For these, our bicentennial years, Embassy House invites you to relive an early American erotic experience. This is Volume III in a series of sensitively written stories of lust, passion and patriotism that take place during the turbulent years that led to the creation of our nation.
Slowly the swirling mists in the young widow's eyes began to thin and clear in spots. She felt a euphoria which she recognized as being a sexual languor. Then she sensed someone naked lying beside her ... that she too, was naked ... that her nipples were pressing against a muscular, hairy chest.... Her eyes blinked open, but it took a moment for her to focus on the English nobleman's oddly smiling face. "You? Oh my God, Ethan. Wa ... what are you doing to me?"
INTRODUCTION
It is a pity that the true history of the American Revolution has never really been told. Historians prior to 1950 were content to recite facts-dry and as tasteless as cereal without the sugar-carefully omitting any fact which might otherwise detract from our forefather's pristine portrait. These historians had an anathema against mentioning that the hearty American colonists loved drinking, gambling, and other so-called 'vices', not the least of which was sex.
On the other hand, however, the "New Historians", those modern day sophists who delight in psychoanalyzing men dead these two hundred years, are even worse. These 'historians' carefully omit any mention of the attributes of moral and political philosophies which made our forefathers and our nation as successful as it is today. With ill-restrained glee, the new historians point out that George Washington suffered from gynandromophism and mistreated his slaves; that America's leading Ambassador and statesman, Ben Franklin, was 'a liar and a hoaxist; that the famed Continental Army, at many times numbered less than 3,000 ill-clothed and ill-fed men who were supported by less than five percent of the populace. This one-sided, deliberately misleading portrayal of history is designed and fought for one reason only; to denigrate the greatness of the men and ideals involved. In the future, men of good character and sound logic will be able to read between the lines of these slanted treatises and recognize them for what they are: not history, but Thematic Apperception responses to the sickness of the new historians.
We, the publishers, do not proclaim this book to be a 'true story' of the American Revolution: actually it is based on fact, but the author has taken certain liberties with times, personalities, and locale in order to compress the essential facts and dramatic events within the framework of our publishing format.
In order to make this book as verisimilitudious as possible, we made a nationwide search for an author knowledgeable not only in history, but in the writing of adult literature as well. We were fortunate to discover such a person teaching at one of America's largest colleges; he agreed to provide us with this manuscript providing we published it under one of his many pseudonyms.
Right from the gripping first sentence of the prologue, the reader knows he is in the hands of a master story teller. We, The Publishers, are proud to present this exciting novel for readers of our Bicentennial Adult Fiction Series.
One word of caution, however. Because of the graphic scenes and realistic dialogue, we do not recommend this book to those who are easily offended, nor do we wish it to fall into the hands of the immature. All others-those who enjoy excellent adult fiction-will find this book fascinating and rewarding.
-The Publishers
PROLOGUE-OCTOBER 1776
From the white sandy beaches of Dry Tortuga in the South to the forested green tip of Newfoundland in the North, the Atlantic Ocean steamed under a hot brassy sun that shone like the unblinking eye of a malevolent God.
No swell marred the smooth face of the sea; it was as if the flotilla of eight British ships had been raised up and sculptured out of some great inland lake of sluggish gray granite ... unmoving, silent, desolate ... their empty sails hanging lifelessly, the carved figureheads' painted smiles looking artificial and forced in the harsh, reflected glare of the sun.
The flotilla had been becalmed in the same spot for five days, the only movement being the occasional rowboat that came bearing an officer from one of the seven ships toward Admiral Burton's flagship. The heat was so intense that crewmen and passengers still stayed below decks, venturing topside only when called to duty or to throw waste overboard.
Earlier, in the morning, there had been some organized activity above decks-a brief burial service for an eight month old male infant belonging to Abigail and John Morgan who had died of dysentery during the hot, sweltering night. The child's mother's expression had been as fixed and as emotionless as that of the bow sprite's as she had watched the tiny bundle being lowered into the water and heard the Captain's burial prayer. Mercifully, she had been down below decks when, four hours later, the Captain had ordered Lieutenant Robin Burton, the junior duty officer to attach two heavy cannon balls to the shrouded infant which floated like a soiled piece of jetsam, scraping and nudging softly against the sides of the ship as if it were beseeching those aboard the vessel to return it to the safety of its mother's arms.
Young Burton, who was forced to undertake the unpleasant task, found himself even more repulsed by the fact that five days of trash and excreta also floated in a brown malodorous halo of scum around each of the ships. Robin ordered four sailors who had lowered a lighter to row out about two hundred and fifty yards before the water was once again clear, and even then he travelled another hundred yards before he was satisfied the sea was uncontaminated.
Only then did Lieutenant Burton release the lead-weighted infant, and this time the shroud sank quickly, leaving behind it a trail of bubbles. Before ordering the men back to the boat, Robin stripped and jumped overboard into the lukewarm water where he thoroughly washed himself and his blonde hair.
The sailors watched him, amused and slightly contemptuous. Like all good men of the sea, they could not swim, nor did they believe in the beneficial aspects of bathing. The young officer was a bit of a fool anyway and they all knew it. A rich man's son and a nephew of Admiral Burton aboard the flagship, his attitude toward the sailors was not really circumspect for a British naval officer. He treated them almost as equals, and that made them even more suspicious. There were whispers that he secretively supported the American's cause which in some of their minds, definitely confirmed that he was not only a fool, but a traitorous young fool at that.
Still, though, in some quite unfathomable way, the men held a grudging respect for the young naval officer. He wasn't in the least a foppish effeminate ass as were so many of the younger sons of the British Aristocracy. Nor was he coward, that was all too evident. It had been Robin who, in their last voyage out, had led the boarding party against the American privateer, Flamouth Lady. Braving the withering musket fire, he had used his cutlass to create a bloody havoc on the decks of the other ship, slashing and cutting away amidst the flaming guns until the decks were awash with blood.
But then he had shown his foolishness by attempting to plead for the lives of the six American survivors.
"These men are not pirates," the impudent young rascal was overheard saying to his uncle, the Admiral. "They're commissioned by the government of Rhode Island. This is war, so they must be considered as prisoners of war."
The Admiral, his mustache bristling in indignation, had been quick to reply, "There is no such government as the government of Rhode Island. Murderers! Thieves! Pirates! Scum ... scum ... scum! And, Robin, I'll brook no interference from junior officers, even if you do happen to be my nephew. There is no war, only an insurrection among certain rabble-rousing malcontents in the colonies. Those ... those "Noble Americans" are pirates! And they are going to hang from our yardarm ... before the suns moved another degree to the west."
And the American sailors had been hung ... left hanging like slowly revolving trophies, three in a row, at each end of the fore sprit; it was not until the stench of carrion became too great to bear in the officer's mess that they were finally cut loose and dropped into the sea.
Robin had proved his bravery again less than three weeks ago on a night filled with thunder and lightning and rain when he had taken three lighters into the American-held port of Boston under cover of the storm in an attempt to rescue some 250 Tories who had not been able to sail earlier when Sir William Howe escaped with almost a thousand Boston loyalists just before the city fell to George Washington's troops. The town had been under American siege since June of the year before; once it had fallen to Washington, those who felt a loyalty to the British Crown found themselves in an untenable position, and they had fled. Robin and the volunteers he had taken with him on the rescue mission had no misguided notions about what would happen to them if they were caught that night in Boston. The Americans were not inclined to be charitable after the British forces had stupidly hung Nathan Hale as a spy. The best they could expect would be imprisonment ... the worst, a vengeful execution as a British spy.
And they had gone in, and returned to the flotilla several times, with the loss of only one sailor who had been shot in the head by an American patrol on Robin's last trip in. It was with a heavy heart that the young navy officer was forced to report the death of his shipmate and six of the American militia. The 257 rescued men, women, and children were now aboard the various ships of the becalmed flotilla, heading toward Halifax, heading to a land most had never seen, a place they always referred to as "home", even though many of them were fourth and fifth generation Americans.
Robin was not unaware of their sad plight for they had been forced to leave most of their worldly possessions behind. It was one of the tragedies that inevitably occur when men and governments can no longer communicate with each other. In his own mind, he knew it was war ... no matter what his Uncle, the Admiral, and other English statesmen called it. It was war and it would be a long and nasty war. Already, too many had suffered, too many had been killed. Actual fighting had been going on since April 19th of the year before when the British Military Commander, General Gage, sent a thousand British regulars to Concord to confiscate military supplies being stored by the Americans. The year and a half of fighting as ferocious as it was, had been merely armed protests against a coercive English government who was trying to impose new economic regulations against the stubborn colonists.
Robin, himself, had avidly read John Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson's stirring Declaration of the causes and Necessity of taking up Arms which had been addressed to King George in July 1775. The declaration stated in part, "We have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain and establishing independent states...." Robin knew for a fact that as late as January of 1776, the health of the King was still being toasted in the Continental Army officers mess presided over by General George Washington. No, despite the growing tumult from the battle fields, Robin sensed that independence from England was something remote and far from the thoughts of the colonists. The British bodies, especially the opportunistic Lord North who had the ear of King George, was determined to punish once and for all the recalcitrant Americans.
Then, just within the last five or six months new voices-some rational, some emotional, some sheer stupidity-began to make themselves heard. Some even had the unmistakable ring of truth to them! "Liberty! And "Freedom!" The words and ideals they supported were simultaneously exciting and frightening!
Thomas Paine especially inspired Robin.
Paine's pamphlet Common Sense had been read with a pounding heart. And then like the sound of far-off trumpets had come Paine's comment, "The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth ... Freedom hath been hunted around the Globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her-Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. Receive liberty and prepare in time an asylum for mankind...."
Now, as the oars from the lighter made a dull slapping sound in the contaminated waters, Robin's thoughts went to the future. As his boat drew nearer to the flagship, he suddenly made up his mind. Instinctively he knew he would no longer, with clear conscience, serve as a naval officer in the service of the King. His trips into Boston to bring out the loyalists had proven that to him. He could smell the difference in Boston and in most of the seacoast towns of America. There was singing behind doors, a determination that could be felt, and an infectious enthusiasm. He knew his thoughts were treasonous, but he felt a kinship with these people who spoke of liberty and of freedom, and who had an entire continent to roam as free men. He wanted to share that excitement with them. And now he knew he would join them, even if it meant giving up everything-naval career, wealth, a title, family ... even life itself.
He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't see one of the sailors lift his head from the oars and sniff, then turn and look toward the west. The sailor whispered it to himself first, then said it aloud, "The wind! Thank God, the wind is coming!"
In front of them, the lifeless sails of the flagship quivered once, then slowly swelled like the smoothly rounded belly of a pregnant woman as the wind filled them.
His uncle, smiling and now full of bonhomie at the change of weather, met the troubled young officer at the top of the rope ladder. "Well, my lad! The halcyon days are over. The wind is here, and we shall be in London for the King's holiday, after all."
And Robin, who absent-mindedly returned the Admiral's smile, looked toward the stern. Back there, some 600 miles was America. The wind was taking him further away now; he would be home for the King's holiday, but oh how he wished he would be back there in that land of rebellious colonists when they celebrated their own day of Thanksgiving. How very much like we British, he thought. We have a day honoring a King's graciousness, while they celebrate God's blessings and the right to stand tall and free, with loyalty not to royalty, but to an ideal....
He stared back at the rapidly receding brown area where they had been becalmed for days. Somehow it seemed very symbolic to him: there had been stagnation, a burial, and then the freshening breeze. That one spot out there not only marked the final resting spot of the poor infant but also his own political ideals as well.
"Freedom," he said softly to himself, and then added, "liberty!" The words tingled against his tongue and reverberated through his mind like soundless thunder; and his eyes glowed at the realization he had finally come face to face with his own long-hidden self.
CHAPTER ONE
MARLEYHEAD-NOVEMBER, 1776
The seas were as white as a cotton field, whipped up to a fury by a frigid wind blowing down off the Greenland ice caps-implacable, menacing, disturbing ... breathing and heaving like something alive and in torment.
From her third story window, Elizabeth Mason stared across the already winter-browned lawn of Marleyhead Manor toward the raging Irish sea and the North Atlantic. Everyone said it would be a harsh winter, all the signs and portents pointed to it. And so far, even though winter officially was still a month away, the seers had been right. It was already harsh; and the months to come, if they lived up to their precursors, would be too terrible to contemplate.
Elizabeth hated it. She hated it because, essentially, she was an outdoors woman. If she had been home-in America-she could have borne it with fortitude. But here, on the desolate west coast of England, she felt as though she were a prisoner, a captive in a tower. And spring seemed to be two forevers away.
Unable to bear the silent cries of despair echoing through her troubled mind, Elizabeth tried to return to the crocheting mother had insisted she do to keep mind off what had happened, but it was only a moment before she lowered the needles, got up with one smooth lithesome movement, and went closer to the windows. Even though it was only mid-afternoon, the darkness was gathering outside, being hastened by the scudding clouds that moved like a heavy pale of smoke across the rugged Lancashire coast.
In one way, the voluptuous nineteen year-old blonde welcomed the approaching night because the desolateness of the outside world would be mercifully blotted out. In another more terrible way, however, she dreaded to see nightfall, for with it would come the necessity for sleep ... and sleep would bring back the dreams.
That really was what was troubling her, she freely admitted it to herself. The dreams! Hot, delicious, naughty, terribly exciting ... forbidden! What triggered them she would not say, all Elizabeth knew was that they sprang from some hitherto hidden Charybdis of her own tortured soul.
And they were practically all the same!
William and she. In bed! William kissing her with an increasing frenzy as his long hard penis fucked in and out of her wildly spasming cunt. She always awakened just as his male organ grew hotter and harder and then began ejaculating his scalding white semen deep up inside her gratefully receiving womb. And always upon awakening, she imagined she could still feel him pulsating deep in her vagina ... always that, to be followed moments later by an indescribable longing and hunger that haunted her loins for the rest of the restless night. She felt that if the erotic dreams continued, she would go mad!
Elizabeth's troubled brown eyes studied her reflected image in the window. Her breasts, always full and firm, seemed these days to be almost swollen under the tight bodice of her blue satin gown. The fleshy cleavage between them was certainly fuller and deeper than it had been when she and her parents had embarked from New York earlier in the spring. A trim waist that flared out into undeniably feminine hips-not big hips, but exceedingly sensuous. And beneath the clinging satin gown were out-lined long thighs and legs that made her seem taller and more regal than she actually was. Around her slender neck she wore a black velvet ribbon which held a small cameo-locket that dangled enticingly just above her cleavage. Another ribbon, also of black velvet, was tied in a bow holding up her swept-back thick blonde hair. She had the high cheek bones of a Slav, the wide generous mouth of a Scandinavian woman, the grace of a ballet dancer, and the sprit of a woman who refuses to be dominated by man or events.
Billingslee, the court painter, had openly declared at Lord Burton's party a month ago that Madame Elizabeth Mason "one of the most paintable females" he had ever seen. His eyes devouring her sleek, breathtaking curves, had also carried the message that he felt she was one of the "most sexually arousing" women as well: it was almost as though he sensed the steaming cauldron up between her legs, the deeply running tide of sensuality that flowed like a liquid fire from heaven in her veins.
Elizabeth was not unaware of her attraction to men. In some small way she was grateful to them for their admiring glances, even though they were being rude and ungentlemanly.
After all, she had been a widow less than fifteen months!
Absent-mindedly she reached up and fingered the cameo brooch. The locket contained a miniature portrait of William Mason, her husband, smiling that one particular smile of his, handsome and so full of life at twenty-six ... and oh, so dead at twenty-seven with a British musket ball between his eyes. No, she didn't need the locket to remember her husband. And she didn't need the dream, either!
Elizabeth blinked as she heard a knock on the door, and then called out, "Come in."
A saucy redheaded Irish girl about Elizabeth's age flounced into the room, her dun-colored maid's uniform unable to hide or diminish the obvious delights of her own petite little body.
"Evening, Mistress Mason," she called out in her Irish brogue.
"Good evening, Jill," Elizabeth answered, smiling warmly at the girl. Lord, she's as friendly as a puppy, and about as well-mannered. But then, what do manners have to do with a person's basic humanness! the blonde wondered.
It was obvious, from the way that she positively bubbled over, that Jill was excited about something. Probably, Elizabeth thought, a new boy friend or another juicy morsel of gossip. The Irish girl attracted men and gossip like a dog does fleas. She was impudent and incorrigible, but so very endearing in her demeanor that Elizabeth considered her the closest friend she had in England.
"Did ye hear?" Jill asked, her green eyes sparkling.
"Hear what?"
"The young masters are coming home," she declared, clapping her hands together. "First Ethan. He'll be here this weekend. And Master Robin has just arrived in Halifax from America. He'll be here with his lordship's brother, the Admiral, within a fortnight. Isn't it exciting?"
"Oh, yes. Quite," Elizabeth answered solemnly.
Jill inspected her through eyes that had suddenly become determined. Finally she pursed her lips and nodded. "Do ye mind if my tongue wags a bit, Mistress Elizabeth?"
The American widow dimpled in spite of herself, then replied in a mock Irish brogue, "And to be sure, if I objected, would it matter?"
Jill shook her red hair back and forth, and Elizabeth continued, "I thought not. Well, then, go on with it. What is it that makes your tongue want to wag so?"
The little Irish maid took a deep breath and then took the plunge. "I'm glad for you that the young masters are coming home. You need a man."
"Jill! How dare you...." Elizabeth's face suddenly flared a bright red in embarrassment.
"Ye said I could speak, Mistress, and the good Lord forgive me, I shall. You are a woman, and a woman needs a man. Last night, when I came in to make sure your fire wood had not died, you were asleep ... and you were moaning."
Elizabeth turned sharply away from her. "I don't want to hear any more."
Jill's shoulders slumped. Her chin was trembling, partly from emotion and partly from the sheer fright of her audacity at speaking so frankly to this American girl who was a guest in Lord Burton's Manor. In spite of her fear, however, she sensed the strong bond of affection that Elizabeth had for her-and it was certainly reciprocated-so she continued, only now with an unsteady voice and a lowered head. "I went back to me room and wept for you."
Elizabeth whirled, angry now. "I don't want your tears or your advice."
Jill swallowed loudly, then backed across the room. There was a mist of tears in her eyes when she curtsied and then dashed out the door.
Elizabeth stood motionless for a long time, then took a deep sigh and rubbed her face with her hands. Her own emotions bothered her. Jill was right, undeniably so. I do need a man, a man in bed with me, she mused. So why am I so upset at Jill? Is it because she is just a maid?
Self-deception was something Elizabeth had never practiced, and she correctly analyzed what was wrong. She was acting like a haughty aristocratic bitch! She was upset because a mere maid had presumed to give her advice!
"All right," she said aloud. "Now Mistress Elizabeth, suppose you get yourself down stairs and apologize to that poor girl. She was only trying to befriend you." Quickly then, before she could change her mind, she went out the door. She was halfway downstairs before she realized another thing that was troubling her. Jill had come into her room last night when she had been dreaming about William. Jill had obviously recognized the lewd content of her dream. What term had the Irish girl used? Oh yes, "moaning". Well, Elizabeth hadn't been moaning in her sleep, she had been begging William to fuck harder ... and somehow she was positive that she must have used that language out loud. So Jill had seen and heard all! The thought of the redheaded maid standing silently there in the shadows of the room watching her as she thrashed in abandon and murmured lewd entreaties suddenly was an exciting thing ... a kind of lascivious gnawing excitement that pulsed and quivered in her suddenly moistening vagina. What would it be like to have a third person standing beside the bed when a man was making love to her?
The thought was so startling, her arousal such a revelation, that she almost turned and retraced her steps to the safety of her sitting room. As it was, she remained motionless until her quivering ceased. Only then did she continue downstairs to the lower level where she knew the maid's room was located.
Although the Irish girl's door was open, Jill was nowhere to be seen. Elizabeth thought for a moment, then decided against going to the kitchen. No, she would apologize here on the girl's own grounds; it would be easier for both of them that way.
She studied the room. It was bleak, a hole in the wall compared to her own luxurious sitting room suite up on the third floor. A religious picture hung above the Irish girl's bed, and there was a large blue trunk pushed up next to a window that overlooked the back of the house and the vegetable garden. In spite of the austerity of the room, Jill's piquant personality had manifested itself. There, on the bed post just below the picture of Christ on the cross, was a garland of dry straw flowers. On the other bed post hung a straw hat with a long blue ribbon. The door to the closet was ajar, so Elizabeth opened it and walked inside-knowing that she was probably being too curious for politeness. The closet itself looked as if had been used for something else at one time-perhaps a pantry. It was surprisingly large with a high ceiling and on the wall near the door was a candle holder containing three long white candles. The size of the closet made Jill's belongings look even smaller. The girl had only three dresses ... two of them made of a cheap blue linen, the other an out-of-style yellow silk that looked as though it had been handed down from Lady Burton or a guest. There was one extra dun-colored uniform and two pair of work shoes, no dancing slippers, no party shoes.
Elizabeth cocked her head to one side, studying the sparse belongings of the Irish girl. She felt a great need to do something nice for the maid, perhaps share a gown or two with her. And most certainly, that yellow silk dress deserved a pair of yellow slippers.
Finishing her inspection, Elizabeth had already turned toward the closet door and was preparing to walk out when she heard Jill's voice. She flushed. Oh God, what could she say to the Irish girl? Being caught snooping in the closet like this was simply too embarrassing to contemplate. Her momentary hesitation destroyed any chance she had of escaping undetected, for a second later, she heard Lord Burton's unmistakable voice, and the sound of the outside hallway door closing.
"Are you to keep the master of the household waiting like a common lackey?"
And Jill's reply, coy and giggling, "Waiting, your Lordship wait? Hah! You wait like the bull that you are."
"Oh ... you impudent, cheeky little bitch. I've half a mind to take a rod to you."
"Oh, sir! And will it be the same rod you used on me Monday?"
"What?"
"This big hard rod here, milord, between your legs."
Elizabeth gasped and blushed in the dimness of the closet as she unavoidably overheard the lewd conversation. Lord Burton's loud groan was scandalous and the American widow's knees suddenly felt weak as she heard the master of Marleyhead Manor say, "Unfasten the buttons, you impish Irish wench, and pull him out."
Oh my God, Elizabeth thought. I've never heard anything so obscene in my entire life. And yet, "obscene" or not, the hidden blonde girl was all too aware of her own growing excitement. A drumbeat of passion was beginning to pound in her wetly quivering vagina and, although she attempted to stay away from the partially opened closet door, she still found herself tiptoeing toward the crack in order to see what was going on.
There, less than ten feet away, standing at the foot of the bed, were Jill and Lord Burton. The Irish maid was using both hands to expertly unfasten the front of the older man's britches. Even as Elizabeth watched the petite redhead unsnapped the bottom button, and her little hand reached boldly inside the gaping material.
Lord Burton tottered and groaned again as Jill pulled out his thick rigid cock. Elizabeth's eyes widened as she saw the virilely throbbing shaft exposed. Good Lord, he was built like a bull! She stared, hardly breathing, as Jill giggled and began stroking the heavy foreskin up and down the stiffened, blue-veined shaft. The older man stood, booted feet apart, using one hand on the bedpost to support himself, as the maid's fingers tightened on his pulsating rod of male flesh and pulled the foreskin down as far as it would go, exposing the swollen, angry red head of his cock.
Jill grinned knowingly up at him. "Feel good?"
"You know it does, you teasing little bitch."
"The way he's jerking in my hand, I do think he's trying to get away."
"He's trying to get inside that hot little cunny of yours once more."
From her vantage point, Elizabeth could see that the Irish maid obviously was getting excited as well. The redhead's breath was coming more rapidly now, and her bosom fell and rose irregularly under the tight bodice of her uniform as her encircled fingers stroked up and down on the throbbing hot penis of her employer.
"Feel good?" Jill repeated.
"Ummmmmmmm, yes! You pump him like you know what you're doing. I suppose you do it for Jack and Peter, and Tom, and all the other panting lads."
Jill dimpled. "Perhaps."
"And what else do you do for them?"
"That's all." She shook her red hair back and forth for emphasis. "Sure and if I'm to have someone's bastard, it'll be yours."
"But you've done this much for them?"
"A time or two ... but nothing else."
"All right then. That's a sweet lass. Keep it always hot and ready for me. You'll have no cause, ever, to regret it." He reached over and encircled her tiny waist with his left arm. "And now, let us see this delightful little cunny which you're preserving for the master."
Jill giggled and playfully slapped his chest, then squealed in girlish delight as his big hand dropped and cupped her pubic mound from outside her uniform. "I've a surprise for ye," she said.
"What? You're with bastard?"
"No, don't play the fool! The surprise is that I knew ye were coming to me room ... and I prepared for it." Elizabeth saw the Irish girl use her free hand to reach down and forced his fingers up underneath her skirt.
Lord Burton guffawed. "Strike me dead! No pantaloons. Just hair ... and, oh yes, there's that hot little cunny...."
The touch of his hand against her naked vaginal flesh seemed to inflame the maid. She moaned and her pelvis whipped back and forth against his caressing fingers. Elizabeth saw her eyes roll up in her head as she began wantonly scraping her breasts against his elbow.
"Do it," Jill whispered. "Put him in me. Now! Please, Milord. Now?"
"Right! Lift your skirt and bend over the bed railing there. I'll take you standing up today."
The eavesdropping American widow gasped out loud as she saw Lord Burton fumbling with his britches, and a moment later they dropped down around his knees. His muscular buttocks were nakedly exposed right in front of her. Her lewd excitement flamed even higher, however, when she saw Jill grasp her uniform skirt at the hem and raise it up to uncover her auburn-haired pussy. As the older man shuffled forward, the Irish maid obediently bent forward over the bed railing, which forced her white unblemished ass-cheeks high into the air.
