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The Devil's Inheritance Ch. 01

By: sushi_taco



"Remove your clothes."

"What?!"

Sophia Latwicke stared at the man sitting in the chair next to her dining room table; not her dining room table exactly, but her former master's dining room table. God rest his soul. She backed up against the wall next to the hearth. Her former master had not been in the ground more than three days when the executor of his last will and testament showed up on her doorstep demanding to inspect the grounds, and now her.

"As I told you before, girl. Your contract will not come to term for another two years. Until that time, you are my property," James Gardiner said this with the calm one would expect from someone reading out of an almanac, "And I would like to see all of what I have inherited from my late uncle."

How dare he. Sophie knew that if his uncle David Farthing were alive he'd have the young man horsewhipped for saying such things to her. She stood her ground against this tall man who sat in her kitchen; his legs crossed with a foot resting on the knee of his breeches, regarding her with disdain as she spoke, "M... Mr. Farthing said this farm was supposed to go to me once I—"

"Yes, but you haven't, have you? I'm sure my sentimental uncle gave you his word that he was setting up a trust to entail the land as a dowry for you once you fulfilled your contract but alas, no such written contract exists, and he is dead. You won't find a judge in the whole of the Kingdom who would hold up verbal consent deeding my family's land away to a mere servant girl. Therefore, you are still bound to this land and its owner and therefore bound to me as my property," James came to this backwater dairy farm in Ashford only to assess the place and most likely liquidate it. He had no interest in his family's ancient profession; he was a gentleman, his home Westminster in London, albeit on the unfashionable side.

But that thought changed instantly as soon as he had seen her curly blonde hair falling out from under her mobcap, her overskirt pulled up into the hem of her bodice out of the way as she worked in the heat of the late July morning, cranking the lever of the well. Her breasts rode high over the edge of her chemise as her body pitched forward and back, pulling the full water bucket upward.

James watched her from his chaise and couldn't help but picture himself standing directly behind her as her body heaved forward, her skirts uplifted, thrusting deep into her luscious curves. He felt himself harden at the sight of her and looked down to his satchel where he had her Parish Apprentice Terms of Indenture. This dreary place may prove interesting after all. Now here he sat as the girl's new master, and she his indentured apprentice. He held the paper up for Sophie to see: the deed to her person. Her green eyes grew wide.

Sophie just stared at him in horror. How could he ask her such a thing? His cold gray eyes showed no emotion as he relayed these facts to her. His dress was that of a city gentleman. Not a nobleman with a powdered wig but one of the sons of the bourgeois, his dark brown hair tied at the nape of his neck with a black satin ribbon. She had hung his black frock and hat by the door when he entered. He was dressed in full mourning garb from the brim of his hat to his stockings. Sophie thought him strikingly handsome when she first him, but she could only see the beguiling devil under his appearance now.

"Now... Sophia," he peered at the contract, "Sophia? What kind of a name for a country girl is that?"

"It was after my paternal grandmother, " Sophie said, trying to humanize herself to him. Maybe that was the answer for having this man see her as more than just his property, "My mother died giving birth to me. My natural father was a lord. I was named after his mother."

"Oh, I see. That explains some of your noble features. You're the high-born progeny of a whore," he said snickering. His face returned to its previous seriousness, "Now, Sophia... I'll ask you for the last time. Remove your clothes."

She balled up her fists in rage, "You loathsome coxcomb; how dare you! Get out of my house! The only 'progeny of a whore' around here is you!"

He rose out of his seat, towering a head above her, and took a menacing step forward, "You will do as I say, wench; and if you do not, I will throw you into the gutters to make a living in the same manner as your mother!"

She grabbed a poker from beside the hearth, ready to beat his smug, handsome face into the wall behind him. Mr. Farthing would have done no less by now. Before she could look up to focus on her target, he was in front of her. His hand caught her downward swing, squeezing her wrist. The iron poker fell from her hand, clattering loudly to the floor. Sophie was too shocked to react quickly enough before James grabbed her other wrist, spinning her in place. He wrenched her arms behind her against him in one hand as he pressed up against her back, his freed hand at her throat. Her eyes widened in fear as the air left her body. She felt him inhale close to her hair, taking in the scent of her fear.

"Listen, girl," he said into her ear as he tightened his hold on her neck, "I was hoping we could do this the easy way. But you've left me little choice but to teach you a lesson in respect for your master."

His hand came off her throat and she leaned forward, her hands still held firmly by his. As Sophie bent over gasping for air she heard the once-familiar sound of a leather belt clearing its loops. That sound had preceded enough beatings at the orphanage for her to know exactly what it was. He was going to strike her with his belt as if she was a child! She struggled against him, waiting to feel the lash of corded leather on her back. Instead, he brought it across her wrists and bound them together, the leather squeezing her forearms behind her. He spun her around to face him. Sophie screamed, her eyes wild, "What are you doing?!"

James was enraged. How dare this little bastard milkmaid defy him, and then try to smash his brains in with a poker. She was lucky that she still had a place to sleep instead of being turned out on the street as he had originally intended before coming here. His rage started to dissolve into something far more powerful as he observed Sophia, bound in front of him, arms clasped behind her, milk white neck and bosom jutting forward invitingly. Her breath came in constricted pants behind her bodice, causing her breasts to rise and fall faster. Immediately, James was brought back to the lust that had inspired his first request of her. He grabbed Sophie's cap and threw it off her head, her long blonde tendrils rolling down her back.

"You are an apprentice, are you not? Consider this your first lesson."

He grabbed Sophie at the waist and hoisted her onto the oak table, standing between her legs as she swayed without the balance of her arms. He wrapped an arm around her to steady her and lifted her skirts with the other. He couldn't be serious! Her eyes grew wild and she kicked her legs out toward his lower back, losing her shoes in the process.

Grabbing a hunk of her hair, he steered her head back and to the side, exposing the long pale flesh of her neck. Sophie stood paralyzed in panic. He nipped at her collarbone and ran his tongue down to the crest of the heaving orbs of flesh below. He would teach her a lesson in obedience she'd never forget. If only he could stay in control. The heat of her body against his, the taste and scent of her flesh were driving him to madness. He needed so badly to be inside her, to feel this wild country filly around his hardening cock.

Sophie's struggle only sent her skirts higher, exposing long shapely legs covered to above the knee in stockings. James thrust a hand underneath until it met the hot bare skin of her inner thigh. Her flesh burned and twitched under his touch as his hand moved closer to the source of that heat. James felt his cock straining against his breeches at the touch of her. Sophie looked away, eyes squeezed shut and brimming with tears as he roughly ran his fingers along the soft down of hair covering her crease.

Dry; she wasn't ready yet. He felt deeper inside of her folds, his fingers probing until he felt a small spot of slickness slowly start to build at her entrance. James thrust a finger inward, touching her maidenhead. His lips curled into a sneer as he found to his surprise and delight that this girl was untouched. He would have to do more to prepare her. Her untried channel would chafe or bend him uncomfortably if he did not. He pulled his hand back to look at her swollen pink lips underneath the thatch of soft blonde hair.

A maelstrom of feelings numbed Sophie. This man was touching her against her will in ways she never even touched herself. She wanted him to leave, she wanted to disappear, but as his fingers stroked her she also wanted him to stay. Sophie cursed herself for the thought of wanting his touch but could not deny the desires of her body. With eyes closed she felt her mind wishing she could will herself away from him, but her flesh started warring against her. A creeping heat began to expand from her belly, radiating throughout her body. Suddenly the hand was gone. Her head involuntarily rocked forward at its absence on her flesh.

James looped his finger into the tie keeping those beautiful globes held at bay behind her bodice. He tugged and watched the string unravel under the weight of her breasts, but not fast enough. He grabbed the last cross of the string and pulled it out, throwing it behind him. She felt him grasp at her chemise, pulling her upward before a terrifying rip filled her ears. Her eyes popped open and she looked down at her torn chemise and unstrung bodice before watching his head descend to her exposed left breast. She gasped in shock as he sucked the nipple into his mouth, hardening it with the lash of his tongue. Her thighs fluttered around him as his hand moved down once more on her leg, tracing a quick path back to her sex. She bucked against his touch and opened her mouth to scream. Sophie was surprised by her own voice. It wasn't a scream that came out but a high-pitched moan.

James heard her and groaned on her breast at the sound of her involuntary pleasure. He could hardly stand much more of this without burying himself within her sweet body but these subtle reactions to being touched by a man for the first time intoxicated him to the point where he did not want to stop. The hum of his groan vibrated her tender areola and she responded with a sharp gasp, "Oh God..."

He took his mouth off and moved to the right muttering under his breath, "...saucy little witch."

He caught her candy pink nipple in his teeth, his tongue rolling around the tip. James placed a finger at her gate and slowly wiggled it inside of her, brushing the walls with the tip, causing her to squirm. He withdrew it part way, eliciting a short whimper from Sophie before thrusting his finger back in as she shrieked. Hot liquid poured over his hand as he plunged in and out of her body, stretching her and preparing her for the inevitable. He held his thumb back from instinctively rubbing a circle around her secret spot. He didn't want her to experience that pleasure just yet. But it gave him an idea...

As her resistance faded, James unlatched from her breast and ran his tongue up her collarbone and neck until he reached her ear, savoring every inch of salty sweet flesh in between. "Sophia..." he whispered to her raggedly. James traced his tongue around her lobe as she arched back and leaned her neglected breasts toward him, crushing them against his hard chest.

Sophie didn't know how to feel. All at once she wanted to kill this man and at the same time knew she would die if he stopped what he was doing. The only sound that came out was a frustrated moan. Her hands wrenched uncomfortably behind her, going numb and every adjustment she made only rubbed her sensitive nipples that much harder against his waistcoat.

His fingers ran up and down her slit from the secret bud up top down to her entrance and back again. He felt her shudder deeply when he touched that secret spot before quickly withdrawing from it and letting her liquid heat guide his fingers back into her slick channel. Instead of one, he returned with two; stretching and preparing her, causing her to scream and clench around the invading digit, "Please, please stop this— Oh!"

His thumb landed squarely on her bud, pressing it, driving her mad yet withholding her pleasure. He rubbed her deep inside, her hips thrusting into his hand as he stretched her tight untried passage, clearing a path for him.

He hadn't intended on touching her this long. He was supposed to be punishing her: tearing through her whether she was prepared or not. But he couldn't stop himself from feeling her, learning her body and watching in awe as it responded so readily to his. 

He took his fingers away and observed the nectar of her sex glistening on them before opening his breeches. His control was gone and she was more than ready to receive him. He loosened the ties and pulled out his shirt, feeling his pulsing cock underneath finally spring free.

Sophie felt his hand disappear from her twitching flesh as the cold air hit the wetness between her legs. Suddenly she felt a new heat as his body drew closer to hers. It wasn't his fingers, but something impossibly large butting up against her entrance. James reached down and ran the head of his cock up and down her crease, coating the head with her juices to ease his entry. He slid his cock through her damp folds from the bud at its top to the heat pouring out of her entrance and tilted her legs back.

"Please, no..." Sophie cried in vain. She fell hard onto her elbows behind her and winced, the leather belt trapping her. James brought the head of his pulsing cock back to her gate. He wetted it at her entrance and pushed the crown in slowly. She twisted underneath him, whimpering and writhing at the invasion. James withdrew the first inch of his cock and pushed the head in again, secured at the border of her maidenhead. His hands found the way to each of her hips, steadying her squirming. Finally, he looked down at her staring into her eyes and thrust into her with all his might.

Sophia let out a broken shuddering scream, seeing stars, her teeth chattering together as her body squirmed. Buried to the hilt inside her, James brought his arms to the sides of her, pinning her body down as he felt her muscles clench and stroke him. Her body was deliciously tight and responsive. His position brought her low over her body, feeling her curves pressing into him as he lay inside of her, the heat of her skin radiating through his clothes. Her body squirmed, worsening her pain as she shut her eyes and turned away from him, crying. James held her roughly at the chin and brought her face forward to meet his, "Look at me. Now! Open your eyes."

Sophia complied, tears obscuring her vision as she opened her eyes to stare up at him. His cold steel irises were darkened with passion, boring straight through her. He lowered his face to hers and covered her mouth with his, pulling back on her lower lip. She felt incredible around him. He groaned through his teeth and her captured lip, feeling the desperate pull of her as she surrounded him. The heat of her body seared through him as he held her there skewered upon him, breasts crushed against his chest. He pulled back and gave another thrust forward, his groin smacking against her flesh. Sophia cried out again, but it came from low in her throat.

A blazing heat, then a persistent throb, replaced the sudden stab of pain. She could feel herself stretched around him, the heat of his thighs pressed up against the lifted cheeks of her ass. She felt his cock jerk and twitch insider of her, pulsing like a heartbeat. The feel of it made her gasp and every squirming movement she made reminded her again of his hardness invading and penetrating her, pinning her where she lay. The friction and fullness of him blazed a fire through her core, giving her no quarter to recover from his assault on her body.

James had never seen anything more beautifully erotic than the look on Sophia's face when he had breached her maidenhead, seating himself within her, claiming her. She looked up at him now, her face awash with passion and confusion as she experienced a man for the first time. He held himself there, feeling the tightness of her, the excruciating pleasure of her shifting under him dragging a moan from his lips.

This wasn't like the practiced barmaids of London. She felt magnificent surrounding him and her expressive face, filled with passion, surrender, ecstasy and loathing warring within her, was almost more than he could bear. He looked away from her deep green eyes to keep from spending himself too quickly and turned his attention instead to soft skin of her neck.

James nipped her on the neck where it joined her shoulder as he started withdrawing and plunging back into her hot depths, the walls closing down around his cock, sucking him back in every time he pulled away. She was unmanning him. He was losing himself inside of her, the feel of her almost too much to bear. He grew more urgent, moaning against her skin as her body started arching against his.

He alternated his thrusts, shallowly pushing the thick head past the barrier where her maidenhead once stood, then thrusting deep into her, her entire body quaking around him as he filled her.

The pain was intolerable, her whimpers and pleas were lost to him as he ravaged her body, the intense pain mixed with a pleasure crawling up her spine, radiating from her inner thighs. Sophia felt like she was reaching for something that she couldn't name as he pumped his cock once more harder into her flesh.

She felt her legs go numb, her elbows chafe against the table, and sensations course through her, the sound of her heart beating in her ears. She hated this man, she wished him dead, yet she wanted nothing but to feel him stirring inside her. Sophia screamed out again as he moved within her, but she didn't know this time whether it was from pleasure or pain. Her emotions ran wild, burning away her refusal in the fires of lust. His hands moved to her wrists and untied the leather belt, forcing Sophia down further on the table. The question she had for why her bonds had been loosed was answered when James angled deeper into her flesh. Her arms splayed out to the sides as he held her at the crook of her elbows. It was all Sophia could do was to grab his arms tightly to steady her against his pounding thrusts.

James brought his mouth down against her breasts once more, tasting the delicate puckered flesh, watching them bounce higher as he pushed into her even faster. She writhed anew as she swore she had felt him grow even harder insider of her, brutalized by his taking. He couldn't help his guttural moans, emanating from deep within him, pushed on by his lust for this creature underneath his body, surrounding him, keening against him, undoing him. He braced his hands against her hips, withdrawing then sheathing himself to her depths. With a muffled cry he threw his head back, emptying his seed into her body. His fingers sunk into her, bruising her flesh, branding her. James gave one last triumphant hard thrust before withdrawing from Sophie breathlessly.

James legs staggered back a step before he stared down at her. He grabbed the hem of her chemise and quickly wiped away all traces of seed, sex and virginal blood from his cock. Looking back at Sophia gathering her disheveled torn clothing and curling into a ball on the table, James was struck by a moment of lustful softness. He wanted to lay naked with her and show her all the pleasures of the flesh. He yearned to teach her how to bend her exquisite passion to him. His inspiration from earlier when his hand was buried in her flesh yet denying her ultimate pleasure returned with force. There was a way. If she agreed, which he knew she would, then there would be as much time as he wished to show her that sensation her body had tried to reach.


The Devil's Inheritance Ch. 01



"Well," he started, "I'd say I enjoyed you better with your clothes on, Sophia. I almost want to thank you for putting up a fight."

"You rotten bastard!" she said, recovering. The emptiness inside of her replaced the pleasure of his thrusting cock and suddenly the pain of it returned. The fire he had burned straight through the center of her was all she could feel right now. She lay on her side on the table, clutching her ripped clothing and curling her knees upward. Her core ached as never before all at once from the soreness of her previously untried body and also from the very new feeling she could neither attain nor understand.

"I have a proposition for you."

She turned to look up at him as James adjusted his clothes calmly, carrying on like this was every day business. What deal could he possibly make with her? He'd already just proved that he could take anything he wanted from her at will, and that his splendid touch would reduce her resistance to nothing in taking it. She hated this man beyond hate, with the fire of a thousand suns, "Say it, and leave."

He closed the distance between them fast and Sophie winced, sitting up and trying to back away from him, thinking that he would assault her again for her impudence. Her traitorous body almost wished for it, to feel him inside her once more. Instead he took her chin in his hand and brought her mouth up to his, kissing her deeply.

Her desire burned just as deeply as her hatred. His tongue slipped between her teeth, melting into her. She felt her pain start to disappear again, replaced by the same flaming pleasure. He brought a hand to her back as she let go. He cradled her and pressed himself to her once more before withdrawing from her lips.

"My thought is this: You in exchange for the farm."

"What?"

He walked to the coat rack, putting on his frock as casually as if he had just stopped by for breakfast, "I have business to settle here with my uncle's other holdings and I detest the inn at Ashford. The pub girls over there look like pigs. I'd much rather stay here. My exchange is as follows: when I come to visit my lands here, you will spend the night in my bed and continue what we started today. If you do this to my satisfaction then in two years when you reach the end of your contract the farm will be yours."

She curled back up again on her side, lying on the table where he had taken her. Sophie thought about this place, her home. It had been the only thing she had been able to call home, and if she refused he would turn her out to the crossroads or have her shipped to the Americas, or worse. The exchange she understood but for one part. She crinkled her brow, "What do you mean 'to your satisfaction'?"

"Submit to me willingly any time I desire in any manner I desire, for as long as I desire, and you will get everything you ever wanted out of this piece of dirt you love so much. I could care less about the farm, to be honest, but since you do, I figure it's a fair exchange."

"To be your whore?"

"But of course; however only a whore to one man. And considering the reward, I believe you'd do well to think on it. It's either that or I sell the farm and turn you out to the crossroads so you can whore to the multitudes. But it doesn't have to be all that terrible, Sophia. Think on it this way: technically, I am your master and you are my apprentice. Just as your arrangement was before, you will learn the trade I have to teach you," he said, his voice almost singing. James lifted the satchel containing her contract over his head and brushed down the flap at his hip.

Sophie remained dumbfounded. This wasn't a choice; this was a command! ...from her new master. She looked at him with unbridled hate burning in her eyes. Hot tears started rolling down her cheeks once more. He grabbed his hat by the front corner, wiped the sweat of his exertions from his brow, and placed it on his head.

James opened the front door to leave, "For now, I'll take your silence as your approval, but I'll be back to discuss this with you further. Good day, Sophia Latwicke," he said tipping his hat toward her and exiting, "It's been a pleasure."

The door slammed behind him, leaving Sophie alone, still clutching at her torn dress and curled up on the table. She felt tears stinging her eyes as she laid there the shock of what had happened and let what she had tacitly agreed to start to sink in.

James packed his case at his side and sat down in the seat of the chaise. He would clear his thoughts of her and go about his business for the rest of the day. His body was telling him to turn back, to properly take her to bed and lose himself in her arms again and again but he resisted, trying to regain his control. It was to no avail. The only thought he had was that glorious moment he had branded her as his, the look of surprise on her face as her maidenhead had been pierced. She had bewitched him, cursed him to suffer the torment of being apart from her sensuous body.

Damn his night's rent to the inn! They could keep his money for all he cared. It would pale in comparison to where he planned to sleep instead: next to her body. He flicked the whip, his horse cantering back to the inn. He would take care of matters in town with the local barrister, pack his things and be back here by sunset. Her name echoed in the recesses of his mind as his horse rode on. Sophia... Sophia... Sophia... Sophia... 



The Devil's Inheritance Ch. 02



Sophie clipped her garments to the line at the side of the house to dry. Her afternoon had been spent running them over the washboard to rid them of the stains that proved her innocence, and of his scent on her clothes. Fastening the last clothespin on her chemise, she ran her fingers across the tear down the front. The sound of it pulling apart in his hands this morning splintered through her memory. She ran inside and shut the door, looking around the silent house. Not a week ago, she had been sitting at the table with Mr. Farthing, laughing about their half-witted old neighbor walking three miles down the road after his escaped rooster.

David Farthing had been a kind master. She often addressed him by his first name, even. Together they had spent days working and nights sharing meals and brandy, of which David would sneak to her a glass every so often. But he always drank too much, becoming melancholy by the end of the meal and Sophie had carried him to his bed many nights. He had never touched her, and had no interest in doing so. David's lack of interest in women stayed an unspoken topic between them, just as discussion of Sophie's parentage and childhood was off limits.

They always had the most fun together alone at night, the two Ashford misfits enjoying each other's company after tending to business around the dairy farm. The townsfolk didn't like either of them: Sophie for her origin as the illegitimate daughter of the Marquess, and David for the rumors surrounding him concerning why none of the young men in town wanted to take up apprenticeship at the farm.

Sophie sat at the dining room table, remembering them singing together with her clapping in time or dancing as David played his fiddle, laughing by candlelight. But when his melancholy got the better of him and the brandy had run out he would drive off in the milk cart and finish the evening at the pub in Ashford before crawling back in the wee hours of the morning, usually just as Sophie was getting up to milk the cows. Four days before he had crawled back to bed and stayed there, never to wake again.

The happy times were gone now, and the memories were violently burned away this morning as his nephew Mr. Gardiner had taken her on this very table. She shut her eyes but couldn't escape the feel of his hands on her, his mouth suckling at her breast, and the burning path he had blazed within her that she now felt with every movement of her body.

After Mr. Gardiner left, Sophie had frantically searched the house to no avail. There was more than a verbal contract between her and David, but she wasn't going to give that information to Mr. Gardiner just yet. Sophie knew that David had written a letter to the barrister entailing the property to her, because she had watched as he started writing it. But in his often-besotted state, she doubted he had ever remembered to deliver it.

If she didn't find it soon then Mr. Gardiner would, and her chances of ever holding this land even under a trust would instantly vanish. All day she had considered running. She knew her options: the whorehouse or the workhouse; and when she had finally run out of money and fortune, and resorted to thieving just to stay alive, she would dance the Tyburn jig. She had to stay here. She had endured worse than James Gardiner in this life.

She sat with her head in her hand at the edge of the table, wearing only her spare summer chemise with the short sleeves, mourning the loss of her old life and steeling herself for her new one. Her mind wretched at the thought of Mr. Gardiner at the same time as her body ached for him to fill it once more. Sophie cursed herself. Surely she was damned for even entertaining these thoughts.

As the sun started descending over the hills, Sophie sat down to sew her torn dress and restring her bodice. She sat in the rocking chair with a needle and thread, mending the jagged tear and listening to the throng of crickets outside. Her hands shook as the needle coursed in and out of the fabric, not the neatest mending job Sophie had ever done. She shut her eyes to the vision of holding Mr. Gardiner's arms as he had pinned her to the table, thrusting in and out of her mercilessly. She let the needle drop, startled by a noise outside.

The gate swung open with a creak as a single horse and chaise lumber through over the grounds. Impossible! Why would he be back so soon? Sophie looked up from her sewing in the fading dusk to see Mr. Gardiner hop down from his carriage and guide the horse to the side of the house.

She panicked for only a moment. There was no escape from him. She had to find the letter. She needed this farm; it was her home. And if she couldn't find it, and had to make a deal with Mr. Gardiner for two years in order to make sure it rightfully passed to her, then she would. The house started darkening as the front door opened. Mr. Gardiner stepped in removing his hat and coat, then his waistcoat and cravat, placing all on the rack by the door. 

He stood there in his shirt and breeches, the fire from the hearth in the other room silhouetting his black clad figure against the flames. His shadow reached toward her. Sophie thought the vision was appropriate. James grabbed a twig from the fire and lit a kerosene lamp on the table by the door. She saw his face in the flicker of the flame as he replaced the glass cover. 

"You asked me to think about what you said, Mr. Gardiner," Sophie stood up, her bravery surprising him.

"So I did," he said, coming closer, the lamp in his hand, "And I want you to call me James."

"I accept your offer. I'll do... whatever it is you ask of me."

He gave her a self-satisfied smile as he spoke, "I would think that you would, considering what you're getting out of all this. Of course, it shall remain to be seen whether you can live up to your end of the bargain."

She wrinkled her brow, "What do you mean by that?"

He looked at her standing before him in the gossamer muslin chemise, the only barrier between them, a half-smile curling his lips. Sophie only realized this too late as his eyes coursed over her. She felt a shudder travel up her spine and her knees turned to jelly. As he took a step forward, she felt her body pulling toward him, like a lodestone to a branding iron.

James advanced the rest of the room until he stood in front of Sophie looking downward into the deep pools of her green eyes, as close as he could get without quite touching her. The close contact made her shiver in painful awareness of the last few inches that separated her from James, "It's not something that can be easily put into words. I would need to show you. And I intend to do so now."

James tilted her face up to his and leaned down, his lips descending over hers, pulling her into to him. Strong fingers raked through her golden hair falling in springs down her back. His hand drew around her back and brought her in close to him, her soft curves melding into the hardness of his body. James brought his free hand up the side of her to her breast, kneading her flesh and feeling its weight through the fabric. He was delighted that she had nothing on but the diaphanous fabric. Had it been any other woman, he would have figured that she had planned it. But Sophia was far too innocent to have the foresight to know how to seduce a man; he'd had proof of that this morning.

His tongue darted into her mouth, searching. She responded, their kiss deepening as her tongue started exploring his. His hand felt her nipple hardening to a point under the fabric and he brushed his thumb roughly over it, drawing a keening whimper from her.

Mouth still trapping hers, he ran his hand down over her stomach through the fabric and brought it up between her legs. When his fingers touched her sex on the other side of the cloth it made his cock twitch and enlarge, his hips instinctively arching toward her. She was already wet, their deep kiss bringing her body back to the memories of this morning.

James drew back from her and whispered, "Go upstairs."

She moved away from him and crossed over to the staircase, ascending. James followed behind her, eyes riveted the wiggle of her ass from side to side in front of him. She walked with care, and the knowledge that she did so because she was still tender from her ravishment this morning sent blood pooling into his groin. 

She swallowed hard, each step seeming to take an eternity as she ascended toward her ultimate fate. Sophie made her way toward David's room— James's room now, for he was master of this house. James marveled at his uncle's excellent taste as the lamp lit the doorway ahead of them. A great Turkish woven rug dominated the floor with an enormous bed on the wall opposite the door. Floor to ceiling windows let light flow in from the front and back of the house with a large, dormant fireplace anchoring the front wall, and a walnut chest and wardrobe framing each corner. 

