Chapter 5
As soon as the carriage moved off, Dianna came to Lizzy’s side and grabbed her hands.
‘Tell me, tell me everything. You look remarkably unflustered for a young lady who has spent the last hour in the private company of a rake.’ Disappointment laced her voice.
‘Oh, I made sure I was buttoned correctly, and my hair was tidy before I came out.’ Lizzy patted her curls and laughed at Dianna’s wide eyes. They had often speculated about what went on behind the bedchamber door, but now that she’d had a taste of the reality, Lizzy was unexpectedly reticent.
‘Don’t tease.’ Dianna huffed and let go of Lizzy’s hands. ‘Surely you did more than have a cup of tea? Or did you lose your nerve?’
‘We did have tea. In fact…’ she paused for dramatic effect, ‘he poured.’ At first, she had been shocked when Aaron took the pot, but watching him perform a service usually expected from women had given her a new admiration for him.
‘He did what?’ Incredulity shone in Dianna’s eyes.
‘I was ready to do it and he stopped me. He poured it, served it to me and…and fed me a butter biscuit.’ She squeezed her thighs together at the memory of his finger sliding into her mouth.
‘That certainly isn’t what I imagined you were doing. Did he not even kiss you?’
‘He did.’ Heat flared in her cheeks, but not at the memory of the kiss. At the memory of what her hand had discovered during that kiss.
‘And? You are exasperating, Lizzy. I need to know if I have something more to look forward to or something to avoid.’ She clasped her hand over Lizzy’s.
‘Well…’ she was undecided as to what to say. ‘The kissing was indeed very pleasurable.’ Dianna had only asked about kissing. Should she even mention the touching? How Aaron had slid his fingers down her bodice to cup her breast? The rigid bulge she had explored in his breeches? Or how all that had flooded her body with heat and desire for more?
That heat now rushed to her face again.
‘Why, Lizzy, you are as red as a beet. What are you not telling me?’ She squeezed Lizzy’s hand.
Lizzy relented. It had all been so thrilling and she didn’t want to keep it to herself.
‘He touched me, Di. Here.’ She put her hand over her breast, and Dianna gasped, her eyes wide. Now that she had started, she wanted to tell it all. ‘Under my bodice.’ The place between her thighs tensed as it had when Aarons fingers had gently squeezed the tip of her breast.
Dianna sat back against the carriage window, her hand over her mouth. Lizzy laughed, then a thought struck her.
‘Are you horrified? Do you now think me a light skirt?’ Her friend had encouraged her mission, but perhaps she was having second thoughts.
Dianna shook her head. ‘Not at all. I think perhaps…I am a little envious.’ She moved closer to Lizzy. ‘I have thoughts about James doing the same,’ she whispered, as if someone else might hear her in the confines of the carriage. ‘Are we wanton?’
‘Perhaps we are.’ That it would be looked upon as unseemly to be having this conversation somehow made it all the more exciting. She smiled at her friend, and Dianna grinned back. Encouraged by her enthusiasm, Lizzy gave her the last tidbit. ‘And…I touched him.’
She couldn’t picture exactly what she had been touching, but his hard, warm flesh had filled her hand under the fabric of his breeches, and she’d grown damp between her legs.
Confusion flitted across Dianna’s eyes, then realization.
‘Oh, my. And?’
‘And it was big and hard, and I can’t imagine…’ And she couldn’t. Was that why so many wives apparently denied their husbands? But then, why did other women visit the likes of the Rakes Club, actively seeing the company of men in bed. A conundrum indeed.
Dianna clutched Lizzy’s hand again. ‘Are you scared? Will you see him again?’
‘Yes.’ She surprised herself with her lack of hesitation. ‘I am still set on my mission.’
Lizzy had excused herself from the drawing room earlier than usual, pleading a headache. She now sat in bed in her nightdress with the light of two candles illuminating the cover of the book she’d retrieved from her reticule.
She ran her finger over the lettering on the leather cover. This was a book that would not be found in any bookshop, nor found openly on any bookshelves in respectable libraries. It was decried as indecent and scandalous, and Lizzy’s heart raced as she opened it.
The candles had burned down by more than half and despite being engrossed in the lustful tale, Lizzy yawned. Reluctantly, she closed the book and pushed it out of sight under the mattress and blew out the candles.
As she pulled the covers up around her shoulders, she slid her hand between her thighs. Just as the exploring hand of Fanny’s mistress had sent fire through the young woman’s blood, reading about things that were never discussed, things she had never contemplated, had created a disconcerting tension between Lizzy’s thighs.
Rather than getting rid of the tension, the pressure of her hand only intensified the pleasant feeling.
Aaron had read the same book. Had seen those words that described those scenarios. Had that made him hard like she had felt through his breeches? That thought only intensified the feeling where her hand pressed between her legs.
She rolled onto her back, moving her legs apart, her fingers stroking slowly through the soft fabric of her nightdress, her thoughts flitting between Fanny and Aaron, but when her hips arched up and her knees parted, Lizzy pulled her hand away.
She turned onto her side, hugged a pillow to herself and hoped sleep would stop her mind going down the carnal path it had started on.