The Surrender of Lady Charlotte (9 page)

His smirk was somewhat sweet. “Some don’t recover, though they hardly die.”

“And what happens when they don’t recover?”

“They become so lost in their carnal pursuits that they forget the rest of the world and become useless for anything but fucking.”

“I thought that would make a virtuous slave to be so mindless?” Charlotte replied.

“Perhaps, but I’d prefer a wife of some wit?”

“That is true?”

“Of course. You think of me only as a lecherous brute?”

“I cannot say, or I’d be indicting myself.” She tried not to giggle and he laughed with her.

“Truth is, I miss the spark of fire in your tongue.”

“No! Would you have me relinquish this submissive attitude now that my surrender has been won?”

“I’d have you be yourself—just as you declared you would be—so then, I may punish you for being ornery and shrill; so you can come back to this place of resignation when it pleases me to have you do my bidding.”

“You confuse me, milord.”

“I confuse myself,” he grinned. “You are my wife now, Lady Charlotte. And have earned the right to be. You will submit, you are my slave. Be advised of that. But be Charlotte above all and you will please me most.”

They lay together in their marriage bed—the grand one she’d seen her first day in Ilusia. How she’d loathed this life then, and now, how she treasured the luxury of her present surrender.

d

For some time—well over her first married year when the fragrance of the new marriage was most sweet—the delicate balance between surrender and freedom was well-guarded by this noble couple. Charlotte often spoke freely to her husband in matters of any concern to her. He would decide if she needed to be reigned in—and often she was. Though her punishments were severe, they were not unwelcome. And to maintain her status as a slave, she’d be collared and chained to the bed each night with her wrists often bound together. She came to expect bondage and relish the contentment found in her containment. It would seem they had the prescription for a life-long peace; but time does march along and circumstance and boredom and new pursuits do change the mind and even the heart.

“Ah! You anger me so!” Charlotte bellowed as she sprung from bed and stormed to take her bath.

She was closely followed by a furious Mountbane who grabbed her hair and pulled her with him into the hallway while she screamed. At midday, everyone was about. The first on the tempestuous scene, Sir Tristan, found the two in a physical fight and pulled them off each other.

“Cooler heads settle such differences,” he said evenly.

“I shall not settle this one with that man!” Charlotte declared. “I’d rather be sent back to the dungeon.”

“Which is exactly what I’ll do,” Mountbane’s eyes flared from their depths.

“Ooo, how I hate you!”

“But there is love behind this,” Tristan declared to them both. “Perhaps you should each take to your own side of the castle and repair.”

“She has no side, the castle is mine!” Mountbane blasted.

“I’ll take the woods then,” she stormed out of Tristan’s grasp.

“The woods are mine!” Mountbane roared.

“Then the rocky fields!”

“They too belong to me.”

“Then I’ll quit Ilusia and be perfectly happy to live in the wilds—as long as it is without you!”

“What is the quarrel?” Tristan asked.

Both parties glared, but neither said a word.

“I am gone. I have other things to occupy my time,” Mountbane turned away. “Be sure she’s bound in her quarters for the night. I’ll have other companionship and she can sleep alone and listen to my sounds of lust.”

“I’ll block my ears,” she spat out to the man’s back.

“Come, milady,” Sir Tristan led the woman away as Mountbane returned to his bedchamber alone.

“What say you now, madam, estranged from your marriage bed?” Tristan asked. “It is the first sign of a lingering wound that will not heal.”

“It won’t be the last, I assure you.”

“Shall I reprimand you myself?”

Charlotte snarled at the determined man, and strode off contemptuously by herself. The act only brought Tristan down on her with a suddenness to shock her system into fear.

“You will not defy me, slave,” he roared. “It’s to the tower with you.”

A man of some strength, who never argued with any woman, he picked up the Lady Charlotte and carried her over his shoulders down the castle hall to the tower stairs and mounted them effortlessly while the angry woman spewed her vitriolic epithets.

“Put me down you blackguard moron!” she swore angrily.

He didn’t speak.

“I loathe you most of all!” she tried with no results, and despite the fist that pounded his back as hard as it could. “Leave me be!”

He journeyed on.

“Unhand me, scoundrel!”

He was at the tower door.

“You leave me here, I will find some reproach!” she warned.