She pulled back the covers of the massive carved walnut bed as James lit first one candle on the oil lamp before using it to light the rest, flooding the room with a soft glow. Sophie sat on the bed and looked down to see the patch of wetness from where he had touched her through the chemise and turned away, embarrassed.

James watched this interplay on her face and came over to her, sitting beside her on the bed, "Why are you ashamed of something so natural?"

"This isn't natural; none of it is," she looked down almost whispering, "I'm not supposed to feel anything from my... duty to this arrangement."

James smiled at her, "You don't understand yet Sophia, but you soon will."

"Sophie."

"I'm sorry?"

"My name is Sophie. Mr. Farthing called me Sophie."

"My uncle, God rest his soul, desired to create children of his own and had none. It comes as no surprise to me that he kept calling you Sophie long after he should have stopped. 'Sophie' infantilizes you, and you aren't just some naïve girl. Sophia is a woman's name and fits you far better."

She blushed. Of course she wasn't a naïve girl anymore. He had made sure of that this morning. Images of that moment where she ceased being Sophie flooded into her fevered mind.

"Now where were we Sophia," he said, whispering her name slowly into her ear, "Ah, that's right. Your natural response to me."

James ran a hand up her thigh, moving the fabric with him, causing her to shudder in a mixture of terror and arousal. She had to stop this in its tracks. He could rut on her body all he wanted but she needed to resist and separate herself from him. If she didn't, she would lose whatever remained of her soul. He felt her stiffen and came back to her ear.

"Here is your first lesson tonight in why this is a natural response," he said, moving the folds of fabric out of the way until his finger was slowly tracing up the naked skin of her inner thigh. At the same time he picked up her hand and brought it down over his breeches to the erection building beneath, "If you are not ready when I enter you, it will cause you a great deal of pain."

Sophia slowly drew her hand back and shuddered as his finger made contact with the thatch of blonde hair covering her nether lips. He had used his hands and mouth on her body, preparing her this morning, and it had still hurt horrifically. She couldn't imagine what would happen to her insides if she weren't prepared for him. She felt her thighs twitch and her breathing become shallow as he lightly drew his finger through the hair along her outer lips, stroking and enflaming her. His touch didn't increase, and she didn't sense the urgency in him from this morning. Instead he was teasing her and waiting for her to give in.

Sophia tensed then let go, allowing her body to respond. If this was what he wished, then it was necessary for now. He was playing with her like the cat in the barn batting around a field mouse before the kill. She hated him but the way his hands touched her, the way his lips grazed her skin, set her on fire. Her mind held out in holy terror but her body flew free wishing this would never stop. An ache returned to her insides with force, but it wasn't the sharp pain from this morning. Sophia felt a very different kind of throbbing that demanded more.

James watched every sensation course over her face and saw as she started to surrender to his touch. It wasn't enough for him to just to have her only ready enough for him to push inside of her then thrust away for several minutes until he found his release with her lying like a statue underneath him. If he sought after that, he would get a wife. He'd had enough women to know that he needed an active participant, not a rag doll. James wanted to possess this woman and linger in her thoughts long after he had left her side. He needed her to want him, to bend and beg for him. He wanted to feel her body melt into his as it had started to this morning and hear her crying out his name as he gave her the gift of ultimate pleasure.

Her eyes went glassy and her breathing grew ragged as his touch continued. She needed something great and nameless that stood out of reach, "James, please..."

"Hmm?" He said looking up as she whispered.

Sophia hadn't even known the words had left her mouth until he acknowledged them, "Please... I," her words cracked.

"You don't know what it really is that you need, do you? Only that you have to have it," he said as she crossed the threshold from surrender to desire.

"No, I don't, but please..."

James dipped his fingers in deeper, feeling hot wet heat pour out of her, coating his finger as it brushed through her inner lips. Sophia's heavy lidded eyes closed as she felt a wave of pleasure sweep over her, her voice breaking from deep in her throat. His stroke relieved the throbbing within her but that primal ache soon returned. He felt her quivering under his touch, "Lesson the second: I know what it is you need, even though you do not. I can either stop—"

He withdrew his fingers suddenly and she bent forward, body crumpling, unfulfilled. She whimpered, the ache becoming unbearable, "No!"

A wide grin crossed his face and he returned his fingers to her keening flesh, "—or continue touching you. What would you like, Sophia?"

"Please, James! Stop teasing me like this! I... you already showed me once today what I... need," Sophia looked down at his groin as she reached toward him. He caught her wrist before she could touch him and shatter his waning control. She opened her eyes wide and looked deep into his calm grey pupils, her lips trembling.

James cupped her face with his other hand and brushed his lips against hers before gently nipping the bottom. He locked his mouth to hers feeling her press back with an urgent moan. Their tongues entwined and James used the kiss to lower her to the bed, her blonde hair pooling underneath them. James knew that she needed his touch and had assumed that him thrusting away inside of her was the answer to her arching desire. She broke the kiss and looked down at his groin hesitantly, assuming he would simply take her here and now as he had this morning. James read her thoughts on her face, "There will be time enough for that. I promise. But there's more to this than just my taking you."

Why couldn't he just get it over with and tell her instead of making her guess in shame? Confusion swept over Sophia as she felt him start to lift her chemise over her head. She aided him, shifting so he could more easily pull it off her and cast it on the floor beside the bed. He looked down at her body, candlelight flickering across her silvery flesh. Her collarbone jutted forward, the hollows in her neck more pronounced as she rolled and arched her back, searching out his hand once more. Below that, the supple curves of liquid flesh ended in delicate pink nipples, each puckered to a point at the touch of the cold air and his hands brushing the inside of her thighs.

With his eyes he traced the line running from her ribs down the side of her stomach, the gentle inward curve only obscured by her navel. Her hips flared out below that and his eyes finally passed to where his hands were stroking her thighs. James moved them upward returning his hands to her core and the pink lips covered in downy blonde hair that matched the tendrils framing her face.

She had surrendered to him. He kissed her once more as she lay on the edge of the bed, her legs cast over the side before moving to her breasts, supporting them underneath. He rolled his tongue around each nipple feeling the areole constrict even further under his lips. Sophia felt the same sensations building within her as she had felt on the dining room table this morning. She watched as James moved from her breasts and started kissing down the length of her stomach, his fingers tracing a figure eight through her wet lips.

She tilted her head back with a gasp, her mound rising up as his tongue hit her flesh just under her navel. She felt his fingers move away and a breath of hot air landed on her hardened bud. Before she could process her disbelief at where he was and what he was about to do, she felt the gentle rasp of his tongue meet her delicate flesh. The room started spinning, and a loud moan escaped her throat.

James rolled his tongue through her slit, the sweet salty essence of her filling his senses. He ran the back of his tongue down to its source and darted inside her. Sophia brought her legs up and shrieked, gasping as he probed her, thrusting in and out of her opening in a pleasurable mock of the searing pain she knew would later replace it.

As his fingers edged deeper inside her curling upward, he ran the flat of his tongue up her slit and flicked her nub with the tip. She rolled her head from side to side on the bed, her feet resting on his shoulders, opening her wider to him.

Sophia was lost to the dream world. Every brush of his tongue sent a new shiver down her body all the way to the tips of her toes and the thrust and curl of his fingers sparked a fire within her. She felt as though she were flying, soaring outside of her person, intoxicated by the ecstasy of his expert touch. Her moans filled the room, her unintelligible voice drawn from that primal place deep within.

He latched his mouth onto her flesh and sucked in, her juices and the sound of her pleasure flowing through him, nourishing him. Her cries echoing off the walls burned into his consciousness as he drove her onward, feeling her body surrender and undulate under the assault of his tongue and lips. She felt as though the bed underneath her didn't exist; as though she were flying. Suddenly James felt her fingers rake through his hair and push him closer to her. He smiled at her urgent need for him. He felt her thighs start closing around his head as she bucked upward, her control only a memory.

Just when she thought she could stand no more of this sweet torture, Sophia felt something inside her shatter, the force of it arching her back up off the bed. A scream tore from her throat and she felt the physical world around her melt away, replaced only by the feel of his mouth and hands on her flesh. James felt her thighs lock around him, muffling the sound of her cries to his trapped ears. Unseen, he smiled at the power behind her response to him.

When her thighs finally came away, his mouth was still locked to her flesh made so sensitive it almost hurt. After the briefest respite, she felt the paroxysms return as strong as before, her eyes rolling back as she arched again, the sound of her pleasure echoing through the house. When it became too much she started pushing his forehead away with the tips of her fingers. James steadied her and released her from his mouth, looking up at the deep rise and fall of her chest as she recovered her senses. Sophia opened her eyes.

Hands, lips, breasts and feet tingled and her mound and thighs spasmed as she lay there utterly spent. She watched James stand and rise above her, fully clothed with a noticeable bulge straining against the front of his breeches. With a wicked smile, he wiped his mouth in the crook of his arm then slackened his shirt. Words finally returned to Sophia, "James... what was—"




The Devil's Inheritance Ch. 02



"That? Do you remember this morning?" He said removing his belt quickly.

"Yes," she said fearfully, staring at his belt, heart flying into her throat. Sophia relaxed, watching as he rolled it up and set it down on the chair beside the bed.

"The moment I cried out and created these," he said tracing his hand around the radial of deep finger-shaped bruises on her hips, "That was what you just had."

"What is it?" she said, mesmerized as he unbuttoned his shirt.

"La petite mort; the little death. You came, my dear," he said, casting it off onto the chair. 

"How did you do that?" she said in wonder. Her eyes followed the lines and definition of his hard form. It was so different from her body, and she watched the flickering candlelight highlight the sinews from his neck to his shoulders, his arms and down his stomach to his navel. He ran his hand back through his hair and felt the mess it had become when she had pulled it out of place in her throes. He untied the satin ribbon and smoothed it back with his hands; his dark locks falling just behind his shoulders. Desire flooded through her once again as she stared up at James.

"Well, I'd be happy to show you again," He bent over, pushing down his breeches and stockings before stepping out of them. When he came back up Sophia gasped and staggered back on the bed away from him. Her eyes focused only on his cock, her heart beating in fear and aroused anticipation. This morning, inside of her... it just wasn't possible.

He laughed and shook his head at her reaction, watching as she crawled backward across the bed coming to rest on the other side. She lay there propped up on her elbows with knees bent, her hair tumbling in flaxen curls behind her. She was unaware of the enticing vision she presented to him, "Come, Sophia," he said, slinking toward her like a jungle cat, "You've already known me fully. What could you possibly fear now?"

"I... There's no way in heaven or earth your... thing¬¬¬¬—"

"My cock?"

"Your... your cock could have fit inside of me," she flinched at the words and his sudden movement as he came up beside her. James laid on his side, propped up on an elbow as she shuddered from their close contact, her eyes drawing down the length of his torso, starting at the line of black hair under his navel, through the nest of curls to where his manhood lay jutting out from his body on the sheets between them.

"Well, it did. We both know that," he brushed a fallen blond tendril behind her ear and ran the back of his hand down her cheek. The tender move soothed her and she tilted to the side facing him, her legs stretched out in a long sloping line away from her hips. She still looked down at his organ in dread. No matter how long he drew this out or how pleasurable he made it for her, she knew for certain, there would still be the same ripping pain she felt this morning.

He watched her face change as she looked down at his cock before reaching across to stroke her arm, trying to relax her. He had to have her at least pliant. If she was afraid of him, Sophia would stiffen up and her passion would be lost. Sex would become a rote series of uncomfortable thrusts instead of the soaring ecstasy he had a taste of this morning when he took her on the table. He wanted her to crave his presence inside of her, not fear it.

He leaned closer to her and kissed Sophia, feeling her surrender as her body bent toward him. Lightly picking up her wrist, he guided her shaking hand downward. She jumped when her fingers met hot smooth skin. James closed her fingers around the crown, moaning his approval into her mouth as she responded with a light squeeze.

Sophia broke the kiss and looked down, bringing her hand back from the ruddy head and running her finger around the rim. James tensed himself with all the willpower he could muster as he let her explore him. The head felt smooth and malleable, the skin soft and cottony, especially around the rim of the crown. The shaft below that was a different matter. That skin was delicately silky and hot, yet hard as a fence post. A vein winding up the left side thrummed against her hand.

Her fingers spiraled down the shaft and into the nest of curls at the base. She combed through the straighter, wiry hair underneath and touched the soft pouch that sat below, lightly rolling the two fleshy globes within in her hand as James exhaled a gasp and closed his eyes. He kept trying unsuccessfully to take his mind anywhere else; focusing on her delicate touch would be the end of him. She watched his stomach tighten as her hand traveled up the long shaft once more, two fingers tracing the column along the underside before wrapping around the head, nearly enclosing it in her grasp. James sucked air in through his teeth as she dragged her closed hand downward before pulling up again.

"Does this please you?" she said just above a whisper as her hand slowly pumped the length of his cock.

"Yes, more than you know," he said. If only she knew. To see her gently explore him was driving him to the brink, against his goals for tonight. He retreated away from her just in time and reached under her waist, rolling her back against him, the curve of her ass resting against his groin. He wanted to feel her body against his, and the sight of her willing touch had become too much to take.

The clover scent of her hair filled his senses. James found the lobe of her ear with his tongue and sucked on it, sending a shiver up Sophia's spine. He held her against him by her stomach as his free hand roamed over her body, first brushing down her neck and over a breast, squeezing the nipple between his fingers. She gasped at his touch. James cradled her breast from underneath and kneaded it in his hand before running a single finger down her waist. The tickle of his light touch made her jump and rub seductively against his hardness.

He brought his hand behind, firmly squeezing the cheek of her ass before supporting her thigh and bringing the crook of her knee back over his legs, splaying her against him from behind and running his hand along her leg to her foot. The weight of his cock now rested on her inner thigh along the curve of her sex. She looked down and saw the head poking from between her legs and pulsing with a rhythm of its own.

His hand dove to the front and his finger stroked up through her crease, feeling every layer and curve of her damp folds until it reached the bud protruding from the top. He started drawing a slow lazy circle around it, hearing Sophia gasp, feeling her buck toward his hand, and whimper in frustration as she was bound in this position, her leg immovably cast backward over his, pinned there under his strong arm.

Sophia felt herself again reaching for that ecstasy. James moved his thumb around in circles, replacing the finger, as he started slowly guiding his cock toward her gate with his hand. The added pressure of his thumb made her hips rock and her legs open wider. Her foot curved upward all the way to the base of his spine, opening herself to him, as his arm locked her thigh in place. Her back naturally arched, putting her mound in contact with his heated groin. She felt the crown of his cock start to part her folds and tensed in fear. Sophia bit her lips together and breathed through her nose, preparing herself to take the pain of him again without screaming.

"Lesson the third," he said huskily into her ear, "It hurt the first time I took you, but it will not hurt again after. When I enter you, it will feel like this..."

James thrust gently into her all the way to the hilt and Sophia winced, not believing him, expecting the pain to rip through her. Instead she felt a fullness and heat in her depths. She gave a surprised gasp and leaned back into him. His width felt like it was splitting her in two, but she had never felt anything as right and pleasurable before. Her voice left her own control as she moaned in tempo to his steady thrusts into her depths.

"This is how it is supposed to be between a man and woman. If you are open and willing for me," he said gritting his teeth, "This is how glorious it will feel every time I fuck you."

He groaned as her flesh suddenly seized around him, her body reacting in shock to his curse, then tilted her head back onto his chest, eyes fluttering closed as she leaned back against him, surrendered to the complete control he had over her body. His finger continued its lazy path around her nub, as his thrusts grew deeper. The heat of her flesh against him as he encircled her body from behind and lanced through her started sapping him of his self-discipline. He strained to maintain the angle and speed of his taking, waiting for Sophia to feel the fullness of her arousal before he reached his. 

Amazed at the closeness he felt to her body, he found a rhythm inside of her, feeling throughout his being the surrender she gave to him as her skin melted into his. The arm pinned under her ran up and down her abdomen, cradling her breast and pinching a nipple before running back down again. Sophia felt like he was touching her everywhere and that every inch of her body belonged to James.

Her mouth was open and her eyes closed, the heat of passion driving her every movement and sound. James wanted to watch the magnificent sight of her coming once more, this time buried deep within her, joined together in the most elemental way possible. But he withheld that spiraling pleasure from her with the slow motion of his finger and the deliberate glide of his cock. 

She shuddered and whimpered as the familiar ache with in her grew without release, becoming an agony, "Oh God, James, please..."

"What's the matter, my dear?" he said stopping his fingers on her bud. Simultaneously he thrust shallowly into her channel, rubbing the walls of her canal deliciously, but not deep or hard enough. She began to ache in his absence. Sophia cried in anguish and struggled in vain to move against the absolute control James had over their position, desperate to feel him deep within her and the sensuous rub of his fingertips once more, "Would you like to come?"

"Please..."

"Tell me you want to come," he said barely holding on to his own control over the slow and shallow momentum.

"James I need to come; please touch me again. I need you deeper; oh God, PLEASE!!" she cried, humiliated by her wanton words but needing the release only he could give her.

With a great push, James sheathed himself to the hilt inside her and started rubbing his fingers across her turgid flesh with vigor. Sophia threw her head back in ecstatic relief as he filled her. He moved his hand from her stomach to grasp the skin just above her mound to steady her body as his thrusts picked up to a fever pitch. He couldn't stop for anything now, instinct guiding the crescendo of his movements and his voice. 

Sophia felt the world around her disappear once more as her body lurched forward, starting to come around his cock. The waves of her orgasm were pressed back into her by the thickness of him piercing through her over and over. Her triumphant primal cries filled his ears.

The hot velvet of her core closed in around him, sucking him deep inside her and rolling over him with waves and spasms that carried him across the threshold with her. His cries matched hers as James arched back like the length of a bow and plunged to her depths, his seed bursting from him. Emptying himself, he thrust into her several more times shouting his pleasure.

Their breathing came in unison and James held the trembling Sophia close to him, still buried within her. He released his grip on her thigh as she brought it forward to meet her other leg with a relaxed sigh. They shuddered together, recovering as one from their coupling. James brushed the wayward strands of hair away from her face and kissed her on the cheek on front of her ear, remaining locked within her, stroking her body from her shoulder to the curve of her hips. She felt his hot seed begin to slip from her body and cool against her leg.

Sophia made a motion to move away from him, but James curled his arms back even tighter, pinning her against his body, his slowly diminishing cock again seating itself deeper within her. Sophia felt him rocking her side to side, to and fro in his embrace, as her eyelids grew heavy. He felt her start to relax and her breathing slow as she fell asleep, exhausted from his attentions.

James held her still, feeling himself softening within her. They were both covered in a fine layer of perspiration and he felt Sophia begin to shiver in her sleep. With a groan he pulled out of her and brought the bed sheet over them before spooning up against her once more. James swung his arm over her, cupping her left breast in his hand. He fell asleep listening to the contented rasp of her breathing.

Sophia awoke in the comfort of Mr. Farthings' master chamber, the room washed in pale light. She froze for a moment not knowing how she'd come to be there, before turning back to see James sleeping peacefully beside her. The events of yesterday rushed back to her and she lurched out of bed, frantic.

The soft heels of her feet padded across the rug, her hand trailing across the footboard as she watched him sleep. She felt her insides shift, the soreness returning to her. Her mind kept wandering back to the feel of his body behind hers as she soared to that unimaginable ecstasy.

He had entranced her; cast some sort of spell over her. It was the only explanation she had for how a man she hated as deeply as James, a man who had taken her innocence without remorse, could have that kind of power over of her, body and soul. 

Even now, she felt the echoes of that lustful mesmerism ringing through her, the memories of their coupling flooding back into her. She stood by the window. The full moon was raised high over the barn. It reflected off the calm waters of the millpond, both casting silvery light over the landscape and into the room. It was the witching hour.

She looked back at this seducer as he lay in bed and thought back to what the church orphanage had taught her about such malevolent creatures as he. She had to be rid of him. He would do this again, draw her back down under his body, make her say and do things she had never even imagined before. She couldn't patiently wait to find Mr. Farthing's letter any longer, not with the danger James's touch posed to her immortal soul. Sophia knew that in her wickedness she would enjoy it as thoroughly as she had tonight unless she abated this evil here and now.

She couldn't allow him to make her feel the way he did. Even now his spell over her brought the memory of the feel of his tongue wickedly snaking in and out of her core, and the sound of their cries of passion as he had plunged into her depths. She felt tears rolling down her cheeks, shuddering in sobs of fear as she made her plan. Sophia quietly picked up the standing candelabra in the corner, its beeswax spent, and turned around on the floor, ready to vanquish him.

"Sophia..."

The lyrical sound of her name made a chill crawl up her spine. Her hands started shaking as she watched him stir, uncover himself with the sheet and stand to face her. The angles of his flesh were bathed in the moonlight.

"Drop it, Sophia," he said gently. Her knees wobbled at the sight of him. She watched his cock stir and slowly start to rise.

"No," she whispered through cracked sobs.

He ambled toward her, his organ rising upward as he walked, priapic and engorged in the moonlight. She felt that familiar heat rush back to her loins as her entire body shook. James smiled, unfettered by her actions, knowing that her resistance was dropping with every step he took closer to her, "Sophia, we both know that I'm just going to take it from you."

She felt herself flush at the double entendre, knowing full well what he would do when he crossed the room. Her emotions warred within her. She wanted to kill him for what he had done to her but even more so, she wanted to feel his hands on her once more, igniting and electrifying her flesh. Her eyes were fixated on the bulbous crown of his cock, rising proudly toward her. She took one step back and stumbled backward over the base of the candelabra. James caught her, holding her fast in his arms as the bronze holders hit the rug with a dull thud, sending cracked strands of wax everywhere.

Sophia burst out crying and beat her closed fists against his chest, "Why? Why do you make me feel this way? Why?!"

"What way would that be?" he said her struggles causing her to rub against his flesh enticingly.

"I hate you, I hate you! I'm not supposed to want you to touch me and hold me! I've done things I would never—"

He muffled Sophia's protests with a kiss and held her close, her arms raised against her side, feeling the heat of her body pressed against him. Tears rolled over her cheeks as she surrendered to him, her body unwinding in his strong arms. He felt her bring her hands up the back of his neck, her fingers coursing up through his hair.

James sympathized with Sophia. He wasn't supposed to want her like this, either. He had expected her to be an easy victory, never anticipating the fire and longing she instilled within him that could only be quenched by sinking into her perfect velvet flesh. He knew that if he did have a shred of his usual detached control with women, he would be at the inn at Ashford right now, not aching to lose himself within her in the moonlight. Even though he held her confined in his grasp at the whims of his body, Sophia had in turn conquered him, completely.

His tongue mated with hers and her cries turned pleasurable, giving in to her desire for him. She needed James; there was no denying it. He splayed his large hands firmly against her back, supporting her against him as he leaned over kissing her deeply, feeling her straining against him. Sophia ran her hands up through his hair, feeling the strength of his arousal pulsing against her stomach.

James swung her to the side and against the wall near the window, the force of it nearly knocking the breath out of her. Her hair glowed silver in the moonlight and cascaded over her breasts. He came away from her lips, as Sophia stayed pinned to the wall in front of him. He kissed down her neck and took the puckered flesh of a nipple deep into his mouth, lightly drawing it back with his teeth. She let out a frustrated cry as he continued, wrapping his arms around her waist.

Sophia felt her feet lift off the ground as James held her up against the wall, his mouth moving between the peaks of her breasts. She lifted her legs up to wrap around his waist and clung to his shoulders, only realizing too late that this brought the core of her dangerously close to his pulsing erection. She felt the length of his shaft pushing up against the heat of her swollen lips, searching and prodding her quivering flesh.

James unwrapped his arms from her waist and grabbed the cheeks of her ass, his palms smacking up against them as his fingers gripped her tight, pulling her open. Coming up from teasing her right nipple to a hardened point he kissed her once more, his tongue exploring her mouth. His hips bucked instinctually upward, desperate to join with hers once more. He pulled away, looked deep into her eyes and with one stroke plunged into her depths. 

Sophia threw her head back, crying out as James closed his eyes. He moved them away from the wall, still buried deep within her, encircled by her legs and arms. He lifted her by her ass, pulling halfway out and slamming into her hard, both crying out in unison.

He leaned back bracing her against him, finding a pace within her. She watched the sinews of his arms in the moonlight flex in rhythm with his thrusts as his fingers dug into her backside.




The Devil's Inheritance Ch. 02



She felt his hands raise and lower her upon him, locked in his embrace as she twined her legs around him. James couldn't exit her even if he wanted to. Sophia's hold on him was too strong. He watched her breasts rise and fall in the moonlight, her curled strands of hair bouncing behind her.

Still deep inside of her, he walked five long paces to the bed and leaned down until her back rested lightly against the cool sheets. He pushed deeper into her as her legs remained locked around him. Sophia felt James reach underneath to rub his thumb against her aching pearl. She arched up into him, his thrusts coming faster as his forehead leaned onto hers, steel gray eyes entrancing her.

He gently pinched her bud, squeezing it between two fingers as Sophia exploded, her legs tightening their grip around him. James threw his head up to the ceiling with a shout and fell to her breast, panting and light headed. He listened to her heart beating out of her chest, matching his own.

"I think the real question," James said softly, almost inaudibly, as he gasped for air, "Is how is it you can make me feel this way?"

Sophia could only lie there, feeling him still deep within her, and stroked his hair. Both of them gasped for air and the closeness of their bodies made it start to rise and fall in unison. She was perplexed by his words but now too exhausted to think on them.

James reluctantly separated from her as Sophia rolled over in bed and lay on her back with one knee bent upward, her arms resting above the sheets on her stomach. She felt the weight of the bed shift as James crawled in and rested next to her, pushing his arm under her neck and cradling her shoulder.

He looked over at her and brought his other hand to rest on her womb. Sophia moved her hand down and to James's astonishment, knitted her fingers between his, holding his hand upon her. Both stared at the ceiling in silent euphoria afraid to speak to each other and ruin this moment as they drifted off to sleep.

Her old neighbor's rooster crowed in the distance, waking Sophia. She lifted James's arm off of her and swung her feet over the side of the bed. He plaited his fingers under his head as she tiptoed across the room.

"Off to bludgeon me to death again, Sophia?" James said without opening his eyes.

"No," she said pulling her chemise over her head.

"Then come back to bed, would you?" he yawned.

"I have work to do," she stood in front of the mirror, braiding her hair to twist it into a loose bun.

"Can't it wait?" he turned on his side, watching her scurry around the room in the early light of dawn, up righting the candelabra and picking up the loose wax that had shattered last night.

"Not unless you want your inheritance to fall to ruin. Cows don't milk themselves."

