‘People of St Romain,’ she said in a loud, clear voice that betrayed nothing of her inner turmoil, ‘I, the Demoiselle de la Tour-Romain, stand before you as your rightful liege, to whom your fealty is owed, both by the law of France and by right of birth. For near eight hundred years my family has held this land, land given by Robert the Second, and held by right not just of man but of God.’
None responded, the entire crowd gaping up at her silently, a reaction that Eloise took as representing suitable submission to her authority.
‘Now, hear my words and then return peaceably to your homes,’ she continued. ‘This foolishness has gone far enough. It is no more than the wicked chattering of lawless men, born of jealousy and hatred for all that is true and right. I know that at heart you are good people, with respect for your natural superiors and obedience to the will of God. Yet you are simple, and easily led by the voices of unrest and greed. Rest assured that the discontent of the country will be subdued, as it has been so often before when the disaffected have attempted to suborn the will of the good people of France. When this happens, I will speak for you and plead clemency. For now, all I ask is that you bring in those tithes currently due and put into custody those who seek to poison your minds, the traitors Boillot and Faugres. That is all, my people; now, return to your homes.’
She finished and stood looking proudly down, expecting them to start dispersing. None moved, and every eye was on her, including that of Emile Boillot, who had turned his face up to meet her eyes.
‘Your power is gone, Citizen Delatour,’ he said evenly. ‘The days of the ancien régime are gone. Leave now, and I will give you leave to join your father in Switzerland, else who knows what will become of you?’
‘You? Give me leave?’ Eloise retorted in disbelief, her anger rising both at his words and at the refusal of the crowd to obey her very fair and reasonable speech. ‘This is my home, Boillot! Do you hear? Mine! As is your own filthy hovel and every stick and stone in this village. You have no right!’
Boillot laughed and turned his face to the crowd. Her anger burst like a bubble in Eloise’s head, suffusing her with a red rage that had her tearing at the casement. Turning into the room, she looked around in fury, ignoring the cowering Natalie and Peggy, who were hovering uncertainly in the doorway. Casting about for a suitable missile, her eyes lit on the chamber-pot, a heavy lidded vessel of green and white china. Seizing it up, she turned back to the window and, with an incoherent scream of pure fury, hurled it down.
The student looked up at her scream, his expression of righteous indignation turning to horror for an instant before the chamber-pot struck. There was a crash and a clatter of pottery shards on stone, the thud of Boillot’s body as he fell face forward to the ground, and then silence.
For a moment, the crowd remained silent, and motionless: then, as one, they gave vent to a great roar and began to move up the road in the direction of the Château gates.
Jean Faugres stood before the gates of the Château St Romain, great legs set apart and arms raised to the furious crowd before him.
‘Yes,’ he boomed, ‘she shall have justice, the same justice that she and her family have given us! As Emile taught, we must have an equal law for all, with a tribunal of citizens to try her. That is the way of justice!’
Angry murmurs greeted his remarks, but as many nods of agreement. For some time, he had been attempting to impose his control on the villagers and was at last succeeding.
‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘with deliberation, we may decide a fate suitable for her crimes, may we not?’
This time, the shouts of agreement outnumbered those of dissent and he knew he had won. Eloise would now be incarcerated in the Château until it could be decided what to do with her, a period that he was sure would give him ample time to satisfy the lust he felt for her, a lust that until that moment had been as illusory of fulfilment as it was overwhelming.
On the cliff top above St Romain, Peggy Wray cowered, shivering among the scrub. At the moment when the crowd rose in anger, her will to remain by Eloise had broken. Running frantically from the Château, she had made the shelter of the scrub moments before the crowd had erupted from the road. Running blindly, indifferent to scratches and bruises, she had reached the far side of the bowl of cliffs, only then stopping to look back, full of guilt and fright. She had watched Jean Faugres harangue the crowd and divined that Eloise was to be incarcerated in the Château, yet she had no illusions about her mistress’s eventual fate.
