The Redemption of Julian Price Read Online Free Page A

happy.”

CHAPTER TWO
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    “R ACE YOU TO THE LAKE?” Julian called out once Henrietta had settled her skirts.
    “Absolutely!” she replied, her gray eyes sparkling. “No one ever races with me anymore.”
    Spurring the horses, they set out across the dales toward Julian’s estate at a breakneck pace that not even Harry would have dared to match. Julian had planned to spare the whip and spur, but as usual, Henrietta more than held her own.
    Julian halted his horse beside the Price Hall fishing lake. Henrietta pulled up at his side. Her round face was flushed, and her tightly buttoned-up bosom rose and fell in rapid succession. It had been years since they’d raced, and those years had wrought many changes in the hoydenish Henrietta Houghton. He realized then that he’d never seen the womanly version of Henrietta in a riding habit. The fit of it left few of her lush feminine curves to the imagination, curves he became even more painfully aware of as he helped her to dismount from the saddle.
    “Do you remember our last summer here?” she asked.
    “Yes,” Julian replied, vividly recalling that day. It was the first time he’d noticed her changing shape.
    “My entire existence altered after that, and not for the better,” she added sadly.
    “How do you mean?” he asked.
    She handed him her bridle reins and bent to pick a Michaelmas daisy. “I lost my best friends,” she said. “It was never the same between us after . . .” She cast her gaze downward as a hint of rose permeated her face.
    “How could it be once we realized?” he said.
    “Realized what, Julian?”
    “That you were becoming a woman.”
    “But I was then, and still am, Henrietta,” she insisted.
    “No, Hen,” he argued. “You were one of the chaps, and then suddenly you weren’t.” He’d been particularly affected by the revelation. The image of her naked and nubile body beneath the wet shift had filled his adolescent dreams.
    “It wasn’t fair,” she said.
    “You have to understand the mind of an adolescent male, Hen. Thomas and I were on the verge of manhood, a time when natural urges often prevail over good sense.”
    “Natural urges? What do you mean?”
    “Surely you understand what happens when a man sees a woman’s breasts?”
    “No. I do not understand,” she said. “Perhaps you could explain it to me?”
    Doffing his hat, Julian raked his hair with a sigh. “Must you make me say it? Are you really so innocent?”
    “I’m not ignorant of the fundamentals of procreation, if that’s what you’re asking,” she replied, “but that doesn’t mean I fully comprehend the process.”
    Mumbling a curse, Julian directed his gaze heavenward. “Then I shall endeavor my best to explain it. When a man sees a woman in the flesh, or even thinks about a woman in the flesh, he becomes sexually aroused.”
    “That’s all it takes?” she asked, gaze wide.
    “Yes. Men are exceedingly simplistic creatures. We respond instinctively to visual stimuli.”
    She averted her face and began plucking petals from the purple flower. “Are you saying that you and Thomas . . .”
    “Yes,” Julian replied. “We both had unseemly thoughts about you after that.”
    “Is that why you tried to kiss me at the fair?”
    “It is,” he confessed. “I was acting on a natural urge.”
    “To procreate?” she supplied.
    “Not precisely, Hen,” he answered. “Contrary to what proper young ladies are taught, the act of procreation is much more than just a means of creating offspring. Coupling is extremely pleasurable, at least to a man.”
    “Is it not pleasurable to a woman also?”
    “It can be,” he replied. “Unfortunately, many women don’t allow themselves to enjoy it.”
    “That makes no sense!” Henrietta said. “Why shouldn’t a woman take pleasure in it if she is also capable of doing so?”
    “Why not indeed?” His mouth twitched involuntarily.
    “I would want to,” Henrietta said