He sighed to himself, watching her bend down to pick up the pieces on the rug as his cock twitched to life once more. He shook his head. This woman had cursed him; he could swear she had. He barely suppressed the urge to grab her, to pull her back to bed and onto his tumescence, "I'm leaving this morning for London."

"Mm-hmm," she mumbled, acknowledging him.

James clenched his teeth, confounded by her. He burned in the fires of this woman's passion when she was in his arms, but Sophia was cold, haughty and distant every time else. He thought that last night he had changed her heart, made her desire to lay with him.

He wanted nothing more than to say goodbye to her in the only language they commonly knew, and was annoyed that she would choose getting up and dressed before dawn over staying in bed with him. James tampered down his anger, remembering that she was the only person who worked here. He thought about how she had been alone in this big old house, taking care of his uncle and the farm for the last five years.

It was no matter. Soon he'd be back to all that London had to offer and this country girl would fade from his memory. He wouldn't think about her again until he returned in a fortnight to settle the last of the accounts with the barrister. It was foolish to pine after this girl that was little more than his property. He distanced himself from feeling for her, reminded that this was at its core a business arrangement, nothing more. The terms were clear: temporary use of her body in exchange for him fulfilling his uncle's promise to her.

He sat silently and watched her exit the room for downstairs, trying in vain to remove the vision of her in his arms from his thoughts.



The Devil's Inheritance Ch. 03



Sophia reluctantly left James alone upstairs as she went off to take care of the chores. Against every mental resistance she could muster, she still wanted to curl up warm and content next to his body. The very idea that she could be content next to him made her want to wretch.

She also wasn't used to staying up as late as she had. Her body ached from both lack of sleep and the positions he had twisted her into throughout the night as they coupled. Sophie went to her quarters downstairs and put on her bodice and overskirt, laced up her shoes and walked outside.

Birds were just beginning to chirp as she opened the paddock to the barn. She felt sore as she walked, and even worse when she sat on the wooden stool inside the barn and started milking the cows. Her mind flooded with thoughts of James Gardiner. His ravishment of her on the table and the unspoken bargain he had coaxed out of her, as she lay there violated and ashamed; the contract to James when he returned that doomed her to be his wanton acolyte.

She tried shutting out the tenderness he had shown her when he held her from behind, using that tool that had hurt her so badly yesterday morning to stroke gently into her, taking her to unimagined and incomprehensible heights of pleasure. When her mind worked to blot out the feeling of completion and wholeness she felt when she grasped his hand before falling asleep, her eyes brimmed over with tears. She wasn't supposed to feel that way about this man.

She steeled herself. He could make her body respond, that much was true, but she needed to keep her soul separate. She couldn't and wouldn't trust him; to do so would be folly. This person cared about her only insofar as his own cruel pleasure in her bondage allowed. She reminded herself that it was impossible for such a man to feel anything else for her. Besides that, she reminded herself, she was only biding her time. As soon as she found the letter and delivered it to the barrister she would be rid of James forever.

The sun had fully risen when Sophia lowered the market-bound canisters of milk into the millpond to cool before the noonday heat struck. She came back from the barn looking up the slope at her home towering above her on the hilltop and his carriage standing around the corner under the oak tree in front of the house. Sophia peered out to see a lone black clad figure walk around one side and turn to look at her.

James watched Sophia stop in her tracks when he spied her. He had to get back to London and find a way to forget about this girl. Despite visiting several very skilled doxies on Drury Lane back home, he had seen nothing in his past that could compare to the pleasure he felt when he was with her. It wasn't just because she had been a virgin either. He'd had a virgin and maybe another one once before, and neither had even fairly compared to this.

He was angry with himself for getting so deeply involved in what was supposed to be a coupling of convenience. She was supposed to be his private moll when he visited the country town of Ashford so he wouldn't have to deal with toothless whores at the Three Chimneys Inn. He wasn't supposed to feel guilt over her, or feel anything about her except the pleasures of the flesh. This woman was his property and would have been turned out to the crossroads at Ashford if he hadn't arranged this contract with her.

He observed her for a minute. She stood at the bottom of the hill looking up, the breeze blowing her dress against the curve of her thigh. Every fiber of his body told him to run down the hill, sweep her into his arms and carry her upstairs; to never leave this place and loose himself within her. James cursed his foolishness. He had to leave here at once or this woman would triumph again in his weakness for her.

Sophia watched him hop into the chaise and with the crack of the whip he was off, back to London. She listened to the wheels creak and roll over the dry earth and stood there as the hooves faded into the distance. She should have been overjoyed to see him go, but found herself sighing as he left.

She busied herself with work, cleaning the barn, polishing the silver in the house, everything she had let go for the week since she mourned for Mr. Farthing. Now she had to work twice as hard just to put her mind off of James. There was also the matter of the missing letter. She had searched high and low in cleaning and would have torn the house to pieces if not for the imminent threat of James deciding that he wanted to come back to the farm early. If he found papers scattered about then her game would be up and he would surely throw her out before she could find the letter and claim her freedom.

In the several days after James left, she found herself growing restless at night, tossing in bed. The evenings were the worst. All she could envision were his hands moving over her hot skin as she lay in bed alone at night, her only company the crickets calling to each other outside.

After a week without him had passed she could stand it no longer. The heat wave that had struck this week made the house radiate the sun even at night. Sophia had been forced to sleep nude in her bed with no sheets covering her for it to be even remotely bearable.

She thought of James and of his hands kneading her breasts, teasing them to points. The thought made her hairs stand on end and she felt the flesh start to pucker on its own. She cautiously brought a hand up and rubbed her fingers across it, feeling the start of that tingle that James made her feel. Curiously, she ran her hand across again and felt the same spark.

So this is how he does it, she thought. He hadn't cast a spell on her or turned her into a wicked creature. Although she hated him still, she now knew he was no an agent of the devil. Besides, she told herself as her finger traversed the areola once more, it was the modern age of reason. His methods could be deduced and copied. She brimmed with this newfound knowledge.

Sophia tried to remember the exact motions James had used on her to draw her into his embrace, pitting her desire against her willpower. She rolled her fingers over the nipple, causing her to squirm. Separating her fingers and laying them flat, she let the peak run underneath the digits, bumping and scraping like the ridges of a washboard.

Each time a finger hit the puckered nipple, it sent another spark through her. She tried it faster, delighting in the rapid fire of pleasure coursing through her from that spot. She exhaled a breath she didn't know she had been holding in. A light pinch on the end made her suck air in through her teeth. She cupped her opposite breast underneath from the side, mimicking the motion of his hands on her flesh and felt warmth suddenly emanating from within her belly. Her fingers rolled up once more to pinch the areola as she felt her thighs grinding together, heat building between them.

She recognized that straining heat from when he had touched her... there. Her hands moved to the sides of her breasts to pinch each nipple once more. She brought them up behind her breasts, wrapping over the front and pushing them together in front of her, fantasizing that those were his hands upon her hot skin. She gave her breasts another light squeeze from underneath before she ran them down over the skin of her torso, her knees raising, letting her hips twist from side to side as she thought of the delicious feelings James had brought to her.

The more she tried to force him out of her mind, the deeper she thought about and experienced the pleasure to which he had forced and cajoled her. Sophia finally gave up, letting her mind carry her body forward, the thoughts of his touch sending her higher. When her hands reached her hips, she molded them along to outside of her thighs to her knees, feeling the echo of his caress upon her as he had traced her skin holding her from behind.

She imagined that moment his hand had squeezed the cheek of her ass before lifting her thigh over his legs, pinning her to his body. Her knees separated and she drew one hand slowly inward feeling the tingle of her skin as she stroked up the length of her inner thigh before running across the curls of hair covering her mound.

A deep shiver went down her spine. She felt wicked exploring herself this way but proud and defiant at the same time. She was learning how to unlock James's secrets. If she knew how his hands worked then she would be liberated from the shock and surprise she had felt when they roamed over her body. She could free herself of the feelings she felt with him if she knew the physical reality of what he was doing to her. She would have at least that much control over her own body and her own heart.

She craned an uplifted thigh further open and felt the air cool part the moist heat of her sex. It sent a shiver up her that made her gasp. Her hand ran down to cover her nakedness and she pressed in into the down of hair covering her swollen lips. She remembered James making her beg for his touch as he had dragged his fingers across the outside. She did the same, running her hand up and down, her head tilting back as she exhaled a quiet moan.

"You don't know what it really is that you need, do you? Only that you have to have it."

His words that night echoed in her mind and she silently whispered, "Yes..."

Her middle finger dipped between the honeyed folds of her sex, sending sparks through her. Where had he touched her? The sensations she felt were close, but not that exact feel of flying he had given her. She traced her finger down to her opening, carefully pushing it inside before pulling it out, slick with her essence. She felt that familiar ache begin anew.

Sophia plunged her finger in once more twisting it around, feeling for that spot. When the tip of her finger curled upward she saw lights flash behind her eyes, her hips jerking upward. She rubbed her finger up once more and felt her back arch. Her mouth opened silently.

She envisioned him as he had prepared the way with his hands, coursing them in and out of her body. She clenched down on the invading digit as she imagined his tongue darting in and out of her entrance, the thought causing her to buck forward. This sensation wasn't it just yet, though it felt fantastic. The clenching ache, the same as she had felt with him, only intensified.

"What is the matter, my dear? ...Would you like to come?"

She thought back to when his cock was thrusting shallowly inside of her, her leg cast back across his thighs as James held her from behind, torturing her to the brink of ecstasy. His words teased her now as she tried to remember where his hand had been when James had made her beg for the pleasure he could bring her.

It wasn't just this electrifying spot inside of her that drove her wild. His fingers had brushed against a part of her hidden within the lips of her sex. But where had he been?

She brought her other hand down, feeling for that place within her folds, starting just above where the two fingers of her right hand were delving inside her entrance. The index finger of her left hand traced a slow path upward inside her folds, winding a serpentine through her inner lips, desperately seeking out that secret spot. 

Just when she was about to give up, her finger trailed higher and Sophia felt lightning shoot through her. She moaned in surprise and delight as her finger grazed across that hardened bud. That was it. This was that spot, she thought smiling in relief and ecstacy. She recalled how he had touched her and circled her fingers around feeling herself start to take flight.

Her middle finger moved down as well, grinding both digits over the small fleshy ridge in circles, spiraling her higher and higher. The intense vision of him holding the cheeks of her ass in each hand, thrusting upward deeply into her, then laying her on the bed late in the night to continue pumping into her channel as his fingers moved forward on her flesh, eyes locked to hers, crossed her mind. What had he done then? He made her come in a single move at that moment.

She pinched both fingers around the nub and felt the world shatter. Her back arched up, her toes curled under and a long moan escaped her lips. Her eyes squeezed shut and she felt herself buck forward again, nearly sitting upright, before collapsing back onto the pillow her breathing ragged and a satisfied smile on her lips. 

The euphoria started to fade as her heart slowed. This was the same sensation she had felt in James's arms but not quite. Had she missed something? She felt sated, but it was a satisfaction that left her wanting more. And more specifically, she wanted more of James. She expected this mastery over her own body to give her independence from any thought of him but as she lay recovering in afterglow, James became all she could think about. She recalled their last moment of climax together. His words as he lay there recovering with his forehead on her breast came back to her.

"I think the real question is, how is it you can make me feel this way?"

James stroked his cock as he laid in bed, cursing himself, one name only crossing his lips, "Sophia..."

He couldn't remove her from his thoughts. After returning from London he had visited the old Rose Tavern on Drury Lane and Madame Brown. He had looked for one of her better doxies to spend on to prove to himself once and for all that this green-eyed country girl had not bested him yet. 

He had failed; and failed miserably at that. Not a single girl, not even his usual favorites, could entice him and when he tried to force himself to bed a wench that resembled her he became as withered as a courtier castrati. James had left in a huff to the whore's jeering and went back home to dream of Sophia night after night before he gave in to the only release that would allow him to sleep. 

She had bewitched him. Her victory over him was complete and absolute. So here he lay naked in the bedroom of his London townhouse in the dog days of summer, his left hand kneading and supporting the fleshy globes of his scrotum as his right hand stroked feverishly along his shaft, a shudder coursing through his body every time his closed fingers pulled upward then descended once more over the head. James thought of her hair falling across her shoulders glowing in the moonlight, her perfect breasts, and the tightness of her pulsing hot velvet flesh closing in around him like a fist.

He exhaled a hard sigh, not realizing he'd been holding his breath as he envisioned her. The reality of her body stood out on his mind. He pictured that moment again where he had broken through her barrier, touching her as no man ever had. He licked his lips and could taste her again, that wonderful sweet salty essence, her intoxicating sighs and moans escaping her throat, under the careful and increasing ministrations of his tongue and fingers. James could see the moonlit tips of her breasts hardening to points in response to watching him as he sultrily stalked toward her in the bedroom, her trembling hands weakening around the candelabra that she had planned to strike him with until her body remembered him.

James also dared to dream. In his mind's eye he could see her riding atop his body, her curves bouncing in synchronicity to his upward thrusts. He could feel every drag of her flesh over his shaft, the tightness of her channel, and her hands clasped in his, her voice ringing out as she rolled through the tremors of her completion.

When he envisioned the thought of her beautiful lips enveloping the head of his cock, taking him deep into her mouth, he felt his senses finally leave him. His hips rose off the bed and his voice cracked out from behind his gritted teeth. He felt a hot pearlescent jet of his seed land on his stomach and then another in the hair at his groin before the last fell on his hand. James reached to the side for his handkerchief and wiped all of it away, before casting it down onto the rug. Sweat cooled on his brow as he lay gasping for air. 

His body was a traitor to his rational mind. How could he let this woman have dominion over his every waking thought in such a way where he could not sleep until he found release by his own hand? How could she affect him as no other woman had before in his long career as a gentleman rake? And why did he continue to allow it, when it was well within his power to dismiss her on a whim?

He remembered her cold indifference the morning he left and shook his head at his folly. At least one of them had a handle on the nature of this arrangement. Sophia knew her part, and in that moment she had deliberately left him unfulfilled and wanting more as she had casually set about her day's work.

Never again! The next time the sun rose on their naked entangled limbs he would pin her to the mattress with his cock as though she were a butterfly in a collection and not let her go until they both found their release. A last mastery of her flesh before he left next time would cure him of his obsession. Perhaps it would put this bewitching fever on her instead.

He started to foment a plan of how he would do this. As his eyes closed in exhaustion he knew exactly what he needed to do. There was only one person he could trust to make sure this happened. 

It was Wednesday morning and the sky was golden in advance of the dawn. Sophia was startled awake by a loud knock at the door. She dressed quickly as the rapping of the iron knocker grew louder, worried as to who it may be. After all she had been through in the last week the worst wouldn't surprise her one bit. She walked carefully into the dining hall, stepping on the strongest wood floorboards so as to not creak the weakened ones, and grabbed the poker from the hearth. It could be robbers. But why would robbers knock? Who in Christendom would knock on someone's door at this hour of the morning in the first place? She hid the poker behind her back and swung open the front door.

"Hallo! Ik moet hier de koeien melken."

A ruddy-faced plump woman, and a dark haired child of about eight years who looked as fragile as a baby bird met Sophia at the threshold. Both were dressed in black with dust-creased white bonnets and collars. Beggars. Ever since the great frost five winters ago, they were turning up at her doorstep at least once a week. She leaned the iron poker against the wall behind her and relaxed. Sophia shook her head, "I'm sorry but we have no food or coin for you."

"No, no. Master James sending me to milken de cows," the plump woman said in broken English. It was all Sophia needed to hear. He was insulting her now, taking it upon himself to run the farm. Sophia huffed, trying not to show her anger. It wasn't this woman's fault that arrogant bastard had sent her. She felt a tug on her skirt.

"Miss?" the child looked up at her with brown eyes and curtsied to Sophia.

Sophia softened. She wasn't going to be cross at a mere wisp of a child, "Yes?"

"Miss, my name is Aletta De Groot. This is my mama, Katje and Master James was right. You're very pretty."

Sophia blushed and fought back a smile, "And what did Ja— ...Master James say about what you would do here?"

"I am to help you with the house, Miss, and Mama is going to work in the barn and carting milk."

So he was confining her to the house. It made sense enough to Sophia. James wasn't terribly pleased when she had left his bed to go take care of her responsibilities, and must have figured that the way to keep Sophia with him was to hire some help. She shrugged. Even if his motives were less than pure, she did need help around here. It had been so long since there were any other people to talk with besides Mr. Farthing and their top customer, old Gregory Finn the cheese maker in Ashford. It would be nice to have their company.




The Devil's Inheritance Ch. 03



"All right. Have either of you worked a farm before?"

"Yes, Miss. We had a farm with cows near Amsterdam when I was very little, so Mama knows what to do. But I don't, so I'll help clean the house like how I used to help Mama for Master James. Is it all right if we stay with you? Master James said you'd say it was a good idea."

Sophia sighed and smiled. She wasn't about to turn away this precocious child and her mother, even if she knew she wouldn't have incurred James's wrath by doing so, "All right."

"I'll tell her," Aletta turned to her mother and spoke to her in Dutch, "De maitresse Sophia zei wij kunnen blijven, Mama."

The woman smiled broadly through the endearing gap in her teeth, "Thank you," she said with a nod, and set off down the hillside toward the barn.

They had worked together throughout the day and for the first time in years Sophia didn't go to bed exhausted. But she was annoyed that they were sleeping in the only servant quarters in the house, with her.

It meant that she would have to put an immediate stop to what she had been doing the last few hot nights: learning her body and trying in vain to quell the desires James had sewn into her ten days before.

With Katje tending after the cows and Aletta helping her clean the house, Sophia's distractions were ended. The fact that she had tossed all night was no help. If Katje's light snoring hadn't kept her awake, thoughts of James had. She had missed out on fulfilling herself last night, her little secret that made the days bearable, and was climbing the walls thinking about him.

Sophia woke up weary and frustrated, the heat and lack of sleep weighing her body down as she worked. She finished pinning the laundry to the line and nearly tripped backward over Aletta.

"Miss Sophia?"

"Oh! Aletta, what is it?"

"Miss? Mama and I are going to town to take the milk to Mr. Finn. Like we did yesterday."

"Dear, you can just call me Sophia. I'm not the Miss of anything. I work the farm same as you."

"But Master James said you were mistress of this house."

Sophia fumed. Mistress of this house, indeed. She was an indentured servant of the land and a sometime mistress— or whore, in truth, to the man who owned it. James had probably told Aletta this so she wouldn't wonder why Sophia would be gone from her bedroom while James was there. She thought about this for a moment and tried to blot out the twinge of appreciation she felt for him trying even a little to spare her embarrassment. She stuck another clothespin on the line. Thinking of James wasn't helping her situation.

James had been on the road since dawn. The heat had been damnable the last four days and he didn't relish the thought of traveling under full sunlight in head to toe mourning garb. Besides the temperature, the obsessive heat for Sophia as he neared the farm made matters worse.

He had ceased tampering down his thoughts of her. He would see her soon enough and his first order of business was inside of her. It wouldn't matter where she was or what she was doing. He would have her as soon as he arrived and not a moment later. As Ashford approached he could only think about her sweet body and the thing he would do to it in only an hour. His horse cantered along the road in time to her name. Sophia... Sophia... Sophia... Sophia...

She watched Katje and Aletta hitch Mr. Farthing's old mare to the cart and set out for Ashford, twittering back and forth to each other in Dutch. Sophia had taken them to town yesterday to meet Mr. Finn and knew that James would approve since it would leave them alone at the house. She shook her head at herself for accommodating him like this, unbidden. The wagon lurched forward and she was alone at last. Sophia had to escape this heat and the perfect opportunity had now presented itself.

The sun was high overhead as she walked out next to the barn by the cool waters of the millpond. Trees lined the path between the building and the pond, partially encircling the far side, shading it from the sun and the view of the road. The creaking of the wooden wheel turning slowly through the water beckoned her onward.

She sat on the wall of the stone enclosure and took off her mobcap, letting her blonde curls fall loose as she swiped her forehead with the white cotton before dipping it in the water. She swabbed her arms. Her shoes and stockings came off next, and Sophie swung her legs over the wall to wet her feet. She sighed, relaxing as she swished her toes through the cool water.

Her fingers started pulling at the strings on her bodice. When it had loosened, Sophia pulled it over her head, exhaling and leaning forward, her breasts resting on her thighs through the cotton of her chemise as she ran her mobcap through the water once more before squeezing water out over her neck. It ran in rivulets over her shoulders and down her back, pooling in drops along her chemise.

She untied her overskirt and scooted it out from under her bottom, pooling the fabric on the other side of the stone in the grass. She looked around once more at the line of trees. Katje and Aletta wouldn't be back for at least two and a half hours. Her heart raced for a minute as she fidgeted back and forth deciding whether or not she dared.

The cool water was too much of a temptation on this August day, and she would need something dry to wear when she got out of the pond. She inhaled once in trepidation, and then lifted her chemise over her head, sunlight falling on her bare skin. With a push off the side of the wall, she splashed into the water.

A chill raced up her spine and she surfaced. The pond was only waist deep this time of year at the near side, slightly deeper as she swam out. Her legs kicked behind her and Sophia felt the sun on her back before dipping below the surface, her hair straightening from the weight of water and falling down her back to her hips. She lay on her back, eyes closed.

The sun shone through her eyelids as she relaxed, turning her vision from red to yellow and finally to light blue. They remained shut. Below the surface of the water, Sophia could hear the sound of the wheel turning in a low muffled churn. Her body lay below the surface except for her face, her breasts, the tops of her thighs, and the tips of her toes.

She felt her nipples start to harden and crinkle from the cold of the water and the delicious feeling of being completely alone and naked in the pond. She started wondering why she had never done this before in the five years she had lived here. Sophia smiled.

James flashed through her mind. The sun had warmed her exposed flesh above the waves and she remembered the heat of his body pressing up against her breasts and thighs as he pinned her to the wall just before the last time they were joined. She unconsciously flitted a hand up to her breast and pinched her nipple, a wetness pooling between her legs that was very different from the water. Her fingers trailed south across her abdomen to delve into the liquid heat emanating from her core.

James saw a familiar cart in the distance ambling down the road toward Ashford after he had turned at the crossroads. The sun glinted off the milk canisters rattling in the back. He strained his eyes to see them. Katje and little Aletta sat high in the seat behind the plodding horse. Aletta waved and yelled out, "Master James!"

Katje smiled at him as James returned the gesture. He pulled back on the reigns, stopping the chaise under the shade of an ash tree and waited as Katje did the same on the opposite side of the road. He spoke to her in Dutch, "Where is Sophia?"

"At the house," Katje said in return, "I saw her walking toward the barn as we were leaving."

"Are you headed toward town?"

"Yes, Miss Sophia showed us the way yesterday."

"Good then. We will see you soon," he tipped the brim of his tricorn hat to them as Katje and Aletta nodded back and smiled. Katje shook the reigns and moved on.

Perfect, he thought. There would be no excuses and no one to disturb them. He tapped the whip lightly against his horse, bringing him to a fast canter, the chaise shaking as the wheels picked up speed over the earth.

It was the longest quarter hour of his life. The light carriage bounced along the road drawing closer to the farm. As James cleared the top of the hillside, he swung the gate open and roped his stallion to the post in front, cart and all. He would attend to him later. More pressing matters lay ahead.

"Sophia?" he opened the front door of the house and called in for her. No answer. He walked through the house to the back porch and down the stairs before jogging down the sloping path, tracing a fast route to the barn. He could hear the blood throbbing in his veins. His need for her was all consuming and he had no problem with the idea of pulling her away from whatever trifle she was doing, carrying her out and laying her on the meadow grass. The idea of the sun on his bare back as he dove into her body electrified his senses. He poked his head in the barn. No Sophia. He disappointedly closed the door and turned the corner to the pond side.

What he saw nearly made his heart stop. James ducked out of sight around the corner. He grew instantly hard, so quickly that his groin ached. James bit down on his thumb to stifle a cursing groan. He couldn't believe his eyes and peered around the corner again just to make sure.

Sophia lay on her back in the water, her legs spread out and her fingers working enthusiastically around her bud. The motion of her fingers sent ripples of over the surface of the water, emanating from her core. Her mouth was open in a gasp and James heard her moan lightly. His beautiful water nymph was unaware of his presence, and he intended to keep it that way. A mischievous smiled curled his lips as he hatched his plan. So she didn't have as great a control over this arrangement as he thought. She had missed him! The bold and wanton exploration of her body was evidence of that.

He took off his riding boots and stockings and placed them next to the barn, then his hat and frock. His feet padded across the grass, removing clothing as he went. He cast his waistcoat in the dirt pathway, followed closely by his cravat. His shirt fluttered down to lay half on the stone retainer and half way in the grass as he stared out at her.

Her little fevered moans drove him mad as he stripped off his breeches, his cock springing free. James didn't want to disturb her until he absolutely had to. He wanted to capture her passion and desire in its fullness. He carefully eased his naked body into the water, painstakingly trying not to disturb the surface or create waves that would give him away. His feet met the bottom and he slowly walked over to where she floated on the surface, edging closer toward her open legs, his erection jutting toward its goal.

Sophia felt her toes curling in ecstasy as she ran her fingers over that secret spot. Memories of James thrusting into her in the moonlight as his hand reached forward to pinch down on the nub and bring her to completion filled her thoughts as her legs spread wider, opening her sex and letting her fingers delve deeper. She was riding the plateau just before that glorious crest she had come to know so well. She felt her body reaching upward, the shudder starting to unfurl in her belly.

Suddenly, a pair of hands dragged down hard on her hips and a heavy heat blaze through her center, filling her completely. Her limbs thrashed in the water as Sophia opened her eyes wide to see James thrust into her. She struggled to catch her breath, the shock and rapture of his sudden entry too much for her to handle. Sophia exploded, screaming her completion out loud, her head tilted. James gathered her up as her back arched her body into his waiting arms, her legs squeezing like a vice around his torso as her body bucked furiously against his.

James held her close as she came, groaning through closed teeth at the exquisite contrast between the cool of the water and the pulsing heat of her tight channel squeezing around him in fluttering waves. His eyes closed as she shifted back and forth on his cock and smiled at the heavenly feel of her body closed around him. He felt her breath coming in pants as she recovered, head leaned on his chest and stayed still within her.

Sophia thought this was a dream, as though her visions and memories had summoned him to her. She opened her eyes finally and looked up at him, "James, how did you— ah!"

James thrust into her to the hilt, "Questions later," he said huskily, "We're not done yet."

He dove for her left nipple, sucking it deep into his mouth as Sophia moaned and flinched, still tender from her orgasm. He pulled away and thrust back into her, cradling her back. Her hands were wrapped around the base of his neck and she realized that this was the first time she was seeing his naked flesh in full light.

His lightly tanned arms tensed as they held her, the sinews underneath straining and cording with each thrust forward. The muscles of his neck tensed as well, a vein standing prominently out as he dragged her downward. His hardened chest was covered with a light dusting of dark curls that stopped at his torso before picking up in a thin line under his navel.

