The Lord's Scandalous Bride

by Emily Tilton

  An awful sneer curled the earl’s lip. “It is most certainly so, you blackguard. I have no wish to deny it. The serving girls who have been dismissed from my service came by their dismissals most fairly. If I have thrashed them, and used them for my pleasure, it was to teach them of their need to change their ways, if they wished to avoid paying such a terrible price again, at the hands and prick of a man less upright than I.”

  Susan could scarcely credit how offhandedly the earl delivered this terrible speech. At the end of it, she couldn’t suppress a little cry of fear and outrage.

  To her horror, Robert addressed her. “Does that make you cry out, little whore? Or, I suppose, Miss Grant? Does it offend your maidenly sensibilities? I am sorry, but I must confess that my sorrow is merely on account of the fact that it appears I shan’t get to pump your maidenly arse full of my hot spunk.”

  “Hold your tongue, Robert,” Nele said, his voice now rising. “Hold your damned virtuous tongue. You will not address Miss Grant again in the brief time we remain here—just enough to deliver myself of the wisdom I promised a moment ago. Here it is. If ever you pass the door of our grandsire’s pleasure house, and see the paintings there, the stiffness of your prick will not result from your righteousness.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  In London, Nele received at his club a letter from his father.

  My boy,

  Though there is not much I can do for you, circumstanced as I am and nearly confined by your brother and your mother to Panton under threat of unpleasantness so great I am sure, knowing you as I do, that you would not wish it even if it meant some small additional aid from me to your cause, I have it in my power at least to ease your path a little. I enclose a few banknotes therefore, wishing they could be more, and if you give me the word by return of post I will dispatch a letter to San Francisco, California, that a business associate of mine in the China trade, named Allen, should prepare something of a place for you. You will have it before you, I am afraid, to work at least a little, for your living and that of your companion, but I have it on good authority that the presence of a ‘milord’ is thought in San Francisco a great benefit to any firm and I feel sure Captain Allen will be very glad to welcome both you and your companion, and to give you a start.

  Of the contretemps with your brother I would rather say nothing, except that even related, as it was, by him, I can discern that your conduct was admirable. I hope only for your future happiness, in America or whithersoever you shall go. Though you have never met her, Miss Halton also wishes me to tell you that she counts you among the most truly noble men of whom she has had the pleasure to hear, and, having the privilege to know you well, I cannot but concur.

  I shall remain to the end of my days your affectionate father,

  P

  With a tear at the corner of each eye that he struggled to blink away, Nele penned his reply.

  Dearest father,

  I shall never be able to thank you enough. Miss Grant and I shall take ship for America, with the help of your monetary gift, as soon as ever we may. Your spiritual gift, making my mind as easy about what we will find as about your faithful regard for me, is to me of incalculably more worth. I do not suppose we shall meet again. The sadness at this thought nearly steals my breath away, but I shall always remain your affectionate son,

  Nele

  From his club he walked to Brown’s, where Mr. and Mrs. Loomis had taken up a residence that would, thankfully for Nele’s dwindling pocketbook, now, it appeared, be brief. The first available passage to New York, aboard the White Star Oceanic, would depart Liverpool two days hence.

  “And how might one reach San Francisco from New York?” Nele asked. Neither his tutor nor Nele himself had considered the Americas a fit subject for study, nor did one learn at Harrow or Oxford about such outlandish places, except as disloyal colonists. Ten years before, of course, while Nele finished at university, there had been a great deal of fuss about the American Civil War and the price of cotton, but as Nele’s clothes were all chosen by his mother he had paid very little attention.

  Now he cursed himself inwardly for that—as it seemed to him now—abominable lack of interest. Would not the land of liberty be a much better place for him and Susan than the sceptered isle, after all? And the minuscule amount he knew about San Francisco seemed to confirm it: gold, and guns, and railroads, and brothels—many, many brothels. And now this Captain Allen, who his father thought would welcome him and Susan.

