Katherine's mind and heart were racing at an alarming and terrifying rate. She could not take it back, not repent, not explain away what she had done, and who she had done it with. Eward Mountford-Miles. Eward, her enemy in mind and in action, the reason why she wrote as scathingly as she did, the type of man who precipitated her hatred for his whole gender. That very contradicting person was the one she had let down her guard to. And for what purpose? Thinking on it, Katherine couldn't even pinpoint what had made her do what she had in practically falling into bed with him when she might have left instead. Did it even matter? He had responded in kind, and had he not then she would not have forced their union.
The thought that she now lay next to Eward in bed, in the afterglow of sex, scared Katherine so enormously that it was not long before she had scrambled from the bed, her legs shaking. Her chemise, the only article of clothing still on her, fell to its natural place from where it had been around her waist, and Katherine knelt by the bedframe, pulling her dress onto her body and holding her corset in her arms. "I...I...I must be home. Mother and Miles will worry," she muttered, more angry at herself than at Eward, who she looked back at without thinking of the consequences.