The Culling

The Culling
closed for Pandorica
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"The females have been assembled, Lord Dalton."

I glanced up from my scrolls at my aide, Julian. I sighed softly. I had been trying not to think about today's event ever since my wife had set plans for it in motion. I had tried unsuccessfully to persuade her of the questionable propriety of reviving such an ancient tradition, but to no avail. Catherine can be stubborn as an ox when she sets her mind to something.

"Very well," I responded. "I shall attend the Culling shortly." Julian nodded and departed.

I gathered my robes about me and donned various rings and amulets. I did not care to wear such ostentatious exemplars of my wealth and status. A thousand years of better nutrition and breeding meant the nobility were taller and stronger than the general public, so I quite literally stood out in a crowd. I saw no need to further highlight the differences between myself and my subjects by wearing jewelry worth more than the average man could earn in a lifetime. Yet again, my wife insisted otherwise, contending that commanding respect and obedience of the people required consistent reminders of such differences. She herself wore such frivolous accessories around our estate, as if the servants might otherwise forget her higher station.

My wife and I did not share like minds on much, but then our betrothal had nothing to do with mutual interests and affection. As with most noble marriages, our joining had been arranged by our families as part of the grand game of politics played by all the royal houses. We had first been promised to one another when Catherine was just a slip of a girl and the actual ceremony took place over four years later when she came of age. We'd hardly known each other prior to that day, so it was scarcely surprising that we had little in common now.

This lack of commonality had partially inspired her interest in the ancient practice of the Culling. To be fair, it was a softer version of its actual practice centuries ago. Nevertheless, I found even the modernized version a disturbing revival of our uncivilized past.

By any modern standard, our ancestors from a thousand years ago were morally savage. The first Great Houses arose to power during this period. Though few of their modern descendants would care to admit it, the founders of the nobility began as brutish thugs who would do anything to achieve power.

This time well predated our modern notions of gender equality. The notion of a Queen holding power would have been inconceivable in this period. All these ancient "nobles" were men, though little about them was noble. Back then, a key signal of status and power was the size of one's family. The more kinsmen one had, the more willing warriors you could bring to war. And given the frequency of conflict and the limited medical treatment for battlefield injuries, the heavy mortality rate favored high reproduction. Consequently, rulers of the day went to extremes in pursuit of such goals.

The Culling was one such artifact. In its earliest, bloodiest form, a conqueror of new lands would scour it for fertile females to claim for his own. Such females joined his harem and existed only to birth new sons for their lord. Any woman capable of bearing children was a potential candidates. Accounts of the time record that girls barely past their first moonblood and matrons with grown children might be selected.

The Culling brooked no resistance. The women either submitted or were raped. Any males who objected (brothers, fathers, husband's, etc.) were put to the sword. If the women already had children, these might be enslaved or even executed so as to focus these women on their primary responsibility: birthing the offspring of their new lord.

In time the bloodshed of the Culling faded somewhat. Rather than steal the women of others, the Lords of the Great Houses would merely cull the most attractive and fertile young virgins to make part of their personal harems. Of course, such a "gift" was inherently mandatory to accept, so blood was still occasionally spilt.

The emphasis on sexual conquest actually bred certain physical and psychological traits into the lineage that remain with us even today. Even the "civilized" nobility of today carries a reputation for oversized libido's. What is less well known is that not all such traits were natural in origin.

Some rulers, so driven to acquire and defend their power, turned to the black arts. Dark rituals involving blood sacrifices were used to empower subjects with unnatural prowess. Ancient scrolls speak of men becoming twisted lustful beasts of immense size and stamina. Women were similarly transformed into unparalleled breeders whose swollen forms could birth and feed unsurpassed quantities of offspring. Dabbling in such powers of shadow was not without price, and such was often grim.

Fortunately such grisly practices have been confined to history. The development of religion and evolving morals re-classified such non-consensual conquests as sinful. Women have long since attained rights of their own and no longer exist as mere chattel. Monogamy became the general standard. As the Age of Blood ended, war gave way to peace, diminishing the need for massive broods. Noblemen were increasingly expected to confine their desires within the marital bed.

It is this modern development that Catherine now hopes to escape. Society expects that as husband and wife, we will confine our sexual activities to the marital bed. It is considered unseemly if either party engages in extra-marital affairs, particularly since such might result in a child born out of wedlock. Consequently, the married couple is supposed to tend to one another's needs.

Catherine is not so inclined. Specifically, she vastly prefers the tender caresses and pillowy breasts of her female attendants to my broad frame and heavy muscles. Such liaisons are uncommon, but the nonexistent risk of pregnancy makes them minor transgressions at best.

My own proclivities, however, are far more traditional, but not as easily satiated. While many brothels could cater to my needs, the knowledge that I frequented such establishments would not long remain secret. Nor could I hope to exercise my libido upon our servants without risking filling them with child. The Church would undoubtedly chastise me publicly, which my deprived desire would consider a fair price to pay, but Catherine could not bear the shame.

We have made do for the past five years, but neither happily. Catherine's first time with a man was her wedding night and she found it most unpleasant. We have since experimented with a variety of positions and techniques, but to little avail. Catherine dislikes even touching my aroused cock (let alone taking it inside her), whereas my libido demands such direct physical contact. We've managed to produce two sons in the following years, but sexual satisfaction is rare.

Catherine recently proposed a daring solution: to revive a kinder, gentler version of the Culling. Large families are still favored, so she has proclaimed her husband is so potent that she alone cannot contain it. (While the fate of nations no longer turns on a nobleman's sexual prowess, such rumors enhance my reputation and thereby adds to Catherine's own.) Combined with society's fondness of nostalgia and quaint rituals of yesteryear, the public reaction has been surprisingly positive.

Rather than compelling young women against their will as in the days of yore, volunteers are solicited. Rather than live a hardscrabble existence, this virgin will live in comparable comfort in exchange for her services. Moreover, the resulting offspring, while illegitimate, would still be raised in far better circumstances than she could hope to provide alone. Thus has Catherine spun it as an act of charity - a story that has proven surprisingly popular.

Knowing the truth behind it makes me feel oily and deceptive. This is all about finding a public mask for infidelity and our cover story conveniently overlooks the dark, ugly history of this ancient practice. Catherine's idea just confirms what a thin veil our civilization is; underneath, we are still barbarians.

But I am not sufficiently high-minded to overcome my own carnal desires. Much as it seems beneath my better sensibilities to transform some woman into little more than a brood mare, I became fiercely aroused at the idea. Even now my manhood swells knowing that in the next room a dozen women await the opportunity to mate with me.