She watched the glaze of passion wash over his face as he looked down at her naked form joined to his under the water. Their eyes met once more and James brought her back up to him, the hardened points of her breasts grazing and rubbing against his chest. He kept his smoldering eyes locked with hers, not letting her look away as he ran his hand up her back and through her hair.

James splayed his left hand on the center of her back and brought his right across the front of her. He massaged a breast and ran the flat of his thumb over her nipple before lifting her breast back to his waiting mouth. He smoothed his hand down over the flesh of her stomach. His hand traced a staccato downward in time to his thrusts until it wove its way through the blonde hair above where they were joined together. He unlatched from her breasts to watch as his hand dove between them.

Sophia jerked forward against him as his fingers found her nub, lightly rolling it between two digits as she craned back away from him, both watching as his hand worked between them. Their eyes came up to meet again as a wave began to roll over Sophia. James stared hard into her as she lost control with her eyes locked to his, arching her back upward.

James pitched into her again, the pleasure of this moment almost more than he could bear. Sophia's fingernails raked down his back leaving small red lines in their wake, as the blissful paroxysms shook her. He filled her, plunging deep into the core of her being in long rhythmic thrusts.

Sophia felt his cock grow within her as James leaned his forehead into hers, his voice shuddering with each penultimate thrust. With a final spasm he climaxed, slamming deep into her and throwing his head back as he called out to the open sky. He rested his head on her shoulder and stayed within her until he softened. Walking with her wrapped around him to the edge of the pool, he swung her body into his arms and lifted her onto the wall before lifting himself out of the water next to her.

Sophia sat there, her wet hair falling about her as she felt his seed slip out of her and cool quickly on the smooth stone wall. Her eyes remained lowered, cast over the calming surface of the lake in sharp contrast to her tortured mind. How could she have done something so brazen? And to have James of all people discover her?

James tilted her chin up to his and looked at her with a playful expression on his face, "So, my dear, did you enjoy yourself while I was away?"

She felt crimson heat creeping up to her face and turned away from his caress with a shudder, "I have to go. Katje and Aletta will be home soon."

"They won't return for at least half an hour," he said, running his rejected fingers down the front of her collarbone until they fell across Sophia's breast and deliberately stopped to circle around her nipple, the flesh tensing against her will. He came up to whisper into her ear, "And I'd like to know how I came to find you here... with your fingers in your—"

"You've already taken your pleasure, James, what more could you want?" she said angrily, hopping off the wall and gathering up her clothes. He was dumbfounded. After the things he had just witnessed and after the way they had passionately surged together, why was she being so avoidant with him now? Frustration and anger rose in him as she walked up the hill away from where he sat.

"You're awfully prudish," he yelled after her, "for a girl who was just frigging herself at midday in a millpond!"

He heard Sophia huff in feminine outrage as she marched toward the house, slipping her chemise over her head as she walked. He watched her wondering why he bothered with all this, accommodating her when she continued to scorn him at every turn. His traitorous cock gave him his answer, twitching at the sight of her swishing bottom as she walked up the pathway, sunlight penetrating her chemise as if it weren't there.

James threw his shirt on and hitched up his breeches, carrying the rest of his clothes up the hill after her. He would tame this shrew if it took him the rest of the weekend, starting with her tongue.

*

Thank you to everyone for your wonderful feedback on this story! My goal is to post a chapter every two weeks, so look for more updates soon. If you liked this part, please check out the previous two chapters, and feel free to vote and/or leave a comment! ~Sushi Taco



The Devil's Inheritance Ch. 04



His discovery of her in the millpond overwhelmed Sophia's thoughts. As she had touched herself, her mind had swum with the dark fantasy of James taking her there in the still water. Without warning her vision became real as he had dragged her down over his swollen cock and held her trembling form in his arms. She fought back these thoughts, angry and fearful that James would take her behavior to mean that she needed him.

But in that swirl of conflicting emotions the truth was inescapable. She did want and need him. Powerfully. Sophia went to her room and stripped off her rumpled wet chemise, using it to towel-dry her wet hair.

"Why are you in here?"

Sophia shrieked and startled turning to face James, dropping the chemise, naked as the day she was born. His mouth curled upward in amusement before his eyes narrowed at her once more. She looked at him, confused and bewildered, "I'm here because this is my room. Why?"

"This isn't your room, its Katje's and Aletta's room."

She straightened up, her heart racing. Was he throwing her out now that he was done with her? A chill crept up her spine as she imagined her dim future as a ruined and penniless woman, "What do you mean?"

"Your room is upstairs. You are mistress of this house."

She looked at him aghast, trying to form words, "I not mistress of anything. I am an indentured servant of this farm—"

"No. You are bound only to me, and I will not have you sleep in the servants quarters," he said folding his arms. Sophia opened her mouth to protest but was cut off by James, "Your purpose here is to warm my bed and to keep it warm in my absence."

"So that is why you sent them; to keep me in your bed? You could have at least written me to let me know they were coming instead of them show up on the doorstep."

James raised an eyebrow at her, "You can read?"

"Yes, I can read! That's hardly the point," she stopped herself too late. If he knew she could read, it would arouse his suspicions. If he suspected or knew of the letter at all, then he knew that she would be seeking it out. She silently cursed herself. Now she would have to move ever more carefully around him.

Her statement took James aback. A country servant girl knowing how to read was unheard of. He would ask about this later but for now his eyes scanned her nude body, flaxen tresses her only covering, and advanced forward ready to take her here and now, silencing her protests once and for all. They both startled as they heard the gate screech open outside. In a single motion he grabbed her by the wrist, and scooped up her cast off chemise, dragging her out to the foot of the staircase, "I'd love to continue this conversation with you, dear, but it seems our servants have arrived home early. Now go upstairs."

He playfully smacked her on the bottom. Sophia shrieked as she scampered up the steps before stopping at the landing, "I have no clothes!"

"I hardly see that as a problem," he said, waving her cast off chemise back and forth in his hand.

James watched her give him an adorable look of indignation before she darted into the room and shut the door behind her. Outside she heard the muffled sounds of the clinking of coins and James speaking to Katje in Dutch as she tried to avoid the front windows. Sophia gave up and climbed under the bed sheet, listening to the language. She had guessed he would be educated. He'd already spoken to her in a little bit of French, she recalled blushing, so she wasn't terribly surprised he also knew Dutch. She looked out the window next to the fireplace to see Katje taking his horse to the barn as James walked in with a long flat box.

Moments later, she heard the staccato of his feet ascending the stairs. The door opened. James burst through with the box under one arm before spying her in the bed, the sheet pulled up demurely under her chin. He couldn't stop chuckling, "You're a little premature Sophia."

She wrinkled her nose, "I had to cover myself up somehow since you stole my chemise."

"Well I've solved both of those problems. Here," he said heaving the box onto the bed, "Try this on."

She let the sheet fall, giving James an unintentional full view of her breasts as she crawled over to the foot of the bed and examined the box. Sophia undid the satin ribbon and pulled the lid off. James didn't expect the flummoxed look on her face as she pulled out its contents. She examined the dress, a pale green and cream paisley gown with loose box pleats in the back from the collar to the hem. The front sloped in a low square cut, edged in white lace. The sleeves cut off at the mid arm, framed with the same white lace from the plunging neckline. She looked in the box to find a coordinating white sleeveless chemise in the finest silk she had ever seen with delicate lace straps and neckline, and below that a light green silk and cotton herringbone set of stays, with gently curved boning and the satin ribbon already loosened.

Her eyes glittered and a smile curved her lips before looking up at James, his arms folded and his countenance triumphant as he watched her open the box. Where there was once a whirl of delighted expressions crossing her uncensored face, her expression tightened when she realized James was observing her. The disdainful crinkle returned to Sophia's nose, "When exactly do you expect me to wear this? While I'm cleaning the soot out of the hearth?"

"You will wear it when we dine together. Tonight," he said as Sophia looked at him with feigned disregard. She saw something in his eyes, and it wasn't anger or lust. Was it hurt?

"Dine with you? Why would you want me to—"

"As our part of our bargain, you agreed to let me have you where I want, when I want, for as long as I want. And tonight you will dine with me downstairs before I take you to bed. Unless of course you would prefer to sleep at the crossroads," James stiffened and glared at her, his eyes once more betraying nothing.

He turned on his heels and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. His departure quelled any protest she may have had. Before trying and failing to bed the blonde whore at the Rose Tavern, he had taken her as a model to measure for Sophia's dress. She had been more than happy to oblige for an extra three shillings she didn't have to lay on her back to earn; never mind the sack of guineas he'd thrown the tailor when the dress was completed.

James had watched the look of excitement course over Sophia's face when she saw the dress and realized that it was the first time he had seen her genuinely pleased. He had seen Sophia angry, frightened, sad, solemn and in the throes of passion, but never content. He felt himself swell seeing that look on her face, and not just below the waist. But her happiness has disappeared when she looked up at him. James just shook his head. She hated him.

Sophia slumped after he shut the door. She looked at the dress again, confused as to why he would give it to her. The careful, fearful side of her said that it was because he didn't want to admit to having a lowly indentured servant for a mistress, so he was dressing her up like a fantasy doll. The hopeful, vulnerable side of her, which she hadn't acknowledged for longer than she cared to admit, said that this was a gift, an act of tenderness, perhaps even the best apology a man like James could offer for his initial treatment of her.

She heard more Dutch conversation downstairs and watched Katje climb back into the empty milk cart with Aletta and drive off again toward Ashford. They were alone in the house now. She half expected James to come upstairs again and decided to put some impediments between her naked body and his desire for it.

She slipped the chemise over her head. Cool silk hung on her curves, caressing her skin. She hadn't felt something this soft since the fine dresses she had worn as a young girl. Those memories were quickly pushed to the back of her mind where they belonged as she slid the stays over her head. Sophia grasped at the ties in the back and realized that she couldn't string it together herself properly.

She opened the door and tiptoed out, seeing James stop in his tracks at the base of the staircase. He looked up at her coldly, waiting for the shrew to speak.

"James?" Sophia said meekly, almost surprising him with her soft demurring voice.

"Hmm?" he responded cautiously.

"Can you please help me with this?"

He locked his eyes to her and walked up the stairs slowly, watching her tense as she held the front of the stay to her breasts, the strings causing it to sag around the rest of her figure. She backed up as James silently followed her into the room, standing with her in front of the mirror. He had removed plenty of stays in his lifetime but had never laced one up. The dressmaker had insisted on James buying one despite the reservations he had about restraining Sophia's beautiful curves. He had thrown such a fit over the possibility of the gown not fitting correctly that James had finally given in and bought the sodding thing.

Using his knowledge to reverse his more familiar motions with these contraptions, he carefully pulled the loops from the center to the top and from the center to the bottom, giving each loop in front of his fingers more slack on the strings. With one quick snap he drew the strings out tight, causing Sophia to gasp to gain back the air that had left her lungs momentarily. His hitch of the lacing brought her back against him, her shoulders crashing against his chest as her back arched from the snug fit, not crushing but hugging her from hip to breast.

James was treated to a full view of her large uplifted breasts spilling over the top of the stays as he looked over her shoulder and back at her face in the mirror. With another quick tug in back she gasped again and let out the slightest moan he had ever heard. He gently pushed her forward so she wouldn't feel how that sound had quickened him. The bottom string looped over the last zigzag of the satin as he tied it firmly, then did the same to the string at the top. Eyes still locked to hers in the mirror, his hands came to her waist as her intake of breath swelled her breasts even further.

The shadow of her areola poked up over the stay behind the thin chemise. James stood behind her in the mirror and smoothed his hands up the side panels of the stay, her hands instinctively drifting to his shoulders and up to the back of his neck as he raised her arms up, his hands covering the mounds of flesh above the line of the busk.

In the mirror they looked like two perfect apples on a tray. James pulled a nipple over the border of the stay, teasing it to a point through the silk. Sophia gasped and leaned against him, the stay containing her pleasure and forcing it down the length of her body, straight to her core. He leaned close to her ear and inhaled deeply before whispering, "I could get lost in your hair, your scent..."

Sophia felt warmth start to unfurl between her thighs at his words. James reached around to brush her hair aside before nipping at her earlobe, then lightly on her exposed neck under the lobe. He watched her reactions in the mirror. Her lips parted slightly and her eyes had narrowed to slits as he kissed down her neck, turning her toward his body before kissing her full on the mouth, his tongue twining with hers as his thumbs ran in circles over her nipples. She moaned softly into his mouth and ran her hands down his muscular back through his shirt.

He broke the kiss and smiled at her, seeing the need in her eyes as his thumbs continued their slow circle. Sophia tried to bring her lips back up to his but James tilted his chin up at the last second and kissed her on the tip of her nose, "After dinner, my dear."

She silently gaped at him, wide eyed with surprise as her body reeled from his absence.

"Rest up until then," he said smiling, bringing his hands away and giving her a wink before striding across the room like a conquering king and closing the door behind him. The look of unrequited lust and surprise on her face was worth the blood pooling painfully in his loins.

Sophia stood there for a moment and wandered back to the bed, laying down and panting from the compression of the stays and the ease with which he could make her body respond. She let herself get used to the material holding her snuggly and laid back on the pillows, shutting her eyes momentarily. It seemed so long since she had slept peacefully. The moment stretched on until she slipped into a fitful sleep, lost in a dream.

"Papa!"

Sophie ran in her little gold embroidered gown, her tiny silk strands of blonde hair coifed back in an intricate comb, lace falling over the back of her hair. Her dainty child's shoes trampled the grass underfoot as she ran toward a tall man dressed in black with a blue sash and a long curly brown wig on his head, faced away from her. The sky was a brilliant blue and the towers of Pembury Castle stood in the distance.

She had been here before. Countless times.

"Papa!" she called out again but her father did not turn around.

She kept running toward him but the harder she ran the more distant he became until he faded onto the horizon. She felt hands reach out and pull her back. Sophie looked down at her dress, the beautiful frock now replaced by the gray uniform of the orphanage, the manor's mason stones and grass melting into the dull cobblestones of Ashford's church square and twenty girls dressed just like her.

"Sophie!" The head of the orphanage, a harsh woman with gray hair and pinched features voice called her back in line to keep her head down as she walked.

"Miss Sophia!" Katje shook her as she whimpered in her sleep.

Sophia bolted up with a start, gasping in air, a hard feat in the bonds of the stays.

It was growing dark outside, the late summer sky cloaked in dark violet and pinks as the sun started to set. How long had she been asleep? She looked up at Katje. The room was awash in candlelight, illuminated by far more tapers than she knew she even had in the house. Was this his doing? The smell of rosemary and cooked game hens wafted through the room from the kitchen below.

Katje twisted her fingers as she often did when trying to find the right words to use, "Master James said you coming down to dinner soon?"

"Y-yes," she said, trying to shake the recurring dream and come back to reality. James was waiting downstairs for dinner. She looked down at the tight stay she wore and remembered the dress, now laying on the chair, spread out in all its glory.

"Katje, can you help me with my—"

"Master James says I help you put on the... the... Franse robe?"

"The dress. Yes, thank you Katje."

"You're welcome Miss Sophia!"

Katje lifted the garment and rolled the edge of the hem as if she had done this a thousand times. It suddenly occurred to Sophia that perhaps she had. She didn't know if James was married or not. She felt a knife go through her at the thought then chastised herself for caring.

And what if he was? Sophia knew from the way he could manipulate her body like a finely tuned instrument that he must have had several dozen women, most likely one in every city, town and hamlet he ever visited. She wondered how many of those women were just like her: a convenient bedmate to which he had made an offer they couldn't refuse. Even at that, the thought made her realize that apart from knowing that he was Mr. Farthing's nephew, she knew nothing about James.

She lifted her arms over her head and felt Katje straighten out the laces flounces just below her elbows. The neckline fell softly on her breasts and the pleats spread out from her shoulder blades, flowing downward in vertical waves of silk. Sophia stared forward in the mirror and hardly recognized herself.

"Oh!" Katje clasps her hands together and smiled broadly admiring her handiwork, "U kijkt buitengewoon! So, so beautiful, Miss Sophia!"

Sophia looked at the woman and couldn't help but echo her smile. The dress seemed so out of place on her but if it pleased this sweet mothering woman, then it made Sophia happy. A corner of her mouth turned up as she realized that her hair was not coifed high up as was the fashion, she wasn't wearing a padded farthingale, nor did she have any shoes to match the dress.

"Come! Come, Miss Sophia. Dinner is ready!" Katje said, motioning at the door before trundling down the stairs ahead of her. Sophia gathered the hem of her dress and descended, the wide pleats stretching behind her like wings, each step sending a wave up the fabric as she made her way down the steps.

Just as James started to wonder what was taking so long, one lithe bare foot descended a step, followed by another. Damnation, he forgot to get her shoes! He snickered to himself. Perhaps that wasn't half bad; it would be an excuse to carry her up the stairs later. His attention turned from her bare feet as more of her was revealed to him. Her gown billowed behind her, the pleats moving down the stairs at her back as she gracefully carried herself like a queen. Her blonde curls fell down her back and across her shoulders and her face was lit angelically in a shy half smile. When her eyes met his, her face turned solemn and withdrawn.

Sophia was afraid of him. Of course she's afraid of you, you fool, James thought to himself. You committed rapine; stripping her of home and maidenhead as you made her your slave. What other emotion could he ever expect? And why did he want more? James felt this thought flit across his expression before returning himself to solemnity and smiling at her as she stopped in front of him, "You look beautiful."

Sophia demurely curtsied, "Thank you, but the compliment belongs to the dress, not to me."

"I would beg to differ," he had seen women of all stations. Some years back he had been the plaything of a countess, and had kept mistresses for a few months at a time before learning that it was easier and more to his liking to bed doxies and courtesans instead. Of all the women he could remember, none compared to her.

A blush ran across her face, before it was replaced by her previous anxiety and confusion, "James, why did you do this? Buy me a dress and invite me to dine with you?"

James ran the back of his hand down her cheek, "Because I desire to know you better."

"Why? I am your... your whore. You don't need to know me, I can be anything you want me to be," she stared down at her dress. Sophia was sure that if she ever went out in public in this thing she would be put in the stocks for dressing above her station. She was convinced he had her wear it to ease his revulsion at taking a girl who gets up at dawn to milk cows into his bed.

"The dress only enhances your beauty. It doesn't change you or make you something else. I don't want you to be anything else; I desire you as you are," James pulled out a chair and motioned for her to sit, "As such, I want to know all of who you are."

Sophia smoothed out the folds of her gown beneath her as James pushed her chair in. She flicked the napkin and delicately smoothed the cloth in her lap as if she had done this a thousand times. Katje brought out two mouth-watering plates with Cornish game hens and fingerling potatoes with a sprig of rosemary each.

James tucked his napkin into his shirt over the cravat and started cutting into a potato before realizing that she wasn't doing the same. Her eyes were shut and her head bowed. James was just about to swallow his first bite, then quietly, guiltily put down the knife and joined her in silent prayer, winking open one eye every so often to see when she was finished. Sophia prayed, though she knew not to whom. God most certainly wasn't listening to her prayers; she was damned and fallen for the bargain she had made with James. Still, she had bowed her head in prayer before each meal since she was a child...




The Devil's Inheritance Ch. 04



James heard her clear her throat and opened his eyes. Her fingers lightly picked up the fork and knife and carved a piece off of one potato before drawing it into her mouth, setting her fork down without a sound as she chewed without hardly moving her jaw. James watched her. How was it that a simple natural born country servant would know how to correctly curtsy, have the table manners of an aristocrat... and read?

"Sophia," he said between bites, startling her as she looked up at him, "I am curious about something you said earlier today."

Please don't let it be about reading... please, God, don't let it be about reading...

"How is it that you learned to read? Do you also write?"

She blanched. He must know. He wouldn't have asked her so pointedly and enticed her with a dress and a meal, her payment for giving away the location of the letter and her right to the farm. Her memories also surfaced. Her stolen childhood came flooding back to her and she fought back the hot tears welling up in her eyes.

"What is the matter with you? It is just a question, a curiosity of mine. Where did you learn how to read?"

"Yes, I also write. I learned from my father," she said, looking away.

James raised his eyebrows at this. So she wasn't just the indiscriminately sewn wild oat of an aristocrat. Everything fell into place as he pictured her early childhood, the babe of a beloved dead mistress given all the fineries of life, only to have it all taken from her as she was shut away at some godforsaken orphanage before ending up... here. His felt a vise close around his heart, knowing that he was just the latest in a string of misfortune for this woman, "Don't worry about it. I'm sorry I upset you."

Sophia looked at him quizzically. He had no compunctions about her crying two weeks ago when he ravished her, but was concerned for her now? She counted her blessings. At least he wasn't pressing the matter any further, and it gave her the opportunity to change the subject, "Can I ask something about you?"

James smiled, "Of course."

"Where did you find Katje and Aletta?"

"Well," he began around a bite of game hen, "My mother's family had several holdings with the farms in the Netherlands, and after her death during the great frost five years ago they passed to me. The De Groot family worked one of those farms. During a blizzard, Mr. de Groot and his two sons went out to the barn to check on their cattle and never came back."

Sophia felt her chest tighten thinking of that sweet Dutch woman losing her husband and sons in one night, "That's terrible. Poor dear Katje..."

"Which was exactly what I thought when I arrived after the weather cleared to find a barn full of cattle frozen solid and a starving mother and child. So I sold their farm and hired them on to come with me, putting them to work at my townhouse in London. Given the threat to my Dutch holdings from the French forces, and that the frost had deadened the land, I certainly couldn't keep them there in good conscience. Katje missed the ways of the farm and detested the bustle of the city; I could sense it. She was delighted when I told her that she was to go to Ashford."

Sophia smiled, even showing some teeth before bringing her hand to her mouth to hide it. The tears returned to her eyes.

"What is the matter now?"

"Nothing; nothing at all. That's just a beautiful story. It took me a bit by surprise is all. I hadn't expected you—" She caught herself short but he finished the sentence for her.

"—to be anything but a heartless rake? Though I believe 'loathsome coxcomb' was your exact wording..."

She sat bolt upright, "I didn't mean it, James. I—"

"Don't apologize. You are right, I am a heartless rake," James said, as she relaxed back into her seat. He watched her face brighten once more. James paused a moment, realizing that he had actually seen Sophia smile. He had never seen her smile before and the look of her eyes lighting up like that made him melt.

Sophia couldn't believe what she had just heard. In a round about way, did he just express regret for ravishing her when they first met? It couldn't have been. Sophia gave him a rueful look, accepting it as the only apology this man was most likely capable of giving her.

"You probably wonder how someone like my uncle would ever entail his holdings to someone like me."

Sophia blanched again. This was where he was going to lower the boom, assert his rights to this place and demand she tell him about the letter so he could destroy it. She was caught in his web, and stared down at her food as she talked so as not to give her hand away. It was all she could do was to play along, "No, but why did he?"

"I'm sure you're well aware that Uncle Davi— my uncle was... fond... of the love that dare not speak its name."

"Yes. But we never talked about it but once. He and I had a pact. I wouldn't ask about that as long as he didn't ask," she lowered her eyes, "about my childhood."

James nodded, "Needless to say he never produced any heirs. My father was dead in an accident before I was born and my mother merely unloaded me from her body so she could go in fruitless search of a new husband in London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris before the war, wherever her affairs and dalliances would take her. My uncle and I had a falling out unfortunately when I grew to become a man, but for part of my formative years, he raised me here in this house; hired the best tutors money could buy, taught me the violin—"

"You know how to play a fiddle?!" Sophia blurted, planting her hands on the table, her deep green eyes wide.

"Violin."

"I know it's called a violin, but Dav— Mr. Farthing always called it his fiddle. He would play it often in the evening, and I would dance."

"Really! Well, it is neither here nor there, but yes, I can play; somewhat."

Sophia's eyes danced and she licked her suddenly dry lips. She didn't dare ask him.

"Take me to where it is."

Sophia leapt up from the table and kissed James on the cheek. He was taken aback and shocked for just a moment but as she began to dart away, James caught her mid stride, grabbing her hand and wheeling her to him. He kissed her full on the mouth, his tongue parting her lips as he brought her against him. Sophia's hands rested on his shoulders, feeling the soft wool of his frock and the tensed muscles underneath.

She broke away, a teasing smile curling her lip, "The fiddle?"

"Violin," he said, returning her mischievous grin.

"Fiddle," she said quietly. He kissed her on the tip of her nose.

She grabbed his hand and led him up the staircase, innocently, her mind fixed on her goal. James followed, his mind on his own goal, intending to take this exactly where her path ended. She skipped into the bedroom and flung open the wardrobe in the corner, still hung with Mr. Farthing's clothes. Her heart wrenched for a moment mourning her friend before she turned back to her task. At the bottom was a long, thin, black leather case. She bore it carefully across the room and set it up on the dresser, moving a candle aside before backing away.

James walked over and unlatched the case, folding back the dark red velvet swaddle around the instrument and bow. He put it on his shoulder and played the high A, then tuned the D before tuning the last string and working back up in fifths. He raised the bow to play, watching her tilt forward in anticipation. He paused, "This comes at a price, you know."

Sophia wrinkled her brow at him.

"If I play, you must dance."

Sophia gave him another wide smile, blushing and hiding her teeth with the back of her hand. What James would give to see that smile on her always...

Lifting the bow once more, James started playing the agonizingly slow beginning of Jenny Plucks Pears. Sophia's grin grew even broader when the tempo picked up. Play 'somewhat' her left foot! He closed his eyes deep in the music, touching and fingering the strings, making them sing to her as his bow raked across the frets. Sophia clapped her hands in time to his playing.

"Dance!"

She jumped back in surprise as his playful command. He opened his eyes looking at her as she picked up her skirts and made the first sashay around, twirling, her curls bouncing as she shimmied across the rug, turning and bending, unconsciously flirting to the music. James turned with her, watching her turn the reel as she whirled a circle around him.

The tune slowed again and she curtsied deeply to the motion of the steps, locking her eyes to his, watching them go dark with passion. The tempo picked up again and she sashayed around one more, her skirts picked up in front of her feet. The music came to a sudden stop mid verse. As she swung around to ask why he had stopped playing, she felt his body crush against hers, fingers tipping the bow away from where they laced through her hair and a hand holding the neck of a violin against her back as his lips possessed her.

Her fingers laced around the nape of his neck bringing him closer, mating her tongue with his as she moaned against his mouth. He walked them backwards and set the violin and bow on the chair before holding her against him by the waist, his hands wrapped around the pleats of the gown. His fingers started pulling upward, hand over hand through an eternity of fabric before he reached the hem.

