Free Notebooks of the Young Wife by Tara Black Page B

release.
    However, by the time I took my leave, hustled him up the stairs and applied a cold sponge to the inflamed parts, he was flaunting a specimen I was soon able to work up into fine spurting condition.
    With the act completed and clothing restored, I put my own needy crotch determinedly out of mind and bade the boy sit. I had questions to ask, and after a little petulant squirming to play up the soreness of his bottom, he seemed happy enough to leave aside the spanked urchin persona and tell me what he knew.
     
     
Tales
     
    The story I got wasn’t much, but it did contain one crucial lead. While I was aware that Monty had spent his time in the manner of a rakehell from an earlier age, it was news to me that he had been diagnosed with an incurable illness in the autumn of the previous year. Soon after, he decided to live out the remainder due him by putting in order some of the papers to which he’d paid little heed before. He could no longer live the life himself, so he would take what vicarious pleasure was to be had from the recorded exploits of his predecessors. For some two or thee months, before the final stages confined him to his bed, the old man employed a secretary to turn certain items into text documents that could be stored and later printed. The boy’s job was to help scour the stack of box files for anything of greater interest than routine letters and accounts.
    It was by his assessment a boring one until the day that the invalid chanced upon a piece by uxor studiosa , whom a scribbled note in the margin allowed him to identify as his earliest namesake’s young wife. Or so I understood. The tale was told in rapid-fire spurts that put me in mind of his prowess with an organ other than the mouth. Later , I told myself, and tried to clarify what the boy was saying.
    ‘So that was what you left for me to read.’ He nodded assent. ‘And were there more, or was that just a one-off?’
    ‘One-off, yeah. Written out nice. But then he found the books. All full of writing like a spider.’
    ‘Books? You mean notebooks, like a diary?’ Again he agreed. ‘And did the secretary transcribe any of it?’
    ‘Some. You can see for yourself. There’s a thing in the desk.’ That was it. I marched him downstairs through the library and hovered while he opened first one drawer then another. Eventually, going back to the first, he pulled out a CD in a plastic case. He fidgeted and I drummed my fingers as we waited for the laptop to boot up and then to load the contents of the disc. At last, there it was onscreen: The Ardingley End Project . Scrolling down the table of contents brought us to the entry Everett, Joanna (1727-9) which unpacked into a list of three items. The first I’d read in one of the BL’s own titles and the next was still lying by my bed; only the third, of a mere two pages in length, was new.
    ‘Well, no matter,’ I said brightly. ‘Once we’ve got our hands on the original notebooks there’ll be loads of stuff to pore over.’ I looked at him and he looked back at me in silence as a horrid suspicion began to form in my mind. ‘You don’t know where they are, do you, boy?’ He shook his head dumbly and fidgeted some more.
    ‘They were always out. On the desk, right there.’ He jabbed a finger at the space beside my computer. ‘Then she was gone. Two months ago. I couldn’t find them. Anywhere.’
    ‘But what about the Master? He must have known where they were kept.’ He shook his head again.
    ‘ Did know. In his bed, past caring. That’s why she stopped.’ My frustration must have been evident and the poor lad seemed to take it to heart. So much so that when maid Laura appeared to say there was lunch, he declined and insisted vigorously that he would search both rooms from floor to ceiling.
    On invitation I opted to join the small group at the kitchen table where I was soon seated in front of a big round of cheddar, homemade pickles, spring onions and freshly baked bread.