London, 1882
"You don't need me to remind you that he's a worldly man," her mother had said as she laid a lavender sachet among Ada's freshly laundered pantalettes. "He's known women who can anticipate his desires before he knows them himself."
Ada looked up at the enameled ceiling of Henry Aldridge's music room and wondered who on earth could have expected her to anticipate this. She was naked from the waist down; the velvet damask of the daybed cushion felt soft against her backside. Henry had placed her hands over her head before taking his seat; her fingers remained obediently locked on the armrest. The position freed her breasts from the top of her corset; the boning pushed them up into voluptuous shapes that even Ada knew looked delectable. Her nipples stiffened immediately, though she wasn't sure whether it was the slight chill of the open air or Henry's gaze.
The tickle between her thighs was growing into a longing. She turned to look at Henry. He took a slow sip of brandy, but his eyes were alert, his pupils enlarged. His was not the jaded gaze of the slightly drunk hedonist: he gripped his glass and watched her with an eagerness that veered on predatory. Ada bit her lip and admitted to herself that Henry's lust-sharpened gaze excited her.
"Ah!"
The moan had escaped her lips almost before she could process the pleasure. She arched her back and savored the sensation of growing unmistakably wet. The man who had been kneeling patiently before her, kissing and nibbling her inner thighs, had, without further preamble, licked the length of her slit, pausing at the very top. Her breasts quivered above her corset as she caught her breath.
She looked again at Henry. He smiled faintly.
"Julian," he said, raising his glass to his lips, "make her come!"
Ada heard Julian Hansard, London's most brilliant young barrister, laugh softly to himself as he insinuated his tongue between her legs.
This had not always been the arrangement.
Having never been a gentleman's mistress before, Ada might not have thought Henry Aldridge an eccentric man, but even she knew that hers was not the life of an ordinary mistress. He defied nearly all of Ada's mother's predictions. Upon settling the matter with Aldridge six months before, her mother had gently told Ada it was likely that Aldridge would find a comfortable flat for her in Chelsea or some other respectable—but distant—neighborhood. He would visit her until boredom set in or until he got married ("assuming," she had said, "that he's in love with his wife at the beginning"). Regardless of how quickly Aldridge's ardor waned, the arrangement ensured that the gambling debts left behind by Ada's father would be erased. And if Ada was clever, she could parlay her successful run with Aldridge into a liaison with an even wealthier protector.
But then Aldridge had moved Ada directly into his Grosvenor Square house. Her mother had gone slack-jawed at the news. Ada's well-appointed rooms could not, she swore, have been more beautiful had she secured an arrangement with a duke. Aldridge had then invited London's most sought-after modiste to fashion a new wardrobe for her. Madame Ladouceur had asked no questions as she measured Ada and scribbled notes and figures. Ada had stood before the gilt cheval mirror and watched the diminutive Frenchwoman scamper about with fabric samples and fashion sketches. Perhaps it was true that the French weren't easily scandalized, she mused as Madame Ladouceur talked her into trying the new style of bustle.
Most shocking of all was that Aldridge wasn't seducible—at least not by any of the means her mother had taught her. None of the stratagems Ada had painstakingly practiced—playing coy, holding herself aloof, listening with rapt attention—seemed to arouse him. He was quite impervious to her "creature of mystery" performance. Her pouty lips and arch looks across the dinner table were all for naught.
Yet if he had no use for the wiles of a trained mistress, he certainly seemed quite aroused by her in general. He often clutched her by the waist as he passed her in the hallway and kissed her, his tongue tasting hers, until she was desperate to press against him. "Why, Ada," he would sometimes whisper into her hair after kissing her breathless, "are you asking me to fuck you?"
"Yes," she would say, looking dazedly at his beautifully sculptured mouth. "Please fuck me, Henry."
And that, she had learned, was the way to get fucked by Henry Aldridge. Playing the coquette got one nowhere fast. One simply asked for it, and one got it. It wasn't even necessary to ask much of the time: Henry occasionally took her from behind over the table after tea. Some evenings, before dinner, he watched Ada's maid dress her only to send the maid away and fuck her until dinner was, much to the cook's chagrin, quite ruined. Ada couldn't imagine what the servants said behind their backs. She trusted he was the only gentlemen in Belgravia—in all of London, really—who fucked his mistress against the sideboard moments after the breakfast trays had been cleared.
She was afraid to ask her mother whether Henry's behavior could be considered aberrant. The truth was that she didn't want her mother to fear that she had become a madman's mistress. The other truth was that she liked it. All of it. If Henry was a deviant, then so was she.
This evening, however, was different. This was an entirely new variety of decadence. Henry was watching from his wingback chair as Julian Hansard, the up-and-coming barrister who was pursued by wealthy criminals almost as zealously as he was pursued by marriageable young ladies, buried his face between her thighs.
Had Julian asked to share her? Had Henry simply made an offer? Were such agreements made over games of whist? She only knew that when she stepped into the billiard room after dinner, the air in the room had felt strange. Julian had smiled at her as a footman handed him a fresh glass of port. Then Henry had led her to the music room and told her what was to happen. She had stood in wide-eyed silence.
"He'll do anything you'd like," Henry had said, gesturing for O'Hara—when had her maid been summoned to the music room?—to help her out of her dinner dress. "I might point out, though, that his former mistresses swear his tongue serves him in bed as well as it does in court."
O'Hara's face remained impassive as she gingerly unbuttoned Ada's silk bodice.
"But where will you be, Henry?" She searched his face and found him distracted by the sight of her décolletage. "Henry?"
He looked up at last and kissed her as if O'Hara were not right there quietly working. Ada noted that his lips tasted of brandy.
"I'll be enjoying the view." He smiled and pulled a loose pin from her hair. "O'Hara," he said, not looking at the maid, "take the hair down, too. I want everything gone except the corset."
Twenty hazy minutes later, Ada discovered that the rumors about Julian Hansard were true: His mouth was agile and fearless. His long fingers splayed over her inner thighs, pushing them apart. His lips kissed, tasted, and suckled every inch of her pussy. She was so wet that feared Julian would find it repellant. There was simply no stopping it; every plunge of his tongue sent fresh shocks of pleasure to her core.
Julian paused to look at her, his chin shiny with her juices. He licked his lips affably; Ada blushed. "She's beautiful, Aldridge!" he called out, not looking at Henry.
"The most beautiful," replied Henry, cupping his snifter of brandy. "Are you going to make her come or not?"
"At least once." Julian pushed his middle finger inside her.
Her eyes fluttered shut and she sighed.
"Yes, and will that be this week or next?" Henry smirked.
