Knaves (14 page)

“Bless him,” said Hayden indulgently. “All he needed was to sow his oats.”

Valmont was furious. In such a mood there was only one way that he could possibly begin to calm his anger. Lifting the crop high into the air, he brought it down savagely.

Eloise, naked on the floor, her buttocks pushed up high into the air, shuddered and shut her eyes. She was evidently in pain, thought Valmont, but for some reason she emitted no more than a stifled grunt. That made him angrier.

They had done this many times before. When he wished, he would modulate his blows, creating a symphony of pain and pleasure that would explore the outer boundaries of Eloise
’s limits, placing her on the very edge of the abyss the result of which was ecstasy.

Today he had no such care. She had failed him, and for that she would have to pay. All that mattered was his own satisfaction.

For as long as he could remember, Valmont had always had his own way. As a child, he had been indulged in every way possible. When he’d grown older he’d learned that sometimes it was better to defer immediate gratification—there were still a few things that society affected not to tolerate, but so long as he complied with the general hypocrisy, Valmont always knew that he would get what he wanted in the end.

He could not recall the last time he had been denied anything. Had it ever happened? The fact that this was the first time infuriated him even more. Raising his arm once more, he
struck Eloise again with even greater brutality: at last he had the satisfaction of hearing her whimper as her hands came up instinctively to cover her buttocks. Perhaps he should have tied her up after all.

“
Did I say you could move, bitch?”

“
N-no, Master.”

“
Then get back into position.”

They had been doing this for, what, half an hour now? An hour? His shirt was patched with sweat from exertion. Some of the welts on her buttocks were vivid purple, the skin broken in a few places so that blood showed, and he
’d not spared her inner thighs or her cunt this time. And yet, despite it all, he still wasn’t stiff. He was too angry.

He was slightly annoyed at himself: had he remained at de Tour the day before, none of this
would have happened—he would not have permitted it. The opportunity that had arisen had been too good to miss, but then he knew such opportunities would always come around again? But Jeanne Duval: would she ever return?

When he and Latour had returned, the servants had begun running around the chateau like stupid birds during a hunt. They had tried to stop them leaving, they said, but neither of them would listen. The woman had called for a taxi and the man simply pushed
himself past anyone who attempted to get in their way. Latour would have been able to stop him, but none of them could.

Valmont had sought answers from Eloise but when he found her she was completely stoned. It had been a long time since that had happened: she knew that he took no pleasure in abusing her if she couldn
’t feel it, and for a second he had even wondered if she’d taken an overdose. That would have been inconvenient, but as it happened she was merely unconscious. He’d barked at one of the maids to attend her to ensure she didn’t choke on her own vomit. When she’d woken up, he’d ordered her to come to his room and undress before assuming the position on the floor.

“
You were supposed to seduce him, you stupid fuck!” he snarled. “That would leave her to me! Couldn’t you even do that?”

“
If you’d been here, they wouldn’t have gone,” she cried. He could see tears streaming from her eyes as she spoke and he gaped at her in astonishment.

“
What? What did you fucking say?” He couldn’t believe that she had dared answer back.

She had the sense not to reply this time, but he could see that he would have to offer no mercy to teach Eloise a lesson. He thrashed his hand down, this time taking special care to ensure that the end hit her between the legs where it would be particularly painful. He was right. She screamed and fell to her side, curling her legs up in pain and pressing her arms across herself defensively.

“Why don’t you just fuck me in the ass and get it over with,” she sobbed, her chest heaving as she cried.

Valmont was so astonished at this, the crop
dropping from his hand. What on earth was going on? She had
never
been like this before. Indeed, a special attraction of Eloise had always been her ability to take whatever he’d thrown at her valiantly, defying him to break her. Certainly he had been rough with her today, but he had done much worse things in the past and never received a murmur of complaint.

When he realised what had happened, his mind filled with rage. She had fallen for that foolish fop, that over-muscled stack of meat with his large cock.

“I do so love our romantic moments together, Lupa,” he said coldly, tempering his fury into an icy blade. She looked at him and he had the satisfaction of seeing genuine fear in her eyes. Dropping to his haunches, he grabbed her hair and pulled her head up.

“
You love him, don’t you,” he said, staring at her red-rimmed eyes.

“
Don’t be stupid!” she replied, but the way her eyes flickered suggested that he was close to the truth somehow.

“
Silly girl,” he told her. “Surely you more than most know that love is nothing more than an illusion. It’s just a game we play with ourselves to hide what we really are. Anyone who believes that kind of lie deserves everything they get.”

She said nothing but glared at him. Her breathing was slowing and the fear in her eyes was replaced by something else.

“I hate you!” she hissed.

That took him by surprise. The way her face suddenly turned into a vicious, contorted mess was something he
’d never seen before and he started to laugh.

“
Good! Good! Love isn’t real—but hate is. The fact that you won’t like what I’m going to do will make it all the more enjoyable for me.”

“
What do you mean?” Almost instantly her loathing had gone, replaced once more by fear. Valmont found his own anger becoming calm: this was fascinating. In all the time he’d known Eloise, he’d never seen her emotions so close to the surface, her mask entirely gone.

“
Do you know where I went yesterday?”

She shook her head.
“I don’t care!”

“
I’ll tell you anyway.” He still held onto her hair tightly, forcing her to look at him. “There’s someone I know in Nice, runs a brothel there. Just your type of woman. She caters for special interests. Well, she had a selection for me to choose from—I was going to have her sent over when I’d finished with Jeanne Duval, but considering that the bitch has gone I had the girl brought here today. You and I are going to finish this business in the tower.”

