by Mason, Nina
“Of course,” she said, squeezing the sponge. “I do the same for many of my male patients." Smiling his way, she added, “I am told I have a gift.”
Jesus, Joseph, Mary, and all the Saints and Martyrs.
He’d assumed when she’d called herself a virgin she was an innocent, like his Rosebud, but he’d clearly been mistaken—and all at once felt very differently about Mistress Wakeman than he had before. She was still a lovely person and a gifted healer. And no one could call him a prude. But, health benefits aside, he could not hold in the same high regard a woman who made a practice of curative cock sucking.
Did Jones the apothecary know of her gift? Did her father? Aye, well. Perhaps that was why they’d arranged the marriage.
“I would concur,” he said, still stunned. “You are indeed very skilled at, erm, seminal extraction.”
She recommenced washing him, starting with his genitals. The water had grown cold, but he did not mind overmuch. At least it helped keep his libido in check. The sponge made its way up his body. Belly, ribs, chest, shoulders, neck, face. As she washed his hair and ears, her scent filled his senses. Fresh-baked bread and something herbal and fresh.
He closed his eyes and conjured Maggie.
Warm breath caressed his mouth. A tongue traced the outline of his lips. He parted them, inviting her tongue inside, but she seemed content to keep it light. He was not. He could hold back his feelings no longer. His arms went around her and pulled her down on the bed, down on top of his reborn erection. He thrust against the solid warmth of her fabric-layered body, seeking the sanctuary of mutual affection.
“Maggie. Oh, Maggie. God, how I want you.”
She abruptly withdrew. “Who the devil is Maggie?”
Oh, shit.
He opened his eyes to find Mistress Wakeman looking down at him with daggers in her eyes. He offered her a sheepish grin. “The woman I plan to marry.”
Her glare softened ever so slightly. “Do you love her?”
“Aye. To a nearly unbearable degree.”
Her brow furrowed. “Does she know how highly you regard her?”
“Nay.”
“Then tell her, you fool,” she said, turning back to the basin. “No woman with any sense would turn down a man of your charm and comeliness.”
He heaved a sigh, sat up, and pulled up the bedclothes to cover himself. “If only it were that simple.”
“How long have you been carrying a torch for this Maggie person?” she asked.
He released a sigh of frustration. “From the moment I first clapped eyes on her.”
“I envy you that kind of love,” she said, turning to him with a smile. “I shall probably never experience it.”
“Save your envy,” he said, downhearted. “I might deserve it if she returned my feelings, but for now they are unrequited—a plague I would not wish upon my worst enemy.”
* * * *
The first part of Maggie’s plan worked like a charm. All within the castle apart from herself and Mrs. McQueen now slept the sleep of the dead. She’d dispatched the housekeeper to bind the others whilst she kept guard over Hugh. Fortunately, he’d succumbed in the chair in the library—only a few steps from the chamber behind the bookcase.
Whilst she waited for Mrs. McQueen to return, her mind harkened back to a Shrove Tuesday play Hugh had taken her to see in the village a few years ago. Shrove Tuesday, a moveable feast celebrated by many faiths, marked the day of indulgence preceding the fasting of lent.
The play, called Perceforest, told of a girl cursed at birth by a jealous goddess. One day, the goddess pronounced, the girl would prick her finger on a piece of flax and fall into a sleep from which she would never awaken.
Zelladine, the heroine of the play, grew up, took a lover called Troilus, and eventually fell under the enchantment. Whilst she slept, Troilus crept into her room and was so overcome by her beauty, he had sex with her insensible form. Nine months later, Zelladine, still asleep, gave birth to the child he put in her. The child, seeking to nurse, sucked the sliver of flax out of Zelladine’s finger, breaking the spell.
Hugh had defended Troilus for raping Zelladine, which, even back then, infuriated Maggie.
In the present, the desire to throttle him within an inch of his life galloped through her veins. She fought it, fearing her blows might awaken him. Better to wait until she could restrain him. Better to wait until he was sensible enough to suffer as he’d made her suffer.
