IT WAS A GOOD ten more minutes before Rose managed to make her way out of the attiring room with I Sonetti hidden beneath her cloak. It was another hour before her mother had fallen asleep and she could sneak from their bedchamber into the tiny attached sitting room. She closed the door between the two rooms quietly, then lit a candle, fetched paper and ink, and set to work.
In the old days, she would have feasted her eyes on the engravings first thing, but she was determined to become a new, better Rose. She wouldn’t allow herself to look at the pictures until she’d translated the first sonnet for Ellen.
It proved an exercise in frustration. She worked until the candle guttered and she had to light another. But try as she might, she couldn’t seem to make the English sound like a sonnet.
Let us make love, my beloved,
quickly, for we were made to make love.
And if you adore my yard,
then I will love your seat of womanly pleasure.
The world would be worthless without this.
And if it were possible to make love after death,
let us make love until we die of it,
and then make love to Eve and Adam,
who found death so distasteful.
Truly and verily,
if the scoundrels had not eaten forbidden fruit,
I know not whether the lovers would have been contented.
But let us stop speculating, and drive your yard into my core,
until my spirit comes alive and then dies.
And if it be possible, push even more of you inside me,
So we should witness every pleasure of making love.
It would have to do, she finally decided—Ellen had said that Thomas didn’t care for sonnets, anyway. A clock on the mantel was striking three when at last she allowed her gaze to stray to the drawing.
It was nice, as she’d remembered. Bare skin notwithstanding, the couple looked relaxed, the pose romantic. Their arms were wrapped around each other, their lips meeting above while their bodies met below. As Rose studied the picture, that slow heat started building again inside her.
When she imagined herself with one special man, the heat built to an ache. This, she realized suddenly, could be beautiful.
Releasing a shuddering sigh, she turned to the second engraving, and then the third and the fourth—the one where the man and woman were reaching out to touch each other. Her cheeks burned, no matter that she was alone. Unable to resist, she flipped to Position Five, an engraving she had yet to see.
The man sat on the edge of a bed, and the woman sat on top of him, facing away. She was reaching between her own legs and back to grab his…yard…and guide it into herself. . .
Rose swallowed hard and forced her gaze to the words.
Such pleasure I feel with my yard in your hand,
I shall explode…
On the next page, the woman had settled on the man’s lap.
You are filling me, thrilling me,
and I could stay seated here for a year.
And then the woman was lying on the floor with the man standing over her, holding her raised legs.
Spread your thighs, let me see your lovely bottom
and your seat of womanly pleasure.
The sight makes me pulse with passion,
and I’ve a sudden urge to kiss you…
Ah, she remembered the kisses. Kit’s kisses. And the thought of her on the floor, a man standing above her…a certain man…
That ache was intensifying. A yearning ache that felt all but unbearable. Right where the man in the drawing was looking.
Spread your thighs…
Quickly she flipped another page and froze, staring.
Will you look at this? she remembered a high-pitched voice saying. How do you expect it works? This looks bloody uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable, indeed. Why, the lady was all but folded in half, and…good God. Rose’s hand fluttered up to her throat. Would her husband expect her to do this?
Position Nine was even more unbelievable, and Position Ten—did bodies really twist like that? In Eleven the woman arched on one elbow and foot, her other leg raised in the air, while the man—
Gemini.
If this was what awaited her in the marriage bed, she’d as soon remain a spinster.
She flipped hurriedly through the rest of the engravings, sixteen in all, and finally slammed the book shut. Shaking, she hid it carefully, then folded the translation and tucked it into her embroidered drawstring purse. As the clock struck four, she tiptoed back into the bedchamber and slid beneath the covers, leaving a lamp burning low as always.
But sleep eluded her as the pictures played over and over in her head.
Did her sisters do these things? Were Lily and Rand doing them even now? Aristotle’s Master-piece had warned there would be “some little pain” the first time, and Rose had never worried about that. But from what she could see, there must be pain every time. And not a little, either. She ached just thinking about those positions.
The fire in the grate sputtered and died, leaving nothing but glowing embers—and still Rose lay sleepless. At long last, she forced herself to remember the first engraving.
The beautiful one.
Her skin tingled where the sheets seemed to caress her…and she wished they were male hands instead. The man in the engraving hadn’t had a clear face. Shutting her eyes tight, she tried to picture the duke.
But the face she saw was Kit’s.