Despite their efforts, the horsemen continued to gain, while Henry tried desperately to load his pistols. Eloise’s fear rose as she recalled Faugres’ surly, malicious manner and the hatred and lust that had always been in his eyes. Before he had been powerless, but now all too little stood between her and him. For all Henry’s devil-may-care courage and Gurney’s strength and size, she felt sure that they would be able to do little against the monstrous Faugres, especially with three others to aid him.
With her heart in her mouth, she stared back over the rear of the landau. Boillot was in the lead, coming up like a zephyr with the heavier men strung out behind him. Faugres came last, yet it was his massive figure that struck terror into Eloise.
‘Got the buggers!’ Henry finally declared. ‘Move aside, girl.’
Eloise hastened to obey, allowing Henry to kneel on the rear seat and aim his pistols. Boillot saw what was happening and ducked down even as the pistols roared and spat fire. For a flicker of time, nothing happened and then Eloise saw a puff of something explode from the shoulder of Michel Brochon’s coat.
‘Winged the bastard!’ Henry declared. ‘Come on, Todd, ride!’
With a new horror, Eloise realised that Henry was not merely fighting back because he had to, but was actively enjoying himself, an attitude that struck her as verging on lunacy. He had also used his man’s first name, something she had never heard him do before, and in general he seemed happier than at any time except on those occasions he had had his cock immersed in one or another of her bodily orifices.
‘We’re taking them!’ he now shouted, following the remark with an insulting gesture to the pursuing horsemen. ‘We’ve got the legs on them, Todd; keep riding!’
Eloise saw that it was true. With a vast surge of relief, she realised that they had began to gain, despite the load in the landau and their ill-assorted team. Even with their every effort, the heavy loads and long forced ride of their pursuers were telling on their mounts.
For another quarter mile, they rode pell-mell down the ride, their lead increasing at first gradually and then more rapidly as Faugres and then Brochon were forced to drop out of the chase. Seeing his companions halt, Magnien reined in too and thus Boillot was forced to do likewise.
Henry laughed and yelled back a few choice curses, his face glowing with triumph and excitement. Finally Eloise allowed herself to relax, her fear flowing away to leave her trembling with reaction and overcome by a renewed need to pee, now desperate. Stopping, she realised, was hardly practical, yet she was by no means certain how long she could hold herself.
Her despair grew as they crossed a brow to reveal an equally straight and even longer section of ride ahead. Hoping to wait until Gurney was forced to rest the horses, and so avoid the embarrassment of having to ask for a halt to relieve herself, she hung on, gritting her teeth at each jolt of the landau. As they raced down the long ride, the four horsemen appeared behind, now moving at a purposeful trot. Clearly there was going to be no rest, yet their lead seemed sufficient to allow her the brief moment of privacy that was all she needed.
‘Henry,’ she whispered, placing her lips close to his ear, ‘I need to pee; could we stop?’
‘Stop?’ Henry swore. ‘We can’t stop now! Do it on the floor, for God’s sake! Or stick your arse over the edge of the carriage.’
‘I will not!’ Eloise snapped back as the blushes on her face rose to a heat not far less than that between her thighs.
‘Well, wet your dress, then!’ Henry answered. ‘I’m damned if I’ll risk a musket ball for the sake of your modesty.’
Eloise gave him a look that had been known to reduce maids to tears, but Henry took no notice whatever. Instead, he continued to work on loading his pistols while the pain in her bladder rose to a new peak of urgency. With her thighs clamped hard together, she struggled to hold herself. Her bladder was agony, a hard, swollen ball of pain in her belly that begged for release. All she need to do was relax and to let the pee gush out freely from her cunny to bring the blessed relief – and with it unendurable shame.
The landau bumped on, Gurney taking the ground at a breakneck speed that sent shock after agonising shock through Eloise’s bladder. She held on, sitting bolt upright with her thighs clamped tight together and her toes wriggling in her desperation, only for each fresh jolt of the landau to break her concentration.