Flushed with guilt and sorrow, with tears running freely down her plump cheeks, she turned and made for the west, her mind full of vague thoughts of seeking help.
Four
Charles Finch paused at the park gate, made a final adjustment to his hat and strode on. His appearance, he knew, was immaculate. From highly polished boots to well-brushed tricorn hat, every detail was exactly as he wanted it. Griggs, his valet, had lavished over an hour of attention on the ensemble before Charles had left the house, and the hall mirror had shown the effort to have been well worthwhile. His coat, Charles felt, was particularly fine, cut sharply back at the hips after the French fashion and of a delicate powder blue that matched his eyes. This, he felt, gave him a dashing look that set him aside from the dozens of other smartly dressed young gentlemen who had also chosen the bright autumn morning to promenade in St James’s.
Running his eye over the park he noticed the corpulent figure of Squire Robson, whose imposing bulk made him unmistakable even at a distance of some four hundred yards. Beside him – tiny in comparison – was another figure, evidently female and also winsome, even in the distance. Charles increased his pace, making for the pair with as much speed as he could without seeming inelegant. As he drew closer, the girl proved yet more appealing: slight, pretty, with red hair and a mischievous look. Her dress, a confection in green and black, also suggested expensive tastes and libertine morals, implying that she might make a companion of more than polite interest.
‘Ah, Cuthbert, how d’you do?’ Charles announced himself, deliberately using Squire Robson’s hated first name in the opening sally of his attempt to transfer the girl’s attention to himself.
‘Charles, good morning,’ the squire replied without any great friendliness. ‘Charles Finch, Miss Judith Cates. Miss Cates, Charles Finch, a rake who you would fare well to avoid, given his penchant for sodomy – of girls, of course.’
Charles hesitated, taken aback by the sheer flagrancy of his adversary’s retort. Squire Robson was not known for the subtlety of his wit, yet to make such a remark in front of a woman was boorish, even by his standards. Charles felt the blood rise to his cheeks as he struggled for a suitable rejoinder. Then, while still searching for words, he realised that Robson had made an error. Judith Cates – far from blushing or lifting her chin in distaste, as might have been expected – was looking at him with a sly, coquettish smile.
‘Are you a libertine then, Mr Finch?’ she enquired.
‘I confess it,’ Charles responded easily, his confidence rising in the face of her open flirting.
‘Then it seems that you and I have a common interest,’ Judith continued, her attention now fixed firmly on him.
‘Humph, um . . . you must excuse me,’ Robson put in. ‘I must be at Le Roy’s coffee house within the hour. Judith, Charles.’
The Squire left with a polite nod to each of them. For a moment, Charles watched, amused by Robson’s ponderous but somewhat hurried walk. Sensing that he was in the presence of a better man, Robson had evidently decided to do the decent thing and leave the field clear. With a gay smile, Charles turned back to Judith Cates, offering his arm. She took it without hesitation and he began to lead her back in the direction of his house.
His feelings of personal satisfaction rose as they crossed the park. Twice he passed male friends, and both gave him glances that contained a great deal of envy and also respect. Judith Cates was also stimulating company, flirting with an easy, impish manner that had his
cock hard in his breeches by the time they reached his front door. Griggs greeted them with a polite but knowing bow, and Charles ushered his new conquest upstairs, deeming it pointless to delay matters.
‘Let us take a flyer first, my dear,’ he suggested as the door closed behind them, ‘and then perhaps something more leisurely.’
Judith giggled and bent to grip her skirts by the hem, taking hold of both dress and petticoats in one. Turning her back to him, she flipped them up, revealing her legs and bottom.
‘Do I suit your taste, Mr Finch?’ she asked as she looked back archly.
‘Indeed you do,’ he answered, already struggling to loosen his breeches.
She giggled at his haste, holding her pose and taking a shapely ankle in each hand with her feet planted some way apart. Charles freed his cock, pulling at it as he admired her charms. Her figure was slender, yet her pale-skinned buttocks had a pleasing fullness and stood high and proud. The lips of her cunny were clearly visible between her thighs, a small, plump apricot of flesh richly grown with hair as ginger as that on her head. More hair grew in the groove between her bottom-cheeks, yet the area around her anus was clear, as if freshly shaven. The bottom-hole itself was a pale pink star of puckered flesh, tempting him with thoughts of the tight, warm sheath it would offer.
