Lillian, being the nineteen-year-old daughter of a Duke, rarely took interest in the staff of her father's house. However, the summer of 1859, one new face did catch her attention: a girl of an age with her who began working in the kitchen.
Well, to be very honest, it wasn't the girl's face--plain and often sour as it was--that caught her attention. It was the odd hard lines that stood out around her waist, as if she was wearing some very specific sort of undergarment under her dresses. Lillian became so curious about it that she eventually cornered the head cook, Gretchen, to ask.
"Gretchen, just who is that new girl you've got working with you?"
"Oh, you must mean Priscilla. We call her Prissy," the round older woman said, scowling. "My niece. Not caused any trouble, has she, Miss Lillian?"
"No, no, of course not. I was just wondering--well, perhaps this is a delicate matter, but I swear it looks as if she's wearing..." Lillian glanced around, despite knowing full well they were alone, and mimed a triangle over her thighs. Gretchen laughed a deep belly laugh.
"Aye, she's wearing a belt. Her parents sent her here to keep her out of trouble--caught her with a boy, you know--and I wasn't taking no chances. Not like I can keep my eye on her every minute of the day. Heaven knows where she even is right now."
"Goodness," Lillian said, widening her eyes. "And she wears it all the time?"
"I take it off for her when we take our baths," Gretchen said, shrugging, as if it was no matter to her that Prissy was locked away from her privates except during the bathing time she shared with her own aunt. "I suppose it's a bit of a hardship on the girl. I've told her before she can ask me if she wants a bit of time with it off, alone, y'know, but she never does."
"Hmm. I suppose I wouldn't be very comfortable asking my own aunt for such a thing," Lillian said. "Don't you suppose she might be more comfortable discussing those...needs with someone else? A girl her own age, perhaps?"
"Ain't any other girls her own age around," Gretchen pointed out. "Save you, of course, Miss Lillian, and I wouldn't dream of having her bother you with such things."
"Oh, I wouldn't mind at all!" Lillian said immediately. "I mean, if you would trust me with that, Gretchen."
"Hmm," Gretchen said, finally looking up from her soup and eyeing Lillian with consideration. "Truly? You wouldn't mind? You think she's pretty, is that it?" Lillian just smiled bashfully, and Gretchen snorted. "Well, there's no harm in it. I had a few special friends of my own at your age, and it's not as if you can get her in the family way. It might improve her disposition, anyway." She fished the key out of her pocket and handed it over to Lillian. "Here. I'll let her know that she's to go to you from now on, if you don't mind reminding her to wash up down there regularly when she's got it off."
"Oh, absolutely. Thank you, Gretchen."
After that, it was only a matter of waiting.
It was nearly a week, in fact, before Lillian heard any more on the matter, but she wasn't surprised; she'd barely said two words to Prissy, and the girl was likely alarmed by the entire proposal. But finally--shortly after bathing day, and perhaps on Gretchen's insistence--the sour-faced girl came knocking at Lillian's rooms after dinner.
Lillian called for her to come in, and smiled widely when Prissy opened the door. "Priscilla! Prissy? What do you prefer? Oh, do come in, let's talk."
Prissy frowned and took a few tentative steps into Lillian's sitting room, then jumped when the door swung shut behind her. One of her arms was folded over her stomach and the other fiddled at her waist, thumb tracing over the hard line of the chastity belt locked around her waist. "Prissy is fine. Miss Lillian, I'm not sure--"
"Don't be silly," Lillian said immediately. "I know your, shall we say, feminine parts must be simply gasping for a bit of air by now, and we both know that asking one's aunt for permission to touch oneself is not exactly conducive to a good time."
A flush rose in the girl's cheeks as she gaped at Lillian, looking more stunned than outraged. Lillian took advantage of her shock and stood up, grabbing Prissy by the arm and pulling her further into the room, chattering as she went.
"Come on now. Of course, it wouldn't be much fun for me to just unlock you and leave you about your business, but I've thought of just the thing. Look here." She drew the girl through a door and into her bedroom, to a space of wall under a hook that had once held a hanging candle fixture of some weight. "Stand right there. That's a dear."
She hurried over to her dresser, kicking shut her bedroom door as she went, and retrieved a bit of rope that she'd secured for just such an occasion. When she went back to Prissy with the rope and began to tie it around one of her wrists, Prissy tried to draw away with a startled, "hey!"
"Now, Prissy," Lillian tutted, though she did pause. "Listen. I know this might seem frightening, but I think you and I will have some fantastic fun together."
