A Gentlewoman’s Ravishment

Portia Da Costa

The Ladies’ Sewing Circle
Book Two

“I’d love to be abducted and ravished by some handsome brigand or pirate…”

When the women of the Ladies’ Sewing Circle share their private fantasies, some are shocked by Mrs. Prudence Enderby’s secret desire. But Prudence cannot image life without such exotic daydreams—especially since they arouse her husband, too!

Yet Prudence never imagined she would actually be whisked off the street by a mysterious masked man who has his wicked way with her in a carriage. Taking her back to a boudoir appointed for pleasure, he continues to bring every one of her fantasies to life. But nothing could be more surprising than when Prudence finally learns who is behind this gentlewoman’s ravishment…

Contents

Begin Reading

1888…

“Personally, I’d love to be abducted and ravished by some handsome brigand or pirate…swept away into a story from the One Thousand Nights and One Night, and subjected to desperate passion in a seraglio or the lair of some ruthless, brawny rogue!”

“Goodness me, Mrs. Enderby! Where in heaven’s name do you get such ideas? Why ever would you want something like that to happen to you?”

“I don’t know that I do want it to actually happen, Mrs. Brigstock,” I reply, wickedness stirring in me as I stab another ill-formed, meandering stitch into what passes for my embroidery. “But imagining it excites me… That and the idea of being debauched and pleasured by more than one man at once, with perhaps a whole crew of them looking on.”

Mrs. Mary Brigstock’s eyes bulge wide and her prim mouth drops open as if I’ve suddenly grown two heads. Does our hostess not have any imagination? Any secret dreams and desires? Does she not have any exotic fantasies herself?

For my own part, I can’t imagine not having them.

“Well, I think your daydreams sound perfectly delicious, Prudence, my dear,” counters Madame Chamfleur, a sly smile playing around her lips. She waggles her neat, dark eyebrows at me, as if she wants to expatiate on the topic, but is holding back in respect of Mrs. Brigstock’s delicate sensibilities. Which seems odd, because Sofia Chamfleur was the one who started this game of “let’s reveal our most scandalous fantasies” in the first place.

“Doesn’t anybody else have any lewd and outrageous daydreams?” I demand of the Ladies’ Sewing Circle. “I can’t believe that Sofia and I are the only ones.”

A ripple of smiles and titters circumnavigates the room. One or two very smug and secretive looks pass across certain faces, which seems to suggest that those ladies don’t actually need fantasies. Other circle members focus earnestly on their needlework, as if they have them too, but perhaps deemed them too outrageous to utter.

“Well, I’ve always had a fancy to be thrown on my back and serviced by a couple of my grooms in the hayloft…perhaps even three or four of them,” announces Lady Arabella Southern, before pausing for effect and stabbing her needle into her own sampler. I can see from here that her stitches are even more haphazard than my poor efforts, although at least she hasn’t pricked her finger and splattered blood over the cloth, as I have. “Oh, no, wait, I think I really did do that, didn’t I?” Her patrician eyes sparkle as the room erupts with a fusillade of gasps and snorts and giggles.

I fall silent though, not at all scandalized by Arabella’s claims. In fact, she’s set me thinking, thinking, thinking…

Perhaps I should fabricate my own little story about grooms—multiple—and haylofts? Something especially piquant like that would amuse Mr. Enderby no end. He’s extremely fond of my outrageous little fictions, and frequently asks me to impart them to him late at night, when the candle burns low, and we’re in bed. The more outlandish and daring the exploits I manufacture, the better he likes it. And the better he likes it, the more ardent he becomes afterward.

And I adore it when Mr. Enderby becomes ardent.

Over tea and cakes after our sewing labors, Arabella regales us with more tales of her supposedly scandalous private life with her grooms, her footmen and certain enthusiastic friends of her husband. I’m not sure any of us believe everything she tells us, but I think most of us, apart from Mary Brigstock, enjoy the confabulation. Especially Sofia, who smiles at me slyly, again and again, as if she knows something that I do not. Something deliciously indecent.

I smile back. I like Sofia. I like her very much. Even though I sense she’s a bottomless well of guile and secrets. And she’s definitely the lady amongst us who least needs to make up stories about her love life. Her husband, Monsieur Chamfleur, is tall and well set up, jolly but sophisticated. Exactly the sort of man who doesn’t need any lessons in the art of pleasing a woman. He looks as if he’s a veritable encyclopedia of sensuality and daring. Much like my own Mr. Enderby, who also knows his stuff.

Eventually, our little sewing circle breaks up, and Mrs. Brigstock’s maid brings us our hats and cloaks and walking jackets. Several ladies have carriages to collect them, and one or two elect to share cabs. The Honorable Lucy Dawson even has her bicycle. But I decide to take a constitutional for my health. My home is but twenty minutes’ walk away, along pleasant, suburban streets, and I could do with the spring breeze upon my cheeks to cool the heat from my lewd, excited thoughts.

“Will you be all right on your own, Prudence, my dear?” inquires Sofia Chamfleur as we’re about to part on the pavement. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to take you home in my carriage? It’s barely out of our way.”

“No…no, thank you, Sofia. It’s very kind of you, but I really need the exercise. Mary’s cook doesn’t have the lightest hand with pastry, but I’m afraid that didn’t stop me overindulging.”

“Very well, then, my dear. But take care, won’t you?” She kisses my cheek in a waft of perfume, then takes her leave.

I begin my walk home. Deep in thought, I barely see the folk passing me by. Nursemaids with perambulators. Delivery boys. Other gentlewomen also out taking the air in the name of the modern fad for health.

All is normal, yet I’m back in the lair of my handsome, ruthless rogue, thrilling to his kisses and the way he touches and strokes me intimately. As I walk, I feel my body rouse, fired by notions of being watched and pleasured and coaxed to the limits of sensation by his wicked, seductive men who dally with me in ones and twos and more. It’s as if every step takes me closer to my brigand and his caresses and his secret lair. Every yard makes my fantasies more real.

Gasping, but not from shortness of breath, I take a shortcut down a quiet side street, barely more than an alley. The back of my neck prickles as I realize I’m the only person passing along this thoroughfare, and suddenly behind me I hear heavy, thudding footsteps. I quicken my pace, almost running to the busier road ahead, but it’s too late. I’m overtaken and I’m grabbed!

It all happens so fast. One man holds me tight, easily quelling my struggles, and the other whips a blindfold across my eyes, knocking off my hat. I jerk and kick and, with the first shock fading, I open my mouth to yell blue murder and scream for help. But before I can utter so much as a peep, a big hand covers my mouth, and my cries are muffled. I huff and puff and wriggle and struggle, but it’s hopeless. One or another of my assailants ties my hands together with a cord, behind my back. Then, between them, they manhandle me a little way along the street, and I catch the sound of a carriage approaching. When it slows and stops beside us, they bundle me into it like a sack of stolen washing.

I land on the seat, the air knocked out of me, and in the darkness, I hear the carriage door slam, the click of the lock and the flutter of blinds being drawn.

My situation finally dawns on me.

I wanted to be abducted, didn’t I? Well, now it’s happened. Be careful what you wish for rings in my head.

