Alice was flushed and felt breathless as his hands
caressed her breasts ever so gently. Thomas was so skilled. Oh, how
she loved him. He was so handsome in his tailored and colorful
clothes, with his dark hair and flashing eyes and quick smile. And
he was the catch of the town. As a son of the Wyndham family he was
already respected and men bowed to his orders without
question.
She had known of him for most of her life, though he had noticed her only about two months ago. Since then they had been meeting, quietly, out of the public eye. Making love was recent. Had it been only two weeks? How stupid it was for her to have pushed him away for so long. She was glad she was no longer a virgin. Now he was even more eager to be with her, alone with her, whispering his love into her ear. Every day this week they had met at this cottage.
Thomas took another swig of aquavitae and then he passed the flask to her. "Go on, take some gulps and hold them in your mouth before you swallow. It will keep us healthy despite making love in the damp season."
She did as he asked and grimaced at the burn. It wasn't so bad if you let it trickle down your throat, and if you didn't start coughing. As she took another swig, and then another, he pushed her down onto her knees. She well knew how he wanted to begin their lovemaking. With her moistening him. He had shown her how last week.
Men were so easy. If only she had known how easy they were when she was younger. All you need do is let them fumble with your breasts and their thingy grows and gets hard. Once it is hard you just squeeze it and rub it with your hands and they will promise you anything. Use your tongue and lips on it, and they are yours. Completely yours. Men are so easy. If any woman was ever so easy she would be called a slut.
Later, much later, after they had pleasured each other twice, she lay in his arms and looked at his sculpted nose and cheekbones. He was so handsome. "Did you ask your parents?" she whispered.
"Ask my parents?" He whispered back. Even though he rented this cottage for privacy, the owner lived just steps away. They always whispered, and tried not to cry out while they were in the heat of passion.
"Ask their permission, you know, for us to marry."
"Oh, sorry, I forgot,” he said sitting up on the bed and brushing his silky dark hair out of his eyes. He knew where this conversation was leading. He knew it from his other conquests, and there had been many of those over the years.
"Well you must ask. We have been ... you know.... a lot. I may be carrying your child already."
There it was. The veiled threat. Marry me willingly or I will go to the magistrate and force it. These town girls must all talk to each other, because they all eventually said the same thing. "Come, we will go now, go together and ask."
"Like this?" she asked in a panic. Her clothes were rumpled, as was her hair. "No, I must change first and wear my Sunday dress." Not that her Sunday dress was much better. It was black, while at least this one was a soft brown. The Wyndham women wore bright colors, and silk, not drab wool.
"Save that for when you meet my mother. Today we will speak only to my father. He will be at the club because he is entertaining Beauchamp, the Lord of Somerset. We can speak to him there alone, and then he can help us to convince my mother."
"But - but - I mean, your father is a Lord, too. I mean. I must look my best." She was wriggling and straightening her clothes and trying to look down her own back to make sure there were no stains.
"My father will not look at your clothes but at the woman who wears them. Here, let me brush you off. Your bum is a bit dusty." He got carried away brushing his hands over her pert round bum, and afterwards, after he had taken her up against the wall, she had to repeat her efforts to neaten herself.
The sun had set before they reached the castle. The Castle alehouse was overflowing with men, and women, but Thomas guided her safely around it and up the rise of land behind the building where there was an entrance to the second floor.
Alice held her lover's arm close to her, partially for protection and partially because she had done as he suggested and finished his flask of Aquavitae to boost her courage. She was more than a bit unsteady on her feet. She looked nervously at the rough men who were sitting, standing, and leaning around the alehouse and held him even closer. As they came around the to the rear of the building she gasped because there was a woman standing and leaning forward onto a wooden post for support while a man humped her from behind. She tried to look away, but her eyes were drawn to the erotic spectacle of the woman's arched back and bouncing breasts as she serviced the drunk.
