by Jenna Jaxon
“She’s not. Well, not at first.” Worse and worse. “At first I refused to go to her.”
Dalbury’s eyebrows shot up as his eyes widened. “Why in God’s name?”
“I wanted us to be better acquainted.”
“Bedding a woman makes you acquainted rather quickly.” Dalbury rose and headed for the sideboard.
“It might have done, I agree. However if you remember, I told you at the time she reminded me very much of Kat.”
“What difference would that make?” Dalbury unstoppered the decanter and poured two hefty glasses.
Jack rose and followed him to the sideboard. “If you’d married a woman who reminded you of Juliet, how eager would you be to crawl into bed with her?”
Dalbury stopped in the midst of handing him a glass. “Point taken.”
“Just so.” Eagerly grabbing the glass, Jack sipped the brandy and his tension ebbed somewhat. Despite the early hour, he had needed this.
Swirling his drink, Dalbury fixed his stare on Jack. “And have you overcome this aversion to your wife now?”
“Yes, I have. Don’t ask me how, but one day I realized she’s as different from Kat as she is similar. Suddenly, it didn’t matter anymore.”
“Still, you didn’t bed her.” A tic began to jump in Dalbury’s left eye.
“I did try. In a carriage.” Jack took a long pull at his drink, avoiding Dalbury’s eyes.
“A carriage?” His brother-in-law looked ready to throttle him. “Why in God’s name would you do that? I’ll admit, it’s adventuresome, but you might have had a care for her comfort and condition.”
“Yes, well, I realized that rather too late. I hurt her and made her very angry. I was afraid to go near her for days.” Recalling the night set Jack’s teeth on edge. How had he been so green and stupid?
“You hurt her? Manning, what were you about? How did you manage to hurt her?” His eyes darkened. “Did you do it on purpose?”
“No!” Christ. “I hurt her because I didn’t know what I was doing.” He shot an embarrassed look straight at his brother-in-law. “I’d never done anything like that before.”
“Oh, come now, Manning.” An indulgent smile flickered across the man’s face. “You want me to believe you’ve never had a woman before?”
“Yes. It’s the truth.”
Laughter filled the room as Dalbury threw his head back and yelped. “Come on, Jack. Tell me what the problem is and I will see if I can help you.”
Giving up all pretense of secrecy, Jack looked him in the eyes and simply said, “I’m a virgin.”
The amusement slowly left Dalbury’s face, replaced by shock at the realization Jack spoke the truth. Eyes staring, his mouth dropped open, then closed, then opened again, like a carp hauled out of the pond gasping for air. “You’re joking.”
“Don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.” Running his hand around the back of his neck, where the tension had produced two knots, Jack looked away from Dalbury’s astonished stare.
“But you’re how old?”
“Twenty-three next month.” Jack glared at the man he’d come to respect, though that respect had slipped a notch just now. “When did you first—”
“Thirteen.”
“’Sblood.” He looked the man up and down. “In truth?”
Dalbury nodded. “A kitchen maid took a fancy to me.” He shrugged. “When my father found out, he sacked the maid and striped me until I couldn’t sit down properly for a week.” His eyes glinted with amusement. “Of course, that didn’t stop me at all from continuing on that way every chance I got.”
“At thirteen I barely knew what a cock was for other than to piss with.” His youth had been spent in Virginia, with the men of his father’s regiment, learning how to wield a sword.
“You did eventually figure out what else you use it for, didn’t you?” Still shaking his head, Dalbury sipped his brandy slowly.
“I did, though some years later.”
“Yet you didn’t think to satisfy your curiosity?” That glint of amusement in the marquess’s eyes had begun to annoy Jack.
“I might very well have done, had I not overheard a conversation between my father and his aide-de-camp.” Closing his eyes, Jack would see his father’s office, the long table strewn with maps, toy soldiers and cannon he used when plotting strategy. “I’d been sent to fetch Father home, I was about sixteen, and stepped into the antechamber of the building where he had his office. Before I could announce my presence, I overheard Father speaking in an angry voice. He said, ‘Roberts is dead?’” Jack shrugged. “I didn’t know who he was talking to, so I peered through a crack in the door. And saw Sergeant Evans, my father’s aide.”
