“Boo!”
“Blade, you know that doesn’t scare me.”
Grinning, Blade sauntered in front of her. “Why not?”
“I heard you breathing from behind the tree,” she giggled and continued, “and I saw you when I got here.”
“Why did you ask me to be here, especially at such a short notice? I had to cancel one of my business meetings today.”
“Oh dear, I didn’t want you to cancel any plans. You could have told me you couldn’t meet me here.”
“But they aren’t as important as you. Now what is the trouble?” he asked as he took a seat against the base of the tree.
“Well mother has forbidden me to see you.”
“Oh I see. I should have known. All you fancy rich girls are the same. I thought you were different,” he said as he got up.
She pushed him back down and said, “I am different from the rest of them. I just wanted to know why she things you are ‘unsavory.’ She gave me all these stupid reasons as to way you couldn’t call on me anymore.” She sat down next to him.
“What did your mother tell you?”
“Well she told that Harriet Arch…”
“The old lady with a bird always perched on her shoulder?”
“Yes, well she told my mother that you were a bastard of a whore.”
“Only part of that is true. I am a bastard, but not a whore’s.”
“I don’t really care about the background of your parentage. I only care about you.”
“Well that’s a relief because for a second there I thought this whole relationship was a one sided thing,” he said and without ever looking at her, he reached for her hand and held onto it firmly.
“Blade?” she asked him after a few moments of a comfortable silence. When she heard a soft grunt, she continued, “What do people do in bed when they are married?”
He immediately swung his head toward and looked intensely into her eyes. “You know that’s something a well-bred lady shouldn’t be asking a man.”
“Well I’m not like every well-bred lady.”
“For which I am glad. But you still are not to ask me those kind of things.”
“Why not? I just want to find out because my mother said that…you know…the duty she has to do when my father wants to,” she blushed, “isn’t that splendid. But I heard from what I hear from some of the female servants in the house that they constantly can’t wait to get home and be with their husbands or lovers.”
Coughing uncomfortably, he answered, “Well, my dear, not everyone finds the act all that pleasant because his or her partner do not have a very good skill.”
“You mean, people have to get practice?”
“Uh, in a way, yes. But it’s usually the men that get to practice.”
“Why is that?”
“Aren’t you a curious little thing?”
“Well my father always taught me to ask questions whenever I didn’t understand something.”
“But I don’t think he had this in mind when he said that,” Blade muttered. “Because it is unmoral for a woman to get a lot of practice before marriage.”
“That’s quite unfair.”
“Face it, sweetheart, life is unfair.”
“Can you show me?”