Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2012 09:55:30 +0200 From: Amy Redek Subject: The Countess of Lark. Part Nine. This story is for persons of eighteen years or over. All comments, good or bad, are welcome and all will be answered. Part Nine I guessed that Stanford passed the word round to the staff what I had said to him, for I kept getting small smiles and lots of bows and curtsies from the Hall's staff for the next few days. One day, I suppose I would get round to telling William, when he's older, that he could've been a prince and not an Earl. But on reflection, there were a lot of prince's in the world and not that many Earl's. Malcolm was a bit taken aback when I told him, a few days later, that I had refused the offer from Prince Rupert. Why? Was the question he asked. `Malcolm, I'm not the marrying kind,' I said, thinking of our favourite phrase we use to each other. `My marriage to Trevor was one of convenience, his I might add, for he knew that I liked a hard cock as he did, and he didn't put any restrictions on me in that field, only that I was discreet.' `What will you do now?' he asked. `Take whatever comes along, as long as it's long, hard and full of vigour like yours,' I said with a smile in my voice, `but marriage, no. Bye the way, what are you doing this Christmas?' `Ah, now there you've got me. I'm afraid I've already made the plans for this coming Christmas. There's a special party being laid on for me in Belgium, so as much as I would like to be with you for the festive season this year, I cannot,' he said, and I'm sure I heard a tinge of regret in his voice. `Never mind for I'm sure that something will crop up for me to see to,' I said and after wishing him goodbye, hung up. * Nothing did crop up and I was without a man right up until Christmas. I had mum and George over to celebrate this time of year and see the grandchildren open their presents from Santa Claus. But before that day, Christmas Eve to be precise, being without a man since the Prince, I talked George into going out for a ride in the dog cart. It was cold this winter and because of this, mum declined the ride, which I knew she would. I think George had got the message when I pressed his hand when I did the invite for a ride. We were well wrapped up and went down to the stables were the small horse was already between the shafts of the cart. We boarded and I made straight for the fishing hut and tethered the pony to a tree and took George inside. He lit the fire while I poured us out a port and brandy and we sat on the bed until the hut warmed up before I took my outer clothes off. `I think you've guessed that I've got an early Christmas present for you,' I said as I began to take his outer clothes off, for the room was now quite warm. `I'm hoping it is what I think you were alluding to when you said that we should go out for a ride,' he replied, not stopping me from helping him off with his top coat. `It is,' I said, beginning to rub the front of his trousers. `I haven't had a man for months now and I really need to feel and have a man such as you inside me.' You can see that I wasn't at all bashful about coming forward when I knew what I wanted, and George was the only man around that would be able to give me what that was. It was with feverish haste that we got the rest of our clothes off until we were both naked, and though he was nearly twice my age, it didn't bother me for his prick was up and hard, sticking out from his thighs and he gasped when I took the head of it into my mouth. I got a few sucks on it before he fell backwards onto the bed in surprise that I should attack him so quickly. But he didn't hang about as I fell onto the bed with him and rolled over onto my back and begged him to get himself inside and fuck me. I think he was over the moon in what was again, his third if my memory is right, of him having the pleasure of having his hard cock once again up inside me. It was great to have a hard male cock back up and moving inside as he fucked me, having been without for so long. But his eagerness was too apparent as he came far too soon for me, holding me tight as he humped away as he came inside me. I nearly cried for not having an orgasm at this coupling with him, but knew that I would have one with the next session of having him inside me. But for the moment, just after he pulled out of me, I was sucking on his cock and at least getting a taste of his semen. It was a good hour of him sucking and playing with my tits while I played with his dick until he was hard again. This time, with him mounting me again, I finally managed to keep him moving inside and bringing me up to my release before he came for the second time He was quite happy with this extra Christmas present and I at least had had my bit of pleasure at having him fuck me. I just hoped that he still had it in him to not