The Lady of the Manor

The Lady of the Manor

A young architect becomes a toy-boy for the widowed lady of the manor. But her Ladyship has darker desires…

Sylviafan

I bought the bungalow on the edge of the woods because it was the only rural property in my price bracket; I had no interest in living in Bristol, where I worked, or in any of the nearby market towns. I wanted peace and quiet and that meant isolation. And boy was this place isolated: it didn’t even have a proper made-up road leading to it, just a grassy cart track. And it was sadly neglected, full of hideous 1970’s wallpaper and flower-patterned carpets, the kitchen almost beyond redemption with cupboard doors hanging off and an oven that hadn’t been cleaned since around the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. Add to this an overgrown garden with a falling-down summerhouse and you’re starting to get the picture.

But it was basically sound and I knew I could fix it up, given time. I’m an architect, you see. Ok, only a newly qualified one, but I got one of the surveyors in our office to come and have a look and he gave it the thumbs up. And it came with a three-acre paddock which I thought maybe I could develop into a campsite or, the jewel in the crown, sell to a property developer for an obscene profit. The fact that a property developer would be unlikely to gain planning permission for a site with no proper access didn’t seem to have occurred to me at the time. Indeed the isolation was a double-edged sword. Yes, I loved the fact that all I could hear were the sounds of the birds and the lowing of distant cattle, but there were undoubtedly drawbacks: for one thing, the waste skip lorry refused to come down the grass track, so the detritus from my renovations had to be lugged five-hundred yards to the nearest road, which was only an unclassified lane. But these inconveniences aside, I loved the place and set to work with a will, stripping rooms, re-plastering, putting in a new kitchen and bathroom.

I’d been in the place about three months when, one Saturday morning, the prospect of another day of intensive DIY suddenly lost its appeal. It was late May, and the byways and hedgerows that criss-crossed the countryside around my place were green and leafy and dotted with wildflowers, the scent of may blossom heavy in the air. I felt like the Mole in “The Wind in the Willows”, I needed to get outside and breathe some fresh air. So I put some lunch in a knapsack, grabbed the Ordnance Survey map and walked out of my garden and onto a public footpath, heading towards the spire of a distant church.

It was a warm day, overcast and muggy, the sun promising to break through sometime in the afternoon. I walked for a couple of hours, savouring the freshness of the abundant vegetation and the surround-sound birdsong, walking where my fancy and the footpaths led, consulting the map and checking it against the GPS on my phone. At length, hungry and hot, I found a grassy area by a field gate where I sat down and ate my sandwiches and drank coffee from my flask. Afterwards I leant back against the trunk of a small tree and belched pleasurably, looking across the fields to a nearby spinney, hearing the sound of sheep and lambs in the field behind me, the peak of my cap shading my eyes, the emerging sun hot on my bare arms, flies buzzing through the thick air…

I must have dozed off because I had no awareness of the approaching rider until a voice startled me into wakefulness.

‘I say, you couldn’t do me a big favour and open that gate for me could you?’ a voice said in the cut-glass tones of the British aristocracy. My head jerked up; vision momentarily blurred. A large chestnut horse was standing in front of me, the rider’s features shadowed by the sun at their back. I climbed groggily to my feet and slid the locking bar of the gate and pushed it open. ‘Thanks, awfully. Were you asleep?’

‘I think I must have been,’ I admitted as the rider nudged the horse gently and it trotted past me and through the gate, giving me my first look at her. It was, as the voice had suggested, a lady. The first thing I noticed was a highly polished brown riding boot, then, as I looked up, a very shapely thigh, clad in skin-tight cream jodhpurs, a tweed hacking jacket and a black riding helmet. Beneath the helmet was the face of a middle-aged lady, maybe late middle age. Her face was lined, her eyes very blue with pronounced crow’s feet. A rather hooked nose over a generous mouth with full lips completed that first impression.

The horse stopped the other side of the gate and I swung it shut, careful to avoid clashing the gate into the post and spooking the horse. The rider sat confidently, holding a riding crop in one hand, the other holding the reins. ‘Sorry if I woke you,’ she smiled widely down at me, showing strong teeth, her blue eyes crinkling. I’d have done the gate myself if I’d realised you were asleep. Mind you I’d probably have disturbed you anyway; Stanley doesn’t tiptoe very successfully.’

‘Oh, no worries. I probably need to get on anyway.’

