Chapter 2: The Taste Test
Dawn bled grey and cold through the single pane of Lynn’s loft window. She hadn’t slept. The velvet pouch lay hidden beneath her thin mattress now, a malignant lump she could feel through the straw ticking. Every rustle, every creak of the farmhouse settling, had sounded like footsteps approaching. Preparation. The word echoed Agatha’s grim explanation: constant, relentless suckling. Her body felt treacherous, a landscape awaiting invasion.
Downstairs, the clatter of pots was louder than usual. Angry. Agatha was already up, radiating a furious energy Lynn had rarely seen. When Lynn descended, pale and hollow-eyed, Agatha thrust a basket of eggs at her – the best dozen, carefully arranged. "We're taking these to the manor," Agatha announced, her voice tight. "Personal delivery. Farm business."
Lynn froze. "But… Mrs. Croft… he said…"
"He said tomorrow," Agatha snapped, pulling her worn shawl tightly around her shoulders. Her gaze cut to Lynn, sharp and unyielding. "Today is tomorrow. And we're settling this farm business now." There was a fierce protectiveness in her eyes, yes, but also something else Lynn couldn't quite name – a simmering intensity, a purpose that went beyond shielding her sister. "Move."
The walk to Ashford Manor was silent agony. The familiar path felt alien. Dew soaked Lynn’s worn boots, chilling her feet. The pouch beneath her mattress seemed to tug at her spirit, even miles away. Agatha strode ahead, chin high, basket swinging, radiating defiance like a shield. The manor rose on the hill, grey stone imposing against the pale sky. Not a dream anymore. A prison sentence.
They bypassed the grand front entrance entirely, heading for the bustling chaos of the kitchen yard. Steam billowed from laundry vats, clanging pots echoed, and servants scurried like ants. Agatha marched straight to a harried-looking woman overseeing bread ovens."Mrs. Croft?" Agatha demanded, loud enough to cut through the din.
The woman, plump and flour-dusted, blinked. "Who's asking?"
"Willow Creek farm. Got eggs for the Lord's table. Special delivery." Agatha’s tone brooked no argument. "Needs signing for. Farm business." She glanced meaningfully at Lynn, whose face was surely chalk-white.Mrs. Croft frowned, wiping her hands. "Signing? For eggs? Just leave them with Cook…"
"Needs signing," Agatha repeated, her voice hardening. "By him." She jerked her head towards the interior of the manor. "It's urgent."
Something in Agatha’s relentless stare, the sheer force of her insistence, seemed to overwhelm the housekeeper. Mrs. Croft sighed, exasperated. "Fine.Fine! He’s likely fussing in the dairy house again. Door’s just there." She pointed to a low stone building separate from the main kitchens, nestled near the paddocks. "But be quick. And keep that basket clean!"
Agatha didn't wait. She grabbed Lynn’s elbow and steered her towards the dairy door. The scent hit them before they entered – thick, sweet, profoundly comforting: warm milk, fresh cream, clean straw, and the musky warmth of healthy animals. It was a sanctuary scent, utterly at odds with Lynn’s churning dread. Inside, sunlight streamed through high, clean windows, illuminating floating dust motes and gleaming copper pails. Three placid Jersey cows stood in clean stalls, chewing cud. The air hummed with their quiet contentment and the gentle drip-drip of milk into metal buckets.
And there he was. Arthur Ashford.
He stood near the far stall, looking incongruous in his fine linen shirt and dark trousers amidst the rustic simplicity. He was leaning against a wooden rail, shoulders slumped, staring blankly at a cow’s flank. He looked younger than Lynn remembered, paler, washed out in the golden light. Vulnerable. Lost. His fingers twisted nervously at a stray piece of straw. The sight of him, looking so… ordinary, so burdened, momentarily stole Lynn’s breath. It wasn’t the predator she’d feared, but the desperate, awkward man from the market multiplied.
Agatha didn’t hesitate. She shoved the egg basket into Lynn’s suddenly nerveless hands. "Stay here," she hissed, her voice low and venomous. Then she strode towards Arthur, her boots loud on the stone flags, radiating purpose.
Arthur jumped, startled from his reverie. He turned, eyes widening as he recognized Agatha storming towards him, then flicking to Lynn hovering terrified by the door. Confusion, then dawning panic, washed over his face. "Agatha? Lynn?" His voice cracked. "What are you… Mrs. Croft shouldn’t have…"
Agatha closed the distance fast. She stopped inches from him, her face tilted up to his taller frame, eyes blazing. "Shut it," she snarled, her voice dropping to a furious, intimate whisper that sliced through the dairy’s peace. Lynn strained to hear. "You think you can buy my sister? Use her like… like some breeding heifer for your filthy appetite?" She jabbed a finger towards Lynn. "Look at her! Terrified! Eighteen summers!"
