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Chapter Text

Lady Clarke Griffin was not famous for her respect of the rules of common propriety.

It wasn’t that she was scandalous, per se. She’d done nothing of note that anyone could fully  recall, or at least not in the public eye. It was just something about the way she held herself: a bit too proud, a bit too confident, yet still a bit too demure. Her lips a bit too full, too plush, too pink. Her curves a bit too generous to be fashionable, the necklines of her gowns somehow cut a bit too low despite their scrupulous adherence to the bounds of decency.

She did not cause scandal, no. But she made men long for it.

How she’d made it to her third season without making a match was anyone’s guess. Even without her odd allure, Lady Clarke would be a catch. The only child of a duke, and one of the rich ones to boot. Her late father had left everything that wasn’t entailed to her, much to her mother’s chagrin, with a dowry that to date remained unparalleled. She’d take it all into her marriage, as wives did, and any portion her husband couldn’t touch would go to his sons in time. Whoever she married would find himself the third richest man in England with but a single I do.

Besides that, she was desirable. Her beauty raised eyebrows, but her body raised appendages a bit further down. Women hated her, though she was not unkind in turn. She was solicitous, generous, and funny, but it was for naught. No one wanted to be friends with the girl no man could look away from.

The men of the ton drooled after her en masse, though few were apt to admit it. They called her haughty, her shape vulgar, her family snobby, jumping over themselves to prove that they did not want her to cover up the embarrassment that they could not even dream of drawing her eye. Her first season men had thrown themselves at her like flies, and fallen one by one. She had received no fewer than nine proposals that were publicly known, and likely more in private. She had accepted none.

Her second season was much less frenzied, the majority of the pool of eligible bachelors still bruised from her polite rebuffs the year prior. Her only public suitors were green lordlings fresh to the marriage mart, each as dazzled as the ones who came before. And each as unsuccessful.

Though they were the only public casualties, it was well known they were not the only gentlemen on the prowl. The shadow courtships came from the most arrogant: those who refused to offer for a woman without a guaranteed match. Rakes, well-titled fortune hunters, second sons with something to prove. They would fill her dance card but they would not chase her, at least not where the rest of the ton could see. They did not pine; but they watched, and waited, and hoped she would unwittingly wander into a darkened hedgerow or private balcony where they might trap and ruin her, forcing their suit. At the clubs, the men placed bets on who would catch her, and when. In what state of compromise. To their dismay, she was infuriatingly good at remaining only in places that were well-lit, and well-chaperoned.

Clarke made quite the effort to keep it that way.

It was rather lonely, the life that she lived. Being at once loved and hated, wanted and spurned. She had no female companions, no siblings, no childhood friends. Well, none save the Earl of Brayton. Formerly Viscount Blake, and before that, the Honorable Mr. Bellamy Blake.

The Earl was a rake through and through, but that was what Clarke liked about him. They’d met when they were young, before his sister had been sent off to the continent with his mother, the late Countess Brayton. He wasn’t an earl then, or even a viscount. Merely a second son.

Well, technically at least.

He was certainly born to Lady Aurora Blake, second wife to the Earl of Brayton, that much was true. And the Earl of Brayton did have a son at the time, Lord Francis Blake. Lord Bellamy was, by all legal accounts, the legitimate issue of the Earl, as he and Bellamy’s mother were lawfully wed at the time. His true parentage, however—

It wasn’t a scandal at the time, because it didn’t matter. There were whispers, especially amongst the upper crust in which the Earl and his Countess mixed, but it was a rumor of little import. The boy had no title, and would inherit only what the Earl deigned to dole out, so who cared who had actually sired him? Perhaps he was simply swarthy, they shrugged, though few believed it. And his little sister, Lady Octavia Blake, was clearly the Earl’s blood in truth, her features a delicate mimic of the older man. Society simply ignored the boy, just as his father did.

Until his brother had died, that was.

Suddenly, the little boy of questionable pedigree was a near-grown viscount, in line for an earldom. Suddenly he mattered.

Clarke remembers the day the Countess and her daughter were sent away, in the way that children do. The scandal sheet her mother had thrown into the fire, the bland excuses provided for the sudden disappearance of her closest friend. Her only friend, actually.

“She is gone to Europe for her schooling, Clarke. It is best to put it from your mind,” her mother had informed her.

She’d stomped her foot in a rather unladylike manner. “What about Bellamy? Is he gone too?”

The Duchess had lifted her gaze then from the book in front of her, eyeing her daughter cooly. “Viscount Blake.”

Clarke had frowned, not catching her mother’s meaning. “What?”

“He is Viscount Blake now, to you and everyone else. Not “Bellamy”, not your friend. Viscount Blake, heir to the Earl of Brayton.” She’d taken a sip of tea then and looked back down at her book, muttering under her breath. “God help us all.”

Clarke hadn’t understood then what that meant. It had taken her years to piece it together, and it hadn’t fully clicked until her first season, at the Lindsmere ball. She’d seen him again for the first time, tall and dark and so utterly unlike the dying old Earl, and she’d finally come to the inevitable conclusion.

She’d been flush that night with a flurry of eager young suitors, waiting to be introduced, but Bellamy had simply snuck up on her at the refreshments table and plucked the dance card that she’d yet failed to loop around her wrist from her fingers.

She whirled around, aggrieved by the forwardness. “My lord, I must insist—!”

She froze, mouth still agape, as soon as she realized who it was. Her cheeks flared pink, hands clenching. She— she hadn’t quite expected to see him so soon. And so close.

“Lady Clarke,” he said, grinning roguishly. “How do you feel about the waltz?”

She blinked at him. “How do I— what?”

His head tilted. “I could also do a minuet, but you’ll really have to sell it.”

“I—” Clarke eyes bulged, and she sputtered. Her first ball after her debut, and she was not yet versed on the managing of delicate situations such as this. “Excuse me, my lord, but I cannot accept. I’m afraid we’ve yet to be introduced.”

He quirked an eyebrow, amused at her formality. “Have you really become so prim? How tedious. Perhaps I won’t take that dance after all.”

“That would be for the best, my lord,” she replied stiffly.

Bellamy had sighed, handing back her dance card. She took it gingerly, carefully avoiding even a brush of his fingers on hers, despite the gloves they both wore. He’d snorted at her dramatics.

“Really?” he asked, and then deliberately placed a single finger against Clarke’s wrist.

She jolted back, eyes wide with reproach. “Bellam—”

Clarke clapped a hand over her mouth before she finished the name. Frantic, she looked around, sure that she’d been caught. Sure that the whole party was staring, that this scene would be talked about by cautioning mamas for years to come: how the daughter of the Duke of Alport ruined herself not halfway through the very first social event of her season.

To her surprise, the only eyes on her belonged to the man in front of her. They glinted as he gave her a satisfied smirk. “How familiar of you, my lady. Christian names already? I thought we had yet to be introduced.”

Clarke frowned at his antics, annoyed, and drew out the dance card.

“The minuet?” she asked through gritted teeth.

And Bellamy smiled. “After all that? No, I’ll take nothing less than the waltz.” Clarke nodded begrudgingly, and he made a low noise, a sound of contemplation. “On second thought, you were rather improper.”

Her head shot up in alarm.  “I didn’t—”

But Bellamy held up his hand in censure, frowning seriously.

“No, no, I’ve already decided. You won’t change my mind. Did you really think you could mete out a single dance, and all would be well?”

Her heart beat hard in her chest, fingers trembling, the cautioning mamas from her earlier panicked vision reappearing with even sharper clarity. She shook her head silently.

“Glad we can agree on this.” And then his eyes had sparkled, lips twitching, and Clarke’s fear melted into fond annoyance. “It’ll have to be both.”

****

Bellamy knew full well he was a rake.

It was frankly the only thing a man is his position could be. No one could handle the absolute cosmic absurdity of his existence without just a bit of profligate debauchery. Not enough to earn him ridicule, or scare off any chance of securing a match, but enough to keep his mind from giving up the ghost, and the hounds at bay. However many hounds might be after an accidental earl with an aging estate and a heap of inherited debt. Perhaps he could offer his hand to one of the creditors his father had so kindly left him. Bellamy had always thought he’d look awfully handsome in debutante white.

But how the mamas of the ton would go on about that.

It was a right oddity, the change in attitudes towards him, even with his books well in the red. He’d grown up the second son—the bastard second son, no less—so it wasn’t as though his hopes for a palatable marital contract had ever been particularly high. Very low, to be truthful. But then suddenly, at the not-so-tender age of seventeen, he’d suddenly come into possession of a title.

