A Most Immoral Woman by Linda Jaivin Read Free Book Online

Maysie…’
    ‘I like that.’
    ‘Oh, look,’ called Morrison, as they came upon the others, ‘here we are. Hello.’
    It was hard to say whether Mrs Ragsdale, Dumas or the two servants were more relieved at their return. All were too frozen to complain. As the little group straggled back to the Six Kingdoms, only Mae appeared as fresh as if the evening had just begun.
    Morrison, head still spinning, had just changed into his nightshirt when he heard a soft, insistent rapping on his door.
    George Ernest Morrison had had considerable experience of forward young women in his two and two score years. Saucy Pepita, devastating Noelle, naughty Agneth. Three nameless Scottish tarts who allowed him to sprinkle their bodies with brandy and soda one memorable night whilst he was studying medicine in Edinburgh. The harlots, grisettes, bad girls and worsewives of a dozen countries. But nothing had prepared him for Miss Mae Ruth Perkins, who looked like a lady, was every bit a woman, but took her pleasure like a man. And whose charms, he already sensed, would prove more addictive than opium.

In Which the Sun Comes Up on a New Era in
Morrison’s Life, a Scandalous Conversation
Ensues and Our Hero Accepts an
Invitation to Ride
    Morrison gazed upon the sleeping form by his side. The room was dark, the moon having set. He listened to the rhythm of her breathing and watched the slow dance of her curves under the satin quilt. Her head was tilted to one side, her chin doubling slightly in repose, her long hair fanning out over the pillow. Under heavy, tasselled lids her eyes rested, guarded by the thick natural crescents of her eyebrows. Even asleep, those lips seemed to smile at some private entertainment. He felt all of his repressed longings fold themselves around her shape. Brushing a lock of hair from her cheek, he inhaled her musk of perfume, perspiration and sex. He described all this to himself, a correspondent in love.
    ‘Mae,’ he whispered, ‘it’ll be dawn soon. They mustn’t find you here.’
    Without opening her eyes, Mae flattened the palm of her hand against the top of his head, urging him down towards her thighs, via her breasts.
    Time passed memorably. He was well pleased with himself for having had the foresight to pack several ‘riding coats’. Fashioned from the oiled and stretched intestines of lambs, they were not much protection from the pox. But they were fairly reliable at preventing what was known in polite society as an ‘interesting condition’.
    Outside the window, the sky began to shimmer with a premonition of dawn. Morrison slid under the warm quilt to bury his nose in Mae’s bosom, occasioning all manner of delicious gasping and squirming. With great reluctance and greater willpower, he finally pulled away from her and sighed. ‘We mustn’t get caught. I don’t want to cause a scandal for you.’
    ‘Don’t worry, Ernest, honey,’ she said, snuggling close again. ‘I am perfectly capable of causing my own scandals. I have been doing so since I was seventeen. Don’t look so alarmed. You remind me of my father when you look alarmed and that won’t do at all.’
    He winced at the comparison. ‘What scandal did you cause at seventeen?’ The journalist in Morrison required information. The man in him wasn’t sure he really wanted to know. Morrison had been relieved that she was not a virgin. Yet he would prefer not to discover that she was a tart. Even when it was a patently absurd presumption, he preferred to think that a woman had flowered uniquely under his tutelage.
    ‘Oh, it was all rather silly. It happened about eight or nine years ago. The Daily Examiner reported that Fred Adams, who was in Oakland society, was to marry a divorcee who called herself Miss Potter. Can you imagine, a divorcee !’ She threw her hands up to her face, her eyes and mouth perfect circles of mock horror. ‘Well, the paper would report that he had met this unsavoury creature at a gathering I had hosted. My