From Elizabeth's vantage point she could see Jill spreading her knees further apart to expose the fleshy pink cuntal lips up between her legs. From a distance it looked as if they were wet, fevered, inflamed!
Lord Burton reached forward and used both hands to raise her naked buttocks up higher, then he bent his knees slightly and positioned his visibly pulsating penis at the gaping mouth of the young girl's pussy.
"Now reach back and put him in that tight little cunny for me," the older man ordered.
Oh God, the trembling American girl thought. He's going to do it to her. He's actually going to stick that big huge shaft of his up inside her. The poor child will never be able to take it. No woman could!
The salacious scene had turned her legs to water, and Elizabeth was forced to reach out toward the wall to support herself. She stiffened in fright and almost screamed when she touched something long and hard ... it felt almost like a penis. Then she shuddered and sighed in relief; it was only one of the candles from the candle holder. Automatically her fingers closed around; it did feel an awful lot like William's cock used to feel. Not as thick, of course, nor as velvety or as hot ... but surprisingly real.
Then, her imagination on fire, it was no longer William's penis she was holding, but Lord Burton's. And the Master of Marleyhead Manor was about to put his warmly pulsating hardness up inside of her love-starved cunt instead of Jill!
In her mind now, it was she bending over the bed railing, her blue satin skirt lewdly bunched up around her waist, her naked ass-cheeks stuck up high in the air, brazen and inviting, waiting for that big thick penis to slowly slide up inside her belly from behind.
Jill reached back and lovingly used her thumb and forefinger to guide the hotly throbbing shaft toward the wet fevered opening of her pussy. Then, quivering in anticipation, she wiggled her buttocks a bit until the swollen head of his cock had been surrounded by her hair-rimmed pussy lips and was nudging the hole leading up into her womb.
The little Irish maid's voice was so lust-constricted that it was almost incoherent as she panted, "Now ... shove him in me. Now!"
"Here it comes, you little bitch!" Elizabeth saw Lord Burton's ass-cheeks flex and his powerful thigh muscles ripple; then, with one forward thrust of his hips, he drove his huge, blue-veined shaft deep into the eagerly squealing girl's slippery cuntal sheath.
"Aaaagggggggggghhhhhhhh," Jill cried, bracing herself on her elbows, her head at an angle on the mattress so she could look back and see his warmly pulsating penis sliding up into her vagina. "Oh ... ohhhhhhhhh. So hot ... so hard."
"Cunt ... beautiful cunt. Tight. Hot ... cunt," Lord Burton panted hoarsely as he began fucking in and out of the wetly heated confines of the maid's tight young pussy. "I'm going to screw that little cunny of yours until you think you've been mounted by a stallion."
"Yes ... oh yes, milord. Do it. Do it to me."
Her shame at eavesdropping had long since evaporated under the raging inferno within her own loins, and Elizabeth now watched avidly, her breath coming in short puppy dog-like pants as she saw the deliriously moaning Irish maid rotating her hips to scrap every vaginal nerve ending against the wetly glistening cockshaft that was fucking in and out of her widespread legs from behind. The young American widow had no control over her thoughts, nor of her shamelessly aroused body. In her mind she longed to be a part of that salacious spectacle; she wanted Lord Burton's penis to be fucking her until she came. She needed relief. Oh God! She had to have relief or she would die.
Of their own volition, her fingers dropped to the front of her blue satin gown, and she furiously pulled the hem up and tucked it out of the way in the tight waistband of her long-legged pantaloons that came down like a pair of knickers just below the kneecap. In the dim recesses of her mind, she knew she was doing wrong, but her arousal burned so fiercely in her wetly excited cunt that she quickly silenced the still small voice of guilt.
Her fingers were shaking so badly that it seemed to take an eternity to unfasten the little row of pearl buttons that secured the crotch opening to her undergarment. There were still six or seven buttons to be loosened when, overcome by a mindless impatience, she simply yanked at the material and the buttons popped loose and fell to the floor like broken teeth.
She sighed passionately and quivered in delight as her fingers slid across her wetly steaming vaginal lips sending a jolt of forbidden pleasure radiating outward through her belly. Mesmerized by her own obscene actions, she stared down at her partially uncovered pubic mound. A thick golden profusion of pussy hair peeked from the opening of her pantaloons, but she wanted to see more. Quickly, then, Elizabeth spread her knees and used both hands to pull the crotch opening wider. Extending the middle finger of her right hand, she began sliding it up and down the wet sensitive furrow of her quivering pussy. Oh god, she thought, her eyelids fluttering in pleasure, has anything ever felt so good before? That was a stupid thing to think and she knew it. A cock would feel much better, a long hard cock! Only then would she have the relief she so badly needed.
Jill's moans and Lord Burton's groans were becoming louder and more lewd with each punishing stroke he made into her tightly clasping pussy. Even so, Elizabeth was sure the obscenely fucking couple would hear her ragged breath and the loud drum-like pounding of her heart.
Like someone who has taken leave of her senses, the young American blonde began slipping her fingers up and down her heated cuntal slit trying to bring about her own release. Instinctively knowing that she wasn't doing enough, she inserted her middle finger deep up inside the wet slippery channel of her fire-filled cunt and began fucking it in and out. A second later, she added a second finger ... then a third! In her motions, she swayed off balance.
That's when she brushed against the candleholder once more and remembered her earlier thoughts about one of the long white candles feeling like a male's penis!
The audacity of what she was thinking almost banked the undulating fires in her hotly aroused pussy. Then, before she could change her mind, she grabbed the candle, squatted and spread her knees out wide. The crotchband to her pantaloons was stretched now, gaping open without help. When she looked down, she could plainly see the wetly gleaming lips of her cunt and the reddened tip of her clitoris peering out of her corn-silk pussy hair. She held her breath and watched, with eyes that were big and as brown as chestnuts, as her right hand slowly brought the long white candle into position up between her legs.
It was two inches away now from her gaping cuntal mouth, and she was dimly aware that she was using the knobbed end of the candle ... the knob made it look even more like a prick.
It came closer ... closer. Now it was brushing against her golden pubic hair, then the tip disappearing into her nest.
She stifled a moan when she felt the first delicious contact of the candle against her quivering vaginal lips. Then she was unable to silence her small cry of pleasure as the knobbed end slid just inside her tight cuntal opening.
It does ... it does feel like a penis, she thought deliriously. Not as thick, but hard ... Oh ... Oh ... Oh so wonderful. Fuck me, darling.
She felt the hard wax candle going deeper and deeper up into her wetly welcoming pussy passage, and she kept pushing it in until her encircling thumb and forefinger were pressing against her pubic hair. Then, her mouth laxly open, her breath coming loudly, she began slowly withdrawing the artificial cock. Four inches later, she stopped, then pushed it back up inside her belly again.
In her mind now, the candle was a long hard penis which was beginning to fuck in and out of her rejoicing cuntal channel. She watched as it pumped rhythmically in and out of the little hole up between her legs, and she could see the dull white color beginning to shine as her vaginal juices coated the phallic instrument. Oh yes ... I'm fucking too. I'm fucking too ... she silently chanted, as she increased the lewd tempo.
An unusually loud groan from Lord Burton came from the bedroom, and Elizabeth without changing her rhythm-craned her neck to see what was happening.
In the other room, Jill had reached back between her widespread legs and was gently squeezing the older man's leathery scrotum and balls. The very lewdness of the sight only increased the American widow's shameless excitement. Jill's upraised ass-cheeks were rotating wildly now as the thick, moistly gleaming shaft of Lord Burton's cock slid in and out of her pussy. Elizabeth watched in astonishment and envy as she saw the force of his strokes; with each inward thrust, the Master of Marleyhead Manor's heels left the floor and he stood on tiptoe to ram his punishing instrument as far as it would go into the Irish maid's urgently gyrating cunt.
"Yes ... yessssssssss," Lord Burton said. "Me too."
Oh God, they're going to cum, Elizabeth thought, and even as she phmsed the words in her mind, Jill began screaming, "I'm cumming. I'm cumming. Harder ... harder. Fuck harder...."
Elizabeth's hand was just a blur between her widespread knees now as she sawed the long white candle in and out of her love-starved pussy with a growing fury. She could feel the first, far-off rumblings of her own release, and she wanted to climax simultaneously with the lewdly fucking couple in the bedroom. She glanced down momentarily, feeling a wild excitement, as she saw her pouting pink vaginal lips clinging lovingly to the wax candle on each withdrawal stroke, before they were thrust back inside her pussy on the instroke. Then the dam broke over the top of her as she heard Lord Burton's cry of obscene delight, "I'm cumming! Here it comes, lass. A big load of hot cum right up inside that tight little cunny of yours ... Aaaagggghhhh."
"Aaaaeeeeeiiiiieeeeee," Jill screamed in joy as she felt the first heated blast of his sperm ejaculate inside her wildly spasming cunt. Then his huge jerking instrument was spewing out spurt after spurt of white hot cum, filling her belly and gushing out of her cuntal mouth to stream in a silver river down her quivering inner thighs.
"Uuhhhhhhhh," Elizabeth shuddered once, then drove the candle in as deep as she could as her orgasm shook her with all the violence of a killer quake. She knew she was moaning out loud, but as the delicious tremors rippled through her candle-filled pussy, she didn't care. Let Lord Burton and Jill come in and fine me like this. Let them know how lewd I am. Let Lord Burton know what a whore I am, how I hunger so for a man that I must use a candle in my cunt ... maybe he'll take pity on me, and fuck me.
And that salacious thought triggered another cataclysmic convulsion inside her belly and she came again. Finally, the sensations fading, she sat down weakly on the floor of the dark closet, her head bowed and her stricken eyes staring at the long white candle still deeply embedded in her cunt.
In the other room, Lord Burton pulled up his pants and shook his head in admiration. "That was delicious, lass. I've not had a fuck like that since ... since...."
"Last Monday," Jill said pertly.
"Ah, yes ... last Monday. It seems to get better every time I fuck that sweet little cunny of yours."
"And how do you know it's sweet?"
Lord Burton threw back his head and laughed uproariously, "You never get enough do you? Well, I've no time for cunt licking this afternoon. This blasted wind has made hunting almost impossible, and Ethan is coming home. Tom and I are going after a stag and a boar before it grows too dark."
Jill fished under the pillow of her bed and pulled out a handkerchief which she used to daub up between her legs.
"You really filled me this time," she said, trying to staunch the heavy stream of jism pouring from her cunt. "I'll be surprised if I'm not with child."
"Just so long as it's mine, wench." He stared at her speculatively and scratched his mutton chops. "I'd not like you to be fooling around with the help."
Jill stared at him candidly for a moment, then a soft smile crossed her face. "The others. I wouldn't know, ye know, but I think they're not half the man you are, your Lordship. I'm contented as a heifer in a spinach patch."
Lord Burton seemed pleased, and there was a definite affection in the little love slap he made on her naked buttocks.
"Yeeeooowww," the Irish maid cried, her lips in a mock pout.
"That'll let you know that I'm serious. No other cock gets near that cunny. Understand?"
"Yes, milord."
"Fine," he beamed, then strode to the door. He had unlocked the bolt when Jill called out, "You'll tell the young masters of course."
He spun and thundered, "What?"
"Well, sir, they do have your blood. Like father-like son, so's they say."
The older man's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "And what do you mean by that, you impertinent little wench?"
"Young Ethan wrote me a poem the last time he was here about how lonely and cold his bed is."
"And?"
Jill dimpled and shook her head. "No, sir. I didn't go to him."
Lord Burton's glare softened momentarily, then hardened again as if he had suddenly thought of something. "And he didn't come to you?"
The Irish maid's redhead shook back and forth, "But, faith, for sure, I'll not be able to fight both Master Ethan and Master Robin if they put their heads together to seduce me."
"Damn me. If I catch either of those two young studs sniffing after you, I'll stuff them so full of salt-peter they'll be eunuch for months to come."
"Yes, milord," Jill said, and curtsied, then giggled.
Lord Burton studied her for a moment, then chuckled with her. "They are chips off the old block, aren't they?" he said, obvious pride in his voice.
Jill watched the older man leave the room. She stood there for a moment, feeling a euphoria that comes only from having been royally screwed. There was a tiny pang of guilt about the lie she had told Lord Burton. Master Ethan had come to her room. But she had told the truth; they hadn't fucked ... not actually. But Ethan had a most delightful tongue, and he had said she had a mouth like soft honeyed butter....
The Irish girl sighed with the memory, then shook herself to reality. There was work to be done, and somehow she had to make up to Mistress Elizabeth for her impertinence earlier in the afternoon. She walked out of her room toward the kitchen, trying to look more energetic than she felt.
Slowly then, Elizabeth emerged from the closet. Her blonde hair was slightly disheveled, her face aflame with shame at the lewd, unforgivable way she had acted. Her guilt grew as she went across the room and ran quickly upstairs, because with each step she took she could feel the wet, sensual slipperiness of her vaginal lips scraping against each other, sending new and even more urgent tingles of carnal hunger rippling through her loins....
* * *
Ethan arrived late Saturday afternoon just as gray sullen skies began spitting out the first snow of the season. He was accompanied by a man-servant in a pony cart which contained several trunks and a hogshead of Maderia which he claimed to have won in a card game in London.
"Actually," he explained over dinner that night to the fifteen guests his father had hastily called together from around the local area, "I won two hogsheads, but I gave one to Jamie Boswell. London will be cold this winter; I suspect the poor devil will put it to good use."
The Vicar said, "I understand your new play was well received."
Ethan glanced at him, then threw back his head and laughed. "Vicar ... you'll never go to heaven if you keep fibbing like that."
And from the other end of the table, Lady Sutton chided, "Now ... now, Ethan. You write beautifully! You're being much too harsh on yourself."
"Not as harsh as my critics," the young man replied.
Lord Burton, feeling mellow from five tankards of Claret and two of the heady Madeira, listened to the dinner table banter. Occasionally he inspected his youngest son from under bushy eyebrows. Tall, slender, exceedingly handsome, he didn't look at all like his brother or father, though his likeness could be seen in a couple of portraits of ancestors ... lining the hallways on the second and third floors. The boy had changed, he thought and not necessarily for the better, it would seem. Although the older man had never been as close to Ethan as he was his oldest son, Robin, he still held a great deal of love for the boy. Robin was powerfully built, was a no-nonsense type of individual, like his father, he thought. Whereas Ethan was inclined to be flamboyant. Robin was in the Navy and, with the normal progression expected of him, would wind up an Admiral ... as had several Burtons during the last hundred years. Ethan, at 23, was already showing signs of the life of dissipation he was living in London. He'd be dead of the pox or something worse by the time he was 35. And his chbice of professions! Poetry and playwriting. Good God! It was fortunate his grandfather and great grandfather hadn't been around to see what became of the boy; they would have horsewhipped not only Ethan but Ethan's father as well. Like so many other times in the past, Lord Burton felt a surge of relief that the title would be going to the oldest boy.
Still, though, there definitely seemed to be something strange about Ethan tonight. He looked ... looked almost as if he were in despair. Oh well, it would pass. A few days home with regular hours and good wholesome country food, away from those degenerate friends of his, an exciting hunt or two with a full bag of partridge, a little of the local cunt, and he'll be as good as new.
Once, the older man caught Ethan-seated just to his right on the other side of Lady Bullock-glancing across the table toward Elizabeth Mason. Oh no, you don't, me young buck. She's still in mourning. She's a guest in this house, even though that's made small difference to you or me in the past. But if she's to be had, it will be by Robin. She had the build of a woman who can spit out sons like peach stones. The future Lord Burton, God willing, will come out of that womb. If you must cast around for entertainment, there's Lady Ainsworth's buck-toothed daughter whinnying like a mare in heat at your elbow, trying to get your attention. And Lady Windrow! She'll give you a run for your money. I warrant she's got her hot little hand in your lap under the table already.
Lord Burton grinned almost drunkenly at that last thought. The well-endowed, dark-haired wife of Sir Dennis Windrow had surreptitiously felt under the table for him one night about ten years before, but she hadn't gotten a rise from him. Lord Burton deliberately seated her next to him again the following night, and making sure she didn't see him, carefully brought out from beneath his coat a freshly made, still slightly greasy, sausage about fifteen inches long and three inches in diameter which he put in his lap. Midway through the thick Scottish beef broth course, he felt Lady Windrow's hand once again on his knee. He nodded and winked his encouragement to her, then her hand was sliding teasingly up toward his crotch. He was watching her face closely when her mouth opened wide in surprise and she blinked in stunned disbelief. Her eyes glazed and she seemed almost drooling as her fingers measured the formidable girth of the tube of meat.
When he was sure she had a good grip on the sausage, he abruptly stood to toast the King, leaving the poor startled bitch holding his "prick" under the table.
The following afternoon, as soon as Sir Dennis had gone out hunting with three other guests, Lord Burton made his way to her room. Lady Windrow slapped his face, of course, but there was no real force or anger to the blow. A moment later, they were both laughing about the joke until tears streamed down their cheeks. And then he had shown her the real thing ... which she seemed to appreciate almost as much as the awesome instrument she had discovered the night before.
Lord Burton's rambling thoughts were brought back as he picked up the Vicar's question, "And when will Robin be home?"
"Within the fortnight, I suppose. He and my brother plan to take a ship from Halifax to Liverpool as soon as they can complete their duties."
"I understand the plight of the American colonists they brought back with them is pitiful," the Vicar's wife stated.
Lord Burton shrugged.
The entire room fell silent when Elizabeth said softly, "They shouldn't have left in the first place."
"My dear," Lady Windrow purred. "They would have been butchered. As it is, they lost their business, their lands and properties to those American barbarians."
"Lady Windrow. I am an American. My husband was an American. He was shot by a hired killer, one of King George's Hessians. Those are the barbarians."
Down the table, Lady Sutton pursed her lips in disdain. "Then if you're an American, Elizabeth, pray tell what you are doing here? Why aren't you in America ... with the others?"
Ethan, who was in the process of taking a drink, slammed his tankard on the table, and the Madiera wine sloshed out of the pewter mug to stain the table cloth like blood. "Lady Sutton, are you being insulting out of ignorance, or for pleasure?"
The older woman drew in her breath sharply. "Why ... I've never...."
"Enough!" Lord Burton shouted. "I'll have no politicking at my table. Speak of game, speak of gossip, lie ... say what you will, but no politicking."
"Father, I think...."
"Mind your tongue, Ethan, and remember your manners." He glowered down the table toward Lady Sutton. "I should explain to you, Madam, that Elizabeth came to England with her mother and her father who had business to attend to. The three of them were to return in May, but the hostilities have increased to a point where it is dangerous to be aboard a British ship going into an American harbour. Her parents have decided, and wisely so I feel, that it would be the better part of wisdom to wait until a more propitious time to return to their home."
The argument, as brief as it was, put a decided damper on the previously high spirits of the guests, and it was with a great sense of relief that Elizabeth was able to retire to her room as soon as the Vicar and his wife left.
There was a cheery fire burning in the fireplace, but Elizabeth's unhappiness only increased at the sight. This was a room to be enjoyed in the company of another person-a man. Too, the conversation downstairs in the banquet hall had disturbed her far more than she cared to admit. Prior to this she had been immune to the innuendos about her husband and the veiled questions as to where her own loyalties lay. But the recurring erotic dreams and her own crying need for companionship were slowly breaking down the barriers of sorrow which she had erected ... and now she was vulnerable, and she instinctively knew it.
The night curtains had been drawn already, but the young American widow felt a need to see the outside world again. She pulled the cord and drapes slowly parted to reveal a night full of swirling white snow being blown by blizzard-force winds sweeping in off the Irish sea. She stared at it for a moment then, wanting to be free of confinement, grabbed her long hooded cloak from the closet and opened the doors leading out to the balcony. The blast of the wind sent her staggering backward until she was able to bend into it, and the fury of the snow stung her face, immediately blinding her. In spite of the sub-freezing air, she exalted in being a part of the storm. The wind howled like an unleashed animal from hell as it ripped through the trees and screamed up the hollow rain pipes of Marleyhead Manor. Her cloak billowed out then whipped away from her frigidly trembling body to stream out like a large black banner in back of her as she put her hands on the railing to brace herself.
The young blonde girl didn't notice the snow plastering to the outlines of her body, nor did she feel the Arctic chill stealing through her limb. Her mind was free and running with the wind as, slowly, all sensation began to leave her feet, legs, hands and face. She felt an inner peace for the first time since April of the year before when William had joined the militia for the attack on the victorious British troops returning to Boston from Concord.
From somewhere far-off, above the screaming howl of the wind, she heard a voice crying, "Elizabeth! My God! Elizabeth!" It sounded like some poor lost bird caught in the blizzard's fury. "Elizabeth!"
Then someone was shaking her. She tried to see who it was, but the snow had caked on her eyelashes and she was blinded. Warm ... deliciously warm, she thought as all consciousness left her and she started to fall. Her last rational thought was that someone was carrying her....
Ethan laid the unconscious girl down on the couch and then shoved it as close to the fireplace as he could. Quickly, he went back to the open balcony doors and, by putting his shoulders against the frame and exerting all of his force, was able to shut out the raging wind.
When he turned back to the fireplace, his usual trouble-free expression had been replaced by one full of concern. What could have prompted Elizabeth to go out in freezing weather like this ... and stay out until she was half-frozen and senseless? It was fortunate, he thought, that he had decided to visit her with a pitcher full of Madiera and apologize for Lady Sutton's rudeness. If he hadn't come when he had, she undoubtedly would have frozen to death.
He stared down at her lovely white face reflected in the firelight. The patina of snow was beginning to melt in her hair and on her black silk dress. A little rivulet of water ran down her eyelashes; it looked as though she were weeping.
"Elizabeth," he said, kneeling alongside the couch and shaking her. "Dear Elizabeth ... wake up."
There was no response from the girl. Her hands were ice-cold as he began rubbing them in an effort to restore circulation. Instinctively knowing he wasn't doing enough, he removed her shoes and massaged her white stocking-covered feet.
He worked on her for at least three minutes and was beginning to think that he should send downstairs for help, when she finally moaned. "Elizabeth?"
In spite of her moan, it was as though the girl were dead. Only the slow rise and fall of her full sensuous breasts gave any evidence that she was still among the living.
Some color was beginning to return to her cheeks, but another problem was manifesting itself. The heavily-caked snow on her dress now had almost melted, and she was rapidly becoming wet to the skin.
His eyes narrowed. He really should send for the maid and the housekeeper! But they would be asleep, he was sure, and it would take time to roust them out.
Making his decision, he quickly began stripping Elizabeth of her wet clothing. First came her black silk dress. With nervous fingers, he unlaced her bodice and pulled it down over her smoothly rounded shoulders, cradling her in his arms as he did so. A moment later, he lay her back flat on the couch and, by tugging at the dress while lifting her hips, he was able to move the dress down over her buttocks and finally down her long curvaceous legs. The water had permeated the thin black silk and soaked her white satin chemise, making it almost transparent. The large brown halos of her nipples could clearly be seen through the sheer material, as could the fleshy upward thrust of her ripened breasts. The damp fabric clung to every delicious curve of her lush young body and Ethan could feel his cock stirring restlessly as he saw the prominent outline of her pubic mound under her underpants.
Elizabeth shuddered once, shivered, then moaned again.
Ethan called her name, with no more response than before. He could see the goose bumps all over her chilled body. Christ! I've got to do something or she's liable to catch pneumonia. It still was not too late to call for help but now, staring at the breathtaking contours of her body, he no longer wanted any assistance ... or any witnesses!
The girl was cold and wet. It was his duty to warm and dry her. Quickly then, before he could consider all of the ramifications of what he was about to do, he pulled her chemise up over her head and threw it on the floor. He straddled her hips with his knees and used one hand to lift her up slightly so he could remove her soaked underpants. Now the only thing she was wearing was a pair of white silk stockings which came just below the knee; they were held up by blue silk garters. He stripped her of these and then her lushly curved body was completely naked, her secret hollows and indentations made even more enticing by the flickering light from the fireplace.
Only then did Ethan permit himself to look at her. She was still unconscious, but most of her color had returned. Her ripe full lips were slightly parted, they looked moist ... and inviting. His appreciatively glowing eyes fell to her naked breasts, so full and bountifully ripened. The cold had made her nipples stand up in twin brown peaks, berry-like ... eatable. She had a tautly rounded little belly but there was no fat on her at all.
His gaze lingered hungrily on her bush of corn-silk pussy hair, and he fought the urge to reach down and caress the warm flesh which he knew lay so defenselessly up between her legs. Thoughtfully he rubbed his pulsating penis which had grown hard and thick during the inspection, and he couldn't help thinking: There's that sweet little cunt of hers. She's grown into a woman since that delightful summer she spent here seven years ago. A lush seductive woman ... and I must fuck her. I must, and God help me, I shall!
Ethan tore his lusting eyes away from her helpless body, then went into the bedroom and came back with the fur comforter which he used to cover her nakedness. Feeling strangely weak from the anticipation of the forbidden thing he was about to do, the young man kicked off his boots and trousers, removed his shirt, and lay down on the couch beside her. Her naked flesh against his own felt cool, except for her erect little nipples; they were like burning coals against his chest.
He slid one arm underneath her rib cage and cradled her blonde head on his shoulder, turning her voluptuous body so that they lay face to face, his long thick penis pulsating in excitement as it was tickled by her pussy hair. He put his free hand down and cupped her naked ass-cheeks and began gently massaging the cool fleshy mounds.