I open my mouth again to scream and cry for help, but once again, I’m frustrated. A large, firm, very forbidding forefinger settles against my lips, effectively paralyzing them to silence, and I feel a powerful presence beside me, almost vibrating. I might as well be gagged, the finger so commands me, and where it touches me my lips tingle with a strange, electrical heat. Which makes me shudder from the crown of my head down to my toes.

When the finger retreats, I still can’t speak. I can barely think.

The rumbling, rocking carriage is filled with a luscious and spicy scent. It’s pungent and exotic, but still speaks explicitly of a man. The beauty of the fragrance only intensifies my trembling, and instead of cowering in a corner, I can’t help but gravitate toward the source of the scent. My unseen and also as yet unspeaking captor.

A mouth settles on mine. A man’s mouth, with lips that are soft, almost velvety and yet muscular. Immediately he compels me to part my own lips and admit his tongue into the moist heat of my mouth. His tongue subdues mine, taking possession of me without effort and with no expectation of resistance. I’m rendered helpless but the sensation melts my belly.

My kissing captor tastes as sweet as he smells, and if I were a weaker woman I’d swoon from the pleasure of it. But I’m strong. I don’t want to faint away and miss a second of this. Even though I’m in deadly danger, my senses are firing, my spirits lifting. So I enjoy him and his kiss becomes a laugh as my tongue seeks his.

Am I too bold? Am I inciting my doom? Probably. But somehow I crave it. This is my fantasy, the one I described, brought to reality as if to order.

The trundling motion of the speeding carriage is unbearably stimulating. Every nerve in my body is sensitized, and as we bump over cobbles, every knock and lurch excites the secret hidden parts of me that yearn for contact. Still kissing me, my abductor slides his hand under my short walking cloak and cups my breast quickly and roughly. Through my gown and my chemise, he flicks my nipple, coaxing it out from beneath the top edge of my corset. As he plays with it and rolls it between finger and thumb, my hips roll too.

“So wanton,” he whispers against my mouth, his voice rasping and barely audible. He plucks at my nipple and I bounce on the seat as if my sex wants to press against him of its own accord. Still kissing me, he wrenches open the top of my gown, sending buttons pinging around the interior of the carriage, then reaches in with a bold, ungloved hand to touch my skin.

His fingers are hot against my bare nipples, stroking and circling impudently, first one then the other. Tossing my head, I see his swarthy skin contrasted against the whiteness of my breast, and I make noises that no respectable gentlewoman should make outside the confines of her marriage bed. Noises that some probably never make in it.

“You like that,” he growls. It’s an accusation, not a question, and I purse my lips wanting to shout, Yes, yes, yes!

Bending over me, and divesting me of my cloak entirely, he presses his mouth against my breast, sucking a nipple between his lips and lapping at it with his tongue in a fast flickering action. I make those noises all over again, louder this time. As I gasp and moan, I wonder dreamily if he thinks this bold tactic of his will distract me.

Divert my attentions from what his hands are now about.

He’s pulling up my skirts and petticoats and I’m powerless to stop him because my hands are bound. Pressed back awkwardly against the upholstery, I can do nothing to stop him invading the world of my undergarments, pushing the layers of gabardine and flannel and linen aside to get to my drawers. With one last long, lewd sucking kiss to my breast, and a wicked nip of his teeth, he abandons my nipple in favor of focusing his attentions farther south.

Being in darkness intensifies everything. Makes touch and scent and sound rule the realm of the senses. I hear his steady breathing as he goes about me. It seems so little affected by the excitement that grips me, as if he’s used to kidnapping women and making free with them on a daily basis. As if exploring their drawers is nothing exceptional to him.

His scent seems to grow stronger and more intoxicating. Maybe it’s a special receipt? One that has narcotic powers to drug his victims and make them yield willingly to him? A blend based on rare spices that inflame a woman’s passions and prime her body for the most scandalous explorations…

Touch…oh, touch.

His fingers are deft, inveigling their way into the vent in my drawers. Sneaking in, sliding in, darting straight for the little triangle of frisky hair that covers my sex. Even though, against all reason, I want him to find me, I still jerk back as he starts to prize the curls apart to get to me.

“Be still,” he growls, leaning against me, subduing me with his weight and returning to my breast with a rough squeeze with his free hand, while beneath, he rummages, wiggling his fingertips to slide them right into my cleft.

Oh, Mr. Enderby, whatever would you think of me? Allowing myself to be fondled and fingered by this ruthless, unseen stranger, and worst of all, enjoying it?

My hidden companion has skill. He knows how to touch a woman and manipulate her most sensitive parts. I whimper and surge, my body weeping and fluttering beneath my abductor’s fingertips.

“Please…sir…I beg of you. I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t…” I pant, finding my voice at last even while my traitorous body squirms and rises, seeking the delicious sensations I’m trying in vain to deny. “This is for my husband, sir. No man but he should touch me there…and make me feel these feelings.”

“And yet you respond to my touch, madam,” my captor points out huskily, while my flesh betrays me, fresh silkiness flowing to smooth the path of his ever-circling fingertip.

“Please, no! I can’t help myself… If you touch me anymore I shall spend, and only my dear husband should witness that, sir.”

Mercilessly, he jostles my clitoris. Ignoring my pleas, he rolls my nipple between his finger and thumb.

“I think, perhaps, that you should learn to be generous with your pleasure, madam…and to exhibit yourself to men. To many men…” A stiff finger enters me, sliding in easily, and I moan out loud, appalled at the way I automatically start to ride it. “Who knows…your husband may well savor your wantonness and find his own pleasure in the thought, and sight, of you being fiddled with, and fingered and brought to climax by the hands of a whole multitude of strangers.”

I sob as his finger slides in and out, in and out, tugging on the richly sensitive bud of my clitoris. In the darkness behind my blindfold, I’m suddenly presented, on show, laid bare to the eyes of many men. I’m an object. An experiment. Hands rove over me. Many fingers, not just one, take possession of me, exploring my every inch of skin, my every nook and cranny.

Without any warning, the rocking carriage slows to a halt, and struggling with myself and with my bonds, I finally attempt to shake free my tormentor. The driver leaps down, his boots clattering on the pavement, and a second later, the carriage door rattles as he attempts to open it and allow us to alight.

No! Oh, no! The finger stays where it is, inside me, and a firm thumb settles on my clitoris, rubbing and pressing.

“Please! Oh, no, sir…let me be! Not now!”

He ignores me, he continues to work me, with slow precision. “We’ll be but a few moments,” he calls out to the coachman in a harsh, sharp voice, then presses me harder. “Surrender it to me, madam,” he hisses in my ear. “Imagine your husband watching me do this to you…seeing you so wanton and so easy and so lubricious.”

His mouth comes down on mine, tongue pushing in, silencing my protests and allowing me only moans.

My resolution comes upon me like a great, hard, sweet, shameful wave. I sob into his kiss and my body clenches on his finger. Pleasure washes through my sex and melts my limbs. I almost swoon.

But not quite.

As I gasp, trying to catch my breath and regain some semblance of control over my senses, I’m acutely conscious of the stationary carriage. The horses stomp and huff outside, and I fancy I can hear the impatient breathing of the coachman, and perhaps others, as they wait upon me and my unseen ravisher. I focus on all this because I’m in awe of the man still touching my body.

