The Rape of Venice Read Online Free PDF

I’ll wager that some time or other you have even told her that it was you who seduced me when a boy.’
    â€˜Roger, how dare you! I did nothing of the kind. It was mutual.’
    â€˜Nonsense,’ he laughed. ‘You know well enough that you were my first experience, and I certainly was not yours.’
    As a girl of sixteen she had, not altogether unwillingly, become the victim of a handsome highwayman; and being a young wanton by nature had later gloried in the affair, declaring it to be ‘a fine romantic way to lose one’s maidenhead’. Now, she returned Roger’s smile and said: ‘You’ve never got over your regret at not having been the first with me, have you? But that was no fault of mine; and I trust, Sir, that I’ve given you no cause to complain of me since.’
    â€˜On the contrary. Madam. You have given me many of the happiest hours of my life, and none more so than during these past two months. Yet it irks me that we should continue to pretend in front of Jenny instead of enjoying breakfast in bed together in the mornings.’
    â€˜What! Have Jenny bring to my room a tray for two, with hot dishes and cold meats to appease your hunger. How, pray, could she explain that in the kitchen? What my servants may guess at I care not; but ’tis quite another thing to give them clear grounds for dubbing me a whore. The price for breaking your fast in bed with me, m’dear, is beyond your purse; for it would be no less than marriage.’
    â€˜Damme, I’ve half a mind to take you up on that! You’ve had two husbands and I two wives, yet neither of us has had the joy with them we’ve had with one another. We’ve the same interests, never had a cross word ...’
    â€˜Enough!’ she cut in sharply. ‘I was but joking and you are talking like a fool. The very essence of our golden hours istheir impermanence, and the lack of obligation on either side. We’ve long since agreed that were we permanently united the time would come when we would tire of one another; physically I mean. We’d then begin to yearn for pastures new and end like most other married couples, observing the courtesies before the world but cheating, bickering, and disillusioned in private.’
    Sitting up, he shrugged his shoulders. ‘Alas, you’re right. Yet you must marry someone. You owe it to little Charles.’
    â€˜Oh, I’ll wed again; although not yet awhile. Charles is barely ten months old; so for some years to come he’ll reap no ill from the lack of a father. But your case, Roger, is very different. Your little Susan is welcome to a home here for as long as you may wish, but however loving my care of her it will not be her own home; and that she should have. Poor Amanda used her last breath to place her infant in Clarissa’s charge and express the hope that you two would marry. I pray you ...’
    â€˜So Clarissa told you of that?’
    â€˜Yes. She did so soon after her arrival here with the child last week, and I pray you, Roger, give Amanda’s wish your serious consideration. Clarissa is a most lovely young creature and passionately enamoured of you.’
    â€˜I know it. Has she not pursued me from the West Indies on the excuse of bringing my daughter to me, although the child was over young to travel?’
    â€˜That is unfair. There was less risk in her doing so with a wet-nurse in attendance than to wait until the child was weaned and had to be fed for many weeks on such dubious foods as a ship can carry. You could find no better step-mother than Clarissa to rear your child, and ...’
    â€˜Yes, yes! I grant you that. She is, too, sweet natured and intelligent. I will admit that did I contemplate marriage I’d be tempted to make her my wife. But I do not; so spare me, I beg, further solicitation on her behalf.’
    Georgina began to put on the nightdress with which she had been toying.