Following Eloise’s spanking, things began to go more smoothly. Taking advantage of her submissive state, Henry had cut her dress to a more practical length, leaving her legs showing but disposing of the ribbon bows that had constantly caught in vegetation earlier in the day. She now walked at the back with Natalie, still sulking but making considerably better time than before, especially as each time she lagged too far behind Henry had only to threaten her with a repeat of the morning’s performance.
Finally, as dusk began to fall, they reached the ridge above the priory of St Peter, which appeared as orderly as it was remote. After a cautious approach, they knocked at the portal to what Eloise declared to be the wing for lay guests and were admitted. To Henry’s relief, they proved entirely welcome, Eloise being known to the abbess, who was full of sympathy and concern. Unfortunately, this extended only partway to himself and Gurney, who were shown rather brusquely to the stables and told to make themselves comfortable in the straw while the girls were taken off to enjoy the amenities of the guest wing.
Henry dropped to the straw beside his bundle with a sigh of resignation. His entire body ached, he was hungry and his throat was dry. Given that no mention had been made of supper, he began to dig into a bundle for some of the provisions they had taken and also one of the precious bottles of Corton.
‘No bloody gratitude,’ he complained as he worked on the cork of the bottle with his knife. ‘You’d have thought Eloise could have found us a room of some sort. I mean, they could even have locked the door if they really think we’re not to be trusted.’
‘Very precious with their wares, these nuns are,’ Gurney concurred.
‘Pretty little things, mark you,’ Henry continued. ‘Did you see the little novice peeping out from behind the mother hen’s skirts? Damn, I’m going to have to push this thing in.’
‘Let me try, sir,’ Gurney answered.
‘It’s all right, I’ve got it,’ Henry said as the cork slid down into the neck of the bottle. ‘Pretty as a picture, she was. I wonder if there are any more like her in there?’
‘Stands to reason, sir; it’s a nunnery,’ Gurney replied. ‘Dozens, I’d think.’
‘Good God,’ Henry muttered, and took a pull at the bottle as he tried to imagine even a single dozen girls like the novice nun who had chanced to be in the guest house when they had arrived at the Priory St Pierre. Just the sight of Gurney and himself had flustered her to such an extent that she had hidden, blushing, behind the senior nun responsible for the house. She had been strikingly pretty, delicate and somehow fey, with big liquid eyes, yet it had been her shy response to his mere presence that had excited him. Shaking his head to try and rid himself of the disturbing thoughts, he passed the bottle to Gurney.
The big man put it to his lips and took a deep draught, then passed it back.
‘Eighteen-year-old Corton,’ Henry informed his friend, ‘from one of the best vintages. What do you think?’
‘Tastes like pig-dung in blackberry juice,’ Gurney remarked.
‘I shall remember that tasting note, next time Christie’s auction some fine Burgundy,’ Henry answered.6
For a long while they were silent, passing the bottle back and forth and each thinking their own thoughts, also taking bites of the bread and rich cheese that had been dug out of the provisions. Henry, despite his best efforts, found his mind drifting back to the little nun. The priory loomed above them, visible through the half-doors of the stable in which they had been quartered. Centred on the chapel, it was a maze of quadrangles, colonnades and towers, apparently tacked on to one another as circumstances dictated, presumably across centuries. Several windows showed light and Henry found himself wondering which belonged to the novice – or any other novice, for that matter. Taking the bottle from Gurney, he put it to his lips, only to find that it contained nothing but dregs.
‘Damn!’ he spluttered. ‘You’ve given it a black eye, Gurney. No matter, I’ll open another.’
As he struggled with the cork, he began to wonder about the possibilities of doing something about his rapidly increasingly sense of sexual frustration. The half-bottle of wine he had drunk was beginning to have an effect, setting his tiredness aside and making him feel increasingly bold. Surely, he surmised, it should be possible to seduce a young girl, nun or otherwise, who had obviously been so affected by his presence? Then again, somewhere within the priory were Eloise, Peggy and Natalie, whose willingness could more or less be taken for granted.
