The Beggar Princess

by Lidiya Foxglove

  “The table?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you didn’t set it,” he said. “As I asked you to do.” His words snapped out, tense and commanding. I was nervous of defying him now, but equally as nervous to obey him. Nervous? You’re enthralled. I climbed onto the table, the sturdy wood surface cool and a little uneven against my bare skin.

  He took one of my legs by the ankle, his fingers gripping me around the family crest embroidered there. “Don’t hurt me,” I said, suddenly unnerved. “Whatever you’re trying to do, I am still my father’s only daughter.”

  “Don’t you worry, lass. I’m going to do the opposite of hurting you. I’m not really your Lord Stormwild, threatening noble ladies with a knife…biding time before Sir Penvarin shows up to rescue her… I have no brooding stone castle to keep you in, either.” He slid his hand up my calf, my thigh. “High elves are cold. This is how we wood elves hold a lady captive. At least, this is how I do it.” I shivered, my pussy clenching in anticipation of his touch. He stopped at the top of my leg, and instead tied a ribbon around my ankle and tied the other end to a leg of the table.

  I shuddered as he repeated this with my other leg.

  I was starting to get the feeling that this was going to be a torture as slow and wicked as anything Lord Stormwild did to Lady Celeste.

  He tied up my wrists in the same fashion, and then he looked down at me. “I’d best get started on dinner, lass. I’ve had a busy day and worked up a hearty appetite.”

  I had never been so uncomfortable in all my life. I’m not sure what was worse, the hard surface and the way I was forced to hold my position, staring at the beams of the ceiling, or the desire pulsing through me, screaming for him to touch me, kiss me, take me as his wife. I hated him, smug man, sending me those letters with his pesky corrections and opinions, tricking my father into marrying me off to him, keeping me here in this state…

  And I loved him.

  He was the man I had been dreaming of, a man who would be bold with me, would make every day as exciting as it was in my imagination, would meet the eyes of a wealthy princess without the slightest intimidation at my rank.

  I bit my lip. I had already spent the entire night and day, still remembering the way he touched me last night and this morning. When he left, I had tried to touch myself, and had only made it worse. I liked this feeling of losing control, and the closer I could get to relinquishing myself, the better.

  He came in from the garden and I could hear him doing things with pots, the swoosh of grain pouring out, a spoon scraping and stirring. I couldn’t really see.

  He walked over to me with a bowl of raspberries. “Hold still,” he said. “I’ll be very displeased if my dinner should tumble onto the floor.” He carefully put one on each of my nipples. And then he put a row of them from my neck down my stomach, down my pelvis. He adorned me like a piece of art, each one placed the same width apart as the others. When he had drawn a line of raspberries down my entire body, he took my bud between his fingers and began to slowly roll it between them.

  “Oh…” I gasped, wanting to arch my back, but then I would send the raspberries tumbling onto the floor. I tossed my head instead; I had to do something. His touch was torturously slow and firm, his fingers a little rough. He kept it up longer than seemed necessary or bearable without altering his rhythm or speed, just stirring my body bit by bit, like I was climbing a mountain with hobbled feet. Every step brought me close to the summit, but it would take so long that I might die.

  “Jack, please,” I gasped.

  “Already ready to beg for mercy? I’d be disappointed if you broke that quickly, lass.”

  “No,” I snapped back, annoyed at myself.

  He resumed that same motion—god, no, not more of that—and I said, “But—but—”

  He looked at me and I went silent. I could only breathe, each breath on the brink of a gasp, each breath like a plead all on its own. After another moment, he finally stopped and took a step closer to my face. He gazed down on me, his reddish hair softly lit by the warm light. His elven features seemed a little uncanny. He stroked my hair back from my forehead, more fond than I think he meant to be.

  “You can’t fool me,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I am no beggar,” I said. “Even now, you serve me.”

  His nostrils flared. “We’ll see about that.”

  He returned to the fire, stirring again. I shut my eyes, still struck by little aftershocks of his touch, hungering for his warm hand.