The young man's excitement continued to build until his cock was aching with each hammering beat of his heart. God, he could so easily slip it up inside that hot little cunt right now, and she couldn't stop him. He could fill her sweet belly full of his cum. Quivering all over, he removed his hand from her buttocks and put it down between their naked bodies to guide his hotly throbbing hardness between her legs. Ethan was dying to ram his thick rigid cock inside her cunt without any further ado, but he stemmed his impatience and was content merely to slide his pulsating shaft in between her firm young thighs. He pumped his hips back and forth a couple of times, and groaned as he felt his prick sliding erotically inside its foreskin. It was a poor substitute for fucking, but far more exciting than masturbating.
Elizabeth moaned, louder this time, and Ethan stilled his motions. His heart was hammering as he wondered what the beautiful blonde would do when she recovered consciousness and discovered that she was naked, that he was naked too, and that his warmly pulsating cock was wrapped in between her thighs.
Well, he wouldn't let her scream. But he might have to talk his fool head off, he realized. Quickly the story built in his mind, and it was plausible enough when he considered it. Besides it was true! He had found her half-frozen on the balcony outside, had been forced to remove he wet clothes, and when it appeared that she needed additional warmth, he had given her his by lying down beside her. As for his erection? Well, any woman would understand that. She might be angry, but every woman liked to know that she excited a man, and what was better evidence of excitement than a hard-on.
He sensed she was beginning to come out of her deep unconscious state. Her breathing seemed to be stronger now, and occasionally her arm or leg jumped as if she were awakening. Ethan was watching her beautiful face in the firelight when he saw her eyeballs moving behind her eyelashes. She's dreaming, he thought in astonishment, and for a moment felt a pang of guilt at taking advantage of the innocent young girl. But then, like a fist in the belly, he realized she was having an erotic dream! He could feel the unmistakable motions as her pelvis made urgent little fucking movements against his groin.
Even as he watched her, he could see her lips parting and her tongue make a lewd suggestive circle. It was too much for any man to bear, much less the hot-blooded Ethan. He lowered his open mouth to hers and kissed her, gently at first, but with increasing fervour as he felt her tongue slip wantonly between his lips.
Elizabeth's breath increased in tempo as he pulled his mouth away from hers. A flicker of disappointment crossed her sleeping face as she whispered, "Will-yam?"
Moving very gently, Ethan replaced his hand on her naked ass-cheek and started making teasing little circles with his fingers. The girl purred low in her throat, and he thought he felt her thigh muscles tighten against his frantically throbbing cock locked in place between them.
Knowing that he was already in trouble if she awakened, the young Burton lowered his face to her breast and tenderly sucked her erected nipple up into his mouth. She moaned as he rolled the rubbery little button between his teeth, and this time there was no mistaking the lewd hungry motion that her hips made against his groin ... as if her cunt were searching for his long hard cock.
Ethan sensed he was rapidly reaching a point where he would have little control over his actions. Before that happened, he wanted to do everything he could to arouse the rapidly awakening girl. His mouth, watering now in anticipation, rained a trail of hot kisses down her neck and across both of her shoulders. Elizabeth groaned and thrust one shoulder forward as if she were offering her naked breasts to him. His mouth paid homage to her warm velvety flesh, then his lips dropped down across her navel.
Although he was under the fur comforter, he could plainly see her naked body as he kissed across her belly which was beginning to heave in excitement now. His hotly glowing eyes were locked on the soft yellow swirls of pussy hair that covered her sleeping cunt. As his moistened lips dropped to her inner thigh, she moaned loudly and, in her sleep, spread her right leg outward until it slid off the couch and her toes were touching the floor.
Ethan stared in lewd appreciation as he saw the pink, moistly gleaming lips of her pussy revealed in front of his watering mouth. Never before had he seen anything so exciting, so delectable. He could smell the warm rich aroma of her cunt; it was a heady smell, a combination of her femaleness, perfume, and soap. Although he had tongue-fucked women dozens of times in the past, he couldn't remember having been this excited before. His hands were trembling uncontrollably as he put his palms against the smooth warmth of her sleek inner thighs and pushed them further apart until her coral-hued vaginal lips were gaping wide open. There, nestled between them was the tiny shadowy opening to her cunt.
Ethan slipped down further on the couch, getting in between her spread knees, and then satisfied with his position-stuck out his tongue and made one tantalizing lick from her knee up her inner thigh. The girl's body quivered and he could hear her loud groan. There, only inches away from his mouth, he saw her golden-haired mound slowly rise in a lewd invitation up off the couch.
"Yes, William, do it ... do it, darling," she said dreamily.
Yes, Elizabeth, I shall do it. Dream on my sweet, and when you wake up, my prick will be inside that tight little cunt of yours.
He kissed his way up the sensitive inside of her thigh, then took a deep breath as he rubbed his nose across her curling pussy hair, feeling it tickle his nostrils and face.
Ready now for whatever might happen, he lowered his mouth until it was just above the warmly perfumed furrow up between her quivering thighs. Her cuntal lips were swollen, he noted, an indication of her arousal, and his eyes glistened as he caught sight of her larger than normal clitoris. An older woman in France seven years ago had taught him all about that enticing little female organ when he had been only fifteen and a half years old ... and he would be eternally grateful to her for the private lessons.
Slowly, deliberately tantalizing himself, he lowered his face to her wetly heated pussy, feeling her hairs pressing against his nose and chin. He made one swipe of his tongue, licking from the hot little bud of her clitoris all the way down to her anus. Above him, Elizabeth moaned in her sleep and, automatically, attempted to spread her thighs further apart.
Ethan was drooling as his trembling tongue retraced the wet path upward toward her gaping vaginal opening. Her slippery young pussy tasted like honey and aromatic spices, and being a poet-he paused momentarily in an effort to put his thoughts into words. His growing passion and his lust-stiffened penis throbbing so painfully against the couch was making it difficult to think, however.
Elizabeth's moistly responding cunt lifted again of its own accord in an attempt to regain his cock and that delightful erotic sensation which it had been experiencing only seconds before.
Ethan used the opportunity to cup her naked ass-cheeks in the palms of his hands and raise the succulent vaginal feast up off the couch. Then his face lowered again, and he deliberately made his tongue wiggle as it licked around the quivering little mouth of her hair-rimmed cunt, scraping against every sensitive nerve ending down there. Immediately he tasted the first slightly saline secretions of musk as her fevered vaginal passage began pouring out lubrication in preparation for fucking.
Slowly, still wiggling his tongue, he pushed his face forward and his tongue slipped just inside the fire-filled cuntal opening.
"Ohhhh," the naked young girl groaned, and Ethan knew she was close now to regaining full consciousness. Quickly then, he began fucking his tongue in and out of her wetly clasping pussy, simultaneously rubbing his nose against the gleaming tip of her erected clitoris and using his fingers to knead her sensitive ass-cheeks.
Elizabeth was swimming to the surface of a warm wonderful sea of sensuality. She was dreaming, but some rational part of her mind told her that this dream was different than all the others she had experienced. In her dream, William was down there between her legs, and he was doing something that he had never done before, licking her genitals. It was so deliciously erotic. Forbidden, of course, but apparently if she were to believe her own ears when Lord Burton had told Jill he had "no time for cunt licking today"-it was done all the time by some of the better people.
Her heart was pounding like a runaway horse as she felt what was, undeniably, William's long wet tongue sliding in and out of her hotly tingling cunt. Wave after wave of forbidden pleasure rippled outward from that sensitive spot up between her legs. She was rapidly approaching orgasm, but she fought it ... knowing that if she climaxed or awakened that wonderful sensation would go away.
Ethan was unaware of the battle that was being waged in the unconscious girl's mind. All he knew was that she was responding with an uninhibited fervour that surprised even him. She was going absolutely wild as his tongue fucked in and out of her honey and fire-filled pussy. He pulled back for a second to get his breath, and heard her muffled cry of disappointment. His eyes glowed in obscene triumph as he stared at her erotically quivering vaginal slit where her fleshy cunt-lips had fully blossomed now and had changed in size and color. A pearl colored drop of her inner secretions mixed with his saliva dangled like an ornament just above the tight little opening to her pussy, and the entire area looked like the meat of some exotic tropical fruit ... ripe, tasty, sweet!
Still, though, he wanted more. He took his hands away from her trembling ass-cheeks and used both thumbs to split her heated vaginal lips even further apart. Now everything was exposed. At the top, he saw her inflamed clitoral bud, glowing an angry red in color, about the size of the first joint of his little finger. He bent forward and ran his tongue time and time again around the little bundle of erogenous nerves as she quivered and squirmed in abandon. He concentrated on her clitoris as the still unconscious girl clamped both thighs around his ears, holding his face captive and in position, while she shamelessly fucked her ecstatic young pussy up and down against his tongue.
Elizabeth stiffened as though she were suffering from rigor mortis, then her naked body began convulsing as surge after surge of carnal pleasure devastated her love-starved cunt.
When her spasms of release faded, Ethan once more kissed his way up across her heaving belly, using his watering mouth to pay homage to both breasts. It was only his imagination, he was sure, but they seemed fuller and more velvety than before. Then, man and woman were lying belly to belly again, her disheveled blonde head resting on his shoulder, his free hand on her naked buttocks with fingers gently massaging and squeezing her slightly quivering ass-cheeks, his long hard penis pulsating hotly between her fleshy thighs....
Slowly, the swirling mists of her mind began to thin, then clear in spots. Elizabeth would be conscious one moment, then reality would slip away again. Finally, though, she began to take cognizance of her surroundings. The first thing she felt was her own euphoria which she recognized as being a sexual langour. Then she sensed someone naked lying beside her ... that she, too, was naked ... that her nipples were pressing against his hairy chest....
That something hot and hard was pulsating between her thighs! A penis?
Her eyes blinked open, but it took a moment for her to focus on Ethan's oddly smiling face.
"You? Oh my God, Ethan. Wha ... what are you doing?" She immediately began struggling.
"Elizabeth! Stop it! Listen to me!"
"No ... go away, Ethan. Oh my God," she repeated. "Oh ... my God! That was you in my dream! What have you done to me!"
"I haven't fucked you yet, if that's what you're worried about," he grinned.
Elizabeth gasped in renewed shock at his obscene words. "Let me up."
"Not yet. Not until I tell you what happened."
"No...." she panted, trying to pull her belly and thighs away from his heatedly throbbing cock. The mere touch of it was as searing as a red hot brand; she couldn't bear to think of it down there so close to her love-starved vagina.
Ethan shoved his hips forward slightly, forcing the nakedly squirming girl toward the back of the couch, and he pressed his thick rigid penis against her belly again. "If you listen, I'll let you go," he lied.
"Please, Ethan. Please don't stay here. I'm in mourning. Have pity on me. Remember ... I'm your friend."
"Yes, we've been good friends for a long time, I remember. You were twelve. You'd never seen or felt a cock before."
"Stop it, Ethan. Oh God! You must stop it," she moaned.
The words had come unplanned to Ethan's mind; he had almost forgotten that summer seven years ago when the American girl had come to spend some time at Marleyhead Manor. Only fifteen, himself, she had stumbled upon him in the forest glade by the small pool: he had just finished swimming and was still naked ... and, lying on his back, was in the midst of masturbating.
It was difficult to say which of them was the most startled. But by talking calmly to her, by playing on her friendship and curiosity, he was able to get the twelve-year-old girl to lie down beside him, to touch "just once" his excitedly pulsating penis, and finally to wrap her trembling little fingers around his hotly swollen shaft and stroke him until he came. He could still remember her gasp of amazement as his ejaculating sperm had jetted high into the air before falling onto his belly and her arm. Before the week was out, it was a twice and sometimes thrice daily ritual with them. It was something she looked eagerly forward to because, on the second day, she let him touch her breasts, pull her bodice open and kiss the budding flesh. Excited beyond all control, she had been helpless when his hand stole up under her dress and touched her hairless pussy. The boy's outstretched middle finger sliding back and forth on her wet slippering cunt had brought her quickly to her first orgasm. Her mother's finely honed feminine instincts must have sensed something because after this had been going on about a week Elizabeth was forbidden to be alone anymore with the youth. And Lord Burton, hearing the hints of misbehavior from Elizabeth's mother, had sent his son to stay with friends in Paris where he knew the boy would soon be educated in all sexual matters of consequence.
"Do you remember?" he asked, deliberately flexing his fully erected penis against her cringing belly.
"Don't. Don't do that." She shook her head wildly. "I was a child."
"You were a woman already," he corrected. "You came like a woman...."
"I'm married now."
"No longer," he interrupted.
"Ethan, please! I'm a decent woman. Don't! Let me up. Please." Oh God, she must get away from him, and right now. Instinctively, she knew he was tormenting her. He knew of her terrible need. Why didn't he just go ahead and rape her? Why was he acting as though he had to seduce her? She would never willingly give in to him ... even though she wanted to be taken. She couldn't! Her decency wouldn't permit it.
"I found you out on the balcony an hour ago. You were half frozen and your clothes were soaked. I undressed you, Elizabeth. I warmed you with my own naked body. And when you started dreaming of sex, I helped you cum. With my mouth."
"No ... I won't listen to you. No!"
"See my face, Elizabeth? Look at it! Your sweet pussy juices are still smeared all over it."
"Stop it!" She attempted to cover her ears, but her hands were trapped between their naked bodies.
"So sweet. I licked your cunt until you cried out and came." He stared down at her stricken brown eyes, and when her full sensuous lips opened to protest again, he kissed her almost savagely, thrusting his tongue into her open mouth.
Elizabeth fought him with all of her might, but each movement she made scraped her sensitive breasts against his chest. She could feel his fingers, teasing and tantalizing, massaging her naked ass-cheeks, pulling her forward until her belly was pressed against his hotly throbbing prick which lay like a sword between their two bodies. Oh, it would be so simple just to open her legs and let him have that which she wanted to give away. His heated tongue which fucked in and out of her mouth like a penis was beginning to excite her, for she could taste what she suspected was her own vaginal secretions in his mouth. She knew she must continue the struggle, or her traitorous, man-hungry body would surrender to him in spite of all her will-power.
Ethan now was fully aware of the torment he was creating within the voluptuous young widow's mind. He could tell by her weakening struggles that her deepest need was overcoming her inhibitions and her guilt. Then, unmistakably, he felt the slight quiver of her timid little tongue against his.
Immediately he pulled his face away from hers and dropped his hot hungry mouth to her proud young breasts.
"Ohhh ... noooo, Ethan. Please don't." Elizabeth tried to pull away from his moistly heated lips, but the back of the couch prevented her from moving any further. His tongue was working against her sensitively tingling nipple now, and unwanted ripples of pleasure began radiating outward from the forbidden contact. She finally was able to get the palm of her hand against his forehead, but when she shoved, her strength had failed her.
Finally, with a low moan of defeat, the naked blonde widow, dropped her hand and closed her tear-filled eyes. Immediately, his searing lips moved over to her other breast and sucked the fleshy mound up into the wet heat of his mouth.
"Ohhhhh," she panted. "Go away ... please...."
With his hungrily sucking mouth locked to her right breast, Ethan moved his hand from her quivering ass-cheek around to a point between their naked bodies. Slowly he slid ft down until his fingers were caressing her pussy hair. Elizabeth moaned again, louder this time, and to his trained ear it sounded as though it were a sound of encouragement.
All strength and will to resist were rapidly flowing out of her body as Elizabeth felt the first delicious contact of his fingers against her fevered vaginal lips. She suffered a momentary pang of guilt-quickly repressed-as she realized her hips had risen of their own accord to meet his teasing middle finger.
"Remember how you used to enjoy this?" Ethan whispered, beginning a tantalizing stroking movement up between her legs. "Remember how good it felt when you came?"
"Don't ... don't torment me, Ethan."
"Remember?" He couldn't control a shudder of excitement as his outstretched finger slowly slid into the wet slippery flesh of her tight young pussy.
"Aaahhhhh ... oh God ... stop now, before it's too late. Help me ... please don't...."
Ethan gazed at the futilely squirming girl through lust-glazed eyes. When her hot little pussy had closed around his finger, he knew nothing in the world would stop him from fucking her now. She wouldn't stop him; she wanted to fuck as badly as he did, that was all too evident by the wanton way she was thrusting her swollen breasts against his chest.
Quickly then, knowing the time was ripe, he threw off the fur comforter and rolled over on top of her.
"We can't," Elizabeth gasped, but her love-starved body gave lie to the words because he felt her thighs spread just a bit.
Ethan used the opportunity to thrust his entire hand down between her trembling legs and force her knees apart. She stiffened for a moment, then violently trembling, ceased all resistance as Ethan spread her legs and bent her knees upward so that the soles of both feet were planted on the couch. When he had positioned her as he wanted, he climbed between her lewdly spread legs.
Elizabeth kept her eyes closed as she felt Lord Burton's younger son hovering over her defenselessly prone body. She shuddered in undisguised pleasure as his heated mouth kissed her straining breasts once more, then his lips closed down on her own and his tongue darted into her mouth. This time, however, her own tongue wantonly welcomed his. She groaned in disappointment when his mouth pulled away, and a second later moaned in protest when he com-maned, "Take my prick ... put it in."
"No ... don't make me. Go ahead and do it to me ... but don't make...."
"Elizabeth," he snapped, his voice sounding uncharacteristically brutal. "Put it in for me."
"Ohhh God ... I ... I can't," she whispered, but the words were no sooner out of her mouth than she felt her arm grabbed and being forced down to his hotly throbbing hardness. She shuddered once, moaned again, then tightly locked her fingers around his pulsating shaft and nudged it in between her fevered vaginal lips. The young widow was so shamelessly aroused that her cunt was already lifting up to receive his thick rigid cock before he started his first inward stroke.
With one smooth thrust of his hips, he drove his long hard shaft all the way to the hilt up into the tightly clasping flesh of her slippery young pussy.
"Aaaaggghhh," she wailed in rapture as the tendons on the insides of her thighs extended like velvet cables in an effort to spread her legs even further apart. She could feel every vein, every ridge on his thick corrugated cock as it began fucking in and out of her ecstatic vaginal sheath. Oh God. This is what I've needed for so long. A penis. Hot and hard. Fucking me! This and this alone!
The aroused young widow was only dimly aware of lifting her legs in a shamelessly lewd manner and locking her heels behind Ethan's pumping buttocks. The erotic feel of his hotly throbbing penis sawing in and out of her nerve-filled cunt was almost enough to make her orgasm immediately. Without even thinking about it, she began dipping her pelvis on each inward thrust his penis made up into her belly so that the rigid shaft would scrape against her clitoris.
Ethan had marveled when her legs locked around his waist, but he was totally unprepared for the wildly wanton way she began responding to his fucking. He had known she needed release, but this was volcanic, almost frightening in its intensity. No woman had ever responded so violently to his fucking. Her tight young cunt squeezed, massaged and rippled around his prick like something alive. Her long blonde hair was flailing from side to side, her beautiful face contorted in a mask of implacable lust, and her naked breasts swelling and quivering erotically as she pumped her hips and slid her tightly clasping pussy up and down on the entire long length of his stiffened cock. With a sense of dismay, he knew that he had absolutely no control over the situation. Christ, he wasn't fucking her; she was fucking him! And if she continued her wild pumping movements, he would cum within seconds.
But when he tried to slow the furious pace, she cried wantonly, "Don't stop! Fuck me ... oh fuck me, Ethan."
Instinctively, Elizabeth sensed the reason for his actions, but she didn't care if he came; she would cum with him. The wonderful feel of his rock-hard cock-getting hotter and more swollen with each passing second-had driven her to a mindless peak of ecstasy. She knew she was close to cumming; it no longer mattered what he did or didn't do.
"Fuck harder," she wailed. "Fuck harder."
Her lewd words inflamed Ethan to a point of no return, so he quickly cupped her wildly squirming ass-cheeks in the palms of both hands and lifted her buttocks up off the couch. Then he began ramming into her tight young cunt with all the fury of a bull.
"Oh yes," she cried deliriously. "Like that. Fuck me like that." His hotly throbbing penis seemed to be filling her entire abdomen, and Elizabeth imagined she could feel its mushroomed tip going so deep into her belly that it was scraping against the roots of her breasts on each inward stroke. Frantically she rotated her hips, grinding her screaming nerve endings against his pleasure-giving shaft. She was completely unaware of her talon-like fingernails gouging long bloody trails down his back, or of the corresponding pain as his fingers dug cruelly into her naked ass-cheeks.
Then, more violent than the Arctic storm raging outside the balcony, she felt her orgasm building to a cyclone's strength just as Ethan groaned and cried, "Oh ... I can't help it. I'm cumming. Cumming."
"Aaaaiiieee! Yes ... yes ... yesss!" the young widow screamed as the first heated jets of his sperm ejaculated high up inside her belly.
She stiffened momentarily-lifting her hips with such force that it almost threw both of them off the couch and onto the floor-then started convulsing as spasm after spasm of carnal pleasure jolted through her cock-filled cunt and spread throughout her body.
"Cumming. I'm cumming," she panted hoarsely.
Ethan felt her tight vaginal muscles grip down on his ejaculating penis like a fish inside a greasy rubber glove and, abruptly, her pussy was rippling all around his wildly jerking shaft. She came ... and then, as he continued to thrust in and out of her climaxing cuntal passage, she came again, her head thrown back, nostrils distended, neck tendons as taut as silken ropes, eyelids fluttering in pleasure, naked breasts uplifted in lewd offering.
Finally, as though every bone had been removed from her body, she collapsed down against the couch and lay there sobbing and panting from exhaustion and release. Elizabeth could feel his penis twitching inside her sperm-filled cunt as life slowly dwindled out of it. She subconsciously tightened her vaginal muscles in protest as she felt him withdrawing.
Ethan lay down beside the sweat-streaked girl and watched her tremulously rising and falling breasts. Lord, she was some fuck! But now he wasn't sure how she felt about him forcing himself upon her, and he did feel a decided guilt about the way he had used her. He hoped and prayed she would forgive him, because he knew he had to fuck her again ... and again.
Slowly, he bent forward and ovaled his lips around her erect little nipple. He had almost expected her to protest, to push him away, to curse him.
Instead, Elizabeth used both hands to cup his face and lift it from her warmly tingling breasts. She held his face above hers for a moment, studying his expression, his mouth, his entire face.
Then, with a gentle smile and a sigh of pleasure, she pulled his face down to hers and kissed him gratefully.
Her mourning period was finally over....
CHAPTER TWO
MARLEYHEAD-DECEMBER, 1776
Elizabeth and Ethan were only fooling themselves in thinking no one knew about their illicit liaison in her suite that night. Jill, who changed the sheets, was aware of what had happened, as was Lord Burton. The shrewd, worldly-wise older man had to take only one look at Elizabeth's healthily glowing countenance the day following Ethan's welcome home party. He recognized her expression, God knows he had seen it at the dawn on enough satisfied women in his lifetime.
"She's been screwed, and the blasted boy's done a good job of it, I would say," he growled to himself as he sat alone before the huge fireplace in his study. In one way he was angry at his younger son, in another he felt a certain pride that the beautiful young widow had chosen a Burton. He downed a glass of sherry, then refilled the goblet.
"I can't very well send him to France again," he mused, then grinned. By God, the young pup has been sniffing around that choice piece for seven or eight years now. And he's finally been able to bury his bone. Still, though, deep in his heart the Master of Marleyhead Manor wished the girl had met his oldest son, Robin. They would be like flint and steel together, something to watch and ponder over as the boy tamed her. Ethan, he knew, would never be able to dominate her as she needed to be: Elizabeth would pussy whip him in short order, and in time she probably would come to detest the poet in him which made him act in a gentle manner.
As for Jill, incorrigible as ever, she slyly . added another large goose down pillow to Elizabeth's bed that day, then saucily flounced out of the room pleased as pie. The young widow spent at least thirty or forty seconds trying to figure out why her bed looked different, but then she finally spotted the extra pillow and her face flamed with embarrassment. Hurriedly she went to the mirror to inspect her face, looking for signs of change or guilt. There was none that she could tell, but Jill had known! Who else?
When Ethan came to her room later that night, there was no coyness on her part. She was in bed, waiting for him. This time, when his warmly pulsating penis slid up inside her welcoming cunt, 'heir love-making was not a thing of desperation or fury, but something that lasted a long delicious time, with each savouring the other's body to its fullest.
He was there the following night, and the next ... but then Elizabeth's mother and father returned. Mother's knowledgeable eyes evaluated her daughter's complexion and glowing good looks, and her lips tightened in grim determination. In spite of the couple's obvious sexual attraction to each other-which has reared its ugly head again after seven long years, she thought in dismay-the older woman could not permit her daughter to throw herself away on a person destined to be not only a wastrel and a degenerate, but someone who probably would not live long enough to be hanged. Ethan was weak; Elizabeth was a female who needed a firm hand. William, her dead husband, had yielded such a hand, and although he obviously had not been able to tame or dominate her, he was at least her equal.
Much to Elizabeth's disappointment, her mother and father moved into her suite and used the extra bedroom.
"I can't stand it," Ethan whispered to her in the hallway the following morning. "I'll go mad unless I see you."
The young blonde widow had put a finger to his lips. "Shhh," she crooned as if speaking to a child, "I miss you, too."
"What are we going to do?" he asked.
"There's nothing we can do, dear Ethan."
"Then come to my room tonight after everyone has gone to bed."
"I can't. Oh, please don't ask me; I can't! Someone will see me."
"No one will."
Elizabeth sighed deeply. "You should know that my mother suspects us."
"Oh, Christ!"
"Wait for a day or two, until she's satisfied nothing is going on between us, and I'll come to you."
"You promise?"