Why have I allowed myself to be dominated in this way? Fondled and handled? There is a considerable difference between a woman’s secret fantasies and the real danger of being kidnapped and whisked away off the street like this. Perhaps he wishes to sell me into white slavery, and has simply toyed with me to ensure that the goods he has to offer are desirable? That when I become the plaything of some jaded debauchee in a far-flung land, I’ll be satisfactory…and diverting.

If I had my wits about me, I’d fight. Kick out. Struggle. Attempt to escape. Surely I could work the key in the lock with my hands behind my back, if I disabled my companion with a sturdy booted foot applied to his sensitive, gentleman’s regions?

But I attempt none of this. I succumb like a debauchee myself, like a willing sensualist.

I’m still glowing with pleasure when his hands slide off me, only to turn the lock himself and open the carriage door while I’m still half in dishabille.

Who is this wicked, ruthless man? Why can’t I resist him?

Before I know it, I’m jostled out of the carriage and half manhandled across a stretch of pavement and up a set of steps. Somewhere in the erotic rumpus, my blindfold has become a little dislodged, and I can see just a sliver of my surroundings.

There’s the lower part of a black-painted door, very well maintained, and as that door opens, I see polished shoes that immediately step back to admit me and my captor.

Inside, I get an impression of space and airiness, I know not why. There are tiles beneath our feet. As I’m led along, firmly but not cruelly somehow, the blindfold slips back and I’m in darkness, complete and inky, once more.

We ascend a staircase. Without use of my arms, this is difficult, but I’m borne up by my companion, and strangely, I have no fear of falling. He might be a brigand, but he’s strong and sure and clearly has no wish to damage his stolen goods.

Once on a landing, I’m bundled through a door.

Immediately, I’m in surroundings far more intimate. Sound is muffled by a carpet beneath my feet, and a sense of similar material all around me. I cannot think why I think that, but the impression I form of the room is womblike, luxurious…and sensual. The scent of perfume, of incense, tickles my nostrils. I smell sandalwood, patchouli, exotic herbs and spices. The aromas are not unlike my abductor’s delicious cologne.

Plucking at my wits, I’m just about to demand details of my whereabouts, and the reason I’ve been brought here, when there’s movement behind me, and I’m let loose. Efficient fingers slip off my bonds, and as the cord drops away, my own fingers fly to the blindfold.

But the knot is well tied, and just as I manage to undo it, the door to the room swings shut, and I hear the heavy click of yet another lock.

No, no, no! The wicked man! He’s trapped me again!

But I supposed I could be sequestered in far worse places.

The room is opulent, luxurious, quintessentially Eastern, with a thick plush carpet beneath my feet, and furniture that’s low to the ground. A little table with carved legs, and laden with a crystal flask and a set of glasses, and a large dish piled high with fruit, peaches, plums and figs. Around the walls, heavy velveteen hangings, embroidered with intricate-figured designs, whorls and curlicues. Clusters of huge cushions scattered about, plump and in jewel tones. A low, deeply upholstered daybed covered with a crimson and old-gold brocade throw sits on a small dais, set a little way from the wall, and beneath the most magnificent of the wall decorations, a beautiful woven depiction of a peacock that dominates the entire room, complete with the most astonishingly lifelike “eyes” in his erect and multicolored tail. The rendering of these is so vivid and detailed that one almost seems to wink.

There seems to be no window at all in this room, unless it is hidden behind one or another of the hangings, but a multitude of lamps impart a warm, amber glow of luxurious somnolence.

What is this place? Am I in a courtesan’s boudoir? Or maybe the pleasure chamber of some sultan or other Eastern potentate in London on a state visit? Perhaps this powerful lord has a penchant for the bodies of respectable Englishwomen and has his servants snatch them off the streets of the city for his pleasure.

Was it he, in the carriage, who touched my sex?

There’s another door, at the other side of this intimate enclosure. I suppose I should try it. After all, comfortable as this place is, it’s still my prison. And who knows what further fate worse than death will be inflicted on me if I linger here. It’s bad enough that I’ve displayed my wanton nature to an unknown and dangerous stranger instead of my wedded husband.

The door yields up a most modern bathroom. Elegantly appointed with the finest porcelain ware. There’s a window, but it’s high, out of reach, even if I stand on the pedestal, and the glass in it is frosted, yielding no detail of the exterior.

I’m still trapped.

Pausing only to avail myself of the facilities, I wash my hands and study my face in the gilt-framed mirror.

What a fright I am! Hair all askew, and pink in the face, with lips that are bruised cherry red from kissing. My dress is ruined, buttons still rolling around on the floor of the carriage, I presume, and my bosom looks very white against the dark blue of my bodice where it hangs open. And I haven’t the first idea where my hat and shawl and walking cloak are.

Yet when I look into my own eyes, an imp of mischief laughs. Goodness, I’m such a strumpet! I’ve enjoyed my escapade so far. I should be ashamed of myself, and yet still I smile, an unrepentant houri.

When I return to the boudoir and the peacock, there are two men waiting for me!

“Please don’t be alarmed, madam, we’re only here to serve you,” says the more forward of the two, a fresh-faced, rather jolly-looking lad in his twenties, perhaps. His brown hair is short and his eyes are blue…and, like his companion, he’s clad in just a pair of loose trousers, made of linen or some other soft fabric. His chest, his arms and his feet are quite bare. How astonishing.

His friend says nothing, but his eyes, brown as old port, are bold. He stares unabashedly at the open bodice of my gown, and for half a second, I wonder if he was the wicked, skillful devil who manhandled me in the carriage. He has a piratical look, almost, with wild dark curls and a faintly swarthy complexion.

But my carriage man was taller than he, I suspect, and built quite differently. I didn’t see him, but his presence and bearing were not like this man’s at all.

Not that this dusky, exotic fellow is unattractive. In fact, either of my new “friends” could be called beaux. Unable to prevent myself, I find my gaze skittering over the pair of them, noting fine muscles, smooth skin, a little masculine hair on their well-formed chests…and dear me, I hardly dare say…splendid male appendages prominently visible through the thin and revealing cloth of their light trousers.

My pink face rapidly becomes as brilliant as a peony.

“Wh-what do you mean by ‘serve me’?”

“We are here to help you to relax, and to prepare you, madam,” the darker of the two answers. He has a little accent, quite charming and so alluring it makes me quiver.

“For the pleasure of our master,” the other young man says. He has rather attractive lips, and all the time, they seem to be right on the edge of quirking into a smile, or even broad laughter. Something seems to be amusing him mightily, I must say, and even though I’m in the most perilous of situations, and I really don’t know what’s going to happen to me next, I find myself bizarrely amused and inclined to smile too.

I think I must play along with this. It seems my only option. I cannot escape so why resist?

“So be it. It seems I have very little alternative—” I bow my head a little, acquiescing. Or at least appearing to “—but to throw myself on your mercy and his, and hope and pray that you will all be kind to me.”

“You may have no worry on that score, madam,” says the curly-haired charmer. “My name is Yuri, and my friend here is Clarence. Please allow us to assist you to undress.”

My heart flutters, and tongues of heat seem to lick about my body. Take my clothes off in front of not one, but two, unknown men? Scandalous!

But sure no more scandalous than not fighting the unseen marauder in the carriage. Even though I was tied, I could have resisted somehow. But I didn’t. I succumbed.

C’est la vie.

The two handsome fellows close in on me with no further ado.

