Her Grace's Stable: A Jane Austen Space Opera, Book 2 (2 page)

He hissed in pain, his muscles tightening, fists clenched at his sides. Violet closed her eyes a moment to try and make sense of what she’d seen while still giving him at least some privacy. A cruel trap enclosed his entire groin, tight wires digging into the tender flesh, and weights dangling between his thighs. Every time he moved, the agony must be unbearable. And if he became aroused…

She shuddered and forced her eyes open. Engorged and trapped by his own desire, his cock was swollen and so purple that she feared he might actually lose it. They’d tormented him not just with pain, but with desire, too, knowing the agony it would cause him. He’d been mutilating his own flesh, and yet powerless to stop it. No wonder he was lost in a killing haze.

“Get that abomination off him.” Cole flinched at the brittle, cold tone of her voice. “If he can release, let him, whatever it takes. But he might be in too much pain to even get the slightest relief until the swelling goes down.”

“Yes’m.” Cole bobbed his head but kept his gaze down, his shoulders low and submissive. He knew that tone of voice all too well. “May I have permission to stay with him until he can be moved?”

“Yes. Do anything you can to help him. I’ll send someone with more supplies and food as soon as I return home, and I’ll make arrangements with our host so that no one bothers you at least for a few hours. Do you think you can get him to Blackmyre by dawn?”

Cole gently worked the metal loose and tossed it aside with a clatter. Freed, the man’s erection rose hard and painfully huge. Cole’s singsong voice went sultry as he wiped the man’s bloody thighs with his shirt. “I’ll do my best, Your Grace.”

Keeping her head up and her manner as slow and regal as possible, Violet stepped outside the stall and firmly latched the door. The low murmur of Cole’s voice echoed through the stall, and the ragged groan from the man, whether in ecstasy or pain she didn’t know. Likely both.

She leaned against the wall for a moment and closed her eyes, concentrating on calming her breathing again before a coughing attack gave away her secret illness. In her mind, she saw the tall, proud man again, his eyes bleeding death and rage while his monstrous erection rose up in defiance. A challenge indeed. She’d never beheld such a fiercely proud man with the inclination of pony play. He was truly a wild stallion, and potentially as dangerous. Would his desire be as ferocious?

I hope so.

Dottie wrapped her hand around Violet’s arm, drawing a soft moan from her.

“So that’s what you’ve been hiding from me.”

Violet opened her eyes and searched her friend’s face, but Dottie’s carefully schooled features didn’t reveal her thoughts. They’d known each other since their schooldays at Eton, and nothing had ever broken their friendship. Not even when Violet had done her worst to gain the black reputation of her House’s namesake. Losing her now would be a blow from which she might not recover, especially with her days already numbered.

Pushing that sobering thought away, Violet forced a lighthearted laugh and slipped into the practiced lazy saunter of the privileged upper class. “That’s my great secret, yes. The Duchess of Blackmyre occasionally finds herself rescuing poor mistreated creatures, but I’m considered the vile blackheart of the
ton
.”

“That’s not what I meant. God, Violet, what was that? In all seriousness, I need to know.”

Violet let the fake mask of Polite Society slip away to reveal the harder, colder mistress that Cole knew all too well. “There are some of us who like to subdue our partners before we take them to bed. In fact, some of our partners like to be trained and handled like fine horseflesh.”

“Like your man Cole,” Dottie dared, her eyebrows arching.

“Yes. He’s been my pony more than once.”

Dottie’s lip twitched. “Pony?”

“That’s the general term for people who like to be treated like horseflesh by their master or mistress,” Violet replied stiffly. “I assure you, I’ve never done anything to him that he wasn’t perfectly eager to receive, nothing like that poor man has suffered.”

“And you know people who do this? Regularly? Both the…master…and the…er…pony?”

