A balmy evening breeze stirred the curtains of Constance's window. She tipped her face into the welcome scents of mingled salt air, flowers, and spicy food being cooked in the village below.
Festival time. How she had loved the festivals as a girl!
Strange to think of it like that. Only a year ago, she'd gone to the festival with her father, the two of them enjoying the revelry of music and dancing. That time now seemed ages past. She was no girl anymore.
Rob had seen to that.
A hopeless sigh that nearly became a sob escaped her as she turned from the window to the silver mirror above her dressing table. The mirror had been her mother's, not that Constance had any recollection of sitting and watching her mother make ready for a party, a dinner. Anna deGranville had died too early for that.
The mirror, like many of her mother's things, had been saved for Constance to be of age. Yet now, as she peered into it and studied the cosmetics she'd applied, and the way she'd done her hair, she shuddered to think what her mother might say if she knew how that mirror was being used.
Make yourself pretty for me, sweet sister-mine
, Robert had told her.
They were waiting for her downstairs. She had seen them arrive, thundering up the estate road as they always did. Racing hell-bent, as Father would have said. Their racing was nothing new on Veradoga. Now, though, it had a steelier edge to it. The boyish competition, the friendly rivalry, had grown sharper in recent days.
Constance knew the reason for that, oh, knew it all too well. The tension between her blond brother and his dusky lifelong friend was solely because of her. Enrique wanted her. It had been his attempt to steal kisses that had led to her initial downfall.
She cringed to think of that first night, how Rob had slyly coerced her into pleasuring Enrique with her mouth while he did the same to her. How shamefully her body had betrayed her at that unexpected sensation! And then he'd defiled her, deflowered her, committed incest upon her all the while telling her that it was
her
fault.
A terrible confusion held her in its sway. Was it her fault? She had never so much as kissed a man before that night, barring the dreams that she never dared admit to a soul. Yet she had writhed against Rob, against the slick sliding push of his cock, until her loins had shivered with release and prompted him to complete the act by sinking deep within her.
Since then, he'd avowed to keep her for his prize, his whore, his secret plaything. It was this more than anything else that drove a wedge between Rob and Enrique. Privy to their lewd conversations, Constance now knew that they had long been in the habit of sharing their women. Yet Rob, selfishly according to Enrique, refused to allow his friend to plumb the depths of his sister's cunny. That, Rob swore, was his alone.
Desperate to have her, Enrique had devised a plan. He would marry Constance, a match to which their fathers, both governors of prosperous islands, would have readily agreed. And then, once she was Enrique's legal-bound wife and property, Rob would become a frequent visitor.
The notion terrified Constance. She thought of Enrique's family estate, rich and lush but remote. Private. No one there would be bothered to care that she was at the mercy of the two men. Her life would be a torment of sensual captivity, and who knew to what other atrocities they might eventually force her to submit?
She could hear them downstairs, the tenor of their voices testifying to their argument although the words themselves were indistinct. Constance knew well enough what they'd be. Enrique was mad to have her, to … she made herself think the word … to
fuck
her. Rob's refusal was adamant. Not until the wedding night.
Her only solace was that a wedding night would be far in the future. With her father away on his business, no such arrangements could be made. She had to escape before the jaws of fate closed around her.
Escape … but to where? She had been born on Veradoga, and her father, with memories of his wife's abduction and long imprisonment by pirates always a thorn in his mind, refused to let her travel elsewhere. School in England? Out of the question, for had not Anna deGranville been on her way to England when the ship had been seized? Visits to girls her age on other islands? No, for the rogues of the sea were a high plague this year – so it had been told to her
every
year.
If she told anyone the true circumstances for her wish to leave, it would be the end of her. William deGranville could not bear such a disclosure. It would destroy him. It would destroy their family. How could she tell him that her own brother, his own and firstborn son and heir, had ruined her maidenhood? Worse, how could she tell him that it had happened more than once, and that she had become an eager – if not willing – participant in the hideous incestuous act?
No, if she were to be free of Rob, free of Enrique and the future that would be hers as their perpetual harlot, she would have to take matters upon her own shoulders. She would have to forego waiting on her father and beseeching him for permission to travel, permission that would be denied anyway.
She glanced at herself one last time in the glass. The gown was another of Rob's gifts, so fine and light that it might have been spun from the substance of a cloud. It floated around her and concealed nothing. The rosy peaks of her breasts were as clearly revealed as if she were naked. A miniscule lace cache-sex covered her mound of fluffy golden curls.
An urge seized her, an urge to tear off this whore's garment and burn it. To wash the cosmetics from her face, seize up her scissors and hack her hair into a boy's cut, and run away to sea disguised as a young lad.
As suddenly as it came, that urge passed. She had blossomed in the past two years, attaining a figure far too ripe of hip and breast to pass as a lad. She'd be discovered in an instant.
And loathe as she was to admit it, even to herself, a tingle of anticipation burned within her. She knew that the evening would be a debauch, for Rob had once again contrived to dismiss the household so as to be sure of no interruptions. Some of the servants had even remarked upon how considerate the young lord was, how easygoing in his stern father's absence.
They would be waiting for her. She already knew what would happen. Rob would make her parade before Enrique, enjoying his friend's frustration. Likely, she would find herself stuffed full of cockmeat again, Rob plowing her cunny while Enrique's thick length filled her mouth.
Or would this be the night that Rob relented? Surely he would not allow something so inconsequential as his own dear sister to stand between himself and his best friend. Perhaps he'd had his fun of seeing Enrique suffer, and would grant permission to the part of her he'd so diligently reserved for himself.
As much as she inwardly recoiled from the thought, part of Constance did wonder what it would be like. Rob's clever lips and tongue knew exactly how to stir her into a treacherous lustful frenzy. Would Enrique's be so talented? Would he be as deliberate in wringing a response from her?
She hated herself for even entertaining the idea. She would
not
submit to Enrique in that fashion, could not. Strange, strange and awful to be grateful to Rob for his selfishness.
"Constance!" Rob called, interrupting her turmoil. "Come and dine with us, sister!"
The filmy fabric billowed as she stepped into the hall, and headed for the stairs. As she descended, she saw them in the wide, arched doorway of the dining hall. Identical looks of hunger and appreciation greeted her.
Rob, so comfortable in his temporary station of lord of the manor, was utterly at ease in an open-collared shirt and soft leather trousers. His feet were bare, his blond hair tousled, and an easy grin rested on his lips. One hand held a snifter of her father's fine brandy, which he swirled and sipped, his cerulean eyes never leaving her.
Enrique was dressed in much the same manner, with the addition of low riding boots and a vest of rich scarlet. His dusky complexion flushed toward copper and his dark gaze devoured her avidly.
"Can this be the same Constance?" Enrique murmured, shaking his head. "We've worked wonders on her, Rob. Wonders. Look at her. She sways her hips like a well-fucked woman now, to be sure."
