Both ladies were in Lottie’s carriage, riding toward a salon at Mrs. Postlethwaite’s residence.
“How very thrilling!” Lottie exclaimed. “It’s like an awful play.”
“But it isn’t an awful play,” Beatrice replied morosely. “It’s my life. Oh, what am I to do, Lottie? I gave myself to him.”
“Oh, gave! How can one give oneself to a man, I ask you?”
Beatrice knit her brows. “I don’t know what else to call it. I’m no longer a virgin.”
“And what of it?” Lottie asked spiritedly. “It’s only a bit of blood and an act of five minutes or so—”
“Rather more than five minutes,” Beatrice muttered, blushing.
Lottie waved aside her friend’s comment. “In any case, I don’t think it ought to decide your entire life.”
“But what if I’m pregnant?”
“Highly unlikely after just the one time.”
“Yes, but—”
“And besides, he definitely took advantage of you. I mean, right after you’d learned about poor Jeremy! It wasn’t at all sporting. I don’t think it ought to count, really.”
Beatrice frowned, unsure what Lottie meant by “count.”
“See here,” Lottie continued, oblivious. “It’ll be at least a couple of months until you’re certain. Although, I have heard of ladies who never knew until the moment they were holding a squirming baby in their arms.”
Beatrice moaned.
“But, in any case,” Lottie said hastily, “there’s no need to make a decision right now. Just because the man has taken your virginity doesn’t mean he should own your entire life. What if you decide to take other lovers?”
“But I don’t want other lovers.”
“After all, why tie yourself to one man? You could be a dashing and scandalous courtesan!”
Beatrice sighed. Lottie seemed to be confusing Beatrice’s predicament with her own life since she’d left Mr. Graham. Although Beatrice noticed that Lottie hadn’t started taking lovers and living the life of a fast matron.
“I don’t want to be a dashing and scandalous courtesan,” Beatrice said quietly. “And I do have to make a decision, because Lord Hope isn’t the sort of man who sits about waiting for others to make up their minds. He’ll decide it for me if I don’t do it soon.”
“Hmm, that does pose a problem.”
“Yes, it does.” Beatrice looked at her hands in her lap, trying to sort through her feelings. “I wish I knew how he felt for me—or even if he can feel.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s so cold sometimes, Lottie, as if whatever gentleness he once had, whatever capacity to love, was destroyed by his years in the Colonies.” Beatrice looked at her friend to see if she understood.
“You don’t know if he can love you.”
Beatrice nodded miserably.
All of Lottie’s animation seemed to leave her. “It’s so hard to tell, isn’t it? Gentlemen don’t have the same thoughts and goals as we ladies.” Lottie thought for a moment and then said, “I’m not even sure they know themselves when they love a lady or not.”
And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Beatrice thought morosely. How was she to understand Lord Hope’s motives when she didn’t understand the man himself? Had he made love to her because he cared for her? Or for some other, more subtle male reason, perhaps even simply lust? Making the whole situation more difficult was her own desire. Deep inside, a part of her simply wanted him, whether or not he felt the same. And that, she knew, was dangerous. She risked dreadful hurt if all the emotion was only on her side.
At that moment, the carriage pulled up in front of Mrs. Postlethwaite’s town house, and Beatrice’s thoughts turned to other matters. “Do you see Mr. Wheaton’s carriage?”
She glanced up and down the crowded street. Two more carriages were behind them, and a pair of burly men loitered by the house next door. Her eyes narrowed, but they looked nothing like the toughs who had attacked her and Lord Hope the other day. These men were much better dressed for one thing.