PART I
1937
Lyford, Oxfordshire, England
CHAPTER 1
Olivia had been sleeping when the stranger arrived at her father’s manor shortly before midnight. The distant hiss of car tires on gravel awoke her, and when she saw the light of the porch lamps through the gauze curtains, she slid out of bed and peered out of the window.
A black Rolls Royce was pulling around the driveway fountain. When it stopped a few yards from the porch, the rear door opened, and a tall man donning a bowler hat and a heavy charcoal coat got out. He had dark eyes and a dark mustache. His jawline was straight and strong.
The man stared at the building for a few seconds. It was a knowing look as if he were returning home after a long journey. Then he saw someone who must have been standing at the front door, just out of Olivia’s line of sight. He spread his arms wide.
“Georg,” said the voice in the doorway. It was her father.
“It’s good to see you again, brother,” replied the man, his words turning to mist in the chilly night air.
Olivia frowned. This man was her uncle? No one had ever told her she had an uncle. He had to be an old friend or one of her father’s acquaintances from his years in the army.
“It’s been far too many years,” the man said as the gravel crunched beneath his feet.
He disappeared from her line of sight. There were a few seconds of silence.
“Please, do come in.”
After she heard the heavy oak door shut behind them, she went back to her bed. A creaking door further along the landing broke the silence. It must have been her twin sister Imogen.
Olivia sighed. It was so typical of Imogen to be up to no good. Olivia tip-toed across the old wooden floorboards to her bedroom door and eased it open. As expected, Imogen was crouching near the top of the staircase, peering through the banister at the entryway. Olivia crawled over to her.
“What are you doing?” she hissed.
“Who could possibly be calling on Papa at this hour?”
Imogen’s eyes were alight with excitement. That was never a good sign.
“We should go back to bed. This isn’t proper!”
“He’s very handsome.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. The man’s appearance, though pleasant to look at, was irrelevant. They were breaking the rules.
“He really is quite the Adonis.”
Curiosity momentarily got the better of Olivia. She leaned in to see the entryway. The stranger was handing his coat to a servant girl, grinning at her with pristine white teeth. Then he turned to the mirror, rubbed a thick hand through his full brown hair, and smoothed down the lapels of his pearl gray suit jacket. The fabric was cut exactly to the contours of his sturdy chest. There were no creases.
Her father put a hand on the man’s shoulder and gestured for him to enter the smoking room. Olivia detected a stiffness in her father’s movements. The men went in, and the servant girl closed the door behind them.
“Let’s go snoop!”
“No. Imogen. Wait!”
But it was too late. Her sister was already halfway down the stairs.
Olivia bit her lip. They had no excuse for running around the house at this late hour, especially in their nightdresses. It was unconscionable for this strange man to see their exposed shoulders and knees. The thought of it made her shiver.
Imogen was now at the bottom of the stairs. She waved at her.
Olivia looked back at her open bedroom door. The only good reason to follow her sister was to find out the identity of this man. The voice of caution told her to return to her room. The voice of curiosity told her to find out who this man was.
She silently cursed her lack of discipline and made her way slowly down the stairs, her bare feet treading softly on each step of the faded carpet.
Imogen already had her ear to the door. Olivia did the same, but she could only hear muffled voices on the other side. Her sister turned the discolored bronze handle. To Olivia’s relief, it rotated silently until there was a barely audible click. The door crept open.
Through the small gap, they saw the two men sitting in leather armchairs by the fireplace. They were smoking cigars and drinking their father’s favorite scotch. The room was dark save for the glow of the flames. Their father, who had his back on them, poked the embers with an iron rod. They crackled and popped. The men’s long shadows flickered momentarily back and forth across the floor between the door and the chairs.
“At least you’ll be safe here in England,” their father said.
The stranger seemed to be deep in thought. Flames danced in his dark eyes.
“For now, I suppose.”
He sipped at the glass.
“For now?”
There was an anxious edge to their father’s voice.
“The Germans think I’m in Switzerland. It’s only a matter of time until they discover I’m in England.”
The girls looked at each other with wide eyes. There now seemed to be an air of danger to their voyerism.
“I do trust my family is not in danger?”
“I only plan to stay a few weeks. To get my affairs in order and all that. I’ll board a ship for New York in the first week of January.”
He threw his head back and downed the rest of the scotch. Olivia could just see the outline of his Adam’s apple rise and fall.
“That should not be a problem,” her father said. “Very few of my friends or business acquaintances in London visit me out here in the country.”
As the stranger placed the empty glass on his armrest, his eyes shifted to the gap between the doors.
Imogen lunged to the side, then dashed for the stairs. Olivia, her feet frozen to the spot, watched her with dread.
“Olivia!”
She looked back through the gap and saw her father standing by his armchair. He was glaring at her.
“Come in here at once!”
Her mouth went dry.
“Now!”
Bowing her head, she walked over to the two men with her hands behind her back. She felt naked in her nightdress. She did not dare look up.
“Am I correct in thinking you were listening to our conversation?”
She remained silent. She could taste the bitter cigar smoke swirling around her.
“Look at me when I am speaking to you!”
She peered up. Most of his face was cast in shadow, yet she could feel his eyes burning into her.
“Then what on Earth were you doing out there?”
She stole a glance at the stranger. His jaw muscles were tense. The hair rose on her neck.
“I… I’m sorry, Papa. I didn’t mean to pry. I heard a car arrive and… well… I was confused.”
“And what, dearest daughter, might you be so confused about at this late hour?” he said, lacing each word with venom.
“I heard him call you ‘brother.'”
Her father’s posture slackened. He pressed his lips together and rubbed the back of his thumb across his mustache. He glanced at the stranger, then back at Olivia.
“That is indeed unfortunate. I was planning on telling you tomorrow at breakfast.”
“Tell me what, Papa?”
He took a deep breath.
“This is Georg Meister. He was married to my cousin Margaret Swanson. You remember dear Margaret, don’t you?”
Olivia nodded as vague images swirled in her mind: a smile, a laugh, a pretty pale face framed by rich strands of auburn hair. Margaret had died several years ago. No one had told her what the cause of her death had been.
