Hall of Infamy (22 page)

‘Carry on, Mr Blackstock, whenever you are ready.'

The groom bowed towards Lord Alex. Amelia caught a half-smile on the man's lips before he turned and brought the birch hissing down again.

The birching continued with a slow, unhurried rhythm. Betsy shrieked anew with every stroke, but no one seemed to take the least notice of her cries. Amelia watched in horrified fascination. The tingling in her loins was unbearable now. She bit her lip again, trying to think about something else. Half-turning in increasing distraction, she found herself looking towards her Aunt Alicia. There was something odd about the scene.

What was odd might otherwise have been obvious enough, but Amelia was in a most distracted state of mind. The feel of the rubber and the hiss of the descending birch seemed to fill her mind, reducing everything else to a mere jumble of arbitrary colours and random tones.

She took a deep breath and shook her head. Then she realised what was wrong with the scene; little Emma had disappeared. No, not disappeared, exactly. Amelia's eyes widened as she noticed the bulge beneath Lady Alicia's full skirts. Glancing down, she saw the maid's slender calves and ankles emerging from beneath the marchioness's hems. Looking up again, she saw the dreamy look in Lady Alicia's eyes. Then those eyes came into focus and locked onto Amelia's own.

There was another sickening hiss as another stroke was unleashed. Amelia, still staring into her aunt's eyes, felt a pang of terror in her heart as Lady Alicia broke into a broad and wicked smile.

Betsy howled in agony once again.

Blossom moved fretfully in her little stall. She had slowly fingered herself to a climax, squirming like an eel among the straw. Then she had dozed for a while before languidly stroking herself to ecstasy again. The naked girl kept expecting somebody to come, but no one did. The minutes had turned into hours and she was still alone.

The fact was that she was bored. They might treat her like a pony. She might even sometimes react like a dumb animal as the grooms rubbed her down or Lord Alex whipped her through the park. But, equine as she might feel when they stroked and punished her, she lacked a horse's capacity for patient inaction. In the end, she was still a girl, with a girl's sense of curiosity.

Once again, she had been left untethered in the stall. From where she sat, on the straw-covered floor, she could see the open stable door. It was a real effort of will to step outside of the stall. One step, two steps into the large space where the tack was kept. Blossom's heart was pounding in her breast at the effrontery of her actions.

She was completely naked, something she was becoming accustomed to. It was not so much the lack of clothes that made her feel odd, even disorientated, as she walked, taking a few more tentative steps over to the wall where the tack was hung. Blossom reached out to touch a leather bridle. Her finger ran along the shaft of a metal bit. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she found herself bending towards it, taking the cold steel between her lips. No, she realised as a little thrill ran through her body; it was the lack of harness, of any restraint, that made her feel so peculiar.

Letting the bit fall from her mouth, she looked at the open door again. She could smell the leather from the tack beside her, richly pungent and strangely reassuring. For some reason, she felt safer here, next to the bridles and harness straps. The door, by contrast, seemed terrifying; the gateway to a world that was limitless and without any comforting bounds. But for all that it was dreadful, her curiosity pushed her. Blossom stroked one of the leather straps for reassurance one last time, and took a step towards the open door.

Amelia watched in awe. Betsy had the biggest, firmest, most protuberant set of buttocks she had ever seen, yet even so she did not see how the girl's bottom had withstood the onslaught of Mr Blackstock's merciless birch. The second rod had gone down the splintered road of the first, and there were precious few twigs surviving on the third to shatter against Betsy's sore behind as the final stroke whistled down.

The nursery-maid still shrieked with pain at every fresh atrocious stroke, but now her yells were hoarse and much less loud. Clearly, she was well on the way to losing that voice which had given such sterling testimony to her sufferings. The glowing redness of her rear had grown ever more furiously deep, yet somehow the skin had withstood the blistering kiss of the birch twigs without blood being drawn. Amelia found this astonishing. However, she reasoned, that as the young woman's hide received such healthful treatments on so regular a basis, the slut's skin must have become tougher than it looked.

