"About me?"
"About secret goings-on here at the Abigail Adams."
Her dazzling smile flickered out for a moment, then returned with her laughter. "Secret goings-on? How exciting!" She was smiling as though playing along with his game. "Did your colleague say what kind of goings-on?"
"Apparently his wife is a member here."
"Who is it?"
"Now that would be telling."
She shrugged, plainly more comfortable now with his inquiry. "Well, then what did he say? What secret?"
"This colleague of mine hinted that his wife of nine years has suddenly found him... attractive."
"Perhaps he"s gotten a haircut. Had his suits better tailored? A good tailoring can do wonders for a man"s general physique."
"Perhaps I didn"t make myself clear, Miss Dunaway. The man"s wife"s demeanor in their bedchamber has changed dramatically."
"How so?"
"Apparently she"s become the... uh..." Now how to say this correctly? "... the seducer in the marriage bed."
"And?" So nonchalant. Making him wonder if she was as virginal under all that steamy bl.u.s.ter as he"d first a.s.sumed.
"And according to him, the only thing that"s changed in their nine years together is that a few months back his wife became a member of the Abigail Adams."
She quirked her head, a tinge of confusion on her pouting mouth. "Is your friend complaining about his wife being a member of the ladies" club?"
"Hardly. In fact, he says he encourages his wife to attend as many meetings and cla.s.ses at the Adams as she pleases."
She leaned forward, raised a teasing finger. "Don"t you mean secret goings-on?"
"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, woman! What the devil kind of cla.s.ses are you teaching here?" He had no idea where his sudden irritation had come from. But it doubtless had a great deal to do with the fact that the woman danced around the truth like a moth around a flame.
"Just ordinary cla.s.ses..."
"Balderdash! An ordinary thirty-year-old wife of an ordinary husband doesn"t just change into a vixen in the bedroom overnight. Not withou "t... h.e.l.l, I don"t know, Miss Dunaway." He really had no ready ideas for an explanation. "What have you done with the woman? And how many other women of London have you turned into sirens?"
"Sirens, my lord?" She gave a scoffing laugh. "Your friend was surely exaggerating his good fortune."
"Don"t play your word games with me. You"re flirting with fire here."
"How can adding a joyful dimension to a marriage cause any trouble at all?"
"Because, my dear, not every husband would be as pleased as my friend is to find a frisky wife in his bed. Especially his own."
"Frankly, that"s not the husband"s decision to make; it"s the wife"s. The pleasure isn"t all for him, you know."
Oh, G.o.d, he"d plunged head first into that one. "So I"ve heard. But what you fail to understand is that you can"t teach..." b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, had he suddenly become a prude? "You can"t teach s.e.x."
"We don"t, my lord. We teach responsibility." Now she looked like a chiding governess. "I don"t see how anyone can object to that!"
"Responsibility, Miss Dunaway? For what?" Scarborough"s wife had been an upright, responsible woman long before joining the Adams.
"Good heavens, do I have to explain everything in detail?"
"Please do, madam. You"ve lost in e." In any case, he had long ago ceded control of his visit to the woman who was now shaking her head at him.
"In the simplest terms: if a woman desires more romance from her husband in the bedroom, then she must take responsibility for her own share of the seduction."
"Her share?" b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l! "How do you mean?"
Now she huffed her impatience, as though he was a blockheaded man without a clue as to a woman"s needs, then took off toward the sideboard at the far end of the room.
"There are certain techniques a woman can employ to help her husband understand how to please her in bed. Which, in turn, will please him as well." She had plucked a small booklet off a stack on the sideboard and proudly held it up for him. " Unbridled Embraces; or Proven Techniques for an Intimate Marriage.""
"Techniques?" In bed. Proven ? By whom? Good Lord, she couldn"t possibly mea n - "I compiled the book for our cla.s.ses because learning how to be an adventurous wife in bed, and a flirt in the bedroom, is every bit as important for a woman"s happiness as learning to read or write."
"Adventurous?"
"Here." She handed the booklet to him, and he nearly flinched for the fire he feared must be hiding between the pages. He felt her eyes on him as he opened to the center pages, as he squinted at what might be there.
An explicit drawing, detailed instructions... but no, thank G.o.d.
Just words, dancing around in his uneasy hands, leaping off the page and into his groin.
"After all, Blakestone, today"s bride goes to her marriage bed terrified because she"s been left completely in the dark as to what"s to happen to her. Her trepidation is well-founded, as she is then quickly and summarily deflowered by an equally ignorant bridegroom, in a ritual of pain and degradation."
Not my bride, he nearly said, but the remarkable woman was talking blithely to him just now, about an unspeakably taboo subject, as though she was at the head of a cla.s.sroom and he was her ignorant student.
"Our mothers tell us nothing about the pleasures available in the marriage bed, because they know nothing about it themselves. Because their mothers knew nothing about it, or their mothers, and so it has gone for countless generations. And though a marriage may last fifty years, the supreme act of intimacy between husband and wife remains a b.u.mbling a.s.sault on the marriage itself."
Still too sh.e.l.l-shocked to be thinking clearly, Ross found himself nodding at her, with her.
Wanting her.
"And so, in order to help combat such ignorance, we women of the Abigail Adams are merely claiming our right to our marital bliss."
