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‘Oh.’
‘Now I have made you blush.’ Giles stopped at the end of the terrace, out of sight of the salon windows, and turned, bringing Laurel round to stand in front of him. ‘I would apologise, but it is a very fetching effect. I had not realised you could colour up so charmingly.’
He sounds almost as though he desires me. I suppose he does. Men are able to separate physical desire and love and, as he explained all too plainly the other day, men think about desire a great deal.
‘Am I offending you?’ He was watching her, probably reading her mind, betrayed by the blood ebbing and flowing under her skin. ‘Shocking you?’
Laurel shook her head.
‘Only you kiss me without restraint and I had hoped that part of our marriage would not be a...difficulty for you. Would not be distasteful.’
‘I think that is a question, is it not? No, I do not think it will be a difficulty or distasteful. It will involve a great deal of blushing because, whatever you think of my kisses, they are not the product of much practice, I can assure you.’
‘Do you think we should remedy that?’ Giles’s eyes were focused on her face, heavy-lidded, their deep clear blue smoky with an emotion she did not have to be experienced to interpret.
‘Are you suggesting that we anticipate our wedding night?’ How very strange that she could talk to him so frankly when she ought to be scurrying back to her chaperon’s side, shocked and flustered. It was not as though she really knew Giles as a grown man, however close they had been nine years ago.
Not that I had known all his secrets, as it turned out.
‘No, I am not, much as I am looking forward to it. But I thought perhaps a little familiarity with each other might make things easier.’
‘That is another question, disguised as a statement,’ Laurel said, crossly. ‘You always used to do that, I recall. Or you would make statements in the form of a question. Very maddening.’ When Giles grinned at her she added, ‘And of course there was that utterly infuriating male habit of answering questions absolutely literally—you were a complete master of that.’
Was it her imagination or did his gaze shift away from her face for a split second, almost as if he felt guilty about something? It must have been a trick of the light, because his attention was certainly on her again now.
‘You haven’t answered my first question at all,’ he retorted. ‘I seem to recall a little summer house on the island in the lake, completely out of sight from the house and, once one has taken the rowing boat to get there, quite safe from interruption.’
‘But what are you suggesting?’ Laurel realised that they were walking again, diagonally away from the house, down the lawn towards the lake edge. She really must stop letting Giles distract her so. Her feet seemed to have the habit of following him, whatever her mind thought of the matter. ‘We have kissed already and you said you do not wish to anticipate things...’
‘There are things and things,’ Giles said mysteriously. ‘Things between kisses and wedding nights, certainly. Things that I hope you will enjoy.’
‘That you would enjoy also?’
‘My pleasure just now is in what gives you pleasure.’
The sensual growl in his voice sent shivers racing deliciously down her spine. She knew the facts, of course, she was country-bred and reared after all, and had sought out what information she could find, as she had explained to him, but the details, and putting them into practice—now that was something else altogether.
Stepmama had attempted an awkward pre-nuptial lecture on the subject when she had heard about the betrothal. She had emphasised the importance of submission to one’s husband’s will and how children were a recompense for this distasteful, but necessary duty, but Laurel was suspicious of the implication that physical relations were something to be endured, or at best, tolerated. If sex was so unpleasant for wives that it required a conscious act of submission, then why did some women so obviously enjoy it, to the extent of committing adultery or gaining the reputation for being fast and immoral?
‘Have I shocked you? You have gone very quiet, which is not at all like you.’
Laurel looked around and found they had reached the little boathouse, no more than an open-sided structure with a pitched roof to keep the rain off the punt and the two rowing boats that had been pulled out of the lake.
‘I was thinking that there seems to be a conspiracy amongst married women to keep unmarried girls ignorant of the realities of marriage. If—’
Oh, for goodness’ sake, this is Giles and I am about to be married to him! If I cannot say the words to him, how can we ever discuss things?
?
??If sexual intercourse is not enjoyable for women, as they try to pretend, why do women commit adultery?’
Giles had bent to pull a rowing boat clear of the shelter, but at that he looked up and laughed. ‘Perhaps those women are in search of a man whose bedroom skills are better than their husbands’.’
That was interesting. ‘So having...sex is a skill?’ If she kept on saying the word perhaps she would learn to stop blushing.
‘Making love is.’ Giles had the little boat bobbing at the waterside now. ‘Anything male can have sex, provided all the parts are in working order. Making love now—’ his smile was warm and intimate and just for her ‘—that is an art.’
And one you have no doubt practised to perfection, Laurel thought, catching the sting in the tail of that explanation.