He had never been close with his older brother. They shared no blood, and the Earl of Brayton discouraged his eldest son from fraternizing, or doing much of anything really. But Bellamy had been grateful for his existence, because it meant Bellamy could be left alone. He’d spent his boyhood with his mother and sister, staying to play nursemaid to Octavia and her little friends while the other boys of the ton were making their way to school. His own brother had attended Eton, but Bellamy was not afforded so much as a tutor until Francis met his end.

The golden boy, the pride of Brayton, and he’d somehow gone and drowned himself in his own fish pond. Not exactly the most dignified way to go.

After his death Bellamy had been forced quite forcefully into the mold of a young lordling, despite the fairly obvious issue of his complete and utter disinterest. He’d never fit, that was why the Earl had ignored him all those years. One could hardly expect him to start trying now.

The Earl had at least been happily surprised by his ill-begotten heir’s surprising scads of academic knowledge. Being ignored for the first seventeen years of his life, Bellamy had had nothing better to do but read and watch out for his sister, sometimes at the same time. And Octavia had had the best of tutors, often sharing lessons with the daughter of the Duke of Alport, Lady Clarke Griffin. Bellamy had attended most of them, and filled in the gaps he couldn’t glean directly from the manor’s sprawling library.

Well, until the Duchess noticed, at least.

Abigail Griffin—called Abby by Lady Aurora—the now-Dowager Duchess of Alport, was a right harpy. She must not have always been, he supposed, as his mother had been her friend in girlhood and again when their daughters were born. But Bellamy had barely met the Duchess before the Duke’s untimely death, and his interactions with the woman on those later occasions had been foul indeed.

It wasn’t the disdain she showed him; no, Bellamy was used to that. It was the undertone, the heavy implication that his presence was not one of brotherly care, but of lecherous self-interest. He’d been young then and quite a bit less jaded, so he hadn’t quite caught the Duchess’s meaning the first few times she’d sneered him off the grounds of her estate. But the last time—

He’d been in the back garden of the Griffin estate with the girls after their lessons, and had begrudgingly taught them to make flower wreaths at Octavia’s pleading request. Lady Clarke had sat perfectly still the whole way through like a little statue, and when he was finished he’d looked up at her and laughed at the young girl’s almost awe-struck expression.

He plopped the wreath he’d just made on her shiny gold head, knowing full well his sister would never deign to take it when she could make one of her own to her exact specifications. “There,” he told the pink cheeked little cherub. “Like a crown for a princess.”

She touched the flowers gently, and corrected him. “Princesses don’t wear crowns.”

Bellamy grinned. “They do when they get crowned queen.”

Lady Clarke had looked satisfied by that answer, and scampered off to join Octavia in the rose bushes. Which was, of course, when the Duchess made her presence known. She stood so straight it was like looking a relief carved into stone, so long as the sculptor knew how to properly form the shape of that very specific look of utter disgust. “A word, if you please.”

He nodded deferentially, because that was what one did with a duchess. “Of course, Your Grace.”

She'd given him a slow once over, one that left him feeling oddly embarrassed both at his own gawkiness and the casual dishevelment he elected to maintain instead of requesting a manservant. “I think it best you abandon any schemes you have begun plotting anon. My daughter is not yet ten years of age, Mr. Blake, and a lady,” she sniffed, emphasizing the last word. “I’m sure you understand my meaning.”

He did not, and had informed the woman as much.

The Duchess of Alport sneered at him in a way that reminded him an awful lot of his late grandmother’s pet cat. “I will be clear: her dowry is not for you, nor is she. Not ever. It does not matter how many seeds you attempt to plant in her head, I will rip them all out by the roots. Lady Clarke is young, but she is a lady by blood, and she will be at least a lady by marriage as well. You on the other hand—”

—are a futureless bastard, he heard, though the Duchess’s words were cut off in an irate rush of inhaled air. Someone who cannot touch nobility, and shouldn’t even attempt to look. Someone unworthy.

He hadn’t even disagreed. Just inclined his head and made his excuses.

He’d been seventeen, and full of absolutely no ambition for scaling social ladders whatsoever, let alone the ones that required seducing literal children. Lady Clarke was his sister’s playmate, and a spirited hellion of a child, but she was nothing more than that to him. He’d been fond of her, sure—in the way one is fond of young cousins, or the children of tenants—but he had no designs on the girl, nor any potential gateways to the lofty world she had been born for. Bellamy had been well and fine just where he was, grateful even, but that didn’t stop the Duchess from tearing him to shreds that day in the garden.

“You understand,” she told him harshly, though the sentiment with which she meant it was not necessarily unkind. “This is the way of things, Mr. Blake. Each of us must know our place. Our station.”

A slow beat passed, a deadly silence with an edge like a finely-hewn blade. Bellamy waited, standing resolutely still as she delivered her final blow.

“And yours will never be anything more than common.”

It was the first time anyone but the Earl had acknowledged his paternity out loud. Not even his mother would say it to his face. It wasn’t that he minded it so much, being called common, but there was a glint in the Duchess’s eye, one that said: I know you better than you know yourself, isn’t that right?

And it likely was.

Bellamy kept his lips shut tight, jerked his head in a stiff nod. “I will remember that, Your Grace.”

“See to it that you do.”

He’d gone back to the carriage then, and waited alone in uncommonly bitter silence for his sister to be ready to return home. His younger, female sister, who would outrank him forever, at least in the eyes of the Duchess. Which was fine, what did Bellamy care? What would he want with a duke’s daughter? With the trappings of status, and the eyes of the ton? He wanted none of it, no matter how much the frank assessment how bruised his ego.

Not a week later his brother had made him a viscount.

And now with nigh a decade gone by, Bellamy was an earl. He was an earl, and Lady Clarke had made her bow and then some; no longer a child but a woman grown.

Remarkably grown, really, and in certain invitingly rounded shapes most pleasing to Bellamy’s wickedly well-fed appetite for such things. Suddenly the Duchess’s old warning sounded more to him like a challenge, and he was not known to back down easily from a row.

Bellamy caught Lady Clarke’s eye across the ballroom and grinned, raising his champagne glass in a short toast. She froze, cheeks flushed in delight, and smiled. He watched as she excused herself from the fawning gentleman at her elbow and made her way across the room.

“I believe you reserved the waltz,” she told him breezily, not bothering with a formal greeting.

Bellamy raised an eyebrow. “Did I now?”

“Yes,” Lady Clarke said primly. “Both waltzes actually. Lord Thomas was quite put out.”

He glanced at the young man behind her, seemingly just months out of the schoolroom and already making moon-eyes at the most untouchable prize in the room. Bellamy repressed the urge to snort, nodding sagely instead as he passed off his glass and led Lady Clarke onto the dance floor. “And the minuet?”

“Certainly not, Brayton,” Clarke demurred with a complete lack of urgency. His title sounded odd on her lips, almost comical. “You know as well as I that three dances would be more scandal than even such clean slates as ours might bear before breaking. I’d be positively compromised.”

“And would that be such a shame?”

For all her bluster, Clarke’s cheeks went riotously red. Bellamy watched with delight as the flush crept down her milky neck and warmed the plump ivory of her breasts. When he tore his eyes back to hers they were averted almost timidly; downcast in a pretty, maidenly sort of way.

She’d caught him looking then. Good.

“Well?” Bellamy murmured huskily. He stepped towards her to take his position for the dance, and she let out a shaky breath as she mirrored him. He allowed his fingers to drift just a touch too high, softly stroking the exposed hint of bare spine above the back of her gown. “Would it, Clarke?”

She shivered at the use of her Christian name, too low for anyone else to hear. Her uncommonly blue eyes closed and then opened again, and in them burned an almost nervous heat that made something Bellamy’s chest begin to purr. “If I were to be compromised,” she said softly. “I prefer it at least be the interesting way.”

A devilish smile curled slowly across Bellamy’s lips. “Oh?” Lady Clarke blushed harder but did not falter, charmingly steady in her virginal seduction. “Careful what you wish for, my lady.”

How quickly the tides changed.

Not for you, her mother had told him all those years ago, but today it seemed awfully to him like the lady wanted to be. Bellamy thought about how sweet it would be to bed her; to peel off her clothes and leave her bare, run his hands and lips and teeth over all the immaculately creamy white skin he was sure he’d find beneath her pretty gown. How he’d open her thighs, taste her, work her open until she was begging and crying and breaking for him. The delicious dominion he’d press upon her yet untried flesh: taking her virtue and seeing the proof of it shine red on his cock like the bruise of her kiss-bitten lips.

