by Lucy Wild
“But why are you buying Roseneath then?”
“For you of course.”
“What?”
“I wish for you to come and live here.”
She leapt out of her chair and threw her arms around him. “I’m sorry,” she said as he winced. “You must be in such pain.”
“Nothing compared to thinking I was losing you.” He turned to the agent. “If the deeds are completed George, you may make the necessary arrangements.”
“Good day to you both,” George replied, inclining his head again before leaving the two of them alone, leaving with the papers bundled under his arm.
“My parents wish me to marry another man,” she said after a moment’s silence.
“Do you wish to marry him?”
“No.”
“Then perhaps you would consider marrying another man.”
“Who did you have in mind?” she smiled, sitting on his lap and running her finger down his chest. “I suppose if you’re injured, you shouldn’t indulge in anything too strenuous.”
“My doctor insists I rest.”
“Come and rest then,” she replied, taking his hand and leading him over to the bed. Laying him down on his back, she kissed her way down his chest, undoing each button in turn until his stomach was visible. She kissed each bruise softly whilst slowly undoing his trousers. She pulled out his cock and took it straight into her mouth, feeling it harden on her tongue whilst he ran his fingers through her hair. As she sucked him, her mind whirled. Live here forever? What would her parents think? What would Richard think? The taste of a drop of salty liquid on her tongue set all questions tumbling away from her, replaced by an urgent need to feel Jim inside her.
Lifting her dress to her hips, she pulled her knickers to one side and sank onto him, guiding his cock into her, moaning loudly as it filled her to capacity. She ground down on him as he sighed happily. “I thought I might never see you again,” she said. “I thought you didn’t want me.”
“I want nothing else,” he replied, taking hold of her hips and being to thrust gently up into her. She leaned down until she was laid on top of him, rocking against his body as she felt him twitch inside her. “Apart from this,” he added, pushing her from him. He set her on all fours and threw her dress up over her back, exposing her body to his gaze. He yanked down her knickers and thrust deep into her in a single movement, his hand reaching under to toy with her clit.
As he thrust deep into her, she began to pant heavily, her muscles turning rigid, his hand expertly bringing her to climax a minute later. As she came she shoved herself back onto him, loving the feel of her contractions around his cock. He continued to thrust into her as she came, moving ever faster until with a loud grunt, his cock spasmed in her pussy and she felt a spurt of cum spraying inside her. He thrust a final time and a second jet of spunk gushed out as he slowly withdrew.
Collapsing side by side on the bed, he turned and kissed her, stroking her hair gently. “I’m glad you came back,” he said, planting a soft kiss on her cheek.
“So am I,” she replied, smiling broadly. “So am I.”
My Master
Chapter 1
On my eighteenth birthday, I lost three things, my parents, my home, and my innocence. I was taken away by a brute of a man and as the carriage rattled along the rutted track onto the moor, I wept the first of many tears Lord Darlington was to cause me that day.
My childhood was idyllic, my earliest years spent in the Caribbean, watching the men work at the cane and the ships sail in and out of the harbour. I used to dream of travelling on one of those ships in my childish fancies. Sometimes I was a bloodthirsty buccaneer, sailing the seven seas in search of booty. Other times I was heading to England, a place I’d been told about by mama’s serving girls. It sounded like a land of beauty unsurpassed. The reality of course was quite different as I found out on the day I turned twelve. I was awoken in the middle of the night by my father. He stood with a candle over my bed, peering down at me and calling out my name.
“Isabella, Isabella, wake up,” he said. I sat up in a daze, the worry in his voice upsetting me. I’d never seen my father like this, his eyes wide, sweat beading on his brow.
“What is it father?” I asked, yawning loudly.
“You must pack and quickly. The boat leaves in an hour and we must be on it or all is lost.”
“What? What is the matter?”
He didn’t reply. Instead he turned away and called for my bag. A servant brought in an empty suitcase and laid it out on the bed. “Help her pack,” my father said. “Make haste and there’ll be a guinea in it for you.”
“Yes sir,” the servant said in a voice I recognised.
As my father left in a hurry, I climbed out of bed in time to see it was Leonard left alone with me. He’d always doted on me since my earliest days, bringing me sweetmeats, nursing me through the fevers that seemed to seek me out each summer. He did not work at night though, something was serious if he was awake at this hour.
“What’s going on Leonard?” I asked as I assisted him in packing my favourite dresses. “Are we in danger?”
“I know not miss.”
“You must know something!”
“All I know is that your father has never made any decision without good reason. Now there isn’t room for all of these dolls. You must choose your favourite.”
It seems ridiculous now, looking back through the years but at the time I was most distraught at leaving behind my doll collection. I took Jemima and Edwina with her blonde curls, bidding the others farewell whilst Leonard dragged my case down the stairs into our cavernous hallway. My father yelled up at me to hurry, cursing loudly, something I’d never heard escape his lips before.
In ten minutes we were marching through the night down to the harbour, the only sound that of my laboured breathing. Behind me I heard the swift approach of echoing footsteps and glanced back in time to see my mother running to catch us up, a case in each hand. “Mother!” I called back to her.
