A Gentlewoman's Ravishment (2 page)

No! Oh, no! The finger stays where it is, inside me, and a firm thumb settles on my clitoris, rubbing and pressing.

“Please! Oh, no, sir…let me be! Not now!”

He ignores me, he continues to work me, with slow precision. “We’ll be but a few moments,” he calls out to the coachman in a harsh, sharp voice, then presses me harder. “Surrender it to me, madam,” he hisses in my ear. “Imagine your husband watching me do this to you…seeing you so wanton and so easy and so lubricious.”

His mouth comes down on mine, tongue pushing in, silencing my protests and allowing me only moans.

My resolution comes upon me like a great, hard, sweet, shameful wave. I sob into his kiss and my body clenches on his finger. Pleasure washes through my sex and melts my limbs. I almost swoon.

But not quite.

As I gasp, trying to catch my breath and regain some semblance of control over my senses, I’m acutely conscious of the stationary carriage. The horses stomp and huff outside, and I fancy I can hear the impatient breathing of the coachman, and perhaps others, as they wait upon me and my unseen ravisher. I focus on all this because I’m in awe of the man still touching my body.

Why have I allowed myself to be dominated in this way? Fondled and handled? There is a considerable difference between a woman’s secret fantasies and the real danger of being kidnapped and whisked away off the street like this. Perhaps he wishes to sell me into white slavery, and has simply toyed with me to ensure that the goods he has to offer are desirable? That when I become the plaything of some jaded debauchee in a far-flung land, I’ll be satisfactory…and diverting.

If I had my wits about me, I’d fight. Kick out. Struggle. Attempt to escape. Surely I could work the key in the lock with my hands behind my back, if I disabled my companion with a sturdy booted foot applied to his sensitive, gentleman’s regions?

But I attempt none of this. I succumb like a debauchee myself, like a willing sensualist.

I’m still glowing with pleasure when his hands slide off me, only to turn the lock himself and open the carriage door while I’m still half in dishabille.

Who is this wicked, ruthless man? Why can’t I resist him?

Before I know it, I’m jostled out of the carriage and half manhandled across a stretch of pavement and up a set of steps. Somewhere in the erotic rumpus, my blindfold has become a little dislodged, and I can see just a sliver of my surroundings.

There’s the lower part of a black-painted door, very well maintained, and as that door opens, I see polished shoes that immediately step back to admit me and my captor.

Inside, I get an impression of space and airiness, I know not why. There are tiles beneath our feet. As I’m led along, firmly but not cruelly somehow, the blindfold slips back and I’m in darkness, complete and inky, once more.

We ascend a staircase. Without use of my arms, this is difficult, but I’m borne up by my companion, and strangely, I have no fear of falling. He might be a brigand, but he’s strong and sure and clearly has no wish to damage his stolen goods.

Once on a landing, I’m bundled through a door.

Immediately, I’m in surroundings far more intimate. Sound is muffled by a carpet beneath my feet, and a sense of similar material all around me. I cannot think why I think that, but the
impression I form of the room is womblike, luxurious…and sensual. The scent of perfume, of incense, tickles my nostrils. I smell sandalwood, patchouli, exotic herbs and spices. The aromas are not unlike my abductor’s delicious cologne.

Plucking at my wits, I’m just about to demand details of my whereabouts, and the reason I’ve been brought here, when there’s movement behind me, and I’m let loose. Efficient fingers slip off my bonds, and as the cord drops away, my own fingers fly to the blindfold.

But the knot is well tied, and just as I manage to undo it, the door to the room swings shut, and I hear the heavy click of yet another lock.

No, no, no! The wicked man! He’s trapped me again!

But I supposed I could be sequestered in far worse places.

The room is opulent, luxurious, quintessentially Eastern, with a thick plush carpet beneath my feet, and furniture that’s low to the ground. A little table with carved legs, and laden with a crystal flask and a set of glasses, and a large dish piled high with fruit, peaches, plums and figs. Around the walls, heavy velveteen hangings, embroidered with intricate-figured designs, whorls and curlicues. Clusters of huge cushions scattered about, plump and in jewel tones. A low, deeply upholstered daybed covered with a crimson and old-gold brocade throw sits on a small dais, set a little way from the wall, and beneath the most magnificent of the wall decorations, a beautiful woven depiction of a peacock that dominates the entire room, complete with the most astonishingly lifelike “eyes” in his erect and multicolored tail. The rendering of these is so vivid and detailed that one almost seems to wink.

