Page 20 of The Enslaved Duet

Who did Alexander Davenport want me to be for him?

It had to be about more than sexual deviancy. He was an Earl, for Christ’s sake. Handsome, titled, and moneyed, I doubted he needed to resort to importing a poor girl from Italy in order to get his just delights. Unless his kink was debasing atavistic, Neapolitan teenage girls.

“Good morning, dear,” a woman’s voice greeted, softened at the edges with a British accent very different from Alexander’s own brisk tones.

I whipped around, rolling uncomfortably over a coiled length of chain to face the first new face I’d seen in my new life at this house.

She was a woman constructed of circles, apples in her cheeks, a robust bosom, and rounded hips like half-moons. Her spirals of pale blond hair framed a face that spoke of gentle, natural aging, and her faded denim blue eyes were entirely kind as they wrinkled into a smile at the sight of me.

“What are you doing in here?” I asked then immediately decided another query was more pressing. “Please, help me get out of here.”

“Oh, don’t fuss, darling girl. I’m to clean you and care for you this afternoon in preparation for dinner tonight. Lord Thornton would like you to join him in the dining room,” she told me as if I was just a normal guest being tended to in times gone by.

I clambered to my feet, chains protesting loudly at my movement. “I would prefer to eat separately.”

Her lips pursed, but the rest of her face remained obstinately cheerful. “Oh well, Lord Thornton can take some getting used to, but it will be good for you to get out of this drafty place. I would have preferred to take you to your room, but apparently, you haven’t been well behaved enough for that boon to be granted quite yet.” She clucked her tongue at me and then gestured to my right where an enormous copper freestanding tub had been placed, the top curling into ribbons of hot steam. “So I had the tub sent up. Let’s get you bathed before it loses heat.”

I wanted to protest the bath because I wanted to rebel against everything in my new existence, but I wasn’t stupid enough to cut off my nose to spite my face.

“You are skin and bones, poor thing,” the woman clucked again.

I peered down at myself, noticing the obscene swell of my large breasts against the concave slope of my belly and the tracks of bones protruding beneath my skin.

“I didn’t have much to lose in the first place,” I admitted softly, more distressed by the sight of my skinniness than I had been by the alien sight of Alexander’s dick or the length of chain connecting me to the floor of an unknown house.

It reminded me vividly of the time in my life I loved myself the least, when I let another person control my body to the point of physical pain and mental ineptitude.

I could feel the cycle starting again, this time with a new man.

At least this one had the decency to outright label himself my Master.

Landon Knox had only ever masqueraded as my friend and mentor in order to use me for his own personal and financial gains.

So far, Alexander Davenport seemed to only want to fuck me.

They were both disgusting.

I wanted to damn all men to hell, but I clung to the goodness I knew was inlaid in Sebastian’s heart. He was the most loving man I’d ever know. The bravest, the most loyal, and by far and away, the most beautiful inside and out.

The thought of my twin warmed my heart even as it crumbled at the edges, rotting through the core with neglect.

I didn’t have a lot growing up, but I’d always had the love of my mother and siblings.

Now, I didn’t even have that.

“Let me help you, bairn,” the woman slid beside me, wrapping a warm arm around my waist as we walked toward the bathtub. “You’ll catch your death as you are. I have a mind to take Master Alexander over my knee as I did when he was a wee one.”

The idea of this short, soft older woman spanking a grown man let alone a sheer predator like Alexander was nearly outrageous enough to make me laugh. Instead,I allowed her to hold my hand while I placed one foot into the stinging heat of the bath water.

An aroma of hot ginger, vanilla, and musk surrounded me as I sank with a deep sigh into the hot, silky water. The oil-scented water went right up to my protruding clavicles, but it wasn’t enough. Before my caretaker could protest, I dunked my head and floated near the bottom, my hair curling like ink in the liquid. Even the chain linked to my ankle felt diaphanous in the velvet depths. Submerged, I could squeeze my eyes tight and imagine I was being reborn, saved in the womb until the moment it was safe for me to begin life anew.

A life without greedy men who were all too willing to use women as pawns in their selfish games.

Two hands plunged into the water by my shoulders and pulled me into the air, a midwife wrenching me out of the womb too soon.

I burst through the water with a sob.

“Gentle yourself, sweet bairn,” the older woman cooed in her thick accent as she stroked her hands down my hair and then settled it over the lip of the tub so it dripped to the floor. “There is nothing to worry yourself about now. Let Mrs. White take care of you.”