Page 35 of Daring the Forbidden Earl
It was too cruel a twist of fate, and he found himself short of breath as he imagined what might have been. Then again, if she had come to him that day and told him she was with child, would he have accepted her? Would he have confessed, as he had hoped to? The answer did not sit well with him, especially knowing that he might not have done what his uncle had.
“I told him he could annul our marriage,” Johanna explained, “but he refused. He said it did not matter to him, either way. I was already his wife, so he saw no reason to change it.”
Bile rose up Mark’s throat. “He had ayoungwife. Why would that wretched snake annul your marriage? I cannot even begin to imagine the humiliation and degradation you suffered with him as your husband.”
“There was humiliation of a kind, but he never hurt me,” she insisted. “He never touched me, in truth. On our wedding night, I crept into his bedchamber, thinking I had to perform my wifely duty. I did not want to, but my mother and father had insisted I please him.” Her voice wavered. “I got into bed beside him and tried to… Anyway, he rebuffed me and sent me back to my bedchamber, which is where I spent the rest of my nights during my marriage. Alone.”
“I am sorry, Sweeting. I am sorry you were never shown love. I am sorry you were forced into a marriage you did not want,” Mark said solemnly. “And I am sorriest for thinking I hated you. I was an idiot. My pride got so wounded that I did not consider you might have had reasons for the things you did, and I will regret that for a long while to come.”
Mark kissed her forehead, as though he were staking a claim to her. Not that he wanted to possess her in a domineering sort of way. He just wanted her to know he was here, and that the feelings he had almost said on the bridge were unchanged. Still, there was some relief in hearing that his uncle had never touched her.
But can that be true? I know the sort of man he was, and he had no qualms about “touching” women. Perhaps he only touched the ones who put up a fight… like my mother.
Johanna tilted her head back so they could look at one another. “You are not upset? You do not hate me again? You look rather angry.”
“I am neither upset nor angry, and I could never feel anything but affection for you now,” he replied. His anger was aimed at his uncle, not her.
She smiled shyly. “Then, might I tell you something else?”
“Of course.”
“What you were going to say on the bridge,” she whispered. “If we were there again now, I would say the same thing to you.”
Chapter Twenty
Cold rain spattered down upon London, and swollen, furious clouds stretched as far as the eye could see, as though the skies did not know of the glorious night that Johanna had spent in Mark’s company. She had awoken alone, for he had left long before Mrs. Sawyer came in to begin her day’s work, but the warm scent of his skin had lingered on the pillows and coverlets, and the memory of their night remained vivid in her mind.
As such, she floated merrily into the Roberts Orphanage, undeterred by the grim weather. It could have been raining sewage and she would not have noticed.
“And what are you grinning like a fool about?” Nora intercepted her in the cavernous foyer, wielding a sack of oats like she was not a Countess at all.
Johanna froze. “Me? I do not know what you mean. I… uh… suppose I slept rather well.”
“Is that so?” Nora winked. “And which lovely gentleman shared your bed, to make you look so giddy this morning? Was it one of the men I brought to that dinner party?”
Johanna floundered, for she had not expected an interrogation. “I have a slight cold, that is all. I am not giddy; I am feverish. As for a gentleman sharing my bed—there is a greater chance of Denninson announcing his engagement by the week’s end.”
“You can’t pull the wool over my eyes, my girl.” Nora lunged forward and pressed her palm to Johanna’s forehead. “A-ha! I knew it! No fever, dear Johanna. So, you’re going to have to come up with a much better lie if you want to fox me. I can tell, just by looking at a woman, that she’s recently had a…” She leaned in and lowered her voice to a whisper, “petit mort.”
Confusion swirled through Johanna’s head. “A little death?”
“That, my fibbing friend, is what the French call an orgasm.” Nora skipped delightedly, while Johanna stared at her in further bemusement.
“What is that?”
Nora rolled her eyes. “A thing that happens to a woman that feels as though you have died and gone to heaven, albeit temporarily. It… surges through you and makes you all quivery and delirious.” She wagged a finger. “Don’t pretend you don’t know the feeling—I can see you’ve had one, and a good one at that, from the glimmer in your eyes.”
So that is what it is called. A “petit mort.” A little death. An orgasm.
It baffled her that she could have gone her entire life without knowing such a thing existed. Then again, she had only just discovered that passion and pleasure were things that all women could experience, so she supposed she was catching up on the rest.
“Who was it?” Nora pressed, slapping the sack of oats with amusing impatience. “After all the lessons I have been giving you, I must know who has replaced me as your true teacher.”
Johanna put up her hands in mock surrender. “There is no man, Nora! I would tell you if there were.”
“Are you quite certain it isn’t someone who’s known for deliveringpetit morts,like he’s some sort of sexual undertaker?” Nora wrinkled her nose. “That wasn’t one of my best similes. Forget that.”
Panic struck Johanna in the chest.
