Free SoundsofLove by Marilyn Kelly Page A

Julian
Ahlquist.
    The introductory words of Frances Hill haunted her. “My
foundation in virtue was no other than a total ignorance of vice, and the shy
timidity general to our sex…this is a fear too often cured at the expense of
innocence, when Miss, by degrees, begins no longer to look on a man as a
creature of prey that will eat her.”
    Cathryn had been dreadfully naïve for a married woman. Fanny
Hill opened her eyes. Beyond the titillation found on nearly every page,
the author wove a tale of redemption and a warning to all ladies not to allow
themselves to be eaten alive by men such as the Earl of Trenchford.
    Cathryn hoped for a great love affair at some point in her
life, a hope spurred on primarily by the foreign novels she and Violet read in
their beds at night; lush novels about love and hope and happily-ever-afters,
darker novels about foreign places and harems and sultans seducing innocents.
Geoffrey disapproved of such fluff, but Cathryn craved such romantic fiction as
much as she did clotted cream. Both added joy to her life with little penalty,
or so she had rationalized.
    A glorious bouquet had appeared at her doorstep shortly
after she arrived home from church with a card that read,
    With deep affection,
    Julian,
    Until tomorrow.
    He filled her thoughts as the heady scent of the flowers now
filled her bedroom, a pervasive assault on her senses.
    He wanted her, and she wanted him, but it was wrong.
    Virtue was the answer. Within the marriage bed, a couple
could find bliss. A liaison would lead to self-loathing and destruction. She
already felt a rush of shame every time she considered his invasion of her
private place and her brazen reaction to him.
    She had craved debauchery. What did that say of her
character?
    And what of conception? She would die of shame if she
conceived a bastard child. Her father’s scholarly reputation would be ruined,
and her brothers would likely shun her.
    Percival Hedges might not be Sir Galahad, but he was the
virtuous alternative. She owed him and herself the courtesy of a sincere visit
to determine if she could bear to be his wife.
    She dreaded telling Julian of her change of heart.

Chapter Five
     
    Julian was in his breakfast room at nine when his butler
handed him a package. Setting aside his half-eaten meal, he opened the blue
cloth and found Fanny Hill and a note within. His blood began to heat as
he read the neat writing.
    My dear Lord Ahlquist,
    Thank you for the loan of this
text. It was most informative, but I am forced to concur with the protagonist’s
conclusions. Virtue and honor are both in peril if we continue on our current
path. It’s best that we cancel our outing today. I will send word after I have
visited Oxford.
    Truly,
    Cathryn Sibley
    She was dismissing him? And she questioned his virtue and
honor and used his family motto against him in the process? The first woman he
ever seriously considered marrying? The injustice rolled over him in waves.
    He had never been dismissed.
    Heedful of the nearby footman, Julian tamped his anger as he
rose from his chair and strode across the hall into his study. He turned to the
last few paragraphs of Fanny Hill with a sense of foreboding.
    Virtue would lead to “health, vigour, fertility,
cheerfulness, and every other desirable good of life”, and vice such as he’d
promised would bring “diseases, debility, barrenness, self-loathing, with only
every evil incident to human nature.”
    “Bloody hell,” he muttered. “I’d forgotten the ending.” No
one read the entirety of such a book, at least no man did. He sank down into a
leather chair and his chest tightened uncomfortably. He’d lost her before he’d
expressed his new intentions. She was a woman worthy of marriage, and he’d
offered her only pleasure. This very day he planned to tell her of his change
of heart.
    A proposal in the midst of the Elgin Marbles—what could be
more romantic to a Greek scholar?
    To lose her to a man such as Percival