Damsels in Distress (14 page)

‘I really have no idea what you are talking about,’ Elouise said primly, but she could not help glancing at the cane that lay on the bed beside her. The sensation she had before was even stronger now. The thing seemed to fairly thrum with power and possibility. Finding it had truly transformed her life, she reflected, it really had been like discovering a sort of magic wand. Setting her cup back down on the tray she picked the cane up and flexed it experimentally. She could not help wondering quite how much the beast would hurt her tender bottom if ever applied to it by a strong-armed male.

‘Would you fetch my clothes from my room, Biddy?’ she said with sudden resolve. ‘I think it is time that I rose and went out, don’t you?’

Biddy grinned back in response. ‘Anywhere special, miss?’

‘Oh, I don’t know…’ Elouise lay back amongst the pillows, a little smile playing on her lips. ‘I thought we might go shopping, to Madame Lausacs in Bond Street. I hear she has some quite scandalously expensive lingerie.’

‘I say, what about here?’ The honourable Marmaduke Savillard looked around and spread his arms. ‘There’s a terrific view.’

Faith paused, catching her breath but not daring to put down the heavy hamper yet, waiting like everyone else in the picnic party to hear Miss Frobisher’s verdict.

Angelica Frobisher put her rose-pink parasol in front of her and placed both hands on the handle, adopting a pose that arched her back and showed off a trim figure already emphasised by the fashionable combination of perilous tight-lacing and bustle. She sniffed; her exquisite little snub nose high in the air as usual.

Faith sighed, for Miss Angelica had already rejected five perfectly good picnic sites and the maid’s arms were aching dreadfully.

‘Oh well,’ Miss Frobisher said with evident reluctance as she peered disdainfully at the sublime view of river, water meadows and wooded hills beyond, ‘I suppose it will have to do. I just hope we shan’t be overrun with wasps and ants and things.’

‘Thank God for that,’ Charity whispered into Faith’s ear as both maids put down their burdens. They had been hauling the great wicker basket between them, Faith struggling with one handle while Charity huffed and puffed as she lugged the other. She was a pretty, slightly plump, blonde girl, two years Faith’s junior at nineteen. The exertion turned her peaches and cream complexion rather pink and a wisp of golden hair had escaped from her cap. Faith knew that she was thought pretty, but the truth was that she always felt her own, slimmer figure and dark brown curls rather eclipsed by Charity’s voluptuous charms and golden ringlets.

‘Come along, you two, set down those rugs and get the service out.’ Mr Brooke, the butler, gave the maids no time to recover from the walk. He had carried a single champagne bottle in a bucket filled with ice and Faith knew there were two more in the hamper the maid’s had hauled between them as well as all the crockery and food. Still, there was no sense in complaining, and so she busied herself setting out the picnic as Mr Brooke opened the champagne and the gentlefolk admired the view.

‘Those woods beyond the river are all old Archie Brocklesby’s. Terrific pheasant shooting. Bagged two dozen brace one day last December!’ Eustace Delamere, a florid-faced young man inclined to corpulence, gestured at the woods on the other side of the river excitedly, but Angelica and Belinda barely bothered to look.

‘Hunting, shooting, horseracing and politics.’ Belinda Tavistock was an aquiline beauty with neatly coiffed auburn hair. ‘The little things that men find to occupy themselves never cease to amaze me,’ she said airily, carefully arranging the skirts of her green silk dress about her as she settled down on a rug.

‘I say, that’s a bit unfair, Belinda.’ Eustace turned to face her with a slightly indignant expression. ‘When did Marmaduke or I ever mention politics?’

‘Anyway,’ Marmaduke said with a smile, whilst giving Angelica a steadying hand as she settled on the other rug opposite her friend, to the accompaniment of a frou-frou from her skirts and petticoats, ‘at least we chaps have something to talk about that isn’t fashion.’

‘Don’t you like fashion then, Marmaduke?’ Angelica said coyly, putting up her parasol and twirling it over her shoulder. ‘What about this dress – don’t you like it?’

Faith carried on unpacking delicacies from the hamper, but she could not resist giving Angelica a glance. The truth was that her gown of pink and white suited the pretty young woman most admirably. Faith sighed wistfully to herself; Master Marmaduke was getting more obviously smitten by the minute and a wedding definitely threatened. The prospect filled her with dismay. A chambermaid’s life was hard enough at Strickland Grange as it was, without that little minx’s moods to contend with.

