Mistress of My Fate (20 page)

As he spoke, a sense of embarrassment came over me, for I recognized the truth of his words.

“You know what the world thinks of a young lady who elopes from her home.”

“I do,” said I solemnly.

“You must understand, my good opinion of you will never alter, but others will not look so favourably upon your action. Your character will not be easily redeemed.”

I swallowed hard and turned my head from him.

“I know what the world thinks.” There was a note of pride in my tone. “I know what this deed will make me in the eyes of others. But what choice had I? To whom else might I have gone, my lord? I have not a friend in the world, not one person who bears any…” I stopped myself from uttering my thoughts and studied my hand in his. It appeared small and pink, like the cameo he pressed into it. “Do not think I have not considered all of which you warn me. I know what it is that I do.”

Allenham listened to my words closely. Indeed, I had never spoken so plainly in all my life. These were not the sentiments of Henrietta Ingerton, the obedient child, the frightened mouse, the well-bred young lady. My admission was bold and shocking, even to myself.

He continued to stand, composed and still.

“What you intended to say… the word you withheld…”

I looked up at him.

“… was love. You wished to say that I bore more love for you than any one person in the world. But you prevented yourself.” Allenham’s clear blue eyes were full of question.

I shook my head. “I did not… I was not… certain…”

“My Lotte, my Lotte…” he breathed, suddenly full of fire. He took my other hand into his. “That I love you more than any one person in the world is undeniable, and now…” He guided me to the small sofa that lay behind us, his face beaming with a sort of feverish joy. “I had longed to have you here, beside me, but never dared believe it… my darling, my own dear love…” He stroked my cheek until it positively burned red.

It was when he released my hand from his grasp that I noticed the cameo. There, rather to my surprise, was Venus, lying upon her side, bare but for her sandals, and her paramour Mars leaning in to love her.

My heart sprang into a gallop, but how it maintained its speed, I know not, for I had hardly the means to breathe. Upon that instant I knew what was to become of me, for I held a picture of it in my very palm.

I gathered the courage to look at the smooth contours of his face, the dark, finely shaped brows that framed the cool colours of his eyes. He sat so near to me that I could detect the clean scent of his warm shirt.

“My angel, my Venus,” he whispered.

No sooner had he said it, than his lips were at mine.

What words have not been written about a first kiss? And, my friends, this was the original kiss of all kisses. His mouth was the first I had ever tasted and it was far softer and more intimate than I had imagined. Yes, I, like any other girl, had spent many a day lounging upon the sofa nuzzling the back of my hand, dreaming of what it might be like. But when the moment comes, it is not at all how one could fathom it to be, but much sweeter and stranger.

At the start, his kisses were laid delicately upon my lips, and then, when he saw I did not refuse him, he pushed his mouth against mine more forcefully. There seemed to me to be something of a rhythm about it; in fact, it felt to my innocent mind like a dance, where I moved my lips in time with his, meeting them and mirroring their motions. With
his hand upon the back of my neck and the other stroking my cheek, the closeness of him became dizzying; so much so that I began to sway under his touch. I hardly knew my own thoughts; my mind grew dull and blank. Our lips were still locked in kisses as he moved to lie against me upon the Roman couch. His breath came steady across my cheek, intensifying with the tempo of his caresses. Soon his hands were upon my hair, my waist and running at the edge of my bodice. Everywhere he touched seemed to come alive, to glow and to throb. These were overwhelming sensations, so new and strong that they frightened me.

“Oh Henrietta,” he murmured as he rolled his kisses up my neck, “I have thought of nothing but this. I have thought of nothing but you.” He placed his face directly above mine, so that our noses touched and our mouths and eyes were aligned. “I have loved no one but you.” His words entered me with the force of lightning, sucking the very air from my lungs.

Of course I had always understood where my actions would lead me. When I fled, I knew for certain that I would be ruined and that Lord Allenham would be the one who undid me, but I had not the faintest notion of what a ruination involved. Tell me, what polite, well-bred girl does? In which of the many Romantic novels or moralizing tracts can be found a complete definition of the term “to ruin?” None. And so our poor young lady, reader, is left without so much as a hint of what awaits her, or whether indeed the loss of virtue is, as so many have solemnly written, “the worst of all tragedies.”

