If any of them thought it was odd that he had his twenty-four year-old ward living with him—she’d passed her last birthday the way she wanted it, with Edward unknowingly gifting her with several magnificent birthday orgasms—nobody said anything. She believed that was largely because all the players in the little farce were consumed by their own concerns. Only Nora watched them all and learned.
Without exception, every single one of the young women stared at Edward with thinly concealed abhorrence. The same barely leashed sexuality that she adored in him they instinctively recoiled from. Oh, she’d met plenty of aristocratic women over the years who’d reveled in sex—they filled the brothels of London in numbers that would have shocked decent society—but these women—girls really, as most were below twenty—were not among that number.
So, Edward would get the pedigree he wanted and then spend the rest of his life with a family that hated him. Likely his wife would make sure their children despised their rough, rude, upstart of a father.
And he simply couldn’t see it. Indeed, after that first dinner he’d come to her afterward like a conquering general—he’d had an earl at his table, begging for Edward to marry his daughter—and he’d then fucked Nora silly. Afterward he’d spoken of all the opportunities and doors that would open up for him with such a wife.
When he’d taken her every way he could and was physically sated he went off to his bed—they never slept together—and Nora went to her own cold bed and wept for him. How could he not see the life he was making for himself?
But it was not, and never had been, her place to tell him such things. Whether he married the daughter of a duke or an earl, didn’t matter—he’d never deceived Nora that he would consider marrying a whore. And Nora would not take him if he asked her. She could not bear to think of the years ahead when he’d tire of her and go back to the brothels for his pleasure. As a wife, she would be forced to tolerate his treatment. As a whore, she could go away and lick her wounds.
No matter which way this story went, it always ended the same for her: he would tire of her and move on.
But life was not all grim. She spent every night with Edward and most days she had to herself. As long as she took a footman with her and avoided old clients, he didn’t seem to care what she did.
He’d never once asked to look at her paintings, which was just as well because her current one was of him. It was, she suspected, one of the best things she’d ever done—perhaps it would be the best thing she’d ever do.
It was her first nude, which seemed astonishing given her background.
The canvas, like the man, was huge—another first.
She would submit this one and two others to the Royal Academy which opened for submissions in a few weeks.
The thought of Edward’s powerful, naked body being viewed by thousands made her smile. And the painting was hers, all hers, the only part of him she could ever call her own.
Chapter Seventeen
Catherine
The Tin King’s dinner party was going along as abhorrently as she’d expected. Her parents were fluctuating between toad-eating and openly despising her betrothed, exactly as she’d known they would; Ceddy had failed to show up—risking insulting the only man in England with enough money to save them all; and her husband-to-be—because that is what Edward Fanshawe was, she’d finally accepted it—had cemented her impression of him as a gross sensualist who imagined her bulging with his child every time he looked at her.
But there was one bright spot in the wretched evening. Cat cut a quick glance at Mr. Fanshawe’s rather surprising niece, Miss Nora Hudson.
Cat had arrived prepared to despise her as much as her uncle, but other than have Fanshawe as an uncle, there was nothing despicable about her.
On the contrary, she was utterly fascinating looking and completely different than her relative. How could such a dark, vulgar, hulking oaf be related to such a slender, delicate, and almost celestial-looking being?
While Nora Hudson would never be called beautiful, Cat had needed to force herself to quit gawking at her almost ghostly eyes and serene, ethereal expression.
She was well-spoken, but reserved, graceful, and oddly still—as if she didn’t wish to attract attention to her person.
For her part, Cat thirsted for adulation and attention; she’d yearned for a Season as long as she could remember. She’d been the most beautiful girl in her village, but country swains meant nothing to her. She’d wanted to captivate the hearts of dukes and maybe even a foreign prince.
Ceddy had laughed unpleasantly at her yesterday upon hearing about the dinner with Fanshawe—calling him her Tin Prince.