"Your rights in particular, Miss Dunaway? I thought you were never going to marry."
She raked her fingers through the hair at her temple. "As I said before, a woman doesn"t have to marry to find intimacy."
Dear Lord, he didn"t dare follow that trail any closer. "Are you telling me, madam, that the Abigail Adams is running a school for unfulfilled wives?" He held up her scandalous, possibly illegal, booklet. "And that this is the primer?"
"Not a primer. Suggestions for a more satisfying married life. For example..." She took up another of the same booklet, tossed through the pages, then read aloud from one. " "Be bold with your seduction; be playful in your intentions and you will soon feel the flush of pa.s.sion rising in your own blood.""
Good Lord!
She looked up at him with the clear, unflinching green eyes of a zealous evangelist. "Your turn, my lord. Try one for yourself."
"Try one?" He jabbed his finger against a page. "Of these?"
"Read one aloud and see what you think."
I think I"m going mad.
And b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, he was terrified. Could barely breathe, let alone read. His mouth dried out, his thoughts stuck to his tongue, as he tried to focus on the first pa.s.sage that caught his eye.
" "Run your fingers... slowly through his hai r -"" He cleared his throat, fearing the worst of it was just ahead. ""... as you tell him how proud you are of his accomplishments.""
Well. That wasn"t so bad. Suggestive perhaps, but surely not explicit.
"Now what man wouldn"t appreciate that, my lord? Fingers running through his hair."
"Well, I suppose that-"
"Shall I demonstrate on you?"
Had he heard right? "Demonstrate? On me?" Like a lunatic, he glanced around the empty library.
She smiled and shook her head at him. "Since you"re the only man in sigh "t..."
"Madam, please..." But he couldn"t possibly say no. Couldn"t breathe. Couldn"t think past the rigid arousal he had been unable to restrain.
"Are you ready, my lord?"
/ doubt it. "If you must." He tried to disconnect, to act bored with it all.
It was just an act.
"Just stand right there by the table." Then the astonishing woman placed herself a half-dozen paces from him, straightened her skirts, c.o.c.ked her shoulder and her hip, and smiled the very smile that Eve must have offered to Adam in that long ago garden. Lush and beckoning, loaded with promises. "I"ll show you exactly what I mean about a wife running her fingers slowly through her husband"s hair..."
He"d like that, like that a lot.
And so he stood there patiently, braced hard against the end of the huge library table.
Watched.
And waited.
Thoroughly unbridled.
Chapter 11.
A man of sense only trifles with women, plays with them, humours and flatters them, as he does with a sprightly and forward child; but he neither consults them about, nor trusts them with, serious matters.
Earl of Chesterfield Letters to His Son, 17 48 S he took long, lavish years in her approach, hips innocently tarty, shoulders swaying slightly, her eyes glinting at him with crystal fire in their depths.
And he was throbbing for her, a thick ache in his groin that only grew more unyielding with every step she took toward him.
"And do you teach this cla.s.s yourself, Miss Dunaway?" he asked, just to keep his brain from exploding. And because he was suddenly beginning to wonder where she"d come by her "techniques. "
"I teach sometimes."
"Sometimes, madam? I... Christ, woman!" He nearly bucked backward as she brazenly stepped between his legs. Pushed right up against his erection. "But the cla.s.s was created by an experienced woman who knows about such things."
"Experienced? How, by G.o.d?" Not that he wanted to know.
"Let"s just say that she was a professional woman in her da y -"
"A prost.i.tute?" Teaching a cla.s.sroom full of aristocratic wives of aristocratic men? Good G.o.d! "More than twenty years ago, before she married a member of the House of Lords who calls himself the most satisfied man in all of England."
He cast around in his head for a name, a peer. A man still in love with his wife.
But the rest of his thoughts went spinning out of control as the sublime Miss Dunaway then reached up with one hand and slipped her lithe fingers through the hair at his nape.
"Your hair is surprisingly soft here, my lord. If I were a wife, I would adore running my fingers through your hair like this."
She was actually killing him, slowly, scorching his skin, raking her short nails softly up the back of his head, the heat of her belly mixing with his at the apex of his legs, shocking him with its power.
"And, according to Unbridled Embraces, if you were my husband I would lean closely and gaze deeply into your eyes. Like this..."
She was doing more than that. She was dallying with his ear, teasing the ridges as her gaze feathered its way up his cheeks to his eyes, where he noticed for the first time an amazing pattern of gold embedded subtly in the aquiline.
"Goldenrod," he whispered, touching her cheek.
"What"s that?"
"Your eyes. I see goldenrod."
"Then it"s working." She smiled, her breath breaking against his chin.
"G.o.d, yes."
"In that case, my lord, next I would tell you how proud I am to be your wife."
His heart took a jump into his throat, cutting off his words. A stunning leap of elation, because it sounded so right.
"Then I"d thank you for my latest bonnet, and tell you that I bought it because I knew how much you"d like to see me in it. Do you?" She niched her hand against her hair, tilted the imaginary hat, then turned her head from side to side, revealing the perfection of her profile.
"You"re beautiful, wife." Wife? Good Lord! Did he just call her that? "I mean, Miss Dunaway."