Hot Buttered Strumpet (5 page)

She shrugged. “I had to do something after my parents died, didn’t I? They worked at the mill, my mother, father and two brothers. It made them sick. Their lungs, you know. My mother said it was the only thing they could do after Pa lost the farm in the clearances, even though the wages were hardly enough to starve on.”

“You’re Scottish.”

“My family is, but I was born in Lancashire. I’ve never been to Scotland myself. My father always told me how beautiful the country is. But then he always became sad and after a while I stopped asking him about it.”

Wren nodded. He could only guess how hard it must have been for her family to lose everything in the clearances. A Scottish farmer’s daughter, he thought, imagine that. He gently pushed a strand of red curls behind her ear but jerked his hand away with a startled gasp when she turned her head to suck his middle finger into her mouth. She caught it anyway, her eyes sparkling mischievously.

His staff started to swell again, and again he sought a distraction. “Did you work at the mill too?”

She let his finger slip out of her mouth with a reluctant sigh.
“Oh no.
My mother refused to let me work there, even though they took on girls much younger than me to pick fuzz. “‘It’s too dangerous‘, she always told me. I did the housework instead, sometimes helped the neighbours, tending the younger children, while everyone else was at the mill. But there just wasn’t enough money after my parents died and my two brothers got sick.” She shrugged. “I came south to look for work then.
Took a ship from Blackpool.
I didn’t know my way around London, so when I landed at the docks, I just went into the nearest pub and asked for work and they took me on.” She shrugged again. “I’ve been working there ever since.”

She obviously considered the matter closed, he realised, as she began to wriggle a little in his arms to give her hands and mouth better access to his body. She cupped his balls with one firm hand and he groaned. She started to lick across his upper body, which didn’t help him to keep his mind focussed on what he wanted to know. When she found his half-erect cock with the other hand, stroking firmly, he almost forgot that he was actually having a conversation.

“How old were you?” he managed to ask, his voice sounding a little choked.

She chuckled. “Do you like this?” she asked in return, caressing his cock again.

He groaned in response and began to nod, then shook his head firmly.
“How old?”

She frowned a little, but didn’t let go of him.
“Sixteen, maybe seventeen.”

He looked at her incredulously. She’d had a hard life. He really didn’t enjoy the idea of her being groped by drunken soldiers and rowdy dockworkers when she’d been so young.

“It is not as though anyone forced me to do something I didn’t like.” She trailed her free hand down his chest. “I like to, you know…” Her voice trailed off but there wasn’t a doubt in Wren’s mind about what she liked when she slid down his body. This ended the conversation quite effectively. After all, he reasoned with himself, the woman couldn’t speak with his cock in her mouth.

* * * *

Later, in the sitting room, Annie rested half-naked in Wren’s lap, her legs spread wide over his. While he slowly stroked the soft insides of her thighs and her breasts, she thought how wonderful it was to be with him. Glancing at Thomas and Robert, she realised that she liked them too, but she was beginning to feel strongly for Wren.

Could she hope that he liked her too? No, she shouldn’t even go there. That way
lay
foolishness and heartbreak. Of course, he had asked her an awful lot of questions earlier. And there was no doubt whatsoever that the man liked to fuck her, but that was all. She should be content with what they shared and not expect what she couldn’t have.

But the one word he had shouted earlier still echoed through her mind.
Mine.
She’d love to be his.

She was shaken out of her thoughts by
Thomas‘ booming
voice. He was shouting at Wren.
But why?
What had Wren been saying to upset his brother so?

Thomas was forbidding Wren to do something, and quite vigorously. “You won’t!” he yelled at the top of his voice. “You can’t! I am not standing by to let you ruin your life!”

Ruin his life? Annie tried to turn her head around enough to look at Wren. He looked calm, a bemused smile playing around his sensuous mouth. “I will,” he said.

“You can’t marry a strumpet you picked up in some hell-hole of a bar and pass her off on society as a lady!” Thomas bellowed. “They won’t buy it. You’ll bring shame and disgrace on the whole family. For God’s sake, the woman let me fuck her hot buttered arsehole not eight hours ago and none of us even knows her name. You can’t marry her and that’s my last word on the matter.”

Annie tried to stand, but Wren’s arms held her close. She was embarrassed. Of course a fine gent like Wren couldn’t marry her. Make her his mistress, maybe, but marry her? That was completely out of the question.

She opened her mouth to tell him so, when Robert said something. At first she couldn’t hear him. Then, when the others turned on him in astonishment, he repeated the single word he had whispered. “Annie,” he said. “Her name is Annie.”

“How do you know?” Annie asked, smiling at him in wonder.

“I asked the landlord,” he said, grinning sheepishly. “I had my eye on you the last time I was there but you went upstairs with a handsome young army captain.”

“Aw, don’t remind me of that one,” she said, dismissing the young buck with a single gesture of her hand. “He fell asleep as soon as I had him on the bed and didn’t even wake up when I sucked his cock. Quite a disappointment he was!”

Then she realised what she had just said. Damn, she should have kept her big mouth shut! They were all staring at her. The room had gone completely quiet.
Right.
So much for their talk of marriage.
Of course Wren couldn’t marry her! They should have known that a waterfront strumpet like her was wont to open her big mouth and talk trade at any minute, like the common whore she was. She was just a slut who enjoyed being fucked by as many cocks as she could get, even taking them in her hot buttered arse.

Her throat constricted and tears welled in her eyes. It wasn’t her fault that she was what she was. They should have known that when they took her from the bar and brought her to Wren’s home.

Robert looked from one of his dumbstruck brothers to the other,
then
said, “I’ll take her back to the bar then, if you don’t object?”

