‘Are you sure he is dead?’ Angela was as if encased in ice, unable to register grief, fear, pain – anything.
‘No doubt about that,’ put in Mrs Gregory. ‘Do you want to see him? They’ve carried him to the master bedchamber.’
Still walking as if in some terrible nightmare, Angela trailed up the stairs in solemn procession with the butler and housekeeper, aware of the unnatural hush. No more father with his noisy complaints to the staff, his sometimes coarse language, his obsession with bloodstock and thoroughbreds, his loud and rumbustious cronies. No one to pet, love and indulge her any more. But she was wrong, and her heart came to life inside her as she remembered. Aidan! Aidan, her beloved and betrothed. He would take care of her now.
Aidan strode from the stable block, through to the kitchens and the servants’ domain. The cook bobbed a curtsey, the footmen bowed and pretended to be extra busy, the housemaids looked at him from beneath lowered lashes. He spotted one, a young, plump, saucy lass who was a newcomer to Compton Hall. He had already singled her out for attention. He was on fire, his cock refusing to lie down. He needed satisfaction at once.
He nodded to the girl and she met his glance – bold, ambitious maybe – eager to curry favour with her employer. ‘What’s your name?’ he demanded, scarcely pausing.
‘Lisa Depford,’ she replied, in a thick, West Country accent.
She’ll do, he thought, wondering if she was a virgin. There was nothing he enjoyed more than robbing girls of their maidenheads. Their fear, reluctance and pain were music to his ears. The very thought of Lisa’s final submission made his penis jump, the friction with his silk underpants very nearly bringing on his orgasm. He clenched his jaw and willed the tide to recede. He was practiced at this, studying ways and means of prolonging sexual congress so that the final explosion was cataclysmic.
Aidan was a sensualist, a wealthy connoisseur of fine wines, fine food, art, books, antiquities and lovely women, although his taste ran to good-looking men as well. There were few things he hadn’t tried. He was highly skilled in the dichotomy between pain and pleasure. He loved power over individuals and business associates, and delved into their backgrounds, becoming privy to their darkest secrets and using them for his own ends.
He noticed that the cook, Mrs Brabent, was eyeing him askance, arms folded across her massive bosom. She had a thick waist and wide hips. He wondered briefly how it would be to have her naked, face pressed to the crosspiece in his dungeon while he plied a whip over those quivering hinds. Would she yell and struggle, pant and sweat? Or would she howl like a cat on heat, begging him to arse-fuck her?
He outstared her, beckoned to Lisa, stalked out of the door and into the passage that connected with the backstairs, used by the staff to reach the upper floors where their duties lay. The grand staircase, leading from the great hall, was only ever trod by himself, members of his family (and these were few now) or his friends. A doctor was permitted front access, for he was likely to be from the upper classes, also the vicar, but a lawyer, like a tradesman, always came in the back way.
Aidan looked upon himself as a man of liberal views, though was anything but when push came to shove. He pulled rank, very aware of himself as liege lord descended from a long line of barons who had come over with the Normans. He looked upon it as his right to take any servant girl (or stable lad) who tickled his fancy, and today it happened to be Lisa.
‘Walk in front of me,’ he commanded as they approached the narrow, linoleum covered stairs.
‘Yes, sir… my lord…’ she stammered, blushing furiously.
As she mounted ahead of him he reached up, dove a hand under her black skirt and dingy petticoats and handled her backside through her linen knickers. As he had suspected, she was well fleshed and would prove an entertaining hour under the cane.
She paused, would have turned, but he stopped her, giving her a shove and grating, ‘No, don’t look at me until I tell you. You must do everything I say,’ and he implemented this order with an open-palmed slap on her posterior.
She hurried on upwards. Aidan could smell her, that odour of cheap soap and sweaty armpits, of linen worn just that little bit too long, of hair that was not washed often. It was the general belief among the lower orders that too much washing would weaken them. Aidan had had intercourse with duchesses, princesses, and wantons from the higher echelons, but always gained an extra thrill when copulating with common women.