Sorcha

I hefted the heavy wooden pail of water out of the village well and carefully tipped its contents into my ewer. Dawn blazed pink and gold across the sky, promising another warm day. It was the end of the winter, the first golden hazy days promising a fruitful spring. Usually it was a time of relative ease between that of sowing and reaping but the unseasonably long, harsh snows had left everyone with nought but scraps and hope in their storehouses. This year's harvest promised to be a good one for most but eking out stores until the crops were fully ripened would take skill and willpower.

I knew I cut a pretty figure as I made my way back to my father's field and our tiny drystone cottage, drawing a few glances. My figure was lean and strong from farm work, perhaps a little too thin at present but that only served to accentuate my modest curves. I had a healthy tan from working in the sun and thick dark brown hair piled up and bound atop my head with a strip of spare cloth. My eyes were the changeable blue-grey of a stormy sky, my cheekbones high and fine and my lips full but without the slack-jawed appearance of some peasant farmers. I was little more than five feet tall but this was average in my community.

As I passed the heavy wooden door of the village church I saw the various notices fixed there. One was particularly bold with the distinctive royal crest at the top and elaborately scribed lettering but I could only pause and gawk in bemusement. Girls like me were not taught to read.

When I reached home, my father Rhys was sitting at the table. Slightly irritated by this, I thumped down my ewer to rouse him from his thoughts and set about placing oatcakes on the hearthfire myself. It was irritation enough that I had to play the housewife for father since my mother died some years ago and I knew it was partly why he seemed to have no interest in finding me a husband. It wouldn't kill him to bestir himself and tend the fire, for their was little enough farm work for father to do since the goats had strayed and destroyed much of what he had grown. It had been a very hard winter and I knew that with no dowry and the rest of the village suffering similar hardship, there would be no wedding for me this year.

I had no sweetheart and no great desire for any of the village men, or those of adjacent rural communities even. What I craved was simply to be mistress of my own hearth, rather than treated as a wife one moment by father and a wilful child the next. A child would also be a blessing to me, though I was mortally afraid of dying in childbed as mother had done.

Father would not be disturbed. He ignored me while I cooked breakfast with as much clattering of dishes as I could contrive to make and scarcely even raised his head when I set his plate down before him. I dropped moodily into the other wooden chair and spread goat's butter on my oatcake.

"Good morrow to you also father." Rhys lifted his gaze and I almost physically recoiled. I had never looked into my own father's eyes and seen such emptiness there, such a total absence of hope.

"Tell me child, how long do you think we can continue like this?" He asked.

I chewed and swallowed. I had our meagre stores tallied in my head down to the last withered apple.

"A few weeks, perhaps longer depending how far I can stretch the goatsmeat."

"A few weeks. After that there will be no goats to slaughter and our crops when they do ripen will be half of what we need to survive. What then?"

I pursed my lips. We had no wealthier kin that we knew of, nobody of whom we could ask for charity who would not be themselves at the last extremity. Every farm turned away wanderers daily seeking work and food. In these days the vagrants were themselves a threat to unguarded crops and beasts. Little of honour remained while times were hard.

"I do not know." I conceded.

"Then let me tell you. I will have to go back into service. I know a man in Lord Dalton's service who will take me back on as a hired sword and town watchman. You however my dear one, I know not what to do with. I cannot give you to a man with no dower and I cannot expect that our kin should feed and clothe you in such times as these when I have failed in my own duty as a father."

"It was not your fault that the goats-"

"I am still speaking!" I bit back the rest of what I had been about to say as my father continued. "I am master of this hearth... or I was. Whose fault is it if not mine? That does not matter now. Have you heard about the Lady Dalton's latest decree Sorcha?"

I shook my head.

"Do you know anything of the old ways... of The Culling?"

My eyes widened and my uneaten remnant of oatcake dropped to the tabletop. Old Nan, before she passed, had been full of tales about the nobility and what she told me depended heavily upon her mood. Like all cottagers, we had to make our own entertainment of an evening and as there were no musicians or songbirds in the house, it often fell to Nan to regale us with stories and legends. There were plenty of stories where the great nobleman's eye fell on a local girl and he married her and set her in his keep. Others featured damsels in distress rescued by a Lord astride his destrier, the girl's beauty and goodness captivating him so that he took her for his own. Bold knights slew dragons, griffins, giant underwater reptiles and other mythical creatures. They took on ridiculous numbers of foemen, surmounting impossible odds.

Sometimes though... sometimes there was a storm brewing or raging, a pressure in the air that brought out Nan's darker side. Sometimes the moon was full in the sky and she would be restless, telling her tales late into the night whether anyone stayed awake to hear them or not. These tales were dark indeed. Noblemen prayed to evil demons for powers that no mortal man should possess. They grew in physical strength and their thirst for power, a brand of megalomania that most often manifested as predatory lust.

Soon or late, every child grew up with the horror stories; the unnatural lusts of the nobility and their predilection for using rape as a weapon with which to subdue conquered lands and breed armies. There were myths and legends also, handed from mother to daughter among the lower classes, lest any forget the horrors that such unnatural acts perpetuated.

Tales of men of impossible proportions, whose members impaled and slew such young women as could not accommodate them, bleeding out while their bodies were used. Of those who survived repeated and truly depraved acts of rape, many starved while their growing babes sapped their strength, stick thin women with huge bulging bellies. More died in trying to birth the oversized offspring, particularly as the nobles often preferred young and slender women. More still were simply discarded; the noblemen's bastards cut from their swollen bellies. Even if a girl survived all that, there was the task of suckling such an unnatural child. There was the story of a woman left bedbound and emaciated while her infant son thrived, taking suck till he could walk and form his first words; a robust and over-developed toddler pinning down his own starved mother for nourishment. The only way many of these abused women recovered or survived after their babes were weaned was to willingly serve their rapist sexually, so that he would keep and use them again. Women lay with one another to entertain him, coupling in ways unnatural and condemned by the church, allowing themselves to be sodomised, degraded and tortured because they were terrified that he would stop wanting them. Noblemen did not release women from their harems when they were done with them, their bodies much scarred by pregnancy and childbirth, too maimed to carry another giant child. They served or they were slain, there was no third option save being tossed to his men at arms and gang-raped to death.

