The Dollhouse Society Volume IV: Lucky (Includes Lady Luck, House of Dolls, The Reluctant Bride, A Woman on Top, plus a bonus story!)

by Eden Myles

  He cuddled me against his chest, his fingers moving possessively over my hair, and kissed my cheek and my dry and well-gnawed lips. I moaned from the stinging pain of my backside but he said, “Hush, love, the pain won’t last.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. The spanking he had dealt me hadn’t been done in anger like so many women I knew who endured displeasure from their irate husbands. In fact, he hadn’t hit me very hard at all, and the pain was already subsiding.

  “Are you all right, Lucky?” he asked, taking my chin and looking pensively into my eyes as if he were a little surprised by his own behavior just now.

  “Yes,” I answered and smiled at him, sliding my hands up his lapels. I leaned down so I could feel the comforting scratch of his beard against my cheek, inhale the sweet, slightly musky scent of his maleness.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he assured me, tenderly cupping the side of my head and holding it against the smooth silk of his cravat. “Not truly. And I will never let anyone else hurt you. Do you believe me?”

  I thought about his words. My father had made me a similar promise years ago that he would always take care of me, that he would never let anything bad ever happen to me. I knew those were promises that men made to women even though they had no such power over the world. So instead of lying to Tiberius and saying yes, I just kissed him.

  ***

  A week later, I stood on the steps of the cotton mill in my best court gown, took the pair of oversized scissors from Tiberius’s hands, and cut the ribbon tied across the entrance of our factory—our new joint enterprise. Around me, the people of Smithtown gave a raucous cheer and threw their hats and bonnets up in the air. Because of Tiberius’s donation to reopen the mill, at least a hundred men would have work through the winter, and that alone was enough to make the poor, hungry people of my village celebrate. With the mill, other commerce would start up again along the river—inns, grocers, traders. I looked up and saw Tiberius nodding his approval at me even as several children threw confetti in our general direction.

  He smiled, and I smiled back, shaking confetti from my hair. He looked very handsome in his dark suit and waistcoat and cravat, very proper. I hardly even noticed his scar for the serenity of his lordly face. He had once seemed so aloof, so angry and untouchable, but ever since I had let him into my bed, something had happened to him, something I never would have believed. Mr. Tiberius Sloan, my ogre, looked happy.

  Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Mr. Van Tassel sitting astride his horse across the street, near an alleyway, and beside him his compatriot, the tattooed Chinaman, and I felt my spirits fall. Mr. Van Tassel ran a similar mill down in Stony Brook, a few miles to the east. I should have known that my father’s biggest competitor would be here—the man who had nearly ruined me! I was about to mention it to Tiberius when I felt him take my hand and lead me up to the lectern to say a few words of dedication.

  I tripped as I ascended the dais strewn with paper flowers, but Tiberius was there to catch and steady me, his hand on my elbow. “Are you all right?” he asked with concern.

  “Oh yes. That happens all the time,” I said, straightening my bonnet. “I thought you would have known that by now?”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” he lied as he led me carefully to the lectern. He stood close, almost protectively, over me.

  The people settled down and turned their attention on me. I felt a jolt of nervousness but it was quickly overruled by the joy in the glowing faces of my people. I planned on dedicating the new mill to my father’s memory, but before I began delivering my prepared speech, I scanned the crowd, looking for Mr. Van Tassel or his associates. They were nowhere to be found, but that didn’t make me feel any better.

  ***

  The reopening of the cotton mill, one of the main sources of income for our small town, had generated a feeling of carnival from one end of Smithtown to another. All the vendors had turned out, and before long, people crowded the streets, buying paper cones full of street food, listening to musicians, dancing in the town square, having their fortunes told, and waiting impatiently for nightfall, when the Asians promised to set off some fireworks for our entertainment. There were jugglers and mimes, puppet shows for the children, and staged comedies for the adults.

