She dropped his hand and turned to lean on the veranda rail and stared out at the garden. ‘What are you doing here?' She spoke without turning to face him, both mortified and terrified that he’d discovered her here.
'Michael dragged me here.' He caught her wrist and tugged her around to face him. ‘Who is that woman you are with? Did she bring you here?' He ran his hand through his hair, trying to calm himself and dampen down his anger. 'Of course she brought you here. You wouldn't have known to come to a place like this otherwise. Did she coerce you in some way?’
Lillian chuckled. 'Do you truly believe me such an innocent that I don't know the location of brothels or the estate houses that hold balls where the main guests are ladies of the night? I’m not that na?ve, Brent. When I was a married woman, the other married ladies spoke constantly about the state of their marriages. Those conversations included such things as where their husbands, fathers, or brothers went to visit paid women, and what happened in those places.’ She snorted. ‘They’d no idea that my own marriage was so dismal that the only times my husband touched me in bed was those rare occasions when he remembered he was supposed to breed a son and so made an appointment for the next night to visit my bedchamber. Even during those ten dreadful minutes he spent with me, he never thought to explain what happened between a man and a woman, or about how children were conceived. My mother, the duchess, gave me a one sentence explanation on my wedding day of how to act with my husband and the need to create a child, but she unfortunately never gave me the information I needed about what physical intimacy entailed, so the first time my husband lifted the hem of my night dress, I panicked.’
She heard Brent suck in a deep breath and knew he was horrified, and probably disgusted with her ignorance and stupidity. But as Brenton so often had, he surprised her.
‘I’m so sorry. I should have realized that the duchess’s instructions would be inadequate, and supplied you with more information. Lent you books. Prepared you for your first time being bedded by a man.’
‘You?’ She laughed. ‘It was never your job to educate me, Brent. My husband was to blame for my inadequacies in bed, as he was for many other things. I accepted Geoffrey’s proposal because I wanted my own household and to not remain under the duke’s roof, though I only learned later about my husband’s impetuous and self-centered character. As to what marriage, and intimacy, entailed, I was clueless.’ She dipped her head. ‘Apparently my parents knew that Gregory wasn’t a very honorable man, yet they didn’t see fit to inform me of his true nature. When I later complained of how he treated me, the duchess told me that a wife’s duty was to accept whatever my husband did, and without complaint. Though to their credit, the worst of Geoffrey’s character was known to only his closest cohorts and, as they were of the same ilk, they weren’t about to reveal what they knew.’
‘How did your husband treat you, in private?’ Brent wouldn’t meet her eyes when he asked the question.
She gasped. ‘My God, not you too. You knew what Gregory was like and what he wanted in the bedroom.’
He reached for her hands, but she pulled away. Shocked and disappointed in her old confident, she couldn’t stay. She spun towards the garden steps, picked up her skirts, and started to run.
‘Lillian, no, please don't run from me.’ He clasped her waist from behind as she reached the bottom of the steps and pulled her back against him, holding her still by crossing his arms over her chest. ‘Stand still and listen to me. Please.’ When she stopped wriggling and stood still in his arms, he said in a sad voice, ‘I’d heard stories of Gregory’s more extreme demands on the women he bedded, yes, but I’d no idea that he’d ask you to do those same things. If I’d known, I’d have--’
‘What? Rushed to my rescue?’ She snorted. ‘I don't think so, not when British law declares me nothing more than my husband's chattel and allows him to do whatever he wishes with my mind and my body. Legally, no one could have saved me from Gregory’s excesses. Not my parents, had they wanted to, and not my best friend. Though in all honesty, Geoffrey, for the most part, ignored and avoided me. He preferred lovers who also liked to push the boundaries. Dangerous dares between his friends, sharing lovers, and sex in public places. So I was glad when he died. Pleased that I’d never have to spend another day under the same roof as a man who treated women, and servants, as dirt beneath his feet. Relieved that he’d never again bang on my bedroom and demand admittance when he was so drunk he could barely stand. Or order me to leave my warm bed and go downstairs and entertain his also drunken friends at four in the morning. Or even, on one memorable occasion, order me to kneel before him on the cold floor, naked and shivering, because he’d bet that he could make a duke’s daughter his slave.’