She thought for a moment, trying to form her argument as he expected her to do. “Because what is decided by men on our behalf takes no account at all of what we want, of what we know is best for us.”
“But as a man, I know what you really want and what’s best for you.”
“Really, Henry,” she choked, any notion of reasoned debate going straight out the window. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“Of course I do,” he said, his expression impassive, and yet, she knew without appreciating just how, that he was provoking her on purpose. It was working, too, for she was now furious and spluttering, and completely inarticulate.
She scowled, frustrated by the skill with which he was able to turn the discussion in his favor simply by using her own emotions against her. “This isn’t fair. You men go to university, spend four years learning and practicing how to debate—”
“I didn’t.” He grinned. “I had nine years, not four. Before Cambridge, there was Harrow. And before that, my tutors. And yes, at Cambridge, I was a master of oratory debate. Champion class four years running. So, you’re right—you are completely outmatched and outgunned. Which is a given anyway,” he added, grinning, “since I’m a man and you’re a woman. You haven’t a prayer.”
“Stuff,” she said, fully aware now that he was toying with her. “Give me over nine years of hard training at debate and oratory, and see how you fare then.”
“I’m not sure that matters. Irene, I am surrounded by women, and I can assure you, every member of your sex is well able to create an argument at the drop of a hat. It may not be a logical one—”
She remonstrated by giving him a nudge with her foot. “You know what I mean. Your sex is taught debate and oratory at university. We women are denied that opportunity.”
“Not denied it. Not always, anyway.”
“Mostly, though. It’s only allowed us if the men in our lives—who nearly always have charge of our money—will consent to pay the fees. So again, it’s our men—husbands, brothers, fathers—who decide for us how much education we receive. Most of us are allowed little more than the elementary aspects.”
He smiled. “You sound like my sister. She wanted to go to university.”
“Angela?” Irene froze, dismayed. “Henry, you didn’t refuse your sister a university education, did you? Please, tell me you did not do that.”
“No, no, not Angela. Patricia. She was mad, absolutely mad, on chemistry. She wanted to go to Girton and become a doctor. But my father—he was alive, then—would not hear of it. Bad enough if a man in our family had wanted to be a doctor, but a woman? God, no. It was a crushing disappointment for her. It broke her heart.”
Irene’s point had just been made, but she didn’t care about that just now, for she was looking into his face, and any academic debate on women’s rights and education was pushed aside. “Patricia? She died, didn’t she?”
“Two years ago, yes. She died in childbirth. Eclampsia. The baby, too.” He stirred, then gave a cough. “If you wish for women’s rights, I can assure you I would happily advocate giving women better access to university education, especially if it meant more female doctors and better medical care for your sex.”
He was clearly attempting to return the conversation to politics because it was safer for him than talking of personal loss and private pain, but Irene would not let him make that diversion. “What was she like?”
“Patricia?” He smiled, but in it there was unmistakable sadness, and she wondered how she could ever have thought this man icy or unfeeling. “I think you might be able to guess what she was like.” His smile turned wry. “You’ve met my nephews.”
Irene laughed. “Oh, dear.”
“Exactly. Pat was the most adventurous member of our family. She was always wanting to know the why and the how of everything. And she had a first-class brain. She’s a woman who would have made the world a better place, to use your argument. Well,” he amended, “except that she did almost blow up the summerhouse once.”
“Heavens. Like mother, like sons.”
“Yes. A chemistry experiment gone wrong. But despite the summerhouse incident, she was brilliant. Had she gone to Girton, she’d have loved every minute of it. Still, she loved Jamie madly and adored her boys, and she—I won’t say she got over not going to university, for one doesn’t simply get over the crushing of a lifelong dream, but she was able to be happy in spite of that loss.”
Irene nodded. “Yes. One has to go on, doesn’t one? I mean, what else is there? Other than to be like my father. He’ll”—she broke off and looked down at the breakfast plates—“he’ll kill himself with drink,” she whispered. “I know it.”
Henry grasped her chin, lifted her face. “If he does, as you are well aware, there is little you can do to stop him.”
“Yes, I know. I’ve done all I can. I used to go through his rooms every day, toss out his bottles. I’d order the servants to keep liquor from him, told the tradesmen never to bring liquor into our house, for I wouldn’t pay the bill if they did, but . . .” She shook her head. “None of it did a bit of good. Papa always managed to get drink from somewhere, and eventually, I just gave up. I accepted the fact that if a person is determined to go down a certain road, no one else can really prevent them from it.”
“I think,” he said with a sigh, “that we have both come to accept that fact about people.”
“You’re thinking of your mother, I know.” She pushed trays out of the way and rose onto her knees, moving forward to wrap her arms around his neck. “But you mustn’t worry, Henry. Her course may be perfectly right, for her and all of you. Only time will tell.”
“I can only hope you are right, for I have been forced to concede that her marriage is not my decision to make.”
“So I can win arguments with you.” She grinned. “How gratifying to know.”
“You haven’t won the one we’ve embarked upon,” he reminded her. “You still haven’t made a case for women having the vote.”
