by Shirl Anders
"You cannot hide from him forever, Beth," Lord Adam Winslow announced as he lounged informally on the window seat in his sister's small sitting room.
Said sister muttered at him, as she tried to tie her wavy, long black hair on top of her head with a velvet ribbon the exact emerald coloring of the ball gown she wore. "He doesn't stalk you," she replied with an accusatory tone.
Adam sighed. She was right; their stepbrother, Lord Fanton Rothschild, had always been very strange, however about three years ago he'd turned strangeness into a new life style. Fanton didn't even seem to look the same. It was as though he'd gotten better looking with perpetually glossy hair and shiny eyes. Before, he'd been pimpled and fallow-looking. Back then he'd sweated profusely and had something he'd called a moustache on his upper lip, and that Adam called a few sorry hairs.
"Even his moustache is thick and glistens now," Adam muttered under his breath. Fanton had been secretive and slimy, now he was secretive and feral. Adam didn't know how his stepbrother had gone from a sappy pervert to a handsome deviant. But he had. One thing stayed the same though, unfortunately. That was Fanton's unhealthy interest in his stepsister, Lady Elizabeth Winslow. Beth.
"Adam, it is not that bad." Beth's voice was soft as she turned to him with her hair ribbon secured. "I'm supposed to be looking for a husband." Her declaration placed her small hands on her generously rounded hips. "So going out every night—"
"Until dawn," he interrupted, pinning her with an accusatory look.
She smiled at him, her ivory skin looking fragile against her midnight black hair. He worried about the fact she had to sleep during the day because she forced herself to stay away from her home every night … all night. She lost sunlight hours trying to keep the forced schedule she imposed on herself. Not seeing enough daylight for her health.
"I'm just so glad you see his manipulative and strange ways. Unlike—"
"Our step uncle Westfield," Adam interjected.
Beth, used to his interjecting ways, continued on, "Yes, our step uncle to whom we owe everything, but does not see it. Without you, Adam, I would think I was going mad."
"You are not," Adam responded strongly, coming off the window seat in a lanky stand. Unlike Fanton, who was bull-chested these days, he was simply leanly-muscled and thin. Adam reached Beth's side as he clasped her hand. "I see it," he said, looking down into her glistening multi-colored eyes. Beth had the most unique eyes. One was dark blue and the other was hazel green against her long black eyelashes. "I just wish there was something I could do about it," he finished with an edge in his voice.
"No, no," Beth whispered, squeezing his hand. "Promise me," she implored, "Promise that you will go about the University and leave Fanton alone."
"If he hurts you …" Adam warned with a tight voice.
"He won't," Beth soothed, and then she said quickly, "All these years since our mother married his father, after our father died when we were just children, he has never really hurt me in all that time."
"He just better not," he retorted stubbornly, making Beth smile for some odd girl's reason he would never fathom as she patted his cheek several times.
"You are so good to me, little brother," she said with fondness, and then with another girl’s character trait, she changed the conversation as quickly as one could click their fingers. "So say you will come to church with me this Sunday. I've found a new one that has a rector who is said to give the most amazing sermons."
Adam hedged, but he knew there wasn't much he could deny Beth. Then, before he spoke, a barely-perceived knock sounded on the sitting room door. They both turned to look toward the door, puzzled. No one in their step uncle's crumbling mansion came to their doors and knocked.
Beth was the first to recover, calling, "Come in." She glanced at Adam with a furrowed brow, and then at the door. He suddenly realized Beth thought the person behind the knocking could be Fanton. He stood taller and he took a step in front of Beth. A second later, they both relaxed when the aged butler Spindle appeared, out of breath.
"There is a Lady Ariel Raleigh arrived, Lady Winslow, and she awaits you in the main foyer." Adam knew both he and Beth wondered how the elderly Spindle made it up the long, twisting staircase at all to warn of the momentous event.
He also knew Lady Ariel was Beth's only friend and since they had no female relatives to chaperon Beth into society, Lady Ariel and her aunt took charity upon Beth to escort her on the rounds. Without their good graces, Beth would be out of the social events.
