“And using indecent language. It’s very lowering. I’m certain you wish to be thought a respectable gentleman.”
“Like your father?”
She clamped her lips shut, not wishing to enter into a spat. In her peripheral vision she could see Lord Townsend’s mouth curve up in a faint smile. Now and again he made some unobtrusive gesture that brought a footman running to deliver this and that. She sat very straight in her chair and tried to dine as elegantly as he did, but he had some power, some size of presence she lacked. It didn’t help that her bottom ached, and that she burned with embarrassment over the way he’d handled her. Those same fingers that beckoned the servants had been thrust up inside her—and her body had welcomed it.
She almost choked, remembering the humiliation. He glanced at her. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, even though she was not all right.
“Do you wonder where I’ve been these past few nights?” he asked.
She pretended not to hear the question as she placed her silverware atop her plate. “I believe I have finished. May I be excused?”
“No.”
She drew in a deep breath and let it out. Yes, she had wondered where he was, but she didn’t really want to know. She didn’t want to be taunted with his extramarital adventures. “I’m sure it’s none of my business where you were.”
“Oh, but it is your business.” He put down his silverware too and took a great drink of wine. “You remember that you gave me permission to seek companionship outside our marriage?”
She nodded, swallowing hard.
“I had intended to do it discreetly, for your honor, but your father has denied me such...dalliances.”
She stared at him. “Denied you? How?” She imagined her father standing at the door of some house of ill-repute, barring her husband’s way.
He drank more wine, tilting his head back before he swallowed it. “He has convinced every madam and courtesan in London that it behooves them to turn me away.” He lifted his glass to her, as if in a toast. “I am therefore obliged to be scrupulously faithful, whether I wish it or not.”
“It was none of my doing. If my father has done this—”
“Your father did it,” he said, cutting her off. “And I don’t blame you, my dear, but I find myself in an untenable situation. Thanks to your father’s interference, there is only one female available to cater to my vulgar appetite for pleasure, and that female is you.”
Aurelia felt hot and cold and...flabbergasted. “Well, I have allowed you to my bed, haven’t I? I’ll do my wifely duty whenever you insist upon it.”
“Ah, your ‘wifely duty.’ And grudgingly too,” he mocked, raising his dark brows. “Any man would feel himself replete. No, I’m speaking of more than wifely duty. Surely you realize there is an entire world of pleasures to be explored outside the banality of the marital act.”
She wished she could disappear, she truly did. “I’m afraid I do not realize, my lord. I am very sorry that we do not share the same moral inclinations and desire for indecent pleasures. I am very sorry that we are trapped in this marriage, but I don’t know what you wish me to do.”
He leaned closer, and waited until she dragged her gaze to his. “I wish you to change, Aurelia. I wish you to agree to satisfy me in whatever ways I desire, no matter the state of your ‘moral inclinations.’ In light of the servants milling about, I’ll not describe the finer points of my requirements.”
Amidst the outraged shock, a frisson of fear curled in her belly. “What you suggest would be impossible. Even if I agreed to...to satisfy you in whatever ‘vulgar’ ways you are talking about, I would not know how.”
“You can learn.” His voice tautened with the straightening of his broad shoulders. “Let me rephrase that. You will learn.”
The frisson uncoiled into full-blown anxiety. Surely he could not require her to behave as a woman of the night and participate in bizarre, carnal acts for his pleasure? Whatever those women did for their customers, it was nothing a well-bred lady would ever do.
“You ask the impossible.”
He steepled his fingers, studying her. “Yes, I thought the same thing. That is, until this evening, upstairs.”
“I do not wish to speak about that,” she said quickly.
“Oh, we’re going to speak about all manner of things going forward, such as the fact that you don’t really have the right—or power—to deny me this request.”
He called it a request, but it was a demand, one no civilized husband would set forth. There was no room to be a mouse here. She had to stand up to him or sacrifice her long-held virtue. She lifted her chin. “And if I refuse to submit to such outrageous and immoral expectations?”
