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He coughed. “Take a lover?”
“A likely candidate might come along. Or I could place an advert in theVillage Crier. ‘Bookish spinster seeks fun-loving rogue for amorous adventures. Only highly skilled applicants need apply.’”
“You’re not serious.”
“Why, am I shocking you? Someone like you might climb through my library window one day.”
“Someone like... me.”
“Handsome. Roguish. The strong silent type.Someone like you would make a perfect lover. You’d never kiss and tell.”
“Are we talking about your future...? Because it sounds like you might be talking about this bed.”
“And why not? By now you’ve learned that I’m not a conventional thinker. I don’t follow the commonly held belief that a female must protect her virtue at all costs, that her virginity is her most precious possession. It’s a double standard, one that comes at a cost to women. Men are encouraged to be promiscuous while women are taught to be virtuous. How can those two coexist peacefully? It seems to me, and to the other ladies of my society, that this is a dangerous standard to uphold.”
“Lord, protect us from freethinking knitters.”
“What would I be saving my virtue for? I don’t plan to marry. And my friend the Duchess of Ravenwood has an excellent pamphlet detailing how to avoid unwanted conception.”
He sat upright. “Now just wait a moment. If it’s a lover you want, you don’t have to advertise in theVillage Crier.”
“Are you applying for the position? I know we only have a few days left together, but that’s ideal for both of our purposes. I wouldn’t want a lover moping about. What if you became enamored of me? Highly inconvenient to a scholarly female’s grand plans to publish a dictionary.”
“Ah... I rather thought it might be you who became enamored of me. There’s where the danger lies.”
“I’m willing to gamble with my emotions. Inside these walls I can be myself. Bolder. Freer. I can livelife on my own terms, and I want to experience as much of that as possible. You bring it out in me. When I go back to my brother’s house, I shrink back inside myself. Within these walls we belong together.”
“But this isn’t real life, Beatrice. This is a fairy tale we’re telling ourselves. There would be real-life consequences.”
“Perhaps. Or, perhaps not. It could be a beautiful memory we treasured forever. Sleep on it,” she said lightly. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
She kissed him in parting, then, because she had to return to her brother’s house.
And she kissed him in greeting, because she’d met the new version of herself within these walls. This bookshop was a world unto itself. The rules she’d lived her life by didn’t apply here.
And maybe, just maybe, they could find a way to be together.
Chapter Twenty
What had she done?
Beatrice groaned into her pillow.
She hadn’t drunkthatmuch wine. Her head ached, though. Perhaps she’d imbibed a little more than she’d thought. The wine had loosened her natural inhibitions and then she’d become intoxicated on pleasure, on closeness. She’d opened up to Ford, told him secrets she’d sworn never to reveal.
About her childhood. About her friends.
Things she’d never confessed to anyone before. It had felt right in the moment but now she wasn’t so sure. He was boarding a ship in a matter of days, so why had she told him so much about her past? And all of that audacious talk about taking a lover... what had come over her?
Her cheeks flamed as she remembered what he’d been reading and how she’d opened the book and read that particular passage about...
She burrowed deeper under her pillow.
What had happened between them last night was far beyond the boundaries of propriety—she wasn’t delusional enough to attempt to convince herself it had been anything other than scandalous.
In society’s eyes she was now ruined. Fallen. Downcast and lost forever.
She should be ashamed of what had happened but she wasn’t. Being with him last night had been revelatory. But she must remember that the bonds of intimacy between them had formed because they’d been working together toward a common goal.
