She stared at him, torn between laughter and tears. “This is not a subject for joking.”
“Indeed it is not—except that I fear you have yet to discover that sexual congress can be fun and lighthearted, as well as extraordinary and intense and moving and . . . earth-shattering.” He waited a moment, then added, “Anyway, think it over.”
Think it over? She couldn’t think at all. His words had stirred up such turmoil in her brain, she couldn’t think of a thing to say.
The rain was slowing. “I—I must go. Lucy and I are planning to go . . . er, out.” She had no idea. There were no plans.
“By all means, run away,” he said with an infuriatingly understanding smile. “But think about what I said. The ‘um’ you’ve experienced is not the ‘um’ you deserve. We’ll resume this conversation another day.”
“No! That we will not!” She opened the door and looked out. The rain had slowed, and it was only a short distance to her house, but she would still get very wet.
A warm hand closed around her arm and a deep voice said, “No need for you to get any wetter. I’ll go. I’ll send Tweed back with an umbrella.”
She turned to thank him, and he bent and kissed her, his mouth firm and warm. “Just think about what I said.” He kissed her again, swift and possessive, and it seared her to the bone. Then he stepped out into the rain.
Alice plonked bonelessly onto a bamboo chair and stared unseeing through the open door into the rain-washed garden. She put a shaking hand to her mouth. Her lips tingled. She could still taste him. Her whole body was . . . a tangle of sensations.
So that was what a kiss—a proper kiss from a man—felt like.
No wonder the poets rhapsodized so. She’d never quite understood it before.
The raw intimacy of it. His tongue inside her mouth . . . It should have been unpleasant, but instead it was . . . exciting. Addictive. She could still taste it, the sharp, dark taste of a man—of this man. The unleashed coil of wanting it—him—swirled deep within her.
Rocking gently, she wrapped her arms around her body. It was an ache, a need, but for what?
She might not know about kissing, but she understood what that masculine hardness pressing against her meant. And yet it hadn’t repelled her.
It was as if his kisses had somehow melted something inside her. She’d never felt such tenderness, such an affinity with another person. It left her aching, yearning.
And deeply confused.
Sharp, damp air from the open door cooled her cheeks. The rain was easing.
He’d shocked her, had trampled over her delicate sensibilities and blasted her assumptions about men and women wide open.
Women generally find sexual congress pleasurable unless their male partner is clumsy, ignorant or utterly selfish.
Could that possibly be true? Pleasurable? She couldn’t imagine it.
I’m guessing your husband was the latter.
She had no difficulty believing that. Thaddeus had been selfish in all things. He took what he wanted with no care for anyone else.
She thought about what her mother had told her the night before her wedding. Mama had not found sexual congress in the least pleasurable. The marriage bed is something women must endure with as much grace as possible. The activity is deeply distasteful to any lady, but remember, once you have conceived a child, it will cease. The child will be your reward.
Alice had never been rewarded with a child. And the unpleasantness had gone on for years.
But Lord Tarrant claimed most women found pleasure in the act.
Alice could not imagine how. But Papa was a vicar and a rigidly moral man, and Mama had always been quite prudish. It was likely that both he and Mama had come to their marriage bed as virgins.
Clumsy, ignorant or selfish? Perhaps all three, if what Lord Tarrant said was true. Certainly Papa had never been an affectionate man. She recalled the way Lord Tarrant had picked up Lina in her distress and soothed her, making the child feel loved instead of shamed. And the way he’d given little Debo her much-longed-for kitten, even though cats made him sneeze.
Papa would never have done that. Nor would Thaddeus.
Lord Tarrant’s children were in no doubt that they were loved and valued. Alice had never felt like that. All through her childhood she had tried to earn her father’s love by being good and obedient, by doing the right thing. But no matter how hard she tried, she’d never managed to measure up to Papa’s standards. She was never good enough.
She’d gone to her wedding with such hope, such tender dreams, determined to find the happiness that people said came with marriage. But whatever Thaddeus had wanted in a bride, he’d made it very clear, almost from the first day, that she wasn’t it. And as time went on, he’d reminded her regularly that she was as far from a satisfactory wife as a woman could be.
Her barrenness had only reinforced it.
The rain had stopped, but raindrops still dripped from the trees. She could hear footsteps crunching on the crushed limestone path: Tweed coming with an umbrella.
Alice stood, smoothing her hair and straightening her skirts, hoping the turmoil inside her wasn’t visible. She moistened her lips, and remembered the way his gaze had focused on her mouth and intensified. Her lips tingled at the memory, as did other parts of her body that were nowhere near her mouth.
Marry me and I will turn “um” into “yum.”
Lord Tarrant had shaken her foundations to the core. In more ways than one.
Chapter Twelve
It was the night of Lady Peplowe’s masquerade ball. Alice had donned her flowing blue-green gown and her maid, Mary, had dressed Alice’s hair in what she imagined was an Egyptian style—close around the head, then flowing loose with beads and gold cords plaited in. She’d also painted Alice’s face with crimson lips and shadowed, almond-shaped cat’s eyes.
The woman in Alice’s looking glass didn’t look much like her at all. She looked glamorous and mysterious.
“You look gorgeous, Alice,” Lucy said, entering the room. “Here’s the rest of your outfit. Mary, that hairstyle is perfect—the headdress will fit over it beautifully.”
Alice stared at the gleaming gold headpiece, armbands and belt Lucy had brought in. “These look wonderful, Lucy—just like new. However did you do it?”
Lucy grinned. “Oh, papier-mâché is easy. I couldn’t afford proper gold leaf, but eventually I found some paint that produces a very good imitation. The shine won’t last long, but that won’t matter for something you wear once or twice. And if in five years’ time you want to wear it again, I’ll just paint it again. Now try it on.”