Sophia raised her arms and let him lift the dress off of her. It fell slowly to the rug, pooling at their feet, ignored as James drew his attention to her uplifted breasts. He smiled. This was the part he was familiar with when it came to these stay contraptions. He began by kissing her neck and gliding around her to her back, whispering lustful praises into her ear as his left hand danced lightly across the top of her breasts. His right hand unstrung the bottom of the stay, then the top, loosening it until it too was able to fall down the length of her body to her feet. He lifted Sophia into his arms out of the stay on the floor and delicately laid her on the bed.

The silk chemise clung to her curves, free of the bonds of the stay. In the glow of the room's many nearly-spent candles, the peak of her breasts created almost no telling shadow, but James was fixated upon them, desiring them in his mouth the way a man in the desert would desire a drink of water. He stripped off his jacket and waistcoat as one, yanking at his cravat before kicking his shoes and stockings to the other side of the room. Sophia lay there watching as he disrobed quickly, the awkwardness of his impatient undressing making her giggle.

He threw his shirt over his head and opened the placket of his breeches before pushing them off his waist. He watched her face turn sharply from simple amusement to desire. The last time he had undressed in front of her she had crawled to the other side of the bed like a frightened animal. Now as she lay there, her breathing became ragged and her pupils dilated in lust and memory of what pleasures his cock had wrought on her aching body. He raised first one muscular leg then the other, crawling over top of her, before lying beside her, the heat and hardness of him pressing into her thigh.

His mouth came down on hers once more as a hand kneaded a breast, forming and shaping the liquid flesh in his palm. His thumb and forefinger rolled up to pinch the nipple as Sophia arched her back up toward him, her thigh undulating against his cock. James grabbed her under her shoulder and rolled her on top of him, quickly pulling up the chemise and casting it to the floor, the last to join the pile of cloth now surrounding the bed.

She lay with her head against his shoulder watching the rise and fall of his chest, tracing a finger over its hard surface, down his tensed stomach and into the line of hair just below his navel. She watched his manhood jump as her hands moved, her fingers reaching out to caress him. James groaned as she moved her head down onto his chest, taking in the sight of the ruddy crown staring up at her with a pearl of fluid glistening at the tip.

The tips of her fingers made a furtive run over its length as James struggled to maintain his control. Her hand gripped him and she felt his body writhe. She curled her fingers around and stroked the shaft with purpose, feeling him thrust up into her hand, mimicking the motions of their joining.

"I need your mouth on me," James whispered hoarsely.

She looked up at him, stopping her hand, and stared into his heavily lidded eyes, his mouth partially open.

"Please..." he whispered.

It wasn't a request. He was asking her. Sophia looked down at his engorged flesh and turned to look back up into his eyes, "I don't know how."

"I trust you. Just kiss it at first; at the tip. Please, Sophia, I need you..."

His beseeching was the most erotic thing she could imagine hearing, his need and vulnerability evident. This didn't feel like the demand and conquering she had experienced a fortnight ago but the gentle plea of a lover. Sophia knelt between his legs, overwhelmed. She held his flesh in her upright palm before closing her fingers around the head, stroking downward. A low growl rose from his throat as she brought his organ upright off his stomach and toward her waiting lips.

She bent forward and kissed the tip with just her lips before making her first descent, imitating her favorite part of how he kissed her mouth. She laved the head with her tongue. Pleasure shot up his spine. James tilted his head back, sucking air in through his clenched teeth. Every fiber of him wanted to thrust deep into the back of her throat but he remained still, his hands at his sides. He wanted to run his fingers through her hair but knew that he wouldn't be able to stop himself from pushing her head down further if he did. Instead he let her explore.

She let the head disappear into the chasm of her mouth, watching James arch his hips, "Oh God, Sophia..."

Pulling back, she watched him pitch forward. The peppery taste of his skin mixed with a spice she couldn't name made her hum in enjoyment, his cock twitching in her mouth as the blood in him pumped just below the surface. She remembered when he had his mouth latched on her; how the room had spun and realized that he was experiencing near the same. He needed her in this moment just as fiercely as she had desired him.

Her hands worked the length of his shaft as her mouth bobbed on the crown in rhythm to the rising and falling of her hand underneath. Her motions echoed their coupling. Saliva and the salted moisture that kept slowly forming at the tip eased the path of her hand as it stroked against his shaft. She watched him writhe under her.

James couldn't believe what she was doing to him. He felt himself coming undone in the recesses of her mouth, the tongue lashing out over the rim of the crown, the gentlest grazing of teeth, and the powerful drag on his flesh each time her lips pulled up, swelling him in her hot mouth before she torturously descended again. The sight of his cock disappearing behind the veil of her lips again and again was too much for him. Through the haze of passion he managed broken words to warn her, "I'm going to come, Sophia... my seed will release into your mouth... please don't stop..."

She tightened her hand around him and descended further, enticed by the control she now had over his pleasure. Her eyes met his, treating him to the consciously erotic sight of her devouring his cock.

"I'm coming... oh God, my love I'm coming!"

Momentarily shocked by the word he just used, Sophia steadied and felt him involuntarily jerk upward; his eyes squeezed shut and his face contorted in his cry. She felt two bursts of hot thick liquid hit the back of her tongue before she released him from her mouth, feeling it trickle down her throat. The last pearlescent jet oozed out over her fingers and she brought them up to her lips, licking away the salty evidence of her triumph over his body.

Her tongue rolled over her smiling lips before James grabbed her and pulled her body up to rest on his, capturing her tongue in his mouth and tasting the faintest remains of his seed at the back of her throat. He gasped for air once more, her head resting on his shoulder.

She looked up at him. His eyes were still shut, "Do you want to go to sleep now?"

James heard a twinge of disappointment in her voice, thinking that he would just leave her unsatisfied, "No, absolutely not. Tonight has only just begun. I need to recover for a moment. That was incredible; you were incredible, Sophia. Thank you."

He kissed her forehead and stroked her hair. She played with a few of the sparse curls on his chest, listening to the drum of his heartbeat start to slow down.

He let out a long slow sigh and turned he head toward her, "So I have a question for you that's been gnawing at me all day..."

"Mmm?" she answered.

"How often do you go out to the millpond and touch yourself?"

She blushed, but straightened up and answered truthfully, "That was the only time."

"Touching yourself or going to the millpond?"

"Going to the millpond," she said with a smirk.

He lazily ran a hand over her exposed breast, tracing the curve as it peaked toward the center and turned over her, parting her thighs with his knee as she rested on her back, "So while I was gone, you found a way to... console yourself at night?"

"Yes," she said watching him pinch and roll his fingers over the puckering areola.

"And what specifically did you dream about on those nights?"

"When your mouth was on my... my..." she hesitated, her cheeks turning bright red and flushing all the way down to her breasts.

"You have no idea what that beautiful part of you is even called, do you?"

"It's a sin to even do... this, much less speak of these things."

"There is no sin in celebrating what God designed us to do."

James moved down for a kiss and felt Sophia's lips part for him with a sigh. His hand cupped her breast before descending to rest on her womb, his fingers trailing over her soft skin, making it jump at his touch. Sophia pulled back, "I was never told what to call... it."

"Well, we need to call it something, otherwise you won't know what to ask for when you want me to touch you."

"What do you call it, then?"

"Well the Latin is too formal... vagina. It takes far too long to say in the throes of passion. And the Germanic is too rough for so tender a place," he said, kneading and stroking her lips, his fingers tangling through the sparse blonde down as she throbbed underneath his teasing caress.

"What is your favorite?"

"I prefer the French. La chatte has such a delicate ring to it."

"What does it mean?" she asked, panting as he traced a finger into her folds.

"Pussy."

He watched her eyes widen and a smile curl her mouth then took the opportunity to renew his kiss, locking his lips to hers as his finger wiggled inside her. Her slight giggle at the word changed into a moan as he silenced her with his exploring tongue and hand before moving across and teasing her earlobe with a gentle nip of his teeth.

"Now," James whispered, "What was it that you needed?"

"I need your mouth on me," she said, echoing his words.

"Where on you?" he said, reaching up to run his thumb in a lazy circle over her tightened bud.

"On my..." she looked up at him shyly.

James withdrew his hand completely as Sophia shuddered and crumpled forward trying to rock herself back to his waiting fingers. He whispered against her neck, "You must say what it is..."

"On my pussy! Please, James," the word didn't feel nearly as dirty as she'd imagined. She wasn't embarrassed to give him direction now, knowing that he knew the way but that her words of gentle encouragement were just as erotic to him as they were to her when her mouth was squeezing around the head of his cock.




The Devil's Inheritance Ch. 04



Not stopping anywhere in between, his body sprang back over the sheets as Sophia spread her knees apart allowing him access. The moves of their dance together were synchronized. As Sophia brought one long leg up, James dove underneath it, his mouth stopping only once to kiss her thigh before latching onto her flesh.

James drank in her essence and her cries of pleasure, feeling her writhe beneath his tongue, his hands prying her thighs further apart as he suckled her hardened bud. She quaked around him feeling each electrifying scrape of his tongue, every sweep of his lips over her flesh. When she came her hands tangled in his hair, pushing him down as her back arched up fully, her head thrown back as he held her body through its spasms.

The room was darkening as the candles started snuffing themselves out, their wax spent. James moved up quickly, lying astride of her, hot, fully aroused and aching once more by her keening cries. The flames of Sophia's desire for him remained unabated, burning out of control. Her body strained to be closer to his as he took his position over her.

James looked down at her eyes, dilated and lidded, heavy with passion for him. He guided himself to her gate, relishing in the heat pouring out of her. Her legs instinctively came up against her waist, opening herself for his possession.

"I want you inside me," she whispered breathlessly, bringing a hand up to stroke his face, "Now."

James turned and kissed the palm of her hand. He went slowly, guiding just the head in, giving her the first inch before stopping. She whimpered in frustration, her insides aching to be filled. He steadied himself and held her at the hips to keep her from thrusting them upward. Leaning his head down, he paused and looked deep into her eyes, "This is how I should have taken you the first time. Sophia, can you forgive me?"

She strained against him, "James, I'll forgive you if you stop this torment and just take me now. Please..."

"No," he said, fighting tooth and nail to not give in to her demands, "First, I want you to feel every moment of how I should have done this."

He sunk into her yet again, entering her with one more inch. The velvet heat of her contracted around his head, pulsing against the top of the shaft and beckoning him onward. Every nerve and vein in his wake was on fire within her. Sophia gasped, mewling out a cry of pleasure and frustration as he touched that blinding sweet spot within her and then torturously drew back the width of a hair, "James..."

He lowered his body, fitting it over hers and brought his lips to her ear, "Do you forgive me?"

"YES!"

James thrust forward, feeling her rock backward and cry out in delight as his hips crashed into hers. Fingers raked lightly across his back and feet locked together around his waist as she clung to him. He slowly withdrew and pitched forward again, feeling her hips fasten against him. He nipped at her neck and shoulder, rocking forward rhythmically inside of her. Sophia felt his body brush over her as he stroked through her, clinging to his shoulder blades.

A new sensation built deep inside of her. It wasn't the same as when he would touch her heated nub. This came from a place lower, deeper and far more powerful as she felt her body tightening like a spring, her insides coiling around him. James caught her with his hand by the nape of the neck and lifted her head. He captured her lips, their moans vibrating through each other as Sophia felt her entire being lifting higher and higher still. Sensing her urgency, he increased the speed of his thrusts, wanting them to arrive at their peak together as one.

Sophia felt him quicken, drawing back and forth, into her, pulling out, driving in once again as she met him thrust for thrust, her tightening walls grasping and releasing his cock with each push of his hips. He rose above her angling upward and rubbing deliciously against her so that she didn't know where she ended and he began. The rapid tempo James reached plunging into her depths grew unsustainable, but it wouldn't be long.

The spring snapped within her, a shrieking cry exiting her throat as her eyes rolled back in ecstasy. Her body rose up to his of its own volition; the tips of her breasts rubbing against his chest as he made what he knew were his final thrusts. She felt every muscle of her body clench at once and release, and then clench again, her voice calling out to him, her sheath milking his shaft as he crashed into her one last time, crying out her name. She fell back to the sheets, taking him with her, both gasping for air as their breathing started to become one, rising and falling in unison.

An eternity passed before he slowly began to roll his hips back. Her legs closed around his torso and he felt her hands tense and pull at his shoulder blades, "Don't go..."

He opened his eyes and tenderly looked down at her in surprise. She truly wanted him within her. His lips brushed against her neck and traced the underside of her jaw as he complied, resting on his elbows so he didn't crush her. He listened to their uneven breathing start to regain its rhythm as her limbs relaxed. Her eyes stayed shut and her legs fell away followed shortly by her arms. He stayed within Sophia until he felt himself soften completely, gently pressed out of her by her tight channel.   She was asleep. James slowly rolled to the side to keep from waking her and in the fading light ran his hand over her curls, smoothing back her hair from her face and stroking her forehead. This woman was changing him. Everything felt different; better, when she was beside him. His city ambition as a struggling nouveau riche son of the gentry, the separation of class, their differences meant nothing to him when she lay beside him. James could let his guard down around her and trust her with his true self. He was simply a man, and she his woman. There was no pretension, no barrier.

"I love you."

He barely whispered it, unconscious of saying the words until they left his lips, unsettled by their implication. But he did love her. He couldn't picture himself with anyone else and wanted to learn all of her wants, her desires, and her secrets. He knew so little about her, but every small piece of her puzzle he had put together only made him love her that much more.

One fading candle remained lit in the room and James surveyed the strewn clothes. He didn't want her to trip in case she needed to get up to use the chamber pot in the middle of this moonless night. He carefully rolled out of the bed and stepped around her stay and dress, picking them up as he went and laying them beside the wardrobe along with his clothes. Coming back to the chair, he soundlessly picked up the violin and bow and tip toed over to the dresser.

James paused, carefully opening the leather case to lift out the red velvet shroud and wrap the instrument before putting it away. He stopped, eyeing a white folded paper underneath. Lifting it in the light of the last candle, he read the name of the addressee: George Whitcomb, Esq. The barrister? It was in his uncle's handwriting.

Puzzled he opened the paper and read the first lines.

To Mr. George Nathaniel Whitcomb, Esquire:

My dear old friend, I hope you are well. It has been too long since I communicated with you about my last will and testament or even less official matters. Everything remains as it was on our last correspondence barring one significant change.

I write you this letter expressing my intentions to bequeath my farm at Ashford to Ms. Sophia Latwicke de Grey...



The Devil's Inheritance Ch. 05



The neighbor's rooster crowed distantly over the hillside, waking James. He looked out the window as pink clouds appeared on the horizon, then back to the crook of his right arm where Sophia was nestled, head resting on his chest, blonde curls spilling over his arm. Her leg was cast over both of his, and her arm lay on his chest, her hand curling over his opposite shoulder.

James smiled. She looked angelic there. He had slept fitfully all night thinking about the letter, which was now tucked safely in his waistcoat pocket by the wardrobe. Surely she had at least guessed of its existence! Why had she not mentioned a written contract before? Because you would have ripped it in half as you ravished her, he thought, answering his own question. Now more questions about this woman plagued him.

...to Ms. Sophia Latwicke de Grey...

De Grey? Why would Uncle David add 'de Grey' to her name? Surely he didn't mean...

It was no matter. He would ask Whitcomb, the barrister, today and this whole mystery would be at last ended. He looked down at Sophia, still sleeping peacefully, her limbs cast over his slowly awakening body. There was so much he didn't know about her. But at the same time there was so much that he did know; knowledge that only he had of her. The thought quickened him at the same time as she started to stir against him, her thigh brushing upward.

"Mmm, James..." she moaned. He looked down at her. Her breathing was still steady and her eyes were still closed. He looked down at her calm face and the side of his mouth curled up in a smile, realizing that she was dreaming about him. Her body moved against James, pressing her thigh over his hardening cock once more. He shook his head. Her sweet unconscious movements were rapidly becoming unbearable.

James brought his arm over Sophia and turned toward her, lifting her to rest on top of him. Her flaxen hair fell in a heap across his chest as her legs parted to either side of his. Heat flooded out from between her legs matching the ache he felt growing more unbearable by the second. He ran his hands up and down the soft skin of her back. They alternated between her shoulders to the small of her waist, and dipping further to sculpt the delicate cheeks of her ass and part her thighs further. His groin arched upward toward her from shear instinct and the desire to be within her.

Sophia was lost in the dream world. James was skillfully playing the violin for her, and her minds eye saw both of them naked in a wide, blinding white room. As she crossed the empty room toward him, the music continued. It filled her senses, even after he had set down the instrument to skillfully play her body instead. She felt the heat of him pressed against her in the dream, his hands cupping her buttocks and pulling her closer, her lips pecking at his broad chest. Her fingers ran through the sparse curls of hair and her tongue snaking out to taste his small flat nipples. Their feet rose off the ground.

A muffled gasp escaped his lips as he felt the damp heat of her mound settle around the head of his cock, surrounding the sensitive glans with her pulsing warmth. He dipped his finger downward toward her sex, running up the inside of her thigh and grazing over the soft down of hair before being drawn by her wet heat. His finger met the moist inside of her lips and she sucked in air through her teeth, still asleep and wriggling torturously against him, "Don't stop... fly with me..."

James could stand this no longer. With Sophia's last unconscious writhe, his throbbing cock now sat poised at her entrance, able to feel the heat pouring out of her body. Her last sleep talk drove him over the edge and then slowly inside her. He carefully opened her passage with his cock, carefully sheathing himself so he didn't wake her. The tip parted her folds and drove slowly in as she let out a contented sigh in her sleep that turned into a long moan. James leaned slowly forward and grasped her at the hips, sliding her body down his to seat himself within her fully. He remained still and relished in her exquisite heat, letting her slow somnambulist undulations be the only movement allowed to give him pleasure. He lay like this for what felt like hours, his eyes closed and breathing rhythmic against the drum of his pulse. He belonged here; he had never been as sure of anything in his life.

Sophia looked down, the music surrounding them as James held her to him, his hands moving them together as she watched the ground disappear underneath them, the open sky pushing them together. She watched as his cock disappeared inside of her then stared back up at his face. They began to tip and she was turned upside down in the natural order of coupling, seeing the fields and trees far below them as he pushed up inside of her. They flew on like that as the music faded away, replaced by the sound of his heart beating in her ears, all-consuming. Her mind reeled, the sensations too intense for it to be a vision. Sophia blinked once and saw him blearily below him, half-awakening with a shudder from her dream to feel his hardness filling her completely.

James knew from deep inside of her the moment she became conscious, her muscles clenching down around him. He looked up at Sophia to watch her startle in realization within his grasp. As she awoke she clenched further, the twitches becoming spasms, and the spasms starting to roll through her in waves as she began to climax in her half conscious state. He heard her moan and shudder against him as her back arched and her thighs coiled upward along the length of his body. Her face was a wash of confusion and pleasure as she came around him. James would never be able to get enough of that incredible feeling, of Sophia surrounding him with those pulsing waves of her orgasm, as long as he lived. He stroked her hair away from her face and held her firmly on top of him as she clung to his body, her voice crying out in surprise and delight.

After her shaking ceased James thrust up into her again, holding her at the small of her back. Sophia awoke fully, blinking at him in wonder, as she realized that he was laying underneath her yet still inside of her. James pushed up again to drive that point home as Sophia shuddered and moaned in his arms. He pushed down lower on the small of her back and forward on her stomach, levering her body upward as his hands moved around to gently hold the sides of her thighs, steadying her as her body rose to sit upright.

She looked down at him in amazement, "James! How..."

"Do you feel me inside you?" he said thrusting upward for effect. He heard her moan as he pulsed against the back of her.

"Yes. Oh God, yes I can. But... but, this is impossible," she said, feeling as though she were teetering on the very top of the world. He smiled and chuckled at her, the laugh reverberating inside her body at the point of their joining.

James moved his hands to cradle her hips and pushed up into her. Sophia looked down at him, wide eyed, feeling herself expand around his cock and gasped. He smiled up at her and pulled back as she whimpered, before rising up into her again. She felt her thighs start to twitch, even more heat building as his flesh ground against her exposed bud. She felt like she was on a mountaintop, light headed and in awe of the sight of him below her. James found a rhythm, pulsing into her in deep slow thrusts, the friction not nearly as intense as either of them needed from each other. He could sense Sophia's desire for more. Soon enough, he would show her the vast power and potential she had when mounted on top of him.

"As you can clearly see, it is possible. And of all the positions we have coupled in, I find it entertaining that you find this to be the 'impossible' one. We made love standing in the water yesterday, if you recall."

Her mouth twitched up at the memory and at that word he dared to use around her once more, the feeling melting into the slow wave of thrusts coming through her from his body underneath. Sophia was feeling her defenses drop around him. He was making it harder for her to shield her heart...

Slowly he showed her, pushing up on her thighs and teaching her the primal movements as he lay under her. James guided Sophia's ascent with his hands then lowered her body upon his flesh once more, causing both of them to gasp. He repeated this again, feeling her legs control more of the movement this time, learning from his guidance as her hands met his at her hips. He turned his wrists to meet her palms and laced his fingers with hers, providing Sophia with support as she leaned forward and gained better balance upon him.

"You have complete control now, Sophia. I'm putting myself in your hands," he squeezed her fingers between his, encouraging her onward.

"How do you want me to move upon you?"

"In any way you like. It's upon you to guide us together now," James said, smiling up at her. To his delight, she returned his smile then lifted herself carefully along his length before slowly descending again as they sighed in passion together.   "Does that please you?" Sophia said shyly, trying to gage his reaction.

"You can do no wrong here. I trust you," he moved her hands to his chest and felt her press her palms into him. I trust you, and I love you. He moved a wayward lock of hair behind her ear as she gazed down at him, "You must trust yourself here; do only what pleases you."

The look she gave him was the most tender he'd ever seen on a woman's face in his life. He ran his hand over her cheek and felt Sophia lift up again, her flesh gliding upward on his throbbing shaft before she began her slow and torturous descent. James gritted his teeth together and groaned as she started to pull upward again. Sophia began to settle into a rhythm, the soft motion of rising and lowering, riding his flesh becoming familiar and deliciously pleasurable.

She read his face and saw that he found this as sensual as when she had taken him into her mouth last night. Sophia loved that she had that much more effect on him, able to stare into his heavy-lidded eyes directly as she controlled the speed and depth of him inside her. But hovering on the distance, she knew, was the reality that James could take back control at any minute, pinning her down and thrusting into her at his whim.

She grew bold and started to experiment with James. Sophia raised her body up all the way until just the head of him was inside of her. She watched the pleading strain on his face as she hovered above him before slamming into his lap. She watched his eyes close as he shouted out, breathing in hard gasps at her unexpected move. She bit her lower lip and lifted herself up slowly once more, feeling every ridge and vein of his cock exiting her velvet canal, the air lightly cooling the sensitive flesh where they were joined.

Sophia lingered above James for even longer, staring into his pleading eyes, savoring the moment as the head of his cock twitched underneath her before dropping down hard, her thighs meeting his with a loud slap. His eyes rolled back as the wave of pleasure shot through him again, vocalizing his pleasure with abandon. James opened his eyes and tilted his head up to look at her. He involuntarily thrust his pelvis up into her as she gasped. James clasped his hands on her thighs with a dull smack of her flesh, her skin burning under his palms, "Witch..."

She clenched her muscles around him with purpose, listening intently as he sucked air in through his teeth with each squeeze around his hardness. Her hips swished from side to side on top of him, moving in a circle, grinding against him. Sophia moaned as her bud came into repeated contact with his groin and the moisture of her collecting at the base of his shaft.

He watched her stomach snake around, her breasts riding high, and her blonde curls spilling over them. The look of her twisting seductively on top of him matched the hot friction of her within, surrounding him, closing in on him, but denying him, "Oh God, Sophia, you're killing me," he groaned.

The twist of her hips didn't stop. She continued undulating back and forth, shifting and rotating her hips in the opposite direction as he thrashed his head and groaned, "What would you like me to do instead?"

"Ride me."

She smiled down at him wickedly, whispering her reply, "Beg."

His eyes widened and shot a passionate, dangerous look up at her, sending a shiver through Sophia. James growled at her, "Please ride me, Sophia. I really can't hold out like this much longer..."

He gave her a playful warning as he spoke, digging his fingers into her hips. In that moment she knew that he was moments away from effortlessly rolling her underneath his body, throwing her ankles over her head and driving into her mercilessly. Much as that appealed to her, she liked her present position over him and wanted to feel him come undone underneath her. Sophia's heart beat quicker as she began to resume her rhythm, faster and deeper, moaning and shuddering at the erotic friction of flesh against flesh, the heat of him radiating through her as his hands traveled up from her hips to support her breasts from underneath. He pushed them up, cupping them and rolling his thumbs hard over her nipples before meandering down the front of her, over her womb, downward through the thatch of hair.

James carefully watched as his cock slid in and out of her core, the sight almost too much for him. He brought his fingers to where they were joined and started caressing her bud in slow circles, feeling her nearly lose her balance from the heady pleasure. She picked up her thrusts in response making him moan aloud, desperate and determined to bring him to completion with her. James sat up and clasped her lower back, thrusting upward to maintain her rhythm as he captured a nipple in his teeth, roughly sucking it into his mouth.

With his occupied hand, he rolled the delicate nub between his fingers, increasing the pressure with their every turn. Sophia felt his cock swell even further within her sending her over the edge. As James felt her shake in her climax, he laid his head between her breasts, kissing the flushed and soft heaving skin.

He thrust up inside her twice more, then fell back away from her, hips arching upward hard into her, lifting her up with his spurting cock as he came deep within her. She fell forward and collapsed on top of him, his arms coming up around her body as he made one last furtive push into her before his body relaxed, buried within hers.

The sun was now up, casting a long line of light over them through the half-closed curtain, as they lay entwined. James rolled them to the side, holding Sophia in his arms, "You're coming with me."

"I already did," she said, biting her lower lip in a smile.

"No," he laughed and kissed her on the nose, "I must meet with the barrister at two o'clock. You're coming with me into town. I want to take you out for a ride."

Sophia tensed, blushing, "We can't. What will they say?"

James cocked up an eyebrow, "Who is this 'they' you speak of?"

"The townsfolk. When they see me out riding in your chaise..."

"What of it? Because you think you are of a lower station than I? Put on the new dress I gave you and—"

"No!"

"Why are you being so obstinate?" he said, coming up on one elbow as Sophia rolled onto her back. They both startled as a loud knock sounded on the door, breaking them out of their reverie.

Katje's muffled voice came through the door, "Ontbijt, Mijnheer James."

"Dank u, Katje," he called back as they heard her shoes clomp down the stairs.

Sophia blushed bright red, "What did she say?"

"She was telling us that breakfast is outside the door," James said, getting up and stretching as Sophia admired the backside of him from the muscles of his shoulder blades all the way down to his taut buttocks and sculpted calves. He walked to the door and opened it. Sophia pulled the sheet over her head until she heard it latch closed again. She heard him chuckle at her shyness and saw him walk toward the bed, fresh cream, sugar and blackberries on the tray.

"Do... do you think she heard me talking to you?"