There was a guard at the club's door who looked through a grate in it, but he opened it immediately once he recognized young Master Thomas, the son of the owner. Inside, the room was warm and bright and looked more like a formal sitting room than the high class alehouse she had been expecting. Unlike the alehouse, which was bulging at the seams with customers, in this room she saw perhaps only a half dozen customers, and each had a pretty lady, a well-dressed lady sitting with them. Again she felt self-conscious about the plain brown woolen smock that clung to her. These women wore every color of the rainbow over flouncing white petticoats edged in lace.
Thomas saw his father and called to him. His father, Edmund, waved him over to a corner of the room and they all came together at the corner table. Two other men were with him. One she recognized as the governor's brother Francis, who was the wealthiest man in town. The other she did not recognize. He looked to be about her age, seventeen or so.
"And who is this little charmer?" Edmund asked as he stared with twinkling eyes and a big smile at the pretty girl with his son.
"Father, this is Alice Blake, Humphrey's youngest child. She and I have come to ask your permission for her to become my wife."
"This is sudden, isn't it? What will your mother say?" Edmund kept smiling but winked at his handsome son. He had a large glass of whisky in his hand and he took a sip in salute of the young lovely and then passed it to her and told her to finish it. She did so only so he would not be displeased with her. She was already feeling quite dizzy.
"We were hoping you could help us to convince Mother,” Thomas replied.
"Alice, where are my manners?" Edmund pointed to his guest. "This lad is William Seymour, Lord Beauchamp of Somerset. Eventually he will become the Duke. He is my special guest tonight."
Alice's curtsey to the two lords was wobbly due to the strong drink, but she did it well and then faced back to Edmund. "Will you help us sir? We are so deeply in love."
"Well, usually there is a lengthy protocol to all this. Parents meeting. Physician examinations. Dowry discussions. I suppose you are in too much of a hurry to wait a few days while I arrange for a physician. You know, to make sure you are healthy and fit to bear me many grandchildren."
"We need your help with mother first,” Thomas interrupted. "You know how she is. She wants me to marry into a courtier family so she can return to the King's court. Besides, by just looking at Alice you must see how healthy she is."
Edmund relented a bit, "And I suppose you are penniless, girl. Come show me what is in your pockets."
"I came out without my purse, sir,” Alice said, suddenly worried. Would her brother supply her with a dowry to marry a Wyndham? He hated the Wyndhams. When Father was deathly ill and could not work, they had forced him to sell Mother's manor house in Spaxton for less than it was worth. Suddenly she felt like she was Juliet and Thomas was Romeo from the play they had seen together just last week.
"William, Francis, give this girl some coins. Would you have her stand penniless in front of her future father-in-law?"
The two men handed some shillings towards Alice and she opened her hand to take them, and then was told to put them in her pocket so that no one could claim that she was penniless. Suddenly, she felt better. Not just because the strong drink was warming her all the way down to her toes, but because these lords were all trying to help her. They were on her side and more importantly, Edmund's father seemed to like her. This was going so well.
"Now girl,” the father told her, "since we don't have a physician, at least show me your breasts and your hips so that I can gauge how fit you are for bearing children."
The request took her by complete surprise. She looked at the faces of the men, and at the attention this conversation was attracting from the other men and women in the club. "Here, in public?"
"William, Francis, and you too Thomas, move around and create a wall with your bodies so she is hidden from the rest of the room." The men did as he asked, and then he smiled warmly at the comely lass. "There, is that better? Now, show me. Don't be embarrassed. No one here will mind or tell of it. If you don't, then we will have to wait until a physician can be arranged for.
Slowly, clumsily, Alice undid some hooks so that she could pull her smock down over her shoulders and then she stooped slightly so that her breasts were free of them. Her future father-in-law was nodding in approval and gave each one a few gentle squeezes. Then he asked her to show her hips. She looked nervously around. The men forming the wall studiously looked away, except for the teen lord who stole some glances at her nipples. With a sigh she lifted her skirts, higher and higher, until Edmund had to help her hold them because they were so high. She could feel a blush rise from her nipples up to her cheeks and supposed that she was glowing red everywhere.
"See, was that so hard? You look very fit. Fit enough to have healthy children, and many of them,” Edmund said as he squeezed her bottom and then the inside of her thighs. He beamed at her and then gave his son another wink. "Now I assume that noble blood runs in your veins. Descended from an Earl or a Baron perhaps? Or from some other aristocratic family?" He kept her skirts held high as he savoured the view.