“Who was Roberts?” Dalbury’s voice had softened, as if suddenly interested.
“One of Father’s captains, like Amiable, uh, Morley. Captain George Roberts, he was. A gentleman I’d looked up to. He’d given me fencing lessons ever since I was ten.” Jack took a swallow of the brandy. The memory was still fresh so many years later. “Then Father said, ‘I’ll write to his parents. They’ll want to know.’ When Evans asked, ‘Will you tell them how he died?’ Father said, ‘No, I’ll say he was wounded in the most recent action and succumbed to his wounds. No need to tell them about the French pox.’”
“Ah.” Dalbury nodded, as though understanding dawned.
“It was the first time I’d heard the words, so I didn’t know what he meant.” With a shudder, Jack downed his drink. “However, the look of pure disgust on my father’s face made me think it must be the worst possible way to die. Later, I asked Evans what it was and he told me it was a dread disease you caught if you lay with a woman who wasn’t pure.”
“So you let that fear keep your cock untutored?” Dalbury sat in front of him, the grin splitting his face.
“I thought about bedding a woman several times,” Jack said, squeezing the empty glass. “I’d go to the King’s Arms and watch the buxom barmaids flirt with the men. Sometimes they flirted with me and I’d grow so hard I thought sure I’d burst right there. Then I’d think about Roberts and I’d go as limp as three-day-old lettuce.”
“Not every woman has the pox, you know. You could have found a willing lass who was a maid herself, or even better a widow.”
“Why are widows better?”
“No pain or fuss about virginity.” Dalbury’s mouth puckered in his attempt to stem the laughter.
“I guess I might have done that, but remember, I had Kat tagging along with me most of the time. Not a chance of a seduction with her around. And of course, the rector seemed to preach against fornication every other Sunday in church. Not only did I think I’d have a swift death, but a swift path to hell as well.”
Dalbury chuckled. “You did have a bad time of it, didn’t you?” He rose. “Another?”
Jack waved the offer away. “I need to keep a clear head. Alethea may need me.”
Nodding, Dalbury set his glass on the sideboard. “So you have told me this because you suspect your wife may have the pox?”
“Lord no.” Unless… “You don’t think she does, do you?”
Dalbury shrugged. “It is possible. Her seducer couldn’t have used a French letter. And why would he if he suspected she was a virgin? Still, unless we know the scoundrel’s identity, we won’t have a clue about his past indiscretions.”
Dropping his head into his hands, Jack groaned.
“I wouldn’t worry about it over much. If it wasn’t Murchison—and she did say the man was married—I doubt it. I know the crowd Braeton runs with and have heard nothing of a couple so afflicted.”
“That’s a relief, though I hadn’t given it a thought. No, I came to ask your advice on how…how to please Alethea in bed.”
Dalbury’s eyebrows shot up and he grimaced. “You didn’t think to just g
o ahead and figure it out together? It’s really not difficult.”
“The one time I tried that, in the carriage, I was too eager and so…too rough. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Well, a carriage would be an obstacle, but surely you know what to do.”
“I know what to do for me,” Jack said, testily. “Obviously I don’t know what to do to her or for her. That’s what I want you to tell me. What do women like in the bedchamber? How can I give her the same pleasure I seek?”
“You want me to tell you what I do when I bed my wife? Are you mad?” Dalbury’s steely stare should have skewered him. “Do you really want to know, when you are with your wife, you are doing the same things I am doing with your sister?”
“God, no.” Heat seared Jack’s face to the tips of his ears. “I hadn’t thought about…no. I thought perhaps what you had done with Madame Vestry, or with a mistress, would be different.”