“Georg has just arrived from Germany.”
Georg gave her a weak smile.
“Terribly sorry we’re meeting like this.”
He had no accent. Her father seemed to read her mind.
“We went to Eton together. Georg’s father thought it best he receives a gentleman’s education in England.”
A thousand questions popped into Olivia’s mind. Why had her father never mentioned Margaret’s husband? Why was he here now? Why did he have to escape from Germany?
She noticed Georg’s gaze drift to her chest. She stiffened and crossed her arms over the shallow mounds pressing through her nightdress. He seemed to notice her discomfort, for he straightened his posture and cleared his throat.
“And how old are you, Olivia?” he muttered.
It was an odd question. Yet for some reason, Olivia’s neck suddenly felt hot. It was not the fire. She was facing it.
“I celebrated my seventeenth birthday a month ago, Sir.”
He raised his eyebrows and pressed his lips together as if impressed by this innocuous bit of information.
“Then I must wish you a belated happy birthday. I’m awfully sorry I missed it.”
He smirked.
She looked away. Although he was no longer gawking, there was still something profane about his gaze.
Her father tapped his fingers against his whiskey glass. He must have only just realized what she was wearing, for he too was looking her up and down. He grimaced.
“I’m sure you’re very tired, Olivia. You should get some sleep.”
Olivia understood his meaning and bade them good night. As she walked away, she felt Georg’s eyes on her hair, back, and legs. She quickened her pace. After shutting the door, she scurried up the stairs to her room. She slid under the duvet cover and placed a hand above her breasts. Her heart was racing. She lifted the back of her other hand to her forehead. It was wet with cold beads of sweat.
She shut her eyes. Images of Georg flickered in her mind.
The broad chest beneath the gray suit. The white teeth. The full lips.
She tried to think of something else.
The hand running through the thick strands of hair. The eyes, dark orbs alight with flames, penetrating the thin fabric of her nightdress, searching for her pale flesh.
The hand on her chest drifted down her breasts, over her stomach, past her hips, and found the inside of her thigh. She slid her fingers over the smooth skin and up beneath the silk. The skin here was wet. Her muscles tensed. She massaged the pulpy lips. Gasped. Her finger sunk inside the tight flesh. She gasped again.
In and out.
Her finger quickened its pace.
In and out.
She arched her back.
Rubbing.
Clenched her toes.
Rubbing.
She curled into a ball. Then she slammed her pillow over her open mouth and screamed into the linen. Lightening struck throughout her body. She kicked and shuddered and punched out to the sides. Again and again and again.
Then the strikes weakened until all she could feel was the fading glow of that singular bliss. She looked at the ceiling of her four-poster bed. Tears were sliding down her cheeks. Her head turned into the pillow, and she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
***
CHAPTER 2
Georg spent his first week at Ambrose Payne’s manor sleeping late into the morning, reading late into the afternoon, and smoking late into the night. Many of the scars he had brought with him were deep. No matter how much he smoked or drank, the pain throbbed inside him, dull and contained. He was certain it would remain like this until the day he died. He was nevertheless thankful for the opportunity to recuperate in the solitude of the English countryside. Not even the biting wind or incessant drizzle could dampen his sense of temporary relief.
As the week wore on, his friendship with Ambrose rapidly healed. They had been close friends at Eton, and Georg’s marriage to Ambrose’s cousin two years after leaving school had made them part of the same family. But after Georg returned to Germany with Margaret, the two men’s political opinions diverged, first slowly, then quickly. Their correspondence slowed to a trickle until it dried up completely. The last letter Georg received from Ambrose was a condolence card after Margaret’s death in 1932.
The years after his wife’s death saw Georg reconsider his beliefs. Under the Nazis, Germany had become ugly and savage and was quickly becoming a threat to its European neighbors. As he discussed this with Ambrose over an endless supply of scotch, so too did his cousin realize that their views were very similar. Ambrose’s initially chilly manner thawed, and by the end of that first week, the old warmth of their Eton years had returned.
Thereafter, Georg got to know Ambrose’s wife Elenor, whose exquisite manners, cheery disposition, and radiant beauty charmed him to no end. There was little jealousy on his part. On the contrary, Georg was thrilled that Ambrose had found such a perfect partner to share the rest of his life with.
The daughters, he soon realized, were more complex creatures.
They looked almost identical. Although skinny and devoid of the curves of their mother, they had inherited her straight nose and full lips. Their father had bequeathed to them his pale skin, sky-blue eyes, and dull blonde hair, which they wore in long ponytails that hung halfway down their backs. They were pretty maidens on the verge of becoming beautiful young women.
Beneath the skin, however, the girls were very different.
Imogen was impulsive and impudent. She brimmed with confidence. Most of her days were split between riding her ponies and reading the latest gossip magazines from London in the drawing room with her mother. Georg often found her looking at him. She never blushed or looked away. She just smiled and stroked the end of her ponytail as it lay over her shoulder. Despite one or two doubts lingering in the back of his mind, Georg brushed her behavior off as juvenile friendliness.
To Georg’s surprise, Imogen’s behavior did little to vex her straight-laced father. Ambrose muttered the odd comment here or there about how silly she was, but it was obvious that he was smitten with the girl. His eyes lit up whenever she entered the room, and he spoke at length on several occasions about which future lord, earl, or duke his darling Imogen might marry. So long as she smiled and fluttered her eyelashes at her father, she could do no harm.
This paternal affection did not extend to Olivia. Ambrose rarely mentioned her. When he spoke to her, he was curt and cold. That most likely explained her cautious, stern, and shy nature, Georg thought. He often found her in the library, reading dusty books or scribbling long passages in a worn leather-bound diary. She never looked Georg in the eye and only gave monosyllabic answers in response to his questions.
Although Georg believed Ambrose’s parenting was responsible for her behavior, he could not help wondering if their first meeting had also tainted her view of him. He had found the affair rather amusing. It had clearly mortified Olivia, exposed as she was in her skimpy pink nightdress. Perhaps some childish feeling of shame still weighed her down, weeks after the event. If that was indeed the case, he wanted to rid her of it. She too should see the comic aspects in such inconsequential events.