It was clear that the maid had felt her correction, nonetheless, because when her bonds were finally released she jumped up like a startled rabbit, grasping her bottom and jumping from foot to foot. Betsy's breasts were free beneath the thin cotton of her flogging-frock, and the sight of her huge titties jiggling about as she danced her little dance of pain provoked much merriment amongst the company.

The nursery-maid was allowed a few minutes to compose herself. Now that her face was in view, Amelia saw it was almost as scarlet as her well-scourged bottom, and her cheeks were slick with the tracks of many tears. The sight gave Amelia a deep sense of satisfaction. The next time that that low-born bitch was pert to her, Amelia thought, she would remember this little scene!

Betsy's ordeal, it seemed, was yet far from over. Once she had recovered a measure of composure she was made to kneel, still sobbing and gasping for breath as fresh tears coursed down her cheeks, and gather up the shattered stumps of the three broken birch rods. These she handed to Mr Blackstock, who held them before him. A hush descended on the Whippery.

‘Has the miscreant anything that she wishes to say?' Lord Alex's stentorian tones echoed around the chamber's glass dome.

‘Uh… ah… Oh, th-ha, haaoow.' Betsy clenched her fists and took a deep determined breath. ‘Uh… th-thank you… Ooh, thank you… Ooh, for correcting my, my, f-f-faults, s-s-sir,' she sobbed.

‘Kiss the means of your chastisement, girl,' the groom growled. Betsy leant forward and pressed her quivering lips to the three broken birch rods, one after the other.

‘All right,' Lord Alex said when it was done, ‘let Mrs Pritchard examine you now.'

The nursery-maid turned big brown eyes towards her master in mute appeal, but must have known that this was futile, for she said nothing. Instead she dropped her eyes and got to her feet. Wincing as she walked, she stepped down from the stage and made her way to the side where the housekeeper was waiting. She bent over without being instructed, placing her hands flat on the stage and giving the audience a fine view of her scarlet bottom-cheeks. Mrs Pritchard examined the punished area thoroughly, pinching and probing the sore-looking flesh to an accompaniment of a slew of squeaks.

‘The skin does not appear to have been broken,' Mrs Pritchard announced at last, in tones that suggested that this was a matter of great personal regret. ‘However, it is best to be on the safe side!' She took a handful of something white from a bowl set on the edge of the stage. Amelia had seen it when she put her tray of birches down. Suddenly she realised what the bowl contained.

Betsy gave a breathless, almost suffocated sounding squeak of agony as Mrs Pritchard rubbed the substance vigorously into her rear. Amelia licked her lips, wishing as she did so that her mouth was not so dry.

‘Rock salt,' she said, almost silently, to herself. No wonder Betsy was making such strange noises. She hardly dared to think how much that rock salt rubbed into such a well-whipped bottom would sting. Amelia was very glad she had the hard bench to sit on at that moment. If she had been made to stand, she thought she might have fallen in a swoon.

‘Mr Blackstock, would you send one of your boys with Betsy to fetch some nettles to complete her correction?' Lord Alex asked genially.

‘Of course, your lordship. Davy, go with the girl. Make sure she picks a good bouquet of nice fresh leaves. Oh, and whatever the temptation,' the big groom paused, ‘don't dilly-dally too much on the way!'

This instruction caused some amusement among the audience, and even an anxious snicker or two from the Miscreants' Bench. As soon as the stable-boy and the nursery-maid had left, a serious hush fell on the Whippery again.

‘Now then, stand out, Lucy Frampton,' the Marquis said as he turned to the big book once more. His voice was serious, even sombre, but there was a distinct twinkle in his eyes. ‘Two black marks, Lucy. It will have to be two dozen, I am afraid.'

The maid stood in front of the Marquis of Hatherby, her brown ringlets bobbing slightly as she bowed her head.

‘Have we anyone prepared to thrash some discipline into this wicked girl?' Lord Alex asked. Once again there was a pause, broken in the end by Lady Alicia's rich voice.

