Damsels in Distress (18 page)

Eventually he picked up the belt and walked towards Sally’s waiting bottom with slow deliberation. The pale pink mounds stopped trembling as the girl heard his footfall, and her buttocks clenched in anticipation. Joe moved unhurriedly, bringing back his arm as he ambled towards her, and giving the waiting bottom a good belt as he came into range.

Crack
! This time the echoing retort was deeper, more profound, and Sally gave a shriek that sounded as much surprise as pain.

Joe walked around the trestle, smiling down at her as he circled his victim. ‘Be quiet and stay still,’ he warned. ‘If you move I’ll give you more. You’ll take a dozen anyway.’

‘A dozen?’ Sally squealed. ‘Oh please, Mr Drake, I—’

‘Silence!’ Joe’s voice reverberated around the chamber and Sally held her tongue. His face was set as he walked back towards the door. For a moment Rose thought he had seen her as his eyes seemed to look straight into hers, and she had to bite her knuckle to keep from crying out with fear. But she need not have worried, for abruptly he turned and started walking back towards his target. Once again he strolled by the trembling girl, delivering a meaty stroke in passing, almost nonchalantly, and again he carried on around the front of the trestle. ‘Keep your legs straight,’ he admonished.

Rose could see the angry pink bands his belt had inscribed as they developed across Sally’s bottom. Her stomach tightened as the gamekeeper strode towards her once again, but this time it was sympathy for her friend rather than any real fear of discovery. Then as she knew he would, Joe spun around and started walking back towards his victim. He had on heavy leather boots and she could hear his measured tread taking him into range of Sally’s flinching bottom. Sally could hear it too, for she could not seem to keep her bottom still as anticipation cranked up to unbearable levels at his slow approach.

Once again the oiled leather hissed through the air, disturbing the myriad dust motes that danced in the gaslight of the storeroom. Once again the sound of impact echoed around the chamber, and Rose watched aghast as Sally’s bottom cheeks bounced under the heavy belt and her friend let out a shrill squeal of pain.

‘Oh, ow, please sir, it hurts.’ Sally did not rise, but she hopped from foot to foot as the third broad welt of scarlet bloomed on her pink behind. ‘Please let me off, sir.’

‘You asked for this, and now you are getting it, you saucy trollop,’ he said, dismissing her plea. ‘Will you be quiet now, or will I have to give you extra rations?’

Rose trembled in indignation at his heartlessness. The beast was absolutely pitiless!

The beast in question did not walk away from Sally this time. He positioned himself, legs apart, to the left and a little behind the proffered bottom, and as Sally’s buttocks clenched in nervous anticipation he rolled up his sleeve.

‘I’m going to learn yer, sweetheart,’ he warned. ‘You see if I don’t learn yer!’ His voice was a hoarse growl, and Sally uttered a miserable sob.

Crack
!
Crack
!
Crack
! He brought the belt down hard, again and again, and the broad strap sent Sally’s chubby buttocks bouncing with a series of retorts as the leather impacted on soft flesh. Perhaps the sepulchral silence of the storehouse did amplify the sound, but the angry blush that rose on Sally’s exposed rear was proof that the belting was well felt as well as heard.

‘Oh please, sir, have mercy!’ Sally wailed between strokes, to absolutely no effect at all. Somehow the girl managed to keep roughly in position, despite a little hopping and a lot of buttock clenching. Joe did not pause again to tell her to be still or silent, but wielded his belt unrelentingly until he had given the maid her full count of merciless strokes.

‘That’s twelve,’ he announced. ‘No, I did not tell you to get up, did I? Keep your position girl, while I calculate your extras.’

‘Extras?’ the poor girl squealed. ‘Oh, no more, sir, have a heart, you’ve nearly skinned me, sir, honest you have.’

Joe Drake stepped a little nearer to the girl’s furiously scarlet, naked bottom, and she gasped as he placed a rough hand on hot flesh. Rose watched, appalled as he stroked the whimpering girl’s naked hinds.

‘I only gave you what you asked for,’ he said as he fondled her. ‘But now I’m going to take a little of what I want.’

Rose wondered what to do. What was Joe planning for Sally now? It was awful. She could not bear to leave her friend to his cruelties, and yet she did not dare confront the gamekeeper and his awful belt.

