“Why’d you do it?” she whispered, not wanting to break the spell.
“Thought you might prefer me clean-shaven,” he murmured back.
“I think you are most handsome no matter what grows — or doesn’t — on your upper lip,” she said, toying with one of his buttons.
“But I was thinking of your pleasure,” he said into her ear. “My moustache might irritate your skin.”
“I’m not so sensitive as all that, Denny,” she giggled. “I used to go out in the winter without a muffler, and my cheeks barely turned red.”
“I wasn’t thinking of sensitive skin on your face, darling.”
Lydia’s eyes met Denny’s, and she gasped upon realizing what he meant.
“You don’t—”
“Oh, that I do,” he said with a smirk. “Have you ever had that service before?”
“A mouth…no. George never…” That service was one of many her husband had never performed for her.
“A shame, really,” said Denny, his arm about her waist most comfortingly. “A shame for him. I bet you have the tastiest little peach, Lydia.”
She shouldn’t feel her eyelids drooping at his heated words. She shouldn’t squeeze her thighs together when she longed for more pressure on that place he spoke about so reverently.
But Lydia was swept under when Denny dropped a soft kiss on her neck.
“Your pulse is fluttering,” he rasped, as if he too were as taken by this innocent moment as she was.
She nodded, struggling to think of something to say. “What’s your given name, Denny? I’ve always called you Mr. Denny or Captain Denny or just Denny, but I—”
He chuckled. “You’ll hate it.”
“Never!” she protested, thinking that Denny might just be the kindest, most handsome officer on earth.
“George,” he said with a huff. “Like so many baby boys in the age of the German kings, I am a George.”
Lydia deflated, suddenly recalling her worthless husband, George Wickham.
“And now I’ve upset you,” he said, running a finger up and down the tense lines of her neck.
“It’s not you,” she said, trying to soften again for him. “I merely recalled the world outside.”
Outside this room, she was a prize to be won on the turn of a card, and the property of one George Wickham.
“Why don’t you lie back and let me help you forget all of that for a moment?”
Lydia studied Captain George Denny, struggling to understand what he suggested. His eyes, always a clear blue to which even the sea at Brighton couldn’t compare, shone with some new light. His passion was infectious, and her will bent most pleasurably to his.
“What do you mean to do?” she asked, lying against the mattress with her feet still on the floor.
Denny trailed a hand over the bodice of the dress he and two other officers had given her, gently feeling the weight of her breasts.
“I plan to lick your pretty little scarlet quim until you scream, Lydia. Are you amenable?”
His forward language shot to the part of her aching for his touch. Fortunately, it seemed he had every intention of relieving her need.
“Oh, I don’t know…” she dissembled, not wanting to seem too eager. Why she was pretending to be anything other than panting for the man in the wake of the revelatory bliss he and his fellow officers had given her several weeks ago, she didn’t know. It was a habit aimed at modesty, much like refusing the lastteacake even when she wanted another one so badly. A veneer that wouldn’t hide the rotten core of her disgrace, not now that Wickham was openly selling her.
“I was thinking of putting your cunny right here,” he said, tapping the place he used to sport a moustache.