The rider still made no move to go. ‘Where are you headed?’

‘Oh, nowhere in particular. I’m just exploring. I’ve just moved into the area,’ I explained. She looked quizzically at me, the smile still in place. ‘The bungalow, at the edge of Thorpe Wood?’ I elaborated.

‘Oh, the Richardson’s old place! Gosh, that’s been empty for simply ages. Does it need much work? I haven’t been inside for years.’

‘Nothing that completely gutting won’t cure,’ I said, lightly, and she laughed.

‘Are you handy at that sort of thing?’

‘I will be by the time I’ve finished.’

She laughed again. ‘That makes us neighbours.’ She transferred the riding crop to her left hand and leaned down, extending her right hand in its brown leather glove. I raised my hand and we shook briefly over the top bar of the gate. ‘I’m Caroline, or Caro if you prefer.’

‘Tom,’ I said.

‘Is that short for Thomas?’ I nodded. ‘I’ll call you Thomas then. That was the name of my first boyfriend. A while ago now,’ she added, still smiling at me.

I smiled back, aware of her scrutiny, then I bent and picked up my knapsack. ‘Well, it’s been very nice to meet you, Caroline,’ I said, deciding that if she wouldn’t shorten my name I wouldn’t shorten hers. ‘Anytime you want a gate opened and I’m asleep in the area…’

She carried on looking at me, as though assessing my character. ‘Look, Thomas, I’m having a few friends over next Sunday. Afternoon tea and a bit of yacking, that sort of thing. It might be terribly boring for you, I’m sure you’d be the youngest person there by about thirty years, apart from Claire of course. But David will be there and he knows oodles of people in the building trade and… it might be useful to meet him and some of the others. Anyway, I’ll get Claire to send you an invite, and I won’t be in the least offended if you’d rather not.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, surprised, and she gave me a last look and a smile and, turning the horse around, trotted off across the field.

The invitation arrived in the post on Tuesday morning on an expensive looking embossed card sealed inside an expensive looking envelope.

Viscountess Baythorpe requests the pleasure of the company of Mr Thomas Bailey at Baythorpe Manor at 4pm on Sunday 3^rd of June for afternoon tea and light refreshments. Dress casual. RSVP to Ms Claire Downing — Estate Manager.

Viscountess Baythorpe! Good grief! And how did she know my surname? I hadn’t told her. I supposed that “Claire” had discovered it. It wouldn’t be difficult. I was in two minds whether or not to respond to the invitation; I’d never had anything to do with the titled classes. On the other hand, Caroline had seemed ok, if you ignored the accent, and it might, as she had suggested, be useful for me to meet some of the local “quality”. In the end I called the number on the card.

The voice at the other end was well-spoken, but not aristocratic: ‘Baythorpe Manor, Claire speaking.’

‘Hi, it’s Thomas Bailey. I’ve got an invitation to tea at Baythorpe Manor this Sunday and I was ringing to confirm that I will be attending.’

‘Just a moment, Mr Bailey. Ah, yes. Thank you. I’ll inform her Ladyship.’

‘Um, the invitation says casual dress… I was just wondering…’

I could almost hear the condescending smile at the other end of the line. ‘Trousers and a shirt. No jeans.’ I thanked her and disconnected.

Afterwards I did a bit of research on the Viscountess. I discovered that, strictly speaking, she was the Dowager Viscountess, her husband, the ninth Viscount, having died two years ago. The title appeared to have passed to a distant cousin in Australia; presumably the Baythorpes hadn’t had children. There were also pictures available of Baythorpe Manor, a Regency red-brick mansion standing in five-hundred acres of parkland, woods and pasture. It was only about a mile from my house. In fact, apart from the lodge house at the main gate of the estate, I was probably the closest neighbour.

I was nervous as the day of the tea party approached. So much so that I spent one lunch hour shopping for a new pair of trousers and a decent shirt. On Sunday afternoon I showered before dressing, smiling to myself at the thought of a sweaty oik in the midst of her Ladyship’s august gathering. I wasn’t really looking forward to the thing but having accepted the invitation I couldn’t possibly not turn up. I set out at three-thirty for the walk to the manor having decided that my car was too embarrassingly decrepit to park outside a stately home. The afternoon was warm and breezy as I followed the lane to a B road and up to the lodge gates where I turned in and walked up the avenue of beech trees to the gravelled area at the front of the house.