disappoint mum in their bed that night. I'd had the various notables of the village up to the hall over the Christmas period, hoping that Malcolm had a good time, wishing that he had been available to visit. So after Boxing day, I had the car take mum and George back to London and I was once again left on my own with just the children for company. I restrained the impulse to phone Malcolm for I didn't really want him to know just how desperate I was getting for the want of a man, but then sod's law came into play. It was mid February when I took a call from Malcolm saying that he'd found two likely candidates to see to the library and stay on to be a tutor for William. `What about the seeing to me?' I cried over the phone. `That's for you to decide,' he said with a chuckle. `There's no harm in seeing them. You can always say no to them. Look. They are both widowers though one is forty years of age and the other is somewhat younger, twenty six. Now what dates are you available to interview them?' `Anytime.' `Good. Now I'll get them sorted out to come up to Cambridge on the morning train and, well, I think they should stay overnight, just in case. Then your driver can drop the first one back the next day to collect the other one.' He paused for a moment and I could hear the riffling of some paper. `How about the Tuesday and Wednesday of the last week of February?' `Fine by me,' I said. `Any chance of knowing their names first?' `Oh sorry. The forty year old is Richard Gere and the other is named De Caprio.' `What!' I exclaimed aghast. `Joke Magenta, a joke, sorry, a joke, no, the first is John Wheatcroft and the other is Peter Hanson.' `I'm surprised you didn't dig up Doctor Moreau or Doctor Jekyll,' I said with a shaky laugh at the names he'd first given to me. `You're more of the Jekyll and Hyde,' he said with a chuckle. `Well see them and if neither of them fit, I'll try and find some others.' `Was that an innuendo, if either of them fit?' I asked. `After you Malcolm, they all would fit, as you put it.' He gave a laugh and promised to ring back to confirm the times of arrival at Cambridge station. This was done and it was with some trepidation that I waited on the appointed day for the first of these men to arrive for the interview. John Wheatcroft was a stocky man and looked older than he really was. It was only small talk over lunch until we had coffee in the yellow room where he told me of his qualifications. Adding that he didn't think he would ever get to be a headmaster at his school in Guildford and so was going out into the private sector as he called it. His wife had died ten years previously and it was a new start and place that he was looking for. His manners at the table were acceptable and he had a nice smile, good teeth and, well, he wasn't that bad looking either. But it was that evening that turned me off of him. He'd been put in the room adjoining my sitting room and I observed him through the lattice grill from there as I watched him come from the bathroom wearing pyjamas and get into bed and pick up a thick book which looked like some history tome. It was the pyjamas that turned me off I think, not counting the glasses that he wore to read. I was affable at breakfast and promised that he would be informed in due course if he would be offered the position of historian, as I called it in regards to the library, and that of tutor later to William. I saw him off to be taken back to the station and for the car to wait for the second applicant. Peter Hanson duly arrived, younger and looking a damn sight fitter than the last one as I greeted him on the steps. Copying the first one, it was small talk during lunch before the interview that began over coffee. He'd been widowed eighteen months previously, his wife and daughter being killed in a car crash when out shopping. An out of control car had ploughed into theirs, the other driving getting four years in prison for dangerous driving, which wasn't any consolation to him, he said in a bitter tone. He had, and still was, living in the same quarters attached to the college where he was then teaching, but said that he now felt so lonely being in a place so full of memories that he wanted out to start again, in a new environment and put the past behind him. With that out of the way, he was pleasant company and used the right cutlery at the dinner table and was quite up to date on events. It was a really nice dinner and we said our goodnights and he went into the same room next to my sitting room. As with the other one, I watched him through the grill, come out of the bathroom wearing only a towel. He went first to his small grip and came back towards the bed carrying what looked a photograph, which I assumed it to be of his late wife and child. I gave a stifled gasp when I saw him lay it down next to the bed and saw that it was actually a picture of