“Yes.” Violet clamped her mouth shut, refusing to offer any entreaties or explanations. She’d tried to deny the darkness inside her way too long, afraid of the condemnation of her friends, the same as her mother. With Cole, she’d finally embraced her truest self. She’d found something that she not only enjoyed, she excelled at, damn it. She was a damned fine mistress and had even competed in the ring. Granted, it was a small community of people and the title meant nothing whatsoever to anyone but them, but it was the first time anyone had ever accepted the truth about her without a single reservation.

Dottie squeezed her arm harder. “And you didn’t tell me?” She made a noise that Violet hadn’t heard since their schoolgirl days giggling about the first boy they’d caught for a kiss in the barn. “Oh, Vi, I’m positively titillated. I can’t stand that you never told me!”

Violet blinked and tried to keep the silly grin from spreading on her face, but it was a losing effort. “Oh, Dottie, I never thought you’d care to learn about the pony games. It never even occurred to me.”

“Whyever not?”

“Because you’re…so…normal.”
And I’m so abnormal.
She didn’t say that aloud, but it must be written in the agonized sorrow on her face that had been present since her mother’s death.
It’s too late for me to ever win her approval. She’ll never forgive me for having the audacity to be born, let alone taking after my father’s perversion.

“You’re the bloody Duchess of Blackmyre, easily one of the top five most powerful ladies in the known civilized universe,” Dottie said in a low, fierce voice. “If anyone dare say a derogatory word about you they’ll be meeting me at dawn.”

Violet patted her friend’s hand soothingly. “No duels, dearest. You know Queen Majel’s opinion about such frivolous acts of honor. Besides, I’m only Duchess at her whim. She refused to hear the Dowager’s plea to disown me since there were no other living heirs to Blackmyre. Whatever cruel acts can be laid at Queen Majel’s feet, I owe her. When dear Mama died, all of Blackmyre could have returned to the Crown instead of coming to me. In all honesty, I’m rather shocked each morning when I’m still alive, let alone Duchess of Blackmyre.”

“Pish posh, the Queen’s lucky to have you as Duchess. Now about these ponies…”

Agonizing bliss racked his entire body. Spasm after spasm shook him and he couldn’t stop. He’d never allowed a man to touch him intimately, but the last thing he wanted was for his new friend to cease the gentle stroking. A simple cleansing had never felt so good. After agonizing need and pain for so long, even another man’s touch felt incredible.

I’m that desperate.

That’s how low I’ve fallen.

He collapsed against the smaller man, unable to stop the shaking sobs that escaped. They didn’t sound human. He hadn’t been human for a long time. Surely a real man wouldn’t cry like a baby in another man’s arms.

“Shhh, you’re going to be all right now,” Cole whispered, stroking his hair with those incredible hands. “You’ll see. Lady Blackmyre’s a rare mistress, good and kind, hard when she needs to be, and so calm, so confident, so…so…”

“Commanding.” He winced at the rawness of his throat.

“So you can talk. Can you tell me your name?”

Better late than never, he tried to think through his options. He’d been kicking himself for one idiotic choice after another. Desperation had driven him to trust someone, who’d then betrayed him to his family. Their betrayal hurt most of all. He’d rather die than let anyone find out who he was, but if he didn’t give out his House name, he doubted even the Duchess would recognize him.

“Arthur.”

“Good to meet you, Arthur. Let’s rest here awhile and when you’re ready, do you think you’ll have the strength to make our way to Blackmyre?”

“I thank you for your help, but I need to be moving on.”

“You need help.” Cole didn’t make any demands or raise his voice with insistence—but he spoke with the quiet conviction of common sense, which made it difficult for Arthur to argue. “You’re weak and hurt. You’ve been horribly mistreated, which takes quite a toll on a man’s body.”

You have no idea what toll has been taken on my body.
Despite the man’s considerate attention, Arthur couldn’t help the tension screaming through his muscles. Fight, flee, destroy, rage, that’s all he had left. He hadn’t even been able to call his body his any longer. The last thing he wanted to do was put himself anywhere near that deceptively small lady. She had the calm confidence to stand inside a confined space with a wild animal of a man without a single glimmer of fear or doubt. God only knew to what new lows she could bring him.