Bellamy had a lot of women, all sorts of women, with all types of skills, but none of them was sweeter than even the mere idea of stealing away Clarke’s innocence. Of being the first to touch her, the first inside her, the first— and perhaps the last, though that was a whole different beast in itself.

He imagined her blue eyes blown wide in surprise, pink lips parted as she surrendered to him. He imagined what it would be like to find out what made her writhe, to teach her to take it.

Did she know about the act, he wondered? Did she know how they would fit together like a key in a tight, wet lock; how she would stretch for him when he buried himself inside her? Did she know she would like it?

Bellamy would see to it that she liked it.

Clarke was not for him, he thought as he twirled her around the room. But that didn’t stop him from wanting, from thirsting, from urging her on as she grew bold in her coltish attempts at standing tall.

If he ruined her, she’d have to marry. Even the Griffin name could not weather a scandal like that. Dukes' daughters were supposed to be innocent little dolls, untouched and unused until purchase. And Bellamy, entitled though he was, could not afford her. If he ruined her, Clarke would be whisked away immediately. As damaged goods, it would be her massive dowry alone that was auctioned off for whatever highly-enough ranked lord the Duchess could procure in time. Clarke’s hand would just be the addendum to a financial deal.

He didn’t want her dowry, though it certainly wouldn’t hurt his dire finances. And he was a reasonable enough man. A man who knew that Lady Clarke’s guardian—however distant a cousin he may be—would have a certain dowager duchess in his ear, urging him to deny Bellamy’s suit no matter what was offered. And he would, because while Bellamy’s dubious heritage and lack of means were of little import to the social climbing mamas of the ton’s lower ranks, those above him were hardly impressed by his mid-level title. The lowest of the high, and they all knew that Bellamy’s claim to the earldom was legitimate in name only. They’d let him walk among them at balls and luncheons, but when push came to shove they’d never let him forget his place.

They would take Clarke if he ruined her, because he was too low for them to even feel threatened. They wanted her, and they wanted her money, and they’d be able to look past a little thing like a prematurely divested maidenhead so long as they got everything else. That was, unless—

Bellamy pictured spilling into Clarke’s hot little cunt, painting her womb with his seed. His seed, that would take root and grow inside her belly for all to see. He would fill her up, and in a few months time an oddly tan curly-haired infant would tumble out of her, unmistakable in its looks. There was a reason everyone knew Bellamy’s sire was not the Earl, and everyone would know that Lady Clarke Griffin’s newborn baby could only be his.

That she had been his.

None of the snobs in the upper crust would bear that humiliation, not even the ones who still pined secretly for Lady Clarke’s affections, hoping she’d reconsider their suit. She’d have no options. Only him.

Mr. Bellamy Blake, the Bastard Earl of Brayton. He was common, uneducated, unblooded; and it suited him just fine. Common, uneducated, unblooded; and he would have her anyway.

“What are you thinking about so hard?” she asked him as they twirled round the room.

“Compromise, but don’t fret.” The Earl’s lips curled, eyes sparkling deviously. “Only the interesting way.”

****

Clarke’s mother was waiting for her in the breakfast room the next morning. It wasn’t a common thing in their household at all, so Clarke immediately knew something must be wrong.

“What has happened?”

Duchess Griffin raised an eyebrow, looking up at Clarke from her correspondence. Oh, drat. It was never good when her mother received letters. They were usually about her.

“How was the ball?” her mother asked, her tone entirely unaffected.

Clarke was far too experienced to fall for that sort of ruse. She was sure Abby already knew precisely how the ball had gone, who Clarke had danced with, and exactly how long she had spoken to each of her conversational partners, despite having begged off on attending the ball herself. Clarke had instead been foisted on the venerable and conveniently elderly Dowager Duchess of Devonlea, Vera Kane, which suited her just fine. “Perfectly pleasant, thank you.”

Clarke steadfastly did not think about her dance(s) with Bellamy, nor the conversational topics therein. It wouldn’t do to flush in front of her mother.

“This is your third season,” the Duchess told her daughter while she took her seat across the table, as if Clarke were not already aware of this. “You are nearly twenty.”

Clarke blinked.

“I am eighteen.”

“And you will be nineteen by the end of the season,” her mother cut in sharply. “Thus you are nearly twenty.”

Interesting logic. Clarke wondered if the Duchess counted her own age in dog years as well, or if that was an honor she reserved only for her daughter.

“The time for flighty flirtatiousness has long since passed, and I will entertain it no longer. You will find a husband before the season is out.”

Clarke resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Well, Mother, I shall certainly try, but you can hardly expect a proposal from a peer of acceptable rank to just happen—”

“I am not a fool, Clarke. I know you have had proposals from more than the sops that have come to call, just as I know you have rejected them without consideration. You will find one who is still willing to marry you, and you will secure him.” Her mother’s tone was flippant, dismissive. She did not bother to meet Clarke’s gaze, instead flipping the page of the letter she was reading and adjusting her spectacles. “At least six-and-twenty, and no lower than an earl or the first son of such. I’d prefer one of the older titles, but exceptions can be made. That should give you more than enough options to choose from.”

“And if I don’t choose?”

Abby met her eyes, giving her daughter a prim shrug. “Then I shall choose for you.”

Clarke could feels her hands shaking, the rage that boiled inside her threatening to spill over in dramatic fashion. She struggled to soothe herself. It would be easy enough to stop this cockamamie plan, so long as Clarke managed to behave egregiously enough. She hardly wanted to, but she was not above it. “And if none shall have me?”

Her mother cocked her head in challenge. “The Duchess of Alport has died in childbed. The babe has lived: a boy, but he is sickly. The Duke will be in want of a new bride.” Clarke’s mouth fell open. She felt the air leave her in a rush, a sick feeling sinking deep in her belly. “It may be the case that he need not to look far.”

No.

No, she could not possibly mean it. The current Duke, a distant cousin of Clarke’s father, was nearly as old as his deceased predecessor would have been but with none of the former's kindness or charm. He was a lecherous old fool whose duchess had been but four-and-ten when they’d wed, and Clarke had hardly even seen the poor girl without a limp or blackened eye. In the seven years since the marriage the young Duchess had been with child more than nine times, but none save the last had been born alive. Clarke wondered if the Duke truly did not know he was beating his heirs out of the girl, or if he simply could not stop himself.

He would kill her. Clarke was not truly submissive, not like the late Duchess. She wouldn't last seven years to die in childbed. If she were forced to wed the Duke, he would rape and beat her, and she would fight back. She would fight back, and he would kill her. It was hardly a choice.

“You wouldn’t,” Clarke said weakly.

The Duchess’s eyes gleamed sharply, her mouth curving in cruel satisfaction. “Oh, I do so hope it should not need to come to that. After all, a season is plenty long for a girl such as yourself to make a suitable match, isn’t that right, dear?”

Clarke sniffed, her lips trembling, and jerked her head in a short nod. “I shall do my best, Maman.”

“Good,” the Duchess replied, returning her attention to her correspondence. She took a sip of her tea, casually unfolding a new letter while her daughter sat silent and rigid across from her. “See that you do.”

Clarke felt lightheaded, like she may be sick. She could hardly bear to look at the food in front of her, let along think of putting it in her mouth. She had no desire to marry, not yet. Not ever, maybe. Marriage would clip her wings and put her in a cage even she could not escape, no matter how kind her husband might be. Clarke didn’t bother to fool herself that any of her suitors cared about her as a person. Some of them might think they did, but they did not know her. None of the ton truly did, save perhaps—

“Oh, and Clarke,” the Duchess interjected, not looking up from her letter. Clarke stiffened sharply. Lady Abigail Griffin licked the pad of her finger, turning the page with deliberate nonchalance that Clarke knew was but an act. A little performance meant for no purpose other than to set Clarke on edge, an objective in which it was lamentably effective. “One more thing.”

Clarke hardly dared to breathe. Her fingers tightened in her lap, knuckles going white, but she did not move from her seat. “Yes, Maman?

Slowly, the Duchess looked up. Her lips were pursed haughtily, nose wrinkled slightly in barely concealed disdain, and her eyes, when they met Clarke’s, were cool and intent. She lifted a single perfectly arched brow, laying down the injunction with brutal finality.

“Not Bellamy Blake.”

Chapter Text

Lady Clarke was avoiding him.