me, naked. One that had been used by Trevor for his exhibition. Then I was astounded at what came next. He took off his towel to reveal that he was quite well endowed in the lower regions and he pulled the two pillows down lengthwise on the bed and laid out the towel lower down, his cock rising up till he had a lovely big cock standing out proud from his thighs. He then put the photograph down on the bed where the pillows normally went and then got onto the bed so that the pillows were under his chest. His erection was then lying up on the towel and underneath his stomach. His arms went round the pillows and as he gazed at that picture of me in all my naked glory, began to move himself up and down on the bed while he looked at it. He was fucking the bed, hugging the pillows and I'm sure that he was, in his mind, having me beneath him as he masturbated himself in this fashion, fucking me by proxy as it were. The cheeks of his arse were clenched tight together as his movements began to get faster and at the last minute as he started to come onto the towel, picked up the photo and kissed it as he groaned, his body shaking as he shot his load. Christ, I thought. The man loves me! God, he would have shat himself if he'd known that I was watching him give out this display of his need and desire of me. I was sopping wet between my thighs and found that I was actually frigging myself and came, having my orgasm just after he had his. I also found that I had also bitten into the fleshy part of my hand, stifling my own cry at my release in the watching of him having his. That was enough, for he was definitely going to be the man in mine, or his, bed in the very near future. I was going to make that secret wish of his come true and I would then have that lovely cock I'd seen, up inside me for us both to have the pleasure of a glorious fuck. I even frigged myself again later in my own bed and had another orgasm though it took longer this time and gave me a wrist ache. I was careful with my make-up the next morning and wore an old dress that was a bit tight across my chest but was able to show a good amount of cleavage. He couldn't keep his eyes off my tits during breakfast and apologised for leaving the table early to use the toilet. No doubt to jerk himself off to get rid of the erection that I'd noticed when he'd risen up to leave. I said goodbye to him on the steps, telling him that he would be informed if he could have the position or not in the very near future. Let him sweat, was the thought in my mind, but he was the one that was going to get the job. * I phoned Malcolm later that day and told him that I would be taking on Peter Hanson but he was not to say anything but let him wait until he received my letter. I got a chuckle from him before we broke the connection. Two letters went out that weekend, one saying no and the other, yes. Now I fully expected that Peter would have stayed on at the college where he was until the summer break, the end of the school year, but no. He broke off from the college at the mid-term break. He told me later that he caused quite a stir by giving in his notice before the summer but they had nothing in the way of a contract for keeping him for the whole period till the summer. I too told him that there would be no contract between us either for each of us would be able to say enough was enough and we could part as employee and employer. So it was only six weeks later that I got the phone call from him saying when he would be arriving at Cambridge station. I went wet at this, knowing that within the next few weeks, we would be lovers, and we were. But I'm jumping the gun slightly. The car collected him on the due date and he arrived at the Hall. I introduced him to Stanford and the staff, saying that he was there to continue the work that Alexander had started and would afterwards be the tutor to William, and hopefully, carry on with Alexandra later. He was to be treated as a guest and given the same courtesy as befitted anyone else who visited the Hall. Stanford gave me a small smile when he was told that Peter's room would be the same that Alexander had occupied. Nothing was secret from him, and I smiled back at him, both of us knowing what the other was thinking. Dinner was lovely as always and I let Peter settle in first, though I had Norman get our Shetland pony, that had been given the name of Wendy, harnessed up to the dog cart, which he'd been training her too ever since she came to us, ready after our breakfast the following morning. Peter showed me that he wasn't lacking in a gentlemen's skill in handing me up into the dog cart that morning, addressing me as m'lady as did the others. It wasn't till I'd flicked the reins and had Wendy take us out from the stables to start a run round the estate that I spoke to Peter, man to man, well, you know what I mean. `Peter,' I began