But those times had been very long ago, long enough for such atrocities to fade into myth. Most women believed the truth to be only that of power crazed but nevertheless normally proportioned men terrorizing the women in conquered lands as un-unified factions of tribes and kings warred with one another for land and wealth. Even those tales had all become part of the fabric of history rather than a prescient threat.

I did not remember much about all these stories however. They had faded into the mists of my youngest years. All that remained was an innate and palpable fear of the ruling classes. Power in general was good for no man's soul but power such as Lord Dalton would have over a girl selected as a rite of culling? She would be no more than chattel. The idea that Lord Dalton was so libidinous that he needed a lover disturbed me. How well could he rule our lands if his mind was constantly in the gutter, dwelling on sex?

"I know the stories, like any other. I know the priests have condemned such practices." My response was guarded, I liked not where this conversation was heading.

"Yonder priest read the big notice on the church door to me yesterday. Lady Catherine Dalton has declared that she cannot satisfy her husband. She has announced that there will be a revival of the old ways, to sate her husband and ensure the next generation of the Dalton line. It had to come from the Lady, for the church would never accept that Dalton himself should be so arrogant and selfish."

"This cannot be! Lady Catherine has two fine sons already!"

"I do not pretend to know the secrets of our Lord's bedchamber. All I can say is that he is known to be a pious man, of good character and morals and he rules more moderately than many of his ilk. Women are invited to... offer themselves to him. If you would consider this Sorcha, you would live as high as any noblewoman. You must know that you are... very fair to look upon. Would it not be a fine life, to live like a great lady and bear sons for a great Lord? You would not even be burdened with satisfying him completely as you would a husband, you would merely share that duty with his wife."

For once, I was speechless... but not for long.

"I thought becoming some man's wife one day would be ordeal enough but to be paraded before Lord Dalton like a mare at market... you cannot think that I could do this father!"

"I cannot think how else you will survive my daughter and as your father, I want you to have the best life possible. If I cannot provide it, some other man must. Do you wish so much to be the wife of a poor farmer, bearing a brat every year that you cannot feed? Lord Dalton is offering a rich and comfortable life to the girl he chooses and her children will want for nothing. The sons will be given land, serve in his army or join the church as it suits them and the daughters will be married to prosperous men."

We argued that day and long into the night. I had respect for my father but not so much that I would make myself a whore at his bidding. Not even a whore, for they at least had their own coin and lived as they pleased. But in the days that followed I could think of no better options. I was not so pious as to be much troubled by the consequences of such harlotry on my immortal soul. I went through the motions at church on the holy days but the priests spoke in riddles and their message was lost on me. I was far more concerned with keeping my soul within my body. In any case, I did not think for one moment that I would be selected, for my peasant lineage showed plain in my face and like as not would show strongly in any children I bore the Lord. My father however, would not have it any other way but that I should attend The Culling and since I thought so little of my chances, there seemed no harm in obedience.

So it was that I found myself in my best saffron dyed holiday gown, stood in the town square before Lord Dalton's keep. There were many many girls there, though some looked far from the innocent virgins stipulated in the decree. Those who were buxom displayed their assets to advantage and there was more than a touch of whore's paint on many of the girls. My own gown was modest, having been my mother's beforehand. I forbore to wear it often, for father always looked me askance when I dressed in mother's old clothes. Still, I had outgrown my old holiday gown and only this one would serve for such a grand event. The lacings had been pulled in very tight, because I was now far more slender from near famine than my mother ever had been. My waist was tiny and my high, firm breasts sat atop the corseted wool, though they were covered loosely by my undershift. My shoes had also been mothers, soft goatskin and meant more for indoor wear. I had washed my hair in egg white till it shone in glossy dark waves and for the first time since my moonblood came, I stood in public with it wantonly unbound, spilling down to my taut ass, hard buttocks defined beneath the tightly laced gown before my skirts flared modestly to the floor.

I had never had cause to leave my village, certainly not to trudge the day's ride to the town, so I had never looked upon the nobility or the overlord who ruled our lands. When the Lord himself appeared, the sun was behind him. I saw only that he was a giant of a man and immediately an irrational terror gripped me for a moment, as I helplessly tried to imagine what kind of member such a huge man might have. It did not help that I had no knowledge of a male's reproductive proportions besides those of farm animals. Lord Dalton was unhurried as he inspected the women, moving at a maddeningly leisurely pace as we all stood there. Some he paused beside and spoke to in a low voice, more than once I heard the coquettish laughter of a girl who has been complemented. It suddenly felt irrationally important to at least not appear ugly to him, baseborn as I was. My breath caught in terrified anticipation and I bit my lips to fill them with blood, pinching my cheeks in similar wise to give them a rosier hue as Lord Dalton's imposing frame made its way through the silent, frozen women.

I held my breath as he came closer... only a few moments more... he would pass by and this would all be over.

I had not expected Lady Catherine to involve herself in proceedings but as the handsome couple passed along the rows of women I realised that I should have done. Whoever Lord Dalton selected would live under her roof and have no small amount of interaction with her household. I could well understand the Lady wanting to be certain of what manner of woman her husband was bedding with, for there were ailments that passed from lover to lover. I bit down on a smile as an image came to me of the grand Lord and Lady suffering the kinds of embarrassing ailments that were rumoured to come from lying with whores.

That first time, nothing was said to me. Castle servants bustled about, turning most away and drawing a small number of girls into a group. I was stunned to be among them. Now there were only perhaps a dozen of us. I stood very still and kept my eyes cast down.

Moments later Lady Catherine started yelling at a finely dressed young woman who turned out to be a courtesy. By the time that spectacle was over, I had been lulled into mirth and suddenly they were bearing down on me. I fought the urge to wring my hands like a terror-stricken lackwit. Lady Catherine asked my name and I gave it. She paused, clearly waiting for me to overcome the differences in station between us and look up. It was difficult, to lift my face and gaze up at my betters like that. Her slight smile nevertheless reassured me that I had done the right thing in being so bold.

"What village do you hail from, little one? Tell me: do you think yourself worthy of my husband?"

Some reflex ingrained over generations bade me bob a curtsey as I started speaking.

"I am from Oakham my Lady." I paused and swallowed. There could really be only one correct answer to her second question. Her eyes swept over me, boring into me as though she could see within my skull. Whatever I said now, she would probably find a way to make me in the wrong. "I do not think I am worthy my Lady." I could not tell her my father had made me offer myself like this, nor that starvation might await me if I wasn't chosen. "I think it would be a great honour." I lied. "And I have always wanted to have a family. I would like to have a happy family, that was warm and well fed." I neglected to add that I had hardly envisioned myself whoring my womb for meat and mead.

