'Well... yes,' Toby replied, trying to hide the blush of pleasure he could feel welling up.
Riley let out a snorting laugh. 'Well, don't,' he said. 'You seem like you've got too much sense for all this rubbish, so think again, unless the idea of letting some fancy pants get you killed appeals to you more than it should.'
Chapter 20
The sight of Ellen Grayling, sitting astride her stallion, smirking with her usual superior air, came as no surprise to Harriet when Artie dumped her unceremoniously on the grass before the two horses, but when she sat up again and looked at the young woman on the horse beside Ellen, she felt a strange chill crawl up her spine.
Even with the girl's elaborately made-up face, the family resemblance was unmistakable and Harriet new instantly that this was the cousin she had never met, but there was something more, something about the curiously vacant expression on Sarah's face and the way she sat her horse as if she were not really there, but somewhere deep inside another world, far away and totally cut off from what was happening.
'So, it is you behind all this, Lady Ellen!' Harriet said, trying in vain to get to her feet. 'Well, you won't get away with this, I can tell you that. We already suspected you were involved and Master Handiwell and the soldiers will soon be here.'
Ellen Grayling leaned over in her saddle and regarded Harriet with a look of malicious amusement. 'Is that so?' she said languidly. 'Well, my dear Mistress Merridew, for your information we have more than two dozen men employed on this estate, all of whom are well trained in the use of arms. No doubt you heard the sounds of musket fire a little while back, yes? Well, I'm reliably informed that Master Handiwell and his sorry little band have now retreated, minus at least one of their original number. I don't think they'll be bothering us any more.'
'They'll be back,' Harriet snapped. 'Master Handiwell has sufficient evidence to lay charges against you and all your friends.'
'Even his own daughter?' Ellen retorted scathingly. 'Or haven't you told him of your suspicions in that direction? Ah, I see you're surprised I know about that. Well, you shouldn't be, my dear. The walls of the Black Drum have very keen ears at times.'
'That little vixen, Beth, I suppose?' Harriet said. She tried to think back, wondering if she and Ann Billings had mentioned Jane's name anywhere where her maid might have overheard them, but her memory refused to focus.
'Among others, maybe,' Ellen replied easily. 'Not that it matters who now, anyway. No, the main thing is that you are here. Say hello to your dear cousin, why don't you? I'm sure she can hear you, though I'm afraid she seems a little distant at the moment.'
'What have you done to her?' Harriet demanded, turning her attention back to Sarah.
Ellen sniggered. 'Nothing she hasn't enjoyed, though I'll admit I didn't give her a great deal of choice in the matter. Arthur, untie Mistress Merridew's ankles if you please, and help her to her feet. She'll have to walk back with us, after all. If only I'd thought, I could have furnished her with a mount to match her sweet cousin's.'
As soon as her legs were free Harriet scrambled upright, thrusting away Artie's efforts to assist her. Still enmeshed in the net and with her arms pinioned and all but useless, she stumbled across to Sarah and peered up into her vacuous face.
'Sarah?' she cried. 'Sarah Merridew! Look, it is I, your cousin Harriet. Are you all right?' Sarah blinked slowly and looked down, but her eyes were still glazed, her pupils dilated.
'Harriet?' she said eventually, her voice wavering. 'Ah yes, my dear cousin. Are you well?' Her face at last began to show some signs of animation, a series of peculiar twitches that started in her cheeks, spread to her painted lips and finally reached her eyelids, which began to flutter.
Harriet rounded on Ellen. 'She looks drugged!' she exclaimed accusingly. 'What have you given her?'
Ellen smirked. 'No drug I think you have ever tasted, Mistress Merridew,' she reposted, 'but a powerful one, nonetheless. Here, let me show you.' She wheeled her horse about, almost knocking Harriet sideways as she did so and reached out with her riding crop, using it to lift part of Sarah's long riding skirt up and away. For a second or two Harriet did not understand, but then, as her brain understood what her eyes were showing her, she recoiled in horror.
