“You seem to know this lady well,” Jahngir said.
“Oh yes! I used to fuck her some years ago.”
Penny’s cheeks burned at Jefferson’s frank admission and the terms he had used to make it. She looked to Bahram, but he did not rebuke him for his crudity in front of a lady.
“I didn’t know Penny was involved when I took the girls,” George went on, “or, of course, yourself, Your Highness. It was only after she called on Macdonald and he sent one of his men to tell me, that I learned she was back in India and on her way here. I knew she wouldn’t come all the way from England without a good reason, and that it would be one that served her self-interest, but I couldn’t work out what her game was to begin with. Once I found out how far she was prepared to go to get the girls back I guessed that money had to be involved. From there, it wasn’t such a big step to realize the only thing of any value she had with her were the girls, or to work out what she planned to do with them.” He gave her a short bow. “I must say, Penelope, I admire your enterprise. It was a damned clever plan. I’m sure no one suspected your real motives for a moment.”
Unimpressed by his compliment but thoroughly embarrassed at how sordid her scheme had sounded when it was revealed, Penny looked self-consciously at the other people in the room. Although the whole business was about them, Julia and Kate were so steeped in their lovesick euphoria that they appeared to care nothing for its outcome. Everyone else was watching her and plainly awaiting a response.
With an excited flip of her stomach, Penny realized her moment had arrived. Her life was about to be transformed, and at the same time she could pay George back for all the suffering he had caused her when he kidnapped the girls. She was going to win! Immediately confident, once more she sucked in a breath and felt a warm glow of triumph as the Prince’s eyes fixed upon the rise of her full breasts.
“Your Highness, Mr. Jefferson has given you a fairly clear account of what happened,” she declared. “He has also admitted that but for his interference I would have arrived much earlier than today.” She looked resentfully at Courtney. “And, I might add, have had a much less difficult journey than the one I went through to be here. But I am here, just as I promised to be in the agreement we made long before Mr.
Jefferson involved himself in our business, and in accordance with that agreement the girls have been delivered into your hands.” She gave a pert tilt of her head in George’s direction and Bahram Khan her sweetest smile.
The one he returned her showed the same amusement that twinkled in his eyes. “Cleverly put, Mrs. Winter. You managed to avoid the issue of who delivered the girls, for which I must thank Mr. Jefferson and my brother. But our agreement was that you would personally deliver them to me, and that did not happen. Alas, neither are they in my hands. As you can see, one is in those of Jahngir Khan and the other, for reasons I do not pretend to fully understand, now belongs to one of Mr. Jefferson’s associates.”
“But….” Penny’s belly gave a wild leap. He was trying to swindle her. Her heart raced as the prospect of more long years of poverty loomed over her. “But I kept the bargain,” she protested. “I escorted them safely all the way from England and right across India. You can’t quibble about who brought them the last few miles.”
“I’m afraid I must, Mrs. Winter, if you wish me to arbitrate the matter fairly, as I’m sure you do. And it seems to me that you, Jefferson, cannot say in honesty that you have kept your bargain with my brother.”
“I make no such claim, Your Highness,” he replied. “In the case of the redhead I can only say that I made a promise to my comrade and that as a man of my word I could not refuse when he asked me to keep it. If my reputation must suffer as a result, then so be it. As for the blonde girl, well, she seems to have made her own choice in the matter, so I won’t expect or ask any payment for her, especially since Jahngir Khan handled all of her training himself.”
“A sensible decision,” the Prince said. “In the circumstances, I think we can say you acted properly in this affair.”
“Properly?” Penny snarled. “But he stole them. If he hadn’t….”
“Quiet, Mrs. Winter,” the Prince barked, giving her a forbidding look. “Wait until I have finished if you wish to speak.”
She recognised a familiar uncompromising air of authority in his tone and expression. Swallowing hard, she reined in her anger.
“I’m not going to criticise Mr. Jefferson for simply going about the usual operations of the profession both of you have chosen to follow,” he continued. “The girls were your responsibility at the time they were abducted and you can only blame yourself for what happened. However, I won’t overlook your achievement in bringing them so far, and I won’t therefore demand you return the travelling money I sent you. But we still have an agreement, Mrs. Winter, and that means you owe me two white slave girls.”
“What? You’re not serious!” Penny stared at him in disbelief.
“Entirely serious,” he assured her. “I have your written offer and a copy of my written acceptance. Therefore, you are obligated to provide me with two slave girls.”
“B… but I can’t.” She looked guiltily at Kate and Julia. “I couldn’t do it again. I… I know now I shouldn’t have done it the first time. And I have no money, not nearly enough for a passage back to England, and even if I had, I’d have no home to go to when I got there.”
With growing alarm she looked pleadingly into Bahram’s stern face.
He gave an eloquent shrug of his shoulders. A tear brimmed from the corner of one of Penny’s eyes and rolled slowly down her cheek. She felt utterly wretched. She was beaten, even worse off than when she had set off on the journey that had ended in such an awful nightmare. A sob escaped her.
“Y… Your Highness, what am I to do?”
