"I promise you, if you want to put in the work in this marriage, you'll get more rewards than you could ever dream of."
Althea nodded. "I do want that. I really want to please him, make him happy. Then I'll have everything I could ever wish for."
Eswara smiled gently. "Then let's start with you, oh great goddess, what makes you happy. I'll teach you more about men in a couple of weeks when you're ready."
Althea could hardly wait...
Chapter Eighteen
Under her new friend's patient tutelage, Althea gradually awakened to her own power and sense of self. She not only took lessons with Eswara, but with her son Ash in what he termed martial arts.
Her nights with Matthew improved considerably, though he was still feeling exceptionally guilty and flustered, especially as she grew in confidence and surprised him by making her wishes known in no uncertain terms.
He grew so excited at times, he would flee the bed rather than risk getting what he considered to be too carried away, leaving her confused and not a little hurt.
But Eswara told her it would take him time to get used to the goddess within her, and to become more in touch with his own feelings. So she worked even harder on getting to know herself, and expanding her knowledge of her own inner strength.
Althea loved all her lessons, from the Tantra to Indian cooking to baking and spices, taking the opportunity to learn all that the unusual Indian family had to offer.
Ash was a large man, about six foot three, but gentle, and a very patient martial arts teacher. He taught her how a couple of simple grips on his wrist or hand could do serious damage to an assailant.
She had no doubt her husband would be livid if he found out she was almost wrestling with a man so much larger than herself, but she learned what she could do with a knee or elbow or even the side of her hand, and how to turn someone's own violence back on themselves.
At the end of a month, she insisted that Ash really try to attack her.
"You've been giving me an easy time of it up until now," she said to him as they practised at the back of his house. "But a real attacker isn't going to worry about being gentle. So come at me. Let's see if I'm ready."
"All right. But I'm going to do it with the usual ox-like demeanour of most English men who don't know any martial arts. Otherwise I might rip your head off."
"That's fine. And do you think Martin might help too?"
"What do you mean?"
She shrugged and blushed. "Just that chances are it might be more than one man."
Ash studied her carefully for a moment. "All right, but I'll tell him not to use his skills on you either."
Martin joined them a short time later, and said, "Are you sure you want to do this in that lovely frock?"
"I doubt my attackers would be concerned with such niceties. So don't worry about it. If I let either of the two of you get close enough to me, it will be my own fault if it gets ripped or torn."
"All right. So we're pretending to be two debauched men trying to drag you off and have our way with you, are we?"
"Yes."
"Forgive us if we do manage to grab anything we oughtn't."
Martin blushed. "Oh, no, I'm not-"
His step-son rolled his eyes. "Then pretend to try to hold her for me while I do."
"I say, Ash, she's a married woman!"
Althea quirked one brow at him. "I doubt they're going to take the trouble to ask me that either. They'll just grab. Again, it will be my own fault if you succeed."
Martin sighed. "All right, but you can explain this to your mother if she catches either of us honking something we shouldn't."
Ash shrugged one shoulder, and they began.
However, it wasn't Eswara who caught them, but Matthew, coming rather earlier than usual to collect his wife.
His heart nearly leapt into his throat when he came around the back of the house to the stable block and saw what looked to be two men attacking his wife. His breath caught, so that he couldn't even shout a warning to her.
He ran forward, but to his astonishment she managed to elude capture, and even ward off the blows with some remarkably deft moves that left him gaping.
She even succeeded in disabling both of them, one with a well-placed kick, the other with a twist of the wrist and a sharp elbow.
"Good, Althea," one of the men said, whom he now recognised as Eswara's son Ash.
"Easy for you to say," the other man wheezed.
Matthew realised with a jolt that it was Martin Jerome.
"You didn't get it in the goolies," Althea said with a dismissive wave, "so stop whining."
Ash gave his step-father a sympathetic look. "I'll explain to Mother."
"Thanks," he said sarcastically.
"I'm really sorry, Martin, I didn't mean-"
"No, it's all right, Althea. You did well. Exactly right. No mercy. Do you want to try again as soon as I get my wind back? Only this time you can come at her from behind, Ash."
"Fine. I'm not married. That's not to say I wish to be rendered completely incapable of having children, though, Althea, so do please be careful."
"Hah, now you tell her."
They all giggled, and it was only when Ash looked up and stiffened that Althea turned and saw her husband standing in the courtyard staring.
"Matthew, you're early," Althea said, hot colour flooding her cheeks.
"More like too late, by the looks of things," he said, shooting a look at Ash as sharp as a dagger.
"You know Ash and Martin, of course. They've been teaching me some martial arts to help me defend myself if anyone tries to attack me. Do you want to watch?"