Arthur flinched as if struck. "I… I offered coin… a fair…" He stammered, shrinking back against the rail.
"Fair?" Agatha spat the word. Her voice dropped even lower, becoming a harsh rasp Lynn could barely catch. "Fair would've been asking her mother, you coward. But you knew her Ma's gone. Knew she was desperate. Knew she wouldn't understand the cost." Agatha leaned closer, her breath hot on his face. He recoiled, but she grabbed the front of his shirt, yanking him forward with surprising strength. Lynn gasped. "You want milk, Lord Ashford?" Agatha’s whisper was pure, venomous challenge. "Real milk? From a woman's body?" A fierce, almost triumphant glint flashed in her eyes. "Fine. You'll drink from me first. Right now. See if you even have the stomach for what you're asking of her. See if you can choke it down without shame."
Arthur froze. Utterly still. His hazel eyes, wide with shock and terror, locked onto Agatha’s furious gaze. His mouth opened, closed. No sound came out. Agatha didn’t wait. With one swift, brutal motion, she wrenched open the laces at the neck of her homespun dress, pulling the fabric roughly aside. The creamy swell of her breast, taut and heavy with milk – the bounty of her recent motherhood – was exposed to the cool dairy air. The nipple, darker, stood stiff.
Arthur made a choked sound. His eyes flickered from Agatha’s fierce, defiant face to the offered breast, then back, wild with panic. He tried to pull away, but Agatha held him fast, pulling his face down towards her with inexorable force.
"Drink," she commanded, her voice trembling now, not with fear, but with raw, furious insistence. "Now, you cowardly bastard."
His resistance crumbled. His lips, pale and trembling, parted. He closed his eyes as if blindfolded for an execution and latched onto her nipple with a desperate, clumsy urgency.
Lynn watched, paralyzed. Shame scalded her cheeks, cold horror washed over her skin. She wanted to scream, to run, but her feet were rooted to the spot. The soft drip-drip of milk from the cows seemed obscenely loud. Arthur uttered a muffled groan against Agatha’s skin – a sound of startled, overwhelming bliss. It wasn't arousal; it was pure, unadulterated relief, a drowning man finding air. His body sagged against hers, the tension draining out of him, replaced by a shuddering surrender as he suckled, hard and deep. Agatha hissed, her head jerking back slightly, eyes squeezed shut. Was it pain? A different kind of shock? Lynn couldn't tell. Triumph and revulsion warred on Agatha’s face.
It lasted seconds that felt like hours. Then Agatha shoved him back, gasping. Arthur stumbled, eyes flying open, milk glistening on his lips and chin like messy dew. He stared at Agatha, dazed, panting, his expression one of bewildered ecstasy mixed with profound humiliation. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, looking at the faint milky smear with stunned disbelief. His gaze, clouded and craving, drifted past Agatha, landing on Lynn.
He took an unsteady step towards her, hand slightly outstretched. The bliss hadn't faded; it had intensified a hunger suddenly awakened. His lips, still wet, parted slightly. He seemed drawn, compelled, forgetting Agatha entirely. The promise of Lynn, untouched, waiting… it flickered in his milk-glazed eyes.
"No!"
Agatha moved like lightning. She stepped squarely between Arthur and Lynn, blocking his path. Her dress was hastily pulled back together, but her face was flushed, her breathing ragged. Pure, protective fury burned in her eyes now, overriding whatever other emotion had driven her seconds before. She reached into her apron pocket and yanked out the small velvet pouch Lynn had hidden beneath her mattress. Without ceremony, Agatha grabbed Arthur’s limp, trembling hand and slammed the heavy pouch back into his palm, forcing his fingers closed around it with bruising force. The Ashford hawk insignia pressed into his skin.
"She’s not your cow yet!" Agatha snarled, her voice ringing out in the shocked silence of the dairy. The cows shifted nervously in their stalls. "Take back your cursed silver. And remember the taste, Lord Ashford. Remember what it took me to give you that drop. What you want from her?" She leaned in, her voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "It’ll cost you everything."
Arthur stared at the pouch clenched in his fist, then up at Agatha’s blazing eyes, then past her shoulder to Lynn, who stood frozen, clutching the egg basket like a shield. Milk still shone faintly on his chin. His expression was shattered – a volatile mix of desperate hunger, crushing shame, and utter confusion. The dairy hummed. The air crackled. Arthur’s hand tightened around the velvet pouch, the silver coins inside biting into his palm. Agatha didn’t move, a fierce, immovable barrier protecting her sister. Lynn dared to breathe, the scent of warm milk suddenly thick and choking. The standoff stretched, taut as a bowstring. What would he do? Demand? Plead? Collapse? The weight of Ashford Manor, his burden, his desperate need, pressed down on him, visible in every trembling line of his body. His gaze, trapped between Agatha’s fury and Lynn’s terror, held the desperate, impossible question of what came next.
