“Well—I—that is—I am not—”
A tall woman approached.Her hair was a sweet light brown.She was wearing a blue silk and was, indeed, very pretty.She looked more mature, more sophisticated, than some of her compatriots.
“My, you are a handsome one.Like a prince,” she said to Leith, only making him feel more uncomfortable.
Monty grinned.“Enjoy yourself, brother.”And then he went through the door with the redhead.
“Shall we go somewhere more private?”the woman asked him.
“Please.”
The truth was that he was desperate to get away from this room and the watchful eyes of Madame Stirling.Her gaze was so piercing that he felt convinced she knew how many times he had taken himself in hand yesterday (three) and how often he fantasized about bedding a woman (endlessly, it seemed).
“Come,” his courtesan said, gesturing through the door his friends had walked through.She brought him to a stairwell and then he followed her up it.When they reached the second floor, she led him through a door.
It was a bedchamber—that was clear.Done up in a feminine, pristine style.Trem and John had said Madame Stirling’s was the best brothel in London.Leith hadn’t known what that meant and, now that he was here, he was relieved to see that it meant that the furnishings were elegant, the baseboards sparkling clean, and the women uncommonly beautiful.
“Sit,” the woman said, gesturing to the bed, and he obeyed.“Do you know what you would like?”
“Well, I—” He did, in a way, but, in another, he did not at all.He had a driving, primal urge to bed a woman, to bury his cock into a lady, and to fill her up with his seed.Other than that, he was not sure.
He had no idea how to charm a woman or please her in the bedchamber.And then there was the matter of his character.He didn’t have the easy charm of his friends and he abhorred mess in all facets.He could be, he knew, too little obliging.
And there were his physical defects.Yes, he had been called handsome many times in his life, and he supposed his face was a good one.But he was the shortest of his friends.And his cock was not especially large.No, indeed, he knew it was, in fact, small.His member wasn’t the smallest that he had seen in his life, but he knew it was, nevertheless, distinctly not large.And he understood, from the way Trem told stories about women losing their minds overhis(admittedly very large) cock, that ladies cared about such things.
“Do not be nervous.I will not be affronted, no matter what you say.”
Her soft voice, the sweet fragrance of her perfume, and the creamy skin above her bodice—they had started to take effect.He felt his cock hardening in his breeches.
“I want to tup you.In the darkness.I don’t want to undress.You needn’t, either.”
It was the most orderly, least frivolous progression he could think of.John and Trem had been right—hehadwanted to come here.But he couldn’t bear any sort of untidiness or display.Or exposure of himself.He wanted a furtive, blissful release.
“Are you certain?That is all?”the courtesan said, her expression a little perplexed.But she had been right—she didn’t look at all affronted.
“Yes.”
And so that is what they did, after she fit him with the French letter that she pulled out of a box on the nightstand.
The Marquess of Leith bedded a woman for the first time in a darkened brothel room with only his breeches tapes undone.
He found he had been right, too.He found the release exactly what he had craved.
He also found it soothing that, with a courtesan, such an experience could be replicated again and again.With a courtesan, he realized, he could always ask forthis, and she would be happy to oblige him for the coin he provided.No disarray, no turmoil, no exposure, was needed.
That night, during the carriage ride back to Mayfair, Leith could, for the first time, genuinely boast with his friends about his conquest.In fact, he might have enjoyed his newfound ability to boast honestly as much as the experience of losing his virginity itself.Of course, he understood that his friends’ proclivities were different than his own.But that hardly mattered, he reasoned.He didn’t have to providethosedetails.They wouldn’t understand.
He could, however, praise the fair woman whom he had bedded, and talk about how beautiful she had been.
Therefore, in the intervening years, he established a pattern.
A courtesan.
His particular request.
A neat release into a French letter.
And a sense that the pressure inside of him, that churning desire, had been temporarily satiated.