There seems to be no window at all in this room, unless it is hidden behind one or another of the hangings, but a multitude of lamps impart a warm, amber glow of luxurious somnolence.

What is this place? Am I in a courtesan’s boudoir? Or maybe the pleasure chamber of some sultan or other Eastern potentate in London on a state visit? Perhaps this powerful lord has a penchant for the bodies of respectable Englishwomen and has his servants snatch them off the streets of the city for his pleasure.

Was it he, in the carriage, who touched my sex?

There’s another door, at the other side of this intimate enclosure. I suppose I should try it. After all, comfortable as this place is, it’s still my prison. And who knows what further fate worse than death will be inflicted on me if I linger here. It’s bad enough that I’ve displayed my wanton nature to an unknown and dangerous stranger instead of my wedded husband.

The door yields up a most modern bathroom. Elegantly appointed with the finest porcelain ware. There’s a window, but it’s high, out of reach, even if I stand on the pedestal, and the glass in it is frosted, yielding no detail of the exterior.

I’m still trapped.

Pausing only to avail myself of the facilities, I wash my hands and study my face in the gilt-framed mirror.

What a fright I am! Hair all askew, and pink in the face, with lips that are bruised cherry red from kissing. My dress is ruined, buttons still rolling around on the floor of the carriage, I presume, and my bosom looks very white against the dark blue of my bodice where it hangs open. And I haven’t the first idea where my hat and shawl and walking cloak are.

Yet when I look into my own eyes, an imp of mischief laughs. Goodness, I’m such a strumpet! I’ve enjoyed my escapade so far. I should be ashamed of myself, and yet still I smile, an unrepentant houri.

When I return to the boudoir and the peacock, there are two men waiting for me!

“Please don’t be alarmed, madam, we’re only here to serve you,” says the more forward of the two, a fresh-faced, rather jolly-looking lad in his twenties, perhaps. His brown hair is short and his eyes are blue…and, like his companion, he’s clad in just a pair of loose trousers, made of linen or some other soft fabric. His chest, his arms and his feet are quite bare. How astonishing.

His friend says nothing, but his eyes, brown as old port, are bold. He stares unabashedly at the open bodice of my gown, and for half a second, I wonder if he was the wicked, skillful devil who manhandled me in the carriage. He has a piratical look, almost, with wild dark curls and a faintly swarthy complexion.

But my carriage man was taller than he, I suspect, and built quite differently. I didn’t see him, but his presence and bearing were not like this man’s at all.

Not that this dusky, exotic fellow is unattractive. In fact, either of my new “friends” could be called beaux. Unable to prevent myself, I find my gaze skittering over the pair of them, noting fine muscles, smooth skin, a little masculine hair on their well-formed chests…and dear me, I hardly dare say…splendid male appendages prominently visible through the thin and revealing cloth of their light trousers.

My pink face rapidly becomes as brilliant as a peony.

“Wh-what do you mean by ‘serve me’?”

“We are here to help you to relax, and to prepare you, madam,” the darker of the two answers. He has a little accent, quite charming and so alluring it makes me quiver.

“For the pleasure of our master,” the other young man says. He has rather attractive lips, and all the time, they seem to be right on the edge of quirking into a smile, or even broad laughter. Something seems to be amusing him mightily, I must say, and even though I’m in the most perilous of situations, and I really don’t know what’s going to happen to me next, I find myself bizarrely amused and inclined to smile too.

I think I must play along with this. It seems my only option. I cannot escape so why resist?

“So be it. It seems I have very little alternative—” I bow my head a little, acquiescing. Or at least appearing to “—but to throw myself on your mercy and his, and hope and pray that you will all be kind to me.”

“You may have no worry on that score, madam,” says the curly-haired charmer. “My name is Yuri, and my friend here is Clarence. Please allow us to assist you to undress.”

My heart flutters, and tongues of heat seem to lick about my body. Take my clothes off in front of not one, but two, unknown men? Scandalous!

But sure no more scandalous than not fighting the unseen marauder in the carriage. Even though I was tied, I could have resisted somehow. But I didn’t. I succumbed.

C’est la vie.