  He stalked back over with a bowl and a spoon and before I knew what was happening, he dumped a spoonful of hot orange mush onto my stomach, some slop of winter squash and millet.

  “Ow!” I cried, although it wasn’t actually burning hot, it was just unpleasant. It was one thing to be draped in artistic formations of raspberries that I anticipated him removing from my skin in a most delightful way. It was another thing to have him slog peasant food onto me.

  “Couldn’t even be bothered to set the table,” he said. “We’ll see who serves who.” He put a pat of butter on top of the mess and then took the crock of honey and drizzled it all over the squash, and then down, smothering my cleft until I could feel it dripping it off me.

  “What kind of meal is this, anyway? Squash and honey and raspberries? Who ever heard of such a thing?”

  “I was not putting much consideration into the recipe. And yet, it may just end up being the best meal I’ve ever eaten,” he said, picking up a spoon. “The serving platter only adds to the experience.” He scraped the spoon across the edge of my stomach. It tickled and my abdomen clenched; I didn’t want to laugh.

  “The serving platter is ticklish,” he said. “Laugh if you like, just don’t disturb those raspberries.”

  “Or else what?”

  “You won’t have any dessert.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Don’t you?”

  I chewed on my lips, trying not to react.

  He slid the spoon between my nether lips, getting some of the honey onto the tip. He ate all the squash and millet this way, the spoon sliding carefully along my stomach and then, its firm metallic ridge digging carefully around my clit, keeping me stirred. This occupied him for a few minutes. It felt like forever. I trembled and grimaced and made unwilling sharp sounds that were not quite laughter. When I twitched too much, he put a heavy hand on my thigh until I went still.

  “Now, then,” he said. “You’ve done well.”

  He walked to the end of the table, standing between my legs, and leaned down to my pussy. My anticipation was unbearable as his tongue slid between my folds. I started to lean into him, and one of the raspberries tumbled down my stomach. He stopped and caught it, popping it in his mouth. “What did I tell you?”

  I stiffened, with some fear of what he might do, but he went back to lapping up the honey, my juices mingling with the sticky sweetness of it. With slow strokes, he cleaned it all away, thorough as a cat, each drag of his tongue sending me closer to bliss. His fingers tugged idly at the garters of my stockings. His tongue thrust inside me, teasing my tender entrance. It had been too long since my dalliance with the captain of the guard. I felt tight and untouched, but he woke me slowly. I stopped feeling the hard table at all. I was floating.

  He must have had the strongest tongue in all the realms, for it seemed as if he fucked me forever, but his tongue couldn’t fill me the way his cock would. My body was growing impatient to be sated more deeply. I pumped my hips, signaling to him without words that I wanted him to be mine.

  He put a hand on my pelvis, stilling me. “You’ve disturbed more of the raspberries,” he chided.

  “How can I not? Jack, I want you…”

  He nibbled gently on my clit, and I writhed with sweet agony. He had drawn me out for so long, for two days now, when it came down to it, stretching me thin enough to snap. He took my bud deeper into his mouth and sucked on it and I cri
ed out, “Oh, god!” as I started to feel the stirrings of a powerful climax. It was building into something so deep I wasn’t sure death itself could be more of a surrender. I had never wanted anything so badly in my life, had never felt such bliss. Nothing I had ever demanded or been given, not all the gowns and trinkets I had ever possessed, had been half as sweet as this. I shut my eyes.

  And then he stopped.

  My pussy was so wet and swollen, aching with desire beyond words, and he stopped and walked over to the hearth and then—I was twisting my neck around wildly to try and see him—he went out the door.

  I was breathing frantically, shivering from sudden cold. I had been seconds away from what was going to be the sweetest moment of my life and he was gone.

  He came back in with water from the well, took a napkin and wiped the remains of the meal off my stomach. I stared at him. I was a little speechless. He knew damn well what he’d done.

