His Harlot (Victorian Decadence Series Book 1)

by S. M. LaViolette

  “If he told you it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?” Nora asked him, her sweetness laced with sarcasm as she glared at Smith, wanting him to know she was still very vexed with him, regardless that she now held him in her power.

  She fumed all the way home, until she saw Edward’s letter laying on the salver in the tiny entryway.

  All through her dinner, which she ate by herself after sending Derek off by claiming a headache, which, judging by his reaction—open-mouthed shock followed by uncontrollable laughter—told her that she was a dreadful liar.

  She eyed the envelope that lay in front of her, supine and harmless on her cluttered dinner table. But what was inside? Would that be harmless?

  Should she open it? Or toss it into the grate and let it burn.

  After dinner she relaxed in her study with a book about Manet, whose art she found intriguing, but was not sure whether she liked.

  Tonight, it failed to capture her attention, as did everything else she looked at except the white rectangle of paper. So, finally, a little after midnight, she snatched a broken paintbrush somebody had left, inexplicably, in a vase of dead flowers, and used it as a letter opener.

  She took a deep breath and spread out the letter.

  “Nora,” she paused, the sight of his powerful handwriting almost like an aphrodisiac. Edward had touched this very paper. She ran a finger over the slight indentations, smiling. He wrote with a heavy hand. Nora snorted, that was no surprise.

  She ignored the unsubtle thumping in her sex, and continued reading:

  “I hesitated to write to you even after Smith told me you were hoping I’d write to talk about that last day—”

  “Why you lying, manipulating, interfering, meddling—” Nora realized she was talking to piece of paper and stopped. That bloody, lying Smith. Oh, she’d get her pound of flesh—and more. She’d paint him with a blood wen on his nose, she’d—her eyes were caught by the next line of the letter:

  “Of course, I knew Smith was lying as you would never, in this lifetime or the next, say such a thing. That made me wonder. I knew he must have seen you—but did he tell you about his scheme? Or are you reading this letter right now wishing I’d continued to leave you alone—the way I so angrily demanded of you that last day we saw each other? So, before I go any further, I need some sign from you. If you don’t mind if I write, please just send me one sentence. If you don’t respond. This will be the last you hear of me. Edward”

  ❈❈❈

  Nora waited three weeks before she made up her mind. Although most people thought she was shallow and somehow didn’t suffer as deeply because she didn’t rant and rage, that last day with Edward had changed her and not, she feared, for the better.

  She felt as though an ax had sheared off a part of her—something important like a hand or foot, but not outwardly visible. She didn’t pitch fits like Cat or Charles or Edward, or coldly threaten to slay people like Smith, but she’d raged inside her own mind for months. After all, she’d brought most of her suffering on herself as she’d always known Edward would eventually send her away. It had been no surprise and she’d always expected it. But that hadn’t made it any less painful when it happened.

  So why travel a path she already knew was fraught with danger? So she could lose some other part of her?

  But the longer she watched Charles and Smith, the more she realized the relations she had with men like Derek—or the young model she was eyeing to replace him—gave her nothing but transient pleasure.

  With Edward there would pain—she knew that. Some of the pain would be joyous, some would cut her.

  Nora dithered for weeks but finally decided early one morning, before beginning yet another painting of him that she was tired of just existing, she wanted to start living again.

  So, she sat down at her small writing desk and wrote: “You may send me letters until I ask you to stop. I cannot say if I will respond. Nora.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Nora,

  Thank you for agreeing to read my letters, for however long you choose to. I know many women would not want to speak to or hear from a man who’d done what I’ve done.

  I realized as I sat down and looked at a blank sheet of parchment that I’ve never written a personal letter; thousands of business correspondence, but nothing that required so much thought.

  I could fill the next pages with apologies, but I know you aren’t the type of woman who values form over function, so I’ll say it this once and then move on: I’m sorry for the way I treated you. Not in the bedroom, but in the rest of our lives.

  So, what I’ve decided to do is to tell you how I became the man you knew. I say knew, because I like to think I’ve changed at least a little over the time since we’ve last spoken.

  I’m not telling you my story because I believe it will excuse my behavior or the man I was when we were together, and, likely, still am in many ways. I’m telling you because I realized I only let you know one part of me and I never bothered to discover any part of you other than what happened in a bedroom.

  Maybe you’ll read this letter and the others I hope to write, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll read some and become disinterested and throw the rest away unopened. But I have to try.

  I just re-read this and realize I sound like a blithering idiot.”

  Nora laughed out loud.

  “But I think you will take my meaning from the tangle of words.

  So, where to start? At the beginning is what I would say, but the beginning of what?

  I suppose the first twenty years of Edward Fanshawe’s life is a tale that takes few enough words to tell. I never knew my parents and grew up in an orphanage. On the surface that sounds grim, and it was, but I can’t complain as I believe it gave me the ambition and drive to become the successful businessman I am.

  But as to the rest of me? I suppose you could say I became stunted early in many ways. The couple who ran the orphanage was neither kind nor cruel, they were just trying to scratch out sustenance in a meager environment, surviving on lean pickings, and trying to stay alive.

