Page 36 of Daring the Forbidden Earl
She knows… oh my goodness, she knows!
“Might I have spotted you two together underneath the apple tree in my garden? Do you think that might be the man?” Nora raised a knowing eyebrow, but Johanna was not at all ready for anyone to know that she was sharing her bed with Mark. Especially as Nora would likely tell Liam, who would tell Kenneth, who would burst a vein and start calling them both harlots if he found out.
“Lord Sinclair and I were fighting, Nora,” she said, feigning nonchalance. “He was insisting that he would not return inside, and I was threatening to drag him there if he did not. I told him he was being rude for leaving your dining hall so abruptly. The dinner party was partially in my honor, so I wanted to chastise him for disrespecting me, too.”
Nora burst out laughing. “Have you forgotten what I used to be, my dear, darling Johanna? I used to lie for a living, so I know a gigantic one when I see it.” She nudged her friend playfully in the ribs. “But I’ll bide my time until you’re ready to reveal the truth.”
“What truth?” Johanna blurted out. “There is no truth to tell. If I had taken Mark to my bed, do you not think Liam would already have told you? Mark, from what I have learned in my brief experience with him, cannot keep his mouth shut when it comes to his conquests.”
Please believe me, just for now. I will apologize profusely when I do tell you the truth, but I still need to be sure that this will last.
For a moment, Nora seemed to pause in thought. “Hmm… you make an excellent point, my dear.” She canted her head. “I was so sure it was Mark. Perhaps I’ve been away from the courtesan world for so long that my perceptiveness is getting rusty.”
“I have taken no man to my bed, and I have not enjoyed any… little deaths,” Johanna reiterated.
“Then I apologize, for you’ve been robbed of the greatest pleasure.” Nora sighed wistfully. “But when you do, youhaveto tell me. When I was a courtesan, the other ladies used to talk about pleasures and sexual experimentation all the time. I used to listen, but I had nothing nice to add of my own until I met Liam. And most of thetonare stuffy prudes who’d explode at the mere mention of apetit mort.You are my last hope of having someone to talk to about exciting and explicit things!”
Johanna laughed. “I promise, I will be that hope.”
For I also want to tell you of the things that I have discovered. Goodness, dear Nora, there is so much to tell!
In truth, the reason she did not yet have the courage to confess to Nora was larger than her fear of being destroyed in the scandal sheets. During her marriage, she had not had any friends, or anyone she could talk to. And though it might have sounded foolish, she did not want to risk losing Nora if the liaison with Mark turned sour, and Nora was forced to keep her distance.
“I’ll hold you to that.” Nora hoisted the oat sack over her shoulder. “Now, pick up one of these and bring it to the storehouse. If you’ve not been ravished all night, you’ve no excuse.”
She walked off with a spring in her step, as if she did not quite believe Johanna’s tiny lie entirely. And maybe there was no reason to lie, for Nora had seemed happy enough when she had suspected that Mark had become Johanna’s lover.
I will leave it a while longer…
For she still feared that she might wake up from this blissful dream and find herself alone once more.
Chapter Twenty-One
If we were on that bridge again, she would have said the same thing to me…
Mark could not hide his elation as he finished off his luncheon and sat back, his hands folded across his toned abdomen. He had replayed Johanna’s words in his mind a thousand times since he had left her early that morning, and they had yet to lose their shine.
“What I would not give for the power to reverse time, dear Johanna,” he mumbled to himself, thinking of all the sadness she had endured—being spurned by a lover, losing a child, being forced to marry an old cretin, and knowing nothing of pleasure or intimacy throughout the years of her marriage.
I cannot say I mind that so much.
It felt somewhat selfish to admit it, but he was rather pleased that his uncle had never laid a finger upon Johanna. For though he had pushed away his uncle’s loitering ghost when he had kissed, and caressed, and lavished his attentions on Johanna’s body, there had been a creeping discomfort in the back of his mind that had now been dispelled. It was rather like being an explorer, journeying across new territory, wondering if someone had been there before him.
He did not mind that she had taken a lover before she had wed his uncle. He was certainly not going to be a hypocrite about such things. Indeed, it only made him feel more protective of her, for he never wanted her to have to endure such heartache again.
But can I tie myself to one woman? Do I have the ability to be… monogamous?
He had avoided restricting himself to one lover for his entire adult life, and yet he felt no fear when he thought of sharing a future with Johanna. Perhaps, it was because she had been the first woman to spark something akin to love within him. Perhaps, it was because she was the one who had set him on a path of no commitment, so she was the only one who could change that. Perhaps, he had merely been waiting for her to come back to him.
“I will write to her,” he said, sitting up straighter. “I must see her again without delay.” He grinned, thinking of the other suggestions in that instruction manual that they had yet to experiment with. But, more than that, he dearly wished to look upon her beautiful face, and see her smile, and her twinkling eyes, and be near to her once again.
Mark was about to stand and call for Chalke, when the manservant entered the dining room of his own accord, wielding a silver tray of correspondence.
“Ah, you have finished your luncheon.” Chalke hesitated. “Will you take your correspondence in here, My Lord, or shall I take them through to the drawing room? Or your study, perhaps?”
Mark dabbed the corners of his mouth with a napkin. “I will read them in the drawing room, Chalke. And might you fetch me a tipple of sherry with a piece of the cook’s divine apple pie? I have a taste for both.”
“Of course, My Lord.” Chalke looked like he was about to say something else, probably about replacing the sherry with a cup of tea, but he seemed to think better of it and headed back out of the dining room.