as we were pulled out into the fields. `You will always be called sir by the staff, as I am called "m'lady", but when the two of us are alone, please call me by my name, Magenta. In front of the staff or guests, I'll accept m'lady, but not when we are alone.' `Er yes, m.., er, Magenta,' he stuttered. Oh, how he didn't know that I was going to make his dream come true. But not yet, for the ground had to be well seasoned before the plough was put to work. `I don't want us to become just an employer and employee, I want us to be friends, for I sure do need one at this moment.' I glanced at him sitting opposite me, moving his bum a trifle for I could see that he had more than a friend idea in his mind, the shifting was to make his erection a bit more comfortable inside his trousers. `As you've seen in the library, there's still a lot to be done there and when, or maybe not, you'll take over and begin to tutor William, the future Earl of Lark Hall.' `I must say er, Magenta, that the Hall in itself is magnificent as...as...' `Finish it Peter,' I said with a smile. `Forgive me, but as...as you are,' he finally got out, his face a lovely rosy colour. `Well thank you Peter. You yourself are,' pause, `quite handsome looking too.' Making him go even redder in the face. `Were only taking a short excursion over the estate today, we'll do more later when you've settled in for I'm sure you can't wait to get your hands on something more worthwhile,' I said, giving myself a mental slap for making these innuendoes. He was still blushing when he said that he couldn't wait to start. * I made him wait a week, no, I'll be truthful, it was me that couldn't wait any longer. He'd set to work with a will that first week, emptying the first cupboard, listing the contents, in a chronological order before putting them back, saying that the upper shelves could be done later to fit in with what he would find in the cupboards. I told him not to rush what he was doing and was pleased to find that he'd previously had some experience in horse riding, and so made sure that he came out with me for at least an hour for those first couple of weeks, making it longer as the weather improved. He was treated with respect at the dining table, which pleased me and had told the staff that he was to be treated the same as they had done with Alexander. He was quite gay at the table, do not confuse that word with him acting like a homosexual, please. He was witty and I found that he had a sense of humour and quite knowledgeable in many things, belying his age. Nature played her part in my seduction of him by giving us a lovely thunderstorm one night, just after a week of his arrival at the Hall. The rain was lashing it down and the thunder was quite close to us, judging that there was a very short lapse between the lightning flash and the crash of the thunder that it caused. I waited in the sitting room that evening, wearing a loose fitting gown until one loud crash and shot into his bedroom and bounced down onto his bed, him sitting up reading at the time. He was startled at my sudden appearance and bouncing down next to him. `Peter! I'm frightened. Hold me please! Make me feel safe,' I cried, flinging my arms round his neck, giving out sobs as I nestled my face into his neck and shoulder, loving the manly smell of him. His arms had automatically come up to hold me, the book he'd been reading, discarded. `Thunder and lightning has always frightened me,' I said as I held him close, his arms now tight around me. My gown now having come loose in my movements. I could feel his arm against my breast but didn't know if he was aware of it. I cringed and trembled at the next crash and worked my way more onto his bed in the process, falling back so that he was now lying on his side with an arm trapped under me as I looked up into his face. `Hold me tighter and kiss me and tell me that I'm safe here,' I said in a frightened whisper. His expression was hard to read in that brief moment as he looked at me before bending his head and kissing me. The front of my gown was now fully open and I felt the slight hairs on his chest rub up against my rising nipple. The kiss was wonderful, not passionate but then, not one between brother and sister either, but a little toward the former. `I've always been frightened by the flash and the noise and it's been a long time since a man held me in his arms,' I said. I watched his Adam's apple move up and down as he swallowed. `It's been a long time since I held a beautiful woman in my arms too,' he said in a hoarse voice, kissing me again but with a bit more passion this time. His un-trapped hand was just half round my waist and I grabbed it and to put it up to the tit that was on that side to him. `Feel my heart pounding!' His hand now fully grasped my tit and began to massage it as he gave out a groan and I felt him shift in the