  Just as I was starting to cool down a little, he teased the napkin around my folds. Lightning bolts of joy shot through me every time he brushed my swollen bud.

  “Please—please—let me come. Jack, please! You wanted me to beg? I’m begging you now!”

  “I wish I could, lass…but every person should have a master. Some answer to a god, some answer to a parent, some to their king, some merely to an ideal. But you have answered to none but yourself. Until you find a master of your own, I shall play the role.”

  “Who is your master, then?”

  “You’ll know soon enough.”

  “You’re a learned man, but you know how to cook and—”

  I had to cut off, as he bit one of the raspberries that still covered my nipple, his teeth clamping down on my sensitive flesh. He sucked on my nipple and then moved to the other, while he pinched the first nipple between his fingers, now wet from his mouth. He swirled his tongue around the one. My core was still hot with pent yearning and this was worse than anything, leaving me cold and lonely between my legs while the tender ministrations to my nipples sent signals there.

  His tongue traced a line from my breast to my throat, and he kissed my lips sweetly, tasting of raspberries, honey, and my own lust.

  “I want you as the waves want for the shore,” he said. “How long would you like me to torment you, my stubborn girl?”

  “Jack…I beg you. I want you. Please.”

  “Ah, it won’t be that easy. If you had cleaned the cabin, when I came home, I would have had time to catch us a rabbit. We would have had meat for dinner and shared it together. Instead, I was weary and you had eaten all the oat cakes. Do you not understand? I want you to be a happy woman, and write your books, but some things in life must be done. If you do everything I tell you to do tomorrow, I’ll fuck you so hard that you’ll never think about the captain of the guard ever again.”

  I almost smiled. “I think you have already accomplished that.”

  “I’m serious,” he said. “You must work.”

  “I know.”

  He untied my hands and feet. I was free, but not free at all. I didn’t even move at first. My body felt like a mere vessel for him, unable to do anything but wait for him to take me, and instead he was turning away.

  I shoved myself upright.

  He handed me a shift and dress, a peasant gown, dyed a rusty brown with laces at the bodice. I yanked the shift over my head. I could hardly think straight.

  “I’ve brought you a gift, however,” he said. “Despite my better judgment.”

  He handed me paper, a bottle of ink, and a quill. “I imagine Lady Whittenstone has a lot to think about,” he said.

  Chapter Eleven

  Princess Bethany

  Indeed, I wrote that night until my hand cramped. Suddenly, I knew where I needed to go with the new story, how to breathe life into my formula. My head was a whirl of desire and confusion.

  Finally, Jack sat down across from me. “Perhaps you’d better stop and come to bed.”

  “I can’t stop,” I said, but I put down the quill. I looked at the pages. In the morning I would have to see if they were actually good.

  “Will you read them to me?” he asked.

  “Not now.”

  “When they’re completed to your satisfaction, then?”

  I flushed. “I’ve never read them aloud to anyone before.”

  “Reading aloud helps pass the long winters around here,” he said. “It is certainly one of the finer points of modern civilization, aye? You might write better dialogue if you did.”

  “You don’t like my dialogue?”

  He slid out of his chair and came around to me, taking one of my ink-stained hands in his. “I love your dialogue,” he said. “Still, there is room for improvement. Your characters declare things quite a lot.”

  I paused. I already knew that when I read this to him, he was going to have suggestions about changing things, and it was going to make me fume. But no one had ever taken an interest before.

  “Maybe,” I said, “after I look it over tomorrow, I will read it to you.”

  “Come to bed.”

  I hoped sleep would dull my lust, but instead I was conscious of his warm body beside me. I wanted to press against him, feel him closer.

  I woke to his hand gently stroking my breast, and I was instantly aflame again. I turned to him, curling into his arms. I felt his hard sheath beneath his trousers. He must be as tortured as I was.

  “You’ll be a good little princess today, aye?”

  I nodded.