Baythorpe Manor had been built by the first Viscount in 1820, his title having been conferred a few years before for services rendered on the fields surrounding Quatre Bra at the culmination of the Napoleonic wars. It was three-storeyed and four-square with formal gardens to two sides and a grand portico guarding the immense oaken front door. I now stepped up to that door and rang a perfectly ordinary-looking doorbell, a little incongruous in those surroundings. I waited nervously for a minute or two, wondering if the thing worked. Then it was opened and a youngish lady with black hair and a pale complexion was standing on the threshold and saying: ‘you must be Mr Bailey. Do come in. I’ll inform her Ladyship that you’ve arrived.’

I followed her in, admiring the curve of her buttocks in her black trousers as she walked ahead of me. She stopped in front of a panelled door. ‘Please wait here, Mr Bailey,’ she smiled tightly at me before disappearing inside. A moment later the door re-opened and there was Caroline, the dowager Viscountess, smiling her wide smile and holding out her hand. ‘Thomas! I’m so glad you could come.’

I had an insane urge to bow or curtsey or something and kiss her hand but I just shook it instead, feeling her grip, light but firm. And I now had my first proper look at my illustrious neighbour. She was about five feet six or seven, it’s hard to tell when a lady is wearing high heels, with ash blonde hair cut in an expensive looking shoulder-length bob. Her hair was surely dyed, but that too had been done carefully and expensively. Her face was younger-looking than I remembered; I think the harshness of the sun at the field gate had accentuated her lines. She was, I guessed, somewhere between fifty-five and sixty, a slight looseness of the skin at her throat inclining me to the upper figure. And speaking of figures hers was just gorgeous; it would have been the envy of a woman thirty years her junior. The tight-fitting grey woollen dress she wore showed her bust, flat stomach and shapely hips to perfection. The result of a thousand years of selective breeding, I thought. Or interbreeding. Below the dress her calves, in their light grey tights (or stockings? Surely somebody that looked this good didn’t wear tights!) were long and sculpted, with slim ankles. The hand I shook was slim too, with faint brown age spots and perfectly manicured nails, varnished with a pink lacquer which matched her lipstick.

‘Let me introduce you to everybody. Well this is Claire.’ The lady who’d shown me in smiled at me again then disappeared back through the door, presumably to her duties. We walked over to the knot of people standing around the cavernous fireplace. ‘Everybody!’ my hostess trilled to gain their attention. ‘This is Thomas. He’s my new neighbour, so I hope you’ll all make him feel very much at home. Now,’ she said turning to me, ‘you must excuse me, I’ve got to discuss heaps of things with Mrs Mortimer and the Major. We’ll have a good old chat a bit later.’ And with that she left me standing there and went over to a matronly lady in a tweed suit that shouted: “country set” and an elderly gentleman in a blue blazer.

I looked around, smiling a bit stupidly, wondering what to do next. Then a lady detached herself from the group and came over to me. ‘Hello Thomas, I’m Margery Jameson. Miss Jameson talked at me for the best part of half an hour, mainly about her “good works” and the local Womens’ Institute. After ten minutes I was fiercely bored and wishing I hadn’t come. Eventually a middle-aged man in a jacket and a polo-necked jumper intervened. He must have sensed my growing despair.

‘Margery, my dear, it isn’t fair for you to monopolise this young gentleman. First fresh blood we’ve seen for years!’ He smiled at Margery as he deftly detached me and steered me to a quiet corner. ‘Hope I wasn’t intruding,’ he said, with a glint in his eye. ‘You were starting to look a bit desperate. I’m David by the way, David Brooks.’

It turned out that this was the David who knew “oodles of people in the building trade”, so we talked about my cottage and he said he’d have a word with his suppliers and, if I cared to mention his name, they’d give me a trade discount. I thanked him gratefully. That would make a considerable difference. ‘What line of business are you in?’ he asked, presently.

‘I’m an architect.’

‘Really. What do you think of this place?’

It was a difficult question to answer, in the circumstances, and he knew it, but he looked at me shrewdly and waited for my answer. ‘I’ve only seen it for the first time today,’ I temporised. ‘But…’

‘Go on,’ he said.

I took the plunge. ‘It’s impressive but it could have been done more elegantly. Some of the proportions don’t seem quite optimal to me.’