The two handsome fellows close in on me with no further ado.

“Don’t be afraid, Mrs. Enderby,” murmurs Clarence as his fingers fly to the remainder of my dress buttons and the front of my bodice gapes farther open. How does he know my name? I wonder as the two of them work as a syncopated team, and in a jiffy, my dark, heavy gown is off over my head and flung aside on a gilded chair.

Have I been kidnapped to order? And for whom? Perhaps at Lady Arabella’s recent ball, some libidinous connoisseur of women took a fancy to me. And resolved to whisk me away from my dear Mr. Enderby in order to ravish me and debauch himself upon me.

As I’m divested of my petticoats and my bustle, I flush with shame, and not only because my body is rapidly being exposed. I know I’m wicked because I
want
to be debauched.

“Please try to relax, madam,” says Yuri softly. He’s standing behind me, as Clarence stands in front of me. I stare down at my stocking-clad toes, shuddering and acutely aware that I am in a kind of sandwich between two handsome and virile young men. Clarence clasps me by the waist, his hands spread over my corset, holding me firmly, while Yuri slips down my chemise and massages my shoulders with gentle, assertive strokes.

He’s clever. He finds knots of tension I didn’t know I was prey to. I gasp, my body loosening already.

“Massage is very beneficial for the nerves, Mrs. Enderby,” remarks Clarence as he steadies my swaying. “Our master recommends it heartily. Perhaps you’d like to try something a little more extensive…a little more rigorous? I’m sure you’d find it beneficial…and pleasant.”

“Yes…yes, I think so.” My voice is like that of a mouse. Yuri’s thumbs are wreaking sweet, delicious havoc.

“Very well, then… But we’ll have to strip you. Yuri, will you attend to Mrs. Enderby’s laces?”

He’s brisk now. Enthusiastic. My head comes up, and I catch him glancing toward the peacock as if seeking the mighty bird’s permission to proceed. As if it’s been given, Yuri attacks my corset. My maid, Alice, ties a special knot, and rather than wrangle with the laces and hooks, Yuri steps away, opens a rosewood box standing on a sideboard a few feet off. I catch a glint of metal out of the corner of my eye, and then astonishingly, my corset falls away from me. Clarence catches it and tosses it onto the heap of my other clothes.

Good grief, I’ve let a strange man cut me out of my corset and now I’m standing in my chemise and drawers and stockings, before the two of them…and the peacock.

“These too, Mrs. Enderby.” Clarence flicks at the lace edging of my chemise, a vaguely rascally expression on his handsome young face. Before I can protest—although I was not planning to—he grasps the hem of the garment, whipping it off over my head. As he does so, Yuri’s sly fingers are at the tapes of my drawers, and in the blink of a peacock’s eye, they’re in a pool around my feet.

I’m naked. But for my stockings and garters. The young men dispense with my abandoned undergarments, and they each take me by the hand, drawing my arms wide and preventing me from any vain attempts to guard my modesty and cover myself.

None but Mr. Enderby has seen me thus, as an adult woman. The blush that warmed my face and made my ears tingle spreads to my entire body now, heating my chest, my breasts and my belly. Even my long hair is useless to shield my modesty. Though a few wayward strands and curls dangle to my shoulders, and I’m looking generally a little disheveled, but my coiffeur is still largely intact.

“Ah, our master is a lucky man,” says Yuri, his voice simmering and his dark eyes growing yet darker as he peruses me.

“He is indeed,” confirms Clarence just as fervently.

All but nude, with arms outstretched, I don’t know where to look, but as if drawn by magnetism, my eyes drop to the hip level of my two young gentlemen. Flicking from one to the other, I see that the pair of them are both mightily aroused, their thin trousers pushed out like a couple of tents.

Dear Lord!

“Come, Mrs. Enderby, let us give you a massage.” Clarence urges me toward the low daybed, which looks enticing and comfortable. “There’s nothing quite like it for relaxing tension in the muscles and imparting a grand sense of general well-being.”

As if I no longer have any will of my own, I follow his lead, and the two young men settle me on the softly cushioned upholstery, fussing with the positioning of my limbs and letting loose my hair and arranging it to one side. Out of the corner of my eye I can see the peacock presiding above us, like some pagan god to which I’m a succulent sacrifice. I shudder at the thought. What arcane rituals will soon be inflicted upon me?