Box Set: Highland Flings: Scottish Historical Victorian Romance Taboo BDSM Erotica (4 page)

After a moment’s puzzlement, I nodded, realizing what he was after, and I fetched him the brandy, pouring him an extra large glass, not out of generosity, but because my fingers were shaking so wildly. Then I passed his drink to him and he paused a moment before he took it from me. I could see his eyes trailing over my ripped, brown dress, the very same dress which I had been wearing since I was fifteen, and, truth be told, was really
far too
small for me now. My breasts had shot out in the last couple of years, and almost hung out of my bodice. The people of the village had known me since I was a wee girl, and I think they barely noticed me, but seeing him
seeing me
made me suddenly aware of myself all over again. My hands shot to my cleavage, trying to cover up some of my buxom breast in vain.

The stranger smiled. ‘One
is
a dirty little wench, isn’t one?’ he said, and then he took the drink and drained it in one.

As the heat from the brandy poured down the stranger’s throat, I felt as though it were
I
who had drunk the brandy, as I too felt a heat spread up my neck, across my throat and my cheeks, causing a fierce red blush to glow ablaze across my pale, freckled skin.

‘I’ll wager one is a lot of fun between the sheets,’ said the stranger, firmly but quietly, so no-one else in the inn could hear.

I thought about the smell of the sheets I’d changed in the inn just yesterday, and felt a softening in the spot between my legs. What effect was this stranger having upon me? I was
terrified
of him. Maybe that’s all it was! He was scaring me, making my heart race with fear, not lust! At that moment, I felt I had to change the subject.

‘Sir,’ I stammered. ‘My father is here…’ Why couldn’t I finish my sentence? What was I trying to say to him? That my father was here, so his flirtatious remark was inappropriate? No, I wasn’t saying that! I became embarrassed that he’d interpret it that way, and hurriedly blurted out: ‘My father is the blacksmith.’

The stranger kept his eyes on me, raised his eyebrows, and then turned, slowly.
 

My father was already scrambling out of his chair by the far wall, wiping his hands on his soot-black apron, leaping forwards to try to shake hands with the esteemed gentleman. The Duke stood back and kept his arms at his sides, unwilling to take part in any bodily contact with my old man.

‘Sir,’ my father stammered, in much the same way I had just done. ‘Yer horseshoes are ready for inspection an’ collection.’ I cringed at my father’s accent, even thicker than my own.

The stranger watched my father pick up a cloth package from a nearby table, and then unwrap them before him. I felt a gleam of pride as I saw my father’s handiwork being opened out for display. He was a gifted man, my father, and to see him with a customer as grand as
this
standing before him, inspecting his work, felt truly marvellous!

The stranger picked up each of the four horseshoes, one by one, examining the detail on every shoe, with no expression and no clue as to whether or not he was pleased or displeased, and then, eventually, he said to my father: ‘I’ll take them. And I’ll take your daughter too.’

‘Ye’ll flippin’ well do
what
?’ my father asked, his eyes widened and mouth agape. He cast me a sideways glance, and I shook my head fiercely, horrified at the words which had just escaped from the gentleman’s mouth.

‘I am the Duke of Leamington,’ said the stranger, rising a few inches taller all of a sudden, his spine straightening out, so that he towered over my father. ‘And I am not in the habit of being turned down when I make requests.’ He turned around, to look back at me, his eyes sliding down to my breasts, which seemed to swell under his gaze, and then he looked at my long, sturdy legs, poking out of the bottom of my short skirt, and back up to my pale cheeks, which had by now turned white as a ghost. ‘Yes,’ said the Duke, turning back to my father. ‘I’ll take her.’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said my father, taking off his cap and rubbing his head, perplexed. The motion of his fingers on his head caused plumes of soot to fall down to the floor, and he quickly replaced his cap. For my father, it was a gesture of respect to keep his cap firmly atop his head, and the soot under the cap. ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated, ‘but I jus’ don’t understand what it is you want.’

The Duke cleared his throat, and took a step toward my father. ‘I wish to purchase her,’ he said. ‘Your girl there. I wish to pay for these shoes, and to pay for
her
. How much?’

By this time, it seemed that everyone in the entire inn had stopped their conversation, and all eyes were now fixed on me. And then on my father. And then back to me.

