“Yes,” he said, “I truly mean it.”
11
I do desire we may be better strangers.
—SHAKESPEARE
The problem, Victoria thought objectively, was that she became besotted when he was with her, notably when he basted her, just as Mrs. Ripple would a birthday ham, with his particular brand of charm. She disliked feeling this way immensely. Rafael didn’t deserve anything but the most rancid of reactions from her after what he had done. She sighed.
He had, in the most sincere manner possible, asked her for a truce.
When he wasn’t with her, as he wasn’t now, she remembered well his nastiness on their wedding night and her two feet were firmly planted in blunt reality. And his afternoon charm had worn off a bit, like rice powder.
Victoria knew she wanted to believe Rafael had changed from a bitter and vindictive man to the charming and loving man she’d ridden with all afternoon. After all, an olive branch was an olive branch, and he’d offered it so charmingly. She sighed again as she slipped her blue silk gown over her head. And she had unbent so completely to him, grabbing that olive branch with great alacrity. And for more than just a little while. He quite simply blinded her with his charm.
At least now, away from him, she thought, viciously forcing the last button through its small opening, she could see things more clearly. She sat at her dressing table and picked up her hairbrush. She frowned at her face. Why? Why had Rafael changed?
It was miserable to be constantly at war with each other. But he had started the war. Since that was the case, she supposed he believed he could just as easily and quickly end it.
She leaned closer to the mirror as she threaded a dark blue velvet ribbon through the curls atop her head. In the soft candlelight, flashing beacons of red and blond and deep brown shimmered through her chestnut hair. She decided that she looked well enough.
She paused a moment, turning slightly toward the mirror behind her dressing table. Perhaps it was the candlelight or the high ceilings of her bedchamber that gave off strange shadows and shades, but she realized with a start that she looked not just well enough. She looked well beyond acceptable. She stared a moment at her bare shoulders and nearly bare bosom, pushed upward by the stiff band of material beneath her breasts. White, she thought. She looked very white and soft and very female. And Rafael would think so.
And that was why he wanted to make peace with her.
He wanted to take her to bed.
He wanted to know if she was a virgin.
How could a man know that? she wondered, turning away from the mirror. Could a woman tell if a man were also a virgin?
Victoria pulled back her shoulders and headed down the winding staircase to the small drawing room on the first floor. Rafael was waiting for her there, a snifter of brandy in his hand. He looked remarkably handsome in his severe black evening garb, offset with the snowy white linen. A man shouldn’t be blessed with such a silver shade of gray eyes or with such thick long lashes.
Then he smiled at her and she felt like a very cloudy day that had just been given a strong dose of sun.
“You look lovely,” she blurted out.
Rafael blinked, for words of a similar nature had been on his tongue, ready to fire off. “Thank you,” he said, grinning. “You’re not such an affliction for the eyes yourself. You look enchanting in that shade of blue.”
She merely nodded at his compliment, seeing him with new eyes. He was her husband, yes, he was, and he also looked quite determined and steely behind that layer of charming nonsense he was spreading so smoothly.
“Would you care for a glass of sherry?”
She nodded again. When he handed her the crystal glass, his fingers lightly touched hers. His flesh felt warm and smooth and hard. She willed herself to show no reaction. She should, she thought bitterly, as a virgin, jump out of her skin with maidenly fright whenever he even came near her. If he touched her, she supposed she should shriek with downright horror. She did nothing, merely stood quietly and silently, sipping her sherry.
At that moment, Mrs. Ripple appeared in the doorway, a smile on her wide mouth that showed the space between her front teeth, to announce dinner.
“She always smiles when she tells us to come to a meal,” Victoria said. “It makes me feel like the sacrificial lamb. I wonder what she has concocted this evening.”