'Monstrous!' she shrieked, backing away. 'Utterly monstrous! You will surely hang for this infamy, Ellen Grayling. You and your friends!'
'I think not, my dear sweet thing,' Ellen replied, allowing the black fabric to fall back and cover the evidence of Sarah's enforced debauchery. 'Your friend Handiwell will no doubt try to come to your aid, but he won't get farther than the house itself, which will surely be his next approach. My dear brother will undoubtedly send him packing with a flea in his ear and, if he fails to understand the legalities of his position, then he will surely realise that his pitiful little force is sorely outnumbered. By the time he can persuade the authorities to send reinforcements - if indeed he can at all - it will be far too late.
'Besides, even with a hundred troopers he will still need a warrant to search this estate, and our family has more influence than you might imagine and people in high places who rather approve of what we do here. As a matter of fact, your dear cousin met one of those very people only last night, and he was greatly appreciative of the entertainment she helped provide for him.'
'Your terms,' Harriet said, trying desperately to change tack now, if only to buy a little more time, 'stated that you would release Sarah in return for a certain sum in gold. I have that sum with me now, or am I to assume that you have no intention of honouring your word?'
'You're a fast learner,' Ellen sneered. 'Of course you have the money, otherwise why would you have come, mm? But the money is secondary and, if it will make you feel any better, I shall see to it that it's returned to Master Handiwell in good time.
'No, the idea all along was to get you here, and your cousin's arrival was simply a means to effect that. Had she not turned up we should have had to find some other way before too long, and I must say I thought all this was just a mite over gilding the lily, but no matter, you're here now.
'And the timing is quite opportune in another way, too. You, my dear Mistress Merridew, are going to help us deal with another small problem. A certain party has been growing just a little too suspicious for comfort of late, and discrediting him would put an end to his busy bodying interference. Of course, you know our dear Reverend Wickstanner, don't you? A particularly unpleasant little oik, to say the least. Quite useless as a man, of course, but he has an unpleasant talent for snooping around and prying into things that don't concern him and, unfortunately for him, he overheard a conversation between two of our grooms a few weeks ago. Nothing very incriminating, but just enough to whet his appetite, and it's come to our notice that he's been asking around - discreetly, he thinks - trying to find out more. So far, fortunately, he's not gotten very far, but his type are persistent in the extreme and tend not to let go of something once they've got their teeth into it. No doubt you've heard or seen what's been happening to the Pennywise girl? That's Wickstanner's doing, though he's had to call in that so-called witchfinder to do his dirty work for him, the spineless little worm.'
'I don't see what Master Wickstanner has to do with all this,' Harriet declared uncertainly. 'I like him little more than you apparently do, but I have no dealings with the fellow. I have enough on my plate without becoming involved with his business.'
'And not even enough time to attend Sunday services, I hear,' Ellen chuckled. 'Which fact, among a few others he's concocted, would be enough to give him grounds to turn his attentions to you, once he's finished with Matilda Pennywise.'
'He wouldn't dare!' Harriet exclaimed, horrified at the suggestion. 'In fact, he has overstepped the mark already with what he has done to Matilda.'
'Undoubtedly,' Ellen agreed, 'but who is there to tell him so? Maybe Master Handiwell, but he's been preoccupied with trying to save your dear cousin here and now; with you disappearing as well, I doubt he'l
l give the wretched girl another thought, not until it's far too late.'
'Word is,' Harriet said defiantly, 'that the man Crawley intends to hang her tomorrow morning and Master Handiwell and Captain Hart are well aware of that. Whether I am still missing or not, they will take time to put a stop to that, I am sure.'
'I'm sure that's their intention, yes,' Ellen rejoined, 'but intention and execution are two differing beasts at times and, in this case, I think the execution will be of a different kind to the one Master Handiwell envisages.
'But enough talking; there is work to do and we are two miles from where we need to be to do it properly. Arthur, remove that net, manacle our guest's hands securely and make sure you remove that pistol I believe I can see hiding under her shirt. We wouldn't want any nasty accidents on the way back, would we now?'
