Chapter Eight

in which sam loses

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

According to Dahlia, I had a childish habit of literally physically running away from my problems. Immature? Yes. But I found that it gave me the space I needed to unpick the churning knot of my thoughts so I could come back to an argument or problem with a clean mind.

I had tried to run away to Barcelona, and look how that had turned out.

I had run away from the truth on the ship, and had caused a scene in front of Fenton’s crew.

All the same, I thought this particular revelation warranted a good Rumpelstiltskin-style huff, and so suited action to thought immediately. Out the parlor doors I went, taking a sharp turn down a long hall papered with lush designs, then another, then into another room with curtains closed and no lamps lit. The light from the hallway was just enough for me to make it out as a paper-strewn office, and I slumped over to a sagging armchair beside the desk and threw myself onto it before the door swung closed behind me, plunging everything into deep darkness.

Idiot , I scolded myself. Idiot!

Foolish. Na?ve. Ridiculous for building a fantasy about someone I didn’t even know, because they were the only person I knew.

What had I been thinking? That I could just pick a nice man out of a lineup and keep him with a bit of creative fellatio, like a prize I’d won at a fair? I’d taken for granted that Fenton would just want me, that he’d look at me and think, Ah, yes, that one please , simply because I’d decided he ought to.

The same way . . .

The tears came hot and hard against the backs of my eyes, and I gulped them down, choking on the realization that I had done this exact same thing to Dahlia. I’d thought I’d known better than them both, thought I was the clever, enlightened one who would white knight them into a relationship with me, and instead I’d just ignored every sign, every clue that what I was dragging them into was unwelcome.

The common denominator in these disasters is you, Sammie-bear.

Fuck.

Marigold had tried to warn me. Looking back at that conversation, when I’d bragged about how close Fenton and I were, Marigold was going to tell me about the fiancé. The whole family knew.

So now fucking what?

I wasn’t sure who I should be angrier at: Lewis for exposing the truth, myself for blithely throwing myself at Fenton, or Fenton himself for knowingly committing what probably amounted in this era to adultery.

Fuck adultery, he had been courting me.

Hadn’t he?

That was flirting, wasn’t it? The gloves, and the dancing, and the hand strokes, and the kisses on the cheek? I hadn’t misread the whole thing? Or was there a cultural divide that I just didn’t see—that what I’d thought was flirting was just him being pleasant and gentlemanly?

Huh! Gentlemanly! What we did in that alley was certainly not gentlemanly. He had felt it, too, the spiderweb-thin connection, that passion we had begun to weave into a beautiful pattern between us. And Mr. Lewis, in one swipe of a careless hand, had turned it into tattered cobwebs.

How had I let myself get turned around like this? How had I let him do this to me? How were we going to fix this?

No, there was no fixing. No we .

Fenton was getting married, and I had behaved like one of those greedy, slutty bisexual stereotypes. Because I had needed him. I had needed some body, any body to want me, to rescue me. But also because here I had to have a man to speak for me, do things for me; it was awful, but it was fact.

I bet Fenton hadn’t even slept with her yet.

Jesus, had I ruined things for his future marriage? Was I going to destroy the happiness of a woman who didn’t deserve it?

I was going to be sick. It felt like I was swallowing mouthful after mouthful of seawater when all I kept gulping at was the thick, dark air.

“Ah,” a voice said, deep and low. “Ran all the way to the back of the house, did we, little mousie?” The door opened, letting in a crack of light that silhouetted Lewis’s broad shoulders and a body cut in half, like an uncanny funhouse mirror.

“Don’t call me that,” I said softly into my knees, drowning in self-loathing.

“But this is where little mousies flee when they’re frightened. Into the dark.”

“I’m not frightened,” I sneered. “And it’s ‘mice.’”

He chuckled, a deep, booming one with an oily veneer floating on the surface, just enough to raise goose bumps.

Shit.

We were alone.

He was between me and the only exit.

How had I let that happen?