No one objected.

After that, everything went quickly. Her clothes appeared seemingly out of nowhere. She dressed hurriedly in the hallway and Robert led her to a waiting carriage.

Swallowing back the tears that threatened to choke her, Annie stumbled blindly and Robert helped her get into the vehicle. He settled across from her but she hardly noticed. Her mind was whirling with thoughts and emotions. She couldn’t understand what was happening to her. One moment she had been sitting in Wren’s lap, warm and secure, and the next her bliss had ended. When she closed her eyes she could almost imagine his arms around her.
Almost, but not quite.

The realisation that she would never see Wren again hit her like a fist to her stomach. She doubled over, hugging her arms around her chest, trying to contain the emotions that threatened to burst out of her in heavy sobs. Robert left her alone, only occasionally patting her knee as she was crying, and she was grateful for his patience. She didn’t want to be comforted. She didn’t even care where they were going. All she wanted and cared about was Wren. And he was apparently the one thing in the world she couldn’t have. After crying silently for a while Annie began to calm a little, as the sadness was replaced by a numb feeling of loss.

When she was finally able to wipe away the tears and look out of the carriage window for the first time since leaving Wren’s house, she discovered they weren’t driving back to the waterfront area as she had expected. Instead, the carriage was rattling through the more expensive outskirts of London.

“Where are we going?” she asked Robert, her voice still croaky from crying.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be fine,” he answered, sounding almost like his oldest brother before he had shoved his giant cock up her tight arsehole. That parallel didn’t help to calm her one bit. When he saw the worried look on her face, Robert moved to sit closer to her.

He put an arm around her shoulders. She expected him to kiss her, so she leant towards him, but he shook his head.

“You’re Wren’s now,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.

Still, she nodded. “Yes,” she said softly.

“And you will marry him,” he went on.

Now she felt the need to shake her head. Her insides clenched. “No,” she whispered. Then louder, “No, he can’t marry me. Your brother Tom is right. I would ruin Wren’s life. I am a barmaid, a whore, earning my keep by spreading my legs. I could have been his mistress but never his wife. And it’s all over now anyway.” Her voice was trembling.

Robert shook his head. “We’ll see,” he said and eased her head to his chest. “Stop worrying now. I’ll take you to a place in the country where you can rest.”

She shook her head again.

“If you want to, you can earn your keep there. Not on your back,” he added when she opened her mouth to protest. “You can be my housekeeper.”

Annie jerked her head up to stare at him. The man must have gone completely insane. “I don’t know the first thing about housekeeping.”

“Doesn’t matter, there isn’t much of a house to keep there anyway. Just a cottage, and no staff, except for Jones, the gamekeeper who also sees to the garden, and he is a quiet sort.
Keeps himself to himself.
He is also way on the wrong side of sixty, so don’t get any ideas about letting him fuck you, all right?”

She gave him a cool look. “I’m not that bad, you know.”

He grinned at her,
then
tugged her into his lap for a kiss.

She expected him to make love to her, but he just pulled away after kissing her thoroughly. Smiling, he shook his head at her. “You’re Wren’s,” he said firmly. “I can’t take what’s my brother’s unless he gives me permission.” And with that he sat her back on the seat opposite him.

Chapter Four

Wren woke from a deathlike sleep, his head throbbing with a headache straight from hell. He felt around with his hands, not daring to open his eyes because of the little man with the sledgehammer pounding away inside his skull. He was lying on his own bed. The soft sheets and cushions felt familiar. He had no idea how he had got there, though. The last thing he remembered was a drunken fight with his brother.

He groaned. Thomas had been furious with him because he wanted to marry Annie. Ah, Annie, so hot, so lovely. And smart too, as he had come to realise. He was impressed by the way she had learnt to fend for herself, because life sure hadn’t been kind to her. She was perfect for him, his woman. And he was an idiot.

He pawed around in the bed for her, although he knew she wouldn’t be there. He buried his face in the cushions, trying to find a faint memory of her scent. He wanted to smack himself for letting her go. Robert had taken her back to the pub, because Wren hadn’t been quick enough to claim her as his. She was probably fucking a whole regiment of drunken soldiers right now. The thought of Annie spreading her legs made him hard. It also made him furiously jealous. Furious and jealous enough to forget about the headache and get up.

He stumbled over to the washstand on unsteady legs and poured a whole pitcher of cold water over his pounding head. That helped him clear up a little. He dried his hair with a towel that smelt faintly of her.

He needed to get Annie back, and right now really wasn’t soon enough.

* * * *

Annie closed the wicker gate that protected the garden of the pretty two-storey cottage from straying cattle and curious deer. She had just come back from the village and carried her purchases in a basket on her arm. With her new grey cloak and laced-up blouse she looked and felt very respectable. Almost like a real housekeeper.

Robert had explained her presence to Jones, the gamekeeper who doubled as a gardener, simply saying, “This is Annie, my new housekeeper.” Then he had left them to fend for themselves. Upon his departure he had handed her the grey cloak, which had obviously belonged to the previous housekeeper, and a fat purse that made her gasp until he had explained, “You will need to buy some respectable clothes. There are some shops in the village that will probably sell ready-made blouses and skirts fit for a housekeeper. And you’ll need the rest to stock the house with provisions.
There’s vegetables
in the garden but you’ll need bread and milk and eggs and other things, I suppose.”

Annie had nodded and, at a loss for words, simply said, “Thank you.”

She had walked to the village right after Robert’s departure. Her Lancashire upbringing had helped her fit right in. None of the shopkeepers had questioned her new role. Wearing one of her new blouses, she was humming to herself as she walked back to the cottage carrying a basket of dried goods and other necessities.