An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
Mrs. McQueen returned, assured Maggie the others were bound and gagged, and, with no small effort, helped Maggie hoist Hugh to his feet. Draping his arms over their shoulders, the two women carried him through the bookcase passage into the flagellation chamber. Inside, they laid him on the bed and tied his wrists and ankles to the bedposts.
Maggie checked the bindings to be sure they were secure before pulling down his breeches. She then crossed to the wall of whips to select her instruments of torture.
The housekeeper, standing by, asked, “What are you going to do to him?”
Maggie scanned the options before reaching for the cruelest-looking whip: a flogger with knots tied in the ends of its stiff leather tails. Taking the scourge down from its peg, she said with a smirk, “Every diabolical thing my mind can conceive.”
“Should I stay and help?”
“Only if you have a strong constitution.”
Anxious gaze on the door, Mrs. McQueen said, “Perhaps ’twould be better for me to keep an eye on the others.”
Maggie smiled approvingly. “That sounds like a very good plan.”
After she exited, Maggie returned to Hugh and cracked the whip across his crotch. “Wake up, you festering pile of excrement.” She regarded his insensate form with the most loathsome of sneers. “The time has come to pay the piper.”
To her consternation, Hugh did not wake up; he merely groaned as she laid into him with the scourge. By the time she was finished, a cross-hatch of angry red marks painted his flesh from neck to knees.
Maggie felt better.
Liberated.
Empowered.
Vindicated.
At least more so than when she’d been in his thrall. Those who said revenge was sweet were not far wrong. Beating him whilst he remained oblivious, however, was not nearly satisfying enough. She wanted to hear him scream. To hear him beg for his miserable life like a dog. To hurt and humiliate him the way he’d hurt and humiliated her.
Harrowing scenes of the things he’d done to her flashed through her mind. Striking her sex with the crop, forcing her to suck his cock, making her wait on him at table, kicking her down the stairs. Rage welled up inside her, thick and molten. She tossed the whip aside and strode to the cabinet of curiosities. A thrill of satisfaction scudded through her as she opened the drawer containing the Godemiché she’d earlier nicknamed “Goliath.”
“I have a phallus, too,” she murmured, unbothered by his deafness to her words. “I simply keep mine in a drawer.”
She took the gargantuan dildol to the wall of pegs, liberated a buggy whip from its peg, and took her tools to where her insensible prisoner lay. She walked round the bed several times, sizing up his anatomy whilst working out a strategy. She would show him consideration equal to what he’d shown her.
None, in other words.
Taking aim, she raised the whip and snapped the tail against his bollix.
“Wake up, you despicable fiend.”
His eyes opened, but remained hooded for a moment before opening wide.
Good. At last, he comprehended his predicament.
He jerked on his restraints. “What do you think you are doing?”
“Getting my revenge,” she said with a smirk.
When he caught sight of the mammoth dildol in her hand, his eyes opened even wider and, for the first time, she saw fear flicker behind his gaze.
“What do you mean to do with that?”
Setting the whip on the
bed, she ran her fingers over the object in question. “Can you not guess?”
“You wouldn’t dare,” he said.
She lifted an eyebrow in challenge. “Would you care to place a wager on that?”
Moving around to his face, she aimed the dildol toward his mouth.
“You bitch,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “I insist you untie me at once.”
She laughed as wickedly as she knew how. “Know this, you maggot-infested wound on mankind: whatever you suffer at my hand will be naught compared to what Robert will do when he learns how viciously you abused his pregnant wife. Do you honestly think he will let you live when he learns of your plots and misdeeds?”
As images flashed of Hugh forcing his cock into her mouth, she climbed on the bed on her knees. “Open wide,” she said, raising the dildol over his face, “and thank your lucky stars I’ve not castrated you—though doing so remains a distinct possibility.”
“Jesus, Maggie,” he said, thrashing his head from side to side. “I was only having a bit of fun. Can we not let bygones be bygones?”
