Oh, she was good, knew exactly where to stick the knife. “I don’t understand why it requires marriage. It requires only an investor.”
“A man can be both. As a matter of fact, he will be more committed if he is both. And a woman is better able to control a husband than a stakeholder.”
“I don’t want a man I can control. I want an equal partner.”
Mama scoffed. “There’s no such thing. Within a marriage, a woman holds power. Men are simple creatures, easily manipulated because of their animalistic needs. You let them have what they require of you and in exchange they keep you happy. You will marry, Leonora. You will do your duty by this family. No more of these excursions to clubs.”
She was so tempted to tell her mother to go to the devil. But her father had placed the woman in her keeping.They’ll depend on you when I’m gone. They haven’t your fortitude, your cunning, or your willingness to do what must be done.
What must be done, she was beginning to fear, was to give up her own dreams for another’s.
Chapter 18
The following afternoon, Leonora sat at a small table in the hotel garden sipping tea with the Earl of Camberley. He’d arrived with a bouquet of ten red roses in hand.You’re perfectwas the message that shade and number represented, according to her mother, who’d apparently become an expert on the various ways couples communicated without words in a prim and proper society that did not allow emotions to reign. While Mama explained the message of the flowers as she handed them off to her maid to be placed in a vase, Leonora had been tempted to ask, “What message is a man sending when his face is buried between your thighs?”
But, of course, she hadn’t dared because there was no way to explain how she’d even imagined such an act without experiencing it and that would have created an entire host of complications. She’d no doubt find herself locked in her bedchamber as she’d been when she’d taken her father’s watch apart. And this time, she wouldn’t stretch out on her bed, close her eyes, and think about all the tiny gears she’d uncovered. No, she’d think about how Rook had effectively taken her apart, reduced her to quivering need, and reassembled her into a wanton. Because she wantedhim again. Had woken up yearning for the release he could provide.
Sitting across from Camberley, she wondered if he could detect a difference in her since they’d danced at that ball a couple of nights back. Did a woman who had cried out a lover’s name in ecstasy carry a different scent than a young girl? It just seemed to her that a man should be able to look at a woman and simplyknowthat she wasn’t as she’d been before.
Which made her acknowledge that what she’d done was so terribly wrong that even nature didn’t want anyone to know she’d done it.
With a watchful eye, her mother sat a short distance away, not even bothering to pretend that she wasn’t analyzing each movement made, wasn’t striving to determine his purpose and potential.
Lord Camberley was handsome. She couldn’t deny him that truth. His lips were a little thinner than she liked. Good Lord, she’d only ever kissed one set of lips, and while they were plumper than his, how did sheknowthey were her preference? Shouldn’t a lady have an assortment of lips pressed against her own, closing around a nipple, tugging on an earlobe? To determine her favorite by sampling, as one did sweets?
Although perhaps the shape of the lips made no difference whatsoever. Perhaps the difference was due exclusively to the talents of the deliverer. So again, shouldn’t a lady have numerous examples from which to choose?
The problem was, there was an elusive aspect to a man, undefinable, that formed an attraction. Because in spite of his fetching features, she couldn’t, for the life of her, imagine kissing Lord Camberley. Or even wanting to.
But from the moment Rook had walked through that door the first night at the Elysium, she’d wanted his lips on hers. Not because she’d known that was his purpose in being there. But because the sight of him had caused her heart to skip a beat, her body to grow warm, and she’d felt she was falling, and he alone held the power to stop her descent and send her flying.
With these fanciful thoughts, she was beginning to wonder if the hotel added absinthe to their tea. She was a practical not whimsical sort.
“How do you like England thus far, Miss Garrison?” he asked.
That seemed to be the unoriginal question with which everyone began a conversation. “You seem to have an inordinate number of rules over here.”
He chuckled lightly. “I suppose we do.”
“Do you always obey them?”
“Not so much in my youth, to be honest, but of late... I have found rewards in doing so.”
She suspected one of those rewards included not having to deal with an angry Aiden Trewlove. “Have you ever been to the Elysium Club? I believe your brother-by-marriage owns it.”
“He does. I haven’t. He’s not allowed any gentleman of thetoninside. It’s for ladies only, and he does all he can to protect their reputations.”
But he had allowed entry to a lord. One he trusted with his secrets. One she trusted with hers. How had it come about that so quickly she’d known he’d not betray her? “Would you allow your sisters to go there, then?”
He laughed heartily. “To be honest, that’s where Selena met Aiden. I encouraged her to go.”
Striving not to look too triumphant, she glancedover at her mother, whose eyes had narrowed into suspicious slits.
“But Aiden Trewlove is not a lord,” Mama finally ground out.
Camberley looked taken aback—either by Mama’s tone or the fact she’d intruded on their conversation. “No. Son of one, but not one himself.”
“I doubt Mrs. Astor would allow him in her ballroom in New York,” she continued.