Early in December, he went searching for Imogen, believing she would best know how to discuss this subject with her sister. He looked first in the stables and then in the drawing room, but he could not find her. A servant girl coming down the stairs told him she was in her room.
“Just got back from riding, Sir. She wanted to freshen up.”
Georg thanked her with a smile, but it quickly vanished when she passed him. It was improper for a gentleman to visit a girl — or woman, for that matter — in her bedroom, alone. Ambrose would be apoplectic. Then again, he and Elenor had gone to town. They were not due back for a few more hours. Only Olivia could conceivably walk into the room during their little discussion.
He grabbed the railing, bounded up the stairs, and knocked on the door.
“Who is it?” came her voice from within.
“Georg.”
The door opened, and Georg dropped his gaze to Imogen’s smiling face. She was wearing a long dress with an Empire waist. Her hair was still damp.
“You don’t have to knock, Georg. You can come in anytime you like.”
Georg stiffened at the comment’s lurid undertone. She could not have meant it in that way.
“Come!”
She took his hand and led him toward the four-poster bed at the far end of the room. Her skirt billowed around her knees as she walked. She let go of his hand and let herself fall onto the edge, bouncing a few times on the mattress as she peered up at him.
Georg took a step back, grinned, and scanned the room. A large oak dresser at the far wall was the only other major piece of furniture. Paintings of country life and horse riding hung from the lavender-colored walls. The entire space was awash in a dull white light pouring in through the large rectangular window.
“What a lovely room you have.”
Imogen giggled.
“I suppose so. I don’t spend much time here. I just got back from riding Egor.”
Georg nodded and went to the window. Rain was pattering against the pane. He watched a single drop merge with another and slide down to the ledge.
“I wanted to ask you about your sister. She has been awfully cold to me since I arrived. Can you think of any reason why?”
Imogen furrowed her brow.
“Not really. Olivia is like that. She’s very… uptight about everything. I’m sure she holds no ill feeling toward you.”
Georg smiled weakly, rubbing the end of his mustache between his finger and thumb.
“Has she mentioned anything to you about the night I arrived?”
Imogen smirked. There was something reckless about the way she was looking at him.
“You mean how she got caught in her nightdress snooping on you and Papa?”
He rubbed his hands behind his back.
“Quite.”
“I thought it was rather funny.”
Georg chuckled.
“You did? Well, I should say she rather hated it.”
“I wouldn’t have.”
He stopped. The room suddenly felt cramped. He glanced at her. She wasn’t blinking. Her lips were parted just enough for him to see the tips of her teeth.
“Right. Well. I want Olivia to move past that unfortunate business.”
Imogen stood up and went to him. Georg felt his knees buckle slightly.
“And why is that Herr Meister?”
He said nothing. His doubts were becoming certainties. Friendliness was not this girl’s objective.
“I bet you enjoyed seeing Olivia like that.”
He recoiled.
“Excuse me?”
Imogen bit her bottom lip.
“You liked it, didn’t you? She must have looked very vulnerable. All exposed like that.”
She stepped toward him so that her face was directly below his. Jasmine and something sweet mingled in his nostrils. It was a familiar scent. Her mother wore it.
He told himself to step away, walk out, do anything to get out of this torrid situation.
“She’s your sister, Imogen.”
She exhaled on his neck. Goosebumps spread over his shoulders and arms.
“We look alike, don’t we?”
She laid a hand on his chest and spread her fingers.
“Do you want me to be vulnerable too?”
He grabbed her wrist.
“Imogen, I’m flattered. Really. I am. But I can’t do this.”
Her smile widened.
“Of course you can. You can do whatever you want.”
The pain between his legs was becoming unbearable.
“Your father is my oldest friend. I’m a guest here. It is simply the height of impropriety to—”
She rolled onto the tips of her toes and pressed her lips to his.
He stood still while Imogen’s tongue searched for an opening. This is madness, he told himself. Utter depravity. Walk away. Now.
But he did not.
Her tongue slid between his lips and met his. It was soft, small, and warm. Then he lifted his hands to the sides of her face and kissed her. Softly first, then harder. She licked his mouth, bit his tongue, and pressed herself into his chest as his fingers furrowed her scalp, wrapped themselves around strands of her hair, let them go, gripped them again, then slid down the back of her neck, over her bony shoulders, and met at her breasts.
“Break me, Georg.”
He grabbed her neck with one hand and, with the other, yanked at the top of her dress, ripping the fabric until he could see her pink nipples. He took the left one in his mouth and moistened it with his tongue.
“Don’t stop, Georg. Don’t stop.”
His mind was blank. There was only this room. Imogen. Her mouth. Her frail body. Her delicate breasts. Her tight little cunt.
He straightened, placed his hands on her shoulders, and shoved her with such force that she stumbled backward until she collapsed back on the bed. Like a lion nearing its wounded prey, he marched toward her while he unclasped his belt and unzipped his trousers.
Imogen lifted herself onto her elbows. She was trembling. Her eyes were fixed on the space between his legs.
He reached in and left his hand there.
She looked up.
“Show me it.”
He stepped forward so that her legs were beneath his crotch.
“Close your eyes.”
She did so.
“Now what does a good girl say?”
“Please, Sir.”
He flipped his cock out and pushed it between her lips. Her eyes sprang open as she gave a muffled groan. Grabbing her hair in his fists, he felt the urge to ram every inch of himself into her skull. But some small part of his mind urged caution. This was not a face to be fucked. She was too delicate. Too inexperienced. Like a piece of fine China, she could shatter into a thousand pieces if he went too hard too quickly. So he slid the top two inches gently back and forth across her tongue.
Within a minute, the spittle lining her lips had slowly accumulated to form a frothy ring of drool midway down his cock.
“There’s a good girl. Now flick your tongue.”
She looked up at him and he felt the hardened flesh of her tongue run awkwardly beneath his cock. She was new to this. He could not expect her to be perfect.