Arthur’s knuckles whitened around the velvet pouch. Milk glistened, absurdly innocent, on his chin. His breathing hitched, shallow and ragged, like a man gut-punched. That desperate, confused hunger still flickered in his hazel eyes when they darted towards Lynn, shielded behind Agatha’s rigid form. Then, shame crashed over him again, a dark wave. He looked down at his own hand, fingers clamped on the returned silver as if it burned. The Ashford hawk emblem seemed to mock him.
"Take it back," he choked, the words thick. He thrust the pouch weakly towards Agatha. "Just... just take it. Please." His voice cracked, stripped bare. "It was... monstrous. What I asked."
Agatha didn’t flinch. She stared at the offered pouch like it was snake venom. Her own chest still heaved slightly, the memory of his frantic mouth sharp on her skin. "Monstrous?" she echoed, her voice low and dangerous. "You finally see it? After tasting it ripped from someone not bought and paid for?" Her gaze swept over his pale, stricken face, the milk stain. "But it didn’t sicken you, did it? It wasn't the milk that shamed you." Her eyes narrowed, piercing. "It was wanting it. Needing it. And knowing Lynn saw."
Arthur flinched violently, a tremor running through him. He dropped his hand, the pouch dangling limply. His shoulders slumped, the fine linen of his shirt suddenly seeming like a shroud. He looked impossibly young, cornered, drowning in a need he couldn't articulate and a disgrace he couldn't escape. Lynn, peering around Agatha’s shoulder, saw the raw vulnerability she’d glimpsed in the market, magnified a thousandfold by humiliation. It wasn't predatory. It was shattered.
Agatha stepped forward, closing the small distance he’d created. Her voice dropped, the fury banked into something colder, harder. "You think coin cleans this? Makes it right? That purse buys silence, maybe. But it doesn't buy back her ignorance. Or erase what you are." She jabbed a finger towards his chest, not touching him, but the intent was clear. "You carry this hunger like a curse. And you tried to lay it on her." She glanced back at Lynn, her expression softening infinitesimally before hardening again as she faced Arthur. "My sister walks out that door. Now. This farm business is done."
She turned, reaching for Lynn’s arm to pull her towards the dairy entrance, away from the wreckage of the young lord.
"No."
The word was barely a whisper, shredded. Arthur hadn’t moved, still staring at the stone floor near Agatha’s worn boots. A single drop of milk trembled on his chin, then fell silently. "No," he repeated, stronger this time, forcing his head up. His eyes, red-rimmed, met Agatha’s. Not pleading. Desperate. Empty. "She walks out... and what? You think this need vanishes? The coin..." He gestured limply with the pouch, "...it was desperation, not solution. It festers. It hurts." His voice broke on the last word, a raw admission that seemed torn from him. "The silence... the pretending... it’s eating me alive."
Lynn froze, Agatha’s grip tightening on her arm. The sheer, naked agony in his confession hung in the warm, milk-scented air alongside the manure and hay. It wasn't an excuse. It was a wound laid bare. Agatha’s fierce expression flickered. The righteous fury met something else – the brutal pragmatism of a woman who knew the weight of survival, the gnawing persistence of hunger in all its forms. She saw the abyss in his eyes, the same terrifying depth she’d glimpsed when she’d forced his mouth to her breast. Not lust. Starvation.
Arthur took one staggering step towards them, the pouch slipping from his fingers to thud softly on the clean-swept stone. "I can't... I don’t know how to stop it," he rasped, his gaze fixed on Agatha now, seeing the mother, the provider, the woman who held the key to the very thing that shamed him. "The manor... the responsibilities... it’s crushing. This... this need... it’s the only thing that quiets the noise. The failure." He swallowed convulsively. "I am failing. Utterly." The admission cost him everything. His shoulders shook, not with sobs, but with the effort of holding himself together.
Agatha didn’t move. Her grip on Lynn remained iron. Her mind raced, warring instincts clashing – shield her sister, flee this madness, confront the stark, ugly truth of his brokenness. The silence stretched, taut and suffocating, broken only by the rhythmic chewing of the cows and Arthur’s ragged breaths. Lynn watched her sister’s profile, the fierce line of her jaw working, the calculations behind her eyes visible only as tiny shifts in the set of her mouth.
Then Agatha let go of Lynn’s arm.
