To Eve, With love and thanks for your inspiration.
*
I first met my betrothed the evening of my sixteenth birthday at a ball held in my honour. My father, Lord Randolf Montague Dashwood, presented me to him with his promise of my hand. Lord Carnborough, a rather rotund man lacking the height to correctly proportion his girth, was old and not particularly handsome, and I felt no great enthusiasm towards him. Becoming Lady Laura Jennifer Catherine Carnborough offered no special attraction to me.
I smiled and curtseyed, and his eyes never left mine as he bowed to kiss my gloved hand. Immediately I had the measure of his worth. Perhaps he thought me inadequately versed in the desires and intents of men, for he did nothing to hide the salacious gleam in his eyes as he drew them down and up again.
"A fine young lady," he loudly announced to my father, without taking his eyes from mine. "One who will without doubt grow to be a most beautiful woman." Letting go of my hand he straightened and turned once more to father and made mention of his plans to complete me in every way. Were I not a Lady I would surely have run from the hall in tears.
I knew Papa loved me with every beat of his heart, but this was not a marriage of love, this was one of politics and power, of industry and wealth, and I knew to still my tongue and hold my smile. Papa, in turn, knew he would hear of my displeasure at the first appropriate opportunity.
All my impassioned protestations the following morning did me little good however, although it did please me that Papa did his best to placate me. He told me I would not be forced to love the man, and our marriage could be conducted with a purely public sincerity, should I so choose.
There had been times such as these in my youth, although not quite of this nature, when I would sulk and pout were I not to get my own way. But I was becoming a woman, and I had learned quite early on in my life that the freedoms of the privileged were merely an illusion perpetuated in the minds of the less fortunate, and we in our turn were in fact no more free than they. We were just at greater liberty to indulge ourselves in other areas to compensate for it.
I told my father I would honour his promise without fuss. I would marry this man, Lord James Carnborough, I would accompany him to important functions, and to society appear ever the loving wife, but he would know not of every deception I would engage in.
For the next two years I studied in France, and learned much of the pleasures an adventurous young woman could be indulged in. I learned of the power of my beauty, how to entice a man with my eyes, my smile, the way I comported my curves. We taught one another, and used to great effect our skills to tease the gardeners who tended the grounds and boys we met during our outings into the town.
I knew to what extent to engage them in the sport of flirting, even if some of the girls did not. Men fascinated me, and the desire to experience all the enjoyments they had to offer burned as wildly within me as it did within my fellow students. Yet unlike not too few of the girls I was perfectly able to kindle those first flickers of desire into fiercely raging passions and then take delight in leaving them in quickened states of arousal as I made my excuses and flittered away with promises of more.
On my return to London I shared a joyous reunion with my father, which sadly was cut short after three days by the necessity of his occupation. My brother Matthew was at Oxford still, my cousins Elouise and Nathaniel were on a tour of the far east with my Aunt and Uncle, and I was, ostensibly, alone in the house. My mother had died when I was a small child, something which my father and uncle thought to one another should have affected me more than it did.
I was tended by my handmaid, cook saw to my meals, other servants and scullions performed their tasks, and John looked after us all. John had been with Father since he was a lad. Once a stable boy at our country retreat, Papa had offered him a position of butlers assistant when he became eighteen, and when Simmons died John took over his duties.
John had always held a fascination for me. I was sometimes fearful of him, not because I thought he would ever harm me, but because he had an air of mystery and danger to him. Papa was my ideal model of manhood, but John was the very next best thing. He was dark haired and handsome, tall, young and strong. No more than thirty years of age he was fit and in his peak, and I shall never forget the night I watched intently from my bedroom window, my heart fluttering wildly, as he rolled up his sleeves and fought off two would be burglars.
My wedding was still yet a month and a half away, many of my friends and their families were busying themselves with clandestine plans they thought me blissfully nascent to, and I was restless and eager to play. I called John into the drawing room and watched from beside the fireplace as he entered from the south door.
"I shall be going into town, John," I informed him and moved to sit on a lounge chair. His eyes watched my every step. I enjoyed the way he looked at me.
"You shall have to help me with my little boots," I said and sat back. He seemed to start forward, but then hesitated. The blood rushed in my veins. I held back a chuckle that unchecked would have cascaded forth. John knew not what to do; he had never dressed a Lady before, although I suspected he was experienced enough in divesting many a girl of her clothing.
"But Miss.. wouldn't your maid be a better one to be doing these things for you?" he asked. I sat upright, leaning forward slightly as though captivated by our conversation. There was an uneasiness in his voice; he no doubt sensed my mood and feared where it might lead. I adored his attitude, and did enough to assuage his fears.
"Kitty isn't here. If she were she would be fitting them as we speak. Cook cannot be trusted with the delicacy of my predicament. And I fear I would become uncomfortably diffident were I to indenture an unfamiliar maid to the task. No, only you can do it, John. You I trust implicitly." I drew a deep breath. It made my firm breasts rise and expand, then dip again, a motion which was not lost on him. My dress hugged tightly to my figure, and as though without conscious thought I smoothed a hand over my hip and down my thigh, accentuating my charms.
"Come, John," I said. My smile comforted him. He began forward. I knew his predicament; he feared any impropriety on his part would cost him his job should I wish to make fuss of it. But he was no fool when it came to the exchanges between a man and a woman, and he well knew of my Nature, for this was not the first time I had practised my sport on him.
I watched intently as he picked my boots up from beside the fireplace, bowed and knelt in front of me. For a moment I imagined him asking for my hand, and me saying yes. I softly chuckled. Before his eyes joined mine again he was rested on one knee and my boots were placed one either side of my feet. My heart was already fluttering and my breaths were coming that little bit shallower and quicker. I wanted him to know it, so did nothing to disguise my condition.
"I've never done this kind of thing before, Miss," he admitted. "..So I'm not really sure to what I should be doing."