  If that meant they sometimes shorted our food rations or kept our dormitory unheated, well, I daresay they did it out of hunger and cold rather than spite or greed.

  I was a big boy right from the beginning and took very little abuse. But neither did I see any affection.”

  Nora dropped her head against the chair back and rolled it back and forth, her eyes tearing for a boy she never even knew. What a grim, grim life. Yet look what he’d made of it? And her? Raised with all the creature comforts and affection—yes, even love—and she’d spurned it all and left it behind the moment she could, and all to become a whore.

  The pages beckoned her and she was sad to see there were so few. Yes, she did want to know what had made Edward the man he was. Where was the shame in admitting that? Wise, or unwise, he was the only man she’d ever loved, and she loved him still.

  “When my twelfth year arrived, I was apprenticed to a farmer, not out of choice, but because my back was already showing signs of being broad, a good characteristic in a beast of burden. I’d never stepped foot in the country and must say, even now, that I am in no hurry to return to it.

  I lived at the home of a yeoman farmer in Kent, not so far from London as to be terrifying, but far enough to miss it dearly. I won’t go into the dreary life of a farmer except to say it was not the life for me. Once I’d earned back the money the farmer paid for me—one year early, when I was sixteen—I was ready to move on to other, hopefully, greener pastures.

  I’ve left out one thing, a small thing, but it certainly set me on my path in sexual matters and made me the person you met at Tosca’s.”

  Nora swallowed and took a deep breath, debating about continuing reading.

  Thinking of the times they’d spent in their room together—well, his room—were thoughts she only allowed to invade her mind one day a month. On the last Wednesday of every month she took a day to herself. She didn’t
paint or do any of the thousand small household tasks that always waited. Instead, she packed a small bag and went to a hotel—a nice hotel, now that she could afford it, and it was a treat in her otherwise frugal existence. She dined in her room on whatever foods seized her fancy, bathed in a luxurious tub, and thought only of her times with Edward. She glutted herself on him, like a bear storing up fat for the lean times. She pleasured herself countless times and relived the best nights. And the next morning, she went home, and put him out of her mind for the next month—if she was lucky.

  If he wrote about sex, she would likely lose her comfortable schedule—her lifeline to sanity. But wild horses couldn’t keep her from turning the page.

  “The farmer I lived with often loaned me out to the local squire when he had no need of me. I’d grown to nearly a man at fifteen and would work a full day for the squire, and often go home and work several hours that evening and again the next morning for the farmer. I knew the more I worked, the sooner I could leave—so I jumped at any chance to work for the squire, who paid better than anyone else in the area.

  Perhaps the fifth or sixth time I worked for him, the job I was doing kept me late. The squire sent a servant to tell me at dusk that his master had paid for another day, and that I was to find a place to sleep in the barn.

  That night, when the rest of the lads were sleeping, the squire’s man came for me. His master had summoned me to the house for some urgent reason.

  Well, I’m sure you can guess the reason. He was an older man—some forty years older than his young, pretty wife—whom some said he’d lost his head over. She was comely, I’d seen her. She liked to stroll in front of us as we worked and sweated in the fields, often when we were shirtless.

  Mrs. Squire, I will call her, had noticed me in particular.

  So, I would now have a night job, the squire told me, once he’d brought me to his study, the finest room I’d ever been in. If I kept my mouth shut, I could earn more in a night than I did in a week.

  I think you know my feelings about money, Nora. I most certainly could keep my mouth shut to earn so much.

  He led me to a room that was not far different than the one I created here, although it isn’t boastful to say the Squire’s was not nearly as nice.

  Mrs. Squire was as naked as the day she was born and that night we began our own theatrical, of sorts. I was to grab Mrs. Squire and force myself upon her. When her husband caught us (he’d been in the room all along, of course, watching as I serviced his wife, an activity he could no long participate in, but still enjoyed as a spectator) he would pretend to be furious and bind her to the posts of a massive bed. I would wear manacles and chains, forced to watch as he whipped her.

  His whippings were nothing when compared to the ones I gave you. But then pain was not Mrs. Squire’s desire, but exhibitionism.

  Once her husband had supposedly left the room (only in the story)—leaving her conveniently tied up, naked, and wet—I would fuck her while the squire watched.

  Increasingly the Squire would step out of character. Sometimes he was a procurer wanting to buy a slave for his master and needed to see that she was worthy. He would direct me how to fuck her, where, how hard, and so forth. I’m sure you can imagine my fifteen year-old brain and body were thrilled.”

  Nora laughed. As would your forty-year-old brain and body be, she thought with some amusement.

  “I noticed over time that I became aroused by the crop, his small collection of whips, floggers, and other implements. I found leather particularly erotic. What began as once every few months became once a month, and then twice, and then finally every week.

  I might very well still be there if the Squire had not keeled over in his sleep one night, thankfully not a night when I was balls-deep in his wife.”

  Nora laughed.

  “It seems Mrs. Squire was not as enamored of my cock up her arse as her husband had been. By the time I bought off my indenture, she’d left the neighborhood, rumored to have a new, younger lover.

