Hastily Marianne checked her clothes but, to her relief, she was wearing the same ones she’d had on when she had left the house for her original walk on the moors. Stumbling to her feet, her arms still aching from the way she’d been tethered in the outhouse by Edward, she made her way to the courtyard and saw it was now dark.
Running indoors, she checked the grandfather clock she’d inherited with the house and saw it was eight o’clock. Five hours had passed since she’d set off for the moors, five hours in which she’d been trapped in a bygone era. What she didn’t know was where she’d actually been. She wondered what would have happened had Sandra called at the house. Would she have seen her in the outhouse, possibly over Edward’s knee being beaten and fondled? Or would she have simply thought that Marianne was out? There was no way of knowing.
She knew for certain that mentally she was in the past, but if she was now physically there as well then that was more dangerous. Things were changing; the past was reaching out and claiming her. At the moment she was still able to come back whenever she wished, but she wondered how long that would last – and, if it stopped, what would become of her?
Exhausted by all that had happened, she put a frozen meal in the microwave and tried to push Edward to the back of her mind. Somehow she had to fight her overriding obsession with him and spend time in the real world; otherwise she wasn’t going to be able to finish her book.
No sooner had she eaten than the phone rang. ‘Hi, it’s Sandra. Graham’s out with his mates tonight. I wondered if you’d like me to come over? Or you could come here if you preferred.’
Marianne simply couldn’t be bothered with the girl. ‘I’m sorry, I’m working,’ she said abruptly.
‘Oh.’ It was obvious that Sandra was offended.
‘Some other time,’ said Marianne quickly. ‘Right now the words are flowing and I’ve got to get them down.’
‘I rang earlier,’ said Sandra. ‘Were you out?’
‘I don’t answer the phone when I’m working.’
‘Then you should use an answerphone.’
‘I do sometimes, but I forgot to put it on,’ she said impatiently. ‘Are there any other instructions you’ve got for me?’
‘There’s no need to be like that,’ exclaimed Sandra. ‘I thought it would be nice if we had a girls’ evening together, that’s all.’
‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ said Marianne.
With a sigh she replaced the phone. She knew she’d handled the whole thing badly but Sandra, Graham, and even Steve had no relevance to her now. They were an unnecessary intrusion, people she had to put up with, rather than people she wanted to be with. ‘That’s terrible,’ she murmured. ‘They’re the ones who are real, not Edward.’
Eventually, knowing she’d already let Angela down, Marianne returned to the study and recommenced work on her book. She was at last pleased with her hero and heroine, feeling that although the setting was modern, the obsession the girl had for her boyfriend in many ways reflected the obsession she felt for Edward. She was delighted with the way she was putting this across, and knew her readers would understand exactly what she was saying, but the plot had reached the stage where this obsession needed a physical outlet. She decided to do the first modern sex scene she’d written since coming to Moorhead House.
As her hero worked as a farm labourer she set the scene in a barn, albeit one which bore a strong resemblance to the outhouse where she’d just been tormented by Edward and his sister. As a result the scene sprang instantly to life, and soon she was lost as the words poured out, just as she’d told Sandra they would.
Nearly an hour later she stopped typing and printed the pages off. When she read them they shocked her; not because they were particularly explicit, but because the feelings she’d attributed to the heroine were so exactly those she was experiencing every time Edward touched her. Also, since her heroine was well-bred, her confusion at enjoying the things her lover was doing to her reflected exactly her confusion at enjoying the forbidden perversions of Sir Edward’s household.
After she’d finished reading she felt unbearably aroused. She longed to have Edward in the room with her, touching her, beating her, and then slowly but surely coaxing forth her orgasm while her flesh struggled to subdue itself. Unable to bear the sexual tension any longer, she turned out all the lights and went upstairs. She took a quick shower before taking her vibrator from the bedside drawer. Then she put a pillow in the middle of the bed, lay on her stomach so that her hips were raised, and reaching beneath her, began to masturbate with the deliciously vibrating plastic.
She always preferred to lie on her stomach when she was masturbating. Somehow her climaxes were more intense that way, but for the first time ever her rising pleasure was tinged with guilt. She knew how Edward would disapprove of what she was doing and remembered the belt so cunningly designed to stop her playing with herself. How she wished she could be with him, because even though it would undoubtedly mean she would be forced to wait for her pleasure, she would have the excitement and sexual confusion her body now seemed to crave.
Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t turn herself on. ‘Oh, I wish you were here,’ she whispered. ‘It would be so much better then.’
‘What are you doing?’ asked a deep voice and, with a cry of alarm, Marianne twisted on to her back. Edward Sharpe was standing there – there in her modern bedroom at Moorhead House. Despite his dated clothing he didn’t look out of place, because she was the one he was there for and the surroundings didn’t matter.
Marianne realised she was just as afraid of him here and now as when she met him in his own time. The aura of authority surrounding him and the way his pitiless gaze penetrated her soul was enough to have her trembling before he’d even touched her.
‘What’s that?’ he asked, taking the vibrator from her.
‘It’s for my pleasure,’ she murmured, too embarrassed to say more. He inquisitively touched the little switch, and as the tip started to vibrate he examined it thoughtfully, running it over his wrist and then nodding in understanding.
‘You realise I have to punish you for possessing such an obscenity,’ he stated softly, looming nearer the bed.
‘Yes,’ she said, her voice shaking.
‘Fetch me rags with which to bind you.’
Marianne’s mind went blank for a moment, and then she scrabbled through one of her drawers and brought out some of her silk scarves. Immediately he tied her hands to the bedhead, stretching them up and out to the sides.
He eyed her nakedness thoughtfully. ‘You’re not wearing the belt,’ he eventually said.
She didn’t know what to say. It seemed he wasn’t aware he was in a different century, one where the belt did not exist. ‘I – I forgot,’ she blurted lamely.
‘No wonder the results of your training are so disappointing. I’m surprised my sister didn’t check on you.’ He glanced around the room and his eyes fell on the belt on her jeans. ‘That will do,’ he decided.
Marianne lifted her hips to help him slip the belt around her waist, but saw him raise it in the air instead and lash it down in a diagonal stroke that travelled from breast to hip.
‘Ouch!’ she protested. ‘That hurts!’
He frowned. ‘It’s meant to hurt,’ he said, his voice tight with rage. ‘What do you expect when you constantly disobey us?’
‘No!’ she screamed again as he raised his arm, but despite her protestations the belt swept down, hissing through the still air and cutting with a loud splat into her vulnerable flesh. Both blows were vicious, and she squirmed helplessly, trying hopelessly to get out of his range.
She felt a moment’s relief when he tossed the belt to the floor before coming to kneel on the bed next to her, the vibrator gripped in his hand. ‘This was what you wanted, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted meekly, surprised at how easy it was to become Marianne Clifford, despite her modern surroundings.
‘I’ve never seen anything like this before,’ Edward muttered, again studying the buzzing head. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘It was a present,’ she said truthfully.
He didn’t pursue the point, but instead circled each of her breasts in turn with the vibrator and then, as pleasure spread through her soft globes, he moved the vibrator gradually to her nipples.
He was clever, using the sex aid with cunning dexterity until she was urging her breasts up to him, straining against the silk bonds, yearning, her moist lips slightly parted in mute appeal.
‘How wanton you are,’ he muttered, his voice thick with desire as he drew the vibrator down between her breasts, and then lower to circle her navel.
Edward watched her pulling on the silk scarves as she instinctively tried to free herself, in order to give herself sexual relief, but the scarves only tightened around her wrists and she moaned her frustration.
‘Don’t you understand that it’s wrong to do this to yourself?’ he asked quietly.
‘But why is it wrong for me to do it to myself, but right for you to do it to me?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘When I touch you I’m simply trying to discipline your flesh. It’s your own wanton behaviour that causes my touch to make your pleasure boil over.’
‘You know that’s not true,’ she objected. ‘You know exactly how to make a girl orgasm and you enjoy doing it. You like making me suffer, pretending it’s my fault when it’s really yours.’
‘You’re very argumentative tonight,’ he remarked, reached between her parted thighs, slid his fingers into her moist sex and pinched her swollen clitoris between finger and thumb. She gasped, feeling the first faint fluttering of her climax. Her muscles were tightening, and at last everything was gathering itself together.
Edward pushed down his breeches and lay on top of her, his hands gripping her shoulders, the tips of his fingers digging savagely into her as he moved himself up and down over her. She could feel his rigid shaft grinding over her lower belly. He was gasping and groaning, the tendons on his neck tight, the veins standing out. She squirmed desperately beneath him, loving the feeling of his body against hers, but no matter how hard she tried she was unable to get sufficient stimulation to trigger her climax.
‘It’s all your fault,’ she heard him mutter through clenched teeth as he pressed himself down against her, trapping the tip of his erection between her thighs. Then he continued to move until suddenly he was shuddering violently, spilling his seed all over her flesh, and she felt it oozing stickily between them as he gasped in ecstasy.
Raising himself, he stared deep into her eyes. ‘Such delight,’ he whispered quietly. ‘Such sweet release. Don’t you understand that’s what it’s really about? You give me so much pleasure and that’s why I employed you, to please me, not to please yourself.’
She was almost out of her mind with need, and to hear him talking about his pleasure, the release he’d achieved, was more than she could bear. Once more he was leaving her unsatisfied, and he didn’t care.
‘Make me come,’ she pleaded. ‘You’ve had your fun, now let me have mine. Touch me the way you were earlier, that’s all I need. I want to come, don’t you understand, I want to come!’
Even as she was begging she heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs and the door was flung violently open. Startled, she stared across the room to where Steve stood framed in the doorway.
‘Where is he?’ he demanded. ‘I heard you begging him to touch you. I’ll kill him, I swear I will.’
‘There’s no one here,’ blurted Marianne as Edward slowly faded from sight.
‘What do you mean there’s no one here? You weren’t talking to yourself,’ shouted Steve. He began rampaging round the room, pulling open wardrobe doors, going down on his knees and peering under the bed and even flinging open the windows, as though imagining her lover had escaped that way despite the fifteen foot drop to the cobbled courtyard below.
‘I told you there wasn’t anyone,’ said Marianne.
Steve stared at her as she lay on the bed. ‘Why are you hanging on to the headboard like that?’ he demanded.
Marianne realised her wrists were no longer bound. The scarves – like Edward – had disappeared. ‘I was afraid,’ she said defensively. ‘I heard footsteps on the stairs and didn’t know who it was.’
Steve stared at her suspiciously. ‘Have you any idea what you look like?’
She had a pretty good idea. She was naked, trembling, and visibly aroused.
‘If there’s no one here, what were you doing?’ he asked accusingly. ‘I heard you begging. Have you gone totally mad?’
Marianne didn’t know what to say. Things had got well out of hand. Having Edward in the room with her had seemed wonderful, but now she was left to explain the inexplicable, and it was obvious Steve was in no mood to be fobbed off with stupid answers. ‘It’s for my book,’ she said feebly. ‘I was acting out a sex scene.’
‘I thought you said you’d given up that erotic writing lark.’
‘This is for the one that’s been commissioned,’ she assured him.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve turned that into a kinky one, too?’
‘Of course not, but my heroine’s obsessed with this farm labourer who she’s known since childhood. She wants him desperately but the first time they’re together he does these extraordinary things to her, only he won’t actually make love to her because he knows how much trouble it could cause.’
‘You don’t need to tell me the whole plot,’ snapped Steve. ‘I’ve never known you act out scenes from your novels before.’
