by Jeb
**********
"Has everyone else gone to bed?"
Catherine leaned back in the chair at her nightstand, her silk nightgown a welcome relief from the constricting ball gown. Molly, her young maid, had just loosened the elaborate arrangement of Catherine's hair, and had let the dark tresses flow into her hands as she took up the brush and began to brush her Mistress' hair.
"Yes, ma'am. Your husband just saw Colonel Lefanu out."
Thank God for that. Catherine closed her eyes, and relaxed back into the gentle rhythm of the maid's brushing. Usually, ten minutes of this treatment had Catherine fully relaxed and ready for sleep... but her mind was restless, and as the girl smoothed Catherine's dark, silken hair about her shoulders, she sat straight up in the chair.
"Just pin it up, Molly," Catherine told the girl. "I think I'll sit up and read for a bit."
"Yes, ma'am." Catherine picked up her book as the girl's skilled fingers gathered the heavy mass of hair and wound it atop her head, securing it artfully with a single pin. Catherine smiled, nodded dismissal, then settled back into her chair as the girl departed.
Drowsiness would not come, though. The book did nothing to hold Catherine's attention, and sleep held no attraction for her. She closed her eyes, trying to will herself to sleep, but Charles Redmond’s portrait kept tumbling before her eyes.
She looked down at the book: a woman’s reminiscences of travels through India, which Catherine had enjoyed comparing to her own.
India. That was it. That was what haunted her about the painting of Charles Redmond.
In India, Catherine had quickly come to realize that there were things about the intimate life of man and woman that she had never dreamed, but which teemed beneath the surface of that wild, exotic country. It felt to her as though every native man or woman that she met must be possessed of carnal skills and secret knowledge that both terrified and intrigued her.
And that was what she felt when she looked at the portrait of Charles Redmond: terror and intrigue… and a sure sense that his knowledge of the ways of man and woman was very deep indeed.
Catherine sighed, and tossed the book aside. I’m not sleeping anyway. Might as well make some tea. Mrs. Williams would be appalled at the idea of her rustling about in the kitchen without supervision, which made the idea all the more appealing.
Catherine picked up a small candle, and quietly made her way down the dark stairs, turning toward the kitchen… then stopped as a noise from down the hall came to her ears.
Philip’s study? What on earth would he be doing there at this hour? She was tempted to simply continue on to the kitchen, but he’d certainly hear her, so she might as well at least look in on him.
She stepped to the door, seeing light flickering from underneath it. She pushed on the door and peered inside.
“Philip?” Across the room, a small lantern was set at one end of Philip’s desk. The rest of the room was in wavering darkness, but there was no sign of her husband. She set down the candle on the sideboard.
“Philip?” she repeated, stepping all the way into the room… when she heard the sound of the door closing behind her!
As though it had materialized from out of the ether, a man’s enormous hand clamped itself over Catherine’s face; the palm sealed her lips closed, and she could feel fingers of iron pressing into her cheek as she was pulled backwards.
The feel of his hands was so different from that of Philip's that they might have been different species altogether. Where she could easily shake free from her husband's grip should she choose, these hands were as inescapable as fate. It was as though she were in the power, not of a man, but of a monsoon— a force of nature, such as she had experienced in India: so completely overwhelming as to render even the thought of resistance pointless.
The hand over her face pressed her back until her head came to rest against a thickly-muscled chest. Wildly, she tried to cast her eyes up to look behind her to her attacker, but his face remained lost in the shadows.
She heard a rustle, then the snap of fabric rending, and she gasped as the hand slipped from her mouth.
“Not a sound, girl.” A resonant voice in her left ear, and she winced as her arms were pulled behind her with terrifying ease.
His fingers went to work: for all their evident size and strength, they were deft and sure. Catherine felt a length of the thin, plush cord which he had evidently pulled from the curtain rod wrapped around her bare wrists. Its bite was not cruel, but it was unyielding as he bound her tightly, passing the cord over itself to cinch her hands in a tight hold. Her wrists crossed over each other, her hands waved uselessly against her back.
“P… please…” Catherine couldn’t decide if she faced greater danger by defying him, or by not trying to save herself by raising the alarm.
“I told you to keep silent.” The voice was low, and not loud, but didn’t need to be to penetrate Catherine to the marrow.
There came a sharp tug, the sound of fabric ripping, and Catherine realized that he'd torn a strip from the skirt of her nightdress! She took a breath, readying an outraged protest in spite of his warning, when she felt her mouth covered by a wide band of the silk!
Not even her fear was greater than her outrage as Catherine squalled a muffled protest against this treatment. She felt the cloth press firmly against her lips, the pressure making it hard to move her jaw. She tried to throw her head to one side, to free her mouth from the binding, but his strength was too great, and he succeeded in wrapping her head tightly; the silk followed her face's contours, and bit tightly into her cheeks.
