Hot Pursuit (11 page)

Lucy twirled her finger through the air again.

Not wanting to miss the opportunity that had now presented itself to her, anxious to experience every thrill that this glimpse of Lucy's underworld could offer, Anne snaked her hand down to the guard's crotch. The shape of his erection was easy to discern and, as her fingertips traced over the swell of the excited bulge, his length trembled and he groaned with obvious torment.

‘You were very chivalrous,' she told him.

He started to say something, crushing her tighter in his embrace, and she squeezed his hardness again. This time his shaft didn't just tremble: Anne felt the unmistakable lurch of his ejaculation. The guard moaned, clearly crippled by pleasure, and released her from his hold.

Quickly, Anne stepped away from him and rushed out of the stable.

Continuing to clutch the panties, the guard didn't bother following her and Anne was thrilled to realise that she had performed the diversion exactly as Lucy had said she would. Keeping her voice low, waiting until they were hurrying across the front of the estate before speaking, she asked, ‘Did you find the library you were looking for?'

Lucy shook her head. ‘I delivered my letter,' she confided, ‘but that was all I managed.' There was no disappointment in her tone and Anne was struck by the idea that Lucy had managed as much as she needed for this particular stage in her game plan. Nodding back toward the direction from where they had come, Lucy winked roguishly and said, ‘I think you had a better time than I did.'

Anne blushed. She glanced coyly at her friend as they ran and remembered the guard had been lost for words. She could easily sympathise with his reticence because Lucy inspired the exact same effect on her.

‘Are you going to tell me all about it? Do I get all the juicy details?'

Anne's blush deepened. ‘Where are we going now?'

‘We're going back to your car,' Lucy replied. ‘We have to wait for someone, and it could take until nightfall before they leave the hall.'

‘They'll be a while?' Anne asked, concerned.

Lucy nodded.

‘Then I'll tell you all about it when we get back to the car.' Seeing the devilment that sparkled in Lucy's eyes, and knowing the expression mirrored her own mischievous smile, she felt sure recounting what had happened would almost certainly lead to more.

‘Well that was a waste of fuh . . .'

Ginger had been about to decry the visit to the baronial hall as a waste
of fucking
time, and knew common sense wouldn't have had the chance to stop her from offending Donald's sensibilities. But, before she could earn his displeasure, the honking of a horn outside the car cut cleanly through her thoughts.

The night's darkness was broken by the glare of overhead halogens and passing headlamps, all made diamante by a persistent freckle of raindrops. The pendulous clouds were nearly invisible above the motorway's false daylight and Ginger only caught glimpses of their velvet edges when the Morris's single overhead wiper sloughed the windscreen clear. Doggedly obeying Donald's directions for the route, she had just driven onto the motorway when the Micra shot past them.

It wasn't the first car to speed past them since they had left the central baronial hall. Donald's ancient Morris Isis was a lumbering giant of a vehicle, with a top speed that was invariably inadequate, and already a dozen drivers or more had overtaken her and left her wondering if it would be faster to push the damned car. But the Micra was the first one to honk its horn incessantly. The plaintive shrieks were insistent
enough to make Ginger scowl at the vehicle and she gasped when she recognised the woman in the passenger seat.

Lucy pushed her head through the open window of the Nissan and stuck her tongue out at Ginger. Whisps of hair flew around the brunette's face as the wind toyed idly with the tresses but her triumphant grin was unmistakable. Even though her head and shoulders were swiftly drenched, tears of rainwater crying from her eyes, there was no way for Ginger to miss the jubilation in her smile.

Insolently, Lucy flicked a V-sign.

‘Sire,' Ginger hissed.

‘I think I've gone to sleep,' Donald informed her.

Ginger grunted with impatience. She glared more ferociously at Lucy, inwardly balked each time she heard the horn being honked, and said again, ‘Sire. The vehicle that's honking at us ‘

I don't care who they are,' Donald grumbled sleepily. He wore his driving hat, a battered old Panama that remained on the dashboard whenever he left the vehicle, but now the brim was pulled down to conceal his eyes. ‘Let the boy racers zoom past in their hotrods. We're better off getting to our destination late and in one piece rather than becoming several small curiosities on a mortician's slab.'

