“And this transaction must be concluded before the end of business today to avoid having her pressed into slavery at a bankruptcy hearing that is scheduled for ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“Yes.” She wasn’t sure how Smith knew the time of the court hearing because she hadn’t known that herself. She inferred that he must have staff working in the background while he was on the phone with her.
“In order to do this, Miss Bishop must come to our offices as soon as possible to sign the requisite contract. Tell her to be sure to bring her copy of the promissory note that Sir Drake holds.”
As soon as Irene hung up, she had to scramble to find George and tell him to send Adele down to the solicitor’s office.
It only took a few minutes to find Adele but that involved several phone calls, first to her home, then to George’s home, then to his work, then to her father’s work, and finally to someone else’s house – a boy named Clovis who might be a friend or might be a boyfriend; Irene wasn’t clear about his status.
Adele was ecstatic that Lord Fortson was lending her the money that would save her from slavery. She kept thanking Irene over and over. Irene finally had to tell her to hang up the phone and get over to the solicitor’s office and get the paper signed. Otherwise she’d be going to bankruptcy court on the following day.
Irene spent the rest of the afternoon preparing to entertain Willy, one of her owners who liked his sex standard but frequent. On his days, he always fucked her several times in the evening. Preparation meant making assorted snacks to keep him busy with something other than fucking her non-stop all night, and then resting as much as she could for what was always a long session.
As on previous nights, she tried mixing in a little variety, but to no avail. When she went down on him, he pulled her back up and laid her on the bed; when she got on top, he rolled over to put her back on the bottom; when she bent over and offered him rear entry, he caressed her ass for a few seconds, then pulled her erect and led her to the bed.
The only difference tonight was that, when he caressed her ass, he asked, “What happened here?” He could both feel and see the red welts where Lord Fortson had waled on her with the cane.
“I had to take a beating for one of the other owners,” she said.
“It looks like it hurts.”
“It hurt like hell when I was being caned and it’s going to keep hurting for at least a week.”
“What did you do to deserve this from one of us?”
“It’s complicated. The owner didn’t beat me, he asked me to beg a favor from another man, a lord, who has a bit of a grudge against me. The price of the favor was taking a caning.”
“Did that make the lord happy?”
“I don’t think so. I think he still hates me.”
“Pity. I think that beating someone that I didn’t like would make me happy.”
“You own me. You can whip my ass if you want and see how it makes you feel.” Irene didn’t want to take a whipping, especially not when her ass was already covered in purple welts, but she thought that might shake Willy out of his rut.
It didn’t. “I like you. I’d rather fuck you than beat you.” He escorted her to the bed and laid her down on her back.
She spread her legs and waited for her third, but not last, penetration of the night.
* * *
Tuesday was Caleb’s day, but it was George, not him, who showed up at eight-thirty.
She didn’t mention the day. Maintaining the schedule was the responsibility of her owners. She would serve any owner any time.
George was in a panic, which was shocking for such a taciturn man. “Adele’s got to go to court today.”
Irene was shocked. “Didn’t she get her debt settled yesterday?”
“That solicitor called her after supper and told her that she still had to go to court. Something went wrong.”
“Did he say what?”
“I don’t know.”
Irene’s heart sank. Poor Adele. The girl must be terrified.
“I’m going to take you to the court,” he said.
“Me?”
“You were helping her. Maybe there’s something you can do.”
“I don’t think so. I’m just a slave. I don’t have any standing in court.”
“They’ll have benches.”
“That’s not what…” She stopped herself. There was no sense trying to explain legal terminology to George. He was smart enough to understand the concepts, but understanding them wouldn’t help him or Adele. It would only waste time that they didn’t have. But he was right that it would be better for her to go, if just to reassure Adele that in the worst case, if she were pressed into slavery, she wouldn’t find it as terrible as she feared.
Irene almost laughed. She could barely sit down after being caned the day before. How hypocritical would it be for her to tell Adele that slavery was no big deal? It became a woman’s entire life.
She slipped her dress over her head. “Let’s go.”
George walked her the mile to his brother’s house. They said almost nothing during that twenty-minutes.
As soon as they entered the house, Adele threw herself into Irene’s arms and began sobbing anew. Irene hugged her tight while George and his brother went into the kitchen to grab some coffee.
When Adele’s sobs subsided, Irene said, “Now, tell me what this is all about. You signed the papers for the loan, right? This must be just a formality to tell the judge that you’re not bankrupt after all.”
“No. That’s not it. That solicitor called last night. Mr. Smith said that Sir Drake refused my payment. He’s going to insist that I be pressed into slavery even though I have the money. The solicitor said that we’re going to have to go to court and make our case to the judge.”
“Okay. We’ll do that and then your problem will be over.”
“I don’t know. The solicitor didn’t sound so sure on the phone. He told me to get my affairs in order in case the judge rules against me.” She broke down into sobs again. Irene could barely understand the words that she gasped out. “The solicitor said that Sir Drake is a powerful man and that the judge might not be sympathetic to me.”