I stood. It didn’t offer a lot of an advantage, but at least I had my hands free.

“You do like to think you’re clever,” he said, still amused. “Could it be that you really are a mermaid, you strange thing?”

“Get out of the way,” I said. “I’m leaving.”

“Oh ho!” he boomed again. He opened the door more fully, if only to prove that his bloated shadow blocked most of the light from the bare hallway behind. “Not you, my darling.”

“I am leaving,” I insisted. “Captain Goodenough—”

“Fen has given you to me. And in return, I have torn up his notes of debt.”

“He’s . . . what?” Surprise squeezed my gullet, and the rest of what I had been going to say was choked back, sour and hard.

“Did he not explain it? I charged him with some, hmm, private shipping to do on my behalf, in payment of some bad gambling debts. His conscience got the better of him, which resulted in him then owing his wagers and the value of both the lost product and its profit. As I find myself in want of a wife, and he had several young ladies to settle, we agreed to resolve it with marriage.”

“No.”

“You find yourself the lucky victor.”

“I won’t—”

“You will . He’s sent word to have your belongings sent to us, along with the remainder of my stock. He says he does not expect your trinkets to be worth much of anything, but I’ll appraise them. They might go some way toward paying back your upkeep aboard ship, if nothing else.”

“You . . . ! You can’t sell my stuff!” I was torn between the urge to back myself farther into the corner or run at him full tilt with my fists up. “It’s worthless here, meaningless! It’s all I have left .”

“And as such, I will in all probability allow you to keep it. I am a considerate husband that way.”

The word struck me like a bucket of ice water. “Husband?”

“No need to be stubborn, darling,” he murmured, in mockery of lover’s sweet nothings. “I am rich and widowed, in need of an heir. And you are in need of a protector. I will give you a luxurious life.”

“A luxurious cage ,” I spat.

“One that any woman would be thrilled to be kept in.”

“Go find any woman, then. It doesn’t need to be me.”

“Oh, but it does,” Lewis growled. The door swung shut, and my eyes couldn’t adjust fast enough to track him. Had he gone out? Was he in here with me?

His hands closed around my shoulders suddenly, and I was backed into the wall, head thunking on the plaster.

“Ow!”

“Hush! I will have a wife. I am a great man and it is my right . I have decided that I want you.”

“Why?”

“You will be far more satisfying to bring to heel than Fen’s homely, bluestocking sister.”

“Let go!”

His hands slid up over my shoulders, to the sides of my neck, pressing just tight enough against my jaw to hold my head still. It made breathing slightly difficult, and his threat clear.

“A woman who has done what you have is either a wife or a whore, darling,” Lewis hissed into my face.

The insult was obvious. “I’m not a whore!”

I couldn’t see it, but his smile was present enough in his tone: “No, but you are alone. You have defiled yourself in an act of seduction, and you have no dowry. Had you any sort of beauty, that would perhaps be recommendation enough, but your face is plain at best, and your manners ghastly. Be sensible, mousie. I am offering you the more delicate route.”

I had a degree in social studies. I knew how impossible it would be to live my life the way I wanted to when it was so far outside of the norms and morals of the hegemony. I knew how right Lewis was. He nosed at the side of my face, breath sweet with wine. “You will be the wife of a respected man of the Ton. You will give me heirs to inherit my fortune and bring glory to my line.”

“I will not !” I wriggled, but he was taller, broader, and stronger. It was like fighting a statue.

“It took fat Henry three wives to get a son.” Lewis smeared the words against my cheek. Disgusting . “Let’s see if I can do it in two.”

And then he kissed me.

It was forceful, claiming, which made it revolting. His tongue pressed at my lips, and I clenched my teeth hard, keeping the barrier of bone between him and the inside of my mouth. When I wouldn’t let him in, he bit my lower lip hard enough to hurt. But it freed me up to scream.

“Fento—!”

He squeezed hard around my windpipe. I gagged and clawed at his hands. He let up just enough for me to breathe.

