A Gentlewoman's Pleasure Read online

  They kissed for a few moments, and with every second that ticked by, Lucy wanted him more. She’d been romanced by her sweetheart, the one who’d ever so politely thrown her over for a prettier, better connected girl, and even though they’d never fully consummated their dalliance, there had been some pleasure. And ever since, she’d longed to repeat it with a man.

  But just as her hero’s hand slid to her breast, cupping the slight orb and tantalizing its crest with his palm, he stopped, and this time she was too swept away, and off her guard to prevent him pulling away from her.

  “Please, no…go on!” she urged, knowing she was wanted, but feeling the crush of disappointment after the sweet and sudden embrace.

  Kind hands stroked her hair again, and pushed her back against the pillows, then drew the sheet over her. Lucy shut her eyes tightly, unable to face even the indistinct look of revulsion on his handsome young face.

  “Hush…hush,” he murmured. “You’ve had a nasty shock. You don’t know what you’re doing.” He paused, and Lucy braced herself for more words of rejection. “I can’t take advantage of you this way, no matter how much I want to.”

  Want to?

  Despite the fact that her body was taut with frustration, Lucy’s spirits soared. He did want her. Spectacles, plain looks, shapeless body, and all.

  “But what if I wish you to take advantage of me?” Her own boldness made her smile, and she saw the blurred shape of a smile on his face too. “I feel much better now. Greatly restored, in fact, and I…I would like to reward you for your kindness.”

  His laugh was young and free and happy, and Lucy found herself laughing too. His mirth wasn’t directed at her. It was inclusive, almost an embrace in itself, like another deep kiss.

  “Well, ma’am, I must say I cannot think of a finer reward. But still, you’ve taken a bump to your head, and you need to rest more.”

  Lucy tried not to look disappointed, but something must have showed, because he cradled her cheek again, and kissed her brow once more. “Sleep for a spell. Rest while I attend to some pressing matters, and then perhaps we can return to these negotiations when you’re fully restored and in possession of your judgment.”

  “Very well…” She did indeed still feel a little weary, despite everything. His low voice was so soothing, almost that of a mesmerist. “But first, there’s one thing I must know, sir.”

  “Anything.”

  “May I know your name?”

  They both laughed again. It was so absurd. They were still strangers.

  “My name is Ethan Oakley, and I’m at your service.”

  I hope so… I really hope so…

  “May I know your name too?” he continued, slipping his hand beneath the covers, finding hers and drawing it out, then kissing it courteously.

  “Lucy Dawson. Miss Lucy Dawson… But please, do call me ‘Lucy.’ I think we’re a little way past the formal niceties now, don’t you think?”

  Again came that beautiful, desirable smile, so vivid in her mind that Lucy’s imagination filled in the details for her defective vision.

  “Indeed, Lucy. Indeed. Now, please, try to rest.” He returned her tingling hand beneath the bedclothes, and tucked them up around her. “Is there anyone I should notify as to your whereabouts? I gather from your portmanteau that you’re on your way to a visit.”

  Already sleepy again, lulled by his calm presence, Lucy struggled to think straight. Yes, Matilda must be worried about her, and wondering where she’d got to.

  “Yes, my cousin, Mrs. Matilda Courtney of Bentall House. She’s expecting me.”

  Ethan’s hand settled over her hidden one. “I know Bentall House. I’ll arrange to have a note sent, saying you’re safe but have been delayed. Is that all right?”

  “Yes, thank you. That would be very kind.” Her lids drooped. “Very kind indeed.”

  “Rest now,” said Ethan, low and soft, then with one last reassuring pat, he withdrew, pulling the curtains as he went. As if bewitched by him, Lucy found herself slipping back into sleep, her body gently glowing—with anticipation.

  When she awoke again it was morning at last, but Ethan was nowhere to be seen. So pulling on his overcoat and donning her glasses, Lucy got up to explore the cottage and the backyard, feeling entirely steady on her feet this time.

