It was clear to her the author believed in fidelity and perhaps love, for he had been very verbose and artful in his descriptions to his fellow Lords of the wicked romps they could have with their wives. Sensual plays and overtures that would nullify the need for another woman to keep them satisfied. Of course, it had shocked, titillated…and intrigued the jaded senses of the lords and ladies within Society, for many believed wives were delicate creatures, and men’s baser needs should be satisfied between the legs of more passionate women—whores and mistresses. Genteel wives were not built to satiate men’s baser urges.
Utter rubbish, of course.
She waved her hands in a dismissive gesture. “I hardly think a man who is such an avid supporter of good relations between a man and his wife would be interested in a mistress,” Amalie said. “He’s been the new Lord Kentwood nigh on seven months, and the only rumors surrounding his name are that he was the author of that wicked book.”
Bess sipped her wine, deviltry sparkling in her hazel eyes, and murmured, “Perhaps not a mistress, a woman he would support, but perhaps a lover then, dearest. You are a woman of financial independence; you do not need a man to keep you. But you do need one to warm your bed,” she drawled provocatively. “How long has it been, five years?”
Amalie’s heart hammered against her breastbone. More. A flash of heat seared her as the memory of delicate fingers rubbing firmly over the aching flesh between her legs. He hadn’t touched her bare flesh…but had caressed her through the material of her nightgown and drawers, making her so mortifyingly wet. How she had quaked and trembled before that elusive sensation had drifted away.
That man… a boy she had fallen in love with had been the only one to ever awaken her body to pleasure, even if it had been unfulfilled. And that boy had transformed himself from the carefree and charming young man she had known to the enigmatic Earl of Kentwood.
Oh, Max. She closed her eyes briefly, hating to recall the fury and disgust which had been in his eyes the last time they had seen each other. Even if she wanted to rekindle a friendship with him—reminiscent of the precious one they had formed years ago—he had changed. She couldn’t expect him to be that same amiable, good-humored, and obliging boy. And perhaps she too was different. Amalie did not see that shy, naïve girl in the woman who stared back at her in the mirror anymore. She did not see the silly girl who had longed to dance all night at balls or stroll in the gardens with a beau under the stars hoping for a quick kiss on the cheek.
“I shall think on it,” Amalie said with a bright smile that did not fool her friends one bit.
“Please do more than think on it,” said Carlotta, the widow of a naval captain. That had been her great scandal, daring to run off with the captain even though she was the daughter of a duke, and much more had been expected of her.
The mighty and exquisitely beautiful Lady Carlotta has fallen…into the mud with a Navy man. That had been the first screaming headline that had condemned her choices and reputation.
Carlotta pushed back a few wisps of her silver-blonde hair behind her ear, her dark green eyes glowing with surprising worry. “While we’ve all bought the earl’s book, being close to the source of such knowledge would be invaluable. Bess, Julianna, and I have lovers who…who I daresay we’ve fallen in love with despite our resolve to keep our hearts protected. It is not wrong for us to want to know everything about how to keep them satisfied and by our sides. Hopefully despite our mishaps they would make offers.”
“It isn’t wrong,” Amalie whispered, her heart breaking for her friends.
Few men in Society would marry a widow when they were perfectly suitable to be mistresses. Especially widows who had not shown these gentlemen that their greatest asset as Society dictated—their wombs—had born fruit, and with damning scandals permanently affixed to their reputations.
Except for Bess, who had the most darling six-year-old daughter, no one else in their merry and wicked band of friends had any children. They were under thirty years of age and were likely to remain unmarried. Amalie had come to realize not all her friends craved to maintain the independence their widowhood permitted. There was still that crushing need for a family…children of their own, a love that could weather any storm. And that need now glowed from Melinda and Carlotta. Even Julianna seemed a bit wistful.
And what do I want?
Amalie had lovely financial independence. Her departed husband of a little over five years had left her with a considerable jointure of five thousand a year, an unentailed townhouse in Berkley square, a carriage and horses, a phaeton, and even a modest but beautifully situated charming ten-bedroom cottage in Derbyshire.
Despite the scandal which had surrounded her at her husband’s death, she maintained a close relationship with his son—the new Lord Weatherston, who had been tearing up the town with his rakehell ways. The man had declared to her some months ago that he had no intention of settling to domestic bliss at the age of one and thirty.
‘Don’t you agree, Stepmother,’ he had mockingly called her, knowing her full well to be six years younger than him. But what she liked and admired about James was that despite his proclivities for gambling and women, he managed his estates rather well, and had a golden touch with investments.
But he did not have a favorable reputation himself. A rumor had been circulating in the ton that he had ruined a debutante. James had been seen kissing the girl, most passionately, but had not presented himself to make an offer of marriage.
‘I daresay you should direct your thoughts to secure some happiness for yourself instead of meddling into my affairs,’ had been another of his caustic replies after she had scolded him most fiercely.
Some happiness for myself. What an intriguingly naughty notion.
Another glimpse of wicked gray eyes filled with tenderness and lust swam in her vision. A lump grew in her throat as those eyes in a flash turned dark with anger and distaste.
“The next topic on our agenda,” Jules, the Earl of Darby’s widow, said with a bright smile. “My very wicked masquerade party! I want our costumes to be wildly attractive…and shocking. And when they leave and speculate in the scandal sheets of our fast and wayward natures, it will be even more scandalous than last year’s headline.”
An event she arranged simply to shock her guardian—the powerful and intractable Lord Pembroke. How it irritated Julianna that as a widow, she still had someone who managed her money. As the youngest member of their group at three and twenty, she had lost her husband at nineteen to a fever only a few months after their marriage. Since then, she had been in a silent, rebellious war with the man who had swooped in to order her life until she was five and twenty. All manner of immorality became permissible at Julianna’s parties, and that had been calculated primarily with the aim of aggravating the very proper Marquess of Pembroke.
With merry laughs and brazen banter, the conversation shifted to Jules's most notorious and exclusive yearly party, one to which many lords and ladies eagerly hoped they would receive an invitation. Yet Amalie’s thoughts had been effectively fractured. What would it be like to lie beneath a man who had gained such delightful skills during his time abroad? What would it be liked to be stripped and splayed atop sheets, and teased with light touches and licks as how in his book he ordered husbands to prime their wives’ ‘cunnies’?