‘I was trying to get the emotion right,’ she explained. ‘You know how in Wuthering Heights—’
‘I’ve never read Wuthering Heights,’ he snapped. ‘Quite honestly, Marianne, I think you should see a doctor or something.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ she snapped back. ‘How was I to know you were going to come bursting home like this without so much as a phone call?’
‘What do you expect after our last conversation?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You made me feel I was intruding, that you had something – or someone – more important on your mind.’
‘I did – my book.’
‘I still think there was someone here.’
‘Now you’re the one who needs to see a doctor. You’re getting paranoid. If there was someone here, where do you think they’ve gone?’
‘Perhaps there’s a secret hiding place,’ he said, clutching at straws. ‘The house is old enough. A priest hole, perhaps.’
Marianne sighed. She was beginning to pull herself together, to feel more in command of the situation, although she realised how dangerous the situation was. No wonder Judith Wells had ended up being taken to a mental hospital. If Steve had arrived quietly, creeping up the stairs and peering round the door, then presumably he would have seen Marianne begging Sir Edward to touch her without being able to see the man. If that had happened she couldn’t possibly have explained it away because her body’s responses would have shown that her flesh believed the fiction to be fact.
‘Come on, now you’re being ridiculous,’ she said gently, getting up and pulling on her jeans and a sweatshirt. ‘How long are you home for?’
‘Only one night.’
‘I’d better get you something to eat,’ she said, suddenly feeling sympathy for Steve, and a degree of guilt for what she was putting him through.
Suddenly he grabbed her arm. ‘You haven’t got a lover, have you?’
Marianne shook her head. ‘No, Steve, there is no other man here and there never has been.’
He let her go, but she had the feeling he didn’t believe her, and she couldn’t really blame him. Things were becoming too complicated now. She knew it would be better if Steve were to stay away, but at the same time he represented a safe anchor, an anchor she was beginning to think was necessary for her own survival.
‘Was that all right?’ Marianne asked Steve as he pushed away his empty plate, having eaten his cheese omelette and salad in absolute silence.
‘Fine, thanks.’
‘You’re not going to sulk all night, are you? I dread to think how you’d have behaved if you had caught me with a lover.’
‘I don’t know where I am with you any more,’ he said glumly. ‘I’m beginning to think your books are more real to you than I am.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Well, perhaps not the books, then. Let’s say the characters in them.’
Marianne stared at him. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I think your fantasy lovers give you more satisfaction than I do.’
Hearing him say it, hearing the truth spoken, was shattering. Marianne knew she should laugh, make it clear to Steve that he was being totally ridiculous, but she couldn’t because he was right. Only Edward wasn’t a fantasy lover, he was a ghost. He really had lived, breathed and done the things he was doing to Marianne to other women as well. She wished she could confide in Steve, explain to him what had happened to her, because none of it was his fault. But how could she admit she no longer needed Steve; all she needed was Moorhead House and her journeys back into the past.
‘I think I’ll ignore that,’ she said. ‘It really isn’t worthy of an answer.’
‘You mean it isn’t true?’
‘Of course it’s not true,’ she snapped, and immediately heard a whispered chuckle. Hastily she turned her head in the direction from which the sound had come, fully expecting to see Edward standing in the kitchen with them, but he wasn’t there. Or at least, he wasn’t visible to her, but he was there just the same. She could sense it.
As she removed Steve’s dirty plate and took a tub of vanilla ice cream out of the freezer for him, she knew Edward was watching her. She could feel his eyes watching every movement and she felt on edge, constantly terrified that he was suddenly going to materialise.
When Steve had eaten his desert he pushed back his chair and gave a small sigh. ‘Where do we go from here?’ he asked her.
‘Go? Why should we go anywhere? Nothing’s changed, Steve. We’ll carry on as we are.’
‘But do you still feel the same about me?’ he asked.
She knew she had to reassure him. If he started to believe his imaginings were the truth then he might confide in Sandra and Graham. Once that happened they’d probably tell him about Judith Wells and then all of them would be watching her closely, waiting for her to give some sign that she, too, was losing her grip on reality. She couldn’t allow that to happen. ‘I’ll show you what I think of you,’ she whispered, catching hold of his hand and leading him into the front room.
As soon as he’d settled himself in his favourite armchair she sat on the floor between his legs, letting him stroke her hair, and soon he was bending forward, kissing her passionately. She knew Edward was watching them, she could almost hear his breathing, but there was still no sign of him. A sense of bravado filled her. Not only was she going to make Steve happy, she was also going to show Edward that she did have a life away from him.
Reaching up she unfastened Steve’s jeans and pulled them slowly down his legs, caressing his thighs. Reaching inside the leg of his boxer shorts, she lightly tickled his testicles and within seconds his erection was pushing its way through the opening of the material, swelling rapidly. Marianne knelt up so she could draw him into her mouth.
With a murmur of contentment Steve closed his eyes, allowing the pleasure caused by her lapping tongue to wash over him. Only then did Edward Sharpe make himself visible to Marianne. He was standing behind Steve’s chair, glaring at her, his eyes dark with fury. Marianne removed her mouth from Steve’s erection and smiled sweetly at her ghostly lover, before turning her attention back to Steve.
She did all the things she knew Steve liked best. Her tongue caressed the sensitive ridge of flesh beneath the glans, occasionally swirling around the tip and dipping into the tiny eye. Every time she did this Steve would jerk and his hands, which were resting on her shoulders, tightened convulsively. After a time she used her mouth to suck him, and as she sucked she gripped the shaft with one hand, then slowly pumped it up and down, providing a different kind of stimulation from the soft caress of her mouth.
‘God, that’s good,’ moaned Steve, opening his eyes for a second and looking down at her. ‘You’ve no idea how great it feels.’
‘I can imagine,’ she said, and she could because the memory of how she’d felt when Edward’s tongue had licked her clitoris was still clear in her mind. ‘I love doing it for you,’ she murmured, raising her eyes to see how Edward would take this. He was pale, and she was suddenly alarmed because he looked down at Steve as though he’d like to kill him.
Releasing Steve’s erection, she moved her fingers lower, lightly caressing his tightening testicles instead, but all the time she continued to lick and suck on the head of his penis until he was groaning helplessly, close to coming.
Marianne started to suck harder but then Steve gently pushed on her shoulders. ‘I want to come inside you,’ he said huskily.
She saw Edward watching them both. He was still very pale but he also looked excited, aroused by what he was seeing, and for the first time since she’d met him Marianne felt a surge of power. Now he was the one experiencing the frustration, now he would know what it was like to suffer, and she stripped off her clothes and lay on the carpet, holding her arms up to Steve. ‘Quickly,’ she said throatily. ‘I want to feel you inside me.’
Steve needed no second invitation. Within seconds he was lying on top of her, sliding into her moist, welcoming warmth and she deliberately gave a loud cry of ecstasy, knowing it would infuriate Edward. ‘Oh yes... yes!’ And because she knew they were being watched, her excitement really did soar.
Steve was moving spasmodically in and out of her. ‘I can’t wait much longer,’ he grunted.
Marianne wrapped her legs around him, drawing him deeper inside her. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she assured him. ‘I’m nearly there, too.’ It wasn’t true but she was very close. As Steve gave three final thrusts before spasming above her, her body teetered on the brink of release, but it was over just seconds too soon and he left her stranded.
Edward Sharpe was standing over them, glaring down in much the same way as he used to glare at Tabitha and John. Marianne decided to pretend she’d come. Letting out a cry of satisfaction, she clutched at Steve. ‘That was bliss,’ she gasped. Steve rolled off her and lay on the carpet with one arm over her breasts and his eyes closed. He was obviously exhausted.
To Marianne’s disappointment Edward had vanished, but she was certain she’d managed to make him jealous. It was only fair, she thought, because Steve, without realising it, was jealous of Edward. Then, to her shock, she felt hands on her ankles and her legs were pushed apart as the familiar fingers began to snake up her inner thighs. ‘No!’ she hissed.
‘Is my arm too heavy?’ Steve asked sleepily.
‘No... you just relax,’ she said gently, hoping he might doze off after his exertions.
‘So what’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. I had a twinge of cramp.’
‘Well, that’s okay then,’ he muttered.
He was almost asleep, but not quite, and Marianne didn’t dare utter another sound. Edward’s fingers were moving incredibly lightly now, stroking her sex lips with insidious gentleness until she felt them parting, opening to allow him easier access.
She was horrified. She wanted to move, to jump to her feet and leave the room, but that would have upset Steve and she was anxious not to give him further reason to doubt her. Instead she lay in rigid anticipation, waiting for Edward to do as he wanted with her.
He played with her for several minutes, massaging the succulent flesh, occasionally sliding a finger inside her, but never for quite long enough to trigger her release. Then, clearly tiring of the game, he began to circle her clitoris with two fingers. The pressure was firm, the movement exactly what she needed until, with shocking abruptness, all the pent-up desire waiting to be released spilled out. Despite her determination to keep silent, she heard herself groaning in ecstasy as her body trembled and quaked when she finally climaxed.
Steve’s eyes flew open and he propped himself up on one elbow. ‘What happened to you then?’ he asked.
‘I shivered,’ she said lamely. ‘It’s cold in here.’
‘You were playing with yourself, weren’t you?’
She grasped the excuse gratefully. ‘Yes,’ she admitted, pretending to be ashamed.
‘Bloody hell, you’re insatiable. Soon it’ll take more than one man to keep you happy.’
She nearly laughed at this, and just before he disappeared, she saw Edward smile.
As he’d obviously intended, his actions had spoilt the moment and when Steve got to his feet, grumpily pulling on his jeans, Marianne hastily got dressed too. ‘I think it’s time we went to bed, especially if you have to be off early in the morning,’ she said.
‘I need to find my old briefcase,’ said Steve. ‘It’s got some papers I want for tomorrow’s meeting. Have you any idea where it is?’
‘It must be in one of the cases I haven’t unpacked yet. They’re all in the attic.’
‘Right, I’ll have a look before we go to bed.’
Marianne decided to go into the attic with Steve. She was drawn to it, associating it with the past and forbidden pleasures. As Steve started going through the packing cases she opened her great-aunt’s old trunk and took out the book on Moorhead House. All she wanted to do was read the piece about Edward again. Now she knew him better it would be even more intriguing.
When she opened the book a square of old paper fell out from between two pages and floated to the floor. The paper was yellow with age, the edges curled, and Marianne stared at it in astonishment because she knew perfectly well it hadn’t been there the first time she’d opened the book. Someone had placed it there since, and it wasn’t difficult to guess who.
‘What’s that?’ Steve asked absentmindedly.
‘I don’t know, probably an old recipe.’
He turned his attention back to the packing cases and Marianne lifted the paper so the light fell on it. It was a drawing of Edward and his sister, and the artist had captured the essence of them with incredible accuracy. Despite the fact that they were both dressed in their best clothes and Judith was smiling, they were still intimidating.
‘I can’t find the bloody thing,’ muttered Steve. ‘Are you sure you haven’t unpacked it?’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ snapped Marianne.
‘What’s the recipe for?’ he asked, pausing in his search for a moment. ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to try it out on me?’
‘It isn’t a recipe.’
‘What is it then?’
‘A drawing.’
‘A drawing of the house?’
‘No,’ she said, and without thinking, she clutched the paper to her breast.
‘Hey, let me have a look,’ said Steve. ‘Come on, it can’t be a secret.’
