by April Hill
"Well, with roads and elegant carriages such as this, there must be a civilized town or village somewhere. It can't be too far. If we begin walking in the direction from which the carriage..."
"Why must we walk," I asked reasonably, "when we can ride?"
"We can't simply steal it, Abigail."
"Why on Earth not? It seems to me that we've become rather good at stealing things in our travels. Besides, we won't actually be stealing it. We'll be returning it to its rightful owners. And in addition, these poor animals are no doubt thirsty. It would be terribly cruel to leave them here, to die of starvation, or to be stolen–by somebody else, I mean."
Edward smiled. "Flawless logic, darling. Get in. I shall drive, and you will watch for the magistrate." (In some ways, our adventure in time had been very beneficial for Edward. He can be such a dreadful stick-in-the-mud.)
* * * *
To my delight, I discovered that the rightful owners of our newly acquired transport were apparently persons of very respectable means, for there were a number of trunks and valises, both inside and at the rear of the carriage. I had learned an amazing truth since we began our journey through time–once one begins down the path of larceny and crime, however unintended, each succeeding step becomes very much easier. While Edward drove on, I forced open and gleefully pillaged a brassbound trunk containing a great quantity of ladies' dresses and undergarments–even shoes–all of the highest quality. In a second, smaller leather trunk, I discovered a lesser amount of men's clothing–obviously belonging to a rather portly gentleman. While the women's attire would fit me nicely, Edward, should he choose to "borrow" these items, would look ridiculous. I cackled with delight and tore off my ugly brown dress. If we were to go the gallows as highwaymen, at least I would be the best-dressed corpse present at the hanging.
There was very little commerce on the road on which we traveled, and we encountered only three carts all day. We passed fields of what Edward said was sugar cane, and an occasional small bungalow set back among the trees. The houses were simple in appearance, as though they belonged to poor families. We stopped to water the horses at a small stream that ran from the mountains and emptied into the ocean, and at times that afternoon, we could see groups of dark-skinned people at a distance, working in the fields. It was dark, however, when we finally saw the lights of a town ahead of us. Edward stopped the carriage, got down from the driver's seat, and opened the carriage door to whisper to me.
"Should we be stopped, allow me to speak for us, Abigail. I will explain that we found the coach, and were… Dear God! What have you done?"
I glanced down at the very charming pale blue watered silk frock I had put on–and the pale blue slippers, which pinched rather badly, but matched my gown perfectly. "I've changed clothes, obviously. There are men's things here, as well, if you..."
"Abigail," Edward cried. "How are we to claim our innocence when you have obviously spent hours plundering these peoples' belongings?"
"As always, Edward, you exaggerate. I have simply borrowed..."
Suddenly, a horse and rider appeared from the gates to the town, and approached rapidly. Edward grabbed my hand and yanked me out of the carriage, but we had taken no more than two steps when the horseman drew his animal to a halt and leaped from the saddle.
"Lord Anthony," he shouted, with a small bow. "Thank God you have arrived at last! And Lady Margaret! When you were delayed, I feared you had been taken by brigands or raiding pirates! The roads between here and Port Royal are not safe for gentlemen by day. By night they are… Well, no matter. You are safely delivered, and that is what matters. My Mistress will be greatly relieved. I will see you to the house forthwith and send word of your arrival at once."
Edward and I exchanged glances. I was about to ask who this man's mistress might be, and in what sense he was using the word, when Edward gave my arm a sharp pinch. The man was looking about now with curiosity. "What has become of the driver and the servant we sent with the carriage?"
Without so much as a moment's hesitation, Edward told the first of what would be a great many excellent lies.
"I'm afraid we were waylaid, my friend, some miles back. Your driver and servant ran away–in fear for their lives, I suppose. Lady Margaret and I hid in the bushes until the brigands left. When the driver failed to return, we decided it best to drive on to the safety of the town."