Quickly Elizabeth put her arms around his neck and kissed him with a hungry passion. They both guiltily sprang apart seconds later as they heard a door opening down the hallway and the older's woman's voice calling, "Elizabeth! Where are you, dear?"
"Coming, Mother," she replied, and then stifled a giggle as Ethan whispered lewdly, "I wish you were cumming ... and me, as well."
Now that she had experienced sex again, Elizabeth found it almost impossible to live without it. Day by day during the next week her frustration grew until she was snapping at her mother. And a visit to Ethan's room late at night was apparently out of the question because on two occasions when Elizabeth had been tiptoeing across the rug after midnight her mother had called out from the extra bedroom, "What's wrong, dear? Can't you sleep?"
"I'm merely fixing the fire, Mother," she had replied the first time she was challenged. The second time, two nights later, she answered waspishly, "No, I can't sleep."
"Take a sip of Madiera, my dear. It will calm your nerves."
Fuming, the sex-starved girl had stormed back to her lonely bed, slamming the door viciously behind her.
The young couple had only three or four occasions when they could be together alone, and these were always stolen moments lasting only a few seconds ... a minute at the most before someone came looking for them. It was as though the entire household were plotting against them, Ethan complained in a strained whisper as they hid one afternoon in a closet near the downstairs pantry.
"You poor dear," she said softly.
"You don't know how hard it's been on me," he stated petulantly, and then groaned as he pulled her hand down to his bulging crotch. "See how hard it's been."
Without being asked, Elizabeth quickly unfastened his breeches and wormed her hand inside the gaping opening to wrap her fingers around his hot, rock-hard shaft of throbbing male flesh.
Ethan groaned low in his throat and pumped his hips back and forth a couple of times. "Take it out," he pled.
"Oh ... no, we shouldn't, Ethan. Someone is sure to come into the pantry."
"Please?" he whispered.
Elizabeth quickly glanced around the darkness as if she expected to see someone watching them. Then, her fingers trembling with a combination of nervousness and excitement, she pulled his warmly pulsating penis out into the open.
She immediately began stroking her hand up and down on the jerking organ, feeling the scruffy foreskin moving over the ridges and veins of the lust-hardened instrument. As the younger Burton's groans became more desperate, she could feel the hot pulsating tube of flesh growing larger and warmer in her encircled fingers. Instinctively, she began a smooth rhythmic stroking, trying to bring him relief this way-as she had done that summer seven years ago.
Something was different though about this time. Ethan was pushing downward on her shoulders as though he wanted her to kneel in front of him. Then, her rhythmic strokes stopped as he muttered something.
"What did you say?" she asked in a shocked low voice, knowing very well that her ears hadn't played tricks on her.
"Suck on it! Please suck it."
"Ethan! My God, do you know what you're asking?" Her fingers pulled away from his hotly pulsating cock as though it had poisonous spines sticking out all over it.
The younger Burton tried vainly to pull her face closer to his lust-swollen penis, but she yanked backward.
"Look," he whispered desperately. "I did it to you. You loved it when I put my mouth on your cunt. Do it to me ... please, Elizabeth ... please. You must."
She shook her head just a little bit at first, but then with increasing strength for emphasis, her long blonde hair flailing from side to side. "I can't do such a thing."
"Oh, shit. Then finish what you started."
Something had gone out of the moment, and Elizabeth knew it. She had absolutely no desire to touch his penis again, but then his abject whispering plea made her change her mind.
He groaned as her fingers encircled his throbbing hardness again and started stroking up and down on the lust-swollen shaft. Her hand began moving faster and faster when she realized he was close to cumming, and then the trembling youth groaned, "Now ... I'm there."
Elizabeth could feel the burgeoning heat of his wildly jerking penis as the fleshy spear grew in her hand, and simultaneously she felt the undeniable return of excitement in her wetly throbbing cunt as the first spasmodic shot of sperm spewed from the tip of his cock to splatter against the far wall of the closet. She watched, mesmerized, as the thick pearl-colored glob slowly oozed down the raw board. His spasming shaft continued to spurt out gush after gush of white hot semen until there were at least eight or ten different streams of cum dribbling down the opposite wall.
Then, as she continued stroking, he groaned one final time and put his hand down to stop her. "Oh God, no more," he quavered, his eyelids blinking in pleasure.
Elizabeth stared up at his face as she tried to regain control of her emotions. Her cunt was full of a liquid fire now, and her knees felt as if they were about to collapse under her. The wild pounding of her heart, her rasping breath, her wetly quivering vagina, were all indications of her urgent need. Finally, in a weak voice she was able to put her thoughts into words. "This is madness, Ethan. We can't keep on doing this."
"I know. But what are we to do?" he asked in his little boy's voice.
She sighed, then closed her eyes in decision. "I'll come to your room tonight."
"Dearest! You promise?"
She reached up and pulled his mouth down to hers, kissing him passionately and grinding her fire-filled pussy against his limp and useless penis. "I promise ... no matter what."
But Elizabeth wasn't able to keep her promise because Robin arrived that afternoon at darkness ... and his father, shrewdly reading the signs of distress on Ethan's face, astutely put the older boy in the same room as the younger under the pretext that Robin's chambers would be needed for guests who would be arriving in a day or two.
Ethan greeted his brother in a manner which, at best, could only be termed as churlish. "Your sense of timing, dear brother, is infallible," he said sarcastically.
Robin glanced at him, then grinned. "I've interrupted something. A new play! I know, a new poem you're writing."
"Don't be foolish."
"Ah ... hah! You devilish rogue! You've had someone else sleeping in the room." Robin sniffed the air as if he were sampling it. "Upon my word, I do believe ... can it be ... Jill? Oh that unfaithful little baggage. She promised to remain faithful to me while...."
"Oh be quiet," Ethan said in disgust. He carefully straightened his silk scarf in front of the mirror, brushed his hair for about the third time, then turned and went to the door. "Do hurry up and get rid of those stinking clothes and come downstairs. We were ready to announce dinner just as you arrived."
Amused, Robin smiled at him. "Go on without me. I'll eat in the kitchen ... with the help."
"Don't be a nit! Father's waiting to greet you."
The young naval officer nodded seriously. "Okay, I'll be only a few minutes. I have to bathe and shave. Give my apologies to Mr. and Mrs. Webster and Miss Webster."
"Her name is Elizabeth Mason now."
"And her husband?"
"Dead."
"Oh?" Robin sighed, then nodded. "I'll be only a minute." He waited until Ethan was in the process of closing the door, then said with a completely straight face, "How shall I act if Jill comes into my bath, thinking that it's you?"
Ethan stared incredulously at him for a moment before he realized his brother was teasing him. Then he said, quite succinctly, "You are being absolutely loathsome, brother dear." He slammed the door to the accompaniment of the older youth's guffaws.
Robin's laughter died away almost as soon as the door was shut. It felt good to laugh, he thought, then stared around Ethan's room. "It's good to be home," he said to no one in particular. "Damned good." A load had been taken from his shoulders now that he was at Marleyhead. Now he could go on with his plans. He had been in almost a manic-depressive state for over two months, ever since he had made that fateful decision to resign from the Royal Navy the day he buried the infant at sea. His moods swung from a wild enthusiasm for his forthcoming freedom to despair at the thought of having to tell his father that he would be renouncing title, country, and family in order to live in America. Lord Burton must be informed of his decision before the resignation was handed into the Navy; the boy was honor bound to do that much.
Robin had a deep and abiding affection for his father; he knew the love and respect was reciprocated. The elder Burton had none of the airs of newly rich and newly titled merchants. He was more country squire than Londoner, yet he had an endearing charm and a poise and appearance that made one realize he was in the presence of the true aristocracy, someone whose roots and blood went back four and five hundred years. As a tribute to his personality, the manor was filled with all sorts of guests during the more benevolent seasons like late spring, summer, and early fall. Everyone wondered why the older man hadn't remarried following the death of Lady Burton fifteen years ago. Apparently, Robin was the only one who knew that his father realized he could never replace her, thus made no effort to even try.
Marleyhead Manor would be filled for Christmas, as it usually was. This year, in addition to Admiral and Mrs. Burton, there would be the Websters from America whom he had met and their daughter Elizabeth. All he knew about Elizabeth-aside from the fact that she was already widowed-was that she must be about 20 years old by now, and that Ethan had been exiled to France because he had gotten too interested in her while she was still only twelve. Robin had heard this whispered scandal when he had returned home that same fall and one of the more agreeable maids had snuck into his room late one night. The maid had described the twelve-year-old American girl as being "skinny and tall, with thin legs, and really quite ugly with stringy blonde hair and freckles like the pox."
Robin was thinking about this as he completed his bath and hurriedly put on a dress uniform, then went downstairs to the study.
His father greeted him at the door with an exuberant bear hug that almost broke his ribs. The older man held him at arms length inspecting his face. "You've changed a bit in the last eighteen months, lad," he said, his voice full of affection.
"For the better, I hope, father."
Lord Burton nodded his head firmly, "For the better, definitely for the better." He took him by the arm and turned him toward a middle-aged couple. "You remember Mr. and Mrs. Webster."
"Of course I do. And with affection. Madame! Sir!"
"Hello, Robin," they said in unison, then Mrs. Webster added, "yes, indeed, you have changed since that brief visit you had with us in Charlestown ah ... ah ... ?"
"Nine years ago," he added. "On my maiden voyage as a member of the Navy."
Lord Burton was watching his son's expression closely as he led him toward the fireplace where Ethan was sitting casually and possessively on the arm of Elizabeth's chair. He saw a puzzled frown cross Robin's face, then his older son glanced briefly around the room as if he were expecting to find someone else.
"Elizabeth, may I present my other son, Robin," Lord Burton said, much too casually, and he was in time to catch the startled look on the boy's face.
"Madame," Robin made a half bow, trying to keep a straight face as he recalled the earlier description of this girl being "skinny and ugly." He was really quite unprepared for the vision of loveliness dressed in a maroon velvet gown from which her magnificent breasts looked as though they might spill at any moment. In the reflected light from the fireplace her lips looked fuller, more sensuously inviting than he could have ever have believed. Even sitting down, as she was, it was all too obvious that she had a stunning figure full of curves and promises. In his mind he could see that long blonde hair spilling across her naked shoulders and hiding her lushly ripened breasts like a golden veil as she lay in bed waiting for ... waiting for? My God, he thought. Ethan! That's why Ethan is so damned unhappy with my arrival. They're sleeping together!
He glanced over at his younger brother and saw him glaring at him.
Elizabeth watched the interplay of expressions on the face of Ethan's brother. At first, she had been sure he was amused at something. Then had come the undisguised admiration which she was used to receiving from males. Finally that quick speculative look toward Ethan, as though he suspected something had transpired between her and the younger Burton.
She knew her face was beginning to redden, and once more she was sure that her guilt was there for all to see.
It was Lord Burton who broke the uncomfortable silence by suggesting they go in for dinner. He deliberately seated Robin and Elizabeth across from each other and then sat there, pleased with his own brilliant conniving as he saw-just as he had suspected-the steel and the flint create sparks. There was no doubt in his mind at all that the sparks would ultimately start a fire ... and he decided to help it along....
* * *
Ethan was furious when he met Elizabeth the following morning. "Blast him," he said. "Blast my father."
"Ethan! What's wrong?"
"I'm not a bloody messenger for him. And that damned brother of mine was up at dawn and out with the gamekeeper to hunt. He's nowhere to be found."
"I don't understand."
"Father is sending me to Craxmore on business. I'll be gone the day and half of tomorrow."
Elizabeth gazed at him, not really understanding his anger. "The weather's good for a change. I'd think you would enjoy the outing."
"Use your head, dear Elizabeth. If my brother went in my place ... he would not be in my room tonight. Right?"
The young American widow dimpled. "That explains it. Well, can't your father wait until Robin returns? Is the business that urgent?"
"He claims it is."
"Then you have no alternative," she said, feeling something akin to relief. Ethan did need to get out of the house, he had been cooped up for almost three weeks. But Elizabeth had noticed that Ethan really wasn't an outdoors person. Robin was though, definitely, like his father ... and like me, she thought. Since his arrival from London she had suggested to Ethan at least three times that they go for a horseback ride along the beach, but he had begged off each time because it was too wintly or too cold. The one instance when she insisted on taking a walk along the sea, he had come grudgingly and complained most of the time. He would rather sit in the study or her sitting room and recite poetry or sing songs to her, accompanying himself with a lute that he had purchased in Pisa last year. She didn't deny that he was delightful company; his conversation was witty, he hinted at the most scandalous gossip, he knew everyone of importance in London, and he was intelligent and gifted. The fact that he and she were also lovers added a bit of extra spice to the moments ... even if Mother always managed to be in the sitting room with them, crocheting, humming to herself in the corner.
"I don't like it one bit," Ethan grumbled, his handsome features twisted in a pout.
"Boy! Ethan boy," his father shouted from the bottom of the stairs. "Where are you? Your horse is ready."
"Fuck the horse," he said in a low voice that only she could hear.
"Ethan!" Elizabeth whispered in shock.
"Boy!"
"Coming, Father," he yelled back. "Right away." Then muttered under his breath, "Goddammit."
Elizabeth glanced surreptitiously around her, then stood on tiptoe and kissed him. "Hurry back, darling. I'll be waiting ... and maybe we can get together for ... for...."
"I don't trust that blasted brother of mine," Ethan interrupted petulantly.
"What do you mean?"
"You and he...."
"Ethan!" The young blonde woman was stunned at the implication, and her voice sounded hurt as she replied, "I'm not a loose woman. I just don't get involved with the first man I see. I have some scruples."
Immediately realizing the mistake he had made, Ethan silenced her with a kiss. "I didn't mean you," he lied. "It's him. He knows about us. Congratulated me on my choice of bed mates. I told him it was none of his damned business. I don't trust him."
"I can protect myself. And for your information, I am not the least bit interested in what your brother thinks. He bores me."
"Ethan," Lord Burton bellowed. "Start moving. The horse will die of old age."
Quickly then, Ethan kissed her again, ran down the stone stairs, and out the open front door. A few seconds later, Elizabeth heard him gallop away.
Elizabeth stood there for some moments thinking about the conversation. Yes, she was disappointed that they wouldn't be able to go to bed together tonight, for it took every bit of will-power she had to blanket the incessant hungry throbbing in her vagina. Her need was so strong at times that she felt surely there was something terribly wrong and wicked about her.
But she had been hurt, and deeply hurt, by his lewd insinuation that she might succumb to Robin's seduction ... if, indeed, he had any thoughts of trying to bed her. She had lied about only one thing, and that had been when she claimed the young navy officer "bored" her. Actually, it was just that she felt uncomfortable for some reason around him. He had a male arrogance about him, and there had been a couple of moments at the dinner table last night when she had found him staring knowingly at her, as if his eyes were boring into her heart and soul and shared every hidden secret she had.
But more important, he was a member of King George's Navy, and as such-in her mind-he was a butcher, a killer, a burner of cities. She wanted nothing to do with him; they had nothing in common except their affection for his father. And, oh yes, they were both outdoors people.
With that last thought, Elizabeth realized there was nothing to keep her inside on this lovely autumn day. She would go for a ride by herself and perhaps the physical exertion would be such that her mind would be taken off her love-starved cunt.
Quickly then, she went to her room and changed into her riding skirt. Mother, having heard that Ethan had been sent away for the day on business, for a change, had no objections whatsoever to her riding alone.
A short time later, astride a beautiful black stallion which Lord Burton had claimed was too "spirited" for her, Elizabeth galloped away from the barns toward the northern boundary of Marleyhead Estate where, it was said, on a clear day you could see the Isle of Man to the west, Scotland some 60 miles to the north and-if one had witch's blood in her veins-the dark coast of Ireland like the yawning mouth of Hell some 125 miles away....
* * *
Robin and Marleyhead's chief gamekeeper, Tom Dewlight, had picked up the trail of "Old Nick" shortly before dawn and had been stalking the big boar for at least six hours now. They'd had their chance at more than a dozen fine stags, but they ignored them all, concentrating instead on getting close enough to the wild pig for a decent shot.
Old Nick, though, was elusive....as usual. It was rumored that the big 300-pound pig-with razor sharp tusks which created more havoc than a demented Turk with a two-edged scimitar-had come down from Scotland to make his home in the Lake Country, leaving behind a trail of maimed hunting dogs, crippled gamekeepers, and ruined horses. Tom, himself, had been forced a year ago to cut the throat of a prize mare who had broken both front legs in an effort to climb a tree and escape the charging black fury. One of the stable lads even swore to his drinking companions that he had seen Old Nick dive below the surface of Marleyhead Lake and swim ashore carrying a 40 pound salmon impaled on its tusks. It is a tribute to the local brew and the animal's awesome reputation that no one disbelieved the story.
In the three years the pig had been around, Robin had never caught sight of him; he had, however, seen some of the hunting dogs which had encountered him and had their bellies ripped from throat to anus. Lord Burton claimed, and Tom confirmed, that he had put a bullet square in the middle of Old Nick's forehead but the pig kept charging until both men threw guns and dignity aside and had bolted like the horses.
Then, just half an hour ago, on the other side of a glade, they had seen a shadowy outline rooting in the gully below a strand of oaks. The gully led down to a horseshoe-shaped sandy cove about fifty feet across with both ends being blocked by a rock fall that stretched out beyond the surf line into the sea.
"There he be," Tom whispered.
"We've got him," Robin answered, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice.
"Well, now, lad, let's not be hasty. Could be the divil's got us."
"I'm going after him."
"No. Wait a bit. Let him get deeper into the gully, then we'll go after him. We'll niver, as long as we live, get a better chance than this."
So they waited, quietly, and with some impatience as the big black pig pawed up the ground under the oaks looking for acorns. They could even hear him snorting, and once or twice the wind from the sea carried the sound of acorn shells being cracked.
Finally, with the sun already a good hour across the meridian, the boar moved deeper into the shadows of the gully and started working downhill toward the beach.
Both Tom and Robin were checking their guns in preparation for entering the gully when the gamekeeper stiffened and cocked his head as if he were listening.
Then, seconds later, there came the unmistakable "clip-clop" of a horse across the dirt pad at the far side of the glade.
"What the hell?" Tom said in disbelief.
Elizabeth rode unsuspectingly into view. Her attention was focused on the sheltered little cove to her left as she stood up in the stirrups to look down at it. Pleased with the privacy it offered, she made directly for the gully entrance.
"Oh, Lord. She'll spook him for sure," Tom whispered, shaking his head in disgust. "We're going to lose him after all."
Robin stood up and was frantically waving his hat in an attempt to catch the girl's attention, but she was concentrating on helping the stallion pick his way down the gully.
It was only then that both men, apparently simultaneously, realized Elizabeth was actually heading into danger.
Robin shouted, "Don't ride in there. Come back, you stupid bitch!"
Elizabeth looked back in surprise over her shoulder just as the stallion screamed a high pitched sound of terror, stood on his hind legs-almost unseating the girl-then pivoted and bolted up toward the glade again followed by Old Nick. Once at the top, the steed charged for the oaks, and before the young American girl could duck, she was swept off his back by a branch ... she fell to the ground heavily and lay there stunned as the frightened horse raced madly off.
When the wild pig reached the top of the gully he stopped for a moment, sniffing the wind and listening to the retreating horse. His blood-red eyes gleamed and his tusks shone dangerously in the sun as he swung his head from side to side looking for the enemy.
Elizabeth, a few yards away, groaned, and the boar lowered its head to charge. Robin and Tom looked at each other, appalled, then both started yelling as they ran toward the enraged animal. In an effort to distract Old Nick, Tom fired one musket from the hip on the run and threw the one-shot weapon away; Robin held on to both of his guns, knowing he would need the two muskets.
Old Nick swung back toward the two shouting men running toward him across the glade. His brain once again registered an enemy, and he was just getting ready to charge toward them when he caught sight of a closer enemy struggling to rise off the ground near the oak trees. Quickly he turned again.
"Lie still, you stupid bitch. Lie still!" Robin shouted.
Elizabeth, still not sure what had happened, shook her head to clear it and looked around. She saw the motionless black pig only twenty feet away from her, and she screamed in terror.
Old Nick lowered his head again. He took two dainty steps toward her then began his charge, tusks lowered.
Robin and Tom both fired their muskets, the two shots so close that it sounded as one. They saw Old Nick miss a stride, but his charge didn't falter. Robin fired his one remaining musket, saw a puff of dust rise from the boar's back leg, and Old Nick was on the ground, rolling over and over, at a tangent away from the screaming Elizabeth. About ten yards away, the pig managed to get to its feet again, then obviously hurting but not mortally wounded, trotted off at a limp toward the pines at the far end of the glade.
Robin and the gamekeeper both watched unhappily as the pig disappeared into the trees.
Tom took a deep sigh. "Well now. He'll lick his wounds for a day or two and then come back meaner than ever. Too bad. We had that devil for sure."
Robin's anger was growing. They had been so close to bagging the animal. It was all because that meddlesome, stupid ... He ground his teeth in frustration as he stalked toward the fallen girl.
The gamekeeper saw the furious look on the youth's face and he quickly tried to distract him by asking, "Are ye hurt, Mistress?"
"I ... I don't know," Elizabeth quavered, her lips trembling in a combination of fright and pain.
"Ye fell pretty hard. Can ye stand?" He reached down to assist her in rising.
Elizabeth took his leathery old hand and was pulled upright. She grimaced and rubbed her hip, then grimaced again as she lifted her right shoulder. Finally she nodded, "I'm all right. Bruised here and there, I think, but all right." She took a step forward, then staggered and groaned, her eyes filling with tears from the pain. "But my ankle's twisted."
Tom looked from the girl to the red-faced and angry Robin, then back to her again. "I'd best go to the Manor for a horse for ye." He jerked his head in disgust, "The one ye were riding is probably all the way to Solway Firth by now."
He glanced toward Lord Burton's glowering older son. "Will ye stay with her 'til I return?"
"Do I have any blasted choice?" Robin growled.
Tom glanced back and forth between the two of them then pursed his lips. They were going to fight, that was for sure. They looked like a hot-tempered pair, as soon as he was out of earshot they were going to be yelling at each other ... that was for sure. He scratched his head, "Well now. I'm to be back before nightfall." The older man didn't wait for an answer, but turned and trotted away in the direction of the Manor.
Slowly, and with great mental effort, Elizabeth began pulling the pieces together. A part of her subconscious recognized that Lord Burton's older son was angry with her about something, but she was much to preoccupied with her own emotions and aches to worry about him. In her mind she admitted that the accident was her own fault because of the lewd, forbidden feelings she had been experiencing as she rode the horse. There was something fantastically sensual about the powerful rhythm of the galloping stallion, and for the last ten minutes before she had ridden into the glade she had been deliberately scraping her throbbing vaginal mound up and down on the leather saddle, tantalizing her sensitive little clitoris until she felt she was about to explode. She hadn't been able to reach a climax, although twice she had been very close. It was that quest for release that made her decide to ride down toward the beach where she knew she would be unseen; there she planned to finger herself to orgasm. And she had been so preoccupied with that impending pleasure that she was completely unprepared for the stallion's sudden flight. His first rearing motion in the gully had almost unseated her, and that had so bewildered her that she had never regained her seat again.
The usually even-tempered Robin was surprised at the intensity of his own anger toward the girl. He was, and somehow he knew it, close to a "blind rage". It was occasioned by more than Elizabeth's inopportune arrival. It had begun during dinner the night before and had intensified when Ethan and he were having a nightcap in their sitting room.
Ethan, once he knew his brother was aware of the liaison between Elizabeth and himself, had been only too happy to admit it, and had even gone into detail about how passionate she was, how she begged him to fuck her.
Robin, more disturbed than he cared to admit, had asked, "What are your intentions toward the girl? Do you plan to marry her?"
"Marry? Her? My God, brother dear, don't be a fool. Her parents are wealthy enough, I suppose, but they're nobody. I shall take care of her cunt's needs until I tire of her, then you may have her for a dalliance if you wish."
The conversation kept running through Robin's mind now, and his brother's mocking voice echoed in his brain, infuriating him even more. He glared down at the American girl. She was just a trollop, a whore, Ethan's plaything! Why in hell was she out here spoiling a man's life, anyway?
Elizabeth's own unhappiness was increasing as her mind finally cleared. The black stinging clouds of sexual frustration had returned to her body; this, combined with her aches and her close call with death or disfigurement at the tusks of the wild boar, was simply too much. Tears began streaming down her face.
"Stop your damned snivelling!" Robin's voice was like a whiplash, and Elizabeth automatically cringed back from it.
She stared at his hate-twisted features, her mouth in amazement for a moment. Then her eyes narrowed and her chin thrust out as a red shroud of unreasoning anger immediately covered her mind.
"How dare you!" she spat. "Who do you think you're talking to?"
"To Ethan's whore."
"Why ... why you...." The girl hobbled two steps toward him and swung her riding crop. Before Robin could raise his arm, she slashed through the air with it and the leather whip struck him on the side of the face.
"You bitch," he snarled. Without volition, his hand came up and he slapped her so hard that she fell sideways. Elizabeth screamed as she fell, then twisted and landed on her hands and knees. She was up with the agility of a cat within a second and her riding crop whistled through the air again.
This time the young naval officer was prepared and he sidestepped the whip, then darted forward to snatch it from her hands. He threw it about twenty feet away, but she was on him with claws extended, scratching his face and drawing blood, using her knees and boots as though he were some insect to be stamped out.
They fought silently until her teeth bit into his arm, drawing blood. That's when Robin cursed loudly and slapped her again. The tall blonde girl didn't fall but she went for his eyes with her fingernails. He was able to grab both arms and twist them behind her back, but she kept using her knees against his groin and trying to bite him.