If Bellamy were a slightly stupider man, more like the rest of his fellow peers, maybe it would’ve escaped his notice. Maybe he would’ve been able to dismiss it as coincidence, too arrogant to imagine a woman slighting him by anything other than chance. Maybe he’d think her coquettish, the way she refused to meet his eyes across the ballroom. Maybe he’d think her sudden interest in the other eligible gentlemen was merely a ploy, an attempt to garner jealousy from him, a thinly veiled ruse to draw him towards a proposal. He was, after all, one of the few men in the room who’d yet to give her one.

But the Earl was not a stupid man, much to his own regret. Lady Clarke was avoiding him, not by chance, and not in accordance with some hare-brained scheme dreamed up in the pages of a lurid gothic novel. If she was avoiding Bellamy, which she most certainly was, it was because she did not wish to speak to him.

The thought made his skin crawl.

Had he scared her off at the Audley ball? She had shown no sign of it then, but perhaps the intervening week had given her too much time to dwell on his promises of compromise. Had she finally guessed at the lecherous thoughts in his head, seen the breadth of his intentions? Realized his flirtations were fully in earnest?

She had to have realized on some level that  he had wanted her before this. Surely Clarke had to have known. Certainly Bellamy had never been quite so bold, never having formed solid plans for her defloration and ruin before, but he hadn’t acted quite so out of the ordinary, had he? Not, at any rate, enough to send her running into the arms of— was that Lord Collins?! That gormless cur!

Bellamy took a sip of champagne, his lips set into a tight line as he observed the sickening scene unfolding before him. Swallowing was a trial, the fizzy drink sticking above the lump suddenly obstructing his throat.

No, this wouldn’t do at all.

Finn Collins, now Viscount Collins, had always been a slimy little wretch, even as a little boy. Bellamy absolutely detested the man, both on principle and in actuality. He was the ton’s worst kind of entitled: low in rank but far too high in personal estimation. Arrogant, foolish, and foppish all at once. Sure, he acted soft and sweet with the ladies, leaving even the wallflowers swooning, but it was but an act. Bellamy had it under good authority that the man was affianced to a well-dowried but not so high-born lady, and had been for years. Where said fiancée was sequestered—or whether she was aware of the no less than four bastards her betrothed had already sired upon the gently bred ladies he lured into his bed—remained to be seen.

This was hardly the first time he’d panted after Lady Clarke. Collins was one of the men Bellamy knew to have bet on her ruination, and the oily little weasel had bet upon himself as the perpetrator! And he knew Collins had not given up on his suit, though he can’t say it had previously grieved him particularly much to see Collins speak to her. But Bellamy was also certain tonight was the first time the lady had responded in any manner other than her well-practiced placid neutrality.

He watched as Collins kissed Lady Clarke’s gloved hand, his lips lingering for longer than strictly necessary. Her cheeks stained red so prettily it made his ears ring.

Bellamy would not permit her to be left alone with that cad. Not on his damn life.

She may not want to speak to him, and that was fine. Well, no, that was not fine, but— but it was beside the point. If she would not allow him to stay at her side and keep her from the hounds, he’d find a way to do it from across the ball. Bellamy glanced around the room, looking for her elderly chaperone. The Dowager of Devonlea had to be somewhere along the edges of the room on one of the couches. And if he happened to accidentally wake her, well then—

Instead of the old woman, his eyes met the steely blue gaze of Lady Abigail Griffin.

Blasted bloody buggering bollocks. As if this night weren’t bad enough already.

That witch hardly ever showed her face at these soirées. The daytime events, teas and such, sure, but the Duchess of Alport rarely bothered to accompany her daughter to any social events past the hour of seven. The fact that she was here, on the same night Clarke decided to suddenly rekindle her interest in being a blushing debutante— it couldn’t be a coincidence.

The matron fixed him with a pointed stare, her eyes moving from her daughter back to him, one eyebrow arched. See?, her look seemed to tell him. I told you she’d never be yours. 

Bellamy gritted his teeth. She wasn’t wrong, per se, but he wasn’t prepared to relinquish his fantasies just yet. He glanced back at Clarke, assessing just how likely he was to start a duel with Collins that evening. The other man was still closer than Bellamy would prefer (To be frank, inside the same estate as the lady was closer than Bellamy would prefer. In fact, within the Commonwealth at all was entirely too close for that rakish fop, in Bellamy’s estimation) but at least Clarke no longer looked enticed.

On the contrary, now that he was looking more closely at her than at the other man, she seemed quite pale. Or paler than usual, he supposed, as Clarke’s complexion was always a certain degree of creamy white ivory, as befitted a woman of her station. Tonight, however, she bordered on gray. And she looked drawn, as though this show she was putting on was just that—a show, requiring thought and effort. She looked tired. 

Her eyes flitted to his for a single second before falling back to the man in front of her. Bellamy watched as her bottom lip trembled, her smile faltering almost imperceptibly.

Something was wrong. 

Something was wrong, and he didn’t think it was him. Not with the pain he’d seen in that single glance. Not with the determined set of her shoulders, the stiff-set line of her neck. Not with her eyes so full of an emotion he could only read as poorly-concealed yearning. 

He’d have to save her. From what, he wasn’t rightly sure, but he had to. She was his after all. Or at least she would be.

Soon.

He’d damned well make sure of it.

****

It was truly tortuous, this.

Bellamy was watching her. She could feel his eyes from across the room, had been feeling them all night. She tried to act normal, as though nothing was amiss, but it would be clear to anyone who was at all acquainted with her that something had shifted. After two seasons of polite, charming untouchability; the change in her demeanor, the sudden openness, it was unmistakeable. She was signaling her intent to marry.

It was normal, understandable even. She was in her third season, it was to be expected that she’d choose to settle down and wed eventually. No one would ever dream of anything deeper than that. It was a simple thing, an obvious step. She was just another marriage-minded miss, after all.

But not to him. The Earl knew her too well to believe there were no ulterior motives to her behavior. She would’ve told him first, if marriage was something she’d decided she wanted. She would’ve given him the chance to—

She met Bellamy’s gaze and quickly looked away, gulping hard. Heat burned behind her eyes, and she dug her gloved nails into the skin at her elbow to stop the useless tears, refocusing on the man before her.

It was stupid. Utterly and completely foolish.

He’d never said anything, never suggested his interest in her went beyond flirtation and nostalgic friendship. Bellamy was a rake, she knew he was. His reputation was unavoidable. He may have danced with her at every function, and acted entirely too familiar, and occasionally said things that made her cheeks flare and the place between her thighs ache; but he’d never once indicated any interest in marriage, to her or any other lady for that matter. And yet—

Clarke was a fool. If she’d decided of her own volition that she wanted to marry, she would’ve told him before indicating her interest to the rest of the eligible bachelors.

She would’ve given him the chance to offer for her first.

Her mother would’ve never agreed to the match, but if Bellamy had gone first to the Duke, he may have been able to secure a betrothal contract before she could intervene. He was, after all, an earl. Perhaps not the most upstanding or polished as far as earls went, but he had the title. The Duke hardly cared for Clarke, why would he mind who she married?

That wouldn’t work now, not with her mother’s interference. Now the Duke would be choosy, his eye on her fortune and her breeding potential. Now it didn’t matter if she went and ruined herself, with Bellamy’s assistance or otherwise. The Duke would simply see it as an excuse to marry her himself.

A young man she hardly recognized interrupted the viscount then, bowing before her. “My apologies for the intrusion, Lord Collins,” he said, not sounding apologetic in the slightest. “But I believe the lady’s next dance belongs to me.”

“Of course—” Clarke said graciously, glancing down at the named pencilled into the space besides the quadrille on her dance card. Oh, drat. “—Lord Wallace.” She bobbed a quick curtsy at the young man beside her. “Until next time, Lord Collins. It was lovely speaking to you.”

Speaking to you, listening to you speak, pretending to listen to you speak— what was the difference in the scheme of things? Clarke was being a bit generous with herself, but it was only fair given the circumstances. She deserved it, and he had hardly noticed her internal turmoil now, had he?

Her previous partner sneered, the expression a galling shift from his formerly sunny demeanor. “Yes, I daresay it was.”

He stalked away, shooting a glare at the man at her side. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and she looked up at Lord Wallace. He was still grinning at her smarmily, seemingly unaware of the other man’s poor behavior. “Shall we?”

She took his hand reluctantly, letting him lead her to the dance floor.

