‘Lock it,’ he growled, throwing the key at her feet as she stepped into the cold morning air. ‘Then shake the bars.’
Eloise obeyed, trembling violently as she turned the key and then shook the gate to show that it was fast. Then Faugres’ hand closed on her wrist with a strength that she knew at once it was useless to resist. A last glance at the gate showed Peggy’s face set in horrified fascination, and then Faugres had dragged her to the side.
She had expected to be thrown to the ground and used without preamble but, as her captor exchanged his musket for a piece of rope work, she realised that her ordeal was not to be so quick. An odd relief at the postponement of her violation mixed with a new apprehension of her more immediate fate. Despite the futility of resistance, she struggled and sobbed as Faugres dragged her towards a well-grown apple tree. One branch ran parallel to the ground and several feet clear. More than once she had strapped Natalie to similar branches in the St Romain orchards for whippings – punishments that had always had the added spice of knowing that the naked, wriggling girl might well be seen from the village. Faugres’ purpose was immediately clear.
He made quick work of lashing her wrists and strapping her up to the apple branch. Eloise found herself on tiptoe with her hands stretched high above her head to leave her body defenceless. Yet two loops of the rope work remained empty and, as he grabbed one of her ankles, she realised what he intended. He lifted her legs without apparent effort and bound first one ankle into place, then the other, to leave Eloise hanging from the branch by all four limbs. The position had also made her skirts fall, leaving her thighs and buttocks as exposed for whipping as her cunny was for what she had no doubt would come afterwards. Faugres completed her exposure by tearing open the front of her bodice to let her breasts out, then tore an ash sapling of some six feet in height from the ground. Eloise shuddered at the sight of the thing, already imagining how it would feel across the tender skin of her legs and buttocks.
‘We play a simple game,’ Faugres chuckled. ‘When you beg for my mercy and call me sir, then there’ll be just six more. After that, I think you know what’s going in that fat, aristocratic cunt. Are you going to beg now?’
Eloise could find no words, but managed to shake her head.
‘Good,’ Faugres laughed. ‘I was hoping you’d show some spirit; it’ll make it all the more pleasant to break you.’
Eloise shut her eyes tightly as he brought up the switch.
Using his teeth, Henry worked frantically at the seam of Peggy’s bodice. A thread gave, then another as Eloise cried out from beyond the mouth of the coal mine. He was quickly able to draw forth a length of whalebone. Gurney took it and gave a grunt of satisfaction as he tested its strength.
‘It’ll do, sir,’ he announced.
‘Good,’ Henry replied. ‘Now work fast. When the lock springs, I shall go for the musket. Gurney, take Faugres. Vicomte, try the landau; with luck, our possessions remain within, the pistols included. Peggy, Natalie, make for the barge and cast one end loose.’
‘And should we fail?’ Natalie asked in a small voice.
‘Then a musket ball is a better way to die than drowning,’ Henry answered. ‘Now come.’
Todd Gurney inched forward along the floor of the tunnel, hunched low and with his eyes fixed on the light at the end. At first, he could see only a low wall with the Louet and marshland beyond. Then Faugres and Eloise became visible, the one standing with a switch raised, the other hanging by her wrists and ankles with her dress and petticoats spread out around her naked buttocks and thighs while the dark hair and pink centre of her sex showed in the middle. Three livid welts already decorated the pale skin of her bottom. Beyond them was the barge, with the landau to one side, apparently still loaded with their possessions.
Ducking down, he made a brief inspection of the lock and then inserted the long piece of whalebone. A movement signalled the location of a tumbler, which proved to be the only one. He felt his lips twitch into an involuntary smile as it lifted. Turning the piece of stay on to its long edge, he applied pressure, feeling it bend as the catch pulled slowly clear of the hasp.
A sharp click signalled their freedom and he hurled himself at the gate. Faugres turned at the sound, the vicious stroke he had been aiming at Eloise’s bare legs stopping in mid-air. Rushing headlong, Gurney caught the back-hand blow of the sapling on his shoulder and rammed his head into Faugres’ midriff.
