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Chapter Four
The scene on the desk was a very lewd and erotic picture that should astonish any lady of respectability. An alarming sound came from Lady Charity’s throat, but she did not lower the damn drape to hide the lascivious activity going on in the library. She leaned forward for a better view!
“Good heavens, are they coupling?”
Ah, not only was the lady unpredictable she was provocative. “Yes,” Ethan said gruffly.
“What a novel experience,” she said in soft wonder.
“So, you know what coupling is,” he said with dangerous softness.
“I certainly know enough to identify it.”
Yet, she had not known about pleasure. Interesting. “Most young ladies would have fainted from the shock of exposure by now,” Ethan said, wondering at the stiffness of her rectitude.
Lady Charity cleared her throat discreetly. “I…I daresay I am not the fainting sort.”
He didn’t have to wonder what sort of lady this woman was. She was boldly improper and reckless. That she had dared to break into the viscount’s home and assumed such a risk to her reputation and that of her family’s standing told him she had lacked a firm hand in discipline growing up.
“I have seen the pictures in books, but I never imagined the act would be so…” her voice trailed off as if she could not find the words to describe the lasciviousness witnessed.
Good God, picture books?He had to do a more thorough investigation on 48 Berkeley Square. There was no doubt in Ethan’s mind that if they taught their ladies how to pick locks and fight, they would not have been discreet with naughty literature. He dared not imagine what else his sister might have been exposed to, and he had allowed it for fear of caging her bright and sweet spirit.
Removing her fingers from the slit in the drapes, they were once again ensconced in the darkness.
“You never imagined the act to be so what?” he growled, painfully aware of her and the raw, scintillating moans from the couple in the library.
“Filthy…but also intimate…sacred.”
Ethan stiffened at the duality of the words she used to describe a man tupping a woman. Worse, the yearning heard in Lady Charity’s voice tugged at a peculiar chord inside of him.
Unexpectedly he sensed her to be a woman untouched by a man. Though she was brazen, he could feel the heat of her blush in the dark, hear the soft trembling of her breath as it escaped her. Then there was that ache of longing in her voice. “You are the most unusual woman I have ever met.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, sounding too pleased.
The moans and ragged gasps grew louder, and he sought a distraction. Anything would do. Especially now that Lady Charity’s breath and her body gently trembled in the confined space. She was not unaffected by what she witnessed, and he closed his eyes ruthlessly, banishing the very idea that she might be aroused.
Bloody hell.
He released the breath he’d been holding. “Did you know St Paul’s Cathedral had a lead roof, and during the Great Fire of London in 1666, that roof meltedand gushed out of the rain spouts, forming a molten river that flowed down Ludgate Hill?”
“I…what?”
“Can you imagine it, Lady Charity…a river of fire, the sheer beauty of it but the horror of what it represents.”
She turned, her body brushing against his to face him. The moans faded into the distance, and he could feel Lady Charity’s stare on his face.
“Did you know that quite recently, Lady Hester Stanhope traveled for two years to Gibraltar, Malta, the Ionian Islands, the Peloponnese, Athens, Constantinople, Rhodes, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria dressed in gentlemen’s garments and also carried a sabre?”
“I have seen it in the newssheets. She is a rather impressive and admirable woman.”
She sighed softly. “I am astonished you would say so, especially when my more liberal brother believes Lady Hester ought to return home to marry and have children, that she is not acting like a lady. What nonsense.”
“I have always thought your brother a bit of a prig who lacked imagination.”
Another odd sound came from her, perhaps a bit like a muffled laugh. The woman poked him in the stomach with her finger. Ethan was so surprised by that intimate touch he had nothing to say.
“I am the only one allowed to disparage my brother. I would hate to challenge you to a duel of honor.”