“No one will touch you against your will, let alone hurt you,” Cole said softly, as though he knew exactly what fear stirred in Arthur’s heart. “Especially Lady Blackmyre. She’s not that kind of mistress.”

“I don’t want a mistress. I don’t want a woman to touch me ever again.”

“I understand. So does she. All we want to do is help you.”

Arthur couldn’t relax his grim wariness, his muscles aching with strain. He didn’t need the whispered rumors and innuendo centered about the Blackmyre name to be wary. He hadn’t been in the pony games very long before the bad moments had started, but he instinctively recognized the steel core shielded within her elegant, aristocratic demeanor. She might pretend to be a lady of the
ton
, but his body recognized her. She had the sort of power that could make a man bend knees and kiss her feet.

A man like me.

He shuddered so hard he banged his head against the wall. Tears flooded his eyes again and he balled up his fists and fought not to pummel himself into oblivion. Or fling himself in front of the first carriage he could find.

“Don’t be afraid of her, Arthur.”

The man rocked him, held him, and God forgive him, he allowed it.

I’m not afraid of her. I’m afraid of me.

Chapter Two

When the irate man showed up demanding stolen property, Violet had arranged for law enforcement backup. The kind of people who would do such injustice to another human being would think nothing of harming a lady. However, to protect her House’s tattered reputation as well as the unknown man’s they’d rescued, this interview must be done delicately. The general consensus in Polite Society was that anyone who played such sick games must be immoral and deviant. They certainly didn’t need any help spreading tales of depravity and cruelty among the
ton
.

At least Cole had been able to give her the first clue to their guest’s identity, although there were too many Arthurs in Londonium to count. It would take time for her to discover the truth. Time she might not have.

Her butler, Mr. Chumlee, introduced the man only as Jemm. He drew up with a righteous glare of indignation when he saw that she wasn’t alone.

“Mr. Jemm, come in, sir, and make your accusations.”

“No mister, just Jemm,” the man muttered. He yanked his cap off and twisted the wool in his hands. He might be dressed as a yeoman, but the wool and linen were especially fine quality to her eye. “Your man took something last night and my boss wants it back.”

“I see,” Violet replied coolly. “Pray tell, what did my man take, and who may your boss be?”

“He took a slave and my boss wants him back. I won’t tell you who she is because I’m well paid to protect her privacy.”

“Slavery is illegal in all of Her Majesty’s territories.” While the Sheriff of Blackmyre might have suspicions about exactly what happened at the current Duchess’s parties, she was staunchly for Queen first and Blackmyre (no matter what eccentrics the aristocracy might possess) second. “You must make a formal statement about how this slave was acquired.”

For a moment, Jemm tensed and glanced at the door as if to make a run for it, but then he grinned and shrugged. “I’ll tell you what I remember but I’m afraid my memory’s not the best. I’ve been kicked in the head a few too many times by feisty horses.”

Violet narrowed a glare on the man, because his meaning was clear. “If your boss was interested in
willing
ponies I don’t think you’d have been kicked quite so many times.”

“What’s the fun in that? Don’t you know, Your Grace, it’s the unruly ponies that are the most fun to break?”

He gave her a lecherous wink that made her stomach quiver with cold dread. Perhaps she’d made a mistake inviting the sheriff to be present. Her loyalty had been unswerving thus far, but if the truth came out about exactly what kind of pony slave they were talking about…

I don’t care what Society thinks. But I do care if my own people begin to revile me, like the Dowager hated Papa.

“I’m confused,” Sheriff Benton said slowly. “Are we talking about slaves or horses?”

Jemm waited with that awful gleam in his eye, but Violet refused to back down. There had to be a way to reprimand the man without revealing all the cards in her hand. “I’m not entirely sure,” she said just as slowly, letting a frown flicker across her face. “My man found a pony being horribly mistreated last night, so badly that we almost had to put him down. Is that what you’re talking about, Jemm?”