  For of course Susan need not be the fallen girl, there. Even if word should somehow reach San Francisco that she had spent two sordid years, who in California would know what it meant to fall into the power of Lord Granby or to become a maid at Hobberly? Indeed, who knew whether Californians might not enjoy the company of such a well-bred lady who had about her an exciting whiff of scandal?

  “The railroad is the quickest way, sir, and they say it gives a marvelous view of the country. Quite safe.”

  Nele looked at the clerk sharply. The need to say quite safe must of course come from the strong possibility that the railroad actually had its dangers.

  “Safe from what?” he asked.

  “The red Indians, sir,” the clerk replied with wide eyes, as if astonished that Nele would not have understood that immediately. “And the bandits, but the bandits don’t scalp the passengers. But the red Indians, as I hear, are under control.”

  Shaking his head as if it might help him work his mind around to grasping the notion that he and Susan would soon arrive in a land of red Indians and bandits, Nele ascended the stairs to the room where Susan—Mrs. Loomis, again—awaited him. They had had to leave their things in Great Jorkin, because Nele had not felt able to warrant he would not murder his brother if he should have to return to the room through whose door Robert had burst. Nor could Susan go to the shops in London for fear of being recognized, since in her brief days with Sir David she had frequented them as Susan Grant.

  Robert, he had heard at his club, had made it known that Nele’s debts would not be paid, and that while he did not ask any of his friends to hinder Nele’s movements in any way, he did expect that they would side with the earl in thinking Nele beneath contempt. Nele had no wish to experience the effects of this dictum of his brother’s and so he saw no one except those few friends he met at his club when he checked there, daily, for letters. He remained shut up in Brown’s, having surrendered his final banknotes—before the arrival of the lifesaving letter from the duke—the day before as security against his unexpected departure as the manager of Brown’s had put it.

  To be shut up in a small, elegant room with his Mrs. Loomis, his Miss Grant, his Susan, his Sue the trollop, however, made the whole affair bearable despite its not having had before this morning any clear ending without both of them coming upon the town in one way or another. Every day, but only once a day, Susan asked Nele if he thought he should simply go to Robert and beg his forgiveness, and let Susan be put on the ship to Australia with the wicked captain.

  The morning after they arrived in London—two days before his father’s letter—Nele had caught her trying to steal from the room while he used the privy.

  Susan had almost reached the front stair when Nele came up the back stair from the jakes. His heart full of fear, but knowing he must not make a scene, he ran to catch her arm. When she turned to him he saw tears streaming down her face. “My lord,” she said, “I must go. I cannot allow myself to put this blight upon your prospects.”

  When he began to draw her back into their chamber, though, she offered him no resistance. Once he had shut the door behind them, Susan fell into his arms, still weeping but not, it seemed, intent on carrying out her plan of escape.

  “Susan,” Nele said gently. “I fear I must punish you for trying to steal yourself away from me.”

  She looked up at him, as he had hoped, with a brighter eye at that, but when she spoke a new element had entered her tone. “I see no reason why you should punish me, my lord, when I o
nly sought to take the air.”

  Looking into her eyes and expecting to find merriment, Nele found he could not tell whether she meant the defiance or not. Her little face had to gone from sorrow to determination in its aspect—even to the point of willfulness.

  “Did you not just speak to me words that suggested you sought to leave me?” he asked, trying to discern how serious she might be.

  “Perhaps I misspoke,” she said. “But is that not my own affair? Surely you shall not punish me for it?”

  “Be that as it may, Miss Grant,” Nele replied in his sternest voice, “it is I who have to decide the times and seasons of your discipline. Are you not under my protection?”

  “I shall not be under your protection, my lord, much longer if you play the tyrant with me. I don’t presume to understand from my helpless state that I am to have my bottom bared whenever you like.”