‘It’s just a drawing of two people, that’s all.’
‘Then let me see,’ he insisted, making a grab for the paper.
‘Careful, you might tear it,’ she admonished.
‘So what?’
‘So, it could be valuable.’
‘I doubt it, it can’t be that old.’
‘But it is,’ she whispered.
‘What d’you say?’
‘I said, it is old.’
Steve frowned. ‘How do you know?’
She didn’t know what to say. She could hardly tell him she’d met these people, they’d lived in this very same house a hundred and seventy years earlier and the drawing must have been done around that time. ‘You can tell by the clothes they’re wearing,’ she muttered.
‘That doesn’t mean it’s an old drawing, stupid,’ he scoffed. ‘Any artist can draw people in old-fashioned clothes. Come on, let me see it.’
Marianne didn’t want him to touch it. She didn’t want him anywhere near it, but she knew she couldn’t refuse. Grudgingly, she handed it over. ‘There you are. I told you it was nothing special.’
Steve looked at it carefully. ‘That man looks familiar,’ he said pensively.
‘Familiar...? What do you mean, familiar?’
Now it was Steve’s turn to seem uncomfortable. ‘When I came home earlier and burst into our bedroom, thinking there was someone there, just for a brief moment I did see someone, a man, and he looked just like this man.’
‘And I thought I was the one going mad,’ said Marianne, trying to lighten the suddenly oppressive atmosphere.
Steve shook his head. ‘I don’t understand it. I could have sworn...’
‘Sworn what?’
‘Nothing, I’m being utterly ridiculous. He doesn’t look very nice though, does he?’
‘I think he’s quite attractive.’
‘Look at the lines round his mouth and eyes,’ said Steve, pointing at the paper. ‘He looks like someone who lived a life of excess and debauchery.’
‘That sounds delicious,’ laughed Marianne, still trying to lighten the mood. Then she peered more closely at the drawing. ‘There’s another figure in the background,’ she exclaimed.
‘I didn’t see one,’ said Steve.
‘Well, there is, sitting down behind them... look.’
‘I think you’re right,’ agreed Steve, squinting as he peered closer. ‘It looks like a young woman, but her features are very vague. I suppose she’s of no importance.’
Marianne felt as though he’d slapped her. ‘How can you say that?’ she asked angrily.
‘Say what?’
‘That I’m of no importance.’
‘That you’re of no importance?’ he said incredulously. ‘I never mentioned you. I was talking about the young woman in the picture.’
Marianne felt the blood rush to her cheeks. She couldn’t believe she’d said what she had. ‘I – I didn’t mean me... I...’
‘What are you getting so worked up about?’ asked Steve.
‘I’m not getting worked up.’
‘Yes, you are. You’ve gone all red and you sound really flustered.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, just find your briefcase and let’s get to bed,’ she snapped.
‘Are these people in fancy dress?’ asked Steve. ‘Is this someone you know? Someone who lives round here?’
‘It’s an old drawing,’ Marianne repeated. ‘Look at the paper. You don’t get paper like that any more.’
Steve tested it between finger and thumb. ‘Artists still use paper like this.’
‘Steve, don’t you think you’re being just a little bit paranoid?’ said Marianne. ‘If you’re trying to say that this man’s my lover, why on earth would I keep a picture of him hidden in a book in a trunk in the attic?’
‘To look at when I’m not here.’
‘But I’m looking at it now, when you are here,’ she pointed out.
‘He excites you, doesn’t he?’ Steve said perceptively, watching her reactions closely. ‘Even the sight of him is enough to arouse you.’ He ran a hand over the front of her sweatshirt. Marianne tried to push him off but she wasn’t quick enough and she knew he’d felt how hard her nipples were beneath the fabric.
‘Listen,’ said Steve slowly. ‘I’m not stupid, Marianne. There’s something going on here and I want to know what it is. I’ve always thought of you as being absolutely honest and I want an honest answer to this question. Have you got a lover?’
‘No,’ she said firmly.
‘But you’re falling in love with someone else, aren’t you?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m not, Steve. There isn’t anyone else. If I’d wanted to have an affair I’d have had one in London. Let’s face it, I had plenty of offers. Think about this logically. Our nearest neighbours are Sandra and Graham and you don’t think it’s Graham, do you?’ Steve shook his head. ‘Okay then, apart from him, who do I meet?’
‘The postman,’ Steve suggested, without conviction.
‘He’s nearly sixty.’
‘The milkman, then?’
‘He delivers around four in the morning. Anyway, I wouldn’t know him if I met him. Believe me, Steve, I haven’t met anyone who lives near here apart from Sandra and Graham, and that’s the honest truth.’
‘So why are you so fascinated by this drawing then?’
‘Well, it’s an extraordinary coincidence, but he looks like the hero of my book,’ she explained, not untruthfully. ‘He’s exactly how I’d pictured him and it was a bit of a shock seeing him like this.’
‘Maybe you’d seen the picture before and he’d stayed in your subconscious,’ suggested Steve.
‘Maybe,’ agreed Marianne. ‘Mind you, that doesn’t explain why you thought you knew him.’
‘No, and I haven’t even read your book.’
‘Maybe he’s a ghost,’ said Marianne, knowing she was beginning to tread on thin ice.
‘A ghost?’ Steve stared at her. ‘Are you saying this is a drawing of someone who used to live here?’
‘Well it could be, couldn’t it?’
‘I suppose so,’ Steve conceded.
‘If it is, then perhaps in a way we’ve both seen him. Maybe that’s why I’ve used his face in my book, and why you thought you saw him in the bedroom. Perhaps his presence has remained behind for over a hundred and fifty years.’
‘Why do you say a hundred and fifty years?’ he asked. ‘You don’t know that’s when he lived here, if indeed he did.’
Marianne could have bitten off her tongue. ‘I, um, I’m only guessing because of the clothes.’
‘I see.’ Steve stared at the drawing once more. ‘Well, if he is still around, I think we ought to have someone in to exorcise him. He looks a very unhealthy influence to me. Maybe that’s why you started writing all those lurid sex scenes. Perhaps you were picking up perverted vibes from him.’
Marianne was furious. Suddenly she wanted to blurt everything out, to tell Steve what was happening and what incredible pleasure Edward had brought her. She was so angry she actually opened her mouth but then, at the last moment, self-protection took over and she turned away without uttering a word. ‘I think this is all getting rather silly,’ she murmured.
‘I don’t know, you might have a point. You do hear about things like that.’
‘Well, I think I’d know if I’d seen him,’ she said.
‘I’m not suggesting for one moment he’s a ghost who materialises,’ Steve argued. ‘All I’m saying is that your idea about his presence lingering on might be true. I’m not a total sceptic where these things are concerned.’
‘But you wouldn’t be jealous of a ghost, would you?’
Steve laughed. ‘Of course not! A ghost wouldn’t be any competition. Besides, if he really did live over a hundred and fifty years ago I don’t suppose he did anything interesting. I rather think modern man could see him off any day.’
Marianne knew different, but decided against telling him so. ‘And what about all that “life of excess and debauchery” you were talking about?’
‘That would be drinking and prostitutes,’ said Steve casually.
Suddenly Marianne wanted to change the conversation. The more Steve dismissed Edward the more she was tempted to hurt him with the truth. ‘I don’t think we’re going to find your briefcase,’ she said, deflecting the subject and pretending to yawn. ‘Let’s go to bed.’
‘It’s damned inconvenient,’ said Steve, but he switched out the light and followed her down to the bedroom.
As usual, Steve was soon asleep but Marianne lay wide awake. She lay staring into the darkness, thinking about the picture and how it had also featured Marianne Clifford. And then, to her delight, she heard the whisper of familiar voices.
‘And how’s Miss Marianne today?’ asked Dr Francis Proctor.
Marianne stared around her. She was standing in the middle of Edward’s bedroom, clad only in a thin shift. A fire was burning in the grate and the room was hot. Seated in the rocking chair was Tabitha. The girl was naked and looked more frail than ever. Her arms were resting on the sides of the chair, her hands clenched tightly around the ends until her knuckles showed white. Although she could only touch the floor with the tips of her toes she constantly kept the chair rocking back and forth, but the terrified expression on her face told Marianne this wasn’t what the servant girl wanted.
Judith was standing slightly to the side of the chair and in front of Tabitha. She was watching her serving maid carefully, and Marianne could tell from Tabitha’s swollen nipples that she was very aroused. Then, as Marianne watched, Tabitha uttered a whimpering cry and trembled violently. Immediately Judith began to beat her breasts with birch twigs while tears rolled down Tabitha’s face and she cried out beseechingly.
‘I can’t help it. I can’t help it, ma’am,’ she whimpered.
‘Keep rocking,’ said Judith, her voice harsh.
‘But the pebbles make me so excited,’ Tabitha cried. ‘The more I rock the worse it gets.’
Suddenly Francis Proctor, who’d been standing in the shadows watching Marianne, stepped forward. ‘Your mistress is quite right,’ he said, his voice calm and measured. ‘You may think we’re being unkind, Tabitha, but we’re trying to help you. It is my experience that if you continue with the treatment you’ll eventually learn to control yourself.’
‘It doesn’t work that way,’ Tabitha wailed.
‘Then you must keep doing what the doctor says until it does,’ said Judith crisply, and she pushed the back of the rocking chair to start it moving again.
Marianne realised the pebbles she’d seen inserted into Tabitha once before must be inside the girl again. ‘Ask them to let me go, miss,’ Tabitha cried, looking imploringly at Marianne. ‘I’m so tired.’
Marianne kept silent. There was nothing she could say, and in any case, she knew the doctor was about to examine her. The last thing she wanted to do was antagonise him or Edward before the examination began. Despite her apprehension, her skin was prickling with excitement. She started to imagine how it would feel when their hands touched her once more.
‘Perhaps her waist is a little smaller,’ said the doctor, squeezing his hands tightly around Marianne’s waist. ‘You could tighten the belt another notch, I think.’
Remembering how tight it had felt the last time she’d worn it Marianne couldn’t suppress a tiny sigh of protest.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Edward.
‘I won’t be able to breathe,’ she whispered.
‘I think the doctor’s the best judge of that,’ he replied. ‘But we can always test his theory.’ As he spoke he produced the wide leather belt, pulling it swiftly round Marianne’s waist and jerking hard until he found the hole he wanted. Once the belt was fastened Marianne’s worst fears were proved right. She could scarcely breathe, and yet she remembered from what she’d read in books that women had always been tightly laced at this time, in order to keep an unnatural hourglass figure. No wonder they’d fainted so often, she thought to herself.
‘It emphasises your other curves,’ murmured Edward, running his hands thoughtfully over her muslin chemise, and she felt her flesh leap beneath his touch. ‘You see,’ he added with a smile. ‘You’re still alive so I assume you’re breathing. You were right, Francis. From now on the belt will be tightened.’
‘Tighten the strap between her thighs also,’ said his friend. ‘If nothing else it will make her nights more interesting.’ The doctor laughed.
At that moment Tabitha gave a muffled gasp of ecstasy. Marianne turned her head and saw the birch twigs rising and falling even while Tabitha’s body was still shaking from the contractions of her climax. Her cries of joy turned to cries of pain and she cowered back in the chair.
‘Perhaps you should have a little ointment on your breasts to soothe the discomfort,’ said Judith.
Tabitha shook her head. ‘I don’t need the ointment, ma’am,’ she said hastily.
