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Chapter 22
A man who is versed in these arts, who is loquacious and acquainted with the arts of gallantry, gains very soon the hearts of women, even though he is only acquainted with them for a short time.
The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana
The following weeks passed far too quickly. Alice’s days were filled with her translation work and with caring for Jane, who was nearly recovered. Though Alice still hadn’t been successful in coaxing her into divulging her true identity.
Alice and Nick read aloud to the duke while he tended his orchids. He loved accounts of sea voyages the best of all, and pestered her with questions about every detail of her upcoming journey to India.
She explained to the duke that the ship on which she would sail was a respectable merchant vessel from her father’s fleet. She’d known the shipmaster since her childhood, and while he had thought it rather odd that she wished to voyage to India in her brother’s stead, and even more strange that Alice begged him not to tell Sir Alfred of her plans, the magic of being Lady Hatherly, and Duchess of Barrington someday, had convinced him to agree to giving her safe passage.
She’d considered hiring a respectable companion, or a lady’s maid, to accompany her, but had decided against it. She’d been living for weeks with no maid and found she rather liked the freedom it afforded from prying eyes and gossiping tongues.
Alice encountered plenty of those when she accompanied Mama on her social calls. All the ladies of the ton plied her with questions about Nick, probably desperate to know when he would be back in the market for a mistress again.
Which was a subject Alice had no interest in either thinking, or talking, about.
Alice had sent Charlene and Thea on their way to their summer homes, with assurances that all was well and going according to Alice’s plan.
And she enjoyed long, laughter-filled visits with Aunt Sarah, who no longer seemed quite so scandalous, now that Alice understood precisely what happened behind bedchamber doors.
By day she was a dutiful daughter, a devoted daughter-in-law, and a loyal friend.
By night, she cast all propriety aside and lived for pleasure.
Nick’s bedchamber was a dream world that had nothing to do with the daylight.
They were swiftly moving through the sixty-four varieties of pleasure.
She’d married him for the freedom to achieve her dreams and she’d also married him for this: unbridled sensual enjoyment.
She’d dreamt of this, alone in her room at night, before she met Nick, as she translated the Kama Sutra.
She hadn’t dreamt of a mannerly professorial type.
She’d conjured a strong, confident lover who knew exactly how to stoke her fire until passion burned hot and uncontrollable.
While her body learned his heated language, she attempted to keep her heart cold.
Attempted... and failed.
She’d lost all control of the game.
Didn’t know who was winning or losing.
All she knew was that she loved his arms around her, loved how tender he was with his father, and with her, and her heart had cracked wide open.
Nick thought, idly, that he should probably be spending less time with his brilliant, beautiful wife, and more time easing back into his former life of wild and wicked pursuits.
He should be drinking at his club with the usual crowd. Planning his next hedonistic entertainment.
Stalking the evil man behind Stubbs’s betrayal.
He should be doing any number of depraved, unwholesome things.
But instead here he was, in the library with his wife, his head in her lap while she read a novel.
He told himself the reason was that she was leaving soon and he had to soak as much Alice in as possible.