They reached the corridor that connected with the bedrooms. The floor was carpeted in luxurious crimson, the walls panelled and hung with landscapes and portraits in gilded frames. There were tall windows giving views of the gardens and everywhere there was evidence of luxury and refinement. Lisa stared open-mouthed, suitably awed.
‘You’ve been in this part of the house before, of course,’ he said, favouring her with conversation.
‘No, sir,’ she stammered. ‘I’m not a chambermaid yet. Not been here long enough. Have to finish my kitchen training first.’
‘I’ll have you promoted,’ he said casually, unlocking the oak double doors that opened into his apartment.
She swung round, eyes shining with admiration. ‘Oh, sir… could you really do that for me? What about Mrs Brabent?’
‘To hell with Mrs Brabent,’ he thundered, scowling. ‘She’ll take her orders from me. It’s up to you, Lisa. Prove a quick learner today, and we’ll see…’
The anteroom was furnished in grand style with period pieces handed down over the generations. Aidan took little heed of it, part and parcel of his daily existence. Logs smouldered in the grate, the brass basket resting between the white marble columns of the carved fireplace. He was much more interested in the girl he had brought there.
He pulled her towards a deeply upholstered settee, bent her over the back of it and lifted her skirts. She protested, but only slightly, and he stood behind her and spread her legs, then opened his fly and pressed his cock to the divide of her buttocks. Her drawers were in the way, but now his goal was within sight he could afford to delay.
He wanted to play, or rather his penis did. He fingered her roughly, demanding, ‘Are you a virgin?’
‘Not quite, sir,’ she confessed, arching her spine and driving her arse against his tumescence.
He gripped her by the hair, jerking back her head and demanding, ‘What do you mean… not quite? You’ve either been rogered or you haven’t.’
‘Not properly, sir,’ she gasped, wincing at the pain in her scalp. ‘It wasn’t a lad or anyone like that after me.’
‘Then who?’ Aidan barked, the stranglehold on her blonde locks intensifying. ‘Speak, slut.’
‘It was my stepfather what done it,’ she sobbed. ‘He wouldn’t leave me be. From the time he came courting our mother, her being a widow and all, he kept touching me up, and after the wedding he’d sometimes come into my bed at night or catch me in the fields… anywhere… and have his way with me.’
‘Why didn’t you tell your mother?’ Aidan asked, his cock even more lively at the vision of Lisa being corrupted by an older man, her mother’s new husband to boot. This was the kind of perverse behaviour that aroused him.
‘She wouldn’t have believed me. Soft on him, she was,’ Lisa responded, wriggling her arse against him, a girl who had learned young how to give in to men and their demands.
‘So you know how to please, eh?’ Aidan said softly. ‘You know how to obey and submit. You’ll submit to me, my girl, and be glad of it.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she whimpered.
‘Stay there,’ he commanded, dragged her drawers about her ankles and pushed her face down amongst the soft cushions. She gave a muffled squeal.
He left her and went into the bedroom, returning with a rattan cane in one hand. For a moment he admired her up-thrust buttocks, the pale thighs above the thick woollen stocking tops, the fair fuzz poking from between her legs, part covering the pouting purse of her pudenda with its dividing slit. The sight was enough to addle a saint’s brain, le
t alone a highly sexed man used to indulging his desires.
With excitement catching his breath he raised his arm. The cane whistled through the air and landed on Lisa’s bottom. He restrained himself, using a small particle of his strength but it was sufficient to make her yell and squirm. He spaced out the blows, keeping her on the edge never knowing quite when the next would fall. Her flesh turned pink, then red, the mottled skin embroidered with a latticework of stripes. She writhed and tried to break free.
‘Be still and take your punishment, you dirty little trollop,’ he hissed.
‘What have I done, sir?’ she pleaded, tears streaking her face.
‘You’re a whore,’ he shouted. ‘A slut who enjoys men poking her.’
He imagined saying these things to Angela, a red mist seeming to float before his eyes. Angela, with her delicate complexion and innocence; by God he’d make her suffer once he had his hands on her. She wouldn’t know whether she was on her head or her heels. He’d make her endure everything, including his infidelities, once the ring was on her finger and her dowry safely lodged in his bank. And when she had provided him with an heir, possibly two, he’d give her to his cronies to try out during one of his wild orgies.