He’d not met Fanshawe yet or he’d know the man was no prince. A king, perhaps—a barbarian king from Biblical days who had a thousand wives and cut off peoples’ heads who displeased him. But a storybook prince? She snorted.
“My lady?”
She looked up from her thoughts to find Mr. Fanshawe looking at her with an expression she guessed was meant to appear solicitous—rather than salacious.
Fanshawe glanced at her untouched plate. “Is aught amiss with your meal, my lady? Could I have anything else brought out for you?”
As far as Cat could tell the only thing that wasn’t on this table was his head on a platter. She’d never seen so much food in her life.
“Oh, thank you Mr. Fanshawe, really.” She fluttered her eyelashes at him, which always made color rush into his ugly face.
“Our Kitty is quite a sparing eater,” her father said, using a pet name he knew she loathed while looking pointedly at her and giving a false-sounding chortle.
Mr. Fanshawe’s beastly eyebrows arched with interest. “Kitty?”
“That is what her family calls her,” the marquess said. “Our sweet little kitten.”
Cat’s face scalded at her father’s vomitous words. She jerked her eyes away from his hateful face, afraid she might throw her floating island across the table at him. Instead, she looked at Miss Nora, prepared to see mocking superiority.
Once again, the woman surprised her. Her expression of sympathy was so subtle, Cat almost missed it. But, for the first time that evening, Miss Hudson opened her mouth without prompting, changing the agonizing topic, Cat knew, for her.
“I understand your seat is in Hampshire, my lord?”
Cat felt Mr. Fanshawe startle beside her, as if he’d never heard his own niece’s voice before. Being the arrogant hog of a man that he was, he probably never listened to her.
“Yes, it is—not far from Sherbourne St. John. Are you familiar with Hampshire, Miss Hudson?”
“I spent some time in Basingstoke,” she admitted, again drawing a look of surprise from her clod of an uncle—almost as if he didn’t even know where his niece had lived.
“Ah yes, Basingstoke. I know the vicar there—he’s had the living for a very long time. A Reverend Hartwicke—perhaps you’ve heard of him?”
Miss Hudson was so pale it was hard to tell if she’d just become paler, but Cat would have wagered a pony—not that she knew what that meant, it was just a vulgar phrase she’d picked up from Ceddy—that Miss Hudson had been surprised.
“Yes,” Miss Hudson said in her soft voice, which was so well-modulated Cat must have imagined her change in color. “I do recall Mr. Hartwicke and his two daughters.”
“Mmph,” the marquess, said, his mouth full of superlative wine, which Cat thought he was consuming with revolting enjoyment. When she married Mr. Fanshawe Cat would see to it that her parents were served only the most repulsive vintages whenever they visited—which would be rarely.
“Only one daughter now,” her father corrected. “I believe the younger one died quite tragically. Isn’t that right, my lady?”
But the marchioness had obviously not been listening to her husband—as usual—and turned to their host instead. “I see you’ve chosen to situate your dining room on the northeast corner, Mr. Fanshawe,” she began, initiating the type of jaw-droppi
ngly tedious conversation about rooms and aspects and such that she seemed to live for and which made her listeners want to take pistol and blow their own brains out.
Unfortunately, her ladyship’s boring conversation continued throughout the rest of dinner, making Cat eager for the moment they could leave the tiresome men to their port and she could get Miss Hudson to herself.
Three weeks later . . .
Nora was staring at the canopy over her bed into the darkness when she heard the panel door open. She glanced toward the playroom and saw he’d left the door open, a few candles burning inside the room. She sighed. If she didn’t go to him, he’d come get her.
She pushed back the covers, astounded that even Edward would have the gall to come to his mistress on his wedding day.
And what a day it had been: long and grueling. Life had been at a fever pitch for three solid weeks leading up to the rather hasty marriage—which Edward had demanded—and she’d hoped to sleep for the next two days and then wake up in her old bed at Tosca’s not worrying about anything but snatching enough time for painting.
Nora sighed. No, that was not true. Life was hellish, but she would not give Edward up—no matter how bull-headed, ignorant, maddening, and selfish he was.