She sighed. “The problem is that any time a woman makes such a case, or even attempts to debate any issue in a public forum, we’re told that’s not womanly, dear, and to stop being so resentful and angry.”
He tilted his head, studying her. “Irene, you could stand on the street in your shirtwaist and necktie, and even—God forbid—a pair of trousers, holding a placard over your head that demands all men’s heads on platters as a policeman drags you off, and I could never think of you as unwomanly. And right now,” he added, glancing down, “when you’re not wearing much of anything, I really can’t think at all.”
At once, all her womanly instincts stirred up, but then she perceived what he was doing, and she frowned. “You are trying to distract me again.”
“Well . . .” He paused, his fingers pulling apart the edges of her dressing gown to take a peek down her bosom, “diversion is a fundamental tactic of debate.”
She slapped his hand and sat back. “It won’t work, Henry. I’m on to you now.”
“Oh, very well. Distracting both of us would have been deuced good fun. On the other hand, you are in desperate need of training in debate. Where were we?”
“You were making the preposterous argument that you are somehow entitled, by the mere fact that you are a man, to make my decisions for me.”
“So you feel that I should cede you power and give you the vote because you don’t believe I have your best interests at heart?”
“No! That’s not it at all. Oh, I wish I could make you understand. The power over my best interests isn’t yours to cede or keep, to take or give. You don’t have the right to decide what I want or what’s best for me. Only I have that right.”
“But legally, men do have that right, when it comes to the women in their care.”
“And the law is wrong. Wrong the same way slavery is wrong, and indentured servitude is wrong. I am a human being, with my own soul, my own thoughts, my own opinions, and my own will. Those things do not
belong to you, or to my father, or to my brother, or to anyone else, man or woman, and whether you agree with me or not, Henry, my destiny is mine, and the choices that determine that destiny are also mine. They are mine alone.”
He smiled. “Now that, my darling,” he said softly, “is the basis of a sound argument.”
Though her paper might speculate on the naughty doings of others, Irene had never been involved in anything naughty herself, nor had she dreamt she ever would be, but her secret assignations with Henry were so deliciously naughty that they filled her with anticipation when she wasn’t with him, and delight when she was. Perhaps it was a flaw in her character, but she found the whole thing terribly exciting. Henry did not share her view.
He regarded the secrecy of their liaison as a necessary evil. As fond as he was of discretion, he did not like secrecy. Sneaking around and midnight adventures made him very uncomfortable, and the whole prospect of being caught worried him for her sake. She also suspected he harbored some sense of guilt. He must have done, for he was so upright and moral. And yet, in their secret nights together, Irene also began to discover a great deal about the other side of his nature, the dark, sensual one he’d warned her of that night in the library.
From him, she learned that there were an amazing variety of positions in which two people could make love, and that his favorite was to have her on top so that he could see her face and stroke her breasts as she climaxed. She learned how to hold his erect penis in her hand, and how to stroke him until it drove him to the brink. She learned that lying beside him with her head resting on his bare chest was the best thing about the blissful aftermath because she loved the sound of his heartbeat. And she learned that he always reserved a room with a bathtub because he loved to help her bathe, lathering soap over her skin and caressing her, and she learned he’d been imagining that particular activity since the first night in his home when they’d talked about bathrooms.
And best of all, she learned that she could set aside any missish behavior with him, that she could take the lead any time she wanted to. It was humbling and amazing when she learned that his most fervent wish in all of this was to please her, but to her delight, she learned that it aroused and pleasured him if she told him what aroused and pleasured her. He loved hearing that.
“What about this?” he asked, his fingertips caressing the back of her bent knee.
“Hmm . . .” she murmured on a sigh, settling more deeply into the mattress beneath her, pretending indifference. “That’s nice.”
“Nice? Nice?” He kissed her shoulder. “No man can take such lukewarm commentary lying down.”
She giggled. “Henry, you are lying down.”
“Nonetheless, I take issue.” He rose, naked, and moved to the foot of the bed. “I must insist upon a full exploration of this topic.”
She lifted her head. “Exploration?”
“Oh, yes.” He smiled, his gaze locked with hers, and he grasped her ankles. Slowly, he began pulling her legs apart.
“Henry?” She felt a little thrill—anticipation mixed with a hint of alarm for she was completely naked at the moment. “What are you doing?”
“What about this?” he asked, his fingertips gliding up and down the inside of her calves and over her shins. “Do you like this?”
When she didn’t answer, he bent down, pushing her knees a bit farther apart and easing his body between them. “Or this?” He pressed a kiss to the inside of one knee, then the other, then he lifted his head. Looking into her eyes, definite purpose in his expression, he moved his body another notch higher between her thighs and slid his arms beneath her legs.
“Henry?” Her throat went dry. Her tension increased.
“What,” he asked and bent his head, “about this?”
He pressed his lips tenderly to her most intimate place, and the sensation was so piercingly sweet that she cried out. Instinctively, she squeezed her thighs. “No, no,” she wailed softly, shocked and embarrassed and aroused all at once.
