“Feel cooler?”
“Yes, but I still feel like I'm drifting away. It's very strange. It's as if I'm conscious but not in control.”
“The heat has been terrible. Here, let me help you.”
Without waiting for a response, Valerie untied Rebecca's robe and guided her out of it. Then she removed her own. Again, she compared herself to Rebecca. Where Valerie was soft and rounded, Rebecca was slender, almost boyishly lean and with much-better-defined muscles, particularly in her thighs and calves. It came, she supposed, from Rebecca's habit of going for long walks that were more hikes and forced marches than gentle strolls. Thank God the fuller-figured woman appealed to most men. Valerie hated exercise like the plague.
“You're just too warm.”
Valerie took the cold, damp cloth and guided it across Rebecca's naked body, pausing to touch her breasts and thighs.
“Do you like this?” Valerie whispered. She knew her answer. Rebecca was breathing deeply, and her nipples had stiffened. “Then you will like this even better.”
Valerie dipped her hand in the water and let her cool fingers dance across Rebecca's body, pausing briefly at the burn scar on her neck and shoulder. Then she caressed Rebecca's breasts with one hand while, with the other, she slowly and gently began to explore the suddenly moist softness between Rebecca's thighs.
“Oh, God,” Rebecca moaned. It was nothing she had ever felt before. Her own body was glowing with a radiant and glorious heat. It shouldn't be happening and she knew she should stop it but she was unable to make her body move. It was as if she were paralyzed. She could only lie there and receive the pleasure that came on her in increasing waves.
“Are you happy?” Valerie asked gently.
“Oh God, yes,” groaned Rebecca in a slurred voice. Now even her tongue had betrayed her.
“Then let me make you even happier.” Valerie lowered her lips over Rebecca's breasts and began to kiss her erect nipples while she continued to caress the other woman's thighs. Within a couple of moments, Rebecca gasped and spasmed, involuntarily clamping Valerie's hand with her thighs. Valerie smiled. Rebecca had just had her first climax.
“Did you like that, little Rebecca?”
“Yes,” Rebecca managed to gasp. Her own voice sounded strange, distant. Valerie still caressed her inner thighs. “That was wonderful.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want it to be even better?”
“Yes. No. It couldn't be. Yes.”
Valerie slowly moved her face down Rebecca's belly, gently licking at her slightly sweaty skin. When she reached Rebecca's thighs, she replaced her fingers with her softly probing tongue.
Rebecca groaned, then arched her back upwards while she tried to hold on to Valerie's head with her barely responding legs. In a couple of minutes, Rebecca had had her second orgasm. A little while later, it was followed by her third, after which Valerie allowed her to sleep.
The two women sat across from each other and nibbled at their breakfasts. Both were fully dressed.
“You used me.” Rebecca said.
“I admit it.”
“What was in the champagne?”
“A mild narcotic. A derivative of laudanum. It did a marvelous job of breaking down your inhibitions, didn't it?”
“What you did to me was despicable. The drug paralyzed me and made me helpless.”
Valerie arched an eyebrow. “Are you saying you didn't like it, received no pleasure from me?”
Rebecca flushed. “Of course I did. I couldn't possibly deny it, could I? I heard myself groaning and I know what pleasures I felt. I was just so helpless to stop it. You controlled me like I was a toy, not a human being.” It had sometimes felt like she was floating above herself, or, at other moments, as if she was a bug impaled on a pin. However, she had felt exquisite pleasure, not agony. “I knew everything that was happening but was totally unable to do anything about it. But what I find most discomforting was that you never told me what you were going to do. It was a sexual ambush, wasn't it?”
“Correct again. But I couldn't give you a warning. If I had, you'd have said no, wouldn't you?”
“Probably.”
Valerie laughed. “No, not probably, definitely. But now you know what your body is like and what you can do with it. As I once told you, I was taught such matters at a much earlier age, but one is never too old to learn. I can leave for France with the knowledge that you are finally a woman.”
“You used me,” Rebecca said. “Betrayed my trust.”
“Correct.”
“Why?”
Valerie smiled. “How else could I have done it? Could I have brought in a strange man to service you? Or perhaps I could have sent you to bed with Mr. Hunter and hovered over you and given instructions. No, any suggestion of mine would have been overruled by you. As it is, what happened was beyond your control, which makes you blameless. Educated, but without taint.”
Despite her anger, Rebecca saw the twisted logic. “We can never be friends again.”
“Is that your wish?”
“It is,” Rebecca said firmly.
Valerie shrugged. “So be it. I have no regrets, and, when you've had time to think on it, neither will you.”
Later, as Rebecca's carriage and driver took her home, Rebecca reflected on what truly had occurred. Valerie D'Estaing was as depraved and as amoral as anyone could be. What was truly astonishing was that Valerie saw absolutely nothing wrong in what she had done and had absolutely no regrets.
Rebecca had no desire to ever again have such an encounter with another woman. Had she not been under the influence of Valerie's narcotic, she would likely be feeling enormous guilt. As it was, she could examine what had occurred with a degree of objectivity and with only a minimal amount of shame.
Valerie was correct in one area. Rebecca's knowledge of her own body had grown from virtually nothing to great substance. She reiterated to herself that she would never permit a woman to touch her. However, a man would be different, and if Tom had been a proper husband, she would already be aware of that difference.
Rebecca closed her eyes and tried to imagine Nathan Hunter caressing her and using both his lips and his tongue on her. It was an astonishingly pleasant thought, and she found herself growing even warmer than the summer day.
Chapter Thirteen
Brigadier General Patrick Ronayne Cleburne sat on the edge of his cot in his tent and wondered just what had caused the world to fall in on him so suddenly and so totally. A couple of days ago he was the darling of the Confederate army; now he was a virtual prisoner.
Cleburne's unit was one of the few to have emerged from the battle of Shiloh with its reputation enhanced. His rise in the Confederate army had been meteoric. He had begun the war as a private and now was a highly regarded general. His intelligence: bravery: charm: and personal experience in the British army had stood him in good stead. He had commanded a division, and was told he would soon get a corps. He was a man whose star was rising rapidly.
But that was then and this was now, and there was a guard at the flap of the tent with orders to shoot Cleburne should he attempt to leave.
How had this happened? Cleburne was an immigrant from Ireland who had worked hard and finally made good as an attorney and a military man. He enjoyed the fighting and his men seemed to love following him into combat. Why not? He was a winner and the winners not only had the glory but, generally, fewer casualties. And
