We went up a steep staircase, around a corner, and into a room that held various paintings and sculptures, all of them covered with heavy canvas.

The room also contained the nameless stranger who had summoned me. He was pacing about quickly, and unless I was much mistaken his hand had strayed to his fall, only to be removed when I walked in with the attendant.

“Thank you, Simpson,” the man said.

“Very well, sir,” said the young man, who was either named Simpson or in on the same sort of deceptive scheme that I was. Whatever the young person’s true name, he left quickly.

I thought of following him. There was no reason for me to be there. My husband had material enough to free himself from our marriage, and if I had been very lucky, perhaps I was not going to be returning with some horrid disease.

The man, however, had thought of this. Scarcely were we alone in the storage room than he brought out another French letter, and I gasped with horror and delight.

“Not here, surely,” I said, forgetting myself as I looked at him with large eyes.

“Yes,” he said. “For I cannot linger. I must rejoin my party, and you must surely have another engagement.”

I was silent as I looked at him. He backed me toward the wall, and I could feel all of his body on me. His hair was a darker red, as no light seemed to be coming through the curtains, but I could see that his face was also burning with desire. And when he pushed his body onto mine, I cried out with the beauty of it. His stature may have been about equal to mine, but his strength was far greater, and it was a strength that he certainly wished to use for his own purposes.

“Quickly,” I whispered, and he raised my skirts. Before I even saw him put the little paper on, I felt its familiar chafing against my skin as the man hoisted me up, pressing my back against the wall and burying his face in my bosom.

Our grunts and moans were like a sort of concerto. I knew that the gallery was not far away, and I had no idea what sort of servants might be passing near us. Once, I thought I heard a bump and the sound of slapping from outside the door, but before I could say a word about it the randy man quickened his pace and I was scarcely able to breathe. Also, feeling the French letter sliding about within me, I had no great faith that this method would continue to work, given the slick and unpredictable nature of the act.

But still, my squeaks grew louder as my lover pushed me against the wall. It was different from anything I had ever known. With Mr. Barlow, even that very day, the act had been imbued with feelings of mutual regard and a shared past, however short. With Mr. Wharton, there was never any hurry or any fear of discovery. But I felt quite wicked when I considered that the nameless man’s wife might well find us out if we did not hurry.

I bounced along with him, clutching furiously at his back, and realizing with some surprise that, even without the aid of my fingers, my body was feeling quite ready to disintegrate.

And come my death did, at the very instance that the stranger cried out, his face twisted so far that he bit my hair. No matter how many women he had enjoyed in that very room, or in other illicit locations in Bath and elsewhere, that event must have shocked him as much as it did me. For when he lowered me to the ground, he stayed inside me, and we simply stared at each other for a few moments.

I know not how he disposed of the evidence of our congress, but he did it quickly, and he had walked out the door before I was even recalled to myself. With no glass in the room, I was forced to guess at my looks, attempting to twist all of my stray hairs back into their right places. Even if I had been absolutely capable of looking as if I had just been done up by ten ladies’ maids, nothing would have altered the awkwardness I felt when I passed the servant who had shown us into the room in the hallway. If I was not mistaken, his cheeks were red as he passed me, and I realized with great horror that he might have talked the older man into giving him the privilege of listening at the door.