“True enough,” Adelaide agreed, wondering if her friend was shocked or fighting laughter. “It must be the vulnerability that is unpleasant. Properly done, it is delightful.”

“Er…” Julia winced and shook her head. “I can give you many, many names of wives who would disagree with you. Not me, particularly, but several others.”

“Their tastes might be different.” Adelaide shrugged, waving a hand. “There is no explaining that.”

“Some of them have had more than one husband, and the experiences could not be more different.”

Now that was a startling fact, and she reluctantly looked at her friend once more, her curiosity piqued. “What changed?”

“The man,” Julia said simply. “His treatment of her. Affection for and attraction to their husbands.”

Adelaide sputtered a near laugh. “That doesn’t signify in this case. I have no affection for Basset.”

That was not entirely true, but she could feel a slow burn of mortification starting in her cheeks, and a hasty retreat was competing with her curiosity.

Julia’s expression was carefully blank. “Must be attraction, then.”

The flaming in her cheeks doubled. “I doubt it,” she lied.

“Then perhaps it is a third cause.”

Mortification aside, Adelaide found herself inquiring. “Which is?”

A corner of Julia’s lips turned up. “Selfless consideration of the husband for the experience of his wife.”

Adelaide’s heart pounded in her ears. “I…”

Her friend’s smile slowly grew. “Without words, Lady Basset?”

The teasing sent a cold wash across Adelaide’s cheeks, and she shook her head. “It cannot be so selfless on his part. He—I may safely say the occasion is pleasant for him. Very.”

Julia laughed at the added emphasis. “Of course it is. But even you must see that, if stripped back to the most elementary parts, the experience could very much be otherwise for you while still being pleasant on his part.”

Adelaide had never thought of that, her previous encounters with her husband passing through her mind with complete clarity. “I suppose.”

“I won’t pretend to understand the relationship between you,” Julia told her, reaching out to take her hand. “Nor how it is between you in such intimate times. But from what you’ve said, Basset is taking great care to give you enjoyment when it could so easily be his alone, especially when there was no love and little affection between you. Perhaps if you resisted him a little less, you might see him better.”

“Perhaps,” Adelaide heard herself murmur, somehow unable to feel her lips at the moment.

Julia squeezed her hand and went back to her needlework, but Adelaide could not do so. Not yet.