Claiming Her Innocence Read Online Free PDF

stern. “We are to be married soon,” he said. “I will enjoy your body as a husband enjoys his wife. I will expect you to know your body, to use your hands to explore its dips and curves, its mounds and secret places that ache and throb. Do you think you can do that? Do you think you can place your fingers on that ache, and relieve it as I will do?”
    “Oh!” She looked for a moment as if she may swoon.
    “It’s all right. You don’t have to answer. Dinner is done now and you look tired. Can you see yourself to your room?”
    She nodded and he raised her hand to his lips, his teeth gently nipping her knuckles before soothing the little hurt with a soft kiss.
    “Your lesson will resume tomorrow. Until then, my love.”

Chapter Four: The Maid’s Example
     
     
    Penelope was reeling. She was also torn. She felt like a hothouse flower that had been uprooted and replanted in some wild garden. Was it really less than a week ago that her life had felt so orderly—that matters of what constituted sin and obedience had been so clear?
    The moonlight coming through the window in the upstairs hallway cast her shadow on the floor. Her dark shadow self, with its graceful curves, seemed to be mocking her even now. When she moved, it moved, as if to say, “I’m always here. I’m the want you try to deny.”
    “No.” She turned away from it to face the window. The light snowfall that had started earlier in the day had stopped. The crust of it covered the hedgerows and fields below, glittering in the milky light of the moon’s ethereal glow.
    She looked up at the sky. “Mother,” she said, her hands clasped in prayer. “I want nothing more than to be true to you, to be good. If you will not save me from this house, or give me strength to resist this man, at least give me a sign of what I should do…”
    “Ohhh.”
    The sound—a low moan—came from somewhere up the quiet hallway. At first Penelope thought it was just her imagination, but then she heard it again, more muffled now, but unmistakable.
    “Hello?” she called out, but when there was no answer, she padded quietly forward.
    There was a giggle then, high and light, and a laugh, lower and obviously male. Penelope could see a panel of the wall slightly ajar to reveal a hidden chamber behind it. A pedestal with a large fern sat just to the left of it. She could detect snatches of conversation now between two people, and although she knew she should just go to her room, her curiosity about who could be hiding along the hall in the dark of night got the best of her.
    It was not the first time she’d spied on others; at the convent, Sister Agnes encouraged the students to be ever vigilant for signs of sin they could report on. It was, the old nun said, a way to help one another.
    Now as Penelope hid behind the plant, she realized what she was witnessing eclipsed any of the small sins of gossip or sloth she’d ever witnessed in the convent halls. A lighted lamp on the small shelf of the hidden alcove cast a glow on two people. She instantly recognized one; it was her new lady’s maid, Betsy. The plump redhead was standing with her back against a tall man she recognized as one of the valets. His hands were cupping Betsy’s large breasts, squeezing them, but it was the maid’s hands that caught Penelope’s attention. As the valet’s lips moved from Betsy’s mouth to her bare shoulder, Betsy held up the hem of her skirt with one hand as she stroked herself with the other.
    Penelope’s own hand flew to her mouth to quell her cry of surprise. As the footman squeezed Betsy’s breasts, the maid rode her own hand, her ample hips thrusting against her own touch. The valet moved his hands down the maid’s arms now, pressing his pelvis against her bottom as he looked over her shoulder.
    “Oh, Betsy,” the valet said. “It’s so lovely, the way you touch yourself. Do you know what you’re doing to me, lass?” He squeezed her upper arms as he put his mouth to