Better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt, so the adage went. I fell silent. I could not look at Lord Dalton, could not so much as glance at him. This whole ordeal was surreal and humiliating in the extreme.

I thanked whatever capricious deity might be watching that it was a warm day and endeavoured not to glance at Lord and Lady Dalton or the other girls as I did so. My clothes I folded and placed on the ground in front of me. It occurred to me that my own father would be watching this spectacle. I was suddenly acutely aware of the guardsmen standing about and other member's of Dalton's staff.

The girls that remained beside me were no doubt the best local stock that could be found for Lord Dalton. One had strawberry blond curls and a peachy complexion, with large breasts and hips that could bear and nourish such a child as Dalton would sire. Another, who called herself Brianna, had glossy black hair and a dusky complexion that spoke of gypsy blood. I was surprised that Lady Dalton hadn't ruled her out because of that for the gypsy folk were rumoured to be incestuous and lack all honour and propriety. Brianna had answered prettily enough when questioned though, so clearly she was no fool. Her body was averagely proportioned but her perspiration in the warm sun gave her skin a glossiness and she appeared better fed than all but the blonde girl.

The other two girls were much like myself in colouring. One was taller with small tight breasts, a slender girl who looked not yet to have bloomed into womanhood. Beside her was Gwenna, a jolly and buxom little thing who cast her clothes aside proudly and even dared to titillate Lord Dalton subtly in doing so.

I was far too self conscious to attempt any kind of strip-tease and I didn't want to reach this stage only to be denounced as a whore. So I undressed perfunctorily, baring slim tanned curves to the warm sunlight. My breasts were modest but full enough for my small stature. My hips were leaner than perhaps they should have been but I was youthful enough that hunger hadn't made me gaunt. My hair was a glossy chestnut curtain that rippled over my curves to kiss the cheeks of my ass. My untrimmed mound attested to my maturity, though poverty had stunted me a little and I looked younger than my years. At least there was muscle on my frame from farm and housework.

I supposed that Lord Dalton would have to be assured that the girl he chose had no physical defects or obvious health problems. My heart raced even faster as I realised what must be coming next. No nobleman such as Dalton would accept anything less than a chaste and intact virgin.

I didn't know which would be worse; for him to confirm my virginity or for Lady Dalton interrogation to get physical.

"Compare to these, my husband,"

Lady Catherine pointed out my modest breasts like a thrifty housewife at market, reluctant to part with coin but for the best specimens. I was shocked that her involvement in his selection - which was fast becoming her selection as he mildly assented to everything she said - should go so far as this. I half expected her to grope me herself and then simply tell the man which breasts he preferred.

I stood there unflinching as he touched me, his coarse, battle hardened skin grazing across my own. My nipples, which had been soft in the warm air, suddenly hardened through my shame and apprehension. As they did so and as he cupped and squeezed me, I felt a sudden jolt of sensation unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. My face and breasts began to fill with blood simultaneously, the small globes heavy and aching. When he let go of me and moved away I felt an odd kind of disappointment. Was this then, what desire was supposed to feel like?

Other girls were dismissed, until I found that I had made it into the final two. I was allowed to sit, for which I was very grateful, though I disliked the way it made the Lord and Lady tower over me all the more. Then Lady Catherine sent everyone else out of the courtyard. My apprehension began to crystallise into cold fear. Before witnesses they had to maintain some semblance of propriety. It worried me that they wanted none to see what would happen next. Once again, it was Lady Catherine who took charge of proceedings. I was beginning to feel it was less a case of her being unable to satisfy her husband as him being a henpecked figurehead who let her rule the roost. I could well sympathise with her lack of interest in him, for indeed even I could see that she spoke of her husband in a perfunctory and detached way, as one might discuss a stud horse at market.

"Therefore, I will allow you both a short time to stimulate yourselves to a sufficient state of readiness. I will then test the result,"

I had no notion of what she meant until the girl beside me started touching herself. She parted her legs and pressed between them with two fingers, circling a point about where she made urine. It would have seemed utterly bizarre to me, had her features not slackened and a low moan not fallen from her lips. Not wanting to appear unwilling, I copied her actions and was shocked when a jolt of sensation shot from the apex of my thighs to deep within my abdomen, answered by a fresh tug of sensation in my nipples. I tried to keep my expression neutral as I experimented with rhythm and pressure, feeling myself moisten copiously despite the strange circumstances in which I found myself. At the back of my mind however, the voice of reason was still trying to make itself heard.

How far was I prepared to go with this, without getting assurance from Lord Dalton that he took full responsibility, should I become pregnant or otherwise unmarriageable? Was there even now any man within miles of this place who would take me now that I had been cloistered with a famously unsatisfied nobleman?

As Lady Catherine approached me, I knew I had to speak before it was too late. I closed my legs and folded my arms across my chest, though I kept my voice low and neutral.

"My Lady, forgive me but I must speak." She voiced no immediate protest and so I ploughed on. "You may have cleared this courtyard but you must know that gossip of this day will travel far and wide. The priests tighten their hold on this land, so that daily men become more pious. I think that already there is not a man in your domain that would take me to wife now and there are few other options for girls such as me, save begging or whoring. I want my Lord and Lady's assurance please, that I can work for your household once this selection is done and that none of these tests will take my maidenhead or sully me beyond all hope of happiness in the future."

The silence was deafening. The gypsy girl beside me was still pleasuring herself, looking positively triumphant now that I had just apparently cast my chance away with such audacity. For once I did not lower my eyes, but met their gazes to convey how serious I felt about this.

[
I could see the displeasure in my wife's shoulders as the peasant girl's words sunk in. Catherine had limited patience for opposition, particularly in those she deemed below her. Her response to the girl would assuredly be swift and sharp.

I was consequently somewhat surprised when the back of my left hand launched itself into the girl's temple. So distracted by the throbbing lust in my groin, I only belatedly realized the surge of anger inspiring my attack. Only as she tumbled off the stool to the cobblestones did I recognize the warm rage coursing through me.

I stepped to the woman and hauled her to her feet with a rough jerk. A dim recess of my mind acknowledged that I was overreacting, but the frustration I had built up over the past several days needed release, decorum be damned. So my voice came out in a rumbling growl when I spoke.

