"Has he fucked you, whore? Has he? Lie to me again and get another lash of the belt."
Helene turned away and the second strike hit across her back and shoulder. Her maid valiantly tried to make him stop, but afraid he would turn his belt on her instead, Helene yelled at Elyce to leave. To her relief the little maid obeyed without question and Gilbert kicked the door shut. He advanced again, shoving Helene onto her back across the bed. He ripped her nightshift down to her ankles and lashed her again with the belt, but this time she managed to catch hold of the end of the leather strap.
"Stop!"
He forced his free hand between her kicking legs, forcing her thighs apart. "You'll be sorry for lying to me, filthy slut! That bastard's been up here, hasn't he? I saw you running after him today in the hayfield. Did you think I wouldn't know? I could smell him on you. His spunk on you where he marked you like his bitch."
Why had she gone after Salvador that day? Of course she'd known Gilbert would see. He was not stupid. He'd been suspicious from the moment her came and the scene with d'Anzeray at the gate must have solidified his ideas, put him on the lookout. But in desperation she'd had to go and see her lover again. She couldn't bear being without him, whatever the risk.
Suddenly the door crashed open again and Elyce ran back in with Harold and a drawstring sack. While the boy flung himself at Gilbert's legs from behind, knocking the man forward and off balance, Elyce covered his head with the dirty sack. Gilbert whirled around, trying to see, but she pulled the rope tight around his waist, clamping his arms to his side and rendering him helpless. Incensed he bellowed that he would kill them all. Hands shaking, Helene reached for her knife under her pillow, opened a half empty coffer at the foot of her bed and, with Elyce and Harold's help, forced the prisoner inside.
Chapter Fourteen
"Has she agreed to become a wife?" Princesa demanded. "I thought she was an elderly widow."
The wives were confused, but he had no time to explain everything. Not yet. "I promise my purpose will be revealed. Now come with me. Make haste. I need all the wives tonight."
The women rode well and despite the darkening hour they were keen to help.
"If you are in love at last, dear Salvador, of course we will come to your aid."
He was going to rescue his lady. There was naught else to be done.
But when he arrived at the gate, to his surprise, they opened for him. The guard shouted, "Lady Helene needs help, sire."
Sal leapt down from his horse while it was still moving and young Harold led him inside, chattering breathlessly that he had helped capture a monster. Sword drawn, Sal rushed into the hall and found Helene sitting there quite calmly, with her maid, both of them perched on a padlocked coffer.
"Thank goodness," she exclaimed. "You took your time. We had to drag this all the way from my chamber."
"And de Vernon is no light weight," her maid added.
Sal approached cautiously, sword still raised. "De Vernon is in there." He pointed.
Helene nodded sharply. "There are holes so he can breathe. Now what am I to do with him?"
He took a deep gulp of relief to see her so steady and in control. "I feared the worst when the guard—"
"I am quite capable of looking after myself, d'Anzeray. You ought to know that by now."
The red-faced maid beside her could not hold back. "But he raised his belt to my lady and struck her."
"Elyce! That's enough." She glared at Sal. "I want no recriminations. I just want him gone. Far, far away."
Furious Sal demanded she open the coffer. He would spill the villain’s blood there and then.
"This is not what I want. No blood will be shed, d'Anzeray."
He squared his jaw, glowering at the stubborn wench. "If he raised his belt to you, I will kill him. Whether now or later."
She remained defiant. "No, you will not. All problems cannot be mended by the sword. When will men ever learn?" Suddenly she must have noticed the wives who had entered the hall behind him. "What's this?" she exclaimed, eyes wide.
"Reinforcements," he said with a slow, menacing smile.
* * * *
"Eighty-year-old crone, indeed!" One of the women muttered, throwing Salvador a frown as she passed him and came to where Helene sat on the coffer. She introduced herself with a polite curtsey. "I am Princesa." She was petite with golden hair, her skin almost translucent, her beauty angelic. "You must allow us to help you with your...prisoner."
