Chapter Text
Isabella took her morning tea silently, contemplating the discussion she and her daughter had had the night before.
Love keeps no record of wrongs.
Isabella swallowed heavily as she thought of that statement. Sophia had used the word of God himself to speak of Charlotte and Isabella’s relationship. She doubted that a homosexual relationship between a harlot and a woman old enough to be her mother was enough to be of the pure love spoken of in the text, but Sophia had spoken with such conviction that Isabella could not help but believe her and pray for Charlotte’s forgiveness of her deeds.
She would visit Charlotte today and beg of it from her.
At the thought of Charlotte, Isabella stood. Taking one last sip of her tea, she called for her Lady’s Maid to go to her bed room to dress.
Emily met her on the way to her room.
“My lady, there is a young woman at our door pacing about aimlessly. What would you like me to do about her?”
Isabella’s heart pounded.
“Emily, could you...describe this woman for me?” The dark skinned girl nodded.
“Yes, my lady, she is about my height and age..er, fair-skinned, dark brown hair. And eh, definitely not from around here if you know what I mean.”
Isabella’s racing heart leapt to her throat. Charlotte.
She ignored Emily’s queries about her actions and raced down the stairs to the front door.
She all but threw it open.
Charlotte looked stunned to see her, as if she had not expected Isabella to answer the door to her own home.
The younger woman was barely dressed, her bearings not dissimilar to what she had worn when she had escorted Isabella out of the brothel the night after their first tryst.
She also looked the most tired and demure that Isabella had ever seen her.
“Charlotte..” Isabella spoke breathlessly and softly, almost afraid that if she spoke too loudly that it would frighten the younger woman away.
“Lady Fitz. Ma-may I come in?” Charlotte did not meet Isabella’s eyes as she spoke, seeming to take a great sudden interest in the architecture of the door.
“Well..I..” Isabella could scarcely find the words to speak. Charlotte was a completely different person than the last time they had seen each other.
In her plans to visit the brothel herself, she had expected to be met with the same ferocity that Charlotte had shown her before and had planned to respond accordingly. She was not prepared for this soft-spoken and vulnerable Charlotte.
Charlotte finally met her eyes and pleaded with Isabella silently. Isabella could feel her heart stutter at seeing the younger woman’s beautiful eyes locked onto hers.
“Ye-yes of course you may come in!” Isabella was thanked God she finally found the strength to put some power behind her words.
Charlotte entered her home quietly, just barely touching Isabella as she slipped past her into the sitting room.
Isabella shut the door behind her and jumped slightly. Her young Lady’s Maid was just behind her. The dark skinned woman’s eyes flicked back and forth between Isabella and Charlotte. It was likely she could sense the tension in the room.
“My lady, I..” Isabella walked to the cabinet where she kept some money in the sitting room and pulled out five pounds. It was more than the maid would make in two months working for Isabella. She placed the coins in the young woman’s hand and ignored the shocked look on her face.
“Emily, please take the day off.” The young woman stood, staring dumbfounded at the coinage in her hand.
“Emily.” A dark curly head bounced up at Isabella’s tone. Isabella inclined her head to the door. The maid nodded slowly and took one last look into the sitting room before heading out of the house.
Charlotte was seated on the chaise in the sitting room, staring off distractedly in obvious thought.
Isabella walked over to her and sat down decidedly slowly into the chair opposite the younger woman. She took to studying her own hands rather than bearing to look at Charlotte.
They sat in awkward silence for a solid minute before Charlotte finally spoke up.
“Isabella.” Isabella’s head snapped up to meet Charlotte’s eyes. The younger woman’s eyes were full of emotion that Isabella could not even begin to place.
“I-I cannot easily forgive what you did to me Isabella. What you did was such an unexpected act of betrayal that I...I can scarcely bear to breathe at the thought of what it did to me.”
Isabella’s eyes welled up with tears at the pain in Charlotte’s voice.
“Charlotte I only-” “It’s not that I don’t understand why you did it Isabella. My own Ma betrayed her best friend once..went to the noose to protect me and my sister.” The younger woman looked away as she spoke of her own mother. The pain of her death was undoubtedly still fresh.
“A mother’s love for her child is unbreakable.” Charlotte’s words were nearly a whisper.
The younger woman closed her eyes as she spoke again. “I realize it is wholly selfish of me to think as I do, but it was not your betrayal of us to the Spartans that angered me so considerably. I was not even fully aware of this until scarcely this mornin’ but…” Charlotte opened her eyes slowly.
“Isabella my anger was at that fact that you-you chose your love for your daugh-er over your love for me.” Isabella could not contain the gasp that escaped her lips. She watched stunned as Charlotte slipped from the chaise and down onto the floor in front of Isabella.
The younger woman grasped Isabella’s hand into her own and pulled it to her breast.