‘Glasses, Faith! Charity!’ Both maids hurried over to the butler’s side, a champagne flute in either hand, as he popped the cork a little way away from the company.’

‘Faith and Charity? Is that a coincidence, or did your mater have to search high and low to get a matching pair?’ Angelica’s eyes were bright with malice as she took her flute from Faith, who could not prevent herself from blushing.

‘Oh, neither,’ Marmaduke said languidly, as he took the other glass from her. ‘We have a Hope as well, you know, and one could spend one’s life looking for the set.’ He chuckled.

Faith glanced at Charity and saw her companion blushing too. ‘No, that one…’ Marmaduke waved a glass in the direction of the blonde handing champagne to the other couple with a visibly trembling hand. ‘When she came to us, mater didn’t like her name.’ He furrowed his brow. ‘Can’t remember what it was now. Anyway, she came from the charity so mater renamed her just that – Charity.’ He took a swig of champagne and smiled.

‘Then we got this little chit,’ he nodded towards Faith, ‘and I suggested that we rechristen her Faith. Mater liked the idea so we had the pair. Then when we got a third maid, what could we do but call her Hope to complete the set?’

Faith blinked back a tear of embarrassment as the picnickers burst into peals of spoilt giggles, but she did not have time to dwell upon her shame as she and Charity were kept busy serving food and refilling glasses.

‘Some gateaux, Angelica?’ Marmaduke asked attentively.

‘No, thank you. One has to watch one’s figure! A few cherries will do as a sweet for me.’

‘Where are the cherries, Faith?’ Master Marmaduke asked casually.

‘Ah, I…’ Faith searched frantically through the hamper but there was no sign of the fruit.

‘Come along now, girl,’ Mr Brooke demanded, ‘what have you done with the cherries?’

They were not there. They must be there. They were not anywhere. What could have happened to them? Faith’s search grew more frantic by the second.

‘Where are my cherries, Jemmy?’ Angelica’s tone was overindulgently petulant. ‘I especially asked for cherries!’

‘I know you did, my love.’ Marmaduke’s tone was serious and full of displeasure. ‘Faith, Charity, what has happened to the cherries?’

What could have happened to them? Faith, tried to think. She had seen Hope wash them in the kitchen and then she saw them sitting on the table with the nectarines. There was only one explanation.

‘I – I think cook must have forgotten to pack them, sir,’ she said timidly.

There was an awful silence broken only by the buzzing of a bumblebee and the song of an ascending lark somewhere in the distance. Then Belinda shook her head and made a tutting sound.

‘What wicked girls!’ Angelica exclaimed. ‘Trying to put the blame on your cook! I bet the two of them scoffed the lot on the way here!’

This charge was patently ridiculous. In fact, considering how laden they had been on the long walk it was laughable. The only trouble was that nobody was laughing.

‘If papa were here he would give the lying little thieves a good thrashing,’ Angelica said.

‘Oh yes,’ there was a husky quality to Belinda’s voice, ‘it’s the only thing little trollops like that understand, Marmaduke. Do let us give them a flogging.’

‘Don’t doubt that they deserve it,’ put in Eustace, between mouthfuls of cake, ‘only, what with? We came out without so much as a jockey’s twig between us.’

Faith’s mouth had gone quite dry and her heart was hammering in her breast as she waited for Master Marmaduke to speak.

‘Well, girls,’ he said slowly, ‘what is it to be? Deal with this matter formally when we get back… or informally now?’

The choice was no choice and she knew it. The fact that she and Charity were innocent meant, and would mean, absolutely nothing. There really was only one response she could make.

‘Now, sir, if you please,’ she whispered hoarsely, blushing crimson as she did so.

‘You too?’ Faith saw Charity bob her hanging head from the corner of her eye, and Belinda clapped her hands together excitedly.

‘Very well.’ Marmaduke spoke with authority now it was settled. ‘As we find ourselves a little short of implements, I suggest that Eustace and I each give a maid a spanking.’

‘A mere spanking for such slovenly behaviour?’ Belinda protested.

‘And what about me?’ Angelica put in sulkily. ‘It was I who wanted the cherries; I should have the chance to?’

Marmaduke raised his hand. ‘Hold your hunters, ladies. By jingo, Eustace, did you ever see such a pair of termagants? If these tender-hearted representatives of the gentler sex will allow me to get a word in I shall continue.’