Slowly, deliberately, she turned fully to face Arthur Ashford. She took another step towards him, closing the distance until barely a handspan separated them. Her eyes, dark and fathomless, locked onto his. The fury was gone, replaced by a terrifying, steely resolve. Her voice, when it came, was low, clear, and cut through the thick air like a blade, carrying the full, devastating weight of the instruction:
"YOU WANT MILK MY LORD? TAKE ME INSTEAD." She didn't shout. The quiet intensity was more potent. "YOU WILL NOT ONLY HAVE MY MILK BUT ALSO ALL MY BODY CAN GIVE YOU."
Agatha’s words hung between them like a blade unsheathed. All my body can give you. The dairy air thickened, smelling suddenly of souring cream and panic. Arthur stared, pale lips parted, milk still gleaming faintly on his chin. His gaze flickered from Agatha’s fierce, flushed face to the discarded velvet pouch lying like a dead thing on the clean-swept stone floor. The Ashford hawk insignia faced upwards, accusing. Agatha’s chest rose and fell rapidly beneath her hastily retied dress, her knuckles white where she clenched her fists. She didn’t look at Lynn. This was hers. Her sacrifice. Her claim.
Arthur swallowed, the sound loud in the sudden quiet. The cows shifted, their chains clinking softly. He took a half-step back, bumping against the wooden stall rail. "Agatha..." His voice was shredded linen. "I... I didn't mean..." He trailed off, helpless, his eyes wide pools of bewildered shame and dawning, terrifying possibility. Her offer wasn't just milk. It was surrender. Oblivion. A different kind of drowning. His hand twitched towards the pouch on the floor, then jerked back as if burned.
Lynn watched her sister’s rigid back. Saw the tremor Agatha couldn’t quite hide. Saw Arthur’s shattered expression – not predatory, but lost. The velvet pouch glinted dully in the shaft of sunlight streaming through the high window. Preparation. The word Agatha had spat last night echoed. Constant, relentless suckling. Until the body breaks. Lynn’s own skin crawled. But the pouch… the silver hawk… Pa’s cough rasping through the thin farmhouse walls… the leak in the barn roof… the cow’s hollow flank. Agatha’s offer was a shield, yes. But it was also a cage. For both of them. And Lynn was done being the frightened girl by the honey stall.
She dropped the egg basket. It hit the stone flags with a dull thud, rocking slightly. One egg cracked, oozing viscous yellow onto the clean grey stone. The sound snapped Arthur’s gaze to her. Agatha whirled around, eyes blazing. "Lynn, stay back—"
Lynn stepped forward. Not around Agatha, but beside her. Close enough to feel the heat radiating from her sister’s fury. She planted her worn boots firmly on the cool stone, ignoring the sticky smear near her toe. Her chin lifted. The scent of hay and warm animal suddenly felt sharp, clarifying. She looked Arthur Ashford straight in his milk-glazed, desperate eyes. Her voice, when it came, wasn't loud. It was clear. Hard. Carrying the fierce, untamed intensity of her eighteen years, forged by drought and flood and the weight of a failing farm.
"Have us both," she said, the words slicing through the thick air. Her gaze didn't waver from Arthur’s stunned face. "For triple the price."
Silence. Absolute. Even the cows seemed to hold their breath. Agatha gasped, a sharp intake that sounded like pain. "Lynn! Have you lost your mind?" Her hand shot out, grabbing Lynn’s arm, fingers digging in. "You don't know what you're saying!"
Arthur hadn’t moved. He stared at Lynn as if she’d spoken in tongues. His lips formed the word silently. Both? Confusion warred with the raw, gnawing hunger Agatha had just exposed. The desperate need that hurt. Triple the silver. Enough to secure Willow Creek for years. Enough to drown the shame in pure, impossible abundance. His gaze flickered between the sisters – Agatha, furious and overflowing, her body already a proven font; Lynn, young, untouched, defiant, offering the terrifying promise of initiation. His secret, laid bare between them, suddenly became a feast.
He blinked. Slowly. Deliberately. His pale hand, which had trembled moments before, steadied. He didn't look at Agatha’s horrified face. His eyes locked onto Lynn’s, seeing not just the farm girl, but the architect of this impossible bargain. A spark ignited deep within the shattered wreckage of his shame. Not relief. Possibility. Raw, terrifying, and utterly compelling. He bent down. Not with awkwardness now, but with a sudden, focused intent. His fingers closed around the velvet pouch, the heavy coins shifting inside with a muffled clink. He straightened up, the pouch held loosely in his grip. The Ashford hawk faced outward. His knuckles were white. He didn't offer it. He held it. His gaze, when it lifted back to Lynn, was different. Cleared. Resolved. Hungry.
"Triple," he repeated, his voice low, rough, but steady. The word wasn't a question. It was an acceptance. A contract sealed in silver and desperation. His eyes flicked to Agatha, then back to Lynn, encompassing them both in a single, devastating glance. "Done."