Despite her best efforts, it began to come, erupting out in little spurts as her pee-hole spasmed in the agony of trying to retain her load. She felt a wet feeling between her thighs and under the tuck of her bottom, and with it came the unbearable shame of knowing that she was wetting herself. At that realisation, her resolve broke, and she let go with a last, miserable whimper. Her pee-hole opened and the urine she had tried so desperately to hold in exploded from her cunny with a hissing, bubbling noise that she knew the others could not fail to hear.
She gave a groan of utter despair and embarrassment as a pool began to form around her feet. Still the pee gushed out, freely now that she had abandoned herself to the inevitable. Soon her stockings were soaking, her boots full and her dress drenched, while the pool beneath her had spread and run with the bouncing of the landau, revealing her shame to the others. Henry merely laughed and continued to load up. Peggy paid no attention, being too rapt in the progress of the distant horses. Natalie alone gave a sympathetic response to her mistress’s plight, a wan smile and the offer of an empty Méursault bottle in a somewhat belated gesture of assistance.
‘Right, Gurney,’ Henry called suddenly as he rammed the charge home in the second pistol. ‘Bring her round and we’ll stand the bastards off among those big beeches.’
‘You bastard!’ Eloise swore as the last of her pee dribbled into the now substantial puddle on the floor.
Emile Boillot watched as the distant landau slowed, slued around and stopped beside a stand of great beeches. A lump formed in his throat and he steeled himself for the coming confrontation, determined not to show fear in front of his companions.
‘We’ve winded them!’ Jean Faugres voice came from behind him, a triumphant bellow that showed nothing of fear.
Magnien and Brochon joined into the cry, spurring their horses into a canter on either side. Boillot followed suit, ducking down low to his horse’s mane and keeping his eye ahead. Figures were jumping down from the landau, a man, then Eloise, recognisable by her red-gold hair and sumptuous gown. The two maids followed and lastly the large man who had been astride the carthorse. All ran in among the beeches, disappearing from view.
‘We’ve got them now!’ Faugres called. ‘Ride low and fast. Michel, Hubert, ready your muskets.’
To Emile’s left, Brochon hefted his musket and swung it round with one hand to ready the iron-shod butt. Riding fast towards their adversaries, Boillot knew that one shot would come, maybe two, then no more. The giant cooper and the two ex-soldiers could, he decided, take care of the men, leaving him to secure Eloise. If the maids ran, then it was no great loss, the capture of Eloise was all that mattered. Fired by new determination, he rode on. The trees were rushing to either side, the stalled landau growing larger and clearer.
A glimmer of bright vermilion showed among the beech trunks – Eloise’s dress. Another figure showed and Boillot crouched lower, expecting the flash and whine of a pistol shot. Nothing came, then a sudden crack and a panic-stricken whinny to his side. Another crack followed and something whistled by his head. Someone cursed and his horse shied, stumbled and then he was flying through the air.
Pain shot through his shoulder as he struck the ground. His brain was telling him to rise even as his body curled tight by instinct. He heard a grim laugh and Faugres’ furious bellow. Magnien’s voice sounded nearby, angry and followed by a thump and a curse in English. A hoof passed perilously close to his head and he rolled to the side.
Scrambling to his feet in panic and confusion, he found Michel Brochon only feet away, striking down from his horse at the big Englishman. Beyond, Magnien had be
en unseated and was staggering back in front of an assailant who wielded his pistols like clubs. Further, well down the ride, Jean Faugres was desperately trying to control his bolted horse. Brochon’s musket came down, only for his fierce glare to turn to surprise and then pain as the big Englishman ducked, rose and drove a massive fist into his opponent’s side. The horse snickered and kicked out in fear, then pranced suddenly to the side. Brochon’s balance went, the musket flying from his hands even as the Englishman leapt clear.
Regaining his wits, Boillot leapt forward, grappling the Englishman’s arm, only to be flung aside as if he were no more than a child. Brochon was half-up, then down again as a heavy fist struck his jaw. Beyond, Magnien was reeling and clutching his head, then raising his hand in a gesture for quarter that was answered with a derisive laugh.
‘Run, then,’ the smaller Englishman said, in clear French, ‘and mind you don’t come back, or you’ll get a proper drubbing.’
Magnien staggered away, Brochon also starting to retreat as the big Englishman drew back. Boillot backed away, his hand raised defensively even as shame and anger welled up inside him.
