Under a Stern Reign (17 page)

The count sighed and nodded, taking another slurp of wine at the same time and spilling more or the red liquid down his front as a consequence. ‘Bring her here,' he ordered, and even from where he stood unseen, Rodolfo noted the glint of triumph in Elise's eyes as she took the poor girl's arm and led her close to the sitting count.

‘Get over my knee,' the inebriated count demanded, and despite struggling slightly with her hands tied, Genevieve succumbed to the dominating influence of Elise and lowered herself over his thighs, balancing uncomfortably, just her toes in contact with the carpet.

‘I will now punish you for your unnatural desires,' announced the drunken hypocrite, looking down at the pretty bottom over his lap, savouring her gentle weight moving imperceptibly on the straining lump in his breeches.

Elise slipped onto the sofa beside him. ‘Go ahead, sir,' she urged. ‘I've brought her here for you, for the very purpose of trying to beat some of your honourable principals and authority into her wayward soul.'

She slipped a hand between the shapely hip of the prone girl and his belly, locating his hidden erection and rubbing it encouragingly. He stared deep into her eyes, his lips hanging slack and making him look like an imbecile as he took two attempts to place his wine glass on the occasional table beside him.

Without taking her eyes from his, Elise fumbled open his breeches and pulled out his cock, throbbing in her cool fist. ‘Beat her,' she whispered.

He looked down at the girl's bottom before him and kneaded it roughly. Then, raising his palm, he swiftly brought it down on the hidden cheeks.

Genevieve squealed and her feet kicked, making the count smile and look at Elise, who was smiling back at him. She moved her lips closer to his, her hand still massaging his cock. ‘Again,' she whispered.

De Tranville repeated the blow, this time with greater intensity. Genevieve winced and kicked again.

‘She likes it,' Elise whispered to him, goading him to greater efforts, grasping his cock more firmly. ‘Do it again.'

De Tranville let his palm slam down again, and as it struck Elise jerked his cock more firmly, leaving him on the very verge of an ejaculation.

‘That's it,' Elise murmured. ‘Again... again...'

De Tranville allowed his head to reel back, a look of deep satisfaction gripping his face as his stepdaughter masturbated him and the gorgeous blonde girl squirmed on his lap. He panted, ready to explode at any moment.

‘Do you see what fun we could have together?' Elise whispered in his ear, and he let his hand rest on Genevieve's delightful bottom, enjoying the feel of her flesh beneath the cotton nightdress as he mauled her.

‘If you'd only agree to marry Madame Coubette,' Elise continued in his ear. ‘Every day would be like this. You could still have her, and me, and Genevieve. We would not have to run away.'

De Tranville flexed his shoulders and brought his palm down again on Genevieve's bottom. She winced, her hip bumping softly against Elise's fist and his standing erection.

‘You might be right,' he grunted, clenching his jaw and trying to prolong his pleasure.

Rodolfo had seen and heard enough. He hadn't put his life at risk to save the count and his family from the revolution, only to have depravity and debauchery put him at even further risk.

With his eyes on the count and Elise he stepped out from behind the cover of the door and placed himself directly in front of them.

‘Rodolfo,' Elise started angrily. ‘I thought you were sleeping.'

‘I was... I woke up,' he said abruptly. He looked at Genevieve, and then his hand moved to the back of his waistband and a small dagger emerged. He reached towards Genevieve's bound wrists and sliced through the cords, then taking her by the arm, he helped her to her feet.

Silence filled the room, and the count looked at the younger man with dazed irritation. His cock was still standing tall from his opened breeches, but its keenness had waned. He seemed to be awaiting some sort of explanation as to why his fun had been interrupted.

Rodolfo's eyes were fixed firmly on Genevieve, and she stood wide-eyed, gawping at him in confusion. She felt a dark heat throbbing in her pussy. It was him!

A sob broke from her throat. She burst into tears, wrapped her arms round his neck for a fleeting second, then turned and fled upstairs. Rodolfo watched her go.