  I moved from vendor to vendor, and every one I met offered me something for starting up the mill, be it a trinket or a cone of food. By nightfall, I felt like I was going to burst out of my corset if I ate one more fried, sugary appelflappen! About that time, a tall, blond gentleman approached me and offered me his business card.

  I looked at the little card in my gloved hand. It read Bleeker & Brinkerhoff of New York. “I’m Brinkerhoff,” said the nervous young man, removing his hat. “Stuart Brinkerhoff, junior partner, but please call me Stuart. I thought our firm might be of service to you in the near future, Miss. Van der Meer.”

  I looked up at him. Stuart was very tall and blond and proper seeming. I thought he was likely my own age, had only been made junior partner a short time ago, and, of course, he was rather fetching with his ruddy, innocent face and large, cornflower blue eyes. He positively vibrated with enthusiasm, and most of the unmarried ladies mulling around us immediately noticed him. I had originally planned on asking Darcy to be our business solicitor full time, but now I wasn’t so sure. “Thank you, Mr. Brinkerhoff…Stuart,” I told him. “I’ll take it under advisement with my partner.”

  Grinning, he took my hand, brushed a kiss across my knuckles, and excused himself.

  Nellie, who had briefly abandoned me to check out yet another sweets vendor, rejoined me, complaining of a bellyache. “Oh Nellie, you’re going to miss the fireworks!” I told her as she swayed next to me and groaned most disconcertingly.

  Tiberius, who had been busy talking to some of the town businessmen, immediately swept over to ask me if everything was all right.

  “Oh, Nanny Nellie is sick from sweets!” I told him with exasperation. “And she wants a coach to take her back home.”

  He looked over my nanny with a sympathetic eye. “I can put her in my coach,” he said, propelling us both toward his fine carriage.

  “But we’ll miss the fireworks!” I told him.

  “We can always return later.”

  “But I shall need an escort!”

  “We’ll ask your cousin Rupert to accompany us.”

  So Nellie and I climbed into the coach opposite Tiberius and let him usher us home. I led her inside, walked her up to her room, and told her to lie down. When I returned to the foyer, Tiberius was waiting for me near the door, pulling on his evening gloves, but I didn’t see Rupert anywhere.

  “Where’s my cousin?” I inquired. “Oh…he’s not chasing after that young valet of yours, is he?”

  My partner looked innocent. “I really couldn’t say.”

  “Mr. Sloan,” I admonished him, “it wouldn’t be proper to be seen with you in town without an escort.” I considered myself quite daring where Tiberius was concerned, but I certainly wasn’t mad!

  He looked me over hungrily. “I promise where we’re going, no one will care.”

  I stopped and looked up at him. “I don’t understand. Where are we going?”

  He took my hand and set it on his arm. “It’s called the Dollhouse, love. And it’s owned by the Society.”

  “The mysterious Society again,” I sighed. “Well, perhaps I have no intention of seeing your Dollhouse, Mr. Sloan, or meeting this Society tonight. Aren’t the lot of you a bit old to be playing with dolls?”

  He smiled at me, secretly. “If you will not accompany me willingly, I may need to kidnap you.”

  He looked perfectly serious, so I went.

  ***

  The carriage whisked us up Long Island toward East Riding of Yorkshire. I kept asking Tiberius where the house was, exactly, but he kept telling me to be patient. I was a patient person, but I was afraid that if we traveled too far east, and it took too long to get back home, I might be missed, or seen alone in Tiberiu
s’s company. I wouldn’t know how to explain that.

  I asked him about the mysterious Society, of course, but he seemed more interested in my conversation with Mr. Brinkerhoff earlier. “I thought we agreed to take Darcy on as solicitor?” he said, his voice clipped and very unlike Tiberius. I was surprised. Up until now, he seemed perfectly happy to allow me to make most of our regional business decisions, but now he was questioning my judgment.

  “I suppose we still could. But we weren’t dedicated to that decision, were we? And Mr. Brinkerhoff does seem enthusiastic about our business.”

  “Yes,” Tiberius answered drolly. “I’m sure.”

