Page 92 of Temptations of a Wallflower
“La secrete de la fille de laiterie—The Dairymaid’s Secretby Jean-Louis LeBrun.” Even speaking of that slim little volume now made her smile. “I’d ordered a French novel from McKinnon’s, and the LeBrun was delivered to me by mistake. As soon as I started reading it, I knew that my life wasn’t going to be the same. Returning it was impossible—I devoured the book. Read and reread it a dozen times.”
“But . . . it was filthy.”
“Exactly.” She nodded. “I’d known a little about sex—just overheard conversations, and I’d seen one of our maids kissing her sweetheart. My own body had its demands, but I never knew . . . I had no idea . . . thebountyof sex. How freeing the pursuit of pleasure could be. And the book itself was so . . . direct. Unapologetic. Just a taste of that, and I wanted more.”
“More?” He sounded genuinely curious now. “Girls of good breeding aren’t supposed to want more.”
“As a vicar, you know as well as I do that that’s ridiculous. If girls and women didn’t enjoy sex, if they weren’t curious about it, there would be far fewer people in the world. I daresay, there would benopeople in the world.”
“True,” he acknowledged.
“So I ordered half a dozen French novels,” she went on. “McKinnon never chided me. Never withheld from me, or threatened to tell my parents. I think he thought it refreshing that a woman would seek to further her own education. It wasn’t long after reading so many of those books that it occurred to me:I can do this. I could write my own ‘French’ novel. So . . . I did.”
She shook her head. “It was . . . revelatory. I loved to write but hadn’t done it well. Not until I penned my own erotic novel. And then . . .” Her gaze turned inward, remembering the feelings stirred in her as she’d written her first sexual tale. “Ifoundmyself. My voice, at last.Here it was, all this time, but I’d needed to find the right subject.”
“Sex,” he said flatly.
“Not merely sex, but women finding sexual fulfillment, finding themselves through the expressions of their bodies. We’ve been taught, us females, that we aren’t supposed to know what we want, that men are supposed to guide us in everything sensual and earthy—but why? Why can’t we know what we want, what we desire?”
“I don’t know,” he said tightly after a pause. “Fear of Eve, I suppose. Of women.”
“If we women had as much knowledge as men, it makes us both stronger. It doesn’t take away power—it adds to it.”
He spoke, tension threading through his voice. “Why publish what you’d written? You put yourself in jeopardy.” He accused her with his tone.
She mulled this over. “Because I wanted others to find the freedom I’d found in writing those books. What I wrote gave me release and pleasure. But more than that,” she went on, growing in strength, “I wanted to stop living in the shadows. They called me the Watching Wallflower. Writing that first book . . . was a way for me to claim another identity.” She smiled viciously to herself. “No one knew who I truly was. And I liked it.”
He said nothing, so she continued. “I saw that there was a publisher of English-language ‘French’ novels,” she explained. “I approached them with a query. They were intrigued enough by the notion that I was a lady ofquality—we started working together. Through letters, of course. Never in person. Even then, I was careful. It was always dangerous.”
The worddangerousreverberated. The quietness of her life was nothing but an illusion.
Running her fingers over the coverlet’s stitching, she went on. “They couldn’t keep copies on the shelves at booksellers’.” She wasn’t able to hide the pride in her voice. This was her accomplishment. Something she’d done entirely on her own, without anyone’s assistance. “My publisher asked for more.”
“And you gave him other books,” he said with that same edge in his words.
“I did. I did, and I loved it.” She exhaled. “Itwasa dangerous game I played, and that was part of why I did it. My secret. My thrill. But it was more than that. So much more.” How to explain it, when she could not fully articulate it to herself. “It gave me purpose and . . . meaning. Ineededit. So I kept going. And then . . .” She glanced at him. “You came into my life. Bringing a promise of a life I’d never thought I could have.”
“Yet you didn’t stop,” he noted tensely.
“I had no idea what our relationship would become,” she explained. “What it would evolve into. You were a vicar, I was a duke’s daughter. It couldn’t turn into something . . . more. And I couldn’t give up the one thing that made me happy—made me more than happy. It gave me . . . value.”
She drew in a shaky breath. Bracing herself for what was to come.
“Now . . . I’ve decided,” she said after a moment. “It all ends now.”
“I don’t understand,” he said.
This was it. No turning back. She said, as boldly as she could manage, “The Lady of Dubious Quality will never write again.”
Chapter 27
Without speaking a word, he seduced me. It wasn’t precisely a seduction, as I desperately craved his touch, but he left no part of me untouched. He carried me to the settee before the fire, pulling off his clothes as he went. Naked, my lover was magnificent, hard all over, wanting me. After laying me down, he gripped my thighs and . . .
The Highwayman’s Seduction
Despite the darkness, Jeremy could only stare at Sarah, certain that he’d misheard. Or there was another explanation for her announcement. She had just told him all the reasons why writing meant so much to her, yet here she was, telling him she would give it up. Heat and anger continued to tear through him, yet she’d revealed her deepest secrets to him.
He was pulled toward her. He wanted to push her away.