Elizabeth was far stronger than he had ever believed a female could be. When her knee came up into his groin again, this time he simply kicked her feet out from under her and she fell heavily to the ground, her long riding skirt swirling up to mid-thigh. He was on top of her immediately, forcing her arms behind her back again and using his powerful thigh muscles to keep legs captive.
He stared down at her face, inflamed with the imprint of his hand on the left side where he had slapped her. They were both breathing heavily, trying to regain their wind, with Elizabeth struggling futilely under his powerful body. Some part of Robin's mind registered the fact that some time during the struggle the girl's white silk blouse had come unbuttoned, and her chemise was showing. Her lushly ripened breasts were straining against the almost transparent material, and he could see the brown aureolas of her erected nipples.
When her struggles weakened somewhat, Robin sneered down at her. "Had enough, bitch?"
In reply, she spat in his face.
Brutally, he bent her arms further up her back, knowing he was really hurting her now, wanting to hear her moan. "You'll apologize for spitting at me," he said. "Then I'll release your arms, providing you mind your manners, whore!"
"You'll have to kill me first," she panted, her eyes wide in pain, refusing to let him have the pleasure of hearing her moan. Oh God, though, it felt as if her arms were being ripped right out of their sockets, and she could hardly breathe because he was sitting heavily right on her belly.
"Apologize," he demanded.
The unwanted tears sprang to her eyes and she shook her head negatively. An involuntary gasp of pain was wrenched out of her as he deliberately hurt her even more.
"Go ahead, kill me," she cried. "Killer. Filthy navy butcher. Brute." Her hips heaved up unexpectedly and for a second, Robin was off-balance. Elizabeth utilized the opportunity to twist sideways and one arm came loose from his brutal grasp.
Immediately Robin clamped down again, but this time his fingers caught not her arm but her silk blouse and the top of her chemise. There was a loud rip and her right breast was exposed. He got her arm twisted up in back of her again and then watched, almost mesmerized, as her naked mound of sensuous flesh rose and fell with each labored breath she took. He twisted his head around to look down the length of their bodies. Her blue velvet riding skirt was up around her waist now, and he could see, under her pantaloons, the shadowy outline of her pubic hair and the cleft of her vaginal lips.
It was only then that the young navy officer realized that sometime during their wrestling match his penis had become rock-hard in excitement and was now pulsating almost painfully in the crotch of his breeches. His glance returned to her nakedly straining breast. The little nipple was fully erected. He stared at it then lowered his suddenly salivating mouth and sucked her warm velvety flesh up into his mouth.
"No...." The girl's struggles increased again, but this time he held her completely helpless, and all of her frantic thrashing did no good whatsoever.
The taste of her soft warm flesh-slightly salty from her perspiration-in his mouth triggered an incredible carnal need in the young officer, and abruptly he knew he was going to treat her like the whore she was.
He pulled his mouth away from her wetly glistening breast and tightened his grip on her arms, pushing her wrists together so he could hold both of them with one hand.
"You called me a killer, a brute, a navy butcher." He growled. "You forgot the most important thing ... a rapist."
He saw her eyes widen now, for the first time, in genuine fright, and her panted breath started coming more rapidly. "No ... I won't let you."
"You have nothing to say about it. You're Ethan's slut. I'm going to fuck you."
"No," she cried, as he pulled his free arm out from under her body. Then she was fighting like a tigress as she felt his hand grasp the buttoned crotch of her pantaloons and simply rip it open so that the secret flesh up between her legs was defenselessly exposed.
"No!" she shouted. No ... Aaaaaaiiiiieeeeeeeeeee!" The ear-splitting scream of protest howled out of her throat and sent the nesting birds to flight as she felt his finger make a searing contact with her sensitive vaginal lips.
Robin paid no heed to her screams. All of his attention was focused on the message being carried to his brain by his finger. My God, she's so wet dawn there that I'd swear she's been fucking already, he thought, as he felt her moistly heated pussy engulf his finger.
"Nooooooooo," she screamed again as his outstretched middle finger slowly slipped up inside her helplessly cringing cunt. She couldn't believe this was actually happening to her. He couldn't be thinking of raping her. He couldn't!
Robin began fucking his finger in and out of her fevered vaginal opening, deliberately scraping against her clitoris on each stroke. If, as Ethan claimed, she begged to be fucked, then she would be begging within minutes, he thought. The lewd mental image of this haughty little slut pleading for his cock was tremendously exciting. He'd fuck her all right. Quickly he returned his mouth to her rubbery brown nipple and sucked it up between his ovaled lips.
Gradually it began to dawn on Elizabeth that Ethan's older brother was actually going to rape her. Her strength had been spent in fighting him, and she knew that her weakened body was incapable of sustaining any more punishment. But she just couldn't lie there and let that insufferable brute have his way with her. No ... and she meant it, she would rather die first. But, and oh God how she hated the thought, things were happening to her body. Down there between her legs her clitoris was vibrating rapturously each time his impaling finger scraped against it. And her breast, where his wetly heated mouth was sucking with a surprising gentleness, had begun tingling in erotic pleasure. Determinedly, she tried to stifle the unwanted jolts of pleasure that had begun rippling throughout her belly. No ... I won't give in to it. I won't! Oh God, please help me ... I can't.
Robin's finger was sliding so effortlessly in and out of her slippery young cunt that he decided to add another. Two fingers were fucking into her tightly clasping pussy when, diabolically, he began strumming her clitoris with his thumb. Any second now he was sure he would see some signs of surrender.
The struggling young American widow wanted to scream in outrage again, but she knew her protest this time would be at the reaction of her own traitorous body which was becoming almost hopelessly aroused. It took every bit of will power she had to keep from punching her hips up in unison with the lewd fucking motion of his fingers. Her breath increased as his tongue began making wet tantalizing circles around her passion-tautened nipple. With all the suddenness of a thunderclap, she instinctively knew that the savage battle they had fought-the gouging, slapping, scratching, clawing-had aroused her as she had never been aroused before. Not even with her late husband! This insight into her own nature stunned the young widow. This man, this brute, this horrible rapist was subduing her; he was treating her like an animal, and, oh God! there was nothing she could do about it. He was going to dominate her. He was! And the worst part of it all, she wanted it to happen!
Robin pulled his mouth away from her breast, disappointed that the helpless girl hadn't yet given any signs of surrendering. The only indication that he might be getting to her was that her tightly clasping cuntal walls had started rippling around his impaling fingers and her pussy was soaked with her slippery secretions.
They stared at each other silently like two fighters summing up, looking for weakness. Elizabeth fought the urge to spit at him again, but it would have been useless anyway because her throat was dry with what she recognized as a building desire. All her energies now were being devoted to controlling her shamelessly aroused body and making it behave so that he would have no idea of how she felt.
"You're a stubborn bitch," Robin said, a tinge of admiration in his voice.
Elizabeth closed her eyes, unable to look at him and fight her runaway emotions at the same time. Then, unexpectedly, his teasing fingers were pulled from her vagina. Oh God, she thought, maybe he's taking pity on me and is going to stop. But this thought had no sooner flickered through her mind when she felt his hips ease up slightly from her belly ... and she realized he was undoing his britches.
Robin had expected the girl to start struggling again when he eased off the pressure on her stomach, so he wasn't caught by surprise when she began squirming and twisting frantically under him. This time, though, her struggles lasted only a few seconds before she collapsed, panting in exhaustion once more. Quickly then, he completed the job of unbuttoning his pants. With the fingers of his free hand he pulled the opening wider, then reached in and pulled out his thick rigid penis. He stroked the foreskin back and forth over the lust-swollen tip of his cock, and felt his warmly pulsating shaft growing even thicker and longer.
"We'll fuck now," he said.
Elizabeth was determined that he would not be permitted the pleasure of hearing her plead, but in spite of this resolution, she heard her own voice, full of fright, crying, "No ... have pity. No...."
One part of the young navy officer's lust-inflamed mind was touched by her piteous whimper, but he was too far gone now. He couldn't have stopped if he had wanted to.
Quickly then, he shifted his hips slightly so that he was lying full-length on top of her, his hotly throbbing cock beating like a war drum against her cringing belly through her pantaloons.
The helpless young girl tried to squirm away from his pulsating shaft, but all she did was permit him to slide down further on her body. Now his lust-thickened penis was beating at the pit of her belly, and when he shifted again it was trailing through her pubic hair.
Robin's breath was coming quickly and irregularly now. He wanted to look down and see what her cunt looked like, but that was an impossibility because she would have her arms freed then. His excitedly pulsing cock was in place now, he could feel the sensitive tip of it pressing against her wetly heated pussy flesh.
"No...." she whimpered. "Please, don't."
The young naval officer let his thick rigid shaft remain poised just above the tiny opening leading up into her vagina. He savoured the feeling of her pussy hair scraping against the glans until he could stand the building excitement no longer.
He pressed forward and his swollen cock head nudged her fevered flesh. The girl squirmed frantically again, but he stayed with her, and soon she fell silent, breathing rapidly like some trapped and helpless animal with her arms pinned behind her.
Then he was shoving forward, driving his rigidly thickened prick into the liquid heat of her tight young pussy.
Elizabeth felt something much bigger and thicker than she had ever experienced before sliding into her painfully stretched flesh. At first she coudln't believe it was a male penis, but then remembering Lord Burton's massive organ the day he fucked the maid, she realized the boy was like his father. She bore the pain as long as she could, then screamed.
"Aaaaaaggggghhhhhh!" She was being torn apart, split asunder like a log down there.
She stiffened her body and thrust upward in a futile attempt to escape that did nothing except impale her forever-stretched cunt even deeper on his hotly throbbing hardness. Down, down, down went his rock-hard shaft, going deeper than anyone had ever been into her before. Of their own accord her legs spread out in an effort to widen her horribly stretched cuntal channel. And the relentless white shaft of pulsating white male flesh continued its inexorable penetration up into her cringing belly until she felt the swollen tip of it brush against her cervix and his heavily-laden balls slap against her ass-cheeks. He was all the way into her, at least three inches deeper than his brother had been, deeper by far than William had ever been. Her cunt was on fire, a conflagration of pain and shame that surged and flickered like a destructive forest fire with each pulsating beat of her vagina.
"You're a tight little whore," he said, his forehead breaking out in beads of sweat.
That insult, added to her pain, caused her tears to begin flowing again, and above her Robin felt a sudden acute twinge of guilt. Well, it was too late now to be sorry. He'd fuck her rapidly, get it over with ... and maybe try to make it up to the stubborn little bitch later. Slowly then, he began withdrawing his excitedly pulsating cock, feeling her slippery vaginal walls rippling all around his shaft. He pulled out about four inches then slowly, savouring every millimeter of it, began pushing it back up inside her wetly clasping cunt.
"You're hurting me" she whimpered, her breath coming in hoarse pants.
"Yes. I know." Sadistically, he flexed his rigid shaft, making it jump inside her tight cuntal walls.
"No ... don't," she panted.
All of Elizabeth's mind and sensations now were centered down there between her legs. Never before had she been so filled. It was as if her belly was being stretched upward and outward from his thick pulsating cock. Her vagina was bleeding and ripped, she was sure, for she could feel what she thought was blood seeping down between her quivering ass-cheeks Robin knew, though, what that wetness was down there. Not blood, but cuntal lubricants which had automatically started preparing her cock-filled pussy for fucking.
Elizabeth shuddered and took a deep breath, and Robin felt her vaginal muscles quiver around his impaling shaft as he withdrew it partially, before thrusting in again to nudge his swollen cockhead once more against her sensitive cervix. In ... out. In ... out. Speed increasing now, as well as depth of strokes. In ... out ... in ... out. He was fucking his long hard cock in and out of her hotly clasping pussy and, miraculously, Robin felt her vaginal lips beginning to ripple with what was undoubtedly a response. A moment later, he felt her cunt dip slightly on the instroke and he grinned in victory as he knew the hot little bitch was attempting now to scrape her clitoris against his rigid shaft.
Elizabeth was not conscious of her body beginning to react to the rape. She was aware, however, that the pain was going away down there between her legs. She still felt stuffed. There would be no pleasure from this brutal rape ... nor did she want there to be any. He had called her a "whore", and that was exactly what she was. She should never have succumbed to her body's carnal needs with Ethan. Never!
As Robin thrust his lust-hardened penis in and out of the soft slippery warmth of the young American widow's cunt, he could feel her vaginal lips clinging like elastic to his thickened shaft. Again and again he flexed his ass-cheeks, making his prick jump against the head of her cervix. Once, he thought he saw a flicker of pleasure cross her pain-twisted face.
Satisfied he was on the right tract now, he resumed his smooth rhythmic fucking motions in and out of her tight young cunt. Then, suddenly, her pussy walls were massaging his penis, and never before in his life had he felt anything half as erotic. Deliberately he rode a little higher on her, so that he was applying constant friction to her clitoral bud.
When he glanced down at her face again, the pain was being replaced by something else, unfathomable. Her lips had parted slightly; they looked moist and sensual again. Her naked breast was rising and falling, and to his eyes it looked as if it were getting fuller. Certainly the color was changing, becoming almost blue as the excited blood pounded through her erogenous nerve endings.
Elizabeth was fighting her own pleasure now. When she felt his hotly throbbing hardness sliding deep up into her womb, she was surprised how wonderful it felt. She could feel every pulsating vein, every ridge on the corrugated trunk of his huge penis. And as she felt it beating inside her vagina, it seemed almost as if it were an integral part of her.
"Oh ... no," she moaned, as she realized that her body was taking control of her mind. Her cock-impaled pussy rose involuntarily to meet his inward thrust and her hips were grinding in urgent little circles on each of his withdrawal strokes as it sought to scrape and titillate every vibrating nerve up between her legs.
Now she could feel everything! Oh God! Everything! And it felt so wonderful!
Her body abruptly became alive, more alive than it had ever been before. She could feel his powerful stomach muscles rippling against her abdomen, could feel his fingers holding her hands captive behind her back, could feel her cuntal muscles moving in a rhapsodic rhythm against his warmly pulsating prick as it fucked in and out of her, could feel her breasts swelling as though they were about to explode. Oh God! Oh God!
Robin rocked above her, rotating his hips now, driving his swollen cock in at different angles, ramming deep up into her belly until his sperm-laden balls slapped against her quivering inner thighs and ass-cheeks. Her undulating pelvis began matching his rotation movements as her hot young pussy devoured his prick on each inward slice.
In spite of her revulsion at this brutal rape, Elizabeth's mouth was beginning to open and close with a wanton pleasure. She no longer cared that she was being dominated by her lover's older brother, no longer cared what he thought of her. Just let him fuck her and keep on fucking her until she obtained the release that she had needed so badly and for so long a time.
It's hard to tell which of the two were the most surprised when Elizabeth's long slender legs wrapped themselves around his pumping hips, and she began using her boots against his buttocks to drive his long hard cock in deeper and deeper into her screaming pussy. With the departure of her resistance, all she wanted now was pleasure and more pleasure, and she would do anything requested of her to keep that pleasure going.
As the young blonde widow suddenly went wild beneath him, Robin thought for a second that she was cumming. For the first time he felt some of his own self-control leaving. He began savagely ramming his thickened shaft into her tightly clasping cunt, working faster now as her hair-lined pussy rose to meet him with each thrust. Her fevered vaginal lips nibbled at his wetly glistening rod of flesh as he fucked it in and out of her tight little hole. It felt so tremendously sensual that he knew he was losing all control.
Elizabeth was moving into a high plateau of pure pleasure now. She knew that her long-awaited release was only moments away. Her long blonde hair flailed against the grass, and her breath hissed out of her lungs in mewls of wanton passion as she gave herself to him completely. She was reaching for it ... reaching for her climax. This brutal rapist and his massive cock fucking up into her belly had triggered the insane pleasure she could feel screaming throughout every nerve in her body.
Robin watched the passion-crazed girl, fighting his own impending climax. He didn't want this to end yet. Not yet! He had raped her this time, she would never let him near her again ... and he wanted this fantastic pleasure to continue as long as it could.
Elizabeth was almost there. She knew she was only a second away from it. Two more strokes ... then ... then ... She could feel the tears building up in her eyes-tears of pleasure, she supposed-as her cunt began rippling like the ground in an earthquake.
And then, just when she was sure she had it, Robin stopped!
Her eyes blinked open. Her breath came in short desperate pants. "What ... what?"
Robin could feel her tight little vagina nibbling and sucking at his long hard shaft. If that continued, he would cum whether he wanted to or not. With one smooth motion of his hips, he withdrew his wetly glistening prick until only the cockhead itself was inside her slippery cuntal mouth.
"Why ... why are you stopping?" the girl asked, staring up at him with disbelieving eyes.
Robin tried to regain his breath, stalling for time. He couldn't decide whether to go ahead and finish it right now, or string it out and try to make it last.
"Wha ... what's wrong?" Elizabeth asked again, blinking as the perspiration flowed off her forehead and into her eyes. Oh God! What was wrong with him? Did he realize how close she was? Was he being deliberately cruel? Did he want her to beg him? If he did, she would! She no longer cared what she sounded like. A whore. A slut! What did it matter as long as he would extinguish that fire raging in her loins. She wanted-had to have-his hotly throbbing penis back up inside her belly.
"Don't stop ... please," she pled, knowing she was humiliating herself by begging. "Please don't stop."
Robin stared down at her lust-contorted features. Well, it finally happened. He had broken her spirit. She was begging to be fucked. "Please don't stop what?" he demanded cruelly.
She stared up at him, tears of shame in her eyes at having to admit it. Then she was screaming, "Don't stop fucking me. Fuck me.
Fuck me, you bastard." The sound of her own voice wailing out the obscenities made the flames of lewd excitement leap even higher in her belly, and her hips rose to meet his rock-hard shaft as he viciously rammed it to the hilt in her steaming cunt. He fucked into her like a maddened bull, each body jolting thrust going deeper up into her tight little pussy than before. Her legs had locked like a vise behind his pumping buttocks now and she rose and twisted and squirmed like a hooked salmon beneath him, fucking back, fucking as though she couldn't get enough of him.
Robin's first indication that he had released her hands came when she reached up and pulled his face down to hers, kissing him passionately, her tongue swimming into his mouth, sucking his answering tongue. He thrust mercilessly into her heated vaginal sheath as he reached and passed the point where he could stop his climax. She fucked back, meeting each of his strokes, sucking his tongue down her throat as if she wanted a meeting of his cock and his tongue at midpoint in her quivering belly.
Abruptly Robin gave himself up to the wild jolts of pleasure emanating from his balls. He was there, and there could be no doubt about it now. He was cumming. He hammered his wildly jerking cock in and out of her tight young pussy with as much force as he could muster, and he could feel the wet heat of her vaginal walls suddenly growing hotter, slipperier.
Beneath him, Elizabeth's eyes opened wide and her body stiffened. Then she sucked in her breath and began shuddering. "I'm cumming," she gasped. "Keep fucking. I'm cumming." Her body convulsed crazily as her tight vaginal walls began rippling all around his burgeoning cock.
Robin fucked her as he had never fucked a woman before, as though it would be the last fuck ever for him. He battered his ejaculating hardness as far as it would go up inside her belly and felt the waves of pleasure wash over him as he filled her spasming cunt with his heated sperm.
Elizabeth screamed again in wanton delight as she felt the first gush of his semen jet against her battered cervix. She worked muscles deep inside her cunt, milking his thick penis in a hungry attempt to get even more of his life-giving jism. And her orgasm went on ... and on ... and on!
Gradually, though, like a fading sunset, the impulses of carnal delight began to weaken. With it, she felt his virile maledom deflating; it was as though it were melting, dying slowly, inside her belly. She could feel the spasms of his ejaculation growing weaker and weaker ... and then she could feel his shaft pulsating no more!
She was weeping softly in a combination of shame and relief and joy when he finally pulled out of her. She felt the heated flood of semen flowing out of her pantaloons. She had acted like a whore in heat; she had been treated like one. This man had brought her unwanted pleasure, had made her feel more ecstasy, more like a woman than she had ever felt before. He had struck her, brutally raped her, humiliated her, completely dominated her ... so why didn't she hate him? Why?
Robin's anger had drained out of him as the pressure in his cum-filled balls eased. Abruptly, the shameful thing that he had done to this helpless young girl struck him with all the force of a sledge hammer. God! What could have gotten into him? He'd never acted so viciously, so brutally before in his entire life. He stood upright, then turned away to replace his now flaccid penis inside his britches, buttoning up the front again before he turned back. He stared down at the gently crying girl. Her legs were still wantonly spread apart and he could see, for the first time, her golden, corn-silk pussy hair matted with his semen and her vaginal secretions. His glance went to her one naked breast. It was reddened and a bruise was already forming where his teeth had savagely sunk into her soft flesh.
And her face? It was dirty and tear-streaked, but even under the dirt and tears he could plainly see the imprint of his hand where he had so brutally slapped her.
Suddenly he was on his knees beside her, cradling her head in his lap, his voice full of guilt and contriteness, "Oh my God, Elizabeth ... I'm so sorry!" He rained kisses all over her forehead and cheeks. "I'm so sorry. I never meant to do this...."
Elizabeth heard his voice and recognized the shame he felt. It didn't make her feel any better though; she had acted like a slut with Ethan, and had been treated like one by his brother. She had responded to this man who had so mercilessly raped her, had responded with a dark vigor that could only come from her own demented soul. She was no better than he.
"Elizabeth?"
She took a deep sigh, and shook her head slowly. "It was my fault, too," she said. "My fault because of the shameless way I acted with Ethan."
"That was no excuse for me, though. I'm sorry I called you a bitch and a whore."
"Why? I am one." It was said sadly.
"No. You're just a woman, with a woman's needs. And I'm a fool." He swallowed loudly and brushed her hair out of her eyes.
Suddenly, for some reason she couldn't fathom, it became extremely important to the young widow that Robin know about her. With trembling voice she told him of William's death at the hands of the British at Charlestown. His reaction surprised her. He was a British naval officer, yet he had responded with genuine heat, and she realized that he was actually pro-American. The more she spoke and observed his reactions, the closer she felt to him.
She dreaded the necessity to confess about what had happened with Ethan, but she felt compelled to tell him everything now. She must have no secrets from him. Her face coloring, she told of her nightly dreams which almost made her go mad. Then of waking up half-frozen to find Ethan lying naked next to her....
"I couldn't...." She closed her eyes and corrected herself. "I didn't stop him. I could have, but it was too late. I wanted him to make me complete again."
"You don't have to tell me this, Elizabeth. I know now what happened. Ethan tricked you. And ... I'm so sorry that I thought what I did about you."
She studied his handsome features hovering anxiously above her. I could fall in love with him, she thought. I'm already attracted to him. Some instinct deep in her loins and heart told her that she could be happy with this man. That made it even more important to tell him everything. She lifted her head from his lap and sat upright, making a little grimace as she shifted her sore hip.
"Even if there was an excuse for that first night, you should know that I welcomed him the next night and the next ... and if my mother and father hadn't arrived, I'd probably still be welcoming him."
Thoughtfully Robin got to his feet. He stood looking down at the sitting girl, then turned and walked a few paces away. A part of his mind was in torment. Was the girl still infatuated with his brother? Should he warn her that Ethan was completely unscrupulous, unfaithful? Had no interest in her as a person? Would use her, discard her. But why should he care what Elizabeth did? Then it came to him, something he instinctively realized now: the reason he had been so violently angry with her was because he, Robin, was jealous.
He turned back to her, noting that she had rebuttoned her blouse and had pulled her skirt down to cover her feminine flesh. "Would you still welcome him now?"
She stared at him for a long time. Then he saw her swallow and her blonde hair shook negatively.
"Why?" he demanded.
Her face colored and she bit her lips. Then she said, huskily, "Do you have to ask?"
Robin couldn't keep the pleased look off his face. All right, he thought, everything is going to be all right. There was still one thing to be set straight. "You called me a navy butcher, Elizabeth."
She cast her eyes down and interrupted. "I'm sorry."
"No, don't be. You're the first person to know. I'm resigning from the Navy. I decided that on the voyage home." He took a deep breath. "I'm thinking of going to America to live."
The young blonde looked up, sudden understanding in her eyes of the enormity of what he was doing. "But your father?"
"He'll understand." And he would, Robin knew he would. The older man might not like it, but he would accept it.
"When are you going to tell him?"
"I had thought of waiting until after Christmas."
"That's wise."
Robin went back over and sat down beside her. "Now I'd like to tell you about me."
"Everything?" she teased. "Everything!"
"Why?"
"Do you have to ask?"
She blushed again, reading the expression in his eyes. Her voice was soft as she shook her head again. "Tell me then...."
Tom Dewlight found them together, their heads together, talking for all the world like lovers when he returned with three horses two hours later. He scratched his gray head thoughtfully. He'd been positive they would have a fight and start yelling at each other, but instead there they were talking up a storm ... just as if their entire future life depended upon it....
* * *
On the whole, Ethan did not take the news too badly, which paradoxically pleased and irritated Elizabeth. It might have been a more embarrassing scene had it not been for the fact that Ethan had returned from Craxmore with some "friends", one of whom was a fellow playwright from London, General John Burgoyne.
"We call him Gentleman Johnny," Ethan told Elizabeth as he introduced the British general to the young American widow in the library that night before dinner.
"General," she acknowledged, nodding her head. "I'm familiar with your work. I saw "Feathers" at the Strand earlier this year."
"Not one of my better works, I fear. But thank you, Madame."
"You're much to modest, Johnny," Ethan said. He sighed dramatically. "I wish mine were half as good...."
"Stop fishing for compliments, Ethan," the General growled. "Nothing wrong with your work. Everyone likes it, and you know it." He scratched a point just below his right ear and added, "A bit undisciplined...."
