Spoiled

By Louisa Trent

Wealthy Emmett Condon is not a "good" man. Nor is he a gentleman. He professes to be both only to advance his numerous business deals, some legal, some shady, just like him. Certainly no one would ever mistake him for a hero...

Save for his infatuated ward of the last three years, Priscilla, the virginal young lady he has promised his mentor to wed.

Unfortunately, how his ward sees him is a carefully orchestrated illusion, an invention of his own making. That man doesn't exist.
So, taking pity on Priscilla, Emmett reveals his true self to her prior to their marriage.

And his ward flees. Escapes in stark horror.

Priscilla does indeed run from Emmett, the man she has always loved. Not in horror over what he did to her that night of her eighteenth birthday, a corruption of her innocence she cannot forget. She runs because she craves his debasement. She craves it even after discovering his commitment to her is a sham. Forsaking her attraction to his dominance, a dominance beyond boundaries, a domanance beyond limits, a dominance which surpasses her every moral belief -- she stays away from him...

Until his terrible power over her draws her back into his waiting arms.

Knowing he will never love her, that her guardian has bound her to him with emotional and physical coercion, that he has abused her trust, she settles for less than his love -- his lust.

Then she demands more. She demands all of him, including his darkness. And she fights for him the only way she knows how... by allowing him everything, even giving him permission to share her with another man.

Emmett will bring her to the very edge of decency and then fling her over the precipice, for he is a man willing to go to any lengths to protect Priscilla... including not telling her she holds his heart and what remains of his soul.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trent Publishing
• Release date: Dec 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781507028834

Louisa Trent

Louisa Trent has been published in ebook format since 2001. Her erotic romances have been with Ellora's Cave, Liquid Silver, Loose Id and Samhain. Refusing to be "branded" ( Louisa has a rebellious streak ) she writes across the genres -- contemporary, historical, paranormal, multi-cultural, and sci-fi. Basically, she writes whatever piques her interest, and she is a writer of many passionate interests. Readers can reach Louisa through her website: www.louisatrent.com .

Book preview

Prologue

The year 1873…

All the hell went on in the Scollay Square section of Boston:

Opium dens, illegal saloons, backroom gambling, red-lit brothels. You name it, and Emmett Condon had seen it.

Most likely, he’d had a hand in it too. He had more than a passing acquaintance with every vice known to man…

Except he was only twelve and stood barely five feet.

Keeping his lice-ridden head bowed low, his filthy hands stuffed deep in his raggedy twill pockets and whistling tunelessly under his foul breath, he strutted along Endicott Street. He might have newsprint where his boot soles used to be, but he had not a fucking care in the whole goddamned world.

Because why?

Because he worked for himself. Always had. That way, he owed no one nuthin’. And that was the way he aimed to keep things.

While passing by the usual bawdy establishments and peg houses, he shuddered. Naive farm girls and trusting small town boys wound up in those sorts of places. After looking for respectable employment in the city and finding none, they sold themselves there rather than rot in some poorhouse beyond city limits.

Shit. If not for his street savvy and sticky fingers, he might have met the same fate. But trusting and naïve? Those words never had described him. If he sold his arse on the street, he got one-hundred percent of the take. No one got a cut. That was just sound business.

In this area of Boston, bands of whoremongers – mostly transient sailors with some homegrown gents thrown into the mix too and all of them hankering for a taste of fresh chicken – roamed the streets. To avoid their soliciting, Emmett ducked between two adjacent brick buildings. Both had seen better days. Then again, what had not in this blighted slice of hell?

Never mind all that, this half-block alley was his territory. His second home if ever he’d had a first. Rank with the sour stink of piss and vomit or not, this section of the city was all his. And no one but no one shouldered their way into his action and lived to tell the tale.

Emmett moseyed on over real quiet-like to a drunkard sprawled face-down in a clogged gutter. Still whistling, he toed him. Once. Again. When the rummy kept snoring away, insensible to petty thieves like him, Emmett glanced over his shoulder.