  “I don’t think I understand,” I told him, mystified by his sudden turn of behavior. “He is a solicitor from New York. He could be of great use to us, especially at the stock exchange! And poor Darcy is already put upon at his firm, handling most of Mr. Smit’s workload the way he is…”

  Tiberius looked out the window and watched the countryside pass. “Are you sure that’s all he’s interested in?”

  “Yes, of course. What else is there?”

  “Oh Lucky.”

  I despised the way he said that, treating me like some ignorant child! Thankfully, it was only a short while before we turned off on a private road that cut in a wending, snakelike path through a forest of thick fir trees. I leaned out the window and breathed in the stinging, piney night air as we came upon the house.

  It was large and grand, a British colonial mansion called Hampton House, if my history of regional architecture was not mistaken. It had been constructed more than a hundred years ago by the Colonial, Jeremiah Hampton, but unlike most colonial homes, the house looked more decadent than functional. Then again, if I recalled my history of the region correctly, Goodman Hampton, a neophyte and follower of the teachings of the Marquis de Sade, had been known to have a predilection for decadence…and many loose women. The Dollhouse was stone-faced, with enormous windows, tall Corinthian columns, and a grand balcony that stretched the whole width of the front. “Who owns it?” I asked. It looked like the house of a dispossessed lord.

  “We do,” Tiberius said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “All of the members of the Society own shares in the Dollhouse. It belongs to all of us,” he explained as the coach carried us up the cobblestone path to the carriage house, where two footmen waited.

  I thought about that, and I thought about what he had said about my father and mother. “Does that mean that my father owned a part of the Dollhouse?” I asked. “You said he was part of the Society.”

  “He was. But the Dollhouse doesn’t function that way. It only belongs to those who are still alive, people like me…and you. Those who might enjoy it. That was part of Jeremiah Hampton’s legacy. He was a very wealthy, decadent and generous man who freely offered his home for use by the Society, but only with the stipulation that the Society, as a whole, own and care for it.”

  What an unusual setup! I slid back in the window as we came to a full stop and contemplated how one “enjoyed” a Society. Most of the women’s groups I knew were quite dull, full of tea, quilts and recyclable gossip, and the men’s groups didn’t seem much better.

  As Tiberius handed me down from the carriage, he said, “In many ways, the Society is in your blood, Lucky. In time, you may even come to enjoy it as your father and mother had.”

  “Do you enjoy it?” I asked.

  “Sometimes,” he said. “And sometimes I find it depressing.” He didn’t elaborate further.

  The inside of the Dollhouse was just as grand as the exterior, decorated in the latest and most fashionable Shaker furnishings and petit point fabrics. The anteroom we entered was full of gentlemen in evening wear mulling about as if they were attending a soiree, though, curiously enough, I saw no women. Tiberius walked me through the thong, under the burning lights of the three, grand, lit chandeliers, keeping one hand on my forearm at all times. I blushed appropriately as the other men turned their eyes on me, fully expecting the horror of their expressions—the scandal that Lucky Van der Meer should be seen without escort on the arm of her business partner! And truthfully, I felt a bit of a thrill knowing I was acting so improperly. But they glanced over us, smiled or tipped their hats in greeting, and then went back to whatever conversation they were engaged in.

  “You were right,” I told Tiberius. “They don’t look surprised at all.”

  “The men here are well-heeled, unlike most gentleman,” he explained. “There are no facades here, Lucky, no games of false propriety. We are men and we know what we are here for.”

  I was about to ask him a plethora of questions when Tiberius stopped me at the door and laid his hands alongside my face. His eyes were penetrating and very serious. “I’ll be along shortly, but I would dearly love for you to get to know the ladies of the Dollhouse.”

  “Are they in the other room?” I asked. It wasn’t so unusual to divide the sexes, even among my enlightened circle of friends.

