I can talk to Rosalind about sex. Even Portia, though she would be more reticent. I also have friends willing to discuss the matter. Yet I am always the bold one, the one leading and pulling others along in my wake. Here, I have met my equal, and better yet, it is a man, who will offer a perspective I crave.

While I want to continue the conversation, I do not know how. It is my turn to speak, and when I do not, he deftly—and erroneously—takes the hint and changes the subject.

“When I paused,” he says, “I meant that I have not heard of these ‘murder mysteries.’ Are they a new literary fashion?”

They are . . . fifty years from now. The so-called sensation novel, which Rosalind—presumably borrowing from the future—calls murder mysteries.

“It is a joke my sister makes,” I say. “I do not think anyone pens such books.”

“Then perhaps you can start,” he says. “So long as you do not require personal experience of murder to do so.” He glances out the cave entrance and pulls a face. “And now, as much as I am enjoying this conversation, I must allow you to properly rest. We will set out when the sun has dropped and the moon is full.”

I spend the rest of our relaxation time cursing myself for fumbling that conversation . . . while also chastising myself for lamenting such a thing, considering the circumstances. And yet I cannot help but grieve the loss of the moment. I sometimes feel as if I am an anomaly among women when it comes to matters of a sexual nature. I am not. Rosalind has an active and, I suspect, very adventurous intimate life with her husband. Two of my friends sought out sexual encounters with “unmarriageable” young men, partly to satisfy curiosity and partly to ensure, when they did marry, that they would know what they did and did not want in a lover.

If I feel different, it is because my own curiosity has been frustrated and thwarted at every turn, half by my partners and half by myself. My first lover was also my first suitor. My sisters both thought him unworthy of me, and I thought that terribly sweet of them. He was the sort of young rake so common in popular fiction. Handsome and wild, with a devilish grin and a string of past lovers almost as long as his string of not-so-past gambling debts. My only excuse is that I was dreadfully young. Also dreadfully eager to experience the sort of carnal delights such a man could surely offer.

I have no intention of ever marrying and having children. Yes, my parents had an enviable marriage, as does Rosalind, and if I could have such a thing, I would not refuse it, but I consider it too lofty a goal to actively pursue. As much as I adore my nephew—and cannot wait for Rosalind’s impending second arrival—I see myself as a doting aunt rather than mother.