  I see I’ve filled several pages with my wittering and reminiscing.

  Young Edward, on his way back to the city, is a good place to stop. If you are still reading, please know I appreciate it. Edward.”

  That night, for the first time since she’d made her Wednesday pact with herself, she broke it, pleasuring herself to the image of young Edward servicing the squire’s wife.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The night he wrote Nora his first letter he opened the door to their room for the first time since the day she’d left—since the day he’d thrown her out. Nothing had been touched since the last night they’d been together. Although he’d never told her, it was Edward who’d been the only servant in their room.

  Sometimes it was difficult to get the time to bring fresh linens, to clean, oil, and care for the implements he lovingly used on her body—but it had been, he realized now, his only hobby.

  He cleaned the room and prepared it for use, even though he had no thought or hope of every using it again, and then locked it up.

  Just being inside the place where they’d had such pleasure—and where he’d been such a fool—left him too out of sorts to go to the Birch Palace, his new haunt. That night, he was weighted with longing and regret and all he wanted was Nora.

  It was a struggle to wait a week to begin the next letter, but he didn’t want to worry her that he’d become obsessed— never mind that he’d never stopped being obsessed—and make her stop reading his pitiful missives.

  He’d received nothing from her, but then he’d expected nothing. It took all his will not to look for her and find her—to pry into her life and consume her bit by bit from the outside. He no longer owned her—not that he ever had.

  He knew that Smith saw her because he told him.

  “She’s good friends with Charles,” was all Smith replied when Edward asked.

  Edward’s face had heated. Although Smith had never come out and confessed to being a sod, it had become clear when he’d visited his house and the annoying male whore would come out especially to taunt him.

  Well, it wasn’t his business, was it? And if Smith and Charles were sods, they would hardly be fucking Nora, would they? So, really, it was the best possible solution. If Edward could manage to behave around Smith—and his little whore—Smith might let things slip about Nora, like scraps from a table to the dog cringing beneath.

  Oddly, that notion didn’t bother him at all; he’d take whatever bits and pieces of her life he could get and be grateful for it.

  ❈❈❈

  Nora followed the same routine as she had with the first letter and kept it until after she’d fed herself, read a book for a while, done a pathetic amount of tidying in her bedchamber—it appeared she was a slob when left to her own devices—and finally climbed into bed with a glass of whiskey, an indulgence just like his letter. It wasn’t that she couldn’t afford the finest whiskey money could buy, but she rarely imbibed spirits. Partly because she didn’t care for the taste very much, but mostly because it made her control slip. When she’d first begun to socialize with the Brotherhood, she’d drunk a great deal, behaved wildly, and made several very bad decisions when it came to lovers.

  Now she held herself to no more than one glass a night.

  She looked down at the heavy cream envelope and dragged her thumb over his practical, un-pretentious writing. She’d wanted this letter far too much. He was drawing her into his web, seducing her with words rather than whips, his cock, and his cruelty. She should throw this into the rubbish bin and write to tell him to stop. It would be the wise thing to do.

  But since when had she ever been wise when it came to Edward?

  Nora,

  I hope this letter finds you well. I also hope this has not arrived too quickly on the heels of the last one as to seem intrusive.

  I know that Smith occasionally sees you—he told me as much, although he said nothing about your location. He reminded me you are a good friend of his fri
end, the young man named Charles.”

  Nora smiled. The second friend looked a little shaky, as if he’d not been certain of the word to use.

  “In any case, I just thought you should know that, although I suspect Smith will have told you.”

  No he did not. Not after the bollocking she gave him about his lie to her. She’d threatened to leave his portrait unfinished if he didn’t immediately promise her that he’d never lie to her again. After much hemming and hawing, he’d agreed. She could have told him that nothing in the world would have stopped her from completing their portrait. It was, she felt, one of her best works yet.

  She knew it would never be seen beyond a few people, but rather than making her feel sad, it made her feel like she’d buried a treasure. Perhaps someday, a hundred years from now, sexual standards might be less rigid and somebody would find it in an attic and wonder about the two men it depicted. Two men who were so much in love but didn’t seem to know it, letting petty differences and small untruths keep them from loving completely. Well, Nora was nobody to give advice in such matters.

  She turned back to her letter:

  “I left young Edward on his way to London. Luckily I carried letters from both the farmer and Mrs. Squire. I’m sure you can imagine I encouraged Mrs. Squire to be quite effusive about the loyal, hard-working, intelligent, and honest man she was recommending.

  I began work as a carpenter’s assistant. The man was only about ten years my senior. He’d inherited the shop from his father, who’d been a fine craftsman. The young man, I’ll just call him Employer, was not on the level of his father and the shop was suffering. It seemed that I’d finally found something my overlarge hands were good at besides farm labor. I worked hard, as I do when I’ve found a skill to be mastered.”

  “Or a woman,” Nora muttered.

  “Employer was woefully unskilled, so I learned by visiting other master carpenters, and seeing how their work came together. Watching how they worked with the wood rather than tried to bend it. Would you believe that turned out to be a skill of mine? Working with something rather than bending it to my will? I’ll bet you are smiling.”