Clarke was distracted, utterly so. Her mind roiled with an unsettling mess of images, both remembered and imagined: her mother’s sneer, a wreath of flowers, the current Duke of Alport leering at her across an altar. Bellamy’s soft eyes and curved lips, ten strong fingers spread across her waist, a promise of compromise, a gossip rag aflame in the grate.

She was so distracted she nearly missed a step in the dance, her feet fumbling over her hem as Wallace released her to switch partners. Clarke was saved solely by the grace of her new partner, who caught her smoothly and kept her steady as they circled each other. She stared at him with wide eyes, heart in her throat.

Bellamy stared back with equal intensity.

It was as if for a moment the world stopped. The music ceased, the rest of the room faded away, and suddenly it was just the two of them, motionless, together. His hand was hot on her spine, burning into her just as his eyes did.

Tell me, they begged her, dark and liquid. Let me in.

I cannot, she thought back, swallowing back the sob that rose in her chest. Not this time.

Bellamy’s chin dipped; the slightest acknowledgment of her unspoken response. She waited for more, for anything really, but nothing came. Instead, he spun her back into Wallace’s waiting arms, and the world started once more.

****

There wasn’t a chance for him to get her alone for nearly a fortnight.

The waiting was heinous in itself, made worse by the fact that despite Lady Clarke’s avoidance, Bellamy could not seem to escape her. At the many social events he merited invitations to, Clarke was universally present. Yet she wouldn’t look at him, nor speak to him, nor spare him a space on her dance card. After the look of warning in her eyes the first time he had asked and been politely rebuffed—informed that, alas my lord, all her dances were already otherwise reserved, wasn’t that too bad—Bellamy hadn’t bothered to try again. She may have had her reasons, but he still had his pride. Well, somewhat, at least.

Beyond her seeming omnipresence at any event at which he might be forced to watch her flirt and mingle, Clarke had also once again become the favorite topic of conversation at his club. When he wasn’t watching her smile and simper at the men in his acquaintance, he was listening to them wax poetic about her charm, her wealth, even her generous tits.

As if he didn’t think about those enough.

Bellamy had almost gotten into fights with at least five of Clarke’s suitors so far, one of whom was a duke. If he wasn’t careful, his obsession with the lady was going to land him in a dank little cell, if not below the ground, and he’d hardly be able to help Clarke from there.

‘Help’? Fine, perhaps that put too fine a point on it. ‘Compromise’, ‘breed’, ‘ruin’; what did the specifics of it matter? He’d hardly be able to make good on any of those if he couldn’t manage to get the damn chit away from her eagle-eyed mother.

In the end he was forced to employ some less than savory tactics. Namely, setting his lovely host onto the Duchess’s whereabouts.

“Have you not seen her grace?” Bellamy asked Lady Jordan smoothly, with a practiced sort of disinterest. “I do believe she was admiring the dancers, over by the french doors on the eastern side of the veranda.”

The older woman’s eyes blew wide in excitement as she made her excuses. Bellamy thanked the lord for the opportunity. Lady Jordan was both a social climber and an insufferable chatterbox, which was why the daughters of more highly ranked were often accompanied to her soirees by aging chaperones instead of parents. He believed this was likely the first time Clarke’s mother had attended one of her functions, likely for this exact reason. The Duchess would have better luck escaping a giant squid.

He snatched Clarke as soon as she left her mother’s vision.

She nearly shrieked as he did, and he didn’t fault her for it. It was likely a bit disturbing, being grabbed by a hand from the shadows and yanked unceremoniously into an alcove. The hand he placed over her mouth certainly didn’t help.

“Don’t scream,” he whispered into her ear, holding her wriggling body tight against his own. Her movements caused her body to rub deliciously against him, and he fought to keep from thrusting his growing erection against her rear. “It’s me.”

She went limp immediately. Bellamy lowered his hand and loosened his grip, letting her turn to face him. He held up one finger to his lips and jerked his head towards the door behind him, indicating for her to follow. His fingers found hers, lacing together and tugging her after him in a small room. Bellamy locked the door behind them and turned back to Clarke.

The lady promptly slapped him across the face.

He turned his cheek, pulling off his gloves and raising a hand to the quickly reddening imprint. It stung bitterly. “I don’t believe I deserved that.”

Clarke’s glare burned hotly in his direction, her fists clenched at her sides. “How dare you— you manhandle me!”

Bellamy’s eyes flashed. “You ought to be thanking me. Or did you want to have this conversation in front of the entire party?”

Her expression sobered. Clarke bit her lip, chastened. “Perhaps not.”

Bellamy’s heart clenched. She looked so…downtrodden, exhausted and miserable and anxious. He wanted to sweep her into his arms, steal her away from whatever it was that had sapped her so.

“Did I do something?” he blurted unthinkingly.

The lady looked up sharply, expression horrified. Her denial came swiftly, with no hint of hesitation or deceit. “No, of course not.”

Something in his chest unknotted slightly. “Then what is it?”

“What is what?”

He gave her a disbelieving look. Clarke swallowed hard, eyes falling. Bellamy watched her fingers move, twitching and fidgeting in front of her.

“Clarke,” he said eventually, her given name like a prayer on his tongue. Too familiar by far but hardly enough. Not anymore. “Please.”

Bellamy stepped boldly into her space, his arms wrapping around her and pulling her close. One of his bare hands splayed across the curve of her spine, the other reaching up to caress her smooth cheek. She leaned into his touch, and he watched her eyes flutter shut. He tilted his chin, hunching his shoulders and dropping his forehead until he could rest it against hers. Her breath was warm and unsteady in the space between them.

“Please, princess,” he all but begged. “”Will you tell me?”

Clarke took in a shuddering gulp of air, steadying herself against his body. “I— I must marry. This will be my last season.”

Despite his guesses of that very fact, Bellamy was blindsided by the confirmation. He felt her words hit him like a blow to the stomach. “Must?”

“My mother— it isn’t worth getting into. It is time that I settled down anyways, don’t you think? This was always going to happen eventually. I hadn’t quite expected it to be so soon—” Clarke’s voice broke then, betraying her false nonchalance. “—but why shouldn’t it be? I’m not getting any younger.”

She shrugged; a limp, dejected rise and fall.

“Do you want to marry?”

“It hardly matters.”

His thumb stroked over her cheekbone. “It matters to me.”

Clarke looked up then, eyes wide. She held his gaze for a long moment, startled by the declaration, searching for something he could not determine. Eventually she dropped her eyes, tongue darting out nervously to wet her pink lips. “I do. Perhaps not so soon, but—” Clarke sighed. “If we suit, I see no reason to delay.”

Bellamy’s eyes narrowed. “We?”

“The gentleman and myself. Whoever he may be.”

Me, he thought bitterly. It damned well better be me.

“Have you already determined we do not suit, then?”

Clarke blinked at him. “Pardon?”

Bellamy shrugged. “You avoid me like the plague, will hardly even look at me, give my dances away to other men. I daresay it appears I’m out of the running.”

“I—” she swallowed, wincing. “It’s not that.”

“Oh?”

“Or, well, it is that, but it’s not— it’s my mother’s doing.”

She looked down again, refusing to meet his eyes, and he felt anger start to coalesce in his stomach, knotting into something hard and ugly. "Right. And exactly what part of all this, pray tell, is the Duchess's doing? The marriage? The urgency?" 

“All of it, really. She’s decided— I don’t know, that three seasons are enough. She’s ordered me to marry by the end of this one or— well, it hardly matters. All that matters is that I must marry, and he must meet her rules. At least twenty-six years of age, in line for or in possession of no less than an earldom, and—”

She stopped and shook her head.

“How fortuitous then,” Bellamy drawled, “—that I am twenty-seven and Earl of Brayton.”

“Bellamy,” Clarke choked. Her eyes glittered, chest rising and falling rapidly. “It cannot be you.”

He knew that. He damn well knew that—how could he not?—but he wanted her to say it. “Why not? Am I not of age? Am I not properly titled?” He was being unjust, lashing out at her for her mother’s transgressions, but he couldn’t seem to stop. “Is it the money? Or do I simply not catch your eye the way Collins or Wallace obviously do?”

“There was more. Of course it’s not— not you.”

“Not me,” Bellamy echoed wryly. “Please, do go ahead and finish your list of requirements. Twenty-six, earl or heir thereof, and—” He ticked them off on his fingers, looking to her for the last one.

“Not Bellamy Blake,” Clarke finished, her voice soft.

“‘Not Bellamy Blake’,” he repeated. His lips quirked up, but one could hardly call the curve a smile. It was an ugly, twisted thing. Cruel and unhappy. “I stand corrected, princess. How ever could I have thought the issue lay with me?”

