Vixen in Velvet by Loretta Chase

Author:Loretta Chase [Chase, Loretta]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Historical romance, Georgian
ISBN: 9780062100320
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-06-23T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

There is a most scandalous story about a certain English Mr. H. at Paris, and two orphan children of a German baron by an English wife: we shall wait to hear if it has reached our correspondent’s circle.

—Lady’s Magazine & Museum, March 1835

The chaise longue was narrow, not meant for two people. But when Lisburne moved to take his weight off Leonie, she turned in his arms and tangled her legs with his and fit herself against him as easily as though they’d practiced for years. Then they had room enough, all the room they needed, which was to say none at all between them, though he was no longer inside her.

He was cooling and calming, and a part of him was sliding into sleep, one hand resting so comfortably on her hip. Yet a fragment of his being clung to wakefulness. That was the part where his conscience was working itself into a frenzy—now, when it was too late, after it had lain about in a stupor during all the time when it might have made itself useful.

He said, “Are you all right?”

She had her face nestled against his shoulder, and the words came out slightly muffled. “Now I know why Venus wore that look. She was thinking, ‘What just happened? Am I all right? How can he sleep at a time like this?’ ”

It wasn’t remotely like any answer Lisburne had expected. Tears, shame, fear, guilt—weren’t those the usual reactions?

He should have known better. This was Leonie, who’d stood motionless for at least a quarter hour in front of his painting. She’d done it because, he now understood, she had been trying to organize and arrange it in her mental ledger.

“He sleeps,” he said, pushing aside his qualms for the moment, “because he feels as though he’s performed all the labors of Hercules in the space of a few minutes. In the most enjoyable way possible. But still . . .”

“It takes a lot out of a man,” she said. “I understand that now.”

Now she understood. Thanks to him. Other men, he knew, delighted in virgins and paid high prices for them. Those men were not Simon Blair, the fourth Marquess of Lisburne. His father had told him that a true gentleman had intimate relations with only one virgin, and that was his bride, on the wedding night.

Lisburne had only himself to blame for what had happened. Leonie was a novice. No matter how sophisticated she seemed, she was inexperienced. Lisburne, who had abundant experience, was the one responsible. He ought to have known better. He ought to have seen. But he’d been willfully blind.

Now, when it was too late, he remembered the clues: the tentative way she’d first kissed him, the sense he’d had of her learning as she went along. Gad, hadn’t she told him?

I may be inexperienced but I learn very quickly, and whatever I learn to do, I am determined to do extremely well.

Inexperienced. He’d made the word mean what he wanted it to mean.

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