Looked like no one was around to catch him. No eye witnesses meant his luck was holding. Hallelujah.

A quick pat-down of his mark produced a standard money clip, bulging with bills. Emmett lightened its load. After staggering out the double-hung tavern doors, fumes of Old Nick whiskey following, the bum would never miss a stray greenback gone missing here or there.

The evening’s haul came to about a sawbuck, all-told. Plenty enough to keep Emmett’s belly full for a week…if he went easy on the grub. By his low standards, he had done swell.

Even so, tonight felt different. Off somehow. A nose for trouble advised Emmet his evening of easy pick pocketing was about to draw to a premature end.

And son-of-a-gun, that was when he saw them.

Two no accounts, both thugs unknown to Emmett, sizing up a weaving fella up ahead, moving in on him too, as if to jump him. No doubt the pair was aiming to do a little filching on the sly.

Not in Emmett’s alley, they were not.

Before either of them got wind of him on their tails, Emmett introduced the smaller of the two to his boot. A sharp jab to the stones. Squealing like a schoolgirl, the snot-nosed sissy ran off, his gait lopsided. Poor fuck.

One down, another to go.

Emmett knew how others saw him: A puny runt a puff of air would blow over. This next thug most likely viewed him the same, only doubly so, since the bastard towered Emmett by a foot.

No argument, starvation had delayed Emmett’s growth spurt by a year or more. But he reckoned those postponed inches had pounded some extra toughness into him. The alleys of Scollay Square rid itself of weaklings faster than a hot knife through butter and Emmett had survived here on his own since he just turned eight.

As any mistreated mongrel pup would, Emmett bared his teeth and sprang for the second thug’s throat.

The maneuver worked…until the thug whipped out a knife.

Flattened on the cobblestones with chirping birdies circling his head and a gash gushing red from his arm, Emmet looked over at the thug.

Blade in hand, the victor was going back for the spoils – the weaving gent – maybe to finish him off.

Emmett stumbled to a stand. No fucking murders of tavern customers, not in his fucking territory. If this thug ended the weaving gent’s life, ale house owners would complain about a possible loss of future revenue, and the coppers would patrol the alley. Nightly. This inconvenience that would put Emmett shit out of a job and it would back selling his arse on the street again for him.

Emmett turned the thug’s knife back on himself, a sneak attack from the rear, a wound that was maybe survivable, then again, probably not, and all the same to Emmett…so long as he bled to death elsewhere.

To ensure that happened, Emmett dragged the thug back out onto the street, leaving a trail of guts as he went, a common enough sight on the main thoroughfare and nothing to alarm police about the safety of his little alley.

With a sigh of relief, Emmett returned to the weaving gent. Mister – you hurt?

Only my pride. My beloved wife died three years ago today in childbirth and I thought to drown my sorrows in cheap spirits. Instead, I nearly orphaned my little girl.

The kid is alive and so are you. Go home to her, mister. I sure as hell would if I had me a place to go home to.

So as not to have wasted his time…or his blood…Emmett held out his hand, all sad and pathetic-like. More pity money came his way when he laid the misery on extra thick.

You do now, said the gent, not weaving anymore.

Huh? I do what now? Emmett surveyed his empty palm. Was he losing his touch? Begging used to get him by in a pinch. Of course, he had been even smaller and a heap prettier back then, before he got his nose broke and all…

Still, where was this gent’s gratitude?

You have a home now. My home is your home, son.

Emmett’s empty palm fell back to his side. Ain’t nobody’s son, mister.

You are now, son.

Yeah, I heard that one before. Then some old geezer tells me to suck his cock for free.

Nothing of the kind. I work as a private schoolmaster at Hodge Academy for Boys. I have a small abode there, right on campus. Come home with me. I insist. I owe you my life. Taking you in is the very least I can do.

Fuck. In Emmett’s book, gratitude spelled money, not home-cooking.

But the gent spoke fine, like a genuine British toff. Learning to talk all proper-like might help Emmett advance from pick-pocketing to swindling. This alley was getting a might risky…

Time to cut his losses.