‘I tumbled Eloise in the Château,’ he remarked to Gurney, ‘but I could well do with another. I dare say you’d not turn down a chance to tup Peggy, either?’
‘I rather fancied a go at that little Natalie, as it is, sir,’ Gurney replied.
‘Fine, isn’t she?’ Henry replied. ‘Although I like a little more meat, as a whole.’
‘She’s not much stock in the apple dumpling shop, it’s true,’ Gurney said, ‘but I’ll wager she has a sweet little arse.’
‘She does,’ Henry assured him, ‘she does. Do you think we could find them?’
‘They might be in the wing we arrived at, sir,’ Gurney suggested. ‘Then again, they might not. Still, there’s no shortage of flash-tail elsewhere. The nuns, I mean: think of ’em, dozens of ’em, and every one a white ewe and maiden to boot.’
‘I am thinking of them,’ Henry answered as the cork finally gave way. ‘I wish I wasn’t.’
‘The little one was built a bit on the lines of Natalie,’ Gurney continued meditatively, ‘only paler of skin.’
‘The novice?’ Henry asked.
‘Ay,’ his friend confirmed.
‘I wonder where she is?’ Henry sighed as he once again looked up to the dim maze of roofs.
Henry paused as a nearby window sprang into light, the flickering, orange-yellow quality of which indicated that someone was a carrying a candle. For a moment he wondered if he might have been heard, but no challenge came and no window opened. Moving cautiously forward once more, he signalled Gurney with a gentle tug to his sleeve. The illuminated window was three along from where they were crouched, and they quickly reached it. Peering inquisitively within, Henry discovered that the expedition was about to pay off, at least partially.
The room into which he was looking was a cell, a dull, cheerless place devoid of any ornamentation other than that which Henry considered most important – the occupant. This was a young, delicate woman with long black hair and a face both beautiful and innocent. Normally, innocence in women was a virtue for which he had little time, preferring willing, wanton girls who knew what they were doing. This occasion was different, the nun’s innocence adding spice to what was a purely voyeuristic thrill.
Rapt in his attention, he watched the young woman pull up her shift of plain wool and present her pert and naked bottom over a chamber-pot. His view was excellent, including the lightly furred crevice of her bottom, her pouted anus and then, as she began to relieve herself, a stream of golden fluid running from her cunny. He watched her pee in delight, half-hoping she would do something ruder still or maybe play with herself when she had finished. As she wiggled her bottom to shake loose the last drops of pee, Henry found himself with his cock a hard and uncomfortable bar of rigid flesh within his breeches. Yet, for all his lust, there was a coldness about the nun’s beauty that made him hesitate, and instead of accosting her he waited until she had extinguished her light and then moved on, crawling carefully below her open window.
For all the ethereal, icy aspect of the nun, Henry was by no means disheartened. One, he reasoned, might hold herself remote from worldly cares. Others, equally, were bound to have joined the priory for less spiritual reasons, possibly having dallied with the wrong man at the wrong time. The absence of any interesting sights in the next three lighted windows did little to dent his optimism, and on the fourth it was borne out. Two girls occupied a cell, one petite, one tall, but both slender and dark haired. Their age suggested them to be novices, although as they wore nothing bu
t plain woollen shifts, it was difficult to be certain.
The smaller girl was kneeling at the foot of her pallet, head down and hands clasped in prayer. Beside her stood her companion, holding up the girl’s shift to expose a small, round bottom from between the cheeks of which peeped the brownish dimple of her anus and the taut, pink lips of her cunny. Why her friend was holding up her shift was not apparent, although Henry guessed that it was somehow intended to magnify the girl’s sense of shame or humility to have her bottom showing as she prayed. Henry swallowed, wondering how it would feel to immerse his cock in the silky purse of the girl’s vagina as she knelt in prayer. He could almost feel the firm little buttocks pressed into his lap and hear her cry as her virginity was taken.
‘Strange doings, these brisket-beaters,’ Gurney remarked.
‘Damn fine, though,’ Henry whispered back.