"Really, Althea, I don't think I can bear-"
"She's very good. Honestly, she won't come to any harm. And isn't it better for her to be strong and aware, than cringing in her room in fear?" Ash asked.
"I suppose so. But you're not married. Would you want your wife-"
"Well, my wife can," Martin interceded. "Why not yours?"
"It just isn't done," Matthew said primly.
"Maybe it should be," Althea said with a lift of her chin. "Come on you two, once more."
"Althea, please."
"You don't have to watch. Go in to Eswara and have some tea and a chat. We'll come for some refreshment in a minute."
Matthew shook his head. "I'm not leaving you out here to-"
"Then stay and watch, but don't get in the way or distract me."
She took up her stance once more. While the two men were reluctant to do it again with the lady's glowering husband present, they knew it was for her own good.
And they had not been lying to her. She really was more than capable.
So they pretended to be two assailants attacking her in an alley, one creeping up behind, one trying to be charming at the front.
Ash went flying over her shoulder and crashed into Martin, and neither of them had put a finger on her.
"Try not to overreact, though. I mean, for all you know we might have been stopping to ask directions."
She shook her head. "No. If you were both standing so close to me, and I was alone in an alley, night or day, you meant me harm."
"She has a point," Martin said.
Matthew had to admit that he was impressed. Impressed, and proud.
"Althea," he said quietly.
She steeled herself for another tongue-lashing.
"If you're not too tired, do you want to try that once more?"
The two men looked at each other, and nodded to her.
"All right, Matthew. If you like," she agreed.
This time Martin crept up behind her, and grabbed both her arms, trying to pin them. She ducked and tripped him, and skittered out of the way as Ash pursued her. She turned and held her ground, and ducked out of the way and to the side as he tried to paw her.
Ash went for her hair next, but she grabbed his arm, and with one fluid movement brought it up around his back. She jerked one foot out from under him with he
r leg and sent him sprawling face first.
"I give up," Ash groaned, spitting out a mouthful of dirt.
"Good practice, lass," Martin praised, offering his step-son a hand up. "Come on, let's get some tea and cake."
Matthew was silent throughout the meal as his wife discussed the Tantra with the other three in knowledgable terms. He looked at the pictures on the wall of people dancing with renewed interest. No, not dancing at all...
Matthew recalled what Philip had said about talking to Eswara. Well, maybe not to her, but certainly to her husband or son.
He was blushing profusely by the time they ever left, but was curious and excited too. He had seen a whole new side to his wife, well, several, and it amazed him to see how grown up and sophisticated Althea was becoming.
It was frightening too, for he was conscious of his own deficiencies, which rendered him even more susceptible to Matilda's blandishments.
For she had been ever present during the past month, supposedly running into him or them almost daily as they made the rounds of all the Rakehells and their other neighbours.
Matilda made no disguise of her continuing interest in Matthew, which set Althea's teeth on edge no end. Had he not told the perverted blonde that he was happily married?
Matthew had, but the truth was her interest in him made him feel good about himself. It was nice to feel desirable instead of debauched, intelligent instead of idiotic, powerful instead of powerless.
Oh, none of it was Althea's fault, but he couldn't seem to get past their first night. Though he was more and more warm and demonstrative with her in bed and out, he was still not able to give himself over fully to the intimacy Althea was trying to develop in their marriage.
The truth was he found it far easier to be a rake. Althea was so much a part of himself and his life that he was terrified of driving her away, losing her love, once she found out how truly depraved he was.
Chapter Nineteen
Matilda began to flirt more and more outrageously with Matthew, until it was all Althea could do to not execute a few martial arts techniques on her and rearrange the classical features on her smug face.
The Rakehells all did what they could to defuse the volatile situation, but even if they made it known Matilda was not welcome at their houses, she had an uncanny knack for running into Matthew no matter where he was.
Bristol, Bath, Brimley, there she was, wreathed in smiles, and exuding a heady sensuality which Matthew, even though he was more active in the bedroom with Althea, was finding so flattering, that his former paramour was becoming harder and harder to resist.
Matters came to a crisis when Blake and Arabella hosted a ball in their new home, not quite completely finished yet, but with a grand enough ballroom to host a special dance for the summer solstice. Though they had not specifically invited Matilda, she had turned up on the arm of the rattle Tobias Parke, who had also befriended the flighty light-skirt Georgina Jerome, Blake's cousin. Georgina's reputation as an incorrigible minx was amply proven when she displayed her cleavage openly to Matthew right in front of his mortified wife.