‘He gripped my arm. ‘Just what I’ve always thought.’ We talked about other things and I had the feeling that I had made a useful acquaintance.

The rest of the afternoon tea party wasn’t too bad; I talked to most of the gathering — there were no more than a dozen — and the time passed agreeably enough. At six o’clock people started drifting towards the entrance hall where Caroline was waiting to thank them for coming and to say her goodbyes. I found myself at the back of this little press of people and so was the last to offer my thanks to my hostess. She smiled that wide-mouthed smile at me: ‘we haven’t had a chance to chat, Thomas. Why don’t you stay for a bit and we’ll have a proper drink; the sun’s well over the yardarm now.’

So I loitered in the hall as the last of her guests disappeared and she shut the big front door. ‘Right, follow me.’ She led me up the big curving staircase to the first floor and along a wide, oak panelled passage, lined with oil paintings, presumably of previous Viscounts and their spouses. I followed obediently, taking the opportunity to look at her rear end and her legs, as she went through a door in the panelled wall and into a modern-looking sitting room with sofas, a huge flat-screen television and delightful views of the formal gardens and parkland through the big sash windows. ‘My little retreat,’ she explained, going to a sideboard. ‘What will you drink?’

‘Whisky, please,’ I hazarded. She reeled off a few different Highland single-malt distilleries, none of which I’d heard of, and I chose one at random. She made herself a gin and tonic and we sat down in easy chairs around a solid looking coffee table.

Caroline reached for a scruffy old leather handbag on the floor beside her chair. ‘Do you mind if I smoke? I know it’s dreadful, and I don’t have more than a couple a day, but those tea parties…’ She left the sentence unfinished. She offered the pack to me but I declined. ‘Now, tell me about yourself. I want to hear everything!’ She lit her cigarette with a gold lighter and inhaled deeply.

‘Well it’s not very exciting, I’m afraid.’ I told her about my childhood in the Midlands and school and university and how I’d played rugby for my university team and had attracted the attention of the England selectors.

‘Well, that sounds pretty exciting to me. I don’t know anybody that’s actually played rugby for England.’

‘Yes, well, I only lasted half a game, a friendly against France. I tore my cruciate ligament so badly that I had to give up rugby. So I concentrated on my degree and became an architect.’

‘Oh that’s terrible.’ She stubbed her cigarette out, giving me a sympathetic look. She’d been looking at me intently while I spoke. Not intrusively, but with an interested air, assessing me, perhaps. She stood up and walked over to the drinks cabinet and I took the opportunity for another look at her figure. When she’d refreshed our drinks she sat down again and I asked her to tell me about herself.

So she told me of her childhood — she was the daughter of an eminent Harley Street surgeon — and of her life as Viscountess Baythorpe and the things she did to pass the time: the fetes she opened, the endless committees she sat on, the tea parties and the dinner parties. ‘And it’s all so much more difficult since my husband died. One has to shoulder the burden on one’s own and it’s tiring, sometimes. Life doesn’t seem to be all that much fun anymore,’ she finished wistfully.

After the third whisky I began to feel light-headed and made my excuses. Caroline seemed to want to talk (and drink and smoke) some more but she stood up when I did and walked with me down to the big front door.

‘Thank you for coming, Thomas,’ she said, taking my hand in both hers. ‘It was brave of you! All those dull friends of mine.’ Her eyes were liquid and slightly unfocussed. ‘But I think you and I are going to be great friends.’ She continued to hold my hand and smile at me. I thanked her and gently disengaged myself and walked through the portico, down the five or six steps to the gravelled drive, aware that the door was still open and Viscountess Baythorpe was still watching my retreating figure. I half turned and waved and she waved back and shut the door.

Back at home I sat in the garden and pondered the events of the afternoon as night descended. What, I wondered, would have happened if we’d stayed in her sitting room until we were both drunk? Would I have made a pass at the Viscountess? Surely not! Would she have made a pass at me? Even more surely not. And if she had, what would I have done? She was knocking on sixty, I guessed, and I’ve never particularly had a thing for mature ladies. But she was exquisitely built… and, I admitted to myself, really rather sexy. And desirable? Yes, desirable. I wondered what the future held for me. It could, I decided, getting up and going in, be decidedly interesting, but I would need to tread carefully. If it turned out that my titled friend really did fancy a fling with her young neighbour then I must wait until she made the first move. As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait for very long.