  Strange as it seemed, Nele gathered that Susan truly had decided she must play the offended maiden despite everything that had passed between them. Since coming away from the inn in Great Jorkin Nele had not renewed his amorous attentions to her, worried that the impression of the scene with Robert might linger in his mind and spoil their joy. Susan, for her part, had mentioned nothing about their erotic relations, and now Nele wondered whether the feelings she must have suppressed had returned in the form of this new defiance.

  In any case, he felt the irate need to make sure of her understanding that she would accept his chastisement whenever he thought it necessary to her wellbeing. Perhaps Susan needed to know that her protector would bare her backside and teach her a lesson if she strayed from his precepts, or perhaps she merely felt the natural impulse to have Nele renew his more intimate attentions to her body’s cravings. In any case, Nele’s blood was up, and Susan’s little bottom must pay the price for her saucy conduct and her defiant words.

  “Remove all your clothing, Miss Grant,” Nele said firmly. “You shall henceforth remain entirely naked in this chamber. It seems the only way to ensure that you cannot escape. Should you need to go to the privy to do the necessary, I will give you back your shift and gown and accompany you there. When the parlor maid calls to renew the room, you will remain in bed as if indisposed.”

  Her eyes flashed fire at him, astonishing Nele yet again with her ability to assume the airs of a gentleman’s daughter. “Did I not just say, my lord, you must not play the tyrant?”

  “Miss Grant, or perhaps I should say Mrs. Loomis, you have not begun to see how tyrannical I can be if you fail to obey me. Now do as I have said. Once you are naked, you shall get upon your hands and knees on the bed, and I shall spank you as I did on that first night, to teach you a little of true modesty.”

  Susan’s face had gone red, and her brow furrowed, but she had not spoken another word as she obeyed him. He helped her unlace, and then he took her gown and her petticoats away. Finally, giving him a penitent, pleading look, she tugged her shift off and handed it over. For a moment she stood there, naked, looking at him, as if in hope that her bewitching little form would make him relent, but he pointed sternly to the bed.

  She bit her lip, turned, and climbed up upon it.

  “Bottom well presented, Miss Grant,” Nele said. Laying her clothes on the chair, he advanced and put his hand upon her back. “Girls who must have their clothes taken away need to feel what their nakedness means.”

  With a little whimper, Susan arched her back and pushed her backside out most delightfully. “I’m sorry, my lord,” she whispered. “Please be gentle.”

  But Nele felt that gentleness was the last thing called for. He raised his arm and brought his hand down hard, over and over, upon the squirming bottom of his naughty girl. He spanked Susan until her little cheeks had turned a bright red, and he had to gag her with the edge of the counterpane in order not to bring the management down upon them while he fucked her afterward, his hips smacking hard into her firm, well-warmed bottom.

  After that memorable morning, they had scarcely passed an hour without Nele’s need to enjoy the nakedness he had enforced on Susan rising so high that he could not keep from commanding her to assume a posture suitable for the entry of his cock into one of the luscious places on her person that sometimes seemed to him to have been created in heaven solely for his pleasure.

  He would have her lie on her back with her knees held wide open in her hands, and he would kiss her bare cunny for long minutes, until overcome with the desire that made his cock ache, he would plunge inside her and ride with the greatest vigor until he gave his essence into her with a shout he could scarcely modulate. Or he would turn her head to the foot of the bed and make her open her mouth, so that, supporting himself on his hands, he might thrust so deep inside that his balls rested charmingly and degradingly on her nose. Or, returning to his favorite thing of all, he would simply bend her over with her feet on the floor and her hands on the bed, and have her bottom thus, feeling it the most masterful and natural expression of his relation to his wonderful girl.

  Before he had left for his club that morning, he had begun to steel himself to the necessity of telling her when he returned that they must remove from Brown’s and leave London to find a place—perhaps somewhere on the continent—where they might live cheaply and appeal to his family for a modicum of assistance, which even Robert, he supposed, would not in the end begrudge him. He had been sure that in Susan’s eyes as she bid him farewell from the bed where she must stay, her gown having been concealed by Robert in a closet down the hall, he had seen her understanding that their little honeymoon had almost come to an end. Now, as he strode through the door with a grin on his face to find her still in bed, her eyes went wide in surprise and confusion to see him so happy.

