Notebooks of the Young Wife by Tara Black

rubbed the spilt semen into the floor with the sole of a shoe.
    ‘Hey, boy,’ I hissed, pulling him back from the door, ‘you’ve got some nerve! I ought to put you across my knee and give you a good spanking.’
    He twisted out of my reach with a chuckle then turned round on his way out. ‘Yes please, Miss. Later.’ I leaned weakly against the wall, with little heed of who might come and find me there. Suddenly it was all too much excitement for one day, for the expression on the boy’s face had been utterly serious.
     
     
Perverts Two
     
    I pulled myself together with the realisation I had no idea how to find my way around. But I managed to make it back to the Hall where all traces of the ‘welcome’ had been removed, and was glad to find its rigours already fading from my mind. So much so that when I saw the maid Laura passing by – she who had kept such a tight grip of my right arm – I was able to hail her in quite a matter-of-fact way to ask for her help. She pointed out where the books were to be found behind a door off the lobby, then showed me to the pair of rooms we had been allocated on the first floor. The mullioned window in mine commanded a view of the ornamental garden, and the furnishings were a large bed with a carved headboard and a heavy wardrobe also equipped with shelves. I felt at home immediately under the low ceiling, and was soon soaping under a warm shower in the compact bathroom.
    When I emerged I checked the guest quarters opposite, but there was no sign of the PA, so I went down to take a first look at the library. It was a well-appointed room, with upright chairs around a polished table and deep armchairs by the fireplace. I wandered around finding whole sets of Dickens and Thackeray, to say nothing of a complete shelf of three-deckers, a large number of political biographies and a whole section devoted to the locality: its history, geography, flora and fauna. There was even a substantial astronomy collection housed between the two windows that included atlases and detailed charts. Someone had been, and relatively recently, a stargazer. Some of these things might have been the means of whiling away a wet afternoon in the country, but none of them was even remotely connected with the cause of our being at Ardingley End in the first place.
    Just then the door opened and Tamsin appeared looking a little flushed. ‘Sorry, I got held up.’
    ‘No problem. Are we sitting comfortably yet?’
    ‘A lot better now.’ The expression was almost coy and there were definite spots of colour in the cheeks. I began to suspect the strapping in the kitchen had not been the end of it. ‘But how about you? Was it bad?’
    ‘Sheer bloody hell. But it’s right what they say: a birched bum soon mends. Or words to that effect. So I’m fine. All I need now is someone to tell me where they’ve hidden the dirty books.’
    ‘They’re in here,’ she said, going over to a small door in the corner, and led me through into another book-lined room that was about half the size of the one we had left. I pulled down a volume at random that proved to be Millet’s L’Escole de Filles of 1668. We possessed a slightly tatty copy, but the one I was holding was in pristine condition. On the next shelf was The Serving-Girl: Her Morals and Discipline , a rare anonymous text dated 1725 that I knew of only by reputation. It was a promising start.
    ‘There’s about five hundred of them, at a rough estimate,’ offered Tamsin, opening up her laptop, ‘and then there’s that little lot.’ She pointed at a counter against the far wall that was piled untidily with box files, some spilling their contents.
    ‘Oh dear. And have you chanced upon anything resembling a catalogue?’
    ‘Nope. Matilda – I mean Mrs Jencks – says there isn’t one as such.’ I let the slip go by without comment thinking I could probe later if I wanted. ‘However, there is a list of additions up to eighteen hundred or thereabouts. And