‘Get up!’ he snarled.
Lisa moved stiffly, standing before him in her disarray with tears streaking her snub-nosed face. Any pleasure she might have gained through being singled out by his lordship was now replaced by fear. Aidan was pleased to see it. He had little interest in willing victims.
‘On your knees,’ he said with a quick flick of the cane. She flopped down, blubbering and raising her blotchy face. He was a fastidious man, and the sight of this abject misery disgusted yet aroused him. ‘Come closer,’ he whispered, his voice smooth as silk.
She crawled towards him on hands and knees, her bare bottom lifted, scored by the livid marks of the cane. ‘Master,’ she said tremulously.
‘Kiss my foot.’ Obediently she placed her lips on his booted instep where mud still clung from his ride. He stared down at her, a huddled, pathetic figure, but felt no compassion. She deserved everything she got – so did Angela, and every other bitch who came under his domination. ‘You may look at me,’ he added, seeing the taut rigidity of his engorged penis and thrilling at what he was about to have her do to it.
She knelt between his feet and stared with swollen eyes at his penis rising like a serpent before her, the glans glistening, topping that spear of power. ‘It’s so big,’ she breathed, then remembered that he had not told her to speak. ‘I’m sorry,’ she spluttered, her hands flying to her sore backside.
He chuckled, always flattered by any reference to the size of his weapon. ‘Do you know what I’m going to tell you to do?’ he whispered thickly.
‘No, my lord,’ she murmured, and he lifted her under her arms so that her face was close to his genitals, the warmth of her breath stirring his dark thicket and tantalising his eager helm.
‘Lick it,’ he ordered. ‘Do as you’re told or I’ll flay you alive.’
‘Oh, sir… my lord… I’ve never…’
‘Not even with your stepfather?’ he mocked.
‘No, sir, he took me up the bum though, as well as in the other place.’
‘Now you’ll learn something else. Do as you’re told. Lick it.’ He twined his fingers in her hair and, using it as a bridle, dragged her closer to him. A sob shook her, then her tongue came out and he felt the shy lightness of her caress, and his penis leapt, hitting her alarmed face. She whimpered and panted, her fumbling fingers finding the full ripeness of his balls and stroking fearfully at the mighty stalk. Aidan could wait no longer. He seized his cock and rammed it against Lisa’s mouth. She shuddered, then opened wide and he felt the unutterable bliss of her wet cavity and that fresh young tongue flicking across his helm.
He groaned, the torrent gathering, about to erupt into a mighty explosion of spunk. He did not loosen his grip on her hair as her head dipped up and down, her wet face burrowing as she warmed to her task. She breathed loudly, every so often raising her head for a draught of air, then returning to suck and gnaw, nibble and slurp at his quivering, semen-packed tool.
It was coming. He had reached the point of no return. His control was useless now. He clamped her to him, pumped her head up and down. She panicked, as if guessing what was about to happen. She tried to pull away but her held her to the throbbing organ that had completely taken him over, the compulsion to orgasm more important than life itself as it flared and convulsed in a final welter of ecstasy.
The hot semen pumped out over Lisa’s face and drenched her hair, but Aidan was not done yet – not quite. The sticky spunk continued to shoot and he was determined she should be plastered in it. She gagged, wrested her head away and spat out as much as she could of that cloying emission. Aidan’s legs trembled and he reached for the couch, sprawling there, momentarily satiated.
‘You may go now,’ he said, coldly dismissive.
Lisa sunk back on her heels, weary and gulping, rubbing her mouth on the back of her hand, trying to free her lips of his taste. She looked at him, her eyes huge and reproachful. ‘You said you would speak to Mrs Brabent, sir,’ she said.
‘So I did,’ he replied carelessly, back in control, his body relieved of the urge to ejaculate.
