To her shock he slapped her. “I will have no defiance from you, madame!” he said. “You are here to learn obedience, and you will not leave this poor place until you do.” He yanked her into the small house.
Once inside, however, he undid the cord binding the gag and pulled the rag from her mouth. “Bastard!” Jasmine managed to gasp. “You have almost choked me with that thing!”
Piers St. Denis slapped her again. “Thank me for my generosity in removing it, you bitch, or I’ll stuff it back in your mouth again!” he snarled at her. “Only that I long to hear the sound of your voice once more overrules my common sense, but if you continue to speak to me with such disrespect, you will be gagged until you learn to speak to me with a gentle tongue.” His hand fastened itself into her dark hair, and he forced her face up to his. “Do you understand me, Jasmine?”
“You are hurting me, my lord,” she replied through gritted teeth.
“Do you understand?” he repeated.
“Aye, I understand,” she told him, forcing her anger back. He was, she realized, perfectly capable of killing her.
“Good,” he almost purred, and then he passed his hand over her heaving bosom. “I want you naked,” he told her. “I have never seen you as nature fashioned you, and I am most anxious to do so, my sweet.”
She shuddered with revulsion at his words, but he mistook her gesture for fear, and was very pleased. “What do you think to gain by this, my lord?” she asked him. “You have violated the king’s trust, and he will certainly see you chastened for it.”
Piers St. Denis laughed. “Nay, he will forgive me. Old king fool always forgives me, for he loves me, you see. I am never chastened for my wrongs. I never have been. When we were children it was Kipp who was always beaten for my sins. Since I loved my brother, our father thought I would be better behaved if it was Kipp who was punished and not me, but I enjoyed it when Father laid the birch on Kipp’s rump. Once I even beat my brother myself just to see how it felt, and it felt powerful, my sweet. I never was allowed to beat the king, of course, but he did let me scold him now and then. He would weep at my words when I would upbraid him. I believe that secretly the king longs to be mastered as I will master you, my sweet.” He fondled her again, and, when she attempted to pull away from him, his hand in her hair tightened and he pinched one of her nipples hard.
She winced, crying out in pain, and to her disgust he smiled.
“Have you ever been strapped?” he asked her. “The Scots have a lovely instrument called a tawse. It is a piece of leather about six inches in width, and one end of it is divided into half-inch fingers four to six inches in length each knotted several times. Laid expertly across the bottom it brings a fine pink sheen to the buttocks and a warmth to the skin such as you have never experienced. In my tender care you will become quite familiar with the tawse. You will learn to enjoy the heat and the pain it gives you.” He put his face next to hers. “Open your mouth for me, Jasmine, and receive my tongue,” he commanded her.
She spat at him fiercely.
The marquis of Hartsfield’s face darkened with his displeasure for a brief moment as he wiped her spittle from his cheek, then he smiled slowly. “You are going to give me much pleasure,” he told her. “You will not yield to me easily, and that is to the good.” He pinched her nipple again cruelly until she finally was forced to cry out in protest.
Jasmine had attempted to control her temper, but this was just too much. “You fool!” she hissed at him. “Do you really believe that you can bully me into some sort of a submission to you? And if you think the king will forgive you for what you have convinced yourself is a mere peccadillo, you are very much mistaken. My husband and my stepfather both are related to King James by blood ties. The king is a Scot for all he is now England’s king, too. Blood ties, I have learned, are of paramount importance to the Scots. Release me while you have the opportunity, my lord, and then flee for your very life! If the king does not catch you, and execute you, my husband and his family will hunt you into the ground and kill you where they find you!”
His answer was to wrap his arms about her skirts, and lift her up to where a hook had been screwed into the cottage’s ceiling beam. There he hung her by the ropes fastened about her wrists to the hook. Her feet were but two or three inches off the floor, but she was quite helpless. “There,” he said. “Now we may begin, my sweet.” Grasping at one of her feet he pulled the leather shoe from it, ducking the other foot, which kicked out at him, then grabbing it and yanking the shoe from it as well. Taking up the length of rope that had kept the gag in place, St. Denis lashed her ankles together so she could not harm him. “Why are you garbed like a peasant?” he asked her.
