Miss Quill is amenable and experienced but has a blot on her history

Lucy stood outside Miss Quill's door, listening through the noise of the railway carriage moving on the tracks, until she was reasonably certain that Hawkins was not actively paying his sweetheart a return visit. The image of Hawkins' prick entering the stout, plain clerk from the rear between her broad pink buttocks had stayed hauntingly in her mind. That had been Jeremy's favorite way to take Lucy, bent over in front of him in a closet.

Lucy rapped at the door. "Miss Quill, it's Lucy ... Netherwood," she said, uncertainly tasting her new name. "I have a question which speaks to your professional capacity as a clerk."

Miss Quill, pink-cheeked, ushered Lucy into her little closet of an office, letting Lucy take the chair while she perched on the writing shelf. In the close air of the little office, Lucy scented the grassy odor of male emission and the musky summer hay of feminine heat. Hawkins had continued to completion, though perhaps interrupting their congress before spending within Miss Quill's womb.

After some pleasantries, Lucy turned to her point of business.

"I have come into the possession of a country estate, and will need help reviewing the household accounts," Lucy said. "Would your competencies include the keeping and checking of account books?"

"Why yes, ma'am," Miss Quill said. "I worked as a housekeeper's assistant before I joined the railway, helping her with the books when her eyes were beginning to fail her. I enjoyed learning how things were kept in order."

"Did you leave the household with good report?" Lucy asked.

Miss Quill hung her head. "No, ma'am," she said. "I sat the exam for the railway clerkship and joined without reference."

"Would you share with me how you left your household?" Lucy asked.

Readers are encouraged to offer a suggestion in the comments for Miss Quill's circumstances of departure. -Author