Slipping Penny’s handbag from where it hung on her left wrist, Jefferson stepped forward from his place beside her.
“Sorry Penny. Remember what I told you. It’s purely business.”
He grinned at her and turned to the Prince. “Your Highness, I believe I have a solution that will solve Mrs. Winter’s problems and at the same time allow her to meet her obligation to you. I think you might find it rather attractive too.”
His soft, sardonic laugh made Penny shudder in sudden fear.
*
The horse had carried them more than halfway to Jahngir’s mountain fortress before Julia dared let herself speak. She had been on the edge of both laughter and tears since the moment she had heard him refuse to let her go. It had taken all of her strength to control her excitement and emotions but, anxious to preserve his dignity in front of the others, she had managed it somehow. A little calmer now, moisture still filmed her eyes and elation once more bubbled up inside her as she lifted her head from his shoulder.
“Did you mean it?”
“That I wanted you from the first?” Jahngir kissed her forehead.
“Yes, little murgah, every word. And what a torment it was to resist going all the way with you, especially when you started tempting me at every turn.” His soft laugh rumbled. “And all along you were meant to be mine. What a fool I have made of myself. And how badly it made me treat you.” He kissed her brow again. “I am sorry, my love. Forgive me.
It will never happen again.”
Julia tightened her arms around his neck as a thrill of joy ran through her. He had called her his love. Tears overflowed her eyelids as she smiled up at him.
“Are you hurting?” he demanded. “Should I stop?”
She shook her head. “I’m not hurting. I’m happy, m… my lord,”
she said, and felt another thrill.
“You’ll be home soon. Then you had better rest until you’re properly healed. I have never regretted anything more in my life than beating you like that. I never thought of myself as cruel or unjust but I took all of my frustrations out on you. It was very wrong of me.”
“You aren’t a cruel or unjust man,” Julia told him,
“nor have you any reason to become one if you follow your brother’s advice in future.”
“Oh, I will,” he replied. “I suppose I overreacted after the revolt. I was so anxious to never cause any strife between Bahram and me that I carried it too far.” He nuzzled her hair. “But I know better now, and you helped me see it, my love.”
Once more a tingle of excitement ran through Julia at hearing the endearment, but this time its warm glow reached all the way to her pussy.
She shifted in Jahngir’s arms.
“Nearly there,” he said, misinterpreting the reason. “There’s something I want you to see along with all of the girls and then you can get some rest.”
“But I’m not tired,” Julia said with the tickle of her arousal increasing. “I hoped you meant to follow your brother’s other advice too.”
“His other…? Oh, I see! But you’re not up to that yet. You can only lie on your front.
As the horse drew to a halt in the courtyard Julia rubbed her cheek on the embroidered silk chapaan covering Jahngir’s muscled chest. “I saw Helai do it with you once and she didn’t have to lie down at all.”
“Oh, so that’s how it is,” he laughed. “You can be very determined, I’ve learned, and very brave. I want you very much, little murgah, and I’m glad after what I’ve done you still want me.”
Julia pressed a fingertip to his lips. “Please, my lord, never feel any regret. I would go through it all again right now to stay here with you and the girls.”
“This is your home now and always,” he assured her. “And you will never feel the whip again. I’ll make certain of it.” He helped her dismount and led her by the hand through the house to the zenana.
Home, Julia thought with a happiness and contentment she had never dreamed she would ever know.
Once the noise and excitement that her return provoked had finally died down, the Pathan took all seven girls to the far end of the zenana.
Suddenly subdued by the fact it was usually where their punishments were meted out, they were surprised when, despite the day being hot, Jahngir lit one of the braziers used for heating in winter. As they watched he took the three canes from their pegs on the wall, broke them over his knee and fed them into the flames. While they burned, he pushed the red leather whip deep into the glowing heart of the fire and waited until it flared in the heat and crumbled into charred fragments.
Jahngir looked at them solemnly. “Never again,” he promised.
There was an awkward silence after that, until Afia gave him a saucy smile and asked, “Have you forgotten the switches, my lord? And what of the oils and ropes and other instruments?”
He gave a smile that quickly widened into a grin. “Would you leave me helpless with seven of you to keep in line now? No, my dears, I draw the line at surrendering completely. Now back to amusing yourselves. Julia and I have something to do. Something we should have done days ago. So off with you.” He laughed as he took her hand, and the girls laughed too and skipped ahead of him as he led her to her sleeping cubicle. Julia was shivering with excitement and brimming with happiness. She could not recall him ever speaking her name before.
“My lord, Afia said I would be given a Pashto name when I had a master of my own,” she said, turning her head to kiss the palm that was caressing her cheek.
“Do you have one in mind?”
“I thought perhaps, Murgah?”
He laughed softly and pressed his lips gently to hers. “I like Julia.”
“But it has no meaning.”
“It has to me,” he said. The backs of his hands rubbed the undersides of her breasts as he loosened the button on her silk jacket. “It means ‘great treasure’.”
“Great t… treasure,” she whispered against the lips that softly kissed hers, and tears prickled her eyes again.