“Come on!” father snapped, grabbing my hand and almost breaking into a run. I stumbled after him, my shoe falling from my right foot as we reached the harbour. “Leave it,” he yelled as I reached down. “We will buy more in England.”
“We’re going to England?” I asked, excitement bubbling up inside me despite my fear.
“Only if he doesn’t catch up with us.”
We reached a ship that was filled with men making ready in silence. As the moon disappeared behind a cloud, the night was plunged into black and I almost fell from the gangplank as I was dragged onboard. My father stopped by a man in a tricorn hat and whispered in his ear. He nodded back and ran off.
“Come on,” father said, vanishing down a set of steps into the bowels of the ship. “We must remain hidden until we are away from shore.”
I followed him down the steps until finally he stopped, sitting on a long bench by a dangling lantern, my mother settling beside him. Around us the ship creaked loudly. “What’s happening?” I asked, glancing around me.
“We set sail,” my father replied, a hint of relief within his voice. “We are safe.”
At that moment a voice boomed out from the harbour. “George Mulhoon!”
Father sat bolt upright, the hand holding mine crushing my fingers. “Father, you’re hurting me,” I whined but he ignored me. The voice outside called out again.
“I shall have what you promised me!” the voice cried. “Run as far as you like but you will not outrun your debt to me!”
Father stared ahead of him, his face coated in sweat. It was a long time before he loosened his grip on my fingers. “Who was that?” I asked.
“It does not matter,” he replied. “We will never see him again.”
How wrong he was.
The tension seemed to leave father the longer we sailed and by the time we reached England he was back to his old self again although he steadfastly refused to discuss the reasons for our late night flit from our ho
me.
We settled, after a week in London, far north in a quiet village, taking possession of an estate which had been empty for some time. I was taught to always refer to us as the Callaghan family, never to mention the surname Mulhoon again. “That name is dead and gone,” father said as he knelt before me staring into my eyes. “Forget it ever existed.”
And I did until the day of my eighteenth birthday. I awoke on that morning aware only that at last I was a woman in the eyes of society after so long being treated like a child. I descended the stairs to the dining room but instead of my parents sat in their usual seats there was only a dour looking man in a black cape and top hat. He was filling a long pipe as I entered but he set it down at the sight of me. “Isabella,” he said in a voice so deep it made me shudder with fear. “Won’t you sit down?”
“Who are you?” I asked, my voice trembling. “Where are my parents?”
“Gone,” he replied, lighting his pipe and puffing purplish smoke into the air. The scent of cherry reached my nostrils a moment later.
“What do you mean gone?”
“My, you do ask a lot of questions. When you are my wife, you shall ask no questions by the deuce.”
“Your wife? What on earth are you talking about?”
He sat upright and fixed his gaze on me. I cowered back at the sight. His brow was furrowed over the dark pits sunken into his face, more like scars than eyes. His lips were drained of colour, pinched and tight as he bared his teeth. If he had growled like a dog at that very moment I would not have been surprised. “Sit,” he said, pointing at the chair opposite him.
I sat, my hands under my legs to keep him from seeing how much my fingers were shaking. He continued to stare at me for some time before finally setting down his pipe once more.
“Who are you?” I asked at last, unable to bear the silence any longer.
“My name is Richard Darlington and you were betrothed to me before I was born.”
“What?”
“What do you know of Tortuga?”
“It was a lawless place.”
“That it was,” he replied, a flicker of a smile crossing his lips. “Gave me this.” He threw off his cape and pulled back the sleeve of his shirt to reveal a long snaking scar that curved from his wrist to his elbow. “Or should I say, your father gave me this when I first met him in Tortuga.”
My hand went to my mouth, the sight of the scar repulsing me as much as his clear enjoyment of my discomfort. “Please,” I muttered. “Put it away.”
“Does it make you nauseous to see what your father did to me?”
I nodded. He laughed, the sound drained of all joy.
“Please sir. I beg you.”
“That’s good,” he replied, pushing down his sleeve. “You will beg me for many more things before our wedding day.”
“Why do you speak of marriage?” I asked. “I have no interest in marrying one such as you.”
“What interests you is of no consequence. What is of consequence however is your behaviour. You are eighteen today are you not?”
“Yes sir.”
“And yet you act as if you were a dozen years younger. You sit here squealing and whining like a child. Still, you will soon learn how to deport yourself correctly.”
I stood up, unable to take this any longer. I turned to leave. The next thing I knew, his hand was on my shoulder, taking hold of me in an iron grip. He spun me round to face him. “You will leave when I allow it and not before,” he snarled, pressing his face to mine, his lips almost touching my own. I recoiled backwards but he would not let me go, throwing me back into my chair. “Move again and you will regret it long after your bruises fade,” he said, returning to his seat and taking up his pipe once more. He relit it as he continued whilst I rubbed my shoulder to relieve the pain he had caused.
“Your father and I were pirates together,” he continued as if the interruption had not taken place.
“You lie!”