The kneeling girl stopped praying and turned her head up to speak to her companion. As she moved, her face became visible, with a rapt expression that Henry was sure came only from lust – and a powerful lust at that.
‘What’s she saying, sir?’ Gurney asked.
‘She’s begging to be made penitent,’ Henry explained. ‘Hold hard . . . splendid! She’s asking to be beaten.’
Gurney made no reply, but watched intently as the two novices continued their ritual. Having been asked to beat her companion, the tall girl stepped to the side. The small girl’s shift was left stranded halfway up her back, leaving the full moon of her pretty bottom naked for the men’s inspection. Henry made the best of the view, squeezing his cock and balls through his breeches as he admired the girl’s rear.
‘I’ll swear her cunt’s a touch dewy,’ Henry stated quietly.
‘I reckon so,’ Gurney replied, ‘with the thought of a whacking, I dare say.’
The tall girl had been searching beneath the pallet and drew out an evidently well-concealed switch of plaited withies. The implicit guilt of concealing the thing increased Henry’s optimism further, as what the girls were doing was clearly not with official permission. The smaller girl shivered at the sight of the switch, looked up into her friends eyes, then bowed her head and raised her hindquarters.
‘By God, I’d like to sink my cock in that!’ Henry exclaimed as the girl thrust her cunny up into a yet more provocative position.
The tall girl raised her switch, then brought it down across her companion’s bottom, drawing a sharp cry of pain and leaving a thin red line across the pale skin of the pert buttocks. There had been an ecstatic quality to the small girl’s yelp, and Henry found his cock harder still. Another stroke of the switch left a second red line on the girl’s bottom, this on one cheek and terminating within a inch of the pouting anus. The beaten girl’s vulva had continued to moisten, with a bead of white fluid showing over the vaginal opening, while her anus pulsed sullenly with the expectant clenching of her buttocks.
Twelve times the vicious little switch was applied to the girl’s quivering bottom, leaving it criss-crossed with red stripes. She was sobbing, yet had her bottom thrust out in a pose that suggested anything but reluctance. Further testimony was given to her sexual excitement by the swollen, glistening wetness of her vulva and her heavy, urgent breathing. After the twelfth stroke, the tall girl knelt to kiss her shivering, chastened friend, first on the lips, then the nape of her neck, and then on the fiery globes of her bottom. The response was for the small girl’s thighs to part, offering her cunny in a yet more blatant display. Henry, imagining the feel of his cock in the girl’s virgin quim or even the tight rose-bud of her anus, decided that he could wait no longer.
‘These two are, I think, more to our taste,’ he remarked as the tall girl’s fingers slid between her companion’s reddened buttocks, ‘and, by God, if I don’t have them now, I’ll burst!’
‘Best not to be hasty, sir,’ Gurney answered doubtfully. ‘They might not be ready for what you and I’ve got to give.’
‘Nonsense,’ Henry retorted. ‘Look, the little one’s cunt is running like a burst pump.’
Rising, he pushed open the casement, favouring the girls with a polite bow as they turned at the sound.
Eloise heaved a deep sigh. Across the table at which she was seated, the prioress, Reverend Mother Anna Danne, had been listening to an abridged version of her story with a sympathy that contained a hint of self-righteousness.
‘So I am bereft,’ Eloise continued, ‘and thrown into the company of an insane Englishman who regards life as a jape set up solely for his amusement. I will return, though, once all this foolishness is over, and reclaim my lands – with or without my father.’
‘I have no doubt that you will come through your trials a wiser and more devout woman,’ the prioress answered.
‘So I may hope,’ Eloise responded, ignoring the thinly veiled dig at her reputation, which both women knew was far from that of a devout Catholic.
‘I must retire,’ the prioress announced. ‘I will have a prayer said for you at matins.’
‘Thank you, Reverend Mother,’ Eloise replied, only to be cut off by a piercing scream from high among the priory roofs.
Seven
‘Idiot!’ Eloise raged. ‘Do you think of nothing but bedding women?’
‘How the hell was I to know?’ Henry blustered.
‘They’re nuns, you imbecile!’ she stormed. ‘What did you expect them to do when two great hairy barbarians come crashing through the window in the middle of the night?’