They went down together, toppling over the wall in a tangle of limbs. Gurney rolled aside as they struck, avoiding a sweep of Faugres’ massive arm and then planting his fist hard into the giant’s belly. A roar of pain answered his blow and then he was hurled away as Faugres lashed out once more.
Henry dived for Faugres’ musket, catching the stock even as a shout from the slope above warned him of the presence of another guard. He rolled and grappled the musket, bringing it around as he sought frantically for his target. To one side, d’Arche had reached the landau and was scrabbling for the pistols and charges. Peggy and Natalie scrambled past, and then a flicker of motion caught his eye. The guard was well up the slope, among trees beyond the ruined Château.
Henry brought the musket up and fired, only to hear the ball skitter away among the branches behind his intended target. The man’s face broke into a wicked grin and he brought his own piece up. Henry hurled himself towards the shelter of the mine mouth but no crash of powder came, only a curse. Realising instantly what had happened, he grabbed Faugres’ musket, and ran for the ruins. Above him, the guard was trying frantically to re-prime his piece and cursing the wet powder. Henry bounded up a short flight of steps, and then he was on the man and swinging the iron-bound stock of his weapon.
The guard danced back, stumbled on the wet ground and dropped his piece. Henry’s musket struck a tree, spending a juddering shock up his arms. The guard rolled and then ran, darting off among the trees.
Henry paused, breathing hard and turned to look down. Gurney and Faugres stood, toe to toe; the Englishman answered the giant’s murderous punches with sharp, well-aimed ripostes. Beyond was the barge, with Peggy working at the painter.
‘Go to it, Todd!’ Henry called down as Gurney planted a hard jab into Faugres’ midriff.
Swallowing air to calm his hammering pulse, he sat down and began to work on the guard’s musket. Opening the priming pan, he discovered a sludge of wet black powder, evidently the result of the soaking morning dew. After cleaning it out with his shirt-tail, he carefully replaced it with dry powder from the man’s horn, then stood and began to search around for a target. None were apparent, save Faugres, who was too close to Gurney for a shot to be worth the risk. Of the Vicomte d’Arche, there was no sign, nor of the other guard.
Henry started down the slope, intent on holding Faugres off despite the fact that Gurney appeared to be gaining the upper hand. Then, as he reached the upper level of the ruins a man emerged from the structures by the river – the third guard, with a musket in his hands, only yards from the barge and Peggy, closer still to where Eloise hung helpless from the apple tree. Remembering how the man had gloated over their coming drowning, Henry brought his musket up, took careful aim and depressed the trigger. Flame spat and it jumped in his hand. The guard lurched forward as if caught by a giant hand, took one staggering step and pitched forward into the Louet.
Scrambling down among the ruins, Henry emerged in time to see Todd Gurney send a series of crashing blows to Faugres’ skull. The giant was half down, and slumped and then fell under the Englishman’s fists.
Faugres lay on the ground, apparently senseless, one guard was dead, the other had fled. It was over, completed in minutes. Gurney stepped back, his face bruised and bloody but grinning in triumph.
‘One guard’s loose,’ Henry reported. ‘We’d best hurry. Where’s d’Arche?’
‘No idea, sir,’ Gurney replied and immediately loped off towards the barge.
Henry drew in his breath. All around the air was hazy with powder smo
ke, while a thin mist lay over the river and the marsh beyond. Wondering if Faugres’ pockets contained any of his own belongings, he stepped forward, only for the great body to stir on the ground.
‘Hell!’ he swore and hefted his musket.
Faugres stood slowly, blood streaming from his nose. With a shake of his massive head, he took in the scene around him, Henry Truscott standing with a musket held in his hands like a club, the hawk-faced aristocrat he had seen in the Château l’Husseau behind, in the mouth of the mine. Of Todd Gurney, there was no sign, and Faugres allowed his mouth to break into a grin as he realised that the only man capable of facing him was not there.
He moved forward, intent on Henry’s neck, only to realise that the aristocrat in the mine held two pistols. Pausing, his senses still dull from the effect of Gurney’s fists, he clenched his massive hands in anger. Of all things, he wanted to get to grips with Henry, yet to move forward was to face death. Then the memory of what Henry had done to him welled up and his anger swept his last vestige of caution aside.
