“Pain?” Helen pulled back from him. “What pain?”
“Virgin’s pain.” He gave her an alert glance. “You don’t know about that?”
She shook her head tensely.
Rhys looked perturbed. “It’s said to be trifling. It’s . . . Damn it, don’t women talk about these things? No? What about when you began your monthly bleeding? How was that explained to you?”
“My mother never mentioned anything. I didn’t expect it at all. It was . . . disconcerting.”
“Disconcerting?” he repeated dryly. “It probably frightened the wits out of you.” To her astonishment, he pulled her toward him slowly, until she was cuddled against his hard chest, her head on his shoulder. Unused to being handled so familiarly, she remained tense in his embrace. “What did you do when it happened?” she heard him ask.
“Oh—I can’t discuss that with you.”
“Why not?”
“It wouldn’t be decent.”
“Helen,” he said after a moment, “I’m well acquainted with the realities of life, including the basic workings of a woman’s body. No doubt a gentleman wouldn’t ask. But we both know that’s not an issue where I’m concerned.” He tucked a kiss into the soft space just beneath her ear. “Tell me what happened.”
Realizing that he wasn’t going to relent, she forced herself to answer. “I awakened one morning with . . . with stains on my nightgown and the sheets. My tummy hurt dreadfully. When I realized the bleeding wasn’t going to stop, I was very frightened. I thought I was going to die. I went to hide in a corner of the reading room. Theo found me. Usually he was away at boarding school, but he had come home on holiday. He asked why I was crying, and I told him.” Helen paused, remembering her late brother with a mixture of fondness and grief. “Most of the time Theo was distant with me. But he was very kind that day. He gave me a folded handkerchief to . . . to put where I needed. He found a lap blanket to wrap around my waist, and helped me back to my room. After that, he sent a housemaid to explain what was happening, and how to use—” She broke off in embarrassment.
“Sanitary towels?” he prompted.
Her humiliated voice was muffled against the shoulder of his waistcoat. “How do you know about those?”
She felt a smile nudge against her ear. “They’re sold in the store’s apothecary department. What else did the housemaid tell you?”
Despite her nerves, Helen felt herself relaxing into his embrace. It was impossible not to. He was very large and warm, and there was such a nice smell about him, a mixture of peppermint and shaving soap and a pleasant resinous dryness like freshly cut wood. A thoroughly masculine fragrance that was somehow exciting and comforting at the same time.
“She said that one day, after I was married and shared a bed with my husband, the bleeding would stop for a time, and a baby would grow.”
“But she mentioned nothing about how babies are made in the first place?”
Helen shook her head. “Only that they’re not found underneath a gooseberry bush, as the nanny always said.”
Rhys looked down at her with a mixture of concern and exasperation. “Are all young women of high rank kept so ignorant about such matters?”
“Most,” she admitted. “It’s for the husband to decide what his bride should know, and instruct her on the wedding night.”
“My God. I can’t decide which of them to pity more.”
“The bride,” she said without hesitation.
For some reason that made him chuckle. Feeling her stiffen, he hugged her more tightly. “No, my treasure, I’m not laughing at you. It’s only that I’ve never explained the sexual act to anyone before . . . and I’m damned if I can think of a way to make it sound appealing.”
“Oh dear,” Helen whispered.
“It won’t be terrible. I promise. You might even like some of it.” He pressed his cheek to the top of her head, and spoke with cajoling softness. “It might be best if I explain as we go along, aye?” He waited patiently until he felt her incremental nod. “Come to bed, then.”
Willing but reluctant, Helen accompanied him to the bed, discovering that her legs had turned to jelly. She tried to climb beneath the covers quickly.
“Wait.” Rhys caught one of her ankles and tugged her back toward him deftly, while he remained standing at the side of the bed.
Helen turned a fearful shade of red. All that kept her from complete nakedness was a pair of stockings, a cambric chemise, and drawers with an open crotch seam.
Holding her stocking-clad ankle, Rhys ran one hand slowly over her shin. A frown notched between his brows as he saw that the knit cotton had been darned in several places. “A rough, poor stocking it is,” he murmured, “for such a pretty leg.” His hand traveled up to the garter cinched around her thigh. Since the stockinet bands had lost their elasticity, it was necessary to buckle the garter so tightly around her leg that it usually left a red ridge by the end of the day.
After unfastening the buckle, Rhys found a ring of chafed skin around her thigh. His frown deepened, and he let out a disapproving breath. “Wfft.”
Helen had heard him make the Welsh sound on previous occasions, when something had displeased him. After unrolling the stocking and casting it aside with distaste, he began on the other leg.
“I’ll need those stockings later,” Helen said, disconcerted to see her belongings handled so cavalierly.
“I’ll replace them with new ones. And decent garters to go with them.”
“My own stockings and garters are perfectly serviceable.”
“They’ve left marks on your legs.” After deftly knotting the second stocking into a ball, he turned and cast it toward the open grate. It landed perfectly into the fire and flared into a bright yellow blaze.
“Why did you burn it?” Helen asked in dawning outrage.
“It wasn’t good enough for you.”
“It was mine!”
To her vexation, Rhys seemed not all repentant. “Before you leave, I’ll give you a dozen pair. Will that satisfy you?”
“No.” She looked away with a frown.
“It was a worthless cotton stocking,” he said derisively, “mended in a dozen places. I’ll wager the scullery maid in my kitchen wears better.”
Having learned forbearance over the years, from her role as the peacemaker in the Ravenel family, Helen held her tongue and counted to ten—twice—before she trusted herself to reply. “I have very few stockings,” she told him. “Instead of buying new ones, I chose to mend them and use my pin money for books. Perhaps that scrap of cloth had no value to you, but it did to me.”
Rhys was silent, his brows drawing together. Helen assumed that he was preparing for further argument. She was more than a little surprised when he said quietly, “I’m sorry, Helen. I didn’t stop to think. I had no right to destroy something that belonged to you.”
Knowing that he was not a man often given to apologizing, or humbling himself, Helen felt her annoyance fade. “You’re forgiven.”
“From now on I’ll treat your possessions with respect.”
She smiled wryly. “I won’t come to you with many possessions, other than two hundred potted orchids.”