"Undoubtedly. But considering all she probably heard last night I don't think she'd think anything of it," James said setting down the tray and laughed as Sophia flushed hot once more.

She was mortified. Having spent the last few days working with Katje, she didn't want the woman judging her as a whore. She buried her face in her hands, "Oh, God..."

"You needn't be embarrassed. Katje's not a half-wit; she knew when she arrived about my arrangement with you. And how has she treated you?"

"Katje and Aletta have both been very kind—"

"There you see?" he said tossing a berry into his mouth, "Nothing to worry about."

James set the tray on the chair beside the bed and picked up another berry, hovering it in front of her lips, as she lay propped up against the pillows. Sophia tentatively opened her mouth and let him feed her, not used to this at all.

"So you'll come to town with me?"

"No, James, I can't..."

"I ask you again. Why are you being so stubborn about this?"

"Because then they would know for sure that I am your... whore," she said chewing on the word harder than the sweet fruit in her mouth.

"You are whatever I make of you. You have a brand new lovely dress and with your beauty, you will be the envy of all who see us. As far as they are concerned, you just 'inherited' trust of a farm from my uncle of whom I am the current proprietor—"

"James, most those people in town may be illiterate peasants to you, but they aren't stupid. And they have known me since... since I first came to the Ashford church when I was nine. They know I'm no lady, or mistress or owner of anything. But they will know that I'm your mistress once they see me with you."

"I don't see why you should be ashamed."

"They already judge me, James, because of how I arrived here."

"Then what is one more thing that sets their tongues wagging at you? Sophia, you need to see yourself as the lady of this farm; its owner, if you ever expect to have the upper hand in your business dealings with these people."

"Business dealings?"

"What work did you do for my uncle?"

"Milked the cows, carted the milk..."

"What else?"

"When he was... sleeping during the day, I would take it to town, barter the prices, take orders, occasionally keep the books..."

"So you know how to manage this farm, but you don't know how to manage its value."

"I don't understand."

"Well, let me demonstrate," he said, pulling out another berry, "Lie still."

Sophia gave him a confused look before watching him place the berry on her right breast. She shifted, giggling and James caught the little fruit as it rolled off.

"Lie still! I want to show you something!"

Sophia complied as he replaced the berry, "What are you doing?"

"Pretend you're a map. This is the farm on the hill," he said pointing to the blackberry sitting on top of her breast as Sophia tried with all her might to keep from giggling and upsetting his 'map'. He set down three more berries on her stomach, "And in the valley, these are the cheese maker, the churner, and the blacksmith at Ashford."

Sophia looked up at him smiling, "I'm listening..."

He dipped his finger in the cream, "You supply milk to the cheese maker," he said tracing a line from the berry and around her nipple before ending at the group of berries around her navel, "and the churner, and livery work for the blacksmith. Their livelihoods depend on you."

"Go on," she said, struggling not to laugh or let his delicate touch make her rise toward him as her body dearly desired to do.

He dipped his finger in the cream again; "They take that profit from your milk and spend it at the pub and the shops," he said trailing the cream to her navel, then continuing the trail south, "and other wares Ashford imports from outside the town."




The Devil's Inheritance Ch. 05



Sophia remained stock-still, "All this I know. What are you getting at?"

"The townsfolk don't scoff you for no good reason, Sophia. They do it because they are jealous of you; because you can conceivably control the source of all their income. They shun you to try and keep you where they want you. Powerless. But you need to believe in yourself, and they and their opinions of you can go hang."

"Well that's a lovely sentiment, but I'm just a bast—"

"Only because you think it. Charge your buyers five shillings more apiece, purchase more cows, and you can take control of a piece of Ashford. The sooner you realize this, the better your negotiations with them will be, and the richer you will be," he leaned in and kissed her, careful not to disturb the berries.

She paused for a moment after his lips came away then nodded, a smile curling one side of her mouth. She'd never thought of it in this way, "What else?"

"Then..." James leaned over and licked the cream off her puckered nipple.

She sucked air in, "And what is that supposed to be in this commercial scheme?"

"Oh, that's nothing; I just like the taste of your nipple."

She burst out laughing, upsetting the berries.

"Now see what you've gone and done? An earthquake just destroyed all of Ashford," James said smiling, picking up the fallen berries, as Sophia laughed even harder. He caught her mouth in his and captured her lips, exploring her with his tongue. He drew her back down to the bed; kissing her with each sentence, "Wear the dress. Come to town with me. The villagers be damned..."

Sophia kissed him back, giving in, knowing that he would just torture a 'yes' out of her anyway. He wrapped his arms about her and moved over top of her, pinning her under the heat of his body. She relished his attention to her and unfurled once again in pleasure with him. It wasn't the villagers who would be damned...

After they finally rose and got dressed, Katje and Aletta were already gone to town to deliver the milk. Sophia went downstairs to find her shoes and her best Sunday cap as James readied the carriage to take them into town.

Sophia hadn't ridden in a proper carriage since she was a child. She leaned back onto to James's shoulder as he drove the horse onward toward the town square before jumping out and helping Sophia down. He put three gold guineas in her hand, "Buy yourself anything you like."

Sophia stared down in shock, "James, I can't possibly—"

"Just say yes. Let the world be your oyster today, my little pearl," he said smiling down at her.

"I thought pearls are made by being an irritation."

"Then go irritate those petty townsfolk and buy yourself something nice."

She smiled and shook her head at him, wondering what in this town could possibly cost three whole guineas, "When will you be finished?"

He handed two pence to the groom's apprentice as he took the carriage around to the livery stable, "It shouldn't take me more than an hour to finish. Now go enjoy yourself, Miss Latwicke."

James watched her walk across the street, disappearing into the marketplace, before turning around and making his way to Whitcomb, Morehouse, & Sedgeley, the barrister's office.

He opened the door and a young clerk nodded at him before returning to work, dipping his quill in the ink pot beside his desk once more as James made his way to the first door marked George Whitcomb, Esq. He knocked.

"Enter," said a voice on the other side.

James opened the door and tipped his hat before removing it, "Mr. Whitcomb. A pleasure to see you again."

An elderly man in a long gray wig rose out of his seat, nodding at James, "And it is good to see you as well, Mr. Gardiner. Again, I am very sorry for your loss. Your uncle, Mr. Farthing, was a good friend of mine for many years."

James thought back to his last fight with Uncle David before leaving. The old man had been making plans for him to marry some wealthy farmer's daughter and caught James in the barn screwing one of Uncle David's maids. The had argued, David nearly knocking him to the floor after James made a crack about how David was jealous; James's dalliances were seen as commonplace, a young man sewing his wild oats, but David's tastes would have seen him hanged at Tyburn. James had vowed never to tie himself to just one woman, and never return. He looked at the old barrister across from him and wondered if there was more than the friendship with his uncle than he was letting on.

"Thank you. I miss him greatly," these thoughts and memories flashed through his mind, unseen on his face as James sat down across from the barrister, going straight to business, "Are the papers drawn up for his estate?"

"All fifteen hundred pounds a year in tenant rent throughout Ashford, plus the landownership of the farm. This inheritance makes you quite a wealthy gentleman, Mr. Gardiner."

"Wealthier, Mr. Whitcomb. Although it is fine to now possess lands in Kent, my primary holdings are in trade between London and Amsterdam."

He nodded, "All the same. Before I hand these to you for your signature, will there be anything else?"

James sat there, pursing his lips before digging into his pocket and pulling out the wrinkled letter, "I have one last question for you. Who is Sophia Latwicke de Grey?"

George Whitcomb slowly looked up, the color draining from his face, "What name did you say?"

James stared straight ahead, "You heard what I said."

George nodded, stood up and walked behind James to the office door, opening it slightly, "Master Morehouse, go run up to the market and buy you some dinner. Take from the petty cash."

James watched George wait at the door as the clerk opened the drawer and fished out a few pence before locking the front door behind him, the small bell the only sound in the building. The old man then walked behind his desk and looked outside before shutting the open window and latching it closed, "The boy is my partner's son, a gifted clerk who will make a fine barrister some day, but a witless wonder when it comes to petty gossip."

"Why the secrecy, Mr. Whitcomb?"

"Because that name is never to be used. Ever. Where did you hear it?"

"I read it," he said, handing the letter to George, "In a letter, addressed to you from my uncle, that was obviously never delivered."

George adjusted his spectacles and read the handwriting, clearing his throat and looking back up at James, blanching once more, "Th...this letter is neither witnessed nor sealed—"

"It is in his hand, correct?"

"Yes. It is. Still, why do you bring it to me?"

James looked away, out the panes of the window, "Because by that letter, the farm rightfully belongs to her."

"You... you don't have to worry about this; it's not witnessed. This letter would never be admissible in any court of law. The farm would be hers only by your doing at this point, to be perfectly honest. Were she to even find it, and since she's merely a servant girl—"

"It doesn't matter. I love her," James said, looking back from the window to stare the barrister in the eye. The words were out. He felt a weight lift from inside his chest that had been forming since he first returned to Ashford yesterday.

George took off his glasses by the bridge of the nose, "I see."

"She won't say a word to me about her childhood."

"Good. Then she's been well taught."

"What? Whatever do you mean?" James said, his brow creasing in anger. What had they done to her?

"Does the name 'de Grey' have any meaning to you?"

"Somewhat. But it can't possibly be that de Grey."

"It is, one and the same. Sophia is the natural daughter of Lord Henry de Grey, Duke of Kent, member of the Privy Counsel to His Royal Highness King George, and the Lord Chamberlain of our recently departed Queen. Her mother was a chambermaid in his household, but much beloved by him, if all accounts are to be believed. She died of the puerperal fever, not a day after giving birth to Sophia."

"I see," James said, his mouth drying.

"You understand then the need for secrecy?"

"No, I don't. Sir, I am from London and I can be the first to tell you there are hundreds of natural offspring of the court made gentry, running around as Miss this or Master that, or the precious 'niece' ward of Lord so-and-so..."

"But not the children of enemies of the Jacobites, and the Duke is one of those enemies. A bastard daughter by a commoner would undo his career, so when she was young and as the Tories rose into power Lord de Grey, who was Marquess at the time, disavowed her and brought little Sophie to the church orphanage at Ashford."

"...I first came to the Ashford church when I was nine..." Her words from this morning echoed in his mind. If this world were fair, then Sophia de Grey would have easily outranked James, and he would be lucky if she had even given him a word. The moment he took her flew into his mind and he felt a sharp pain in his stomach, as though a needle was piercing him through the center. He imagined her as her life was supposed to be, surrounded by governesses and maids, clothed in jewels and being married off to a lower noble instead of running a farm wearing rags, propping up his kind drunkard uncle and being raped by a nouveau riche rake who called himself a gentleman, "So her own father pushed her into poverty and obscurity in the name of... politics?"

"Aye. And threatened the deacon of the church and the head of the orphanage to keep silent and to make sure she followed suit. When David, your uncle, took her out of the orphanage to work for him five years past, he came to my offices to draw up the Parish Apprentice Terms of Indenture that I handed to you a fortnight ago. That same day, a man from court and two regimentals showed up at my office, paid both of us one hundred pounds a piece, and told us that if we revealed anything about Sophia to anyone our lives and lands would be forfeit."

James was taken aback, "I... I don't know what to say."

"Then don't say at all, Mr. Gardiner. Never mention the name 'de Grey' to anyone, even in passing. The only reason I suspect your uncle would dare to write it was because he was either being sympathetically defiant or was just simply drunk."

James was sick. Sophia, his Sophia, had had everything taken from her piece by piece for the ambitions of great men, the same great men that shunned James in London because of his lowly parentage. And he was just the latest person to take from her. She had been abandoned by her father, locked away in an orphanage miles from her home. And as a reward for looking after his uncle for five years, James himself had marched into her home and enslaved Sophia to his body and will. He felt himself growing nauseous thinking of what he had done to her. He sat up once more in his chair, "Anything else I should know?"

"Nothing in particular. But, now that I think of it, it is fortuitous that we had this conversation, since your uncle penned another letter, this one addressed to you, which he forbade me open and instructed me to give to you only once your accounts were settled. It was my favor to him as a friend. At least you know a bit more about this situation in case she comes to mention therein."

James accepted the letter and examined his handwritten name on the front, thinking about the terrible things his uncle would have to say for him if he knew anything about how James had behaved toward Sophia. There was only one way to even begin to right his wrongs, "I suppose then that concludes business between us. However, given the information you have shared with me, Mr. Whitcomb, there is still one piece remaining to be settled. It regards the farm..."

George sank back in his chair and donned his glasses once more, "Are you absolutely certain you want to do this?"

"With all my heart."

James left Whitcomb, Morehouse, & Sedgeley fifteen minutes later than he had promised her, the clerk closing the door after him. He looked around the street for Sophia and saw her sitting on a bench next to the park, her head dropped and her eyes downcast. He jogged across the street to be at her side, sitting next to her, "What is the matter?"

Tears rolled down her cheeks, "It's nothing. Here are your guineas back."

"No keep them," he said, folding her hand back around the coins, moving closer to her.

"As payment for being your whore?" she sniffled.

His voice grew more serious, "Sophia, what happened?"

She looked up at him, her lip trembling, "I went to buy some shoes. I saw these pretty white ones in the window to match the dress you gave me. The shop mistress told me 'servants enter in the back'. I told her I was here to buy and she repeated it saying 'servants in the back, I don't care how you're dressed or who you sleep with' and then I— What are you doing?"

James had grabbed her wrist, his face red in anger, "Come with me."

"James, please don't do this—"

"Sophia, I'll hear none of it!" he marched to the marketplace with her in tow, heads turning to watch them, "Which one was it? Was it this place?"

Sophia saw the white shoes in the window and nodded quietly.

James turned to a small boy watching them and held up a silver coin, "Boy, go run to the livery and tell them to fetch my carriage and you can have this shilling when you get back."

The boy took off running without a word back down the street toward the stables.

James turned to Sophia, "Wait here. Don't move an inch."

She watched silently as James marched into the shop and slammed the door behind him. The shop mistress smiled, greeting him as a customer before her face fell and turned white in horror. Sophia watched the scene unfold in silence behind the glass as James yelled at her, pointing outside and leaning menacingly on the counter. Sophia watched as the woman began to sob and shake her head, throwing up her hands in defense. Sophia's fear turned slowly to pride. He was defending her honor. She thought that strange somehow, considering that he had stripped her of it to begin with. James stormed away from the counter as the shop mistress clasped her hands together, pleading with him, then he came back to dress her down once more. James stalked away from the counter and the now hysterical woman and threw open the door behind him, pointing his finger at her.

"And if you ever, EVER speak to her that way again, I will close down your pitiful shop and see you starve or be hanged!" he slammed the door shut and threw his gaze to the rest of the gathered crowd, ready for his next target. Those watching cast their eyes to the ground and either nodded to him or simply turned around and went about their business. The carriage drove up with the livery's coachmen and the little boy riding on the step before jumping down in front of James. Sophia watched his countenance change immediately as he leaned down with a smile and handed the boy the shilling, "There you are, young master, as promised."

"Thank you, sir!" the boy said, running down the street toward his home.

James helped her into the carriage and waited for her to move to the side and smooth down her dress. He leapt in next to her and shook the reins, the horse carrying them through town.

"You didn't have to do that," she said after a moment.

"Yes, I absolutely did. These people will respect you or suffer my wrath. And you should demand no less. Don't ever let yourself be treated that way."

"Why did you bother to defend me in the first place?"

"Because I—" he stopped himself and sighed, "So why did you decide on shoes?"

"For dancing. If you would be willing to play the violin again for me..."

"Fiddle," he said, smiling at her, "And nothing would make me happier. But you dance so well in bare feet, I think that we should forget the shoes, for now."

She gave him a weary smile as they drove on and leaned into him. After the horse had cleared the crossroads and their chaise turned toward the farm, James felt her shuddering and sniffling and looked down to see tears rolling across her face.

He tried to hold her closer, tucked under his arm, holding the reigns in front of them, "They won't bother you again; I promise. Please Sophia, I hate to see you cry."

"It's not about them, James," she said, straightening up and wiping her eyes dry, "Well, it's mostly not about them. You don't realize what you have done, have you?"

"No..." James said, cocking up an eyebrow.

"They will only fear me now. And not even fear me, but fear you. They will whisper about me just the same."

"All right, I made a bit of a scene. But I did it to make sure they won't bother you again. You say they won't and they'd whisper about you anyway, so what is the difference?"

"The difference," she sighed, the plain evidence weighing heavily against her words, "Is that you can't just force people to your will."

He looked down at her, his mind warring between guilt and arousal at the memory of their first meeting. Her eyes were cast down, her mind on that same moment. James pulled back on the reigns and stopped the horse in the road. He turned to the side and tilted her trembling chin up until her tear-stained green eyes met his, "Sophia, there isn't anything I can do or say to make up for what I did."

"James you don't—"

"Yes, I do. I deeply regret it. I don't deserve your forgiveness for how I treated you, and I only hope that I can prove myself to you," he cupped her face in his hand and kissed away a tear clinging to her cheek.

She turned to him as he drew back from her cheek and tilted her face toward him. He was drawn to her irresistibly and kissed her gently on the lips, feeling her deepen it as he brought his other hand up to cup her face. He drew away, looking at her flushed cheeks, her eyes filled with emotion.

He stroked his hand down her cheek, "There is much I need to tell you; but not until we are safely at home. The evening is no time for us to be out on the road."

The late summer sun was setting earlier and the chaise rolled up to the house just as it started to touch the horizon. Candlelight already flickered in the upstairs windows and the smell of seared lamb wafted out the door. Sophia smiled; glad to be back at the farmhouse and even happier that she wasn't coming home to dark windows and a lifeless kitchen. She couldn't even remember when the house had looked so alive to her. James jumped out of the carriage and offered his hand to Sophia. Leaning on him for balance, she picked up the hem of her skirt and stepped out of the carriage.

Katje came roaring out of the front door toward them, "Eet! Eet! Ik zal het paard behandelen."

Sophia startled back before James answered her in Dutch, "Dank u Katje."

"What was that about?" Sophia said quietly to James.

"Katje is not a house servant by nature; she's a farmer, and a bit of a mother hen. You'll have to excuse her sometimes. She was ordering us to go in and eat; that she would tend the horse."

Sophia giggled and waited for James to hold open the door to her home before making her way inside. The kitchen was aglow with candlelight. They sat down to plates already made up with racks of succulent lamb, sage and wild corn from the colonies, "I can't remember the last time I had lamb. Actually, I can't remember the last time I ate anything at all but my pitiful version of curds and whey or the cabbage soup I've been eating for years."

"Good," James said between bites, "You know I adore your body, but you could use a little fattening up, honestly. I don't how you maintain such beautiful curves in the first place with how little you claim to eat. It must be the cream you get from this farm."

"You won't catch me drinking it," Sophia said, "I'm certainly not going to skim off the top of what little I've been able to get out of the cows this year."




The Devil's Inheritance Ch. 05



James smiled at her. They were actually having a conversation, as if they had known each other their whole lives. He could get used to this. That thought started to unsettle him. Sophia was still such a new thing to him. He knew that he wanted her desperately, loved her, but balked at the idea of staying here at the farm. He thought about taking her to London to live but like their servants Katje and Aletta, her heart belonged here in the country. He diverted his mind away after some silence and changed the subject; "I think we spoke on the road about the violin?"

Sophia's eyes lit up again as she took her last bite, "And where shall we enjoy our music tonight?"

"I think that upstairs is still a safe bet," he said with a wicked grin, "Take your hair down. I love seeing your curls bounce around when you dance."

She returned his look, biting her lip, before getting up from the table and walking toward the stairs, looking back over her shoulder to make sure James was following her, before removing her cap and shaking the springs of her hair free, as they cascaded down her back. She knew that he didn't like seeing just her curls bounce. Just two weeks ago she would have never found herself desiring him or flirting with him, but everything seemed different now. Out of his line of sight she felt her brow wrinkle, contemplating her feelings. She knew in her heart of hearts she wasn't supposed to feel anything for him and that the first meeting they had should be proof enough to not trust him, but she felt her defenses against him slowly lowering, just enough to be comfortable trusting that he wouldn't hurt her again.

She entered the bedroom, already awash in candlelight and felt the heat rising off of the wax, beckoning her to remove her dress and stays. She resisted and stayed put on the other side of the room, observing James as he removed his frock and hung it on the knob of the wardrobe. He walked over to the dresser and took the violin out of its case, tuning it carefully before putting it up on his shoulder, "Any requests, my lady?"

"Do you know Woolly and Georgey?"

"No."

"What about Bloomsberry Market?"

"I regret I don't quite have Uncle David's repertoire. Did he play often for you?"

"Almost every night. But most nights he played the slower pieces because he... well he got tired and sick, some times. That's why I'm so happy you can play the faster dances."

"I try."

"You're very good, James. Really," she thought a moment, trying to remember a more popular song, "Can you play Portsmouth?"

He lifted the bow and drew out the first long note before running his fingers up and down the frets. Sophia smiled and bounced up and down before waiting for the measure to curtsy. He faced her as she spun around in the reel, holding her hand out toward James as though he were completing the other moves of the dance.

James watched her twirl around him, her skirts billowing out before spinning back around her hips. He wished that he could just put the instrument down to dance with her as she came back around, curtsying to him again before beginning another reel.

She turned, but this time the room turned faster than her. Sophia saw the dresser spin in front of her and the candles make a trail upward in her vision as she tried to catch her breath and balance all at once. A wave of nausea enveloped her and she fell toward the dresser, putting her hand out to catch herself. The ring in her ears almost drowned out James calling her name. The queasiness grew and she felt her vision start to go dark.

"Sophia!" he rushed over to her, haphazardly putting violin and bow on the dresser and caught her by the arm as she started to fall. He swept her up into his arms and worked his hand under her skirt as he walked quickly over to the bed, setting her down and taking her dress off over her head, "Don't worry, we'll get that contraption off of you. Damn that ridiculous stay... Sophia, can you hear me?"

"James?" she said weakly. Her skin felt clammy and the room still spun around, threatening to empty the supper from her stomach. Closing her eyes made it worse so she focused just on James's hand held against her stomach as his fingers worked fast to loosen the strings.

"Hang on. I'm trying to get you out of the stay. You started to faint," he cursed himself for making her wear that thing in the heat of August.

"I'm all right. I just was dizzy is all," she said as she felt him pull the hard fabric up off her abdomen. Her arms rose up again and she felt the cooling night air hit her chemise. Sophia took in a long breath, still feeling dizzy, "I'll be fine."

"Lie down," he said, lifting her legs up onto the bed. He pulled the pillows out to prop her up before standing to walk over to the other side of the bed and lie beside her. He removed his waistcoat to give himself more leverage and sat up next to her, stroking her forehead.

Sophia closed her eyes as the wave of nausea finally passed. "Trust me," she said quietly, "it had nothing to do with your playing."

James looked down at her to see her smile and knew that she would be all right. He laughed and carefully leaned down to kiss her cheek, relieved. Sophia tentatively brought her hand up to his face and leaned toward his lips, initiating a kiss.

They held each other close, Sophia fumbling with the placket of his breeches, as they lay on their side face to face. She untied the strings quickly, James letting her innocently work to free him. Her hands felt his flesh grow hard and hot under the fabric as she opened the placket and lifted his shirt out, grasping and pulling upward until her hands finally met bare skin. She traced shaking fingers downward until they met the curls of hair, and the thick silky flesh pulsing under her fingertips.

He let out a sigh against her lips, moving a hand down from her face to lift upward and squeeze a breast in his hand, pinching his fingers around the nipple. Sophia moaned around his invading tongue as she felt him lift up her waist and bottom, pushing the thin silk of her chemise up over the curve of her hips before lifting it over her arms quickly, feeling her let go of his cock with a dull thud against his stomach, allowing him to cast it to the floor.

Sophia's hands immediately returned to him and began to push the waist of his breeches downward before James took over and removed them, then pulled his shirt off, tossing both casually aside. He returned to her skin, electric and flushed, each exploring the hard lines and curves of the other's form. James looked deep into her eyes, holding her by the small of her back and curving his hand over the cheek of her ass, as his lips possessed hers once more.

He brought her leg around and over his, opening her sex to him. Sophia held his cock outward and started guiding it forward to where both of them needed him to be. With a slight thrust James entered Sophia, holding her from underneath as he slowly filled her. His eyes, dark gray with emotion, never left her gaze. He watched hers glint emerald green in the candlelight, as her lips remained partly open, panting in sensation and the intensity of his attention riveted only to Sophia.

James stilled himself within her, running his hand across her face as she finally broke her concentration on his face and sighed, her eyes closing, her channel fluttering around him as it relaxed around his shaft. He moved his hips forward pushing into contact with her as she held onto his shoulders, captured fully in his arms. Their movements were slight but powerful, every muscle and fiber alive. He was not all the way inside of her, but this position felt far more intimate; comforting and secure as he cradled her in his arms. He felt her push toward him, forcing him deeper inside of her. James wanted more and as their bodies lay twined together could sense her growing need for release.

Their lips made contact once more as James rolled Sophia under him, his body never separating from hers. She brought her legs up around his waist, hissing through her teeth as he sunk into her to the hilt. His finger reached forward to brush through the folds of her crease and rising up against her bud. He marveled at how slight a movement of his fingers could make her entire body arch up to him.

She moved her hands down and pushed against his buttocks, angling him even deeper, her feet resting on the back of his knees as he took her in long powerful strokes. He steadied himself for a moment as the waves of her orgasm began, experiencing her spasms around his flesh, drinking in her cries and wincing as her fingernails dug downward through the flesh of his lower back.

Overwhelmed, he began to move once more as she ended her crest, her thighs twitching around him as he made his final thrusts. He looked down at her flushed and heaving body then back up into her eyes before his rolled back, his neck craning back as he slammed into her one last time.

Sophia felt him spurt hot and deep of her, then blanched and looked up at him in shock at the words he had called out. He held her against him, gasping for air, and then looked down into her wide eyes before repeating in a steady voice what he had cried out to her at the height of pleasure, "I love you."

She could only stare up at him, "What?"

He moved his hand to her face and looked down at her, propped up on his elbow so he didn't crush her, "Sophia, I love you..."

"James..."

"...I know I have to earn your love..."

"...you can't..."

"...but I beg of you to give me the chance..."

"...you can't love me if you own me."

"...let me prove myself to you..."

"No!" she said, tears stinging her eyes as she fruitlessly pushed at his chest with her fists, struggling for him to release her. He groaned as he suddenly withdrew from her to let her roll away from him. He heard her sobbing, a knot forming in his chest.

"Sophia..."

She felt him come up behind her, holding her around the waist, his chin resting on her shoulder, "Please James, you don't love me. I am just a toy and possession for you. Probably one of many—"

"No," he leaned his forehead onto her back, "There is no one else. There hasn't been since I first laid eyes on you that day."