“Shush,” Lewis snarled. “Fenton will have a wife and his own children to provide for soon enough. He can’t have you too.”

I swallowed hard, larynx bobbing against his thumbs. “Then I’ll get a job. I’ll pay him back myself, you don’t need to—”

“What a strange country you must come from, little mouse!” He laughed. “Women exist to be wives and mothers for their men. That is their job, and there can be no other. You will marry me.”

“I was under the impression that marriage was the sort of thing that had to be done voluntarily.”

He went still. He took a breath. Two. Then: “Stupid little girl.”

Whatever he was planning, I wasn’t about to wait for it. Fight or flight were my only options, and animal instincts had been closer to the surface lately. I shoved hard, jerking one knee up into his crotch. I hit my target, but instead of folding so I could escape, Lewis reacted by shoving me into the wall again, pinning my arms above my head with one meaty paw.

A stinging heat burst hard and sharp against the side of my face, and it took me a full five seconds to comprehend that he had slapped me. The pain was so intense that I saw spots. I held my hand against my cheek to stop it from smarting.

“Pain is part of the lesson, pet,” he hissed. “And I will provide it as often as is necessary for you to learn it.”

“Let go!”

The stinging heat was laid across my face again, and I thought it was perhaps better to shut up now than have a third slap break my nose. Or worse.

Ha! What a fucked-up reward for surviving this is! Thanks for nothing, universe!

Pulled out of the ocean, separated by centuries from my family and friends, nearly murdered for being different, and sold off in marriage to a scumbag by the man I thought was in love with me.

Lewis took my silence for surrender and eased his hold with performative gentleness. “Much better, mousie.” He kissed me again, a chaste peck, and I stayed still. Allowed it. “Fast learner.”

“Just one question,” I said softly.

He paused, and I wondered if it was stiff anger that held him silent or surprise. Eventually he said, “Yes?” in a tone so devoid of any emotion that I had no idea what he was thinking.

“What happened to the late Mrs. Lewis?”

That oily chuckle rippled across his body and made his stomach bounce against mine, violatingly intimate.

“She did not learn her lessons quite as fast as you,” he said.

~

Lewis’s grip on my forearm was just short of bruising, and I wasn’t sure if I was more worried about the pain or about the fact that he seemed to know how much pressure was required to avoid leaving marks. He hauled me through what felt like innumerable dark, bare, back-servant stairways before I was shoved through a door into warm, blinding light, stumbling into the back of a sofa in the same front parlor.

Fenton was still there.

He was standing by the window, glowering out of it with such intensity that he might have been trying to melt the glass.

“Sit,” Lewis snarled.

I sat.

Fenton didn’t turn around.

Lewis fetched a cut crystal glass and a matching decanter from a bar cart, and poured me a tipple. I hesitated, but Lewis glared, so I took it.

Booze would go a long way toward numbing my fury at this betrayal. But it could also allow Lewis to do all manner of despicable things without my being able to fight back. Or escape.

“Drink,” Lewis ordered.

My thoughts and feelings were already so muddled. I figured there was no way that the booze could make it worse. It might even make it better, give me that strange desperate clarity that only the deeply drunk sometimes achieve.

If nothing, it would at least keep me warm if I bolted tonight.

I threw the liquor back like a shot, downing it in one swallow, and slapped the glass down on a spindly side table.

Ew, sherry.

Lewis’s mouth curled up in a sneer at the uncouth gesture, and I dared him to do something about it.

Go on , I thought. Give me a black eye in front of Fenton.

Instead, he refilled my tiny glass.

“Drink,” Lewis ordered.

Fenton’s hands, clasped at the small of his back, balled into fists. His jaw, clenched tight, rippled.

I shot the sherry.

Lewis refilled the glass.

“Again,” Lewis said, sitting forward. The red-faced anger gave way to carnal fascination.

He’s getting off on this.

Gross.

I shot it back. He filled it.

