Damsels in Distress (16 page)

There was a whoosh, a loud crack and a ferocious blaze of pain, and it was a moment before she could think of anything except the agony in her bottom, and when it started to subside she realised the laughter was even more ribald than before.

‘Good job she made two!’

‘I say, Angelica, that was a beauty. Never saw a cane broken on a girl before.’

‘Here, Belinda, pass me that other switch. You know I barely tapped her. I wouldn’t be surprised if the wicked little baggage had not weakened it on purpose.’

Sensing more devilries from Angelica, Faith tensed again, but to her huge relief Marmaduke’s voice cut in. ‘Nonsense, Angelica, look at the stripe you gave her. It’s no wonder you snapped it. These willow wands are thin, and they are not rattan, you know. Come on, you have another stripe to give her.’

A feeling of profound gratitude towards him flooded Faith, but was soon rudely elbowed aside by her escalating trepidation.

The final stroke came at last though and, once again, Faith’s whole consciousness was engulfed in a red tidal wave of pain.

‘May we get dressed please, Mr Brooke?’

The butler looked at the near-naked girls with a disdainful, appraising eye. ‘You will get dressed when I tell you and not before,’ he said. ‘Master Marmaduke may well wish to inspect your stripes again on his return.’

Faith felt certain that Mr Brooke’s own pleasure in their nakedness had more to do with their continuing humiliation than any preferences or orders of Master Marmaduke.

Young Mr Savillard had gone off with Miss Angelica and one of the rugs after the thrashing, whilst Master Eustace and Miss Belinda had taken the other rug and a walk in the opposite direction, leaving the butler and the maids to clear up the picnic site.

Mr Brooke finished off some champagne as he watched the girls work, slipping one hand in his trouser pocket and quite obviously fondling himself. Faith did her best to ignore such shocking behaviour, and every now and then she looked longingly at the little pile of her own and Charity’s clothes.

‘Take everything out of the hamper, girls,’ the butler ordered, and Faith looked at him questioningly; surely they should be packing it, not emptying it. But his stern gaze met hers and she fearfully eyed the willow wand he’d picked up and was toying with.

Once the wicker basket was empty, the butler told the girls to tip it up and shake out any crumbs. Then he supervised them setting it down again on a flat and level area of grass. Faith could not imagine what the point of all this was, but she was not to be left puzzled for long.

‘Right, Faith, get into the basket,’ he ordered, and she turned to him, blinking with surprise.

‘Get in it…?’ she said, mystified. ‘But, it isn’t big enough?!’

The willow wand caught her on the thigh and she did not argue any more. With a good deal of difficulty she folded herself into the creaking confines of the hamper, which proved to be just big enough to take her tucked into a foetal position. Then Mr Brooke towered above her as she lay squashed into the basket, his tall figure blotting out most of the blue summer sky. He bent and she grunted a futile protest as a hand pressed, forcing her arms and limbs down. When he was satisfied, he closed the lid, and Faith felt the uncomfortable wicker pressing down on her shoulder and hip as the butler tried to force the basket closed.

‘Charity, press down here,’ he ordered, recruiting the help of Faith’s friend.

‘But, Mr Brooke, please…’ Charity was clearly reluctant to be his accomplice.

‘Do you want another whipping, girl?’ he snapped. ‘Now, push down with me.’

Faith gave a squeak of discomfort as the pressure increased, the wicker basket protesting its misuse by creaking noisily. She sensed the leather straps being secured, and panic seized her. She was terribly uncomfortable and utterly trapped. She forced herself to breathe deeply and calm down.

‘Oh, Mr Brooke, I don’t know,’ she heard Charity say.

‘You are a very pretty girl, Charity,’ Brooke drawled salaciously.

‘Thank you, Mr Brooke, but sir, please don’t do that.’

‘A pretty girl like you could go far, you know.’

Then Faith could not hear any more. The voices became lower, and then when she heard them again the tone of the exchange had changed.

‘Oh, Mr Brooke, oh
sir
,’ she heard Charity gasp.

‘That’s it, you little minx, in it goes, dear girl.’

‘But Mr Brooke, sir, it’s ever so big.’