“I have been at the games given by Lord Bruce across the Forth,” she said. “Even noblewomen dress like this at the games, you ignoramus!”
“How convenient for me,” he mocked her. “Your simple clothing makes it easier for me to strip you.” Reaching up, he undid the tapes holding her skirt, and then those that fastened her petticoats. Pulling them off, he tossed them onto the single chair within the cottage. Walking around her, he viewed the graceful line of her back and the round curve of her buttocks. His hand smoothed the bow of her flesh, fondling it lightly. His heart was hammering in his excitement as he feasted his eyes on the creamy expanse. He could almost hear the satisfying smack of the tawse as the thick leather met soft skin. Piers St. Denis smiled wolfishly to himself and licked his lips.
Walking back before her, he knelt and removed the garters from each of her legs. Then he slowly rolled the dark knit stocking down her right leg, slipping the wool underneath the light bonds about her ankles. He then followed suit with the stockings on her left leg. Loosening her leg bonds, he retied but one leg, fastening it to a small nail in the nearby wall, leaving a single leg free. His hands moved up that leg, squeezing lightly, feeling it. His breath was harsh.
Jasmine had the sensation that her skin was crawling as his fingers brushed the inside of her thigh. It was all she could do to keep from crying out with her revulsion and distaste. She did not, however, because she knew he would take it as a cry of fear, and he wanted her to be afraid. God! How he reminded her of her half brother, Salim, with his soft hands and his softer voice; but she was no longer a bedazzled and confused child of thirteen.
“Do you like this?” he asked her, his fingers tickling at her nether lips provocatively.
“You are disgusting,” she answered him coldly.
“Your aversion but excites me further,” he told her, and he loosened his clothing, for his manhood was straining against it almost painfully. Then, standing, he reached out to rip open her blouse and her chemise, baring her bosom to his hot eyes. He filled his hands with her soft flesh, almost whimpering in his excitement. “Dear God, you are so beautiful!” he groaned. “I can scarce contain myself, and that has never before happened to me, my sweet. You are indeed a rare prize, and you belong to me!”
“I belong to no one, you loathsome, pathetic creature!” she told him. “I am James Leslie’s wife, but not his possession, any more than he is my possession.”
“I will kill your husband,” Piers St. Denis said, his hands crushing her breasts in his excitement. “How can you deny me, my sweet?” He drew a fully engorged manhood from his clothing for her to see. “But look at what the simple thought of possessing you has done to me?”
She laughed scornfully at him. “You are no better than a mere and untried boy,” she told him. “You will spill your seed upon the ground before you will slop it in me, my lord.” And she laughed again, despite her great discomfort as she hung just above the floor.
“Don’t say that!” he almost shrieked at her. “You do not know me! I will fuck you until you are insensible before I lose my juices, you proud bitch!” Then he slapped her once again.
Jasmine laughed all the harder at him. “Look! The dew pearls upon the tip of your lance. The flood is near, pitiful weakling! You cannot hold it back for you are
so unnatural a man you know not how!”
“Bitch!” he half sobbed at her, as she prophesied his defeat, and his juices spurted forth onto the barren dirt of the cottage floor.
Jasmine heaved a soft sigh of relief. She had prevented her rape for the moment. Now she had to get him to let her down from this very uncomfortable position. “My arms are going numb,” she complained at him. “I am going to die! If you kill me, you will die a most painful death when the Leslies catch up with you!”
