Harriet threw the covers off and stood. She nodded once, as if affirming her own courage, threw back her shoulders, and stalked across her bedchamber to the door of his dressing room.
She wrenched the door open with rather too much force, sending it flying back into the wall with a loudthump. Embarrassed, she grabbed at the door to still it, and only then looked up to find, asshe’d guessed—imagined? Dearly, dearly hoped?—Alexander shirtless and removing his boots. She sent up a small prayer of thanks that his valet hadn’t been there, an outcome she hadn’t even remembered was possible until that moment.
He looked up at her, apparently unmoved by her clamorous entrance, as if he’d been waiting calmly for her to burst into his dressing room.
“Good evening, dear wife,” he said, with an ironic twist of his mouth. He said nothing more, waiting for her to speak.
Under normal circumstances, the idea of conveying any of the necessary information to him would have been mortifying. As it was, she hadn’t the time nor inclination for embarrassment.
“I require your help,” she said, her hands firmly grasping the doorframe to give them something to do now that they were no longer between her legs.
“Is there a spider in your room? Has your fire gone out? Is your bell pull no longer working?”
“I cannot reach my peak,” she blurted.
Alexander went entirely still, his nostrils flared dangerously, and his pupils, already large in the dim light, seemed to swallow his eyes.
“I want to make certain I have heard you correctly,” he ventured, carefully.
“I need your help. Again.”
He rose to his feet immediately and gestured toward her room. “After you, my lady.”
Harriet had expected reluctance or further inquiry, or at least for him to need time to get used to the idea. He behaved as if he’d been waiting years for someone to ask this favor. She hurried back through the door into her room, overcome with nerves in the face of his calmness. It was always easier to remain levelheaded when someone else was nervous, Harriet found, and she was used to being on the other side of the equation. When Frances had fallen out of a tree and badly broken her arm Caroline had fainted, Philippa shrieked, and Harriet was virtually unfazed.Why was she thinking of broken arms at a time like this?This was about another broken body part.
The nerves bubbled up her throat into words that she tossed over her shoulder. “I am sorry to ask, it’s only that I think I might be doing something wrong. I can’t make it work.”
“I see we’re friends again,” he remarked wryly. “Can’t make what work?”
“My quim. I think it’s—”
Alexander would have readily paid every cent in his possession, given away every property not entailed, to hear the rest of the sentence.
“Broken,” she finished.
He would always regret the crack of laughter that escaped his mouth after that. In his defense, he could have been given forty thousand chances and he never would have guessed that was the word she was going to use.
Hurt flashed across her face.Hell and damnation. What was it about his wife that made him a fool in the bedroom?
He reached out to stop her from fleeing the room. She tried to wrench her arm away, but he stayed her. “I assure you, your quim isn’t broken.”
She seemed slightly soothed by either his declaration or his demeanor. At least she quit trying to flee. He gingerly unhanded her, watching closely for signs of escape.
“How do you know? I can’t seem to …” Harriet said, attempting unsuccessfully to match his unaffected tone. If only she knew how much hewasaffected by this talk. The difference was that he wasn’t embarrassed by his arousal. “… arrive at my crisis,” she finished, blushing madly.
“It’s not broken. A woman’s commodity can’t break. At least not that I know of and—” Alexander stopped himself.
“And you’ve had lots of experience with them?” she filled in, with a slight eye roll. “Yes, we’re all aware of the prodigious amorous history of the venerable Lord Alexander Stirling.” Alexander held his tongue—he was loath to let any of his smugness over her poorly disguised jealousy seep out.
“I can prove it to you, if you’d like.”
“Prove what?”
“That your quim works perfectly well.”
“Oh. Well.” Harriet was fiddling with a ribbon on her night rail now and avoiding his eyes. He had assumed stupidly that a modestnight rail that fit her correctly would be less erotic than that borrowed chemise.
“I’m sorry to have bothered you,” she continued, finally looking up at him. He dearly wished she’d abandon her reservations; he could not take standing and talking much longer. “If you assure me that it’s working. I suppose—I suppose that’s sufficient. I really needn’t have disturbed your evening with such a silly concern. I’m sure you’re thinking—”