‘Enjoying the show…?’

Rose shrieked as strong fingers closed around the back of her neck, and in a trice she was hauled from the trestle table squealing in horror.

‘Be quiet, you silly girl!’

Rose somehow managed to control her panic as the fingers released their iron grip on her.

‘Well, what do you think you’re doing in my storerooms, eh?’

Rose heard a commotion in the next room and approaching footsteps as she wondered what on earth she could say. She dared not look up at her captor, but she did not need to, for with downcast eyes she recognised the polished riding boots and the wicked crop he tapped against his thigh.

‘Well now, here’s a thing.’ Roland Caversham sat in his library chair, regarding the three figures that stood before him. ‘Thieves, spies and gamekeepers taking the law into their own hands. I really do not know what to make of this whole business at all.’

Rose was outraged by his manner; after all, she’d hardly done anything very wrong. But she held her tongue, aware that Sally and Joe could be in real trouble.

There was a long and tense pause. The library was a gloomy room at the best of times and the gaslight was quite low. A flickering fire in the imposing fireplace added a red glow to the light. They were alone in the house, Rose knew, for Mrs Bunyan was away and cook lived in the village.

‘It’s all my fault really, sir,’ Sally said, breaking the pause at last. ‘I provoked him to it.’

If Rose had expected Joe to defend her young friend she was sadly disappointed.

‘Nicking pears, she was, Mr Caversham,’ he said with a barely concealed grin, ‘so I thought her own pair ought to pay a forfeit.’

Rose felt the outrage bubble up inside her at the gamekeeper’s duplicity, but she held her tongue and waited for Mr Caversham to put him firmly in his place.

‘Having seen that pair, Joe, I can well understand why you would want to,’ the squire said. ‘Still, you should have brought her to me, after all, the tree belongs to me.’

Outrage turned to shock in Rose’s palpitating breast. Though Mr Caversham’s words might have been gently critical, his tone was one of amused tolerance. She clenched her fists and contemplated the villainy of the two horrid men.

Mr Caversham shrugged. ‘I can see this will take some thinking about,’ he said. ‘Joe, pour me a brandy. And have one yourself while you’re at it, and then sit.’

Rose watched aghast as Joe went to the sideboard and poured two generous measures into brandy balloons, and as he sauntered back he even had the temerity to wink at the girls. He handed his employer one of the glasses, and then took the other comfortable chair. Now the two men sat a few feet apart, swirling brandy in glasses, while Rose and Sally had to stand facing them like naughty schoolgirls. It was just too much, Rose thought indignantly.

‘Now then,’ Mr Caversham said at last, ‘what are we going to do with you two, hm? I cannot have pear thieves and sneaking spies in my employ.’

He was going to dismiss them both from his household, Rose suspected fearfully. He was going to dismiss them and let that brute Joe go unpunished. It was so unfair!

‘So, clearly I shall have to punish you,’ the squire went on. ‘You are going to have to agree to let me give you a good thrashing, girls.’

So there it was, as bold as that. Rose felt suddenly dizzy. If she refused, then Sally might well lose her job. So what could she do but comply?

‘Will it be very hard, sir?’ Sally asked timorously. ‘Only, my bottom is still ever so sore.’

‘It will be as hard as I please to make it,’ Mr Caversham said, with sudden venom. ‘Now, you two have far too much clothing on for what is coming to you, so I want you to strip right down to your stockings.’

‘But sir,’ Rose protested as her cheeks flamed, ‘surely you don’t expect us to—’

‘Take your clothes off,’ he repeated. ‘Quickly now; unless you want me to designate Joe to help you.’

Rose glanced at the gamekeeper, whose eyes were twinkling as he regarded the two maids with an amused smirk. There was no doubt he would do his employer’s bidding with glee, so she began, with great reluctance, to unbutton her dress.

It was awful. Rose had never before undressed with men watching, but she slipped her dress off and let it fall in a puddle around her feet.

‘And the rest,’ Mr Caversham ordered.

‘But, please…’

‘Joe…’

The gamekeeper began to rise, so Rose hastily took off her cami-knickers and stood with her discarded clothes around her ankles, black stockings fastened with elastic garters just above the knee, now the sole sad remainders of her clothing. She kept one arm across her breasts and one hand over the dark brown curls of her sex, blushing furiously and unable to stop herself trembling.