The letter in the post a week later was in Caroline’s own hand, a graceful and sophisticated copperplate script:

Dear Thomas,

Thank you once again for coming to my tea party last Sunday. Everybody has been talking about the handsome young rugby player (yes, I’m afraid I told them) and I expect you will start to receive further invitations to tea in the forthcoming weeks. Unless you’re lucky of course!

And it is upon the subject of rugby that I’m writing to ask your help. It’s the Calcutta Cup this Saturday afternoon, as I’m sure you are aware. I used to watch this with my husband and he used to try to explain the rules to me though I don’t think he was very well acquainted with them himself, to be honest. I’m planning on watching the match this Saturday and I wondered if I might prevail upon you to watch it with me and tell me what’s going on? I know it’s a terrible imposition and it’s absolutely fine if you can’t but if you could it would be wonderful to have the veil of ignorance lifted by somebody who actually knows the rules.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Caroline

Well, I thought, there it was. It couldn’t be clearer. I thought about it for ten minutes then I sent a text message to the mobile phone number she’d supplied to say that I would be delighted to watch the match with her on Saturday afternoon and would do my best to explain the play. She replied five minutes later thanking me and saying that she was looking forward to Saturday…

I rang the doorbell of Baythorpe Manor just after one-thirty on Saturday afternoon; kick-off was at two o’clock. The Viscountess answered the door herself, explaining that there were few, if any, staff around at weekends and there were none this afternoon. ‘So I’ve been shopping for drinks and snacks myself,’ she said, proudly, seeming to forget that the rest of us did this as a matter of course.

She showed me up to her private sitting room and invited me to take off my shoes and make myself comfortable. As I’d assumed it was entirely informal, I had risked jeans and a rugby shirt. This turned out to be the correct choice; Caroline was also dressed casually in tight black jeans and a loose cotton blouse. She was, however, carefully made up, her ash-blonde hair shining, her lips and fingernails a pale pink.

‘I got some beer in,’ she began. ‘It seems better suited to watching a rugby match. I don’t know if you prefer bitter or lager so I got some of each. I’m on wine, I’m afraid; I don’t like the taste of beer.’ I opted for a bottle of a popular real ale and she poured herself a glass of a Malbec and we sat down. I noticed that the room had been subtly rearranged to place a two-seater settee in front of the television, albeit a generous two-seater. This meant that we were sitting about eighteen inches apart and I could smell her scent. It reminded me of the honeysuckle in the hedgerows in summer.

The first half was unremarkable, both on screen and off. I explained the less well-known terms like “ruck” and “maul” and explained why the referee was awarding penalties and scrums. Caroline listened intently, sipping her wine. At the break England was ahead by three points and the bottle of Malbec was about a third empty; I’d nearly finished my beer. Caroline disappeared for a few minutes — presumably the aristocracy also have to go to the toilet — and got me another bottle on her way back. I fancied that when she sat down again she was closer to me than she had been.

The second half was more exciting, both on screen and off. Scotland started the second half with a drop goal and the play was end to end then for the next thirty-five minutes. The level in the bottle of Malbec dropped to a third and Caroline became excited and involved with the play, flexing her new-found knowledge. She also shuffled a bit closer. Just before the end of the match she got up to fetch me another beer. I didn’t really want one and she hadn’t asked but when she sat down again she was right next to me; I could feel the pressure and warmth of her thigh against mine. The erection that I’d been trying to suppress for the past hour now grew unchecked and uncomfortable in my jeans. It seemed clear to me that she was making a pass at me but…

The eighty minutes was up when the English number eleven broke free and roared through the Scottish half to score a try between the posts and win the match and the Calcutta Cup. Decorum forgotten I was cheering him loudly as he ran and Caroline was screaming encouragement at the screen. The crowd at Twickenham erupted as the ball hit the ground and Viscountess Baythorpe flung her arms around me and hugged me tightly. I responded by putting my arms around her, pressing her to me, feeling her breasts squashed against my chest. The embrace lasted for about five seconds before I loosened my arms and she hers. We stared at each other, our faces maybe a foot apart, then we were kissing. Not tenderly, not in a gentle, exploratory way, but fiercely, passionately, lips mashed together, mouths open, tongue seeking tongue, tasting each other’s saliva, arms tight around each other. Then Caroline was breaking free, pulling my rugby shirt over my head, kissing me again, running her hands over my bare back, scraping her nails over my skin. I started to pull her blouse from her skirt but she stopped me by standing up.

