Theirs to Train: A Victorian Menage Romance Read online

  Theirs to Train

  By

  Samantha Madisen

  Copyright © 2020 by Stormy Night Publications and Samantha Madisen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published by Stormy Night Publications and Design, LLC.

  www.StormyNightPublications.com

  Madisen, Samantha

  Theirs to Train

  Cover Design by Korey Mae Johnson

  Images by Period Images and Shutterstock/Ironika

  This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  More Stormy Night Books by Samantha Madisen

  Chapter One

  “Lina!”

  The voice that followed Lina up the windswept hill held a note of exasperation, but Lina paid her youngest “cousin” no mind, except to cast a careless glance behind to assure herself that Anna had been able to extract herself from the deadened, tangled branches of the half-dead chestnut grove without injury. Anna was slower than Lina, because she was less accustomed to adventure. Lina didn’t have the patience to wait for her, but she also wished no harm upon the girl. Anna, after all, was a staunch confidante of hers, though Lina did wish that the slight, pale child would not insist upon following her everywhere. Anna was only months younger than Lina, but she seemed like a small child sometimes.

  From the shuddering, milky windows in the attic of the most improperly-named Green Grove Manor, where she had been indulging in one of her favorite pastimes, Lina had seen the carriage approaching from far off. Black against the dark gray of the road, almost invisible in the distance through the wintry drizzle against the dead brownish gray of the fields, it had first appeared to her to be a figment of her wild imagination.

  No one ever came unexpectedly to Green Grove Manor.

  And why would they? A sprawling estate that had fallen into disrepair, its chestnut groves consumed by disease and neglect, its fields unworked and overgrown in summer, its facade flaking away like dead skin, and the interior unspeakably in shambles, Green Grove Manor offered a visitor very little by way of comfort.

  Or adventure or interest, Lina added pointedly to her thoughts.

  She had stared at the moving black dot only long enough to ascertain that indeed, it was not her imagination that some unannounced visitor was in fact approaching the manor along the long, stony road that cut across a ridge between the fields and the groves. It took her only moments to creep across the attic rafters, through the corridor, and down the former servants’ stairway in the west wing of the house. The wing was not used, and left unheated in the winter, so it was precariously crumbling in upon itself and thusly deemed a danger.

  Which is why Lina spent as much of her day there as she possibly could.

  There had been a fine rain falling when she made a run for the chestnut grove, which was the only way to reach the road without being spotted, and it had turned to cold sleet that was only now retreating. Anna had followed her, demanding to know why she couldn’t just wait for the visitor to arrive, and expressing concern about their health, until she had fallen behind. Lina was nimble and stealthy from years of practice picking through the chestnut grove, and Anna, of course, was not.

  “We will become ill if we continue in the rain!” Anna had pleaded.

  “Return home, then,” Lina had retorted. “Although you know what I think of such perfect nonsense.”

  “It’s not nonsense,” Anna had whined. “You will catch your death from the cold.”

  Lina had paused only to turn around and look at Anna pointedly, because while Lina loved adventure far more than was proper, she loved confronting unreasonable presumptions even more. And Anna—well, she had hopes for Anna learning to do the same someday.

  “Anna, I am inclined to wander in the grove all winter long, rain or shine, am I not?”

  Anna stopped and regarded Lina with wide eyes and uncertainty. She nodded.

  “Tell me then, when have I caught my death of the cold? Or even so much as a spell?”

  Unlike the elder Harlowe sister Evangeline, Lina—who Evangeline and the other members of the household insisted upon calling by her Anglicized and Christian name, Caroline—was never ill. Evangeline, who rarely went outside in the winter, was prone to passing half the season in her bed, pale and lethargic. Lina was inclined to believe that Evangeline was ill from staying indoors all the time, but this opinion, when voiced, had been very poorly regarded and earned her additional horrid chores, which only piled on, as none were ever rescinded once assigned.

  She was nearly at the road, and she could hear the wheels of the carriage and the jingle of the horses’ reins. Lina would have loved nothing more than to drive a carriage herself, but that was naturally disallowed.

  She peered over the embankment and decided she had time to dart across the road and behind a windbreak, where she would be able to view the oncoming visitor prior to his arrival. There was no true motive for doing this except for the sheer excitement of it: Lina was, as all the Harlowe family was wont to say, a bit feral.

  The carriage was farther away than she had imagined, and so she was able to dart across the road when the carriage was at a bend in the road, and her crossing was obscured. From there, she managed to duck behind the windbreak, and settle herself in with a good view to the oncoming vehicle.

  It was something to behold, and even in the adventure-seeking heart of Lina, the sight struck a chord of fear. The horses pulling the carriage were enormous and pure black. The carriage itself was shiny and black as the night, larger than most, with rich black curtains concealing the occupants from view. Only the driver, dressed in an oddly ostentatious red cloak, delineated the coach from an oversized hearse. That, and the fact that there was no carriage of this size and quality anywhere near this forsaken part of the world.

  Lina enjoyed the vague thrill that stirred inside of her, even as she caught her breath. Perhaps as the carriage passed she would get a glimpse at a crest or even an inhabitant. And then she would enjoy the thrill of returning to her home without being caught, and somehow drying and remaking herself so that no one but Anna would be the wiser that she had been out in the fields.

