To say that I was nervous would be putting it as mildly as saying it is but a spring mist when the sheets of raining falling blind the eye to everything save the water from the sky. Perhaps this is not the best way to start my story, but as it is my story, I hope you'll forgive even this brief moment of procrastination, remembering the events that lead up to this extraordinary moment are hard for me to relive.
I am not some simple farmer's daughter, nor am I an Incomparable of the haut ton. I suppose, what you would call my family, is genteel poverty. We have money, but little of it and it is scrimped and saved, salvaged and stretched to make our living as comfortable as possible. You could call that the crux of the matter for it is the leading stone which brought me to be sold.
Edward was fresh from college, enjoying the summer spent with his new found friends. Unfortunately, the difference between he and his friends were that they had money where Edward had none. However, he did not let this small blemish on his lifestyle impede him from enjoying what were to be his more cyclone days. He whored, gambled, and spent more money than he had or us as a family for that matter. The whores took the immediate cash while those he gambled with accepted promissory note. He whiled away the summer in carefree abandonment then returned home to act the good son.
Unfortunately, his creditors followed him. They brought to our parents' attention the money that he owed. I must give my father credit for his restraint after having this news. We were given a month to find the money to pay off Edward's debt or far worse would be done. Quickly did the assortment of knick knacks and other extravagances of our house disappear. Then next went livestock we could live without. The weeks passed as a bit of our souls slipped away each day in some treasured heirloom or prized possession.
It tore my heart to hear my mother cry, to listen each night as her weeping echoed through the house. My father became nearly a ghost of the man he used to be. He was desperate, we all were. Our time was nearly up and still when didn't have a quarter of what my brother owed the men. I was half sure that Edward would become a sacrificial lamb for the family, but rarely would a father give up his heir, even one that has broken the family so greatly. However, it is no great heartache to lose a daughter.
While I was never the most sought after girl in the village, the men did notice me, even more so when they found out what constraints my family was in. They came with offers of marriage to my father, offers of less repute to me. My father could see how the men lusted after me, and perhaps that was what gave him the idea to take me to London. Or perhaps it was the lewd diatribe I was forced to listen to as I hung out our now bare thread laundry on the line.
He told my mother little and me even less. Packing me away into a borrowed carriage, he whisked me away to London, to the edge of where nobility wandered and the darkness of the criminal world began. I never saw the front of the house, or really the back for that matter, but merely saw an open doorway, where my father quickly bartered my life away.
I was brought in to the house where I was greeted by two maids and a man I did not know. My blue eyes took in the soiled frock the man wore, watching as his dark eyes took in the pink dress that covered me before he looked to the maids. There, in the hall, where I could see the entrance to the kitchen, and the scurry of servants was all too frequent, the maids began to unbutton my dress. My hands flew to the top of my dress, my eyes lifting to my father in a beseeching way, but he merely looked away, shame and guilt clearly written over his features.
What had he done to me? I turned in shock as the man grabbed my hands roughly, his palms hot and moist on my cool skin, his voice seeming like the crack of a whip to my now oversensitive senses. "Here now, you'll have plenty of time to be shy later." Later? What would happen later? I nearly sobbed out the question, I nearly stormed and stamped my feet, or flew out of there in a rage. But that was all in my mind. All I truly did was stand there, dry eyed as I felt the gap in the back of my dress widen and the knowing fingers unlace my corset.
The corset came off before the dress, the man finally having to release my hands to yank the material down. Using my sleeves to pin my arms to my body, he then slid the straps of my chemise away from my shoulders, his slightly calloused hands feeling abrasive to my skin as he stroked the ball of my shoulder and brought the material down further.
