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“My sister-in-law has not met polite discourse she hesitates to circumvent.” Beatrice took Felicity’s serviette and threw it at Charlotte.
“I agree with Lady Swinburn,” Tabitha said. “Euphemism does not serve us. We must speak frankly amongst ourselves if we are to profit from one another’s knowledge and experience.” She softened her typically assertive tone with a brilliant smile. “Beatrice, despite being an unmarried woman, I have a breadth of knowledge to convey, do you but ask me.”
“Thank you, Tabitha, I believe I shall.” Beatrice went to the door and called out to the attending footman. “Corvus, do fetch the decanter from His Grace’s study. And four glasses.”
***
“…and then she nigh on decapitated herself with a mirror.” Arthur carved a sturdy branch into what would be a torch. The men lounged around on the ground, apart from, unsurprisingly, Georgie and Lowell. “Nearly drove me to drink.”
“But all is well between them, in any case,” Ben said, “and I do mean all.”
“Then we will await the news of your expectation of a happy event.” Lowell sounded satisfied.
“Yes, well…” Arthur looked around him at the fathers seated in the clearing. “She’s wanting cubs as soon as possible. She knows it is up to me. I don’t know how to go about it.”
“Oh, my brother. Let me be your guide.” Ben sat up, his face the picture of seriousness. “You see,” and he took up two innocent objects, one circular in shape and one straight, whose benignity was soon compromised. “When a mama and a papa love each other very much—oof!”
The others roared with laughter as Arthur tackled his brother and tussled him to the ground. “It’s the ‘calling in’ nonsense,” he continued, once the roughhousing was done. “Is there an invocation or a ritual or…?”
Lowell cleared his throat. “Wolves have only to invoke Diana, and it is done.”
“What, you say ‘Diana, give us pups, please and thank you’? After or during or when? Hush, you boil, you plague sore!” Ben rolled around in hysterics while Alfred hemmed and hawed and Georgie, out of character, blushed.
“It is a combination of wish and will.” Ben regained his composure. “The words you think or say, they are what suits each male to his nature and that of his mate.” He smiled, in memory of his own cubs’ conception perhaps. “I believe the female ought to have a say, obviously, given the nature of my beloved wife, and I would not have it any other way.”
“I have been asked to bring them in,” Arthur said, declining to say at which stage he was so importuned. “It is the wish of my duchess.”
Ben cocked his head. “Are these new terms in the cordial affiliation?”
The company gaped as their regent broke into gales of laughter, such as they had never heard in their long lives. It rollicked on and on until tears ran down his face, to the degree he was required to rise, use his hankie, and replace it on the stone.
“I am a genius,” he said. “You owe me endless gratitude, Osborn.”
“A cordial what now?” Lowell looked up from the branch he was struggling to scrape into a suitably torch-like shape.
“Our beginning was fraught,” Arthur smiled to himself, “but we have found our way.”
***
“…and men often need direction to that sensitive area.”
“And this is the seat of the, the…” Beatrice faltered.
“The female erotic function, yes,” Tabitha said. Felicity blushed as easily as Beatrice did, and Charlotte snorted into her brandy. “It is thought in order to conceive, the male and the female must experience release simultaneously.”
“And release is the…fluttering?” Lacking occupation for hands that wished to wring in discomfort, Beatrice lifted the decanter to pour out another dram. Felicity did not partake, but Tabitha seemed to be well on her way to making up the duchess’s portion.
“As the flame on a candlestick often flutters.”
Beatrice shared a hearty laugh with her sister-in-law, who said, “Your husband, the Shakespeare aficionado, may call it ‘fading’ or ‘to die.’”
“As the French would have it:la petite mort,” Tabitha said, her accent not what it could be, considering her years spent on the Continent.
“And you say humans deem it necessary that both male and female experience this simultaneously to be successful in procreation? I find this a rarity despite the diligence and application of my husband’s efforts,” Charlotte said, dodging another serviette launched her way.
“There is little experimentation to strengthen these claims and no circumstances under which to investigate them,” Tabitha replied. “I believe it is through repetition, as well as the diligence and application you mentioned, that the desired outcome is achieved.”
“It is said the female is at fault if there are no children,” Beatrice said, hesitant. “It is what the man-midwives say.”