Looking down at his shriveled manhood, Piers St. Denis felt anger, not to mention a sense of great frustration. She had tricked him into an embarrassing and callow act of release of his lust. She was stronger than he had anticipated. Usually the mere sight of his manhood was enough to set his victim sobbing and begging for mercy. “You will hang there until it pleases me to release you, bitch!” he told her, and, going behind her, he bound her two ankles together again. Picking up the tawse, he said coldly, “You will be punished now, my sweet, for your nasty behavior. You will learn not to goad me in future.” The leather flicked out, meeting her buttocks with a noisy smack, several of the narrow fingers separating, and inflicting their own damage. A second time. A third and fourth.
When he had uttered the word punished Jasmine had known what was to come. She had taken a deep breath and bitten down hard upon her lip to prevent any cry from escaping her. The leather strap hurt with the first blow, and with each additional blow she felt her flesh growing warm. The tiny knotted fingers of leather stung terribly, but she did not cry out. “Bitch!” she heard him mutter beneath his breath as a fifth and sixth blow followed the first four. He was quite obviously determined to make her cry out, Jasmine realized, and if she did, then perhaps he would be satisfied, and let her down from this hook from which he had her suspended like the carcass of a doe in a larder. Her arms really were growing numb, and, after all, her only interest was in surviving his bestiality. Jasmine opened her mouth and shrieked a release of the pain he was inflicting upon her.
The tawse fell on her buttocks a seventh and an eighth time, the marquis of Hartsfield grunting with his exertions. “That’s it, you proud vixen, beg me for mercy!” His arm delivered a ninth and a tenth blow. Jasmine’s pitiful cries began to restore his good humor, and a smile touched his lips. “Beg me to cease, you bitch!” he said.
“Stop!” she appeared to sob. “Oh, please stop! I am burning!”
The tawse fell an eleventh and twelfth time, then she heard it drop to the floor, and he was in front of her once again. Jasmine squeezed out several tears from beneath her eyelids. He loosed her ankles from the rope, and she restrained herself from kicking him wherever she could. She couldn’t get down from this damned hook by herself.
“Ohhh, please let me down, my lord!” she whimpered to him.
To her shock, however, he instead knelt before her, his hands forcing her legs apart, and holding them firm as he leaned forward, he pushed past her nether lips with his tongue to find with unerring aim the sensitive jewel of her sex. His tongue began to tease it, but while he was able to arouse it so that her body gave him a libation of love dew, Jasmine herself was repulsed by his actions. Still, Jasmine knew that he would expect some show of emotion from her. “Ohhh!” she cried out at him. “Do not! Do not!”
He laughed, drawing away from her, and looking up at her with wild eyes. “That’s it, bitch,” he whispered. “Beg! But you do not fool me, my sweet! You are born a whore like all women. Like my mother who sold herself to the highest bidder, and like Kipp’s mother, who simply sold herself to her master so she could live like a lady. At least they disliked being mounted. You, I suspect, enjoy a man between your legs.” He rose and walked away from her.
“Aye,” Jasmine answered him boldly, “I do.”
He turned, looking at her surprised. He had never before heard a woman admit to enjoying it. All the women he had ever known whined, and complained, and made excuses. “You like being fucked?” he said, intrigued.
“Of course,” Jasmine told him. “Most women do if you approach them properly. Let me down now, my lord. You may keep me bound, but I can no longer feel my arms, and I don’t think that good. It really isn’t necessary to abuse a woman in order to enjoy her favors, you know. Just the sight of me naked aroused you today, did it not?”
It had! For the first time in his life he had swollen with lust just looking at a woman. He hadn’t had to whip her. He had done that afterward in his disappointment, and while he had enjoyed it, he realized he was not now aroused at all by his viciousness. It gave him pause.
“Let me down,” Jasmine repeated once more.
Wordlessly Piers St. Denis lifted her from the hook. Leading her to a wall he reached down and, lifting up a wide leather collar, fastened it about her neck. There was a chain attached to the collar which was also fastened to the wall. Then he unbound her hands. “Sit down,” he commanded her, pulling her skirt and petticoats from the table and tossing them to the dirt floor.