  Tiberius smiled fondly upon me, drew me close, and kissed me. His hand moved up my side and he boldly squeezed my breast. I immediately flushed at the realization that the other gentlemen in the room could see us and broke his warm, wet kiss first. “You shouldn’t be so shy, my filly,” he said low in my ear, the warning in his voice raising gooseflesh all along my neck. “It won’t serve you well later.”

  “What comes later?”

  “You’ll know later.”

  More mystery! I went into the other room, realizing that so far, no disaster had befallen me. It was so very odd, but it almost seemed like my bad luck fled me when I was in Tiberius’s presence!

  ***

  The room was long and starkly white, filled with the candlelight from five gigantic wagon wheel chandeliers. They illuminated the mirror-polished, black-and-white checked parquet floor and the great portraits hanging on the walls. But immediately after I glanced at them, I found myself looking away. Hundreds of portraits of various sizes covered the walls, and every last one of them were of nudes in compromising positions. I thought once more of Jeremiah Hampton, a man driven from his home in England because of his libertine thoughts, and because those around him thought him a witch for having them, and finally realized what the aims of the Society were. Namely, pleasure.

  What had Tiberius said? We are men and we know what we are here for.

  I stood there in my court gown and wrap, feeling very foolish and ridiculously unworldly, and looked upon the small clutches of women scattered around the room, chatting amicably amongst themselves. I thought there must be fifty in all, all of them elegant and sophisticated, like members of Cinderella’s ball. Slowly, the women noticed me, and I blushed. Some I recognized. A few were the wives of successful businessmen back in Smithtown, and a few came from the surrounding regions, women whose pictures I recognized from the ladies’ magazine and society papers. Powerful women. Proper women. Unlike me. They drifted toward me, and I felt naturally awkward and hunted. Then they had surrounded me, no escape, and they smiled and started asking me questions as if I were a natural part of them, had always been a part of them. These were the wives of some of the most powerful men in New York, and I…well, for all my father’s former glory, I was just a country bumpkin. But I did my best to answer their questions and not sound like an unlearned child.

  They told me that I was very pretty, that they were looking forward to my play, whatever that meant. A few inquired about who my gentleman was, a few others admonished those ill-informed women for being so terribly out of the gossip loop. Of course, they were interested in the witch’s curse, and I proved it when one of the women offered me a glass of punch and I, of course, dropped it to the parquet flooring.

  But before I could make excuses for my clumsiness, the door opened and the men started filtering in. “You’ll do wonderfully, little one. You’ll be a triumph tonight,” one of the women told me, then surprised me by kissing me fully on the lips before slipping away and finding her gentlema
n. I had no idea what she meant.

  A few moments later, Tiberius found me and slid my arm into the crook of his elbow. His eyes were bright and fierce, as they often were when we’d been apart for too long and he found himself hungry for my company. “You look very beautiful this evening,” he said in his low, rumbling voice, and I tried very hard not to blush as the other members of the Dollhouse began collecting around us. Their interest made me feel very much on display. He leaned in close to tell me the safe word for the night, which only made me blush more furiously. I had a good idea of what was going to happen tonight, but since I wasn’t sure, I inquired.

  “Tonight is your debutante ball,” Tiberius said. “You’ve never had a proper one, have you?”

  I wondered how he knew that. He had been away in the Orient when I had come of age. “Is that something my father told you?” I asked. “Is the Society prone to gossip? It seems its members are very close as well as being very secretive,” I babbled on nervously. “Is that the reason you’re resisting me on the matter of Mr. Brinkerhoff? Oh my…is Darcy a member of the Society...?”

  His face clouded over with anger and I was suddenly afraid. The situation with Stuart Brinkerhoff had bothered him more than he was letting on. Before I could react, he seized my cheeks and kissed me. “Don’t say his name,” he told me. “Don’t say anyone’s name. If you must prattle on, Lucky, I insist you say only my name tonight.” He kissed me very hard, dipping his tongue deep into my mouth. I resisted him, not because I didn’t enjoy his kisses, which of course I did, but because of his very public display of affection.