“Nora?”
She jolted at the voice, her eyes flying open.
“Oh, I say—sorry to startle you.”
She looked up at a vaguely familiar face.
He smiled shyly, his pale cheeks flushing. “You might not recall me. I’m—”
“The Duke of Glenway, Lord Anthony’s nephew.” As if a whore were likely to forget a duke she’d fucked.
He grinned. “Jolly good to see you.”
Nora found his obvious pleasure at being remembered—especially by a prostitute—endearing. “Thank you, Your Grace.” She paused, not sure what—if anything—to say.
“I daresay you’re here in response to Uncle Tony’s letter?”
She blinked, both at his knowledge of the letter and at the thought of such a dignified man being referred to as “Tony”.
“I didn’t receive his letter until yesterday.”
The duke grimaced. “Ah, yes, I see. No, I meant the other letter—from the solicitor?”
“No.” She took the crumpled envelope out of her reticule. “This is all I received—a brief message asking me to come see him.” She swallowed hard. “I’m terribly disappointed I am too late. I always—” she broke off, remembering she wasn’t Nora Hudson, a wealthy businessman’s niece, but Nora Hudson the whore.
He nodded, his expression kind and understanding. “Uncle Tony spoke of you more than once.”
“He did?”
“Oh yes, he was very fond of you. And impressed by your aspiration to be a painter.”
She flushed with a mixture of pleasure and pain. She’d never shown him a painting and hoped he might have seen hers at the exhibit.
“Won’t you come inside?” he offered.
“I don’t want to put you out.”
“No bother, this way I can give you the solicitor’s direction so you can get my uncle’s letter. Unless you’d like me to send it to you—wherever you are living now.” Again the charming blush.
Nora thought of Edward’s almost maniacal obsession with everything concerning her and said, “It would be better if I went to fetch it.”
“We’ll just pop inside and I shall give you their card.”
The door opened when they reached the top step and a very old butler greeted them. Crates and trunks were everywhere.
“Pardon the mess,” the duke said as he led her out of the very elegant foyer and up the stairs. “I am moving my uncle’s things to where I can go over them at my leisure.” He opened a door at the top of the stairs and Nora stepped into a lovely two-story library.
“My goodness,” she said.
The duke gave her a tolerant smile, no doubt accustomed to far greater grandeur. “Yes, my uncle loved his books. Now,” he said to himself, “where would that be?”
While he searched a massive desk, Nora looked at the shelves, which hadn’t yet been packed away into boxes. Once again, her eyes clouded over with tears—how was it possible to pack such a grand life as Lord Anthony’s into just a few crates and containers? It simply sucked away all one’s hope—what was the point of it all?
“Ah-ha!”
She turned to find the duke triumphant. She took the card from him. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
He nodded, his cheeks streaked with red. “My pleasure, my pleasure. I’m popping by their offices today and will let them know you’ll be coming.”
“It might not be for a few days—”
“The bequest is yours, no matter how long you take to claim it.”
Nora blinked down at the card. Bequest?
“I say, Nora.” She glanced up at his voice, which had dropped several levels and Nora knew what he would say. “I enjoyed Belinda, but I wouldn’t mind visiting you sometime—wherever you are working now.”
Nora smiled. “I’m honored, Your Grace, but I’m afraid I’m with one man, now.”
“Ah,” he said, looking disappointed but luckily taking no offense. “Not the sharing type, then.” He chuckled.
“No,” Nora agreed with a wry smile, “Definitely not the sharing type.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Catherine
Cat was in love and nobody was going to spoil it. Not Tedward with his beastliness, not her mother with her letters telling Cat it was her responsibility to leave London and sequester her swelling body somewhere in the country, where nobody could see it. And—most especially—not Ceddy—who’d come back to London with creditors snapping at his heels and some police officer or such, who’d followed him all the way from Paris.
Her brother looked unhealthy—pale, skinny, and always sweating. And his mind seemed to have become addled and he wouldn’t stop his nasty insinuations and dirty little digs about Nora.
