When Clara didn’t answer right away, Sophia regarded her warily. “Clara, what did you do? Are you all right?”
The room seemed to be spinning. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“Thank goodness.”
“But I was very lucky,” Clara said.
“How so? What do you mean?”
Her cheeks flushed with heat at the mere memory of what had occurred with the handsome stranger. “I danced with a man who was very charming. He took me for a glass of punch.”
“That punch,” Sophia said quietly, “is pure Jamaican rum, with a little juice added for color.”
“I only had a few sips,” Clara explained. “But then he took me to look at a painting, and we lingered there awhile. He was very handsome and—”
“Clara, what did you do?”
“Nothing!” she insisted. “Or rather…something. I went with him into the shadows under the stairs.”
Sophia went pale. “Did he kiss you?”
Clara’s inability to answer the question was all that needed to be said. She gazed at her sister imploringly.
“Was it awful?” Sophia asked.
“Oh no, it was nothing like that,” Clara replied. “But that’s what makes this so confounding.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Even when I knew it was wrong, Iwantedhim to kiss me. How is it possible that I could have risked my reputation like that? Again? I thought I’d learned my lesson.”
Sophia took Clara’s hand. “Hush, now. I know how important it is to you, to be cautious and prudent. But take heart. It could have been worse. He might have believed that you wanted more than just a kiss.”
“I think he did believe it. At first anyway.”
“But you told him otherwise? And he accepted that?”
“He was surprised,” Clara explained, “but as soon as he discovered I was an innocent debutante, he marched me straight back to Mrs. Gunther and insisted that we leave.”
Sophia shook her head in disbelief. “You were very fortunate to have met that man,Clara, whoever he was. Others might not have been so understanding.”
“That’s exactly what he said.”
They stood in silence, listening to the orchestra play a minuet. Finally, Clara’s heart rate slowed.
“It was like some kind of dream world,” she said. “What are these Cakras Balls?”
Sophia glanced over her shoulder to ensure that no one was listening. “The Cakras Society is a secret club that no one is supposed to speak about outside of the gatherings, so I must be discreet. They hold balls where the guests may leave the dance floor to engage in trysts in the bedrooms of the house. The MWO stands for ‘married women only,’ and all social rules are relaxed in favor of anonymity and liberation, but most importantly, in favor of pleasure.”
Clara stared dumbfounded at her sister. “Do husbands and wives go there together?”
“Some do, but I suspect that most who attend keep their spouses in the dark.”
“That’s appalling. You mean to tell me that every person I saw there tonight was being unfaithful to a spouse?”
“Not all of them,” Sophia replied. “As I said, some married couples go together, and many single gentlemen attend.”
“But how doyouknow about it, Sophia?”
Her sister colored. “James was a member of the society before we met.”
“James, yourhusband?”