bed. A glance down told me that the covering sheet was hampering his erection that was trying to tear through the cloth. He shifted his body even further across the bed, getting onto his side and at the same time, I moved too so that I was more on the bed than off of it and was now able to lie on my back, keeping hold of him to now half lay on me. In doing this, the front lower half of my gown had come open and I took his hand from my breasts and pushed it down to my stomach as I kissed him back. I think he knew then that I wanted him for his hand briefly stroked my stomach before going further down for him to put his fingers over my now wet sex. `Oh Peter,' I breathed in between kisses. `Oh Magenta,' he sighed as he felt my wetness and had his fingers move up inside me. `Oh Magenta,' he said again as I pulled him more over onto me, now feeling his erection pressing itself hard up against my thigh. With me opening my legs was enough to tell him that I wanted him inside of me and he gave out another groan and pushed himself fully on top of me and let nature take its course. That being his lovely hard cock sliding up the flare path to enter my hangar, that safe haven for any craft or missile. It was lovely to once again have a lovely big prick enter me, filling me with love and joy and the promise of bringing me to an orgasm. I loved the thrill of being enlarged with a male organ, to feel it throb and pulsate within me, the weight of man on top, crushing my breasts with his chest. I was almost there in heaven again, nearly, but not quite, yet. `Oh Magenta. I shouldn't be doing this,' he said, breathing the words into my ear as he paused on top of me. `Why not,' I gasped, waiting for him to move and start fucking me. `I'm supposed to be just an employee,' he cried. `Not now you aren't,' I got out between gritted teeth. `With where you are now, you're becoming my lover.' `Oh Magenta,' he cried, again. How many times was he going to use those words. `This is what I dreamed of,' he said as he finally began to move himself for me to feel his cock start what it was supposed to do and that was to fuck me and give me the pleasure of having sex once again. Too soon! Too soon, my mind cried out as he began to buck and hump me, thrusting himself into me quite forcibly, I'm not there yet! But he came in shuddering bursts, me feeling each spray of his sperm as it hit my insides. I nearly cried that he hadn't waited. But the rational part of my brain took over and explained that he'd fantasised over this for I don't know how long and with his dream coming true, it would have been like trying to dam the Niagara falls in full flood. But at least, the first hurdle was over and I knew that it would be even better the next time after he'd rested for a bit. `Oh Magenta. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to have taken advantage of you like this,' he panted as his chest heaved against my breasts. `For Pete's sake Peter,' I exclaimed and went into a fit of giggles at what I'd said. `Will you stop prefacing my name with the exclamation "Oh". Besides, I'm glad that you did. I needed the relief,' I lied, `as much as you did...,' cutting off from adding what I'd seen of him earlier in fucking the mattress while looking at my picture. `No!' I cried out as he moved himself and felt him slide out of me. `No what?' he asked as he flopped over onto his back. `It...it's nothing. It was just that I was feeling quite comfortable with you on top of me,' I said, and had to struggle to restrain myself from moving straight down the bed to suck on his still hard cock. `It...it's been such a long time since having... a man since my husband died.' `That makes two of us,' he said in a choking voice. `I...I haven't been with another woman since...since my wife died.' I saw tears in his eyes, loving this almost strange man for not only having lost his wife but child as well and my heart went out to him and rolled over and kissed him with real passion, hoping that he would give himself fully to me as I was willing to give myself to him. He was crying now for his lost wife and I was crying for my lost Alexander, and so we cried ourselves out for our lost loves. But in spite of that, he was still a man with the basic instincts of one to soon become fully aroused again by having another beautiful, willing female in his arms again. This time he was a gentleman and not a rutting animal and leaned on his elbows as he fucked me and brought me to my desired orgasm before he came, though only a close second in that race. I was once again a happy fucked bunny and I just hoped that he would prove to be a real buck and fuck his doe as often as he could. His morning erection was a sight to feel and hold and got him to cover me again and give me another orgasm as he ploughed his way inside me, taking me back to heights that I'd thought I'd lost. Both