He continued gliding her head back and forth for a few more minutes until dense strings of saliva were dripping onto her chest and dress. He pulled out, rubbed the edge of his shaft across her cheeks and forehead, smearing her with the warm slop, and then rubbed his balls against her outstretched tongue.
Enough, he thought. Enough of this. He needed to taste and feel her.
He took her under the arms and lifted her to her feet. They kissed again. Then he spun her around and pushed her head forward so that she was bending over with her hands on the bed.
“Don’t hold back, Georg. Fuck my little pussy.”
He chuckled. She had no doubt read that in some smutty little novel that she hid under her bed. He leaned over her back and whispered into her ear,
“Patience, darling. Patience.”
His hands stopped at her hips, and he ran his tongue down the protruding pebbles of her spine, tasting the water and soap on her shivering skin, and entered the cleft between her arsecheeks.
“What… What are you…”
His tongue descended and came to a rest at her arsehole. Her sphincters tightened, and she jerked upright.
“Georg, wait… Is… Is this natural?”
She groaned as he twirled the tip around the hole. Her hand grabbed the hair on the back of his head and pulled on the roots.
“Ohhhh…”
His tongue attacked her with increasing vigor, and she fell forward, whimpering with pleasure.
He removed a hand from her hip, placed it inside her leg, and ran it up the skin until his fingers felt the moist flesh of her cunt.
She shrieked.
He ran two fingers over her lips, then burrowed one of them into the hole. It was tight. Incredibly tight. He pushed it all the way in and began stroking it back and forth. When he felt the tension loosen, he pushed in a second finger, and then a third.
The girl began to howl. But something cut it off after no more than second. She must have put her hands over her mouth.
Her cunt was now well and truly soaked. He removed his fingers and tongue and stood up. Placing his hands once more on her hips, he positioned his cock below her slippery flesh.
“Keep that hand on your mouth.”
She nodded.
His cock sunk into the flesh with ease and stretched the wall of her cunt as far as it would go. A scream died in her throat.
He pumped his hips back and forth, his grunts becoming harsher with each wet slap of her cunt against the base of his cock. From his angle, it felt like he was close to spearing her heart.
“Good girl. Good girl. Good girl.”
She was close. The shivering had left her waist. She was tense, using all her meager strength to ram herself back into him. In a few seconds, she would scream louder than she had ever screamed in her seventeen years of life. She would not be able to contain it.
He grabbed her shoulders, lifted her upright so that her back was against his chest, and placed a hand over her mouth. She bent her head back and stared at him, her face upside down.
Now.
He fucked her hard and fast, his cock almost exiting her cunt with each thrust.
Her eyes widened and then rolled up like a woman possessed. Her legs gave way. She seized up. A primal scream tried to break out of her mouth, but his hand contained it as a muffled whine.
“Shhhhhhhh.”
She wriggled like a fish in its last death throes. He did not let her go. She kept jerking left, right, up, and down. He held her tight, his hand locked over her mouth.
Then everything went limp, and he could feel her taking deep breaths through her nose. Her eyes were closed, her eyelids fluttering.
He let her go. She collapsed onto the bed.
Then he took hold of his slimy cock, stepped onto the mattress, and crouched over her back. He groaned, and a second later long strings of cum splattered against her back. He beat the last few drops onto her neck and was about to collapse beside her when he saw something by the door in the corner of his eye.
He looked up.
It was Olivia. Her hand was covering her mouth. Her cheeks were lined with tears.
“How… How could you?”
“Wait. I can explain.”
She disappeared into the landing.
He scrambled off the bed, ensured he was decent, and ran after her. She was already near the bottom of the stairs by the time he looked over the banister. He took the stairs two at a time. The front door was open. He ran out. Rain slashed his face. The wind cut through the fabric of his shirt. She was about thirty meters away on the field that lined the driveway. He strained his legs. Ten seconds later, he had caught up with her. He grabbed her shoulder, and she tumbled into the wet grass. As he stepped over her, she lifted her hands high above her face.
“Don’t hurt me!”
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw what you did to Imogen!”
Georg lowered his head and stared back at the manor. He was panting. The air felt like ice in his lungs.
“You silly girl. I wasn’t hurting her. We… We were making love.”
The words sounded absurd in his ears. How could such a bland turn of phrase express the carnal frenzy that he and Imogen had been engaging in?
Olivia lowered her arms and sat up.
“But I saw you. Holding her mouth. She couldn’t speak.”
“I didn’t want anyone in the house hearing her! For goodness sake, have you never been with a man?”
Olivia dropped her head. The fear had subsided. Shame or embarrassment or something else entirely had taken hold of her.
“I see. I’m very sorry.”
She stood up and brushed her skirt down. It was a useless gesture. The fabric was drenched and smeared with mud.
“We should go back,” she said.
Georg stared at her. What did she see in him now? He had bedded her sister in her father’s house. A dark sense of foreboding took hold of him.
“Will you tell your father?”
She looked down at her feet.
“No.”
He did not believe her. But there was little he could do about it out here in the freezing rain.
“We should go back,” she said.
He followed her at a distance. When they were inside, he watched her go up the stairs and into her room.
Imogen was on a couch in the drawing room. He sat beside her and took her into his arms.
“Will she tell Papa?”
“No, darling. Don’t worry about it.”
***
CHAPTER 3
Olivia shrieked.
Small shards of glass were lodged into the skin between her fingers. The pain was getting worse with each passing second. She looked around the table. Everyone was staring at the decapitated wine glass in her hand.
“How the devil did that happen?”
Her father was standing at the end of the table, one hand at the back of his chair. Wearing a thin orange paper crown, he looked faintly ridiculous in the dim candlelight. Her mother, who sat beside him and was wearing a similar crown but in yellow, had a hand over her mouth. Her eyes were fixed on the blood dripping onto the white linen tablecloth.
“I’m fine,” said Olivia. “I wasn’t aware of how strong my grip was.”
She glanced at Georg sitting across from her. The flame of the red candlestick positioned between them swayed in his eyes.