He stopped and lifted his head, but she couldn’t look at him. She could only squeeze her eyes shut.
“You don’t like it?” He leaned down again, nuzzling her.
“I don’t . . . I don’t know. I’m sure it can’t be . . . oh, God, Henry, no. That’s wicked.”
She was blushing all over, she must be, for her embarrassment was so acute, she could hardly bear it. This was beyond anything they had done, beyond any sensation he’d given her yet.
“Irene,” he said, his breath warm against her dampness. “I want to do this. I want to kiss you here. I want to taste you. Let me.”
And then he did, and she gasped, a deep, shuddering gasp that jerked her hips against his mouth. “Oh, oh.”
He lifted his head again. “Should I continue?” he asked tenderly, nuzzling her, teasing her. “Do you like it? Not sure?” he added when she didn’t answer.
“Not sure,” she managed, her insides like molten jelly. “More.”
He laughed softly. “More it is.”
Her hands clenched the counterpane as he kissed her with his lips and caressed her with his tongue, tasting deeply of her, while she could only lie there, awash in sensations so exquisite she couldn’t form words to tell him so. “Oh, oh, oh,” was all she could manage, as the sweet sensations rose, peaked, and broke over her—not a new sensation, no, but more powerful, more intense, more shattering than ever before. And then it came again, and yet again, and all she could do was sob in helpless ecstasy as his shameless carnal kisses wrung every bit of pleasure from her body.
At last, he lifted his head. “I want to be inside you,” he said.
“Yes,” she panted, opening to him at once, spreading her legs wide as he moved his body on top of hers. He paused only long enough to find the red envelope, retrieve the condom—the shield that preserved her pretense of virtue. He slipped it on, and he took her, a hard, full thrust that drove the air from her lungs and made him groan.
“I can’t hold back,” he muttered against her throat as his hips rocked against hers again. “Sorry, Irene. Just can’t.”
Two more thrusts, and then, his arms were wrapping tight around her, and he came, his body shuddering with the force of his orgasm, then he collapsed, panting, on top of her.
She lay there, running her fingers through his hair, still stunned by what he’d just done. She thought of all the times this week she’d sat in her office, staring out her little window to the brick wall next door, dreaming of their next rendezvous, but no daydream she’d had, no matter how erotic, had come close to this.
I am a man possessed of deep carnal appetites.
Yes, she thought, smiling. He certainly was.
Chapter 19
Henry stirred, pressing a kiss to her hair as his hand slid between them to retrieve the condom. Hiding it in his fist, he got out of bed. Naked, he walked to the window, and while she admired the view she had, he took a look between the drawn curtains. “It’ll be daylight soon,” he said, letting the curtain fall and starting toward his own room. “We’d better dress.”
He vanished into the adjoining room as Irene got out of bed. She moved slowly, her mind drifting back again and again to what had just happened and all the other sensual experiences he’d given her during the past four nights. He really was such an unexpected man. The things he knew, especially about women. From being married, perhaps, or the others he’d been with.
Not many. Enough to know what I’m doing. Not enough to be cynical about it.
She liked that about him. Some men, particularly of the aristocracy, were notorious philanderers. He wasn’t. In fact, she thought as she reached for her corset and began to put it on, he was not one to be in the pages of her paper much at all, and when he was, the gossip about him was of the tamest variety, the occasional speculation about which young lady he’d danced with at a ball, and could she be the one he might marry, that sort of thing.
He would marry, of course. Eventually, he’d have to, wouldn’t
he?
A duke must marry a woman worthy of his position.
His words the first night she’d been in his home came back to her, and Irene’s hands stilled on the clasps of her corset busk. She was definitely not that woman.
She didn’t mind that, she told herself at once. Why, she’d scoffed at the notion of marrying him just a few days ago. They weren’t suited in any way. She knew it, and so did he.
I have a penchant, it seems, for women who are not suited to my life, and it is a life I cannot change.
Irene stared down at the floor, looking into the future, and it was a bleak point of view. She didn’t know how long this affair would last, but it would end. And then what would happen? She hadn’t allowed herself to think about that. During the past few days, she hadn’t thought about anything beyond the night ahead, and now she knew why she hadn’t indulged in that sort of speculation.
What would happen was inevitable. He would find someone suitable, and she would go back to the life she’d had before she’d met him, a life with work she loved in a world she understood. A life without him.
Irene felt suddenly dismal.
“Lord, Irene,” Henry said, his voice breaking into her thoughts as he reentered her room and scooped up his studs from her dressing table, “is that as far as you’ve got? We really must hurry. It’ll be light soon. And I’ve got to have at least a bit of sleep, for I’ve heaps of things to do before I leave for the country.”
He was leaving today for Hampshire. Another thing she hadn’t allowed herself to think about. Her corset fastened, she stopped dressing and turned, following him as far as the door as he returned to his own room. “What time is your train?”
“Two o’clock, out of Victoria.” He dropped his studs onto his dressing table, then reached for his collar.
The Truth About Love and Dukes Page 26