"My God! Did you see who the villains were who accosted you? Rumors abound that the brigantine Prodigal was seen off the coast only two days ago–and striding about its cursed decks was that evil blackguard, Timothy Muldoon, Black Tim! If it was Black Tim's filthy crew that beset you, you are fortunate to be alive, and..." He leaned forward to whisper the rest into Edward's ear, but his whisperings were quite loud enough to reach my own carefully cocked ear. "And dear Lady Margaret is lucky to have been spared what I am given to understand is a horrendous fate–that fate said to be worse than death for the likes of an innocent English gentlewoman of her genteel upbringing."
Edward nodded his understanding, but before he could inject a suggestion that we might move our discussion elsewhere–somewhere safer, perhaps–the man continued. "First, and most horrible, it is said, the defenseless lady's drawers are ripped from her body, and she is flung on her back to the rolling deck to be ravished again and again–her tight cunny forced to accept the enormous, throbbing cocks of first one, and then all of a gang of lust-crazed pirates who have been for months at sea without women! And then, I have been told, the poor dear woman is thrown facedown over a rum barrel, trembling in terror, only to feel the soft cheeks of her lovely young buttocks being spread wide by grimy, probing fingers. I shudder to tell this next thing, but in honesty, I must! Once they have placed her so, with her helpless bottom in this scandalous position, the villains are said to then draw lots–to see which of them will take the unfortunate lady's only remaining maidenhead. Yes! It is horrible, but absolutely true. The winner of this vile contest has won for himself the right to impale the poor, innocent creature on the thick mast of his giant, stiffened dick–to stretch and bugger the dear lady's sweetly puckered little pink bumhole. And as he thrusts deep into her most private orifice, she can do nothing other than writhe helplessly, crying out with shame as she endures the obscene intrusion with what courage she can muster."
It could hardly escape my notice that our new friend had begun to sweat profusely as he related this woeful tale of torment. Indeed, he seemed to take an inordinate amount of pleasure in adding each gruesome detail of the imaginary woman's frightful ordeal as they occurred to him. Midway through the discourse, Edward raised one eyebrow and looked my way, but unwilling to offend this disgusting man in case he might prove of some use to us, neither he nor I interrupted his story–a story our new acquaintance was obviously finding extremely enjoyable.
"And then," the man concluded, his eyes glazed, "her ordeal still unfinished, the young woman is stripped naked, so that each man can fondle and mouth her breasts and suck her tender pink nipples. Then, she is spread-eagled over the still warm barrel of a ship's cannon, tied hand and foot and left thus–with her posteriors obscenely raised and her head down. Her soft buttocks, creamy thighs, and even her tender cunny and bumhole are now laid bare–exposed to the gaze and the touch of any of these monsters who chooses to violate her with his filthy fingers. After a time, Tim Muldoon himself appears on deck, to inspect his prey and deliver her final humiliation. With a cruel smile on his lips, Black Tim steps forward to choose his weapon–sometimes selecting a cat o' nine tails or a wide leather strap, and sometimes a slender bamboo cane. Again and again, he raises his strong right arm and rains blows down upon the poor lady's delicate, shivering buttocks, 'til her white flesh is scorched livid with red and purple welts."
Exhausted now, the man stopped, panting heavily.
"Oh," Edward replied simply. "Well, then, I think, for Lady Margaret's sake, we should find immediate lodgings, in a good inn. Would you know of such a..."
"But, my lord," the man protested, his breath still coming in gasps. "Surely, you are to stay at the home of my mistress, as planned. I was sent to fetch you and your dear lady there, as soon as the carriage brought you here from your ship. Mrs. Dunwiddie will be most upset if you decline her invitation and take lodgings elsewhere. Despite Mrs. Dunwiddie's absence, the house is fully staffed and at your service, and cook likewise assures me that the larder is overflowing. I am instructed to apologize humbly that she is unable to welcome you to Jamaica herself. She has ordered me to assure you that your every comfort will be fully attended to until she arrives home, just three days hence–at which time, she says, the two of you can conclude the important business that brought you here."
Edward looked at me, and I at him.
"We will, of course, be delighted to accept Mrs. Dunwiddie's kind hospitality, as so delightfully planned," I said promptly, ignoring Edward's frown and the vigorous shake of his head. "Tell me, is your mistress's house far?"