  What else was there for amusement in this dreadful place?

  As the carriage approached, however, the driver craned his neck, and abruptly, just in front of her hiding place, the great beasts pulling the carriage reared and the magnificent vehicle came to a clattering stop.

  Lina closed her mouth to hide her breath, and stepped back from the thicket, cringing as a branch snapped beneath her foot. Her heart beat furiously in her chest as she struggled to contain her wild breath. The top of the carriage was visible over the windbreak, so she could see the door to the compartment open. T
he hat of the driver peeked over the top, and if he had only sat up just a bit, he would have seen her. The crunch of the gravel on the road indicated that the occupant of the carriage had stepped out.

  Whoever it was, he was dressed in black and moved slowly, saying nothing as he walked back and forth along the line of the windbreak.

  The footsteps stopped.

  Lina wondered at that moment, for no particular reason, where Anna was. She sincerely hoped the foolish girl was on the other side of the road still. While the Harlowes had become warily accustomed to Lina’s “wild” behavior, they were very intolerant of Anna following in Lina’s footsteps. The number of inventive chores that would be heaped upon her would be staggering, she was certain, if Anna were discovered on the side of the road in the rain by a dignified and wealthy visitor.

  The pause went on so long that she could no longer hold her breath, so she let it out in a steady stream with the hope that it would dissipate in the air, though it seemed quite certain that the mysterious visitor was already aware of her position.

  But still nothing. She glanced at the driver, whose hat was motionless, face forward with the cultivated disinterest of all English servants to their masters’ whims.

  And nothing. Not a sound nor a movement.

  Lina’s fear dissolved as curiosity flooded her chest. She was carefully balanced in a most unladylike crouch, and she moved forward with her usual grace, one step at a time, searching through the thick bracken for clues as to the stance of the motionless visitor.

  And nothing.

  She crept closer still, eyes on the ground as she scooted her dress away to soil it as little as possible, biting her lip in concentration. When she looked up, leaning toward the bracken, she was startled thoroughly by the blink of one unfathomably light blue eye.

  She inhaled, and fell back, her mouth open, her heart racing.

  “Do you require assistance?”

  The voice was calm, betraying very little by way of emotion or intent. The question was not friendly, or mean, or disbelieving, or compassionate: it was none of these things. Somehow, in its low, graveled purr, it carried an undercurrent of impropriety. Lina felt as though someone had plucked a chord inside of her, one that was tightly strung between her neck and her... unmentionable places. Naughty places.

  “N...n...no,” she breathed. Her voice left in a whispery staccato, so low that she was certain she would have to repeat herself.

  But the driveway crunched, and the black contours of the man moved through the sparse holes in the bracken, and the carriage shifted. The door closed, the motionless driver leaned back, and the horses began, as suddenly as they had stopped, to trot down the road toward the manor.

  Lina let her breath escape her in a huff, with a sigh of relief. The sound of the carriage disappeared, and she struggled to her feet, started along the windbreak, and went back through the hole she had climbed through. When she looked down the road to assure herself that the carriage was far enough away to risk crossing the road for the grove, her heart was stabbed again by another pang of fear, and a thrill: the curtain in the back window of the carriage was, most certainly, dropping, from where it had been lifted in order for the occupant to look back on her.

  “Merde,” she whispered.

  And then she hiked up her skirts, noting that they were already soiled, and made haste for the chestnut grove, grabbing Anna by the arm as she passed her. The younger girl was staring, open-mouthed, but said nothing as Lina pulled her along behind her.

  This was not the first adventure Anna had been on with Lina, though it was likely to be the strangest, perhaps for all time.

  “And if we do not return with haste, Anna,” Lina said, finishing her own thought aloud, “it is likely to be the most consequential!”

  Chapter Two

  Lina rushed Anna through the decrepit west wing of the manor and through the attic, back to their own shared room, where they wintered together to save money on heat. With only two house servants, the affable, overworked, and unfailingly loyal Mr. and Mrs. Gray, it was impossible to keep fires in every room of the manor except to keep the home sufficiently heated as to prevent its complete destruction.

  Her heart dropped when they burst through the door, dripping wet and mud-caked, to find Evangeline standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed, a scowl already etched deeply enough in her features to indicate that she had been frowning with disapproval for quite some time.

  “Anna!” she hissed, snatching her younger sister by the arm as though she wished to rescue her from a fire. Evangeline’s eyes, however, remained accusingly on Lina as she continued to speak to Anna. “You’re positively filthy, soaking wet, and cold as ice!”

  To Lina, she directed a venomous snarl. “And where, pray tell, have you two been gallivanting about?”

  “A visitor has come!” Anna exclaimed breathlessly, unperturbed by her sister’s demeanor as always. Anna wrenched free of Evangeline’s limp grip and scurried to her wardrobe, tugging at her dress as she did. “He, or she, or they, have arrived in a grand shiny carriage with a driver with a red velvet cape. Oh, what could they have come for?” Her cheerfulness soured for a moment and her face fell. “You don’t believe that it is bad tidings, do you Lina?”

