Page 7 of Lady Mariel’s Scandalous Love

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Dash carefully brushed the dust off the surface of the book in his hand. It had been packed at the very bottom of the crate that he was currently working on – a crate of items obtained some years ago. He had forgotten its existence, until he had lifted it from the crumbling wood shavings today.

He took it to the table, where the rest of the crate’s contents were stacked, and dropped into a chair to look through it. As soon as he opened it, the memory came to him of the day that he had found it. He had been in a small town in the South of Italy, on a warm summer’s day, and had wandered into the shop which faced onto the town square. The front of the building seemed fairly small, but within, there was a veritable warren of rooms, going back into the hillside which the building nestled against.

Inside was a cool respite from the sun, and, as his eyes had adjusted to the dim light, he had wandered further in – and discovered a corner packed with books. He had been unable to resist going through them – who knew what one might find in such a place? His instinct had been right – under a tumble of old farming almanacs, he had discovered treasure.

And also utter frustration.

For the book that he now held again, which he had found in that shop, was in Russian. The pictures within it were erotic, explicit, and very much in the Persian style – but the entire text was in Russian. The shopkeeper had shrugged, and declared himself unable to read Russian either – ‘but the pictures Signore – was not it worth having for the pictures?’

Dash had agreed that it was. Now he studied it again. Just as he had then, he most desperately wanted to know what the text said. For whilst the pictures were reminiscent of the Persian style, they were pictures that he had not seen before, in any other book. Which suggested to him that the text might also be an erotic piece that he had never seen before. And that meant that, compulsive as he was about such things, he most desperately wanted to know what it said.

Where on earth would he find someone to translate it for him? Someone who read Russian well, and was of a suitable temperament not to be utterly shocked by the content of what they were translating. It seemed improbable that he would ever find such a person, in England. He ran his fingers gently over the surface of an illustration, then sighed, and closed the book.

Stacking it with the other books he had unpacked that day, he lifted the stack, and carried them to the room he had designated for books, tucking them neatly onto a shelf. Perhaps he should stop for the day, and do something else. Finding the Russian book had left him feeling out of sorts. A visit to Fortescue Grange might help – some conversation with Alex, and reminiscences of their time in Italy, should cheer him. And maybe, if he was lucky, Alex would know of someone who spoke Russian, and was hard to shock.

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Mariel deposited the armload of books on the table, and dropped into the chair beside it. She had taken to using this small room, which had a door both to the hallway, and directly into the library, as a sort of office, for her exploration of interesting things she had found, as she dug through the furthest corners and highest shelves of the Fortescue Grange library.

It was the same room that she had waited in, that fateful night, listening with interest until the right moment arrived for her to ‘discover’ Selina and Alex in a very compromising position in the library. Every time she came in here, the memory resurfaced, and she envied Selina more.

She brushed the dust off her skirts, then reached out to lift the first book off the top of today’s pile of finds. This one did actually seem to be somewhat scandalous – a novel, which was intensely focussed on the pleasure that a gentleman might get from disciplining his wife. There were no pictures, but the text was most definitely explicit, and her face heated as she read it. It raised some very interesting questions for her – it implied, very directly, that being punished – spanked, or caned, or similar – by a gentleman, could cause a woman to become aroused.

She would have to look into that – was it mentioned in other books? It seemed, at first, to be improbable… yet… most things written in books had some grain of truth in them. She set it aside, and selected the next book. This one was, ostensibly, an anatomical text – but a text written by a person with a singular obsession for the female form.

Each book was intriguing, and increased her fascination with the sexual acts, and the way that people thought about them. She really needed to find a man she cared for, soon, so that she could explore such things in infinite detail! It was all utterly intriguing, and this library was turning out to be a treasure trove for her. But, sadly, so far she had not found even one book written in Russian.

As she lifted another book, this one a medical treatise, explaining how physicians might treat various female ailments – which treatments often seemed to bear a remarkable resemblance to the sexual act – voices came to her from within the library.

She had not shut the door completely as she came through, for her arms had been occupied with the books, so it stood a little ajar, allowing the sound to reach her. At least one of the voices was Alex’s, she was sure. She should shut the door, or leave the room – but curiosity won over propriety, as it so often did for her. She had not meant to eavesdrop… but now that she was here…

She stilled completely, and listened. The other voice… she had definitely heard it before – Lord Longwood, perhaps?

“Have a seat, Dash. The fire is pleasantly warm, in here, and the armchairs the most comfortable in the house. I’ll pour us some brandy. You look rather worn, if you don’t mind me saying so – is there a problem?”

Mariel heard the clink of the stopper being removed from the brandy decanter, then the distinctive sound of liquid being poured. She wished that she could see the two men, for Lord Longwood’s delay in answering seemed odd.

Eventually, though, his voice came again.

“Not a problem really. An annoyance, more like. I am still unpacking the collection – I did not realise just how much I’d collected, until I got back, and saw all the crates stacked in the East Wing. Today, the crate I was working on contained mostly books. Half of them I’d forgotten about – I bought them, packed them, sent them off here, and went on with my life in Italy.”

Alex gave a snort of laughter, before speaking himself.

“And that’s the annoyance? Your own… overenthusiastic… collecting?”

“Only partly – It’s a delight, mostly, discovering these things all over again. People are just so damned ingenious, when it comes to these matters. But today’s annoyance is caused by one book. I bought it in some tiny mountain town in southern Italy – God knows how it found its way there, but when I discovered it, it was half buried in farming almanacs. It’s beautiful – some of the best illustrations I have seen, in any of the books I’ve collected – very much after the Persian style.”

“And that makes it an annoyance? I wouldn’t have thought so – after all. Persian illustrations are usually rather…”

“No, no, no. It’s not the illustrations that are an annoyance – far from it. It’s the text. The damn thing is entirely written in Russian. I’ve never seen those illustrations in any other book, so I suspect that the text is also unique to this one – and I can’t damn well read it. More than that, I don’t know anyone who can, who might translate it for me.”

“Ah, I see. That does present rather a challenge, doesn’t it?”

There was silence for a moment.

Mariel’s heart was beating so hard that she wondered that the men in the other room couldn’t hear it. A book in Russian. That was what Lord Longwood had just said. From his words, she had no idea what that book was about, beyond the fact that it was part of his mysterious collection, but that seemed almost irrelevant – it was a book in Russian, and she craved seeing it, holding it, reading it.

Lord Longwood spoke again, his tone rather dispirited.

“I don’t suppose that you know anyone who might help, Alex? Someone who speaks Russian well, reads it well, and isn’t… easily shocked… shall we say?”

“Sorry, Dash, I can’t say that I do. There are a couple of the high sticklers of the ton – women, mostly – who have Russian relatives, but I don’t know them well, and they are, most definitely, not the sort of women you’d want to expose to that sort of material.”

“I was afraid you’d say something like that. Ah well, I’ll just have to keep looking – one day, I’ll find someone, I’m sure. Or maybe I will find a book in English, or Italian, with the same pictures.”

Their conversation turned to other things, but Mariel had ceased truly listening. Her mind was locked onto the idea of the Russian book in Lord Longwood’s collection. A book that she could, she was sure, translate for him – no matter what topic it covered. She just had to find a way to subtly let him know that she spoke Russian. That should be all it would take, surely?”