‘Kill them, you idiots!’ came a female voice that he knew well as belonging to Eloise de la Tour-Romain.
Boillot turned, real fear rising inside him as he saw the demoiselle, some hundred yards away, her face red and her hands raised in fury.
He ran, following the already retreating Brochon and Magnien back the way they had come, abandoning their horses and muskets. Eloise’s furious demands and threats followed him as he fled, accompanied by the derisive laughter of the two Englishmen.
Eloise de la Tour-Romain stood in the centre of the great ride of Premery Forest. Her brain boiled with fury, indignation and frustration, yet all this could do nothing to quell her triumph as she watched her persecutors put to flight. Even the humiliation of wetting herself had been put aside in the terror and excitement. As Henry and Gurney had disappeared into the forest to take the attackers in the flank, Natalie and Peggy had done as they were told and fled for cover in the depths of the woods. She had stayed, at first crouched behind a beech tree and poised to run, and then out in the open when it had become apparent that her side would be victorious.
Fury at Henry’s refusal to obey her orders and the villagers’ sheer arrogance in assailing her in the first place now gave way to jubilation. She joined in the men’s scornful laughter and then opened her arms for Henry as he walked back. Her kiss was returned with a fervour that matched her own and, as his hands locked on the flesh of her bottom and lifted her from the ground, she abandoned herself to him. Quickly, she was pulled into the forest, her breasts were popped out from her bodice and her soiled skirt turned up. A moment later, she was kneeling as Henry fed her his cock and fondled a naked breast. Then she was on the ground, skirts and petticoats in disarray and thighs pulled apart as he mounted her. His cock found her vagina and slid in, her passage made easy by copious lubrication. They made love with urgency and passion, Eloise’s pleasure rising close to orgasm as his cock pushed deep into her again and again. As she was ridden, her thoughts turned to the way the two men had beaten off the villagers and she hoped that Gurney was also taking his reward with his cock sheathed in Natalie’s tight purse. Then, as Henry began to grunt with the passion of approaching orgasm, she found her mind turning to the way she had wet herself in front of them all and the depth of humiliation she has felt as her pee had run down her legs to pool on the floor. It was still in her boots, and her belly was wet with it, feelings that now inspired her with a sense of absolute wantonness.
She cried out as Henry came, then put her fingers to her cunny as soon as he had pulled out. He watched her masturbate with his handsome face set in a pleased smirk, then slid a hand under her buttocks. Eloise grunted as his thumb found her anus and pushed inside, then began to come as two fingers slid into her sopping vagina.
‘I’ve wet myself Henry, look at me,’ she gasped as her climax rose. ‘Look at me, Henry, I’m going to do it again. I’m going to do it again!’
As she reached orgasm, her bladder squeezed tight and a spurt of pee erupted from her cunny, spraying out around her rubbing fingers and splashing on his hand. A stab of ecstatic shame went through her as she screamed out her lust. She felt her semen-slick vagina and anus clamp on his intruding digits as a second peak hit her. For an instant, she was in a sate of perfect wanton bliss, and then her orgasm was subsiding to leave her limp and groaning on the damp leaves with the last of her pee still trickling down between her vaginal lips.
Eight
Henry drew the landau to a stop. He had taken Gurney’s place as postillion and, with Magnien’s grey added to their team, they had made good time. Ahead was a view very different from the gentle swells of the Bazois. The land ahead dipped, falling gradually to form a great valley at the bottom of which ran a band of silver-grey – the Loire. Beyond the land rose to bold, open hills with a plateau at the horizon, showing dull mauve in the haze of distance. Some way to the south, a fortified town stood out on a spur, appearing to hang directly above the river.
‘Sancerre,’ Eloise stated, following the direction of his gaze. ‘Ahead is Cosne, where you left the river before.’
‘Where I suggest we sell the horses and this old bishop to purchase a boat,’ Henry put in.
‘The plain we see,’ Eloise continued, ‘is the Sologne, mostly swamp and forest with few roads or villages.’
‘Sounds an infernal place,’ Henry remarked.
