Seven Minutes in Heaven(90)

“If scientific information were not viewed as the sole province of men,” Eugenia snapped, “you might well find more women inadvertently wandering into what was actually a ribald harangue.”

“Educational principles aside, I would like to know why you exposed my little sister to a vulgar, if not lewd, performance.”

“I had no such intention,” Eugenia said, drawing composure around her like a suit of armor. “I am truly sorry that I didn’t recognize the true nature of your butler’s so-called lecture. Lizzie has a thirst for knowledge that should be nurtured, but obviously I chose the wrong venue.”

“As I have repeatedly told you, Lizzie is a young lady,” Ward stated, his arms locked over his chest.

Anger swept through her with the same burning ferocity with which she had experienced desire the night before. “I am fully aware of Lizzie’s place in society,” she said, fighting to keep her voice from rising. “I see no reason why her status should preclude scientific knowledge. When I was a girl, I especially enjoyed learning mathematics.”

“If you’ll excuse my bluntness, Eugenia, that is irrelevant. Lizzie will be raised in a house without strumpets, or the other lamentable aspects of your upbringing, which is precisely why I came to Snowe’s Registry in the first place.”

Eugenia flinched. She hadn’t expected to have her confidences thrown back at her; she’d never told anyone but Andrew about the courtesans in her father’s house. “We are in agreement on that point,” she said, striving for composure.

“Then why did you bring my sister into a tent full of men enjoying a string of lewd jests? You, who train governesses, you took my sister to see a debauched tent-talk.” Ward was furious—and rightly so.

She had made a mistake, and she’d learned long ago to acknowledge her mistakes. She would apologize again.

“There are instinctual rules that govern polite society.” He raked a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

How could he possibly think she was ignorant of the rules of polite society? Her power to grant a family a governess was linked to the children’s success in marriage. It was as if he still thought she was a former governess—but she’d clarified her rank, she was sure of it.

“A lady would never have dreamed of entering that tent, and if under some misapprehension she were to enter and see the audience, she would remove herself immediately,” he went on. “Yet you sat unmoved while my little sister absorbed jests alluding to three people in one bed. Not to mention an illuminating disquisition on watery froth, Mrs. Snowe. In short, my sister is now curious about the composition of semen, as well as unusual erotic combinations!”

Eugenia forgot her resolution to apologize. “Your sister, Mr. Reeve, was already in possession of far more knowledge of adult life than are most children her age,” she pointed out. “Need I remind you of your mother’s friendship with the charmingly named Mr. Burger—which friendship her children had been instructed never to mention?”

“My intent is to help them forget their unfortunate childhood, not deepen their knowledge of dissolute behavior.”

“I had no intention of teaching your sister immorality!”

“Let me repeat: what were you doing in the goddamned tent while she was learning it?”

“I have apologized for that, and I will apologize again,” Eugenia said, pulling herself together. “I was very wrong to enter that tent. I was not paying attention to your butler’s sordid lecture, and I freely acknowledge that I should have been.”

“What in the bloody hell were you doing?” This was a shout.

Eugenia shouted right back. “Thinking about you, about us!”

His face went utterly expressionless, stony. “Us?”

“Yes, us!” she cried. “I was wondering why you had taken yourself off with Otis, why you were acting so strangely, why you had said—” She stopped.

“Had said what?”

Her breath was rasping in her chest. “Nothing,” she said, her voice quieting. “Why you had said nothing. About us.”





Chapter Thirty-six




In the silence that followed, Eugenia discovered that she was clinging to the back of a chair for support. Ward’s arms unfolded and his lips tightened into a line before he walked over to stand beside her.

“I apologize,” he said, looking into her eyes. “This is my fault for not being more clear at the beginning of our intimacies. Our affaire.”

Affaire. So that was what it was.

All it was.

She couldn’t delude herself that she hadn’t known. She had always known.