“Mrs. Dove-Lyon tells me you wish to practice the ways of pleasure. Are you a widow? Or simply suffering from boredom?”
“I would never be unfaithful—”
A widow of a faithless, unhappy marriage, then?
“—and I won’t answer any more questions.”
She didn’t have to. She’d revealed enough. For now.
“Are you sure?” He cocked his head as if he were studying what he could not see. “If I don’t ask questions, how am I to fulfill your desires?”
“Oh.” The long soft quality of her sigh held a wealth of carnal possibility.
From her voice, her scent, he knew she and the Blackbird were one in the same. And yet he could not reconcile this tentative creature with the lady who’d accosted him earlier.
Had his nakedness disoriented her so badly?
Surely, as a widow, she must be well-acquainted with the male form.
Then again, he knew men who preferred chaste couplings with their wives. Poor thing. Clearly, some man had left her embittered, angry, and unsatisfied.
That much he could rectify.
“Come, Blackbird.” He lifted the sheet. “Lie down with me. Let us begin your education.”
