Chapter Text
He does not consider himself a whore.
Others might. Indeed, he gives his own body over for their work. Often with angry fists and bloodied lips, and sometimes, on occasion, with other, more intimate parts of himself. He uses his body, not for their amusements, but for his own advancement.
Sean Rafferty has made himself indispensable for the men and women of the great House of Guinness.
There is a wedding that half the room knows is little more than a face-saving contract to hide the scandalous sexual proclivities of Sir Arthur Guinness. A wife to parade about when whispered rumors of sodomy begin to swirl the gutters of Dublin.
Lady Olivia is a woman of proper upbringing but little prospect, whom Sean has seen strolling the halls of Iveagh House arm-in-arm with Anne, discussing wedding preparations and such. Now, the day of the nuptials, she is, as so many ladies of the day are, slim of figure and elegantly swathed in fabrics and bows—a present delicately wrapped for her new husband. And she walks with her chin held high, her eyes sharp and keen as she surveys all that is now to be hers.
Sean has arranged for privacy and protection for the Guinnesses on this important day, and soon, he will order a carriage to take the newly wedded couple to the grand house at St. Anne’s Park where, he suspects, the wedding bed will remain empty and cold.
Now comes his official introduction to the newly christened Lady Olivia Guinness.
Linchpin. Protector. Weapon of control.
This is what Sir Arthur calls him with a purr, and there is talk of bedtimes and carriages as the Lady Olivia plainly weighs and measures the foreman standing at their table.
Sean takes a slow drag on his cigarette as his gaze slides calmly between the freshly minted Mr. and Mrs. Guinness. “Well, perhaps now that Mr. Guinness has a wife to take care of him,” he drawls as smoke curls around his ears. “I might be relieved of the more intimate duties…”
Sean leans over to stub out his cigarette in a crystal dish atop the table, and as he does so, he allows himself the indiscretion of likewise weighing the Lady Olivia. His eyes—deep and dark as the Irish Sea—rake tantalizingly slowly over her corseted dress, up and up over the pale mountains of her breasts, until he reaches her cool, steely gaze with which the Lady Olivia attempts to pierce the very soul of him, such is the extent of her appetite.
For lust, for money, for excitement, for power.
Sean has seen a dozen, a hundred men and women like her in the soot-covered cobbled streets of Dublin. He recognizes the hunger inside of her, for it is the same hunger he has inside himself.
“Such as deciding his bedtime?” Lady Olivia purses her painted lips in amusement as she grabs a bottle of champagne and pours a fresh glass. “Speaking for myself, I’m not quite ready for bed yet, Mr. Rafferty…”
His name falls from her lips like a pray, soft and sinful, as she pushes the champagne coupe across the lace-covered tabletop towards him. And all the while, the dark and heavy gaze of her new husband attempts to pin Sean to the floor.
In an instant, Sean sees the glass of champagne for what it is. An invitation.
He shifts his gaze to Sir Arthur, who meets his stare unflinchingly. The Guinness boys, Sean knows, so unlike their father in that neither Arthur nor Edward had ever been able to hide their emotions. Edward, so eager to please, to succeed. Arthur, so afraid to disappoint, yet full of contempt for the name and legacy he inherited.
Now, sat beside his new wife who curls like a kitten into his side, Sir Arthur stares as Sean with such open want that it would be cause for a deep and sincere embarrassment were the Guinness heir not warmed with champagne and beer beyond the point of all reason.
The invitation, it appears, includes both parties. Wife and husband.
Sean would happily fuck the wife. She is young and pretty and he knows she will be a hellcat in the bedchamber. Sir Arthur, however, stirs little but irritation and disdain inside of him. The eldest Guinness son gives little cause for respect as he squanders the power with which he was born, and Sean resents him for his lack of ambition, his weakness and arrogance in equal measure.
But Sean is clever, and he sees the invitation for what it could be. An opportunity.
He accepts the champagne coupe, and Lady Olivia declares, “Arrange the carriage for midnight.”
She says this with a sense of victory, and Sean understands his instructions, perfectly.
“Yes, madam,” Sean replies, tilting the glass back against his lips and swallowing the champagne—imported from France for the occasion, its richness entirely lost on him—in a single gulp. All the while, his eyes meet Sir Arthur’s shamelessly ravenous stare.
Invitation accepted.
“And make the lights dim,” the Lady Olivia demurs as she draws her husband to her. “So bride and groom can kiss along the way…”
Lady Olivia melds her mouth to Sir Arthur’s, perhaps hoping to shock Sean with her boldness and impropriety—or to give him a glimpse at what is to come. But he remains as unshaken as ever. And as husband and wife kiss, Sir Arthur watches Sean, grinning lecherously as he nips at his wife’s lips with his teeth. The pleasure on his face comes not from the wet press of delicate, feminine lips or the sensation of ample breasts warm against his body, but from the towering presence of the man who lingers at their table. Sir Arthur is the cat who caught the canary in the shape of his formidable foreman, at once forbidden and available to him.
When husband and wife part, the pair dissolve into laughter, and Sean leaves the happy couple to their business.
At midnight, Sir Arthur and Lady Olivia Guinness stumble happily down the front steps of Iveagh House, arms around one another, all giggles and swinging bottles of champagne, to a waiting carriage.
Inside the carriage, the lights are indeed dim, and there, waiting in the shadows, sits Sean Rafferty, prepared to do his duty—
to escort Arthur and Olivia home, and sanctify their marriage bed.
In the morning, their bodies sore, sated, and soaked with sweat and cum, Sir Arthur and Lady Olivia will send Sean on his way. They will think him their whore, but only he will understand what has truly transpired that night. The wedding gift that husband and wife have given him that evening.
Power—over them both.