England

Early Spring, 1822

Naked, he sat cross legged upon a brilliantly hued carpet, a voluptuous woman on his lap. Her bare legs were on either side of his hips, her feet crossed at his back. One masculine hand rested on her thigh, fingers splayed, while the other curved around her waist. Her head was arched back, throat exposed, eyes closed, the look on her face one of sublime pleasure. His head was bent, the edge of his smile carnal and anticipatory, captured forever in the act of his tongue gently touching an elongated nipple.

The artist had pictured the man in a state of arousal, a condition surely accentuated out of all proportion. No man, Margaret Esterly thought, could be quite that large.

Her gaze returned to the painting time and again, even as a flush crept up her neck. A scene of sensuality and abandon. Almost shocking. But beautiful in a strange and unsettling way. That was the only reason, Margaret told herself, that she studied it with such avid curiosity.

The caption that accompanied the drawing was both confusing and evocative.

The face, the ears, the breasts are rich with sensation. But close attention must be made to speak softly, murmuring words of tenderness in anticipation of the pleasure to come.

"You’re too fascinated with those books, Miss Margaret."

She blinked, glanced up, her face warming.

On the other side of the table, Penelope sat chopping onions and frowning at her. The two years since they’d left London had brought a few changes to their lives, chief among them the friendship they shared. A not surprising development, considering that they were both London born and raised.

Margaret wanted, almost desperately, to be quit of London and its memories. To her surprise, Penelope was more than willing to join her in the country.

With Jerome’s death, she had no family. Her parents had died of influenza when she was only a child. Her grandmother, a former governess, had raised her, but she had passed on a year after her marriage to Jerome.

The small cottage Margaret had rented two years ago wasn’t a prepossessing place. The only furniture was a bureau, two small cots, two chairs and a small wooden table she despaired of ever making stand straight. Finally, she had shimmied a piece of wood beneath one leg but it still wobbled from side to side. A fireplace took up one whole wall, a welcome warmth during the winters on the Downs.

"It’s a good thing you hide them above the rafters when the girls come. I can just imagine what their mothers would say if they knew you read such things," Penelope scolded.

She stood, emptied the contents of the bowl into the stew over the fire. Their main meal of the day had not contained meat for weeks, but they were never short of onions. Margaret was beginning to detest the smell and taste of them.

"I have never read the third volume," Margaret said in her own defense. "He writes most compellingly about the Orient, Penelope."

Penelope turned and looked at her, one eyebrow rising. A perfect chastisement, Margaret thought. She could not have done better with her own students.

Another change in her life. She had begun teaching a few girls from the village over the last year. Doing so had given her an opportunity to use those lessons her Gran had taught her.

She would never have children of her own; that fact had been proven during her five year marriage to Jerome. But three mornings a week, seven little girls ranging from five to ten years of age came to her cottage. For those hours, she thought not about her precarious financial situation, nor of her loneliness, but each girl’s talent and needs. Annie’s enthusiasm for learning was delightful, as was the way Dorothy was advancing in her reading. She answered their questions and smiled at their laughter.

In turn, she learned from her students. On their walks she’d been shown how to listen for the grouse, or watch a new moon in order to predict the growing season. Margaret had stood in a meadow as she’d been instructed by seven excited voices, concentrating upon the clouds and feeling small and insignificant beneath the bowl of sky. Had she'd ever truly seen the sky in London?

It was, after all, a satisfactory life. One that would be remarkably content if she were not so desperate for money.

She glanced down at the book on the table again. The painter had been an artist of some talent. Her fingers trailed across the illustration of muscled shoulders, down a tapering back and over the length and breadth of one thigh. This man appeared in numerous small illustrations sprinkled throughout the Journals of Augustin X. In each of them he had been proudly naked, involved in some sensual and surely forbidden act. His shoulders were broad, his back tapering to his waist. His buttocks were perfectly formed as if to coax a palm to curve around both of them. A stranger, possibly a figment of the artist’s imagination. Yet she knew him more intimately than she had known her husband.

But even more shocking then the paintings was her own unfettered imagination. Too many times she’d envisioned herself as the woman in his arms. Surfeited with pleasure, languid with the memory of it. Her eyes holding secrets and promising lessons, her smile curved in pure, unalloyed joy.

A few days after the fire she’d found the three books tucked into the bottom of the strongbox. For months, the Journals of Augustin X had remained in the small chest, untouched. But during their first winter here, bored and lonely, Margaret had extracted the first volume and begun to read it.

Augustin had evidently been a well traveled man of leisure and some wealth. He had written, in exquisite detail, about the scenery of the lands he'd visited. Her fingers trailed over a passage.

