Page 26 of Her Beast

“No, those two deaths in the family—Thomas Harlow’s mum and then his uncle about a year later—kept the family in mourning.”

“I can see mourning a grandparent for a year, but a granduncle?” Malcolm shook his head.

“The servants I spoke to said Harlow would have found a reason to keep her from having a Season regardless,” Joe admitted.

“I take it he was concerned she might get up to more antics?”

“Aye, sir, he wants her married before she ends up with a babe in her belly.”

Malcolm felt a pang of pity for the young woman. Anyone this curious about sex—especially a female—would have a hard time finding happiness within the strict confines of theton. Julia Harlow might think her impending marriage to a duke’s heir meant freedom and power, but she’d soon discover that her husband and his aristocratic family would control her just as surely as her parents ever had, if not more.

Well, it wasn’t his concern, was it?

He turned to the postcards.

The first two were nothing special—just the usual naked, nervous-looking females, in unnatural poses, probably poor young women who were struggling to put food on the table the only way they knew how.

The third photograph had two pretty women naked in a bed together, touching parts of each other’s bodies in ways it sounded like Miss Harlow could identify with.

The fourth was slightly more risqué. The woman wore a dark, lacy negligee, the sort a rich man might buy for his mistress. She also wore a mask to hide her identity. Her naked body was pleasingly plump in a way that only a healthy diet of good food could create. That meant this was a woman from the upper classes.

Very interesting.

The next picture was of a huge man, naked, with an erection.

He was one hell of a fine specimen, but, overall, it was a silly picture. He was standing in front of a stuffed tiger—as if he were going to wrestle the beast to the ground—his cock and balls dangling in front of a part of the tiger’s anatomy that no man would ever get near.

It was the last picture that was the most titillating—at least to a debauched pervert like Malcolm.

It was one woman and three men, their bodies entwined in a tangle of limbs.

One man lay on the floor on his back, his cock presumably buried in the anus of the woman lying on top of him. Another man was crouched over her body in a particularly uncomfortable looking crab-like position, his cock filling her pussy.

A third man knelt over the woman's face, his cock deep inside her throat.

It was an arousing picture so long as a person didn’t contemplate just how uncomfortable the position probably was for all the participants.

Although he and Sukey had engaged in such activities more than a few times, Malcolm personally wasn’t a devotee of triple penetration. It was always plagued with too many logistical considerations, no matter how enticing it sounded.

Double penetration on the other hand, now that had been one of his favorite pastimes with Sukey and Smith as partners.

He pushed aside his fond memories and scraped the postcards into a neat pile before putting them back into their envelope and turning to Joe. “I want you to keep poking around—especially into Carl Sheehan’s background.” It bothered the hell out of Malcolm that he couldn’t recall how he knew the man.

Joe nodded and jotted something down in his book.

“Look into Basingstoke as well. I want to know what sort of debts his family owes, where he gambles and whores, his sexual habits—that sort of thing.”

Not that Malcolm knewwhyhe wanted to know such things.

Liar.

Malcolm sighed. Yes, he was. The truth was that he was interested in anything to do with Julia Harlow, even if only tangentially.

“Oh, damn, sir!” said Joe, an embarrassed look on his homely face.

“What now?” Malcolm asked, more than a little impatient. Imagining Julia Harlow rubbing one off with a schoolmate had made him harder than iron; he wanted to go plow Maisie before the enchanting image faded.

“I must be goin’ soft in the head. I can’t believe I forgot this,” Joe muttered, pulling a thick, gray envelope out of his inner coat and laying it on Malcolm’s desk.

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