Free Lessons and Lovers by Portia Da Costa

was as if she was trying to unconsciously make up for months of celibacy in the space of a few short hours.
    And where was Starr tonight when she needed him? He was the one who’d started all this. She’d been assuming he’d visit her room again but as yet there was no sign of him.
    Serves me right, Piers, doesn’t it? She glanced at her dead husband’s photograph as she slipped into a sheer black nightgown, then covered it with a matching floor-length robe. “Two lusty men in the house and neither of them here to service me!” she muttered, half amused, half irritated as she smoothed her fingers over the luxurious silk of her “mourning”. Even if the rest of her widowhood was becoming increasingly unconventional, at least she could observe the formality of wearing black.
    But Starr might not even be in the house. She’d told Darryl that her servant was a private person and it was nothing but the truth. Starr was also a free agent, and when his duties were done there was nothing to prevent him from going out and leading his own life. His working hours had always been flexible, and neither Piers nor herself had ever expected him to be at their beck and call 24/7. Starr himself was the one who chose to be constantly at her disposal, but theoretically he was free to do what he wanted. He might be visiting friends. He might even have another woman.
    No! Please, no!
    Hettie sank down onto the bed, winded as if she’d been rabbit-punched. The thought of Starr with someone else induced a horrid, wrenching twist of jealousy and try as she might to control them, images assailed her. Starr in bed with a woman who wasn’t her. A laughing and relaxed Starr, fucking for himself and not because he felt duty-bound to service his employer.
    Hettie had no way of knowing whether Starr maintained other relationships because he’d never once told her anything of his life beyond his employment in the Miller household.
    Dare she go to him? That was another thing she’d never done. Only once during Piers’ illness had she suggested that she might visit Starr in his rooms. But that suggestion had been quashed with infinite tact and politeness. Starr was at her command and he would come to her.
    “Well, bullshit to that! This is my house and I do what I want!” muttered Hettie, cinching her sash of her robe more tightly and leaping to her feet again. She slipped out of her bedroom and made her way silently towards the staircase leading to the upper floors, mentally psyching herself up as she went.
    What if he wasn’t there? What if he didn’t want her in his room? Invading his only private, personal space in the home that belonged to her. On the landing, a few yards from his door, she hesitated, gnawing her lower lip. Oh, Starr would be polite to her, as calm and cool and amenable as always. He would probably even willingly accompany her back to her room and make love to her. But she would always suspect he was only doing it because she’d forced the issue.
    Her body shaking, and feeling a horrid sensation of cowardice, she backed away from Starr’s door and turned to go back the way she’d come. But as she did so, she noticed another door slightly ajar.
    It was hot and stuffy in the old set of “nanny’s rooms” that hadn’t been used since Piers had bought the house a few years ago. Nobody had opened the windows in ages and there was dust on the furniture and fittings, but the closed circuit TV system that’d once been used to monitor the nursery was still in full working order.
    When Hettie switched it on, the image was surprisingly sharp for a not so young piece of equipment—and it was of the room that had once been a nursery but was now one of the guestrooms. Wearing an unbelted robe and toweling his jet-black hair, Darryl walked slowly into the camera’s all-seeing range and paused as if he knew she was watching him.
    After a few moments, he tossed aside his towel, shucked off his robe and turned fully towards the