Even Nora seemed determined to cast shade on what wondrous things they shared with one another in the privacy of her bed—although not as often as Cat wanted.
“Let’s run away together, Nora.”
It was the dog days of summer and they were sitting in her sunroom, which was sweltering. Nora had stripped down to her chemise and was painting Cat, who wore nothing—not even a fig leaf. She was almost five months along and her belly was rounded and ugly. She personally despised her body but Nora seemed to love it. Indeed, she seemed to view her belly the way Edward viewed Nora’s entire body.
When Nora didn’t respond to Cat’s suggestion—her pale eyes stranger than ever as she painted with an expression of frightening intensity—Cat brought up the subject that ate at her day and night, now. “I don’t like all the marks he leaves on you,” she said, sounding petulant to her own ears.
“Hmmm?”
“Nora, are you listening?”
Nora seemed to wake from a deep sleep. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
Cat tried to swallow her irritation, but really, the woman could be maddening. She rarely seemed to say no directly, yet she always appeared to get her way. Quite frankly, Cat had wished more than once that she could ask Edward how he managed to bring her to heel so easily. Cat grinned at the thought: he’d pop his tightly wedged cork if he had any idea of what went on in this room almost every day. But still not often enough for Cat.
“Nora,” she snapped, breaking her pose, which had her lying demurely on her side. “I want you to paint me like this.” She opened her knees wide, the bottom of her feet together, looking—she knew—like a wanton harlot. But it finally got Nora’s attention, setting that pulse at the base of her throat flickering like the wings of a hummingbird. Cat ran a hand over her already wet slit and then dipped her middle finger into her body. “Do you like me this way?” She moved her finger in and out, her hips pulsing. “Don’t you want to come taste me? Feel me?”
Nora’s generally expressionless face broke into a smile. “What a little tart you are,” she said, but Cat could tell she was pleased with her sluttishness because she put aside her brush—not even bothering to clean it—pulled off her chemise and threw it on the floor before sinking naked to her knees at the foot of the chaise where Cat lounged, her mesmerizing eyes moving from Cat’s swollen stomach to her wide-spread sex.
“You are perfect.”
The worshipful look on Nora’s face and tone in her voice drove Cat far too quickly toward the precipice.
Nora slid a finger—almost casually—up Cat’s cunt—that’s how she thought of it and referred to it now: her cunt. They both groaned.
“So tight,” Nora murmured, her pupils huge. “Would you let me paint you this way, Cat?” She sounded and looked as if she were in a fugue state. “Spread wide, wet—perhaps your hand touching you here?” Nora’s thumb rubbed the base of Cat’s clitoris, which she’d learned was embarrassingly large—at least in comparison to Nora’s tiny bud. Nora had assured her that all women were different, but Cat didn’t care—she’d have liked to look like Nora. “It wouldn’t be a fast painting,” Nora mused, wicked fingers stroking. “We’d have to take frequent breaks to keep you swollen, slick, and ready.”
Cat’s entire body clenched at
her suggestion and Nora gave a low laugh as her hand began to pump. “Well, then. I suppose there’s my answer.”
Cat shivered, spreading like a butterfly for her lover. “Please, Nora, suck me.”
She never had to ask her twice.
As Nora buried her skilled, insatiable tongue in her cunt Cat reached down and twisted one of her tiny nipples, which had rings right through them. Edward had taken Nora to Bernina’s and had her pierced while he watched. Cat had been furious at not being allowed to go, although she knew it would have been impossible.
It irked her that Edward had—yet again—marked Nora as his, when there was no sign of Cat’s possession of her body. So Cat tugged harder, twisting and pulling Nora’s small, perfect breasts to cruel points.
“Mmmmm,” Nora moaned, her body shuddering with pleasure.
Cat marveled at Nora’s bizarre need for pain, wondering more and more if she’d be able to whip Nora to an orgasm the way Edward could. She would be willing to try it as she loved handling Nora’s spare, svelte body. Her own body was heavy, increasingly uncomfortable to live in, and her breasts seemed to grow larger every day.