My journey through China began at the Qinghai on the Tibetan Plateau at the Huang He River. At the place the Wei River enters the Huang He in central Shaanxi province we were treated to great hospitality. It was there I met Ming Wu and spent one of my most memorable nights in the land of the Manchu.

The true nature of the Journals of Augustin X, however, was not a travelogue. Instead, it was a graphic account of Augustin’s erotic journey throughout the world. Each of his Journals was tantamount to a book of instructions on how to engage in the sensuality he portrayed in such exquisite detail. He seemed especially entranced with the courtesans he’d met, many of whom educated him on the higher delights of sensuality. He had even fancied himself in love with one, and his tender farewell to her had brought tears to Margaret’s eyes.

That first winter she told herself it was better to destroy the books. But they were the only link to the bookshop and her life with Jerome. Besides, reading them occasionally gave her something to do other than to worry about their perilous financial condition.

Her conscience chuckled in the silence. Very well, perhaps she was too fascinated with these books. The Journals revealed a world she’d never before known, one of amorous encounters and erotic acts she’d never thought to witness.

"They’re evil things, Miss Margaret," Penelope said, glancing over her shoulder at the book on the table. "Cursed."

"They aren’t cursed. They are simply books," Margaret said patiently. "Only a collection of words."

"And pictures," Penelope said. "Any man who ever touched me that way would get the back of my hand, Miss Margaret,"

Penelope’s cheeks, round and rosy on most days, were now fiery with color. Her pointed chin jutted out at Margaret. Even her straight brown hair seemed to curl with indignation. Her dark eyes met Margaret’s gaze and in them was the righteousness of the never tempted.

Margaret admitted that she was not as pure in thought. Some nights she lay in her cot and wished that her life had been different. At the same time, she recognized that the past years had taught her well. Turmoil had come to her in the guise of the fire and the death of her husband. It was wiser to wish for consistency than for chaos. Excitement was for other people.

If there were moments, like this afternoon, when she wondered what her life might have been like if she had never married Jerome, then it was to be expected. She simply pushed those errant thoughts away.

She closed the tooled cover of the book, ensuring that the tissue was in place over each of the page sized paintings. One overlay did not fit correctly and she opened the book to straighten it. But it wasn’t one of the protective pages at all. She frowned as she pulled the paper free.

It was a list of ten names, all with notations beside them in Jerome’s cramped scrawl.

Penelope bent over her shoulder. "What is it, Miss Margaret?"

"Some kind of list, Penelope," she said. Together they read Jerome’s writing.

Charles Townsende – Unlimited funds, very likely quick sale.

Jerome’s notes continued with another five names, all with varying commentaries beside them.

"What do you think it is, Miss Margaret?"

Margaret turned it over, then studied it again. "I think Jerome meant to sell the Journals," she said finally.

"Sell them? Why would he do such a thing?"

Because he’d been as desperate as they were for money, a comment she did not voice to Penelope.

"I’ve seen books the like of the Journals in the shop before, Penelope. I’ve no doubt that they brought a tidy profit."

Penelope looked surprised. "It doesn’t sound right that Mr. Esterly would dabble in such cursed things."

"They are not cursed," Margaret said patiently. "Or do you blame them for all our misfortunes?"

"No," Penelope said slowly. "But it does seem as if something has brought us to this pass. If only it hadn’t been so hot," she sighed.

"Or if the chickens hadn’t died," Margaret contributed.

"Or the roof had not collapsed."

"And the chimney hadn’t become blocked, or the cows hadn’t sickened, and we hadn’t had to sell the pigs too soon," Margaret said, attempting to smile. A myriad of disasters had befallen them over the past two years.

"Or the garden hadn’t wilted. And do not forget the west wall," Penelope added. "It was a right pretty disaster."

"Yes," Margaret said, standing, "but we learned well enough to be masons on our own."

"It’s been a difficult time," Penelope admitted. The truth hung in the air between them. "Perhaps we should have stayed in London."

"At the time, any place but London was preferable as I remember," Margaret said, opening the strongbox and tucking the third Journal below the nearly empty money tray. "Besides, there are some compensations for our country life." She smiled at the younger woman. "Or have you forgotten Tom?"

Penelope’s cheeks blossomed with color. The young groom worked at Squire Tippett’s and had courted Penelope over the last two years. They were so much in love that it was unexpectedly painful to witness them together. Her marriage to Jerome had been one of gentle affection. An agreeable union, but one that somehow lacked the longing looks and gentle laughter Penelope and Tom shared.

"I wonder what the books would fetch?"