She took my hand and pulled me up. ‘Come with me.’ I followed her through a door at the far end of the sitting room that led to her bedroom. I wasn’t noticing much about my surroundings at that point but the giant four-poster bed with it’s dark-red silk hangings dominated the room. She kicked the door shut and threw herself at me, kissing me and stroking the hair on my chest, running her hands over my abdomen. Then she broke free again and started undressing, tearing at her clothes, flinging the blouse aside, rolling her jeans down over her bare feet, unhooking her bra. I got my jeans and socks off in record time and watched her as she stripped her panties off and scrambled onto the bed, lying down on her back, legs wide open. My cock was iron-hard and seeping liquid into my underpants. I stripped them off and climbed onto the bed with Caroline. ‘Just have me,’ she breathed urgently. ‘I just need you inside me.’

Matching her urgency I knelt between her legs and found the entrance to her vagina with my swollen and purple glans. I thrust in, hoping that she really was ready. And she was: she was sopping wet and my seven inches of rigid meat went in like a hydraulic piston. She opened her mouth and gave a great groan and I saw, inconsequentially, that she had fillings in her upper molars. Then I stopped noticing anything except my cock ramming in and out of her and her breasts heaving up and down on her chest the areola dark pink, the nipples standing out. This wasn’t a tender coming together, this was a good, hard fuck.

It was a warm afternoon and I was soon bathed in sweat. It formed on my back and chest and beaded on my forehead as I thrust into the dowager Viscountess and she gasped and cried out beneath me.

Caroline came first, with a great scream, her hands slippery on my back, her nails digging in painfully. Her vaginal muscles clamped down on me and I let my orgasm crash down on me, wave after wave, jet after jet, spurting into her cunt. I think I cried out too and she said: ‘yes darling! Yes!’

Afterwards I climbed off her and we lay side by side on the bed, not touching. ‘I think we both needed that,’ she said, at length.

I turned onto my side, supporting myself on one elbow, and looked at her. She looked back, naked and unashamed. Nor was there any reason why she should be ashamed, at least, not of her body. Her figure was as good as her clothes had hinted: long, slim legs, golden-brown labia beneath a bush of pubic hair, shot with grey, taut stomach and round breasts, maybe not as firm as they once had been but better than many a younger woman. Indeed, there were few signs of her age. The beginnings of wrinkles on her upper arms, faint stretch marks on her breasts and that slight looseness of skin under her chin.

‘I presume you knew when you accepted my invitation this afternoon that I would make a pass at you,’ she said, unexpectedly.

‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘I thought you probably would.’

‘And you still came.’ She gave me a little grateful smile. ‘I wouldn’t want you to think that I make a habit of seducing younger men,’ she went on. ‘Believe it or not this is the first time I’ve had sex since before my husband died.’ She smiled that wide smile of hers. ‘I suppose you think that I should be off with one of the local worthies, closer to my own age. Well I’m not going to. The truth is that I haven’t had a lot of fun in my life for a very long time and I’ve decided that that’s going to have to change. So a young, fit, handsome young rugby player on my doorstep was a gift from heaven and far too good an opportunity to miss.’ She paused. ‘Do you think I’m awful?’

I selected my words carefully. ‘I think,’ I began, ‘that you are an interesting, sexy and desirable older woman and I am a lucky young man to have been seduced by you.’

‘Well you didn’t take much seducing!’

‘So what now?’ I asked.

‘Well, that rather depends on you,’ she replied. ‘I would like us to have a relationship. Of course it will have to be a secret relationship, I’m sure you appreciate that.’

‘Can’t be seen to be bonking the hoi polloi,’ I grinned.

‘No, you idiot, the age difference. But that aside, I think we could have a lot of fun together, if that’s what you’d like to do. And I wouldn’t expect you to be completely faithful; you’ll want a girlfriend of your own age, if you haven’t already got one. I can’t believe I haven’t asked you that already,’ she laughed.

I felt light-headed. Was the dowager Viscountess really inviting me to be her secret lover? It was like a Mills and Boon novel. But hey, she really was sexy and the more I saw of her the more I liked her. She was right, we really could have some fun together.