Emmett cradled his hurt arm against his side. Staying with you is out, mister. But I could come by every once in a while. How’s about teaching me stuff? You know, talking good?

First, you need to see a physician. That wound is deep.

No sawbones. The doc will report me to the fucking police and it will be the fucking poorhouse for me. I ain’t going to that place. And I ain’t selling my arse on the street anymore, neither.

All right, son. I understand. Someone at my school will tend your wound, a former army surgeon who values discretion.

Christ, but the gent sounded all la-dee-da. If Emmett talked fancy like that, folks would believe every lying word that came out of his mouth. It was worth a shot, anyway.

Emmett double checked. That there word ‘discretion’, mister, does that mean no questions asked?

Exactly, son. No questions asked.

The schoolmaster tied up Emmett’s bloody arm all neat and tidy-like with his handkerchief, a tourniquet he called it, and then off they set for his school.

Wait until my daughter, Priscilla, meets you, son, the schoolmaster said as they shuffled along. I wager my little darling will fall madly in love with her new hero…

Chapter One

The year 1888…

In a swirl of starched puffy petticoats and frothy tulle skirts, Miss Priscilla Abigail Spencer approached Emmett Condon as he stood outside on the veranda stealing a non-cloying breath of fresh air. Playing the part of oh-so proper chaperone at his ward’s eighteenth birthday party had begun to suffocate him. Not until his darling drew nearer did the heavy sensation in his chest lift.

Dimpling adorably, his bouncing, bratty, bubbly ward held a white-gloved finger to her plump lips. Shh! She raised her pinkie finger. Say not a word about seeing me out here, Mr. Condon. Promise?

Putting it mildly, Cilli – his all-too apt nickname for his little darling – was given to melodrama.

With a sigh part amusement, part exasperation, he crossed his smallest finger with hers. Promise.

But Christ. More intrigue. During his three excruciatingly long years of guardianship over his ward, Cilli had embroiled him in many such clandestine plots. In the beginning, unacquainted with the devious inner workings of the virginal female mind, he had fallen hook, line, and sinker for all of them. Now, though, better acquainted with the devious inner workings of the virginal female mind, Emmett always asked questions.

Sometimes he even asked those questions before getting involved. Invariably, he ended up promising to do exactly as she asked. Still, feeling better informed in the beginning made him feel less the idiot later when she…

Made a fool of him anyway.

She tilted her spectacularly stunning jaw. "I suppose you needn’t keep strictly to silence with everyone. Not absolutely to silence. But – should a certain someone ask over my whereabouts, you have not seen me this entire evening. Agreed?"

As per usual, his ward had told him exactly nothing, except…

He was about to get royally hoodwinked. Again. This was fucking annoying as bamboozling folks happened to be his specialty.

Be that as it may, Emmett nodded. Agreed.

Her green eyes wide, his charge batted the black fringe of her lashes at him with the heartfelt earnestness only a sheltered young miss could pull off. Thank you, sir! Thank you! You have saved me. This is a veritable question of life and death.

It always was with his ward. But, he played along.

How so? he asked in feigned guilelessness.

Her plump lips pursed in petulance. Why do you always interrogate me? Can you not simply take my remarks at face value?

It took a con artist to recognize a con artist and she was not getting the best of him. Not this time.

No, he said promptly.

Having rarely heard that word coming from him, she gasped. Pardon me, sir?

I cannot simply take your remarks at face value because there is no ‘simply’ when it comes to you, Cilli. You are a mass of immeasurable complications.

Why thank you, sir! And yes, I know, I am rather deep. A sparkly smile, a swell of girlish preening, a deep curtsy. Everyone says so. Caro once declared me the most profound person she had ever known.

Your friend Caroline should either wait a few years before making such sweeping generalizations or enlarge her present circle of acquaintances.