She tried to push her skirts down, but Edmund held them tight so she could not. After a moment of pushing she was still almost completely exposed. She may as well have been naked. "Not that I know of. No noble blood. Is that important?"
"Not to me, but to my wife it is everything. No, I am sorry Alice, but this is impossible. If I allowed your betrothal against my wife's wishes, my life would become a living hell."
Alice looked in panic towards her lover, as again she tried to lower her skirts. "But you must, you must. I have already given myself to Thomas. I could be carrying his child as we speak."
"What did you say? I must, I must what? Do you dare to threaten me, girl?" Edmund was suddenly angry. "I see your game now. If I don't agree with your betrothal you will approach a magistrate and claim patrimony for your child. Well, that changes everything." He looked at his brother and the young lord. "Did you hear that? My Thomas has a problem. This woman here will claim patrimony against him and she will probably claim in court that she has not been with any other man. Methinks we all know the solution to this problem."
"Let William go first,” Francis suggested, "at his age he will be quick."
At those words, William's face brightened up with a big smile as he suddenly realized what was being offered to him. Her. He stepped up behind the girl and fumbled with the fold at his crotch to free his manhood. It was already swelling in anticipation. It was only once it was free and long and stiff that the girl seemed to realize what was happening. She called for help to her lover and tried to step away from the danger, but instead was dragged by the father towards a building post and held firmly against it with her back arched to push her bum backwards towards the young lord.
"Help me, Tom!" she cried out. "Oh please help me!! Look what they are doing. We are to be married. You cannot allow this."
"These men are all my lords,” he replied softly. "I cannot stop them from taking what is their right. They are your lords, too. Before you marry they can claim their seignorial right." He tried not to watch as William pushed himself inside her and began humping her with a silly grin on his face. He was so young and eager.
She was blubbering with tears now and she could barely see through them. Edmund's face suddenly filled her vision. He was telling her that now she could not claim patrimony because there were witnesses that Thomas was not her only lover. She pleaded with him, "Make him stop, oh please make him stop before he comes! There are no seignorial rights in England, not any more."
"Our king would disagree with you, my child,” Edmund replied with a wide grin. "If he were here, he would have claimed first right to you. Oh, for sure he would, ... a tasty morsel such as yourself. Besides, you took and pocketed the coins of these men. If you refuse to service them after pocketing their coin, they could have you locked in the pillory for a day."
The humping stopped and she looked around and saw that William was walking away shaking his thing, while Francis was stepping towards her with his own thing ready to use. "No, oh no, not another,” she pleaded. Her disgrace was now being witnessed by every man and woman in the room. Men were throwing coins at her feet to mark their turn with her. "Oh please, Tom, please make them stop!"
Thomas came to her and kissed the tears in her eyes, and then reached under her with a foot and kicked the coins away from her. "She is new to this club and fresh and clean. She is for the lords only. Take your coins back." There were complaints from the men, and then even louder complaints as the other women stooped quickly to beat them to their coins.
Francis worked at her for a long time, a very long time compared to the teenage lord who had come so quickly. Edmund came close to her and whispered into her ear, "If you take me in your mouth, you will be finished all the sooner. The sooner this is finished, the sooner some of the women will show you how to cleanse yourself of our seed, and clean you up ready to go home. I won't let any others take you after me. Are we agreed?"
Before his father could begin his turn, Thomas whispered in her other ear. "We must meet again tomorrow and discuss our future, your future. Even if you cannot marry me, we can still be lovers. You can be my mistress or we can meet here at this club. The women of this club earn a fortune every year."
* * * * *
Some lads from the alehouse helped Daniel up onto on his horse, and he thanked them. His head was woozy and it shouldn't have been because he had been drinking only light ale. He would have left hours ago except the same comely wench kept plunking another pot down in front of him. She with her wide smile and twinkling eyes, and the neckline that almost but not quite showed her nipples.