Elizabeth was amused, in spite of her physical closeness to Ethan. The General was an entertaining man, witty, a raconteur, and she hadn't been lying about enjoying his work. He was one of London's better playwrights. She liked his plays almost as much as those of Oliver Goldsmith.
The three of them turned to the door as Robin walked in. Elizabeth, feeling a warm glow, watched him move toward her.
Ethan's eyes narrowed, only momentarily, then he made the introduction. "Johnny. May I present my brother, Robin. Robin, General John Burgoyne."
The two men shook hands, appraising each other as military men are apt to do.
"We're happy that you could join us, General. My father will be here in a moment. I believe you and he are friends also."
"Oh yes. I've spent some good days here with him at Marleyhead, the last time about two and a half years ago before the troubles broke out in America." He took a sip of his sherry. "Tell me. Has anyone caught that blasted pig yet?"
Robin's glance flickered over toward Elizabeth who bit her lower lip in amusement. The Genral glanced back and forth between them suspecting he had missed something.
It was Elizabeth who said, "Robin and the gamekeeper had him only yesterday noon ... but then I ruined it for them."
Robin added quickly, "We had him going down a gully toward a closed beach. It wasn't Elizabeth's fault; she didn't know we were there ... almost got herself killed when Old Nick came after her. Tom and I put three balls into him, and he trotted off as if he owned the forest."
"You'll never bag him," Gentleman Johnny said. "He's protected by the Devil. Like some of those damned American militiamen."
Abruptly the bonhomie was gone. What could have proved to be an extremely awkward moment was aborted by the arrival of Lord Burton.
"John," he called from the open doorway, then advanced across the room, with his hand outstretched. "How good to see you again."
"Hello, Phillip." The two men shook hands enthusiastically.
"What brings you up to the hinderlands this time of year?" Lord Burton asked, pouring himself a sherry from the decanter.
"I'm assembling an expedition to put down-once and for all-those damned rebels. We'll split them, drive them to their knees, and bring them to their senses. I have Lord George Germain's blessings on the venture."
"And how do you plan to split them, sir?" Robin asked, almost too casually.
"We'll invade from Canada."
Lord Burton glanced toward Elizabeth who had suddenly become white faced and tense. He sighed. "Johnny, you remember Marleyhead's rule about politics at the table?"
"Of course I do, dear chap. And I shall respect it. At the dinner table."
Robin poured the general another glass of sherry, and said, "As a navy man, I'd like to hear more about your plans."
"Certainly. Well, I propose a three-pronged movement of troops. I'll come down from Canada and take Ticonderoga and Saratoga, Howe will send troops up from the Hudson. I'll use Barry St. Leger to strike eastward from Oswego. We'll all join at Albany and...."
He talked. Robin and Elizabeth listened. And Lord Burton, watching the silent interplay between the beautiful American widow and his oldest son, had a sudden foreboding, a chill down his spine as though someone had stepped on his grave. He had no way of knowing that he was witnessing a turning point in history and that in the flickering firelight of his library, the eventual outcome of the war in America was being lost by one man's boastful tongue....
* * *
Elizabeth and Robin announced their betrothal on Christmas Day; it came as no surprise to her parents or his father ... as a matter-of-fact the older people seemed to greet the announcement with relief. They all had been uncomfortably aware of Elizabeth's radiantly glowing complexion after she and Robin returned from horseback riding each day.
"Well, they seem like a solid pair," Lord Burton told Elizabeth's father. "It'll last. And you and I both will have grandchildren climbing all over us before too long, I suspect."
Actually, Robin's father was delighted with the match. His pleasure was tainted only by a gnawing uneasiness that grew with each passing day. Robin was changed, but he had been changed when he returned home from his last voyage. The boy was withholding something from him; he could tell! Relations obviously were not the best between his brother-the Admiral-and his oldest son. There had been a decided coolness between them even before the appalling evening a week ago when Robin had insisted reading an article from the London Gazette, at mid-point in which, his brother had gotten up and stalked out of the library.
There had been a determination, a fieriness about Robin that his father had never seen before. The boy's voice was emotion choked as he had read the article aloud.
"This is a letter to the Lord Mayor," he said, tapping the newspaper. "And it says...."
I was last week on board the American privateer called the Yankee, commanded by Captain Johnson, and lately brought into this port by Captain Ross, who commanded one of the West Indian sugar ships, taken by the privateer in July last; and, as an Englishman, I earnestly wish your lordship, who is so happily placed at the head of this great city, (justly famed for its great humanity even to enemies,) would be pleased to go likewise or send proper persons, to see the truly shocking, and I may say, barbarous and miserable condition of the unfortunate American prisoners who, however criminal they may be thought to have been, are deserving of pity and entitled to common humanity.
They are twenty five in number, and all inhumanly shut close down, like wild beasts, in a small stinking hold of a sloop, without a breath of air in this sultry season but what they receive through a small grating overhead, the openings in which are not more than two inches square in any part, and through which the sun beats intensely hot all day.
I do not at all exaggerate, my lord; I speak the truth; and the resemblance that this barbarity bears to the memorable black hole of Calcutta, as a gentleman present on Saturday observed, strikes every one at the sight. All England ought to know that the same game is now acting upon the Thames on board this privateer that all the world cried out against and shuddered at the mention of in Indian.
The putrid steams issuing from the hold are so hot and offensive that one cannot, without the utmost danger, breathe over it, and I should not be at all surprised if it should cause a plague to spread. The miserable wretches below look like persons in a hot bath, panting, sweating, and fainting for want of air; and the surgeon declares that they must all soon perish in that situation, especially as they are almost all in a sickly state with bilious disorders.
The men imprisoned herein are sensible and well-behaved young men; they give a very good account of themselves, having no signs of fear, and being supported by a consciousness of the justice of their cause. They are men of character, of good families in New England, and highly respected in their different occupations; but being stripped of all their worldly possessions and homes by the British burning of towns and other destructive measures of the present unnatural war, were forced to take the disagreeable method of making reprisals to maintain themselves and their children, rather than starve.
Numbers of gentlemen, and friends of government, who were on board at the same time, will confirm the truth of my representation, being very sensibly touched themselves at the horrid sight.
English prisoners, taken by the Americans, have been treated with the most remarkable tenderness and generosity, as numbers who are safely returned to England most freely confess. And it is a fact, which can be well attested in London, that this very surgeon on board the privateer, after the Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1975, for many days voluntarily and generously, without fee or reward, employed himself in dressing the King's wounded soldiers, who but an hour before would have shot him if they could. He even made a collection for their refreshment, of wine, linen, money, etc., in the town where he lived. This is a real fact, of which the most ample testimony may be had.
The capture of the privateer was solely owing to the ill-judged lenity and brotherly kindness of Captain Johnson, who not considering his English prisoners in the same light that he would a Frenchman or Spaniard, put them under no sort of confinement, but permitted them to walk the decks as freely as his own people, at all times. Taking advantage of this indulgence the prisoners one day, watching their opportunity, when most of the privateer's people were below and asleep, shut down the hatches, and making all fast, had immediate possession of the vessel without using any force.
The ship lies opposite to Ratcliffe Cross, a mile and a half below the Tower...."
The room had been silent when Robin finished reading, then Lord Burton had cleared his throat. "You see now, Lad, why Marleyhead Manor has a rule about politics. One should leave their politics behind when they come here. We've had the rule for two hundred years that I know of. Wars and political intrigues may rage in the world outside, but Marleyhead should be-and is, I hope-an oasis where men and women can speak of better things."
And Ethan, who had sat there quietly during the exchange between the Admiral and Robin, now stared speculatively at his brother, as if seeing him for the first time. Well, well. What do you know. I have a radical for a brother. He's a bloody revolutionary. It'll be amusing to see what happens next. For a second or so, he thought that perhaps Elizabeth might have been the reason for Robin's change, but then he realized that for as far back as he could recall, his brother had always been a little soft in the head and strange about the rights of men.
Lazily, he poured himself another cup of Madiera. Maybe he could write a play about it someday. A comedy, yes, of course, that was it ... a comedy about little men with no breeding or knowledge taking over the government. It would be hilarious....
* * *
Robin and his father went hunting for Old Nick on the last day of the year. It had rained heavily the evening before, but the day dawned clear and brisk with a good off-shore breeze blowing. The wet ground would help with the hunt because it muffled the sound of their footsteps, and tracking would be easier.
They picked up the boar's trail about ten in the morning and followed it around one of the small lakes dotting the Marleyhead estate. On the hillside where the wild grapes grew they found the ground pawed up, and it had been uprooted so recently that all of the worms had not yet gone back beneath the surface.
They were inspecting the perimeter when they both jumped in startled fright as they heard a loud snap and an angry squealing. Their glances shot toward the strand of walnut trees where they could see one of the trees quivering as though it were being shaken by some powerful force.
Slowly both men started toward the area, each inspecting his gun for readiness. As they approached, they could see the boar struggling, dancing madly on his hind legs, his right front paw caught in a limb snare that had sprang upright when triggered, causing a loop to tighten around the leg and pull it high into the air.
Lord Burton stopped when they got about fifty feet away. Robin went forward a few steps more. He turned back to his father questioningly. "You ... or me?" he asked.
"He's yours," the older man said, his eyes taking in the sight of the powerful animal caught and helpless in the trap.
Robin paused then put his thoughts into words. "I don't want you to think me a fool, but I won't relish the thought of taking him this way."
"Well said, lad." He grinned and added, "Well, you've caught a Devil by the arm, he'll not be happy when you let him go."
"I'll climb the tree and cut him loose from there."
"I'll climb this tree before you start cutting if you don't mind."
A few minutes later, Robin-with knife clasped between his teeth-was easing out on the swaying sapling limb that held the snare noose. His weight caused the limb to bend closer to the ground, and Old Nick, finding some firm footing, began thrashing so violently that Lord Burton was sure the boy would be thrown to the ground.
When Robin finally reached the rope, he readied the knife and stared down at the beady red eyes of the boar, the razor sharp tusks, the mean ugly snout less than five feet away from him. Animal and man stared at each other and then with one slash Robin severed the rope. Old Nick fell backward to the ground and rolled over, then came up charging at the limb which was now out of reach.
"That's gratitude for you," Lord Burton called, laughing.
Old Nick, hearing the voice, spun around and charged toward the tree where the older man was safely ensconced on a branch about seven feet off the ground. The boar trotted around and around the tree trunk several times, gazed balefully up at the human, and then trotted off back in the direction of the grape vines.
When they were sure the beast was really gone, father and son climbed down. With guns being carried casually over the shoulder, they started the long walk back toward the Manor.
They walked in companionable silence until Lord Burton asked, "You know what would have happened if we had just left him in the noose?"
"He undoubtedly would have chewed his own leg off in order to be free."
"Yes, he would have done that. Freedom means that much to some animals."
"To some men, as well, father."
"I've no doubt."
Well, Robin thought, this is as good a time as any to tell him. He swallowed a couple of times, building up his nerve, then said, "I've something to say that ... that may hurt you, but believe me ... I would rather lose my life than to bring pain to you...."
Lord Burton stopped, then smiled sadly. "You've no need. I think I've known it for a week or two. You'll be going to America with Elizabeth."
"I had planned to go before I met her."
"You've thought it all out. You realize what it means, boy? Giving up everything? Career? Eventually a title?"
Robin nodded. "There is only one thing that I could not give up without a heavy heart, and that would be your affection, your respect."
Lord Burton stepped forward and put his arm around the boy's shoulder. "You've no fear of that." He stared into his son's face. "It's just as well, I suppose. You and Old Nick ... if I tried to hold you here by your arm against your will, you'd probably chew it off in order to get away."
Robin felt a lump growing in his throat. "Thank you, father," he said quietly. "When will you be leaving?"
"In February or March."
"All right. Will you and Elizabeth be married before you leave?"
"We would like to."
"So be it." The older man took a deep sigh, tightened his arm around Robin's shoulder for a second, then stepped back. "Come along then. The grouse should be feeding in the meadow by the lake. We shouldn't go home empty handed...."
CHAPTER THREE
OSWEGO, NEW YORK-MAY, 1777
There were supposed to be 18 of them at the meeting, but only ten men had arrived by the time Elizabeth bolted the door and set the heavy timber cross piece into place. Robin nodded at her and she pulled the drapes into place over the windows.
"Does anyone know where the rest of us are?" Robin asked of the men gathered around the table.
"Peterson lost his leg to a surgeon last week."
"Franklin Adams was shot four times, then hung still bleeding, as a spy by General Millard."
"A hundred and sixty seven scalps were delivered to General Herkimer on Monday last. John Mallory's was one of them."
A gaunt, small pox-scarred older man looked up. "Wilson and Merriam were seized by St. Leger's men this morning."
There were murmurs of unease around the table at this news. Finally a muscular German by the name of Axel stood and spoke, "This is a dangerous place to be, Robin Burton. We've no evidence at all that what you've been telling us is the truth. For all we know, you may be a St. Leger spy trying to trap us." He read the expression in Robin's eyes and stiffened as he saw Timmy Arnold pull a pistol and point it at him. Quickly he added, "Well, what I mean to say is perhaps this General Burgoyne changed his mind about attacking through Canada and has gone elsewhere."
Robin shook his head. "No, you're wrong." He turned to a youth dressed in frontiersmen clothes who was sitting at the end of the table near the fireplace. "Billy, give them your report."
"Burgoyne arrived on May sixth. He has 7,213 men; three brigades of British regulars and three brigades of Hessians."
Robin nodded, then turned to another man, this one dressed as a prosperous merchant. "John? May we have your report?"
"Our Colonel St. Leger is planning a cross-country expedition beginning next month. He boasts a lot when he drinks. Says he will join up with Burgoyne in mid-July."
The big German sat down and mopped his brow. "So it's all true."
"It's true," Robin said, solemnly. "Originally there were thirty of us to stop this invasion; now there are only ten."
"What can ten men do?" someone muttered dejectedly.
Robin glanced over his group. Axel, in spite of his remarks, was one of the best men he had, next to Billy who could move almost at will through Indian country. In spite of his grousing, Axel could be counted on to fight when the time came. He looked at Stanton, whose wife and six children had been killed by British-led Indians earlier in the year. Stanton was only in his mid-thirties, but he looked burned out, defeated, and sixty years old. Timmy Arnold was as devoted as a hunting dog to him, but the lad had a hot temper and had to be watched constantly.
It wasn't much of an army, he thought. But we have to use what we have, accept whatever help is offered. Quickly then, he began issuing orders. "Billy, I want you to carry a message to General Gates at Ticonderoga. I've written it all out, together with a rough map of what Burgoyne plans to do on his sweep down from Lake Champlain. There's a second message here to General Washington. Give it to General Gates or General Schuyler and tell them that Washington must see it. Perhaps he'll be able to ambush Howe's forces as they come up the Hudson. The rest of us ... we're only nine with Billy leaving, but we must stop St. Leger some way. If we can keep him from joining Burgoyne's forces, the entire invasion will come to a halt at the first snows."
He looked around the table. "So this is what we must do. St. Leger and Burgoyne both are counting on the help of the Indians. If that help isn't forthcoming, of if the Indians desert, both men will be in difficulties. So, somehow or the other, we've got to drive a wedge between the Indians and the British."
Even as the young leader spoke, however, he realized the enormity of the task in front of them. The British had been using the Indians since the beginning of the war to terrorize the settlers. They were almost animal-like in their ferocity, but there were many instances of them deserting the British regulars or the Hessians for one reason or the other ... and they were a superstitious lot. The best place for some sort of confrontation obviously lay at least a week's march to the east, where-if they deserted St. Leger would not be able to replace them. There was even a logical place for this to happen; Billy had scouted an abandoned fort in the Mohawk Valley called Fort Stanwix. It was -rimmed on the south by a hill, actually a large mound, that most of the Indians held in awe. Some Indians claimed the gods lived there, others felt it was the abode of devils. In neither instance would they go anywhere near it during darkness, and they avoided trespassing on the ground during the day.
Ever since Billy had told him about the surrounding terrain at Fort Stanwix, Robin had instinctively felt that some use might be made of the place and he had made his plans accordingly.
He turned back to the men. "It's becoming too dangerous for us to meet like this any longer. I'll personally contact you, using Elizabeth or Timmy. St. Leger plans to move out toward the east within three weeks. We must be ready to move in ten days. Here's a list of special equipment and materials I'll need...." He passed a list to each of the men.
Axel snorted loudly. "A hundredweight of phosphorus? Two hundredweights of sulphur?" He glanced at Robin. "What are you trying to do, cure the entire British army of the pox?" He guffawed loudly, then became serious and scratched his mutton chop whiskers. "The sulphur is no problem. But the phosphorus?"
"Do what you can," Robin said. "I'll need it packaged so we can carry it on horseback."
John Dexter, the prosperous merchant read his list with beaded eyebrows, then shook his head and read it again. "Are you daft, Robin? A thousand macaw feathers? Feathers? Macaw feathers? Where would I ever get anything like that? And a long black wig?"
"Do what you can, John," he said, repeating his earlier instructions to Axel.
Both Oswego merchants looked at each other with puzzled expressions on their faces, then shrugged and nodded. If that was what this young man needed to stop an invasion, they'd gladly do their best. But phosphorus? Macaw feathers? Sulphur?
The entire group left about thirty minutes later, slipping one by one out in the darkness. Billy was the last to go. Robin handed him the message for General Washington and Gates.
"God speed," Robin said. "Be careful."
"I'll go rapidly," the youth said. "And then I'll try to rejoin you at Fort Stanwix in a month."
Finally, Elizabeth and Robin were alone. They sat wearily before the fireplace, Elizabeth anxiously watching the shadows play across his face. She reached out and touched his hand. "Are you sorry you came, Robin?" she asked softly.
"No. Are you?"
"Only when the mosquitoes bite," she grinned, then sobered. "It's not going the way you thought it would, is it?"
Robin shook his head. "I had hoped for more help. Lots of help. Heroes and patriots. The band playing. Flashy uniforms and flowers and cheering people...."
Elizabeth sighed deeply. "I'm sorry, darling. The Tories are too firmly entrenched here. They'll remain that way as long as the British quarter their troops here."
Robin rubbed his temples. "You know, when I first thought about America and the war here, I never realized what the reality of the situation was. In the Navy, we fight, fall back, fight again. And though it's not at all moral or intelligent, there's still the trappings of civilization in our battles. But here...." He shook his head again. "Did you hear that report about the Mohawks sending a hundred and sixty seven scalps to General Herkimer."
"Yes."
"And poor old Stanton. They split his wife's belly, brought out the unborn child and dashed its head against the fence railing."
Elizabeth put her hands to her ears. "No, Robin. No more."
"I hate war," he said.
"But we're in one. And people get killed in wars. If you actually do stop St. Leger, you'll have to kill a great many people, or at least be responsible for their deaths."
"No...." His answer was said so softly that Elizabeth had to ask him again.
"I said no. I'll stop him. I'll stop him without a shot being fired."
She stared at him perplexed for a moment, then smiled and scooted closer to him on the couch. She ran her hand up his leg and almost immediately felt his virile penis stir and began throbbing as it grew into hardness. "I believe you, dear husband. I believe you actually can do it. You can do anything."
"Why don't we go to bed?" he asked, running his own hand up under her skirt to discover she was wearing nothing beneath it. His fingers played in her silken pussy hair. "Now that is a battlefield I really enjoy."
"Fool," she said, then giggled as he nuzzled his nose into the fleshy cleavage between her proudly uplifted breasts. "You are a sweet, loveable fool, my husband."
Afterwards, with her supposedly sleeping beside him, her long blonde hair scattered like a golden veil across the pillow, Robin was pensive. He stared down at her and recited quietly:
Her eyes, like marigolds, had sheathed their light;
And, canopied in darkness, sweetly lay, I'll they might open to adorn the day....
Elizabeth's full, sensuous lips curled up in a smile, but her eyes remained closed. "Shakespeare," she said. "The Rape of Lucrece! But Sextus wasn't nearly the rapist you are."
"Thank you. That is a compliment, I presume."
"The very finest in the land." She opened her eyes then and gazed up at his face. A moment later she raised her hand and stroked his lips. "You really are troubled, aren't you, darling?"
Robin blinked, then nodded. "I'm thinking of something Montaigne wrote two hundred years ago about revolutionaries. He said, 'Those who give the first shock to a state are the first to be overwhelmed in its ruin; the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover; he only beats the water for another's net.' That's us, isn't it? Beating the water, plowing the sea."
"We can go back to England, if you want. I would be happy at Marleyhead if you were with me."
He shook his head again. "No. This land is my home now."
"Then surely you must realize that we may be beating the water for another's net, but that other person or persons will be our children and our children's children. History doesn't remember people for what they say, only for what they do." She pulled him down beside her and scolded, "Now go to sleep."
Five minutes later he was snoring softly beside her, but this time it was she who could not go to sleep. Something he had said had touched her deeply, and it was only then that she realized Robin didn't expect to live through his encounter with St. Leger and his blood-thirsty Indians....
CHAPTER FOUR
OSWEGO-JUNE, 1777
"Just act normally, Darling." Robin had said at noon. "Go about your shopping as usual. But when you get to Axel's, ask him to show you some gown material. When you get him out of earshot of the other clients, tell him we're leaving tonight, and I want all of the material and supplies at the staging area by nightfall."
Trying to appear more unconcerned than she actually felt, the tall American blonde made her way carefully down the muddy main street, stepping back to avoid the splashing that came from the various horsemen-mostly military men-as they rode by.
Axel's mercantile store was located at the intersection of the two main streets that meet next to the harbor. The intersection was blocked by a huge infantry wagon which had gotten bogged down right in the middle of the street as it was unloaded from a Lake Ontario barge. A cursing German driver was flailing his whip at the struggling, screaming horses. The wagon, Elizabeth noted, was loaded with about two dozen brilliantly uniformed Hussars. A group of rough looking Dragoons mounted on horseback and led by a bored looking officer, were shouting insults at the driver, their comments raising ribald laughter from the Hussars. Four artillery pieces drawn by horses were also held up by the blockage in the street. Here and there, their dark faces completely blank of expression, were groups of Indians also on horseback and afoot. All of the savages were armed, all bore the insignia and trappings of Lieutenant Colonel Barry St. Leger's native mercenaries. Even a woman, unused to the military, could see that the entire city was on a war footing. The wharves were stacked with military supplies, and there was an urgency that could be felt in the humid air.
Elizabeth ignored a rude suggestive comment from one of the dragoons and pushed open the doors leading to Axel's mercantile. Although from the outside it looked nothing more than a roughhewn log-cabin, the insides definitely were that of a store ... and a well-stocked and prosperous one, at that.
Slowly, she made her way through the milling crowd of men and women, looking for the giant German. She found him near the back of the store solemnly nodding his approval as a dirty, bearded hunter and an Indian tried on opera hats. Both customers seemed inordinately pleased with their appearance in the silvered mirror, both paid for the hats with gold sovereigns.
Axel looked almost startled when he saw her, but his expression quickly became hidden again. "Madame. May I be of service?" his voice boomed.
"I'l like to look at some gown material," she replied.
"I have only the finest. Arrived just this morning from France, Madame. With the war, there may not be another shipment half so fine for a long time." He led the way to a large wooden table piled high with colorful bolts of cloth, and unrolled about two yards of a yellow silk, holding it up against her cheek. "It becomes you, Madame."
Then his voice lowered to a whisper. "What are you doing here, Elizabeth? Didn't you get my message?"
A jolt of fear shot through the young American wife.
"I sent Timmy to warn you. St. Leger's men picked up Stanton last night. Drew said he could hear the screaming coming from the cells; I've no doubt they tortured him. He may have told everything. You've got to get out."
"That's why I'm here. We're leaving tonight. Robin wants the supplies at the staging area at nightfall."
"Go now. Don't wait for tonight. Get out of town immediately. I'll see the materials reach you." His whispers deepened. "Just go. Now." Then his voice boomed out, "Well, Madame, I hope the material is still here when you reach a decision."
"Good day," she said.
"Good day." Axel watched the voluptuous blonde girl walk out of his store. He admired her; even frightened, as he knew she was at the moment, she looked completely composed. He hadn't let her know the depth of his own concern. His store had been started from the mud up, and in twenty years he had built a fine clientele and was rapidly becoming wealthy. But if St. Leger knew of his involvement with the American patriots, it would be the end of everything ... and, undoubtedly, his life as well. Somehow, someway, he must find out if Stanton had talked under torture. If the older man had cracked, then he would have to flee along with the Burtons.
Elizabeth's heart was pounding as she walked back to the cabin which she and Robin had called home for the last four months. The humidity was growing stronger as the sun sucked more moisture up off the lake. In the west, gray-black thunderheads were beginning to pile up. The air was still, completely so. And the street?
Suddenly it hit her. The street was too silent. Usually there were Indians wandering about and neighbors working in their small gardens. The only sign of life was a chicken that clucked softly as it scratched the ground inside a wire enclosure.
Instinctively she knew there was danger. Her heart was pounding furiously now, pumping even more adrenaline into her blood supply. She forced herself to walk casually, fought the impulse to run. Her throat was dry, her knees rubbery with fright.
The violence, when it came, hit with all the suddenness of a rattlesnake.
In front of her, she saw a figure dart out between two buildings. Timmy! His hands were tied behind him.
"Go back, Elizabeth. Run." he shouted, his voice gurgled off in a scream as a dragoon ran forward and shoved his bayonet into the youth's back.
Elizabeth had started to turn when she heard the thunder of hooves behind her. Five light infantrymen, led by a British officer, galloped down upon her. She turned back toward her own cabin, but the street in front of her was filled with a squad of dragoons on foot, their muskets levelled at her. In front of them, she could see Timmy lying face down lifelessly in the mud.