Penelope stared at her in surprise. "You can’t be thinking of selling them, Miss Margaret?"

Margaret picked up the list and studied the names again. "There are at least three viable prospects from this list, Penelope. Men, I believe, who would purchase the books without hesitation. If we do not do something, we will have to return to the City and find occupations to support us."

Penelope looked as stricken as Margaret felt. Returning to London would mean that Penelope would have to leave Tom and she would have to leave her school. They would either have to go into service, or take a job in one of the shops. Unfortunately, she made no income from teaching the girls. The residents of Silbury Village had been as hard hit as she and Penelope by the drought. She would not have felt proper about asking money from people who could ill afford it.

"Couldn’t you go to the duke, Miss Margaret?"

She glanced at Penelope. "No," Margaret said quickly. "Not the duke." Whatever happened, she would never seek assistance from Tarrant.

She remembered only too well their last meeting, the day after Jerome had perished in the fire.

"I have come only to tell you what happened," she’d said. Her hands were clenched together so tightly in her lap that the knuckles shone white and bony.

She’d not learned of Jerome’s tie to the duke until after their marriage. It had shamed him to be bastard born, the half-brother to the tenth Duke of Tarrant.

"You might have conveyed the fact of his death in a letter, madam. Or do you have another, less obvious reason for your presence here?" The Duke of Tarrant’s eyes were great black holes in his narrow and austere face. His long fingers drummed impatiently against the desktop like claws.

A giant bird of prey, the Duke.

However much she told herself not to be cowed by him, she was. She thought great thoughts and had wonderful retorts to each of his barbed remarks and criticisms. But always later. Never at the occasion of their meeting.

He had made her wait to see him, a deliberate act of rudeness she’d come to expect from him. For an hour she’d stood in the foyer, uncomplaining. Only then had she been directed to this cavernous room of swooping shadows. Books lined the walls, but their spines of gilt appeared fresh and untouched. There was not one comfortable chair to encourage a reader to sit and peruse a volume, no candles perched upon well arranged tables. A person would not wish to linger here, but it was a chamber that oddly suited the Duke of Tarrant.

"I thought it my duty to come," she said.

"So that we might mourn Jerome together?" he asked contemptuously.

"Jerome held you in great affection," she said, willing her voice not to tremble.

He glanced at her as if she was an insect. Something beneath his regard.

"Did he?" he asked, his fingers tapping against the desktop. "No doubt because I dispensed enough funds to him to ensure he lived well. You no doubt believe that because you are his widow you are entitled to as much consideration. But that relationship is ended, here and now. Do not presume to expect anything from me."

"I do not," she said, stung. She stood, facing him, her hands fisted in the material of her skirt. "Is that why you have always disliked me all these years? Because I had the presumption to marry into your family?"

He smiled, thinly. "My father indulged himself with Jerome's mother. A mistake. Our line had never before been sullied by bastardy. Jerome was an obligation, never family."

"What was I?" She detested confrontation, but this moment had been coming for years. Her heart was beating so hard that she thought it might leap from her chest. Tarrant, however, looked remarkably relaxed, his absorption in the actions of his fingers toying with the end of a quill.

"An irritant who never knew her place." He looked up at her, his smile vanishing. "You dared to address me by my Christian name once as I recall."

"And kissed you on your cheek when we parted," she said, willing her smile to remain fixed in place.

An expression of displeasure flitted over his face.

"So, because I did not heed your consequence, you have always disliked me?"

"You are common," he said, standing. "Your only claim to propriety is the fact that your grandmother was a governess. Your father was a soldier and your mother took in washing."

"I see," she said, nodding. "Honest employment, but not quite the equal of a duke."

He didn’t answer. There was, after all, nothing he needed to say. His half-hooded eyes gleamed with contempt.

He picked up a small bell on the corner of his desk. One faint ring, that was all it to look before a liveried footman opened the door and stepped aside. Beyond him stood the major domo. Somber, dignified, as regal as any member of the nobility.

Her lips trembled, but she held them tight as she walked from the room.

"No, not the duke," Margaret said now. "He would be pleased to see me beg."

She studied the list once more. Here was the very answer to their dilemma. If she sold only one book, she could keep the other two as a bit of security for her future.

"I think, Penelope," she said, "that we should consider the Journals our salvation."

The other woman shook her head slowly, but Margaret only smiled.

She would take the precaution of signing Jerome’s name. Not only because some men refused to do business with a woman, but to protect her reputation. Also, she’d send a quick note to Samuel and Maude, asking if she could use the draper’s address. That way, no one in the village would ever know that she was in possession of such shocking literature.