Adam saw Beth's worried gaze shifting to the window and he saw, as she did, it was already dusk. "She cannot be here," Beth exclaimed. "It is too early and I've told her never to come inside for me." At this exclamation, she grasped her shimmering silk skirts, lifting them to step forward with a hurried march toward the door. As she passed Spindle, she asked, with fear inflicting her voice, "Lord Fanton hasn't risen yet, has he?"
"I am not certain, my lady," Spindle called after them, as by then Adam decided he'd best follow Beth. Adam knew Spindle's uncertainty meant Fanton might well be awake, moving about his suites on the lower floor of their infirmed, step uncle's crumbling mansion. But Fanton never came out of those suites until after dusk had fallen into night.
And Beth was gone. Always.
"I could strangle Ariel for this," Beth muttered, looking back at him as she rounded the dark wood banister. "She simply will not listen to me and stay away from him," she continued to mutter, stopping at the top of the stairs to gather her skirts higher. Adam stepped beside her and clasped her elbow to steady her. She gave him a grateful glance, and then they began to step down the long, winding staircase that led into the foyer.
Adam knew for the longest time — well over a year now — Beth had been able to keep the fact she had a stepbrother a secret. Until ten weeks ago, though Fanton had never done it before, he began attending society functions. It wasn't that Fanton stayed closeted in the mansion as a hermit to society. It was just in the evenings past Fanton usually attended more bawdy events across London. He ran with a crowd of indulgent and rowdy young lords. They attended what higher society deemed as unseemly events: boxing, gambling, whore house parties, and many more sordid affairs.
"Lord Fanton never cared for genteel parties before," Beth expelled as though reading his ongoing thoughts. "Nor titled young ladies like Lady Ariel," she continued on a sharp note. "But they've met now. Lord Fanton has forced his strange seductions upon her." Beth stopped halfway down the staircase and he could tell she dreaded going further.
"We will both talk to her," he said, offering what support he could.
"I should have brought my shawl," Beth muttered.
Adam thought she looked lovely as usual. She would say, as women were wont to do, that she was too plump or just barely pretty, not beautiful. However, he knew men turned to look at the ampleness of her bosom and the sincerity of her laughter. For all that, Beth thought she was average. She was a very sweet girl.
"All right then," Beth announced, seeming to gather her resolve, and then she began to step down the stairs once again.
Adam watched Fanton looking up at them as they came into view. Fanton's gaze latched onto Beth with a serpentine look of gloating, while he slowly walked around Lady Ariel. Lady Ariel's creamy shoulders were bare in a sparkling, lavender-colored ball gown, while Fanton's hand lingered about her waist. Fanton whispered something to her, which made her blush and laugh. However, Fanton's slate-colored gaze stayed drilled onto Beth, sweeping her cleavage as she hurried down the stairs.
"Lady Ariel, you should not be here!" Beth exclaimed. Adam knew his sister wouldn't sound as harsh were she not so upset.
Adam stepped beside Beth when they reached the marbled floor and he saw Lady Ariel's pretty mouth turn into a pout as her body leaned closer to Fanton's stocky but strong figure.
"Your stepbrother, Lord Rothschild, invited me inside," Lady Ariel informed them with an edge to her voice. "Lady Beth, he has invited both of us to a glass of sherry be
fore our events." Lady Ariel smiled a pretty offering to Fanton, who rounded her figure again. Like a wolf circling its prey, Adam thought.
"A harmless invitation, really," Lady Ariel continued with a dipping of her eyelashes. "And I might convince him to attend the Valtimer's ball with us."
Beth blanched. She could hardly revile Fanton to his face. He would make her pay dearly if she tried. Fanton's stalking gaze told her he had her pinned just where he wanted her, and the impossible red glints in his irises strobed once, then disappeared. For the thousandth time, Beth wondered why no one else could see the red glints when they appeared, not even Adam, as she forcibly quelled the trembling trying to overtake her body.
"Come, Beth, my sweet pigeon. Come drink sherry with us," Fanton drawled with a heavy-lidded gaze that made her wish for a stout coat to cover her bare shoulders away from his leer. Fanton was not as a brother should be to a sister, and he never had been.
Beth saw Ariel's gaze sharpen because of Fanton's illicitly inflected words, just as Fanton added, "No need for you to stay, little brother." Fanton stopped his circuitous route around Ariel with his hand too intimately holding her waist.
