Chapter 7
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“I don't know, Em.” Her arms crossed, Janet peered side-long at her quite gravely, fingers rapping against her. “With his reputation, all this nonsense could be a clever show to get your guard down.”
“I understand your caution, it's quite valid. Still, I think-”
“Emma's a good judge of character; she wouldn't just open herself up to anyone.” Came blonde Denise with a smile, taking a sip from her cup of tea. The Viscountess nodded her thanks to the compliment even though it had come as an interruption.
“That may well be.” The skeptical and brunette with the short, modern haircut carried on. “Still, he's known to be quite crafty. God only knows how many illegitimate children he might have.” Unfolding her arms, she took up her cup of coffee which Denise had bought especially for her.
“Really. He seems quite clever, I don't think you give him enough credit, he'd be more careful than that.” Emma held the saucer in-hand, setting the cup down on it.
“You don't deny his reputation, however, do you?”
“Of course not, and I don't like it anymore than you do.”
“Nor do I.” Piped up the blonde at the end of the long table, her friends at either side of her. A small tray of sandwiches and pastries sat between them all, a lovely little lunch.
“I think he's coming around, though. I mean, he... he'd even told me... well...” Emma faltered, rethinking whether or not she should share the information, and Janet caught on quite quickly.
“... well...?” she stated with the very same tone as the final word spoken before her with only the tiniest inflection of a question at the very end. Denise looked to her right at her brunette friend, and then to her left at Emma, a smile on her face as she held her cup of tea.
“He...” still unsure, her uncertainty changed to certainty. “He had confided something to me.”
“Confided something to you...”
“Was it at the park?” Came Denise, a bit less pressingly.
“Yes, though he'd whispered it.”
“Ooo, a secret...”
“Yes, which is why I thought it best not to share it.” Emma nodded, looking ahead to Janet across the pretty white tablecloth, then to the less forward Denise to her right. The two merely stared at her silently, a serious look across the way and a playfully intrigued one from the blonde. “Oh come on, must I?”
“You must.”
“Oh please do...”
“Hahhhh...” Emma sighed. “Well... he... and you mustn't speak a word of it! Well, unless perhaps he turns out to be a bit of a bastard and I was wrong all along, but none the less, unless that happens, not a peep.” The two nodded. A deep and confident one from Janet, with several quick ones from Denise in excitement to hear what he had confided in her about.
“He told me he... doesn't particularly get... 'excited'...” Janet gave a look of disgust, having a pretty good idea of what he may have said to her instead of 'excited', “... with other girls. Not since we've started dating.”
“Oh, that sounds... sweet?”
“Sounds like a sweet load of bollocks.”
“Well... that's not quite... all.” One critical eyebrow raised at her from across the table, while from her flank rose two merry eyebrows above a broad smile.
“Eee!” The blonde squee'd, clearly eager to hear, and Emma couldn't help but scoff amusedly at her friend's enthusiasm. Her short-haired companion, however, kept quite the serious poker face.
“He said he'd had difficulty... 'performing'.” Denise's jaw dropped as her lips made an 'O'.
“You mean he'd already been with someone else? While you two have been dating?” The 'O' widened as the hostess of the luncheon peered from Denise back to Em.
“Y-... yes.” She faltered, having not wanted to reveal this, but carried on quickly. “I was quite cross with him, obviously-”
“Obviously.” Janet butt in but Emma carried on.
“-but he seemed to be very sincere and, honestly what man would confide in such a thing with someone he were actively dating? For one, he'd... he'd slept with someone behind my back.” The Viscountess' features hardened at this, feeling anger bubbling up within her merely from having the words pass her lips. “So that's one thing,” she soldiered on, “but for two, that he couldn't quite... 'ahem'?” She didn't want to say it directly. “It's not exactly someone a man would boast about, not at all, certainly not to a woman he sought.”
“So he couldn't 'get it up'?” Janet gave, and by that point Denise's mouth couldn't be wider unless she managed to dislocate her jaw. “Certainly doesn't sound like him from what I've heard, what with his womanizing.” The final word dripped venom.
“Indeed, which makes it all the more impactful.” She even put down her saucered cup of tea to punch her hand as she said the word.
“If it's true.”
“Y-... yes. If it's true.” A slight hesitation, but she nodded. “I suppose it could be an effort of disarming, but... I mean... it's quite a risky one. Surely there would be more effective ways of attempting it rather than 'oh by the way I had fucked a woman recently and could hardly get a hard on'.” Emma gave in a deep, mockly masculine voice. Denise covered her mouth as she giggled at this, her eyes rapidly going between the two conversationalists before her.