He wasn’t sure why he was needling her so. It was hardly Clarke’s fault her mother hated him. He knew that, had known that long before he began to dream of bedding the girl, let alone marrying her. He knew any suit he proposed would be swiftly and summarily rejected, if not by Clarke then by the Duchess. Nothing had changed, not really.

But it felt like it had.

The idea of Clarke marrying another had always been so abstract that he hadn’t paid it a care before. Her interactions with other men were a pale imitation of any conversation they shared, so he had hardly bothered to consider that she might accept a proposal from one of them. When he’d thought of her future, her husband had been a mere shadow, a placeholder. If he thought of it with anything other than bitterness, he’d notice his imagined home for her looked an awful lot like Brayton Manor, and her children’s hair was always dark. Like his, or Octavia’s.

“Forgive me,” she begged, but it was his mistake.

He’d known, on some level, that Clarke would marry. She may have been uneager then, but eventually she’d want children, and perhaps even love. But he thought the size of her dowry meant she’d be able to wait until she was ready. And it would take a while for that to happen, so there was no rush for him to secure her, not really. The real competition, he thought, would come only after he’d had her beneath him.

“I would’ve told you,” Clarke continued. “I should’ve, but I couldn’t risk—” she shook her head, voice breaking. “It hardly matters. Now you know. You see why I have been distant. I’m sorry for it; you must know I— cherish our friendship. And we may resume it once this business has been dealt with and I am–am…once I am—”

“Wed,” Bellamy finished for her. He felt his stomach twist at the thought.

“Yes,” Clarke agreed dully. “That.”

How foolish he’d been. He’d confused her wealth with freedom.

It changed nothing, though, beyond the bitter taste in his mouth. He already had planned to bed Clarke, to ruin her so thoroughly her mother would have to let him keep her. Before that had had no hard deadlines, but there was no reason it could not. If he started tonight, she could be far enough along by the end of the season that everyone would be able to tell she was breeding just by the swell of her belly.

His hands tightened possessively.

“We ought to return to the party,” Clarke told him, her voice more than a little unsure. The upset and sorrow of the prior moment still lingered, but Bellamy’s posture had changed. He’d leaned closer, began to stroke the soft skin of her throat. She shuddered as his lips touched her ear. “Bellamy?”

“Not just yet,” he murmured, pressing her body against his. Clarke inhaled sharply at the hard bulge of his cock against her hip. Did she know what it was, he wondered? What it meant?

He was taking liberties far beyond anything he’d attempted previously, and she was allowing it. It was intoxicating: the proximity, the heat of her soft body, the faint smell of rosewater on her skin. His lips found the angle of her jaw, the curve of her cheek, the small mark above her lip. His mouth hovered over hers, tasting her sweet breath on his tongue, before he pulled back.

“Who will it be then?”

Clarke stared blankly up at him, her eyes transfixed on his. They seemed a bit hazy, her pupils huge and dilated, swallowing the iris. Her cheeks were flushed. “Who will what be?”

He held her gaze, fingers trailing over her pink lips. “Your husband.”

Her tongue darted out, tasted his skin. “I hardly know.”

His mouth curved in a slight grin, chest hot with covetous satisfaction. “Who do you want, then?” Bellamy saw her retort before she gave it, and amended his question. “I mean beyond all this, before it. Barring logic or reason. Not as a husband, necessarily; but as a man.”

The pad of his finger caught her bottom lip, dragging it down slightly before releasing. So plush. So soft. He imagined them wrapped in a nice little o around his fingers, around his cock.

“Who, Clarke?” Bellamy whispered, holding her tightly. He shifted, pressed his knee between her legs so her center ground against the hard plane of his thigh. “All alone in your bed at night, when you’re aching to be touched, who is it that you want?”

Clarke whimpered, a high desperate sound. Her lips parted in a gasp, hands clinging his shoulders.

“You,” she swore, and he smiled. “Only you.”

Chapter Text

He was on her the moment the words left her mouth.  

You , Clarke told him. Only you. 

It damned well better be. Bellamy would guarantee it, here and now. 

His kiss was brutal, possessive and rough, leaving no room for her delicate sensibilities or lack of experience. He had enough experience for the both of them. Now was her turn to learn. 

And she did, quickly. Clarke was no wilting flower, nor was she an unwilling victim of a wicked rake’s seduction. She followed his passion as best she could, her lips moving with his own, opening her mouth to him in a silent gasp. His tongue slipped out to taste her and she startled for only a moment before she let him in. Tentatively, she returned the caress. Bellamy suppressed a grin and sucked on her bottom lip, dragging it across his teeth.

He could feel her breasts heaving against his chest, the lovely mounds straining prettily at the top of her gown where Clarke’s chest rose and fell with each gasping breath. One of his hands rose from her waist to skate over her corset. He wrapped his fingers around her ribs, his thumb coming up to circle the bud of one nipple over her gown and chemise. He felt it harden under his touch. 

Clarke’s body jerked against him. She tried to tear her lips from his, a startled yelp escaping her throat, but Bellamy simply dipped his head forward, claiming her mouth again with bruising force. 

“You want this,” he reminded her, nipping at her lips. “Let me give it to you.”

He would take it. Take her. 

It was deliciously wrong of him to be doing this here, in someone else’s home, only yards from a busy ballroom where she was meant to be preening and posing for her potential suitors. The men who lusted after her and her purity, who felt so worthy of her attentions that they never questioned what she thought, what she wanted. They didn’t see Clarke.

But Bellamy did.

He saw her as she had been as a child, stubborn and intelligent and commanding to a fault, and he saw her as she had been molded now: a beautiful storm, trapped behind glass. A hooded falcon, a ship straining against its moorings. She could be so much more, and he would let her be. He would strip her to her skin and show her what it was like to be free. Unbound. Unhampered. Unowned— except by him.

Perhaps he was wrong for it. Perhaps if he truly loved her as a man should, in the way the poets talked about, he would want her to belong to none but herself. Perhaps if he were a good man, he would help her escape without tying her irrevocably to him, like an albatross around her neck. 

But Bellamy was not a good man, and he rather liked being the one around her pretty little throat.

He kissed her deeply and thoroughly, till he was sure her head was spinning with it. Then his hands began to move, slipping around her ribs to find the tapes at the back of her bodice. He found the end and pulled, wrenching the garment open at the back. Before Clarke could react to his boldness his fingers moved to the neckline of her dress and tugged it down, exposing the tops of her full breasts pushed up high by her corset, her rosy nipples just hidden under the thin fabric of her chemise.

“Sweet girl,” he murmured into her mouth. He pressed his thigh up harder between her legs, feeling her hips buck involuntarily against the pressure. “That’s it.”

Clarke sucked in a breath against Bellamy’s mouth, preparing to protest, but before she had a chance his hands were moving again, tracing down her waist to her thigh. He rucked up her skirts and hiked her leg up over his hip. He stepped forwards, pressing her back into the bookshelf behind her and holding her there with his weight as his hand glided up over her silk stockings to the bare skin of her leg. 

“So soft,” Bellamy growled, grinding his hips between her legs while his eager fingers pushed her skirts higher. He had to feel her, had to slide his fingers into the wetness he knew must be pooled at her center. He kissed her mouth with fervor, trying to distract her from the utter impropriety he was about to take. He was over her knee, halfway up her thigh, so very close—

“I don’t—“ she gasped, tearing her lips from his and pushing him away slightly. His hand slowed its quest but did not go far, holding her skirts up around her hips. “Bellamy, please.”

He mouthed at her throat, teeth dragging along her pulse point. “Please what?”

“I need— wait, just– stop!” Clarke wrenched herself away, chest heaving. Tragically, her skirt fell back to cover her legs, but her bodice was still open.

Bellamy watched ravenously as her tits rose and fell with each inhale. Delicious, he thought hazily. He’d have to taste them. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t—” Clarke’s cheeks grew brighter, the flush slipping down her neck. She bit her lip, shifting uneasily. Embarrassed. “I’m not— experienced. Not like you.”

Bellamy suppressed the urge to grin. He knew that well. Reveled lecherously in it, in fact. “Of course not, sweetling. I’d hardly expect you to be.”

“What I mean to say is— I-I know that there is more than kissing. And I know that it— that in some circumstances that more may lead to children, which is why it tends to predicate a hasty wedding.” She chewed her lip, uncertain and uncomfortable. Adorable in her naïveté. “But not always?”