“I’m going to look like a cow, soon,” she murmured as Nora languidly fucked her with her finger. “Will you still want me? Or will you turn away when I’m distended with a belly so big I shan’t be able to see my own feet.”
“I’ll want you more,” Nora said, groaning as if the disgusting picture Cat had just described for her was something that aroused her. And then she bit Cat’s erect clitoris almost hard enough to hurt.
Cat shuddered. “My God, Nora!” Perhaps there was something to this pain business after all?
“Will you let me suck on your breasts when they’re heavy with milk,” Nora murmured against her, her slick hard tongue moving in rhythmic strokes.
Cat’s entire body shook at Nora’s shocking words and Nora chuckled, adding a second finger to the first, stretching her.
Lord, but the woman could always amaze her with a new, lower, level of filthiness. And how her body loved it. Besides, if she was thinking of sucking her breasts when they were filled with milk—and she would do it, Cat knew that—that meant Nora would be staying at least until she’d gotten rid of this lump inside her.
Every day she worried about Edward catching them. Whatever he did with her, she knew he’d never let her see Nora again. And if she couldn’t have Nora—
Her body began to tighten, the muscles of her sex beginning their exquisite contractions, her mind emptying of thoughts like water down a drain.
“Oh, God Nora,” she moaned as her pleasure overcame her and she pressed Nora’s head into her convulsing sex. “I love you so—”
“Well, well, well—what have we here?”
❈❈❈
Nora’s eyes flew open at the sound of the loathsome voice and Cat jerked upright, covering her breasts with her hands.
Viscount Rowland—Cat’s repulsive brother—just chuckled. “Lord, Cat, you look like a bloated whale—please do cover up.” His nasty blue eyes slid to Nora. “But I like what I see eating your cunt.”
Nora pushed to her feet, her mind pulsing with fury at his whale comment. She made no effort to cover herself as she strode toward him.
“Bloody hell,” he murmured, his eyes slithering over her like worms. “You’ve changed a bit since I last saw you.”
“What?” Cat demanded behind her.
Nora briefly shut her eyes, opening them again when Ceddy chuckled. “What, didn’t Nora tell you that I had her first? Before the Prince of Tin, even.” He gave Nora an evil grin. “Quite the arrangement you have here—the master of the house at night, the mistress during the day. What about the brother? When do I get my turn?”
Nora snorted and stooped to pick up her chemise, pulling it over her head before turning back to him. “You’ve done so many drugs I doubt you can even get hard any longer, Ceddy. Let’s get to what you really want: money.”
His face shifted into an ugly snarl. “Oh, and you have that—do you, along with that magical cunt of yours?”
“I do.”
They both turned to Cat, who’d wrapped her silk robe tightly around her body.
Ceddy’s eyebrows shot up. “Do tell, sis.”
“I have five thousand pounds you can have, if you leave without saying a word to Edward.”
He laughed, but his eyes sharpened. Nora could see he would leap on the offer, but first he wanted to toy with them. “Why shouldn’t I take the money and tell him.”
Nora rarely played cards, but she knew an ace when she had one. “Because I will tell him that it was you who beat me badly enough to leave scars on my body. And I think you know what he will do. He’ll not only thrash you to within an inch of your life, he’ll cut off your supply of money—and likely your prick. He committed to restoring your estates, Ceddy, not your vile habits. I have a fair idea of how much of your debt he paid off when you came running to him for help this last time. What happened in Paris, Ceddy? What will you do the next time if there is nobody to pay off your debts?”
His eyes glittered with poison and she knew she’d made an enemy for life. “I’ll take the money and be gone as soon as my man packs my things.”
Cat came toward them, her chin lifted, looking bloody majestic. “Leave now—choose your hotel and I will send Pearson with the money.”
Ceddy looked like he wanted to argue, but he wanted the money more. His lover—opium—was even more cruel to him than he’d once been to Nora.
