Pride and Retribution (22 page)

‘I can provide details of his house.’ Genevieve said firmly. ‘I shall have a friend draw up detailed plan
s from the girls that have visited there.’

‘I have a maid that used to work for him. She left in terror and I was happy to take her on.’ Lady Geraldine Sharp
, known as Madame Secretary, said softly. ‘I’m sure she will know about below stairs.’ She looked at Genevieve. ‘We will arrange for your friend to meet my maid.’

‘I have a butler.’ Lady Millicent Graves
, the Marchioness of Carnarvon, known as Madame W, said thoughtfully. ‘He used to work for Markham. He wasn’t there very long, only a few months, but that is long enough to learn a household routine. I shall have him meet your friend, as well.’

‘Apparently he can’t hang onto his servants for very long.’
Evelyn said softly. ‘We will need to appoint messengers at some point.’

Harriet took Genevieve’s hand. ‘I can get a message to
Madame X when you are ready Madame Secretary.’

Lady Geraldine was almost sixty five and would not take a physical part in the retribution of the Duke, but she was a first class organiser and she made the perfect Madame Secretary. She was titled, above reproach and knew every person in London Society worth knowing and some who weren’t. ‘Well. I suggest we get on and I’ll spend the summer listening to the gossip about the likely return of the Duke. He has to come home sometime.’

Of course, the Duke didn’t arrive back in England until the new opening of Parliament, but by then the retribution council were prepared.

Epilogue

Early winter 1813

The Duke of Markham gave the whining whore on the bed, the back of his hand across her face and was satisfied with the explosion of blood from her nose. He felt his cock throb in anticipation as he pinned her down, smoothed his hand over the blood on her cheek and slowly wiped it over his cock. ‘See? Your essence over my cock?’ he said in a voice thick with passion and desire. He turned his head and looked at the other whore. ‘Where have you been?’ he asked coldly.

‘I had to go, you know?’ she answered miserably.

‘Well, you can get your clothes off and wait your turn in that chair!’ he spat and she dutifully did as she was told.

He returned his attention to the weeping woman on the bed, ‘and you can stop crying!’ he demanded. ‘I can’t stand snivelling women!’ He laughed coarsely suddenly. ‘Let me help you forget your tears.’ He said in a dangerous voice and the whore gritted her teeth for what was coming. He forced her legs apart and thrust his bloodied penis into her body with no finesse whatsoever as he took her, brutally. Pounding into her again and again, but he only found his own release as he licked the blood from her cheek, moaning in ecstasy as his penis pulsed and flexed. ‘An exchange of fluids, good, don’t you think?’ he asked in a self-satisfied voice. His blood was singing in his veins as he looked forward to satisfying his blood lust. It had been sometime since he’d had an Englishwoman and he’d forgotten just how prudish and weak they were. Italian women were so passionate rather than cold like the English.

He spent the better part of the evening amusing himself with the two willing bodies on his bed. He alternated between tenderness and brutality, but neither girl could walk properly by the time he told them to get out. He stood up from the bloodied bed and looked at the two battered women and said with contempt. ‘I’m going for a bath; don’t be here when I
get back!’ he walked naked into his dressing room where his valet had prepared him a bath.

The women dressed as best they could and left to be collected by the butler and the valet. The maids quickly changed the bed and banked up the fire for the night. By the time the Duke came back in his nightshirt, there was no evidence that anybody had been there. He climbed into bed between the crisp clean cotton sheets and sighed. He had found it a very satisfactory evening’s entertainment and he settled quickly to sleep in the huge ducal bed.

*****

The Duke’s butler had seen the two courtesans into a carriage for the local doctors and had assigned a foot man to care of them. Ashton sighed in frustration and again thought about changing his employer. He was a discerning butler and the agency had said the Duke had already had fifteen butlers in the last seven years. He was sickened at the behaviour in this house. A light knock on the front door came and he opened it in his usual stately manner. ‘Yes?’ He enquired of the lady standing on the door step, completely dressed in black with her face covered in a heavy black veil. She stepped over the doorstep and held up a large leather satchel.

‘In there is two thousand gu
ineas.’ Her voice was rough and unfamiliar. ‘Take the entire staff below stairs and stay there until morning, no matter what you hear. The Lord’s retribution has arrived for your master. I would suggest you seek out new employment tomorrow.’

‘Do I have an alternative?’ Ashton asked softly and turned as another lady bearing a sharp looking dagger came through the door.

‘Yes, you can choose death instead. Believe me, we are more than willing to do it.’ She said coldly.