Helene looked at the woman who was so small and delicate in appearance. "What will you do with him? He's a large man and has a foul temper." They could surely hear that for themselves as he was banging hard on the inside of the coffer and swearing violently.
"Oh, you'll see," said one of the other women. This one dark haired, tall and slender, her skin a rich, earthy shade. "We'll soon sort him out." She took a vial from her cloak and slipped the contents— tiny brown seeds— into a shallow wooden dish. "Stand back," she warned softly. "Cover your noses."
Helene and Elyce stood aside and watched as the woman crushed the seeds in the dish. A cloud of smoky odor was released and wafted, with the aid of a feather, through a hole in the coffer. Within seconds the noise under the lid faded away.
"He is resting now," the woman whispered. She crushed more seeds and repeated the motion, while the other women quietly introduced themselves.
Helene knew who they were of course. The d'Anzeray wives—the infamous harem.
"Now he sleeps deeply," said the woman with the fine, exotic skin. "I hear him snore. Come ladies. Time to remove him from his prison."
Suddenly, Sal grabbed her arm and led her away. "Let them deal with de Vernon. They know what to do." They went outside together. She tried to tug her hand away, but he refused to let her go.
"People will see," she protested.
"I care not. Let them see."
Of course he didn't care, she mused; he had no reputation to lose. "What are your wives doing in there with Gilbert?"
"He will wake with a head ache, but he's fortunate I didn't impale him on my sword." He turned his head to glare at her. "Why did you come between me and justice?"
"Because I don't want his blood spilled for me, and I don't want trouble for you. If he is killed, the king will not be able to ignore your behavior this time. De Vernon is an important man and powerful. Everyone thinks him above fault."
He swore. "Well, he'll be a dead man if I get my hands on him."
"For pity's sake is there anything I can say that will make you see sense and stop all this chest-thumping, Salvador d'Anzeray?"
His steps halted and he turned her to face him, clutching her arms with both gauntleted hands. A little breeze stirred the hem of her gown and her wimple. "Yes. Say you will marry me and then I might not feel the urge to slice de Vernon's neck open."
Oops, she should have seen that one coming.
Fortunately she was saved from answering, because another new arrival rode into the yard and distracted them both.
It was Dom, dressed in monk's robes.
Helene was still trying to understand what they were up to, but when Dom dismounted and Sal advised him to give the ladies a moment longer before he went in to disturb them, she finally realized their game.
* * * *
Gilbert de Vernon would forever after declare that he couldn't remember what had happened to him that night. His mind, he said, was oddly foggy and he claimed to have lost all the events of the past several hours. But he had begun to regain consciousness by the time a man in monk's robes entered the hall and found him sprawled, naked on the floor with six young women stretched all over him.
"My Lord de Vernon!" the monk exclaimed, shocked. "What can be the meaning of this?"
He gazed around at the pert breasts, rosy bottoms and pretty pussies of half a dozen women and couldn't somehow get his tongue to work. Limply he raised his head from the fleece but it dropped back down again immediately when he saw his cock rearing up, dark and lus
ty.
"Are you ready to go again, my lord?" one of the women cooed as she reached for his balls.
The monk crossed himself. "I suggest you put on some clothes, de Vernon. And then you had better come to confession."
"But I have nothing...I did nothing—"
"That poor, chaste young widow. What did she do to deserve such a man as you pressed upon her?"
Gilbert saw the other faces of people who had entered behind the monk. A few guards and farm-workers from the estate looked down on him disapprovingly as he lay there naked and helpless under the women. Not only that, but some of his own men were there, looking on in shock and shame.
"This is a trick," he bellowed, but his voice broke as a hand gripped his balls tighter. "I don't know how they did it, but 'tis a trick. I haven't... I know I didn't..."
The monk pursed his lips and shook his head. "I cannot allow this marriage to continue without a full confession. You are not the man I or the king expected."