“I just hope it’s recognizable,” Rafael said as he offered her his arm. She grinned and he decided that the truce was going well. So he looked lovely, did he? That made him want to smile. No woman had quite told him that before. As for his wife, he was honest: she looked immensely pretty, both in and out of that blue silk. As a man with some experience with women, he knew she’d spent more than a usual amount of time on her appearance. That pleased him. The night ahead would progress nicely, he hoped, and not become the desert of the past nights.
There was no conversation between them until Mrs. Ripple, having served them, left them alone in the small dining room to face the dinner.
“I believe it’s beef,” Victoria said. “Boiled.”
“Yes, but it won’t be too dry. All the fat is on it.”
Whatever was on it, Victoria ignored the platter and took a helping of boiled potatoes and carrots. She began to eat without thinking about the taste of boiled parsley.
“She does try, very hard,” she said after some moments.
“Yes. If we were fat folk, she would be the perfect cook.”
“Rafael?”
“Hmmm?” Rafael didn’t look up. He was at the moment intent on cutting off a large ridge of fat from a slice of beef.
“How can a woman tell if a man is a virgin?”
His fork clattered to the plate. He looked at her perfectly serious face in blank surprise.
“I beg your pardon?” he said, buying himself some time. What the devil was she up to now?
“I asked you,” she said patiently, “how a woman can tell if a man is a virgin.”
“Your dinner-table conversation is unusual. Is this the first sign that you have embarked on an improper career?”
He was smiling at her, and that devastating white-toothed smile robbed his words of insult. Victoria didn’t take offense, she merely shrugged. “There’s no one else to ask.”
“You want to know how a woman can tell if a man is a virgin.” He toyed with his fork a moment, a long moment, and said finally, “A woman can’t tell, at least she can’t tell from any physical signs. I suppose if the man were particularly inept, she could guess that he was. Without any prior experience, that is.”
He had watched her closely as he spoke. He wished he knew what was going on in that head of hers. He was quickly to find out.
“Is it the same with a woman? A man can’t tell physically? He can only guess, if she is inept?”
So that was it, he thought. Hadn’t she bled with the first man she’d been with? Hadn’t it hurt her? Very well, he would tell her the truth, even though she probably already knew. It didn’t matter if it were her plan to pretend virginity. He wasn’t a fool. He said calmly, crossing his arms over his chest, “Actually, a woman is fashioned physically to prove her virginity.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean,” he said, feeling anger stirring, despite his intentions toward peace, “that a woman usually has a stretch of skin inside her that is broken when the first man enters her. When it’s broken, she bleeds. Also, there is pain because the woman’s passage isn’t used to having a man’s member inside, and depending on the size of the man, it can, I suppose, hurt a great deal.”
She paled as he spoke, but he didn’t regret speaking so bluntly. Damn her, if she wanted him to be crude about it, he would oblige her. First, though, he said, his voice harsh, “Do you understand?”
She heard the incredulity in his voice, the suspicion, the anger, and nearly smiled at the image of his olive branch fast withering. “I suppose so,” she said finally. It didn’t sound at all pleasant, this love
making business. As to his male member, she had no difficulty at all remembering Rafael’s their wedding night. If memory served, he was quite large and she supposed that meant that it would hurt a good deal. He would thrust that part of himself into her. All of it? In the light of day, without him touching her, it was truly a ghastly thought. She didn’t like it, not one bit. But then she remembered more of her wedding night and the wild uncontrol Rafael had made her feel. None of it made any sense, none at all.
Rafael said in a coldly stern voice reminiscent of his father, “Don’t even try it, Victoria. I’m not an idiot, nor am I blind. I remember hearing once how a bride, to keep her husband believing her virtuous, had a vial of chicken blood with her on her wedding night. She screamed when he entered her and then smeared the chicken blood on her thighs. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t get away with it. Her husband wasn’t pleased when he found the vial beneath her pillow, some chicken blood still in it. Nor would I be pleased.”
“Chicken blood,” Victoria repeated. “She used chicken blood?” She burst out laughing—she couldn’t help herself. It was too ludicrous.