‘But a safe place,’ Eloise retorted. ‘What we should do is drive on to Cosne and make a great show of buying a boat. You can then sail some little way up river while your man crosses the river. The landau can collect us on the far bank, from which we vanish into the heart of the Sologne while the bastard Faugres and his mob continue up the Loire.’
‘Deuced expensive scheme just to elude some peasant,’ Henry objected. ‘Don’t tell me you’re scared of the fellow? Not the Demoiselle de la Tour-Romain, scared of a peasant?’
‘He is an artisan, a cooper,’ Eloise replied, ‘and if the Demoiselle might not be scared of the cooper, then the woman is scared of the giant, as you would do well to be yourself.’
‘Ha!’ Henry laughed. ‘Let him come; I’ll show him a trick or two. Besides, I’ll wager we put the wind up the fellow back there and that he’ll have slunk back to St Romain with his breeches bewrayed!’
‘Bombast is easy now, when he is not here,’ Eloise stated. ‘As to the expense – you seem to forget that the wealth we carry is mine.’
Nettled, Henry gave what he hoped was a derisive snort, yet found the image of the massive Jean Faugres looming up unpleasantly in his mind. Turning briefly for a reassuring look at the only slightly less impressive bulk of Todd Gurney, he considered the merits of Eloise’s plan. The Sologne sounded a dismal place, with little opportunity for exploiting the erotic opportunities offered by the presence of the three girls. A boat on the Loire was only marginally better, yet at least had the merit of towns at which worthwhile provisions might be purchased. The nights in the Morvan had sated his taste for outdoor living, while along the river it might be possible to risk an inn and take the comfort of a bed. At the thought of Eloise in a feather bed, his mind became set.
‘Five times we’ve danced Moll Peatley’s gig,’ he said aloud, ‘or perhaps six, and not once in comfort. We risk the river, and to the devil with Faugres and every damn peasant in France besides.’
Eloise opened her mouth to protest, but Henry merely lifted his hand and tapped the palm, a gesture that had an immediate calming effect.
Four men sat before the church in the tiny village of St Laurant. Emile Boillot, with a map spread before him, showed restrained anger and a grim determination. Jean Faugres showed only rage, with his great hands opening and closing as he reflected on the undignified retreat that had been forced upon them. The other two showed less forceful emotions, Michel Brochon picking thoughtfully at the ragged hole at the top of h
is coat sleeve while Hubert Magnien studied a group of sparrows with feigned interest and nursed his bruises.
‘Only a fool would cross the Sologne at this time of year,’ Jean Faugres objected. ‘They will use the river.’
‘They would be at risk from the people in Orleans, Blois, and half the towns along the Loire,’ Boillot objected. ‘In their place, I would try the Sologne. Safety, after all, must be their prime concern.’
‘Ha!’ Faugres snorted. ‘After the way that English pig winkled his strumpet out of St Romain, do you think he cares for safety? Not a wit, nor his companion.’
Grunts of heartfelt agreement sounded from both Brochon and Magnien.
‘Besides,’ Faugres continued, ‘remember that I am a Touranjou. I learnt my trade in Romorantin-Lathenay, on the far side of the Sologne. I have seen it in autumn, a swamp fit only for duck.’
‘It has not rained for close on two weeks,’ Boillot objected.
‘And solidly for the four before that,’ Faugres answered him. ‘No, if they try it they’ll turn back. We follow along the river and hope to overtake them. Once my hands are on that fop’s neck, we’ll see how loud he laughs.’
‘No,’ Boillot countered. ‘It is wiser to ride hard for Tours, through which they must surely pass. We can have a mob roused against them and provide as warm a welcome as they could wish for.’
‘And have them strike north for Rouen or south to Bordeaux?’ Faugres answered. ‘We must follow them close, it is the only sure way.’
‘I disagree,’ Boillot stated. ‘What of you, Hubert? Michel?’
Hubert Magnien answered with an embarrassed grunt.
‘I have a wife and child in St Romain,’ Brochon replied diffidently, ‘and, to be frank, I do not want to spar with those two Englishmen again. The demoiselle can go for all of me, for her punishment shall surely come in hell.’
‘What?’ Faugres roared. ‘Coward! Are you a man? What of revenge for her wrongs? What of returning some blows to the Englishman who blacked your eye?’
The Rake Page 15