“Believe what you like,” he shrugged. “Though did it never occur to you to wonder where your wealth came from?”
“Father told me it was inherited.”
“A great many things he told you were fallacious. I suspect he never told you how he ran away from the King’s navy and found his way to Tortuga. I caught him stealing my pocket watch and we fought in a tavern there. He gave me my scar and I gave him something in return.” He was silent for a moment, rubbing his arm as if lost in thought. “Those were good years, the two of us were unstoppable,” he continued, his voice lower than before, his gaze fixed on the smouldering embers of his pipe. “We burned the ocean with the flame of our greed.” He blinked as if returning to himself, looking up at me once more. “Then he met your mother and everything changed.”
“My mother?”
“Wanted to become a law abiding decent citizen of the Empire. Wanted to commence a new life with her. Fell in love.” The last three words were said slowly, as if each were dripping with poison. The sneer on his face sent a squall through the pit of my stomach. He looked inhuman. “There was only one problem,” he continued. “He’d gambled away all his money. Do you know what he did next?”
I shook my head.
“He begged me to lend him the funds, promised me he would repay in no time at all. In a year he’d a larger plantation than any of his neighbours and yet he did not repay a single penny to me. He pleaded for a little more time. I gave him another year. He built the house you were born in instead of repaying me. I was…displeased.
“We came to a gentleman’s agreement. He would repay me in a decade or he would hand me his daughter.”
“My goodness,” I muttered, a wave of dizziness washing over me.
“I waited patiently for ten years and when not a single penny was forthcoming in that time, I came to collect. Instead I found an empty house and a ship leaving the harbour. It took me many years to track you down and now it is time to collect the debt.”
“What have you done with father?”
“Not a thing. He got word I was coming and left with your mother, leaving you at my mercy and there is something delicious about that gesture, do you know why?”
I shook my head.
“He knows I have no mercy.”
Chapter 2
Lord Darlington stood up and motioned for me to do the same. I remained seated, my entire being in shock at what I’d just heard. I yelped as he grabbed me by the armpits and wrenched me to my feet, lifting me into the air and holding me at his eye level as I kicked ineffectually at the air. “Unhand me!” I snapped, pulling at his arms. He merely let me dangle as if I were nothing more than a squirming kitten about to tossed into a river for his wicked amusement.
Slowly I tired, falling limp in his arms at last. Only then did he move me until my face was so close to his, I could feel his hot breath on me. “You will learn to obey me or you will face the consequences,” he whispered. “I will set you down momentarily and you will follow me in silence to my carriage. Do you understand?”
“I’ll never go anywhere with you.”
“Very well. Do not say you were not warned.”
He set my feet on the ground but as I tried once more to squirm away he pushed me against the table, his hand in the small of my back, pressing my chest into the table. Reaching down, he ignored my screams of protest and bunched the hem of my skirt in his fist. “Let me go at once!” I screamed.
“You will learn your lesson first,” he replied, pulling the skirt upwards until my legs were exposed. I kicked back at him but he did not react, it was as if I was attempting to kick out at a tree trunk or a wall of stone for all the effect it had.
“What are you doing?” I asked, still fighting to escape him.
“Teaching you something important,” he replied, the hand in the small of my back taking hold of my skirt, holding it raised. My face blushed deep red as I realised he was no doubt gazing at my drawers. I looked behind me in time to see him raise his hand high in the air.
> “Please,” I began but got no further.
“It is too late for please,” he replied as the hand whipped down through the air and landed on my right buttock with so much force I let out a shriek of agony.
He let me go but I could not move at first, the pain excruciating and spreading through me in waves that seemed never ending. I was weeping as he took my arm and led me slowly from the dining room into the hallway. The household staff were nowhere to be seen. I wondered if they’d fled with my parents.
My bottom was still stinging as he lifted me into his waiting carriage. Bitter tears ran down my cheeks as he tapped on the roof and the wheels began to turn. Through the window I watched my home vanish into the distance before I finally sat back and closed my eyes, my soul in torment.
“Have you finished crying?” Darlington asked.
“I hate you,” I replied, turning to look at him. That awful smile flickered across his lips again.
“Hate me all you like. It will change nothing.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“To my home. I’m told it needs a woman’s touch.”
A look crossed his face, a look of distance and sorrow. As soon as he noticed me looking at me, he turned and stared out of his window at the fields beyond, not looking back for some time. I sat back and did my best not to cry.
It was some hours before we turned off the road onto a private track, passing between two iron gates and between overhanging trees that combined with the setting sun to fill me with the sensation that I was passing from light into darkness. A minute later we turned a corner and I saw a house lit by lanterns. Flames licked at the corners of the building as if it rose from the fires of hell, a home built from brimstone fit for a devil as wicked as the man beside me.
The carriage drew up and a butler ran to open my door. “Welcome back Lord Darlington,” the butler said as he stepped down after me. “How was your journey?”
“Tedious,” Darlington replied. “I’ll take a brandy.”
“And your guest?”
“Take her to my room.”
“Very good my Lord.”
