Caro blushed on recalling where his mouth and his hands had wandered. She had been just as wicked, intimately exploring every bulge of masculine muscle and…
That she could arouse primal passions in Alec was heartening to know. She sometimes feared that he was made of inanimate rock and stonedust rather than flesh and blood. But no, liquid fire could pump through his veins when he let his emotions do more than just simmer inside him.
Moving from the window to the escritoire in the corner of the bedchamber, Caro struck a flame to the candle and picked up the latest letter from her sister Anna.
Poor lamb—I know that things must be awfully boring in Bath. There are likely no men under the age of eighty, so I feel a little guilty regaling you with descriptions of the handsome Russian princes (sorry for the smudge—I had to slap Davenport’s hand away. He wanted to add a very rude word) and the sumptuous palaces here in St. Petersburg where we dance until dawn…
Taking out a fresh sheet of paper, Caro dipped her pen in the inkwell to write a reply.
How to start?
Things are not quite so boring—I’ve experienced my first real kiss, and while your descriptions in your novels are good, they don’t quite capture the experience.
Drumming her fingers on the blotter, she thought about how to go on.
That first touch is not exactly like lightning striking, true there is an electric current but it’s more of a…
No, that wasn’t quite right. Crumpling the paper, she tossed it in the fire and took out a fresh sheet.
After several more tries were consigned to the coals, Caro leaned back in consternation. Staring down at the blank page, she exhaled a frustrated sigh. Drat, she couldn’t seem to quite capture in words what she wanted to say. But as it was Anna who was the master of prose, why should it be any great surprise that she couldn’t wax as eloquent as sister on the subject?
“Oh, bosh. Perhaps I should just try writing a poem instead,” she muttered under her breath.
The words were said half in jest. And yet, as she tapped the tip of the feathered quill against her chin, the first line of an ode seemed to compose itself in her head.
Ha! The Muse must be feeling a little guilty for her recent quixotic moods.
Whatever the reason, an aspiring poet could never afford to ignore inspiration, no matter when it chose to strike.
Putting pen to ink yet again, Caro began to write…
Lips, their flesh afire with longing that chased doubt from the sliver of space between them…
For the next little while the only sound in the room was the scratch-scratch of the nib and the whispered hiss of the candleflame as it danced in the draft curling in through the cracks in the casement.
When the last stanza was done, Caro pinched at the bridge of her nose, wondering if she dared to read what she had just written. She had just allowed the words to flow.
So perhaps it was drivel.
“A poet cannot be a coward,” she scolded. “If it’s bloody awful, I can toss it away with the rest of the failures.”
She took a reluctant peek.
Not bad.
Emboldened, she continued on. When she came to the end, she quickly reread it again and then blew out her cheeks with a mingled sense of surprise and a touch of pride.
Now that was a poem.
There was a passion that crackled through the paper, leaving her fingertips feeling a little singed. An inner fire of sinuous, swaying flames. Indeed, Anna might fear that her impetuous younger sister had sacrificed her virtue on the altar of… artistic inspiration.
Would I? wondered Caro.
Would I?
Her father’s eccentric views on what women should know about sex meant that the three Sloane sisters had some ideas on the rules of maidenly behavior that were shockingly different from those of most young ladies of the ton. Caro suspected her two older sisters hadn’t been virgins at the time of their marriage, but though the three of them shared most confidences, on this particular subject they deemed her still an innocent schoolgirl and hadn’t included her in their whispered exchanges on men.
And listening at the keyhole had proved fruitless. Olivia and Anna had very soft whispers.