"None would doubt your virginity, peasant --no blooded woman could know so little of men! Do you think me so distant from my people that I know naught of their true nature? True, a bare handful truly repent of their sinful ways, but the majority of those professing faith are offering public lip service to appease the self-righteous among you.

I barked a sharp laugh, my face inches from hers. "Ha! Not a man in my domain who would have you?! Ha! Men will fall over themselves striving to possess a woman who came so close to being worthy of a lord! They are but dogs and you are merely a scrap of meat on my dining table; should I toss you aside, they will fight eagerly to have you."

I pointed to the stool. "Now sit down and do as my wife instructed!" The girl clambered atop the righted stool, clearly unnerved by the sudden shift in my demeanor. To be honest, a part of me was likewise ill at ease with my violent outburst.

Catherine, however, was actually enthused. Her sapphic desires occasionally included pain and punishment. Seeing my harshness had aroused her, as the gentle flush at the base of her throat attested. Catherine offered me a pleased smile as she approached the dark gypsy girl and slipped her hand between the girl's splayed thighs.

I had been more focused on Lady Catherine, who had thus far been in charge of proceedings. I didn't even see him raise his hand, the blow came from nowhere. I landed hard on the cobbled ground and actually started scrambling away from lord Dalton reflexively.

"None would doubt your virginity, peasant --no blooded woman could know so little of men! Do you think me so distant from my people that I know naught of their true nature? True, a bare handful truly repent of their sinful ways, but the majority of those professing faith are offering public lip service to appease the self-righteous among you.

He leaned down until he was snarling into my face, his noble features horribly contorted into an expression of rage and contempt. "Ha! Not a man in my domain who would have you?! Ha! Men will fall over themselves striving to possess a woman who came so close to being worthy of a lord! They are but dogs and you are merely a scrap of meat on my dining table; should I toss you aside, they will fight eagerly to have you."

I swallowed hard as my reeling mind flinched away from the word 'blooded.' I knew that losing my virginity would make me bleed. To lose it to such an overgrown brute as this utterly terrified me. I actually considered trying to leave but before I could attempt to rise Lord Dalton commanded me to sit back on the stool. Once again generations of class distinction over-rode my fright and pain and I was back on the seat as instructed before I had the opportunity to consider whether continuing with this charade was entirely wise.

My gaze flicked over to where Lady Catherine stood. Far from being appalled at her husband's outburst, there was a gleam of what I naively judged as pride in her eyes. Fortunately for me, her interest moved on to the gypsy girl, who was making something of a show now of being compliant and aroused. Neither of them considered the possibility that I might not sit there and do as I was bidden, which angered me.

Then Lord Dalton glared at me and suddenly my hand was between my thighs again, stirring the sensations spiralling within me once more. The adrenaline rush of having been struck and terrorized into obedience actually intensified my pleasure. The blossoming bruise on my temple throbbed in time to my fevered heartbeat, the pain adding another layer to everything else. This time I became swiftly and more deeply aroused, distracting me from any further thoughts of fleeing.

"By the One!"

Lady Dalton hissed the words and I took them for revulsion. My eyes widened as I sat there mutely. To my relief and especially after the time she had spent urging on the gypsy girl, she withdrew from me and immediately walked away. I sagged visibly on my stool as the tension ebbed from me. It was over. I had cast my chance away when I spoke out of turn and now the poor gypsy girl would have to bed with that overgrown brute. She looked sidelong at me in commiseration but her fingers were still working her sex. It seemed that she had aroused herself so much she didn't want to stop. I did not envy her her fate in the slightest. I would be content to find some other way to live.

I had closed my legs at the first opportunity, covering my breasts with my folded arms. I looked longingly at my dress and wondered how soon it would be before I could clothe myself. My father would be wondering what on Earth was happening to me.

The lord and lady were deep in discussion, it looked to me almost as though they were arguing. Certainly, she was trying to persuade him of something. He lifted his head and immediately I dropped mine, not wanting to be caught staring at my betters.

"I select the girl from Oakham!"

I was horrorstruck. The girl next to me actually stopped touching herself and looked around trying to understand what she had missed. I opened my mouth to protest, to ask that I might be released but Lady Catherine spoke first.

"Lord Dalton has chosen! Dispose of her rags and clothe her in proper servant garb! Then bring her to our private chambers. As for the other, provide her a change of clothes and a warm meal. Such a close loss warrants a small compensation."

Members of their staff appeared to take my clothes and lead me I knew not where. I picked up the dress that had been my mother's. It was clean and in good repair and as far from 'rags' as I was privileged to own. The maidservant was adamant though, cursing under her breath that I would get us both flayed. She took my dress my force and another woman took my arm none too gently to steer me into the servants' part of the keep. For an awful moment I thought I was going to be paraded through some communal area like the kitchens but she hustled me into a large closet adjacent to their privy. She splashed water from an ewer into a bowl, handing me a rag and soap.

"You should wash yourself mistress." She said tersely.

"I think we both know I'm not your mistress." I replied coolly. She looked me up and down and seemed to realise in that moment that I was no more master of my own fate than she was.

"Well whatever you are, you should clean yourself before you go into the lord and lady's presence." She replied, a slight softness creeping into her brisk tone.

When I had soaped down and dried off, the maidservant gave me a simple green shift and a brown dress. She confiscated my shoes and gave me two new pairs; soft slippers for within the keep and rough leather work boots for outdoors. Being given servants' clothes didn't exactly live up to my father's optimistic hope that I would 'live like a fine lady' but for better or worse, I was bound to this charade now.

Once Sybil, the maidservant with whom I was now slightly acquainted, was satisfied that I might be taken to Lord Dalton's private chambers I followed her through the castle. To my eyes it was ludicrously opulent. People peered at me as I went by and I told myself that I was just going to have to get used to it. We stopped at an ornate wooden door, where the maid knocked and entered first, ensuring they were prepared and then announcing me.

"Miss Sorcha."

I stepped reluctantly into the room, my mouth going dry and my palms tingling as my heart hammered in my chest. Lord Dalton was so very tall. I didn't want to think about what he was going to do to me. Had anybody even told my father I had been appropriated by his overlord?