‘I think you do,’ said Judith. ‘Do you have some with you, Francis?’ The doctor handed her a small jar and she quickly spread the cream over the raised marks on the servant girl’s breasts. Tabitha sat very still, as though waiting for something dreadful, and Marianne guessed that whilst the ointment might heal, it also hurt.
Sure enough, a few seconds later Tabitha was writhing in discomfort, moaning and weeping. ‘It’s burning me,’ she cried. ‘Take it off, please, take it off.’
But Judith spread the cream over a larger area of Tabitha’s breasts and, just as Marianne felt she must do something to stop Judith tormenting the helpless girl, Tabitha’s eyes widened. ‘Oh no!’ she cried, and then shuddered violently as yet another climax, triggered by the strange properties of the ointment, was wrenched from her.
‘Have you ever seen such wanton behaviour?’ Edward asked Francis Proctor.
The doctor shook his head. ‘It’s a very sad case,’ he declared. ‘She needs a lot of discipline and attention if we are to cure her.’
As the birch twigs began to fall on Tabitha’s belly and the rocking chair was set in motion once more, Marianne turned her head away. She couldn’t bear to watch any longer because, despite her sympathy for Tabitha, she was becoming excited.
The leather belt was now discarded and the doctor looked thoughtfully at Marianne. ‘Please remove your chemise,’ he said gently. ‘I need to do a full examination.’
Marianne crossed her arms protectively over her body. ‘I don’t want to be naked,’ she murmured, well aware that a young lady of that time would never have stripped, even for a doctor.
‘Don’t tell me you’re going coy on us, Marianne,’ laughed Edward. He waited a few seconds and then, when she still made no move to remove the garment, he hooked two fingers in the neckline and, with a savage downward movement, split it from neck to hem. ‘Will that do, Francis?’ he asked.
Marianne felt worse standing in a garment whose ragged edges had opened to partially expose her body than she would have done if she’d stripped herself, and she hastily eased the rags off and then waited passively for the doctor’s instructions.
‘Lie on the bed,’ he said.
This time she was lying full length on a bolster, just slightly elevated. The doctor sat on the bed next to her, moving his hands over her body, poking and prodding, palpating the flesh of her breasts and belly and constantly murmuring to himself.
His touch was gentle and skilfully arousing. Marianne felt her body relaxing beneath his fingers, her muscles softening. Then, as he continued to touch her, her desire began to grow.
The doctor’s hands parted her legs and instinctively she tried to close them, but Edward caught hold of her ankles and spread them apart, giving his friend free access. The doctor laid the middle finger of each hand against the join at the tops of her thighs and pressed, lightly at first but then more heavily. At the same time he rolled his fingers slightly inwards. It felt delicious, and she struggled to remain still because the sensation was so exciting.
Eventually he stopped, then he parted her sex lips and swirled a finger lazily around her entrance. ‘She’s already very wet,’ he said, his voice clinical and detached. ‘It’s surprising how little it takes. Are you quite sure she’s a lady of good breeding?’
‘Quite sure,’ Edward confirmed. ‘However, there must be bad blood in her somewhere.’
Marianne was determined to keep silent. In the background she could hear Tabitha climaxing at regular intervals, gasping with delight and then whimpering pitifully as she was punished by Judith’s birch twigs. Even that sometimes caused a renewed gasp of ecstasy, and the constant reminder that someone was having countless orgasms was an added aphrodisiac for Marianne.
‘She’s very quiet,’ said the doctor, when Marianne remained silent. ‘I really need to hear her responses in order to assess whether or not we’ve made progress.’
‘I’d have said we haven’t,’ remarked Edward. His fingers joined his friend’s between her thighs.
‘She still hasn’t uttered a sound,’ said his friend. ‘Admittedly, her flesh appears to indicate her behaviour is wanton, but perhaps I’m wrong.’
‘Do you think we should test her further?’ There was no mistaking the eagerness in Edward’s voice.
‘Yes,’ said his friend, and at that moment Tabitha gave a loud moan.
‘Please can I stop now?’ she cried, her voice breaking with distress.
‘The intention is that eventually you’ll tire of constant stimulation and release, then your disgraceful lasciviousness will cease,’ said the doctor.
‘But I want them to stop now,’ cried Tabitha.
‘Oh do stop whining,’ said Edward irritably. ‘Keep her quiet, Judith.’
There was the sound of birch twigs against naked flesh and after a few shrieks Tabitha fell silent, obviously realising she was only making things worse for herself.
Sir Edward lay down on the bed next to Marianne and turned her on her side, still on the bolster, so she was facing him. ‘Wouldn’t you like to be stimulated constantly?’ he whispered. ‘Tell me, don’t you envy Tabitha?’
‘No,’ she said uncertainly. ‘I couldn’t bear it.’
‘Nonsense, your capacity for pleasure is unlimited. We both know that.’ His voice was still quiet, intimate, and he was staring at her hungrily.
‘Why do you keep tormenting me?’ she asked.
‘Why do you keep coming back for more?’ he asked, and she had no answer for him.
She didn’t hear or feel Francis Proctor climb on the bed behind her. It was only when she felt his manhood pressing against her lower back that she realised he was there and jumped with shock. ‘What are you going to do to me?’ she asked in a panic.
‘Nothing so very terrible,’ said Edward, but the look in his eyes belied his words.
She waited, trembling and helpless, as the two men fed a long piece of silken cloth between her thighs, pulling the ends up on either side of her. Then, with her body sandwiched between them, they tugged the ends, pulling upwards against her vulva. Immediately her clitoris began to swell, blood suffusing the area as she became engorged with excitement, and she trembled on the edge of a climax. Then the pair loosened their grip and the pressure eased.
She was left in a state of hopeless frustration, longing for fulfilment, unable to control the situation at all and aware that her every response was being monitored by the doctor. He was judging her, listening for any sound she might make, and although she knew she should stay silent she also knew another tightening of the cloth would make it impossible.
After a few seconds, during which her body calmed a little, they pulled on the silken cloth once more, and this time, as she’d feared, she gasped with delight.
‘Did you hear that?’ asked Edward.
‘She’s responding.’ Francis nodded, and there was a note of disapproval in his voice. ‘I’m afraid she hasn’t made as much progress as I’d hoped.’
The cloth was loosened for a moment, and to her shame Marianne couldn’t prevent a cry of frustration.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Edward.
‘Nothing,’ she gasped.
He caught hold of her chin. ‘Don’t lie to us.’
‘It’s just that...’
‘You’re enjoying it, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘You wanted us to continue then, admit it.’
‘No, no, I didn’t,’ she lied.
Immediately the two men tightened the cloth again. They continued to tighten and release in a steady rhythm so she was constantly brought to the peak of desire and then left there, silently begging for a chance to explode in orgasmic release. They were very clever, and soon she was sobbing with frustration, no longer caring what they thought of her.
‘I think this might help,’ said Edward, leaving the bed for a moment. When he returned he was carrying the glass bottle of oil he’d used on her once before. He poured a few drops over his fingers and, as he continued to manipulate the length of silk between her thighs, he pinched her flesh.
He chose the most sensitive places, and every time he pinched he would hold the flesh for a few seconds until she cried out, and only then would he release it. Each time the pressure eased a strange glow would spread.
‘Her responses are very audible now,’ remarked the doctor.
‘Indeed,’ said Edward. ‘I think perhaps we should satisfy her wanton flesh.’
‘Oh yes, please do,’ she cried, abandoning all pretence at ladylike behaviour.
The two men removed the silk and she felt their hands gripping her. Edward drew her nearest nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it before closing his teeth over the tip, biting so hard she screamed in protest, but as soon as his mouth was removed she felt her body begin to arch upwards in a spasm of pleasure.
‘Quickly, take her now,’ Edward urged his friend.
To her horror, Marianne felt the doctor’s fingers parting her buttocks and then he was pouring some of Edward’s oil around the sensitive opening. His excitement was such that he could hardly wait and he thrust inside her before she was really ready for him. She groaned in protest at this cruel invasion.
His turgid penis seemed to stretch the walls of her violated bottom and his staccato movements were rough. As a result the pain almost outweighed the pleasure and she moaned despairingly, but he ignored her. Wrapping his arms around her waist he pulled her back firmly against his groin.
‘Now it’s my turn,’ said Edward, staring into her eyes. She felt the tip of him sliding up and down her inner channel, moving in teasing circles around her aching entrance. All the time he was doing this his friend was moving inside her, sending wave after wave of forbidden pleasure-pain through her. She was shocked to realise she wanted to be filled by the pair of them; at that moment, it was the most exciting thing she could imagine happening to her.
‘Beg me,’ Edward goaded harshly.
Marianne shook her head. She knew she couldn’t; she didn’t dare, because if she did such incredibly wanton behaviour would only be punished.
‘You know you want me,’ he went on. ‘Beg. Do as I say. Beg for it.’
Almost delirious with need, Marianne threw caution to the winds. ‘Yes... yes I want you to take me,’ she panted. ‘Hurry...’
Immediately he penetrated her and, as the two men began to fuck her in unison, it felt as though their shafts were touching each other in her depths. She heard herself sobbing and crying out incoherently as finally she was filled to the limit. And when Edward squeezed his fingers down and teased her clitoris she could take no more.
She screamed as her body jerked helplessly, impaled on the two men, constricted by their bodies from total freedom of movement but still spasming wildly as the most incredible orgasm imaginable took possession of her. For a few seconds she felt as though she’d lose consciousness, so overwhelming was her joy. Eventually she slumped between their sweating bodies, totally drained, but the men were still moving inside her, still climbing towards their own moment of release.
It was the doctor who came first, his testicles squeezing tightly against her buttocks as his stubby cock swelled even further and then erupted inside the warm cocoon of her bottom.
‘Now you’re mine,’ Edward hissed, his stare fixed on her. ‘Now you know what you really are and how much you need me.’
Marianne stared back at him through misty eyes, knowing the words he was uttering were the shocking truth. She was his, she did need him and she was horribly aware of what she really was – or at least, of what she had become. Finally, as though reading her understanding, with a grunt of triumph he stabbed his hips aggressively and ejaculated too, his hypnotic stare transfixing her while his cock pulsed and his copious seed flooded her.
Long minutes later he and the doctor withdrew, leaving Marianne limp and alone on the dishevelled bed, damp with perspiration. She could imagine what she looked like, and as Edward and his friend stared down at her she couldn’t think of a word to utter in her own defence.
‘Could you ever have believed she’d behave like that?’ asked Edward.
‘I’m shocked,’ replied the doctor. ‘I’m sorry, Edward, but I seem to have failed you.’
‘It doesn’t matter. From now on I shall attend to her myself. You’ve done your best. I remember you once telling me there are some things that doctors cannot cure. I fear that Marianne’s lewd and wanton behaviour is one of them...’
Marianne awoke on the top of her bed, perspiration chilling her flesh. Clearly time had moved on, as it had begun to do during her recent visits to the past, and dawn was breaking.
She felt restless. Now she was away from Edward, back in the boring security of the modern day, she was in the mood for sex again.
She glanced at Steve sleeping quietly beside her. Easing back the duvet, she ran her fingers lightly over his chest. He always slept naked and, within a few seconds, she was lightly tickling his balls, watching the skin move beneath her touch. Encouraged by this, she began to massage his sleeping penis, and he moaned in his sleep, his hips twisting as he began to respond.