Not always, Bellamy thought, but I’ll certainly try my best with you.  

“No,” he assured her, though his intentions made it an empty promise. “Not always. There are certain modes of more other the…’ marital ’ act, that may preclude the chance altogether. And even within the act, there are ways to prevent any— unwelcome consequences.”

Clarke nodded shakily. “Right. And you— know these ways?”

Bellamy’s head tilted. “I do.”

“So you’d be able to–to stop this, before it becomes irrevocable? I can’t—I don’t know when, so it has to be you. If we—” 

Clarke blushed, the words catching in her throat. 

“How irrevocable?” Bellamy asked. His fingers danced along her neckline, sliding to the bow of her chemise peeking out from her loosened bodice. He pinched one end of the ribbon and began to pull, slow and smooth. “I’m not certain I have the will to leave you as… intact as your future husband might prefer.”

His eyes darkened as the fabric parted, exposing her hard little nipples. He imagined how her tits would grow even more, full and round and heavy with milk as his babe grew in her belly. They would need to be played with, to be sucked. Even now, they begged for his mouth. So pink, so perfect. Just like her lips.

There would come a time later, when he was more at his leisure, that Bellamy could show her delightful little nipples all the attention they deserved. For now he had a task to accomplish, and he was rather eager to begin. 

“Do you trust me?” he asked her.

She shouldn’t. He was a rake, here to ruin her. Even without knowing his deeper intentions, she should know better than to trust him.

“Yes,” Clarke breathed, and Bellamy suppressed a smirk. Good girl.

Good, pretty, foolish, little girl.

He claimed her lips anew.

****

Clarke was a fool.

She knew she was, even as she let him kiss her. Even as she allowed him to crowd her once more, to push her up against the bookshelves and seat her there. Bellamy did not hesitate this time, he pushed her skirts up quickly and efficiently, wrapping his fingers around her thighs and hiking both her legs up to bracket his waist. His kisses were deep and drugging. His teeth dragging over her lip edged the sweetness with the barest touch of bright pain.

She was a fool, and she was lost. Lost in him, in his touch, in his kiss, in the promises he left unsaid. In the careful way he held her, at once gentle and yet tight enough she was sure to have bruises on the morrow. In the way he led her deeper into sin, urging but never forcing, his strong hands cupping and caressing her in ways that brought color to her cheeks and fire between her thighs.

“I’ve wanted you for so long,” Bellamy murmured against her skin. “Wanted you so badly I thought I’d perish if I didn’t get to touch your pretty skin. I dreamed of it, of you. Of tasting you, having you.” His hips ground against her core, his teeth sharp against her neck. Bellamy’s hand tangled in her careful coiffure, pulling loose strands of gold to wrap around his fingers. He sighed, hot breath searing her throat. “How I’ve craved you, Clarke.” 

Then have me , she meant to say, but the words were lost in a moan as his fingers delved between them and found her most private place. Her back arched, head falling back in shock and rapturous sensation. 

She’d never touched herself there, not really. She thought about it, alone at night as she told him, aching and wanting none but him. But she hadn’t known what it was she wanted, not really. She hadn’t even imagined this. She’d known that that place was for her husband, and her husband alone. So afraid of losing her virtue, Clarke had never dared to explore that part of her, not even when her body was begging her to do so. Even if she had, she can’t imagine it could’ve felt anything so good as this.

Bellamy was sin incarnate, a seasoned rake and an inveterate seducer. He knew her body better than she did, and she suspected that no amount of tentative explorations under her night rail would’ve been able to change that.

“Do you like that?” he crooned, rubbing slow circles into the exquisitely tender nub of flesh at the apex of her slit. Clarke gasped out an agreement, or at least she thought she had. She tried to. It was hard though, to form words, when he was touching her like that. Even simply breathing was a struggle.

“Next time,” Bellamy told her, “I’m going to taste you here.” 

Clarke shook her head, insensible. He couldn’t mean it, and yet—

She shuddered, imagining his mouth on her there. Sucking, the way he sucked on her lips, his teeth grazing over her delicate flesh. 

“That’s right,” he groaned, feeling her hips buck into his touch. “Sweet girl.”

His fingers slipped up and down her wet slit, spreading it apart. One found her entrance and pushed inside just barely, just to the first knuckle. He traced the hole with greedy intent, pushing slightly on the barrier of her maidenhead. 

Clarke twitched and the motion caused his finger to pull, a sharp flash of pain startling a yelp from her. Bellamy hushed her, grinding his big palm against her nub.

“Be still now,” he said. His hand rubbed her insistently while his fingers stroked deeper. “Fear not. I’ll be taking that from you tonight, but not with my fingers. I swear it.”

This did not bring her any true measure of peace, but she had not the time to think on his words. His fingers worked at her insistently, forcing her conscious mind further back into silky red depths, far from petty things like logic or reason. She knew only heat, only pleasure. Only the press of his fingers and the ache of her throbbing center. Only the scrape of his teeth on her skin, the press of his hard body. 

Bellamy overwhelmed her, overtook her. He buried her in pleasure so sweet she thought she might choke on it. Her lungs heaved, ribs straining against her stays. Faintly, Clarke became aware of her lips moving, of words spilling from her mouth.

“ Please ,” she thought she said, her fingers wrapped in the black silk of his waistcoat. “ Please .” 

He gave her everything she begged for, everything she did not know for which to ask. His fingers moved faster and faster—rubbing, pinching, stroking—until she was mad with it, mad with him . For him. Until she was pliant under his broad shoulders, held up only by the solid weight of his body pinning her to the shelves behind her. 

How could he know this? How could he know what she needed, just like that? Was every woman the same, or did Bellamy just know Clarke, know every inch of her even before he had any right to see it? It felt— it felt to Clarke like it must be the latter. It didn’t feel like she could be anyone to him, like he could trade her for another woman and act just the same. When he touched her— it was her, for her. His torment was designed specifically for Clarke, and none other.

None but her. 

She wanted it that way. Wanted it to be that way forever. For the rest of their lives. Him for her, and her for him. No others. Never. It couldn’t be, but it was right, she felt it deep inside her. This—Bellamy, here, his hands and lips and teeth and tongue upon her— this was as it was meant to be.

Clarke felt something build inside her, some feeling she had no name for. It was incandescent, excruciating. She thought she might die if she didn’t have it, and she didn’t even know what it was. 

Bellamy knew, and he urged it forward. Urged her on, pushed her until she felt she would break. Something inside her teetered on the edge of collapse, and with one last hard pinch between her thighs it fell, and she imploded. Blood crashed in her ears, lights dancing behind her eyes. She bit her tongue to keep herself from crying out and tasted blood. 

“That’s it,” Bellamy whispered into her hair. “That’s right. Come for me.”

Come.

Was that what she did? It felt like coming, or going, or both. Like leaving her body and coming back to it all at once. Like flying up to heaven and falling straight from it back to earth. She shuddered in his arms, gasping and panting, the place between her legs clenching desperately around nothing.

For the first time in her life, Clarke knew what it was to feel empty. 

Not in her soul, or her spirit, though when she considered the utter impossibility of their situation those were there as well, but in her body. Between her thighs. There was a place in her to be filled, that he was meant to fill. A place inside her meant just for him.

The part of him between his legs, the part that she did not possess, was stiff and solid. She didn’t recall him opening his trouser falls but he must have because suddenly his member was slipping through her folds, his velvet skin burning hot against her slick, swollen flesh.

He moved so quickly she hadn’t time to think, or speak, or come to her senses. One moment she was falling, shattering apart under his ministrations, achingly empty—

And the next she was full to the bursting.

****

She felt better than anything Bellamy had ever felt. 

Any woman he’d had before, any cunt, any mouth— it was nothing compared to the tight clasp of Clarke’s virgin hole around his cock. If he were a better man—this was a hypothetical he found himself making far too often this night—he would go slow. He would tease her open with his fingers, stretch her carefully and gently. He would slide into her like the fragile thing she was, with the care and devotion that she deserved. He would do his best not to hurt her, even as he broke her apart.

Bellamy, as has been said before, was not a good man.

Not good enough, at least.

He’d made her come, and that was more than the men she thought to marry would’ve done. It had been selfish, honestly, but Bellamy was happy to give himself credit for the task. It had been so sweet to see her climax for him, to know that it was him causing her to gasp and moan, him who brought Clarke to what could’ve only been the lady’s first orgasm. Her reactions had been too perfect for it to have been otherwise.

