Milady - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Laura L. Sullivan is the author of five books for middle grade and young adult audiences. This is her adult debut. She lives in Florida with her son.

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***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof***

Copyright © 2018 Laura L. Sullivan

Prologue

1628

The things a woman has to do to make her way in this world . . .

Mrs. Fox’s whorehouse attracts a peculiar clientele. Oh, to most women, any man who will pay for heartless amours must be a little bit peculiar. We women, you see, are polar creatures, careening wildly from one extreme to another, either wholly romantic or entirely practical. Lovemaking, for us, must either be about devotion or commerce. Never both. We don’t mix the two, although myopic men believe we do.

I have known many prostitutes, and not one of them has ever fallen in love with a client. Few indeed harbor anything but dislike for them, though occasionally a twinge of pity might creep into the most sensitive houri’s heart. Which is not to say that whores don’t fall in love. They do, harder than most. Just not with the men who pay them, no more than a blacksmith will fall in love with his bellows.

Somehow, though, men always believe that their whores secretly love them. They cannot be content simply to pay for pleasure, as they might pay a chef to prepare a sumptuous meal. No, they insist that the woman they rent must feel something. That, they think, is their right, and they feel cheated if their money cannot buy more than physical release. The best of the customers hope their gold will buy affection. These men are at least harmless, if deluded.

Others, however, insist on sharper feelings.

The marquis enjoys what his confreres call le vice anglais. Here, on the outskirts of Paris, the English Mrs. Fox is happy to provide all variations of vice. The English and French are in a constant state of agitation with each other, their royalty alternately bickering and intermarrying, their religious sects quibbling over minutiae they are willing to die over. And yet through peace and war (and war was threatening now at the Huguenot fortress city of La Rochelle), Mrs. Fox found that national relations were always cordial enough to keep her in business. Here, Frenchmen can conquer their traditional English enemy on comfortable feather beds rather than on the battlefield. Or, more often, yield.

For most of her customers like to be on the receiving end, whipped by a beautiful English wanton. Not the marquis. Few of the high-end girls will take him on, and he does not care for the ladies of the street, poxed and desperate. So you can imagine his glee when he spies me among Mrs. Fox’s bevy, an innocent young widow fresh from the English countryside, with hair as golden as ripe wheat at sunset and eyes like English bluebells.

Forewarned of his presence, I hide behind the more experienced girls, but this only serves to attract his attention. My fear acts like oysters and Spanish fly to him. Even through downturned lashes, I can see his breath quicken in excitement.

“Step forward, Charlotte,” the procuress says in her silky voice. “Let the gentleman see you.” I hang back, and she gestures to two of the other whores to guide me forward. “A new girl, not a virgin, true, but fresh to the trade. Her only lover was her husband, mangled in a mill, alas.”

I feel a tear tickle my cheek, but when one of the girls nudges me in the ribs, I look into the marquis’s eyes and manage to twitch a smile at him before dropping a curtsy. “Milord.”

“Yes,” he says ravenously. “Look at that skin. Your husband was a prosperous man, eh? You never had to work, I can tell.” He nods to Mrs. Fox. “She will do. She will do to a nicety.”

When the girl beside me whispers into my ear exactly what he intends to do, though, I balk and pull away from his reaching hand. Behind him, I catch a glimpse of Roger, who sails under the flag of “nephew” but is Mrs. Fox’s young lover and bully boy. He keeps the customers in line . . . and also the girls, if necessary. The marquis follows my terrified eyes, and we both watch as Roger clenches and unclenches his meaty hands, conveying a multitude of meanings. If the marquis gets too rough, that gesture tells me, I’ll step in. But if you refuse to please your first client, these hands will make you hurt in ways the marquis never dreamed of.

And so, I accept my fate. What else can a poor English widow do?

Feigning courage through my trembling, I lead him to a room that smells of, well, the sort of things a brothel is known for. But this isn’t an ordinary pleasure den. There is a propped ladder, a sturdy wooden X, a bench, and the sort of stand usually used to hold saddles. On the wall are paddles, short and thick, and long and slender. A sweating bucket full of birch rods waits in one corner, and a braided cat huddles in another, tossed aside by someone in the throes and forgotten. The walls are painted in roses and peonies, and the other furniture could be found in any middle-class English merchant’s parlor. The floor is oft-scrubbed wood, and the rugs are red.

He gestures to the crossed beams, and I know he means for me to pliantly place my hands in the thongs affixed to their capitals. He is a large man, a soldier and an expert swordsman who could easily move me into whatever position he chose, force the most abject submission. But that I would meekly thread my hands into the restraints myself excites him.

My will is the first thing he will break. After that, my skin.

I move to the X, then pause. “Will you take wine, sir?” I mumble.

“What?” he demands.

“W . . . wine, milord. Mrs. Fox said I . . . should offer you wine.” He laughs as I seek to delay the inevitable by shuffling up to a low table. While I pour a single cup of wine, he smirks, and turns to examine the birch rods.

I don’t spill a drop.

“Thank you, my dear,” he says as he takes the cup, just exactly as if I were a lady worthy of respect and not an English whore he means to thrash bloody. Down it goes, and he wipes his lips on the lace at his sleeve, then gestures me to bondage.

I face the X and slip my hands in. The leather is rough on the tendons of my wrists.

“The other way,” he says.

Slowly, I turn all my softest parts back toward him, and he secures my hands high above my head, spread wide. I assume he’ll buckle them to the tightest hole, but no. I can’t escape, but my hands are held loosely. I can wiggle and struggle. The pulling will chafe my tender wrists raw. Oh, he has done this before!

I’m still clothed. The marquis takes a knife from his belt. Mrs. Fox has factored the cost of my gown into my price, along with the inevitable doctor’s fees.

“Milord, I beg of you, wait a moment.” He pauses. There is no script for this—Mrs. Fox left it to my natural instincts—but if there were, I’m sure I commenced begging exactly on cue. “I am a widow, alone in the world. For the love of God, have mercy on me.”

His weapon is erect as he advances on me. “Alone,” he says. “Helpless. Will you scream, my pretty? If you don’t, I’ll give you ten livres for yourself. We won’t tell Mrs. Fox, eh?” He smiles at me, then a shadow crosses his face as he doubles over. In a moment, he has collected himself. The marquis wouldn’t let a pang of the guts interrupt his pleasure.

The blade touches my throat, just above my high bodice. Other harlots reveal their charms, but I know the thrill for him is that they are hidden, that he is the one who can unveil them. Down the knife presses to cut through my costly fabric, and I feel the honed edge kiss my skin...