“So you would treat your wife like a mistress, not like a wife?” The amusement returned to Dalbury’s visage, his grin splitting his face.
“No, but…I thought…” The heat in his face intensified. “Are they really so different?”
Dalbury’s laughter filled the study. “That is the problem, Manning, there is no difference to begin with. There are things you can do with a woman in bed to give her pleasure that are no different for a wife or a courtesan. Other things she does for you though, then there are differences. A mistress is there solely to give you pleasure. If you please her in return—through gifts as much as through physical pleasure—she will see to your every taste, every need. A wife may do that, but all women are different. No matter what I tell you, once you are in bed with your wife, you two will each have to learn what pleases the other.”
“But you will tell me what to do? To begin with, at least?” Jack sprang out of his chair and paced. “I don’t want to hurt her again. Not after what she’s been through.” He faced Dalbury. “Will you help me?”
Hiding his smile, his brother-in-law sobered. “I will, though you may not like the advice.”
“Whatever it is, I will do it.” At last he would learn what to do to make Alethea understand that he loved her. Desired only her.
“Go to Madame Vestry’s.”
“What?” Jack’s jaw fell agape. “No, I told you—”
“Listen first.” Dalbury rose and strode over to Jack. “Go to the House of Pleasure. Ask for Madame Vestry herself. She’ll cost you more than you’d like to pay, but I guarantee she will teach you what pleasures you and what pleasures you can give a woman. Trust me.” Dalbury clamped a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “I know what I’m talking about.”
Jack opened his mouth to protest again, but closed it without uttering a sound. His brother-in-law was right. Vestry’s reputation as a lover was bandied about all over London. Many men had boasted of enjoying her charms, yet he’d heard no complaints from any of them. Nor was any sickness spoken of at her house. There would be plenty of time for him to learn while Alethea was recovering.
It sickened him to think that as his wife remained chaste in her bed, he would be out being unfaithful to her. Still, it seemed the only way for him to become the lover she had always thought him to be.
Chapter 20
The carriage turned the corner into St. James Park and Jack leaned forward in his seat, eager to be home at last. Their arrival at the London townhouse filled Jack with an awareness of homecoming he’d never quite experienced here before. A sense of having come through the fire and emerging, a little singed but whole, on the other side. “We’re home.”
He and Alethea had remained a further three weeks in the countryside at Merrywell, as Alethea recovered her strength. She had protested after the first week that she was perfectly well to ride in a carriage. The dark circles under her eyes and the pallid complexion told a different story. Jack had insisted, so they remained until yesterday, then set out after breakfast, the well wishes of Dalbury, Kat, Juliet and Morley sounding like bells in the brisk March wind.
Separate sleeping quarters last night had changed the roses in Alethea’s cheeks to a colorless mask of resentment. She had likely thought they would share a bed, and they could have done, but he didn’t trust her to not try to seduce him during the night. And against his better judgment, he probably would have succumbed to her myriad charms. However, he was determined she would be in perfect health when he began his seduction of her.
And seduce her he would.
The carriage rolled to a stop in front of his townhouse. This place, their home, would be the ideal one to begin their true married life. His desire for her grew every day. A look or a laugh from her, the way she shyly dropped her gaze when she knew he was looking at her, all made him intoxicated with her. Before he even knew it, they had begun little flirtations with one another.
The first one had occurred when he took her a tray of soup and toast not long after her ordeal. He’d insisted on taking the tray himself, wanting to be near her, but not to seem overly anxious. After assisting her to sit up, he set the tray on her lap and made a big show of tucking her napkin into her nightgown, adjusting everything on the tray, even moved the silverware slightly, just to be able to linger in the room.
At last, in exasperation, Alethea had given him a curtain lecture. “Will you stop fussing about, Jack? I don’t need you to wait on me as if I were an addlepated fool, unable to put a spoonful of soup in my mouth.”