“My entire life, I was certain that I would never find love. Harlots are not meant to love or be loved. Over time, my body had belonged to so many that my heart and soul walled themselves off to love.” Isabella could feel the younger woman’s heart racing against her hand.
“Until I met you, Isabella, I did not know the walls around my heart were capable of being broken. And until your betrayal, I was not even aware that what I felt for you was more than simple friendship.” Isabella’s own heart was pounding hard in her chest. She and Charlotte both had tears streaming down their face.
“Isabella I plead for your forgiveness of my selfishness and of my actions yesterday. Now that I have come to terms with how I feel for you, know that I will never again grow angry with you for choosin’ your daugh-er over me.” Charlotte brought Isabella’s hand she had clasped to her chest up to her face.
Isabella cupped her cheek reverently as Charlotte turned her head and placed a gentle kiss into the palm of Isabella’s hand.
“Charlotte, darling, there is nothing to forgive. I am the one who should be begging your forgiveness.” The younger woman chuckled wetly.
“I may not ever be able to bring myself to fully forgive you Isabella, but I love you too much to allow us to dwindle on it any longer.”
Isabella’s heart warmed at Charlotte’s words. “Will you say it again for me?” Charlotte looked confused a moment. “I no longer want us to dwindle on-”
“No, darling.” Isabella pulled the younger woman by the nape of her neck so that their lips brushed as she spoke again. “Tell me again that you love me.” Isabella felt more so than saw the smile that came across Charlotte’s mouth.
“I love yo-” Isabella pressed their mouths together firmly, cutting Charlotte’s words off and pulling a soft moan from the younger woman. They kissed unlike they had ever kissed before.
The kiss was as breathless and passionate as their frenzied kissing had been the day prior, but more loving and gentle than the kisses they had shared the first time they had laid together.
Charlotte drew back to gasp for breath and Isabella found herself chasing the younger woman’s mouth back into another kiss. Their kisses grew more fervent and Isabella could feel the fires of lust being stoked in her center.
Charlotte drew back again, this time standing up momentarily, only to straddle Isabella’s lap on the chair. Neither woman wore their girdles or hoop skirts so the younger woman mounted Isabella’s legs with ease.
Isabella moaned unabashedly at the feel of the weight of Charlotte on top of her. Charlotte’s mouth curled into a breathtaking genuine smile as she leaned in to begin planting kisses on Isabella’s neck.
One side of Isabella’s neck was still marred by a large love bite and Charlotte kissed the areas ardently, whispering breathless I love yous with every loving kiss.
“Charlotte…oh god ...I love you…” Isabella could feel the smirk into her neck and Charlotte’s response was to turn and suck a matching love bite into the other side of Isabella’s neck.
Isabella could not help her hands reaching around to grasp at Charlotte’s neck and back. “ God Charlotte I- fuck!” Charlotte’s deft hands had begun to knead and grope at Isabella’s sensitive breasts. The younger woman seemed to respond to Isabella’s words though, as her hips bucked into Isabella’s lap at the word ‘fuck’.
Isabella could feel a smirk come across her own face as Charlotte continued her ministrations on her breasts with both her lips and hands now. “Does it please you so to hear me curse, darling?” Isabella was proud of herself for getting the full sentence out, breathless though it was.
Charlotte looked up at Isabella, lips kiss-swollen and full. “Anythin’ you say pleases me love.” Isabella thought back to the day before, when Charlotte had asked her to say ‘fuck me’ and how the younger woman’s eyes had darkened then.
“Perhaps, though, you especially prefer to hear me say ‘fuck’?” The younger woman’s eyes darkened as they had the day before and she squirmed in Isabella’s lap.
“As in, I am going to fuck you Charlotte?” Isabella watched, satisfied, as the younger woman whimpered softly and ground her hips into Isabella’s.
“ You’re goin’ to fuck me ? Is that so?” Charlotte was trying to maintain control, but Isabella knew now how to turn the tables against the younger woman.
She dragged her hand up the woman’s leg, pushing away her skirt and chemise, until she met with the younger woman’s cunt. Charlotte wore no garters under her chemise. She bit back an embarrassing moan at the feel of the younger woman’s wet center.
Charlotte gasped loudly and grasped Isabella’s upper arm. “Yes, darling, I am going to fuck you .” Isabella’s fingers slid around the younger woman’s slick lips, searching for her opening. As her fingers brushed against the hole, the younger woman’s hips bucked at just the right angle that her middle finger slipped right inside Charlotte’s tightness.
They both moaned at the feeling. Neither of their trysts had allowed Isabella the feel of the inside of the younger woman’s heat. “Fuck! Isabella!” Isabella watched in awe as a flush crept up the younger woman’s breast and face.