He turned to the butler, who had been watching the proceedings with an amused, sardonic, eye.

‘Brooke, do you see those pollards over on the water meadows?’ he said.

‘I do, Master Marmaduke.’

‘Would they be willows, do you suppose?’

‘Undoubtedly willows, sir.’

‘Good and whippy shoots, do you imagine?’

Faith could not prevent herself from glancing over at the stunted trees in question, although they were too far away for her to be able to discern anything but their general shape.

‘I should imagine so, sir.’

‘Good for whipping naughty girls, do you suppose?’

‘Excellent for the task, I should think, sir. Would you like me to take a knife and cut some switches?’

‘If you would be so kind, Brooke,’ Marmaduke said. ‘If you would be so kind.’

The butler took the sharpest knife from the hamper and set off for the pollards, and Marmaduke turned his attention back to the others.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘as I was saying. I suggest that Eustace and I give these little minxes a good spanking while Brooke is cutting us some switches, and then Angelica and Belinda can give them each six of the best with the willow wands.’

Belinda clapped her hands together in delight at this plan, and even Angelica condescended to give a sly smile.

‘Let’s strip them for it, Jemmy,’ she said, almost eagerly. ‘Let’s make them strip down to the bare!’

Marmaduke and Eustace both chuckled and exchanged a wink. ‘We’ll need to have those gowns off, anyway. Strip down to your underthings, you girls.’

It was not cold that caused Faith to tremble as she stood waiting her turn, for though she had been made to strip to her drawers, thin cotton camisole and corset, the afternoon sun was warm. Blushing furiously in nothing but their underthings, Faith and Charity had been made to clear up the debris of the picnic and then to serve another bottle of champagne to their tormentors. Faith had kept her eyes downcast as she tidied up, trying to ignore the gentlemen’s ribald comments and hissed promises to make them feel their punishment from Angelica. The wicker picnic hamper was placed between the rugs and Eustace sat upon it to the accompaniment of much creaking.

And the protests of the wicker grew even more frantic as Charity stepped forward and awkwardly put herself over the young man’s lap. Faith found herself compelled to watch, and for all her sympathy with Charity there was a part of her that found it strangely thrilling. Charity looked truly lovely in her white underthings. Her corset, laced with much effort by Faith that morning, cinched the plump girl’s figure to hourglass perfection. Her shapely, black-stockinged legs kicked helplessly in the air as Master Eustace took a grip of her corset-encased waist.

He looked up a little unsure at Marmaduke, who was standing next to Faith and facing him.

‘Open her drawers,’ urged Belinda, who was still seated on the rug by the maid’s legs. ‘Go on, you need to spank her on the bare!’ She grabbed the girl’s ankles with a tinkling laugh and held them down.

‘Give me your hands.’ Angelica sat resplendent on the other rug, and held Charity’s wrists so that the girl was held down over Eustace’s lap with very little opportunity to move.

Master Marmaduke walked over to them, and his back blotted out Faith’s view of Charity’s bottom for a moment, but she heard her friend give a little alarmed cry.

‘Be quiet, girl,’ he admonished the poor maid, then said to his friend, ‘Don’t worry, Eustace, there can be no suggestion of impropriety as we have the ladies present.’ He stepped back to Faith’s side and she could not prevent herself from looking. Charity’s drawers had been pulled open and her bare bottom could be seen now, a pale, peachy pink against the white cotton.

‘I say, this is a lovely bottom,’ Eustace said excitedly, fondling the exposed cheeks with evident pleasure.

‘Oh please, sir,’ Charity wailed.

‘Be silent, girl,’ Master Marmaduke growled.

‘Full and firm and smooth as satin, and just begging for a smack!’ Eustace brought his hand down and Faith gulped as she watched her friends bottom bounce under the impact. Eustace brought his hand down again, and then again. The sound of flesh impacting on flesh rang around the meadow, mixing with little yelps of pain and malicious girlish giggles.

Faith felt Master Marmaduke’s hand on her waist as he pulled her close to him, then put his lips to her ear. ‘Enjoying the show, little one?’ he drawled. ‘It will be your turn to perform in a minute.’

As he spoke his hand left her hip and found the gap at the back of her drawers, and Faith could not quite suppress a little squeak as she felt his fingers probed the furrow between her buttocks. Not daring to move, not able to look away from Charity’s rapidly reddening bottom, for a moment she wondered if she might be about to faint, but a sharp pinch of her bottom cheek revived her.