"She's the one who must confess," Gilbert warbled as breasts descended upon his face from all angles, pushing him down again. "She's...she's..."
Helene feigned a very ladylike faint and was hastily carried to her chamber where a strong cup of wine was required to revive her. With the "monk" at her side she wrote a letter to her king, declining his offer of a husband and explaining the horror she had witnessed. Although she would willingly serve her king and marry where he decreed, she could not bring herself to submit to such a man as de Vernon. Let her be pilloried, she wrote. Better that than marriage to a man without scruple.
Gilbert de Vernon soon found it expedient that he leave. He did not want the missive delivered to King William and Dom —dressed in those monk's robes— assured him that it would be, if he did not withdraw his claim to Helene and her land. The d'Anzeray wives all ran out to wave goodbye to Gilbert, blowing kisses and laughing.
He set his grim face away from them, shouting that they were wicked temptresses who would all soon go to hell.
"We'll see you there then," shouted Princesa, waving.
* * * *
Helene thanked the women for their help. She was a little shocked by the lengths to which they went on her behalf, but it was clear they loved Salvador and would do anything for him.
"Besides we did not need to make love to de Vernon," explained Jeanne, who was introduced to her as the fourth wife. "We just pretended. Men are not very clever when it comes to certain matters."
Helene ordered fruit, wine, cheese and bread for the ladies. She could not help being curious about them. They appeared to be from all walks of life— Isobel de Bressange was from a family as well-known and wealthy as Helene's, but little Jeanne had been Isobel's maid before she became a d'Anzeray wife. Princesa had been a bed slave to a rich man, and Aelfa was the daughter of a whore. Cedney, the fifth wife and clearly Dom's favorite, had once owned a manor of her own and had lived as a man for all her life until she joined the d'Anzeray family. Then there was Jessamyn, whose deeply sun-browned skin made her stand out from the other women, and whose kohl-rimmed eyes held a calm wisdom beyond her years.
They were happy, talkative, just as interested in Helene as she was in them.
When she asked them about their unconventional marriage to all seven brothers, she heard the stories of how each woman came into the family. And as she listened she saw the pleasure in their eyes when they talked of the men who had rescued them from their previous lives. She did not miss the added twinkle in each girl's smile when they spoke of one man in particular. It was clear that although the brothers shared their wives, partnerships were being formed along the way, special bonds of love.
"But how do you manage...being shared by all seven at once?" she asked cautiously.
Aelfa, a smiling, sensual, curvaceous red head laughed. "I had never felt so loved, so adored as I did the first time I laid with all the husbands at once."
"Nor me," said Princesa. "To feel their hands caressing me, their kisses on my skin— all together. It was like being dressed in the finest gown ever made."
Helene tried to comprehend it. She shivered. "I don't think I could. Not all seven." But a heavy pulse had begun to make itself felt, heating the blood in her veins, rousing her nipples, dampening her pussy.
Isobel chuckled as she bit into a plum and juice trickled down her chin. "You should try it. You cannot know until you've tried it."
She thought of the night when Dom and Salvador had both fondled her to orgasm against the wall of a blacksmith's forge. How Salvador had held her breast for his brother to suckle and then let him lick her wet pussy.
But to have all seven at once?
"Perhaps you would like to watch and see how it is done?" said Jessamyn. The others agreed at once, assuring her that the fear would leave her once she witnessed the pleasure unfold.
Helene decided she was this far in, she may as well commit one more sin.
Her sexual curiosity would, once again, be her downfall.
* * * *
That evening she watched the mating of six d'Anzeray brothers with their six wives. Salvador sat beside her, declining to join in, but she saw his cock rising in his chausses, as her own arousal mounted.
Her pulse raced, and she knew Sal must feel it when he put his hand around her wrist. She stared as the other women were penetrated in every orifice. She heard how they moaned and gasped with delight. She listened to the slapping, slippery sounds of flesh on flesh. Each of the brothers was well-endowed and skilled. They petted, kissed and stroked the wives, mounting them on each other, taking turns dispensing pleasure and receiving it.
