“Of course,” I said, my thoughts a flurry. If Lord Malcom had wanted me, it was within his power, disturbingly so, to take me. I had nowhere to flee, no help in doing so. He’d simply have to open the door to the room I slept in, stumbled his way through, and force himself upon me as he and the overseers were rumored to do with the field slaves.
I could fight him, but there would be little I could do and no one to come to my rescue.
Why all this trouble?
Maybe he intends to sell me, along with a forged contract, and means to introduce me to potential buyers tonight. He did complement me more than once on my beauty.
Or, perhaps, he means to assign me to house duties to keep Matthias’ interaction with me limited.
That seemed the lesser of the evils eating at my thoughts, and it made sense, at least to me, that Lord Malcom would expect any servant assisting with dinner to be dressed appropriately.
“Will you be training me?”
“I beg your pardon?” Mrs. O’Flannery half-laughed.
“To serve. Proper serving,” I said.
She snorted. “You? Serve? Hardly appropriate,” she drew out ‘hardly’ as she looked down at my cane. “You will be dining with Lord Malcom.”
I choked on my own breath. “Excuse me?”
“I trust you know how to bathe, yes?” Her voice had the same, flat tone that she’d kept in our previous encounters. My presence, especially in the house, offended her for reasons beyond my understanding. A few loud claps of her hand, and several of the housemaids appeared carrying buckets of water that they poured into a large wooden tub.
I bit my tongue.
“I shall leave Bess to attend to you. She will fetch me when you are ready to be dressed.”
And so she left us, two fragile, unsure young women.
“I really do not need help, Bess. Please feel free to rest,” I said. “My balance is much better than it used to be, and I only need help stepping in and out.”
She nodded, and came to lend me a shoulder.
The water was hot. I had never felt anything so exquisite. Warm waters were always my favorite, but hot? I had never encountered that. I wiggled my toes, letting my muscles have a moment of relief.
“Bess,” I said, on the verge of a question as I lifted a pitcher to pour the warmth over my head.
“Oh, stop!”
She jumped up off the edge of the bed and walked toward me with an outreached hand. “You must not do that. We have oil and powder to clean your hair with, and we do not have time to dry it.”
Relief covered her as I sat the pitcher outside the tub.
“I’m sorry. I am lost,” I said.
She nodded with sympathy.
“It is not normal for Lord Malcom to eat with a servant, is it.”
Bess looked down at her feet for a time, took a breath, and looked up at me. “It is from time to time. If he finds the servant…pleasing.”
“Pleasing,” I repeated.
Her choice of words deepened my fears, made my stomach swim with nausea. I was not blind to the way Lord Malcom examined me when he first saw me, and again when he visited the stables.
“Yes. Pleasing. Attractive,” she replied, swallowing down half of her words as though it pained her to speak them.
My chest tightened. Everything about this felt wrong from the moment his butler startled me. Matthias had warned me, warned me well, and there I was, in a room made for a clandestine affair.
“The man in the manor does not show kindness freely. Everything has a price, and you would do well to remember that,” Matthias had said to Joseph and me.
It was true. Something was to be expected of me, though what, I had only a small idea. One that brought a flush to my face and a tremble to my limbs.
Lord Malcom was no better than Ro. I was his Lesser, one prettied up and made to be something pleasing to him.
He was thorough, too, sending Matthias away. Matthias was not here to save me, and had he been, he would be as helpless as the rest of us. It would be up to me to dissuade him in any way I could. Fleeing was no longer an option, at least not until Matthias returned.
My hands were shaking as Ms. O’Flannery slid the dress over me. The weight of it dropped, and I lost my balance, taken aback by it, catching myself on the post of the bed. Even while she styled my crudely shortened hair with Bess, she breathed not a word to me.
She worked as quickly as she could, jerking the strands of my hair here and there with considerable, purposeful force.
“Has Matthias returned?” I asked, voice cracking.
“No,” she said.
My mind swarmed with ideas and terrors and hopes the rest of my physical preparation, until Ms. O’Flannery announced the finality of it, my transformation complete. I walked to the mirror, amazed by the person I saw in its sheen. I looked nothing like myself.
The dress overwhelmed me in all directions until it reached my waist, where Ms. O’Flannery strained and groaned to tighten the laces. The tops of my breasts, full and firm, peeked out of the square neckline. They rose and fell with my breath.
Mrs. O’Flannery thrust my cane at me and opened the door. The butler stood vigil in the hall until I was deemed adequate for their employer, and then motioned for me to accompany him.
The halls were narrow, more so than I remembered, and swallowed me as the skirts of my dress touched both sides. I held them to me as best I could and struggled to keep up with the quick-footed man in front of me. Just as I was preparing to tap my cane to tell him to stop or slow down, we came to the end, and he pushed a door open. The light from the room we were entering was soft and tender.
It was the main foyer, what I had seen a glimpse of the day I arrived, and I realized I had changed very little since then. Still afraid, still naïve, and still under someone else’s control.
When would my life be my own?
Lord Malcom stood as I entered the dining room, waited for me to sit as a footman pulled out a chair for me.
“Good evening, Ia,” he said, his smile relaxed, and his eyes cold.