‘I suppose one has to do one's duty.'

Amelia looked over at her aunt. Emma had emerged from beneath her ladyship's skirts, and was kneeling by her side once more. The kitchen-maid looked a little dishevelled. Her hair was awry and she was licking something from her lips and chin. Lady Alicia was beaming at the trembling figure of Lucy, who seemed awfully isolated before the lectern, in the little dock.

‘Yes,' Lady Alicia went on, ‘I will essay to beat some better manners into the minx!'

Blossom's mouth was dry. The fact that she could see the pump in the middle of the courtyard did not help, but the reason she felt so parched was not lack of water, but anxiety. She had made it, heart pounding, right across the stable-block. Now she stood in the entrance looking out. It was as if there was an invisible barrier preventing her from stepping into the courtyard. Every time she had been out, since her arrival, she had been bridled, if not in harness. Before that, in the reformatory she had been a prisoner behind iron bars. Prior to Hatherby reformatory, she had spent long weeks in irons. Blossom put her hand to her throat. Sometimes, the fact that she no longer had an iron band about her neck still felt a little strange.

The fact was that the last time she had been in the open air, yet not secured by iron, rope or leather bonds, seemed years away. Perhaps it had been no more than weeks, but it felt as if that free life had belonged to another girl, another world, another time and place. Now the sensation was strange, and deeply disturbing. The boundlessness of the sky and the world beyond the courtyard filled her with a deep sense of unease.

There was no one to be seen. Everyone, grooms, maids, the lords and ladies of the hall, seemed to have disappeared. Part of Blossom wanted to see someone; part of her was terrified of being found, wandering unbidden from her stall. She would get a belting at the very least if she was discovered. Blossom knew it in her bones.

There was no one to be seen. She could make a break for it. Her long legs were growing stronger by the day. She could make a run for Hatherby, or for the train. What would she do for clothes? Perhaps she could find some. In her heart she knew it was impossible. Anyone she asked for help would surely turn her in. That was the way it seemed to be in this strange part of the country. Once you were marked as the property of the Marquis, that seemed to be how everyone treated you. She would be captured and brought back and whipped unmercifully. Blossom shivered at the very thought.

From her vantage point she could see much of the back of Hope Hall. The stable-block faced the main body of the house, making two sides of the square. The other two were incomplete, one being partly formed by the back part of the east wing. From the groom's conversation when the blushing cousins had been taken past through the courtyard on their leashes, Blossom knew that that was where, somewhere, the nursery was housed.

Opposite the east wing was the tower she had glimpsed on her arrival, ivy-encrusted and ancient-looking, with gargoyles and crumbling battlements on its top. For some reason the sight made her shiver, though the day was warm enough despite her nakedness. Partly it was the appearance of the Old Tower, she supposed. Its ancient gothic lines might have been designed to fill the heart with dread. More, it was the way the grooms talked about it.

Dick often teased Davy with references to the place.

‘You wait, Davy boy – her ladyship will have you in the dungeon over there, if you don't watch it!' the red-haired boy had joked. Davy had told him to shut it, but Blossom suspected that the lad was as curious as she, for she had overheard him ask Mr Blackstock later about the place.

‘So what is that place, then? It looks like a castle.'

‘It is – at least, it was. The west wing, also called the Old Tower, so-called cause it's very, very old. In the old days that was Hatherby Castle, the Marquises built the rest of the hall onto it, over the years. Not lived in now. It's too ancient and gloomy. Still,' the groom had grinned at the stable-boy and winked, ‘it is made use of, every now and then.'

Blossom shivered again, remembering his tone, as she noticed that the tower's windows all seemed to be very small and barred. Her mouth seemed even drier. She looked over at the pump; the water in the trough glinted invitingly. Remembering how cold and sweet the pump water was, she was tempted to take the chance. She looked around again. There really did not seem to be anyone around. Blossom wiped her palms against her thighs, for they had become very moist. She could not do it. She could not make herself step outside. With a last regretful glance towards the water pump, Blossom turned and trotted back towards her little stall.