Had she been spiking his ale? He felt for his purse. Still there and still heavy. He looked around his saddle. His weapons were missing. No, he had left them at the house. So, nothing missing then. Perhaps it was a good thing that he had gone for a piss and decided to leave instead of going back inside. She would have had another pot ready to plunk down in front of him. He knew her game.
He turned the mare towards the river. The path along the bank would take him right to the Blake house, whereas the streets meandered through the town. He was just past the low and heavy-looking stone bridge and gazing along the smaller quays upstream from the bridge, when he saw something move ahead of him. A person. It must be a woman in a skirt because there was no moonlight showing between her legs as she moved. She ran and then leaped, and was gone from his sight.
"Bloody hell!" he cursed. She hadn't slipped, she had jumped. He pulled the horse up where she had disappeared over the bank and stepped to the edge of the bank to have a good look down into the river. He could see the rings of water in the moonlight which marked the place she had hit the water. That was when he lost his footing.
The bank was slick wet clay, and he began to slide down it. Luckily he had a good hold on the reins and he ordered the mare to back away from the bank, and he was able to regain his footing. Meanwhile the woman's head had broken the surface of the water, but had gone down again immediately. There was no way down to her. At least, there was no way down to her that would not drown the both of them, because there would be no climbing back up this clay bank.
He remembered passing a small quay just fifty yards back, and that it had a log ladder down the bank and a few small boats tied to it. He didn't bother remounting, he just ran back along the bank leading the horse, and tied it to a hitching post with two wraps. As quickly as he could he stepped down the notched log until he reached the floating dock, and then untied the punt that was on the end of the float and pushed it towards the drowning woman.
He cursed that the owner had taken the poles or oars with them as a simple protection against theft. The only thing he had to paddle with were his boots, so he yanked them off, put one on each hand and paddled the little punt for all he was worth. The last few yards he glided along, looking for a ripple, a scrap of cloth, anything to mark the place where the woman had gone under. There were wisps of something floating on the water. Her hair.
After two more pulls with his boots he threw them off his hands, and then reached out and twisted his fingers into the hair and then pulled up with all his strength. Her face cleared the water but there was no sound other than the drip of water. That was a bad sign. She should have gasped at the air. With handfuls of hair and cloth he hauled her into the little punt, and twice almost tipped the damn thing before he got the balance right.
"Oye, you! That's not your boat. What the fuckin' ell you playing at!" came a call from the quays.
"I'm saving a woman from drowning. Stand by to help me get her up onto the float,” he yelled back and then put his boots back onto his hands and began to paddle like a mad thing. There was nothing he could do for her until he got her onto the float. Between he and the watcher, they got her out of the punt, and then he climbed up onto the float while the watcher tied the punt off.
"You wasted your time, lad,” the old man told him, "She ain't breathin'. She's done for. Pity, she's a pretty little thing. Young, too."
It was only then that Daniel saw her face in the weak moonlight. It was Alice. He was sure it was Alice, sort of. Or someone the same age and look. "She's not finished yet. Help me to stand her up." It took both of them to stand the limp body up, and then he dug his shoulder into her stomach and lifted her up onto it. With her head down his back and her feet down her front, he walked along the float while gently bouncing her stomach against his shoulder. "What's happening?" he called to the watcher.
"There's water running out of her mouth and nose and down your back."
He kept bouncing her. Then he heard a cough and a choking noise, and then the sound of someone puking, and then gasping for air.
"Well, I never,” said the old man. "You've brought her back from the dead. She's made a right mess of your cloak though. Here, follow me back to my shack and I'll light a torch and my brazier so we can see what is what, and get her warm."
The shack was just a place for the watchers to get out of any storm, and barely six feet square and not high enough for Daniel to straighten up in. But it was windproof, and it did have a torch and a brazier, and it was small enough for the brazier to warm it quickly. He laid her on the floor and began undressing her.
"Here, I'll have none of that,” the old man complained. "You leave her clothes alone."
"She is soaked to the skin and won't get warm unless we can get her dry. Once the wet things are off her, I will wrap her in my cloak. If you want to help, then go and watch my horse and make sure no one thieves her."