Beth wanted to snatch that hand away and shout at him to leave her only friend alone. Instead, she nodded her head with forced but demure manners, saying, "A glass of sherry would be welcome, my lord. Adam, please do not let us keep you from your friends."
Adam's handsome face and buff gray eyes unveiled a stubborn look Beth had seen quite often. She balanced on a fine line between Adam and Fanton. Adam wanted to defend her, while Fanton could easily crush him.
"I'm in the mood to dance tonight," Adam said, then he bowed to Ariel, straightened, and he held out his arm. "Please, let me escort you to the sherry, Lady Ariel."
Oh no, Beth thought, trying to keep the distress she felt from her features. It was a very bad thing for Adam to try to come between Fanton and what he'd set his sights on. Beth knew Adam was trying to help her, by perhaps trying to court Ariel's attentions away from their stepbrother Fanton, whose eyes blazed darkly.
Ariel appeared instantly flattered. Adam was fit, tall, and handsome … any woman's desire. So, enticed, Ariel glided forward in her lavender silk gown with lace embellishments. She took Adam's arm with a delighted laugh, leaving Fanton's hand to fall free from her waist as the couple relocated to the parlor.
Belatedly, Beth thought to move. To flee from Fanton's reach. However, she'd delayed a bit too long and as she tried to follow Adam and Ariel, a dauntless hand grasped her forearm, stopping her.
"You'll do," Fanton drawled, tugging her off balance and up against his hard body clad in impeccable black and white evening attire. "You will always do, my shy, plump pet."
Beth's gaze darted to Fanton's blackened hunter’s gaze and she thought to protest, loudly. But his musty breath slid tendrils across her face, and a moment later she swayed toward him.
Fanton gazed down his stepsister's ample cleavage. It appeared to him as if her big tits wanted to leap from the gown she was wearing. Quicker than a man could see, he reached forward and squeezed one of her fat breasts, and then he dropped his hand to the indent of her waist. Too late, Beth's hand lifted to brush across where he'd groped, but his hand was long gone.
There was always Beth, so malleable, he thought. Yet she was a feast he dared only nibble at. Not because they were related, as they weren't related in any biblical sense, and not because they were a contrived family. That was a lie. No, he thought, looking down at Beth's face as she pushed with weakened resolve against his chest trying to escape his strength. The reason he didn't devour her was that Lady Beth Winslow, his stepsister, looked very much like the one portrait he had of his mother.
"Yet," he uttered, closing his other hand to squeeze Beth's waist between both his large hands. "My mother would never act as slutty as you do." Beth whimpered at the cruel clutch of his hands and her warm breath fanned his face. "But that other one, your friend," he drawled, looking up toward the parlor doors, then back down at his slutty sister swaying before him. "She looks nothing like Mother." That one was all blond with her tits barely covered like his sister's.
"You do it to tempt men," Fanton bit out as Beth clawed at the front of his black evening jacket. "Worse than whores in the streets." His voice lowered into a hissing sound.
"Lord Fanton? Beth? Are you coming for sherry?" Adam's voice called from within the parlor.
Fanton sneered, releasing Beth and she stumbled backward several paces. He adjusted his facial features into as pleasant as he could arrange them. Then he looked over at Adam, who had appeared at the parlor entrance, as he said, "Our sister wants to monopolize me, little brother. I will tear her away though."
"Come on, Beth," Adam called.
Beth's multi-colored eyes blinked and she looked quite confused as Fanton sneered and walked past her toward Adam, and then around him into the parlor. He arrived in the parlor alone with the blond slut for a brief moment, and she instantly dipped her bare cleavage at him with a whore's tempting gaze fluttering his way. How quickly she forgot her other admirer, Fanton thought. He was intrigued because she was a high society piece and not a lower east-end whore.
"Lord Fanton, you must come to the ball and dance with me," she said, with husky temptations in her voice. He smiled as he circled the room, circling closer to her.
He began to wonder how fast she could run … then he wondered whether she could really scream well. In some far corner of his mind that acknowledged such things, he was surprised. The urge was rising again so quickly. He reassured himself it was simply the irresistible temptation of a noble bitch flaunting herself at him. He'd never tried one of those before.
And, she was offering …
Chapter Three