“Look, Mrs. Ripple has made some baked chicken. On that plate there, the greasy-looking hunks of meat.” She hugged herself and laughed harder. “At least it’s not boiled like the beef.”
Rafael stared at her.
“I should go to the kitchen immediately. You must tell me how much I would need. Ah, but I am beset with the problem of a vial. Surely Mrs. Ripple would have something of a useful nature about. If not a vial, then a . . . a what, Rafael? An empty wine bottle? No, much too large.” Tears streamed from her eyes, she was laughing so hard.
“Stop it, Victoria. Now.”
She sniffed, hiccuped, giggled, then managed to pick up her napkin and gently dab at her eyes. “Forgive me,” she said at last. “You’re an amusing storyteller, Rafael. Have you other tales I should enjoy as much as that one?”
“I could finish that one, if you wish.”
He didn’t wait for her to reply, merely continued in an emotionless voice, “The husband sent the wife off to a godforsaken estate in Northumberland. Sure enough, in six months she birthed a bastard. He refused ever to see her again.”
“I don’t think I like that story after all,” Victoria said. “It doesn’t end well.”
“Doesn’t it? Should he have divorced her? Wrung her neck?”
“No, he should have asked her why she did it. I would assume that he had some affection for her.”
“She played him false and lied to him. He knew enough.”
“What happened to the child?”
“I don’t know.”
“So,” Victoria said, sitting back in her chair, gazing at her very lovely husband down the expanse of dining table, “this is what you think I’m doing to you? You are afraid I’m with child? A bastard?”
“I hope that you’re not.”
“Your twin’s bastard? How difficult that would be. After all, the child would resemble you. Whatever would you do?”
“Victoria,” he said, his teeth gritted, “shut up. I want no more of this from you.”
“Oh, I understand now. Of course, if the child were yours, it would be born nine months after you committed your sexual act. Any earlier, the good Lord help me, and there is yet another bastard to populate the earth.”
“Victoria, I told you to be quiet.”
“Your peace offering is growing more tattered and unrecognizable by the moment, Rafael.”
“I’m not used to ladies asking me the symptoms of virginity. Surely it’s not all that proper a topic of conversation.”
“Little we’ve spoken of would qualify, I think, as proper.”
She began to pare the warm skin off a peach. He watched her graceful fingers. “Untouched by Mrs. Ripple’s housewifely hands,” she said.
He poured himself another glass of wine. In silence.
“I have chanced upon some proper conversation,” she said at last as she chewed on a peach slice. “Here it is. It will be difficult returning to Drago Hall. Perhaps Damien won’t want us there. I can’t imagine that he would ever wish to see either of us again. After all, Rafael, you did take what he must have seen as his fifty thousand pounds.”
“Whatever else Damien is or has become, he never could tolerate any sort of scandal, particularly if he were the one in the middle of it. It would cause a great scandal for him to refuse shelter to his own twin brother.” Rafael smiled, a rather nasty smile. “And you can be certain that everyone would know of it if he did refuse.”
“I don’t understand why you wish to stay there.”
“I told you. Drago Hall would be a base of sorts. I wish to find a site for my future home.”
His home, she thought, not theirs. “There are comfortable inns about.”
“I haven’t been in the house of my birth in many years. It was my home as well, you know, just as it was yours for five years.”
“I have nothing at all against Drago Hall. It’s just the inmates that are trying.”
“You become vehement now. Why is that, I wonder. You weren’t when I first told you of it this afternoon.”
“Was I not? Well, perhaps I had other things on my mind. Would you care for a peach slice? No? I shall finish it off in that case. It’s very sweet. Mrs. Ripple told me all the fruit is from the cottage orchard. Is it—”
“Victoria, do shut up.”
“It took me a goodly amount of time, and, I might add, being away from you, but I also determined why you wanted so very much to make peace with me.”
He stiffened. “I’m really quite tired of your prattle. Would you like coffee in the drawing room?”