She was incredibly excited by the fact that he had no idea what was happening to him, and let her fingers play up and down the stem of his growing erection, feeling it engorge with excitement until it was standing up rigid and erect, yet still Steve slept.
Releasing her sleeping lover for a moment, Marianne put her hand between her thighs and slowly moved her fingers in circles around her clitoris. Her breathing was becoming heavier and her desire mounting. Turning back to Steve, she grasped his erection with one hand and lowered her body on to it, feeling the delicious hardness of him sliding up inside her. Instinctively her muscles tightened with a contraction that heralded impending release, and it was then that Steve’s eyes opened.
‘What on earth...?’
‘Keep still,’ she urged, bending forward so her nipples were near his mouth. ‘Just relax and let me please you.’
‘You might have woken me up first.’ He sounded disgruntled.
‘Isn’t it more exciting this way?’ she teased.
‘Exciting for who?’
‘For both of us.’
‘I feel as though I’m being used.’
Marianne couldn’t understand his reaction. ‘Most men would love this,’ she said.
‘How do you know?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know, but I imagine they would. I thought you were enjoying the fact that our sex life was more adventurous now.’
‘I was, but that was before you went all peculiar on me.’
‘Don’t spoil it,’ she begged him, feeling her excitement beginning to fade.
Almost reluctantly, he took a rigid nipple between his teeth and lightly caressed the end of it with his tongue. She wanted to beg him to be rougher with her, to nip at the sensitive flesh, to grasp the swollen mounds with his hands, letting his fingers dig deeply into her skin, but she knew she couldn’t. At least the touch, however gentle, was an added aphrodisiac and once more hot desire flared in her.
Slowly she raised and lowered her hips again, still rhythmically contracting her muscles around him, and his hips responded so he was soon thrusting up into her. ‘I’m going to come in a minute,’ he gasped.
‘Not yet,’ she begged. ‘Wait a few more seconds. I’m nearly there now.’
She made a conscious effort not to grip him so tightly and slowed her pace. Immediately, some of the tension went out of his body and the moment of danger passed. Urgently she fed her nipple back into his mouth. ‘Please, keep sucking,’ she pleaded, and although she could tell he wasn’t happy about it, he did as she asked. Soon she was tingling and the pressure of impending release grew almost unendurable. Certain that she, too, was going to come, Marianne speeded up the movement of her hips, rising and falling on his rigid shaft as glorious flashes of pleasure spread through her lower belly.
She was only just in time. As her climax swept over her and she threw her head back with a tiny mewl of delight, Steve shuddered and she felt him spilling his hot seed inside her until finally he was completely spent.
‘Wasn’t that good?’ she panted.
‘It was all right.’
He wouldn’t look at her, and Marianne slipped off him. ‘I thought it was a good way of waking you up,’ she murmured dejectedly.
‘It’s a bit early, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, what’s the matter with you?’ she snapped.
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I suppose it’s you. You’ve changed so much and I can’t get used to it. I still don’t really understand what’s going on.’
Marianne sighed. ‘Nothing’s going on. How many times do I have to tell you that?’
Steve rolled to the side, turning his back on her.
‘I’m getting up,’ she said impatiently. ‘Do you want a cooked breakfast before you leave?’
‘What time is it?’ he asked, his voice muffled by the pillow.
‘Six.’
‘Great! I could have slept for another hour. I didn’t need to get up at this time.’
‘Well go back to sleep then,’ she said, furious with his sulking.
‘No, it’s all right. I might as well get up now you’ve woken me.’
‘Is that how you see it? That I “woke” you?’
‘How else am I meant to see it?’
‘I was making love to you.’
Steve shook his head. ‘No you weren’t, Marianne. We had sex, but that’s not the same thing and you know it.’
They ate breakfast in total silence. When Steve left he kissed her perfunctorily on the cheek. ‘See you soon.’
‘When?’ she asked.
‘Two or three days, I’m not sure exactly.’
Marianne stared at him. ‘You won’t tell me, will you? You still believe I’ve got a lover.’
‘I don’t know what I believe any more. When I get back we must have a good talk about our future. Also, I’d like to have a look at this book of yours. By the way, when I went to the study just now there was a fax there from Angela. She says you promised to fax her some pages two days ago, but she’s not received them.’
Marianne clapped her hand to her mouth. ‘Damn, I forgot!’
‘Perhaps you should spend less time daydreaming and more time getting on with your work,’ he said caustically. ‘Even Angela might lose patience with you in the end, you know. Then where will you be?’
Marianne didn’t answer him, nor did she go to the front door to see him off. ‘Oh, Edward,’ she murmured, sitting at the kitchen table. ‘What are we going to do?’
All at once she wanted to return to the past. She had no desire to write any more of her book or fax any pages through to Angela. All she wanted was to go back through the years and be Judith Fullick’s companion again. Nothing in modern life was nearly as satisfying. Her everyday life had become mundane and boring, and her flesh craved the kind of forbidden excitement that Edward had tutored her in so well.
She did everything she could to conjure up images from the past and find a way back. She wandered from room to room. She sat in a chair, closed her eyes and visualised them all. She even went to the outhouse and sat, feeling slightly ridiculous, with her wrists in the iron rings, but it made no difference. She remained in the modern day, unable to get back to her lover.
‘It isn’t fair,’ she muttered, returning to the house. ‘Why isn’t there a password or something that takes me straight back?’
Eventually she settled down to work, faxing pages of her first chapter through to Angela and then carrying on with the next chapter. The story still flowed well and she was pleased with the sexual dynamics between her hero and heroine, but they were a poor substitute for the real thing.
At eleven o’clock she was grateful to hear the doorbell ring. At least it gave her an excuse to temporarily leave her work.
‘Hi,’ said Sandra when Marianne opened the front door. ‘Are you busy writing?’
‘I was about to take a break,’ said Marianne. ‘Would you like to come in for a coffee?’
Sandra looked relieved. ‘That would be great. After last time I wasn’t sure whether I should call in or not.’
‘I don’t mind you calling in as long as you realise that sometimes you’ll get sent away again,’ laughed Marianne.
‘You seem happier,’ said Sandra. ‘Is the book going better?’
‘Yes, I suppose it is.’
‘Steve was home last night, wasn’t he?’
Marianne nodded. ‘He popped back for one night.’
Sandra smiled. ‘You must both be very much in love still. I don’t think Graham would go to that much trouble.’
Marianne wondered what Sandra would say if she told her Steve had really come back because he’d hoped to catch her with a lover. There wasn’t any point; it would only make her seem peculiar again and she was anxious to prove to Sandra that she was very normal. ‘You know what men are like,’ she said lamely.
‘I vaguely remember,’ laughed Sandra. ‘Some of the magic wears off after five years of marriage.’
‘Is instant coffee all right, or shall I grind some beans?’
‘I really don’t mind,’ said Sandra, sitting down by the kitchen table. ‘You know, this is a lovely room. I can understand why you don’t want to modernise it.’
‘Thanks, I...’ began Marianne, but she stiffened as she saw Judith, and she wasn’t alone.
Tabitha was standing naked at the old kitchen sink, shivering, with her bare feet on the stone floor. John was tethered in the same corner of the kitchen where Marianne had once been tethered, and he was naked from the waist down. His erection already looked painfully tight and Marianne guessed Judith was inflicting some kind of punishment on him once again.
‘Instant coffee will be fine,’ said Sandra brightly.
‘I’m sorry?’ murmured Marianne.
‘I said instant’s fine.’
Marianne didn’t know what to do. The kettle was on the worktop to the right of where Tabitha was working, and to her eyes the worktop no longer existed. Instead, there was a rough wooden table pushed against the wall. She couldn’t think what to do. ‘I tell you what, how about some squash?’ she asked.
Sandra looked surprised. ‘Well, I...’
‘This lemon squash is delicious,’ Marianne assured her; grateful that at least the table remained the same. There were already two glasses there and she took them over to the sink. As her fingers tightened around the old tap she felt herself brush against Tabitha, but Tabitha gave no sign that she knew Marianne was there.
Nervously, Marianne filled the glasses with water and then returned to the table, pushing one in front of Sandra. She was vaguely aware that Sandra was talking but the words were meaningless, because Marianne’s attention was caught by the scene from the past taking place in front of her.
‘I need some preserves from the cupboard, Tabitha,’ said Judith, moving away from where she’d been standing next to John. ‘You’ll have to stand on the stool.’
Tabitha quickly dried her hands and, with difficulty, pushed a three-legged stool over to the cupboard. Then, with a nervous glance in John’s direction, she lifted one foot off the floor and clambered on to it. Marianne realised this meant John was gazing at Tabitha’s pubic mound, seeing it open up in front of him, and as she reached for the preserves her body was stretched tight, her back curved inwards and her large breasts arched forward.
Clearly satisfied with what was happening, Judith moved back to stand next to John. ‘You can only take me if I’m sure you’ve learned better self-control,’ she told him, and he bit his lower lip. A tiny drop of clear fluid dripped from the tip of his purple glans, falling to the stone flags. Crouching down, Judith let her tongue flick into the tiny slit and immediately John began to tremble.
‘Please, mistress, don’t do that,’ he begged her.
‘But you say you’re as mature as a man now,’ she reminded him. ‘A man doesn’t come until his woman’s satisfied.’
Marianne wondered how long this torment had been going on. John’s face was flushed, and his erection looked fit to burst. Obviously he’d already been kept waiting some time, but Judith didn’t seem to be in any hurry to release him.
When Tabitha got down from the stool, Judith called her over, then sat the girl on the end of the kitchen table, directly opposite where Sandra was sitting. She pushed Tabitha’s knees apart and then, as John watched, moved over to the sink, returning with a long curving carrot in her hand.
‘I don’t see why we should deprive Tabitha of her pleasure simply because you’re learning to restrain yourself,’ she commented.
‘I don’t want that inside me,’ cried Tabitha. ‘It’s indecent.’
‘Nonsense,’ mocked Judith. ‘And you’re lucky we’re so good to you.’ She dipped the carrot into a pot of grease before slowly starting to insert it into her serving girl.
Tabitha squirmed, trying to inch away from the invading vegetable, but Judith slapped her sharply. ‘Sit still, you stupid girl! You know full well that soon you’ll be enjoying this.’
Marianne thought it more likely that John’s pleasure would come first. She could see he was struggling to contain his excitement as he watched the carrot disappearing inside Tabitha. When Judith began to rotate her wrist, Tabitha’s whimpers of distress changed, and soon she was moaning despairingly. It was a moan that Marianne recognised. Despite what she’d said earlier, Tabitha was becoming very excited and when Judith began to massage the girl’s abdomen with her free hand, Tabitha cried out. ‘Oh, yes... yes!’ she sobbed.
‘Didn’t I say you’d love it?’ Judith gloated, urging the carrot inexorably deeper.
‘I can’t take any more,’ cried Tabitha. ‘It’s filled me up!’
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ retorted her mistress. She turned to the tethered John. ‘I’m sure you’d like to be filling Tabitha right now, wouldn’t you? Look how she’s responding. See how she’s writhing so wantonly. Is this what she does when you’re fucking her?’
Marianne was shocked by Judith’s crude language; it didn’t suit her at all. But the young gardener interrupted her thoughts.
‘I’m going to come, mistress,’ he groaned. ‘I can’t stand watching it no more.’
‘In that case you’ll forfeit your opportunity to pleasure me,’ said Judith.
‘I want to mistress, I want to a lot, but watching Tabitha like this – it’s more than a man can stand.’
