Lord Marlton and Jason

"...trouble than she's worth!" Randy felt his fists clench in anger as he recognized Lord Marlton's whiney voice. He had to resist the temptation to push past Miss Marlton and shoot the bastard right between his shifty eyes.

"We'll find her Lord Marlton." He did not recognize the other voice, but it was a man's tenor and sounded quite a bit younger than Marlton. Judging from Miss Marlton's snort of disdain, the man was known to her.

"When we do, I want to put an end to the damned stupidity of her mother's will." Randy could hear the sound of a glass set down too hard on a table.

"Yes Sir, I'll propose to Miss Marlton the very first chance I get."

"Not good enough, young man." The more Randy listened, the drunker Marlton sounded. "I can't take the chance that the head-strong little bitch will turn you down like the others." Randy could feel Miss Charlotte stiffen against him when she heard her father's nasty tone.

"I don't understand, Lord Marlton." Marlton's guest sounded drunk too, although perhaps not as drunk as the Lord of the Marlton estate. "If you don't want me to propose to her, what else is there?"

"You need to breed her like a prize heifer, Jason." Marlton snorted, "No judge will question my decision to give her to you when her belly is swollen in unmistakable evidence of her impropriety." A deafening silence filled the hall until Randy felt as though his and Charlotte's breathing must surely be loud enough to wake the entire household. Lord Marlton's drunken tone broke the silence, but his explicit words were so disgusting that Randy could hardly believe his ears. "When my willful daughter returns from whatever little adventure she is on, I'm going to punish her by locking her in her room for as long as it takes for her to learn some respect." Randy could feel Miss Charlotte stiffen as she heard her father's plan. "Furthermore, you'll be given the key to her chambers so you can visit her each night and make sure that her womb is well seeded."

"But-" Marlton cut the young man's protests off, his voice taking on an even harsher note.

"I don't care if you charm her, get her drunk or just tie her down and take her by ****, Jason." There was no mistaking the forceful intent in the bastard's words. "You need to tame that girl and put a child in her belly!"

"She's your daughter!" Randy had to give this Jason a little credit for pushing back on this outrageous plan, but he sensed that Charlotte did not expect her latest suitor to prevail.

Charlotte was only beginning to come to grips with her father's plans for her. She had known all her life that her father could barely even pretend to care for his own daughter, but she listened in numb horror as her father disavowed her without hesitation.

"Only by blood, Jason. That's the only thing keeping me from fucking her myself." She could feel her stomach turn at the thought of her father forcing his way into her room, but she could not stop listening. "In all other ways that headstrong filly is her mother's child and it's about time she had a man to put her in her place."

"I don't know..." The young man tried again and for a second Charlotte half hoped she had misjudged the quality of her suitor, but Marlton was having none of it.

"Don't give me that shit Lord Worthington." He snorted. "I've heard more than three different accounts of you forcing yourself on girls you fancied, and I'm sure there must be a dozen others that have the sense to keep their pretty mouths shut." Charlotte turned away from the door and pressed her face into Randy's chest. She wanted to be horrified, but her father's willingness to give his daughter to a man like that did not come as a total shock. "Just pretend she's one of those servants you chase down, and fuck her 'til she's lost her will to fight."

The clink of glasses and mingled laughter was all Charlotte needed to hear to know that her almost-fiancé was as nasty a man as her father was. The hard evidence implicating the pair of nasty rogues left the taste of rotten eggs in her mouth.