Sophia only shuddered again, her body heaving forward as she openly wept, her hands coming to her face. James shut his eyes and cursed himself for reminding her of their first meeting, at the same time as he felt his groin twitch in recollection. He cursed himself again. How could he have been so stupid?

"I'm sorry Sophia. Please, I'm so sorry. Please forgive me," he whispered, fighting back the lump in his throat as he said the words, "Please..."

Exhausted, Sophia stopped crying. She felt him stroke her forehead and hair, calming her down. Her breathing came in shudders, "James, you can't love me if you own me. While you own me, how can you ever expect me to say that I love you back with any shred of honesty?"

James felt a small glimmer of hope at her words. Was there a possibility that she could return his feelings? He kissed her on the temple, ready to wait until morning for her to calm down. If he told her tonight what he was holding back from saying, then there was a chance he may lose her forever. He couldn't risk that, "Just sleep, my love. I don't expect you to return my feelings right now. Just know that they are real and that I will give you proof of it soon enough. All will be revealed in the morning."

He rocked her back and forth, stroking her arm as her body stopped recoiling from him. James trailed his hand up and down her arm as she started to nod off. She sniffled once more, and then fell limp into sleep.

James woke up with the sun and a sore lower back from where Sophia had dug her nails into his flesh. He rose out of bed to use the chamber pot and caught sight of his jacket on the floor. In the inner pocket lay the final letter from Uncle David. He looked over once at Sophia, then back at his name scrawled across the front.

She had taken care of the old man. Through his famous melancholy and drinking, his forbidden affairs. James thought back to when he had stayed in this house as a boy, learning from his uncle on how to succeed as a gentleman, and the cursing fight the last time he had seen David Farthing alive. He broke the wax seal and carefully unfolded the paper to look at the date. April 13, 1711. Over three years ago.

My dear nephew James,

I entrust that my dear friend Mr. Whitcomb has given you this letter as instructed, now that I am dead. If he has, then I would like to say that I regret we were unable to amend our relationship in life. I only hope that you can look upon me better now that I am gone.

The contents of this letter must be guarded closely. It is only in the safety of death that I can reveal their contents. Working at my farm is a woman, Ms. Sophia Latwicke, first born natural daughter of the Duke of Kent and raised in the manner of her birth until age nine, when she was abandoned by the Duke in an effort to stay in the good graces of Queen Anne's Jacobite handlers.

While I have entitled you with my tenant properties in Ashford, I plan to find a legal way to leave the farm to her. You will like her. The two of you are not so different as you may first think. Both of you had parents whom were dead before you could know them, and both of you were sacrificed by your remaining parent in pursuit of ambition...

Sophia opened one eye as James had stirred and saw him with a letter in his hand. She felt something twist inside of her. All this time that he had been here at the farm romancing her, she had forgotten to look for the letter that David had written entailing her the land. It was too late now. She lay perfectly still, paralyzed as he read on.

...While I certainly cannot undo the damage done to you by my sister's neglect of your person James, do not wallow in that pain and waste your life away, flitting from one woman to the next until you die of Spanish sickness or wind up in debtor's prison. Abandon your rakish ways.

I know your preferences for a partner almost as well as I know my own. God knows I had enough demonstrations of your baser desires in my household before our unfortunate falling out. I ask you to consider this woman, Sophia Latwicke de Grey. She has a kind and gentle heart and would make you a good wife. My last wish is that you, James, would treasure her and keep her well. Love for her may not come to you at first, but can develop over time...

James lowered the letter and looked back at the woman with whom he had shared his bed and bared his soul. His jaw clenched. She was bait for him. His uncle reached beyond the grave to rein him in even in death, knowing that he wouldn't be able to resist Sophia. James felt as though he'd been tricked, both of them pawns in his uncle's willful game to secure the farm and at last produce heirs to tie to the land.

Sophia watched his knuckles turn white and his teeth set on edge as he read the letter, and then shut her eyes when he looked up. She felt the same nausea begin to well up again as it had last night. Even from across the room with her eyes closed she could sense his anger rise within him. She would be cast out and ruined now, her heart cruelly undone, a village pariah. Her gorge started to rise and she knew she couldn't hold it back this time.

James watched as she flew out of bed and ran past him to the pot, kneeling down before heaving suddenly into the bowl. He shoved the letter back into his jacket pocket and turned to hold her hair back as she sputtered and gasped for air, "What's the matter?"

"I think," Sophia said between breaths, "it was last night's dinner..."

He stood up and walked over to the window. Sophia blanched, knowing that he was on the verge of saying something. She could feel it, her upper lip tightening. James drew inward. His uncle had taken in this woman, knowing full well that she would be too alluring for James. He couldn't stay here. He refused to play his part in his uncle's scheme to tie him down to Ashford, "I must go back to London."

Sophia's heart raced. He wasn't casting her out? Maybe she had been mistaken and he hadn't found David's letter. Perhaps he did love her. The notion sent a wellspring of unexpected and somewhat unwanted hope through her. She teetered on edge, waiting for his next words, "Back to London? But why—"

"I need to leave," he said, raising his voice, "Now!"

She felt an emptiness start to grow inside her, "What about what you said last night?"

The words cut through him like a knife. He closed his eyes, "Sophia..."

She backed away from him, toward the bed, sitting on his side of it with her ankles crossed. What an enticing picture she made. His uncle had chosen well. He felt his anger at him start to rise again, unwilling to turn it on her.

Without any more words, he put on his breeches and flung his shirt over his head. A paper floated out of his waistcoat pocket to the ground unseen by him. Sophia watched as he hurried about the room, quickly grabbing his personal effects, "James..."

He ignored Sophia, his teeth clenched as he grabbed his hat and walked through the bedroom door. She heard his feet pad down the stairs and wrapped the bed sheet around her, intent on following him down. She saw the paper laying on the ground and read down the text of a letter to the barrister.

..to bequeath my farm at Ashford to Ms. Sophia Latwicke de Grey...

Why would David be foolish enough to use her birth name? Did James think that she had known of the letter and was lying to him this whole time to leverage her way back into the society that had cast her out? She dropped the letter and ran after him to explain. He had put on his boots and was already walking outside as Sophia stood on the threshold, "James..."

He turned to look once at her his chest aching. Stop, you fool, the voice within him said. Take her back into the house. Love her..., the voice inside him said before it switched the voice of his uncle, ...marry her.

"Please don't go," tears ran down her face as she watched him quickly hitch together the carriage and fling open the gate, ignoring her cries.

"James!" she screamed. Impossible words hung back from her lips; please don't go. I love you. She collapsed in the doorway, sobbing.

He hopped into the seat of his chaise, unable to bear her sobs, tears stinging his eyes and cracked the whip. With a start he was off, hearing the feet of his horse meeting the ground in rhythm. Normally he would hear them drumming out the syllables of her name. But this time there was only one thing he could hear in their gait; Coward... you coward... you coward...

* * *

Thank you everyone for your support and feedback! Look forward to the conclusion of this story, coming soon. I hope you've enjoyed this so far, and please vote or leave a comment. ~Sushi Taco



The Devil's Inheritance Ch. 06



Rain finally broke the dry spell of late August but had only made the heat worse. James walked through the streets of London, trying once again as he had every day this past fortnight to forget about her. His desperation to be back in the city had stopped making sense. The nights smelled like burning mitre and the days smelled like hundreds of moving sweating bodies. The waste water of the Thames cloyingly hung in the humid air.

His mind drifted back to Sophia and the countryside; of making love to her in the millpond and eating fresh picked berries off her naked body. He cursed himself again. He needed to forget her and leave her to her piece of land. Whitcomb had a courier deliver to him the final deed for the farm, but he didn't dare go back to tell her. Instead he'd impotently sent her money every week, putting off telling her the truth or facing her ever again.

He thought about the smell of the fresh earth on the road to the farm, the quiet rustle of the ash trees lining the pond, and the clover scent of her hair. He stopped in his tracks. He needed a woman to forget about her. This wasn't the first love affair that had ended in his life and each time he would return for a day or two to the Rose Tavern and all would be well.

His heels turned on their own and started walking toward Drury Lane, picking up pace until they reached the gate of the Rose. Already he could see plump prostitutes wandering in and out on the arms of men of every station. He walked up to the door when a frizzy haired brunette in a tattered red gown answered.

"Wha' you doin' 'round 'ere? Thought you couldn't ge' it up for a real woman no more," she said, chewing on the words and flashing a shoulder.

"Kindly shut your mouth, Evelyn," James said to her, "Your breath smells like other men's cocks."

Her mouth gaped wide open before she closed it again. A relatively prim woman with a streak of gray interrupting her auburn hair came up behind the insulted doxy, "Well, if it isn't James Gardiner. I didn't think you would come back to us."

"Madame Brown," James said, removing his hat, "It's been too long. Might I come in?"

She pushed Evelyn aside and opened the door. James stepped in to raucous noise at the bar and a blur of red velvet curtains and uplifted breasts, rouged cheeks and painted-on beauty patches. The entire place smelled like gin and sex covered up with the cloying scents of lavender, roses and vanilla. Normally this would have been enough to excite him but he felt nothing. Several drinks would cure that.

He grabbed a pint of ale and listened to Madame Brown titter away with London gossip before he started growing impatient. There was a time when James would to listen to the Madame through several rounds, the woman occasionally divulging something important about a potential business contact that James could use to his advantage. Now, he simply could care less. He set down the empty pint and ordered another.

"I want to see your very best girl. You know the one," he said, looking at her as she floundered for a moment, "Now!"

Madame Brown looked at him with a half smile, "You asked for this a month ago if I remember and then we didn't see you again. You're not going to waste my girl's time again, are you? Last time you took her out to buy a dress and—"

"No. This time it's straight to business," he said setting down the emptied second round, "Where is she?"

Madame Brown pulled aside a youthful, bare-chested young man with kohl lightly riming his eyes, "Charles, fetch Julia, would you?"

"Right away, mum."

Madame Brown turned back toward James who was drinking half way into round three, "Julia was none too happy about last time you saw her. Five guineas. In advance."

James clenched his teeth and fished around in his pocket for the coins before slamming them down on the table in front of her, "As I said; straight to business."

"No refunds," she said, biting down on the side of the first coin, "And if you've really gone sly on us as she suspected last time, Charles would be more than happy to—"

"No. Julia will do. Thank you," he set down the empty third pint and watched her appear at the top of the stairs, delicate dyed blonde curls framing a heart shaped face with an upturned nose. She wore a blue and turquoise silk robe. James looked up at her. Before Sophia, he had rutted on this woman many times. Now all he could do was compare her. Her smile was forced and imperious; not sweet and shy like Sophia's. Her hair was too well coifed; not wild bunches of curls he could get lost in, like Sophia's. Her eyes... James tried to snap himself out of it. This was purely business. He'd never be able to have his life back the way it was if he didn't put Sophia out of his head, and a quick round with Julia was the perfect solution. He ordered a shot of gin and tossed it back quickly.

James walked up the stairs, grabbing her roughly by the wrist, "Why it's Jamie, returned to us! My, and aren't you in a hurry for what will probably be a whole lot of nothing again..." she said as he led her down the hall to an empty room, not saying a word. He slammed the door behind them; drowning out most of the pub noise downstairs and the sound of muffled fornication in the rooms upstairs. It did nothing to drown out visions of Sophia dancing in their room to the sound of the violin.

"Quiet. Get on the bed."

Julia walked backward seductively and lay on the pillows, her knees spread out to reveal the cream white insides of her thighs ending in the shorn and naked pink lips of her sex, "So something quick then? Are you looking to burn down a guinea a minute?"

"Just be silent," he snapped, "Remove your clothes."

As Julia complied as the words triggered James's memory. Julia slipped off her robe, revealing her sumptuously curved naked body only interrupted by white heeled shoes and silk stockings climbing up to her thighs. James thought back to that first conversation past initial introduction he'd made with Sophia. Though he'd behaved like a beast toward her, the thought of being inside of her again powerfully hardened him momentarily. But with one look at Julia, he was slowly softening once more. He had to take drastic action. James quickly undid the placket of his breeches and lunged over her, hearing her breath catch as he lay astride of her suddenly.

He stared at her, inches from her face. She was open to him, waiting. James looked down at her once more and leapt away cursing himself, pacing the room and running his hands through his hair.

"God's wounds... twice, now?!"

James bellowed up at the ceiling above him, continuing to pace drunkenly as he fixed his pants shut once more.

"If I didn't know better Jamie, I'd say you're in love," Julia said calmly, "It's almost cute."

"Shut up, you silly strumpet. Yes, I'm in love! Desperately. Are you happy? I can't get her out of my mind," he paced again, looking up at the ceiling, "I need to be rid of her."

"Well... what does she need?" Julia said, standing up.

He froze. It was the one thing he'd been avoiding this entire time. He felt sick, and not just from a stomach full of ale and gin. Sophia most likely hated him now, if she ever cared about him to begin with. He wasn't sure which possibility he disliked more: that she was relieved to be rid of him or that he had broken her heart by leaving. James turned back to Julia, "Lie back down again."

Julia shrugged, "All right, but I don't think it will— Hey! What are you doing?"

James silently removed one of her shoes and held up her stocking-covered foot to the palm of his hand, carefully examining it against his hand.

"James, I don't do feet. Talk to Annabelle if—"

"Will you please be quiet? I'm trying to see something here," Her feet were just a little too short, but they would do, "You're coming with me today."

"Clothes modeling? I'm not staying out for hours on your paltry three shillings, again. That was just a favor last time, because I thought I would get to have a go at that beautiful cock of yours later on. And besides, rainy days are the best draw for me."

"I'll pay you a guinea an hour."

Julia's mouth turned up, "I think we have ourselves a deal."

Sophia woke up and looked out the window at the rain, listening to it smack against the roof in waves. The millpond's surface was broken into pieces by the fat drops of rain. She lay in bed in her chemise and listened to Katje bustling downstairs, cooking and talking to Aletta in Dutch. She felt like a stranger in her own house, unaccustomed to being waited on. Here she sat on the bed in her long chemise, wrapped in David Farthing's old cream-colored silk robe. Katje had insisted upon it, but Sophia was bored to death and needed something to take her mind off of James.

She hopped off the bed and instantly felt dizzy, a wave of nausea come up again. She had been sick intermittently for almost a month and now nearly every day this week and wondered when it was going to let up. She attributed it to the new array of food Katje was subjecting her to, and her growing melancholy about James. Still, she walked over calmly now to the chamber pot and let loose the emptiness filling her stomach.

She felt better. Katje bustled into the room just as Sophia was wiping her mouth off with a handkerchief and set down a tray of berries and cream before walking over to Sophia and fixing her hair.

"What... Katje, what are you doing?"

"You have guest downstairs."

James? Her heart flew into her chest, "Is it him?"

Katje sighed and shook her head before muttering something foreign, frustrated and slightly angry under her breath, "But I think that Master James send him."

Sophia bolted downstairs and saw a young man with red hair and a stack of white boxes next to him. He had removed his coat and hat near the door and had knelt down to talk to little outgoing Aletta. He looked up at Sophia and stood to bow slightly.

"You are Miss Sophia Latwicke?"

Sophia curtsied to greet him, "Can I help you?"

"Aaron Ravenscroft, apprentice to the Shudalls."

"Should I know..." Sophia trailed off looking at him quizzically.

"...the premier tailoring house on Saville Row?" he paused and quickly cleared his throat, "I have been sent by a... Mr. James Gardiner... to deliver these for you. Along with this note."

Sophia clutched the note, dumbfounded. She watched as he wiped off the wet boxes with a cloth and opened each of them, starting with the small square package on top of the pile which Aletta was examining closely

"It's presents for you! Miss Sophia, can I help open them?"

"Of course you can, Aletta. Bring it here."

Aletta walked forward, the box filling her small thin arms, as Sophia removed the cover. Inside was a pair of white shoes. He had remembered what she had wanted to have from that last day they spent together before he left for London. She looked at her first name in his handwriting, so similar to Mr. Farthing's, and cracked the wax seal bearing his initials. Only two words appeared on the paper.

"Forgive me."

Sophia held it close to her as Ravenscroft and Aletta unwrapped the four remaining long flat boxes. She drifted away in thought, swept back to their last night together, remembering the exact moment when he confessed that he loved her. She felt warmth suddenly low in her belly as she was taken back to when he lay with her, skin on skin, deep within her. How afraid she was to return those feelings to him...

"Miss?" the young man said, interrupting her reverie and indicating the opened parcels.

Sophia knelt down to look at the dresses spread out before her, thin paper delicately framing each one. Here was a rich burgundy silk sack back gown, with white lace and a matching chemise, followed by a pistachio and cream nightdress with a white long-sleeved nightgown. She peeled back the paper of the third and fourth boxes to find a brilliant sapphire blue gown in one and a light golden one that matched her hair in the last box. She stood backed away from the boxes, her face white as a sheet and dizzy.

Aletta was jumping up and down as though it were Christmas morning, "Oh, Miss Sophia, they are so beautiful! Did Master James have these made for you?"

The tailor's apprentice straightened up again, "Mr. Gardiner told me to tell you that these are only the first four."

Sophia blanched, "The first four?"

"He had us put a rush on them. The remaining eight gowns are still being tailored."

"And you came all this way..."

"Mr. Gardiner insisted."

She started to feel dizzy again for a moment, "Can you please wait for me to write a letter in return?"

Ravenscroft smiled, "I would be very happy to, honestly. Would you mind if I sat by the fire and took some tea? It's quite a drive back to London."

"It won't be a long letter, but please do," Sophia went to David's old writing desk and wrote out four words. She calligraphied James's name across the front and sealed the back before handing it to the tailor's apprentice.

It had mercifully stopped raining, the first time in over a week. James dropped two coins in the apprentice's hand for his service and information and shut the door of his Westminster townhouse behind him, keeping out the humid evening noise of the streets. It was from her. His hands shook and his heart raced as he examined the closure. It was his uncle's seal, but Sophia had drawn a rough 'S' with the end of a quill through the red wax, marking it as her own. He smiled, his pulse drumming in his ear as he opened the letter and read its brief contents.

"Only if you return."

Sophia would forgive him if he came back. The thought brought joy and terror to him all at once. He needed her by his side, and her infectious charm and love for the countryside had spread now to his view of the city. There was so much he needed to be here in the city. He was a financier of transport, a gentleman, a man to see and be seen, a climber into the society forbidden to his farming forbearers.

He looked at her letter again, his uncle's seal standing out. James was no pawn. This game that Uncle David had played with both their lives was a cruel joke; he had certainly predicted that James would need to have her, but David hadn't predicted that James would fall in love with her. He was a self-made man, not consigned to the lot of a wealthy yeoman farmer as his family had been, and intended for his eventual heir to climb even higher than he.

But this sweet country girl had spun him about. James had intended on marrying some penniless lesser noblewoman in a marriage a la mode for heirs one day after he'd finished having his pleasure with London. Now he found himself wondering what the point of all of his struggles truly were.

When he took a hard look at himself his social climbing seemed pithy and unimportant in the face of true happiness. He pictured her as she had whirled about in the bedroom, dancing to the sound of the violin as he played for her. She was so unconsciously innocent, able to make him see a more beautiful and perfect world through her emerald eyes.

He closed his eyes and felt his cock harden suddenly as he envisioned his hands on her hips, watching her writhe above him, her breasts riding high as she took him deep inside her body. Her innocence only held up to a point. He knew the ways to unlock her passion. James made his way upstairs and undressed for bed, placing her letter on the nightstand.

He writhed and twisted under the sheets, blood still pooling in his groin and his mind alive with visions of Sophia's creamy naked flesh. He pictured her again, her abdomen snaking in slow circles as he stared up at her. His hands moved down his thighs into the position of how he held her hips when she rode atop his body and thrust his groin slightly into the air. His fingers traveled inward, tracing the ridge of flesh upward and encircling the head with his hand, pulling down hard.

James sucked in air through his teeth, picturing her graceful glide over him, the smooth curves of skin and the hardened points of her breasts under a halo of flaxen hair. He gripped his shaft, pulling up and descending, cradling his scrotum with his left hand. His mind focused on that perfect velvet cavern that fit tight around him. He could see the look of desire and surrender in her eyes each time he entered her.

His mind trailed to the last time they had made love, of pausing as she came just to feel the extraordinary spasms of her flesh beneath his, held fast against his body as her tremors rolled through her. His thumb came up over the head and he could feel himself getting close. Her voice rang through his subconscious: return to me James, return to me...

A rushing heat shot through him, making him groan as he came. His back arched as a rope of his seed exited quickly, followed by a few spurted drops as his eyes remained shut. He cleaned up and looked to the nightstand where the open letter lay.

"Only if you return."

He blew out the candle and laid in the dark, the cold emptiness of the pillow next to him his only companion. He reached across the sheet for the woman he knew wasn't there, "Sophia..."

"James..."

She at last stilled her damp finger on her pulsing bud, feeling her thighs twitch as she lay in bed gasping. A sheen of sweat clung to her forehead as her body recovered and waited in vain to feel his arms encircle and hold her. It was never the same. Her body needed him; her heart needed him.

She wanted to sit across the table from him laughing and talking, ride with him through the countryside, dance for him as he played the violin and feel the warmth of his arms around her as she slept. It wasn't just the sex. She loved him. Against all odds, she had fallen in love with him. But she could never tell him this while he owned her. It was compulsory if she did that, not genuine. She didn't want him to have to guess whether she meant it or not. She wanted him to know it.

Sophia smoothed down her new silk nightgown and turned on her side, holding one of the pillows close to her chest. She shut her eyes and drifted off to sleep, lulled by the chirp of frogs after the rain. When she awoke, her stomach was on fire. Dizzily, she pursed her lips together and made a beeline for the chamber pot, holding her hair back as she emptied the contents of her stomach.

This was only happening in the mornings. Her thoughts took her back to the orphanage when she was twelve and had just gotten her courses, watching pretty, ginger-haired Gwenny Millhouse wave goodbye to the younger girls when she was sent to work in the household of a ship builder in Ramsgate. She only lasted three weeks before being dismissed and sent back to the orphanage. Not long after, she began getting sick in the mornings, asking Sophia and the others to not tell the head mistress. Sophia had remained silent, but it became apparent very quickly that Gwenny was pregnant, her belly swelling a few months later. They had sent her to another home for girls in faraway Cornwall and she was never seen nor heard from again.

Sophia turned white with fear. When had she last had her courses? She tried to count back the weeks. Everything had happened so quickly for her; first the death of poor Mr. Farthing, then James sweeping into her life and turning it upside down. Ice crawled up her back. She had forgotten completely. Counting back she was supposed to have had her courses over three weeks ago, before James had shown up the second time and surprised her in the millpond. That meant...

She looked down at her belly and pressed her hand lightly just under her navel. Her mind flashed back to the iron candelabra she had planned to use to end him, how he had reduced her to a quivering mass of nerves at just the sight of his form rising off the bed to stalk across the room and possess her where she stood. She remembered lying in afterglow beside James the night he had initiated her into pleasure, his fingers resting on her womb as she had brought her hand to meet his, interlacing their fingers over her as they drifted to sleep.




The Devil's Inheritance Ch. 06



"How is it you can make me feel this way?"

Sophia burst into tears, loud sobs, as she cradled her belly and their child within. The spark of life had started within her late that night. She was certain of it. Now she feared his return. Would he cast her out, as poor Gwenny had been turned out, when she was discovered? She looked down again and caressed her womb. Whatever James thought about it, this child was hers and she would protect it with her life. She wouldn't tell him, if she ever got the chance to tell him in the first place. There was the possibility that she would never see him again.

The uncertainty and the thought of being separated from him forever made her nauseous again, and she doubled over in front of the chamber pot, not hearing the door creak open lightly behind her. She wiped off the edges of her mouth and spit the last remaining bile into the ceramic pot before turning around to see Katje staring at her. The woman's brow was crinkled with worry and she was wringing her hands.

"You would like ontbijt this morning?" she said slowly, using the Dutch word for 'breakfast'. Sophia had asked her to start teaching her some words in Dutch in exchange for correcting her English.

"'Would you like' and yes, thank you, Katje. Something very light, if you don't mind," she said wiping a tear away from her face. Katje was looking around Sophia to the bile in the chamber pot and back at Sophia, who was still clutching her womb.   Katje looked at her quizzically again and came closer, "Miss Sophia... Do you... do you have baby inside?"

Sophia burst into tears and crumpled at the base of the dresser as Katje rushed over to her.

"Oh Miss, do not worry. You will be fine. I had baby three times, and I just fine. You will see," she said stroking Sophia's hair.

"Please don't tell him. Please," Sophia said in tears, "James can't know about this."

"But Master James love you. Trust me, I know. I see many, many women come and go. But you Miss Sophia, you are different. You he think about all the time."

"Please Katje, just promise me!"

"I not tell. I promise," she sighed and shook her head, "He should be with you right now, not in that vreselijk city."

The start of September brought with it a cold snap once the rains subsided. James moved quickly through the streets, past the drunks and apple carts, peddlers and beggars, making his way to the Rose Tavern. He rapped on the door until Madame Brown appeared.

"I think we've had quite enough of your bullshit for one month, Mr. Gardiner."

"Where is Julia?"

"She's preparing to meet with a client. A real client. I'm not about to disturb her for the likes of you."

"Mrs. Brown, just let him in for God's sake," Julia said, appearing behind the red-clad woman in a translucent light blue chemise, "He won't be long."

James muscled past the Madame, tipping his hat and giving her an oily smile as he wandered upstairs after Julia. She shut the door behind her, "All right, talk. But talk fast, James. I'm in the middle of getting ready. I have a date with the Duke of Somerset tonight," she said over her shoulder.

"But he's so old..."

"And so rich, darling. He's taking me to the theatre like a proper courtesan, not some two penny whore," she sucked her cheeks together and examined them in the mirror, "So what sins have you come to confess, my child?"

Julia smoothed rouge over her cheeks in the mirror as James kept his eyes on her reflected face instead of letting them drift down to her barely clothed round ass. Not two months ago, he would have simply told Julia her date was cancelled and spent the day with her legs wrapped around his hips. Now the idea didn't so much repulse him, as it just simply did nothing for him. James sighed, "She wants me to come back."

"So go back, then."

"It's not that simple, for reasons I told you about last week," he said, sitting on the edge of her lush bed, watching her prepare herself for another man.

"I really think your uncle was just trying to help make a match for you. But if you can't handle that, then screw what your uncle wants. Just because you go back doesn't mean you have to marry her like he wanted. You're James Gardiner. You live life on your own terms. Ask her to be your mistress."

"And leave London? She won't leave the farm, that's for sure."

She brushed white powder over her face, "James, I don't understand what makes you want to stay here so badly. You hate London anyway. You always have."

"What? That's nonsense! I love London."

She snapped her powder shut and looked back at him, "No man gambles, drinks and fucks the way you do if they aren't looking for some kind of escape."

He folded his arms, his mouth dry and partly open in defensive shock.

