Free Sweet Temptation by Leigh Greenwood Page B

the warming pan out onto the bed. “I’m a decent girl and always have been.”
    “That’s what everybody says,” muttered Sara. “The way the girls at Miss Adelaide’s talked, you’d think being with a man was the most awful thing that could happen to a female. If it’s so terrible before you’re married, why is it all right afterwards?”
    “It’s all right as long as he’s your husband.”
    “But suppose you married him later?”
    “Didn’t Miss Rachel tell you anything?” inquired Betty.
    “Nobody did.”
    “I don’t guess she knows,” said Betty half to herself, “and you can bet those flighty young things don’t know any more than fairy tales either. It’s because of having babies.”
    “Having babies?” repeated Sara, completely lost.
    “Being with a man causes you to have babies, and of course, that’s a thing you wouldn’t want to have happen without you were married.”
    “No,” agreed Sara, struck. “But how does it happen?”
    “I don’t know,” Betty said rather severely. “And don’t you even think of asking the Countess such a question. It’s not a fit thing for a lady to be talking about.”
    “But if it has to happen for me to have a baby …”
    “I told you, it’s not a fit thing for a lady to know, much less sit around discussing, like it was a new way to make preserves or pickle a ham. Men always know what to do, so you just leave it to his lordship,” said the city-bred maid who was just as ignorant as her city-bred mistress.
    “But will it hurt?” asked Sara, growing more fearful all the time.
    “I can’t rightly say, but nobody seems to like it much. Some scream and wail, and others lament over it for days afterwards. Most women just close their eyes and lie rigid until it’s done. My old mistress used to say it was a trial all women had to endure, because somebody had to have the babies, and Cod, being a man himself, wouldn’t think of putting it off on the husbands.”
    “If it’s so terrible, why do men like it? The girls at Miss Adelaide’s used to say that’s why a man took a mistress.”
    “I can’t say for certain, not being a man myself, but men are made different from females, and some of the things they get up to are downright shameful. They take to all kinds of unaccountable things like cockfighting, bearbaiting, and cutting each other up with those nasty swords. You can’t go judging anything by what a man likes.” She led Sara over to the bed and tucked her in.
    “I heard some of the girls talking once,” Sara said, sinking her voice into a low, timorous whisper, “when they thought no one was about. They said some women like it.”
    “There’s females that will say anything for a new dress or a piece of jewelry,” came Betty’s scathing reply. “I’m happy to say that you’ll have no call to know anything about that kind of abandoned hussy. Neither should you be listening to whispered secrets about them. Lordy, whatever will you be doing next?”
    “But if some women don’t find it so terrible—”
    “Then they should!” said Betty without hesitation. “You’re not to be judging yourself by low-born females. You’re going to be a countess someday, and no countess I ever heard tell of went about talking about being with a man. As for liking it! Well, the idea is scandalous. Now, you just stay here all nice and warm, and put your mind to rest. It’ll be over soon enough, and then you won’t have to wonder about it anymore.”
    “But if it’s so terrible …” Sara persisted.
    Betty hunched an indifferent shoulder, as though the subject was beginning to bore her. “They all complain about it, but they’re never any the worse for it the next morning. I don’t suppose you’ll be any different.”
    Sara had to be content with that. Betty finished tucking her in, banked the fire, blew out all the candles except the one by the bed, and left Sara to await her lord.
    It was an awful wait. From the moment she had been