Irene had no reply to that but to keep holding the terrified girl. In two hours, she might be enslaved – chained, tattooed, and registered. In three hours, Sir Drake and his son could be raping the shit out of her.
If she were enslaved, she could never be a free woman again. Enslavement was irreversible, even if it could be shown later that the court had made an egregious error, because the slave was not a person. A piece of property had no right to any kind of legal recourse.
Enslavement was as final as a hanging. But it lasted so much longer.
* * *
The wooden bench hurt Irene’s caned ass, but she ignored the pain. She concentrated on the proceedings. George and Adele’s father and her mother were sitting next to her in the middle of the audience. Adele had been directed to sit on a bench at the front with the other debtors.
It appeared that bankruptcy proceedings were scheduled at fifteen-minute intervals. They had arrived half an hour early so they saw two other bankruptcies before Adele stood before the judge.
The first was a middle-aged man whose small sign-painting business had failed. When he could no longer afford to pay rent, his landlord, a baronet, forced him into bankruptcy for two months arrears.
The baronet never appeared in court; his business manager handled the action that the aristocrat had authorized.
The debtor would only fetch a few hundred plaqs on the labor market and would be sold to someone who would work him to death within five years. He was given a virtual death sentence over a debt of eight hundred and seventy-two plaqs.
The man was handcuffed and led away on a chain. He was silent but his wife and two children wept loudly until the bailiff shooed them from the room.
The cold-blooded administration of injustice made Irene feel nauseous.
The next case was similar to Adele’s. A pretty young mother had borrowed eleven thousand plaqs because her oldest child had needed surgery to remove a badly-infected appendix. The mother had known that she couldn’t repay the loan and had decided to allow herself to fall into bankruptcy and be sold into slavery in exchange for the money necessary to save her son’s life.
The son was fortunate that his mother was pretty. A homely woman could never have staked her freedom as collateral on an eleven-thousand plaq loan. Only a woman who could be sold as a pleasure slave was worth that much.
In a futile attempt to win some sympathy from the court, the mother had brought her youngest child, an infant no more than a few months old, to court. She pleaded that she not be pressed into slavery until the child was old enough to walk. In a year, she would happily submit to slavery and she would still be young enough to be worth a substantial amount of money on the block.
The knight who had loaned her the money didn’t want to wait for his profit. He also noted that the woman might get pregnant again in an attempt to further elude impressment.
The judge ruled that the woman was bankrupt and was impressed into her debtor’s ownership, to be sold at the next auction.
Irene noticed that sale at auction was part of the judgment. The debtor didn’t have the option of keeping his new slave or of selling her privately. She presumed that the intent of that was to limit the abuse of impressment. A man couldn’t snare a specific woman for his exclusive use. Nor could he contract with a slaver to trap the woman for him. He would always have to compete to buy her on the open market.
The bailiff removed the baby from the mother’s arms and handed it to the father – a handsome man whose jaw was set hard in his grim visage. Then the bailiff cuffed her hands behind her back and led her away on a leash.
Adele was pale as fallen snow when she was called to the dock. Her skin always looked white in contrast to her black hair, but normally it glowed. Today, there were no rose or ivory highlights. Her only color was black bags under her eyes. She looked like a living skull.
But she was as beautiful as a statue.
She looked so small and alone standing before the judge that Irene’s heart almost broke.
The judge openly appraised her lovely face and figure. He knew that she would fetch a good sum on the auction block and wished that he could afford to buy her himself. He enjoyed turning beautiful young women over to the aristocracy for their sexual pleasure. Thinking about what was being done to the women that he had enslaved during the day kept him warm at night.
Most aristocrats sent their business managers to present their cases in court. Sir Drake and Geoffrey preferred to pursue their business interests themselves and appeared to court in person.
Irene imagined Drake telling his son that he would learn how the procedure worked if he came along. But his real reason was that he just wanted to play the big, important man in front of Geoffrey.
When Drake presented his case, he puffed out his chest and strutted before the judge, adorning his story with every fancy word that he could remember. The essence of his presentation was simple and misleading. “Your honor, this woman came to me seeking a loan so that she could buy expensive attire in a vain attempt to attend social functions beyond her common status. She assured me that she would soon have the funds to repay the loan, undoubtedly expecting to snare a young beau with her charms. She failed and defaulted on the loan.”
He made no mention that it was his son who had offered himself as bait, who had urged her to attend the functions, that the bulk of the money was not spent frivolously, but paid her university tuition, or that there had been a verbal promise that the note would not become due until after she had graduated.
All that didn’t matter. The judge rolled his eyes at Drake’s puffery. The only thing that mattered to him was whether the loan existed and that it had not been repaid. The reason for the loan and the circumstances around its issuance were irrelevant unless fraud was alleged and could be proven beyond question.
“You have documentation that specifies the loan agreement?”
Sir Drake handed a promissory note to the bailiff who handed it to the judge.