I didn't say anything and curtseying felt a bit stupid given what I was here for. I just stood there and resisted the urge to look either of them in the eye. I had no notion of what my place was here now. They were treating me as a servant but I was supposed to be Lord Dalton's mistress. Was I supposed to keep my eyes cast down when he took my maidenhead too, or when I pushed his giant squalling brat from my womb?

calm down... don't think about that

I was shocked that Lady Catherine's lack of desire for her husband was so blatant. Any peasant farmer would have backhanded the haughty pride out of this spoiled cipher years ago but Lord Dalton either could or would not. I thought it a shocking lack of respect, I who lived in a world where the word of the man of the household was effective law. The sweat of men kept women such as I shod and fed and not for a day since I was old enough to comprehend this basic truth had I not deferred to menfolk instinctively. If war swept the land it would not be this pampered Lady who defended our lands but Lord Dalton himself, albeit with a large retinue. It was his rule that kept us safe from those in adjacent lands who might seek to take what we had if our defences looked weak. Lord Dalton's life of privilege was tempered by responsibility for his subjects and one that he had honoured as far as I could tell. Lady Catherine on the other hand lived a life of total luxury. Her babes were likely suckled by wetnurses, her household run by serving women and her every whim catered to. All by an accident of birth. It was so unfair.

Once again it was not Lord Dalton who took the lead. She bade him lie on a couch, gesturing tersely in the same manner with which she directed servants. Lord Dalton himself didn't even open his mouth. The more time I spent with this couple, the clearer it was to me that Lord Dalton didn't wear the breeches in this marriage at all. It seemed I was going to be the plaything of a man who couldn't keep his own wife in line, who wanted a woman of lower stature that he could bully in the way he had turned on me earlier. I found that I disliked the man intensely, because he was turning out to be so much less the man that I had expected him to be.

"You might as well learn now what Fate has in store."

I watched open-mouthed as Lady Catherine slipped out of her robe and freed her husband's cock. I had a peasant girl's knowledge of procreation gained from the farmyard but nothing had prepared me for the sight of Lord Dalton's huge and livid organ. I actually took a step backwards but mercifully, neither of them were paying attention to me. Lord Dalton made no comment about his wife's obvious revulsion. The look she gave his manhood should have cursed it flaccid but he lay there passively and let her straddle him. She did not even face the man she was married to but instead presented her backside to him. It was all utterly bizarre.

"This is what you have to look forward to. This."

She dropped her full weight onto him and I watched Lord Dalton's phallus vanish inside her. The shriek that echoed around the opulent chamber as her back arched and his toes curled was enough to send me staggering backwards into some expensive item of furniture. I moved aside until I felt the cold stone wall at my back.

Lady Dalton was taller than me with ripe curves. If she couldn't take that penis then neither could I.

This was all wrong! The act of love was supposed to be pleasurable, to keep married couples contented. Surely this couldn't be what other people experienced? Surely my own mother had never screamed thus? Surely my father had never caused her such pain?

I watched, horrified but transfixed, to see what happened next.

For such an intimate act it was entirely mechanical, for Lady Catherine anyway. Lord Dalton's body shifted and bucked with the kind of arousal that I could comprehend now that I had touched and roused myself such a short while ago. His fingers splayed and then clenched into fists by turns, conveying his desire for a wife who was revolted by him, who he could not reach out and touch.

Any sympathy I might have felt for the spineless nobleman was utterly eclipsed by that I felt for Lady Catherine however. She had made no attempt to prepare her own body even though she had lectured us on our ability to endure and satisfy her husband's lusts. There was no indication that she relished the pain however, her agonised cries and frenzied movements were the actions of a woman trying to end her suffering as quickly as possible. She slammed her body up and down his shaft with a ferocity that seemed masochistic. I could not understand how either of them could want to copulate this way. Surely a better compromise could be reached if he was gentler and she was moist and ready?

It felt like they were grunting, thrusting and shrieking for hours. Had I not been ordered to watch them I would have been transfixed by the horror of it all. Lady Catherine had birthed heirs for her husband. How was it possible that he had to use such force to slam his swollen member into an orifice from which a baby had emerged? His back arched as he took full advantage of her little demonstration, bucking his hips upwards hard enough to lift her into the air.

Finally, with a feral grunt and the most savage thrust I had seen from him yet, Lord Dalton buried himself in his wife and spilled his seed. Both their faces were red from exhaustion but the savagery etched into his frozen features as his crisis passed chilled me to the bone. Lady Catherine froze mid thrust and then sagged down onto his member like as though an arrow had taken her in the heart, defeated, sweat dewed and gasping as he slowly ground his hips upwards and wrung every last pleasurable sensation that he could from her.

Without so much as a backward glance for her wedded husband, Lady Catherine lifted herself off of his body and staggered away, her pale flesh of her bald sex now as crimson as though she had been whipped there. Tottering gingerly like a saddlesore horseman, she suddenly flicked her head up and appeared to remember that I was still stood there following the last command I had received; to watch.

"Now you see your Fate. " There was a challenge in her eyes that would brand me a coward if I did not endure what she had suffered, no doubt at frequent intervals over the years of their union. I did not catch the next words she croaked and I was too traumatised to move or speak.

"Get out!" she croaked. "Out!"

Servants who had quite obviously been listening outside the door for their cue suddenly hastened in and took command of the situation. Lady Dalton was robed and assisted from the room with the kind of swift, low spoken efficiency usually reserved for the gravelly ill. Two more women approached me and for a wild, primal moment I was just a traumatised creature trapped against a wall, being advanced upon by strangers. My eyes widened and I raised my hands protectively, as though Lady Dalton's women were about to strike me. Though they were not unkind, their priority was to evacuate the room with all haste and I was drawn firmly along with them, one holding each of my arms like the prisoner I now knew myself to be. My eyes ranged about the hallway, seeking an escape route that was not there. Even if I managed to twist away from these women I had no idea how or where to exit the keep. The urge to flee was palpable however, threatening to take advantage of my mounting panic and drive me to some suicidal act of defiance.

The hallways narrowed as we went up flight after flight of stairs until we reached a row of what could only be servants quarters. Now the women could no longer walk either side of me and I dimly heard the older one dismiss the younger.

"Come now little mistress." Her voice was stern but with a wry and sympathetic twist to her lips as I forced myself to focus on her wizened face.

"Sybil." I glanced around as though expecting someone else to have spoken her name. I was quite beside myself.

"I know not where your regular quarters will be. My Lord had rooms prepared to you adjacent to his private chambers but my Lady finds that a mite too close for comfort. No doubt come morning my Lady will have her own way. Tonight you'll bed with me. I can't leave you unguarded and I won't have you cast to the dungeons for want of a better idea."

She opened one of the rough hewn doors to reveal a compact little room with a pallet made up beside her own narrow bed.

