there are two men waiting for me!
“Please don’t be alarmed, madam, we’re only here to serve you,” says the more forward of the two, a fresh-faced, rather jolly-looking lad in his twenties, perhaps. His brown hair is short and his eyes are blue…and, like his companion, he’s clad in just a pair of loose trousers, made of linen or some other soft fabric. His chest, his arms and his feet are quite bare. How astonishing.
His friend says nothing, but his eyes, brown as old port, are bold. He stares unabashedly at the open bodice of my gown, and for half a second, I wonder if he was the wicked, skillful devil who manhandled me in the carriage. He has a piratical look, almost, with wild dark curls and a faintly swarthy complexion.
But my carriage man was taller than he, I suspect, and built quite differently. I didn’t see him, but his presence and bearing were not like this man’s at all.
Not that this dusky, exotic fellow is unattractive. In fact, either of my new “friends” could be called beaux. Unable to prevent myself, I find my gaze skittering over the pair of them, noting fine muscles, smooth skin, a little masculine hair on their well-formed chests…and dear me, I hardly dare say…splendid male appendages prominently visible through the thin and revealing cloth of their light trousers.
My pink face rapidly becomes as brilliant as a peony.
“Wh-what do you mean by ‘serve me’?”
“We are here to help you to relax, and to prepare you, madam,” the darker of the two answers. He has a little accent, quite charming and so alluring it makes me quiver.
“For the pleasure of our master,” the other young man says. He has rather attractive lips, and all the time, they seem to be right on the edge of quirking into a smile, or even broad laughter. Something seems to be amusing him mightily, I must say, and even though I’m in the most perilous of situations, and I really don’t know what’s going to happen to me next, I find myself bizarrely amused and inclined to smile too.
I think I must play along with this. It seems my only option. I cannot escape so why resist?
“So be it. It seems I have very little alternative—” I bow my head a little, acquiescing. Or at least appearing to “—but to throw myself on your mercy and his, and hope and pray that you will all be kind to me.”
“You may have no worry on that score, madam,” says the curly-haired charmer. “My name is Yuri, and my friend here is Clarence. Please allow us to assist you to undress.”
My heart flutters, and tongues of heat seem to lick about my body. Take my clothes off in front of not one, but two, unknown men? Scandalous!
But sure no more scandalous than not fighting the unseen marauder in the carriage. Even though I was tied, I could have resisted somehow. But I didn’t. I succumbed.
C’est la vie.
The two handsome fellows close in on me with no further ado.
“Don’t be afraid, Mrs. Enderby,” murmurs Clarence as his fingers fly to the remainder of my dress buttons and the front of my bodice gapes farther open. How does he know my name? I wonder as the two of them work as a syncopated team, and in a jiffy, my dark, heavy gown is off over my head and flung aside on a gilded chair.
Have I been kidnapped to order? And for whom? Perhaps at Lady Arabella’s recent ball, some libidinous connoisseur of women took a fancy to me. And resolved to whisk me away from my dear Mr. Enderby in order to ravish me and debauch himself upon me.
As I’m divested of my petticoats and my bustle, I flush with shame, and not only because my body is rapidly being exposed. I know I’m wicked because I want to be debauched.
“Please try to relax, madam,” says Yuri softly. He’s standing behind me, as Clarence stands in front of me. I stare down at my stocking-clad toes, shuddering and acutely aware that I am in a kind of sandwich between two handsome and virile young men. Clarence clasps me by the waist, his hands spread over my corset, holding me firmly, while Yuri slips down my chemise and massages my shoulders with gentle, assertive strokes.
He’s clever. He finds knots of tension I didn’t know I was prey to. I gasp, my body loosening already.
“Massage is very beneficial for the nerves, Mrs. Enderby,” remarks