‘Perhaps you should keep still, Tabitha,’ Judith suggested. ‘Maybe if you kept silent and didn’t make your pleasure so obvious it would make things easier for John.’
‘Oh, ma’am!’ exclaimed Tabitha, and all at once her body convulsed as she climaxed.
Judith didn’t even wait for Tabitha’s last contractions to die away before leaving the girl and turning her attention back to the tethered gardener. ‘You’ve done very well,’ she said approvingly. ‘Perhaps you would be able to satisfy me now. Let me see how ready you are.’ Her hand closed around his shaft just below the swollen tip and, as her fingers gripped him, he shook his head despondently. ‘Oh no,’ he protested. ‘Please, let go mistress.’
‘I’m just making sure you’re hard enough for me,’ she said with a thin smile.
‘I can’t bear it,’ groaned John, and his hips began to pump furiously.
Marianne watched, dry-mouthed and incredibly excited, as creamy fluid spat from his swollen cock, coating his mistress’ fingers and dripping audibly on the floor below.
Judith waited until the last drops had fallen and then milked him tightly one final time. ‘How dare you?’ she hissed. ‘Do you have any idea what kind of punishment my brother would inflict upon you if he knew what you’ve just done?’
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he cried.
On the table Tabitha, clearly over-excited by everything that was happening, began to move the carrot in and out of herself without even seeking Judith’s permission. Alerted by the sound of the girl’s heavy breathing, Judith turned to glance at her. ‘Have you learned nothing here?’ she shouted. ‘The pair of you will suffer for this.’ She pulled Tabitha off the table and forced her to her knees in front of John. ‘Start sucking him,’ she ordered her.
‘Don’t, Tabitha,’ cried John, but Tabitha, who always protected herself first, ignored his plea and closed her lips around the tip of his glans.
Suddenly, Judith looked straight at Marianne. ‘How long have you been there?’ she asked. ‘Have you enjoyed my little game? You look as though it’s excited you.’
‘It hasn’t,’ Marianne blurted hastily.
‘Sorry?’ said Sandra.
Marianne looked at her visitor in surprise. She’d completely forgotten she was there. ‘What?’
‘You said it hasn’t,’ explained Sandra. ‘What did you mean?’
Marianne couldn’t think what to say. ‘You’d better go,’ she said abruptly.
Sandra stared at her. ‘Go?’
‘Yes, I don’t feel very well.’
‘What’s the matter? Do you feel dizzy? You’ve gone very pale.’
‘I don’t know what’s the matter,’ snapped Marianne. ‘I’d like to go and lie down for a while, if you don’t mind?’
‘I’ll bring you up a sweet cup of tea,’ Sandra suggested.
‘No!’ Marianne was desperate to get back to the past. ‘Don’t you understand? I want to be left alone.’
Sandra got to her feet in a huff. ‘There’s no need to shout. I was only trying to be helpful. If you’re ill you should see a doctor.’
‘I’m not that ill,’ Marianne said wearily. She wished the wretched girl would just go.
Sandra shifted uneasily, clearly wanting to say something. ‘Steve’s very worried about you,’ she blurted at last.
‘How do you mean, worried about me?’
‘He thinks you need to see a doctor.’
‘That’s because he’s paranoid,’ said Marianne. ‘He seems to imagine I’ve got a lover. I don’t know where he thinks I keep him hidden. In the outhouse, perhaps.’
‘You really don’t seem yourself,’ said Sandra. ‘You’ve changed since we first met you.’
‘Just go, will you,’ snapped Marianne, her voice rising. ‘How many times do I have to ask you to leave?’
‘All right, all right, I’m going,’ said Sandra, nervously backing out of the room. ‘I wish I’d never come now.’
‘So do I,’ said Marianne, but the moment the words were out she wished she could recall them, because Sandra looked absolutely stricken and she realised it was an unforgivable thing to say. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said hastily. ‘I’m under a lot of stress at the moment, and...’
Sandra picked up her bag and hurried out of the house, slamming the front door behind her.
‘That’s done it,’ muttered Marianne, but although she was worried, she wasn’t as worried as she should have been because it had been necessary to get rid of Sandra. Judith wanted her back. She sensed they all wanted her back, and if she missed this opportunity she had no idea when the next chance would come.
Slowly she walked back into the kitchen. At first she thought that everything had been lost while she was getting rid of Sandra, but then she realised with relief that the kitchen had been transformed back to its state in the nineteenth century. Although Judith, John and Tabitha had vanished, the room wasn’t empty.
With an inscrutable smile playing around his lips, Edward was waiting for her.
Marianne advanced into the kitchen in a dreamlike state. Never before had she been so pleased to see Edward, and never before had he seemed so welcoming. ‘Why did you go away?’ he asked.
Marianne hesitated, looking down at the floor. She was once more wearing her rust-coloured woollen dress and rubbed her hands nervously against her thighs. ‘I was visiting my cousin. She lives abroad with her husband but was here on a visit.’
‘You’ll never leave me again,’ he said slowly. ‘You did not have my permission to go.’
‘Mrs Fullick said I might go,’ explained Marianne.
‘I pay your wages, not my sister.’
‘You weren’t here. There wasn’t time for Mrs Fullick to get a message to you.’
‘In that case you should not have been allowed to leave,’ he replied. ‘You know you’re always meant to be here for me.’
‘But I’m employed as your sister’s companion.’
He shook his head. ‘You and I know the truth of it, don’t we? Why be coy when we’re alone?’
She didn’t answer him. She was almost consumed by her desire for this stranger from the past who’d entirely taken over her life. She waited, knowing he would understand how she felt and how best to deal with her. ‘Come with me,’ he said softly.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To the attic room.’
Marianne led the way, walking slowly up the stairs, her breathing constricted by rising desire and trepidation. She knew she would once more see something strange and terrible in the room and, to her shame, she couldn’t wait to get there. However, she forced herself to walk slowly because she didn’t want Edward to know how great her need was. In spite of this, she sensed he did know and that he was taking pleasure from it.
When they entered the attic, Judith was seated on a chair and Tabitha had been laid back over her mistress’ knees. Dr Francis Proctor was seated on the floor between Tabitha’s outspread legs, his hands playing with her sex, and the serving girl was whimpering, but whether with pain or excitement Marianne couldn’t tell.
Edward drew her to one side of the room where they could watch what was happening. He held her tightly from behind, one arm around her waist and the other over her breasts, pulling her back against his body, trapping her so that there was no escape.
‘What are you doing?’ Edward asked his friend.
Francis turned his head. ‘I’m anxious to see whether the breast exercises have worked. Also, whether or not she now controls herself better. While I examine her your sister will watch her nipples. Should they harden in an unseemly fashion then Judith will strike her with the whip. Tabitha knows this.’
‘No doubt that in itself is enough to excite her,’ murmured Edward, and the arm over Marianne’s breasts pressed harder. Without thinking, she rubbed herself against him as a sweet ache began to simmer deep within her.
‘Keep still,’ he admonished.
Immediately she froze, then heard Tabitha’s cries increase in strength. She saw that the doctor had unfastened his breeches and was rubbing the swollen head of his erection between the servant girl’s sex lips, guiding the head with his fingers and massaging poor Tabitha’s clitoris with it.
‘Your nipples are hardening,’ warned Judith.
‘Then make him stop,’ wailed Tabitha.
Marianne saw the doctor’s spare hand creeping beneath Judith’s skirt and she knew the pair of them were deliberately using the girl to increase their own desire. Ignoring Tabitha’s plea, he continued to manipulate himself against her moist flesh.
‘Her nipples are rigid, doctor,’ said Judith, satisfaction clear in her voice.
‘Then you know what to do,’ he replied.
‘No,’ wailed Tabitha, but her protest was fruitless. Judith flicked the tip of a short riding crop down across the girl’s breasts, and with every blow Tabitha screamed louder, her body writhing.
‘Has that subdued her wantonness?’ asked Francis, when the blows were over.
Judith ran a hand casually over the tormented flesh as Tabitha whimpered helplessly. ‘Not really, they’re as hard as ever.’
‘They’re not, they’re not,’ Tabitha protested, but Marianne could see the girl was obviously aroused. This time Judith let the crop fall over the girl’s ribcage, and her breasts quivered violently with each spiteful blow.
‘I don’t think this is going to work,’ said Edward coolly.
His friend didn’t answer him, but now his hand began to move over Tabitha’s hips, caressing her lower body, softly at first but then more harshly. Clearly filled with lust by Tabitha’s moans and cries, he shunted his gnarled erection inside her and she wailed with the shock.
‘Be silent,’ said Judith, her face tight with disapproval. ‘You are honoured that the doctor is willing to use you in this way.’
‘Keep one hand on her belly,’ Francis grunted. ‘Make sure her pleasure doesn’t spill.’
Marianne knew his instruction was impossible for Tabitha to follow. He was thrusting forcefully and Judith was sweeping the crop down indiscriminately over the tortured body, so the girl was being continually stimulated.
Marianne watched, feeling her own body responding as though she were Tabitha. She felt her muscles tightening in anticipation of pleasure, and then the doctor gave a guttural shout as his hips jerked and he emptied his sacs inside the servant girl.
‘She’s coming,’ said Judith, pressing her fingers against Tabitha’s lower belly. Marianne could see the tormented girl’s muscles rippling. Tabitha’s abdomen heaved frantically and her climax was forced from her.
Within a few minutes the doctor and Judith had changed places. This time Tabitha was lying face down over his knees while Judith applied the crop unmercifully. With every blow that fell Tabitha’s screams increased, but at the same time, she squirmed against the doctor’s knees. When Judith finished and threw the crop away Tabitha continued to squirm, clearly trying to obtain sufficient pressure on her clitoris for another orgasm.
Ignoring Tabitha’s needs, the doctor pushed her to the floor, grasping Judith round the waist and dragging her to a corner of the room, lifting her skirts before falling to his knees and burying his face between her thighs. As Judith Fullick started to moan, her fingers buried in the young doctor’s hair, Tabitha remained on the floor. She was sobbing with frustration and Marianne felt pity for her, because she knew Tabitha was no longer of any interest to the couple. They were now lost in their own pleasure and Tabitha, like Marianne on so many other occasions, would remain on the edge of release, her body filled with a desperate yearning that would not dissipate of its own accord.
The doctor brought Judith to several sharp climaxes, one following swiftly on the heels of the other, until she pushed him away. ‘No more,’ she gasped. ‘Not yet.’
‘Come with me,’ Edward called to his friend. ‘We’ll take this one to my room.’
Marianne began to tremble as the two men gripped her arms and dragged her down the top flight of stairs to Edward’s bedroom. Lifting her, Edward threw her into the middle of the bed. Then he pushed her skirt up and pulled off her undergarments. ‘She paid a visit to relations without my permission,’ he explained to his friend. ‘This is her punishment.’
‘Do you need assistance?’
‘A little,’ admitted Edward. ‘In any case, I’m sure you’ll be interested in seeing her response.’
‘I’m sure I will.’
With casual indifference Edward flipped Marianne on to her front, but her skirts were still rucked up so that her buttocks were exposed. She heard Edward moving around the room, then the doctor put a hand beneath her belly, pressing upwards. Instinctively she lifted her hips, which enabled Edward to part her buttocks, and once more she felt the sensual sensation of oil being dripped into the valley between the cheeks of her bottom.
‘Do you have the beads, Judith?’ Edward asked his sister, who had followed once she’d regained her composure and straightened her clothing.
