A Gentlewoman's Dalliance

By Portia Da Costa

London, 1890.

Mary Brigstock and her husband have no difficulty maintaining the passion in their marriage, but even the most ardent lovers crave new experiences. When Mary tells the Ladies' Sewing Circle that she wants her husband to spank her, their worldly hostess arranges exactly what she desires: the services of an expert disciplinarian who can teach the Brigstocks how to make their wicked fantasy a reality....

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Apr 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781460813881

Portia Da Costa

Portia Da Costa is a British author who has lived and worked in West Yorkshire, in the north of England, all her life. She began her writing career almost by mistake, when she was asked to write a story for an artist friend to illustrate. A librarian at the time, and a voracious reader since childhood, Portia had never considered becoming an author, but not one to shun a challenge, she took up her pen and wrote her first-ever piece of fiction, a melodramatic tale of the doomed romance between a mortal woman and an unusually handsome and nondecrepit zombie. The story was rubbish, of course, but Portia enjoyed the creative process so much that she resolved to learn how to write properly. After a number of years writing purely for pleasure, Portia's first published story appeared in 1991, and was about a sexy ghost this time. Since then, she's gone on to write well over a hundred stories for magazines and anthologies, and she's also produced almost thirty novels across a variety of genres. Although she's written gentler tales in her time, she's known best of all for her sizzling-hot erotic romances, and her steamy contemporary Suite Seventeen, won the 2007 Romance B(u)y the Book Best Contemporary Erotic Romance Award. Chance of a Lifetime, a November 2008 SPICE Brief, was Portia's first-ever work for Harlequin Books and represents the fulfillment of a long-cherished dream. Her very first attempts at writing for publication were category-length semisweet romances targeted at Mills & Boon. None of these early efforts was successful, but Portia's deep yearning to write for the world's best-known romance publisher has never waned. Portia is a now full-time author and lives in a small, typically Yorkshire town with her husband of many, many years, and also the three beautiful cats they both adore. When she's not writing, she likes to read, just generally chill out and watch television. A lot of television. She also loves to spend time online with cyber friends at her favorite writers' message boards and on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Among her other interests are art, fashion and popular science, and she also shares her husband's passion for the military history of World War Two. Portia loves to hear from her readers via her email: [e-mail]

Book preview

London, 1890

Mary Brigstock and her husband have no difficulty maintaining the passion in their marriage, but even the most ardent lovers crave new experiences. When Mary tells the Ladies’ Sewing Circle that she wants her husband to spank her, their worldly hostess arranges exactly what she desires: the services of an expert disciplinarian who can teach the Brigstocks how to make their wicked fantasy a reality….

Part of Portia Da Costa’s Ladies’ Sewing Circle series.

A GENTLEWOMAN’S DALLIANCE

Portia Da Costa

www.millsandboon.com.au

Contents

Begin Reading

London, 1890

Mrs. Mary Brigstock looked around at the familiar faces of the Ladies’ Sewing Circle, her expression half a smile and half a frown. Who among their number shared the foible that preoccupied her? Surely someone did. Certain Circle members were daring, to say the least. Incorrigible, even.

You look perplexed, Mary, remarked Mrs. Prudence Enderby, one of those most qualified for the label of daredevil. Her expression was shrewd and her eyes narrow as she hacked away rather ineptly at the Madeira cake and handed around unladylike doorsteps on dainty china plates. Surely you’re not experiencing any difficulties with Mr. Brigstock now? I thought you and he were lovebirds reborn nowadays?

Mary blushed furiously. Her friend was quite correct. Why, only this morning there had been an instance. Mr. Brigstock had woken some considerable time before the maid brought up their tea tray, and proceeded to put his fine morning cock-stand to excellent use. Mary’s heart fluttered inside her corset just at the thought of it, as did another region of her anatomy, the southerly portion that lay within the lace-trimmed confines of her drawers. Dearest Leonard had plowed her most enthusiastically and his efforts had made her squeal and moan with pleasure as the birds had welcomed the dawn outside with song.

Oh, we are, Prudence, we are, Mary admitted, crumbling her already ramshackle slice of cake between her fingertips. When she’d first joined the Sewing Circle she’d been painfully shy, and half-afraid of the bolder members of the group, and some of that early prickly nervousness still lingered in her. It had taken her quite some time to come around to the naughty, free-speaking and free-thinking ways of Prudence, but more and more she was shedding her inhibitions.

It’s just that I’ve…well…I’ve developed a yen to try something new…a foible, shall we say. Mr. Brigstock is anxious to accommodate me—in fact, most eager to satisfy my desires—but he does have one or two slight misgivings.

Oh, Mary, you rogue, whatever is it? Prudence chuckled and waggled her eyebrows.

Pink-faced and thoroughly overheated, Mary wished that a jug of well-iced lemonade had been served alongside the teapot full of hot oolong. Memories of this morning’s excellent bedroom endeavors had turned her blood into hot treacle, and in the warm weather, her chemise was moist with perspiration and sticking to her. Some of the ladies were shockingly acute where matters of the bedroom were concerned, and it suddenly felt as if Prudence, at least, was well aware of Mr. Brigstock’s dawn performance and the way Mary had writhed and yowled with the pleasure of it.

But before she could stammer further, Lady Arabella Southern cut in. Oh, you’ll just have to use your feminine wiles on him, my dear, the peeress advised archly, before launching into yet another colorful tale of her own persuasive powers. "Why, my dear Horace was a bit reluctant