What is this, half a glass of wine? Maybe less. Bro, my record is seven tequila body shots in one hour with no hangover.

“Drink.”

I drank.

A knock at the door interrupted Lewis’s twisted game.

Worsley had arrived at the door with a bill of lading for Lewis—“In the usual warehouse, sir,”—but more importantly, he also had the fabric bundle of my things. The lad crossed the room and handed them to me directly. Lewis gripped the arms of his chair in white-knuckled disapproval, but apparently propriety in front of a virtual stranger meant that Lewis couldn’t snatch it away or order it removed.

Thank god for Worsley, then.

He then went to his captain to relay some other information, and while Lewis was distracted with eavesdropping, I wriggled my wallet and phone out of the bundle and shoved them into my stays. The moment Worsley was dismissed, Lewis ordered the footman to remove the bundle. I didn’t fight him. And then Lewis did something I never expected—he left Fenton and me alone to follow it.

He was probably eager to see what I had hoarded away. Well, let him rip each pin and button off my jacket like a covetous magpie if it made him feel powerful. What did I care? I was getting out .

As soon as he was gone I shot across the carpet to grab Fenton’s hand. He turned to face me, startled, then looked away again just as quickly. Shame? Maybe. Good . I sure as hell hoped it was eating him up inside.

“We have to go, now.” I yanked him toward the door. “Before—”

“Absolutely not!” Fenton gasped. “Do you know what he’d do to us?”

“I don’t care,” I said, yanking again.

Fenton closed his hand hard around mine and pulled me to a stop with brute strength. I had once thought his growling, commanding presence sexy on the ship. But turned on me, it was belittling and frightening.

“For my part, he will sue for breach of marital contract if I steal away his bride,” Fenton hissed, eyes darting between my face and the door, no doubt counting the seconds he had left before Lewis returned. “He would demand my sister instead, and I am sorry, but I cannot —” He cut himself off with a violent shake of his head. “He would default on his loans to me, call in my debts, expose me for a—” Again, he couldn’t seem to put voice to the words. “And you, Miss Franklin. You he will treat with much less civility.”

“You mean like he did with his first wife?”

Fenton blanched.

“Then I’ll leave without you.”

I tried to shake him off but he grabbed my shoulder and pushed me onto the sofa again, shocking me with his lack of gallantry.

“Are you mad?” he said. “You’ll freeze to death before dawn.”

“I don’t care!” I hissed back.

“Lewis is wealthy and well situated, and has a tolerable temper when not vexed . He will make you the jewel of the Ton and the mother to the next generation of a strong legacy. What more could you want?”

“You!” I cried, before I even realized what I was saying.

Fenton reared back. “I am engaged, madam.”

“Then we won’t marry, I don’t care. But you know you can’t leave me here. That’s why you stayed, isn’t it?”

“I have stayed because I’m a fool, and I owe you an apology. Though I made no promises to you, Miss Franklin, I have used you ill and I should not have let you take the liberties you demanded of me,” Fenton gasped, like he was running a marathon against his own feelings. “I cannot marry Miss Gale with this act blotting my conscience.”

“Oh, so I’m a blot now?”

“I did not say—”

I stood and shoved him hard. He stumbled back a step, rocking on his heels, startled.

“You asshole ,” I spat. “I wish you’d left me to drown !”

“Samantha, no ,” he pleaded, wringing his hands. “You cannot ask me to regret saving you. You cannot , not after what we shared.”

“It can’t have meant that much if you’re still willing to leave me with Mr. Misogynist!”

“But I must.”

I grasped for my last straw. “You love me.”

Fenton staggered, face widening in shock, as if I’d slapped him. I should have. I was sorely tempted.

“I am engaged to Miss Gale,” he whispered, but it rose at the end, like a question.

“I don’t care.”

But that wasn’t true.