“I am certain you are capable of that and much more, my lady,” he’d said, smiling as he adjusted the tray once more. “However, I have strict instructions from his lordship that I am to attend to your every need or he will darken my daylights. He blames me, and rightly so, for your current condition. I should have horsewhipped you before allowing you to ride while you were increasing.”
“As if you could have stopped me,” she’d muttered, glancing away and playing with the toast squares.
“You think not?” His spirits had soared when her pallid complexion had grown rosy red. “We shall see who walks and who rides when next we take to the road.”
The spirited conversation had convinced him that he and his wife could come to an amicable accord, if they could put the specter of their wedding night, and that great debacle on the way home from Castle Selham, behind them.
He still cringed when he thought of that night.
A woman had the right to expect her husband to have experience in the bedchamber. Well, before he claimed Alethea’s bed, he was damn well going to have some kind of experience. Dalbury’s advice had sat ill, but he had proven invaluable in other more tangible ways.
Jack jumped to the ground, then offered his hand to Alethea, who took it with a wary glance. He seized her about the waist and twirled her to the ground. “Welcome home, my dear.”
“Jack.” She slapped at his arms, laughing as she did so.
London had just experienced a downpour and now the air smelled fresh, the scents of the city filling his nose—and hers he hoped—with smells of spring: new grass, early buds, and horses whose bodies steamed in the brisk wind.
“Are you glad to be home, my dear?” he asked as he placed his hand on the small of her back, shepherding her toward the short steps of the portico.
She gave him an appraising look, wary at first, then softening into a smile. “I am, my lord. We have been absent too long. I am ready to begin my work as mistress of the house and make it a home you will be proud of.” She dropped her gaze and murmured, “I promised you I would make you a good wife.”
He tugged her closer. “I never doubted it, my dear.”
The staff welcomed them back and Jack escorted Alethea to her chamber. “Refresh yourself, love. I will look forward to seeing you at dinner.” With a kiss to her hand that set his lips aflame, he turned and strode back down the corridor. He had a plan to be implemented as soon as he got to his chamber. His pace increased
until he was almost running for the earl’s suite. Once there, he opened the valise his valet had deposited on the bed and withdrew a volume Dalbury had pressed upon him the day before his departure.
“Fanny Hill,” Dalbury had said, putting the small, leather-bound book into his hand. “This opened my eyes rather widely ten or so years ago. It should give you some ideas at least of what men and women do in the marriage—or any other—bed for that matter.” Dalbury had chuckled and walked out.
Jack had had no time to even glance at the book since then. Now, he would find out what a woman wanted during a good bedding. He settled before the fire, his long legs stretched toward the blaze, and opened the slim, green marbled cover.
The crackling fire sent streams of heat over Jack, his gaze glued to the first pages of the volume. Then, as he turned page after page, his own veins seemed filled with fire. His shaft grew harder than the iron poker leaning against the fireplace. Despite his definite arousal, he was able to put his urges aside enough to discern some of the things Fanny said made her feel good. It seemed almost all parts of a woman’s body were made for pleasure. He’d had the right idea, simply a lack of execution.
He closed The Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure before he got carried away. Reading about the intimate acts was arousing—he didn’t think he’d ever been so aroused before—but just reading about it wouldn’t serve him as well as actually going back to the House of Pleasure and buying an evening with a woman who would guide him. And not just any woman.
Amorina Vestry.
Like fencing, you needed instruction from a master and lots of practice in order to become a fine swordsman. Or a good lover.
Dalbury’s former mistress was the most notorious woman in London. Once she welcomed him to her bed, he’d be virgin no longer. Did he want that? Which would be the greater gift for Alethea? His virginity or his experience?
There were good reasons to come to his marriage a virgin. Alethea would know he’d never lain with anyone other than her. In that he would honor her more than any other gift could. Of course, she might laugh at such a sacrifice. Most women expected their husbands to be thoroughly well versed in the arts of love. To tell his wife he had no experience might be to expose himself to a lifetime of ridicule. What if it got back to his friends? He might be blacklisted at White’s.