While he had been speaking, Eloise had begun to shake her head, slowly at first but with increasing vehemence.
“No,” she whispered. “I won’t do it.”

“
You’ll do what I fucking tell you,” he snarled.

Without warning she spat at him, catching him by surprise and making him fall backwards as his hand shot up to his eye. Before he could regain his self-control, Eloise had jumped up and ran to the door. Utterly naked, blood streaming from the wound on her buttock, she fumbled with the door. Laughing, Valmont stood and slowly walked towards her.

She turned, her oversize breasts shaking as she looked pathetically from side to side. He’d made her into a doll, but now he realised what a mistake that had been. He’d really have to get rid of her once all this was over.

She did, however, have one
more surprise. Before he could reach her she ran to the bathroom. Expecting her to slam the door, Valmont was prepared to send for Latour to break it down, but instead she returned with the straight razor that Latour used to shave him in the morning. This was another interesting turn of events and he folded his arms, looking at her sternly.

“
What are you going to do with that?” he asked patiently, as though speaking to a particularly stupid child. “Put it down.”

“
Come near me and I’ll hurt you!” She was almost screaming, a mixture of hatred and fear. “I swear it!”

“
Here—give it to me!” He held out his hand and spoke imperiously, a voice of command that she couldn’t refuse.

Again she astonished him by standing there. She was shaking, but even Valmont could see that this was a physical reaction borne more of loathing than terror. Fascinated and aghast, he stared at her: perhaps he still would have to call Latour
—at the very least she was going to be a danger to herself, and there was a remote chance that she would hurt him.

“
You made me do that once before,” she said, her voice trembling. “I was so off my head I went along with it. And don’t you remember what happened?”

He nodded. He was starting to become bored by all of this. He would give her one more chance then he would send for Latour.
“You tried to kill yourself,” he said matter-of-factly.

“
Yes!” she hissed. “I tried to kill myself. But I swear—I
swear
—if you ever force me to do that again, I’ll kill
you
.”

That brought him up short. She was ridiculous, he decided as he stared at her preposterous figure, with those inflated tits and narrow waist, a Barbie doll who thought she was a woman.
Nonetheless, she seemed to believe what she was saying, as though she really meant it. For a few seconds his ennui was replaced by a psychological curiosity: he had spent as much time moulding the mind of Eloise Bissette as her body only to discover now, after such an expenditure of time, effort and money, that he didn’t really know her at all.

“
Your sick, Donatien.
Sick
!” she yelled at him. “Let me go.” Once more without warning she began to cry, her entire face crumbling into ruin. Her arm dropped and she no longer held the razor in front of her. It dangled uselessly by her side as her entire body was wracked by sobs. “Please,” she pleaded, her voice little more than a whimper now. “Let me go.”

The sight of her defenceless, vulnerable, almost ugly in her sheer patheticness, made his cock twitch for the first time that morning, but Valmont
’s mind was working in overdrive, measuring up the potential cost of indulging his whims with her now. Whatever pleasures she could give him at this time, very much against her will, would probably prove to be too expensive later on.

“
Go on,” he said coldly. “Get out. I pulled you out of the gutter, so you better crawl back to it.”

“
It may have been... been a gutter,” she said, her words coming in bursts, “but better… better than this hell!”

That made him laugh sarcastically and he turned his back on her. She was nothing to him now and he had nothing to fear from her: after all, a mind as sophisticated as his could never be afraid of a ghost.

He heard her walk away towards the door. This time she managed to open it and he expected some melodramatic gesture, for it to slam behind her as she left. It was only after a few moments that he realised that it was still open and, turning, he was bemused to see her standing there. The makeup on her face had been streaked by her tears, but she also seemed to have drawn upon some inner reserve of pride that he would not have suspected existed.

“
Why her, Donatien? Why are you so angry that
she
got away? I mean, you can have any woman you want. They don’t have to know about your perversions. What was so special about Jeanne Duval?”

He opened his mouth to utter some witty, dismissive response, but the words died in his mouth. Seeing this, Eloise scowled.
“Goodbye, Donatien,” she murmured.

And then she was gone.

For a long time Valmont simply stood there, watching the vacant space in the doorway where Eloise Bissette had once stood. Her absence meant nothing to him, merely confirming his suspicion that he had been growing bored of her for some time. Her question, however, was something very different. Her question haunted him. Eloise was a more effective ghost than he had realised.

He was still angry, he decided, but it was a cold, smouldering wrath. He would have to assert himself once more, prove his sovereignty. Crossing to the dresser at the end of his bed, an antique that had once belonged to Louis XIV, he retrieved a large, iron key from a drawer, an item even older than the furniture in which it resided.

Descending a private stairway, he encountered Latour who glanced at his master with confusion. “Madame Bissette is leaving us,” Valmont told him calmly. “Do nothing to prevent her, and ensure that she has sufficient money for her needs.” With any luck she
would
overdose. As long as it was far away from de Tour, he didn’t care. “I am not to be disturbed for the rest of the day. Do I make myself clear?”

Latour nodded and Valmont left him, not doubting for a moment that his instructions would be followed through. Walking briskly through the chateau, he came at last to the large, carved door that led through to the original tower after which the castle was named. Inserting the iron key into the large lock, he pushed the heavy wood open.