His ward played with a fair tendril of hair drooping artfully over her forehead. Emmett knew for a fact it had taken her maid two hours to arrange that windblown look to his ward’s satisfaction. He wagered it would take his darling less than a conversation with him to destroy it.

Pardon, sir? Scowling, she tugged on the errant curl. I miss your meaning. Oh, drat this hair of mine anyway. Why can I not have pin-straight hair like Caro?

Cilli, to return to my promise of silence to you: I need you to elaborate on why you are hiding out here in the dark with me rather than waltzing inside with the fifty-or so adoring beaus who signed your dance card earlier – dense fellow that I am.

Not dense, sir. Her immature breasts shifting within the bodice of the white ruffled ingénue gown he had selected for her, the modest boat neckline of which was a good three inches higher than the scandalous décolletage on the one she had chosen for herself, Cilli leaned forward and patted his hand. Certainly not dense. A tad slow at times is all.

My heartfelt thanks for the concession, he said dryly.

Fret not, sir. My explanation will be quite thorough.

She wiggled her bustled posterior next to him at the railing, far too close for both her continued virginity and his comfort level. This was nothing new, and so he was prepared.

In advance of having his patience tried, he settled himself slightly away from her at the railing. Go on, Cilly.

Cease rushing me, sir!

Now, he was in for it. No short story this, but an epic retelling.

Resigned to listen to an endless stream of confidences better suited to a mother’s ear than a masher’s, he half-heartedly added, Any time you are ready. May that take place sooner rather than later.

As naïve as only an innocent can be, she pressed her bosom against his arm, and he suddenly tensed.

At this very moment, sir, that farm boy Ford Norman expects me to dance with him again and I have absolutely no intention of doing so. He has flirted with me outrageously all evening, trying to turn my head with his witty bon mots and handsome profile and muscle-hugging tailoring and I absolutely shan’t have it. His jests are unfunny and the cut of his cloth provincial. Although he is quite handsome, in a rustic way, my falling madly and passionately in love with a country bumpkin like him is out of the question. What could I, a sophisticated Bostonian, possibly have in common with an individual who shovels manure from a cow stall?

Little snob! I will have you know, at twenty-two years of age, Ford Norman is singlehandedly trying to turn a profit off that land he owns. I admire his gumption.

She snorted. His gumption has dirt under its fingernails. At least, I trust it is dirt. But who knows? It could be something else. Why on earth did you ever invite him to my birthday party?

When he delivered this week’s produce to the kitchen, I happened to be there discussing tonight’s menu selections with Cook and we all three got to talking. He shrugged. One thing led to another and before I knew it, I was asking him to attend your celebration. Be nice to Ford Norman. The boy works hard.

‘Be nice to him’, she mimicked. Never mind that he is a puritanical prig who makes me feel as I am destined for damnation owing to my irreverence. Never mind that I have a stitch in my side from my tight corseting and I am absolutely about to belch in public from swallowing massive quantities air, still I must be nice.

Her chin bobbed. "I know. I know. You are forever telling me I require no corseting, tight or otherwise, and so please refrain from doing so again now."

He snapped his mouth shut.

Caro says I must have at least one-inch of cleavage showing. As I have none, I must push what little bosom I do have upwards by some means. Hence, the overly severe lacing.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, Cilli hosted an afternoon tea in his downstairs library for her gaggle of female friends under the guise of discussing the classics. They did no such thing. Lurid dime novels and pulp serial romances took center stage before the so-called literary group moved onto the real meat of the discussion:

Boys and bosoms.

As to the one-inch cleavage rule, young lady – if your friend Caroline jumped off a bridge into the river would you jump in after her?

Christ. Had that impromptu lecture fallen from his bachelor’s mouth?

He sounded like her aged uncle. No, worse! Her spinster aunt.

She bit her lip. On the bridge, sir – would I be attired in silk or taffeta? Water stains those goods most horribly. But, perhaps, in the summer, wearing a light organza with a side ruffle, I might be persuaded to jump in after her.

