“You might conceive a child if I don’t wear it.” He slid it back off and held it up. “The function is fairly obvious.”
She pulled her legs to the side and came to a sitting position. “I never conceived during my marriage. Although I suppose there is a risk. Perhaps we should reconsider—”
She began sliding toward the edge of the bed, but she broke off with a squeak when Ward grabbed her wrist. A second later she was flat on her back beneath him, one of his big hands locking both of hers over her head.
“You won’t force me if I have changed my mind,” she said, looking up at him. She might be unwilling, but her body wasn’t. It was trembling all over, longing for his touch.
It took all her resolve not to arch upwards again, to beg for his body.
“What’s wrong?” His voice was dark, implacable and he was looking into her eyes so deeply that she felt as if he could see to the bottom of her soul.
Maybe . . .
No.
She had to keep her self-respect, and allowing that thing inside her would make her feel dirty. Soiled.
“I understand that your life is different from mine,” she said, trying to explain in the least objectionable language possible. “I am not suggesting in the least that having that—that object in your possession indicates moral turpitude.”
For a moment he just stared at her, and then he threw back his head and roared with laughter. “Moral turpitude?”
Eugenia gave him a little frown. “I am trying to be tactful.”
“Just be honest,” he suggested.
“I don’t want that French thing inside me.”
His eyes went to the object in question. “You dislike them?”
“Actually, I’ve never seen one before.”
“Well?”
“I prefer not to.”
“Why not? I promise to give you pleasure even wearing it.”
He shifted. He was rubbing against her and despite herself, her knees fell open and she sucked in a breath. But she reached down and pushed him away. “Don’t touch me with that!”
It provoked a flash of frustration that she’d not seen in his eyes before. He came up on his knees, straddling her thighs, and said, “Eugenia, I must ask you to explain yourself.”
“I suppose I am more scrupulous than most,” she said desperately.
“I don’t know you well enough to compare.”
“I don’t want that thing inside me after it’s been inside other women!” she burst out. “I expect you’ve washed it, but I don’t care. I apologize if you think me overly fastidious.”
Ward stared at her for a second and then silently reached into the little drawer in the table by the bed, which was still hanging open. He withdrew a handful of French letters, and let them rain down on the bed.
They fell all over her breasts and belly, thin and slippery, sewn at the top with ribbons of different colors.
“I would never reuse one,” he said. “But more important, no woman has been in this particular bed, or indeed in any other bed containing me, for almost two years.”
“Oh,” Eugenia gasped. “I’m so—I’m happy to hear that they are only used once. But why were you so abstinent?” In the back of her mind she began to catalogue the reasons a healthy young man might avoid the opposite sex, none of them good. Her stomach churned.
Ward looked at her and burst out with a bellow of laughter. “No, not illness. Are you always this distrustful?”
She cocked her head, feeling gladness spread through her like warm honey. He didn’t have a disease. “It’s a consequence of Snowe’s. I can assure you that running a registry would cure anyone of optimism.”
“Even given my brief acquaintance with Otis and Lizzie, I see your point,” Ward said. He gave her a rueful smile. “I was betrothed to Mia for a year, and I had wooed her for months before that. The betrothal ended when I was thrown in prison, and shortly thereafter, my brother and sister appeared on my doorstep.”
Eugenia ran a hand along his cheek. “You have had a trying year.”
“That’s an understatement,” he said, lying down beside her and turning his head, a sinful gleam in his eyes. “Don’t you think it’s high time someone made me feel better?”
Chapter Twenty-six
Ward couldn’t get air into his lungs.
Next to him, Eugenia sat up, sending French letters skidding off the bed in all directions, turned onto her hands and knees and crawled on top of him. Her hair fell forward, curtaining his face.
“Hell and damnation,” Ward said hoarsely. “You’re the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen.”