"I'll not be leaving you here alone with the wee lass."
"It's a valuable mare and saddle. Its worth the price of a jug to me if you keep her safe." It was amazing how much loyalty you could buy from the folk of England for the price of a jug. The watcher pocketed the small coin and then left their company for that of the mare.
He stripped her clumsily and completely of the sodden wool and though she did not wake up, at least she kept breathing. He forced himself not to take liberties with her lovely mounds. After laying his cloak down next to the brazier, he rolled her onto it, and then rolled her up in it and left her on her side facing the brazier. On her side in case she puked again. He did not want her choking on it.
All of this was all too familiar to him. Anyone who grew up on an island village in the Fens, and on eel punts, and on coastal ships, had seen folk drown. As a lad, after watching his best friend drown while trapping eels, Daniel had made a point of finding out how to save folk from drowning, or from dying after they were saved. There were three basic rules. Get them out of the water, empty their lungs to get them breathing, and keep them warm.
"Why didn't you let me drown?" came a weak voice from within the cloak. "It would have been kinder."
"Alice, it's me Daniel, your brother's friend. How could anyone let you drown? You are special. You are an angel."
"Hah, in two weeks I have become a slut, and in one day a whore. Tomorrow the whole town will know it. I am ruined. My family will be cast out of our church."
"Tell me about it. Get it off your chest. I am a stranger. You can tell me everything, and I swear I will never tell it again."
And she did. All about her lover, and his family, and the cottage, and the club. "When I saw Romeo and Juliet last week, I never dreamed they would be playing out my life,” were her final words, through her sobs.
"I'm sorry. Did I miss something?" Daniel asked. "I thought your lover's name was Thomas. And who was Juliet? The woman who nursed you at the club?"
"It's a play at the theatre. A tragedy of young lovers. Oh never mind." She sniffed and sat up and opened the cloak to get more heat from the brazier on her chest. She felt his eyes staring at her breasts. Men. They are all alike. "And the worst thing is that even if the tale is not told in town, I cannot tell it, either. To tell it means that murder will happen. I will lose either a brother or a lover or both."
"So you still love Thomas?"
"Oh yes. It was not his fault. How could he stop his father, or his uncle, or the next Duke? He tried. At least he stopped the rest of them from mounting me."
"But he seduced you, he set you up to be whored. How can you still love him?"
"Oh, but I do. If he walked through that curtain, my heart would leap for joy. He wants to meet me tomorrow at the cottage. He will have a plan. Perhaps we will run away together."
"Alice, be sensible. He is the catch of the town. You said so yourself. How is it then that no woman has yet to catch him, yet many must have tried. What happened to the others? Do they now all work in the club, or worse, the alehouse?"
"Stop talking like that! He is wonderful. Oh, you are just like my brother. You think you know what is best for me. That I should go and marry Mr. Smythes in London."
"Shush, let me think,” he hissed. They were silent for a long time. She began to feel better, and he told her to do the most extraordinary thing. He told her to stand on her head against the wall and breath in and out as deeply as she could. She thought he was jesting, until he picked her up, held her upside down and ordered her to breathe deeply.
"Ugh," she moaned while she coughed and gagged up mud and water from deep in her lungs. It felt horrible.
"We need to find some Aquavitae and dose you with it, otherwise you will get a sore throat that will go down into your lungs. In the meantime, stand on your head every few minutes and breathe in the hot dry air from the brazier."
"But that is charcoal smoke. It is bad for you,” she complained.
"Better it than river mud in your lungs, love." He reached out and stroked her hair gently. "After running your story back through my mind, I can see only one course of action for you. You must never tell what happened between you and the Wyndhams to anyone in your family. You must get out of Bridgwater as soon as possible. You must spend a week in a marriage bed, and tomorrow wouldn't be too soon."
"Didn't I say? Just like my brother. Order me about. Marry Mr. Smythes."
"Alice, if you tell your brothers they will go and do something stupid like shoot at the Wyndhams. That will be the end of your family. The longer you stay in town, the more chance that they will find out, and the more chance that what happened to you at the club will become your profession. If there is any chance that another man has seeded you, then you need your future husband's seed in you as soon as possible so that there will be no question that it is his child."