  In the full light of day, she discovered that the cottage backed on to a stand of thick, deep woods and, along with vegetables growing in neat rows, she found an extensive herb garden, also well tended. The source of his restorative drinks, no doubt. It seemed strange that a young man should dabble in natural medicines, but even knowing him so slightly, she sensed he was unusual.

  The dwelling itself was a single room, clean yet cluttered, the space filled with heavy old furniture that was gleaming and well cared for, including several bookshelves crammed with many volumes. A lot of the chair backs were adorned with items of her clothing, and more of it, including her chemise and drawers, was drying on a rack set close to a big old range.

  On the table lay evidence of her rescuer’s profession. Across one half, what looked like blueprints, depicting a building and filled with notations, were spread wide.

  Are you a designer, my mysterious knight errant? Or perhaps an architect?

  It seemed so, and curiosity flared in her bosom, along with the desire that seemed unabated despite his absence.

  He’d left her food, too, and there was tea in a big earthenware pot. The latter proved to be surprisingly fresh and unstewed as she sipped it to accompany thickly sliced fresh bread, spread with country butter and raspberry jam. Famished, she ate several pieces. It had been nigh on twenty-four hours since she’d last eaten, in what now seemed like an entirely different lifetime.

  This is my adventure. My time spent away from the world and what’s expected of me. Here I can do anything, and be a different person.

  Suddenly, she thought of the Ladies’ Sewing Circle, and her friends who told such tall tales of their supposedly naughty exploits. What would they think of her being here, plain, eccentric Lucy of the spectacles and knickerbockers, all alone and stark naked in the house of a handsome and mysterious young man.

  I’ll seek you all out again, when I’m next in London. And this time I’ll have something to tell you, even if you think I’m making it up.

  Her simple breakfast over, Lucy discovered Ethan had retrieved her belongings. From her portmanteau she took out her dressing case, which contained all her personal items, and set about her toilette using the same earthenware bowl that he’d used. Although her tweed bicycling habit was still damp, her undergarments were dry. And yet she hesitated to put them on. To get dressed was to prepare to leave, and she didn’t want to do that.

  We have negotiations to contract.

  So instead of her own clothing, she took a shirt of Ethan’s from the rack and slipped it over her head. It smelled wonderful, of herbs again, and despite the fact that it almost came down to her knees and she had to roll up the sleeves, it felt deliciously sensual and provocative to be wearing it.

  Where are you, Mr. Oakley? Where are you?

  What was this business he had to deal with, she wondered as she lay back down on the bed again. Though there were books aplenty on a wide variety of fascinating topics, she couldn’t settle to read. She could only want him, her rescuer.

  Lying amongst the linen, she imagined him there with her, touching her. Experimentally, she cupped her hand around her breast, sliding the linen of Ethan’s shirt over it, tickling her nipple that had crested at the thought of him. She remembered certain breathless afternoons with Ralph, the man who’d romanced her. The exquisite sensations had been wonderful, but she’d sensed him shocked by her enthusiasm. When they’d parted, no further young men had come around, and she’d made no attempts to make herself attractive to another swain. Instead, she’d thrown herself into other pursuits: art, botany, reading, needlework and, of course, cycling. Her family were quite wealthy, she didn’t need a suitor, and so she
’d settled down into her role as the eccentric spinster in their midst. At thirty-two, she’d thought herself content with her lot. And she had been until now.

  Until the moment Ethan Oakley had appeared to her, as a tantalizing stranger walking out of a rainstorm. He was a man she’d barely exchanged more than a few words with, and yet one with whom she was prepared, nay desperate, to share her body.

  The feelings of excitement gathered. Her nipples were hard and aching, and between her thighs there was a heavy, gathering sensation that called insistently for contact, for pressure, for stroking and teasing and more, more, more…

  Lost in a dream, she pressed her hand to her cleft, imagining it Ethan’s. She’d set aside her glasses on the bedside chest, but she didn’t need them to see him with her mind’s eye. His smile was beautiful as he caressed her and petted her intimately with those kind, strong fingers of his. Whipping up her borrowed shirt, she crammed her own fingers against the moist flesh of her sex and found the sensitive little pearl that nestled there.

