Page 24 of Romancing the Rifleman
“He acts the part of the scapegrace.”Izzie waved her own madeleine.“And to a certain extent, he is.But he would doanythingfor the people he cares about.”
“He does have a reputation for being a bit wild,” Diana noted.“Do you think he will make a good husband when he finally settles down and marries?”
The twins exchanged a look.“I do,” Izzie said.
“I do as well,” Lucy added.
Izzie bit her lip.“In my opinion, the reason Harrington has pursued, shall we say, fleeting attachments, is not because he is incapable of being faithful.It’s because he believes deep down that no woman would want a permanent alliance withhim.”
“That’s it exactly,” Lucy agreed.
Diana frowned.She had been pursued by any number of men with far fewer personal attractions than Harrington Astley.Most of them had a level of self-regard entirely disproportionate to their shortcomings.“Why would he feel that way?”
The twins exchanged another one of those speaking looks.“It’s largely because of Edward,” Lucy said at last.
“Edward?”Diana asked.“You mean, Lord Fauconbridge?I thought they were close.”
“They are,” Izzie hastened to reassure her.“Please, don’t mistake me.Edward has never been unkind.”
“That’s not in Edward’s nature,” Lucy added.
“But…” Izzie waved a hand, formulating her words.“Edward was so bright and so focused on doing well in school.”
“Toofocused on doing well in school,” Lucy added darkly.
“Harrington decided from an early age that he could never measure up,” Izzie explained.“And so, he chose a different path.”
“And didn’t try in school at all,” Lucy said sadly.
Izzie nodded.“This in turn caused him to conclude that he was an idiot, and worthless, and that no woman would want him, when really, none of those things are true.”
Diana leaned back in her chair, considering.“That certainly tracks with what I’ve observed.He could scarcely believe your father wanted him, rather than Edward, to stand for that seat in Parliament.I was actually the one who first informed him that he had been elected, and his reaction was somewhat panicked.”
The twins shared another pregnant glance.“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Lucy said.
“Well,” Diana said, setting down her cup, “this is certainly good information for me to have.Thank you for informing me.”
Izzie set her teacup aside.“Speaking of useful information to have, now that we have established that you will be marrying my brother?—”
“Izzie!”Diana laughed.“We have established no such thing.”
Izzie ignored Diana’s protestations, as Diana had known she would.“Are there any questions you wish to have answered prior to your wedding night?”Izzie paused dramatically, giving Diana a lurid look.“Questions of anintimatenature?”
Diana considered.There were decided benefits to having a married friend.Izzie had already explained, in detail, what went on between a man and a woman in the bedchamber.Whenever she did marry, Diana would be going into her wedding night with far more information than the typical bride.
And Izzie had done more than describe the basics of the marital act.Before she married Thorpe, she had commandeered a book of scandalous prints from its hiding place beneath Harrington’s mattress and presented it for Lucy and Diana’s perusal.
Diana had found the pictures shocking.Aunt Griselda bred her own hunting dogs, so Diana had already understood the basic mechanics of copulation.But seeing those naked men and women tangling together had been a thousand times more startling than watching a pair of dogs rut.Some of them showed a woman putting her mouth on a man’s most intimate parts, the mere thought of which made Diana blush.And the notion thatshemight want a man to do the same toherwas inconceivable.
As astonishing as the images were, Diana could not deny that they were also… stirring.After Izzie’s wedding, she had encouraged Diana and Lucy to keep an open mind toward those images of the couples kissing one another between their legs, assuring them that the act was exquisitely pleasurable.After a few years spent pondering the matter, Diana felt more curious than horrified.Armed with her newfound knowledge about the workings of her own body, she had experimented late at night in her bed and found that caressing the areas shown in the prints did, indeed, bring about a delightful result.She could now easily imagine that a man putting his mouth on that little spot between her legs might bring about the sort of bliss that radiated from the couples shown in the book.
She would go so far as to say that she was eager to try it.And since his return, when she lay in bed at night, touching herself, the man she liked to imagine she was engaging in those acts with was Harrington.
There were other pictures in that book for which the appeal was less clear, including the image Harrington had marked by folding down the corner of the page.
It depicted a man bent over while his lover spanked him with a birch.But far from finding the experience painful, the man had an expression of bliss on his face, and was reaching down to rub his own cock, which was fully erect!
It was possible that the corner had been folded down by accident, perhaps as Harrington hastily shut the book and shoved it back into its hiding place.But Diana could not help but notice that when the book was opened to this particular page, it lay flat very easily.
