Page 77 of Bargaining with the Devil

And then he gave her the choice to accede to his plans for her.

“You will allow me to introduce you to men of my choosing in France,” Mr. Compton said. “Don’t worry, only one or two—to start. And you will do whatever I wish you to do with them.”

“No. I will not.” She was hurting so badly, thoughts careening every which way. Why had Teddy, her sweet, kind Teddy, done this? Except he wasn’t sweet and kind, if it was true. And she was beginning to believe Mr. Compton’s story, partly because his eyes held such inhuman indifference that she shivered involuntarily each time she looked at him.

“You do have another choice, of course, besides throwing yourself overboard. And you’ll live with this option too. I can leave you off on the docks when we reach Boulogne, but sadly you haven’t any money or jewelry. I’ll allow you to keep these whore’s rags. No doubt sailors coming into port will find it . . . appealing.”

Oh God. He means . . . She’d be helpless, friendless, without money or any resources at all.

I’ll be mistaken for a dockside doxy. But maybe I’m already a doxy.

Perhaps that’s all she’d been: Teddy’s doxy. Not his love, not like he claimed.

But to be alone on the docks . . . She shivered. “Fine. The first.”

Mr. Compton’s gaze sharpened. “You’ll do my bidding?”

She couldn’t bring herself to say it aloud but nodded.

“I never trust the word of a woman, so I’ll do something else to ensure you hold to the agreement. And give you a reminder, if you will, that you’ve agreed. That you’re mine to do with as I please. That if you break this agreement, others will recognize anyway that you made it. Recognize that you’re nothing but a whore.”

He ordered her stripped naked. Numb, she didn’t fight it even though there were multiple men gathered on deck leering at her nudity. Mr. Compton ordered her to kneel so one of his men could scratch a mark deep into her arm, rubbing gunpowder into it to color it. She was aware of the pain but somehow removed from it at the same time. Outside her own body, which was no longer hers. The mark was an event that happened to that body. She felt it but didn’t feel at the same time.

When the man was done with the mark and a strip of cloth tied over it, Mr. Compton stepped forward again to where she knelt, this time with a pistol in his hand, and took her sharply by the hair until she looked upwards at him, jolted back to herself.

He released her long enough to unbuckle his trousers, freeing his grotesquely red, erect cock, before winding fingers painfully into her hair. “If you even think of biting me”—the pistol kissed her forehead—“I’ll kill you.” And he’d forced his cock past her lips, thrusting into her mouth until she gagged. “Now suck.”

She had, tears blinding her, snot and saliva dripping from her chin.

Eventually he pushed her back and said, “You can stop now.” He yanked her head up by the hair and smiled down at her. “I never finish in a whore’s mouth.” He’d tucked himself away in his trousers, still erect, and rebuckled his belt, calling for the whore’s dress to be returned to the whore.

It wasn’t a direct sail to Boulogne; the ship made several stops to load and unload cargo. It was the same every afternoon: Compton stripped her naked in front of the entire crew, made her kneel, and forced her to suck his cock with a gun to her head in one hand and his other wrapped painfully in her hair to hold her still.

And he told her every time that he never finished in a whore’s mouth.

In Boulogne there was a man. She didn’t know his name, couldn’t have remembered his face the next day had she been asked. He was some associate of Compton’s. The warehouse had a door with blue stripes painted on it; she’d told the agents that in Paris. She hadn’t told them that when she was brought to the warehouse, Compton stripped her naked again so the man could inspect her.

She didn’t remember all of it—most of it, really—except that the man didn’t have Compton’s delicacy with whores, but by then she was numb everywhere. There were large gaps in her memory between the ship to Boulogne and when she’d been introduced to Baron Cuvelier as a woman named Thérèse.

But she remembered pieces. She’d remembered the blue-striped door. And she’d remembered the slosh of water, like they were still at the docks. And she’d remembered the woman who’d brought her clothes, not the flimsy clothes from the ship, but elegant ones that put to shame what Teddy had bought her. The woman had dark hair and a large mole conspicuously on her left cheek. It was that woman who told her that her name was Thérèse until Monsieur told her otherwise.

All those things, she told the agents in Paris. And all the other details she started noticing when she came back to herself somewhat, after she’d been with Cuvelier a week or two.

She’d filed away everything she could because she’d vowed that someday she wouldn’t be Compton’s property. She’d always bear the mark on her arm. But she wouldn’t always be his whore.

She’d believed it at the time, that she was free. And she’d resolved in Scotland to never think of that time again.

Only it hadn’t been that easy, not nearly. She’d only been fooling herself that it was behind her.

She was nauseated now, shaking, cold all over. Quinn’s arms anchored her.

Quinn said he’d never judge her. Perhaps he even meant that. She still judged herself.

She’d thought—she’d hoped she could move past that week on the ship. She wanted to move past it with Quinn after he brought her so much pleasure with his own mouth. But she just . . . couldn’t. Not even for Quinn.

Although for the first time, there was . . . anger too, not only shame and nausea. It wasn’t only what Compton made her do—no, forced upon her. There was a distinction there. It was that now she couldn’t bring herself to do an act for Quinn that should have been something enjoyable.

“What is it, a mhuirnín?” One of his hands brushed tears from her cheek.