Chapter 1

“Those sisters of mine are making a God-awful racket. I swear, a person can hardly hear herself think a single logical thought without being distracted.”

The pretty long-haired girl sat Indian style on top of a flat-topped seaman’s chest in a room filled with books piled in neat stacks from the high, high ceiling to the very bottom of every wall right above the three century old cut-stone floor. There was an unsafe looking ladder of European design that came to a point at the top standing right next to her but she was not interested in climbing anywhere right at that moment.

She already had a book in her hand.

It was a spectacular work describing the maiden voyage of an imaginary ship with imaginary sailors and imaginary clothing-free females all running amuck on some unnamed island in an imaginary land far away absent the worries and cares of a modern social system that required her to wear hideous corsets and brush her hair one hundred strokes each and every night before jumping into bed between her sisters. Her left hand sister was Rose and her right hand sister was Lily. She hated her name of Honeysuckle because it made her sound a bit too submissive and easygoing for her liking. That certainly was not how the pretty teenager saw her persona even with her admitted bias in her favor. In a way, she envied Rose and Lily for their straight-forward English sounding names although there was a distinct French flavor to Lily that made the name sound a little mysterious even to English speaking ears.

Honeysuckle already had her nightshirt on.

“God, I hate this dreadful nightshirt!”

She had that single solitary thought as she put the solid, seldom read book down on the Italian marble table next to the reading window alcove. It would be there for her in the morning when the first light came up over the hills to the East just like it did every morning almost at the same time. Honeysuckle loved reading in the soft early morning light because it was so easy on her eyes. She struggled not to rub her eyes because the doctor advised it was quite harmful.

Her eyes were a disaster according to her aunt Harriet.

That really was a case of the pot calling the kettle “black” because her aunt Harriet was never without her thick spectacles that she needed to see anything in the distance and needed the bifocal lens to read a book or a silly newspaper. Her aunt Harriet was a shallow sort of person and would never pick up one of the books that Honeysuckle buried her nose in because it would require some in-depth thinking of a sort that might possibly put unwanted wrinkles at the corners of her eyes or even her lips. Poor Aunt Harriet was at that age when the thought of an added wrinkle was a disaster to be avoided at all costs.

It was time to run on her bare feet all the way to the back bedroom where she, Rose and Lily slept in snuggled comfort on the bed that was said to be installed by enemies of the King before they lost their heads in just retribution for disloyal attitudes. It was a period that held no interest for Honeysuckle because her mind was focused on the current politics of an uncertain rule of government and she was confused in her own thoughts about the rightness or wrongness of supporting either side of such a high-profile issue. Her resolve was to simply ignore the entire thing and take no side to avoid making enemies unnecessarily. Later, she was to discover all she accomplished was to create enemies on both sides and lose the trust of some people she was desperate to have in her corner when push came to shove.

The three of them were jockeying for position in the bed. It was a large bed but three teenaged girls with the energy of youth and nervous tension tended to ignore their boundaries and invade the other bedmate’s territory. Being in the middle gave the advantage to Honeysuckle and she was able to calm the other two into submissive bundles of passive femininity. They pressed against her on both sides affording her the sensation of being sandwiched by a pair of lovers with desire run rampant in the cold night air. It was enough to stir her innards and make her tremble a bit with well-hidden urges and the little darlings never suspected she derived a certain level of satisfaction from their heated skin and curved regions intended for sensitive exploration. She stiffened into an unyielding rod not moving a single inch in any direction and allowed the wave of pleasure to sweep over her like a relentless wave driven by the forces of human weakness subtle in its covertness and all the more exciting because of her sense of suffocating guilt.

She was far too ashamed to confess her sin to the young priest who probably couldn’t comprehend how one female person could possibly experience any form of sexual release from the contact of a like and same female body. For a moment, she considered the opportunity to confess to the old priest who was so hard of hearing he just went through the motions of listening and told everyone the exact same thing usually ending with, “Now say (three Hail Mary’s and three Our Fathers) and proclaim your contrition for your sins against the word of God.”

On second thought, she chickened out on the thought because she was afraid he would miraculously hear every word and think her to be a sinner far too gone for any chance of redemption in the eyes of God.

The next morning, Maggie the maid brought the morning post into the breakfast room and her sister Rose tore open the pretty blue envelope that was an invitation for all three of them to attend the upcoming Ball at Hampshire Hills to celebrate the bountiful harvest just completed throughout the entire region. It promised to be one of those Balls that would cement relationships between budding female debutantes and sex-starved young men eager to fill their beds with a willing female ready to furnish great sport each and every evening with absolutely no charge whatsoever or compensation of a financial category.

Honeysuckle knew she was already overdue for that brand of mating call at the ripe old age of nineteen, but she was in no mood to be spreading her legs for a complete stranger no matter what range of income he had acquired by reason of good luck or inheritance. Her two younger sisters, Rose at eighteen and Lily at sixteen were right in the middle of the pack of virginal sacrifices and would be sure to pine every waking hour until their chance at finding a suitable husband to brandish around at family gatherings.

She had an opportunity to contract a mate two summers ago and was inclined to accept poor Tommy Brighton despite the fact his income was far below her father’s specified minimal requirements for approval. Unfortunately, Tommy was thrown from his horse in the hunt and cracked his skull wide open on a rock that should have been removed a long time ago just to prevent such a catastrophe. His proposal was not formally accepted and it saved her grief of being marked as an “unlucky” target and her father breathed a deep sigh of relief at escaping the prospect of subsidizing his eldest daughter’s family for the remainder of his life. It would be far better to just keep her at home and let her take care of him in his old age in the capacity of an unpaid nurse or family caretaker.