Fury rose inside her like a wall of fire. She climbed atop him and sat down hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. “I did not find it the least amusing, you spawn of Satan. Now open your mouth, and prepare for a taste your own medicine.”
When he refused to obey, she slammed the Godemiché against his lip-shielded teeth. He flailed beneath her to thwart her effort, but she relented not. Finally, he tired of the fight and opened his mouth, admitting the bulbous tip of the Godemiché. He bit down on the wood in an effort to halt the dildol’s progress. Maggie, having none of it, shoved Goliath deeper. She Would not be satisfied until he gagged. She only wished she could make the thing ejaculate.
She fucked his mouth for several minutes before growing bored with the exercise. Now what? Beat him some more? Punch and kick him? Throw him down the stairs? Much as she’d like to do all of those things, her options were limited. If she untied him, he might regain the upper hand. And no punishment, however tempting, was worth losing control.
Perhaps she should kill him here and now and be done with it.
Distress shot to the surface of her psyche like a trout striking a fly.
As much as she wished Hugh dead, she could not kill him on her own. Firstly, he was Robert’s brother. Secondly, murder was a mortal sin for which she’d be condemned to an eternity slow-roasting in the fires of hell. Thirdly, she lacked the know-how and wherewithal to take a man’s life. And finally, immediate death was too good for him.
Better he should remain alive and suffer for his sins.
The thought turned her mind to the Biblical parable of Cain and Abel, which had never made sense to her. For years, she’d pondered a seemingly unanswerable question: If the brothers were the only two offspring of Adam and Eve, and their parents were the first man and woman, where their wives come from?
Then, one day, feeling braver than usual, she’d put that very question to Sister Mary-Gregory.
“There was more to the story than contained in Holy Scripture,” the sister told her. “Cain and Abel, you see, were both twins born with a sister. When the brothers came of age, their parents decided ’twould only be right for each to marry the other’s sister. But Cain, being selfish and headstrong, did not want Abel’s sister. He wanted his own, who was more beautiful than Abel’s twin, for his wife. Adam and Eve, unsure how to settle the matter, suggested each of their sons make an offering to the Lord, who would be the final judge. The Lord chose Abel, the obedient son, and Cain, in defiance of God’s wisdom, murdered his brother and took the sister he desired.”
The memory triggered a realization. Hugh, who’d tried to murder his brother out of jealousy and spite, was Cain, making Robert Abel. She just prayed that, unlike in the parable, Abel would have his revenge.
* * * *
“Wake up, wake up! You will not believe what I have found.”
The patient, who’d only been half asleep, could not help but quip in response, “Your clitoris?”
“No, you fool,” said Mistress Wakeman with a slight scoff. “Open your eyes and have a look.”
He squinted against the sudden light.
She held something in front of his face, but too close to focus upon. A leaflet of some sort. Snatching the bill from her hand, he pushed up on his elbow and struggled to focus his bleary vision. The paper bore a drawing and some text, but all he could make out at present was the largest of the words.
REWARD!
He frowned at her hovering figure. “You disturbed my rest to show me a wanted poster?”
“The man in the picture is not a criminal, he is missing,” she said. “Take a closer look and you will see the resemblance. The sketch is of you, my lord. The Duke of York is offering a reward for help in solving the mystery of your disappearance.”
He blinked at the poster, still straining to read the words whilst absorbing all she’d said.
“The Duke of York is looking for me?”
“Apparently.”
“But what should he want with me? I’ve never encountered the man except to open the door to the king’s bedchamber to let him in or out.”
Now better able to focus, he could see the leaflet offered only the barest essentials. To claim the reward, any with information pertaining to the whereabouts of the man pictured (himself, though with long hair and not the best likeness) should call upon His Grace at the Palace at Whitehall.
“How the blue blazes should I know?” she returned with vinegar. “But you must be a person of great import or—” Stopping mid-sentence, she rubbed her chin. “Unless you are a dangerous outlaw and the reward is but a ploy to draw you out of hiding.”