She was his fiancé, not me. I wasn’t going to claim that I loved him more than she did. Or loved him at all, really; our connection was a trembling, new thing, born from isolation and trauma. From his pity and my desperation to not be alone, a stranger in a strange land. He was my safety net, the only thing I could cling to.

For a single vicious second I wanted to be better than her. I wanted to be the better fuck, the better conversationalist, the better helpmeet. I wanted to be younger and prettier. I wanted his passion and attention. But I couldn’t do it; I couldn’t be that horrible, bitchy other woman.

Fine.

If I couldn’t have him then at least I could convince him to do better by me.

“Okay, I do care,” I amended. “Marry her, but don’t leave me here.”

“And take you where, for god’s sake? To my mother? To Miss Gale’s?” The big brown doe-like eyes that I had once thought so gentle positively burned. “I have done my duty to you, Miss Franklin! I have paid for you out of pocket, killed my own men for your protection, and was disgraced at a national funeral to chase you out into the snow. I have found a gentleman to take you with no prior references, no dowry, and no proof of your identity. You will not do me the dishonor of rejecting him.”

“I sure as hell will!” I snapped. “I am not dying the same way his last wife did! And I think I’ve done pretty fucking adequately to repay your kindness .” I had the satisfaction of watching him turn purple-red. But there wasn’t enough hurt there, so I decided to twist the knife further: “Emphasis on fucking .”

“You are infuriating ,” he hissed.

I kissed him. It was desperate and open mouthed, and for a brief moment, he crashed against me, just as desperate, just as hard. Then he yanked his head back and pushed me back onto the sofa.

“Enough, Miss Franklin. Know your place.”

“Well said,” Lewis crooned from behind us, and we both jumped. He was leaning against the door, his entrance having been masked by our shouting.

Fenton straightened himself like a child’s toy on marionette strings pulled to attention.

“Shall I see you out, Fen?” Lewis drawled.

Fenton just barely managed to hide a revolted frown behind a carefully blank mask. “There is the matter of Miss Franklin’s upkeep. I must settle my accounts before I can journey on to Whitstable.”

“Yes, yes,” Mr. Lewis said, as if it had just occurred to him now that he hadn’t yet paid for the whore sitting in his parlor. “Of course.”

“I pay my own debts,” I said.

My fingers scrabbled against the buckle of the ruined watch strap. This I could part with. The mechanics were probably finer than anything they had now. The watch was still ticking, albeit jerkily, the battery insulated. Despite the beading of moisture on the inside of the glass face and the janky movement, it still functioned.

Lewis’s eyes flashed with fury as I held it out. He’d thought he’d stripped me of everything worth anything.

“Take it,” I said to Fenton. “I don’t know what it’s worth, but I’m sure the insides can be salvaged if they’re repaired. Will it cover the debt?”

Fenton turned the watch over, studying its face, fascinated.

“It doesn’t require winding,” I pointed out.

Fenton looked up. “How is that possible?”

“There’s a power source that . . . look, take it to a watchmaker, get it appraised. I’m sure it’s worth far more than it looks, if only for curiosity’s sake.”

“That is mine,” Lewis snapped, reaching to snatch it away, but Fenton was faster, and it disappeared into a coat pocket.

“Miss Franklin has not married you yet,” Fenton said, his tone deceptively conversational. The skin around his eyes was tight, though, and now that I knew what to look for, his expression was filled with loathing. “Therefore what little property she has is presently hers to sell or keep. I will have it appraised, but I have a feeling that it will more than cover Miss Franklin’s debts to me.”

“Then, I can go?” I asked, hope rising tentatively.

“If you take her with you, I will sue your family into the workhouse,” Lewis snarled, and the threat was no idle one based on the way the color drained from Fenton’s face. “Your mother will die in squalor and your sisters will have to sell themselves on the streets. You will never step foot on a ship again, I swear to you, Goodenough!”

“You don’t even know me!” I shot back. “Why do you care?”

Lewis’s eyes, when he turned them on me, were lit with the narcissistic flames of a self-righteous zealot. “I keep what is mine .”