“Don’t be afraid, Mrs. Enderby,” murmurs Clarence as his fingers fly to the remainder of my dress buttons and the front of my bodice gapes farther open. How does he know my name? I wonder as the two of them work as a syncopated team, and in a jiffy, my dark, heavy gown is off over my head and flung aside on a gilded chair.

Have I been kidnapped to order? And for whom? Perhaps at Lady Arabella’s recent ball, some libidinous connoisseur of women took a fancy to me. And resolved to whisk me away from my dear Mr. Enderby in order to ravish me and debauch himself upon me.

As I’m divested of my petticoats and my bustle, I flush with shame, and not only because my body is rapidly being exposed. I know I’m wicked because I want to be debauched.

“Please try to relax, madam,” says Yuri softly. He’s standing behind me, as Clarence stands in front of me. I stare down at my stocking-clad toes, shuddering and acutely aware that I am in a kind of sandwich between two handsome and virile young men. Clarence clasps me by the waist, his hands spread over my corset, holding me firmly, while Yuri slips down my chemise and massages my shoulders with gentle, assertive strokes.

He’s clever. He finds knots of tension I didn’t know I was prey to. I gasp, my body loosening already.

“Massage is very beneficial for the nerves, Mrs. Enderby,” remarks Clarence as he steadies my swaying. “Our master recommends it heartily. Perhaps you’d like to try something a little more extensive…a little more rigorous? I’m sure you’d find it beneficial…and pleasant.”

“Yes…yes, I think so.” My voice is like that of a mouse. Yuri’s thumbs are wreaking sweet, delicious havoc.

“Very well, then… But we’ll have to strip you. Yuri, will you attend to Mrs. Enderby’s laces?”

He’s brisk now. Enthusiastic. My head comes up, and I catch him glancing toward the peacock as if seeking the mighty bird’s permission to proceed. As if it’s been given, Yuri attacks my corset. My maid, Alice, ties a special knot, and rather than wrangle with the laces and hooks, Yuri steps away, opens a rosewood box standing on a sideboard a few feet off. I catch a glint of metal out of the corner of my eye, and then astonishingly, my corset falls away from me. Clarence catches it and tosses it onto the heap of my other clothes.

Good grief, I’ve let a strange man cut me out of my corset and now I’m standing in my chemise and drawers and stockings, before the two of them…and the peacock.

“These too, Mrs. Enderby.” Clarence flicks at the lace edging of my chemise, a vaguely rascally expression on his handsome young face. Before I can protest—although I was not planning to—he grasps the hem of the garment, whipping it off over my head. As he does so, Yuri’s sly fingers are at the tapes of my drawers, and in the blink of a peacock’s eye, they’re in a pool around my feet.

I’m naked. But for my stockings and garters. The young men dispense with my abandoned undergarments, and they each take me by the hand, drawing my arms wide and preventing me from any vain attempts to guard my modesty and cover myself.

None but Mr. Enderby has seen me thus, as an adult woman. The blush that warmed my face and made my ears tingle spreads to my entire body now, heating my chest, my breasts and my belly. Even my long hair is useless to shield my modesty. Though a few wayward strands and curls dangle to my shoulders, and I’m looking generally a little disheveled, but my coiffeur is still largely intact.

“Ah, our master is a lucky man,” says Yuri, his voice simmering and his dark eyes growing yet darker as he peruses me.

“He is indeed,” confirms Clarence just as fervently.

All but nude, with arms outstretched, I don’t know where to look, but as if drawn by magnetism, my eyes drop to the hip level of my two young gentlemen. Flicking from one to the other, I see that the pair of them are both mightily aroused, their thin trousers pushed out like a couple of tents.

Dear Lord!

“Come, Mrs. Enderby, let us give you a massage.” Clarence urges me toward the low daybed, which looks enticing and comfortable. “There’s nothing quite like it for relaxing tension in the muscles and imparting a grand sense of general well-being.”

As if I no longer have any will of my own, I follow his lead, and the two young men settle me on the softly cushioned upholstery, fussing with the positioning of my limbs and letting loose my hair and arranging it to one side. Out of the corner of my eye I can see the peacock presiding above us, like some pagan god to which I’m a succulent sacrifice. I shudder at the thought. What arcane rituals will soon be inflicted upon me?

“Relax, madam,” coos Yuri, his hands settling on my shoulders, warm and comforting. He doesn’t massage yet, but just gently smoothes his fingertips in little circles as if I’m a skittish filly who needs a bit of mastering. I close my eyes, as if to shut out the unreality of my situation and just accept it. Clarence pads across the room, as if in search of something, then returns.

Almost immediately, another delicious fragrance floods into the air. I smell tuberoses, patchouli, lily, all distinct, yet in a blend. A flood of guilt washes through me, but only briefly. These are the perfumes Mr. Enderby most likes me to wear. He says he finds them alluring.

But I cannot do anything about my qualms now. I am trapped, swept away, in the thrall of the mysterious master and his handsome servants. Resistance is futile. I must make the best of things.

And things are good.

The delightful odors are encapsulated in an oil, it seems, for massaging with. Yuri begins to anoint my shoulders with it, the soothing circles becoming more forceful and assertive. Down below, Clarence deftly peels off my stockings, then starts at my feet, tickling me at first, and making me squirm a little, but very soon working some strange magic on the delicate bones and musculature there, which has a noticeable effect on other bodily regions too.

Oh goodness, how can something be sweet and soothing, and yet at the same time an utter, maddening torment. The two young men are experts in their craft, obviously. Under the touch and the push and the press of their skillful hands, new zones of sensitivity, trigger points, if you will, are rapidly activated. A thumb rocks and rubs in the most innocuous location, but has an effect in a far more intimate area… How is that?

Within a few minutes I’m a column of wild, unschooled desires, burning and glowing and almost sizzling with rawer, more primal needs. My breasts ache to be touched, to be held. And between my thighs, desire gnaws me, twisting and rolling.

My hips move of their own accord against the velvet upholstery, and I could swear that I’m moistening it with the seeping of my lust. I burn anew, as if the blush of embarrassment is simmering throughout my entire body. I’m such a wanton. Even in this parlous state of kidnap, I’m yearning for more and more and more of this intimate handling, instead of planning or even hoping for my escape.

To my horror, I hear myself moan, while my hips rock and circle. I long for the hand of my unseen master from the carriage now, as well as the clever, working fingers of his minions. Silently, I beg one or another of these tantalizing young men to touch me, really touch me. Unashamed of my own lewdness, I part my thighs, hoping to invite an exploration, and when that doesn’t work, I roll over, offering all the private delights of my body to their eyes, their hands, their…

They want me. I know they want me. Their delightful state of arousal is unmistakable. But when I look into their handsome faces, each so different, I see a look of regret. The expression of a hungry urchin in a confectionery emporium but without a coin to spend.

They each shrug, and give me a quirky smile. “We’re forbidden to touch you in the most intimate way, Mrs. Enderby. A massage, but nothing more,” confirms Clarence, the expression on his face eloquent. He so wants to break the embargo. “But our master encourages you to pleasure yourself in his absence. In fact, I think he expects it.”

While you two are here?