“This looks to be in order,” the judge said. “The loan is for nine thousand plaqs exactly, there is no interest, which is generous of you, and is due in its entirety on demand.” He had seen hundreds of such notes, undoubtedly many offered by Sir Drake, and didn’t need to read the entire document.
He waved the note at Adele. “Is this your signature?”
Adele nodded.
“Do you wish to offer a defense before you are pressed into Sir Drake’s ownership so that he might sell you and recover his money?”
As she was shaking her head, a mousey-looking man in the back of the room stood and said, in a surprisingly loud voice, “You honor, I wish to respond on behalf of Miss Bishop.”
“And you are?” the judge asked.
“Llewellyn Smith, solicitor and business manager,” he replied.
“And you’re here to represent Miss Bishop?”
“No, your honor. I’m here to give testimony on her behalf.”
“If you must.” The judge looked bored and cranky.
“My testimony is simple. Miss Bishop has the funds to pay the loan in question. In fact, I have a certified cheque for the full amount with me. I presented the cheque to Sir Drake in person at his place of business yesterday afternoon and he refused to receive it. I am prepared to hand it to him again, right here and now and discharge Miss Bishop’s loan on the spot.”
The judge raised an eyebrow at Sir Drake. “Did you refuse payment on this note yesterday?”
“I didn’t find the offer adequate, your honor.”
“In what way?”
“My expenses are considerably higher than the original nine thousand plaqs. If she had paid the note when it was due, then I would have accepted payment and dropped the matter. But, in pursuing this debt I have incurred an additional four thousand plaqs in costs. I consider that to be a significant part of the debt now. If your honor would care to examine my books, which I have brought with me, then you will see the full extent of her indebtedness. Considering that I didn’t charge her any interest, I believe that I should be entitled to full repayment of all my costs.”
The judge looked sympathetic to Sir Drake’s argument. Undoubtedly he had been sympathetic to Drakes arguments many time over the years and had been nicely compensated for it.
He addressed the solicitor. “Do you have a certified cheque in your pocket for thirteen thousand plaqs?”
“No, your honor, only for the nine thousand that was directly loaned to Miss Bishop. But I would be happy to consult with my client and arrange the additional money if you give me time to prepare the documentation and visit my bank.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the judge said, “but this is a bankruptcy proceeding, not a business meeting. We don’t negotiate here. Judgment will be delivered forthwith.”
He looked ready to render his judgment and impress Adele when there was a shuffling in the back of the room. Time the judge looked up and raised both eyebrows in surprise.
Irene, sitting in the middle of the room, had paid scant attention to the constant comings and goings of spectators and witnesses. Now, she turned around to see what was happening.
Three men had risen to their feet from the back-most bench in the room. Her ex-husband, Lord Fortson, his best friend, Lord Snow, and another close friend, Lord Hoffman, were standing looking at the judge.
“My lords,” the judge said, “what brings this honor to my courtroom?”
“We come only to observe that justice is done,” Lord Fortson said. “It is only fair to the common people that there is occasional oversight of the process. We would hate to think that any injustice be perpetrated on honest women in the name of the Governor, his Privy Council, his Cabinet or the Assembly of Lords.”
“Certainly. Certainly. You are quite welcome to observe.” He
fluttered his hands. “Are you observing in general or do you have a special interest in this case?”
“We wish to see justice done in every case,” Lord Snow said.
“But we happen to have observed this case from the beginning,” Lord Hoffman added, “so we are waiting to see how justice is served.”
“We certainly wouldn’t want to see a woman who is ready and able to repay the money that she borrowed be irrevocably impressed into slavery. Surely she can’t be responsible for an amount greater than that specified in her promissory note, had never received, and didn’t even know about before appearing in court,” Lord Snow said.
The judge was sweating. His head was quite bald and the beads were visible even to Irene sitting in the middle of the court. “I wouldn’t want to see such an injustice perpetrated, either,” he said. “My judgment is that Miss Bishop, having the money documented by this promissory note, is not bankrupt and if you, sir,” he nodded to Mr. Smith, “will hand a certified cheque for nine thousand plaqs to Sir Drake, the debt is paid in full and the note satisfied.”
Smith wasted no time in walking to the front of the room and shoving the cheque into Drake’s hand to seal the judgment.
Drake did not dare to refuse to accept payment this time. But when he turned to take it, Irene could see that his face was glowing a dull shade of red. His eyes flashed with fury, darting from Adele in the dock to the three lords in the back of the room and then settling on Irene who was at the center of events.
She returned his glare impassively. It took immense self-control to keep a smug expression from her face.
She had no doubt that Drake was her enemy, now. She would have to watch her back from this day forward.
“You are free to leave,” the judge told Adele. She may well have been the only debtor in years to leave this room without wearing handcuffs and a leash.
The young woman hurried from the dock, her face shining with relief.
Owners by the Dozen (Slave of the Aristocracy Book 4) Page 11