‘I will comply.’ Ashton said calmly and accepted the purse. ‘I was going to resign tomorrow anyway.’

By the time the butler had collected all of the staff below stairs, there was a veritable gaggle of black veiled women standing silently in the hallway. He found the sight quite malevolent and rushed through the door to below stairs as fast as his legs would take him.

The wraith like women climbed the stairs in the dim light and all candles were extinguished in their path. There wasn’t a woman among them who didn’t know where they were going or the layout of the house.

They gathered outside the ducal suite and slowly eased the door open as the hinges had been specifically oiled earlier in the evening, by one courtesan who was even now undergoing medical treatment. Softly they crossed the sitting room and again opened the oiled bedroom door, seeing the huge ducal bed in the centre of the raised dais in the moonlight flooding through the window. They billowed into the room like a black cloud until they stood around the bed like dark sentinels. Slowly they lifted the eiderdown off him and then the sheets and blankets, until he was lying uncovered on the bed. His nightshirt was rucked tightly around his upper thighs. Very carefully four of the women slipped the length of black silk ribbon they carried about his ankles and wrists.

Harriet Saunders whispered in the Duke’s ear. ‘Ernest? You should wake up now. It’s your turn to feel the pain.’

‘Mmm?’ he mumbled, barely awake. But he jerked awake as the women yanked on the long ribbons and secured them firmly to the bed posts.

‘What are you doing?’ he bellowed and tried to buck himself free of his bindings. ‘You’ll pay for this!’ he snapped with all ducal pride.

‘Retribution.’ The six women said all at the same time as Harriet Saunders slit the front of his nightshirt with her dagger. She was gratified to see his erection was quite impressive.

The Duke screamed as the first blade sank into his abdomen, but it was more a bellow of frustration than pain, but the screams became more real as his manhood and testicles were sliced off and after that they turned to whimpers, until Harriet Saunders thrust her dagger into his heart. She delicately stood his genitals up in his mouth, smiled under her veil and sighed in satisfaction. She surveyed the bloody body with the dagger’s hilts protruding from his flesh.

‘All debts are paid,
Your Grace
. Enjoy hell.’

*****

Wilfred opened his eyes and looked at the mountain that was Lucille de Lacy. Her belly was like mount Snowdon under the white sheet. He was amazed to see his child move. It was like watching a wave roll under her skin and he could see it even through the sheet. Gently he smoothed his hand over the rolling bulge and felt his child kick.

‘Oooh!’ Lucy groaned, ‘that hurt you little weasel.’

‘Good morning my love.’ Wilfred whispered and leaned over to kiss his wife’s cheek.

‘Good morning.’ She said and began to struggle to get up. ‘I wish you would hurry up and get out of there.’ She told the child kicking her bladder. ‘It’s most uncomfortable.’ Wilfred pushed his hand under her shoulders and helped lever her upright. She hurried to the commode behind the screen and he heard her sigh with relief as she passed a copious amount of water. She appeared from around the screen and Wilfred’s heart jumped against his ribs as he looked at her ethereal beauty, her simple cotton gown floating around her fruitful body like a cloud and her dark hair cascading over her back.

She smiled at him coyly as she saw his arousal tent the sheet covering his lower body. ‘I can see you are in the mood this morning.’ She murmured as she arrived at his side of the bed. She caught up the edge of
the sheet as he laid back and folded his hands behind his head. She whipped the sheet off his body and just stood looking at his proud erection with relish. It fairly jutted up from the nest of curls in his groin, as if seeking her attention. ‘I have a feeling, my love, that this will be our last chance for this, for a few weeks, anyway.’ She lifted her gown and climbed onto the bed, straddling his thighs.

‘Why is that, my precious?’ he asked as he watched her remove her nightgown and marvelled at her breasts and the bulge of his unborn child. Slowly he smoothed his hands over that mountain of flesh.

‘Can you not see?’ she asked as she sat there looking down at him. He frowned and shook his head. ‘Look closer, Will.’ She took his hand and pressed it over the top of her bump. ‘Can you not see how far it has dropped?’ He noticed that the bump no longer seemed to be crammed up under her breasts and he could see a definite flat spot under her breasts before her skin bulged out with his child. He nodded again, still unable to find his voice. ‘Soon it will be here.’ She said and smiled.

‘How long?’ he croaked out and cleared his throat.

‘A matter of days, maybe sooner.’ She said as she slowly traversed his erection, making it pulse in her hand.

‘Damn, you test me, Madam.’ He murmured as his breath hitched.