‘All right, Joe, they won’t be needing their clothes for a little while,’ the squire decreed. ‘Would you mind fetching my favourite crop and locking away their clothes?’

Joe would not mind at all, it seemed. He took a key from his boss and then gathered up the maids’ clothing with obvious enthusiasm.

‘You are a pretty thing, Rose, did you know that?’ the squire said languidly.

‘No… please sir, this isn’t decent,’ Rose objected. ‘May I have my clothes back?’

‘No, you may not. Sally is not complaining. Perhaps Joe’s belt has taught her better manners than you, hm? Have you been whipped before, Rose?’

‘No, sir,’ she replied tightly. ‘Not since… not with…’

‘Not with a riding-crop? Believe me, this one’s a beauty. You’ll certainly know you’ve been thrashed when this is over, girls.’ He chuckled and took another sip of brandy. ‘Ah, here’s Joe back with the very whip.’

If the dominant emotions in Rose’s mind had been shame and humiliation at her nakedness, then suddenly they were eclipsed by intense misgivings. The whip in question was fully three feet long; a slender switch sheathed in dark brown plaited leather. At one end it finished with a sliver ring and then a leather covered knob. The business end finished with a little whipcord tail, and this in turn ended in a knot. Rose had ample opportunity to study the thing as the men examined it with delight, passing comments and chuckling as they discussed its finer points.

‘It’s a dressage whip, technically, Joe,’ Mr Caversham said, ‘but if I was to have bought one especially for the purpose, I reckon this would have been the very whip. By jingo, if it isn’t exactly the thing for swishing pretty girls.’

‘Don’t know so much about that, sir,’ Joe said with a chuckle. ‘Reckon my belt does as well as anything, ’cepting maybe my hand.’

‘Oh, we’ll spank the little baggages for starters,’ the squire disclosed. ‘Be a frightful waste not to. I expect you will want to put young Sally over your knee?’

‘Oh, I’m easy, sir, but if you’d rather start with Rosy…’

‘Do you know, Joe,’ Mr Caversham said with a broad grin, ‘I rather think I would!’

Rose watched him put the crop on the desk beside him, then watched him pat his thigh.

‘Come on, Rose, time to take your medicine,’ he said.

Rose felt herself sway again, and almost wished she could faint. But she didn’t, and so with great reluctance she walked to the master’s chair, aware only of her shameful nakedness and the beckoning squire.

‘Get yourself over my lap, girl,’ he ordered gruffly, and as she obeyed miserably and balanced herself on his thighs he took an anchoring hold of her waist. ‘Don’t put your hand’s back or you will get more when it comes to the whipping,’ he said evenly.

Rose fought her rising panic, her naked bottom feeling appallingly vulnerable, her equally naked tummy feeling something hard swelling beneath the master’s twill trousers. How had she got herself into this? There was the sound of a hand cracking against bottom flesh and a girlish squeal of pain. Sally had got her into it, she remembered, and resolved to have harsh words with the blonde maid, when and if she ever got the chance again. But Mr Caversham did not give her long to seethe about Sally, and she felt a hand pat and squeeze her naked bottom.

‘By God, but you have a pretty bottom, Rose,’ the squire declared, his voice rich with pleasure. ‘I’m going to enjoy spanking you, you saucy little minx!’

And with that it started. To go by the sounds of slaps and shrieking, Sally was evidently being giving another tremendous walloping by Joe. But Rose was only dimly aware of the other couple in the room. Mr Caversham brought his hand down on her right buttock with a crack like a clap of thunder. A second smack on her left cheek followed immediately. Then he brought his palm down across her bottom furrow. Next he slapped the right thigh and then he smacked the left.

When Rose had realised that she really was in for a spanking, she thought mainly of the humiliation it would entail. Standing naked had been awful, but being spanked just like a naughty girl would mean almost unbearable humiliation. At least, that’s what she thought. Now she knew better. The squire might not have Joe Drake’s prodigious strength, but he was a vigorous man, and he knew how to spank. Every slap stung Rose like fury. She wriggled and she wiggled, but his grip held her securely on his lap. She squealed pitifully, but the squire gave her no mercy. Rose writhed and gasped as tears welled then ran down her face in rivulets. She could barely believe that a hand spanking could hurt so much.