‘What lovely bubbies you have, my dear. You enjoyed showing them to all the world, didn’t you, you shameless little hussy?’

‘Ah, please sir, don’t bite them so… ouch, Mr Brooke, sir!’

After that the words turned to grunts and cries and squeals that could have been of pain but might have been delight. Tears ran down Faith’s cheeks as she listened, immobile and in ever increasing discomfort. Then at last she heard a shuddering sigh that must have been Charity’s climax, followed by a few male grunts.

Faith strained her ears hoping to hear something that might mean she was about to be released. The wicker was increasingly uncomfortable and pained the soft flesh of her body on every side. Her arms and legs cramped from being forced into one position, and all she could see was random specks of light that stole in from gaps in the weaving of the wickerwork. She could see nothing that might help her discover what was happening beyond her tiny prison. Where had Mr Brooke and Charity gone? She could not endure this for much longer. What was going on?

At last she gasped a sob of relief as the leather straps where loosened, and sweet relief, the basket lid opened. Peering down at her was Charity, with a most shamefaced expression on her cute face. Still naked, there was grass seeds stuck in her stockings and more wisps of hair had escaped from her maid’s cap. She smiled down at her contorted friend and extended a hand to help her.

It was not easy getting out of the basket. Apart from her compressed position, Faith found her legs and arms had gone to sleep and would not work properly, but with Charity’s help she eventually managed to climb out, albeit unsteadily.

Mr Brooke was watching with an amused expression on his ruddy face, which hardened when Faith glanced at him.

‘Right girls, get this all packed and cleared away,’ he ordered, his butler demeanour once again restored. ‘Quickly now, the company will be back soon. Come along, get to work now. You cannot expect to spend the whole day enjoying yourselves.’

‘And what are you two still doing in your birthday suits?’ Master Marmaduke cocked a quizzical eye at Faith and Charity.

‘Um, we didn’t…’ Faith mumbled, blushing furiously and glancing at Brooke, who stood detached and aloof to one side.

‘I do declare your maids seem to run around naked for most of the day, Marmaduke!’ Angelica’s haughty laugh set the seal on Faith’s embarrassment.

‘Well, get dressed at once, you silly creatures,’ he ordered. ‘Then take all this,’ he indicated the picnic paraphernalia, ‘back to the house. I suppose we had better wait for the others.’

‘I wonder what they can be up to.’ Angelica laughed again, as with huge relief Faith buttoned up her camisole and helped Charity back into her corset. The dressing took some time, and it was obvious that Angelica was getting impatient.

‘Oh, where have Belinda and Eustace got to?’ she pouted. ‘It really is too much to be endured. For heaven’s sake, what are those wicked maids doing now. It seems to be taking forever for them to dress. We should have given them a dozen strokes apiece.’

Faith felt her stomach tighten and exchanged an anxious glance with Charity as they buttoned up their dresses.

‘Oh, I’m not sure that would have been fair, Angelica.’ Master Marmaduke’s tone and demeanour were relaxed, and finishing adjusting her apron, Faith helped Charity to straighten her little cap.

‘But it would, Marmaduke,’ she squealed like a spoilt brat, her voice getting shriller with each passing syllable, ‘it would! I did especially want some cherries, and these two incompetent strumpets have ruined the whole afternoon.’

Marmaduke waved at Eustace and Belinda, who he’d spotted stealing out of a shady coppice on the edge of the meadow. ‘Never mind, Angelica,’ he said, and Faith watched, dumbfounded, as he produced a brown paper bag from his blazer pocket and offered it to the pink-gowned, pouting lady. ‘Why not have one of these?’

‘W-what is that?’ Angelica demanded. ‘Where did you get it from?’

‘Don’t you know, my dear?’ he mused, clearly pleased with himself. ‘That’s funny, because I found them secreted beneath the rug, just were you were sitting for the picnic.’ He smiled, plucked a juicy cherry from the bag, and popped it into his mouth. ‘Mm, you should have one, they really are very good.’

Angelica stood frozen to the spot, pink spots spreading from the dimpled centres of her porcelain cheeks.

‘Cherries?’ Eustace’s booming voice rang out. ‘What ho. Where did you find them, old chap?’