The man bowed. "Not at all, Lady Margaret. If it pleases you, Lord Anthony, will you join Lady Margaret in the comfort of the coach, while I drive the remaining distance to Mrs. Dunwiddie's plantation?"
Trapped now, Edward could do little else other than agree.
"Forgive me, my lord," our new friend said, "but I rudely neglected to introduce myself, earlier. My name is Johnson." He bowed again. Then, having tied his own horse to the back of the carriage, Johnson held the door open for Edward and I to get in. He closed the door behind us and climbed quickly into the driver's place. Edward grabbed my elbow and turned me to face him.
"What were you thinking, Abby? We have no idea what we're getting into it, doing this."
"I know exactly," I said smugly. "I am going to get into a hot bath and a clean, soft bed. And tomorrow morning, after I have slept for at least ten lovely hours between clean sheets, I am going to stuff myself until I nearly burst from Mrs. Dunwiddie's overflowing larder. And then, I am going to take another bath. That, Edward, is what I am going to do. What you do is entirely up to you."
Wasn't that a lovely, spirited little speech? It was made possible by the fact that with an open window and perhaps six feet between our new friend Mr. Johnson and ourselves, Edward did not dare to take sterner measures by administering another spanking. Nor, I believe, did he really wish to. Edward was as eager for a hot bath and a soft bed as I.
Later, after we had both soaked in a hot copper tub and wrapped ourselves in Mrs. Dunwiddie's sinfully soft towels, Edward and I discovered to our surprise that we were not quite as tired as we had both thought. Perhaps it was the very long span of time since we had last had an opportunity to make love, and perhaps it was Mr. Johnson's colorful description of what might have befallen me had I been taken captive by that notorious pirate, Black Tim Muldoon. In any case, I seriously doubt that Mr. Muldoon and his entire crew could have done to me that night all that Edward found to do–and entirely by himself, at that. (Edward can be very inventive, given the opportunity, and I am nothing if not receptive to amorous innovation and creativity.) We had no rum barrel over which I might be bent, of course–a failing in Mrs. Dunwiddie's décor that was easily remedied by the presence in our quarters of a large oaken blanket chest with a half-round lid. The chest doubled nicely as a barrel, and once I was arranged properly over it–on my stomach, with my bottom… well, adequately prepared–the barrel proved quite comfortable for what Edward cautioned me might be just the tiniest bit uncomfortable, it being my first time.
One thing led to another, as it so often does, and before the long evening was over, much of our hostess's elaborate and elegantly upholstered furniture had been put to uses for which I fear it was never intended. (One could say, I suppose, the same thing of certain parts of my person, if one harbored highly orthodox attitudes about such practices.)
My bottom had arrived at Mrs. Dunwiddie's home a bit sore from Edward's earlier and quite painful spanking. And then, in the course of our evening's exertions, that part of me had participated–quite pleasantly, mind you–in several activities that had left it a good deal more tender. I was vastly relieved, therefore, to find that not only was there no rum barrel in our beautifully appointed room, but that it also lacked a cannon. Thus, despite Edward's apparent wish to reenact in as great a detail as possible Mr. Johnson's pirate fantasies, I was spared the final flogging–but not a single delicious moment of the preliminaries.
Alas, when morning came again, so did Edward's irritation at having been put in what he called our "untenable" position by my "ridiculous and dangerous" insistence on a hot bath and a comfortable bed. As we dressed, an argument ensued over how we were going to extricate ourselves from what was now a possibly perilous situation, among people we neither knew, nor knew to be worthy of our trust. We were dressing in our borrowed finery and about to descend to the dining room (where a servant had informed us breakfast was waiting), when I became enraged at Edward's blaming this latest crisis on me. Whereupon, I threw a shoe at his head.
Apparently unmoved by the memory of last night's romantic interlude, Edward instantly reverted to type and picked up a lovely, hand-carved wooden hairbrush from the dresser.
Before I could protest, he had sat down on the bed and tossed me across his knee, thrown up my dress, and opened the rear portion of my lace-trimmed pantalets. The pantalets were new, but what followed was very like all of Edward's impromptu spankings–hard, fast, and delivered precisely on target to my unprotected and still well marked sit spot. Unwilling to share my agony with Mrs. Dunwiddie's staff, I bit down on a corner of a small pillow to avoid howling while Edward went about blistering every inch of my quivering buttocks with the hairbrush.