The suggestion struck a chord of concern. Was he a criminal? He did not think so, but, given his memory lapses, aught might be possible. In any event, due caution must be exercised.
“Perhaps you ought to go on your own to the palace and make inquiries,” he suggested. “Then, if you smell a trap, you can lead the king’s brother astray.”
“What? And give up the reward?”
He rolled his eyes. “You care more for the money than our friendship?”
“Friendship is all well and good,” she returned with a frown, “but will not put food on the table or pay our mounting debts.”
“Very well.” He sighed. “Go on your own, learn what you can, and use your best judgment as to what to disclose pertaining to my whereabouts.”
Even were the poster not a ruse to draw him out of hiding, there was no question of him going with her to the palace when he could barely stand and had naught but a nightshirt to his name.
“Perhaps I should claim the reward in any case,” she said. “That way, I can give you half. If you do turn out to be a criminal. Which will enable you to get away. When you are well enough, of course.”
She plucked the leaflet from his hand, claimed the chair, and sat there several moments studying the sketch. Then, looking into his face, she said, “I do not believe you are a criminal. I am a reasonably good judge of people and I would have sensed if you were a villain. Thus, His Royal Highness must want to know where you are for some other reason.”
He arched an eyebrow in her direction. “What other reason?”
She shrugged offhandedly. “Perhaps you are a libertine who ruined one of his daughters and he wishes to find you and force you to marry her. He has many illegitimate daughters, does he not?” Her countenance brightened and a smile bowed her comely mouth. “Perhaps she is the woman you love and all will turn out well!”
“I think not.” His tone was tart by design. “The woman I love is a ward to my family—a foundling who was raised by the Sisters of St. Teresa. My father took her from the convent at an early age to be a companion to my sister. Though her lineage is unknown to us, I cannot imagine she is of royal blood.”
“’Twas only a thought.” She smirked as if she spoke in jest. “Because I like you and want you to be happy.”
/> “I like you, too,” he returned. “And am prodigiously grateful for your superior caretaking, which went above and beyond the call of duty.”
His face heated as the memory of her “seminal extraction” flashed through his mind.
“Well,” she said, blushing, too, “perhaps she is not your lady love, but you could do worse than marrying the daughter of the future king, even an illegitimate one.”
The thought sobered him. ’Twas entirely possible she’d guessed right. God knew, he’d put it around enough. So the odds were fairly good he’d slipped his tarse up the petticoats of one of the Duke of York’s daughters without knowing her identity.
“And if he should not become king? I would be stuck in a loveless marriage with a broken heart.”
“Why would he not become king? He is the heir presumptive to the throne, is he not?”
“He is. But powerful forces oppose his ascension.”
“You speak of the Whigs and the Exclusion Act, I presume,” she said. “My father says the king will prevent the bill from going forward, even if it means disbanding the Parliament.”
He blinked at her, unable to believe his ears. “Doing so would be political suicide.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But I believe it speaks well of the king that he should defend his brother to such lengths. After all, what crime has the duke committed beyond owning his beliefs?” She heaved a sigh and met his gaze. “Why do the Protestants hate us so? Are we not every bit as Christian as they are? If anything, we are superior, as ours is the One True Faith.”
“Their hatred has far more to do with fear and power than with our beliefs,” he told her. “Transubstantiation and the pope aside, of course.”
“I do not take your meaning,” she said. “Pray, explain yourself further.”
He took a few moments to collect his thoughts before saying, “Thanks to propaganda and fear-mongering, the Protestants believe we Catholics mean to subvert the government by placing the Holy Father upon the throne of Great Britain—an utterly preposterous notion, I might add. For ’twas they who rose against the crown, waged civil war, executed the king, and eliminated the monarchy—all whilst we Catholics risked life and limb to defend the status quo. But, as I’ve said, bigotry arises from hatred, and hatred from fear. And most human fears are incredibly illogical.” He shook his head disparagingly before meeting her bewildered gaze. “Does that help put the matter into perspective?”