Ginger rolled her eyes. She had managed to get the Isis up to fifty-four miles an hour but it had fought her with a will that was purely spiteful. She didn't know what Donald meant when he talked about boy racers and hotrods, but she felt sure he was missing the urgency in her tone. ‘Sire,' she said more insistently. ‘I think you should – ‘

‘Don't make me tell you again,' Donald complained. He pulled the brim of his hat further down and wriggled his shoulders into the leather upholstery of
the passenger seat. ‘I'm a weary traveller and I've never liked these high-speed dual carriageways. I want to get a little shuteye so I'm refreshed for –'

‘It's her,' Ginger blurted. ‘It's Lucy.'

Donald opened his eyes and snatched the hat from his head. He glared incredulously through the windscreen and his jaw dropped with genuine disbelief. ‘Kitten!' he exclaimed. ‘Is that really her?'

Lucy chose that moment to blow a kiss in Donald's direction. The wind continued to snatch and pull at her hair – and the driver repeatedly honked the horn with irregular loud, blares – but Lucy's smile remained full as she waved for Donald.

To Ginger's thinking, the expression was inflammatory.

Donald laughed with genuine amusement.

‘The cheeky bitch,' Ginger growled. She floored the accelerator, pressing her torso over the steering wheel as she encouraged the car to go faster. ‘She's fuh . . .' At the last moment Ginger managed to curb the expletive. ‘She's taking the pih . . . taking the . . .' She floundered for a moment, frustrated by the limitations Donald imposed on her vocabulary. When she finally found the most suitable words she screamed them with genuine outrage. ‘She's mocking us, sire,' Ginger roared. ‘The cheeky little bitch is mocking us.'

Donald blew a kiss back to Lucy and they exchanged good-natured waves.

She blew another kiss and flipped him a peace-sign.

Donald grinned and waved his hat in a mock salute.

Ginger did her best to ignore the pleasantries as she inched the car faster. The engine was racing unhappily, growling with a throaty roar that was worse than Donald's snoring, but the car did seem to be gaining ground on Lucy's ride. Grinning tightly, fists clenched
firmly around the steering wheel, Ginger couldn't help but curse when the Micra simply lurched forward and sped quickly down the fast lane.

‘Fucking bitch!'

‘Ginger!'

She didn't bother acknowledging the disapproval in Donald's voice. Slamming her foot down harder on the accelerator pedal, twisting the sole of her red shoe from side to side in a frantic bid to squeeze extra speed from the ancient engine, she gritted her teeth and tried to follow the route of the rapidly dwindling tail lights. Inwardly cursing the Isis, unconsciously coaxing it to accelerate by thrusting her shoulders forward, Ginger finally heard the engine splutter and then surge into fresh life. With frustrating slowness, the needle on the speedometer began to creep along the indicator and inched past the mark for sixty miles an hour. Incredulous, Ginger saw that they were gaining ground as the Isis battled to reach seventy.

‘I think that's fast enough,' Donald said quietly.

Ginger snatched her gaze from the road for a moment and glared at him. ‘She's just a little way ahead of us. I can still see her.'

‘I don't want you going any faster.'

‘But we could catch her. We could follow her, run her to ground and –'

‘Are you suggesting we should break the speed limit?' Donald asked gravely.

The solemn intonation of his voice told Ginger that she was most certainly not suggesting something so heinous. She could have argued that the Isis would be unlikely to meet the speed limit, let alone exceed it, but she knew better than to say anything so contentious. Exasperated, she flicked her gaze from his serious frown to the disappearing glow of the tail lights as they merged with traffic further ahead. It was
genuinely painful to think that Lucy was going to escape.

‘Flaunting speed limits is the thin end of the wedge,' Donald informed her. ‘I have little patience for those who egregiously break sensible laws. Exceed the speed limit today and what will you try tomorrow? Marijuana cigarettes? Rock and roll? Socialism?' Shaking his head dourly he said, ‘Break the speed limit and you'll be hurtling on a downward slope.'

‘But she's getting away,' Ginger complained.

Donald shrugged, as though the matter was of little consequence. He deigned to glance in the direction where Lucy had sped, then turned his attention back to Ginger. ‘I think you need to pull onto the hard shoulder,' he decided. ‘That excitement has awoken my arousal.'

‘But we could catch her,' she pressed.

