Memoirs of Lady Montrose Read Online Free PDF

you.” She leaned across the table and took his hand. “Tell me, Henry. What is it?”
    “Do you have to stay home every Thursday? Why don’t you come into town with me for the day? Leave Mortlock to damn well garden all day.”
    “Henry. You’re jealous.” She sat back, surprised. “You silly old thing.” Her stomach sank. She didn’t want to go to town, give up her day and forfeit her sexual pleasures. Her selfishness dismayed her and she took a hold on herself. “Of course I’ll come into town with you, if that’s what you want.”
    “No, Helen, it’s not really that. I obviously don’t know myself as well as I thought.” He gave a wry smile. “Your Brighton visits were months apart, and I coped with them. I’m just getting fed up with sharing you on a weekly basis.”
    A silence descended broken only by the ticking of the carriage clock, which sounded louder by the second.
    “You could always stay, Henry…and join us.” There, she’d said it. An idea she’d been playing with for several weeks. What would Henry think? Threesomes weren’t something they’d ever discussed. “I could mention it to Mortlock.”
    He sat up straight. “Bugger what Mortlock thinks. I’m paying the bill.” He slapped his hand on the table and the coffee cups jumped.
    “Of course you are, dear.” Would Henry go or stay? She daren’t look at her watch. He would see her impatience.
    With restrained casualness, she reached for another slice of toast and the bowl of marmalade, knowing Henry would do what he wanted to. Her nerves jangled with her fear that he would cancel the arrangement and send Mortlock away.
    He finished his coffee, then pushed his plates to one side and slowly began to fold his napkin. “Tell Mortlock I shall be staying home next Thursday. He’ll have a week to get his head around it and decide what sexual antics he intends for that day.”
     She kept her eyes on her toast, not prepared to meet Henry’s gaze.
    “Helen, look at me.”
    She raised her head.
    “I love you so, Helen. Perhaps being a voyeur will help me rise to the occasion. I think it’s worth a try.”
    Her eyes blurred as his sincerity cut her heart to tiny pieces. Because she no longer suffered from sexual frustration, she’d neglected Henry. Guilt flooded her.
    No wonder their relationship had developed a frosty tinge over the last few weeks. Her fault entirely.
    She couldn’t think of a thing to say, so she stood and hugged him. She traced his jawline and kissed him, filled with a deep longing to be satisfied by him again, to feel his familiar caress, his lips on her skin, his breath on her vulva. For months, he hadn’t even tried to make love to her. He saw his impotency as a weakness and hated it.
    “I love only you, Henry. Never forget that.” She stroked her hands down each side of his face. “I’ll get your coat and cane.”
    After Henry had left, she wandered back to their bedroom and watched the morning’s sunbeams slip down the wall. She lay on their bed and listened to the birds singing outside the bedroom window, while she riffled through her sexual memories. Because she had learnt to relax, her participation in Mortlock’s games had improved.
     Sometimes pure lust happened, without foreplay, wherever they might be—going up the staircase, or passing through the library. At other times it might be a slow climb as he teased her, wanting her to beg him to drive his length deep inside her, but of course she never did—beg that is.
    His message, left on a nail in the garden shed last Thursday, had read ‘Hide and Seek’. He’d given her a week to think of a hiding place.
    She checked the time, stripped off her clothes, sprayed on some perfume and ran to the library, her bare feet making no sound on the carpet. Behind the long velvet drapes in the library seemed the best solution and that’s where she now stood, on a stool to prevent her toes peeking out. With the drapes wrapped close around her to keep