Their Master's Pleasure (12 page)

‘Thank you, Mr Montague,' she said, in her quiet, unassuming fashion. ‘It's a pleasure to see you too, sir.'

They settled into their seats, Queenie beside me and Humphrey next to Elizabeth. I made the necessary introductions and Humphrey bestowed upon my ward his most winning smile. No one had yet informed him of Elizabeth's special status, of course, and his lascivious intentions towards her were plain to see. Though I loved the fellow as a brother, I found it oddly satisfying to know he was wasting his time, for the quarry was out of reach.

‘You're looking fit as a flea, James,' he said, as the whistle sounded and steam hissed. ‘Still taking that daily constitutional, I assume?'

‘Winter and summer,' I said, ‘rain or shine.'

‘And Irene? Mrs Hammond, I should say. She's well, I trust?'

‘Very well, I'm happy to say. She sends her regards.'

He smiled and nodded, raising his eyebrows in anticipation, but that was all I intended saying on the subject of Irene Hammond. Though not a jealous man by nature, I thought the pair of them had been altogether too friendly at FFF and found myself reluctant to share even news of my beautiful governess with him. Petty of me, possibly, but we are what we are.

The train journey took some good few hours and it seemed to me Elizabeth was determined to stare out of the window and say not a word for the entire trip. She was angry with me for bringing her, of course, and was punishing me the way women do in such circumstances. I found it amusing, to be honest, and all the more so when Humphrey - clearly determined to charm his way into her bed - engaged her in pleasant chit-chat. Common courtesy demanded that Elizabeth answer and she was thus drawn into conversation despite herself. I made no attempt to join in and Queenie remained equally silent, as befitted a housekeeper among her betters.

Nigel had thoughtfully laid on transport at Chapsom Parva station. The carriage took us straight up to the house, a grander place even than Bleekston Hall, where our hosts awaited us on the steps. Humphrey and I shook hands with Nigel and exchanged a word or two, then Humphrey gave Belinda a quick peck on the cheek and asked after her health. I kissed her on the lips (I'd always had a soft spot for Belinda) and gave her bottom a surreptitious squeeze. Auburn-haired and green-eyed, our hostess was petite, perfectly formed and lovely to look upon. Though no longer a young woman - she admitted to forty-one - the years had been kind to her, the laughter lines around her eyes adding to her beauty rather than diminishing it.

Belinda greeted Queenie warmly and then it was Elizabeth's turn. ‘My dear,' Belinda said, embracing her as though she were a favourite niece, ‘I'm delighted to meet you at last. James told me
so
much about you in his letter.'

‘Lady Newburn,' Elizabeth said, ‘it is most kind of you...'

‘Hush, dearest,' Belinda said, in one of her stage whispers. ‘You must not speak my name aloud.' Smiling, she put her finger to her lips.

‘I... I'm sorry?' Elizabeth stammered, glancing at me in confusion.

‘James and Humphrey know me only as Lady X,' Belinda said in a friendly yet utterly serious tone. ‘They must never learn my true identity or my reputation will be ruined. It's a secret, you see, just between the three of us.' She reached out and drew Queenie close, so that the women formed a tight little group. ‘We must think up names for the two of you, to protect your identities as I protect mine. What fun we'll have, the three of us, knowing we're deceiving these men who think they're so clever.'

As Belinda led the other two away Elizabeth looked back over her shoulder at me, her expression suggesting she feared she was in the clutches of a madwoman.

Nigel shook his head slowly. ‘Women!' he snorted. ‘Round the bend, the lot of ‘em.'

Though I didn't see Elizabeth again for some hours, I had no concerns on her account. Belinda was a warm and kindly person, and highly intelligent to boot. I was confident she would soon put my ward at ease; and Elizabeth did indeed appear happier by far when the ladies joined us shortly before we went through to dinner.

‘Gentlemen,' our hostess announced, ‘may I present these two lovely slaves to you? This is Yasmine...'

She touched Queenie's shoulder. It was as good a name for a slave as any, I supposed, though perhaps a little exotic for someone as down to earth as Queenie.

‘And this is...'

‘Lady X,' Elizabeth interjected, ‘forgive me. Perhaps the gentleman over there would care to guess my name?'

She pointed straight at me. The others all turned to me expectantly - and I hadn't the faintest idea what she was talking about. There were dozens of names to choose from; how the hell was I supposed to pick just one? I glared at Elizabeth for putting me on the spot in this fashion and her lips curved into a knowing smile... and suddenly there weren't dozens of names at all: there really was only one.

‘You wish me to say it?' I asked.

‘I do, sir.'

‘Then say it I shall. You, my dear, are Ursula.'

Unlike the Festival of Flogging and Fornication, where slaves were required to stand behind their masters' chairs during dinner, Exiles was a more equitable affair, our slaves being seated and served along with us. Elizabeth and Belinda were soon engaged in a lively conversation that lasted throughout the entire meal, chatting away happily like long lost sisters. The change in my ward was remarkable, I have to say: in a matter of hours she had gone from resentful and uncommunicative to cheerful and outgoing. Though I'd long known our hostess had a gift for making visitors feel at home, in Elizabeth's case she'd obviously excelled herself. Humphrey eased himself smoothly into their conversation and I watched as Elizabeth, like countless women before her, was slowly but surely seduced by his warmth and wit. Nigel and I remained apart from these three, talking quietly of this and that, while Queenie remained entirely mute.

Afterward we six retired to the lounge to find chairs and sofas drawn into a circle. As we took our seats the butler closed the door. A trusted man of many years' service, Ogden was the only servant Belinda allowed in the room when she was ‘at play'.