“That's how he said it?”
“No of course not, he's very good with his words, and more than that I could hear in his voice how much he didn't like sharing it and explained to me why he told me.”
“Go on.” The blonde agreed with the brunette. Very enthusiastically.
“Truth and honesty.” Janet narrowed her eyes questioningly, Denise cocked her head slightly sideways, her bright hair swaying as she did. “It's something he'd been thinking a lot about, it would seem. Being truthful brings about the best outcome. As much as he hopes things work out with us, if I were to decide that what happened is so unacceptable to the point of having me break off the relationship-”
“Which would kill your mother.” The short-haired friend quickly provided usefully.
“- then that's for the best. After all, if...” she tried to remember how he'd said it, how his logic had worked out. The two others thankfully gave her a moment. “... if I would find him unacceptable for sharing such... difficult things... then that means he wouldn't be able to confide anything in me even if something worse or something not quite as bad happened. Long-term partners should be able to talk about most anything, no matter how difficult. So, while telling me that did threaten his chance of a long-term relationship between us, it could also potentially make clear our chances overall?” Emma was peering down at the table, her eyes squinting, not sure if she'd said it right.
“My, that sounds quite...”
“Hmph.”
“... quite thoughtful. Like he'd thought about it. A lot.”
“I think he did, Den. I didn't say it quite as well as he did, but it made a lot of sense. He also promised to never do anything like that again if we end up getting engaged.”
“It's getting that serious?” Janet asked gravely. Emma looked to her with the centres of her eyebrows curved up, lips pressed together, giving a shrug. It seemed more like a weak apology than a show of uncertainty though.
“Well, your mother would certainly be happy, if no one else.”
“A great many men might be happy; wouldn't have to worry about their wives being scooped up by him. The Duke is quite handsome after all.” Denise gave, and Emma smiled to her.
“Quite wealthy too...” she gave in a sing-song voice, which brought a merry giggle from the blonde. The brunette crossed her arms again, not quite convinced.
“Still smacks of disloyalty to me. I still think he's a bastard.”
“Janet, you think all men are bastards.” The Viscountess pointed out.
“She's not wrong.”
“You used to be of a similar mind.” The brunette produced her own point. “Why the change? Why for such a womanizer as him? Come on, surely it's just because of your mother's pressure that you're even considering that sleeze.”
“Well...” she considered it a moment. “... that's very likely at least one aspect of it, but, I don't know, he just seems so very different from what I had been expecting. I especially didn't expect such honesty from him.”
“If what he said was honest and true.”
“I truly think he was. For better or worse. That's what he'd said, to! He didn't particularly want to tell me that, for obvious reasons, but... he still did, 'for better or worse' as he put it.” The woman across from her maintained folded arms under her huge bust, the best endowed of the table, her faintly pudgy face as untrusting as ever when the subject of men was on. Beside her, her far sweeter and smaller friend positively glowed at Emma.
“I'm so happy you've found someone, Em. You really seem to like him.”
“Y'know, I rather do.”
“Ohhh...” the blonde scooted her chair back to rise, and with a growing smile Emma did as well, allowing the two to embrace warmly. “You can really have a good life with him.” Her tender and high-pitched tone gave, she has always been quite the romantic. “Your mother would be happy, neither of you would ever want for anything.”
“Ugh...” muttered the skeptic, putting her tea down and folding her arms again. The hug she witnessed over such a matter finally broke as the two went back to their seats after a final look to one another's eyes, happiness beaming from each. Denise already had a shiny wedding ring on her finger, and evidently she looked forward to the day that Emma joined her in voluntary slavery, too. That's how the short-haired one viewed it anyhow, the biggest and oldest at the table.
“You'd have servants to do all the cleaning and cooking, to change the nappies-”
“To be buggered by your 'husband'. He's probably already screwing them if he has them, the bastard.”
“That was just cruel,” Denise chided the woman, not something she did often of course.
“Agreed!” There was a level of outrage in her tone as she spoke the word, staring at the woman across from her, folding her own arms as well.
“He'll screw anything that moves! Don't be daft; he might be playing you like a fiddle, ready to take you for a night, drop you off back at your mother's, and you'll never hear from him again!”
“I don't think there's anything I can say at this point that would change your mind.” Emma then gestured to the woman at the end of the table. “Denise's husband has been treating her like a Queen, yet you still think he's a-... well...”
“Hmph, he'll slip up, give it time.” Janet's adoration for the negative epithet 'bastard' was quite well known, but the blonde had made it quite clear how sick she was of it being applied to her man, especially in her own house, and so they all knew not to utter it in regards to him. Not that the Viscountess would do so.