments in bright colors that evoked a peacock’s plumes. She tossed them to him. It had recently stopped raining, and the garments caught the golden-hour light as they flew across the garden.
“Wait,” he said, horrified her things might fall onto the wet grass. He clutched them to his chest, realizing they were dressing gowns—or undressing gowns, as it were, since they were so sheer they’d not conceal the slightest bit of flesh.
The coachman and footman stared as Eden just barely caught the next round of projectile garments. Lace, this time, of the sort that went under a gown and was not meant to be seen by decent men in daylight.
“Tha?s, please stop for a moment,” he said firmly.
She turned around, arms full of silk. “I’m fetching my meager wardrobe, if you please.”
“Let’s consolidate what you want into one trunk. Your things will get soiled.”
“And no maid to wash them,” she groused.
“I’ll send out the laundry,” he assured her. “I’m not a barbarian.”
“Very well.” She scooped the remaining unmentionables into the trunk with her night rails rails, and he deposited the items in his arms into the empty trunk. She and moved on to the next one, which was filled with elaborate gowns fit for formal balls. Impractical, and sure to attract attention if she wore them.
“You won’t have use for those,” he said. “No need to unpack them.”
She glared at him. “Then what would you like me to wear, milord? Shall I sally about stark naked?”
The footman looked down at his feet, and the coachman bit his lip to hide a smirk.
“Choose day dresses that will be comfortable in the countryside.” By which Eden meant inconspicuous.
She rolled her eyes. “I brought gowns to suit Camberwell,” she said. “Not to tromp around the downs.”
“Surely you have something,” he coaxed.
She flung open the lid of the fourth trunk to show him. “Shoes and jewels and the like,” she said. She removed a pair of low-heeled boots and a set of satin slippers. Neither of them were ideal for country life, but at least she’d be able to walk around the garden should she desire air.
“And that one?” He gestured at the last unopened trunk. “What’s in there?”
She grinned at him. “Have a look.”
He opened the lid and peeked inside.
He nearly yelped.
It was filled with items that were clearly meant for sex. A jar of condoms, a carved marble phallus, vials of oil—
He slammed the trunk shut and whirled around to look at her.
She was utterly delighted at his horror. She sallied over to the trunk, opened it up, and grabbed the jar of condoms. “We’ll be needing those,” she said. “The rest can wait until we see how fast you take to schooling.”
“My God, Tha?s,” he whispered, glancing at the servants. “I asked you for discretion.”
“Oh, Camberwell’s men have seen worse,” she whispered back. “From what I’ve heard he likes to spend his carriage rides riding women, if you know what I mean.”
“It’s hard not to know what you mean. Your description is quite literal.”
She winked. “You bought yourself a plain-speech harlot, not a fair-tongued maiden.”
He chose to ignore this, lest further conversation provoke more vulgarities for the amusement of Camberwell’s men.
“Sirs,” he said, addressing them, “would you carry these extra trunks into the stables? And then you may be off.”
Tha?s gave them a bow that caused her breasts to come very close to spilling out of her dress. An unfamiliar feeling flashed through him.
Yearning. Sharp and undeniable.
It was the same feeling he’d gotten when he’d first seen her at Rafe’s. A thump like he’d been tossed off a horse.
A mere glimpse of her figure aroused him. He almost wished he had not insisted on a curriculum that would bar him from touching her for days.
Almost. For who knew how he would fumble and embarrass himself when he got the chance?
“You’ve been a dream getting me here,” Tha?s said to the servants, not noticing that her posture had very nearly undone her patron. “Thank you for a most pleasantful journey.”
Eden picked up her remaining trunk and lumbered with it into the house. The effort eliminated the threat of his loins stiffening and her noticing. A profound relief.
“Need help?” Tha?s asked, following him.
“No, thank you,” he grunted as he wrestled the enormous thing upstairs.
He set it down on the floor in front of her bed and stood there for a moment to catch his breath. She joined him. “Hmm. Quite strong, he is,” she commented, running a hand over his arm. “I wouldn’t have expected it.”
He was surprised by how much this pleased him. Both her words and the soft pressure of her touch.
“You like that,” she murmured, moving her hand up to his shoulders. “Are you sore? Shall I rub your back?”
The thought of it was tempting. But if he let her, he would stiffen for certain, and she would see. As much as he desired her, he was not ready to be so intimate with a woman he barely knew.
Not ready to reveal himself that way.
He forced himself to step aside. “No, thank you.”
“As you wish,” she said, and there was a gentleness in her voice that calmed him.
Made him want to be touched more.
Made it necessary to change the subject.
He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I didn’t convey to you the nature of our lodgings in advance, so you could be more comfortable. In the morning, I’ll ask Hattie to bring a seamstress to make you a few gowns. We’ll say your bags were stolen on your journey.”
“My, my, how devious you are, Lord Eden.”
Not typically, but the lie was a harmless one.
“Perhaps you’d like to rest while I prepare our supper,” he said. “It will take an hour. I hope you aren’t famished.”
“Not for food,” she said with an exaggerated leer.
“I—well, excuse me, then,” he said quickly.
Her laughter followed him out of the room.