"Trust me," she said turning back and running her charcoal stick over the candle before blowing on it, "I know men. You came here to escape your family, and you hate it here. The only reason you are here is because it's not there. Well now you have something there that's worth pursuing and you're just afraid is all. Now, stop staring at me like a fish and talk. I can't go on babbling at you when I'm doing my eyes."

He sat for a moment staring at her in indignation, "What do you mean when you say 'gambles, drinks and fucks' like I do?"

"Busy with my right eyelid, dear; answer your own damn question," she said dismissively.

He sat for a minute to think about everything she had just said. London held no sway over him since he returned. He had the sneaking feeling since he came back that his life here was meaningless, and was already convinced that a life with out her was even worse. He thought back trying to even remember the last six years of his life here and the nights all seemed a blur of whores, cards and gin, "Julia, I think you may be right."

"Of course I'm right."

"I have my home here, though."

"How much are you paying for it?"

"Fifty a year."

"Ha! You're being robbed," she said adding the last bit of kohl to her left eye.

He wrinkled his brow at her, "So, you think I should just give up all my holdings here and live in the country?"

"No, you idiot, keep your over-priced townhouse and visit the city on business when you need to. And there usually isn't anything that can't be done from a country estate. Ask any lord or gentleman in London."

James stood up, "I should be going then. You have a guest coming."

"Yes! Go! Be happy, damn you," she said, putting on a set of diamond chandelier earrings, "Oh and James..."

"Yes, Julia?"

"Confession isn't free."

He smiled and dropped two guineas on the table, "Thank you, Julia."

James walked out of the Rose Tavern, a broad smile on his face. He hailed a coach and rode home, ready to spend his last night without Sophia, preparing for his journey to Ashford and back to her.

Sophia woke up late and started walking toward the chamber pot, expecting to throw up as she had every morning. It was becoming routine. Today was no exception, and it seemed to be getting worse every passing day. She cursed herself for writing the note for James to come back. She doubted that he would. He had most likely gone back to his former life and, except for a gift-giving twinge of guilt and a weekly allowance to pay her and Katje for the upkeep on the farm, would never think about Sophia again.

She wiped the corners of her mouth and looked down, holding her womb once more. Now there was now something that mattered far more. Even if she never saw him again, James had given her a greater purpose: being the best mother she could possibly be for their child. Every decision she had to make from here on out was for both of them.

Smoothing her hand over her tender breasts and down to the skin below her navel, she smiled down at the infinitesimal outward curve of her usually flat stomach. Sophia started slowly humming the songs his father would play, hoping the baby could hear her. She wondered what she would look like this coming spring when she was showing, her belly swollen with new life.

Katje knocked on the door, "Miss Sophia?"

"Come in Katje."

"Oh, you were singing to the baby?" she said smiling as she carried in the breakfast tray bearing a bowl full of apples, the only food that Sophia could stomach right now.

"Shh... Yes. I was. Do you think he can hear me?"

"Of course he can! Izaak and I would always sing to the kinderen."

Sophia nodded, giving her a rueful smile, thinking of this woman's pain in losing her beloved husband and sons. Katje shook her head and muttered under her breath again. Sophia wrinkled her brow, "Katje is there something I'm doing wrong?"

"No, no. It's not you. I just upset. He should be here!"

Sophia felt her chest close in and thought about him. Even if she were his mistress he'd grow tired of her. Then where would she and her child be? She remembered the stories of several of the orphan girls she came of age with; tales of knowing their mothers barely, when their fathers long since abandoned them to the streets. Of mothers turned to prostitution to feed their babies, and families ripped apart. Her heart said that he would never do such a thing, but then again her heart had told her that her father would never abandon her and she was nameless before she turned ten.

Sophia ate a single bite of apple and picked out the gold gown to wear today, without the stays. She was worried about them hurting the baby. Sophia tried to remember back to what David would tell her sometimes when he got really drunk, that he had the perfect husband for her in mind. She wondered if the man David had told her about would still accept her if she already had a child by a man who had left her. The thought of being with anyone beside James made her ill, and she didn't want to lose her food again today so Sophia put that idea out of her mind. She made her way into the study, planning out the weekly menu with Katje before picking up one of David's old poetry books and nestling into a chair.

...Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee, As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be To taste whole joys.

She blushed and felt warmth flush her from breast to thigh at the words and couldn't help but imagine James, the wall of his chest pressed against her bosom, the twitch and dance of turgid flesh where they were meant to join, the love and passion for her in his steel gray eyes as they bored through her very soul. She tried to shake the images from her head. When the baby arrived at least she would have something to do. Katje had forbade her from working the farm now that she was the lady of the house and with child, and it left Sophia with little to do in the course of a day but think about James.

She shut her book and looked out the window. It was a sunny cool day, the beginning of September. There was no reason why she shouldn't enjoy the beautiful afternoon outdoors. Sophia watched as Katje and Aletta set off in the cart toward Ashford to gather supplies. She stared at them as the old mare slowly clopped down the road.

She had taken James's advice. Her customers begrudgingly started paying her five more shillings a canister. Even without James sending five pounds a week she was making a modest sum off of it, enough to buy a couple new yearling heifers this spring. She stood under the oak tree, feeling the cool breeze move through the leaves as he looked out across the meadows and the turns of the road.

James had loaded a week's worth of clothes into his carriage. He would send movers up to gather the rest of his belongings once he was certain he could win back Sophia, and that she would forgive him for his foolishness. He stopped at the crossroads, dressed in a gray frock and breeches now that the mourning period for his uncle was over. James climbed out and led his stallion into the shade to take a drink from the brook and set down a few carrots for him to eat. He heard another cart ambling down the road, horse hooves pounding lightly against the rain-softened earth.

"Master James! Master James! Mama, hij is teruggekeerd! He's come back!"

James looked up to see Aletta standing and waving at him in the cart as her mother tried to pull her down to sit so she wouldn't accidentally fall out the side. He flagged them down, their cart grinding to a stop at the crossroads. Katje nodded, greeting him with solemn disdain.

"It's good to see both of you. Katje, how is she? How is Sophia?" he asked in Dutch.

"Niet meer! I no talking to you about her. You ask her yourself!" Katje returned brusquely in English.

James was surprised at her tone and grew anxious. Had Sophia changed her mind about him coming back? Had he waited too long? His worry over Sophia washed out any imperious return of words he would have otherwise had for Katje, his servant, speaking to him in that tone, "All right, Katje. I'll ask her myself."

He backed away from the cart and let them continue on toward Ashford before climbing back in his chaise and turning it west toward the farm. He needed to see her immediately and would give anything to send the carriage into a full gallop, but the road was wet and treacherous now, with deep muddy ruts and sun-baked ridges everywhere. He sat patiently in the driver's seat pushing back thoughts that he may have already lost her forever.

Sophia sat down beside the oak tree, scanning the land around her. While this tree would remain green, fall would come soon and turn the ash trees brilliant gold. She looked outward to the edge of the wooded road in the distance and saw a single dark speck come around the bend. Had Katje forgotten something? She squinted her eyes to see if they were all right.

As the shape came closer, a lump formed in her throat. It wasn't a cart. It was a chaise; James's carriage. She debated whether or not to flee inside, but it would be useless to hide from him. She felt her heart pounding and worked to quiet her stomach as he drew closer.

James looked up from the road at the oak tree in front of the house looming larger on the horizon. A golden figure rose up from the ground like a specter and he watched as curly blonde hair about in the wind above an angelic golden dress. His breath caught in his chest. It was Sophia.

She stood still, paralyzed as he made his way into plain view, an unmoving expression on his face. He was dressed in silvery gray and Sophia realized that this was the first time she had seen him in anything but jet-black mourning dress. She worked to push thoughts out of her head about how handsome he was, how the edges of his frock had flared up as he leapt down from the chaise, revealing the outline of his strongly muscled thighs. James latched open the gate and grabbed the reins, leading his stallion into the yard before walking back without a word to close the gate behind him.

James felt his heart continue to beat louder as he went through the motions of arriving, the awkward silence becoming overbearing. He wanted to run to Sophia, grab her about the waist and pull her close, taste her lips and rake his fingers through her hair; to carry her up the stairs and caress her naked skin once more.

Sophia fidgeted, unsure of what to say. It was all she could do to keep the wave of excited nausea from spilling out. Her eyes welled up with tears as he slowly advanced toward her. James stood in front of her for what seemed like an eternity, not saying a word, just looking into her eyes. He reached out and brushed away a lock of hair that the wind had carried over her face. She crumpled and leaned toward him, feeling his arms close around her as she cried.

"I was a fool to leave. Please Sophia," he started, feeling her shudder against him, "there are things I need to tell you."

"James..."

He led her into the house, sitting at the very dining room table where he had first ravished her. She backed away from him and stood near the hearth as he opened his satchel and pulled out a worn parchment and held it up for her. She scanned the words, making out through her bleary eyes the title Parish Apprentice Terms of Indenture. His eyes met hers again, "You said you could never love me as long as I owned you."

Sophia's heart caught in her throat and she startled back a half step, hearing a resounding rip and then another as he tore the paper into pieces in his hands. James stood and walked toward a stunned Sophia and stooped to throw the papers into the hearth before standing in front of her again. She mouthed dry words before something finally came out, "So you are throwing me off the land because I said—"

"How can I throw you off of land you own?"

She looked up at him blankly, "I don't understand."

He led her by the wrist back to the table, pulling out a chair for her and sat down across from her. James reached into his leather satchel again and brought out another paper rolled and bound with ribbon, "Read this."

Sophia took the parchment from him and pulled the ribbon off with shaking hands, carefully unrolling the paper. Her face went white, "This is the deed to the farm..."

"Actually it's a trust. Unfortunately, the laws of the land can't give the property to you directly. This was the best I could do. I may merely protect the land for you until your... heirs inherit it," he said choking on the words or the thought of another man having his Sophia. He came out of his chair and dropping to his knees at her side.

"This... this is all I thought I ever wanted..." Sophia said, setting the paper on the table as it unrolled itself. She briefly glanced at her own name, Sophia Latwicke, on the trust before turning back to James. He was kneeling before her, anxiety written across his face.

"Sophia, I release you. You have everything you wanted from me now. The farm is yours, but I can only hope, perhaps pray, that you can forgive me enough to let me stay here with you for as long as you see fit," he said, shaking before leaning his forehead onto her thigh, "I love you and I don't want to live without you. But I will understand if you need me to leave. I was a fool and what I did to you was unforgiveable. I can only hope that this small act will help prove myself to—"

She brought her hand to his cheek and raised his face up to hers, tears running down, "James... James, when you left I only had one thing I wanted to say to you that morning..."

He froze and prepared himself for the inevitable, calculating whether he could journey back to London before nightfall or if he should stay at the inn. It was less painful than thinking about the idea of losing her, "What had you wanted to say?"

"...That I had fallen in love with you," she said, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand, "That I didn't want you to leave. That I needed you, James, as I need you now."

He looked up at her and stood, "Sophia..."

She rose out of the chair to face him and felt her lips tilt up to kiss him. He was warm and she sighed, the nausea and dizziness leaving her as she relaxed against him, feeling him capture her mouth with his. He brought his hands up to her face as she held the collar of his frock, smoothing her hands over his chest as he drew back from her to look into his eyes, "I know why you left. I read the letter you found. I was certain you thought I was going to use you to regain my place in society after you learned about my origins."

"No, that's not why. I asked the barrister about your origins when I saw that Uncle David had used your birth name, de Grey. Sophia, you were cruelly abandoned, and if the world had worked for you as I've seen it work for scores of others then your position in society wouldn't even have given mine so much as a glance. And I didn't leave because I thought you would try to regain your rightful place. I left because I was a coward."




The Devil's Inheritance Ch. 06



"You told me that night that you loved me..."

"...And I meant every word of it. But I learned that we were both unwitting pawns in my uncle's quest to keep me here."

"What do you mean?"

He paused for a moment, "My uncle told you that he was deeding the land to you as a trust provided that you pass your term of indenture, marry and produce heirs. Did he ever say anything beyond that?"

She thought for a moment, watching as the pieces of the puzzle started to fit together before her very eyes, "He said a few times that he had a husband in mind for me. That I would meet him one day, but he said once that he hoped it wasn't soon..."   James broke away from her for a moment and came back with a folded note from his pocket, handing it to Sophia as her lips mouthed the name on the front. James Gardiner. He spoke as she read it, wide-eyed, "The man whom he spoke of was me. He knew that I would want you. Powerfully."

She placed the letter on the table, folded over her trust to the farm and looked up at him as he moved in closer to her, bringing his arm tightly closed around her waist. She could feel his desire for her pressed against her abdomen, the heat from his body matching the warmth radiating from her core. His mouth returned to hers and a small moan escaped her lips.

It had been too long since he had held her like this and images in her head of James moving powerfully inside of her and holding her body against his skin warred with the images she had of children and young mistresses cast out once their men tired of them. She wasn't a fool. James was a wealthy landowner and tradesman and she was the bastard daughter of a dead laundress. No matter how much he professed to love her he would have to marry for heirs, eventually.

"But the great David Farthing couldn't foresee my falling in love with you, Sophia. I vowed I would never marry by his bidding. And so in my cowardice I ran."

Her fears had been confirmed. She knew he couldn't marry her, and she didn't want to hear from him right now that she would be his mistress. She silenced him with a kiss. Just for tonight. She loved him and needed him beyond reason right now. Tomorrow morning, Sophia would break both of their hearts and tell him that she couldn't be his mistress and that she needed to be alone on the farm. It was what was best for their child. Unbeknownst to him, she would always have a piece of him to treasure. But in this moment she ached with her desire for him, "Please... can we just let that go, then? James, it's been too long... I need you..."

He responded by picking her up around the waist and bringing her lips to his as she swayed on the tips of her toes. He was pleased that she wasn't wearing that binding stay and her curves were unbound below the dress, "As you wish, my lady."

James picked her up and carried her in his arms toward the staircase, delighted to be back at the farm where he belonged. He ascended each step carefully, pausing once they were at the landing to let her down and kiss her again, moving his mouth to her jaw line and kissing toward her ear before whispering to her, "I love you, Sophia."

"I love you, too," she said, her heart breaking with what she would have to do tomorrow. She knew that it was best for all three of them if she let him move on with his life and let her child grow up without the specter of abandonment hanging over its head. She had promised her child that she would never put him through the hell in which she had lived. But for now, she would share one last night with James.

He kissed down Sophia's breasts, the orbs cast golden like her dress and hair as the sun poked in under the awning. He picked her up again and carried her into the bedroom, laying her across the sheets as he ran his hand up one smooth leg. This had almost been too easy. The fight in her that he loved so much was subdued and muted.

"Sophia," he said pausing to look up into her eyes again, "are you sure you're all right? Is anything wrong?"

"No," she lied, "Nothing's wrong. I missed you. Just... let's just enjoy each other tonight," she said as James smiled and kissed her. She felt her heart crumple in guilt, but told herself that this was for the best. James moved his hand up to grip her thigh, pulling her upward and taking her dress up above her waist until he could lift it off of her, chemise and all.

He looked down at her, pleased. She'd been eating more; her curves rounded out and supple before him. He stripped off his cravat and waistcoat, unbuttoned his breeches and threw them and his shirt to the floor, joining her naked flesh on the bed. He would enjoy her tonight, and every night after that, he thought to himself. He lay alongside her and held her to him, feeling her breasts crush up against his chest, her legs parting as one of his moved between them. James sighed as his cock nestled in, pressed against the hot silky skin of her thigh. His thoughts drifted to the letter as he kissed her and a light filled his heart.

James was the master of his own destiny; and he chose her. Sophia was his mate, perfect for him in every way from how she challenged him when they argued to how she danced for him when he played. He wanted to marry her. He broke off their kiss and rose above her, looking down into her eyes. His hands caressed her skin as the warmth of the idea filled him. His uncle had carefully planned enticing James back to the farm with this woman, but his love for Sophia was his own choice. He wasn't about to lessen her part in his life just to spite David. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

"James?" she said, breaking him out of his revelation, "what are you thinking about?"

He smiled down at her, "It can wait until morning."

He renewed his kiss and rolled with them, lifting her above them. She looked down at him and consciously wiggled her thigh against his hard cock, watching as he closed his eyes and sucked air in through his teeth. Sophia wanted all of him tonight. She knew that this was her last night to be with this man, or any man truthfully, and Sophia decided to make every moment count; she needed to give him as much pleasure as she could before she had to say goodbye to him forever.

She moved down between his thighs and gathered his pulsing flesh into her hand. James tilted his head up to watch her take this initiative on her own, eager to taste him. She knelt down and brought her open lips around the head, eliciting a sharp moan from James. He brought his hands to her head to run his fingers through the strands of her hair, straining to keep himself from forcing her down onto his cock. He watched the curve of her ass rose high in the air behind her as she crouched over him and felt the exquisite pull on his flesh once again as she enveloped him within her hot mouth, rising up before licking the head with her tongue.

She relished in the taste of him, a mix of pepper, sage and nutmeg that blended into a scent that was distinctly him, and distinctly arousing. She moaned against his cock, the hum of her voice vibrating the sensitive tip against the back of her throat. James hissed and pulled away from her as she looked into his eyes with uncertainty.

He paused a moment, then pulled her up to him again, rolling her under his body with a kiss before breaking away to look into her eyes, "Trust me, my love. As much as I enjoy releasing in your mouth, that's not what I need from you tonight."

"What do you need?" she rasped, her voice low with desire.

"All of you," he said, his eyes darkening. Sophia felt her breathing hitch and the vulnerability of her body pinned underneath his to the mattress as he spoke, "I can't take anything less than all of you."

He bit down lightly on where her neck joined her shoulder before trailing his tongue down to her puckered nipple, swirling the tip around the crinkles of pink flesh and suckling it deep into his mouth. His fingers danced across the skin of the other, pinching it in synchronicity to each time his teeth drew up its mate. Sophia writhed underneath him, her back arching up and lifting her breasts higher. James grasped his hands around her waist, running them down the sides, his thumbs trailing the rows of ribs as his mouth descended to her navel to swirl inside, and then kissing her womb with light pecks as he made a circle of kisses across her mound.

Sophia watched him kiss, unbeknownst to him, the place where their child grew and felt her eyes start to water before James thrust her back into the pleasure of the moment by darting his tongue across her swollen bud. She craned her legs apart instantly, her body rocked backward as he teased her before pulling away to blow on the soft hairs covering it. She mewled a whimper, eager to have the heat of his mouth on her again. James looked up at her and pushed two fingers slowly into her canal, feeling her nectar coat his hand as he curled them within her.

With his ring finger he delicately pushed against her anus, watching the surprised expression cross her face before her eyes went glassy once more with pleasure. He swirled it around once more, hearing her moan deeply, feeling her start to clench around the invading digit. James was swept away momentarily by the thought of slowly entering her beautiful ass, the ring of her anus clenching down around his cock, the shock and vulnerability written across her face as he carefully pushed deep inside her.

The thought almost made him lose control. He calmed himself. There would be a lifetime of opportunity to explore that. But tonight he needed to feel her under his body and touch her womb from the inside. James continued to wiggle his small finger inside her, steadying her with the palm of his hand on her stomach as he lowered his lips to her waiting sex. Nothing had tasted as good to him before and he drank in her cries of pleasure as he filled and covered her completely with his hands and mouth.

Sophia brought her hands up through her hair to the side of her head, thrashing and moaning, the pleasure of what he was doing to her becoming too much. She was shocked when he had touched her... down there... but like every other way he had ever touched her she felt nothing but desire for more. Her body thrashed as he thrust three fingers within her in unison, his tongue twisting around her nub and lapping up her juices. She felt the wave within her building, slowly at first before crashing down, her back arching off the bed as James withdrew his fingers from her and sucked her pearl gently into his mouth.

He steadied her hips, feeling them start to close in as her hand flew to his head, pushing him down, her neck craned back and her mouth opened in a silent cry. James cradled her lower back with his hands until she fell back to the bed. He immediately sprung up over her body, lifting her thighs with his hips. He couldn't stand it any longer. For almost a full month he had needed to be within her and had held out for as long as possible. Sophia clung to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

James leaned down and kissed her hard on the mouth. Sophia tasted what she imagined must be her essence on his lips. He carefully fitted his body over hers and held himself at her gate. Pulling away from her lips, he looked into her eyes, "I love you Sophia," he said, thrusting forward into her, "I'll always love you."

Sophia grasped him and wept from the pleasure of him filling and completing her for the last time, "I love you, James. Please don't ever forget that I love you."

She gazed up at him as he rose over her, his body guiding them through tense minutes of pleasure as he angled downward inside her, plunging as deep as he could join their bodies together. Sophia wished this would never end; that she could lock them together in this moment for all time. She responded by lifting her legs higher along the sides of his body, drawing her back down to brush over her skin with his hard chest, his abdomen curling and arching with each new movement into her tight channel.

He pushed into her, taking her in deep strokes, his control shredded and his being surrendered to her. Sophia clenched tightly around his cock, milking it within her as he drove into her. Her keening cries mixed with his gasps and punctuated groans as James pushed into her, rhythmically. His body needed more, received more, and needed even more from her as she buckled around him, feeling the waves of her orgasm once again. He felt Sophia rise up again underneath him, her fingers clawing into his back before James was driven over the edge with her.

He lay within her, his head lying beside hers, watching a single tear roll down her calm face. He kissed it away and pushed deeper inside of her with a shudder, overwhelmed by the contentment he finally felt. For the first time in his life he was exactly where he needed to be. Sophia wasn't an escape for him or a distraction. She was his reality, and one that he would be part of for the rest of his life. He whispered to her how much this meant, how much he loved her as another tear meandered down her cheek.

Sophia felt him stay within her, her mind beleaguered by longing and sadness. She desperately didn't want to let him go. He felt so perfect and she knew that if life and the world were fair and just, she would get to have James forever. But experience and the coldness of existence had taught her enough. She felt him caress her skin as he softened within her, and then rolled to the side taking her with him. The sun had just disappeared over the horizon and both of them were exhausted.

James curled up with her nestled in the crook of his arm as she started to drift off. He watched her close her eyes and lean in closer to him before shutting his own, vaguely noticing a bowl full of apples sitting on the nightstand as he drifted off into restful sleep.

Sophia woke up to a strong streak of sunlight through the crack in the curtains piercing the room, winding across the sheets of the bed and over their intertwined bodies. She felt dizzy all ready and looked back at James, trying to carefully get out of bed so as not to wake him. She felt her stomach turn over and ran across the room, trying her best to be quiet as she spit up bile into the chamber pot. Sophia gasped and heaved once more before standing up. Her hand dropped down her belly to cradle her womb, smoothing over the skin and whispering to her baby that it would be all right.

"Sophia..."

She spun around to face that voice, turning white as a sheet as her wide fearful eyes met James.

He sat up in bed, his world reeling. Their last night together before he left flashed through his mind. She had been dizzy while he played the violin and nauseous the following morning. He'd thought it was the stay, and she had made the excuse that it was dinner. The tailor's apprentice said that she looked ill when he had questioned him about her. Then there was the bowl full of bland apples in the room on the dresser when she had never mentioned liking them at all before. His mind connected all this information, "Are you... are you carrying my child?"

Her knees gave way. She steadied herself on the dresser as James got out of bed and strode across the room to her, catching her in his arms. He tilted her chin up so her eyes met his. She just stared up at him paralyzed, her breathing shallow and her face pale.

"Please answer me," he said looking at her pleadingly, moving a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

"Yes," she whispered, tears filling her eyes. He knew. Sophia felt her heart beating out of her chest. She watched James slowly smile down at her and started to relax as he trailed a hand down her ribs to her womb, his fingers brushing over the skin before cupping his palm firmly around her belly.

"Since when?" he whispered back.

"Our first night... I think."

He looked back up at her with a wide smile, his eyes dancing, "Well. That simplifies things, then."

"What do you mean?"

"Get dressed," he said, playfully smacking her bottom, "We're going into town."

"Why?" she said, confused.

"We're going to see the vicar, then the town doctor," he said, pacing the room.

"Why?"

"Because I'm marrying you; if you'll have me, Sophia," he looked at her awkwardly and dropped down to one knee before her, taking her hand, "Will you marry me, Sophia?"

She looked down at him in shock, "James, you don't have to marry me just because I got with child."

"I would have asked you to marry me anyway, and I should have asked you as soon as I had made up my mind to do so," he placed his hand on her womb once more, splaying his fingers across her skin, "This simply means that we'll have to do it sooner than I expected."

Sophia looked down into his eyes as he reverently touched her womb waiting for her answer, "Yes," she said, a smile creeping over her face, "Yes! But, is it me you really want to be your wife or are you—"

James stood up in front of her and covered her mouth with his, kissing her protests away. His lips possessed her; his arms twining around her as she leaned forward into his embrace, feeling his arms hold her to his body. A hand came up through her hair as he mated his tongue with hers before pulling back and looking at her passion drenched face.

"There," he said, "does that answer your question?"

* * *

Epilogue

Sophia rocked back in the chair of the bedroom, looking down her breast at the pair of blue eyes staring wide up at her. Pink gums sucked and gnashed at her nipple before letting go, sated. She pulled little David away and lifted him onto her knee, bounced him gently and rubbing his back.

"You know, it's times like these he makes me jealous."

Sophia turned around startled to see James standing in the doorway, resting against one arm. He walked into the room and leaned over his wife to pick up his son, bringing the infant to his shoulder, bouncing and patting his back until he burped. She smiled at her husband and started closing the front of her gown.

"Do you have to put them away so quickly?" James walked over to the crib and set little David down with a blanket as he cooed at his father.

"Oh stop it, James," Sophia said smiling, "You saw plenty of them last night."

"Ah, and what about tonight?"

Sophia raised the hem of her skirt to the top of her thighs and crossed one bare leg over the other, watching the fire in his eyes smolder at the unexpected tease of flesh, "That my dear husband, depends entirely on how long you wish to stay up."   James took Sophia by the hands and stood her to face him, bringing her in for a kiss. His hands wrapped around her middle and hoisted her in the air as she shrieked in surprise, wrapping her legs around his waist and laughing, "When I said 'up' this wasn't really what I had intended."

"I know exactly what you intended, wife," he said, knowingly grinding his hips into hers.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him before pulling back to see his face, "Well, this position is a little familiar—"

"As it should be," James interrupted her, "We stood in this exact place as we are now a year ago, tomorrow."

Sophia flushed and was flooded with memories of her gripping the stalk of the candelabra and tripping backwards over the base before James had wrapped his arms around her and thrust into her depths in the full moonlight. Her mind wandered to their interlaced fingers as they lay in afterglow, the first hesitant sign of love they had shared, after he had provided her with the seed that had conceived their son.

James gave her a peck on the tip of her nose, "Happy early anniversary."

She smiled wickedly at him before smashing her lips against his. Sophia ran her hands through his hair and squeezed her body tighter around James, giving him a kiss he wouldn't soon forget.