Caroline roused herself. ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘I’m gasping for one,’ she said, the statement sounding odd when delivered in her cut-glass tones. I didn’t want to stink of cigarettes when we first kissed,’ she explained, getting up and padding over to a table under the window where there was a cigarette packet, lighter and ashtray. She lit one and inhaled deeply and stood there with her back to me, looking out over the formal gardens. After a few drags she stubbed it out and went through a door on the other side of the room. I guessed this was a bathroom, a fact confirmed when she reappeared and scrambled back onto the bed with me smelling of smoke and toothpaste.

We kissed, gently, this time, and I started stroking her breasts and running my fingers lightly down her stomach towards her crotch. Slightly to my surprise Caroline took my hand before it reached her pussy. ‘I’m sorry Thomas, there’s nothing I’d like more than to make love with you again, slowly and properly… But I’m due at the Weatherleys for dinner in a little under one hour and I don’t just want a quick shag. The next time I want it to take absolutely hours!’

‘And when will that be?’ I asked, hiding my disappointment.

She stroked my face. ‘We are going to have to be very careful. It really wouldn’t be in either of our interests if knowledge of our… liaison were to become public. This is going to sound really awful but I think the only way it can work is if I call on you when I’m available and it’s safe to come over and if you’re available and willing then great and if not then there’ll be another time. I promise that I’ll make every effort to see you as often as I can. And before you ask, yes, I will be exclusively yours, in bed.

And that was the start of it. I went home soon after that, in a bit of a daze, and I didn’t hear anything from Caroline until the following Sunday afternoon when my phone pinged its “message received” tone.

Dear Thomas,

I’m sorry for the short notice but I’m unexpectedly free this evening (and night!). I hope you can come over. Anytime after seven-thirty would be perfect.

Caroline xxx

“And night”, I thought. Wow. I responded with my assent straightaway and then spent the next half an hour wandering aimlessly through the house examining the prospect of spending a whole night in bed with Viscountess Baythorpe.

I rang the bell at seven-thirty-one and Caroline opened the door. She was wearing a dark-green woollen dress, similar to the grey one. We kissed briefly and I followed her up the stairs to her sitting room noticing on the way, and with a delicious tingling in my stomach, that she was wearing seamed stockings. I was willing to bet she didn’t wear them outside Baythorpe Manor, so she must have dressed up especially for me. The thought turned me on even more; my erection had started growing on the walk from my house. Now it was straining at the leash.

In her sitting room she poured drinks; whisky for me and a pink gin for her. We sat sipping them on the settee for a few minutes while Caroline told me what she’d been doing over the past few days and asked me what I had been doing. She was carefully made up with dark-red lipstick and matching nail varnish and I thought she looked sensational. Suddenly she stopped. ‘This is silly. Let’s go to bed.’

In her bedroom we came together and kissed long and tenderly, a kiss of gentle exploration, tongues flicking in and out, sucking on lips, tasting each other’s saliva, running our hands over each other’s necks and backs and hips. Then we undressed each other. Very slowly and teasingly, with lots of kissing in between. I unzipped her dress and stripped it slowly down her body, revealing her black garter belt and panties. She stepped out of it and undid my shirt buttons, slipping it off my shoulders to join her dress on the floor. Then it was my belt buckle and zip and my trousers were around my ankles and she was on her knees telling me to lift a foot so she could get my sock and trouser leg off. Then I took her bra off and lowered my head to suckle her stiff nipples, making her arch her back and thrust her breasts at me. Disengaging gently she knelt and put her thumbs in the waistband of my underpants and pulled them down, my erection springing up and nearly hitting her in the face. I stepped out of my Y-fronts as she took my shaft in one hand, her slim fingers grasped lightly around its girth, her head going down and taking my glans in my mouth and rubbing her lips all around it, tasting my sticky secretions, licking the clear fluid up, licking my shaft, running her tongue up and down it then taking me in her mouth again. I stood there weakly, my legs shaking, my eyes half closed.

Then it was her turn as she stood, kissed me again, her lips salty with my juices, took her panties off and went and sat on the edge of the bed, lying back with her legs apart, clutching her beautiful, slim, stocking-clad ankles in her red-tipped fingers. I knelt between her legs and took in the sight and scent of her pussy. The outer lips of her vulva had parted to show a sliver of pink flesh, glistening with juices. I breathed her aroma deeply and lowered my face to her titled cunt, using the tip of my tongue to trace her labia up and down, slipping inside and tasting her lubrication, seeking her clitoris, hearing her gasp and moan above me. She tasted musky and sweet and delicious and I felt I could spend the whole evening there, eating her out. I put my tongue into her vaginal entrance as far as I could get it then licked slowly upwards, finding her sensitive little bud and sucking it into my mouth.

