Devastated

“Would you teach me, my lord?”

Vale whirled on his heels and strode over to her. She was more than a head shorter and had to lift her chin quite high to meet his gaze.

“You do not know what you ask, ma petite,” he warned.

“Stop speaking to me as if I were a child,” she returned. “You know nothing of me, but have conceived some prejudice against me. Why?”

She was beginning to irritate him. If he lifted his mask to reveal his identity, perhaps he could scare her away.

“Because you are a child,” Vale said.“Only a child would persist in asking foolish questions.”

“And only an arrogant lout would persist in sending me away.” She lowered her voice. “I could be better than any submissive you have had.”

The quaintness of her delusion made him laugh, which made her cheeks redden in anger. “I do not mean to deride you, ma petite, but you have no notion of the challenges you face.”

“Show me,” she insisted.

“As I said, I’ve no patience for neophytes.”

“Then tell me who has. Will the gentleman with the red mask—”

“No,” Vale returned with such vehemence that she jumped back. “He has less patience than I.”

“And perhaps less arrogance,” she muttered.

Vale caught her jaw between his thumb and forefinger. “You tread in dangerous waters, ma petite. You have courage only because you are unaware of all that you do not know.”

“I know more than you think.”

“Do you? How many men have you lain with?”

“Is it breadth or depth that matters?” she countered.

Vale would easily have wagered that she was still a virgin. “And how deep does your depth extend?”

“Deep enough.”

“I will be the judge of that. Have you ever been fucked?”

Her eyes widened behind her mask, and her breath quickened. “Often.”

Liar, he thought to himself, but decided to let it go for he had another question he could ask. He stepped away from her and pointed to a ring on her finger with his crop.

“You are married. Have you lain with your husband?”

“If I was interested in fucking my husband, would I be here?”

Vale nearly choked. The ungrateful little chit. He could have married any number of women—women of unsurpassed beauty or breeding or wealth. She could not have done better than a tradesman or perhaps a wealthy but aging merchant.

Containing his own feelings, he remarked, “You do not regard your husband highly.”

She hesitated. “Once... now I find him indolent and useless.”

“Is he old and homely?”

“I understand many find him attractive, but he is old.”

Devil take it, Harrietta, thirty-four is hardly old. Vale collected himself and continued. “Do you think him attractive?”