The horsemen reined up in back of her, and the officer dismounted. "You are the Burton woman?" he demanded.
Her eyes wide with shock from all that had happened, Elizabeth could only nod her head.
"You will come with me." He jerked his head toward one of the infantrymen who dismounted with a short rope and quickly looped it over her wrists, tying her hands in front of her.
"I ... I don't understand," she stammered.
"Don't play me for the fool. You're a spy. Your husband's a spy." The officer remounted and yelled down the street. "Get that body out of here." He wheeled his horse around and started back toward the military compound.
Elizabeth, fighting tears, was forced to walk with her hands in front of her, being led by a rope tied to the cantle on the infantryman's saddle. It was evident that the sadistically grinning soldier was deliberately forcing her to walk through the deepest mud and through as much horse manure as he could find; her green velvet skirt was brown and splattered to the knees before they had gone a hundred yards. She flinched, stumbled, and almost fell when a toothless older woman threw a mud ball, hitting her on the right breast and soiling her silk blouse. The old crone screamed, "Scum. Filthy spy!"
By the time they arrived at the military compound about ten minutes later, Elizabeth had been struck at least four or five times more ... once with an egg, another with a rotten tomato ... and had been subjected to the vilest of verbal abuse. The only thing that kept her from breaking out in tears from the shouted insults was the fear-like an icy squeezing hand-that clutched her heart as she wondered what had happened to Robin.
The troops reined up in front of the command tent, and the mud-splattered Elizabeth was shoved in through the opening. It took a moment for her eyes to become accustomed to the dimness after the brilliant sunlight outside, then she saw three men sitting at a long table. Soon she was able to make out their uniforms. Two were Hessians, the man in the middle was Lieutenant Colonel Barry St. Leger, the British commander of the area.
The Hessian sitting at St. Leger's right had a lewd smile of anticipation on his thin lips as he inspected her body. Involuntarily, Elizabeth found herself shrinking. There was something almost reptilian about him with his completely bald head and beady, glittering eyes. He looked as if mercy was a word that did not exist in his vocabulary.
Colonel St. Leger spoke, his voice full of contempt and impatience. "Madame. You are under arrest for treason. I do not have the time to dally. I want to know the names of your entire group. Starting with your husband."
"Where is my husband?"
"He's dead now ... if he refused to talk ... or at least he's probably wishing he were dead."
"Oh no...." she shuddered. "Please? Where is he?"
"That's none of your business, Madame. Tell us what you know. Do it immediately."
Elizabeth stared at him, stunned and despairing. Was Robin really a captive? Maybe it was a trick. It was obvious St. Leger knew about them; probably poor Mr. Stanton had been tortured until he talked. And now they were torturing Robin, if she were to believe the colonel.
St. Leger cracked his riding crop angrily across the top of the table, causing the papers to fly into the air. "Madame. I warned you. I do not have time to play little games. I am about to undertake a mission of supreme importance to the Empire. I shall crush the backbone of your rebellious militiamen, crush it as easily and as thoroughly as I would stomp on a beetle. Within two months, there will not be a single armed man anywhere in the western part of the United States. Resist me and the women will be given to my Indian commdes. This is the beginning of the end for the American insurrection. The choice is simple: unconditional surrender, or death."
He paused, breathing heavily, then his eyebrows came together, and he said. "I ask you one last time. Who are the members of your spy group?"
Elizabeth was amazed at the arrogance of the man. He was even more boastful than that talkative fool, Burgoyne, had been. Burgoyne had the superficial trappings of a gentleman, however, St. Leger had none of his charm or wit or humanity. This man had obviously been in the frontier too long. Her fear was being replaced by determination. If Robin was dead, then there was nothing left for her to live for anyway. So let them kill her. She took a deep breath, threw back her shoulders, and said haughtily, "I think you are not only an arrogant fool, but an inept liar as well, Colonel."
The Hessian officer who had been inspecting her so lewdly hissed in his breath, almost in delight, at this show of resistance. His eyes were burning with excitement as he awaited the angry colonel's reply to the insult.
St. Leger stared at her coldly for a moment, tapping his fingernails on the table. Finally he rose. "I told you I had no time, Madame. I do not ordinarily condone torture of women. However, you must be made to talk. Captain Hauptmann here," he turned and bowed to the bald-headed Hessian. "And Lieutenant Jocheim at my right," he touched the second German on the shoulder. "They will interrogate you, Madame ... and may God have pity upon your soul."
The colonel picked up his riding crop and walked around the table. "Your last chance on earth, Madame."
"Where's my husband?"
St. Leger sighed, then looked over toward Captain Hauptmann. "Conceivably there could be ... ah ... political repercussions from Lord Burton. I suggest you ... ah ... extract the information we need. When you are completed with your interrogation, give her to Chief Wahadanega. I promised him a surprise." He looked back at her, then smiled humorously and made a little bow. "Goodbye, Madame. Your rebel cause is not worth it, and you will come to realize it before the end ... but it will be too late then."
St. Leger left the tent, and Elizabeth watched-like a trapped and helpless bird before an approaching snake-Captain Hauptmann and Lieutenant Jocheim slowly rise to their feet. Although she did not fear death, the expressions on their cruel implacable faces made her more frightened than she had ever been before.
Slowly Hauptmann came around the table toward her. His nose crinkled in disgust as he saw the horse manure on her skirt and the filth of her blouse. "You Americans are all dirty." He turned toward the Lieutenant. "Aren't all Americans dirty?"
"Jah! But not so bad as the savages."
Hauptmann clucked and shook his head sadly, "I'm surprised at you Jocheim. You should not insult our fighting comrades. Where would poor Lieutenant Colonel St. Leger be without them?"
He laughed and Elizabeth was completely unprepared for his hand abruptly reaching out and squeezing her left breast. "Now, Frau Burton. You will speak."
"I won't," she said, shaking her head adamantly, causing her long blonde hair to swing from breast to breast. "Go ahead and kill me, you beasts."
"She is stubborn, Jocheim. We must take her someplace where we can talk uninterrupted. The cells can't be used again because too many people are complaining about the old man's screams last night. We mustn't get a bad reputation." He laughed again, and Elizabeth shuddered in spite of herself at the cruelty she heard in his voice.
"There is the barge," the Lieutenant said softly. "It might be amusing...."
"Of course. How wonderful that you should think of the barge." He nodded his head sharply, then both men grabbed the young American girl and pulled her out the door. They walked across the marshalling yards to a wooden wharf that went about fifty feet out into the lake. At the end of the wharf, they pushed her roughly into the bottom of a boat. A moment later they were rowing out to a large, flat-bottomed barge which floated about 300 yards from shore. In the distance, there was the muted sound of thunder, and the thunderhead which had become almost brown in color now filled half of the sky, towering over the lake as though they were about to fall down upon their heads. Lightning, like a snake's tongue, flickered all around the western horizon. The air was motionless, the water a sickly gray.
The only people on board the barge were about twenty Hessians and a tall, powerful looking Indian who sat alone from the others on the other side of the vessel. There were whoops of delight when Hauptmann told his men they could all go ashore. As they piled into the boat, each of them gazed speculatively and with lewd interest at the young blonde girl who had been brought on board with her hands tied in front of her.
"You can go to, if you wish, Chief Wahadanega," the Captain said to the Indian.
"I stay. Storm come."
A second later the boat had cast adrift from the barge and the Hessians were rapidly rowing toward shore and the rum rations they knew awaited them there.
Elizabeth was shoved forward, through a door leading into a darkened cabin. The heat in the place was intolerable, she doubted that anyone could last long in the stifling atmosphere without fainting.
There was the warm stench of urine and feces in the room, so strong that she felt as though she were about to vomit. There was a scratch of a match behind her, then an oil lamp flickered into life. As the rays of light spread out, Elizabeth could make out some of the details of the cabin. Then she gasped in horror as she saw a man chained to the wall; he was slumped forward, apparently lifeless, his arms being held up in back of him by the chains. He was in a dark puddle of blood, urine and his own excrement, his shirt was ripped open revealing huge burn wounds on the chest. There were bloody pockets where his thumb nails had once been and the fingers of his hand looked as if they had been snapped backward. She heard Jocheim giggle strangely behind her, then the Lieutenant was holding up the lamp so she could better the bloody battered face.
Her scream of anguish echoed throughout the room. "Robin ... oh my God in heaven ... Robin." She started forward to him, but was tripped by Hauptmann, and she fell heavily to the rough decking.
"That, Frau Burton, is what happens to stupid people who do not talk when we ask them to speak. That will happen to you as well, and your screams will be heard by no one." He raised her to her feet again, and his expression was now one of almost fatherly concern. "You must speak, Frau Burton."
The young American blonde was shuddering now, the after-effects of the horrible shock she had received. Her mind was churning. His threats made no difference to her; she was not the least bit frightened. Her only concern was her husband. Was he still alive. Was he already dead? Oh God, Oh God, she prayed, please let him live.
Captain Hauptmann watched the display of emotion run across her beautiful features. Although the townspeople had thrown mud and rotten fruit at her face, she was beautiful. It was really too bad that there wasn't enough time to tame her properly, to teach her to appreciate the whip, to cringe like a trained dog at his approach and do his every bidding. But, he sighed, there simply isn't time. Still, though, there was still time to have his way with her before he gave her to that savage outside. The poor bitch would probably wind up with a tomahawk buried in her skull just as that girl with Burgoyne's troops had a week ago.
Hauptmann pulled a silk handkerchief out of his britches and dipped into a bucket of water on a chair. He carefully wrung it out and then, using surprisingly gentle motions, he began washing her face clean.
Elizabeth patiently bore his ministrations, shivering only once when he rubbed the wet cloth over the top of her breasts.
Finally, unable to bear her own personal torment any more, she asked, "Is ... is my husband still alive?"
Hauptmann shrugged, uncaring.
Slowly she was putting it all together. The brutal Hessian had said that was what happened to people who didn't talk. Robin had remained silent. So would she ... that was the least she could do.
She stared at her husband in chains. She couldn't detect any breathing from this distance. Oh God! He was dead! The pain in her throat brought hot scalding tears to her eyes and they began trickling down her cheeks. There was a fierce pride in her voice as she turned to Hauptmann; "He didn't talk, did he?"
The Hessian officer's expression told her all she wanted to know. Even as she stared at him, his eyes became veiled with a growing anger ... and something else. He was smiling again as he nodded to Jocheim, "Build the fire again. I want to see what happens when the fire brands are put on these wonderfully pretty breasts here!" The last was a insane scream as he reached out and ripped her blouse and chemise off with one swipe of his hand. The tattered pieces of the silk blouse and chemise hung in two strips down from her waist.
Jocheim's eyes glittered with lewd delight as he saw the proudly uplifted breasts of the trembling American girl. They were as exquisitely moulded as a carrera marble by Michelangelo, and their alabaster glow from the lamp light made his mouth water. What a shame to scar those, he thought, to burn them until the flesh blackened and bubbled and charred away.
Hauptmann seemed almost mesmerized by her lushly ripened breasts as well. There was a drool of spittle coming from the corner of his thin lips as he reached out and cupped the heavy mound in his palm, lifting it slightly as though he were weighing it.
Elizabeth could feel the damp heat of his palm on her breasts, could feel the excited trembling of his fingers. She was positive he was going to hurt her by squeezing again, and she steeled herself for the agony to come, but instead all he did was weigh her other breast and hiss, "The fire, Jocheim. The fire. We ... we ... mustn't keep these little pretties waiting." His breath had started coming in pants, and his fingers were trembling violently as he caressed the soft warm flesh and used his thumb and forefinger to tweak the nipples.
Elizabeth stoically bore his unwanted attentions. There was nothing she could do. She was resigned to die without giving this vile beast the satisfaction of seeing her spirit broken. In her mind, she supposed she had already died ... died with Robin. She would no longer fight them, and she prayed for the strength to keep from screaming when the real torture began.
Even with this resolve, however, she found herself trembling violently as Captain Hauptmann's hot sweaty hands unfastened her skirt waist and tugged it and her pantaloons down over her flaring hips and down her legs.
Jocheim watched, not breathing, as the sensually ripened body of the girl was unclothed. He saw the green velvet skirt dropping to her knees, then puddling around her boots ... saw Captain Hauptmann gently lift her right foot, as though to release the skirt. He kicked it away under a bunk and stood back to admire his work.
The proud, though obviously frightened American girl was completely naked except for her lace-up, high heel boots which came to just below the knee. Jocheim knew he had never seen a woman quite as sensually attractive as this one. His hot hungry gaze moved up from the boots to her firm young thighs, to the softly curling hairs covering her vaginal mound, to her tautly rounded belly, to her rich full breasts, long slender neck and lips ... those lips, wetly parted and trembling in fear now, making her even more exciting. His only desire was to stick his insanely throbbing cock up inside that perfect body. He wanted to do it before the Captain disfigured it.
"The fire ... the fire," Hauptmann panted.
Although he had "punished" several women in his life time, this one was beyond a doubt the most beautiful. There was an essential helplessness about her at the moment that brought out long hidden devils in his soul. She would scream ... oh how she would scream and babble. It would be necessary, of course, to let Chief Wahadanega fuck her before the ceremony went too far, but the final moment would be his-no matter what the Chief or that pompous British jackass St. Leger said. That final moment ... a friend in Hamburg had whispered about it to him one night twenty years ago, but Hauptmann had always been afraid. His friend had said that a red hot poker fucked in and out of a woman's vagina would make her orgasm through the sheer agony alone. The sadistic thoughts brought an excruciating erection to the Hessian and the front of his breeches bulged outward in a bold outline of his long hard penis.
Elizabeth saw his growing excitement and she swayed, her naked breasts quivering, her nipples hardening. She stood perfectly still, with hands tied in front of her, as the brutal Hessian officer slowly stuck out his middle finger and slipped it into the secret flesh up between her legs. He watched her face closely, his eyes narrowing as he sought to detect some sign of revulsion or pleasure ... either would suffice.
Elizabeth felt his finger teasing her vaginal slit. She willed her mind to go numb, her abdomen to go numb, and she tensed her muscles willing them not to quiver or move in any manner.
"Ah so?" Hauptmann said, grinning knowingly. "You resist even this. Well, we shall see." He turned to the table and picked up his braided riding crop. He stared speculatively at the knobbed end of the thing, then held it at groin level and waggled it up and down a couple of times as though it were a twenty-inch cock. He had taken one step toward her when he heard a low moan from the wall.
Elizabeth heard the same thing and now her lovely face showed a genuine emotion: disbelief and hope. "Robin?" It was said softly, then in a cry of rapture, "Robin, darling. You're alive." She started to stumble toward him when Hauptmann cruelly grabbed her hair and yanked her back. He glanced into the corner again, and saw the American spy weakly trying to lift his head.
Well, the Hessian officer thought, this might be even more amusing. Perhaps he will speak now when he sees what is happening to his wife.
"Jocheim," he ordered. "Throw water on the fool. Wake him up. I want him to watch this."
The Lieutenant picked up the oaken bucket and threw its entire contents into Robin's battered face. The youth shuddered once, coughed, then lifted his head and peered at them through puffy eyes.
For a moment, Robin couldn't remember where he was or what had happened. Then, like a vision from one of the most horrible of nightmares, he saw his naked wife being held by the man who had tortured him into sensibility. "Elizabeth," he croaked, his voice a grotesque sound full of protest and pain.
Elizabeth struggled futilely against the powerful grip of the Hessian. Finally, she quieted and said, "Let him go. I'll tell you everything. Just let ... him go." She was whimpering now. What happened to her didn't matter, only that Robin lived and was set free.
"Noooooo," Robin groaned again, thrashing now against his chains. "Don't, Elizabeth. Don't betray us...."
Hauptmann shouted in rage. "Jocheim. Kill him."
"NO." Elizabeth screamed and then collapsed sobbing piteously. "Don't kill him."
Jocheim stared at his superior officer for instructions, and then pulled back, his gun at ready, as the Hessian officer shook his head.
"No," Hauptmann said, grinning sadistically. "No, let him live for a few more minutes. There's something I want him to see." His voice was rising and he began trembling as the sweat streamed down his face. "You turncoat Englishman, you son of an English whore. You are going to watch something that you will never forget. You are going to pay a million times for your refusal to talk. Your sweet little hausfrau is going to take my cock in her mouth. She will suck it until I fill her mouth with my seed. Then Lieutenant Jocheim will mount her like the mare in heat that she is. Then a savage, waiting outside on the deck, will take her from the rear. And you shall see what a whore she is for I swear to you she will love every second of it and she will be screaming in exaltation before we are finished."
As hate flooded his body, Robin's strength returned and he began struggling like a wild animal attempting to pull the chains out of the wall. Jocheim laughed at him, then stepped back uneasily as the American spy's violent lunges increased.
"On your knees, bitch," Hauptmann ordered.
"No ... I won't," she said.
"Jocheim. Shoot him."
The Lieutenant had just lifted the gun when Elizabeth screamed and dropped to her knees subserviently in front of the lewdly triumphant Captain.
"Wait, Jocheim," Hauptmann said, pleased. With fingers that were trembling so eagerly that he could hardly unfasten his britches, the Hessian officer reached inside his pants and withdrew his thick rigid cock. He stroked the foreskin back and forth several times, bringing the angrily swollen red tip closer to the American girl's full, sensuous lips. He turned to Jocheim. "If she should refuse to do exactly as she is told, shoot her husband without further orders from me."
"I understand, Captain."
Elizabeth, with a growing sense of dread, realized what was actually happening. She was to be humiliated in front of her husband; her humiliation would be additional shame for him. Yet, she knew that there was no power on earth that could prevent it from happening. Cooperate, at least in this, and perhaps a chance to escape might present itself. The best thing to do was accept her fate in order to keep Robin from being shot. She tried to turn her head and smile reassuringly at Robin, but the brutal Hauptmann snapped her head around to face him again.
"Open your mouth," he demanded.
"You inhuman monster," Robin shouted. "Don't do it, Elizabeth."
"Blow his head off."
"NO! Please, I'll do it," the nakedly kneeling girl cried. "I'll do it."
"I'll kill you for this, Hauptmann. I swear it." Robin hissed, feeling a black tide of despair washing over him as he watched the humiliation of his wife by the sadistic Hessian.
"Dead men kill no one," the Captain called back over his shoulder. "But enough, open your mouth." He stuck his excitedly throbbing cock head against the young wife's closed mouth. "Open. And suck it."
Outside there was a lightning flash that filled the dingy room with light, followed by an immediate clap of thunder.
"For the last time. Open your mouth, bitch."
She knew there was really nothing she could do but follow his lewd orders, so she hesitated only a second more. She was already fighting the waves of nausea that churned through her stomach. Now, as she licked her dry lips, she moved her subservient face closer. She saw the tiny blue and red veins just before the spongy tip of it was jerking impatiently against her tightly closed lips. Then, with a sudden feeling of hopelessness, she opened her mouth as wide as she could and slid her wetly heated mouth over the lust-swollen cock-head. Although her jaw ached from her stretched oral cavity, she still held it open while the Hessian officer slammed his hotly pulsating shaft forward, holding her head with both hands. Viciously, he buried his thickened prick inside her throat, all the way to the hilt, grinding his wiry pubic hairs against her upturned nose and chin.
Elizabeth tried to pull her mouth away so she could breathe, but Hauptmann only tightened his agonizing grip in her hair! She could feel the spongy bluntness of the cock-head coming to rest far down her throat, cutting off her breath as she tried to force it outward. She gagged and choked as he began grinding his hips back and forth, fucking in and out of her watering mouth with powerful strokes that jolted her brains.
Gloating in victory above her, the sadistic officer began undulating his pelvis even more, sliding his wetly glistening shaft in and out of her ovaled lips, never quite withdrawing, leaving the swollen head pulsing just inside the warm wet mouth, giving her only a second to breathe before ramming it into her spasming throat again.
The total helplessness of her situation caused Elizabeth to accept the cruel debasement with a fatalistic attitude. She closed her eyes tightly to block out the repulsive sight of his thick black pubic hair, and tears filled her eyes as she tasted the alien shaft buried deep in her throat.
The Hessian officer stared down with lewd delight at the widely rounded lips of the beautiful American girl; the sight of his massive cock fucking in and out of her red lips was unexpectedly driving him into a frenzy.
Jocheim was rubbing his penis through his britches. "Look at her go!"
"You dirty bastards," Robin groaned. "You dirty filthy bastards!"
Impatient at being interrupted, Hauptmann glared at the captive spy, and snapped, "Keep the son of a bitch quiet, even if you have to shoot him!"
"Uhhhhh ... uhhhhhhh...." Elizabeth gurgled, as her frantic eyes stared up at her captor. Oh God, she thought, don't let anything happen to Robin. I'll suck his cock ... do anything he wants, but please don't let them hurt my husband.
The Hessian officer began thrusting in and out of her wildly sucking lips, again, ignoring her silent pleas, and tangled his fingers momentarily in her long golden hair. He forced her soft sensuous mouth back and forth over his pulsating prick, and delighted in watching her tightly ovaled lips clasping tighter and tighter around his shaft as her warm oral cavity became accustomed to the unnatural invasion.
Elizabeth felt nothing any more. All her attention was concentrated on one thing only, and that was to make him cum ... to get his vile rape of her mouth over as soon as possible. She knew that he would reach an orgasm in her throat, and the thought caused her stomach to churn again. She silently prayed that she would not displease him and cause him to hurt her or Robin, but it wouldn't be easy!
"Suck," he hissed again.
She knew that he was telling her that she wasn't doing it right, and she tried to use her tongue to satisfy him. She didn't know what to do, but she licked and sucked with a fervor as the huge fleshy cock drove rhythmically back in her throat, and then, let her tongue tease at the bulbous head. She heard a low moan escape the officer's mouth and knew that she was exciting him. She was salivating so much now that the heavily sliding penis slithered in and out almost effortlessly. She sucked until her cheeks indented, puffed out, hollowed again; until her throat muscles became tortured agony. She licked around the tip, using her stiffened tongue, her teeth ... acting automatically now, knowing by his animal-like groans that he was reaching the apex of lust.
And with her concentrated desire to please the Hessian officer, Elizabeth gradually became aware that her own body was beginning to react sexually to this sadistic degradation. She could feel unexpected warmth inside her vagina; and the knowledge that her nakedly kneeling body was becoming aroused was more repulsive than the mental distress from the perverted act she was being forced to perform.
Hauptmann looked up and grinned as the door to the large cabin slowly opened and the huge Chief Wahadanega stepped in. When he caught sight of the obscene act taking place inside the cabin; he stopped completely still and his mouth gaped in surprise.
"Everything all right?" Hauptmann asked, his face a mask of lewd desire as he continued fucking in and out of her tightly rounded lips.
"A white man sneaking in, but I kill!" the Indian mumbled, his eyes never leaving Elizabeth's widely ovaled lips. Almost immediately, his own cock became long and hard, and the front of his bear-skin trousers bulged outward.
Robin had faced the door with new hope, praying that it would be one of his men, but now, all his optimism disappeared along with any expectation of help arriving before it was too late. He would like to know who the Indian had killed, but then, what difference did it make? They would all be dead very soon! His shoulders slouched in helplessness and he closed his eyes to shut out the horrible sight of Elizabeth's sweet young lips locked around the cruel Hessian's long hard cock. The pain was almost too much for him to bear.
"Chief Wahadanega," the officer rasped. "This white woman is a gift to you from the Colonel. He wants you to fuck her...." Hauptmann stopped thrusting his wetly glistening cock in and out of her soft warm mouth, then groaned lewdly. " ... wants you to fuck her asshole!"
"Ugh!" was the only sound from the grinning Indian as he jerked his penis from his filthy leather pants and dropped to his knees behind the kneeling woman. His lust-contorted face made him look like an idiot as spittle drooled from his open mouth. Quickly, he poised the head of his massive cock against her kneeling buttocks and slid it through her anal crevice.
"Tell me, Chief Wahadanega," the Hessian officer asked. "Does her asshole suit you?"
"Ugh! Too small!" the Indian frowned in evident confusion.
"Jocheim, get that goose grease over there and bring it here!"
The Lieutenant, looking envious, brought the can of grease to the Indian, then immediately stepped back to Robin and returned the musket to the chained husband's temple. Hauptmann punched the fingers of one hand in the can of grease while still holding Elizabeth's hair with the other one, and snapped at the kneeling Indian, "Get your horse-cock up here so I can oil it for you."
"Ugh!" Wahadanega grunted, and willingly jumped up in front of the Hessian officer.
When the savage's thick rigid penis was completely covered with the lubricant, the Indian returned to his position behind the young wife and knelt down again. He lifted her nakedly quivering ass-cheeks up higher, and pressed the swollen head of his greasy cock against her helpless little anus.
Elizabeth grimaced in pain as the pressure increased against her tightly puckering anal hole, her face a mask of pity for her young husband who was being forced to watch her cruel debasement. And then, as the thought took shape in her mind, her eyes widened in horror and she lost her composure completely. She whimpered piteously, unable to speak with Hauptmann's warmly pulsating penis embedded inside her throat.
Robin struggled against his bonds, an animal-like cry of pain wrenched from his lips as his face turned red from anger and frustration. He knew it was hopeless, but he couldn't sit by silently and allow this sodomy of his wife's virginal rectum to take place. His scream of rage caused the Lieutenant to jump in surprise, and the barrel of the musket scraped across his cheek, leaving a scratch, but it didn't stop the young husband from roaring out his defiance, "I'll kill you! I'll cut your balls off!"