In my opinion, it is a great plague upon this nation that its daughters are kept so innocent of their fates. All women must come to it, whether by a husband or a seducer, it matters not. Anatomy and its functions are the same for each and every member of the female sex, whether she be a scullery maid or the future Queen of England. Would it not be better that we arm our daughters with knowledge of what awaits them, than send them to the marriage bed as we might an ignorant lamb to its slaughter?

I address my young readers when I say this: pay heed to the words I write and to the scene I now paint. After all, are you not taught that women of my sort exist only to instruct you? Permit me to spare you the embarrassment from which I suffered. That is, of course, providing that your mamma or governess has not by this point torn my memoirs from your delicate hands and thrown them upon the fire.

Now I return us to the small, low sofa with the scrolling arms against which Allenham and I reclined. We continued there for some time, much in the fashion I have described, overtaken by a fever of kissing and gentle touches. It was not long before Allenham’s full, firm lips became bolder in their wanderings, moving from my mouth and neck, down to my throat and gauze-covered bosom. Slowly, he parted the material and buried his face in my décolleté, which made me gasp with astonishment. I felt so flushed that I feared I might have a fit and faint dead away.

It was in the midst of this excitement that I became gradually aware of an unusual sensation, which raised some alarm in me. It was centred in that spot that defines us from the male sex. I could not describe it in any other terms but to say that it ached, and with the discomfort was a feeling of dampness, which caused me even greater concern. Once it had come to my attention, I was drawn from my reverie, so that by the time his lordship’s hand crept beneath my skirts and across my stocking-covered knee, I jumped with fright.

Allenham pulled back quickly, sat up and composed himself.

“Forgive me, my love…” he began. “I have offended you.”

I sat to one side of the small couch with my knees pressed tightly together and an expression of fear upon my face.

“No,” I assured him, “you have not.”

Noticing my unease, he took my hand in his.

“Then tell me, what is it that has distressed you?”

I looked at Allenham, who had been rendered breathless by our activity. His dark hair was strewn about and his waistcoat undone. As
he gazed at me in his state of dishabille, I believe he appeared more handsome than I had ever seen him.

I shook my head. “I do not know… I cannot say,” for indeed I could not give a name to what was troubling me. That which did not feel right between my legs had unnerved me in other ways as well. I thought of Lady Catherine, I thought again of what I done in leaving Melmouth, in falling in love with Allenham, of what I was about to do. There seemed to me no truths. When once my life had been so clearly defined, now I had nothing to guide me but my own moral compass, which spun and spun and spun.

“I know not what I do,” I said timidly.

Allenham smiled and touched my face.

“Are you uncertain of my love?” he asked.

“No.” I spoke clearly. “That I know.”

“What then?”

I shook my head again and squeezed together my knees.

“Are you frightened?”

“Yes.” I lowered my eyes.

He moved an inch or two, so that he now sat directly beside me, his leg against mine. “Henrietta.” He leaned into my ear and whispered while kissing it: “Have you much understanding of the act of love? How the parts of male and female fit together?”

I thought for a moment. I had seen beasts rutting, many of them: bullocks climbing atop cows, birds upon one another, rams mounting sheep. This awkward dance, which seemed to me quite undignified, was also what occurred between a husband and a wife, once they were wed. Marriage, I had learned, permitted this act to take place, but this explanation only confused me further, for I knew that it could be done without the blessing of matrimony.

In London, from a very young age I had seen the outlines of whores and their culls. Coupling pairs were to be found everywhere: in the shadows of Vauxhall Gardens, down darkened streets, under bridges
as the snow fell. “Wretched creatures,” Lady Stavourley often sneered, before tugging at the carriage blinds. It was a feeble attempt at moral instruction. I knew what it was that I witnessed, but my innocent mind struggled to connect this animal act with that which occurred within the marital bed.