When he had at last made his point, Edward dumped me back on my feet and stood up. "Now, finish dressing, Abigail, and join me downstairs. Over breakfast, we'll try to work out the best way to get away from here without arousing suspicion. And if you do just one more thing to worsen this mess we're in, I swear to you, I will cut a handful of switches from that lovely willow tree I noticed outside our bedroom window, and wear them out–one by one–on your deserving ass. And in the mood I'm in now, maybe, I'll invite Mr. Johnson to watch." With that, he left me to seethe, to straighten my rumpled new clothing and to put on my overly tight shoes.
I sat on the edge of the bed, thinking about divorce as I bent down to do up the buttons and laces on my shoes. I was angrier with Edward than I had been since we left home, and I was so busy adding up his shortcomings that at first, I wasn't sure that I actually heard the small noise from outside. But then, just a second too late, I realized that what I had heard were footsteps–on the balcony.
And a moment later, before I could scream for Edward, the ruffians were upon me.
Chapter Eight
I knew at once, of course, that the five rough-looking fellows who had just burst into my bedroom (or Mrs. Dunwiddie's bedroom, in actuality) were on a nefarious mission of some sort, so I dropped instantly to the floor and scrambled under the bed to avoid their company–a device that worked well for perhaps ten seconds, until one of my assailants–a burly, hirsute giant of a man–simply reached underneath, took hold of one of my ankles, and dragged me out on my stomach. I had begun screaming the moment I saw the intruders of course, but Edward either did not hear my cries of distress or believed them to be merely another phase of my earlier tantrum. In any case, when I realized that rescue was not forthcoming, I had little choice but to take matters into my own hands. When the ruffians pulled me to my feet, I began to weep and to shiver, quaking in my ill-fitting borrowed shoes.
One of the men, apparently the group's leader, took my chin in his hand and peered at me closely. Had he not been a criminal, as I suspected he was, he would have been quite an attractive and appealing man–extremely tall and well built. His features, from a feminine point of view, were unusually pleasing. He wore a white shirt of a rather poetic design that featured long billowing sleeves, and the shirt's open collar exposed a broad, muscular
chest and a dark thatch of hair. His hair was quite long and fair, and caught at the nape of his neck with a narrow velvet ribbon. All in all, in his skin-tight tight breeches, crimson sash and tall leather boots, he cut quite a romantic and dashing figure. Notwithstanding his good looks, however, the man and his associates were quite obviously villains, and to be feared.
"I beg you, sir," I sobbed. "Pray, do not hurt me! I will do whatever it is you ask, but please do me no harm. I have little of value, but everything I own is there, for the taking." I pointed with one trembling finger to my hostess's lovely gilt dressing table, hoping its dainty drawers held something more than the absent Mrs. Dunwiddie's silken undergarments and hairpins. Four of the men hurled themselves upon the delicate chest and began ripping it apart. The leader, however, reacted with anger to their greed.
"Belay that," he roared. "We've not come here to plunder and pillage!" While all of this was happening, I continued wringing my hands and wailing at the top of my lungs in the most irritating manner imaginable, hoping to persuade my captors that I was incapacitated by terror. This is a ploy readily available to women, since men are always predisposed to believe that all womenfolk are little more than helpless, slow-witted children. The ploy appeared to work, because the handsome brigand released me for a moment in order to grab the arm of the nearest man–a grossly ugly fellow with one eye covered by a dirty black patch.
"Our purpose here is to capture the elusive young Master Algernon Dunwiddie himself, and until that deed is accomplished, there'll be no thieving. When the filthy little leech is in my hands and on his way back to the ship–where he will be promptly and thoroughly hanged–you'll be free to help yourselves to whatever of his dear Mother's baubles you can lay hands on, but not before. You, there, Barker. Stay here and keep watch on this woman, while we search the premises for our slippery prey."
Barker's salacious grin provided absolute proof that pirates suffer not only from a serious lack of moral character, but from very poor dental hygiene, as well.