The Telltale Heart by Melanie Thompson

Chapter 1
    Drexel Rayne, the Eighth Duke of Severn, reclined on his mound of pillows and opened his brocade dressing gown. The young lady hired for his pleasure knelt between his legs and took his flaccid cock into her mouth. As soon as her tongue began circling the sensitive tip, he moaned with pleasure. It had been so long. His doctor had expressly forbidden any kind of sexual activity. His heart had been judged too weak for the excitement.
    But Lord Rayne had gone long enough without release. He was desperate. The young woman’s red hair spread across his thighs as she licked his engorged organ and drew its entire length into her mouth. Drex’s heart pounded as his cock throbbed. He was close to exploding but put off the moment by grabbing the girl’s hair and lifting her head. “Show me your teats, girl.”
    With a coy smile on her swollen lips, she slid her full breasts out of the tight top of her corset. She held them in her hands, so white, so perfect, the tips erect, full and pink. The sight of them made his heart pound even harder. He reached down and pulled one turgid point and then groaned. “Suck.”
    â€œWhatever you say, guvenor,” she said with a smirk as she dropped her head to finish her task.
    He was almost there, his blood pounding through his body, every nerve ending in his cock screaming with excitement, when the pain hit. He sat up at once, pushed the girl away and grabbed his chest. “Call Marston,” he gasped.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œMy valet. Call him now.”
    Frightened, the girl leaped to her feet and ran out of the room screaming for his valet. Marston flew into the room, cordial ready in hand. He held his master’s head tenderly and helped Drex sip the revivifying drink.
    The cordial was a concoction brewed from foxglove, dog bane and willow bark prescribed by his physician. As he drank it, his heart stopped its erratic palpitations and steadied. “I’m done for, Marston. If I don’t find some kind of miracle cure, your master is going to die.”
    â€œThere must be something we can do, Master Drexel. Too many of us depend on you. What would we do if that nodcock Sir Nugent inherited? Why if he was to fall into your shoes, all of us would be out in the cold in the wink of a lamb’s tail.”
    Drex leaned back against the bank of pillows. “I’ll think of something. You’re right. Nugent Templecombe can never be the Duke of Severn.”
    Marston fingered his chin. “Mayhap, I heard about someone who might have a cure for a bad ticker, my lord. I’ll look into it for you.”
    â€œBetter hurry,” Drex gasped. “I don’t think I have long.”
    * * * *
    Deep in the Old Nichol, the most notorious slum in the city of London, Camille Torrington tightened the last screw in a special vest she was constructing. Her laboratory was deep under the slum in three cellars she leased from a disreputable old crook name Jeremy Scrooby. Scrooby owned two blocks on Boundary Street, renting them out to families of Irish immigrants and anyone else who was desperate enough to want to live in the poorly-maintained, falling-down, brick buildings. As yet, Cam had only set fire to the three-cellar lab once.
    Her assistant was her cousin, Edmund. The Torringtons were a good family, an old family who had fallen on hard times. Her mother, now sadly deceased, had married a soldier who died in a war far from home, leaving them destitute. Edmund was the family’s last surviving son of her father’s younger brother. His family was from Northumberland. Her mother had told Cam before she died to go to them, but there was no way Cam was going that far from London, the hub of the scientific universe. Besides, she was all that remained of her mother’s family who were from Hertfordshire. London was her home. It was the center of the civilized world. All she cared about were her experiments and being independent. There