  “Caroline,” Evangeline hissed at Anna, and it was difficult to discern whether the utterance was a correction meant for Anna, or the beginning of a lengthy admonishment directed at Lina. The Harlowes generally frowned upon the use of Carolina’s nickname, and furthermore, of her French name, and Evangeline was only too pleased to comply with the Anglicization. Evangeline was also only too eager to direct a tirade at Lina whenever possible, all the better still if it was deserved.

  “Has he arrived?” Lina asked, ignoring Evangeline either way. She opened her own wardrobe, which was tucked away behind the door, smaller and much more meagerly stocked. Lina cast an eye at Evangeline, who was, as always, clothed in a richly textured dress as opposed to a frock, and without a hair out of place. Evangeline dressed each day and then seated herself to embroider or engage in otherwise approved activities for proper ladies, and would reach the end of each day unblemished.

  When she was a child, Evangeline had been very, very pretty. Her hair was black and her eyes were blue, and her complexion was like milk. But upon reaching seventeen years of age, Evangeline’s appearance had drastically declined: she had become stout, her skin had grown patchy and red, and her nose, once a finely sculpted aquiline feature, had inexplicably continued to grow into more of a beak. None of this was helped by the permanent downturn of her mouth, which, now that she was nineteen, had etched fine lines into her cheeks. Her glorious, shiny black hair was all that remained of her former beauty, but propriety dictated that this, too, be pinned up in such a way that it was diminished.

  Lina, who was only one month older than Evangeline, had been, in the words of Mrs. Gray, a “fearsomely plain” child until only recently, when, for whatever reason, she had blossomed like a flower into a great beauty. The Harlowe household had been so accustomed to her plainness and she had transformed so slowly, that it was only very recently that any of them had realized fully that Lina was no longer plain at all, but strikingly beautiful. With chestnut hair that picked up fragments of red, a pink, teacup-lipped mouth, and bright blue eyes, she was physically the definition of an English Rose, a fact which had sunk in with Evangeline in recent months and more deeply infused her expressions with great sourness.

  “And how is it that you are aware of this visitor’s arrival, and furthermore that he is a man, when I have only just been informed of this myself?” Evangeline said archly. She turned abruptly away as Lina, who was in possession of very little modesty around her sisters, tore her wet and stained frock over her head, shift and all.

  Lina gave a careless laugh. “Of course, you know how I have come upon this information, Evangeline. But I do not know who he is, or why he has come.” Lina changed her clothing quickly, with skill: she was accustomed to such
activities, and unlike Anna or Evangeline, she had few dresses to choose from. She selected the finest one, which was a very plain dinner dress of light blue, with an empire waist trimmed by a violet ribbon, and a low neckline that showcased her petite breasts, smooth chest, and swanlike neck. Evangeline’s dress was a masterpiece of deep red with tiny, embroidered flowers, but Evangeline lent it—as she lent all things—a dour and drab appearance.

  Lina crossed the room to Evangeline, whom she felt pity for more often than exasperation. The expression on Evangeline’s face when she saw how the plain dress was transformed by Lina’s beauty was such a pity-inspiring event. She took Evangeline by the arm and smiled, attempting to infect her with excitement. “Come, Evangeline, tell us what you know of this visitor and why he is here.”

  Evangeline loved, more than anything, to be in the possession of secrets and information, and to disseminate it as she saw fit. Truly, it was the only currency she possessed because her personality was as sour and dull as her appearance.

  Lina pushed past her to sit in the dressing table chair and repair her hair, but not without casting an excited and interested look at Evangeline, who was, she could see, already warming to the idea of divulging her secrets.

  “I’ll do your hair right after mine, Anna,” Lina said, before looking at Evangeline expectantly in the mirror. “Do tell, Evangeline. Tell us everything you know.”

  Evangeline would tilt her chin and draw the story out to such incredibly boring lengths, Lina knew, but she minded not, for Evangeline would be all the more reasonable for having done so.

  “Well,” Evangeline said imperiously, as Lina began to twist and braid her hair with a frightening speed—practice at tidying herself up for presentableness having been honed to an art form by her feral nature.

  There was a frantic rap at the door before Evangeline could say anything more. The door opened without a wait, and a flustered Mrs. Gray burst into the room.

  Mrs. Gray was out of breath, a decidedly atypical state for the unflappable woman. She surveyed the scene before her, eyes stopping on Lina. The rotund woman pressed her hand to her chest and breathed heavily. “Oh. Goodness. I was certain you were to give me a fright, Miss Caroline.” Mrs. Gray was well aware of Lina’s comings and goings, and neither approved nor disapproved of them. In the way of every good English housekeeper, her life’s mission was to make all rooms and members of the household feel as though nothing was ever out of place, and to do so with the greatest efficiency possible. It was very inefficient, in Mrs. Gray’s estimation, to attempt to tame Lina or to console the Harlowes when she gallivanted about like a feral cat, or engaged in wanton reading in the attic. Her tactic, therefore, was to ensure that it appeared to all concerned that such goings-on did not take place.