Catherine squirmed, and kicked backwards, her bare heel bouncing harmlessly off a soft leather boot. Undeterred, her shadowy assailant continued to wind the cloth around her mouth, a second layer now atop the first, muffling the struggling girl’s cries.
Stay calm, she told herself. If he meant to kill me, this cloth would be about my throat.
She felt the band around her head tighten even further as he fastened a knot, catching the downy hairs at the nape of her neck; her mouth was as well stifled as she could imagine it being, her attempts to cry for aid reduced to subdued whimpers.
She made another futile yank at his arm, and tried once more to kick back at him. Her captor lightly avoided the blow, and chuckled.
"What a hellcat I seem to have caught here. Let's have a better look at you." And with that, he spun Catherine around to face him, sending her at the same time staggering backwards out into the light, her back against the opposite wall.
As the bound girl stumbled out of the inky shadows, the pin in her hair came free, and as she faced her attacker for the first time, the mass of dark tresses fell loosely about her shoulders and over her breasts, a cataract of liquid midnight, framing her face, and gleaming in the flickering lantern light… and as she stood helplessly glaring back into the shadows, she heard him give a sharp intake of breath.
"By God..." came the plangent voice... "Doesn’t my brother just have the devil's own luck in everything!"
Brother? Catherine had barely thought the word when the man stepped out into the light, and she found herself staring with horror into the black eyes that had so often gazed down at her from the portrait in the hall: her husband's brother, Charles Redmond.
Now she shrieked into her gag, desperate with fear, kicking out blindly, sending a chair toppling over with a loud crash, as she tried to race past him; his iron grip on her arm stopped that.
"Damnation!" the man cursed. "Now you've done it! The house will be up in no time." He paused, looking in frustration about the room. Whatever he came for, he's not found it yet. Catherine somehow felt this to be a small triumph.
"All right, then," his dark eyes raked her disheveled appearance. "By God, if I can't get at anything else, I can at least take one of his treasures with me." Without another word, he reached down, wrapped an arm about Catherine's waist, and threw her bodily over his left shoulder!
The ease with which he did it was terr
ifying—she might have been no more than a bundle of rags. Her unbound hair trailed down behind him, and the wild kicking of her bare feet seemed almost distressingly comical under the circumstances; his strong hand kept her firmly in place on his shoulder.
As he made his way toward the door, he seemed to be taken by a thought; he paused to glance down at the desk, his eye coming to rest on the sliver snuff box and the jewel-encrusted knife that Philip used to open his letters. With a move of his free hand, he swept the trinkets into the pocket of his muddy brown greatcoat.
Ducking down the main hallway before anyone had responded to the sounds, Charles raced from the house, the madly-flailing Catherine over his shoulder, raging uselessly into her gag. The bound girl tried to look about her, to see if rescue might be at hand, but the profusion of her long, dark hair fell about her face, trailing near to the ground, as she hung over his shoulder.
In the dimness, a huge shape rose up: a horse, so black as to be near-invisible in the dark, and one of the biggest that Catherine had seen—seventeen hands if he was an inch. The animal had been standing as still and silent as the night itself, but at the approach of its master, it seemed almost to come to attention, preparing itself for the ride ahead.
Catherine felt herself lifted off her captor’s shoulder, and flung, face-first, down onto the horse's back. Charles then produced some sort of cord with which he deftly fastened her ankles together, then threw himself up into the saddle behind her. One hand rested on her back as the other chucked the reins, and at a barked command, the steed took off at a gallop.
Catherine flinched at the sudden movement, terrified of falling, trussed as she was, but Charles Redmond’s powerful legs guided the beast with an expert’s control, and his hand on her back ensured that she stayed firmly in place. The tang of sweat and old leather filled her nostrils. She twisted to try and look back, fearful that she would be taking her last look at her home, but again her sable tresses flew into her eyes, obscuring her vision. Thinking it pointless to strain her neck muscles if she couldn't see, she lowered her head, in terrified defeat, as the horse thundered on into the night, bearing away its rider and his helplessly bound and gagged prize.
Chapter Two
The pounding of the horse's hooves seemed to send the very power of the earth coursing through her. The raw smells in the damp night air... the sharp tangy odor of the sweating, muscular haunches that her face was pressed against... it was utterly primal. Catherine could think of it no other way to describe it: she had been taken from her civilized life, and plunged headlong into the “natural” world of which the poets wrote so easily and rhapsodically— but they did their writing while sitting in drawing rooms, not lying tied and gagged across the back of a steaming black horse. Nature, red in tooth and claw indeed...
She gnawed on those thoughts as her mouth sought release from the stifling gag. Even if she were free to speak, she’d not have risked her abductor’s wrath for the slight chance that she might be heard by some potential rescuer, but shedding any discomfort at all would be a blessing. Since returning from India, her skin had softened to the point that the cord was chafing her wrists and ankles miserably, and no amount of bravado would allow her to forget her peril.
