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“Kate”, he asked hoarsely. “Has someone…has a man…ever forced unwelcome attentions on you?”
“No!” she cried out. “Oh, don’t look that way, I can’t bear it.”
She had lied to him. Of course, she had. She knew the ways of society and the expectations that men held. The men of society wanted pure, clean, and untouched. They wanted naive, innocent. Unaware of the physical aspects of a relationship, and unaware of the disappointment that the marriage bed held for them.
But Kate was not innocent, whether she liked it or not. She had learned, at much too young an age, that sometimes the most convincing form of payment was herself.
Her father had died three months before her eighteenth birthday. Mary, naturally, was too distraught to do anything for them, and Edwina was merely ten. So, Kate had shouldered the burden of keeping her family alive. She had forced herself to push through her own grief and focus all her attention on the other two women in the household.
However, it was difficult. Extremely difficult. Being a woman in society was hard enough, but being a woman who was barely a woman of age was even harder. Kate learned all too quickly the true intentions behind men's words and actions. She also learned the meager power she held as a young lady, albeit without a title.
The first time she’d let a man touch her was when she was nineteen. The Sharmas were months behind on their land payments, and despite Kate’s best efforts, she wasn’t close to making a dent. She’d gone to meet with the landlord, bringing all the necessary ledgers and documents, dressing in her most polished clothes, and preparing to answer any possible question about the family’s finances in an attempt to ask for leniency, at least this month.
The landlord, a tall, greasy man from Bombay, had brushed aside all her pleas for help. When she asked for the fifth time, if there was anything, anything she could do to keep her family house, he had locked the door, running a bony hand down the front of her blouse. The look in his eyes was one that Kate would never forget. There was no care there, there was absolutely no warmth. His dark pupils held only lust, and it made her skin crawl.
The unspoken assumption, she’d later accept, was that she theoretically could have said no. She theoretically could have refused his actions and left.
Unlocked the door and left.
She could have theoretically done all of that. But she hadn’t.
If she’d said no and left, and her family would have been promptly kicked out on the street, and all her work trying to keep them afloat would have been for nothing.
If she’d said no and left, he might not have even let her leave.
She did what she had to do, and she rarely regretted it. In fact, she had never regretted it.
Not until the moments like this.
Because in this moment, with Anthony hovering over her and the tension so delightfully heavy, she so dearly wishes that she could be clean, untouched for him.
That she could be the ever faithful and pure wife that a Viscount was deserving of.
Mary had told her about the marriage bed, and what it entailed. She’d learned the somewhat inappropriate details through conversations with the Maharaja’s stable maids. She didn’t consider herself an expert by any means, but she’d learned enough to know that what the landlord had done to her hadn’t technically compromised her maidenhead.
And neither had the actions of the banker, the market shopkeeper, or the Maharaja’s new clerk.
Her virginity was still intact. Her innocence was not. It had always confused her, the concept of virginity. The only true physical evidence of one’s compromisation was required to be whole, despite the fact that a lady could have engaged in countless other indecent acts before.
When she thought too hard about it, when the guilt threatened to eat her alive, she would remind herself that she’d let it happen. She’d had the power.
Or so she’d imagined.
She’d let the banker remove her chemise and feel what was underneath, grabbing her so roughly that there were bruises the next day so that he’d permit her to take out a loan despite the Sharma’s having devastating financial prospects.
She’d let the shopkeeper pleasure himself while standing over her, as she squeezed her eyes shut so tightly so that he’d provide her with a week’s worth of food portions.
And she’d let herself touch the clerk intimately so that he’d let her keep her job in the palace.
She’d let all of these things happen to her, despite the fact that she’d really had no choice, lest her family sink.
As the years went by, life got better for her family, but they were never truly settled. Throughout her life, men and aggressiveness had gone hand in hand. Men were rough and unfeeling, harsh and cold.
But Anthony wasn’t harsh, nor was he cold.
When he touched her, it was with a gentleness that could only be described as reverential. When he grabbed her, he was firm yet yielding. And when he kissed her, she was not repulsed. Unlike with the men before, she found herself kissing him back, just as passionately.
And when he finally takes the last bit of her innocence and finally breaks through the barrier, she feels relief. She feels as though a weight has been lifted off of her, because, at least in his mind, she assumes, she is his.
And that, she figures, is enough for her to forget.
With Anthony, she is new, and she is whole. He will never love her, she is sure of that, but she can be ok with the fact that he not only accepts her, but he yearns for her and her alone.
So when he asks her,
“Has someone…has a man…ever forced unwelcome attentions on you?”
She cannot bring herself to answer honestly.
For who is she in this society, if not
his
and his alone?