Читать книгу Lust - Charlotte Featherstone - Страница 7

Dear Diary,

Born of a higher power—gifted, favored … cursed. I am all of these things. It is said that not only my conception, but those of my sisters as well, was an auspicious event. Like the visit from the angel Gabriel to Mary, my father was visited in his slumber from the faery queen, who foretold the coming of our births and the importance of not only myself, but my three sisters. In his dreams, it was whispered to him the part we would play in a world that we had not yet seen—a world, it seems, we will never really become a part of.

Like the spirit of Christ to the Virgin, the queen infused within my father the qualities that all humans wished to possess—attributes that many sought through absolution at church, and monies given away to pardon them for any trespass. Through his seed, our virtues were passed on, each daughter possessing the moralities that would define her—humility, kindness, temperance and chastity.

We are bound to these virtues as surely as we breathe. They define us, our personalities, our hopes, our desires. They enslave us. Chain us, until the day our purpose in this small, confined world is revealed.

It is our lot in life. Some would say that others have endured far worse than what we have. After all, we were born into the Lennox dynasty—a family whose powers stretch from the southwest of England into the wild beauty of Scotland. A family whose riches have flourished. A family who is revered, and just a touch feared, for the four daughters who were born within minutes of each other.

While some fear that we’re witches, others eager to possess wealth and power fear not the mysterious happening of our birth, but the fact that we are beyond possessing. We are made for something else, something beyond the pleasures and ambitions of men.

We are made pure. Righteous. Virtuous. Lonely.

Imagine, as I have, going through life and never experiencing all it has to offer. Imagine what it is to dream—and dread—a future which you know nothing about, because, as my sisters and I know, we were not created for such mundane purposes as tending home and hearth, but for some other mystical, and I fear sinister, reason.

Imagine if you can bear to, never feeling the touch of a man or desire spear your loins. Imagine listening to your friends speak of the beaux they dance with and the shirtless laborers who toil the soil, their perspiration trickling between muscles, a sight that you’re afraid you will never understand the power of, or feel your own cheeks heat with a rush of physical longing at such a masculine, virile sight.

Picture, if you can, never feeling any heat warm your blood when a man’s gaze caresses you, lingering on breasts that should make you feel womanly, but instead, from which you feel disconnected. Indifferent. Sexless …

High and mighty they call me. Frigid. But I am neither of those things. I am Chastity—my name, and my virtue. It is who I am, my entire being. It, I fear, is my prison.