Pomona had once read stories like this in magazines.
Married men and women having affairs would take off their wedding rings, some to conceal their identities and make others think they were unmarried.
Others did it out of guilt. Severus had given her a summoning ring, but it was not on her hand now.
Her bracelet and earrings were gone as well. Only the pendant around her neck remained. Taking it off was like removing her wedding ring; once that final restraint was gone, she was completely free.
The pleasure gained after such long suppression came more swiftly than constant indulgence. For one brief moment, she felt that the view from the First Consul's bedroom window in the Tuileries Palace was a Venetian canal.
When she lay on her back, she could feel the thing hanging around the other person's neck brushing across her spine. One person wore a white swan pendant; the other carried a small cloth pouch filled with poison.
That was enough. She could not accept even one more person; it would make her feel as sick as if she had overeaten.
Children could not be obtained simply by praying to the Virgin Mary. If a pistil did not receive pollen from a stamen, it could not conceive and bear seeds. Low temperatures kept bees, butterflies, and other insects from coming out, leaving ears of wheat hollow.
Only heavy ears of wheat bent their heads; hollow ones held them high. People admired that spirit.
But humility easily made people obedient. Obedience was both a good quality and a bad one. Compared to men, women were far more inclined to submit. Even a monk like Erasmus sometimes did not want to yield to fate.
When the other man called her a bad girl, she had felt a little