“Max, listen. I’ll spend more hours studying. I’ll read every bloody book in this room and then some if that’s what you want. All I ask is for you to show me how to play that game for an hour or so a day. This is my lot in life, and I’ve accepted that. You’ve made sure my children are properly cared for, and I know they’ll have a good life because you’ll make sure they do, and I have no way to repay you for that except by doing this. Teach me the game, Max, and let me win you back some of that respect you’ve lost because of me.”

Max’s eyes gleamed. “What about my horses?”

“I’m sure we can work them into the wager.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Well, don’t stop there,” Ruby said, slapping the mattress.

“I’ve been talking for almost an hour. My jaw is tired.”

“Then go suck down some more of the good stuff because you can’t leave me hanging like that,” Ruby said with a laugh.

“It was just a chess game.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t just a chess game, and I’m not even talking about that. I’m talking about when Angelique popped your lesbian cherry.”

Bennett snapped back her head. “I’m not sure I have ever heard that put more crudely.”

“Crude or not, it’s the truth—right?” Ruby said, waggling her eyebrows. “She was the one who—”

“Please don’t say it again,” Bennett said, wincing. “I’m still trying to recover from the last time.”

“All right. I won’t say it again, but come on. You’re as lesbian as they come. Someone had to pull you from the darkness into the light, and my money’s on her.”

A soft and loving curve touched Bennett’s lips. “You are correct.”

Having lounged back on the pillows, Ruby sat straight again. “So? What happened? First-time stories are the best, and yours must be a doozy. I mean, you were basically clueless, weren’t you?”

“Not as much as I was on my wedding night, thanks to Max,” Bennett said, her cheeks reddening ever so slightly. “By the time Angelique made her move on me, I had a slightly better understanding of sex and, by association, homosexuality.”

“Excuse me?”

“Ruby, no one ever told me sex was supposed to be enjoyable. The only thing my mother ever said was that on my wedding night, and any other time when Warrick wanted it to happen, we would couple as husband and wife. The act was necessary in order to have children, and basically, I was told to grin and bear it.”

“Wow.”

“And that’s what I did. I never enjoyed being with Warrick in that way, but I was his wife, and it was my duty. End of subject.”

“And Max showed you the light?”