Nora shut the door once he’d gone and turned to Cat, sagging against the smooth wood.
“Five thousand pounds, Cat? Wherever will you get that?” Nora’s mind raced as she thought of things to sell.
Cat giggled, sounding like the eighteen-year-old she was. “I’ve already got it.”
“Good Lord, what kind of allowance does he give you?”
“It’s not my allowance—I stole it from his dresser drawer.”
Nora was torn between admiration and terror. “My God, Cat, if he ever finds out—”
“He already did,” Cat said, no longer a girl, but a weary wife. “He came to me, of course, and I told him Chrissy took it.”
Chrissy had been a pretty parlor maid whom Edward had sacked some time back.
Nora was sick with shock. “Cat! How could you blame your theft on a servant?”
Cat shrugged, arrogant and not comprehending what she’d done. “If it hadn’t been her, it would have been me.”
Nora wanted to cry at such a callous, cruel reaction.
“What? Why are you looking at me that way, Nora?” Cat demanded peevishly. “You should be glad I took it or we’d never be able to get rid of Ceddy.”
She flounced out of the room, which made Nora believe that she had realized what she’d done was terrible. Nora would have to find out if any of the servants knew Chrissy. Maybe she could write the girl a letter of recommendation or help her find a position if she hadn’t already.
That was a great deal of money to be accused of stealing. What if Edward had thrown the girl in jail?
Nora chewed her lip until she tasted metal. There was only one way to find out what had happened to the poor girl and that was to ask Edward.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Edward collapsed back onto the bed, his body slick with sweat from the miserable summer heat and the vigorous bout of fucking.
Nora knew now was as good a time as any. “Edward?”
“Hmm?”
“You know that parlor maid you discharged?”
Edward opened his eyes and met hers in the mirror over the bed. He snorted. “You mean the one Catherine accused of stealing my money when it was really her?”
She turned to him, rather than his reflection, eyes wide.
He was smiling sardonically. “You must think I’m soft in the head if you believe I’d credit anything that thieving little cat says.”
“But—”
His sensual lips curved into a smile
. “I like this new look on you—what would you call it? Speechless? Stunned? Worshipful of my mental acuity?”
“How did you know?”
“No great mystery, Nelson saw her sneaking out of my rooms one night.”
Nora’s heart almost stopped—and he’d not noticed the missing key? She frowned. Had she lied to Nora and really made a copy? Cat knew of Edward’s obsessive neatness and orderliness as well as Nora, and frequently mocked him. Cat would know he’d notice a missing key, especially this key.
Nora shook her head. Why the little cat, indeed.
“Nora?”
She turned to him, her heart beating faster than it had been ten minutes earlier. “Yes, Edward?”
“Why won’t you let us go out of town?”
She almost fainted with relief at the return of this annoying subject, which was far better than thinking about Catherine and her key. Was Cat under the bed right now? Nora grimaced—she wouldn’t be bloody surprised.
“Nora,” he said in a tone that communicated his displeasure. He liked her talking more, but still demanded obedience.
“I never said you couldn’t go,” she reminded him for the hundredth time. Edward was like a bulldog—once his jaws closed on something, he never let go.
“You said you wouldn’t go with us—the same thing.”
She sighed and shook her head. Although she talked far more now, she still didn’t have the energy to argue as much as he liked to do.
❈❈❈
Edward sensed something was off with Nora tonight, but he couldn’t pin it down. He changed the subject. “I’m bloody grateful that leech is gone.”
Nora knew who he meant. “Me too.”
“Yes,” he mused, “I noticed right from the beginning you didn’t care for him.”
“Is there anyone who does?”
He laughed. One of the things he’d discovered about his Nora when she started talking was that she possessed a wicked tongue.
He reached over and played with one of her nipples, watching his hand in the mirror, watching her body react to his touch like a musical instrument that had been made tuned especially for him. His. His Nora.
His Harlot (Victorian Decadence Series Book 1) Page 20