“That’s nasty,” he said. “We should clean it up.”
He stood up.
“No. Really. It’s fine.”
Olivia tried to catch Imogen’s gaze, but her sister refused to look up from the slice of Yule log on her plate.
Georg walked around the table, past the Christmas tree, and stood in the doorway.
“Go with him,” said her father.
Unwilling to make a scene, she stood up and followed Georg through the central floor to the kitchen. The room was empty, but Olivia could hear laughter coming from an adjacent room where the cooks and servant girls were eating, drinking, and being merry.
Georg lifted a stack of charred pans and trays out of the sink and placed them on a table peppered with peelings and crumbs.
“God that stench,” Georg he muttered.
He was right. The entire place stank of fried oil and roasted fat.
He washed his hands and held out his palm to her. She peered at it but did not offer her hand.
“I won’t bite. We need to clean the wound and remove the glass.”
She slowly extended her hand. His fingers were thick and warm around her wrist.
“Step up and let me run some water on it.”
Her shoulder pressed into his chest. He felt enormous. She tensed at the thought that he could do anything with her.
“This might hurt a little.”
She winced. The cold water stung the slits where the glass had entered the skin.
“There’s a good girl.”
In the corner of her eye, she could see the minuscule dots of hair beginning to form a shadow on his jaw. An urge to feel the coarse skin took hold of her.
“How have you been?”
Georg took the largest shard and began to pull. Olivia did not reply.
“Today was the first time I’ve properly seen you since…”
He trailed off, then took a deep breath.
“…that incident at the beginning of the month.”
The shard was almost halfway out. It did not hurt as much as Olivia had expected it to.
“I’ve been busy.”
She saw him smile.
“Imogen has been able to see you.”
“She sees me all the time. Even when I’m busy.”
“I understand you had a falling out?”
Olivia bristled at Imogen’s indiscretion. But she was not surprised. The level of intimacy between Georg and Imogen had been the impetus for their altercation in the stables a week earlier.
Olivia had not told her father about what she had seen. She did not want to ruin her relationship with her sister. Nevertheless, the shame of knowing that a man had stolen her sister’s innocence in her father’s house had eaten away at her. She needed to convince Imogen to drop her infatuation. Georg needed to leave their home as soon as possible. When Olivia reminded Imogen about her duty to their father, her sister hurled the horse brush in her hand against the wall of the stables.
“Don’t speak to me about duty!”
Olivia had expected her sister to be angry, but this level of fury surprised her.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Imogen. I say this with the greatest concern for your welfare.”
“That’s a lie.”
“What?”
“It’s a lie.”
“But why would I—”
“Because you’re jealous!”
Olivia blinked several times. How could her sister even fathom such a conclusion? It was repellent.
“Admit it. You’re bitter. You wish it had been you. You wish he’d fucked you instead.”
Olivia shut her eyes.
“How dare you use such obscenity! Papa brought us up better than that!”
Imogen stepped toward her. Her fists were at her sides. The knuckles were white with tension.
“He fucks me in here sometimes.”
“What?”
“At night. I come to him. He hides in the shadows and grabs me when I’m least expecting it.”
She took another step toward Olivia.
“Imogen, don’t say any more.”
“He does awful things to me. Terrible things. Things that would make you blush.”
Olivia stepped back.
“Imogen.”
“Do you want to hear them? It would make you wet.”
Olivia put her hands up in front of her.
“Imogen. This is beyond indecent.”
Olivia took another step and felt the wall at her back.
“He likes to fuck my arsehole.”
“Please! Stop!”
Imogen’s face was now directly in front of hers. Olivia could feel her sister’s breath on her face.
“I love it when he does that,” she hissed. “And I think you would too.”
Olivia felt her palm crack against the cold flesh of her sister’s cheek. She opened her eyes. Imogen had stumbled back. Her hand was touching the red skin on her face.
“Oh, Imogen. I’m… I’m so sorry.”
Her sister scowled.
“Leave Georg and me alone. I want nothing to do with you.”
Georg’s voice jarred her back to the present.
“Did you hear me? We can bandage it up now.”
She stared at the skin between her fingers. The gashes were thin and clean. It looked far better than it had before.
A servant girl entered the room with a small white roll of fabric. She gave it to Georg and left.
As he rolled the bandage around the hand, Olivia stared at his neck. A few dark chest hairs were just visible inside his shirt. She allowed her gaze to drift up to his lips. They were moist. An image flashed in her mind: Georg’s face buried between her sister’s arsecheeks.
She stiffened.
Another image: Georg standing behind Imogen, slowly inserting his cock into her arsehole.
She closed her eyes and shook her head.
“Something wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You were thinking about something. What was it?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
He stopped wrapping her hand.
“Tell me.”
Olivia could feel her bottom lip quivering. Her arms were itchy. A thousand ants crawled over the skin.
“I can’t.”
“Of course you can.”
The words tingled her throat. She tried to swallow them. But she could not.
“Do you…”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Do I…?”
She clenched her teeth.
“Do you sodomize my sister?”
Georg drew back, dropping her hand.
“What?”
“That’s what Imogen told me.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Tell me.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Why? What’s it to you if I do that to her?”
“It’s a sin.”
He scoffed.
“You don’t believe that.”
“Why do you presume to know what I believe?”
He laughed.
“Because I can. Your sister has told me plenty of things about you. Moreover, I’ve observed you since I arrived. I know you better than you’d care to admit.”
Olivia felt something yank on her stomach. Whatever he was about to say was a dagger. She knew it.
“Imogen is reckless. She rarely thinks before she acts or speaks. She regularly breaks the rules of etiquette. And you hate her for it. You try so hard to be the good upper-class girl, and yet your father still favors her. Still. You can’t give up hope, can you? That one day, he’ll appreciate what a dutiful woman you are and what a disappointment your sister is.”
Tears burned in Olivia’s eyes. She blinked several times to stop them from escaping.
Georg leaned in. Whispering, he said,
“But that’s not what burdens you the most.”
Her breathing stalled. She froze.
