The engagement between Count Jens of Uppsala and a pretty debutante who’d only been out for a mere handful of weeks was announced in The Times that morning.
Posy Morland experienced a pang of regret as she sipped her tea, trying to savour each last aromatic drop as there was no money left to purchase any more. The pretty debutante was in possession of a handsome dowry and Count Jens was in possession of a large estate in Uppsala that had fallen into a state of disrepair.
Ten thousand pounds a year could buy even the most steadfast man’s affections, Posy thought as she adjusted her lace fichu, which was rubbing against the marks on her neck.
Marks left there by Sebastian Thorndyke as he’d feasted on her tender flesh.
Posy put down her teacup with a trembling hand (NB: check how many times you’ve used tremble already) as she remembered that night at Almack’s. How Thorndyke had chased her, cornered her in a quiet side room. Then, when she’d tried to escape, he’d picked her up as if she weighed no more than a handful of feathers and thrown her down on a fainting couch.
‘You mustn’t,’ Posy had said in a wavering voice, but Thorndyke shook his head.
‘I must, for I will have no peace of mind until I do,’ he said as he swooped down on her trembling wavering quivering body. ‘How you torment me, intrigue me, possess me with thoughts of making you mine.’
He had kissed her then, more tenderly than she’d have thought possible, and she must have been possessed too for she kissed him back, their tongues duelling for dominance, then dancing together and all the while Sebastian’s hands were busy unhooking the bodice of her dress.
Posy voiced not one word of dissent as Thorndyke bared her trembling heaving breasts to the moonlight and his hungry gaze. ‘Damn you for being so beautiful,’ he rasped before he bent his head and sucked one of the trembling (FFS) succulent morsels into his mouth.
By the time he was done, Posy was quite undone. Her flesh gleamed from his ministrations and she ached with a sweet, piercing agony, for Sebastian had lavished her pert breasts with his devotion but had not taken the necessary steps that would have satiated them both and left Posy utterly ruined.
Alas, he had already ruined her for all other men, she’d thought as she struggled to sit up and cover her brazen flesh with the chemise that Sebastian had tugged down in his passion.
Posy could not look at him, her cheeks aflame, now that other fires had ceased to burn. But Thorndyke had taken her chin in his hand so she could see the steely look on his face. ‘Five guineas off your debt, Miss Morland,’ he’d said cruelly. ‘Only another forty-five to go.’
Oh yes, even without the marks of his possession marring her otherwise alabaster skin, Posy remembered it only too well.
She put down her teacup, rested her head in her hands and wept.