‘Ah’m not sure that ah can…’ my father began.
 

But at that moment, the Duke removed a small, cloth purse from within the depths of his jacket, and began to take out not coins, but
notes!
Notes! Can you believe? And not just a couple of pound notes – oh no! They were proper, printed, bank-issued five pound notes. And he counted them out on the table for my father to see. He had
twenty
of them!

‘This is all the money that I have with me at present,’ said the Duke, collecting the money he had counted out and putting it back into his purse. ‘One hundred pounds.’

My father’s eyes were near popping out of his skull.

‘But if you will consent to my marrying her, then I shall gladly send you another hundred once I am safely back in Leamington with my new bride.’

Upon hearing the word ‘marriage’, I could see something change in my father.

‘So you want to marry ‘er?’ he asked, smiling. ‘Well, well. That’s a different story. Ah didnae realise yer intentions were
honourable,
sir! Now if ye’ll jus’ let me ‘ave another look at that money…’

I could see that my father had been excited at the prospect of receiving all those pound notes. And who could blame him? Two hundred pounds! It was more money than most of the people in this inn would see in their entire lives. My father would never have to work another day again!

But
sell me
? To a perfect stranger! My father would never do that! Surely…

The Duke handed my father his purse. ‘You can count it out yourself, you miserable wretch. But you must give me what I want.’

My father – satisfied that the money was real, and that there was as much of it there as he had already once seen counted out before him – licked his lips, looked at me, then back at the Duke. ‘You have got yersel’ a deal. And I’ll tell you what?’ he beamed. ‘I’ll marry the two of you together myself. I’ll do it first thing in the morning if you like, sir!’

‘Excellent,’ said the Duke, finally deigning to shake hands with my father. ‘There’ll be one condition, though, before I consent to marry her. I require that you fashion me another article, old chap,’ he said, pointing to the horseshoes in his hands. ‘A pair of manacles, to fit the lady’s wrists.’

My father, completely under the spell of the money between his fingertips, simply nodded. ‘Of course, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ll make ‘em tight and secure.’

That night, I struggled to complete my evening’s work at the inn, for my hands were trembling so fiercely. I was a terrible mixture of horrified with my father, and terrified about this obnoxious, arrogant stranger, who had deemed me a suitable match for his hand in marriage! Why me? What did he want with
me
, a poor country girl? I dared not think about it.

When the clock struck half past eleven, and I was meant to be clearing the tankards from the table, the landlady, Georgina, grabbed me by the arm, so firmly that it hurt, and I was sure it would leave a red mark in time for my wedding. ‘You had better leave early tonight, Cathy,’ she said to me, ‘for you ‘ave a lot to do to prepare yourself for tomorrow, don’t you, bonny lass?’ She laughed, a sort of shrill, cackling, that I had never heard escape her miserable lips before, and then she thrust her elbow hard into my side and bade me leave my place of work, most probably, I assumed, for the last time ever.

I nodded, and bowed, and took my leave, and rushed home, desperately fatigued with worry, and hoping to lie straight down in my bed, and escape to the oblivion of my dreams.

When I reached the front gate of our cottage, I noticed that there was a candle lit in my father’s shed, and then I heard the bash of his anvil. That word the Duke had used… the commission he had given my father…
manacles
. I knew not what they were, or what such things were used for, but my father had been making them for the past three hours, and showed no signs of relenting. I crept past his she,d hoping not to be seen, but my father must have seen my shadow, and called out: ‘Cathy MacBride! Yer’d better not go to bed! Yer’d better get yerser’ in yon bath in the kitchen. I’ve laid it out an’ put hot water in it, like yer ma used to do, so get in it and I’ll be in in a minute to see yer doin’ as I say!’

I was so dismayed by this I could have wept. Take a bath at almost midnight? I wanted to sleep! Normally, my father insisted that baths were nothing but ‘a new way of lying in your own filth’, but tonight he was insisting on it!

I entered the kitchen and saw the old tin bath on the tiles, lit up by two small candles, both of them almost run down to the wicks, and I envisioned the terrible prospect that the lights might go out while I was in the bath, leaving me sitting in a tub on the kitchen slabs, stark naked!

