The Belvedere.

What Happened?

Harriet closed the door behind herself and stood there indecisively for a few moments, leaning back against it, her heart suddenly beating wildly again as she strove to recover her wits and her poise. She was not sure what to think about what had happened to her, or what she had participated in by not objecting to it. She was still in a daze, but now she was alone and could think about all that had happened and revisit everything. That is, if she could recall it all after the wine she had drunk. Had it been just a dream?

She avoided Cook, lest that astute, older woman saw more than was good for her to see in Harriet’s eyes and her manner, saw her unsteadiness on her feet, or the look in her eyes, and took herself off to her room with a jug of hot water to bathe and to inspect herself and her clothing to find out what had changed about her.

No one saw her.

The wrinkles in her dress, and a few obvious stains (from him, which she was curious about and needed to examine), would be easily removed with a damp cloth and a hot iron. She could do that later, after Cook had gone home and her father had retired. She sat down and tried to analyze how she felt.

She felt both distraught as well as contented; strangely disparate feelings but did not understand why she felt that way. She wanted to laugh one moment, and cry the next. He had touched and held her breasts so familiarly. She could still feel his hand upon them, and her pushing back at him. She could even feel him too, where he had been, between her legs with that…that…she shook her head. She had survived two unusual circumstances, though surviving only one of them: her walk. She was not sure about the other, though she was still alive so must have survived that too. But she would be unsettled until she understood everything that had happened to her in his company.

There was still an hour to dinner. She was not very hungry, having already eaten with him (how had she been able to relax enough to think of eating after what he had done to her?), but would appear for dinner with her father, as was expected of her. A bowl of soup would be all she could manage.

While the early evening sun still shone strongly in her window, she did something she had never done before. She stripped off her dress and her petticoat, and stood in front of her mirror, taking a long and detailed look at her own naked body, inspecting it, endeavoring to see what could have interested him in her.

She had always considered that there was something wrong with a woman who would be vain enough to wish to admire her own body. She had never inspected herself in front of her mirror like this, and it was time she did. Why should she be shy now? He had not been shy to touch her or learn more of her, so why should she be shy with her own body? He, that man, James Read, had not been shy or had held back in any way, especially after he had removed her hose and then had nuzzled into her. And she had let him, even held him there as he did the most terrib... wonderful things to her. The shame of that flooded over her. The real shame had been that she had not objected but had accepted it. Enjoyed it.

He had also told her that she was beautiful. Others had said that of her too. She was not sure any of them could be believed, but as they were other women, perhaps they could be believed. She had also been naked, as she was now, when he had told her that. He had told her that, like any man, to see his flattery disarm her as it had, and to make his way with her easier. However, he had captivated her long before he had told her that. What was more, he had been believable.

She turned one way, then the other, but could see nothing that she considered entrancing or beautiful, though her breasts had been of great interest to him; he had kissed them and had touched and held them often enough. She held them as he had (she felt they were still too large) but did not get the same feeling out of it. He had also been interested in her down there in the hair, and had touched her there too, along her vulva, kissing, licking. She had even held his head there, encouraging him. She could still feel everything he had done and still lived it, feeling the pleasure of it over and over again. And then she had helped him when she had touched…and held…and…something else had happened to him, and he had wet her hand and her body, yet it had not disgusted her.

Was she beautiful, as he had told her she was?

She put her tongue out at her image in defiance and smiled at herself. Her face was still flushed, and she still had a heady feeling of being full of secrets. But who could she share them with other than herself? And her mother.

She was not sure how she could smile at a time like this after he had used her, after those things he had done to her. Yet she did smile. She did not know what to think.

Before she knew it, the smile had turned to tears, but it did not take long for her to recover. She would never dare go downstairs in such an uncertain mood and with her emotions in such turmoil, or everything that had happened would be discovered.

It had been discovered with the scullery maid, who had also dissolved into tears without warning, and had then confessed the whole thing, about being with a man, everything that had happened to her. Everything, even the finer details. At the time, Harriet was not sure she could believe what she overheard. She believed it now. Why were women the only ones to walk such an emotional tightrope with such little control over their moods?

Before today she had been careful of her reputation and had been as virtuous as a nun’s hen; a common saying of one of her paternal uncles, but whose meaning had been lost on her until now (no rooster allowed to tread those hens). Now, the reign of virtue in her cloistered life had come to a crashing end, as it would with that hen, once a rooster (a c**k, yes, an eager one of those too) was put into her life and her body.

Yes, she thought she might be beautiful. Why not admit it? Others had said the same, but she had not believed them until now; not until he had told her. She had believed him. She had seen the look in his eyes as he had told her that, and he had been sincere. Everything he had done had been wrong. Yet nothing he had done, had felt wrong. None of it.

She did not understand why she did not feel devastated, or even violated or destroyed. She was now a woman devoid of a good reputation but did not feel any different. She had been handled, and taken, as well as daring to participate in an orgy, if she could admit it, and in a way she had not understood. She had been ruined, (she kept coming back to that) but she didn’t feel ruined. She was not sure what she felt.

Could you actually be ruined if no one else knew of it?