“I beg your pardon?” he said, buying himself some time. What the devil was she up to now?
“I asked you,” she said patiently, “how a woman can tell if a man is a virgin.”
“Your dinner-table conversation is unusual. Is this the first sign that you have embarked on an improper career?”
He was smiling at her, and that devastating white-toothed smile robbed his words of insult. Victoria didn’t take offense, she merely shrugged. “There’s no one else to ask.”
“You want to know how a woman can tell if a man is a virgin.” He toyed with his fork a moment, a long moment, and said finally, “A woman can’t tell, at least she can’t tell from any physical signs. I suppose if the man were particularly inept, she could guess that he was. Without any prior experience, that is.”
He had watched her closely as he spoke. He wished he knew what was going on in that head of hers. He was quickly to find out.
“Is it the same with a woman? A man can’t tell physically? He can only guess, if she is inept?”
So that was it, he thought. Hadn’t she bled with the first man she’d been with? Hadn’t it hurt her? Very well, he would tell her the truth, even though she probably already knew. It didn’t matter if it were her plan to pretend virginity. He wasn’t a fool. He said calmly, crossing his arms over his chest, “Actually, a woman is fashioned physically to prove her virginity.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean,” he said, feeling anger stirring, despite his intentions toward peace, “that a woman usually has a stretch of skin inside her that is broken when the first man enters her. When it’s broken, she bleeds. Also, there is pain because the woman’s passage isn’t used to having a man’s member inside, and depending on the size of the man, it can, I suppose, hurt a great deal.”
She paled as he spoke, but he didn’t regret speaking so bluntly. Damn her, if she wanted him to be crude about it, he would oblige her. First, though, he said, his voice harsh, “Do you understand?”
She heard the incredulity in his voice, the suspicion, the anger, and nearly smiled at the image of his olive branch fast withering. “I suppose so,” she said finally. It didn’t sound at all pleasant, this love
making business. As to his male member, she had no difficulty at all remembering Rafael’s their wedding night. If memory served, he was quite large and she supposed that meant that it would hurt a good deal. He would thrust that part of himself into her. All of it? In the light of day, without him touching her, it was truly a ghastly thought. She didn’t like it, not one bit. But then she remembered more of her wedding night and the wild uncontrol Rafael had made her feel. None of it made any sense, none at all.
Rafael said in a coldly stern voice reminiscent of his father, “Don’t even try it, Victoria. I’m not an idiot, nor am I blind. I remember hearing once how a bride, to keep her husband believing her virtuous, had a vial of chicken blood with her on her wedding night. She screamed when he entered her and then smeared the chicken blood on her thighs. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t get away with it. Her husband wasn’t pleased when he found the vial beneath her pillow, some chicken blood still in it. Nor would I be pleased.”
“Chicken blood,” Victoria repeated. “She used chicken blood?” She burst out laughing—she couldn’t help herself. It was too ludicrous.
“Look, Mrs. Ripple has made some baked chicken. On that plate there, the greasy-looking hunks of meat.” She hugged herself and laughed harder. “At least it’s not boiled like the beef.”
Rafael stared at her.
“I should go to the kitchen immediately. You must tell me how much I would need. Ah, but I am beset with the problem of a vial. Surely Mrs. Ripple would have something of a useful nature about. If not a vial, then a . . . a what, Rafael? An empty wine bottle? No, much too large.” Tears streamed from her eyes, she was laughing so hard.
“Stop it, Victoria. Now.”
She sniffed, hiccuped, giggled, then managed to pick up her napkin and gently dab at her eyes. “Forgive me,” she said at last. “You’re an amusing storyteller, Rafael. Have you other tales I should enjoy as much as that one?”
“I could finish that one, if you wish.”
He didn’t wait for her to reply, merely continued in an emotionless voice, “The husband sent the wife off to a godforsaken estate in Northumberland. Sure enough, in six months she birthed a bastard. He refused ever to see her again.”
“I don’t think I like that story after all,” Victoria said. “It doesn’t end well.”
“Doesn’t it? Should he have divorced her? Wrung her neck?”
“No, he should have asked her why she did it. I would assume that he had some affection for her.”
“She played him false and lied to him. He knew enough.”
“What happened to the child?”
“I don’t know.”
“So,” Victoria said, sitting back in her chair, gazing at her very lovely husband down the expanse of dining table, “this is what you think I’m doing to you? You are afraid I’m with child? A bastard?”
“I hope that you’re not.”