Seeing Faugres’ glance, Henry turned, finding the Vicomte d’Arche standing a little way into the mine with his pistols levelled. Turning back, he found Faugres still coming forward, his face set in a deranged grin.
‘Shoot him, damn it!’ Henry called as Faugres gave a bestial roar and charged forward.
Henry turned again, wondering why the vicomte was delaying. D’Arche stood still, a pistol raised and his face set in an expression of determined malice. Without a word, he pulled the hammer back, even as Henry realised that the pistol was aimed not at Faugres, but at himself.
He leapt frantically to the side as the pistol exploded in his face. Its roar sounded, deafening in his ears as he hit the ground and rolled. Then the blast struck him like a hammer, knocking the breath from his lungs and searing his face. He curled into a tight ball of agony as wave after wave of heat and pressure burned over him, rolling him along the ground like a doll and dragging the air from his lungs. His back struck something, then his head, and for a merciful instant everything went black.
The next thing he was aware of was Eloise’s face, with Peggy’s close beside, both wearing expressions of alarm and sympathy. Then his head was cradled against the soft pillows of Eloise’s chest. As his cock gave a familiar responsive twitch he realised thankfully that whatever injuries he had were superficial.
‘What happened?’ he croaked.
‘Mine exploded,’ Gurney remarked, from somewhere beyond Eloise’s breasts. ‘Don’t mix too well, fire and coal dust.’
Of the Vicomte d’Arche there was no sign, nor of Jean Faugres. Neither were mourned although, as Henry worked to transfer their goods from the landau into the coal barge, he found himself constantly expecting either d’Arche’s facetious drawl or Faugres’s terrifying bellow. Neither came, and the barge was quickly loaded, even Eloise doing her best to help.
Abandoning the landau that had carried them so far, the party pushed off on to the unruffled Louet.
‘Do we sail straight for England, then?’ Eloise enquired.
‘What? This barge’d not make the channel,’ Henry replied in astonishment. ‘I’d sooner take to Biscay in a barrel! No, we make for St Nazaire, from where we can take passage in something that’ll not sink at the first puff of wind.’
With Gurney using the long gaff as an impromptu skull, they made their way with the current, then raised the clumsy vessel’s sail when they had passed the end of the marshy peninsula that separated the stream from the main channel of the Loire.
Jean Faugres dragged himself painfully up the bank of the Louet. Sodden, bruised and stained with coal and mud, he cursed the name of Henry Truscott even as he slumped down among the damp reeds. His hat was gone, blown aside by the blast from the coal mine, while his clothes were torn and filthy.
For a long while he lay still, allowing his strength to return. Then, with a groan of pain, he pulled himself to his feet. Nearby, among the tall reeds, lay the body of the Vicomte d’Arche, which Faugres spared no more than a brief and disinterested glance before trudging off across the marsh. One thought alone occupied his mind – St Nazaire.
Eleven
‘What luck, sir?’ Gurney asked as Henry returned to their room in the Auberge Chémoulin.
They had arrived in the little port of St Nazaire shortly after noon. Leaving Gurney and the girls to arrange a room in the best of the port’s three inns, Henry had made for the docks, in the hope of discovering an English trader. Gurney meanwhile had made himself comfortable, seated by the window with one eye on the road leading away to the east and his hand on a bottle of the thin, sharp local wine.
‘Some,’ Henry answered, ‘though not what I had hoped. There are no Englishmen in port, but I met a fellow who plans to sail for Exeter on the morning tide – with a cargo of smoked oysters, as chance has it. He won’t leave this evening and drove a fair bargain for our passage. Still, it’s Eloise’s money, so no matter. Where is she, by the by?’
‘Gone into town,’ Gurney answered. ‘Says she needs a new dress. Always after some old trumpery, that one.’
‘She does rather get through her clothes,’ Henry stated. ‘Still, the land seems peaceful in this part of the world, so I dare say she’s safe enough, even with her high and mighty tone. What’s that you’re drinking?’
‘Wine, sir. Filthy stuff, but the beer’s worse.’