"You will, will you," Jocheim asked, as he brought the musket barrel down against his face, splitting the skin of his cheekbone and leaving a bloody gash.
Robin could feel the blood streaming down his face and wished that the Hessian had knocked him out so he wouldn't have to see his wife's cruel rape. He tasted his own blood and wished that they had killed him!
The cruel Indian continued shoving his massively thickened penis against the small rubbery opening to the white woman's rectum, sadistically digging his fingers in her fleshy buttocks until Elizabeth thought she would pass out from the painful pressure. She held her breath as the hardened shaft slowly slipped through the sphincter muscle, and plunged halfway inside her forbidden anal hole. She cried out in pain and struggled against the brutal officer's relentless hold on her hair in an effort to escape the ravishing impalement. But with each wild lunge forward, she was slammed against the long hard cock buried inside her throat, and with each lunge backward, the Indian Chiefs monstrous shaft skewered deeper inside her tightly resisting rectum.
AAAAGGGHHHHH! AAAGGGHHHH! AAAGGGHHHHHH!" The groans of protest streamed from Elizabeth's cock-stuffed mouth as her strength faded and the oversized cock slipped unimpeded up into the warm rubbery depths of her rectum until his scrotum, taut with a load of semen, scraped tantalizingly against her sensitive vaginal lips.
Elizabeth thought that she had never experienced anything so painful in her life, and she felt her conscious mind blacking out as she swooned in mind-tortured pain. And yet, she could still feel the shame and humiliation as she humbly knelt between her two captors, her naked body a mass of torment.
Immediately, the Hessian officer and the Indian established a natural rhythm, ignoring her gurgling moans, buffeting her between them like an obstacle to be destroyed. She moaned continuously, a low whine which built to a witch-like screech as they rammed unfeelingly into her rectum and mouth with increasing force.
Robin was blinded by his tears, and his head swung back and forth in torment as he suffered with his young wife. If only they would give him one minute free from his bonds! In spite of his aversion to blood-shed, he could kill everyone of them! He tried to speak again, threaten them, but his throat was dry and only a helpless animal-like groan escaped his lips. He tried not to look at his ravished wife, but his eyes kept going back to the lewd sight of that greasy, thick rigid cock screwing in and out of Elizabeth's anal opening.
Cruelly sandwiched between the sadistic men, Elizabeth felt a masochistic need to be killed by the rampaging cocks. The utter helplessness of her position, the thought of being sodomized in front of her chained husband while a stranger fucked her mouth with his penis ... all this was a part of the strange emotion that was beginning to flow from her ravaged bottom. Oh God! Please no! She should n 't have that familiar tingling starting do wn there in her loins! No! She looked up at her husband, mutely pleading for understanding as she felt her body shamelessly begin responding to her sadistic defilement. She hated herself more than Robin ever would as she felt the first tentative ripples of carnal pleasure in her skewered rectum, and tried to force her thoughts away from the lewd spectacle ... forced her mind to concentrate on her poor husband, but it didn't work. Instinctively, she knew that very soon she would be writhing back to meet the Indian Chiefs long hard cock as it slid in and out of her forever-stretched anal passage.
"Goddamnit, you fucking bitch, suck it harder ... harder," Hauptmann shouted as the sight of her tight little asshole impaled on the Indian's horse-cock had driven him to new heights of lust. He was going to spew his Hessian cum inside her hot American mouth any second now. "Shit ... suck it harder ... I'm cumming! I'm cumming! AAAGGGHHHH!"
Elizabeth felt his hotly jerking penis suddenly explode inside her mouth, and then her throat was flooded with his thick tangy semen. It spurted down her gullet and wildly cascaded down into her stomach as she gulped hungrily in order to keep from choking. She felt his muscular body stiffen and the tendons in his arms became rigid as he pulled her head in even tighter against his jerking groin. As she attempted to swallow his erupting sperm-volcano, her unwanted lust flamed even higher as she took every drop of his flowing cum ... and sucked for more. Her vagina was on fire now and she wanted to rub it, but that could only cause her captive husband more grief than he was already suffering.
Almost as if he had read her mind, she felt Chief Wahadanega lower his hand to her wetly pulsing vagina, and she hated herself as she began punching her naked buttocks back to meet his warmly pulsating cock as it brought unwanted pleasure to her rectal chasm. She stared at Robin, mutely transmitting her shameful feelings as the Hessian officer salaciously jerked his depleted penis from her wearily trembling mouth. When she could speak, she gasped, "Forgive me, Robin! Forgive me!"
Then, she simply let her body take over, wantonly punching her asscheeks backward to meet each thrust slamming into her anal passage from behind. She felt his fingers moving over her frantically throbbing clitoris, and then gurgling moans were erupting from her lust-hoarsened throat. She could not help it ... even if their lives depended on it!
"Ohhhh ... AAGGHHHHH ... oh yes ... yes...." she moaned, her breath panting from her throat. Her nakedly lurching body quivered and shook in undisgusied rapture and her full white buttocks rotated in wanton little circles, as the Indian sawed in and out of her forever stretched anus.
Robin closed his eyes to the sight of his responding wife, but he was not able to shut out the obscene sound of her voice urging the vile Indian to fuck her rectum. Her delirious groans were taking on a greater urgency and her body was moving in sexual abandonment as she climbed higher to the apex of climax. In spite of his revulsion, he wasn't surprised to learn that his own penis had erected and was throbbing inside his pants, like a second heart. It was with a feeling of shame and repulsion that he tried to take his mind off his own excitement. He would never want Elizabeth to know that her ravishment had made him want to make love to her.
And then, Elizabeth was screaming, "Oh God! I'm cumming! I'm cumming!" She slammed her widespread vagina down on the Indian's thrusting fingers, and buried them to the hilt, her vagina convulsing around them as she orgasmed.
Her tightly spasming anal muscles gripped the Indian's long hard cock, and he exploded with a savage roar, "UUUUGGGHHHHH!"
The wantonly writhing American girl felt the first blast of his heated semen spurt far up inside her rectal passage and she began wailing in rapture as her orgasm intensified.
Their groans and moans filled the air until there was another brilliant flash of light and the deafening roar of thunder. Robin was the first to see the door easing open and it was all he could to keep from shouting, for Axel stood there, blood streaming down the front of his shirt from a tomahawk wound. He had his musket raised.
Robin began thrashing violently, "I'll kill you. I'll kill you, Hauptmann, you bastard. BASTARD."
Both of the Hessians turned to him, surprised at his sudden outburst. Axel summed up the situation immediately and he used the heavy butt of the musket against Wahadanega's skull. The Indian Chief moaned, toppled over sideways unconscious, his deflating penis pulling from Elizabeth's tightly grasping anus with a lewd plop.
Hauptmann spun at the groan and dove for his saber. Too late Jocheim realized what was going on; his musket had started to rise when Axel's first shot hit him in the head, throwing him against the wall with a crash. The Hessian officer came up swinging with his saber, but it was no match for Axel's musket which snapped the blade like dry spaghetti. Then Axel's throwing knife was zinging through the air. Hauptmann feinted once with what was left of his saber, then screamed as the throwing knife hit his throat going in to the hilt. His eyes wide in disbelief and already clouding with death, the Hessian reached up with both hands and pulled the blade loose. A fountain of blood spurted from the opening. He stood there, swaying, then the knife clattered to the floor and he fell.
Axel's murderous expression did not change as the huge German stalked across the room to retrieve his knife. He had already picked up Chief Wahadanega's head by the long black hair and had positioned the razor sharp blade at the unconscious savage's throat, when Robin croaked loudly, "No, Axel. No."
The powerful German turned around as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Good Lord, Robin. He ... he ... sodomized your wife."
"No ... now listen to me, please. We can use him."
Axel shook his head as if he hadn't heard properly, then dropped the savage's head back down to the floor with a thump. He stalked across the room, picked up the remnants of Elizabeth's clothes and tossed them to her. "Put these on. We can't stay here all night." He winched then and put his hand against his shoulder where the blood had begun flowing again.
"Axel. You're hurt." Elizabeth cried.
"It's nothing. I owe it to him," he nodded to the unconscious Indian on the floor.
"He thinks he killed you, Axel," Robin said. "I heard him say that."
"So?"
"Unchain me, hurry. Now here's my plan. I never thought it would work out this way, but this is even better. Get Hauptmann out of here. I want to lie down in his blood."
"Robin? Are you sure you know...." Elizabeth began, feeling that perhaps he had lost his mind during the torture.
"Do as I say, darling. We've got to work fast before our savage friend here awakens." He turned to Axel. "Are the supplies where I wanted them."
"They are."
"Then let's set the stage. Here's the plan....
* * *
Chief Wahadanega slowly came back to consciousness. He groaned once, then realized his head was splitting open. Gradually everything r returned to him. He lifted his head and glanced around the room. The first figure he saw was that of the American spy who was lying in a puddle of blood. He was dead. There was no doubt about, no man could lose that much blood and live. His eyes shifted nervously toward Lieutenant Jocheim propped at a funny angle against the wall; half of his head was gone.
Uncertain of himself now, he had started to get stealthily to his knees when he saw the beautiful white woman. In the dim light it looked as if her throat had been cut for there was what appeared to be a gaping wound there and she was lying in blood.
It was the noise behind him that really unnerved the Indian chief. He still didn't know what had happened to him, all he knew was that he was ejaculating in the white woman's bowels one second and the next he was waking up. Cautiously he turned the see the noise behind him and his blood froze. There, in the doorway, was the giant blond man he had killed; his tomahawk was still buried in the man's shoulder alongside the neck. The man stared at him with yellow dead eyes.
Dead. They're all dead! He whimpered in superstitious fear and cringed back against the table, his hands slipping behind him looking for a weapon, his eyes darting from one spot to another seeking escape. The light was so much dimmer than before! Surely it was, as the legends said, the land of the dead, and he, too, was dead!
Chief Wahadanega, whose bravery was unquestioned among his people, almost screamed in fright as he heard a spectral voice coming form the dead American spy.
"Oh listen to me, mighty Wahadanega. I speak to you from the land of the dead, through the voice of a dead man. You will live, Wahadanega. You will live to lead your tribe in wise and fruitful ways, and you shall grow old. We shall guide you. Go with your braves with the English Colonel and the Hessians. But ... and heed this, mighty Wahadanega. There are other gods more powerful than we. If you should come to a valley of broken rainbows, that will be the first warning. The second warning will be the last warning for the night will have a thousand fires and skies will fall and the hill will open and the dead return to destroy forever you and your tribe's greatness. Go now in peace, Wahadenega ... go now and remember...."
The voice faded. A panting, trembling Indian stared frantically around the room. A t the doorway where the big dead man had stood with a tomahawk in his neck, there was only the night. Behind him in the cabin there was a whisper and the lamp went out.
"Goooo now...."
And Wahadanega went, diving out of the doorway across the deck and into the waters of the lake, as the night thundered around him.
CHAPTER FIVE
FORT STANWIX-AUGUST, 1777
Barry St. Leger's troops moved down through the Mohawk Valley with relatively little resistance. Behind them they left devastated farms and the dead. He was slightly behind his own schedule, but that was because of the Indians.
It was Chief Wahadanega who gave him the most trouble. Always before the Chief had been one of the most eager to pillage and plunder the countryside. Now the big Indian would not move at the start of a new day unless he consulted with the tribal wise men. As if that weren't enough, Wahadanega's actions were beginning to have an effect on the council of eight chiefs. They all seemed apprehensive, fearful of something.
Well, St. Leger thought, I've enough troubles without worrying about a bunch of savages. His Hessians were restless, too, and had been ever since the mysterious disappearance of Captain Hauptmann and Lieutenant Jocheim. They had been out on the Hessian barge with the American spies when, apparently, the barge had been struck by lightning. It had to be that, there really was no other explanation. burned. Still, though, no bodies had been recovered.
The big problem was that Johnny Burgoyne's troops were bogged down. It was as though the Americans had known they were coming, for the militiamen were as troublesome as the mosquitoes ... and a lot more damaging. Further reports indicated that Howe was having difficulties with ambuscades along the Hudson ... again just as if those blasted rebels had known his plans.
Well, tomorrow would see them at Fort Stanwix. Odd, the fort had been deserted for some time. Now his scouting reports told him that there was a small group of Americans there under the leadership of a militia colonel. They should be no trouble because the reports also stated they had no ammunition or supplies, were suffering even from lack of blankets and other necessities. A good show of the flag and they'd surrender. Especially when they saw the overwhelming force being deployed against them.
That night St. Leger and his men camped out on a plain about half a day's march from Fort Stanwix. It was a warm, clear night, and St. Leger and his fellow officers utilized it to sit outside. They were far enough from water that the mosquitoes were not quite so bad.
"I say," one of his junior officers said, pointing to the sky. "It's a falling star. Third I've seen."
"I've seen several of them," St. Leger yawned.
The surgeon took a deep draught of his pipe, then said, "It's the Pleiades meteorite shower. Every year in August ... lasts four or five days. When it's good, as it seems to be tonight, you can count twenty or thirty of them every ten minutes or so."
"Bloody savages are uncommonly quiet tonight," the junior officer said.
St. Leger looked thoughtful. "Yes. I noticed that. There's something wrong." He shrugged. "Tomorrow, we'll be at Fort Stanwix. That'll take their minds off whatever it is that's troubling them."
Overhead, a meteorite, green and white in its heavenly radiance, burned its brilliant way across the sky and turned the night to day. Down the hill by the Indian encampment, St. Leger thought he heard loud moans of dismay and fright.
"Blasted savages," he muttered.
* * *
Fort Stanwix was built to guard the portage between the Mohawk River and Wood Creek. There are two small hills on each side of it, with a large tree-covered mound-thought to be an old Indian burial ground-between the largest hill and the river.
The Fort was beginning to batten down now for the attack that was probably only hours away. Scouts had reported St. Leger's troops and Indians less than a day's march away. They had come equipped with light infantry units, field dragoons, artillery ... everything to fight a war.
Marinus Wille, the second in command had grave misgivings about the venture. There was no way they could stop the advance of that powerful war machine chewing up the countryside and excreting death. Still, though, he and his men knew they must take the stand. Perhaps-most probably-the war would end right here for most of them. He had sent a messenger for help to General Herkimer, but "Old Honikol" was still days away; the British would arrive tomorrow.
Marinus was up at dawn to check out everything. It was only then that he learned the Englishman, Burton, and his American wife had disappeared, along with their huge German friend. Odd group that, he thought, likeable ... but something very definitely odd about them. It was not until shortly after 9 a.m. that he received word from one of his scouts of the Englishman's strange activities.
"He what?" Marinus asked the frontiersman.
The man scratched his whiskers and spat. "Knew you wouldn't believe me. He's spreading macaw feathers out all over the place." He grinned. "Looks right purty, too."
"Mad. He must be mad."
"Wal, that ain't all of it. He's set up shop over there on the mound in the trees. Got the German and a boy who joined him digging holes and hanging up funny looking things. Took all of his supplies over there."
"Go tell him that I order him and his party back to the Fort. St. Leger will be here within the hour."
The scout rode out of the fort, and returned just as the first of the British cannons came out of the trees about a mile away. "He says to thank the commandant, but he has business to attend to. He'll return just as soon as the Indians leave."
"Then the poor bloody fool will be there forever. All right, let him be. We have work to do." He pointed over to the right where the forest closed in to within 500 yards of the fort's north wing. "The Indians will come out of there."
"The daft one was putting down macaw feathers for them there."
"Look sharp," the officer called out to his men as he saw the band of about 150 screaming Indians ride out of the woods. "Don't waste ammunition. Wait until you have a shot!"
Both the scout and the officer both exclaimed in surprise at the same moment as they saw the avalanche of painted savages reining up and milling about in confusion....
The commanding officer of the expedition was confused too ... and furious as he watched the debacle. "What the devil's gotten into them?" St. Leger asked angrily. "Look at them. Now they're turning around and coming back. Send that blasted Wahadanega to me ... immediately."
Five minutes later a stubborn Indian chief stood before the Colonel. "All right, Wahadanega. What is all this rubbish?"
The Indian drew himself up to his full height. "It is an omen. We go no further. We have been given two warnings."
"Warnings? Omens?"
"I have been to the land of the dead," Wahadanega said in a firm voice. "I talked to the dead myself. There will be warnings. The first warning was that we would come to a valley of broken rainbows. The second that the skies would fall. And the third that the hills will open and the dead return to destroy us."
He clapped his hand to one of his warriors who walked apprehensively forward and held out several brilliantly colored macaw feathers. "These are the broken rainbows we were warned of."
"Rubbish," St. Leger said contemptuously. "Those are nothing but parrot feathers. The feathers of a bird."
Wahadanega shook his head emphatically. "There are no birds of these colors. No, we have been warned. And last night the skies began to fall...."
A bead of sweat had broken out on St. Leger's forehead. The bloody fools actually believed this nonsense. Somehow he had to convince them.
"Look, Chief. I have great powers as well. I shall protect your tribe from harm."
"We have been warned. I have spoken to the dead."
"I tell you that my powers will protect you. You say a hill will open up and the dead return to destroy you ... it can't. I won't let it."
The Indians shuddered and backed away. Hurriedly St. Leger added, "Let me at least test my magic. Stay here tonight. I shall make big magic. I shall see that a hill does not open up. I promise you."
Wahadanega looked from St. Leger to another chief, then the two Indians put their head together and whispered and nodded, although with some obvious misgivings.
"Well?" the colonel demanded.
"You will try your powers. If they do not work, we will leave. I have spoken to the dead and ... "
"Yes ... yes," the British commanding officer interrupted. "Well, you'll see. My power will work. No hills will open up. No dead will return."
Silently the savages padded away. St. Leger and his surgeon watched them go. "Can you imagine that rubbish? Can you believe anyone would believe that drivel?"
The surgeon grinned. "You're in luck about one thing, Barry. They won't be able to see the skies falling again tonight. I think it's going to rain." He looked up toward the west where the clouds were already beginning to build up. "With a little luck, the hills won't open up either."
* * *
Alex, Billy, Elizabeth, and Robin had worked furiously all day long. Even the mighty Alex was trembling and ready to drop from exhaustion when the last tube of phosphorus and sulphur had been put in place.
Robin glanced up at the skies and shook his head. "It's got to hold off another hour. If it rains now, all of this has been for naught."
It was rapidly darkening now as night and the storm approached. The western horizon glowed intermittently with lightning that was still far away and behind the clouds. It was coming closer, however, and it was by one such glow that Robin finally inspected the three people in front of him. Billy was dressed in Lieutenant Jocheim's bloody uniform. Elizabeth was using cranberry juice and flour to make a realistic wound in his head. Axel had just finished burying the tomahawk in a piece of wood and was strapping the wood to his neck. By the flicker of lightning it appeared horribly real, for he had also put into two gold buttons into his eye sockets and it looked as though his yellow sightless eyes were staring from the deepest part of hell.
Robin waited patiently as Elizabeth made a cranberry wound in his neck, and then he said, "We're ready ... except for you, darling."
"Must I, Robin?"
"That's how he saw you last ... naked, wearing only boots."
Quickly then, without further argument, she stripped, and her golden body looked like that of a goddess's when next the lightning flickered. It was much closer now, and it lit up the entire fort. Beyond, out on the plain, they could see the pickets marking St. Leger's perimeter.
"All right, everyone," Robin said softly. "You all know what to do."
He watched as they positioned themselves prone on the ground in the cleared circles half way down the hill. He picked up his spark box and put the flint at ready beside the trail of gunpowder that lead from his own circle down to each of the other circles.
He waited until he saw an Indian pony picking its way between the mound and the fort.
It was one of the scouts. When he knew the Indian was close enough, Robin picked up his navy megaphone and called out in an eerie voice, "Wahadanega ... Waaa ... haaa ... daaa ... nega ... Wahadanega...."he didn't complete the third call before the horseman was galloping full tilt toward the Indian encampment in the trees. Robin heard shouting and screams from the encampment, then several Indian riders were coming slowly toward the mound. They stopped about a hundred yards away. A sudden brilliant flash of lightning revealed that one of them was Wahadanega. Robin lifted his megaphone.
"Wahadanega," the spectral voice called. "You do not listen to the voice of the dead ... now you and your people must return with us to the land of the dead unless you depart this place. Behold our third and final warning. The hill shall open and the dead return...."
Robin dropped his speaking horn and struck the flint. There was a whoosh of blue-fire that travelled in a circle, then continued to grow until it was two, then three, and four circles. Robin could hear the startled yells below the hill, and there was the sound of a bugle in the Fort. Then the phosphorus caught and each circle grew brighter than the sunniest day, and with this light the sulphur began burning, casting yellow palls of heavy smoke as though the ground had opened and the fires of hell could be seen....
"Now," Robin called softly. "Now."
Slowly, the four figures rose up from the ground....
And Chief Wahadanega on the plain below felt his bowels turn to water as he saw the hill open and the dead return.
He heard the frightened murmur of his braves and of his Mohawk friend, Chief Genoda. "It is them," Wahadanega said, his voice full of fear. "It is truly the dead woman, the spy, the Hessian Lieutenant, and the big man who carries my tomahawk in his neck." Even as he said it, he saw one of his braves wheel his horse and gallop madly away from the apparition. When he looked back toward the dead, the swirling yellow smoke made him sure that they were slowly reaching out for him....
His horse reared in panic as it sensed its master's fear. When the pony's hooves came down they slashed across the flank of Chief Genaoda's horse. Suddenly, in pandemonium, they turned and, screaming, rode back to their campfires as if all the forces of hell were after them....
In the fort, a sleepy commandant who had rolled out of bed with the bugle call, was dressing down a stammering guard.
"But I tell you, sir. I did see it. A naked woman. And three men all covered with blood on the hillside over there. And some Indians who fled from the same sight. One of the men had a tomahawk in his neck...."
"Let me smell your breath, corporal."
There was a blinding flash of lightning that struck the trees near the Indian camp, and the screaming there grew in intensity. Another lightning bolt in almost the same place, and in the moment of illumination, it looked as every Indian in St. Leger's forces were riding helter-skelter away from the place.
On the hill the four people watched the flight of the Indians. Elizabeth hugged her husband and whispered in awe, "You did it."
Axel slapped Billy on the back. "Look at them go. The devil's after them."
The first rain drop hit Elizabeth's naked flesh and it was only then that she realized she still had no clothes on. Quickly she started dressing, bending over to pick up her skirt. The lightning flickered and Robin could see the shadowy cleft up between her legs. He moved up behind and put his arms around her, cupping her soft warm breasts in the palms of his hands.
"I think," he said, biting her ear, "that this calls for a celebration."
Billy tried to dig his heels into the ground when Axel pulled him by the arm and whispered, "Let's go."
"I don't want to go," the youth said, stubbornly. "I want to stay here with them.'' The lightning flickered again and he saw then what was happening. He grinned. "Oh yeh ... well, Axel ... well, let's go."
Down below them, the entire encampment was in an uproar. Someone in the Hessian camp had fired a gun toward the Indians who were whooping it up, screaming, and yelling. From the Fort, a cannon belched out a flaming cannon ball toward the Hessians, and Axel distinctly heard a voice yelling from behind the parapets, "Go to sleep you heathens."
"It sounds," the big German said, "as if is going to be one hell of a night." He looked behind him just as the lightning blazed again, and grinned broadly as he saw Robin and Elizabeth writhing on the grass. "One hell of a night!"
EPILOGUE
The following is taken from the diary of Marinus Willet which was printed in the Continental Journal and Weekly Advertiser, September 4, 1777, which is on display at the Library of Congress and at Harvard University Library.
August 12. "This evening indicated something in contemplation by the enemy; the Indians were uncommonly noisy, the most horrid yellings were heard a great part of the evening in the woods hardly a mile from the fort. A few cannon were fired among them. There seems to be some confusion in the ranks of the enemy ... "
The following is taken from Travels: In New-England and New York, by Timothy Dwight, (Published 1822, New Haven), page 144-49.
"When the Indians deserted St. Leger at Fort Stanwix, in a mixture of rage and despair he broke up his encampment with such haste that he left tents, cannon and stores to the besieged. The flight of his once proud army was through a deep forest and spongy soil. One of the men at the fort, a natural wag, engaged several of the younger men to follow the retreating Indians and army and repeat, at proper intervals, "They are coming...." This unwelcome sound ... quickened the march of the fugitives whenever it was heard. The soldiers threw away their packs and the commanders took care not to be in the rear. Mortified beyond measure by so disastrous an issue of an expedition from which they had promised themselves no small reputation and profit, these gentlemen began to speedily accuse each other of folly and misconduct in their respective departments during the enterprise. Accusation begat accusation, and reproach, reproach, until they at length drew their swords upon each other...."
In the east, Burgoyne was meeting defeat at the hands of people he called, "the most uncivilized savages in the world: the Americans." History records that Burgoyne never made it to Albany, nor did Howe ever conquer the upper Hudson River.
The invasion from Canada by the British had cost the Royal crown untold money and hardship. It was a blow from which they never fully recovered during the Revolution. And it is a fact of history, that the "battle" for Fort Stanwix was the turning point.
Robin and Elizabeth Burton are buried in the old Lutheran church cemetery at Charlestown. The begat five sons and three daughters. Their eldest son, Phillip, returned to England to assume the title of Lord Burton upon the older man's death in 1809. Axel was killed by rampaging Indians near Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1814. And Ethan Burton died of cholera in Naples before the American war ended in 1782. One of his plays still enjoys a current vogue in revival in London.
At her behest, Elizabeth was buried in 1803 with two macaw feathers clutched in her right hand.
Her tombstone reads simply:
ELIZABETH Beloved wife of Robin Burton 1757-1803 In Memoriam.