My pasted on smile did me well. I adhered to the subjects Matthias taught Joseph and myself, and he made his compliments on his son’s desire to better the world and educate the slaves.
“You could do worse, you know,” he commented, swirling brandy around in his glass. I studied him, everything about him, and at times I caught a glimpse of his son in him. At other times, I saw the predator that he was.
“What do you mean, Sir?” I asked through gritted teeth, hoping the alcohol sitting before me would render this night nothing more than a horrible dream.
“I do not extend such offers lightly, nor do I extend them often,” he said, his words floating as though this was still light conversation.
“I usually enjoy the pleasures of the more rotund, comely women you see in the fields, but then again, I have always had a fascination for the unusual. Such as yourself.” He nodded, raising his glass to me.
I raised my glass in kind, and questions swirled around me. I could not keep them from my face.
What does he plan to do to me?
“You seem lost, Ia,” he said.
I struggled to reply, stammering over my words at first.
“I wish to ask you something, sir, if I may.” My throat was parched, and I reached for a glass of water.
“You may speak freely for now.”
Folding my hands in my lap, I raised my eyes to his.
“Why did you invite me to dine with you?”
He laughed. “It pleases me.”
I nodded, but my mind searched for the words to ask him his intentions.
“Let us speak as friends would, yes?” he said, half-asking for permission that was not mine to deny. “You are indeed receiving an honor. Your dresses, your room, your new station.”
Ah. There it is.
The blatant truth. This arrangement was not to be for tonight alone. It would be until he tired of me, and would certainly
not end until he felt Matthias would bend to his will again.
“You should know that I do value you,” he said, attempting to balm the wound opening at my core. “There have been only two women to have been blessed enough to have my favor bestowed on them. The last was Matthias’ mother, then again, she was a unique beauty - such as yourself.”
He took a sip of his brandy, and stared off at one of the many paintings on the wall of his homeland.
“She bore me a son, Matthias. Illegitimate, of course, but a son that could rule over this place in my stead. My gift to her was her freedom, as well as that of her sister, but I digress.”
Sitting down his glass, he stood and walked to me.
“He has done well with his discreet education,” he said, his voice growing heavier with each breath. “I daresay you may someday pass as a lady.”
My stomach fell to the floor, my resolve to find a way out of this mess sinking with it.
“You want me because of Matthias.”
“Yes. Your beauty helps, however. I would have had my way with you and been done, but I see the way he looks at you,” he said. “And his opinion may change when you are used up and nothing is left.”
I shuddered as he walked behind my chair, trailing his hand along my shoulders.
“He will learn that to pine for a slave is foolish, and he will marry according to the name I’ve blessed him with. He should have simply eased his loins and gotten you out of his system.”
“If I refuse?” The words escaped my lips, a desperate thought.
He caressed a wayward strand of my hair, and he breathed in my scent.
“I would tie you, your limbs spread apart, then rip the rags off your back, and let any and every male with an itch in their loins fuck you. When the whole of them are through, I would have Matthias himself lash your back until there is no flesh left,” he whispered.
My breath caught in my throat, and my chest clenched. He could do it. He had the means, and I had the inability to escape.
“I would string up that slave stable boy you and Matthias are so fond of, and I would set him aflame for good measure. Matthias knows how I dislike one taking the education I paid for and throwing it away to the likes of slaves. Present company included.”
He held out his arm, and I knew it was time.
I downed the rest of brandy in front of me, and then stood, taking his arm. We navigated the passages without a word until we reached the room I had been made ready in. He pushed the door open, and for the first time, I noticed the enormous bed.
Four pillars formed the corners, stretching up to the ceiling, supporting a large, scarlet canopy draped in sheer panels. Every bit of the wood was carved. At the head of the bed was a beautiful mermaid carved in intricate detail. Her arms were stretched toward the sky, and the water splashed around her lower body as she surfaced, forming the edge that framed her. She was extraordinary, and the sight of her comforted me as much as it made me long for home.
I thought of Matthias as I felt the tug of Lord Malcom’s fingers on the laces of my dress. Would he look on me with shame? Would he turn away?
Lord Malcom was agile, and in a few moments, he had undone me, the dress left amid the dirt on the floor. Only the thin undergarment was left to shield my nakedness from him. He reached for it, but I stopped him by sliding my shoulders out, letting it fall.
He smiled, devouring me as he removed his topcoat and loosened his breeches, opening the falls to reveal his erect flesh. Aside from his coat, he removed no other clothing. Instead, he pressed against me, backing me to edge of the bed, and then pushed me onto it, crawling over me. The smoothness of the fabric along with his erection sent my skin crawling.
The pain of it – all of it – was unbearable. His mouth was far from gentle. He nipped at my neck, slobbering as he rammed into me again and again. I closed my eyes, trying to keep my mind on every fond memory I could conjure as his body labored over me, pawing at my breasts, growing rougher by the second. Tears formed in the corners of my eyes, and I struggled to breathe under him and the heat he was creating.