of us coming at the same time, crying out our joy at the pleasure and relief that sexual intercourse gives you. `Oh, ah..er..Magenta. I, er, thank you and hope that I haven't abused the trust that you have in me,' he stuttered after he had pulled out of me, much to my chagrin. `Let's get this straight Peter,' I said, propping myself up on my elbow, breasts quivering, my heart thumping at seeing his subsiding cock begin to shrivel up. `You wanted to fuck me and I wanted you to do it. We've now gone and done it and I hope that we can do it more often, if I don't take too much out of you that is,' I said with a grin. `We've now broken the ice and I hope that you will still want to dip into the well you've just drilled, for I definitely want you again. Now...' I broke off because of the knocking at the door. `That's our morning coffee. Now,' I began again. `If you don't want me after having had me, let's say goodbye now instead of dragging it out. I want you to stay and be of service, in more ways than one,' I giggled. `Will you stay? Now having had all that you've dreamed of?' `Oh yes Magenta, I'll stay. I'll stay as long as you want me,' he replied, his eyes shining. `Great,' I said, giving him a kiss on the lips. `You won't be sorry. Now let's get some coffee.' I got out of bed, grabbing my gown and dragged it through to the sitting room where I poured us both out a cup of coffee, glad to note that he'd entered the room as naked as I was. I drank my coffee straight down, hot as it was, needing that shot of caffeine. `Shower time, getting dressed and I'll see you downstairs for breakfast,' I said as I went off to my bedroom and the shower. I sang in the shower, happy as a lark could be at Lark Hall. How fickle is the heart for I felt that I was in love again and I'm sure, no, most definitely, knew that Stanford noticed my exuberance at the breakfast table for I got that smile from him again and knew that he knew that I'd gotten my oats during the night. Peter never noticed this for which I was grateful as he behaved impeccable during the meal and addressed me as m'lady in front of the maid and Stanford. He then went off to the library after breakfast and I went to my study humming that Carpenter's song that I was on Top of the World. * Peter was not a horseman in the proper sense. He ridden before but not what you would call a proper horseman, so I gave him Pisces to ride while I got astride Pegasus. This was only in the afternoons and I also got Norman to teach him more of how to ride properly. Spring was with us and I remember once quoting to Abe, that American marine Negro I'd once fucked, along with his mate Joe. Spring is sprung, the grass it ris, I wonder where the birdies is? Well I was now the lark of Lark Hall and loved being out in the open air with my new man cantering alongside me, though he mounted me more than the mare during the summer. We spent many hours in the summer house where the late Earl William used to fuck me in those winter days before he died. We used the same sofa to frolic and fuck each other and even went skinny dipping in the river, cold that it was, even at the height of summer. Peter would rub me down with a rough towel, making me glow all over on the outside and then had him fuck me and make me glow on the inside. It was there that I did something that his wife had never done and that was to give him his first blow job. We'd ridden down there and tethered the horses to let them graze and I poured us both out a drink and pushed him down onto the sofa as I went and sat down between his legs. Well I did ask you right at the beginning of the first book (Magenta), it was you who was to say what I was. A slut? A nymphomaniac, a whore? The choice was yours, but there, being between the legs of a man, I couldn't resist the urge to pull down the zipper of his trousers and put my hand inside and pull out, not a rabbit, but a piece of the male anatomy that I loved and almost worshipped. The action of my pulling down the zipper started his hormones to react and it wasn't quite limp when I brought his penis out into the open air, but within seconds, it was a hard bar of flesh. The hard and solid muscle, encased in that silken sheath of skin that felt as though it had been dusted with baby powder. It moved so easily when you used an up and down motion with your hand, feeling the tautness inside, feeling every vein. Seeing the rose red head that emerged from the foreskin with every downward movement of your hand, the eye winking if you squeezed. The more you moved your hand on it, the colour of the head would turn from that rosy red colour, going through various shades that you'll never find on a colour chart. From pink, in its flaccid state going onto the rose and then a deeper red and it slowly going even deeper into purple as the blood suffused it, making it even harder and you could feel