'Even the Grayling family are not above the law of the land!' Thomas Handiwell stormed. 'You've had a man shot and killed, Captain Hart, and but for good fortune more of us could have died in that cowardly ambush.'
'Agreed, Master Handiwell,' Hart replied hesitantly, 'but I know what they will say if we do go to the hall and confront them. We have no proof it was Grayling's men who fired upon us, and from the map you showed me earlier, their estate is so vast that these robbers could easily have been there without Grayling's knowledge.'
'I think not, though,' Thomas growled. 'And we cannot just skulk around here and do nothing. It was bad enough before, but now Harriet is almost certainly in their clutches. We have to go and challenge them, perhaps unsettle them enough that they'll release the two womenfolk.'
'If the Graylings indeed do have the two young ladies,' Hart said, 'then I should think the last thing they are likely to do would be to release them so that they are then free to testify against them.'
'Then what would you advise, captain?'
Hart chewed nervously on his lip and paced slowly up and down on the gravelled courtyard. He and Thomas were alone by the inn stables, the soldiers all having taken the horses in to rub them down and feed them. Some distance away, Toby Blaine sat perched upon the corner of one of the troughs, a mug of ale clutched in his two hands.
'The only course I can think of, Master Handiwell,' Hart said at last, 'is for one of us to ride back to Portsmouth and lay the facts before a magistrate, first thing in the morning. Perhaps if we went together and, while you arrange for a warrant, I'll talk to Colonel Brotherwood and ask him to let me have perhaps a half company detachment of men.
'Warrant or not, if we march up to Grayling Hall with our present strength they may decide it's simpler to shoot us all down. They certainly seem to have the firepower for it.'
'And meantime,' Thomas retorted, 'they spirit away the Merridew girls and there's no evidence for us to find tomorrow.'
'Certainly, it's possible they might try something like that,' Hart agreed, 'but I could send Sergeant Riley and one man to keep watch on the place. Riley is a seasoned veteran and a former poacher, I understand. There are few men I'd sooner trust for such a mission.'
'He seems very reliable,' Thomas conceded, remembering how the Irish sergeant had reacted so coolly during the ambush. 'But it could be dangerous, sending just two men in there.'
'A lot less dangerous than marching in with a full platoon, yer honour,' Riley grinned, when the suggestion was put to him. 'I'll take Sean Kelly with me and we'll get rid of these red coats, too. They make for too easy targets. Far better something dark, if y'can perhaps do the honours, sorr?'
'I'll find some jackets for the two of you,' Thomas replied. 'Whatever happens, we cannot let them move the women.'
'If yer girls are there, yer worship, we'll find 'em,' Riley promised, 'and dependin' what else we find, we'll maybe even have 'em out of there even afore you and the captain sorr gets back with yer warrant.'
'It may not be as easy as you think, sergeant,' Thomas warned. 'There are probably a couple of dozen armed men up there, maybe even more.'
The grizzled Irishman raised one eyebrow and grinned. 'Sure, and Sean and meself have sorted worse odds than that of a Saturday night in Dublin,' he quipped. 'And if ye've ever been faced with even half a dozen drunken Irishmen, then thirty paltry English lackeys - beggin' yer pardon, sorrs - are nothin' to worry over. We'll be all right, Sean and me, don't you worry now.'
The full implications of what she had walked into only began to dawn on Harriet when the party eventually reached what appeared to be a huge barn and she was hustled inside, pushed into one of what she supposed had once been stalls and forcibly stripped by the two grooms.
Despite her frenetic struggles and attempts to gouge the eyes of the older man, whose name she learned was Nathan, she was soon completely naked and stood, shivering against one wall, desperately trying to preserve what remained of her modesty with her hands. Even that was quickly denied her, for her arms were drawn roughly behind her back and secured there with linked metal cuffs.
'Damn your souls for eternity!' she hissed, spitting at Artie, who simply laughed at her final attempt at defiance. At the same time Nathan stepped forward and delivered a heavy slap to the side of her face, the impact sending her staggering sideways.