She tapped her chin. Oh, what a kerfuffle! Now, let me think. Can Caro swim? For the life of me, I cannot recall. But if she could not…Goodness! Suppose she were drowning in that river? I would most certainly jump –

Never mind, he muttered. Forget I ever asked.

That resolved, she returned to quivering with righteous indignation and glowering at him. Sir – by forbidding me to stuff my chest with cotton batting and by forcing me wear a childish neckline, you have made me completely unsellable on the marriage market.

His darling was always beautiful, but when she started hissing and spitting and her feline claws came out to scratch, she threatened his plan to wait a few more months before proposing to her, himself.

In a subtle move intended to hide his less than subtle erection, he sidestepped away from her at the railing.

Never one to be put off, least of all by subtlety, she followed. I will never find a husband now.

A distraction. A distraction. Where was a distraction when he needed one?

Cilli – this party is a birthday celebration. Not a marriage market. Where is your rush to wed?

As if he were the younger by nine years, not the other way round, she clucked her tongue at him. As you very well know, Papa left me quite penniless. My finding a suitor of substantial financial means as quickly as possible is absolutely imperative. To wit, I have narrowed the field to three, and country bumpkin Ford Norman is decidedly not a top contender. Indeed, he is nowhere to be found on the list.

Cilli fluffed blond ringlets that required no fluffing. I cannot afford to waste my time on him anymore this evening. The boy is dirt-poor and so will never do.

Spoiled brat, he praised, all but patting her head.

Not spoiled, sir. Realistic! The maintenance of my coiffeurs alone requires the attendance of a personal maid. And then there is my wardrobe. My gowns must be maintained. After all, I have my pride.

And well you should. Appearance is everything in life. Apart from that, it is just as easy to love a rich man as a poor one.

Once, long ago, Cilli’s father – the schoolmaster who had taught Emmett many invaluable life lessons – had taken exception to his pupil’s cynical view of love, saying what his jaded student felt for his daughter was indeed love, and of the purest variety, as it was fundamentally unselfish.

Emmett had scoffed at that notion back then and had done so again tonight while re-reading the schoolmaster’s deathbed request.

Emmett owed Cilli’s father just about everything. For that reason alone, he would abide by the schoolmaster’s last wishes. Every written word of them. But love played no part in his decision and love was definitely not what Emmett felt for his ward. And, furthermore, Emmett still felt the same now about love as he had back then:

In a world of cheats and cons and fraud and thievery, love was the greatest swindle of them all.

Chapter Two

For once, I agree with you, Mr. Condon, said his surprisingly mature-sounding ward. I have known poverty and I have known riches, and I much prefer your way of life to counting pennies in a cold-water tenement flat as I did before Papa’s death. I must be practical and marry for money, and so I shall.

Cilli was spoiled. Emmett would take responsibility there. He had done that to her. And now she could not see past the gold-plated buckles on her choice white kid slippers.

He heartily approved of her near sightedness.

In a matter of three years, he had single-handedly obliterated the influence of her father’s moralistic teachings and turned the highly idealist fifteen year old bookworm orphan into the self-indulgent little baggage she was today.

A change all for the best.

She had been such a sad little thing back then. Her mournful mopes were damnably irritating. After putting up with her melancholy face for a week, he took her shopping. Carte blanche. Rather than deal with her tears, he plied her with pretty baubles to lift her spirits. And it worked. She never cried in his company again or spoke in a grief-stricken monotone about missing her father.

Emmett brushed a bit of lint from his dandified striped trouser leg. His ward’s mercenary heart would work to his advantage when he offered her marriage within the year.

Let her survey the field for marital prospects all she liked. After seeing the limited prospects, she would better appreciate what his wealth would afford her and enthusiastically accept his proposal.

A straightforward proposition. None of this hearts and flowers nonsense. Rather than seduce women, he paid as he went. Cleaner. Less emotional. Easier to end. And he always ended it.

Not Cilli. He would not end them. She was stuck with him for keeps. A raw deal, not that she recognized it as such.

His ward was infatuated with him, a schoolgirl fascination that had little to