Lisa stood up, her hair straggling round her face, her chin smeared with his juice, her uniform crumpled. She looked every inch the drab she was. ‘Please, sir…’ she went on, ‘I’d like to better myself. Don’t want to be a skivvy all my life.’
Aidan was feeling generous, as men often are after having shot their load. ‘Oh, very well, I’ll see what I can do,’ he promised. ‘Now get out of here.’
He lay at his ease on the settee, watching her with a tigerish smile as she backed out of the room. Soon he would have Angela in exactly the same position – not a servant, of course, but his wife.
He was roused by a knock at the door. ‘Come in,’ he said, and the butler entered.
‘My lord, there’s a messenger arrived from Lairdland. Sir Barnaby has had a heart attack and died. Lady Angela requests your presence there at once.’
Chapter 2
There was so much to do, so many things to organise, Angela thought, panicking. The funeral. The wake. Meetings with the executor of her father’s will.
Doctor Carmichael had examined the body and written out the death certificate. ‘Natural causes,’ he had said, shaking his stately silver-haired head and adding, ‘I did warn Sir Barnaby that if he continued to live life at such a hectic pace, then he might shorten it.’
The Reverend Beardsley had hurried over from the vicarage, full of platitudes and sympathy. ‘Trust in the Lord, my child,’ he said piously, hands folded over his black cassock. ‘“He giveth, and He taketh away”. Have you someone with you during this sorrowful time?’
‘I have no relatives. Even my Godparents are no longer alive, but I have my betrothed, Lord Aidan Driscol. I’ve sent for him. He will be here shortly,’ Angela replied, hardly able to speak through her tears. The pain inside her was like a raw wound. She knew that only Aidan’s presence would make her feel better.
‘It would not be proper for him to stay, you understand,’ Beardsley prompted, steepling his fingertips together. ‘You must be chaperoned.’
Angela was uncomfortable. His hooded eyes under their bushy brows were regarding her too closely – not only her face, but her figure. She did not care for the way in which he mouthed the words, as if relishing the idea of impropriety.
‘My companion, Miss Hicks, is with me,’ she replied hurriedly. ‘And there are the butler and housekeeper, and other members of staff.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ he said in the nasal, rather singsong voice he always adopted when speaking with parishioners or sermonising from the pulpit.
She recalled that her father had not had a great deal of time for him, dubbing him a canting hypocrite. How annoyed he must be to have him hovering over his deathbed, if he w
as aware and there was any truth in an afterlife.
‘Don’t worry, your Reverence, I shall be with her,’ Maude Hicks said, her voice level, and Angela was so glad that she was present. It was she who had joined her in the bedchamber and supported her when she knelt there, weeping.
Maude was in her early thirties, a plain, no-nonsense woman, who had taken over from Angela’s governess a year ago, employed as a companion. Though never one to mince her words she was kindness itself, more like an older sister than a paid assistant. Now she placed an arm protectively round Angela’s shoulders.
‘I’m glad to hear it, Miss Hicks, you must guide her through this trial,’ the vicar said, and prepared to take his departure.
After he had gone Mr Pearce, the undertaker, arrived with an assistant and concentrated on the corpse, suggesting that Angela left them to their work.
‘Come along, my dear,’ Maude said, and Angela was thankful to lean against her. ‘Your fiancé will be here soon.’
She was always neat and tidy, and was wearing a long, bell-shaped shirt with a nipped-in waist and a blue and white striped blouse, its high collar finished with a navy tie. She smelt of lavender soap and her own fragrance that wafted from her light brown hair, parted in the centre and coiled into a coronet atop her head. This emphasised her swanlike neck and willowy, almost boyish figure.
Angela walked with her into the drawing room, a lovely flower-filled place that had a welcoming air, with its panelled walls and huge fireplaces, one at either end, and its ceiling rich with cornices and plasterwork. The deep bays had box seats and diamond-paned windows. There were velvet drapes and Persian rugs strewn like colourful islands on a sea of polished oak. Angela used it more than her father. He had preferred his study, a den where he liked to entertain his cronies, there to smoke, play cards and exchange hunting talk, traduce the Government and gossip, bigger scandalmongers than women ever were.
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