He was still chuckling, but he blinked while doing it. “Pardon?”
“I was being serious,” I repeated. “See, it’s kind of…” I searched for a word and found it. “Uncouth for the hot guys of the manor to go around having their fun, leaving a trail of broken hearts in their wake. There has to be somewhere else they can go to get their…” I struggled again to find the right word. “Fun.”
“And waste time astride a horse when they could be riding something else close to home?” he asked with mild disbelief.
My eyes got big, his lips curved into a smile, and I opened my mouth to speak but he beat me to it.
“This is the way it is here, Maddie.”
“I—”
He put his fingers to my lips and whispered, “Quiet. Please?”
I was quiet but only because he said “please,” I really liked that he said it and I also liked his deep voice wrapping around that word.
He made sure I was quiet, removed his hand so he could wrap his arm around me again and went on.
“The people of this world are very free…” he paused, “sexually. The Vale, there are more strictures than Lunwyn. Fleuridia, less. But here, men and women enjoy each other openly and frequently. If Loretta has feelings for Hans that are not returned, that’s unfortunate. But it happens. Does this not happen in your world?”
Actually, it did.
I bit my lip.
He nodded, correctly reading my non-verbalized answer.
“I’m sorry things are awkward, dove,” he said gently. “But she is not under any misconceptions, I’m certain. She knows the ways of this culture. And it is highly probable she will find someone else to turn her attentions to. But this may happen again until she finds the man who…crushes on her as she does him.”
This was how it happened in my culture too.
Drat.
“Are we done with that topic?” he asked, knowing the answer from reading my face.
I gave him a different one, however. “Kind of.”
“What more is there?” he queried.
I thought about the Fleuridian prostitute and the fact that Apollo was most definitely a man and a man who liked to get him some.
“Have you, um…?” I trailed off.
“Never,” he stated.
It was my turn to blink. “Never?”
“Never…recently,” he amended.
There it was.
“Mm-hmm,” I mumbled.
He drew me nearer, gentled his voice and explained.
“There are Heads of Houses who do these things. I am not one of them. I was married, my wife my one and only. After that—but I learned it before I was married, my dove—I found it uncomfortable to be around maids who knew me in this manner.”
“In other words, they all fell for you,” I deduced.
He nodded. “It’s difficult to sit at dinner when the woman serving it is giving you longing eyes and you have had your fill and don’t intend to drink more from that cup.”