“You make it sound so easy, Maman.”
“Hardly that.” Helene hugged Marguerite. “It took me almost nineteen years to understand that I loved Philip. I couldn’t believe that anyone would find me remotely lovable, but I was wrong. Don’t waste your life like I did, Marguerite; be honest with yourself, forget the past and find happiness.”
Marguerite looked into her mother’s face and nodded. “I’ll try, Maman.”
“I’m so glad you agreed to speak to me.”
Anthony bowed as Marguerite hesitated at the door. Despite the current surroundings, he tried to look as nonthreatening as possible. He’d stripped off his coat and waistcoat and could feel the chill of the as yet unheated upper floor of the pleasure house in his bones. At ten in the morning, the place looked almost harmless—a stark contrast to the excesses that normally played out on this stage of extreme sexual pleasure.
Marguerite wore a simple brown dress, her long hair caught back in a bow at the nape of her neck. She looked far too pale for his liking, but after the series of shocks she had suffered over the past few days, he could hardly blame her. Her hands clasped the ends of a thick cream shawl over her breasts.
“I didn’t want to see you. My mother made me.”
He smiled. Her honesty always touched him. “But you are here, and I am grateful.”
“I think I know you well enough to understand that if I don’t deal with you now, you’ll follow me around until I do.”
Anthony shrugged. “What can I say? I’ve become very tenacious of late. I’ve realized I can’t allow others to dictate the pace of my life or make my decisions for me.”
Marguerite walked into the center of the room, her blue eyes fixed on his. “That is good. I am pleased for you.”
Silence fell as he contemplated his next move. So much hinged on her reactions that he was unsure of where to begin. His gaze fell on the farthest corner of the room, and he reached for Marguerite’s hand. She let him lead her toward his darkest moments, to the place he still had nightmares about.
“I used to strip naked and have myself chained up here.” He pointed at the bare floorboards, the manacles draped over a nearby stand containing whips of every type and length. “In the punishment corner, a man no longer has the right to say no, or to deny anyone the chance to fuck him or hurt him.”
Marguerite didn’t speak, but she didn’t pull away from him either. He gathered his courage. “Sometimes I even enjoyed it, giving up the responsibility of my sexual needs to others; sometimes I craved that pain. At first I did it to blot out the nightmares about Aliabad, the man who raped me. In my naiveté, I decided that if I had to experience such sexual torment every night, I’d prefer to make it real. I soon learned that was a mistake and that I had no control over the new nightmares either.”
He let go of Marguerite’s hand and crouched down to stroke the cold metal of the manacles. “And of course by then I was addicted to the sexual thrill of it all, thought I deserved it, thought Aliabad and Minshom had it right, that I was born to be submissive and crave pain.
“And then one morning I woke up here alone, covered in bruises and Minshom’s cum and realized I couldn’t take it anymore.” He looked up at her. “I know that sounds ridiculous, but that’s how it was. I realized that I’d allowed others to dictate my sexuality to me for far too long and that I deserved the chance to find out what I wanted for myself.”
He sighed. “And then Christian introduced me to you. And I felt such a connection to you from the first . . . You fascinated me. I tried to tell myself that it was simply because you were the first woman I’d ever tried to be honest with, that the attraction was all on my part. But it wasn’t, was it?”
Marguerite shook her head but didn’t speak, so Anthony plowed on.
“Despite what you know of my sexual preferences, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to bed women, even up here, and I never felt the urge to do it until I met you.”
“Anthony, are you saying I was the first woman you made love to?”
He tried to smile. “If you overlook the lady Peter introduced me to at the pleasure house who showed me how to give a woman pleasure with my mouth and fingers, then yes.”
“I’m honored.”
Anthony let the manacles fall to the floor and stood up. “Honored that you were my first woman? I thought you’d laugh at me.”
She stared at him, her expression serious. “Why would I laugh? It took a lot of courage for you to try something different, to break away from what you were used to.”
He held her gaze, keen to come to the crux of the matter, to lay himself open for her, to pray for understanding. “But it doesn’t change everything. I still enjoy the unusual in my sex life. I think I always will.”
“Do you want to go back to Minshom?”
He shuddered. “Not at all.”
“Then what do you want?” She gestured at the racks of whips, the masks, the chains hung on the red-and-black-painted walls. “What here would make you sexually happy?”
“I don’t know. I’m not trying to be coy; I really don’t know quite what I, Anthony Sokorvsky, would actually enjoy.”
Marguerite picked up one of the riding crops from the stand nearest her and studied it. Despite himself, Anthony’s pulse quickened.
“You enjoy being tied up, don’t you?”
“Yes, and as you saw, David Gray is an expert in that.”
She came toward him, the tip of the crop stroking her palm. He couldn’t take his eyes off it.
“But how much pain is enough, Anthony? How is your lover supposed to know when to stop if you don’t?”
He looked away from her. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t think I could hurt you.”
He exhaled and slowly forced a smile. “It’s all right, I appreciate your honesty . . . I understand.” He turned toward the door, his heart felt like a lead weight in his chest. “I just wanted to explain, to tell you the truth, to . . .”
She barred his way with the crop, pushing it against his chest.
“Don’t walk away from me. You asked to see me, insisted on it.”
“Because I had some stupid idea that you cared about me, that you might want to help me discover myself sexually. But I understand now that it would be too distasteful for you.”
“That’s not what I said.” Marguerite sighed. “Why me? I’m not the woman you thought I was. Wouldn’t you prefer a young debutante who would be too ignorant to understand your preferences and probably oblivious to your partaking of them, if you were careful?”
“And I would be living my life as a lie? Unable to share my true self with the woman I’d chosen to marry?” He hesitated, making himself meet her gaze. “I’d much rather live with a woman who knew the worst of me and loved me despite myself. Wouldn’t you prefer a relationship like that?”
“It’s not the same, is it? A man can stray sexually, and no one thinks anything of it. If a married woman is unfaithful, she becomes an object of scorn, of ridicule.”
“Marguerite, do you really think I find you an object of scorn?”
“No, you prefer to pretend I was wholly innocent of anything that happened in my marriage, and that isn’t true. Didn’t you hear me say I would’ve slept with Harry if it had meant Justin stayed with me? I was so fixated on hiding my past, on becoming socially acceptable, that I was prepared to do almost anything.”
“So what? I know you, Marguerite. You are incredibly loyal, and I can understand that you would’ve done anything to save your marriage.”
“It’s not that simple.” She struggled to meet his gaze. “I was intrigued by the idea of sleeping with two men—aroused!”
Anthony smiled. “Do you think that shocks me? I saw the way you reacted to David when he was tying me up. I know you enjoyed it.”