'You worry about your own soul, you arrogant little bitch!' he snarled. 'Any more of your filthy nonsense and I'll hang you up by your thumbs while we finish our work.' Blinking furiously, with tears now filling her eyes, Harriet managed to bring his face back into some sort of focus; the expression she saw on his face assured her that his threat was no idle one.
'Now then, Artie,' Nathan said, when he saw that the fight was, temporarily at least, gone out of her, 'let's have that trestle in the middle here and mount the bitch on it. Yes, that one there, the one with the nice fat cock on top.' He turned back to Harriet, leering at her.
'You look like a good cock in your cunt would do you a world of good,' he rasped. Harriet recoiled in horror, seeing for the first time the trestle, from the top of which rose a dark and forbidding looking shaft. Momentarily the horror of what they were proposing to do threatened to overwhelm her and she fell back against the timber partition, her knees buckling so that she would have fallen to the floor had not her senior tormentor caught hold of her arm and pulled her upright again.
'Probably never had a man inside you, eh?' Nathan sneered, with awful accuracy. 'Well, we can't have you staying virgin now - not where you're going to. It'd give the game away for sure. Artie, gimme a hand with her, but oil that damned cock a bit first.'
The younger groom turned away from the trestle and moved to a high shelf on the far side of the cubicle, reaching up to take down a dark coloured glass jar, which he brought back to the centre of the room, unstoppered and dipped two fingers inside. When he drew them out, Harriet saw they were thick with some sort of grease, which he proceeded to transfer to the leather shaft, smearing it liberally and evenly.
When he was done and the jar returned, he came over and took up a station on the opposite side of Harriet from where Nathan stood, still gripping her upper arm. Then, at a quick count of three, both men placed a hand about one of her thighs and, steadying her by her elbows, lifted her high off the floor, drawing her legs wide apart and carrying her the short distance to where the awful contraption awaited her.
'No-ooo! Please!' Harriet wailed. 'You surely cannot! Oh, such foulness!' She tried to struggle again, but such was the position in which they held her that her best efforts were to no avail and then they were lowering her, guiding her unerringly, until she felt the hard tip of the phallus pressing against the entrance to her sex.
'Nooooo!' she whimpered. 'Please no... oh God... aaahhh!' She gasped, as they allowed her weight to descend and the unyielding rod began to penetrate her, thrusting its way through the tender necklace of tissue, pressing onward until she finally felt the rough timber beneath her buttocks and knew she was finally and fully impaled.
Such was the height of the horizontal beam of the trestle that Harriet's bare feet dangled just clear enough of the flagstones b
eneath to prevent her from raising herself up again, so that, until the two brutish men decided otherwise, she was helplessly trapped, unable to free herself and all but unable to move and certainly not the latter without causing the fat dildo to exert pressures in places that Harriet had not, until now, fully realised she had.
'Bring a razor and soap, Artie,' Nathan instructed the younger man. 'Apparently the other wench is shaved down there. I'll tend to the shaving myself, though, otherwise you're likely to nick and cut her and they might notice that.'
Harriet stared at him through eyes grown round with disbelief, hoping she had misunderstood the meaning of his words, but it quickly became apparent that she had not.
'Now then, missy,' Nathan said, when Artie had brought the bowl of steaming water, a brush and some soap, 'this won't actually hurt you, not unless you wriggle about and make me catch your flesh.' He had produced a razor from somewhere and also a short leather strop, which he laid along the top of the trestle in front of Harriet and began sharpening the wicked looking blade on it.
Harriet hardly dared breathe, even when he was simply lathering the soap over her neatly trimmed triangle and, when he finally brought the blade close, every muscle and sinew in her body went rigid. She closed her eyes, partly unable to actually witness the humiliation that was being inflicted upon her, partly because she was too terrified to look, convinced that the deadly implement would slice through her most intimate flesh.
Nathan, however, was true to his word. He worked carefully and methodically and, when the final stroke was complete, not the slightest trace of a cut was to be seen. Harriet now began to shiver, for the sensations from her newly depilated mound were indescribable and seemed to emphasise her nakedness ten times over. What came next, however, was worse still.
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