His pronouncement was met with horror on my part, and fury on Fenton’s. But neither of us said a thing. Instead we stood there, helpless in our linked impotence.

Fenton is just as trapped as I am, I thought. Shit, there’s nothing we can do. Marigold, Daisy, Iris, they’ll suffer. I have to stay.

I have to.

Lewis must have caught the moment I realized the truth, because he straightened and gave a pompous tug of his waistcoat.

“Don’t bother awaiting an invitation to the wedding breakfast, Fen,” Lewis pronounced with a knife-slice of a grin, smoothing his hair back. “I think it best if the future Mrs. Lewis and I celebrate our nuptials with more . . . discretion.”

Scolded like a child and infuriated about it, Fen only snapped off a stiff bow to Lewis then marched out of the parlor without looking back.

Leaving me alone with a man who was probably going to end up killing me.

I used to wonder why women who were being abused never just left. I always thought that I would never let anyone treat me like that. That the moment I saw even a flicker of that first red flag, I would get out. And here I was, staring down an entire parade of the damn things, and staying right where I was. My chin trembled but I wouldn’t give Lewis the satisfaction of watching me cry. I bit my lips to hold it in.

Only my lip was still tender from when Lewis had bit it, and I ended up making a pained little mewl of a noise. I quickly covered my abused mouth, but Lewis had heard it. Heard it and liked it, if the way he kicked the door shut was any indication.

He stalked toward me.

There was nowhere to go. None of the servants had come to investigate any of the shouting so far, so I doubted I could rely on them for help. And it would probably get Lewis even more revved up. So I stood there, breath coming shallow and quick like the stupid fucking rabbit I was.

“Now, darling,” Lewis breathed into my ear. I didn’t jump, but I felt my shoulder rise without my say-so, shying away. “Let us see what you hoard so determinedly.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Did you think I didn’t notice your petty larceny?” His fingers hooked into the drawstring at the front of my gown and yanked . The ribbon snapped and the bodice parted, dragged down my arms by the weight of the sleeves.

“Don’t!” I jerked back, both hands covering the wallet and phone where they stuck out of the cups of my stays. I pushed them farther down, until they were pressed between the stiff layers of twill and my ribs.

“If your timepiece was so valuable, what will these fetch me, I wonder,” Lewis hissed, avarice slicing through every syllable like a scalpel.

“Take the jacket,” I begged, taking a stumbling step back. “Sell the jeans, and the pins, the hat, I don’t care. But not these.”

“But it is your very resolve to keep it from me that tells me that whatever you hide is worth selling.”

“They’re just cards. The last thing I have from my family. They were ruined in the water. But they’re mine.” I said nothing about the cell phone. Another step back and I stumbled against the spindly table, knocking over the empty glass.

“Oh, you poor thing,” Lewis cooed, following me tightly, step for step. “Has the sherry gone to your head?”

I was on the verge of saying no, of course not, I’d partied harder than he’d ever know, but changed my mind at the last second. “It’s just all so much,” I whimpered, hoping I wasn’t overselling it. “Please, I promise you, nothing is of any value beyond sentimental.”

Lewis made a disgusted sound. “You know better than to lie to me,” he hissed, his breath was revoltingly moist against my neck.

I nodded.

“Good. Keep your cards then, if they will make you agreeable. But remember that this is a favor I am granting you and I will expect a favor in return.”

“What favor?” I asked, even though I already knew I wouldn’t like the answer.

His lips came down on the bare spot between my neck and shoulder, leaving a slime trail. I shied away but his hand dropped heavily onto my nape, gripping tight to keep me in place. I was sure that at any moment he was going to shake me and snap my neck, like a terrier with a rat.

When he reached my ear he said, “I want you to do for me what you did for Fen.”

Lewis’s hand shot up and fisted hard in my hair. I was wrenched backward, curling up onto my tiptoes and thanking my yoga instructor once again that I had the core strength necessary to hold my balance. It was that or let him tip me into the table at an angle that would likely break a bone. Which was probably his aim, the sadistic fuck.