“Oh, I will leave you here,” he advised. “But only after…” He didn’t bother to finish his remarks. With the spewing lady/slave still firmly in his charge, he rotated her over his shoulder and on to his lap as he sat down in the one lone chair inside this terrible room.

“You miserable bastard…” she swore on.

Though Lady Charlotte was quite dressed with winter skirts covering her nakedness, that circumstance was quickly corrected with a flick of the man’s wrist, all silently accomplished with the irritable woman scolding him in her unceasing rage. “Repulsive wretch!”

Not another word spoken, Sir Tristan began spanking her behind with a fervor that sent the shrieking woman’s volume higher. Sound seemed to breed inside the tight spaces of the tower room. Overflowing their small alcove, it echoed off the stones and mortar traveling down to hit the ears of anyone with ears to hear—including a husband who sighed with relief as he understood the premise behind these rich sounds. “Thank God!” his spoken response.

The sound of the fierce knight’s hand upon the impertinent ass of Mountbane’s noble wife was sweet on Sir Tristan’s ears. He pelted the fleshy orbs with an enthusiastic cadence of strikes, which covered the skin all about her backside until the once fair thing was glowing like a wild rose of summer. The more he struck, the more the hue deepened, and the more the lady bellowed her harangue. It would seem this was a game to see who could hold out the longest. With Sir Tristan being the steadier of the two, the exhausted wife found her zeal for protest finally withered. Not to mention that the rising pain was becoming so acute that it would be difficult to withstand much more.

“Oh, my lord, please!” she wailed mournfully at last—her voice quite different than it had been before.

“Please what? Please stop? Please quit your knavish, boorishness? Is that what you’d say?”

“No, I am succumbed.”

“Are you now? Or are you just too weary now to fight?”

“I am sir, but…”

“But you’re still a petulant harpy.” He struck again with a significant fervor. Her sweltering ass could hardly take another strike.

“No, sir!” she wailed again. “I concede. I promise, sir. Oh, my, please stop!” She sounded dreadfully wounded.

Though he gave her a few parting smacks on the centers of her swollen bottom cheeks, he finally stopped.

One intense moment led to another. At first it was the warmth invading her crotch that was so dangerous, then his warm palm laid on her steamy behind. Then, because the tension was more than either could handle, Sir Tristan pushed her off his lap and he rose to his feet as Lady Charlotte did. Even standing, the two found themselves dangerously close to declaring something both of them feared.

They stood with chests nearly beating as one for several seconds looking steamily into each other’s eyes. Then Sir Tristan backed away. “Don’t,” he said aloud. His soft voice changed as he returned gratefully to his anger. “I told you once to watch your shrewishness,” he said, pointing an accusing finger her way. “I’d suggest you believe me next time you’re tempted to squall like a belligerent child. You’ve been a reasonable wife for three years…”

“Reasonable! I’ve been
more
than a reasonable wife for three years,” she shot out.

“Ah, shall I start again—with my leather this time?” he wondered as he grabbed hold of his belt for emphasis.

“No, no, sir,” she assured him. “And I am sorry.”

“You have some excuse for your bad behavior?”

“It is my time of the month?”

“Oh? And other than that?”

“My husband is an ass,” she made the accusation calmly.

“We all know that; but for what reason would a slave risk herself with such outbursts?”

“I’ve held my tongue too long.”

“You hold your tongue as long as you live in Ilusia, milady,” he reminded her as she remained in his fixed gaze.

“Even Mountbane does not expect that.”

“But I do.”

“Ooo, you are as contemptible as he.”

“More, milady. I’m going to lock you in here for the night!”

“Oh, you cannot!”

“Indeed, I can.”

“My husband wants me tied in my own bed!” she reminded him.

“Then he can put you there,” Tristan announced

Perfectly pleased with himself, the nobleman left the shocked Lady Charlotte to stew inside the tiny chamber with just the chair and a simple and very uncomfortable bed.

As he locked the door behind him, she was pounding on the thick wood. “You repulsive boar! Vicious oaf! Loathsome villain!” Her pounding got her nothing but a very sore fist.

Charlotte meandered her way through the castle gardens, which were now drearily brown from the stark turns of winter. With the season receding, the thought of spring might come to mind if one had a very good imagination. The air was fresh, if not a bit chilly and she wrapped her woolen shawl about her shoulders for comfort. Fingering what had been the roses, she pricked her thumb so that a tiny speck of blood appeared on the finger.

