She shook her head.
“I thought not,” he said with satisfaction. “Given that there are some obvious holes in your education.”
“What do you mean?” Against all common sense, her body was still quivering.
“Do you know what just happened to you?”
Laughter escaped from her mouth before she could stop it.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said. “Well, the first rule is that nothing is improper between lovers.”
“You sound as if you’re instructing the Ducklings,” she objected. “I’ve heard you haranguing them with questions that were meant to trap them into foolish answers.”
“Trust me, I’d never consider lecturing them on intimate matters. For one thing, they have far more chest hair than I like in my partners.”
Linnet wrapped her arms around her knees. “You’re absurd.”
“Not as absurd as the fact that you are a young woman who knows nothing of the reproductive system.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
“I suppose your mother died before she could get around to explaining the basics.”
“I know the basics,” she protested.
“Oh? Then why did you think that men hang down in the front? Just how would that work? Like stuffing a sausage?”
“A minor error,” she said, her eyes sliding to that part of him. The tablecloth had long ago given up the fight. “My mother was obviously speaking metaphorically.”
“This”—he said, running his hand down himself—“is an erection. And I, by the way, am not incapable, as you should have known the moment you saw me standing up rather than flopping around.”
Linnet’s throat tightened. She would rather like to touch him that way herself.
“A man gets an erection only when he would like to bed a woman. If not, he hangs.”
“Oh. My mother was correct, then. Can you make yours hang, so I see what it looks like?”
He ran a slow hand over himself again. “No. Impossible.”
“It’s not within your control?”
“Not at the moment, and rarely around you, to my surprise.”
Linnet felt a little better hearing that.
“In case you’re wondering, I’m no virgin,” he said, conversationally. “Not that I would say I’ve made love to a woman. I’ve been with one, or two, or more. But obviously, you are a virgin, and a remarkably uninformed one. Why don’t you tell what you think the basics are,” he said, his eyes provocative, “and I’ll correct your inaccuracies.”
“So you can shout at me the way you shout at the Ducklings when they guess something wrong?” She shook her head. “No.”
“Do you want to skip the lecture and go straight to the demonstration? I’m touching myself.” Instinctively her eyes returned to his hand and what it was doing. “I could use some help.”
“I truly believed that you were incapable,” she whispered. “I thought you couldn’t do this.”
“Think about it,” he said. “I suspect you have enough knowledge to know exactly what I would like to do with the tool at my disposal. It’s in functioning order.”
She took a deep breath, still watching his hand. “You might not fit,” she pointed out. “I would say not, myself.”
“I would say yes, myself,” he retorted.
“But I thought you, that is, your father told me . . . Is it just that you can’t sire children?”
“You’ve asked me one or twice how I injured my leg,” he said, watching her. His eyes were as dark as the blackest velvet.
“I’ve asked three times,” she corrected him. “Maybe four.”
“One day my father was in a euphoric state due to opium intoxication. I entered the room—I was six years old—and he thought that I was a fiend come to do whatever it is devils do. Steal his soul by various nefarious means.”
“He thought you were a devil? At age six?”
“Bizarre, isn’t it? Any number of people might agree with him now, but I assure you that I was quite pretty at that age, without a hint of sulfur about me. Though apparently I was the right size for a smallish devil, to my everlasting regret. At any rate, he hurled me into the fireplace, thereby protecting his soul. I suppose I should be glad that he’s such a devout Christian.”
Linnet gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
“Happily, it was unlit, but there was a pair of forged andirons, one of which gave me this lovely memento of the occasion.”
She scrambled to his side. “That’s horrifying. You must have been so terrified and hurt. How awful for you. For both of you, actually.”
“I don’t remember much,” Piers said. “Flying through the air, some pain. But the aftermath . . . I remember that. Because the pain just wouldn’t go away.”
“So your mother took you to France.”
“Followed by Bavaria. Better doctors there. Still, no one could understand why the leg didn’t heal. It didn’t. And it won’t. While we were gone, my father instituted divorce proceedings. It cost him a good quarter of my inheritance to have his wife—my mother—legally declared a degenerate.”
“He wasn’t himself,” Linnet said, stroking his leg with her fingers again. Her fingers slipped over the ravaged skin. “As a doctor, you know that.”
“As a son—” He shook his head.
“And so you told him that you were incapable! Because he’s so proud of his family history. You knew precisely what would hurt him the most, the idea that he himself was the cause of his line dying out.”
“It doesn’t sound like a very intelligent thing to have done, now you say it.” His hand was on her leg too, tracing fiery little circles on her thigh. “I might have to consider reconciliation.”
“I think you should.”
“This was all just to say that I’m not really incapable. I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t break into snuffling tears and dash off to comfort Papa this very moment.”
Linnet concentrated on his leg, her fingers moving from the scar to skin that was roughened with hair and stretched taut over muscle. She didn’t look at his face. “We agreed to end our betrothal, such as it was.”
He nodded. “That means that you should make up your mind about what we do here. I have nothing to lose, whereas your virginity hangs in the balance.”
That was so characteristic of Piers. Another man might lie to her, or finesse the fact that he wanted to sleep with her, yet not to marry her. Not Piers.
“What would you say if I refused?” Her fingers spread over the roped muscle of his thigh, and she knew already that she wouldn’t refuse. This might be her only chance to make love to someone she truly desired.
He shrugged. “You’re an intelligent woman. You have a commodity that is extremely valuable on the open market, doubly so because of your beauty. Why on earth would you give it to me, for free?”
“You make it sound as if I’m for sale to the highest bidder.”
He was silent.
“Well, I may have been for sale to the highest bidder,” she said, “but the bidding dropped because everyone believes that I no longer own this oh-so-valuable commodity of mine.”