  “Ethan,” she moaned, manipulating herself, imagining it was he. Her legs kicked amongst the bed linen and she squirmed against the firm-packed feather mattress, her body tense and striving as she continued to rouse herself in his name. She’d done this before, albeit infrequently, but never had it seemed as powerful and as meaningful as it did now.

  She was his handmaiden, preparing the way for his return.

  Parading images of him bathing, and leaning over her on this very bed, she grew more and more excited. Her sex cried out silently for fulfillment, and beyond point of turning back, she rubbed harder, reaching out for it.

  Then the crisis came, white and perfect, drowning her in pleasure and in the intensity of his blue eyes, watching and applauding her in the kingdom of her mind.

  Afterward, she lay gasping, shocked but also pleased, smugly pleased with what she’d done. The pleasure left her drowsy, and it was the easiest thing to drift away, into a light doze, smiling and thinking of Ethan Oakley. Anticipating…

  Waking again, she sensed his presence even before she opened her eyes. She could hear him breathing—he must be close—and smell the scent of herbs on his clothes. When she opened her eyes, he was a blur to her unspectacled vision, but he was right next to her, lying alongside her on the bed. The sun was high now, and with light streaming into the cottage, she guessed it must be noon at least. Time seemed to pass strangely here in this enclosed little world.

  She should be shocked by his proximity. She should protest. But she was beyond all that. Here in this cottage, she was in a new domain that existed outside the purview of family and friends who might disapprove. Here, there was only Ethan Oakley, and the prospect of those activities that her other friends, the ladies of the sewing circle, would thoroughly applaud.

  “You’re very beautiful,” he said quietly, before she’d had chance to frame words herself. Lucy laughed as he reached out and pushed her unbound hair clear of her face. “Why do you laugh?” he continued, and she could see his mouth curve into a smile that her mind’s eye painted clearly.

  “I’m not beautiful, Mr…. Ethan. I’m a rawboned spinster with very little bosom to speak of and nothing curvaceous about my hips or waist either. And I’m shortsighted and of very average countenance too.”

  “That’s nonsense. You have a lovely face, fine lustrous hair, and the body of Diana, Goddess of the Hunt.” For emphasis, he swept his hand down over shoulder, her waist and her flanks. “My preference is for an athletic woman, not an overflowing marshmallow.”

  Lucy shuddered, roused in every fiber. Between her legs, moisture welled, her perception of it astonishing and unprecedented. She’d never felt so lickerish before, in her entire womanhood.

  Ethan’s hand stilled. “Do I ask too much? Am I too forward? It’s obvious that you’re gently born. I shouldn’t be so randy, and especially when I’ve offered you refuge from harm.”

  Lucy surged forward. She would not have this snatched from her.

  “You ask nothing that I’m not glad, nay eager, to give, Ethan.” She pressed her face against his neck. He wore a shirt, but it was unbuttoned and her lips found his bare, warm skin. “I fear that I may be the forward one, and you find that distasteful.” Memories of Ralph’s disapproval surfaced briefly, but she quelled them.

  Ethan’s reaction obliterated them completely.

  He rolled her over onto her back again, and pressed himself against her, sliding a hand beneath her buttocks and lifting her hips so that they were flush with his own.

  His masculine shaft—his cock—was huge and hard, so much so it must be straining at his breeches. It seemed the most natural reaction in the world to rub against it.

  “See how distasteful I find you,” he muttered into her ear, chuckling as he swirled his own hips in a perfect counterpoint to hers. “I find you so repellant that my cock’s gone and swollen to what feels like twice its normal size, and feels like it’s going to explode if it doesn’t get inside your puss.”

  His salty talk almost made Lucy want to growl. He did want her. He really did want her. As much, it seemed, as she wanted him. Plucking at his shirt, she began to pull it out of his breeches at the back so she could run her hands over his skin and draw pleasure just from the exploration. Ethan made a sound of appreciation at her touch and kissed her hard, massaging her buttocks through the shirt of his she wore. He gripped and squeezed and his tongue dipped and dove, his fingertips pressing into the cleft of her bottom and inducing a fury of excitement in her loins. Such caresses were way beyond her experience. Way beyond anything she’d ever expected to experience, and she whimpered into his mouth as her sex rippled and seemed to flutter.

