I remember the day he had brought the girl home almost a year ago. It wasn't his first, but she seemed more innocent than the others. She had walked tentatively into the kitchen, her eyes widening at the sight of the lamb roast on the cook stove. A bit scrawny, she was a beautiful girl with wide gray eyes and mouse-colored hair. Her cheeks had been pink from the cold drive home.

“Just in time for supper, milord.”

“Excellent, what timing.” He had lifted the cape from the girl's shoulders and tossed it onto the pantry bench. “May, this is Sarah. She will be in my employ as a housemaid. You are to supervise her and show her what her duties will be. Please make her feel welcome. Start her out with some supper, won't you? I'll take mine in the study.”

I had taken the girl by the hand, directing her to the staff table in the kitchen. She ate quickly, hunched over her plate, guarding it. All the girls from the orphanage were that way at first. She'd been fighting for food her entire life, and it would take some time for her to learn that wouldn't happen to her here. But other things would happen to her here. And young Sarah was about to learn what those other things would be.

As if on cue, she came skipping into the kitchen, her cheeks bright.

“May, guess what? Lord Benson told me he has a gift for me! Oh, I wonder what it could be? He's such a kind man, isn't he?”

I watched her dance through the kitchen, knowing that tonight I would be helping to move last year's girl to the brothel in town. And tomorrow, the staff would hug Sarah goodbye and wish her well on her new adventure, having been told she was offered a new job with a family in a neighboring village. Tomorrow night, I would be serving Sarah supper in her new chamber, where she would stay for a year. She would likely be restrained to Lord Benson's bed for the first month, allowed release only to bathe and relieve herself.

She would spend the next year as a slave, existing solely for the pleasure of Lord Benson. He would use her in any way he desired, without regard to her feelings. She would be bound, whipped, fucked, forced to serve numerous men, denied any contact with the outside world, and at the end of a year, she would be given to one of his friends. And she would like it.

“Yes. A kind man. He certainly is a kind man.”