The good mood slipped from his face. The smile that had curled the corners of his lips was now thinned into a menacing frown. ‘I think you need to pull onto the hard shoulder,' he said again. ‘I now have two reasons for requiring that the car be stopped.'

The threat in his voice was chilling. Ginger considered defying him, and trying to squeeze another few miles an hour from the protesting engine, then decided it wasn't worth the effort. She didn't think the Isis could maintain this level of speed, and didn't wholly trust its antiquated braking system in the rain. Resignedly she checked her mirrors, indicated that she was going to pull over, and brought the car to a halt on the hard shoulder. After briefly exceeding sixty miles an hour the engine seemed more than willing to slow down and stop. And it was only after she had killed the engine that Ginger realised she had
let Lucy slip through her grasp. Furious, she beat her hands against the steering wheel. ‘We could have caught her,' she grumbled. ‘We could have bloody had her.'

Donald didn't seem to be listening. He turned to the rear seat of the vehicle and flashed his most engaging smile for Ginger's pet blonde. Politely, he asked her if she could pass him a convenient riding crop and prepare an umbrella. Pointing, he indicated that they were both stored behind his briefcase. Ginger glared at the girl through the rear-view mirror but the hierarchy of their arrangement was a strict order and she knew the pet was bound to obey the master. The pet didn't even acknowledge Ginger's interest as she rummaged through the hand-luggage, hastily trying to obtain the items that Donald had requested.

‘Step outside the car, Ginger,' Donald said pleasantly.

‘I . . .'

‘Step outside the car and position yourself over the bonnet.' This time the congenial tone of invitation was removed from his voice. He was delivering an instruction and his crisp words left no room for misinterpretation.

Ginger knew better than to disobey and she acted without hesitation. ‘Yes, sire,' she whispered. ‘Immediately.'

The cool night air was a velvet caress against her shoulders after the humidity inside the Isis. The rainfall quickly soaked her, seeping through her dress and chilling her bare arms, but Ginger was untroubled by the weather. A light breeze tugged at the hem of her cape and tickled icy fingers against the tops of her thighs. Yet, as the heels of her red shoes splashed through black puddles, she remained oblivious to the
downpour. Walking in front of the Morris's massive headlamps, staring blindly past the hood ornament and through the flat pane of the car's windscreen, she placed a hand on either side of the bonnet and stuck her backside out. It didn't trouble her that occasional cars sped past, their headlights glaring and their tail lights disappearing as they continued onwards. She was familiar enough with the world of the norms to know that none of them would notice or intervene and knew she would have to face her punishment alone and without the prospect of salvation.

That thought alone was almost enough to make her savour what was about to come.

Donald climbed from the passenger side of the vehicle, gallantly holding the door open for Ginger's pet blonde and helping her with the step of the running-board. She held an umbrella for him, keeping him under its protection at the expense of her own shelter, and they chatted amicably as they approached. Their obvious rapport made Ginger feel like an outsider. Her upper lip curled into a deeper sneer and she cursed beneath the roar of another car hurtling by. The vehicle screamed past in a wet roar, spraying dirty rainwater across the back of her stockings.

‘Raise her skirt,' Donald commanded.

Ginger's pet blonde handed him the umbrella then hastened to do as she had been asked. Knowing what was expected of her, Ginger kept her head lowered and mumbled an insincere apology. The blonde scurried behind her, pushing the red cloak aside, lifting the hem of her red dress to expose her buttocks, and then pausing. A prickle of raindrops fell onto her rear, freezing the flesh and leaving her skin to feel despicably wet. Without needing to glance back, Ginger knew her pet would be looking at Donald expectantly.

‘Yes,' he said, responding to an unasked question. ‘Remove those.'

Ginger gripped the bonnet tighter as her thong was tugged artlessly away from her hips. She held herself rigid, silently seething, and allowed the flimsy fabric to be drawn away from her sex. Because no one was talking to her, because she hadn't been given any instruction on what to do, she made no attempt to lift her legs to let the underwear be taken properly away. The blonde drew the thong down to her ankles and Ginger stoically accepted the indignation of being exposed and spread over the front of the car. The rain continued to tickle against her bare flesh, landing like prickles of ice against the heated centre of her cleft. Catching glimpses of her tormentor through the car's windscreen, Ginger watched her pet return to Donald's side and resume her duty as his umbrella holder.