She was so responsive, so perfect. Just as he knew she would be. As villainous as his intentions were, he could not regret them. She was worth it one-hundred fold, his perfect sweet little princess. 

And so he could not help himself, or did not wish to. As her orgasm began to recede, as the haze in her eyes began to recede and lucidity threatened to steal this moment from him, Bellamy pushed his cock inside her in one harsh thrust.

It was heaven, inside her. 

He saw her shock as he ripped through her virgin barrier, felt the spasm of pain like a tight fist around his cock, milking him. He knew when he pulled himself from her body, his shaft would be painted by her maiden’s blood. Red like her lips. Red like her flushed cheeks. Red like the firelight reflected in her eyes. It was all he could see, his vision awash in crimson.

A tear sparkled in the corner of her eye, and he paused just long enough to kiss it away. It was salty on his lips. It tasted like triumph.

Mine , Bellamy thought rabidly, stroking her beautiful face as it tensed in pain. Mine .

His hips glided out and shoved back in. Clarke shuddered in his arms. “It’s alright, sweet girl,” he promised, even as he continued to fuck into her tight body. She didn’t try to push him away, only gripped at him like a lifeline. “You’re doing so well for me.”

She let out a small sound, a half choked sob, and he caught it on his tongue. His hand slipped between them, rubbing at her clit. Clarke hiccupped out a gasp. Her hips bucked involuntarily, accidentally drawing him deeper. His cock bottomed out inside her.

Bellamy groaned. He wished they were somewhere else, somewhere with a bed. He wanted to see her, to feel her against him without all the layers of silk and linen ruched between them. He wanted to watch his cock spread her open wide, wanted to watch her pretty cunny sliding over his shaft.

Clarke’s eyebrows were furrowed together, her lip tucked between shiny white teeth. 

“I’m sorry,” Bellamy told her, though it was mostly a lie. His fingers stroked at her clit in firm circles. “Does it hurt terribly still?”

If he were a better man he would slow his thrusts down as he asked that. He wouldn’t pound into her like he wanted her to break for him.

“No,” Clarke told him, and it was almost the truth. “Not anymore.”

She was so strong, his girl. His Clarke. A little liar, and a little wanton. It hurt her, but she was still going to come for him. Bellamy could feel it around his cock, could hear it in the way her breaths started to shudder through her body in uneven pants. She wanted so badly to like it, and so she liked all of it. Even the mess, even the pain. The pain meant she was his.

“You’re so beautiful.” Bellamy couldn’t stop looking at her, never wanted to let her from his sight again. There was nothing in this world as perfect as her dewy face, as her flushed breasts bouncing while he pushed himself into her cunt over and over. His thumb stroked her cheek, his cock throbbing inside her wet heat. “So perfect.”

It would be torture to let her leave after this. To go back to watching her from across the ballroom, trying to look like she was interested in what Lord So-and-So or his insipid son had to say. At least tonight he’d know she’d feel his seed dripping out of her as she danced with her beaus. And he’d have her again, soon. He had to.

She was unlikely to conceive after just one go, after all. 

Bellamy groaned as he remembered his objective, and pumped into Clarke with renewed vigor. She let out a squeak, clinging to him. He felt his cock hit the back of her cunt with each thrust, bumping against the entrance to her womb.

He’d spill himself right there, he thought. As deep as he could get it. He’d wipe between her legs when they were done, but there would be no cleaning him off. It would be better if they were in her bed, so he could tilt her pelvis up, leave her sleeping with a pillow under her hips to keep her from losing any drop of him, but they weren’t, and this would do fine as well. If he pushed deep enough, his seed would sit right up beside her womb even as it seeped out of her and coated her thighs. She’d be wet with his spend for days, and she wouldn’t even realize what it meant.

Bellamy imagined it taking root inside her. Maybe not this time, but perhaps the next. Or maybe the time after. She wouldn’t know what was happening to tell him, so he’d have to keep trying until he was certain. Keep breeding her.

Clarke moaned as Bellamy’s pace increased. His fingers ground into her clit, his forehead pressing against hers. A bead of sweat dripped down his temple. The cords of his neck stood out as his jaw clenched tight.

Eventually it would take. His seed would plant, and his babe would begin to grow inside her like a perfect parasite. His proof of ownership.

Her stomach would begin to curve, her breasts would grow fuller. She would be a little too hungry, a little too sick, a little too horny. Her blood wouldn’t come. She would get rounder and rounder until it was undeniable, and then he would have her forever.

His to fuck. His to love. His to wed. 

His girl, forevermore. His princess.

“Come for me,” he ordered, and Clarke obeyed like the perfect thing he always knew she would be.

He felt the tight squeeze of her cunt around his cock, rippling with the waves of her orgasm. His thrusts became harsher, deeper, more erratic.

She’d be a wonderful mother, Bellamy thought wildly. He’d give her dozens of children. And he’d enjoy planting each and every one.

With a groan, he pushed himself as deep into her body as he could manage. With the head of his cock pressed right up against her womb, her sheath still spasming with her pleasure, Bellamy released. He felt his seed pump into her in hot spurts, and knew she could feel it too, even if she didn’t yet understand what it was.

His cock twitched inside her, growing soft as he finally spent himself. Bellamy let himself slip out from her cunt and tucked himself away quickly. Keeping her braced against him, he carefully wiped between her thighs with his handkerchief, trying not to stare at the mix of blood and seed that stained the white cloth. He wrapped his arms around her tight, and breathed in the scent of her. 

So sweet. So light. So innocent. His girl. His Clarke. 

Bellamy held her close, catching his breath. He pressed a kiss to the sweaty gold curls at the crown of her head and smoothed them into a semblance of order, letting her skirts fall back into place. A smile pulled at the corners of his lips.

He’d done it. He’d have her. It was only a matter of time.

Slowly he realized she was shaking, and looked down. “What’s the matter, sweetheart? Are you— are you hurting?” She shook her head but didn’t look up, and a bubble of panic began to rise in his stomach. Had he— had he done something wrong? Something unforgivable?

Well, something else unforgivable, perhaps. He’d already the one.

“Clarke, please,” he begged, stroking her back. “What is it?”

“I love you,” Clarke sobbed into his throat, and Bellamy felt something inside him roar with delight even as his ugly black heart cracked open with his betrayal. It was worth it, he told himself. She would understand. 

She had to.

“It will be alright,” he promised her, and he meant it. It would be. Eventually.

“How can it be?” she asked him, her blue eyes full of misery. “How can it ever be alright again?”

Bellamy didn’t say anything else, just held her as she gathered herself. It was a horrible thing to watch, but it made him proud. He watched as Clarke went from teary to determined to stoic, standing on her own and wiping the tears from her cheeks like they were nothing. She faced away from him, inspecting her appearance in a mirror. Carefully she unpinned and repinned her hair. She righted her clothing, tying her chemise and tugging it up. 

Holding her bodice to her chest, she glanced back at him. “Would you please tie my gown?”

Throat thick, Bellamy complied. His fingers grazed the bare skin of her spine as he did, and her breath hitched. He finished tying the bow and let his hands fall. “There.”

She turned then, and looked at him assessingly. “Your hair is mussed.” 

He looked past her into the mirror. “So it is.”

She stepped towards him and reached up. Bellamy bowed his head to give her better access as she combed her fingers through the unruly curls. When she was done her hands moved down, tightening his cravat and straightening his waistcoat. She didn’t meet his eyes.

“I needn’t wed until the end of the season,” Clarke said. Her voice was steady, barely a hint of roughness still clinging to the edges.

“No,” Bellamy agreed softly.

“Will you—” she paused, and swallowed. “Will I see you again?”

Bellamy tucked a finger under her chin and tilted her head up, forcing her to look at him. She was so shy now, so unsure behind her calm façade. It was unbearably sweet.

He’d already had her. Not minutes ago, his cock had been splitting her open, and even now his seed might be climbing inside her womb and taking root. He should not still burn for her like this, and she should not be able to blush like that. Like an innocent. Like Eve before the fall. She’d eaten the apple, made her bed. Let the snake inside her garden. Let him inside her sweet cunt.

And yet—

Her cheeks were the sweetest pink, and Bellamy was aflame.

“As soon as I can manage it,” he promised. “Nothing could keep me away.”

Nothing. No lord, no king, no God. Not even Abby Griffin.

“Very well,” Clarke said, and with her chin high, face flushed, and the spend of the most disreputable bastard Earl in the ton seeping slowly from her well-used cunt; she returned to the ball.

Bellamy licked his lips, watching her go.

Perfect, perfect girl.