"You take the bed dear." Sybil stripped me to my undershift with swift efficiency, pulled back the worn blankets and sat me down on the edge of the bed. "I'll sleep by the door there." She informed me, kicking the pallet towards the doorway. "You might try to remember that if you try to escape, t'is I who'll be whipped alongside you for failing to keep you secure."

I made no move to lie down or cover myself so she simply put me to bed like the frightened child I was. The candle on her chest of drawers threw her face into stark relief as she looked down at me. Not for many years had I ever received such care, as from a mother. My eyes filled.

"Listen to an old woman, to whom even my Lord and Lady are babes." She said, her voice becoming gruff. "I may have led a life of service but that does not mean I remain chaste as the moon. It's in a man's nature to take and subdue and if he cannot slake his lusts thus, it burns in his loins till he wants to smite the world. Natural women yield, they are built to yield. Lady Dalton is not a natural woman, child. She will not yield and so she suffers as you have seen. But you are no Lady Dalton. You will yield as you should and once Lord Dalton has an outlet in you he will become calmer. Why they let you see them thus I will never know. I'd flee myself were I walking in your boots."

"But he was so... big." I croaked, my mouth tight with sobs. "Nothing she did would have kept him from hurting her."

"As to that." Sybil said more brightly. "T'is well known around the castle that the man is hung like a stallion. You can't be waited on as those two are and keep your modesty. I daresay there isn't his like the length and breadth of the kingdom when he drops his braies."

Unaware of how much she had just terrified her charge, Sybil moved away and made herself ready to sleep. The old woman was snoring almost as soon as she laid down but I lay awake till the sun began rising, tormented by the scene I had witnessed and the knowledge that as one of Lord Dalton's tiniest subjects, I was expected to accommodate the kind of member that belonged on a destrier.

Lady Dalton was no lackwit. If she had found no better way to mate with her husband, who on Earth was I to think that rubbing myself for a few minutes was going to make any difference?

My dreams when they came were dominated by a Lord Dalton that had the haunches and hindlegs of a stallion, along with a massive stallion's phallus. I ran around the courtyard trying to evade him but he caught me up against a wall and pinned me there, lifting me bodily from the ground and trying to force the bulbous head of his vile, gigantic shaft into my body.

My own cry awoke me, my body twisted in the blankets and my face against the stone wall beside the narrow bed. I was drenched in a cold sweat and shaking as though I had a fever. I found that my nipples and loins ached as though I had touched myself and some effluvia clung to my inner thighs. My first sexually charged dream and it had been a bestial nightmare. I hid beneath the blanket and wept till my eyes ran dry.

The sun was up and my gaoler had long since left to start her morning's duties. I found the door to be locked, but some bread, cheese and an ewer of fresh cold water on a rough hewn table. I drank some of the water and washed with the rest but I could not eat. My stomach roiled at the prospect of being summoned and violated at any moment.

There was a narrow windowslit surrounded by crumbling stonework. With a little determination I could widen it enough to climb through and cast myself to my death. I gave it some serious thought.

If I detested and resented deeply the 'beautification' I had to endure, it was nothing to how the castle servants felt about having to waste their skills on me. Strips of linen smeared with hot wax were pressed against every square inch of my skin, or so it seemed to me, until I was red and sore from the neck downwards. I was given cream to rub into my skin, to soothe the irritation caused by the wax but also to soften the more coarser areas of my peasant's body. My hair was washed in egg white and then in beer till it shone. My nails were tended and I was taught how to keep them groomed myself. By the time I was declared fit to enter the Lord and Lady's presence again, it felt like every female servant in the keep had seen my body and commented openly on it as though I was a mare at market.

For my own part, I was bemused by the whole process. Being stripped of my bodily hair and particularly my pubic hair made me feel as though I was being infantilised. I did not understand why Lord Dalton should find a natural female form so fundamentally abhorrent. There was no denying the work done on me made improvements that startled me, for I had never even owned a looking glass, let alone considered myself a beauty.

Every day and more terrifyingly, every night I expected at any moment to be summoned to Lord Dalton's chamber. That I wasn't filled me with a strong cocktail of terror and self doubt. Despite my revulsion of the man it stung me to think that perhaps he regretted his choice and was reluctant to stoop so low as to lie with a girl like me. More than once I considered seeking him out just to get it over with but Sybil had taken responsibility for me and every hour that I spent awake was accounted for. I became despondent and stopped eating, something the chided me for more and eventually lost patience with, standing over me and all but force-feeding me a bowl of pottage and hunk of bread. I went nowhere without an escort and though they were women, they might as well have been armed guardsmen for all the liberty they afforded me.

The night Sybil announced that my new clothes would be ready the following morn and that Lord Dalton would likely want to see me soon I made my first concerted attempt to squeeze through the windowslit in her tiny room. Sybil was snoring loudly when I climbed onto her chest of clothes and started working away at the crumbling stone, widening the space enough to admit my shoulders. I was head and shoulders out of the window, staring dizzily down at the drop below, when she yanked me back with a force I never would have thought her capable of. She vowed to say nothing of it to Lord Dalton but made it clear that for him to find out what I had tried to do with his culled property would result in a great deal of suffering for me. If he took me in a rage like that Sybil doubted my chances of even surviving his ire. She bound my wrists to her wooden headboard and the next day had wooden bars wedged into the windowspace that I lacked the strength to move.


I fidgeted and shifted as the seamstress fussed with my dress, checking the fit in areas I would have preferred to give no thought to. Eventually she stepped back and pronounced herself satisfied.

"And if she loses any more weight I don't know what else I'm going to do. I've refitted this twice already." She snapped irritably.

"Lass'll be filling it out soon enough." Her assistant replied with an unpleasant smile on her face. "Every time milord goes near Lady Catherine she gets with child and this'un will be no different."

I didn't blush or appear in any way perturbed. The last few days had put me somewhere beyond any notion of modesty or shame. More and more often I simply retreated into silence and if people thought me a lackwit, so much the better. I was property now and if Lord Dalton took it into his head to fit me with a bit, bridle and saddle I would have to endure it. I was past duelling words with everyone I encountered. I had attended and endured the culling of my own volition, so many of the servants looked at me as some kind of baseborn whore. Which I supposed I was, all bar the final initiation at least.

Sybil fetched me and took me to one of Lady Catherine's rooms. My heart sank when she told me where we were going. I was sick to death of Lady Catherine and had no desire to stand by while she paraded her suffering once more. When Lord Dalton did take me she would probably be standing at the foot of the bed with her arms folded and her lips pursed, giving the man instructions and critiquing his performance. Did he really not put one foot before the other without her leave? What manner of ruler could he possibly be?

