The Persuasion of Molly O'Flaherty

by Sierra Simone

  Copyright © 2015 Sierra Simone

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. References to real people, places, organizations, events, and products are intended to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real.

  Cover by Date Book Designs 2015

  To the women in Sierra Simone Books—

  you guys are the only reason I come out of my cave.

  Trigger warning: Part of Molly’s story features wrestling with a nonconsensual sexual event in her past. As a survivor of sexual assault myself, I’ve done my best to treat this topic sensitively and with our modern conceptions of consent in mind, but please be advised that some of these sections may be difficult to read.

  Not many men sail to France with a black eye. But then again, not many men fight with Molly O’Flaherty and live to tell the tale.

  I leaned against the deck, smoking a cigarette and watching the waves roll past the ferry, churning and frothing against the sides. I could go down to the saloon and enjoy a glass of port before we reached our destination, but even though the journey from Dover to Calais was short, I didn’t much fancy the idea of spending it with inebriated strangers gawking at my black eye.

  No, better to be alone in the dark, where I could lick my wounds in peace.

  The problem was that I knew exactly where things had gone wrong. I knew where I’d crossed the line from occasionally fucking Molly O’Flaherty to falling in love with her. And that line had appeared when I’d found her sobbing in her parlor on Monday morning, tears glinting off her cheeks, her red hair lit like fire by the winter sunlight.

  She was so achingly beautiful and so achingly alone, my stubborn Molly. And the moment I thought the word my, as in My Molly, it had hit me with hurricane force.

  I loved her.

  And in the matter of three short days, I’d managed to fuck it up so irreparably that there was no other choice but for me to leave the country. I would probably never see her again.

  And after what I’d done, that was the best thing for her.

  I flicked the cigarette into the cold, choppy water and went down to the saloon to get drunk.

  Eight Months Later

  “Are you really sure you want to go?” my brother Thomas asked.

  We were outside the Provençal villa Thomas and his wife Charlotte had rented for the year—a year that was likely to turn into two, given Thomas’s general state of contentment and Charlotte’s swelling belly. They were working on the sixth Cecil-Coke baby, little usurpers I liked to call them. Each one held a spot between me and inheriting Coke Manor, and I reminded them periodically of this—like right now, when I had little Henry pinned to the ground and was tickling his sides mercilessly.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” I told Thomas over Henry’s squealing laughter, and then I bent down and pretended to eat his chubby little cheeks. “I won’t stop until you promise I can live with you when I’m old,” I warned my nephew.

  “I promise! I promise!” Henry squawked.

  And then—ambush. Arms around my neck, arms around my waist. Soon I had four Cecil-Coke tots wrestling me to the ground, and I was subsequently vanquished, my hair pulled and my pockets robbed of the penny sweets I kept there for just such instances of raiding.

  “I’m defeated,” I declared, flopping over dramatically onto the dry, sweet-smelling grass. “I’ve been destroyed. By tiny monsters.”

  Giggling, the children scampered off. I sat up, smiling, and dusted off my clothes.

  Thomas regarded me from his chair, where the fifth Cecil-Coke was snoring soundly against his chest. “Then again, I think I see now why you’re so eager to set off.” His voice was dry, but he was mostly joking—we both knew how much I adored my little usurpers.

  “It will be better this way,” I said. “I’ll go and handle the family business in London, so you can stay here in your lavender-scented bower.”

  Thomas thought I was leaving to act as his proxy in some legal affairs across the Channel—which technically wasn’t untrue. I was planning on doing those things. But he didn’t know about the letter from Julian Markham in my breast pocket, a letter I’d unfolded and refolded and unfolded again countless times over the past two days.

  A letter about Molly.

  “I hope I can come back before Charlotte has the child,” I said, standing up. “The tiny, squinty, sleepy part is my favorite.”

  The four older children burst out of the back parlor and onto the patio, running past us straight into the gardens, making for the vast lavender fields below. They were jostling, arguing, and laughing, and my chest twisted.

  “Actually, I think every part is my favorite,” I said, and my words weren’t joking or light-hearted. They were heavy with longing. I wanted this—this, with the happy screams and the constant noise around the dinner table, and the way Thomas and Charlotte looked at each other like there was no other person they wanted more in the world. The way they gathered together by the fire on chilly nights, the way Thomas and Charlotte always woke up with piles of children in bed, no matter where all the children were put the night before.

  I wanted a family. I’d wanted one for some time. And fuck, if that wasn’t unsettling. Because people in my circle didn’t want families. They wanted freedom and money and infinite amounts of leisure time bled free of responsibility. I used to want those things too.

  I’d been corrupted. Corrupted so thoroughly that I was in danger of becoming a good person. But I also wasn’t an idiot. I knew I’d never have what Thomas and Charlotte had; there was no way I was capable of that kind of selfless, pure love. I’d proved that to myself—and everybody else—eight months ago.

  But maybe, just maybe, fate was giving me a chance at something else.