"Watch Aelfa," Sal whispered in her ear. "She loves to suck cock and lick pussy. She's expert at both."
Sure enough, while Jeanne sat astride Ramon's lap, the red-headed Aelfa knelt before them and alternated sucked and licked their private parts while Sebastien fucked her from behind. Then she closed her hand around the root of Ramon's cock and eased it through Jeanne's blushing nether lips, controlling a slow hard mating while she continued using her tongue to drive Jeanne ever higher in her climax. Meanwhile, Isobel was caught between Raul and Alonso who filled her pussy and her anus at the same time, rutting with a loud, joyous savagery. Cedney rode Dom's lap in a nearby chair while Nino and Jessamyn curled together on the floor pleasuring each other orally.
"It is...too much to look upon," Helene murmured, turning her head. Sal kissed her warm cheek and laughed.
"Wait. Look. Now all my brothers are on Jessamyn. See how she takes them?"
She glanced sideways and saw Jessamyn on all fours with a man laid beneath her, spreading her pussy, another poised behind to penetrate her arse, two more kneeling before her to fill her mouth with cock. The remaining two brothers played with her breasts and stroked her spine, waiting for a turn to spend inside the laughing, excited woman.
Dazed, Helene looked back at Salvador.
"Fuck me now," she gasped out, trembling. "I want to feel you inside me."
Hands around her waist he lifted her and lowered her directly on his hard erection. Then he tugged her gown down to her waist, tearing the cloth, showing off her bouncing breasts while he teased her nipples and plucked at them with his long, sun-browned fingers.
Helene tipped her head back, resting it on his broad shoulder. All around her the sounds and smells were of sex. Hot, salty, sweaty.
Suddenly she felt mouths drawing greedily on her nipples and she looked down to see Aelfa sucking one breast and Jeanne sucking the other. She heard and felt Sal chuckling as her pussy tightened on his ramrod.
"Oh yes, my sweet, haughty lady," he grunted. "I'm going to fill you with my wicked seed."
Aelfa and Jeanne moved their kisses down her body and she blushed as she felt their tongues tickling between her thighs, playfully battling over her pussy. They must be kissing Sal's root too as it pushed in and out of her. Were they sucking his balls too? She should be jealous, angry that she'd been pulled into this, tempted to such wickedness. But
he wrapped his powerful arms around her waist, holding her down hard and then he groaned as he shot his load up inside her. She felt the hot gush and heard the women squealing excitedly as they licked up some of the semen that trickled out of her.
Helene climaxed roughly, shuddering and panting.
Salvador lifted her from his cock and held her up, her legs spread, so that the two wives could suckle her aching pussy and he whispered in her ear how much he loved her. How many times he would fuck her tonight, how sore she would be tomorrow. How she would forget, after this, everything she ever thought she knew about her desires.
* * * *
The men went out hunting the next day. Salvador felt they'd eaten so much of her stocks that he suggested they replenish her stores.
"Is she going to marry us then?" Ramon demanded.
"Of course she will," said Dom. "How could she resist us?"
They all laughed.
Sal hoped his brother was right. He wanted Helene as he'd never wanted anything in his life before.
But when they arrived back at her manor after the hunt they found the gates locked, guards set with firm instructions not to let them in.
"What the devil is going on?" Sal demanded.
She was the most frustrating, indecisive wench....
Shutters were thrown open, and several women's faces peered out.
"The wives?" Sebastien pointed. "What are they up to? Let us in, wenches!"
The faces moved aside and Helene appeared. "Your wives have decided it's time you appreciated them properly. From now on it will be one man and one woman. And you can all come and plead for your love. Otherwise you can go home and—"
"Hellion!" Sal shouted up at her. "You will stop this nonsense and open these gates."
Hellion (Seven Brides for Seven Bastards, 7) Page 12
