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“Are you certain of this?”

“I am positively certain. I should not imagine anything better than being called Mrs. Lydia Wickham.”

He leaned a bit closer and lowered his voice. “Can you get away from the house at morning’s first light?”

“Oh, no! I never rise as early as that!”

He drew a frustrated breath and then quickly recovered his former attitude. “It seems you are not ready after all. Oh, well … will you pardon me, Miss Lydia.”

Lydia grabbed hold of his arm. “I suppose I can make an exception, for, as I said, I would do anything for you.”

He shook his arm free. “Indeed. Then we shall meet first thing in the morning.” Speaking in hushed tones once more, Wickham told her the precise time and place to meet him. He calmed her uncertainties with sweet assurances that he would be there waiting for her, eager to embark upon their new adventure—together. “Mind you, you are to tell no one what you are about. This must be our particular secret.”

Wickham walked away with his head full of the notion that he would have that silly girl whimpering in his arms in a matter of hours. He was no stranger to the flesh, but it was not often that he took a virgin. At least, he hoped she was a virgin, but even if she were not, she was supposed to be a gently bred woman. She would serve as a pleasurable distraction while he wooed Georgiana Darcy.

A connoisseur of carnal pleasures, he had taken his fill of servants, and bedding one of Darcy’s sisters while wooing the other was in every way fitting, in Wickham’s opinion. Of course, he did not actually plan to share a bed with the girl. Visions of taking her on the bare ground, against a tree, or sprawled over a bale of hay all came to mind. George Wickham’s manhood was practically dancing, and he knew that if he did not steal away to the coolness of the fresh night air, he might embarrass himself, such was his desperate need of relief.

Perhaps, he would take a servant—just for the night. Fifteen minutes in a dark corner was all that it would take, and he had just the woman in mind. She even looked like Lydia Bennet with her long, dark hair, and her womanly curves: generous hips and rounded breasts. Were it not for his urgent desire to feast upon those luscious offerings, he would surely take her from behind and pretend he was having his way with Lydia. The way Lydia had flaunted her breasts in his face that evening had almost been his undoing with her low cut décolletage leaving little to his imagination. Did she even know what she did to him?

Thoughts of the morning to come accompanied George Wickham as he quietly escaped the room and made his way to the back of the manor house. He hoped he would see Sally, and after a quarter hour spent lurking about in the shadows, he did. It was indeed his lucky night for she knew exactly what he was about. She required no wooing at all. She nearly raced into his arms. He steered her to an empty storage room. Immediately, he pulled down her chemise and buried his head in her ample bosom. With her, he could do things that his first time with the Bennet girl would never allow. No, it might take at least a week before he could do to her what he planned to do with Sally.

Her soft moans recalled him to his purpose. She needed her release just as much as he needed his, for that is what kept the likes of her coming back—wanting, needing, beseeching. Soon, Lydia Bennet would be begging him for more too.