The descriptions for most of these short stories are unchanged from their original pitch to the editor. I sent her seventeen one-sentence ideas and she flagged the ones she liked the most.
For this one, the stand-in was meant to be a footman. By the time I wrote it, I was looking further afield (pun-intended) for my settings and trying to bring more personality to my characters than ‘an earl.’
This brought me to Cornwall and an interest in antiquities, which was prevalent at the time. I made the potential stand-in the estate manager because I wanted him to have some standing in his own right. He doesn’t have to have sex with his boss’s wife. He wants to. Very much so.
I then had to think about why a man would want to watch another man make love to his wife. That sent me down a rabbit hole of erectile disfunction throughout history. Spoiler alert: Society was not kind to men suffering impotence. It was one of the few grounds for divorce and there were public trials. Another spoiler: physicians were not very competent in treating things like mumps.
That’s why Henry and Lucretia proposition David. For his reaction, you’ll have to read the story. Enjoy!