Judith withdrew something from her pocket. By straining to look over her shoulder, Marianne was able to see it was a piece of twine that had round sewing beads strung to it at regular intervals, and now she understood what was going to happen to her.
Edward took the beads from his sister and began to ease them into Marianne’s most private entrance. It was an extraordinary and humiliating sensation, making her feel full and tight and giving her an urge to bear down.
Francis Proctor stroked her belly lightly. ‘Remain relaxed,’ he instructed her.
‘I’m getting cramp,’ she gasped. ‘My belly hurts.’
‘It will pass,’ he assured her, continuing to smooth the tense muscles. Once all the beads were inside her, Edward flicked his fingers over her buttocks and she jerked with surprise.
Then she was flipped on to her back. Her sex lips were parted and Edward cupped her there, pressing. She felt herself opening for him, becoming damp, and a few seconds later he placed a very fine strip of gauze over her aroused flesh. Then, with diabolical slowness, he began to drip the oil from the glass bottle onto her clitoris.
Marianne sighed with pleasure. The sensation was utterly exquisite. She could feel her orgasm approaching rapidly and she breathed deeply, preparing herself.
‘I’ll tell you when it’s time for your pleasure to take over,’ said Edward coldly. ‘Until then, you will control yourself.’
Marianne sighed again, but this time with thwarted longing. For a few seconds the relentless drops of oil ceased and she relaxed a little, but then he tipped the bottle once more while Judith lifted Marianne’s head, and she was forced to watch.
Soon the only sounds to be heard in the room were Marianne’s cries of frustration. She could feel her clitoris swelling as her body opened. She was desperate to be filled, to have the yearning doused by Edward – but she had the feeling that this was the last thing on his mind.
‘Her centre of pleasure is engorged,’ remarked Francis Proctor, staring down at the oil-soaked cloth against which Marianne could feel her clitoris swelling. ‘See how clearly defined it is.’
‘Fasten it with a ring,’ said Edward.
Marianne froze as she felt a cold ring of metal being pressed against her, gliding over the lubricated cloth and trapping her clitoris within its circle. Now she truly was helpless, her clitoris unable to withdraw as her climax grew imminent, and she gave a cry of protest.
‘What’s the matter?’ demanded Edward.
‘I don’t know,’ she confessed. ‘It feels so good, and yet...’
‘And yet?’
‘I’m afraid.’
He smiled thinly. ‘But isn’t that what you like?’
It was, and she knew it was what he liked, too. He enjoyed watching her like this, struggling to control herself, afraid of what was being done to her and yet needing it more than she needed anything else in the world. With misleading gentleness, Edward started to massage her aching flesh whilst stroking the piece of thin muslin cloth until she felt the pressure building more tightly than before. Then he slipped two fingers inside her. He knew exactly what he was doing and she squirmed, knowing how dangerously near to coming she was. Then he added a third knowing finger and she went out of her mind with pleasure. Her body heaving, lost in helpless ecstasy, she allowed the forbidden pleasure to take over and revelled in the glorious sensuality of release.
When the muscle-wrenching contractions at last eased, she opened her eyes to see Judith standing over her, the birch twigs in her hand. Immediately Marianne crossed her arms over her breasts to protect them. The men, however, did not intend to allow her any escape. They seized an arm each, pulling them above her head to give Judith an easy target. The birch twigs cut down and Marianne knew how Tabitha had felt because the searing pain was a terrible shock after the delicious pleasure she’d just experienced. She cried out in protest, begging Judith not to repeat the blow. But she heard the men laugh and Judith raised her arm once more.
She thought she couldn’t endure it, but then the vile pain began to excite her and she realised she was about to come again. Even as the convulsions shook her she wept with a mixture of shame and relief, because at least she’d survived and was still here. As for the shame, that was something she was becoming used to as she fully understood what Edward had made her.
With the routine established, Edward, his sister and the doctor relentlessly continued their insidious stimulation of Marianne, and every time they wrenched pleasure from her, Judith would use the birch twigs until even the pain was a source of arousal. Soon she’d lost count of the number of times she’d come.
She could hear herself crying out, but not in an attempt to make them stop. She was begging for them to continue, pleading for more as she became totally lost in the terrible perversions they were practising on her. Even through the mist of exhausted, slated lust she realised she was as much a part of this as they were. Without her co-operation it would not have been possible and the realisation seemed to free her.
‘No more,’ she eventually begged, as she watched Judith raise the bunch of birch twigs yet again. ‘Please stop now, I need to rest... I’m exhausted.’
Edward shuffled on the bed and moved between her thighs. She felt his erection probing at her entrance and, with a sigh of relief, reached up to draw him inside her. ‘Oh yes... yes please,’ she mumbled, almost incoherently. ‘Take me, fill me... I need you.’
She was so lost in the excitement of the moment her mind scarcely registered the fact that the door was opening, until she heard a completely unexpected voice. ‘Marianne! In God’s name, what are you doing?’
The doctor and Judith pulled her upright while Edward remained kneeling between her thighs and she looked over her lover’s shoulder across the room. There, staring at the scene, his mouth gaping with shock, was Steve.
‘What’s happening?’ he cried, beginning to back away from the bed.
‘He’s seen us,’ Judith whispered in Marianne’s ear.
Marianne couldn’t believe the other woman was right. ‘Wuh – what’s the matter?’ she asked Steve, then groaned as Edward thrust inside her, making her shoulders arch back.
‘Who are these people?’ Steve yelled. ‘And you, what’s happened to you?’
‘I...’ she stopped. She couldn’t think of a word to say.
‘You lied to me!’ he raged. ‘I knew there was something terrible happening but you denied it. Now see what’s happened. It’s too late, isn’t it? They’ve taken you away from me.’ With that, he finally found the strength to storm from the room, slamming the door behind him and turning the key. Only then, once he’d gone, did the room change and, with shocking abruptness, Marianne found herself alone.
Deserted by her companions from the past, she rushed to the bedroom door and began to tug frantically on the handle, but it refused to open. Not only was the door locked, it was also very well built and she knew she had no hope of breaking out.
She wondered exactly what Steve had seen when he’d burst in. Obviously he’d seen something, that much had been clear, but she couldn’t believe he’d been witness to the absolute depravity of the scene. As he had no direct link to the past, she thought it unlikely that he could have seen more than a faint outline of figures, albeit figures from a different age.
Giving the door one final frustrated kick she turned her attention to the window. Flinging it open, she stared out and saw she had no hope of escape that way either. There was a sheer drop to the courtyard below, and it was a drop that could probably kill her. Even if she lived, she’d be severely injured. She wasn’t sure why she was quite so desperate to escape, but there had been something about Steve’s fury that frightened her.
Seeing him emerge from the house, crossing the cobbled slabs, she waved her arms frantically. ‘Steve! Steve!’
He looked up, shading his eyes against the sun. ‘It’s over,’ he shouted. ‘We’re finished. After what I saw I never want you near me again.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ cried Marianne. ‘Why did you rush out the way you did?’
‘I saw them! Those weirdoes all over you. It’s disgusting!’
‘There’s no one here,’ she yelled. ‘Let me out. We’ve got to talk.’
‘It’s this bloody house. It’s possessed you, just like it possessed Judith Wells. Oh yes, Sandra told me about her.’
‘You’re mad,’ cried Marianne, but he turned his back on her and went over to the old stables. When he returned he was carrying a can of petrol, and in an instant she realised what he intended to do. ‘No Steve...’ she cried, not wanting to believe what she was seeing. ‘You mustn’t. Where will we live?’
‘You won’t need to live anywhere,’ he shouted back. ‘You’ll be dead. And I hope you rot in hell, you and your fucking phantom lovers!’
‘Come up and talk to me,’ Marianne begged, trying to calm herself, the enormity of his threat making her feel nauseous with terror. ‘We can’t keep shouting at each other like this. We can work this out.’
‘We don’t need to keep shouting, and there’s nothing more to be said.’
She began to cry. ‘Please, Steve, come up and talk to me! Don’t do anything stupid! You’ll only regret it afterwards!’
‘I loved you.’ His voice was full of torment. ‘I loved you and trusted you. Didn’t you stop and think of me at all?’
Marianne slammed the window shut, her mind in a total spin. She just had to get out of the house. But only a minute or so later she heard the key turn in the bedroom door and Steve was there. She watched him cautiously, and knew he was struggling to suppress his seething anger, as he locked the door and slipped the key into his pocket.
‘I want just one answer,’ he said. ‘Did you ever think of me when you were with him?’
‘With who?’
‘Don’t take me for an idiot, Marianne,’ he sneered. ‘That man I saw. The same man who was in the drawing – the one who’s taken you away from me.’
‘No one’s taken me away from you,’ she said firmly, knowing she had to pacify him if she was to get out of the room safely. He had a wild look in his eyes, and was quite unlike the Steve she’d always known.
He looked longingly at her, as though wanting to believe her but unable to. ‘I saw the way you were looking at him,’ he whispered.
‘Looking at who?’
‘Stop playing games with me,’ he shouted. ‘I don’t know who he was, I don’t understand a thing about all this, but I know what I saw and I’ll never forget it.’
‘You’re right,’ said Marianne, abruptly changing tack. ‘I should have been honest with you before but I didn’t think you’d believe me. Now you’ve seen him for yourself it’s different. I have been possessed, but against my will.’
‘Possessed? Against your will?’
‘By the man you saw, the one in the drawing. I think he lived in this house long ago and for some reason he wants me. I’ve tried to fight him but I felt so helpless on my own. Perhaps together we can banish him once and for all.’
Steve hesitated. ‘What you’re saying sounds totally unbelievable. And if I hadn’t seen what I did, I’d have thought you needed locking up.’
‘But after what you saw, you believe me, don’t you?’
Steve wavered, and then nodded. ‘Do you mean what you say about wanting to get rid of him?’
‘Yes!’ cried Marianne, putting her arms round Steve’s neck and pulling him towards her. It wasn’t true. She didn’t want Steve. In fact, she felt nothing for him any more. However, she had to make him believe that she did want him.
She kissed him, tugging at his shirt buttons and unfastening his trousers. With a groan of desire he buried his face in her neck. ‘I want you so much,’ he said huskily. ‘Watching you with that man, seeing the way you were behaving, it drove me out of my mind. I want it to be like that for us.’
‘It will be,’ she promised. She was edging him towards the bed, but just before they reached it she was gripped from behind by a pair of strong hands, lifted into the air and thrown into a corner of the room.
Edward stood over her, his eyes furious. ‘How dare you?’ he demanded. ‘Is your wanton behaviour now going to extend to other men?’
Terrified out of her wits, Marianne looked up at Steve. He was facing Edward with a look of rage and jealousy. Suddenly, he reached out and grabbed hold of the other man, but his hand passed straight through Edward’s arm.
Marianne realised that, although Steve could see Edward, Edward hadn’t fully materialised for him. He wasn’t flesh and blood, which meant Steve could do nothing but watch as he began roughly caressing Marianne’s breasts.
‘Let go of her,’ Steve yelled. ‘She’s mine!’
Marianne felt a tug on her hair as Edward pulled her upright, his hands buried in the long curls at the nape of her neck. ‘Yours?’ he roared. ‘You lost her the moment you moved into this house.’
‘It’s me she loves,’ cried Steve.