As for the anatomy of it, I knew that the male and female were intended to hook together, that I had an internal part in which seeds were planted that grew into infants. When there was no child in my womb, I bled, or so Sally had told me when my monthly courses began.

I knew that men had a hanging part, which was called a yard or cock, as I had heard the servants name it. When we were quite young, and Lord Dennington and Master Edwin ran about unclothed, I saw their little things on view, bouncing between their legs. The seed that made children came from there. But beyond that, I had no real understanding of the act at all.

I shrugged with embarrassment. “I know only little.”

He kissed me full on the mouth and then smiled.

“Then I shall show you all that you need know.”

Chapter 15

Maidenheads are not meant to be taken upon sofas. Neither should they be had in chairs nor in the backs of carriages. When a young lady is undone in such a place, it is less likely to be “an act of love” than an act of rape. You gentlemen may call it what you will. Seduction is a term too freely used. We protest and you persist, unwilling to believe we will not have you. Would that all men were as conciliatory as Lord Allenham was with me. He removed me to his bedchamber, and I, with no wish to resist, tamely went with him there.

It is true, I had no notion of what it was I went to, and had I been apprised of the pain and embarrassment that awaited me, I might have offered more hesitation. But as you know, I had no female counsel, no mother to instruct me, no married sister to whisper guidance into my ear. I had with me but the shreds of knowledge I possessed, and—for this I was grateful—the compassion of a lover who knew the value of the gift I was to bestow upon him.

I was a good deal anxious, as nervous as any bride. But love is like a liquor and I had drunk so heavily of it that my apprehensions, my confusions seemed to matter little, so long as he touched and kissed me.

This he continued to do as he drew me to the side of his bed and felt for the opening of my gown. Once he had divested me of this and untied my skirts, he began to loosen my stays. I could feel his eager hands trembling at the lacings, anticipating, as all men do, that holy first glimpse of the unmasked female charms.

“My God, you are Venus herself,” he exclaimed, falling to his knees and pressing me against him. At that instant, modesty reared upon me and I blushed brilliantly. Though still in his embrace I struggled with my chemise, wishing to cover myself.

“No, no,” he murmured, pulling it down again, his face an expression of bliss, “you do not know what beauty you possess, nor what joy the sight of your naked breasts gives to me. I have dreamed of this… of you, so much so that I have lost nights of sleep.”

He rose from where he worshipped me and, lifting me on to the bed, began to cover my snowy hillocks with adoring kisses. As he placed his mouth at one of the pink tips, I gasped with surprise and delight. He gazed up at me with a satisfied smile, before returning to his task.

Each caress of his, each passionate gesture was as new to me as it was pleasurable. It seemed that wherever he laid his fingers or lips, some electric current followed. The sensations were beyond any I had ever known, for when I felt his skin brush mine, when he sighed his declarations of love, or explored some previously private place, such as my thighs or my belly, all thoughts fled from my mind, as if I had no other desires in the world but that he should forever continue to kiss and fondle me. He, too, wished for nothing but this and struggled with his own clothing, as it seemed he could not bear to remove his hands or mouth from me long enough to undress himself.

When at last his coat, waistcoat, breeches and stockings lay in a litter upon the floor, he pulled back the coverlet of the bed and took me beneath the warm folds. I was glad of this, for not only did I feel the cold through my thin chemise, but in my innocent, bashful state, I could not bring myself to look on him unclothed. It seemed too wanton and indecent to cast my eyes upon his masculine figure. To be sure, he was shaped like a Grecian athlete, with a broad chest and back, and round shoulders formed as if by a sculptor. Few men can boast of such classical perfection, though I did not come to appreciate this until much later.

He placed himself atop me, and to have so little between us, to feel the heat of him, his strong weight against me, his thighs pressing into mine, seemed to me the closest to paradise I might come. My eyes fluttered and closed as if in a fit. For a brief instant, I wondered if this was what it was to be ruined, to feel as if one might expire from love, for I felt utterly transported, enraptured, enslaved. Surely after tasting such joy, one must thereafter always long for it. But then I knew there was more to the act than this, for he had not yet put his member beside mine.