“Then you shall be spanked nightly until you realize that submission is a far less painful choice.”
She stared at her plate. The filigree design blurred as she tried to control her emotions. She couldn’t believe they were having this conversation, that he would demand such things of her, his own wife. “You’re a monster.”
“I’m a man. I’m your husband, which gives me certain rights. Whether they are monstrous, well, that is a matter of opinion.”
“When my father finds out—”
He gave a sharp bark of laughter. “You’ll never tell your father the result of his ill-thought-out meddling. You would expire of shame and embarrassment before you uttered the first word.”
“I’ll tell my brother then. He’s not so lofty as Papa. He’ll listen to me and he’ll not allow you to shame his sister in this way.”
Hunter shrugged. “Of course you can tell Severin, but then he’d be honor bound to call me out. We’d have to meet at dawn with our pistols, and I could very well end up killing him. His wife is pregnant, isn’t she? It would not be well done of you, I’m afraid to say.”
Aurelia closed her eyes against the image of Brendan lying shot and bleeding in the morning’s dim light. “Or my brother might kill you,” she said, to chase away the thought. “He might prevail, setting me free from this horrible marriage.”
But as she said it, she pictured Lord Townsend lying dead on her behalf and wished she could take the words back. She hated him, but she couldn’t wish him dead. In truth, she didn’t even hate him. She disliked him. No, she didn’t even dislike him, not fully.
She didn’t know how to feel about him.
She didn’t know how to feel at all.
Oh, why was everything in such a muddle? Her feelings, her marriage, her entire life? Townsend would have let her be if her father hadn’t interfered, she was sure of it. Everyone called her father Laudable Lansing because he was so upright, and so was she.
But perhaps it was not the best way to be in a marriage. She had no warmth, no sensual qualities. She knew it, but she didn’t know how to develop those qualities for a man she barely knew. She was so sheltered, so hopeless in the ways of the world that she didn’t even understand what acts he might want her to do.
What a hopeless situation. No wonder they were both angry, and sad.
“I don’t want there to be a duel,” she said, covering her face with her hands. “And I don’t want you to suffer for marrying me. I know you’re disappointed in me, that I’ve never learned to be exciting and licentious in the way you would like. Take me back to my father if you wish. Marry someone else.”
“You know I can’t do that. And I don’t want anyone else. Aurelia, come here.”
She stared at him, at his outstretched arms. His tone and stance had softened, but his eyes looked so sharp, so direct. There was nothing to do but obey his command. She stood and moved to him, accepting his embrace when he gathered her close against his side. She was coming to know the feel of his body, as well as the layers of his scent: shaving soap, leather, and sandalwood. She stared at his lips, mere inches from hers. They were wide and full, and—she was coming to learn—quite expressive of his moods.
“I’m not taking you back to your father,” he said with resolute emphasis. “Ever. So you might as well put that idea out of your mind. We must find a way to rub along together.”
“But I don’t wish you to spank me every night.” Don’t cry. Don’t cry, Aurelia. “And I don’t want to learn to do...unnatural things.”
“Why ‘unnatural’? Because you’ve been taught they’re wrong? I find them quite natural, not to mention necessary to my contentment.” His dark eyes held hers as his hand traveled up and down her back. “There are many wives who feel the same, although they’d never admit it. There are countless women who find pleasure in having ‘unnatural’ things done to them. You were one of them, not even an hour ago.” His hand stopped upon the curve of her still-sore bottom. “Will you disappoint me by denying it?”
She clung to him, hiding her face against his hair. “You made that happen. You caused me to feel those things. It was your fault.”
She thought she might anger him to say so, but instead he chuckled low against her ear. “If it makes you feel better to believe that, I will hold my peace. But we both know the truth.” He squeezed her bottom in such a rough, possessive way that she began to feel the same confusing excitement she’d felt up in the room before. He grinned at her as if he knew it. “I’ll keep your secrets, if you will keep mine.”