the increase of the owners heartbeat, forcing this blood round to keep it up hard and ready to be of service. If you were lucky, you could also get that excretion that comes out of the eye of the male penis before copulation, that is as clear as water but tastes just like honey. The other way was to bring him erect and let him subside again before beginning again to bring him to an erection and then you would get this small bead of nectar that was finer than any honey that all the bees in the world couldn't produce. I was lucky this first time of what I was going to do for him. That shining little pearl quivering at the opening of the eye of his erect penis was there for me to lick off and savour. If only I could get more of this to come out of a man, I could have made a fortune in the selling of this nectar of the gods. Peter gave out a shiver as the tip of my tongue roved over the eye of his cock, taking that lovely pearl into my mouth before taking the whole red purple coloured fiery head into my mouth. He gave out a gasp and felt his thighs tighten as did his hands resting on the top as he felt the heat from my mouth fully surround his prick head. I had him in a constant state of shivering, trembling and even getting groans of what I assumed was either pleasure or ecstasy as I tongued and teethed the raw flesh as I sucked on him. I was also using my hand at the base of his shaft as I worked my head up and down and round that head of his inside my mouth. There was no way he could stop his own body reactions to mine for he was soon going rigid and had his hips start to move up to meet my downward head movements. It was a copious outpouring that came into my mouth. Not in one go, but in surges, the first being the more prolific, filling half my mouth with his semen. More coming with every upward thrust, shooting out to join the rest, lesser in quantity and force, but lovely in taking it this way. It took six pumps of his hips till he'd given me all that was there and my mouth was awash with his sperm. I moved my head, not letting go of his, only to find that he had his eyes closed at having this experience, so it was just a case of saying, in the mind of course, round the mouth, teeth and gums, look out stomach, here it comes. Then swallowing the whole lot. The sucking and licking of him clean took a couple of minutes but then had him pulling me up and kissing me, oblivious to the fact that my lips had just been round the head of his cock. He was over the moon with me having given him that wonderful, as he said, the most wonderful experience of his life. That night, I got him to go down on me. * But during these summer frolics with my new man, I had the birthdays of both William and Alexandra to see to. William now being four and Alexandra two, and gave them a party in the hall. Because of the ages, I kept the guests, that being some children from the village and from the Hall's estate, to be under the age of six. Even so, we still had fourteen children attend, with one parent each. The latter were giving tea and things from a side buffet as the children had the usual jellies, custard, cakes as well as funny hats, streamers and those whistle things that had a curled bit of paper at the end that flew out straight when it was blown, making noises similar to someone passing wind. Only one male parent attended, the wife having sprained her ankle the day before, him being the vicar's son, who had sherry instead of tea. The party had started at three and come five o'clock, the table having looked as though a bomb had hit it, was the mess, but all the children seemed to have enjoyed themselves and all went home with a small present themselves. Malcolm had sent up two lovely presents which I kept back for later as I didn't want them destroyed on the first day of them getting them. He sent them every year and was still around twenty years later to take the place of Alexandra's father to give her away on the day of her wedding, but that's too far into the future to relate here. He kept having his annual meeting at the Hall and those two nights that he stayed over, I would be in his bed instead of Peter's. I would travel down to London at least three times a year and would spend a couple of days there, especially taking in a Sunday so that I could spend the whole day with Malcolm, most of the day in his bed. The rest of the year it was either in Peter's bed or him in mine. He was now taking on the task of tutoring William, putting back the cataloguing of the library, and between you and me, I don't think he's ever going to finish the task. * * * All comments, good or bad are welcome and all will be answered. Send them to >adultreading@gmail.com< or my website >adultreading.es<. I can also supply where my other books are listed with nifty.org who would also like contributions to keep them supplying books like mine.