“Greater than gold.” He took his time undressing her, savouring as much as she did her flimsy silks sliding from her body and his touch on the soft, sensitive skin beneath. Julia helped him undress with an eagerness and intensity of desire that no longer shocked or surprised her.
Her pussy quivered, eager and ready for him long before Jahngir took her in his arms and she felt his hard, muscular body against hers and his rigid erection pressing into her stomach. She shook with excitement as he laid on her sleeping platform and drew her down on top of him, careful to avoid her bruised buttocks with his exploring hands.
The giggles of the other girls told Julia they had not retreated to the living area but were close by and listening for every moan and whimper and cry she had no doubt she would soon be making. She felt no shame or embarrassment. Let them share in as much of her delight as they could. They were her companions and her friends, and they loved the same man she did with a fervour that matched her own.
Ignoring the dull throb her movements caused her bottom, she straddled Jahngir, looking into his face and smiling as she closed her hand around his upright manhood. Smiling back, he reached up and stroked the twin rounds of her breasts. His touch made her nipples pulse under their layer of bright-red rouge. A ripple of arousal teased through her, followed at once by another and then many more until she was aware of nothing but the smouldering gaze of her lover and the urgency of her need.
She raised herself a little and saw the swelling of her feminine bud as she looked down to guide Jahngir’s big member between her trembling thighs. Julia felt it push inwards and the wriggles and tremors within grow stronger and swifter. Fiery ripples made her catch her breath and a great swell of joyous delight surged up inside her. She pushed herself down to meet his eager thrusts and cried out as she spasmed and squirmed exultantly.
Let the girls hear her, she thought as the ecstatic pleasure flowed.
Let them know that she was his now and always would be. And that he was hers.
Chapter 10
Hips swaying seductively to the rhythm of the music, Penny glided with all of her natural poise and grace across the marble floor. Raising her arms into an arch above her head she thrust out the heavy globes of her breasts and shook them. Her rouged lips drawn back in a fixed, frozen smile, she pirouetted to present her bare, jiggling buttocks to her audience and bent over, thighs parted. Humiliation was a physical pain in her chest as she danced in a circle, paused facing the watchers and heard the tinkle of the little bells at the tips of her gold nipple-caps as she shook her breasts once more.
Cheeks aflame with her blush, she darted a nervous glance at Bahram Khan who reclined amid a pile of silken cushions with his brother sitting at his right hand and the associate of Jefferson’s whose name she had never learned at his left. The Prince watched her intently, his dark eyes bright and glittering. Penny’s stomach fluttered wildly.
She had known the moment George had slipped her handbag from her wrist and deprived her of the gun inside that she was not going to like what he had to say. Even so, Penny had been unprepared for the shock of the cold, unfeeling ruthlessness of his so-called answer to her problems when he had explained it to the Prince.
“Oh, come now, Penny,” Jefferson had said above her angry and frightened protests, “it’s the perfect solution. You get a roof over your head and all your money troubles solved, and His Highness gets the two slave girls you owe him.” To her surprise, the smile he had given her had been neither sardonic nor self-satisfied, but had seemed one of understanding, though of what she could not imagine. “I’ve a feeling you’ll be grateful to me before too long,” he had said. “You ought to be glad I thought of it.”
Penny had not been glad at all. Minutes later, her protests by that time frantic, she had found herself, along with Subaidah, in the zenana of the Prince of Dhokat, stripped, bathed, perfumed, made up and dressed in the scandalously revealing garments of a concubine and slave girl. It had been unbelievable, horrifying and incredibly frightening. It still was.
Burning with embarrassment, Penny presented her bottom once more and snaked it sinuously from side to side, turned, spread her feet wide, bent he
r knees and undulated her belly in the way she had been made to practice during each of the ten days she had been a prisoner.
They had been the strangest, most bewildering and anxious days of her life, and caused her the greatest confusion of conflicting emotions. Penny knew she had experienced first hand everything Julia and Kate must have felt when they had been kidnapped and enslaved. The thought of belonging to someone else, of being owned like a pair of boots or an overcoat, had been enough on its own to make her tremble with fear.
She had felt the switch too, every day since she had been made a slave, and once the cane, though the pain of the beatings had been minor compared to that she had suffered during her attempts to recover the girls.
And there had been pleasure. It had been forced upon her by the man who called himself her master, and more often than not under his supervision – pleasure from her own hands, from those of other slave girls and from Bahram Khan himself. Always it had been only at his command, for anything else meant punishment and his discipline was strict. He made it very clear that he alone was in control.
The knowledge sent a quiver tickling through Penny’s pussy and alarm through her mind. More than once she had found herself growing aroused when thinking how completely the Prince had her in his power.
Did Kate and Julia feel the same thrill at being so helplessly dominated, she wondered. Unable to stop herself, she looked at the two girls, each reclining beside their masters, each looking relaxed and absurdly happy despite what had befallen them. How could they possibly find such contentment in their slavery?
Penny looked back and forth between them and then quickly away as each in turn met her eye. Cringing inwardly with shame, she missed a step of the dance and saw Bahram’s mouth turn down at the corners.
Kate and Julia: Slave Girls of the Raj Page 17