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“Not for everyone…not for me.” She pointed a finger at Elizabeth. “Someday you shall find a man attractive but perhaps not marriageable, and you’ll wonder. And you will contemplate what he looks like without his clothes. And before you know what happens, you will be in his bed and you won’t care about the consequences.”
Elizabeth laughed. “I hardly think that will ever happen. I am five and twenty—”
“As am I.” She grabbed the bedpost. “And one day, you will start to wonder just what you’ve missed.”
“I will not!”
Jennette shook her head. “Please just help me lace my stays. My mother is going to have my head for staying up this late with you.”
Jennette slowly opened the door to her room, praying her mother was asleep.
“If you think you can sneak in, you are sadly mistaken, my dear.”
Damn. She opened the door and walked inside feeling the guilt of her actions again.
“Where have you been?” her mother demanded. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked every bit the angry, worried mother.
“I was with Elizabeth, in her room talking.”
“And exactly where were you when she was in the salon playing whist with Avis?”
“Waiting for her in her room.” Jennette pulled at the few pins holding up her hair. Thankfully, she’d snatched some of Elizabeth’s pins.
“Did you go to him?”
Jennette turned and stared at her mother. “What?”
“I know what happened in the salon. Did you go to him?”
“Why would I do such a thing?”
Her mother shook her head. “Jennette, I know how softhearted you are. I also know you feel guilty because of the way Society treats him.”
“It isn’t right,” Jennette said, sinking to the bed. “It was an accident.”
“But not the first for him.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Lord Blackburn ran with a fast set after Eton. One rainy night, he made a wager with a friend that his horse could best his friend’s. It was dark and wet and Lord Culpert wasn’t the best rider and took a dreadful fall. He died two months later from his injuries.”
Jennette looked away so her mother would not notice the tears welling in her eyes. A wager. He’d bet on a race and the other man died. “I had no idea.”
“And you know the ton. There is no such thing as two accidents.”
She stifled the urge to run to him and beg for his forgiveness again. After what they did tonight, she didn’t believe she could ever face him. It felt as if they had both betrayed John with their actions. That was bad enough, but she’d already been disloyal to John b
y agreeing to marry him when she was attracted to his best friend.
“Mother, thank you for explaining what happened. But I wasn’t with him tonight.” She kept her eyes locked on the fireplace, afraid her intuitive mother would discover her lie.
“As I have told you before, he is a good man. But after the Marstons’ outburst, marrying him might ruin you both.”
“I know that, Mother.” And she couldn’t do anything to hurt him again. She had done far too much already.
Matthew rolled over leisurely as he awoke. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this sated. It almost felt as if he had been dreaming. Reaching over he patted the empty space next to him.
Had it been a dream?