I don’t speak out loud, but I read the answer to my question in his shrug and the way his eyes flicker like those of a sprite of mischief. As I sit up, his expression grows more sultry and he turns toward his friend, flashing me a wink as he faces Yuri, reaching out to him. The darker young man surges forward, slips into his arms, and the two of them kiss.

Good heavens, what delicious new debauchery is this?

Dark and fair, they entwine in a passionate embrace, their mouths crushed against one another’s, their hands immediately roving and exploring. Tight against each other, their pelvises begin to circle and gyrate, much as mine did a moment ago against the cushions of the daybed.

I have never seen men kiss before, even though I must admit I have imagined it in the privacy of my bed, wondering what it would be like to see my beloved Mr. Enderby making free with a handsome stranger. I thought that it was perhaps slightly deranged of me to have fancies about something so impossible and unlikely, a form of feminine hysteria. But now I see my bizarre notions have a basis in reality.

Clarence and Yuri are really quite beautiful. Their hands roving over each others bodies, the mouths, rosy and moist, opening against each other, tongues flicking like eels. And the pair of them moan, just as I’ve been doing, they’re so excited.

Their passion inflames me. All the stirrings and the throbbing in my belly redouble. Between my legs, my clitoris aches. As Yuri mutters something fervent and hoarse in an unknown foreign tongue, I can’t help myself, and slide my hand between my legs.

It’s as if I’m in a dream within a dream. I’m a pool of moisture, and it seems perfectly natural to play in it, slick in it, and stroke myself. The men have forgotten me. I can do anything I want, now unobserved. Even the eyes of the peacock can only see my back.

I am now truly an odalisque, a woman of pleasure. I recline on my couch, propped up by scented cushions, taking my own pleasure while I watch a floorshow of supreme eroticism for my entertainment.

With no further ado, Yuri and Clarence undo their sashes as one, and let their loose trousers slither to the carpet. As they kick them away, their fine young cocks bounce and seem to joust with each other.

And they are indeed splendid!

In all the many excellent works of art I have seen, the male organ is never depicted in the state these young men enjoy. They’re high and hard. Are they excited by each other? Or by me? I suspect it’s a little of both. My fingers almost want to stray from my own groin to either one of theirs, they’re so enticing. Perhaps not quite so regal and all powerful as my own Mr. Enderby in a state of excitement, but I suspect they are better favored than most.

The men continue to kiss and embrace, each stroking the member of the other. They gasp and grunt and work their hips, pumping in a syncopated action, their attention mainly on each other…yet occasionally, they turn to me and smile.

They are well aware of how they arouse me, the naughty boys! And with a grace I can only envy, the pair of them sink to the carpet and lie alongside each other, still touching, still playing, still thrusting and rocking their bodies in a hot dance of pleasure. Their fingers go everywhere, but mine, they stay where they’re most needed. I circle and rub, and I flicker and pinch. I even pluck at my nipple at the same time.

It doesn’t take long. Still roused by my exploits in the carriage, my body was primed before I ever reached this room. Now, with a surfeit of sights and sounds and the work of my own fingertips, I overflow into a sumptuous throbbing orgasm. Rolling onto my back, I ride the waves, and they peak higher as I imagine eyes observing me.

Mr. Enderby, my unknown abductor, the frolicking boys…even the peacock, all watching, watching, watching me writhe in my pleasure. I float for a moment, buffeted, sweet heat pulsating between my thighs, then gradually, I return to my senses, wrenched back to the here and now by hoarse masculine shouts.

Clarence and Yuri are coming too, their bodies surging and straining against each other. White seed jets from each penis, they share the moment, squeezing and caressing, each man loving the other with his hand. At the pinnacle, they kiss, their tongues dancing.

While they’re still straining against each other, the door opens.

“Clarence! Yuri! You wicked, wicked boys, what are you doing?” Warm laughing eyes in a stern face turn to me. “And you, Mrs. Enderby? You too… What are you doing? Your pleasure is for the master, and he alone.”

The newcomer is a woman of about my own age, dressed in loose but elegant robes in the Eastern fashion. She’s veiled, but with a silky gauze so delicate that I can still see her handsome features, and the impish smile that dances on her shapely reddened lips. As she moves toward me, she pauses to poke the flank of Clarence with her velvet-slippered toe, but he just grins silkily at her. “Demon!” she castigates him, but with affection. “The pair of you, be about your business, or I’ll take a birch rod to you.”

The two beautiful young men disentangle themselves, rise and make their way to the door, both turning to me, Yuri smiling, Clarence winking and grinning. Their mistress ignores them for the moment, as they quit the room.

“Now, come along, Mrs. Enderby,” she says to me, reaching for my hand, the very one that’s been between my thighs. To my intense embarrassment, she lifts my fingers to her nose, sniffs delicately, then shakes her head and tut-tuts. “You’re a wicked sensual woman, my dear. Clearly have no control of your appetites. It’s very fortunate that the master likes his bedmates lusty.” She looks me up and down, and I blush—yet again—aware that my thighs are still a-glisten with my silky fluid. “If you were a delicate virgin, I’m afraid you wouldn’t do at all.”

She draws me to my feet, and then takes a length of silk that was tucked into the sash at her waist and ties it around my head as a new blindfold. Holding me firmly by the hand, she leads me in the wake of Clarence and Yuri, out into a corridor. I have a sliver of sight beneath the cloth, and see a light and airy space, filled with sun from a tall, stained-glass window at the far end.

But I’m naked. Am I to walk about like this? My free hand flutters ineffectually, inadequate to cover either my crotch or my breasts.

“Don’t be so silly,” chides my chatelaine. She pauses to tug my blindfold more securely into place, then firmly urges me forward. “You have a fine, ripe body, my dear. You’ve nothing to hide. And everyone here sees tits and fannies every day!”

I can’t help but laugh. Tits and fannies? What is this house?

I pad along the carpet beside her, digging my toes into the soft, thick pile of the runner. The heat pouring in from the big window bathes my skin. Is it still afternoon then? I seem to have lost all sense of time in this strange, sensual environment.

We turn a corner and I sense fate looming ahead.

“Now, come along, don’t keep him waiting.” She chivvies me along, then opens a door, pushing me through, with a warm hand on my back that sweeps downward, cupping my bottom before propelling me forward. “Be a good girl, Mrs. Enderby, and do as he bids you… Good luck!”

Another push, and I’m inside the room and the door’s closed again behind me. The scent in here is delicious as the last room, but there’s a different note, a sharper tang. Something fine and familiar…citrus, perhaps? Bergamot, or something a little green, all blended with sweet exotic spices.

What do I do? I sense I’m not alone, and my heart beats a tattoo in my bosom. The wash of scrutiny across my skin is like the sunshine in the corridor, heating me, caressing me.

There’s a man here. My ravisher from the carriage. I can’t see him, but I know he’s just feet away from me. Boldly, I reach up and unfasten the knot of my blindfold, then I snatch it from around my head and fling it away.

He’s reclining on another daybed. A much wider, more opulent one, piled high with velvet, silk and satin cushions in deep, rich hues. His naked chest gleams like honeyed cream in the light of half a dozen lamps. He’s wearing loose, heavy silk trousers, in form not unlike the ones the boys were wearing, and a brocade robe in peacock blue, open at the front.