‘Stop, darling,’ she breathed, and come up here with me.’ I climbed onto the bed and we kissed again, with more urgency this time, mashing our lips together my hands on her breasts, then her pussy, sliding my fingers in; two at first then three… Caroline stopped me by clamping my hand with her thighs. She pushed me onto my back and straddled me, finding my erection, guiding it to her cunt, sliding down my shaft until our pelvises ground together, riding me gently, her fingers on my chest, her lacquered nails digging into me. I put my hands on her hips and helped her as she rocked backwards and forwards, her eyes closed, mouth half open, breathing deeply.

This wasn’t my favourite position but I knew that many women found it deeply satisfying and I let the Viscountess ride me for long minutes, her climax building slowly, her breathing getting faster and shallower. Then she started to come: the tendons in her neck stood out and she gave a deep groan and started bucking her hips backwards and forwards savagely, her nails digging painfully into my pectoral muscles. I let her ride her orgasm out, slowing down until she collapsed over me and I held her tightly, stroking her hair and kissing her cheeks and ears. Then she rolled off me and I knelt over her, parting her legs, thrusting my meat into her sopping cunt and fucking her with long, hard strokes. She cried out, her eyes wet with tears, her mascara a mess on her cheeks, her lipstick smudged, and I thrust into her ruthlessly.

I felt the tingling begin in my balls and start to spread to my cock and run up my spine so I stopped and withdrew, ordering Caroline to turn over. She scrambled onto her hands and knees before me and I took my cock in hand and guided it to her sopping twat. She groaned again as I shoved it right in and started fucking her hard, my hands on her hips. She gripped handfuls of the counterpane and I could feel her thrust back at me. I used my hands to part her buttocks to reveal her anus, knotted and puckered, a rosy-brown colour. But now my orgasm was building again so I slipped out and turned Caroline over, practically throwing her on her back before ramming myself into her again. I held her arms down and mashed my lips against hers as my orgasm crashed through me, zinging through my brain and turning my guts to jelly. I pumped jet after jet of my hot spunk into my aristocratic lover and she bit at my lips and hooked her stockinged legs over mine and arched her back to meet my thrusts.

Afterwards we lay together, the sweat drying on our bodies, breathing and heartbeats returning to normal levels. The Viscountess turned towards me and ran her hands over my chest, lightly touching the welts she’d made with her nails. ‘Did I hurt you?’

‘Well, it stung a bit,’ I admitted.

‘Sorry. I got a bit carried away. It was a very powerful climax.’ She paused, still stroking my chest. ‘Then I had a second one when you were a bit rough with me,’ she said, quietly.

‘I think I got a bit carried away too. Sorry if I was rough.’

‘Oh, no. Don’t be sorry. I… I really enjoyed it.’

We got up after that and showered and went and scavenged some supper in the big kitchen at the back of the house. I was surprised how little Caroline knew of the contents of her own kitchen cupboards but she told me that the cook and the maid did all the food purchasing and preparation. ‘Not much point in being a bloody Viscountess if you have to cook your own meals,’ she said, laughing.

After that we watched the television for an hour. Or at least, the television was on but we saw very little of it, being engaged in kissing and fondling each other. Then we went back to bed and made love again. Very gently and tenderly this time. The slowness of our pleasure and the intimacy of our kissing and touching was a perfect complement to the raw sex of earlier. I spent long minutes masturbating Caroline and she, in turn, brought me to the brink of climax with her mouth and her fingers, stroking my testicles and exploring further, running a stray fingertip over my anus. When we came it was almost in synchronisation: she started first, writhing and moaning, her vagina clamping my prick in a velvet grasp. This triggered me and I had my second orgasm of the night: less intense, but longer and sweeter and we kissed as we came and it was almost too good to be true. And after that we slept, in her big four-poster in her ancestral home.

Reality kicked back in at six o’clock the following morning when Caroline, in the nicest possible way, threw me out. ‘I’m really sorry, Thomas, but Claire gets here at seven, sometimes earlier.’ She kissed me quickly on the lips before practically shoving me through the door. ‘I’ll be in touch,’ were her parting words