I removed my dress, heaving a sigh of relief as my huge bosoms fell out of their tight constraints, and then I removed my underskirts, too. Then I took my aching feet out of my shoes and dipped a toe into the bath. It
was
warm, at least, as my father had said, and he had even left the soap bar beside the bath, so that I might clean myself properly.
 

I lowered my body all the way in, my eyes widening a little with shock as the hot water engulfed my precious little sex, which, I feared, was going to have to deal with more than just hot water tomorrow. Having never known my mother, I knew nothing about sex, except what I smelt on the sheets at the inn, and what I heard in the night, when my father brought home women from the fields sometimes, and I could hear them rutting for around ten minutes, with shrieks and gasps and moans, and then I’d hear my father snoring and the sound of a disgruntled woman, pacing the creaky floorboards above my head.

I was just soaping my underarms when my father entered the kitchen. Even in the dim candlelight, I could see that he was dripping with sweat. ‘Oh good,’ he said, mopping his brow. ‘Yer in the bath.’ He sat on a chair at the table, and took an apple from the bowl upon it. He looked at me, then he looked at the apple, and bit into it.

‘Now we ain’t got all night, Cathy, so ‘urry up yer scrubbin’ an’ then get tae bed,’ he said, his mouth full of crunchy fruit. ‘An’ don’ forget tae scrub yer slit. That’s the mos’ important bit.’

Dejectedly, I listened to the sound of my father’s teeth piercing the flesh of the apple, and then I took the soap down to my sex, and washed the delicate little lips with my fingers, the soap making them slide easily up and down and around it. I’d never touched myself like this, in the bath before, and I began to wonder what it might feel like to insert the soap all the way in… or at least to pushy a single, soapy finger inside of me…

But my father was watching my every move as he ate, and I knew not to do anything like
that
in front of him!

Finally, I was done, and my father spared me the embarrassment of inspecting me, but simply told me to go to my bed, and to take my last sleep inside his four walls, for tomorrow I’d be lying in a bed far, far away from here.

And I must confess, as I stepped down the murky corridor toward my chamber, I wiped away a few small tears, not because I was sorry to be leaving this house, but because I knew I would never again have the same relationship with my father that I had once had. To him, I was now nothing but a piece of hammered iron, for sale to the highest bidder.

The next morning I arose at five a.m. I had had a restless night’s sleep, full of dizzying dreams about the arrogant, obnoxious man who was soon to be my husband. I dreamt that I was nothing but a tiny woodlouse, and I saw his face, towering over me, squashing me under the sole of his shoe. Unable to sleep any longer, after such terrible nightmares, I got out of bed and made myself useful. I scrubbed the kitchen floor, then washed the table, the curtains, and even the inside of the tub which I had used to bathe in last night. By the end of all my cleaning, the light was coming in through the windows, and I was quite, quite filthy. Worse perhaps, than before I had taken to the tub last night.

Fortunately, my father arose looking rather preoccupied, and did not notice my lack of cleanliness. He came out of his chamber, buttoning up his shirt and straightening his pantaloons, and when he saw me, he took me by the arm – roughly, as Georgina had done last night – and said: ‘Right, we’re off then. Ah promised we’d be there at daybreak.’ And he pulled me out of the kitchen, giving me no time to look behind me at the place I was leaving, only capable of looking ahead, and trying not to trip over any obstacles which lay in my path.

My father had told the Duke he would marry us in his blacksmith’s shed, as had been in his tradition for many years, with all the marriage pronouncements he had previously made. I was somewhat surprised that the Duke had agreed to be married in a place as simple and dirty as this, but then I was also surprised that he wanted to marry me, and not even in a wedding dress! I was wearing my plain old brown dress, as ever, filthy and falling out of it as I was.

My father opened the door of the shed wide open, letting in the light, and I stood by his anvil, cowering, awaiting whatever terrible fate I was about to enter into. Mere moments after we had arrived, I heard the sound of a heavy, assured step, and then I saw the Duke walking up the path to our humble home. He was dressed in a severe navy-blue suit, with golden buttons and gold buttons on his shoes. Really, if I hadn’t known better I’d truly think he was the king of England! I was so shocked by the strangeness of everything that was happening to me that I had to stifle a laugh, I really did. The situation was absurd.