“What you really hate is that she doesn’t care. That she’s free. That she feels no need to live up to the suffocating restraints of your father.”
He moved in. His entire body seemed to be enclosing her.
“I do sodomize your sister.”
Olivia gave a stuttered gasp.
He placed his fingers under her chin and lifted her face to his.
“And I think you want me to sodomize you too.”
She felt like a piece of string about to snap.
“Don’t you?”
A tear fell down her cheeks.
“Yes.”
She tumbled back against the sink. He grabbed her shoulders, digging his fingers into the skin, spun her around, kissed her neck, licked her ear, bit it, grabbed her hair, pulled on her waist, and bent her over. She was panting. His hand was under her skit. Lifting it. Rough and savage. He yanked at her knickers. She clenched in anticipation.
His cock brushed up the skin. Entered the valley between her arsecheeks. Hot and throbbing. He prodded and pressed it against her arsehole. It gave way. He entered her. Further. Further. Then no more. She was clogged. Filled. Utterly consumed by him.
“Fuck me. Like you fucked Imogen.”
He began gyrating his hips. Slow, then fast. Soft, then hard. His meat, thick and solid, slid back and forth in her taut hole. She groaned, feeling the wetness between her legs as she bounced herself with increasing fury against his violent thrusts. He was using her, ruining her, destroying her. She did not want to do anything to stop him.
He snapped her head up and licked her ear.
“Get on your knees.”
His cock escaped her. She cried out.
He caught her and, twirling her around, pressed her to the floor. She stared up at him, swaying and dazed. Her cunt throbbed.
“Touch yourself.”
She brushed her clit with her finger. The ecstasy made her jolt.
“There’s a good girl.”
A second later, he grunted and cum fired onto her lips. She opened them and felt the seed soak her tongue. Some of it slid into her throat, making her gag. When the last of it was in her, she let the blubber slosh around her mouth, savoring the salty taste on her gums and tongue.
“Swallow it.”
She gulped it down. Then she touched herself. A white heat erupted between her legs. She collapsed to the floor and wriggled as the rapture spread through her body.
As it was starting to fade, Georg shouted,
“Quick! Someone’s coming!”
She scrambled to her feet and brushed her skirt down, checking it for any stains or damp spots. Georg tucked away his half-flaccid cock, and combed back some loose strands of his hair with his fingers.
The door to the central floor opened.
It was her father.
“There you are,” he said with a slight slur. “Everything alright? Everyone was beginning to worry.”
Olivia tried to suppress the anxiety in her voice.
“Yes, Papa. Georg has fixed up my hand rather nicely.”
Her father lingered in the doorway for a few seconds, his eyes shifting between her and Georg.
“Splendid. Come along. We can continue with the festivities.”
They followed him back to the drawing room in silence. As they sat down, Imogen stood up and glared at Olivia.
“What’s wrong dear?” Elenor said, sipping some wine.
Imogen stood like that for a few moments, then sat back down.
“Nothing.”
***
CHAPTER 4
As the endless sheet of cloud outside his bedroom window darkened to a deep shade of purple, Georg put down his pen and leaned back into the desk chair. He put his hands behind his head and smiled. The drying words staring up at him from the heavy-grade paper were just right. He had expressed everything he had wanted to express in the clearest and precisest prose he could muster.
The week between Christmas and New Year had been quite unbearable for him. Despite his repeated denials, Imogen was convinced that Georg had fucked Olivia during their absence from the family Christmas dinner. Her melancholic rage was so intolerable that Georg stopped sneaking out to the stables at night to despoil the last vestiges of her teenage innocence. In response, Imogen spent most of her time outside the manor, leaving shortly after breakfast and returning shortly before dinner. The irony was not lost on Georg: Imogen’s absence had given him ample time during the day to ravage her equally alluring sister.
Olivia’s sexual imagination attained hysterical heights after the loss of her anal virginity. At first, he was only too keen to indulge her requests, which involved many variations of touching, licking, and fucking in her bedroom while Ambrose and Elenor sat in the drawing room below. The risk of being heard was, by itself, almost potent enough to bring Olivia to the point of climax. A peppering of derogatory language and a sprinkling of sensual violence added additional flavors to these hours of delicious debauchery.
Yet the fun did not last. The encounters soured as Olivia’s requests became increasingly extreme. She insisted on calling Georg “Papa” and that he hit her harder than he was comfortable with. When she insisted on the day before New Year’s Eve that he asphyxiate her with his cock, Georg removed himself from her quivering cunt, dressed, and told her he could no longer visit her bedroom in good conscience.
Her fetishistic demand was not what troubled him. He had been with other women who had demanded similar niche acts of sexual deviancy. What bothered him was what it implied about Olivia’s state of mind. Was her descent into nymphomania emblematic of some deeper psychological affliction? And if so, was he at fault in some way?
She was a teenage girl who suffered from several complexes regarding her duty as a woman, her relationship with her father, and her sexual desires. As an older man with experience in these matters, he felt obliged to spend his final days in Payne Manor speaking about these issues with her rather than fucking her.
A knock at the door brought Georg back to his rapidly dimming bedroom. He had an inkling of who it was. He folded up the two letters lying in front of him on the desk and shoved them in the small side drawer. Then he stood up and straightened his jacket.
“Come in.”
The door slid open, and Olivia peered in.
“Apologies. Was I disturbing you?”
“Not at all. I’ve just finished writing some letters.”
Olivia nodded but did not take another step into the room. Since he had walked out on her, they had only seen each other in passing.
“Come in.”
She shut the door and sat down on the edge of the bed. Georg remained standing.
“Did you want to see me about something in particular?”
She fidgeted with her skirt.
“I haven’t seen you since yesterday morning.” She opened her mouth again, seemed to reconsider what she was going to say, and then finally said, “I miss you.”
Georg placed his hands in his trouser pockets and began pacing in front of her.
“I’m glad you came. I wanted to apologize.”
“What for?”
He hesitated as he thought of the best way to articulate what he wanted to say.
“I’ve always struggled to control my carnal urges. It’s a weakness. Put me in quite a bit of bother in the past.”