  “What is it, Mr. Loomis?” she asked. They had taken to calling one another by what they termed between themselves their married names. It rarely failed to bring a smile to either of their faces.

  “Only that we are saved, Mrs. Loomis, by my father. We will go to California, and depart the day after tomorrow.”

  “California?” Susan asked in a voice full of wonder. “In America?”

  “Indeed,” Nele replied. “My father will send a letter of introduction for me, and it appears that I shall be an ornament to some American captain’s business affairs.”

  Susan twitched her nose, then, in that fashion that Nele had come to understand always preceded some attempt to evoke in him his dominance. “And if,” she said saucily, “I do not wish to go to America?”

  “Well,” Nele said, “I believe I have heard of an ingenious system used by a sea captain, of tying a naughty girl to his berth.”

  Susan giggled at that. Then her eyes welled up with tears. “And you will truly leave England for my sake, my lord?”

  “I will, my dear,” Nele replied gravely. “I cannot imagine more wonderful news than this from my father.”

  “How shall we pass the time on our long journey, then?” Susan asked, blinking her tears away and smiling up at him.

  “You shall tell me the rest of your tale, Miss Grant, and I shall make certain that you have learned your lesson as thoroughly as you must.” He slipped into bed beside her. He reached his hand down between her thighs, and, firmly parting them, took hold, as he loved to do, with his three middle fingers of her tender cleft. Susan sighed and nestled herself into his chest. “First I must learn,” he said softly, “how this little treasure first received a man’s hardness.”

  “Now, my lord?” Susan whispered.

  “No,” Nele said thoughtfully. “Let us wait until we are aboard ship and on our way. We will have a great deal of time, and I suppose we cannot spend all of it in fucking.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Two days later, at the rail of RMS Oceanic with the mouth of the Mersey and Liverpool slipping away behind them, Susan softly, and without warning Nele, began the tale of her true defloration by Mr. Oldham. Looking down at the dark green of the sea and already farther away from the shore of Britain than she
had ever been, she said, “Mr. Oldham told me on the train, after I had obediently swallowed his seed, that he could tell I was a very special girl, and a very sad one. He asked if I thought I would like to be his special girl, and live in London with a little bit of money. He couldn’t keep me in a high style, he said, but he did know a boardinghouse where another gentleman of his acquaintance kept a special girl, and visited her from time to time.”

  Susan shivered, and Nele put his arm around her shoulders. Would he keep her that way, in San Francisco, she wondered? Certainly, if he proved true, he must do something for her, must he not? She remembered the squalid house in Cheapside, the tininess of her room there, the leers of the landlady Mrs. Wantage at her female lodgers, who all received their gentlemen callers readily and then cried out through the house’s thin walls as they repaid their room and board with their youthful, illicit favors.

  Maud, whose keeper did not fuck her but only whipped her with a pony-lash until her backside stayed black and blue for a week. Mabel, whose older gentleman watched her upon the chamber pot before having her bottom ceremonially over the arm of the settee. Dora, made to use an enormous leather godemiche upon her cunny while her keeper lectured her about the consequences of sin. Susan’s neighbors, and her tutors in the ways of men.

  “It was a place for fallen girls like me,” she continued. “One step short of the stews. I have reason to thank heaven, for Mr. Oldham could have, I believe, just as easily—had he been another sort of man—brought me to the meanest house of ill-repute in London and left me there. Even better, the other girls at Mrs. Wantage’s could see immediately that I had no idea what I was about, and when I told them of Mr. Greatrex they took great pity on me, and taught me the things I must do and say. When Mr. Oldham told me that he must stop keeping me, for he had suffered a reverse upon change—though I suspect it was actually his conscience that made him wish to end our arrangement—it was thanks to Dora’s help that I attracted Lord Granby’s attention.”