Free A Gentlewoman's Pleasure by Portia Da Costa

London, 1890
    “My dear, how are you? You look wonderfully well.”
    “Yes, indeed, you do look in splendid form, my dear. It’s so grand to see you again.”
    The Honorable Lucy Dawson blinked behind her glasses, touched by the warmth of the welcome. Over a year had passed since she’d last seen her friends of the Ladies’ Sewing Circle, and it seemed that they’d missed her, even though she’d always thought herself a dull fish in their company. On an impulse, she threw her arms around Sofia Chamfleur and received a loving hug in return.
    “I am well. I’m very well.” Interest sharpened in the circle of smiling faces as she took her seat. These ladies were as acute as ever, and they noticed everything. “And I’ve missed you all,” she added, telling the perfect truth.
    And I’ve finally got a racy story to tell you all, she thought as Sofia led her to the place of honor. One I swear will make your eyebrows soar.
    After the flutter of greetings, all the ladies took their seats, settled down and drank tea and ate cake as was their custom. A few took out pieces of sewing from their needlework bags, and some actually sewed a bit, but several made no pretence of it at all. They just waited avidly for the main order of business: the scandalous talk for which they all really gathered.
    “So, has no one had an escapade since we last met? No saucy interludes? No wild and frisky fantasies?”
    Mary Brigstock? What a surprise. When Lucy had last been amongst the circle, before her extended trip to Scotland to stay with an elderly aunt, Mrs. Brigstock had seemed as much an odd one out as she herself had been. She’d always appeared shocked and disapproving of some of the other ladies’ wild revelations. But now Mary seemed agog for titillation, more so even than the rest of the circle.
    “So, Lucy,” murmured Lady Arabella Southern, causing heads to turn in Lucy’s direction, “you might still be wearing your ridiculous knickerbocker suit and riding your bicycle in such an unflatteringly mannish way, but something tells me you’ve had an adventure while you’ve been away from us.”
    Ethan. Oh yes, my Ethan…you’re my adventure.
    For a moment, instead of the rather unsteadily stitched sampler that lay across her tweed-clad lap, she seemed to see his face. And his slow seductive smile as he knelt between her thighs, ready to slide his hands up their inner slopes so he could dive in to kiss her eager sex. Her flesh quivered as she imagined him licking her there.
    “Ouch!”
    The vision had been so entrancing that she’d jammed her needle into her finger, but as she rubbed the spot, it seemed to be him, kissing it better before returning to her puss.
    “Lucy! Do you have a story?”
    A dozen eager faces all turned toward her, the ladies of the sewing circle, all fixed on her like a pack of hounds scenting their prey…the prospect of hearing an erotic revelation, whether real or imagined.
    Can I tell? Dare I?
    What she’d shared with Ethan was remarkable, and something of a miracle for a rawboned, bespectacled spinster who wore trousers and rode her bicycle like a boy. Some of the circle would no doubt dismiss anything she said as a mere fabrication, but it was true, thank the stars, it was all true.
    “Well, I’m not sure…. There was something…last week…but I’m not sure if I should disclose it.”
    “Oh, Miss Dawson, please do tell,” urged Miss Beatrice Weatherly, a newcomer to the group since Lucy’s last attendance, and apparently a source of no little scandal herself.
    A dozen faces leaned in, and a dozen pairs of ears apparently strained to hear all the better.
    Lucy grinned, her heart a-flutter, and began her story.
     
    Bicycling to visit her cousin had seemed like such an excellent idea when she’d first conceived it. Lucy hadn’t seen Matilda since her return from Scotland. Her cousin’s house was set in the prettiest of countryside and the lanes thereabouts were flat and perfect