Elise frowned at him coldly. ‘How dare you brandish that thing in here!' she snapped, indicating the knife. ‘You're nothing but a foreign rogue!'

Rodolfo put the dagger back in his waistband. ‘I apologise,' he said politely, despite beginning to lower his opinion of the two sitting before him, ‘but these are dangerous times.'

Elise continued to glare at him.

‘My father has offered you his hospitality and security, given the dangers that are surrounding you here in France,' Rodolfo went on. ‘I will be leaving at first light. If you still choose to avail of my father's offer, please be ready to depart with me. If you are not ready, I shall return to Portugal alone.'

He looked at the count. ‘I can only hope that you are sober and in command of yourself by then, sir,' he added curtly.

‘Why, you cheeky young bastard!' de Tranville roared indignantly, trying to rise from the sofa, but Elise held his arm and stopped him. Rodolfo gazed at her for a moment, then turned and headed upstairs.

 

There was a tap at the door. Genevieve had buried her face in the pillows, her buttocks still burning from the count's spanking. She had kicked aside the bedding, trying to cool the scorched globes.

‘Leave me alone,' she sulked, but the door edged open anyway and a man entered. It was Rodolfo. She gasped, turned and pulled the sheet over herself as he moved closer and sat on the edge of the bed.

‘Are you all right?' he asked compassionately, and she nodded. ‘What was that all about?'

Genevieve looked deeply into his shadowed eyes, and shrugged.

‘You're tired?' he asked further. ‘I'm sorry, I just needed to see you, to make sure you're all right.'

‘Where did you go?' she muttered sadly. ‘I've thought about you a lot since we first met.'

‘And I've thought about you, too,' Rodolfo confessed truthfully.

‘Elise told me about you, and your philandering. She told me what happened between the two of you the last time you stayed here. She told me I wasn't the type of girl for you.'

‘I've learned that Elise is a conniving bitch,' Rodolfo whispered, and then placed his hands on her shoulders, pulled her to him and kissed her. She closed her eyes and melted into the sensual embrace.

‘So much has happened to me since that night,' Genevieve told him. ‘I've been so confused. Count de Tranville wants to marry me, but Elise has been trying to make him change his mind.'

‘Do you want to marry him?'

Genevieve shook her head, resting her cheek into his cupped palm. ‘I'm not a child, you know,' she whispered, looking up at him. ‘I'm a woman, and I know how to please a man.'

‘What are you saying?'

‘I haven't ever been with a man, but I...'

‘You don't even know me,' he said, anticipating her meaning.

‘When I first saw you I felt I had needed you all my life. As if you were what my life was waiting for.'

Rodolfo smiled and kissed her again...

Suddenly there was a loud crash and a thud and the door burst open. Something whistled viciously through the air, and as Rodolfo looked round in surprise the leather riding-crop slashed across his face. He yelled and clasped his cheek, but the leather whistled again and bit cruelly into his other cheek.

‘Brazen whore!' a voice bawled. ‘Duplicitous little slattern!'

Count de Tranville stood by the bed, his shirt hanging open, his face red and his chest heaving as he loomed aggressively over both of them, clutching the whip in his fist. His bloodshot eyes bulged and spittle dribbled from one corner of his slack lips, giving him the look of an insane man. He raised the crop again, this time to strike Genevieve. ‘So you don't like men, eh?' he snarled. ‘Or is it just
me
your whorish pussy objects to? After everything I've done for you, you ungrateful little?!'

Rodolfo's dagger flashed upward from behind his back and with a deceptively innocuous thud embedded itself deep in the drunken assailant's chest. He gawped, the tirade of abuse dying in his throat, his expression one of surprise rather than pain. Rodolfo pulled the dagger back out and a dark red stain, almost black in the half-light, started spreading on the count's white shirt. He gazed at Genevieve, his eyes unblinking but now filled with disbelief, his features frozen as though sculpted from stone.