He’s also wearing a mask. It’s one of those black satin domino affairs, such as might be chosen for a harlequinade, tied at the back of his head with a thin, leather thong. His hair is short, dark and crisp, and gleams with pomade. Within their black frame his eyes gleam too. A deep dark blue, like a midnight ocean, glittering yet mysterious.

Reaching out to me, he compels me forward with an imperious gesture.

I could run. I should run. I should get myself away from here as fast as I can, snatch up that embroidered shawl thrown across the chest at the foot of the bed, and run out into the street and hail a cab. The door isn’t locked, I’m sure, and some kindly cabbie will take pity on me and trust my promise of payment when I get home to my residence.

But I can only move toward the bed. My mind knows I’m being a little fool, but my body is primed and lusty, yearning for his touch, and for the pleasure he gave me a little while ago, and which he can easily give me again. It seems to me as if my husband is ten thousand miles away at this moment, perhaps in another world. In this realm, only my masked abductor has real sway over me.

I hesitate by the side of the bed, and those dark, indigo eyes sweep over me, heating my breasts and my belly with their scrutiny. I feel full of seismic energy, too much to contain. I shift from foot to foot, aware of my silky wetness welling and flowing between my thighs. A little trail of it seeps down, trickling over my skin, heading for my knee. His sharp gaze follows its track, and his mouth curves in a small, contained smile.

He knows my desire for him.

A hand shoots out, grabs me, pulls me onto the bed. It’s not quite the brawny mitt of a buccaneer, in fact his hands are well kept and fine, but there’s an implacable strength in his grip I could never fight. He hauls me naked onto the bed and pushes me back against the pillows. Almost immediately, he’s half on top of me, subduing me with his weight and his mouth, and with his cock that’s hard as a poker inside his silken pantaloons.

He rocks against me, raiding my mouth as he did in the carriage. I’m in no doubt that it was he who snatched me. His shaving lotion is most particular and instantly recognizable.

Instead of fighting him, I revel in the fact that my hands are free this time, clutching at his back and his buttocks through his exotic finery. The muscles beneath the silk are hard and toned, working as he slides his body against me.

My blood is on fire. Desire catapults around me, bouncing from breast, to mouth, to sex. I arch up from the couch, flexing myself like a bow to push every last inch of me against this magnificent man.

Low in his throat, he growls in answer, as inflamed as I. In a rough action he parts my thighs, plunges his fingers into my niche, as if testing my readiness. Liking what he finds, he tears at the sash at the waist of his loose trousers, then wrenches them open, exposing his swollen, upthrust shaft.

He allows me a few moments to view him, and savor his hard, ready state, then he moves at speed, yet sleekly, between my legs and pushes into me without preliminaries, or even a word.

I’m overwhelmed, taken over, totally possessed. He seems to be thrusting into every particle of my being, owning it completely. Every long hard shove drives me down into the pillows, my body rocking from the force of them. He’s in my sex, my brain, my soul.

After the first shock of his entry, I recover, revivified, and am transformed into a she-cat, roaring inwardly, and to my astonishment, outwardly too, wild in my hunger. Making those sounds again that no gentlewoman should ever utter, I growl my lust at him, meeting and matching his own, and grab at his body, holding on to him, bending and arching and pressing up to meet each deep, hard thrust. When I’m not moaning and crying for him, my lips rove his neck, tasting his sweat and nipping and biting at his flesh. He seems to like this, and redoubles his efforts, his powerful hips swinging like a reciprocating engine.

Of course, such a conflagration cannot burn long. It’s too intense. With a shrill, stuttering cry, I spend again, my body clenching and grabbing at the hard length inside it. He comes too, his shout of passionate triumph blending with mine, then drowning it out, deep and savage as the call of a jungle predator.

He collapses on me, his cock pulsing in my depths.

For a while, I am barely sentient, simply a mass of simmering nerves, spread beneath him like a star, my limbs slack with utter repletion, my thoughts numbed by the echo of deep, sweet sensations. Eventually though, I begin to stir, and action creates the need for oxygen. It dawns upon me that I am squashed beneath the weight of a tall, muscular man, and I gasp. Immediately, he levers himself off me, and I feel his cock slide out of me, silky with his essence and mine too. A fierce pang of loss plucks at my heart with his passing.

“Forgive me,” he murmurs low in my ear, barely audible.

What, my kidnapper, my ruthless ravisher, feels remorse? It seems he does, because he begins to kiss me more tenderly now, focusing entirely on me, rather than slaking his own hunger. Still reeling from pleasure, I’m barely able to think or move, but he has phenomenal recuperative powers. Against my thigh, I feel him hardening again, as if his reserves of virility are inexhaustible.

But it’s not his cock he begins to use on me, much as in some ways I’d like him to. As he delicately nibbles my lips, then scatters small, licking kisses over my face and throat, his warm hands start to travel once more. This time there’s no grabbing though, no hasty repositioning of my limbs, no cursory testing of my readiness. No, this time his entire attention is on my pleasure.

He strokes my breasts lightly, tantalizingly, frustratingly, feathering the swollen nipples with just the tips of his fingers in a way that has me quickly stirring and shifting around on the bed. My hips do a dance of their own accord, trying to entice him to travel to my lower regions. But he continues to plague my breasts with the most delicate caresses.

I want more! I will take more!

Rolling onto one side, I press my crotch against the strong musculature of his thigh and begin to rub myself against him, working back and forth, up and down, from side to side. My clitoris throbs against his skin through the thin silk of his pantaloons, and as my lubrication soaks through, he makes a low sound in his throat.

He likes my forwardness. He likes my lust for him. Shrinking virgins who resist their own urges are not to his taste. He prefers lusty women who know what they want, and who aren’t afraid to reach for it.

“Oh, very good, Mrs. Enderby…very good.” He speaks in that low, husky, almost indistinct way again, but his meaning is clear.

And he knows my name. Everyone here seems to. It is clear to me that I’ve been targeted, not plucked off the street at random. I’m a chosen woman, carefully selected by this man. And singled out for my own pleasure, just as much as his.

Big hands slide down my body now, cupping my buttocks. He manhandles me against him with great effectiveness, positioning my clitoris against the solid muscle of his thigh far more accurately than I was able to do myself. He rocks me against the fulcrum of his strength, working my most sensitive part, but when I start to soar again, he backs off, teasingly denying release.

Rolling me onto my back, he slips a finger into my channel and hooks it round, making me shout at the intense, confusing sensation. It’s so sharp that it’s hard to tell where the discomfort of it ends and the pleasure begins, but I only know I want more, more, more of it. And as he rubs me inside, he touches my clitoris with a finger from his other hand. I groan helplessly, and as I start to come, he pinches the tiny organ gently.

Ah, I can’t believe it! Another climax so hard and so quickly after the last. This one crystal clear, sharpening my mind instead of dulling it. Eyes wide open, I look into his, so night-blue and enigmatic in the frame of his dark mask.

Who are you, sir? I cry out silently, coasting on a high wave of pleasure.

This time, I recover quickly, hungrily, my voracious appetite for him stoked and embellished. I care not what I get—hands, lips, cock—I only want more. He laughs as if he’s read my thoughts. Maybe he has. He’s a mystery, but he seems to have powers and a degree of sensibility beyond that of normal men.

As I surge toward him, he pushes me back down amongst the pillows again, and from beneath one of them, he produces a pair of long silk ribbons.

