Scarlet Devices Read Online Free PDF

you’re part of the class that still cares about these things. Chaperones for grown women and forced marriages over innocent kisses may be things of the past, but there is still a bright line that unmarried women shouldn’t cross without a great deal of thought and discretion. Hopelessly old-fashioned though it may be, that particular double standard will likely be with us as long as legitimacy and inheritance issues are with us. You wouldn’t be happy with your options if you compromised yourself publicly, no matter what you’d like to think. Besides, men do seem to like the
idea
of virgin brides.”
    Eliza looked at her cousin’s wife sharply, well aware that Charlotte had been a virgin bride once, but obviously not the second time when she married Dexter after five years as a widow. Glancing around to make sure they weren’t overheard, she dared a question that had long plagued her.
    â€œCharlotte, was it better being a virgin bride, or . . . the other kind?”
    Charlotte blushed and bit her bottom lip, closing her eyes. It took her a few attempts to speak, and when she did Eliza was sure it wasn’t her first thought on the matter but a much-tempered version of her original answer. “It’s different with each man, but what really makes it worth doing is having a genuine affection for the other person. Trusting one another, and caring about one another’s pleasure. Women can have pleasure too, you know,” she digressed, with an earnest intensity. “Climaxes, I mean. Don’t let anybody tell you differently. Insist on it.”
    â€œAll right.” Eliza already knew about climaxes and was uneasy with the notion that at some point Charlotte obviously hadn’t. It was more than Eliza had wanted to know about her friend.
    Perhaps society is right, and there are some questions we really shouldn’t ask
, she thought.
I do hope the one she’s had the climaxes with is Dexter and not the dead one
.
    Eliza winced at her own thoughts and changed the subject rapidly; Charlotte seemed as relieved as she to talk about anything else under the sun.
    â€œDo you suppose you could still teach me to pilot one of those tiny airships? You did promise some time ago, long before all this rally nonsense came up. I know you couldn’t demonstrate right now, of course, but if the controls aren’t too different from a basket dirigible, I shouldn’t need very much instruction.”
    â€œNaturally. Name the time. But about the rally . . . I do wish you’d reconsider, Eliza.”
    Humoring her very pregnant friend, Eliza said, “Since Dexter’s failed to convince me, suppose you try. Why on earth should I want to participate in the rally? By all accounts the competition is brutal, it’s dangerous, there are all sorts of dubious goings-on when the racers are parked for the night. And if I make it to the airship leg, there’s always the possibility that those geologists are right and the air over the Sierra Nevada range is poisoned. It hardly sounds like the sort of undertaking a respectable woman like yourself would recommend to a naïve young thing like me.”
    Charlotte’s snicker was hardly complimentary, but Eliza allowed it was well-deserved. And Charlotte didn’t know the half of it. Vassar had offered many educational opportunities that did not appear on the curriculum, and Eliza had explored most of them.
    â€œEliza, how old are you now? Twenty-three?”
    â€œYes.” It sounded hopelessly young and at the same time dangerously close to spinster territory, even in this enlightened day and age.
    â€œThat’s young,” Charlotte assured her. “I recommend the race for two reasons. It’ll get you away from your family for a time, since you’re always talking about wanting more independence. Second, and more importantly, I think you would have
fun
.”
    â€œFun?” Eliza