Was this what the ancient Celts had done? she wondered as she bounced madly, sprawled across the great leather saddle. Seized the women they desired, and carried them off... She tried to picture how she must look: slung across the horse’s back, trussed like the Christmas goose, muzzled like the family dog... wondering what Charles Redmond was making of the appearance of his captive…
What is the matter with you!?! Catherine scolded herself. My “appearance”? You're not being “carried off” as someone's bride-- you're being kidnapped by a man who, by all accounts, is extremely dangerous! A man who has a grudge against your husband... a grudge, she realized, that he might choose to settle in some unspeakable manner, sending more shudders through her helplessly bound form. Remember, you’re Lady Catherine Redmond… and… and…
A particularly violent change of direction slapped her face against the horse’s flanks, and she sagged, no longer able to buoy herself with that thought.
There is no more Lady Catherine, she found herself despairing. Such fancies were for civilized drawing rooms. Here, in the wild and the dark, nothing existed but muscle and sweat, impulse and desire… man and woman.
**********
After what felt like hours, the horse came to a stop in front of what appeared in the darkness to be a small cottage.
Once he had dismounted, Charles Redmond reached up to lift his prisoner from the horse's back; though his huge hand had been all that kept Catherine in place during their ride, she'd not been foolish enough to attempt to escape by rolling off the horse, bound as she was: no amount of bravery would protect her from a fall off the huge beast.
Once more, he heaved her trussed form upon his shoulder, and the exhausted and frightened girl was dizzied as she fell across his back, her long, dark hair streaming down behind him. Catherine was acutely aware of the position of her buttocks over his shoulder... and of the gentle pressure from his hand, as he held her in place— it was more than blood rushing to her head that was bringing a flush to her face now.
He threw open the door to the small cottage, carrying her inside.
As best she could make out, upside down and with the dark curtain of her hair obscuring her vision, it was the sort of small shack that a gamekeeper or attendant might have maintained, with only the barest of furnishings.
Charles Redmond gave an easy shrug of his powerful shoulders, and Catherine felt herself thrown down onto a rough bed, which was placed up against the far wall. She landed on her back, and did her best to scramble up to a sitting position, trying not to put too much weight on her bound arms; the strain in her shoulders had begun to pass from unbearable to paralytic. Nevertheless, she would show this ruffian that she was not cowed.
She glared up at him, sitting as erectly as she was able, tossing her head, shaking the disarranged locks out of her face, determined to hide the fear in her eyes.
Dim light made its way through the windows, and Charles Redmond was a huge, dark shape, framed in the moonlight, standing over her. He stepped closer, and the cold light slashed across the side of his pale face.
Charles' eyes were wide, now, and Catherine realized that this was probably the first time he'd had a chance to get a good look at her, since first seeing her in the dim candlelight of the study.
“My God...” he breathed the words, as if to himself. He reached out his right hand, and let its fingers caress her wind-whipped hair. Catherine shuddered, quaking with fear. Fear and... something else? For an instant the picture flashed into her brain of those strong fingers of his ceasing their light stroking, and instead locking in her silky tresses, gripping her with such force... she shook her head, as if to throw off both his touch and her own disturbing thoughts.
The fingers left off stroking her hair... and she saw his eyes drop to where her chest heaved for breath under what remained of her nightdress. His eyes took on an expression as though the treasure he'd sought was never in her husband's study at all— but was right here, now, in his grasp.
His hand now moved to her chest... and his fingers undid the top button!
An enraged scream emerged from beneath the cloth binding Catherine's mouth, but Charles Redmond seemed not to notice. She squirmed as well as she was able, but her bound arms soon made contact with the wall behind her, leaving her nowhere to go to escape her captor's intentions.
Catherine now began to whimper behind her gag, as Charles moved his hand to the next button. Her arms strained as she pulled at her bonds…
And if my hands were free… what then? She tried to imagine herself clawing at his eyes like an animal... but somehow, she couldn't quite see that picture. The only picture that would come consisted of Catherine's naked body writhing beneath large, strong hands that played her like a fine violin.
An
d, in fact, his hands hadn't ceased, and Catherine could hear his breath quickening at the sight of his exquisite prize, a quickening that matched the gasps coming from beneath her gag.
She closed her eyes, gritting her teeth. He would do what he would with her, that was clear. And she, helplessly bound, had no choice, did she? No choice but to give her body over, to submit to...
“Damnation!”
Catherine’s eyes snapped open at the sound of the curse; she blinked back tears, fully expecting to see him towering before her, exposed and rampant.
Instead, he was standing several feet back from her, staring down at where she lay captive, glaring blackly… but still fully clothed.
“By God, that's what he'd have led you to expect, isn't it?” He was breathing heavily, as though mastering himself had been a form of physical exertion, and slowly came to stand over her again. “No doubt my brother has told you what a monster I am. No doubt you'd expect such a man to take low advantage of his helpless prey.” His face was now inches from hers, intensity radiating off it like sunburn.