My belly flutters as I divine their purpose, and as he takes me by the wrists and binds my hands above my head to the low brass bedstead, I’m so excited by the sensation I can barely breathe.

I’m totally vulnerable. Totally available to him. And I adore it, parting my thighs to entice him once more.

His fine mouth twists in a smile, half teasing, half affection, and he gives a little shake of his head, as if despairing of me. Even half obscured by the black mask, the expression on his face is indulgent, almost kind, and even in the face of what could be parlous danger, I feel reassured…and at peace.

Relaxed, even. That is until he opens a drawer in the chest beside the bed and brings out an object, carved from ivory, pale and gleaming.

Goodness gracious, I do believe it’s a godemiche! A faux penis, such as a woman might use to relieve her desirous cravings in the absence of a husband to satisfy her. Although heaven knows what sort of monster such a husband might be, if his member were the size of this ivory fabrication.

The thing is enormous! Bigger even than the penis of my kidnapper, and more generous in both girth and length than my dear Mr. Enderby’s gentlemanly tool, which I’m happy to say is also considerable.

I begin to squirm, both edging away from the threat of such a thing, and subconsciously inviting my captor to put it to its use. He clearly intends to. The half smile becomes a full one, wicked and teasing, as he lays the carved, creamy-colored monster on my belly.

It feels heavy and warm, almost as if it were real. My eyes flick from the ersatz penis, to the most real one that’s still on display, poking from within the blue satin folds of my companion’s Eastern trousers. He’s not as huge as the godemiche, and not fully erect yet, but there’s promise in his rosy, living flesh and the way it twitches when he circles the tip of its ivory brother around on my skin, nudging it ever closer to the cleft of my sex.

To show my willingness, I part my legs wide, tilting my hips.

“How lewd you are, madam…how wanton.”

In another man, a more hypocritical man, such words would be a reprimand. But coming from these smiling lips, they’re spoken as high praise. His dark eyes burn, and he swallows, as if in awe of me.

“Do you want this?”

My mouth is dry with yearning. I lick my lips. “Yes! Yes, I want it…” My voice is hoarse, impatient. Imperious. “Put it in me, my lord! Please put it in me now!”

“Gladly, madam.” He nods, and with a flourish, positions the ivory leviathan at the entrance to my sex.

So big. Bigger in the way it feels than the way it looks. He exerts a little pressure, and immediately, I’m gasping. Straining. Bearing down, yet aware that this entry is going to be slow…and challenging.

Still pushing with the godemiche, he leans over me and kisses me on the lips. His mouth is as soft and beguiling as the assault of the ivory penis is remorseless. He tantalizes me with little licks and strokes and nips, the gentle seduction distracting me, making me relax.

But not enough, it seems. Still my body resists the inanimate onslaught.

My master gives me one last delicate kiss, then looks down at me, head cocked on one side, masked eyes questioning. I purse my lips, and frown in answer, and, leaving the godemiche pressed against me, he reaches again into the drawer and brings out a vial of fluid.

Which turns out to be more of the delightful massage oil Clarence and Yuri employed, a substance as soothing and emollient as it is fragrant. Uncapping it, my masked friend pours a little stream of the oil over my sex. Droplets of it cling to my womanly hair, but the majority of it trickles and flows freely into my cleft and around my stretched entrance. I moan with pleasure. How delightful it feels slithering over my clitoris.

He pours more, and I wiggle, making the dildo dance and the merry smile return to his face. Setting aside the flask, he applies himself more earnestly to the task between my legs. His fingertip settles immediately on my clitoris while with his other hand he starts to slowly and steadily pressing on with the ivory rod.

I groan and work my bottom around as he works on me, fingering me in slow, rhythmic circles whilst pushing, pushing, pushing. The way the thing stretches me is infernal and yet the ingress of it perfectly balances with the sweet, gathering pleasure in my clitoris.

I gasp and strain, wanting the immolation yet appalled by it, still teetering on that knife edge. When the dildo is half in, he sits back on his heels, appraising the lewd sight of me with it protruding from my sex.

He frowns, gives a little nod, then reaches for a kerchief from the nightstand. With this, he gently blots the oil from my clitoris, and when he’s satisfied, he flings the cloth away.

And leans over my pelvis, spreading his hand on my belly to open me more and allow him to put his face to my sex. I shout hoarsely when his tongue burrows in, finds my clit and then furls to a point to attack it.

He spares me nothing. He sucks. He works me with his tongue. He flicks and even delicately, oh so delicately, nibbles me down there. He’s exquisitely accurate, even though I’m hitching about like a bedlamite.

“Be still!” he growls, his breath hot on the moist topography of my quim as he plunges in to worry my clitoris even more fiercely.

And all the time, he’s pushing on the godemiche…which slides in freely when I suddenly and violently come.

The bedstead rattles and rocks as I strain and arch and pull on my bonds. My body ripples around the huge intrusion inside me, and my tormentor laughs into my sex, his tongue laving and licking my juddering clitoris.

Barely coherent, I babble nonsense. Words of praise. Pleas for mercy. Insane declarations. But mostly grunts and groans of extreme pleasure. He grants me respite for a few seconds, looking up at me, an enigma in his mask. Then he plunges in again, compelling me to wild new heights, working the godemiche in and out of me while he sucks my clit.

“Please…my lord…a moment of rest…” At last I manage a few comprehensible words, and this time he accedes to my wishes.

Straightening up, his sublime lips shiny with my fluid, he reaches up to smooth the tousled hair from my sweaty brow, then bestows a gentle kiss there, a benediction, almost chaste. Or it would be if it weren’t for the odor of my cunny clinging to his face. Taking a fresh cloth, he blots my body, soothing me, solicitude itself. His tender care seems quite bizarre with the godemiche still inside me.

“Do you want me?” he whispers, leaning close again, his lips against my ear.

How can I lie? How can I say anything but “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Smiling, he eases the ivory phallus out of me, then reaches up to unfasten my wrists from the bed head. My arms wind around him as if that was their natural place, and he embraces me, beginning to kiss me again, imprinting my lips with my salty-sweet woman’s flavor.

He’s slow this time. Circumspect. Meticulous. His kisses and touches cover my body, and the warm way he holds and caresses me is almost heartbreaking. Even sated as I am, I yearn again for him, for the ultimate pleasure.

At last, he enters me. But it’s no frantic, voracious thrash this time. He slides in easily and with measured care, filling me deep, deep, deeply, as if reaching for my heart. And when he’s in fully, he rests there, breathing, as if exploring every sensation and committing it to memory.

He feels so good. So right. So perfect for me. Will penetration ever be so complete again? I stroke his back and buttocks, finding them wonderful to my fingers.

We rock against each other, our movements stately yet erotic. As he thrusts, I rise to meet him, his perfect match. Our bodies move in syncopation, a beautiful mechanism that runs its course, neither too volatile nor too leisurely. A congress that’s neither too lengthy nor too swift.

Together we rise to orgasm, and reach it as one. He cries out my name, and I cry out the one that seems most apposite.

Afterward, I slide easily into slumber, warmed by his presence and the after radiance of our lovemaking. I’m like a being created of electrical filaments, a miracle of science, and gradually cooling.

When I awake again, he’s gone, my masked marauder. Easy come, easy go, I assume, for a sexual pirate such as he. And I accept that. This is but an interlude, for him and for me, and I sense that now I’ll soon be on my way back to my dearest husband.