"I am told that you have nearly completed your preparation for your role. I must confess, it is an improvement. Vastly better than when first you arrived."

I kept quiet. I didn't trust myself to speak and she had not questioned me directly.

"I am also told that you are consumed with dread at the prospect of enduring my husband's attentions. Having had to endure them myself, I find your lack of backbone despicable. I detest such weakness."

Weakness that she wished to display herself by casting the burden of his attentions onto my slender shoulders. I flushed but with indignation, my mouth opening swiftly to give her a long bottled piece of my mind.

"Hush! I do not care for your excuses! By all rights, I should leave you to your fate as I was mine!"

And what is your excuse my Lady?

I lacked the nerve to voice the question. She might not be a brute like her husband but she had a deal more pride and if I made an enemy of her now things could go very badly for me.

"But it would serve Lord Dalton and myself poorly if you wasted away from fear. Moreover, Lord Dalton is a powerful man and respected warrior. He could readily break your tiny body in two were he angered and your apparent reticence could well do so. I would not have your timidity bring shame upon my house."

Just your reticence then?

Oh the things I could have said. But I set my lips in a tight line and resolved not to be goaded.

"I am sure you have never heard of the dartura plant? It doesn't grow on these lands, but only far to the east amongst the tribes of the Yusuf. Even there, it is a rare herb. Most avoid it. The taste is exceedingly bitter. However, wise alchemists of ages past learned that it could, if carefully prepared, produce potent elixirs. One such is Tosca's Kiss, named for their dark god of fertility. A draught of this fills the imbiber with powerful desire. It was often used by virgin brides - not unlike yourself - who feared their wedding nights. I personally would not know - such stimulants are considered forbidden amongst the nobility. But you have no such limit given your lower status.

"So I offer you this opportunity. I have the means to acquire this plant and an alchemist skilled in preparing such concoctions. This potion will take away the fear that so cripples you and fill you with a desire that may even give my mighty husband pause. But it is not something I will force on you. Tomorrow you shall bed Lord Dalton. If you wish to take the potion, I will have one prepared beforehand, which you will take in front of witnesses, attesting that you do so at your own request and of your own free will. Otherwise, you shall bed Lord Dalton without such... distraction.

"What is your choice, Sorcha?"

I was stunned. The last thing I had expected to receive from this woman was sympathy or alliance of any kind. Lady Dalton didn't strike me as the kind of woman who would be kept from something that could relieve the pain of suffering such as I had witnessed by the knowledge that the draught was forbidden to her. I also didn't understand why it had to be taken before witnesses and with some kind of public declaration. I had no reason to trust Lady Dalton but it took courage to question her without betraying my doubt in her motives.

"Why must this be declared before others my Lady? Surely this is a private matter? Must everyone know that Lord Dalton's new mistress drugs herself in order to lie with him?"

I paused and thought further.

"What other effects does it have my Lady? Will it make me ill or give me a craving for more as a drunk craves liquor?"

"Why must this be declared before others my Lady? Surely this is a private matter? Must everyone know that Lord Dalton's new mistress drugs herself in order to lie with him?"


I resisted the urge to chuckle and risk betraying my presence. This Sorcha had courage to so directly confront her social better. I gave her all the more credit for doing so with my wife, a woman not known for her tolerance for the lesser born.

Still, Catherine was too pragmatic to let her irritation at being questioned to sway her reaction. Our plans needed at least the semblance of willing participation on Sorcha's part and Catherine wisely sensed that hostility would be unlikely to procure such a result. Catherine couldn't quite manage a pleasant tone, but then such would have rung hollow; rather, she managed the beleaguered tone she frequently employed when lecturing our youngest on a simple task. "Because secrets are easier to create than they are to keep. Procurement of the elixir necessarily involves too many third parties in its creation and delivery for me to blithely assume that it will remain a private matter. Gossip courses through these halls like water in a stream, finding its way into every nook and cranny. The truth will out, sooner or later."

"As I have explained from the beginning, your purpose here is as a voluntary participant in the Culling. You are worthless to us if the perception is that you were merely dragooned into service. If you partake of Tosca's Kiss in secret only to have it later revealed, everyone will assume that you were compelled into doing so - regardless of truth. Only by your freely and publicly declaring your free intent may I ensure that the Culling is not hopelessly tainted."

I and that in of itself magnifies the likelihood of its existence becoming known. Ingesting Tosca's Kiss will alter your behavior - such is its purpose - and that change may well be noted by others.

"Likewise, Tosca's Kiss will naturally alter your behavior - such is its purpose. I cannot seclude you from all sight - questions would be raised - so your behavior will be seen by others. Whether they notice the difference and properly deduce the source, I cannot say. But I cannot altogether discount the possibility.

Sorcha seemed to give that some thought, but apparently her curiosity was not yet satisfied.


"What other effects does it have my Lady? Will it make me ill or give me a craving for more as a drunk craves liquor?"


Catherine shrugged her alabaster shoulders. "I cannot speak as to the exact sensation it creates, coursing through one's veins. But Yusuf men were not known for their gentility, so that generations of Yusuf women used it on their wedding nights speaks well of its efficacy in allaying the timidity of young virgin brides.

"As for its effect on your desires, it will not extend beyond your intended. The preparation of the Kiss involved a contribution from the groom so that its effects on the bride were confined to her new husband. In your case, the effects will be limited to your regard for Lord Dalton.

Sorcha was now no stranger to Lady Catherine's impatience and withering contempt. There would be no point questioning her further and if she refused this Toca's Kiss, that would be the end of it, she knew she would not be offered it again. Sorcha knew she couldn't keep Lady Catherine waiting while she deliberated but really the choice was simple. She was going to have to bed Lord Dalton, it was going to be incredibly painful and this potion was apparently going to minimise her suffering. Who cared if it was forbidden to this stupid, pampered couple, just as Lord Dalton couldn't pay a whore and leave her a free woman, he had to enslave a girl in order to retain the moral high ground. It was all madness from end to end.

"I'll take it," Sorcha announced, tacking "my Lady." onto the end of her sentence as something of an afterthought. She was still getting used to the protocol required around here and she had spent the last few days with servants.

Even if it made her a lovesick fool for Lord Dalton, what did she really care, so long as it reduced the pain she would have to endure? Maybe it would be better for her to lose her wits and follow him around like a lapdog.