An aching pounding erupted in Genevieve's head, a rhythmic beating as if fists were smashing against wood, resonating dully inside her skull.

The wounded man fell clumsily on top of them, but Rodolfo struggled with his bulk and eased him to the floor beside the bed.

The thumping continued, and then it seemed like something was splintering and crashing. Genevieve could hear Elise running along the landing, calling down to the elderly staff who could now be heard scurrying around in the hall, frantically running from room to room and calling for their master, the count.

‘He left me no choice,' Rodolfo said to Genevieve. ‘You saw that, didn't you? The drunken fool left me no choice.'

Genevieve nodded, barely able to grasp what was happening. All hell had broken loose in the chateau around them.

Rodolfo leapt to his feet. ‘They're breaking down the front door,' he said urgently, and then ran out to the landing, leaning on the balustrade to scan the scene below. ‘I knew it,' he scowled, his jaw clenched. ‘They're here.'

Without wasting a second he dashed back into the bedroom, shut the door and wedged a chair beneath the handle. ‘They're here,' he repeated earnestly to Genevieve. ‘We've got to get away. The revolutionaries are here!'

Genevieve was reaching out tentatively and touching the count's arm, trying to offer some help or comfort but uncertain of what she was doing or what on earth was happening. The count was muttering unintelligibly, his voice no more than a wheezing rasp in his throat, blood coating his teeth.

‘Come on,' Rodolfo snapped, pulling the kneeling girl to her feet. ‘We've got to leave the damned obstinate fool.'

‘But,' Genevieve protested, ‘he's been good to me. We can't just leave him here like this, to die.'

‘He's brought it upon himself.' Rodolfo moved to the window like a fleeting shadow in the half-light, unlatched it and stared down.

Heavy footsteps were charging up the stairs outside the bedroom, and then the door began crashing beneath the onslaught of clubs and fists, gruff male voices shouting and barking orders to others as the chair wedged beneath the door handle threatened to shatter and break before the desperate couple had a chance to escape.

‘Quick, do as I say!' Rodolfo yelled at Genevieve, trying to snap her out of her torpor. ‘Do you trust me?'

‘Yes,' she murmured, as though in a dream, so he swung her round, dragged the heavy mattress off the bed and managed to shove it out of the window. ‘Good, then let's go!'

With a lunge he raised her in his arms and swung her so that she clung around his shoulders. He then clambered through the window and clasping vines of ivy began struggling down, but it was slow going and he could hear the bedroom door was on the point of yielding to the battering, so he had no choice but to close his eyes and let go...

‘Damnation!' he groaned venomously, lying on his back on the strategically dropped mattress, Genevieve sprawled across his chest. ‘I think I've broken every bone in my entire body.'

She clutched him, her eyes wide and brimming with tears and terror. The thudding sound continued, but it was her heart this time. It was racing so fast she was sure it was ready to burst.

‘Their wagons must be at the front,' he whispered as they rose stiffly and quickly checked for any damaged limbs. ‘You stay here,' he ordered, ‘I'll be straight back,' and before Genevieve could beg him to stay with her he disappeared silently into the darkness.

Genevieve hid down in the flowerbed that hid her, but the sound of the bedroom door above giving way, and her concerns for the welfare of Rodolfo, made her dash after him.

Around the corner of the chateau she spied two armed men beside a convoy of three wagons. Sitting on one of the vehicles was a driver, and the three of them were looking towards the shattered front door. Already Rodolfo was stealthily stalking them, approaching from behind and slightly to the side, his dagger glinting menacingly in the moonlight.

He was close when one of the men turned and cried, the blade flashed and the man clutched his throat, slumping to his knees. The second man tried to raise his musket as the driver shouted and jumped to the ground. The dagger slashed again and sank into the second man's chest and he slumped too, his hands clamped over the wound. But the numbers proved too much and the driver jumped onto Rodolfo's back before he could strike a third time.