Charlotte continued to thrust weakly against the one finger Isabella had inside of her. “I-Isabella I need...I need.. more .” At the next thrust Isabella slipped her ring finger inside the younger woman, relishing in the moan that resounded throughout the room.
“Oh god… more Isabella… harder.” Isabella took her words to heart and pulled back her hand entirely, only to thrust back in more firmly with four fingers. Between Charlotte’s movements in her lap and Isabella’s hand, the two of them picked up a dizzying rhythm. Isabella’s eyes were drawn to Charlotte’s breasts as they bounced with the force of their thrusts.
Charlotte laughed breathlessly as she seemed to take note of Isabella’s fixation. She moved her own experienced hands to push down her stays and chemise so that Isabella could fully appreciate her breasts laid bare.
Before she could even realized what she was doing, Isabella leaned forward to take one of Charlotte’s perked nipples into her mouth. Charlotte’s hands flew to find purchase at Isabella’s back.
Isabella continued her rough thrusts into Charlotte’s slick cunt with one hand and used the other to steady the younger woman with a hand on her back, maintaining her nips and licks on Charlotte’s breasts as she did so.
Charlotte continued to whimper and moan loudly. “Isabella-look at me.” Isabella tilted her head up in time to see Charlotte looking down to meet her eyes.
The connection of their eyes seemed to push Charlotte over the edge. Isabella watched, enraptured, as Charlotte’s eyes darkened impossibly further and felt her cunt tighten around her fingers. “OH fuck! Isabella..Isabella!” It seemed the younger woman could say nothing else but Isabella’s name in reverence.
Charlotte’s eyes closed as she shook with a powerful climax, continuing to repeat Isabella’s name in slurred worship.
As her orgasm seemed to taper off, Charlotte lunged forward to connect their lips again in an open mouthed kiss. Isabella’s fingers were still inside of the younger woman and she could feel Charlotte become even more wet as they continued to kiss.
The younger woman pulled back and reached down to grasp Isabella’s wrist, moaning softly as Isabella’s finger’s left her cunt.
Charlotte lifted the hand that had previously been inside her and began to suck her own essence off of each individual finger of Isabella’s. Isabella was teetering towards the edge herself, and the feel of Charlotte’s mouth wrapped around her fingers nearly sent her careening into climax.
“Charlotte, please allow me to take you to my bedroom.” She could hear the arousal in her own voice. Charlotte nodded and leaned in for one last kiss before pulling herself off of Isabella.
Isabella pulled at the younger woman’s hand gently, leading her up the stairs and into the bedroom.
They made love for so many hours, Isabella lost track of the number of times they had brought each other to climax.
They laid in bed now, pressed together. Both entirely naked.
Charlotte lay draped across Isabella’s chest as Isabella stroked the younger woman’s naked back.
Charlotte reached with one hand and gently intertwined it with one of Isabella’s. Isabella nearly felt herself drawn to sleep when suddenly Charlotte spoke.
“I don’t know how this is goin’ to work Isabella. I want to be with you more than I’ve wanted for anythin' in my life. But I am still a bawd. And you still a Lady.”
Isabella sighed softly. “And the two of us are both women. Darling, I am quite aware of the scandalous nature of our possible relationship.”
Charlotte propped herself up with the hand that was not intertwined with Isabella’s. “Status and power hardly have any meaning to me Isabella, so I would understand if you want to keep our meetings to a minimum and I-”
“Charlotte. I acknowledged a bastard child and very publicly denounced my wealthy and popular brother. Power and status are not exactly of great meaning to me any longer either.”
She brushed away the sweaty curls on Charlotte’s face gently.
“Besides, it wouldn’t matter if the king himself told me not to. Nothing will keep our love apart any longer.” Charlotte gave her a loving smile in return.
“I love you more than anythin’ Isabella Fitzwilliam.”
“And I love you more than I ever thought it possible for me to love another Charlotte Wells.”
They kissed one last time for the night chastely, before Charlotte laid her head back onto Isabella’s breast.
They fell asleep together soundly. Bodies’ pressed together tightly and hands still interlocked.
They woke together in the morning light and worked together to get dressed. The act of getting dressed went rather slowly as stolen kisses and caresses interrupted their actions.
Isabella guided Charlotte to the door. They shared one last full-bodied kiss and exchanged I love yous .
“Sorry I gotta leave you love. Someone’s got to make sure Luce and Fanny didn’t burn down the brothel yesterday.” Isabella simply gazed at her adoringly.
“I will miss you darling, but I understand you have a brothel to maintain.” As Charlotte walked out the door she turned back around.
“Isabella? I will come back every moment I am able. Not a moment will go by when I do not think of your beautiful hands and eyes upon me.”
Isabella gave her a full-blown genuine smile.
“Of course my love. I would expect nothing less.”