Free In the Wake of the Wind by Katherine Kingsley Page A

the eve of your wedding. He’s obviously respectful of good luck, dearie.” She reached behind her to where Basil sat on the back of her chair and handed him a chunk of fruit.
    “Oh,” Serafina said, watching Basil throw it on the floor. It was the first time she’d heard of that particular custom, but she supposed her aunt knew better than she did about these matters. “But what about his sister? She behaved as if she couldn’t be rid of us fast enough.”
    “That one’s nurturing a viper in her bosom,” Elspeth said, scowling darkly. “But never mind Charlotte. We’ll deal with her when the time comes. I have other matters to talk to you about, dearie, and it’s time I addressed them.”
    “Oh?” Serafina asked, coloring hotly against her will. She had a sinking feeling that she knew what was coming, and after the unsettling events of the afternoon, she could only hope her aunt would divine her blush as simple nerves.
    “Now, my dear, normally your mother would be giving you this little talk, but as she’s not here, it is my job to do it in her place. You know, of course, that tomorrow night Aubrey will sleep in your bed with you.”
    Serafina turned two shades redder, her ears beginning to bum, not with embarrassment, but with shame. How could she tell her aunt that she’d already had it all explained to her, and that even worse, she knew exactly how it felt to be held in a man’s arms?
    “Serafina? Are you attending me, child? This is no time to go off into a daydream. I thought you were breathless for information.”
    “Yes, I’m listening,” Serafina choked, wishing she’d never laid eyes on the rogue.
    “Good. There’s nothing worse to my way of thinking than having a girl go uninformed to her marriage bed, but it doesn’t do to inform her before the fact.” Elspeth peeled another piece of apple. “So, to begin. I’m not to know how much you understand and how much you don’t, but if you’ve seen the livestock going about nature’s business, the mechanics of the act aren’t all that different for humans.” Elspeth chewed thoughtfully, looking off into the distance. “I suppose that it’s simply a matter of refinement,” she eventually said.
    “Refinement?” Serafina repeated, for lack of anything better to say. She burned with mortification, thinking that refinement had absolutely nothing to do with it. She was obviously no better than an animal in the barnyard, given her physical reaction to a man she didn’t even like, let alone love.
    “Indeed. You see, my child, when a man comes to a woman, his body goes from a state of sleeping to complete wakefulness.”
    This statement caused Serafina’s gaze to lift to her aunt’s in fascination, hoping she was going to fill out the pieces of the puzzle the rogue had left unstated. “What do you mean, Auntie?”
    “Well, you must understand that a man’s private part changes when he’s aroused. It grows hard and stiff in readiness, not unlike a flagpole. Do you understand?”
    Serafina stared at her. A flagpole? The rogue hadn’t said a thing about a flagpole, and Serafina found the image alarming in the extreme.
    “Excellent,” Elspeth said with satisfaction. “So now you have a man in a state of full arousal, his sexual organ ready to enter your body.”
    Serafina nervously touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip. The rogue had mentioned the part about joining bodies, but he’d made the whole thing sound so pleasant, so enjoyable, male coming to female in a perfectly harmless way. What Elspeth was telling her didn’t sound the least bit harmless.
    “But Auntie, how does this happen exactly?” she asked desperately. “I can’t imagine being impaled by a flagpole—it must be the most awful thing!”
    To her surprise, Elspeth crowed with laughter, slapping her knees. “Oh, my dear child,” she said, wiping her eyes on her napkin, “it’s no different than putting a cork into a bottle.”
    Serafina gazed at her