“Some things are instinctive,” Villiers said, his words blurring together.

Harriet stood up. “It would be most ungracious of me to keep Kitty waiting. Where did you fix our appointment, my lord?”

“I thought you were going to call me Jem.”

“Am I right in thinking you told Kitty your library? If you’ll forgive me, I’ll join her. I am naturally quite eager.”

“Naturally,” Strange drawled. “What young man wouldn’t be? Kitty is so nubile, so luscious, so charming in every way. I do wish you the best of evenings.”

Chapter Nineteen

In the Company of Angels

K itty’s angel costume was fashioned from a few twists of cloth and a pair of feathery wings. If angels looked like this, men were going to find Heaven a very interesting place.

Harriet’s heart sank. Obviously, she was going to have to expose her own gender in order to get out of the room without disrobing. And she wasn’t ready.

She loved being taken for a man, being given steak to eat for breakfast, being told to pummel someone until he farted crackers.

She didn’t want to go home and have docile conversations with the vicar. She didn’t want to get on a side-saddle and ride decorously over a field or two before her hip started aching from the unbalanced effect of the saddle.

She definitely didn’t want to spend two hours staring glumly into a mirror while her maid dressed her hair into an arrangement that included a ship in full sail.

She closed the door behind her, but before she could say a word, Kitty flew across the room in a burst of giggles. Harriet recoiled for a moment, thinking she was about to be kissed, but it turned out that Kitty simply wished to loosen Harriet’s cravat.

“I’m afraid that Lord Strange can’t be here,” Harriet said, holding on to her cravat rather desperately.

Kitty bounded around Harriet, turning the key in the door, and giggling all the time.

“Oh dear,” Harriet said to herself, quietly.

Then Kitty came back and stood before her. “Now, Harry,” she said. “I know how you’re feeling.”

Harriet felt pure, unadulterated panic. “You do?”

She nodded. “You’re a little scared. Everyone has a first time. And of course it’s a bit more difficult for a man, given as he has to perform. But I’m—”

It had to be said. “I’m not—” Harriet began.

But Kitty was giggling again. “Don’t tell me this isn’t your first time, Harry, because I’d hate to call you a fraud this early in our acquaintance!”

“A fraud?” Harriet repeated faintly.

Kitty had a look in her eye that made Harriet want to dash for the hills, so she took a deep breath and steeled herself. Goodbye breeches, goodbye wild morning rides, goodbye fencing…

“I’m not a man,” she said clearly.

“Well, not yet,” Kitty squealed. She reached for Harriet’s hand, but Harriet fell back a step.

“I truly mean what I say. I’m not a man.”

There was a moment of silence in the room. Harriet could hear the embarrassed thumping of her heart in approximate rhythm with the grandfather clock.

“You’re not a man?” Kitty asked. “Really?”

Harriet shook her head. “No.”

“But how did that happen?” Kitty asked. “Was it a childhood accident? Or something worse?”

Harriet blinked—and then she suddenly realized she had been offered the perfect escape. “Childhood accident,” she said sadly. “I couldn’t bring myself to tell you, because I find you so beautiful.”

“Oh…” Kitty breathed. “You poor thing.” Her eyes lost the luminous, excited tint they held, and began glowing with sympathy. “It must be so embarrassing for you to tell me. Of course you don’t want anyone to know.” Her eyes widened. “No wonder you didn’t want Lord Strange to join us!”

Harriet heaved a deep sigh. “You can have no idea.”

“There’s a eunuch in the Queen’s Revels company,” Kitty offered. “He sings all the high parts. I’ve never met him, but everyone says his voice is beautiful. You know, this all makes sense now. Your voice is very high.”

“It never changed,” Harriet admitted.

“I suppose it wouldn’t. Is there anything I can do?” Kitty looked trepidacious but willing.

“There’s nothing anyone can do. It’s all just too, too humiliating.” For a moment Harriet thought she’d gone too far, but of course Kitty was used to people dramatizing themselves, and she didn’t even blink.

“We’ll have a drink,” she said, patting Harriet on the shoulder. “Brandy is a great help when it comes to humiliation. Why, there was the time when I was auditioning to be in the chorus at the Drury Lane theater, and the manager asked me if I could play the part of an ape. He wanted a private audition.”

“What on earth did he mean?”

“Roll around on the floor, head over heels, in some sort of gymnastic feat.” She walked over to the sideboard and poured two hefty doses of brandy and brought them back. “Here, Harry, this is for your health. You never know. Maybe you’ll regain capacity when you’re a bit bigger. Anyone can tell that you have a nice package there. It’s just a dirty shame that it doesn’t work.”

“Yes, isn’t it?” Harriet said, silently blessing the wool stocking tucked down her breeches that formed her “package.” They sat down on the couch, and Harriet said, “So the manager wanted you to be a gymnast?”

“Private performance,” Kitty said. “Unclothed.”

Harriet choked.

“Head over heels, around and around the stage. He offered me quite a lot of money for it. But I don’t do that sort of thing.” She made a prim mouth. “There’s being naughty for the pleasure of it, if you see what I mean. And then there’s just plain naughtiness, as my mother would say.”

Harriet drank some more. This was definitely the most interesting period of her life. There could be no comparison to the turgid conversations she’d generally had at balls. “Is your mother still alive?” she ventured.

“Of course. She’s one of the principal dancers with Prince George’s troupe, down in Brighton. She always laid down the rules for me. I do a private performance now and then, but only for my own pleasure. If you do such things for money, you become hard and bitter.”

“Why?” Harriet asked curiously.

“You are a young one, aren’t you? For one thing, you’ll probably get an illness and then you’ll look back and regret making yourself sick for twelve pence. Or whatever the sum happened to be.”

“But couldn’t you get an illness anyway?” Harriet asked.

“It’s not going to happen.”

“Why on earth not?”

“Because it’s a different sort of thing,” Kitty said, rather obscurely. “And if you start doing things only for money, well, then you’re not enjoying yourself, are you?”

“I expect not,” Harriet said. She was starting to think that whatever she and Benjamin had done in their marital bedchamber had little to do with Kitty’s idea of enjoyment.