‘I’ll see if I can’t rustle up some partridge eye for dinner, or even claret: who knows? It seems we’re here for the night, in any case.’
Gurney nodded and for a while neither man spoke, Henry slumping into a chair and folding his hand across his stomach while Gurney continued to stare morosely out across the road and the Loire estuary. Finally, Henry seemed to take on new energy, leaning forward to pull at a boot.
‘Cheer up, Gurney, old fellow,’ he said jovially as he pulled his boot off. ‘Plain sailing from now on, eh? I say we order up a pair of aldermen, get beastly drunk and roger the girls silly.’
‘Many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip, sir,’ Gurney answered him, glum at first but then brightening. ‘But it seems I can’t think of a better way to spend the night.’
‘Perhaps with a game of cards to get them stripped and in trim,’ Henry added.
‘Fine idea, sir,’ Gurney responded. ‘We’ll have them peeled down to their garters before we’ve so much as doffed our hats.’
Henry laughed, picturing the girls’ excited chagrin at having been forced to strip naked while he and Gurney remained dressed.
In the town of Savenay, some miles to the east of St Nazaire, Emile Boillot pushed open the door of a bakery. Scents of fresh bread, sweet pastries and other edibles assailed his nostrils, momentarily making him think of food before his mind snapped back to the task in hand. On learning of the escape, he had ridden from Angers with frantic haste, certain that Eloise and her company must be making for one of the Atlantic ports. Nantes had proved fruitless, although he was sure their trail would be easy to pick up, and so he had pushed on to the small town at which he was assured many English ships called.
‘Tell me, citizen,’ he asked of the baker who had turned an inquisitive glance to him. ‘Has a party of five passed? Three women and two men?’
‘Perhaps,’ the baker admitted.
‘One of the women has bright red hair, another is tiny, no more than the size of a child,’ Boillot continued. ‘Perhaps they bought something from you?’
‘Could be,’ the baker continued. ‘Maybe they were the ones who were so generous with their money, or then again maybe they weren’t.’
With a muttered curse, Boillot slapped down a coin from what remained of his funds.
‘No,’ the baker announced flatly. ‘Not a sign.’
‘You’re sure?’ Boillot demanded.
‘I’d have known a party like that,’ the baker went on. ‘They’ve not passed.’
‘Then thank you, citizen,’ Boillot answered and turned for the door.
&nb
sp; Stepping into the wan sunlight of the square, he stopped in his tracks. In the narrow street that led east, towering above the villagers as he walked, was Jean Faugres. The giant’s clothes were torn and, in places, charred, while what showed of his body was covered with bruises and angry-looking insect bites. His face was a mask of rage, his teeth bared in a furious grimace as he cast about, as if looking for something on which to vent his anger.
Bleary eyed and dizzy with drink, Henry attempted to focus on his cards. He was naked, sat splay-legged on a simple wooden chair in the upper room of the Auberge Chémoulin. To one side stood the table at which they had eaten, devouring two roast geese hung with sausages, autumn vegetables and several bottles of wine. Henry’s lack of clothes testified to his failure at the game of chance they had chosen to play afterwards, as did the six smarting blemishes on his buttocks. These had been applied by Peggy, who was laughing merrily in her seat next to him, her gown pulled down to reveal her big breasts but otherwise fully clothed.
Of the females, Natalie alone had fared badly, showing little effort to win and she now sat on Gurney’s knee in nothing more than her knee-length stockings while she held her cards in one hand and stroked her lover’s cock with the other. Gurney himself retained only his shirt, while his attention to the game was dropping as his penis grew to erection in Natalie’s hand.
Directly opposite Henry sat Eloise, her glorious red-gold hair loose and her face flushed with drink and laughter but without a stitch out of place. The sight of Henry being whipped after loosing the previous hand had had her laughing so much that she had fallen from her chair, and she was still giggling incontinently and giving him bright-eyed, excited glances.
Dealing quickly, he picked up his four cards. At the sight of three nines and a knave he sat back, doing his best to look puzzled and annoyed. Across the table from him, Eloise smiled and giggled, showing the same combination of bad play and extraordinary luck that had so far kept her covered.
The Rake Page 22