"Oh," she went all quiet, and then went to the wall and tried to stand on her head. She couldn't quite keep her balance so he went over to help her. That was how the watcher found them, with her naked thighs upended and pressed against his ears.
"Oye, I won't have that! Not on my watch. You can both leave and good riddance of you. Take your wench somewhere else to play with." He stared at the girl's lovely skin. "Ere, is your name Alice? I ask, 'cause there are men about calling that name."
"I was ...she was..." Daniel began, but Alice flipped down to the floor for the sake of modesty and then stood and said, "He is right. We should go home. My family will be frantic by now."
* * * * *
Her brothers and all their neighbours were out searching. Samuel was the first to see Alice on the mare with Daniel leading it. Before Alice could speak, Daniel explained. "She slipped down the clay of the river bank and then couldn't climb back out. It was lucky I left the alehouse before closing, cause if I hadn't come along she would have drowned. As it is she has swallowed and breathed half the bloody river. Someone should do something about that river bank. At least put more notched logs along it so rescuers can climb down, and victims can climb out."
"It's always been like that,” Samuel replied, "because of the huge difference in level between low and high tide. As long as I can remember, folks have been slipping in, and a lot of them drowned. You take her the house so that Bridget can care for her, while I go about and cancel the hue and cry."
In the kitchen at the house they told the truth about the rescue, except of course that they never mentioned that she jumped in. She had slipped, as was so easy to do, as Daniel himself had found out. Robert hugged them both, but Bridget was not so cordial or so welcoming. She took the sodden mass that had been Alice’s clothes and threw them in a tub of warm water to soak. "They'll be ruined," she said, and then to Daniel, "did you undress her?"
"I had to. She was unconscious, but breathing, and I had to get her warm and dry."
"Men," she harrumphed.
"Robert,” Alice said quietly, putting a hand on his. "I almost drowned. If it had been the watcher who had dragged me out I still would have died. Daniel brought me back from the dead. It would have been a waste of my life. Mother is dying, yet she lived a fruitful life, and brought many good children into this world. If I had died, my life would have been for naught. Coming so close to death has made up my mind. You were right. I will marry Thomas Smythes. The sooner the better. I will write to him tomorrow and then travel to London so that we can be wed."
Everyone in the kitchen observed a shocked silence. Was this the same girl who had screamed obscenities about this same match-making just this morning, and had stomped away for the entire day?
"Are you sure?" Robert asked. "You will like Thomas. He is old compared to you. Almost as old as me. He held off choosing a wife until he had built up his business to where it can support a family in comfort. Fill his home with little Thomas's and your happiness will be assured. The other girls of this town would trade places with you in an instant just for the chance of living so well and in London."
"I will see her safely to London,” Daniel offered. "I must go back to the Fens soon, and London is not much of a detour. If you give me a letter of authority, I will stand beside her at the wedding and give her away on your behalf."
"Why can't this all wait until after our mother's funeral?" asked brother Nick. "Alice, if you leave now you will not be at her bedside. We will have to postpone the burial until you come from London."
"I have more faith in our mother than that,” Alice replied. "I think she will bound back to health and live for a few more years. You'll see. In the meantime, I want to get pregnant, and that means I must marry Thomas, and that means I must go to London. And if a brother cannot give me away, then who better than the man who just brought me back from the dead?"
Bridget slammed the pot she had just filled with water down on the hearth with a crash. "And who will help me around this house, with all the men home expecting a funeral?"
"I will hire a girl in to take on Alice's work,” Robert offered.
"Well, that will cost all of tu’pence a month,” Bridget hissed. Then she stopped and breathed out in a rush. "That was cruel of me. I am so sorry, Alice. I am just so upset that we came so close to losing you, and now we are to lose you in any case. And Daniel. I have been rude to you ever since you came. I feared that you were a bad influence on my brothers. I was wrong, and you have proven me wrong in the most wonderful of ways. You have brought Alice back to us."
* * * * *
* * * * *
THE PISTOLEER - HellBurner by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14