Edward laughed. It was a terrible sound, full of such dark depravity that Steve recoiled from it. ‘She may have loved you once,’ he sneered. ‘But that ended once I taught her what real pleasure is. She despises you now. You’re pathetic. Even if she stayed with you, you’d never be able to satisfy her. Not after the things we’ve taught her.’
‘I don’t want to know about the things you’ve taught her,’ cried Steve, clapping his hands over his ears.
‘Haven’t you noticed a change in her?’ asked Edward, his voice silky. ‘She’s a disgrace; a brazen, lascivious young woman who needs constant discipline in order to control her unnatural lusts.’
‘Marianne, come with me,’ cried Steve, holding out his hand. She tried to move towards him but Edward’s arm tightened round her waist and it was impossible for her to get free.
‘I can’t,’ she exclaimed.
‘Of course you can. He’s only a ghost.’
‘He’s more than that to me.’
‘I don’t think you want to get away from him.’
‘I do,’ she shouted.
‘You little liar,’ whispered Edward. He pinched her nearest nipple until she howled with the pain. Then she gasped because, as the pain died away, already aroused by the fact that Steve was watching, she was shaken by a tiny orgasm.
‘Stop it,’ Steve begged her. ‘Quickly, we’ve got to get out of here.’
‘Even if she goes with you, she’ll never belong to you again,’ jeered Edward. ‘I’ve put my mark on her and you’ll have to live with that for the rest of your life.’
Marianne watched Steve’s face as his brain registered what Edward was saying. After a few moments he looked at Marianne, but this time his expression had changed and there was no affection in it.
‘He’s right, isn’t he?’ he said miserably. ‘He’s changed you and you’ll never be free of him. You like what he does to you. I’ve just seen that for myself.’
‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Marianne. ‘I never wanted this to happen. I didn’t understand what he was doing to me until it was too late.’
‘Don’t listen to her,’ said Edward. ‘I didn’t change her; I simply showed her what she really was.’
‘But I don’t want to live without you,’ muttered Steve.
‘You don’t have to,’ said Marianne, struggling to escape Edward’s grasp, terrified of what Steve was going to do. ‘We’ll move away. In time we’ll forget all this.’
Steve shook his head. ‘No, he’s right. We’ll never be free of him. There’s only one solution.’
‘What?’ demanded Marianne, the crazed glint in his eyes filling her with a dreadful foreboding. ‘What are you going to do?’ But Steve didn’t reply. Turning, he bolted from the room, again locking it behind him.
Edward manhandled Marianne over to the bed, throwing her down and roughly caressing her trembling body. ‘We’re well rid of him,’ he said shortly. ‘Your place is with me. You don’t need him any more.’
His fingers moved delicately over her flesh, but just as she started to respond she smelt something burning and leapt to her feet. ‘He’s set fire to the house!’ she screamed, and at that moment thick smoke crept under the bedroom door. Rushing over to the window and wrenching it open she saw Steve outside, the empty can of petrol hurled on to the cobbles. ‘What have you done?’ she shouted despairingly. ‘What the hell have you done?’
‘Let’s see how the pair of you get on without this precious house,’ he yelled up at her. ‘He’ll have a job to haunt you with his home gone.’
‘Steve, get me out of here,’ she pleaded. ‘You haven’t thought this through. Do you want me to burn to death?’
‘What am I supposed to want?’ he called back. ‘Don’t worry, if you’re lucky Sandra and Graham might see the smoke in time to call the fire brigade, but I’d be surprised if they wanted to after the way you’ve treated them. You never cared about anyone but yourself did you, Marianne? So why should anyone care about you now?’
She began to weep, screaming desperately at Steve to fetch help, but Edward pulled her away from the window and slammed it shut. ‘Leave him alone,’ he said contemptuously. ‘What does it matter? Now you’re free.’
She stared at him, at the brooding face. He could give her such incredible pleasure, but she knew there wasn’t an ounce of kindness in him and she panicked, realising that if Moorhead House burned down she would never again be able to escape his clutches, no matter what Edward did to her.
Frantically she dashed back to the window and flung it open again.
‘Help me!’ she screamed at the top of her voice, but then Edward dragged her away again, pushing her on the bed. Smoke filled the room, and as Marianne’s spinning mind tried to work out whether it truly was smoke or the mist that always preceded her journeys into the past, everything vanished.
When she opened her eyes she was lying on the moors. It was early evening and the wind was cool. Edward was standing nearby holding his horse’s reigns. ‘You’ve been sleeping,’ he said.
Marianne gazed about her. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘They’re late,’ he said casually.
‘Who?’
‘My friends from London.’
She frowned. ‘I’ve never met your friends from London.’
Edward smiled. It was not a kind smile. ‘No, but you’re about to.’
At that moment three men arrived on horseback, dismounted and greeted Edward enthusiastically, before looking over to where Marianne was sitting amidst the purple heather.
‘You didn’t exaggerate,’ said one. ‘She’s certainly a beauty.’
‘And she has no living relatives?’ asked a second.
‘None,’ said Edward smoothly. ‘That was one of the reasons why I employed her.’
Marianne got to her feet, clutching a thin cloak around her. ‘Why are they all looking at me like that?’ she asked nervously.
‘Don’t feign innocence,’ said Edward. ‘You know very well why they’re here. I told you I wanted to share you with my friends.’
The three men were advancing on her and in a blind panic she began to stumble back away from them, but her ankle turned and she fell. The breath was knocked out of her and while she was still gasping, one of the men pushed her skirts up around her waist and unfastened his breeches.
‘Edward says he finds it hard to control you,’ the man leered, staring down at her and licking his fat lips. He dropped to his knees, his hardening penis bobbing obscenely from his breeches, and began to fondle her through her undergarments while, at the same time, another of the men knelt over her, unfastened himself, his erection sprang out and then he lowered himself over Marianne’s face.
‘Open your mouth,’ Edward ordered abruptly. Instinctively she obeyed him.
As her lips closed around the stranger’s gnarled cock and her tongue began to move hesitantly over the straining flesh she felt the first man’s fingers fumbling at her sex. His touch was crude yet undeniably exciting, and soon she was sighing around the stalk that pumped back and forth between her stretched lips.
‘You spoke the truth about her,’ the man grunted to Edward, his voice thick with arousal as his hips drove back and forth. ‘Such a sweet mouth to fuck!’
‘Then take her, my friends,’ said Edward calmly. ‘Savour her to the full.’
Marianne wanted to protest, to say she didn’t want these men, that it was only Edward she wanted, but she couldn’t speak for obvious reasons. In any case, she was so excited by what was happening she wasn’t even sure her protest would be true.
‘What about me?’ called the third man.
‘Take her from behind,’ said Edward.
Soon all three of them were possessing and invading her, and despite the shocking depravity of it all she nearly went out of her mind with excitement as Edward stood watching, smiling enigmatically.
‘You greedy little whore,’ he said softly. ‘You’re loving this, aren’t you?’
At that moment she felt her mouth filling up with hot sticky fluid and swallowed convulsively until every drop had gone and the man slumped away. The other two were still thrusting and they came within seconds of each other.
When they withdrew Edward pulled her to her feet, ripped off the cloak and removed her dress, leaving her with only her dishevelled undergarments for protection. ‘Do you realise what you’ve done?’ he asked angrily.
‘I did what you wanted,’ she whispered.
‘You didn’t ask my permission, did you?’
‘There wasn’t time,’ she protested, then screamed as he raised his riding whip and curled it round her waist with full force.
‘Once we’re in London I shall really take you in hand,’ he warned, tugging savagely on the whip and jerking her towards him. ‘Believe me, in the end you’ll learn to control yourself.’
‘They’ll love her at the club,’ said one of his friends.
‘The club?’ Marianne didn’t like the sound of that.
‘I belong to a club in London – a very special club. We have nights when we can take guests of the opposite sex, although I’d hardly call them ladies.’ His friends laughed. ‘I think you’ll provide excellent entertainment for all the members.’
Marianne shook her head. ‘No, that’s not how it was meant to be,’ she cried.
He chuckled sarcastically. ‘How it was meant to be?’
‘That’s not why I’m here. I wanted to be with you, like I was before. In the house, with you and Judith. I don’t want to go to London.’
Edward put a hand on her shoulder and turned her in the direction of Moorhead House. ‘We’ve nowhere else to go,’ he said quietly. ‘And as for the others, their spirits died with the house. It was their only home. We have to move on.’
Marianne froze as she stared across the moors, barely hearing his words. Moorhead House was a charred ruin. Sandra and Graham were talking to a policeman, while close by sombre medics were carrying a covered stretcher to an ambulance. ‘It... it’s all gone,’ she said, her quiet words barely audible above the wind.
‘And that’s exactly what I wanted,’ Edward said triumphantly. ‘Now you’ll never leave me again. We’re together for eternity.’
‘No...’ whispered Marianne, barely able to comprehend what she was seeing. ‘I don’t want to go to London with you. I don’t want to be with you for eternity. I want to go home.’ She waited for the words of denial to work, for everything to return to normal, hoping against hope that everything that had happened had been an awful dream, but she remained in her old undergarments with the wind raising goosebumps on her flesh.
‘You can’t return,’ Edward insisted. ‘Don’t you understand, my dear? You died in the fire.’
Marianne felt her chin trembling, and then the awful scene around the charred and smoking house blurred as she began to cry. ‘H-how can I be dead, when...?’
‘Don’t ask any questions,’ he said. ‘This is what you really wanted, you know it is.’
As she continued to weep, he pushed her into the shelter of some nearby bushes, laid her on the ground, pulled down her underwear and began to fondle her sex. He touched her lightly, gently, until she felt the liquid warmth spreading through her and her sex opened invitingly, longing for him. Never before had he been so gentle, so caring, and her clitoris swelled beneath his fingers.
‘In a moment your pleasure will spill,’ he whispered as he moved away from her for a second. Marianne closed her eyes, anticipating the delicious moment of release. Then, with no warning, Edward brought down the whip and she screamed in anguish, but as the scream died in her throat her body was racked by an incredible orgasm that shook her from head to toe, her pleasure triggered by the flashes of agony.
‘You see,’ said Edward. ‘I’m the only man who can truly satisfy you. You need no one but me. Now get dressed. It’s time we set off for London.’
Still weak from her orgasm, Marianne obeyed, and when she was dressed he heaved her up astride his horse before climbing up behind her. As the horse began to move Marianne remembered what Steve had said when he’d first seen the picture of Edward and Judith. She realised she was now heading for a life of excess and debauchery, a life that would be controlled solely by what Edward did or did not want. It was a terrifying thought.
The horse began to trot and Marianne was stimulated by the movement of the beast beneath her. Leaning back against Edward, she heard him laugh. ‘I thought you might enjoy this,’ he said.
‘I don’t have any choice,’ she retorted. ‘There’s nothing I can do any more.’
‘I don’t want you to do anything,’ he replied. ‘All I demand from you is obedience.’ As the horse broke into a canter and her body rose and fell against the saddle she sighed with relief, realising that at last she was totally free to enjoy herself in the ways she liked best. Suddenly London and the life she would have there with Edward promised to be the best thing that had ever happened to her.
‘I’m sorry, Steve,’ she murmured, ‘wherever you are.’
Edward gripped her tightly around the waist with one arm. ‘I never want to hear his name mentioned again,’ he said firmly. ‘Is that understood?’
‘Of course,’ Marianne conceded submissively, and she knew it would be no problem for her. Nothing would be a problem for her any more, for all those traumatic events which had taken place since she’d moved to Moorhead House had only been the means to fulfil her dark destiny.