  Thomas was watching me as I thought, his thick eyebrows pulled together. “You know, it’s time you thought about starting a family of your own.”

  I gave him a weak smile. “I’ll think about it.”

  “I’m serious, Silas. You slept your way through England, and then you slept your way through half the Continent, and now you’ve slept your way through le Midi. And you don’t look any happier for it, at least not since you came here. Surely you can find a nice English girl that will make you content?”

  “You know me,” I said, getting ready to leave, “one English girl alone would never keep me satisfied.”

  But an Irish one might.

  The thought came out of nowhere, unbidden and unwelcome, and I banished it immediately. If there’s one thing I’ve tried to carve into my soul these last eight months, it’s that:

  I.

  Was.

  Not.

  In love.

  With Molly O’Flaherty.

  It took a couple of days to get to London, a couple of dusty, windy days with the July sun burning into my skin as the Channel ferry took me back to the sceptered isle. I reread Julian’s letter as I boarded the Dover-London train, skipping past all the usual letter-writing pleasantries to the only part I could think about.

  …As for Molly, well, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the word is that her company’s board has finally unveiled their plan for making her heel to their whims, something they’ve been trying to maneuver for years. They’ve declared that they will leave the company and sell their shares to
the next-largest competitor if she does not marry within six months. Moreover, they want this man to be someone they personally approve of.

  Naturally, this has sent every wealthy and connected dolt to London in order to woo both the company board and her. One can only imagine how furious and lonely this has made Molly…

  I stopped reading, folded the letter back up, and leaned back in my seat, pinching the bridge of my nose.

  Molly was in trouble. And not just any kind of trouble, but the kind where she was being forced to marry. Even though I didn’t love her, not one bit, not at all, the thought of her standing in a church with any man other than me dug a knife into my chest. It was easier leaving her last year, if any part of it could be called easy, when I’d imagined she would remain unattached and alone forever. That if I couldn’t have her, then at least no other man would either.

  So this mass audition of potential husbands was, in the words of Edward Rochester, a blow.

  A very strong blow. To my naked heart. With a blunt instrument.

  Which was, of course, how any friend would feel about any other friend being caught in a web of misfortune. It didn’t mean anything special that I suddenly couldn’t think about anyone other than Molly. It didn’t mean anything special that I hadn’t been able to sleep the night I had read Julian’s letter, that I had tossed and turned in my bed, tormented by the memory of sky-blue eyes glittering with pain.

  I should go to London, I’d realized that night, staring at my brother’s French ceiling. I should use this chance. To help her and to help myself with one single, golden opportunity.

  And maybe, in the process, set things right between us. The only problem with that being that I had been the one to set things so very, very wrong in the first place.

  Molly and I had known each other for years—almost a decade—and we’d kissed and fucked and frolicked like mad across Europe and back into England…no different than anyone else in our group. But then Julian had gone and fallen in love, and something had changed for all of us. I couldn’t describe it properly, not even to myself. I just knew that it was some sort of malaise, some kind of apathy, where what used to be fun and playful had suddenly grown dull. Was there a limit to how many beautiful women a man could fuck before he got bored? Five years ago, I would have said never. But now, after seeing the fierce, magnetic love between Ivy and Jules—someone who I never thought would fall in love again—I didn’t know anymore. Because whatever they had was palpably vibrant and intoxicating, and no amount of strings-free fucking would come close to that.

  Molly had seemed to sense it too, or maybe I was projecting, but after the first time we’d met Ivy and seen the tense string of connection between her and Julian, Molly had started to withdraw. Into her business, into herself, and I only saw her a handful of times last summer, usually in passing and always in groups of people. Broken-hearted, people said. She’d always secretly loved Julian. It’s no surprise she wants to avoid our crowd.

  But I wasn’t sure. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I would have said that she had been pulling away from me.

  And then came that fateful day.

  My hand went to my eye, as if about to probe a bruise, but the bruise had been gone for eight months now. Molly hadn’t said that she never wanted to see me again, she hadn’t said that she would never forgive me, but I had assumed all that was implied when she struck me.

  And I hadn’t said I’m sorry. I hadn’t dropped to my knees and begged for her to forgive me, because I had assumed all that was implied when I’d let her strike me, when I’d turned away and left England.

  I changed trains at the outer edges of London, settling in for the short ride to the station near Piccadilly Circus. And that’s when I heard a familiar pair of tinkling laughs.

  I turned to see Rhoda and Zona walking towards me down the aisle, the swaying motion of the train barely perturbing the movement of the graceful creatures as they made their way to my row and sat down in a flounce of expensive silk and lace.

  “Ladies,” I greeted them, taking their hands to kiss. “What marvelous luck to run into you on my first day back.”

  “Silas!” Rhoda exclaimed with a smile. Both she and her sister were studies in pale—pale skin, pale blond hair, pale gray eyes. They looked like twin Nordic goddesses, tall and beautiful, and I felt a familiar tugging in my groin as I remembered the last time we’d been together. Mercy had been there that night too…

  At the thought of Mercy Atworth, my mood simultaneously darkened and lightened. Mercy Atworth was part of the reason I’d left the country, part of the reason behind my black eye all those months ago. She was also one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met.