Shall I tell him about my adventure? I expect I shall, and I’ve no doubt it will entertain him, despite its shocking nature. Mr. Enderby is a truly exceptional man, and way above the petty jealousies of lesser spouses. If I return safe and well, and soundly pleasured, that will please him.

I spy my clothing laid out neatly over an armchair at the end of the room, and when I inspect it, I find all is in good order, except my corset, which seems to be nowhere to be seen. Perhaps as well, as there’s no way I could lace it effectively on my own, and there’s no maid around to assist me. Should I ring for my handsome attendants, Yuri and Clarence? No doubt they’d be happy to lay hands on me again.

But no, I don’t want them anymore. They were sweet boys, and very pretty, but all I want now is to return to Mr. Enderby. And as if summoned by my thought, the door opens and the veiled lady who conducted me to this room enters, smiling and looking more than a little pleased with herself behind her slight disguise.

Had my brigand lover rewarded her handsomely for handing me over to him? I suspect he may have done…

“Let me help you,” she offers. I have a silver-backed hairbrush from the dresser in my hand, and I’m about to attack my lust-tangled locks with it. She takes the implement from my hand and efficiently and painlessly smoothes the knots away. “You are free to go now, but you must wear the blindfold until you are clear of this place, and in the carriage that will conduct you to your home.”

A dozen, a hundred questions rise to my lips as she winds my hair into a loose braid and helps me pin my hat in place. But I do not utter them. Why bother? I’ll soon be seeing my husband again, and that’s all I need to know.

Employing the same silk scarf she did before, she covers my eyes, and then with no further ado, she conducts me from the room, along the corridor, and down the stairs. I totter a little as we descend, but her hold is firm and I reach the lower landing in perfect safety.

Almost in a blur, I find myself out on the pavement, still in darkness, and almost immediately I’m guided by an unseen hand, hers or some other’s, along the pavement toward the familiar sounds of a carriage. The snorting of the horses and the slight creak of wheels and springing has never sounded more inviting. My face is wreathed with smiles, despite the blindfold, as I hear the door swing open, and then find myself almost lifted into the carriage interior by the strongest of hands.

Certainly not those of the veiled lady this time.

Relief sluices through me like a wild intoxicant. I drag off my blindfold, knocking my hat off again, but not caring a jot.

Mr. Enderby! Here to rescue me!

I fling myself into his arms, clutching at his coat, his plain, good broadcloth coat made as wonderful and exotic as my abductor’s robes because it has my dear husband in it.

“Oh, my dear Edward,” I cry in between raining kisses on his beloved mouth. “I was so afraid that I would never see you again, and here you are to save me.” It sounds overly dramatic. I had no fear at all that I wouldn’t see him again…but the delight of being in his arms makes me verbose.

“My darling Prudence…are you well? Are you unharmed?” His voice is uneven, husky. It sounds to me as if he’s containing some very great emotion, with a degree of difficulty. “What on earth has happened to you? Tell me all… 3.”

Still holding me, he’s all attention. And I realize a clean breast of things is the least I can afford him. He is my husband, after all. So, blushing quite crimson, I spare him nothing. Not even the most intimate details. I attempt to inject a note of horrified outrage at my plight into my voice, but I’m not entirely successful. During certain descriptions, I start to pant and I’m compelled to lick my lips.

“So, you were debauched by a perfect stranger…and also handled somewhat intimately by not one, but two servants?” He speaks slowly, evenly, in his familiar low tone, but when I glance up at him through my lashes, his beautiful dark blue eyes are alive and dancing with glee. “Will you be honest with me, dear Prudence, and admit that you enjoyed it?” Those long dark lashes that I envy, and love to kiss, flick down in a tease that would be almost coquettish if he wasn’t such a big, powerful and thoroughly manly man. “That you enjoyed it as much as you expected you would?”

Ah…the game is up.

“Yes, indeed…I did enjoy it. And far more, my lord, than even I expected to.”

He laughs, that wonderful familiar sound that I love to hear most of all in bed at night when we tell each other tall tales of the wild, erotic scenarios we’d like to sample. Ones we know can never come true…and ones that are eminently achievable with the help of certain imaginative friends with unusual resources.

“Thank you, my dear love, for making my outrageous dreams possible.” I kiss his face, delighting in his lips, and happy to be able to see the whole of his handsome countenance now, not just the portions unhidden by the black silk mask. “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve such a wonderful gift… How many other husbands would indulge their wife’s outrageous wishes so dramatically? Even to the extent of acting out the starring role in the fiction?”

“It was my pleasure, my darling…believe me. And of course your friend Madame Chamfleur was only too happy to put her, shall we say, establishment at our disposal for the purpose.” His elegant hands begin to rove over me again, with all the skill and enthusiasm they did a short while ago, and my lack of corsetry makes the sensation all the more enjoyable when he cups my breast and squeezes it. “The two young gentlemen were very fine performers indeed, don’t you agree?”

There’s no jealousy in his blue eyes. He is a wonder. Such a generous sensualist and so open to exotic new experience.

“Indeed they are,” I concur, reaching down and finding him hard as rock within the confines of his trousers. “Perhaps next time they should give you a massage instead?”

The way his cock kicks against my palm is answer more than enough, but even so he says, “Why, yes, my dear, that’s certainly worth considering.” With a last pat at my breast, he reaches behind me on the seat to bring out a hitherto unseen object. It’s a very fine velvet case, much as might contain an item of jewelry, but its size and depth provokes suspicion in my mind. “Here, another gift for you…”

Impatiently, I flip the case open. Lying on a bed of velvet is the pale, ivory godemiche, and my nose wrinkles as the intoxicating odor of the oil rises up from it, along with just the faintest whisper of me too.

“Why, thank you, Edward dear,” I murmur as he raps on the roof of the carriage to our man, and the wheels begin to turn and rock the conveyance. “It’s perfect. I look forward to exploring its possibilities when we get home.”

Edward gives me a very old-fashioned and extremely roguish look, then sets about plucking deftly at my skirts and the layers of petticoat beneath.

“Why wait, my dear?” he murmurs, achieving his goal beneath my clothing with indecent speed. “We’ve got a modest drive ahead, and if we need more time, Jenkins will take us round the park.”

“Oh, my lord…” I gasp as he reaches for the godemiche…again.

If you liked this story, don’t miss A Gentlewoman’s Predicament, the first installment of Portia Da Costa’s scandalous Victorian series, the Ladies’ Sewing Circle, on sale now.

Sofia Harewood’s problem: finding a partner who can please her in the bedroom better than her disappointing first husband! She senses there should be so much more to lovemaking—and she’s determined to discover what she’s been missing.

Sofia’s mission takes her to A. Chamfleur, purveyor of “Intimate Advice to the Gentlewoman”…but the encounter is not at all what she had imagined. For A. Chamfleur turns out to be Monsieur Chamfleur—and he and his associates are more than willing to introduce Sofia to a new world of sensual delights….

Hungry for more? Spice Briefs to suit every taste are available now at www.spicebriefs.com, including these recent titles:

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ISBN: 978-1-4268-5148-3

A Gentlewoman’s Ravishment

Copyright © 2010 by Portia Da Costa

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