Stepping forward, he placed his cock between her buttocks and reached beneath her belly for her cunny, drawing a squeal of pleasure from her as he began to rub at her clitoris. She sighed and squeezed her buttocks around his cock, making a hot, fleshy tube in which he began to rub as he continued to fondle her. Looking down, he could see the shaft of his cock pressed firmly between her cheeks, half immersed in her flesh, the head protruding from the top of her cleft, swollen and purple.
Knowing that he would come in moments, he pulled back and put his erection to her cunny. The entrance was moist but not fully open, its firm flesh embracing the head of his penis as he pushed for entry. Judith gave a strained little grunt and reached back, pulling her buttocks apart to stretch her sex. His cock slid in, its full length easing into her until his belly met her buttocks.
He took hold of her hips and began to push, his senses swimming with the feel of his cock in her vagina and the sight of her slight body with her beautiful bottom naked and spread, emerging like the centre of a flower from the petals of her upturned dress and petticoats. She had taken hold of her ankles once more, making a tense bow of her body. The scent of her arousal was strong in the air, mixing with her perfume.
‘Not in me, Charles,’ she panted as his thrusts became harder.
Despite being on the edge of orgasm, he complied, pulling back and laying his cock down between her bottom-cheeks even as it gave its first jerk. For an instant he considered trying to force the head into her unlubricated back passage, using her anus as a safe receptacle for his semen. Then it was too late as his cock spasmed in his hand, spraying come liberally between her buttocks. He pressed his cock to her anus as the second spurt arrived, the come pooling in the tight pink hole as he drained himself slowly over her. Greased with his come, her ring opened, his cock pressing a little way in as he finished off. For a long while he kept it there, the tip of his cock nestling in the semen-filled bowl of her anal opening.
Judith groaned as he briefly popped his cock into her anus. The sensitivity of his flesh was close to unbearable, with her ring like a loop of fire around the neck of his penis. He sighed deeply, content in his experience as his cock slowly lost its hardness, yet anticipating more. Finally he pulled back, leaving Judith’s anus as wide and wet as her vagina.
‘My turn; put candles in me,’ she sighed, her voice hoarse with need.
Pausing only an instant to get his breath back, Charles hastened to comply. While he prided himself on his ability to bring a girl quickly to heat, the strength of Judith’s passion was impressive, and he had no wish to fail her. Striding quickly to a candelabrum, he pulled three thick candles free of their cups. Turning, he found that Judith had crawled on to the bed and was waiting with her bottom pushed up high and her knees well apart.
It was a magnificently wanton position, displaying every inch of her ready charms and leaving the open holes of her vagina and anus pointed at the ceiling. Her hand was back between her legs, cupping her mound, with one finger rubbing at the centre in a lazy, sensual manner. Swallowing hard, he walked quickly across to her and placed a candle to the entrance of her vagina. She sighed as it went in, but made no increase in the pace of her masturbation. Charles placed the second candle by the first, easing it into her vagina.
‘In my breech, Charles,’ Judith sobbed, ‘and then light them.’
‘Light them?’ he queried even as he pulled a candle free of her vaginal opening and put it to her anus.
‘Yes, then watch me in my pain,’ she demanded. ‘Come, do it!’
Charles prodded the base of the candle to her anus. The sticky hole everted as she pushed out to accept penetration, the candle sliding up easily to leave Judith as a beautiful but deeply rude double candlestick. Charles felt his cock stir at the sight, a response to Judith’s wanton, exotic display. He also felt a trace of guilt, which came from the knowledge that the idea of her pain excited him.
As he struggled to light the remaining candle, she began to speak, her words coming soft and urgent.
‘Let them burn, Charles,’ she said, ‘and watch me in my shame and suffering. Then, if you are able, take me again, at the finish.’