“No. Nor would I care to climb into your bed. If you but had some physical flaws, Rafael, I should have understood your motives much sooner.”
“That is the oddest compliment I have ever received. I can’t thank you for it. Nor, I might add, do I understand what you mean.”
Victoria rose from the table. “It matters not. Do you play piquet?”
“Yes, certainly. At sea, one learns all sorts of interesting games to pass the time.”
“Well, I suggest we ask Mrs. Ripple for a deck of cards. It is either that or doubtless we can begin to argue in earnest.”
“I don’t wish to argue with you.”
“I don’t wish to return to Drago Hall.”
“I’m sorry, Victoria, but we must. Truly, I won’t allow anyone to treat you—”
“—with less consideration than you do?”
“Your mouth glides on well-oiled wheels.”
She sighed. “I suppose so. You’re a constant contradiction, Rafael. It’s difficult to keep pace with you.”
“Not really. I’m just a man, Victoria, and now I’m a husband, your husband.”
“Just what is that bit of obvious information supposed to convey? That I am to come to heel? I won’t let you forget yourself again, Rafael.” She’d spoken calmly, a layer of contempt in her voice, but all the same, as she’d spoken, she was backing up until her shoulder touched the doorframe.
“Why not? As I recall with great clarity, you couldn’t get enough of me fast enough.” His white-toothed smile wasn’t lovely now, it was predatory.
She forced herself to smile in return. “That’s true, but now I realize that a virgin is supposed to behave according to certain rules—rules, I am certain, that men came up with centuries ago. You touch me, Rafael, and I am to shudder with disgust and shriek with outrage. Have I got that right at last?”
He said nothing for a long moment. Finally he said easily, “Let’s play piquet now.”
“What is so very odd about all this is your anger. It would seem to me that you, as a man, would feel ver pleased at my reaction to you. Shouldn’t it make you feel a good deal of masculine pride? Make you crow about your prowess as a lover? You’re a contradictory, perverse creature, sir, truly you are. Shall we play piquet?”
“You expect me to answer yes or no a
nd ignore what you just said?”
“You do it to me with great regularity.”
“I had not realized what an impertinent mouth you had, Victoria.”
Then he must be quite slow-witted, she thought. “Ah, you wouldn’t have married me had you realized it?”
“Yes, but I would have at least been prepared for the shrew, and not caught off guard.”
“I imagine that you can ignore anything you wish to, Rafael. After all, you managed to come away with the spoils. Fifty thousand pounds. Perhaps you can even buy a moldering estate somewhere in the north and send me there. Then you have my money without my shrewish company.”
“You will cease pushing me, Victoria, and you will stop your silly nonsense about the fifty thousand pounds.”
He wasn’t smiling, and his face, without a smile, looked stern indeed. Forbidding. She bowed her head and turned on her heel. “I shall ask Mrs. Ripple for a deck of cards,” she said over her shoulder, not looking at him.
She paused in the doorway, but didn’t turn to face him. “Oh, Rafael, is a virgin supposed to play piquet well? Or is she to stutter and flutter about helplessly? Perhaps shuffle the cards badly? Make nonsensical plays?”
She was doing him in quite nicely, he thought, at once angered at her and admiring. She had guts, his wife. It was her other qualities he was concerned about. He managed to say easily, “I have never played piquet before with a virgin. I should say, though, since a female’s goal in life is to procure a husband, she would play badly so that he would win and thus feel superior.”
“She, of course, could then act admiring?”
“Ah, yes, indeed. How well do you coo, Victoria? Can I assume that you have been a virgin at least part of your female life?”
Amazing how just one short series of words could be the final straw. She said with amazing calm, “The truce is over, Rafael. I wish you would go to the devil and roast yourself.”
She turned away from him with great stateliness, shoulders squared in disdain; then, as if she thought her exit too slow and fraught with possible reaction from him, she grasped her skirts and fled the entrance hall up the stairs.