‘Gentlemen and slaves,' Nigel said, ‘here we are once again, the Spankers Seven Exiles. As you know, in the past we've generally followed FFF principles and enjoyed a few days of easygoing, informal flogging and fornication...'

‘And very nice too,' Humphrey called out, cutting our host off in mid flow.

‘Hear hear,' I said.

‘Thank you. I'm sure we all have fond memories of past events. The last FFF dared to be different, however, spicing things up with new rules and new ideas. Personally I thought it a great success, especially the spanking competition. Unfortunately a certain regrettable incident cast a shadow over the final day, but we shouldn't let that colour our judgement of the festival as a whole.'

That was generous of him, I thought, for the ‘regrettable incident' to which he referred was his wife's punishment beating at the hands of Percy's ferocious flogging butler. She had been given four dozen severe strokes for speaking out of turn - a monstrously harsh sentence that left her seriously indisposed for several days. I looked at Belinda and saw her drop her gaze.

‘I'm therefore proposing,' Nigel went on, ‘that we adopt a similar approach here at Exiles. There are three of us and we're here for three nights. If each of us could invent a suitable diversion we could play them on three successive evenings, starting tonight.'

‘What sort of diversion?' Humphrey asked.

‘Well,' Nigel said, ‘anything suited to this esteemed company and our common interest, really. I've already prepared mine - or rather Lady X has, to give credit where it's due. If you're happy to go ahead we can play it this very evening.'

‘What's it called?' I asked.

‘Called, James?'

‘Why, yes,' I said, with a sly glance in Elizabeth's direction. ‘Every game should have a name, after all. Where would tiddlywinks be if no one had called it “tiddlywinks”? Or Ride-a-Cock-Horse?'

Elizabeth gave me a sour look, but the retort I was half expecting failed to materialise.

‘Quite,' Nigel said, looking a little bemused. ‘We hadn't thought to give it a name, had we, my dear?'

‘I'm afraid not,' Belinda said. ‘We could always invent something, I suppose.'

‘I imagine so.' Nigel turned to Humphrey and I once more. ‘As regards your own efforts, gentlemen, one of you would need to come up with something by tomorrow night, which I agree is rather short notice. You have my apologies for that.'

‘Hang on a minute,' Humphrey said. ‘I hope you're not thinking of banning casual spanking the way Percy did?'

‘Certainly not - I'm proposing we hold the games in the evenings only. The rest of the day is yours to spend as you see fit, so it's business as usual so far as spanking is concerned. And any man who finds a willing bed mate is more than welcome to tumble her at any time, day or night.'

‘Or day
and
night,' Belinda chipped in, grinning.

If the ‘willing bed mate' reference was a subtle reminder of Elizabeth's special status, it was clever of Nigel to work it in like that. I knew Belinda had spoken with Humphrey on the matter, for as we went through to dinner she'd assured me I need have no concerns on that score.

‘So there it is,' Nigel said. ‘Does the idea appeal to anyone, or should we forget all about it and do just as we've always done?'

Humphrey and I were both very enthusiastic, declaring it an excellent suggestion. Humphrey said he was almost certain he could dream up
something
or other, though it would be better if he went last as that would give him an extra day.

‘How about you, James?' Nigel asked. ‘Might you have something ready by tomorrow night, do you think?'

‘Oh,' I replied, ‘I won't have to. By sheer good fortune I happened to bring along an expert. My dear friends, I give you... Ursula, game inventor
par excellence
.'

 

 

 

‘At my master's command,' Belinda said, ‘which I have sworn always to obey, I shall now describe his game to you.'

‘It was all her idea anyway, dammit!' Nigel muttered in a loud aside.

‘As James is insisting we give it a name,' Belinda went on, ‘we will call it Guess-the-Whacker. One slave will be blindfolded and will then bend over. One of the masters will approach, lift up her skirts, pull down her bloomers and give her six strokes on her bare bottom. You can decide amongst yourselves how hard, what implement to use, that sort of thing. The master then pulls up the slave's bloomers, straightens her skirts and returns to his chair. The second master then repeats everything exactly, followed in turn by the third, after which the slave has to announce their names in the order she thinks they beat her. Is this making sense to everyone?'

‘Perfect sense, Lady X,' I said.

‘That's good. Allow me to tell you now how the scoring works. If she identifies all three masters correctly, she wins a prize - some rather nice French perfume, actually. If she identifies just one correctly, she receives a dozen strokes from each master. If she fails to identify
any
, she receives two dozen from each. Those are the only possibilities - all correct, one correct or none correct.'

I thought about it and realised she was quite right. It wasn't possible to identify just two names correctly, for if she got two right then by implication the third must be right also.

‘May I now suggest the masters retire to agree a strategy,' Belinda said. ‘You'll need to decide what implement you intend to use, your running order and so forth. It goes without saying you're free to vary the running order from slave to slave. While you're doing that we slaves will be having a discussion of our own. Once everything's settled... let the challenge begin!'

Nigel led Humphrey and I to his study, where we gave the matter our fullest attention.

‘Let's think about this for a moment,' I said. ‘If they're blindfolded and we don't speak, what clues might they have as to who is whacking them?'

‘Severity, obviously,' Humphrey said. ‘Speed of delivery. Point of aim - you know, whether we tend to go for even coverage or lay them one on top of another.'

‘But we vary those things all the time, don't we?' Nigel said.

‘We do,' I said, ‘but I suppose there are trends. For example, I generally hit harder than you two.'

‘Not tonight, you mustn't,' Humphrey warned. ‘Whatever the first one does, the other two have to copy it exactly - the same strength, speed, everything.'

‘Yes indeed,' Nigel said.

‘We should definitely give them hard strokes, though,' I said. ‘They won't be able to concentrate so well if it hurts like the devil, will they?'

The other two looked at me pityingly.