Matilda licked her lips and had visions of a wonderful threesome. Foursome if she could get Matthew to agree to Tobias joining them, though she had tried and failed often enough before.
But then, Matthew had not been stuck in the country with such a dull little wife to do his duty with before. Her eyes alight with eager anticipation as she danced with him, she said, "Meet me on the terrace in twenty minutes. I need to speak with you, be with you. I'll simply die if I don't have you soon."
Althea, dancing in the set behind, was moving back into place when she caught the woman's words. She blinked and saw that it was indeed her very own husband the hussy was speaking to. Damn her eyes. And damn his for not saying no at once.
"I'll see you shortly. We need to talk," he said in an undertone.
Althea saw red. He needed to talk indeed! But not with Matilda.
When Georgina Jerome tried to latch onto Matthew, rubbing her chest against his arm most voluptuously, that was truly the last straw.
She stood in front of the couple as they began to adjourn together to the refreshment room, and took her husband by the hand.
"Pray excuse us. My husband and I are going to have a quick futter in a corner."
Georgina gasped, giggled, grinned, and then growled, for her quarry had got away.
Matthew was speechless with embarrassment and not a little outrage. But by the time he found his voice, they were in Blake's library and she had slammed the door behind her.
She said without preamble, "I'm sorry, Matthew, I can't go on this way in our marriage. Half of the women in Somerset are spreading themselves before you like jam. And you have the gall to go buzzing around their honeypots. I can't live with me always wondering, never knowing for certain if you love me, if you're being unfaithful. I know what I saw and heard just now between you and Matilda. Don't even bother to try to deny it. I know that even if nothing has happened yet, it's in danger of occurring. She wants you back."
Matthew blushed but didn't even bother trying to deny it.
She pleated the silk of her sapphire silk gown nervously with her fingers. "And whether you intend it or not, every time you sleep with a woman who isn't a professional, you're making an unspoken promise to them. Don't look at me like that. You know it's true. As soon as she was widowed, she expected you to marry her. You know it's true. You broke it off with her, presumably because you saw no future with her. I've seen you two together, Matthew. You may be physically attracted to her, might enoy the sex because it's an outlet, a habit, but it's just sex."
"Just sex?" he echoed, as she once had done with Eswara.
"Aye, and that's all it is. There's nothing else between you that I need be jealous of. It's just an itch of the loins. The truth of the matter is, you don't even like her."
He stared at her for a moment, then nodded. "That's true. As a person I really detest her."
"So what did you do in the past? Swive her out of contempt?"
He sighed and nodded again. "I suppose that was part of it. A big part, I have to admit. I never had to fear uncontrollable feelings or emotions, just indulged in the physical, and it was easy to just, well, relieve myself and walk away."
She glared at him indignantly "That's unworthy of you. Of you both. And she deserves better. Someone who is committed to her pleasure too, not just his own."
"You're right, of course," he conceded. "I don't want to bed her, not really. She's just, well, available, and it's all too easy. She was good at enticing me, and I couldn't be bothered to fight it when she twiddled my knob. It was like a bad habit, one I didn't bother to break until she began to insist we marry.
"It never occurred to be that she had read something completely different into the odd hour here or there we spent together. It meant so little to me except as an entertainment, like going to the races, that I never stopped to think what a selfish bastard I was being.
"Now with me being married, and my desires clamoring within me every moment you're with me, I've been weak and foolish where she's concerned. Flattered, and totally unthinking regarding what all of this must look and seem like.
" I don't want to be unfaithful to you, Althea, really I don't," he said earnestly. "I swear it on my life. I just can't seem to bring myself to, well, allow myself to enjoy you. I can't truly believe that you desire me. That I'm attractive, that you want and love me."
"But I do, Matthew! Gods above, you know I do. That's all we've ever quarrelled about in our marriage, me needing you in my bed, between my legs," she said boldly. She was so desperate and earnest she didn't even blush as she made the whole-hearted admission.
"I know you say you want me. I need to believe it though. The light-skirts are uncomplicated. It's flattering to have her and Georgina Jerome hang on my arm the way they do, as if I'm God's gift to women. And it's all right, because they're trollops. In my mind I'm thrusting my unwelcome attentions on Matil
da instead of you. But Philip said you love me, that you want me. My aunt said it too. I would like to believe it, but, well--"
"But what, darling?" she asked gently.
"I'm so terrified," he confessed, his voice trembling in this throat with barely suppressed emotion.
She put her hand on one of his. "Terrified of what, my love?" she asked gently.
He took a ragged breath. "Of ruining everything I've ever touched. Of harming you with my surging passions the way I did that very first night when I drubbed you half to death."
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