“I am sorry, Miss Ansley.” Though he spoke gently, the apology carried a weight that stilled the air between them. She could only look at him, pulse quickening.
He went on, his tone rough, low enough that only she could hear above Margaret’s distant singing. “Though nothing I saycan convey how sorry I am. I understand if you wish to find another post. No doubt you should. I would not blame you.”
Her stomach lurched. Another post? For a wild instant she thought he meant to cast her out, to send her away in disgrace. “You mean—” The question cracked, barely audible. “You mean I am to be dismissed?”
Something flickered in his expression, swift and raw. He shook his head sharply. “No. God forbid. Never that. I meant only—if you chose to leave, I would not stand in your way.”
Relief surged so swiftly it left her dizzy. He would not be so cruel as to turn her out for his own transgression. And his transgression… had seared her. She still bore the mark of him from the night before: his hungry mouth, his rough fingers against her tender flesh. The heat of it burned on.
She no longer knew whether she feared dishonor—or longed for it. The confession rose before she could stop it, spilling out in a rush.
“Do not be sorry, my lord,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “I know now the passion in Byron’s verses—and what ruinous effect it may have. I know its appeal. And I know why it is so dangerous…” She forced the words out, a kind of desperate courage lending them strength. “…Because it is not in our nature to resist it.”
The silence that followed seemed to press against her skin. His eyes searched hers, dark, intent, as if he scarcely believed what he had heard. She held still, afraid to shatter the moment.
Then he moved—closer, only a fraction, but enough that she felt the warmth of him, enough that the world seemed to tilt. His face bent toward hers, hesitant yet fervent, until his lips brushed hers—light, startled, no more than the faintest touch.
And in that instant—“William! William, look!” Margaret’s voice rang through the trees, bright as a bell. The spell broke.
He pulled back at once, jaw tightening, composure snapping into place. Jane’s breath hitched, her heart pounding wild. Before she could gather her thoughts, Margaret came running, arms full of daisies, triumphant with her floral spoils, smiling in innocent delight.
* * *
William did not trust himself alone with her again. He avoided the library altogether, filling his days with long rides through the park, overseeing the grooms, testing the new hunters—and, most of all, with Margaret. Charlotte was lost in her endless correspondence to London and in ruling over the small circle of neighbors, dispensing favor and censure as it pleased her. She had never cared much for their younger sister. So he took it upon himself to see the child was not forgotten.
Each morning, he gave her riding lessons—steadying her hands on the reins, guiding her with patience, praising her small triumphs until her whole face lit up. She looked up at him with such adoration it startled him, as though a single word of approval had made her rich for life.
Yet even with his hours so occupied, her words haunted him still:it is not in our nature to resist it. God help him, she was right. He had known passion before—had spent himself on it, reveled in nights with countless women so skilled in the arts of love they might have put Venus to shame. He had never felt like this. With Jane, it was not only the allure—the ripe fullness—of her body, though God knew hers tempted him sorely. It was the mind that met his in argument, the quiet conviction in her voice as she spoke without fear or shame, and above all the tenderness she poured upon Margaret. That mixture—intellect, virtue, and desire bound together—was what made her dangerous. And so he must resist her.
Jane, for her part, was curious. What drove passion—about Byron, about the new poets, about all the voices who spoke tooplainly of love and forbidden longing. But this… this thing that drew her to his lordship so fiercely it unsettled her bones, this instinct that felt both natural and damning at once. It was her undoing. She buried herself in the library as though the books might hold an answer.
She began to read the ancients not only for their histories but for their wisdom on the ways of men and women. Somewhere she had seen it written—in Ovid, she thought—that even the wisest bowed to seduction. Turning at last to the library’s index, her finger traced the neat lines until she found it: Ovid, Ars Amatoria.
The book was there indeed, in one neat volume that gathered all three works, its calfskin spine rubbed smooth with use. She carried it to the desk, heart quickening as she opened it. The Latin verses were dense, teasing, sly. Ovid did not sermonize so much as instruct, his couplets dancing around where to linger in the theater, how to slip a note unseen, how to coax a lover to yield. Not philosophy, not quite poetry either, but something far more dangerous: wit turned toward conquest. She read with parted lips, half shocked, half entranced, astonished that classical texts could speak so openly of pleasure.
She turned another leaf, and another—her pulse quickening with every line. If Ovid had written so boldly already, what wickedness lay still ahead? But then, without warning, the script shifted. Gone was the Latin. In its place, plain English words marched in thick black ink:
“Madam, I sit down to give you an undeniable proof of my considering your desires as indispensable orders…”
Jane blinked, certain at first it was some trick of her eye. She checked the title again, then the running head. No: this was no Ovid. These were not ancient verses at all. Someone had hidden another work within the binding, passing as the poet until a reader came far enough to discover it. Probably oneof Lady Charlotte’s hidden texts. But then, her breath caught, heat rushing to her cheeks as she read the words on the page:Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.
Chapter 13
Jane bent lower over the volume, scarcely daring to breathe. At first she thought she would read only a page or two, enough to satisfy her curiosity before returning it to its hiding place. She needed answers tested by time, and had no patience for whatever fancy this was. But the words clung to her, line after line drawing her deeper into the secret world they described. One thing was certain: this book did not belong to Lady Charlotte.
All her life, she had been taught that the marital act was a duty—a gift a woman gave only to her husband, a burden borne for the sake of children and family. Yet here, before her eyes, was an entirely different vision: a woman who not only yielded but gloried in the yielding, who sought pleasure and found it in abandon.
The first encounter had shocked her—the girl’s innocence given up with pain, the boldness with which she described her own body and her lover’s. If such pain awaited, how could any woman desire it? And yet, when the words turned to rapture, unashamed and unrestrained, she flushed scarlet. She kept reading with parted lips, heart hammering, her thighs pressed tightly together.
Then, so swiftly, came another chapter, another descent. Her lover lost to her, and a man of wealth, older, took the girl into comfort, into silks and fine apartments. She did not love him, Jane read in shock. And yet she confessed to taking satisfaction—even without affection. Her hand wavered as she drew the page nearer, scarcely believing such a thing could be admitted.
And then, her lover’s servant. A boy untried, yet shockingly endowed. She faltered, stunned by the vivid account: the size of his manhood, the aching stretch, the sting that gave way to ecstasy. Fanny wrote of it with awe and delight—of how it hurt, and how she begged for more. Jane pressed her lips together to stifle a gasp. The lines burned through her until she thought she might swoon.
When the tale turned darker, when Fanny was discovered and sent into the keeping of women who sold themselves as trade, Jane thought she would cast the book aside in horror. But even then—God forgive her—she read on, bewitched. There was no apology, no shame. The girl embraced what she was, taking and giving pleasure with a freedom Jane had never imagined possible.
Her father’s sermons on restraint, on piety, on the careful bridling of human appetite—what mockery they seemed now. No prayer could steady her, no moral precept extinguish the fire racing through her blood. She closed the volume with trembling fingers, pressing her hot palms against the leather as though to keep the words from searing her further.
She shoved it back onto the shelf and all but fled the library, her breath ragged, cheeks flaming as though the world itself could see what she had done. The corridor outside felt cool and merciless, but the pounding of her heart only worsened.