He stopped pacing and stared at the wall. The faces of past lovers briefly appeared in his mind like shots in a reel of film. The reel stopped on one face in particular. His bottom lip went limp, and he wrested himself back to his prior train of thought.
“Suffice to say, I should have known better than to take advantage of you in the kitchen.”
He looked at her. She tilted her head.
“You didn’t take advantage of me, Georg. I wanted you to do that. I wasn’t quite fully aware of that going into the situation. But I wanted it.”
“That doesn’t excuse my behavior.”
“Why not?”
Georg sighed. There was no easy way to tell a teenage girl that she might be broken.
“I worry that you might have… certain… problems. I worry that by having despoiled you, I’ve only made these problems worse.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re repressed, Olivia. You’ve devoted years to being the ideal of the chaste upper-class girl to win the adoration of your father. But that devotion blocked you from accepting and living out your true desires. I came along and obliterated that devotion. But it seems all those lascivious urges you’d locked away are now consuming you. Possessing you. And yet, at the same time, you’re still deeply weighed down by the expectations of your father.”
She shifted her weight. Her chest expanded as she took a deep breath.
“I was repressed. But does that really matter? Now I know what I want.”
“Do you?”
“I should think so.”
“And you have no shame?”
“None.”
“So it doesn’t bother you that your father disapproves? That he would be white with shock if he knew what I’ve done to you?”
She remained silent. Her eyes were blank.
“And what about Imogen? Aren’t you bothered that she’d be miserable if she knew?”
A hint of a grimace appeared on Olivia’s face.
“When you say it like that, yes. But… that’s only natural. We can’t escape what’s expected of us.”
Georg tapped his foot. Olivia was becoming a silhouette in the dying twilight. Yet it was somehow easier speaking to her shadow rather than her vivid self.
“Look, I’m sorry for my role in all this. I never meant to become involved with your sister or conduct this…”
He waved his hand in the air.
“…affair?” Olivia said.
He eyed her with a hint of displeasure. The word stung more than it should have.
“I suppose you could call it that.”
He went to the window. The sky was now the color of charcoal. In a few minutes, the darkness would be complete.
“Then there’s your father,” he said. “One of my dearest friends. I’ve dishonored him. Several times. A part of me wants to admit to it. Do the honorable thing. But I can’t. It would destroy our friendship.”
He peered over his shoulder at Olivia. Her silhouetted head was nodding.
Georg felt a sudden surge of lust between his legs. He tried to ignore it.
“It is sad,” she said.
“What is?”
“The misalignment between our true desires and the expectations of our dearest friends and family.”
A mature insight, he thought. The first seeds of wisdom were growing within her young mind.
“That is the world we live in. It could be far worse.”
“How so?”
He did not immediately reply.
“I’ve seen good men broken by barbarism. Women too.”
He placed his hand against the window. The glass chilled his palm.
“So if these stringent norms of propriety are the cost of civilization, then I say so be it.”
Realizing what he was saying, he stopped himself and looked in the direction he presumed Olivia was in.
“Why have you never told me about Margaret or Germany?”
It was as if the darkness was speaking to him.
“Don’t.”
“Why not?”
Minutes passed. The silence was oppressive.
“You want to leave our home, don’t you?” she said finally. “You want to leave me.”
Georg felt torn between comforting her and telling her the truth. He opted to say nothing at all.
She sniffled. Again, he sensed a stab of arousal.
“I’m sorry,” she said, almost whispering. “I should go.”
The bed creaked.
“Wait.”
He shuffled slowly into the blackness. When his shoe stubbed against something hard, he reached out and felt her skin. His fingers brushed over hard shallow protrusions. Her cheekbones. Across delicate wet bristles. Her eyelashes. Down a hard protruding line. Her nose. Over and across plump skin marked by minuscule grooves. Her lips. Up the bony lines on either side of her face. Her jaw. And into the thick tangle of her hair above her ears.
“Georg, don’t go.”
He placed the tip of his index finger on her lips.
“Open your mouth.”
His finger slid inside, touched her tongue, and pressed into it. The tiny buds dotting its viscid surface gave it a faintly coarse texture. He twirled the finger under the tongue, into the soft cavity filled with glutinous saliva, and rubbed the finger gently back and forth.
He was going to fuck her mouth. First with his finger. Then with his cock. There would be no words. Just the sounds of her mouth, stuffed and drooling, being penetrated again and again and again. There would be no tenderness. Just the brutal thrusts of his unhinged lust into her young and fragile face.
He put a second finger inside and reached for the back of her tongue. The muscle contracted and her head jerked forward to the sound of a deep gag. He let her recover, then stabbed the back of her throat. She gagged again. Louder this time. Moister. The obscene potential of that sound made him do it again. And again. And again.
Her hands were on his waists, bracing herself against the onslaught. His fingers were darting in and out of her lips, smeared in her drool. The rapid-fire stabs sounded like dozens of heavy mops splattering against a marble floor in quick succession.
Fully aroused, he tugged his fingers free and felt her cough against his crotch. Then he lifted her light frame and threw her legs back over the bed so that she landed with her head by the edge, facing the ceiling. Reaching down, he smeared the juice of her throat across her face. She moaned and jerked with delight.
When it felt like he had smeared most of the mess off his hand, he grabbed her shoulders and yanked her down so that they were in line with the edge of the bed. He checked her head was leaning over it, reached into his trousers, pulled out his cock, and rammed it deep into the snug warmth of her throat.
He wasted no time. As her tonsils spasmed around the end of his shaft, he slid his hands under the top of her skirt and grabbed her shallow breasts. Then he removed an inch of his cock. A thick clot of slobber splashed out. He reached down and felt it oozing down her upturned face. Then he grunted and shoved it back in. Took it out. Another splash of slop. Grunted. Shoved it back in. Took it out. Splash.
After a minute, he removed himself completely to let her breathe.
“Don’t stop, Georg, don’t—”
He re-entered her throat and began fucking it fast. Like a cunt. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. He used his hands on her tits to leverage himself with each thrust. It sounded like water sloshing back and forth at high speed in a glass bottle.
