Page 41 of Most Unusual Duke

“Was there?” Beatrice shook her head and took a bite of scone. “Did he not breach your maidenhead?” Beatrice shook her head again and shrugged. Charlotte continued. “It is very likely, then, you are still an innocent.”

Beatrice scoffed, and to her horror, crumbs flew out of her mouth. “I can think of no one less innocent than I.”

“Untouched, then, in any way that signifies.”

“But there was… It was not, I cannot call it bed play, but he visited my rooms and came into the bed with me, and…” She could not go on.

“My dear, you are the epitome of refinement, and I shudder to lower the tone.” Charlotte took a deep breath and asked, “Did he put his cock in your cunny?”

Beatrice brushed at the crumbs in her lap. “There were, of course, attempts at entry. I do not believe he was successful.”

“You’d know for certain if he had.”

“There was a sensation of—”

“Of this?” Charlotte poked Beatrice in the fleshy part of her arm down to the bone.

Beatrice gasped at the sharp pain. “Something like, but with far less energy.”

“Sweet Freya, did it go in or did it not?”

“His part?”

“Yes.”

“No…?”

Charlotte rose and looked about the room. “I would be happy to illustrate the correct effect, only to a certain extent, of course…ah!” She dragged Beatrice off the sofa and over to the mantelpiece to take a candle out of its holder. “Here. Feel this. It is like to as firm as a cock ought to be.”

Beatrice grasped the candlestick at the exact moment Ben and Osborn walked in. She dropped it; Charlotte howled with laughter and ran from the room, collecting Ben on her way. The sound of her mirth could be heard diminishing up the flight of stairs.

“Dare I ask?” Osborn’s habitual glower lightened.

“You may, of course,” she replied. “Nevertheless, I do not recommend it.”

“How curious.” His voice, always so resonant, achieved a note so plangent it threatened to undo her garters.

“It was such as killed the cat, and you have assured me you are not one.” Osborn had brought half the dirt of the barn in with him. She reached out and brushed the arm of his coat. His arm, which was in the sleeve. An arm as solid as an oak, as unyielding as that mighty tree. And yet it was warm, so warm, and it twitched beneath her touch. She ran her hand up and down, up and down…

She ought to stop petting him.

Beatrice buttoned him up instead, her fingers passing over his belly as she did so, causing him to inhale, sharply, and to radiate even more heat than before.

What would it be like if they lay together? She peeked up at him under her lashes; neither moved as she ran her hands over his lapels. She had never willingly put her hands on a man, and it was rather instructive that her touch might cause him to tremble. Additionally, she was not in any way put off by him, which boded well.

Beatrice quivered as he lowered his head to, to kiss her?

No. To sniff her.

“Your Grace,” she began.

“Do not scold me, it is what we do.” He dipped his head once more. “I do not understand—”

“That I may not enjoy being smelled at?”

“It is what we do,” he reiterated. “We can tell our mates from the first fragrance. You do not have one.”

She resisted sniffing her wrist. “I am deficient in a new way.”

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