  Somehow, as if reading my mind and its tangled, depraved thoughts, Rhoda announced, “Oh, here come Mercy and Hugh.”

  I turned, my heart closing with something like panic while my dick started to stiffen, as if the two organs were controlled by different brains. What were the fucking odds? On this train, on this day, at this particular hour, that I should run into the one singular reason why Molly and I fought, why Molly and I never became a we or an us.

  Which is a good thing, I reminded myself. You don’t love Molly. Maybe you never really did love her. It was a moment of weakness, a moment where you confused friendship with something more, and you should thank Mercy for proving that to both of you.

  Mercy Atworth smiled at me as she came closer, her black hair piled in rich coils on top of her head, her long eyelashes fluttering as she looked down and then up at me. Mercy was beautiful in a very physical sort of way; every feature and every curve could have been lifted entirely from a classical marble statue. But there was something about the secretive press of her mouth and the hooded veil of her eyelids that really made a man (or a woman) take notice. It was like she held ancient, esoteric knowledge, and she wanted you to come discover it inside her. She was seductive and silky and eager to please, and all of a sudden, I felt like Silas from last year, carefree and intent on fucking someone immediately.

  Our gazes locked, and for one ridiculous moment, I imagined that I was staring into a pair of blue eyes instead of brown ones. That a different woman was walking toward me with that sultry smile on her face. And then I wanted to scream at myself. I came back because of Molly but not for Molly.

  I came back with a business offer.

  I wasn’t in love with her.

  At all.

  Hugh Calvert handed Mercy into the seat next to me while he continued to stand. Like the sisters, Hugh was tall and blond, but in a rich, buttery sort of way. I’d never liked Hugh very much. He was a viscount—the only titled one among our set other than Castor Gravendon, whom we usually called ‘The Baron’—and even though we all had money to spare, there was something in his demeanor that indicated he felt slightly above us all. But Molly had liked him, and what Molly said went, at least for Julian and me, and so he’d become permanently fixed in our circle—for better or for worse.

  “Silas,” Hugh said coolly. “Back from France, I see.”

  Mercy was adjusting her skirts, and I felt the warm press of her leg through the fabric. “I had some things to take care of for Thomas,” I replied, stretching my legs and giving Mercy my sunniest grin.

  She smiled back.

  “That’s the only reason?” Hugh asked. I wasn’t watching him, but I could practically hear his eyebrows rising.

  I thought of the letter in my pocket. Surely they knew. Molly was a friend to all of us—well, maybe not to Mercy any more—but if Julian had heard about it all the way in Yorkshire, then everybody else here in London must know.

  “Actually—” I started, but the train lurched to a halt.

  “This is our stop,” Rhoda and Zona said in unison, and Hugh nodded. “Mine too. I was going to escort Mercy to her house, but it’s so close to yours, Silas…”

  Delightful. I’d forgotten that Mercy’s London house was a mere block from my own. This could prove very felicitous for me settli
ng back into London life—and more importantly, for proving to myself once again that I wasn’t in love with Molly, that I certainly wasn’t pining for her.

  “Of course, it would be no problem,” I grinned. “As long as Miss Atworth doesn’t mind.”

  “Oh, I am Miss Atworth now, am I?” Mercy teased from beside me.

  In response, I took her hand and raised it to my lips. “Darling, I’ll call you whatever you like.”

  “Marvelous,” Hugh said, looking almost gleeful for some reason. I didn’t like the look on his golden face; it seemed both smarmy and ominous somehow. “In that case,” He stood, offering his arms to the twins. “Shall we?”

  “Bye, Silas!” the sisters chimed, and soon the whole party was gone from the car, leaving only Mercy and me. I met her gaze, feeling a jolt of lust mingle with a flash of pain. The last time we’d locked eyes, it had been moments before Molly had hit me. It had happened as I’d felt Mercy coming around my cock, felt her body shivering with release. Then we’d heard the door open and Molly’s footsteps across the floor as she walked into the room.

  Locking eyes now was like locking eyes with the embodiment of my own shame and weakness. But it was also like I was Silas Cecil-Coke, notorious playboy, meeting the eyes of a beautiful woman. With a monumental effort, I pushed everything back down and focused on Mercy, who’d acquired a concerned expression under my stare.

  “Are you upset with me?” she asked in a low voice. “Because of what happened with Molly?”

  Fuck. The one thing I didn’t want to talk about. I ran a hand through my hair. “Of course not,” I lied. Charming Silas, polite Silas.

  “Okay,” she purred. “Good. Because I missed you. Did you miss me?”

  Did I miss her? I looked at Mercy, pouting her red-lipped pout, and my erection strained against my pants. Fucking her had always been a pleasure, and it would be a pleasure right now, especially since it had been a few weeks since I’d partaken of the female sex, and the train car was empty save for us…