Fen sat up after a moment. They seemed to have disarranged her combinations, somehow, and her bosom was spilling out of the top. Pat reached up and tugged at the fabric, dragging it down, then slid her hand under one warm, heavy breast. Fen said, “Ooh.”

“That was awfully good instruction,” Pat said. “Could I have a go now?”

“I think you should.” Fen lay back, one arm behind her head, one knee invitingly bent, bosom unrestrained.

Pat caught her breath. “You look...I don’t know. Like an odalisque.”

Fen blinked. “One of those Egyptian stone things?”

“No, odalisque. You know.” Pat wasn’t sure of the definition herself, now she came to think about it. “A voluptuous barely-clad lady in a painting looking no better than she should be. Except you couldn’t get any better.”

“On the contrary,” Fen said with a luxurious stretch. “I could be dramatically better. Try it and see. And don’t forget, you want me to squeal.”

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER NINE

It was two hours or more before they parted, Fen leaving her with a final kiss and slipping out semi-dressed and with an armful of underthings to return to her room. Pat went to bed in a state of dazed and satiated joy and snuggled into the sheets, enjoyably aware of the damp between her legs, and ready for unconsciousness.

Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas. The wind howled around Rodington Court, banging the shutters and shrieking down the chimney. Rain lashed the walls as if thrown by the bucketful. Pat did sleep, but fitfully, and her dreams were mostly peculiar explanations for the racket. After her brain spun a tale of the house’s invasion by a hunt in full cry including horses and several screaming foxes, she gave up trying to sleep, and simply lay and listened to the storm.

It wasn’t blowing out. If anything, it was getting worse: there was a deep rumble that sounded like thunder approaching. No shooting today: they would all have a day in Rodington Court, trapped with the others after last night’s revelations.

Pat had forgotten the horrors of the previous evening in its glorious ending, but now they returned tenfold. The set-jawed shame with which the Earl and Countess had endured Haworth’s accusations said a great deal; Lady Anna had been as good as called an adulteress, and Jimmy’s peccadilloes exposed. Haworth was a cancer on the family, eating them out from within and the only thing Pat could do was leave them to their misery.

The day would be awful for Fen in particular, since she would doubtless need an interview with the Earl and Countess, assuming she carried through with her determination to end things with Jimmy.