She removed her nightgown so he would not tear it off her person—it was the last one she owned, having forgotten a few times and sacrificed the poor garments.
She hesitated in the open doorway: he was sitting in the big black leather chair facing the fireplace and she could only see the back of his head and bare knees on both sides of the chair. He only sat in this chair for one purpose.
Nora’s cunt—which didn’t care how shameful this was—or, rather did care, and loved the filthy idea of submitting to Edward on his wedding night—tightened, sending shivers of pleasure to the rest of her body.
“I can feel your eyes on me, Nora,” he said, his baritone voice startling her. “Come here.”
She went to him, not surprised to find him naked and erect. His eyes kindled as he looked at her, his face flushed with triumph.
“Kneel,” he ordered.
She could hardly drop quickly enough. He took his thick shaft in his hand and tilted it toward the light and she saw the faint dark smear and then sagged back on her heels as every drop of blood in her body rushed to her sex.
“Such a dirty, filthy thing you are,” Edward praised, reading her correctly and grinning down at her, well pleased by her reaction. “That makes you hot—hot enough to come.” He frowned. “But don’t even consider it.” His harsh features flickered red from the reflection of the flames and he looked so savage and cruel that the first ripples of her orgasm licked at her.
He gave a vile, low chuckle. “Ah, my poor, lusting, little whore,” he whispered stroking his cock, which was leaking freely, the fluid glittering in the candlelight. “But I brought a treat for you—a wedding present of sorts—I didn’t wash myself after I took her because I knew you’d want to taste her on me. I was right, wasn’t I?”
Nora swallowed convulsively to clear away the lust and loathing that almost choked her. Her voice when it came, was a husk. “Yes, Edward. Please.”
His eyes fluttered closed and he groaned and pulled hard on his cock, his jaw so tight it looked ready to crack.
Nora waited for what was coming.
His eyes opened to mere black crescents, his smile that of a lazy, sated predator. He tilted his glistening crown toward her. “Just a taste, my Nora.”
She lowered her mouth without hesitation and flicked his slit with the pointed tip of her tongue, glorying at the way his body shook and tensed.
“God, yes. You’re in heat, aren’t you?” he gasped as she pursed her lips and sucked the tiny slit—his meatus she knew it was called, the word vulgar and erotic—hard, as if she could suck an orgasm from him. “That’s right, suck me clean and make me weep for you,”
She shuddered at his words and a strand of drool dropped to this thigh and made him chuckle.
“My little bitch is in heat,” he soothed, petting her head like animal she was as she sucked him as if he offered sustenance rather than humiliation and pain. She couldn’t stop sucking, her lips milking, wanting more, wanting—
“That’s enough.”
God, he tasted—
“Nora,” He warned, pushing her back when she didn’t release him.
She trembled from the struggle inside her—sitting back on her heels. So ashamed. So very, very ashamed.
“Look at me.”
She did, raising her eyes slowly. He gasped at what he saw on her face—as if struck by something wondrous. He shook his head back and forth.
“You wished you’d been there tonight—watching—don’t you? You’d liked to have prepared me for her—or perhaps even readied Catherine.”
She shuddered and his pupils flared and she knew he was envisioning it.
“You would have liked that.”
It wasn’t a question, but she told him the first lie she’d ever spoken. “No.”
He threw back his head and laughed and she winced. When he stopped, he said. “Oh, you’re worried my wife might hear me?” He chuckled, not waiting for an answer. “Don’t worry, my greedy little whore—the doors and walls have cork an inch thick. My little kitten won’t hear a thing. Besides, tonight was rather exhausting for her—I left her sound asleep.” He grinned proudly and beckoned her with his cock. “Come here—I’m going to come in your mouth so you can enjoy us mingled. And then I’m going to spend the rest of my wedding night fucking you.”
He tilted his cock toward her and—God have mercy on her blackened, rotted soul—she opened her mouth wide and took it.