‘I shall; by God, I shall,’ he answered.
Once ready, he applied the flame to the two candles that protruded from the openings of Judith’s body. Her masturbatory motions, which had not altered from their leisurely pace while he was lighting the candles, now became more urgent. He watched, enraptured as the first beads of wax formed on the candles, translucent drops that shimmered in the yellow light, growing, swelling with heat, until one gained more weight than it could support. It fell, landing on the bare skin around the girl’s anus. She gave a little, sharp cry and bucked her bottom, dislodging another drop, this time on to the soft wet lips of her vulva. Again she cried out, and her finger began to move faster on her clitoris.
Charles, still holding the third candle, began to play with his cock. It stiffened, responding to the sheer power of female sexuality exhibited before him. In front of him Judith was writhing, squealing with the pain of the wax and wriggling her tormented backside, which only resulted in shaking more drops on to her tender skin. Her cunny and anus were spotted with wax, also her fingers, the richly grown hair of her sex and the pale, quivering globes of her buttocks. Her distress was evident as she cried and sobbed out her pain, yet so was her pleasure as her fingers worked harder and yet harder on her clitoris.
With his cock once more stiff in his hand, Charles stood and moved behind her. Poising his candle over her bottom, he angled it, sending a double drip of wax on to the very peak of one white buttock.
‘Yes, do it, you bastard!’ Judith responded. ‘All over me, on my nates, in my cunt!’
Charles continued to stroke his now erect cock as he began to drip wax over her buttocks. There was now a ring of congealed wax around the stretched-out ring of her anus and her cunny was full of it, caught between her soft pink sex lips and pooled in the hole around the candle. She was crying, but her masturbation had become frantic, a display of rude passion that had his member itching for her body.
Reaching forward, he pressed down on her back, forcing her buttocks into yet more conspicuous display. The motion put her cunny uppermost of her openings and sent a splash of wax on to the ridge of bare skin between vagina and anus. Judith squealed and bucked, but got back into the position he had wanted. She was weeping openly and sobbing hard as he put his hand back on his cock and moved his candle directly over her cunny. A drip fell on her inner lips, drawing a yet sharper cry of pain from her.
‘That’s right, in my cunt, in the middle,’ she gagged as her rubbing motions became yet more frantic.
He lowe
red the candle, holding it over her frantically jiggling clitoris. A drop began to form, bulged out and fell, to splash directly on to the hard white bud of flesh. Judith screamed and Charles saw her vagina clench hard on the intruding candle. Again she screamed, both vagina and anus contracting fiercely. The candle in her bottom rose, momentarily stretching the skin of her anus up under its burden of wax. Then it began to squeeze from her bottom-hole, the emerging shaft glistening with the come he had put into her. As her orgasm hit its peak she arched her back, then began to buck frantically, spraying hot wax across her buttocks. A drop caught Charles’s cock, making him cry out at the sudden, hot pain. The candle in her anus began to topple and he quickly blew at it, extinguishing the flame even as her orgasm began to subside. Following suit with the other candles, he watched her sink slowly down from her climax, her vagina still filled with candle, her bum-hole gaping and red.
Charles’s cock felt like a poker in his hand, iron hard and desperate for a sheath of soft girl flesh. Judith was sobbing and shivering, snivelling out her emotions into the bedcover with her bottom still pushed up and ready. Unable to contain himself further, Charles pulled the candle from her vagina and mounted her, quenching his burning cock in the velvet smooth wetness of her inside.
Judith sighed, allowing his weight to press her down on to the bed as his cock filled her. He kissed her neck and began to hump, feeling the firm globes of her bottom squash out against his belly as he sank into her. She sighed, a happy sound more of contentment than passion.
For a long while he rode her, bouncing on her little round bottom while his need to come rose slowly within him. She remained quiescent throughout, accepting the pleasure of his penis inside her perhaps more as an act of submission than of need. Only when the increasing urgency of his pushes signalled the approach of orgasm did she speak.
The Rake Page 7