‘It seems Angelica had them all the time,’ Marmaduke divulged. ‘Now I don’t regret the fact that we gave these two little minxes a good caning; I am quite sure it did them no harm whatsoever. I do, however, resent my fiancé lying and stealing in order to get my staff in trouble.

‘I – I – I…’ Angelica stammered hopelessly, standing rigid, looking as if, for once in her spoiled life; she did not know what to do. ‘I’m sorry, Marmy,’ she whined at last. ‘It was just a little bit of fun.’

Marmaduke bent and picked up one of the discarded willow wands and flexed it idly, with a thoughtful expression. ‘I suppose the real question is, what would your papa do in such circumstances?’

‘Look!’ Sally Jones squealed excitedly, peeking around the sheet she’d just hung up to dry. ‘There they go; off shooting again, I expect. Oh Rose, just look at that Joe Drake. Look at the shoulders on him. What I wouldn’t give for an hour in the hay barn with him!’

‘Sally, what are you saying?’ Rose Maynard said in outraged tones as she hefted the laundry basket over to the next bit of line. All the same, she had a good look as well as the two men strode across the lawns towards fields in front of Corving Woods.

‘He is splendid though, isn’t he?’ Sally said dreamily.

‘Yes, yes I suppose he is,’ Rose acknowledged, but her gaze was not fixed on the young gamekeeper’s form, but that of his companion. She gave a heartfelt sigh. Sally was a lovely girl, plumply curvaceous with a creamy complexion and corn-gold hair, and Rose had seen Joe stare hungrily over at her young companion more than once when he delivered game to the kitchens. Sally had a real chance with him; there was no doubt about that.

She watched the men, quite distant figures now, as they climbed a stile, Joe passing the guns over to Mr Caversham as the dogs milled excitedly around them.

The squire was a different matter altogether, and Rose returned to the laundry with a sigh. He was so handsome, so indifferent and aloof, so far above her station in life that she knew she could entertain no hopes at all in that direction.

Rose had been at the hall for almost a year now, yet she had not thought much about Mr Caversham until that day the previous week when the hunt set off from the hall. Ordered to serve drinks to the mounted throng, it fell to Rose to hand the master his stirrup cup. He looked down at her from Thor, his massive chestnut hunter and, just for a moment, she found herself impaled by his imperious gaze.

‘Stop dreaming you two!’ Mrs Bunyan’s sharp voice cut through Rose’s reverie, and the girls quickly got on with hanging up the linen. ‘Bone idle, like all young girls these days,’ the miserable woman grumbled. ‘In my young day the least hint of slacking would earn lazy chits like you two a damned good leathering. A few cuts of the birch or belt would soon buck your ideas up, depend upon it.’ The housekeeper glared at them, her long black skirts and hair, worn in a tight grey bun, always seemed to belong to another altogether harsher age. The glint in her slate-grey eyes left Rose in no doubt how bitterly Mrs Bunyan regretted the fact that times had changed, and that a housekeeper’s powers to punish under-servants had waned. Still, the girls waited until her stiff black back had vanished before breaking into fits of giggles. The housekeeper might no longer have the authority to order them a flogging, but she could still make life quite difficult enough for lowly housemaids.

‘Phew, I’m glad that old termagant can’t give us a whipping.’ Sally was grinning, but she kept her voice low. ‘Did you see her eyes? She really would love to have us thrashed.’

‘According to cook, this place used to be known for it,’ said Rose, who had been at the hall some months longer than her companion. ‘They used to send girls over to the stables to be dealt with by the grooms. There was even supposed to be a special room there for public floggings.’ She shivered as a vision of rough hands and leather tack came unbidden into her mind.

‘Well,’ Sally leant forward conspiratorially and spoke in a hoarse whisper, cheeks pink with excitement, ‘I don’t know about the grooms, but there is a gamekeeper I wouldn’t mind being sent to. Have you seen the size of his belt?’

‘Sally!’ But Rose’s remonstrance was half-hearted. She was thinking of the squire, Roland Caversham, and the way he had looked down at her from his mount as he tapped his riding-crop impatiently against his thigh.