“That’s right,” he said in a low, soothing voice. “No,” he chastised when she would have throated him. “I want you to lick me first. Yes, like that—like you are licking something delicious.” He made a humming sound, shifting his hips to widen his thighs. “And I want you to do my balls, too. Do that thing I love—when you take them in your mouth and massage them with your tongue.”
She obeyed him, not making a sound, but he knew—he always knew—and his hand slid around her jaw as his thumb wiped away her tears. “Oh, poor Nora,” he teased in a voice rich with amusement and lazy with lust. “I’ll bet you’re weeping just as much between your sweet thighs, aren’t you?” He didn’t wait for an answer, he knew it already. “You want to hear about my wedding night, don’t you?”
No!
But her body clenched so hard she almost came.
He laughed. “You’d better not come,” he warned, and then heaved a contented sigh. “I’ve never fucked a virgin before Nora,” he said, his tone musing while his hips pulsed gently. “She was so tight and small—even tighter than you, my Nora—that I worried I might rip her. I would have liked to have the lights on to spread her open and see her—or at least remove her huge bloody nightgown—but there was none of that.” He grunted. “It was lucky I’d thought to bring oil with me because she was as dry as a desert. But even oil did not ease penetration very much.” He paused, and then said in a less amused tone. “I thought to touch her—you know, stretch and ready her a bit, maybe even give her some pleasure—and she all but scratched my eyes out. I suppose that is virgin behavior.”
Nora had a quick flash of her first time—when she’d begged for Brandon Sealy to touch her, to pinch, pull, and hurt her. No, virgins behaved as differently as anyone else.
“I suppose I shouldn’t go to her tomorrow as I daresay she might be a little sore. I’ll wait until the following day. But the doctor I consulted said I should breed her most of the month if I’m to have any success.”
That, in a nutshell, was classic Edward: not if we’re to have any success, but if I’m to have any success, as if Catherine’s contribution to the process was negligible.
“It will become easier for her. Perhaps she might even come to enjoy it—although I am given to understand that women of her class rarely care for such things.”
Nora would have fallen to the floor laughing if she’d not had his balls in her mouth.
Putting aside his incorrect assumption about the frigidity of an entire class of women, Nora suspected his wife would never care for sex with him.
Whether because of Edward’s too-huge cock, her too-tight cunt, or the amount of loathing Catherine bore him, Nora simply couldn’t envision a day when the other woman would want him. She tried not to gloat too hard about that but was largely unsuccessful.
He suddenly chuckled. “My kitten is a cat. I know she wanted to spit and claw and scratch and keep me out, but she’s made a bargain and is an honorable little thing.”
Nora spared a moment’s pity for the poor woman in the other room—in between sucking the same woman’s husband and trying to hide her first orgasm. Poor Catherine was honoring a bargain she’d never made, but one her father had.
“Nora?” Edward’s voice was sharp. “You’d better not have done what I think you did. Do I need to get out the crop?”
She smiled, shivered, and released his testicle with a soft pop. All the while, tears ran down her cheeks. “Yes, Edward. I need to be punished.”
Chapter Eighteen
“I hate you!”
Edward barely ducked in time to dodge a heavy marble statue that Smith had given him as a wedding present. The marble knocked a stack of papers off his desk and skittered over the smooth surface, barely missing the window behind him before thudding to the floor. Edward glanced at it and saw it appeared unharmed. He didn’t care for it, but he believed it might be worth a good deal of money. Smith had smirked that it was a fertility totem—whatever the hell that was.
He stood. “Kitten—”
“You bastard!” She yelled, blindly reaching for something else to throw but finding nothing. So, that was one good thing about having an artless, empty house. “Don’t you ever call me Kitten again,” she shrieked through her tears.
Edward was impressed by both her throwing arm and lung capacity. Powell, on the other hand, appeared terrified. He’d been taking dictation when Kitten, er, Catherine—flung open the door to his office and began hurling insults and objects at him.
His Harlot (Victorian Decadence Series Book 1) Page 16