As I began to sob, I found Mother’s lullaby on my lips, the one she would sing to me when terrors of the night would fill my dreams. At first, I mouthed the words as I clenched the sheets underneath me in my fists, combating the hurt surging in my loins. I found myself humming it as I did to the horses, and in an instant, all movement stopped.
He remained in me, his swollen flesh, but he moved not, just held himself suspended above me. Cracking open my eyelids, I found him frozen, brow furrowed, eyes wide and vacant.
I turned my face, and he opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He pulled free from me, his once-swollen phallus now falling, and without so much as a word, he tucked himself back into his pants, and left the room.
I leapt from the bed and crawled to the nearest corner, long beyond the ability to cry, and there I slept, among dust and filth. My dreams were of little comfort. All I could see was Matthias looking down on me, filled with hurt and disgust. Not even offering up an insult, he looked at me, his father’s property, and walked away.
This was what it felt like to be a Lesser.
The next morning Bess pulled me from the corner and guided me to the tub to bathe. Rose was with her, and operated in silence. I feared their thoughts, their opinions of me, but when I dared to meet their gaze, all I saw was pain and sympathy. After Bess removed the blood-stained sheets from the bed, Rose laid a gentle hand on my shoulder as I retreated to my corner.
“We best get you dressed,” she said. “Fresh air would do you good.”
I shook my head, terrified I would leave the room, and I would see Matthias, and he would know.
“You are brave, girl,” Rose continued. “But you should learn when to take help. I’ll go with you. Bess saw to it that I would help you for today.”
“Will he come again,” I asked. “Tonight?”
Rose sighed. “More likely than not. He’s not as young as he once was.”
“He gave me no choice, Rose.” I said, confident she wouldn’t believe me, but knowing that the words still needed to be said.
“We know, child,” Rose said, running a comb through my wet hair. “More of us know than you could imagine. At least it was just the master and not a line of the overseers.”
She left it at that, and I cared not to speak as I stepped into the bath she had prepared for me and scrubbed my skin raw.
Chapter 13
It was a solid two weeks before Matthias darkened the doorway. Bess told me that Lord Malcom dispatched new orders for him every morning and evening, even sending more slaves to be sold and commanding him to wait on a ship from a nearby island.
I was a prisoner in the room, the entrance unlocked only to allow Bess to attend to me for the first few days. Confident thereafter that I would not flee, Lord Malcom began to leave my chamber unlocked, but he stationed a guard, usually a servant, nearby. I saw them each time the door was opened, except for when Lord Malcom would visit. I stopped counting after the fifth time.
Now, I could feel Matthias’ presence behind me. My skin tingled, and the hair on the back of my neck rose up. I glanced over my shoulder, caught a glimpse of him from the corner of my eye. His weight shifted from one leg to the other, and his right hand gripped the doorframe.
Indecisive. Does he stay, or does he go?
The smell of him was intoxicating. It hurt. Hurt to be so confused by this conflicted man. Would he help me or would he leave me, turn his back as he had on all those in the fields?
I waited for words, but none were spoken. This room, so large and grossly decadent, felt so small. I stood but kept my back to him, choosing instead to cast glances over my shoulder.
“Lord Malcom has forbidden me to see you,” he said. “He is visiting the estate to the north in attempt to arrange my marriage.”
“Are you to leave me to him, then?”
I kept my gaze averted, not wishing him to see the shame and fe
ar in my eyes.
He bit his lip and looked at the hem of my dress scraping the floor.
“Is that what you wish?”
His words were muffled, almost mumbled.
“No,” I replied, softly.
He scoffed as he stared at me. “It suits you.”
“Being a whore,” I spat at him, my mouth filled with venom as I turned to face him.
“The dress.”
“Where were you?” I said. “You were less than a day’s ride from here.”
He shook his head. “I was kept in town. I suspected it was a rouse, but I believed you to be safe with my mother hiding you. I did not realize he had you, Ia, and I had no one around me that I trust.”
My ire built higher with my shame, and I shook my head.
“No?” Matthias asked, eyebrows raised.
“I do not believe you,” I said. My gaze met his. “I believe you were too weak to fight for me just as you are too weak to stand up for those trapped in the fields.”
His mouth fell open as his brow furrowed.
“You think me weak,” he said, his face flushing red.
“Yes. And so cruel sometimes I think you hate me. So kind sometimes I think you might love me,” I squeezed my hands to each other to keep myself from breaking down.
“Cruel? I’m cruel?” His posture straightened, and his hands tensed at his sides.
It was the first time he had raised his voice to me.
“Do you not see that I’d rather you feel the bite of a whip any day than hang from a noose? Do you not realize how it pains me to see people – my own kin, even - used like animals?! Do you not see I have to do it to keep them – and you- alive?”
I was frozen. All that conflict, that harshness. He was caught in the middle. Only, his body was used to dole out the master’s punishment while mine was now assigned to satisfy his pleasure.
“You must speak calmly or someone will hear you.”
“He is not here, and not a one of those bastards out there would dare say anything, let alone stand against me.” Matthias’ jaw twitched, his eyes following my curves.
“Tell me, truthfully.” His voice was calm and unwavering. “Are you his whore now? Did he buy you with dresses and jewels?”
Falling in Deep Collection Box Set Page 23