‘Then let’s take a trip to Nirvana, before it’s too late.’ She smiled again and raised herself up, slowly lifting his penis and settling herself over it. They both sighed in ecstasy as her silky core sheathed him. She swirled her hips and made him groan.

‘Are you sure you can manage this way?’ he asked in a rather guttural voice, she thought. When she did this to him, he usually lost control of his speech and talked bawdy to her. She raised her eyebrows at him and she could see his lavender eyes glittering. ‘I could turn you over and give it to you on your knees.’

She frowned as she lifted and then sank again. ‘Do you not like this?’ she asked coyly, to which he groaned again.

‘I like it well enough, Madam, but you are being enigmatic again.’ He grabbed her hands and looked her firmly in the eye. ‘If it becomes too much, just let me know.’ He said and moaned again as he laid her palms on his chest. After a couple of more minutes it was obvious she was finding it a strain. Deftly he lifted her off his member with such strength that Lucy sucked in her breath. Carefully he set her down on the bed and scrambled behind her. ‘Just relax and leave it to me.’ He murmured as he stroked his hand down her back, over her hips and around the belly. Slowly he slid his manhood over her throbbing sex, making her moan and he teased her clitoris with the head for a moment, before sliding back to her entrance and slowly entering her throbbing passage. He gasped as he felt the tiny muscles pulse at his invasion and Lucy buried her face in
the pillow. He stroked gently in and out of her body, holding his child in his hands. Nothing was rushed or harsh and he gently stroked her clitoris to bring her total fulfilment. He felt her start to orgasm and slowly pushed in to the hilt and ejaculated smoothly. Gently he laid his cheek against her back, still cradling her belly in his hands. ‘I love you, Lucille.’ He whispered as he slowly withdrew from her and rolled them both carefully on their sides.

They lay unmoving for a time and Wilfred just remembered their tempestuous lovemaking from the very first time.  He gently stroked his hand over her hair. ‘Are you alright, my love?’ he murmured in her ear.

‘That was wonderful, Will, but I was right. We won’t be doing that again for a while. I feel rather dizzy and uncomfortable.’ She replied, making him get up on his elbow and look at her face. She turned to him with a gentle smile and he knew he would love this woman for the rest of his life. ‘We should get up.’ She murmured, but he was watching her eyelids close and knew she would be asleep in a few moments. Making love in the morning wore her out quickly now and he knew she was right. It was time to stop before they endangered either her or the child. It didn’t take long for Lucy to start snoring gently and he felt all the muscles in her body relax and again felt his child roll under her skin. He nuzzled his face against her side. ‘You are very active this morning. You should sleep and give your mother some rest.’ He murmured before he climbed carefully out of bed. He flicked the sheet over her before heading to his dressing room where his valet was waiting with a hot bath. He washed himself, was shaved and almost managed to dress himself before he went down to breakfast. He still had problems with his cravat and was grateful his valet was there. He met Betsy on the stairs. ‘She’s napping, Betsy.’ He smiled at the maid. ‘Give her half an hour.’

‘I don’t think so, My Lord. She rang the bell.’ Betsy said indignantly, smiled and continued up the stairs.

As he entered the breakfast room, Howard Cuthbertson was helping himself to a heaped plate of food. ‘Don’t you ever eat at home?’ Wilfred asked.

‘You know I like your cook, Will.’ He smiled gamely. ‘She’s the finest cook in London and your wife keeps the best table.’ He looked sharply behind Wilfred. ‘Is she not well?’

‘She’s fine, but she overdid it this morning, so she’s having a little more sleep.’

‘Are you still tupping your Countess?’ Howard asked lasciviously.

‘More like my Countess is still tupping me!’ Wilfred helped himself to a smaller breakfast. ‘It was her decision, not mine. I just didn’t argue. But I think tupping is at an end for now. She was pale and dizzy afterwards.’ Wilfred didn’t think it strange to share this kind of intimacy with his friend. Over the years they had very few secrets from each other.

They ate in silence and then opened the newspapers. Wilfred was reading The Times and
Howard was flicking through a gossip rag that had caught his eye. ‘Don’t let Lucy see that rag in this house, she might just lynch you.’ Wilfred said as he turned a page.

‘That’s unusual, as I found it on your doorstep.’ Howard replied and frowned.

‘You did?’ Wilfred asked in astonishment, and folded his broadsheet down to frown at his friend. ‘Why would it be on our doorstep? Lucy won’t have it in the house and anyway, Connors sends the boy for the papers. I don’t think we have them delivered.’