Jasmine gingerly lowered herself to the pile of clothing. Her bottom was sore, and, touching it with tentative fingers, she could feel the weals that he had raised with his strap. She began to rub her arms in an effort to regain some sensation in them. “I am cold,” she told him. “Light a fire, if you know how, or are you useless in there also?”
“No fire!” he snapped at her. “This cottage is thought to be deserted, and a fire might bring a search party to my door, seeking you, my sweet. That would be most unfortunate, would it not?”
“Then at least let me put my clothing on, or I shall die of an ague. You know how sensitive I am to the damp and cold.” She sneezed as if to emphasize her point. “You will get little enjoyment out of a sick woman, my lord, will you now?”
He acquiesced, although not particularly gracefully. “Very well,” he said, gathering up her stockings, and tossing them to her. “But no shoes, madame. I cannot have you running away, can I?” He smiled mockingly at her.
Jasmine quickly drew her wool stockings on, fastening them with their ribbon garters. Then she yanked her petticoats and skirt on, thankful that two of her undergarments were flannel. She attempted to draw her chemise and blouse together, but they were badly torn. “Let me have my shawl,” she asked him. “If the ague attacks my chest, I shall expire, and you will suffer an even more horrible death than the Leslies have planned for you for just kidnapping me.”
He flung her the shawl with an ill-concealed grace. “What makes you think your Leslies will ever find you before I have seen to James Leslie’s death and returned with you to England, where the king will then be forced to give you to me to wed?”
“They will find us,” Jasmine said firmly. “And how many times must I explain to you, my lord, that King James will never give me in marriage to you. My family would not allow it, and I should kill myself before I would ever allow you dominion of any kind over me!”
“I have already gained control over you, my pet,” he told her. “Did your love juices not sweeten my tongue just moments ago, and did you not cry out with your pleasure?” He laughed. “You are a far grander conquest than I ever anticipated, for I have discovered that I do not need to strap you to become excited by your charms. Still, I will probably continue to do it for my mere amusement. And when we return to England my brother, Kipp, shall also be well entertained between your milky thighs while I billet my cock in one of your other two orifices. Have you ever accommodated two lusty stallions at one time, my pet? It is, I have been told, an unforgettable experience for all three people involved.” He came now and sat himself beside her for a moment. “You are such a strong woman, my pet. I am strong, too, but Kipp is weak. I shall teach you how to wield the tawse and the birch on him. You will tease him with your sensuous body and mouth, and then we shall complete the torture by coupling before him until he is weeping with his own desire. If he can restrain himself from release, then perhaps I shall let him have the pleasure of your body, too. As I am your master, my pet, so shall I allo
w you to be mistress over Kipp. Like me, he has a fine, big cock, and shall give you much pleasure.” He began to stroke her eagerly.
Jasmine looked past him to the window. It had become dark while they had been there. Glancing back at her captor, she could hardly see his handsome and dissolute face. The dark, however, did not seem to disturb him at all. “I am hungry,” she said, “and thirsty.”
“I am hungry, too,” he murmured, pushing her back and beginning to kiss and suck upon her breasts.
Angrily she pushed him away. “Is it your intent to starve me, my lord?” she snapped at him. “Is this how you show me your affection?”
“I will have to go down into the town to get us food and drink,” he said pettishly.
“Then do so!” Jasmine ordered him imperiously. “And afterward, if you have pleased me with a good dinner, who knows what will transpire between us, my lord marquis.” Her tone was now a purr of suggestion.
“Bitch!” he snarled suddenly, drawing away from her and standing. “Do you think to gull me with your suggestive words? If you would have me believe you, you must give me a little pleasure now,” he told her.
“What would you have me do?” she asked him, wondering what wickedness he had in mind for her. Was he going to use that damned tawse on her again? She didn’t think him recovered enough yet to mount her, but she could not be certain.
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