‘As a whole, such trespasses have received a warm welcome,’ Henry said defensively.
Eloise snorted and turned her back on him, her mind seething with fury at his lust and stupidity – also with jealousy, although this was not something she would have admitted.
They stood on a track some way from the priory, surrounded on all sides by the black woods of the Morvan. Feeble moonlight illuminated the area, making ghostly shapes of the trees. Peggy and Natalie stood to one side, accepting their expulsion from the priory with stoicism if not grace. Of Gurney there was no sign, although she was sure he had been present when her anger at Henry had broken to the surface.
A sound among the trees made her start, provoking a quickly suppressed need for masculine comfort. Again it came, now distinct as the clip of horses’ hooves.
‘Henry,’ she said querulously, her night fears abruptly overriding her anger as visions of a vengeful Jean Faugres crowded into her mind.
‘Just Gurney, I expect,’ Henry replied. ‘He went back to steal some horses.’
Natalie Moreau looked up at the night sky through the bare tree branches high above. Her ears were straining, but not for the eerie night sounds that occasionally came from far off in the forest. Rather, she was intent on the tone of Eloise’s breathing. Only when she was sure that her mistress was asleep did she rise slowly into a crawling position and start off across the carpet of leaves and fern towards the dark bulk of Todd Gurney.
Despite their inability to communicate in more than monosyllables, she had found herself drawn closer to the big Englishman throughout the day. His bulk and power seemed to offer protection, for which she felt a strong need; and, while she knew that the end result of her actions would almost certainly be a well-whipped bottom from Eloise, she was determined to at least offer him the chance of sleeping with her.
She found him, and tentatively reached out a small hand, only to have a massive one lock on her wrist. A little shock of surprise and pleasure went through her and then she was being drawn in towards him. Their mouths met and his hand moved from her wrist to her bottom, cupping the whole of one tiny cheek through her dress. His other arm went around her back and strong fingers began to stroke the nape of her neck. Natalie melted into his arms, making no protest when her own hand was placed on his cock, nor later when he mounted her and slid his full length into her juice-sodden cunny.
Henry awoke damp, cold and in a foul temper. A night spent in a hollow in the woods had left him with a number of aches, while his head thr
obbed with a pain that he was sure came from Eloise’s constant nagging before they had made camp. A combination of darkness and his own sense of guilt had dissuaded him from giving her the spanking he felt she deserved. Neither she, nor Peggy, had been game for the erotic play he so desperately needed after peeping at the nuns. To make matters worse, he had spent much of the night listening to sounds of passion from Gurney and Natalie.
He stretched, wishing for coffee, and ham and perhaps kippers with a liberal portion of Devon butter. None of it appeared: only the dank trees, the huddled forms of his companions and their newly acquired horses, which stood nearby looking as dispirited as their masters. Eloise had been furious at Gurney’s theft of the three horses from the priory stable, but had been quick to accept their boon, selecting a filly which Henry now noticed was roan.
After walking across to where Gurney lay – snoring with Natalie in his arms and apparently oblivious to the conditions – Henry poised his foot for a hearty kick, only to think better of it and give Natalie’s out-thrust bottom a gentle prod with his toe.
‘Up, the lot of you!’ he called; then, on a sudden, mischievous impulse, ‘To arms! Peasants in the camp! It’s Jean Faugres and the devil himself behind!’
Eloise’s immediate scream of alarm and frantic scramble returned the smile to Henry’s face, as did the succeeding expression of indignant fury when she realised that they were alone.
Henry’s mood continued to improve as the morning went on. The clammy autumn night had given way to a day even warmer than the last, and riding not only allowed him to ease his legs but to offload the various coins and trinkets they had carried away from the Château de St Romain. Better still was the fact that he had Peggy riding before him, with her magnificent bottom pressed hard to his crotch. The jogging motion of the horse and his frustration of the night before had combined with the feel of soft female buttocks to give him a raging erection, which was now so prominent that Peggy had began to giggle and throw him bright-eyed glances.
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