Perhaps someday, you can polish them and share them with your children as bedtime stories.
“A writer of novels?” Nicolas says. “Might I find one in the bookshop?”
I relax. “They are not yet available publicly, but they will be.” Which is true, given that we are nearly a half-century before they will be published. “I secured a publisher who has paid me quite well, making this trip possible.” Also true.
“Will they be under your own name?” he says. “Miranda...?”
“Hastings, but no. They will be published under Randall Hastings.”
His brows shoot up. “You write as a man. Is that necessity or choice?”
“Necessity if I wish anyone to read them.”
“Are they about men, then? Adventures, I hope. You do not strike me as a woman to write poems about posies.” He stops and clears his throat. “But if you do, I am certain they are enchanting poems.”
I laugh. “No, they are definitely not poems about posies. They are adventures about women, which does not make it any easier to publish as a woman, particularly...” I clear my throat. “There are racy bits.”
His smile broadens to a grin, dark eyes glittering. “Racy bits? Miss Miranda, how very shocking. Also, may I say I am less surprised by that than I ought to be.”
“I take that as a compliment. Yes, they have both bloody bits and racy bits, and neither is appropriate from a woman, particularly an unmarried one. Randall Hastings may be a bachelor, but if Miranda Hastings, a maiden, wrote them, it would be far more scandalous than my sister’s bakery. However would this maiden know about such things to write them?”
“The racy bits or the bloody ones?”
That makes me sputter a laugh. “I suspect no one would think to ask about the bloody bits, though they certainly should. I believe in writing what I know, and Rosalind says she fears the day I turn my attention to murder mysteries.”
He pauses, and it takes a moment to realize what I’ve implied. That I write the “racy bits” from experience.
My cheeks heat, and I clear my throat. “That is to say, I do not always writeentirelyfrom experience. I have an excellent imagination.”
He frowns and then bursts out laughing. “That part did not give me pause at all, crécerelle. As a gentleman, I would have drawn no attention to it. As a Frenchman, I would not have thought twice about it. The English can be ridiculous about such things. Still, I wonder at those who would question your right to pen such scenes. First, it is none of their business. Second, surely everyone can relate the experience of intimate pleasure, whether there is a partner involved or not.”
I choke on my own laugh. “So one might hope, but sadly, I have met many a young woman who goes to her wedding bed expecting nothing pleasurable about it.”
“That is a shame. If one expects nothing pleasurable, one might find nothing pleasurable.”
I open my mouth to reply. I want to pursue this conversation. Desperately want to pursue it. Not only to flirt with Nicolas but to engage in an even rarer opportunity—openly discussing sex.
I can talk to Rosalind about sex. Even Portia, though she would be more reticent. I also have friends willing to discuss the matter. Yet I am always the bold one, the one leading and pulling others along in my wake. Here, I have met my equal, and better yet, it is a man, who will offer a perspective I crave.
While I want to continue the conversation, I do not know how. It is my turn to speak, and when I do not, he deftly—and erroneously—takes the hint and changes the subject.
“When I paused,” he says, “I meant that I have not heard of these ‘murder mysteries.’ Are they a new literary fashion?”
They are... fifty years from now. The so-called sensation novel, which Rosalind—presumably borrowing from the future—calls murder mysteries.
“It is a joke my sister makes,” I say. “I do not think anyone pens such books.”
“Then perhaps you can start,” he says. “So long as you do not require personal experience of murder to do so.” He glances out the cave entrance and pulls a face. “And now, as much as I am enjoying this conversation, I must allow you to properly rest. We will set out when the sun has dropped and the moon is full.”
I spendthe rest of our relaxation time cursing myself for fumbling that conversation... while also chastising myself for lamenting such a thing, considering the circumstances. And yet I cannot help but grieve the loss of the moment. I sometimes feel as if I am an anomaly among women when it comes to matters of a sexual nature. I am not. Rosalind has an active and, I suspect, very adventurous intimate life with her husband. Two of my friends sought out sexual encounters with “unmarriageable” young men, partly to satisfy curiosity and partly to ensure, when they did marry, that they would know what they did and did not want in a lover.
If I feel different, it is because my own curiosity has been frustrated and thwarted at every turn, half by my partners and half by myself. My first lover was also my first suitor. My sisters both thought him unworthy of me, and I thought that terribly sweet of them. He was the sort of young rake so common in popular fiction. Handsome and wild, with a devilish grin and a string of past lovers almost as long as his string of not-so-past gambling debts. My only excuse is that I was dreadfully young. Also dreadfully eager to experience the sort of carnal delights such a man could surely offer.
I have no intention of ever marrying and having children. Yes, my parents had an enviable marriage, as does Rosalind, and if I could have such a thing, I would not refuse it, but I consider it too lofty a goal to actively pursue. As much as I adore my nephew—and cannot wait for Rosalind’s impending second arrival—I see myself as a doting aunt rather than mother.
All this means that I was not the least bit concerned about “saving myself for the marriage bed.” If I ever did find a partner for my life, he would not expect such a thing.
So, while my first lover did not remotely qualify as life-partner material, he was my ticket to exploring all the fun parts of relationships—from intimate conversations to intimacy itself. After all, if he had a reputation as a rake, he had experience.