“The day’s not fit for such things, milady—for a stroll in gardens and such brooding.”

“I say it is,” she disagreed turning around to face Sir Tristan.

“I trust you’ve survived the tower?”

“Mountbane set me free yesterday.”

“Then three days was hardly much to endure.”

“I still say you’re a villain.”

“And I’d suggest you hold your tongue, or I’ll take you there again—or better yet, turn you over my knee right now.”

“And why would I concern you?” Charlotte wondered.

“My concern is Mountbane. I am my Lord’s lieutenant.”

“And so you protect him from his deranged wife?”

He laughed. “You find yourself deranged?”

“I’m becoming so.”

“What happened to your great contentment?”

“Things change.”

“I see.”

They walked together in a tentative way, as though not actually walking together, but just happening on each other by chance—which was the case. Despite her efforts to guard against it, the rush of energy so common when Sir Tristan was near was now rushing heedlessly through her body again. It would be better if he walked away, left her to her brooding, and forgot whatever discourse he had in mind; but then, there was little that would dissuade this man from any purpose he desired.

“Then you are unhappy, milady?” he asked.

“At times. But I do have my life. At least most of the time I’m better off than a common kitchen slave. There are sometimes when Mountbane pleases me. But then, it is heresy for me to speak this way, is it not? For any slave to be so bold?
 
I should have no thoughts, but I do. I should have no will but my lord’s, and still, I do. When we first married, I could go days in the thoughtless pursuit of sex. But that kind of savagery doesn’t last forever now, does it? It’s more a creation of the time that ebbs and flows as nature does. Right now, I suppose is a season of calm.” She spoke with the melancholy of her heart seeming to pour from her in what could be a dangerous revelation—and yet, she was beyond caring anymore. “The tranquility of winter gets inside the bones,” she went on turning to look directly at her companion, “and won’t shake free until the spring begins its thaw. Perhaps a thaw will inspire my husband and me in our more randy pursuits, or, indeed, perhaps we have simply run our course.”

Tristan listened to the woman’s ramblings, finding them quite unique in his experience. In his remembrance, he knew of no woman so candid with her speech. To hear Charlotte speak of such intimacies was as though he were allowed to glimpse another human soul. What made her so, if not her eighteen years outside Ilusia. If those years had blessed her with a thoughtful spirit, Ilusia had blessed her with a robustly sexual vitality. He had only to think of her across his lap just days ago to appreciate that aspect. She was far more womanly and full of fire now than she was when Mountbane’s party plucked her from her homeland. The depths of her proven sexual inclinations, and the breathtaking way she could submit—when she was inspired to—and even now her musings made her one of the most exquisite creatures he’d ever known.

“I would not think two, as vibrant as you and milord, would ever
simply run your
course.
Perhaps you need to get back to what you began with.”

“I should re-enter the dungeon to make him happy?”

“And why not? It is your function to serve.”

“And so I do, but the spirit for such ventures has strangely left.”

Tristan pondered for some time, finally asking, “Were I to string you up and torture your flesh, would you find your spirit gone?”

Charlotte’s response was certainly as apparent as a red rose would be on a winter vine.
 
Her body pulse was quickened by such talk. “Why ask such a question?” she wondered aloud. “It is strictly theoretical?’

“Perhaps not.”

“You’d assist your lord in this way?”

“I have before, but frankly, I only assist myself.”

Walking deep inside a maze of brown hedges too tall to see above, and too thick to see between the layers of gnarled bracken, Charlotte stumbled on a thick runner in her path, finding Sir Tristan’s hand reach down to grab her from the awkward fall. She brushed back again his chest. “Ah, thank you sir.”

So close again, breath mingling on breath, eyes coming to rest on the other. The kiss was natural and the clench of passionate arms followed easily, until Sir Tristan broke away—not rattled by the unanticipated act, but leaving Charlotte panting in fear.

“No, sir, this cannot happen!”

“But, it has milady, and I’ll certainly not apologize for what I do not regret.”

“I hope I’ll not regret it either, sir.”

“I will have more of you when the time is ripe for it.” He bowed and started out of the maze.

“But, sir,” she called to him in a whisper, “what if Mountbane should have seen us?”

“Then he would see.” He turned around walking backwards with a jovial expression on his darkly handsome face. “Watch your step, madam.”

“But, sir?”

