#abhigya

He stopped dead, his hand falling abruptly to his side. "I beg your pardon?"

"Your....that is to say, my lord, I wanted to advise you that I shall have no objection to your keeping lightskirts, as many as you choose, but I would request that you keep me informed. Particularly if it were to be a lady of our circle who I -"

"Miss Arora, I cannot possibly have heard you correctly. You did not just say that you would tolerate infidelity?"

"That is precisely what I said, my lord."

For a moment he simply stared at her in stunned silence. Then a hard look entered his eye and he said curtly, "Then allow me to tell you precisely, ma'am, that I will tolerate nothing of the sort."

She nearly felt her brows jumping into her hairline at the thought. "Well of course not! Nor would you have to, I haven't the least interest in being anyone's lightskirt!"

"Gratifying," he said, not looking the least amused. "If reciprocity is not a consideration, what makes you so magnanimous to the prospect of my...err, keeping lightskirts?"

She wanted to question him on why he thought reciprocity would ever be a consideration, but that seemed tangential to the matter at hand, so she focused on his question. "Well, the truth of the matter is that I have seen and heard of too many marriages broken because the wife could not tolerate the husband straying. It seems to be a fact of life that a man will stray if given the means, and you sir, of course, are blessed not to lack any sort of means. So I would much prefer that we deal frankly about it all, and the only thing I ask is that you not put me in that wretched position of ignorance so many women have to bear with, where they find out about their husband's amours from some malicious third party."

"Ah. And to avoid this, you would like me to - what, my dear, provide you with a constant list of names of chere amies? Entertain you with tales of their talents, perhaps?"

She flushed, but not from the embarrassment he probably meant her to feel. No, she felt a prurient interest in the prospect of such discussions, and blushed from the absurdity of her own thoughts.

"Not perhaps as much as that. But only that you wouldn't need to keep it a secret from me or fear I would be jealous or cut up your peace. I think a man is entitled to his own amusements and it behooves a wife to accommodate as much of her husband's pleasure as she can."