But Lewis was stronger than he looked, and with another twist, I was slammed down to my knees. I had to clutch at Lewis’s thigh to keep my balance. He shifted, grinning, so that his legs were on either side of my shoulders.

“You will be my wife and you will perform your duties,” Lewis said. “Do it. With your mouth.”

Nausea churned in my guts. I clamped my lips shut. If he made me do this, I knew I was going to be sick all over his—

I tried to push back but he still had one hand on the back of my head. He shoved the other into my mouth when I opened it to cry out, two fingers digging against the root of my tongue, the backs of my bottom teeth. It was as effective as a ball gag. I heaved but managed to keep it down.

“No one will come,” Lewis hissed. “They know better than to interrupt their master when he’s at his pleasure.”

I snapped my teeth down.

“Bitch!” Lewis snarled, yanking his fingers out of my mouth, only to swing them down hard against the side of my head.

Stars burst in my vision, my clapped ear ringing, and I hit the carpet so hard I felt my other cheek burn. Lewis tottered back, heading for the sideboard, and I lay where I was and waited for the world to stop reeling. When I pulled myself upright again, Lewis had one hand wrapped around the neck of a wine bottle, emptying the contents down his throat, and the other shoved down the front of his breeches.

His fingers slipped on the buttons of his flap.

I sat up.

While I may have been mildly buzzed, he was most of the way to shitfaced. I didn’t know how much he’d drunk before Fenton and I had arrived, but he’d just guzzled more.

“Drink,” he snarled at me, tipping forward with the bottle, and I grabbed it from his hands to prevent him from pouring it over my tits. “Drink!”

I didn’t relish putting my lips where his had just been, but it was better than another backhand, so I tipped the bottle up and finished off the final third of it. It was sweet, Christ was it sweet, but it didn’t taste strong.

Fun fact, my memory-dad piped up . Alcohol is on average twice as strong in the twenty-first century than it ever was in the past.

I could use this. I didn’t know how yet, but somehow, university drinking games could be my superpower. I just had to figure out how best to deploy it.

The bottle empty, Lewis knocked it away then dug his hands into the hair behind my ears. I tried to scooch back but only managed to trap myself against the sofa. His breeches flap was down, the thin linen of his shirttail stained with old piss and tented obscenely with his excitement. I couldn’t see his dick, but what I could see was enough to make my gorge rise again.

“Bite me again and I’ll knock out your teeth. Now. Do. It.”

I couldn’t. I couldn’t make my hands move, couldn’t lean forward, couldn’t do anything but shake and dry heave.

Wait.

This could be a superpower too.

Thinking of all of the most vile, rancid, disgusting things I’d ever seen or smelled in my life, I jammed my fingers into the back of my throat and puked.

Lewis yelped, dancing backward, away from the hot fount. “You revolting wench!”

“I’m sorry!” I caterwauled, backing away as soon as I’d emptied my stomach, though I was nothing of the sort. “I’m sorry. Please! I’m drunk.” I scrambled up off the floor, wiping my lips with one of the fancy napkins on the bar cart. “You made me drink four glasses!”

So, about eight ounces. Which was a full ounce less than a standard restaurant serving.

He skirted the puddle and stomped after me, hand raised, knocking into chairs and tables as he stumbled. “I’ll teach you to—”

“I can do better! I promise.” I got a potted fern between us. “Let me try again, I promise, I won’t disappoint you. You don’t have to hit me, I’ve learned my lesson, I—” I clutched my stomach, clamped a hand over my mouth, and heaved again as theatrically as possible.

“Susan!” he roared, and a timid maid popped her head through the servant’s door a moment later.

“Sir?”

“Take my fiancé to her room,” he snapped. “Fix that ridiculous hair. And bathe her. I can still smell Fen on her. We’ll do this correctly tomorrow.”