Knaves

by Lawless, M. J.

  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 on
ly 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.

  Beyond was a spiral stone stairwell, the flags worn by centuries of footsteps. As he climbed upwards, he felt the air become chill despite the fact that outside it was summer. The temperature in the tower never changed much, as though the outside world was afraid to enter.

  At the top of the stairs was another door. This one was not locked and Valmont pushed it open.

  The room beyond was bare and Spartan other than the few items that the Marquis had installed for his own particular amusements: a wooden horse with straps attached to either side, a large trestle table with various toys, paddles and whips as well as ropes and hoods, and beyond those an iron bed. Two windows, more narrow slit through which archers would have once defended the castle, admitted enough light for him to see, and he would have candles brought up later. He refused to allow modern conveniences to interfere with the austerity of this place. Even the cameras here operated on battery power rather than mains electricity.

  A girl was sitting on the bed, huddled into the far corner of the room, though the bare stone of the walls would provide little in the way of comfort. She was dressed in jeans and a flimsy T-shirt which did not allow for much warmth. As he entered, she looked up, lifting her face from her knees to stare at him fearfully. Her face was dark, Arabic: but for the dirt that streaked her features, she would have been pretty, and the sorrow in her eyes would have melted any heart but Valmont’s.

  “Please, sir,” she said politely, a glimmer of hope mixing with her sadness. “Where am I?”

  He smiled indulgently before crossing to the bed and sitting down next to her. “You’re in a castle,” he replied. “Have you ever been in a castle before?”

  She looked confused, but the tone of his voice made her trusting. It was so easy to deceive the innocent. She shook her head. “I don’t… I don’t think so.”

  He stretched out his hand and calmly touched her face, taking her chin in his fingers and lifting it. She had been crying, but he could see the beauty that had attracted him. Her clothes were cheap and offensive to him, but that didn’t matter. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Safiyah, sir,” she replied, swallowing as he stared at her.

  “And how old are you?”

  “E-eleven, sir. Can I see my mother? The other… the other woman took me from her.”

  Valmont raised one eyebrow. “Safiyah,” he said, savouring her uncertainty, her discomfort, her misplaced trust, “I’m afraid you’re not going to see your mother for a very long time. You’ve been a very bad girl, you see, so you’re going to have to stay here with me for a while.”

  She started to cry at this, silent tears that she bravely attempted to stop.

  “The… the woman said I wouldn’t be hurt.”

  That made Valmont smile.

  “She lied,” he said.

  Chapter Thirteen: Hayden

  Hayden was by the window, sipping a macchiato as he watched the bustling activity below on Rue Charlemagne. The apartment Karla had chosen was near the top of an elegant eighteenth-century building in Le Marais, and across the street he could see a park and, beyond that, the grey-blue waters of the Seine.

  Le Marais, she’d assured him, was eminently chic and fashionable—just the kind of place where Sebastian Rider and Jeanne Duval would be sure to hang out, with all its vintage boutiques and haute-cuisine restaurants. For all this, and for all the fact that their apartment was light and spacious, both of them in their hearts knew the game was up. Sebastian and Jeanne had failed, and deep down Hayden had the nagging suspicion that they were trying to milk this particular scam for much longer than it deserved: after all, they’d made it through the previous year by constantly moving, changing identities. The owners of the Wallenstein diamond that they’d stolen had not forgotten—or forgiven. It was time to move on.

  More than that, however, Hayden felt that just for a short time he’d like to find a hideaway, a place where, for perhaps the first time since he’d reached adulthood, he could be himself. Karla may have recreated herself as Karla Steel, but he was happy with that: he just wanted to know her more as the self she’d chosen to be. He’d come so close to losing her that now he simply wished to be with her, to love her as himself.

  He smiled wryly as these thoughts and others passed through his head. He was, he knew, being sentimental. For her part, Karla had approached the past week since they’d come to Paris with a brisk efficiency. She was out now, looking for the next chance that the both of them would be able to turn to their advantage. That was one of the reasons why he loved her so much: her mind was too sharp, too active ever to be still. Hell, he knew he’d become bored on some idyllic island—it was just that Valmont’s wiles had shaken him a little more than he wished to admit.

  This train of thought was interrupted by a knock on the door. Frowning, Hayden placed his cup down on a polished wooden table and moved towards the entrance. It was too early for Karla to have come back and, in any case, she would have let herself in. He wasn’t expecting any visitors.

  He nearly closed the door when he saw who it was. She was wearing sunglasses and a fur coat that was utterly inappropriate for such a warm, summer day. Her hair was also dishevelled, tangled blonde fronds that hung down her face, and a quick glance told him that the jeans she had on could have been cleaner. What stopped him, however, was the fact that when she removed her shades her eyes were full of a pain that Hayden wouldn’t have been able to ignore even if she were his greatest enemy.

  “Hello, Sebastian,” Eloise said, her voice trembling slightly. “Can I come in?”

  His stomach twisted. “That’s not really a good idea.”

  Her smile was sad, pathetic. “I guess not. I just… I just wanted to talk.”

  Her eyes were sunken and her cheeks drawn. Hayden sighed and stood to one side, allowing her to scuttle in beside him. If nothing else, he was ever more than a little curious to find out what had happened to bring her to this state.

  She stood in the centre
of the main room, looking around the walls with their rococo designs and large, ornate mirrors. “Very nice,” she said.

  “Not when you’ve been used to Chateau de Tour,” he remarked ironically, watching her carefully. As he half expected, she scowled.

  “That’s not a place you live in,” she muttered. “It’s somewhere you endure.”

  “I take it you’ve left him,” Hayden said. “Was it that bad after we’ve gone.”

  She looked at him bitterly. “You’ve no idea. He was… he was insane with anger. I didn’t know what he’d do.” She shrugged and looked away, clutching the small leather handbag she held in her nervous fingers.

  “Here, let me take that for you—and your coat. Can I get you a coffee?”

  Eloise shook her head. “I won’t stay long.” She smiled wryly. “You weren’t easy to find, you know.”

  “I’m surprised you managed. I thought we’d been pretty discreet.”

  “Oh, I have my ways.” Hayden took a seat across from her but Eloise remained standing. “I know… some people. I asked around. They knew a man who’d just come to Paris and who they’d seen before on visits. Very handsome, like a film star they said, well built, very gentlemanly and very big where it mattered. They wondered why you didn’t visit them this time, then they saw you with Jeanne and they understood. Interestingly, none of them knew you by the name Sebastian.”

  Hayden rubbed his chin and groaned slightly. “I knew it was a mistake coming to Paris,” he mumbled.

  Now Eloise sat down and this time her smile was warmer, if still sad. “It doesn’t matter. They spoke to me because they knew me, but they won’t cause trouble. I won’t cause trouble.”

  “Does Valmont know we’re here?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t worry about that—at least from me.” She paused for a moment before looking out the window. “You know, I grew up not so very far from here—well, not so far in kilometres, but a world away in other ways. I used to dream of spending my time in Le Marais.”