  He took my hand and pulled me out of bed, onto my feet. I was used to waking up slowly and letting my ladies dress me, then sailing over to the breakfast table, but I knew that peasants had no such luxuries. And I was a peasant, at least for now. What I would be by the end of the week, I didn’t know, for I still didn’t know who Mr. Elmwood actually was. But I was starting to trust him, even without knowing, strange as it was.

  He gave me a litany of instructions on the various cooking implements and how to use them, how to manage the fire and keep the food—or myself—from burning, and how I should cook eggs and porridge for our breakfast. I was already sick of oats, but that was what we had to eat. I didn’t dare complain.

  I made the porridge as he fed the chickens and tended to some chores outside.

  Not as easy as it sounds. The fire was so hot on my face that despite the chill of the day, I was sweating. I fumbled and fussed with the iron arm that moved the pot in and out of the fire’s heat. I wasn’t sure what porridge ought to look like while it cooked. It seemed to be sticking to the pot. Was it done? Should I add more water or remove it from the fire? At one point, I unthinkingly touched the handle of the pot. It was hot from the fire, and I instantly snapped my fingers back. The pain of a burn hit me seconds later. I sucked my red fingers, using curse words more fit for laborers than princesses.

  Well, now I understood why laborers cursed more than princesses.

  When Jack came in, my face was sweating, my hair hung in limp strands, and I had a pot of gluey oats that were burned on the bottom of the pot.

  “It’s horrible,” I said. “I can’t do it.”

  “Nonsense. It’s food and we’ll eat it. You’ll do better next time.”

  He barely seemed to notice, but handed me a small basket of eggs.

  By the time we sat down to eat, I was overheated and sullen. I didn’t care how good and noble it was to work. I hated it, plain and simple. I poked at the horrid oats. Even honey couldn’t make them palatable.

  “What a face,” he said.

  “I’m sick of oats.”

  “After two days?”

  “I never eat such things at home. Pots of mush! And I’m hot and tired and heaven knows what else you have planned for me.”

  “Cleaning up the table. Scrubbing the floor. Apple picking, and get the sauce going, as I said. Weeding. Nothing too terrible. I’ll spare you skinning rabbits or cleaning manure.”

  Nothing too terrible?

  He went out to hun
t, and I was left to kneel my bony knees on the hard floor, my arms straining as I scrubbed. I was achy and miserable, my pretty hands turning red, and I kept looking at the paper and quill.

  I had written that scene last night, but now my mind was spiraling into even more ideas. Perhaps my heroine had been a noble lady, but thanks to some bad fortune, she had lost everything, and was forced to work as a maid in the home of a mysterious lord. The girl was so pretty that although she was but a maid, he could hardly tear his eyes from her while she was scrubbing the floor. But at night, she hears screams. What were they? The ghost of his dead wife? No, I had said I wouldn’t do ghosts again.

  Maybe the maid looked like his dead wife, and when he started to fall in love with her against his will, the spirit of the dead wife would try to possess the maid. Were possessive spirits the same as ghosts? Different enough, I decided. It sounded exciting.

  Somehow or other, I was sitting at the table writing away, vaguely aware that Jack might return any moment, but I had to get this down.

  The door swung open. I had filled five pages by now.

  Jack looked at me. He looked at the half-scrubbed floor. “Where are the apples?” he asked.

  I said nothing.

  He had a small game bird in hand.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I wrote. I had to. I had so many ideas. I—”

  “No apples,” he said. “No applesauce.” He dumped the bird on the table. “Pluck it.”

  I recoiled.

  “You’d rather eat it with the feathers on?”

  “N—no, I—”

  “When I was a boy,” he said. “My father made me take my own chamber pot down to the slops. He made me shovel my horse’s shit. He made me sew my own buttons onto my clothes. And whenever I cried and pleaded, he said he would sell me to the beggars if crying was all I was good for.”

  “Your father sounds like an ass,” I said.

  “My father wanted me to know what makes the world go round,” he said, although his look said he did not quite disagree. “Otherwise, how can you rule?”