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His worried expression went straight to her heart. “I know. But this is something I must do for myself. And if, in the end, I’m unhappy, well…I’ll still have my savings, won’t I? The world will still turn, and I can still sail with the tide.”
At last, he nodded. “True enough.”
The three talked until the evening meal, making plans for every contingency they could come up with. Part of this included her extracting a promise from Harrow to make advance arrangements for his and René’s escape should the worst happen and they were somehow exposed. He didn’t seem to feel there was any danger of this happening, but he finally agreed, if only to allay her fears.
That night as she put out the bedside lamp and settled beneath the covers, Diana feared she’d be unable to sleep. It was silly, but she felt like a bride on the eve of her wedding.
In a manner of speaking, I am. She was about to take an irreversible step off the edge of a proverbial cliff. By this time tomorrow, her virginity would be a thing of the past. There would be some pain, but she knew enough about her own body to ensure there would also be pleasure. Still, her stomach fluttered with nerves. She was wise enough to comprehend that all the foreknowledge in the world couldn’t prepare her for the reality of the act itself.
Her feelings for Blackthorn were a tangled morass. She wanted him. She liked him, too. A lot. Harrow thought him in love with her, and she wanted to trust his judgment, but how could he possibly know for certain? He’d also suggested she was on the verge of falling in love.
Which couldn’t be true.
Could it? If anyone ought to be able to tell, it should be me. It unnerved her that she couldn’t verify it one way or another with any confidence. If I am, then shame on me for having reneged on my promise to never be so foolish. And on the other side of that same coin: if she wasn’t, and she intended to let Blackthorn make her his mistress, then she had to convince him she was.
She grimaced in the dark. That should be all too easy. She’d thought the part of herself that wanted to be loved and cherished was dead and buried with her past, but living with Harrow and René had convinced her otherwise. The pains they suffered and the hurdles they leaped simply to be together had taught her love was real, precious, and infinitely desirable.
The evidently incurable sentimentalist in her wasn’t content with things as they were anymore. Although she was loved and had a family again—a chosen family—she wanted more. She wanted a husband, a home, and children. She wasn’t naive enough to think Blackthorn capable of giving her those; reality was implacable. Even if he did love her, even if she was coming to him a virgin, he would never marry a woman with her sullied reputation. Love didn’t wash one’s name free of taint in the eyes of Society.
But tomorrow night wasn’t about love. It was about passion. She just hoped Blackthorn wouldn’t be so disappointed that he’d lose all further desire for her. Despite her virginity, she was determined not to fall short of expectations and resolved to employ all her knowledge to make the experience a pleasurable one.
When morning came, Diana was shocked to find she’d slept soundly. The house was already bustling with activity by the time she made her way down. In fact, it was quite busier than she expected. “What is all of this?” she asked a passing footman, gesturing toward two others bearing a chaise up the stair.
“Lord Harrow’s orders, madam,” he answered. “The claret guest room is being reappointed.”
Reappointed? “Thank you, carry on.” She would have gone upstairs to see for herself, but Harrow’s voice stopped her.
“Ah! You’re awake. Excellent. Come and have breakfast with me.”
Over tea and toast, she learned he’d selected the room in question for tonight’s tryst and was having it redecorated to suit the occasion.
“As your apartments are rather specially designed for another purpose, I thought it best to designate another room,” he quietly confided. “I did not think you’d mind.”
“Not at all,” she assured him. “Now I consider it, I would not have been comfortable in my own chamber for fear of him making an accidental discovery. But why redecorate?”
Harrow smiled slyly. “I’ll show you when it’s ready.”
As if she weren’t already suffering enough anticipation. The day sped by. At a quarter past five, the head footman came to inform them the room was prepared. Her stomach tightened as she followed Harrow upstairs to inspect it.
The sight that greeted her eyes made them sting with unshed tears. Roses of a deep red hue had been brought in to grace every corner of the room, echoing the color on the walls. Clusters of candles had been placed on pedestals throughout the chamber, unlit as of yet, but Harrow informed her he’d give orders for them to be lit while they took their evening sherry.
One item that had mystified her as she’d seen it being hauled up the stair earlier in the day now jumped out at her: an enormous, gilt-framed mirror from her ballroom. It now stood propped against a wall to one side of the bed. She regarded it with a frown. “That seems a bit too large for this room, don’t you think? And should it not be hung on the wall?”
Harrow’s chuckle made her turn to see merriment dancing in his eyes. “It’s not really for decoration, per se. It’s more for…well, you’ll find out tonight.”
She continued her perusal. The heavy, wine-colored velvet bed curtains had been tied back with gold sashes and the bed scattered with pillows and rose petals. A tray bearing libations in sparkling crystal decanters stood over by the window. On approaching the bedside table, she saw it bore an array of items she recognized from Harrow’s earliest tutorials on love play: several feathers of differing lengths and shapes, a few gilded pots of what she knew to be scented massage oil, and a pile of soft silk scarves.
Her furious blush didn’t go unnoticed. Harrow laid a calming hand on her shoulder. “He will be expecting such items to be present. That does not mean they must be used. Before he comes up, I intend to have a word with him concerning consent.”
All she needed to become aroused was the idea of Blackthorn’s hands on her bare skin. Adding these items to the mental picture she’d already built was like throwing whiskey on a fire, though she could hardly say so to Harrow. He had,
of course, schooled her in the use of all these items. Her massage skills had been learned from a woman he’d hired from a salon specializing in the art. Binding had been taught by watching Harrow truss a fully-clothed René followed by submitting himself as a test subject—also fully clothed—to see that she’d learned properly. It had been beyond her ability to secure his limbs without bursting into a fit of giggles for nearly a week. He’d even made her practice feather play under his watchful eye—first on his bared forearms to demonstrate technique and pressure, and then on a pillow.
That had elicited even more laughter.
There had been other things, too, but nearly all of those lessons had been restricted to verbal explanations accompanied by shockingly detailed illustrations from an ancient Hindu text Harrow had brought back from India. When she’d asked him why he’d wanted her to learn these things if she was never meant to actually touch him, his reasoning was logical: experience lent one’s voice a quality that couldn’t be faked among those who’d experienced such things. Should his less inhibited associates inquire of her concerning her repertoire, she must be able to with utter confidence speak of and even banter about such acts as if she’d truly committed them.
His foresight had proven both accurate and valuable within only a few months of her debut as his mistress. Men so enjoyed discussing their sexual vices with one they thought to be an expert. She’d quickly tired of their probing questions and lewd commentary, and this, too, had worked to her benefit. When she spoke of such things now, it was with a truly jaded air of supreme boredom.