He smiled, nodded, then turned and strode away. Charlotte’s jumbled words were in such disarray she couldn’t form them into any rational sentence. Meanwhile, her thighs rushed with spring and her whole groin brightened as though the hidden sun had finally found its place in the sky. It was the first such fire she’d felt in weeks—no, not in weeks, since three days before when the man had spanked her in the tower. Good lord, what was her body saying now? Oh, indeed, she’d had this man in bed several times in the midst of Mountbane’s orgies. But those quick moments could hardly compare to the energies they exchanged now.

Or then, perhaps… Her thoughts betrayed her now with memories of every intimate moment they had shared. Heightened now, what a story they might tell. In the midst of all the fear she faced in her first months in Ilusia, Sir Tristan had been the one constant, whose steadiness had seen her through the worst of those mean times. How she counted on him. He stood like a sentinel to guard her path. But he was no father, instead a man of great lust, and more than lust, a man of true passion, the kind who loves more than fornicates, who respects more than serves out of habit. So it would seem. Why then would he betray his sovereign?

d

As surely as the winter ends and spring begins, the first real signs of the new summer brought out Charlotte’s passion. But driven now by something more than just her slavish servitude to the merciless lord of the Northern Ilusian province, Charlotte’s lust took new twists—some beyond her wildest fantasies to create.

In Mountbane’s chambers he held council with his lieutenants in the presence of his wife, who was now reduced to the servile slave position, on her knees bent over, her head touching the ground while her husband’s boot held it firmly in place.

“See what has come of us?” the churlish lord pointed to his reposed young wife.

“Has she disobeyed you, sir?” the nobleman Leonas asked. He was a comely fellow with golden hair he tied at his neck, and a softly sensuous face for a man of his station in this primal country.

“Hah!” Mountbane pushed his boot enough to make the woman wince, then jumped to his feet, striding about demonstratively. “Disobedience hardly describes the bitch’s rude behavior.”

“Then punish her,” Sir Tristan said simply. “If that’s all you brought me here to witness, I’ll be on with my life.” He moved to the door without a nod from his lord.

“I thought she should be returned to the dungeon and given to Caius,” Mountbane said, a few months of penance should suffice.”

Sir Tristan stopped at that. “Is that measure warranted?”

“Warranted or not, it is my prerogative. Take her.”

Tristan looked at Charlotte worriedly. “May I suggest an alternative—it has been some time since we used such measures, but perhaps it would suit your grace. She could be taken to the woodland retreat, and there spend the brunt of her penance on the stone dais.”

“Humph. A thought.” Mountbane’s eyes lit malevolently. “And then remain prisoner in the hovel until I feel she’s earned the right to return to my bed. Fine thought, you think?” He looked around at his other nobles.

“This might be a most advantageous circumstance for you both, milord. You have your wife thoroughly chastised, but still removed from the general riffraff in the dungeon, which could be a problem at the moment,” Sir Ellemore reasoned sanely. “With the influx of new slaves, Caius has been quite occupied. Certainly it wouldn’t do to have Mountbane’s wife lost in that confusion.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps it would do her well to be so disposed,” he said disdainfully. “But I like Sir Tristan’s suggestion even better,” he turned to the nobleman. “If you will oversee her purgatory, you can have her attended by some of my lessor fellows—break in a few new bucks with her backside and randy snatch. Be sure it’s as uncomfortable as hell—because hell she’ll feel from me if she hasn’t learned to keep her tongue and regard her slavish surrender as law.”

“She’ll be docile as a lamb when she returns, or you can throw me out,” Tristan assured him.

“I suppose the Lady Gwnyth will revolt?” Lord Harrow speculated.

“And if she revolts, she’ll get her punishment ten-fold.” Tristan rejoined

“Perhaps, you should take them both to the hovel?” Ellemore proposed.

“And have them scratching out their eyes—even I, sir, am not interested in handling that row.”

“Ah! Have we lost our wits, my fellows?” Mountbane sighed as he looked at Tristan in wonder, and then the others. “Have those who are the slaves turned into our masters?”

“Not as long as we hold the whips and chains, and there are plenty of fresh and randy cunts to take their places,” Tristan declared. “No, Lord Mountbane, we are still in charge.”

Mountbane nodded respectfully as he watched the man jerk Charlotte to her feet and lead her toward the door. “Will you be in the woods to watch the ravishment?” Tristan asked on the way out.

“No, I won’t. I have other things to keep me occupied.”