  “Ethan…please,” she gasped when he freed her mouth. The words were vague. She no longer seemed to have any grasp on eloquence, but she knew he understood her to perfection.

  In a swift movement, he drew away, softening the momentary parting with a dimly seen but reassuring smile. Tugging at his shirt, he whipped it off over his head, to reveal what appeared to be a broad, well-shaped torso, and then reached for the fastenings of his breeches. Even as he had the first of the buttons apart, Lucy reached in turn to explore exciting territory, feeling her way on instinct and by touch, without benefit or need of her spectacles.

  She’d seen his cock, and it was marvelous, but there was a whole world of difference between observing a thing and putting one’s hand on it. And when she put her hand on Ethan’s thing, she gasped at its heat and vitality. It was hard, almost disquietingly so, but the skin felt fine and silky and at the rounded tip it was flowing with a thin fluid that seemed to invite the slow circling of her thumb. As she caressed him, he fell back against the pillows, breathing heavily, his head thrown back.

  “I wish I had my spectacles on.” Lucy leaned forward, blinking hard from struggling to see details.

  A second later, his chest still heaving, Ethan twisted to the side, snatched up the spectacles and, while Lucy still held on to him, fitted them in place before her eyes.

  His magnificent cock swam into sharp focus, startling and primitive in its beauty, a column of rosy flesh, girded about with thick, darkly defined veins, and topped with a plump, rounded crown. From its tip, the satin fluid gently seeped.

  “Oh…it’s quite remarkable, isn’t it?” Lucy whispered, rapt, setting her thumb neatly into a most particular groove beneath the head of his member, a notch that seemed specially designed to be handled thus.

  “I…I’m not sure…. It…I mean I’m just a regular fellow, I believe,” stuttered Ethan, his head rolling against the pillows and his hips lifting up as if to invite further liberties. “Oh dear God, Lucy, you have an exquisite touch!”

  Even bespectacled now, Lucy still blinked. She had an exquisite touch? She knew nothing…her hand seemed to be acting entirely of its own volition.

  “But I don’t really know what I’m doing,” she admitted, feeling a great, inchoate desire to lean forward and put the tip of her tong
ue to the tip of him. That silvery substance he was exuding fascinated her. How appropriate it was that just as she seeped and flowed, he did too.

  “I’m a virgin, Ethan.”

  He stilled for an instant and, filled with a fear that he might withdraw, or lose his enthusiasm, Lucy circled her thumb against the crown of his cock and flickered her fingers as if were a penny whistle

  Ethan laughed again, and then moaned in a low, appreciative sound, still rocking his hips in a slow rhythm, a movement that Lucy matched, unwilling to let him loose. “Then indeed, beautiful Lucy, you are truly that rare and miraculous combination. A sweet maid and yet the most perfect instinctive sensualist. I cannot imagine the touch of any woman to be more exquisite.”

  “And have you been touched by many women?” The instant the words were out, Lucy wished them back again. In this world of theirs, there were no other woman, no other beings on the earth except the two of them.

  Ethan’s eyes snapped open, and for a moment, he became serious.

  “No…barely at all, Lucy.” His voice was gentle, almost a little shamefaced. “I had a sweetheart, but she knew even less than I did. And there were one or two fondles on sunny afternoons, with willing girls.” He shrugged and then smiled, his handsome face bashful and suddenly exhibiting the extent of his youth. “I’m afraid I have almost as little experience as you, my sweet, and I’m not sure I know what I’m doing any more than you do.”

  Lucy smiled and leaned over him, letting her mouth hover an inch or two from the tip of his cock. “Then we shall both have to rely on our instincts, dearest Ethan, and I must say, if proceedings so far are anything to judge by, I have absolute confidence in yours.”

  “As I have in yours, my dearest.” He looked down toward her mouth, and his organ. “And what might those instincts be telling you now?”