As his legs tensed with the anticipation of what was about to escape him, he felt the urge to turn on the light. He wanted to see the mess. She could not have had much of a face left. Just a frothing accumulation of saliva and makeup, glistening as it slithered down her nose and forehead toward the floor.
There was a sharp knock at the door.
Georg froze. He did not dare move. Every muscle was tense and still. Who the devil could that be?
Another sharp knock at the door.
“Olivia?” It was Elenor.
Olivia tapped at his waist and he removed himself. She cleared her throat vigorously, then said,
“Yes, mother?”
“May I come in?”
“No, I’m not decent.”
Georg would have laughed if the circumstances had not been so grave.
“Do you know where Georg is? It’s urgent.”
An icy finger prodded Georg’s stomach. They must have discovered some evidence of his degeneracy.
“I haven’t seen him,” Olivia said. “What’s this about?”
“It concerns Germany.”
The icy finger was now a freezing hand. If they had found him, he needed to leave. Immediately.
“Please come out Olivia. It’s impossible to speak to you like this.”
“I’ll come down in ten minutes. You can explain it all to me then.”
There was a pause.
“So be it,” Elenor said. “Please hurry.”
They listened to the footsteps moving away from the door. When it was silent again, Olivia scrambled in the direction of the wall. A second later, the ceiling light flickered on.
Georg shielded his eyes. When his sight had adjusted to the now visible world, he looked over at Olivia. Her face was exactly as he had imagined it.
“What could it be?” she said.
He peered down at his ruined trousers. There was no way he could approach Elenor in them. They were drenched in her daughter’s slobber. He went to the chest of drawers and pulled out a fresh pair.
“Georg, please tell me.”
He pulled up the trousers, clasped his belt, and proceeded to throw clothes and other personal items into his suitcase.
“Georg, please.”
He could not take everything. He did not have the time. So when he had packed enough, he closed the case, picked it up, and walked out.
Elenor was standing in the drawing room. Her face was pale.
“Oh, thank goodness. Ambrose just rang. His friends in the Foreign Office told him that Prime Minister Chamberlain has received a formal request for your extradition to Germany.”
Georg felt nothing. It was exactly as he had feared.
“Did he accept it?”
Elenor nodded. She looked like she was about to burst into tears.
“Apparently he doesn’t want to anger Hitler. Not with tensions rising in Europe.”
“When was it submitted?”
“Half an hour ago.”
Georg rubbed his mustache. There was very little time to think. It would take a few hours for the arrest warrant to be issued. He could be at the coast by then. But where could he go? No ships were leaving until tomorrow.
The phone rang. Georg and Elenor stared at it as if it were a rabid dog preparing to attack. After a few seconds, Elenor picked it up. She nodded a few times and then held the receiver to Georg.
“It’s Ambrose.”
He held it to his ear.
“Georg? Listen to me. I’ve just spoken with an old friend. He owns a ferry service. He could take you from Holyhead in Wales to Dublin. You should be safe in Ireland. From there, you can get to America.”
The words were so unexpected that Georg replayed the information in his mind once more.
“This friend will turn a blind eye to any arrest warrant?”
“Yes. He gave me his word. I’ve helped him out financially over the years. He owes me this favor.”
Georg felt relief, fear, and shame in equal measure. There were risks, but he knew it was the best he could hope for.
“Thank you, Ambrose. I can’t begin to express my gratitude.”
A lump formed in his throat. He tried to clear it. His feelings would have to wait until later.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t stay longer. Now, best get going. Use the Rolls. I’ll get it back eventually. Good luck, brother.”
The line clicked. Georg swallowed hard and handed the receiver back to Elenor.
“I have to go.”
She hugged him.
“Send us a letter when you get to America. The girls will want to hear from you.”
The lump thickened.
“I will.”
They let go of each other, and as Georg turned, he saw Olivia in the doorway. She had reconstructed her face to its prior state. Tears were in her eyes.
“You’re leaving?”
He nodded.
She walked over and wrapped her arms around him. Georg hoped Elenor did not pick up on the tenderness of the embrace. He could feel her trembling. As she loosened her grip, they heard the front door open.
A second later, Imogen walked in. She was dressed in her riding outfit. She raised her eyebrows at the three of them.
“Oh, did I miss something?”
Her tone was pompous and surly.
“Georg is leaving.”
Imogen went rigid.
“What, right now?”
“Yes,” Georg said. “I’m taking an earlier ship to New York.”
“Oh. Right.”
Imogen lowered her chin to her neck. She gave Olivia an icy stare.
“Well. Then. I presume this is goodbye.”
He walked forward and hugged her. She too was trembling. She lifted herself and whispered into his ear,
“I’m sorry. Come back. Please come back.”
As he let go, he cleared his throat once more and blinked several times to clear his eyes.
He nodded at all three briskly.
“Thank you all. It’s been a pleasure. Goodbye.”
He picked up his case and went to the servant girl holding his coat and bowler hat. Without looking back, he put them on and walked through the front door. Outside, the air was crisp and cold. He could see his breath as he exhaled. The gravel crunched under his feet. The moon, full and white, was shining through a small gap in the clouds. He hoped the gap would remain open until he reached Ireland.
The Rolls Royce was parked by the stables. The key was in the ignition. He turned it, and the motor rattled to life. He pressed down on the accelerator, and the car trundled forward. As it came to the driveway fountain, he stepped on the brake pedal and leaned out of the window. Elenor and Imogen were standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the yellow light of the entryway, waving at him. He waved back.
He peered up at Olivia’s bedroom window. The light was off. But he could just make out her face by the gauze curtain, looking down at him. He raised his arm to her, but he could not tell if she was waving back. He stared for a few seconds longer, and then sat back in the seat.
He pressed the accelerator again, and the car lumbered forward, the beams of the headlights bouncing up and down as the gravel hissed under the rolling tires. At the end of the driveway, he turned onto the country lane and glanced one last time at Payne Manor. It stood still and silent in the darkness and then disappeared behind a line of trees.
