My Lady's Pleasure Read Free Page A

Jeremy was repenting of his bargain. Lately, she sensed in him a seriousness, a determination that their relationship be something more than ephemeral pleasure. She had the idea that he wanted to keep her. It was an idea that flattered, but also chafed.
    She prided herself on being forward thinking. She was of the twentieth century, although she wouldn’t be in it for five years yet. As fond as she was of Jeremy—and she was very fond indeed—marriage to him would be capitulation to a convention that the nineteenth century, and all centuries previous, had foisted on women: Get married, young, to a gentleman of your class, and bear him an heir as soon as ever you can. She didn’t object to marriage, or gentlemen of her class, or heirs; she objected to their being her only choice.
    Strength and independence were, for her, cardinal virtues, inextricably linked. She strove for them herself and looked for them in others, men and women alike. Where men were concerned, the world’s views were aligned with hers. When it came to women, the situation was more complicated. Females were expected to be, if not weak and clinging, at least delicate and submissive. To defy those expectations required not just a degree of boldness, but also societal latitude—latitude much more readily granted to a scion of nobility than a scullery maid.
    Lady Georgiana wasn’t a fool, and she understood that her freedom was a function both of her personality and her position. She was, perhaps, inclined to overvalue the first and undervalue the second, but that’s to be expected in a girl of spirit.
    Spirited she certainly was. Her wit was sharp and her mind was keen. While her education had been only middling for a girl of her class, she had read widely, and was conversant with matters of politics, and agriculture, and even natural philosophy. What she couldn’t do was draw. Neither could she sing. She couldn’t arrange flowers or embroider handkerchiefs. Her piano playing was so rudimentary as to be embarrassing.
    She had steadfastly refused to acquire those accomplishments, partly from a natural disinclination borne of her understanding that she lacked the gifts of ear and eye, and partly from sheer obstinacy. She sought the traditional occupations of men as assiduously as she shunned those of women. She smoked cigars. She read newspapers. She would have opinions, and freedom, and lovers.
     
    It was lovers she was thinking of as she rode the last few miles to Penfield.
    An observer would have seen a lithe, pale-skinned girl, deep in thought. He might have taken her for a man, as she dressed and rode like one. When she was seventeen, after she had taken a tumble jumping a hedge, she decided that serious horsemanship required riding astride, and she pilfered a pair of riding breeches from her fourteen-year-old brother, the nascent eighth earl. She told the groom to saddle Senator, the most independent-minded horse in the stable. “And not with the sidesaddle,” she added with a self-conscious imperiousness. “I will be riding astride.”
    The groom, well trained, blinked once and did as he was bidden. She mounted and rode out of the stable yard with all the dignity she could muster. Although she’d had a couple of stealthy practice sessions, she wasn’t used to swinging her right leg over the horse’s back, and she managed it gracelessly. But she sat up straight, with her heels down and Senator’s torso firm between her knees, and headed out to Eastley’s grounds.
    She never rode sidesaddle again, and now, five years later, she was a skilled and confident rider. On this occasion, though, neither skill nor confidence was required. The path underfoot was well-worn and, even though the sun had been down an hour and more, there was enough moonlight to render the path faintly visible. Lady Georgiana knew that her horse’s excellent vision and sure-footedness would keep them both on track, and her reverie began to take on a more physical