19 comments/ 21729 views/ 32 favorites The Abduction of Lady Ardis By: dr_mabeuse The road from Castle MacDimmit runs gentle and true from the cliffs of Sunderland down through Horsa's Glen, till it meets the Invernary Way at the crossroads known as Buell's Bucket. It's called such because here, where the two roads meet at the little stone bridge that crosses the Buell, the river has cut for itself a snug little vale or depression in the hills much like a watering pail, so deep and so sudden that even the nimblest coach must slow to a cautious walk to negotiate the steep turn that leads down to the bridge; and as it descends, it is out of the sight of an observer's eyes, and blind itself to what awaits it at the bottom of the Bucket. It's long been a favorite of highwaymen and a place of ambush and unsavory dealings, and was so when we MacBeuses came to this land and put an end to lawlessness and disorder. And such peace had we brought that by the time the MacDimmit usurpers took it from us, Buell's Bucket had lost most of its evil reputation. But not its usefulness. Not for a heart that ached for justice and a mind set on revenge. Not for this outlawed son of his murdered father with no reason to live if the grievous outrages visited on family and clan weren't repaired and repaid, and repaid in the selfsame coin of blood and betrayal with which they'd been purchased, and repaid with a most generous hand. And so it was that I, Liam MacBeuse, second eldest of the Laird Orrin MacBeuse, found myself now poised on the hilly rim of Buell's Bucket, watching the road from castle MacDimmit in the dim and murky moonlight, my sword at my side and two loaded pistols in my belt, and evil in my heart . The Maiden Ardis MacDimmit. I knew her from afar, as did many a lad and full-bodied man, even before her father stole our land with his lies, and double-dealings. Indeed, there was no other way to know her. Coddled, spoiled, and with no desire to mingle with the likes of us, I remember her peering from her daddy's coach when her perfidious senior sought the aid of our clan and came to seek my father's counsel. And then, after murder and betrayal made MacDimmit Laird of our lands, I remember the same look of icy disdain as she rode to sport through our fields and gardens, or tore through our villages at all hours of day and night on her endless rounds of balls and revels at kinsman's manors and castles. And most, I remember her on that fateful trip, when her party stopped to post the infamous notice that banned us from our own lands and decreed that we and all we owned were now property of the Laird of MacDimmit, to be used and disposed of as he wished. The proud MacBeuse tartan, known to friend and foe alike, was banned, and even worse, all young men of clan MacBeuse not engaged in tilling the fields or serving the MacDimmit's needs were banished outright and made outlaw in their own country. And what I remember most clearly about that day, was the maid MacDimmit's petty irritation as her party was delayed that her father's men could nail the notice up on the church doors, and she in her finery and with a ball to attend. Is it any wonder that I burned with anger for revenge against the MacDimmit and all his ilk? Is it any wonder that I'd turned to the life of a highwayman to keep body and soul together and wreck what small havoc I could on the travelers venturing to and fro on the Laird of MacDimmit's new roads? And is it any wonder that when I heard of the maid MacDimmit's betrothal to that fop Dougal Fensby that the news was like salt rubbed into an open wound? It was a vision that would have driven a saint mad: Her haughtiness being feted in every croft and castle for miles around, not only by her father's boot-licking allies, but in the homes and halls of my own people, who were forced under threat to celebrate this symbol of their own destruction. While I sat alone by my stingy little fire, gnawing the bones of an outlaw's meager repast, and thankful enough for that. Nay, I couldn't let it stand. I couldn't. There were still enough of my clansmen in the braes and glens around, gone to ground but just waiting to be called to purpose. And I had spies enough in the castles and towns to keep me well apprised of the MacDimmit's comings and goings and the nature of his infamous business. No one needed to be told of his daughter's betrothal and her endless forays in celebration. But when the news came to me of her latest party and the details of departure, I knew what I must do. And so I watched now from the edge of Buell's Bucket as the MacDimmit coach approached over the moonlit road, and all alone, with not a guard to be seen. How very foolish. I rode down into the Bucket and secured my mask, and hid myself to wait in the shadows of a willow. It was ghostly still. Even the gurgling of the Buell seemed muffled and subdued, and the crickets held their breath. The breeze was slack, just enough to worry the trees and set their leaves to casting moving webs of indigo shadows on the moon-gold road. And into this silence came the clattering and creaking of a heavy coach and the call of the coachmen trying to slow his charges. And soon after this they came into sight, the horses capering and tossing their heads as they slowed against the weight of the carriage, the driver leaning on his friction brake to further slow their descent. And not a guard to be seen with them. No sooner had they reached level ground than I touched spurs to Bess and she leaped out boldly into the middle of the road, me on her back and both pistols drawn. "Stand, there!" I cried. "Hold! Stand and deliver! Where are your men? Bring them out now!" The coachman was an old fellow and went white with sudden fright, too addled at first to even let go of the reins or brake. But he knew the sight of a highwayman when he saw one. "Sir have mercy! There are no men! Just ladies and girls, on route to a ball!" Bess was skittish, and as she turned me about I could see it was so: no armed guards, not a shred of defense. Such was MacDimmit's overweening confidence that he sent his daughter our on the roads at night without escort. The man was a fool. A head popped out of the coach, a matronly face beneath kerchief and cap, that took one look at me and screeched like a demon and began to wail: "Help! Help! A cut-throat! A brigand! We'll be robbed and raped and left for dead! Help! Oh, help us Lord Jesus, Mary, and all the saints!" The entire coach began to jostle and shake with the frantic scurrying and babbling of frightened women, and in the midst of this fracas a little casket or strongbox was heaved from the window and landed with a little thump on the grassy verge. "Take it!" the voice cried. "Take our money, our jewelry! Take what you will but spare us our lives! Oh misery! Oh cruelty!" "Oh hush, granny!" a calmer, more authoritative voice said. "Don't be such a ninny. What is it? A robber? Let me see." But I'd already calmed Bess enough to ride to the window and peer inside the coach, and there I saw the trembling old matron and two young servant girls all motionless with fear, and sitting nobly in a corner one who could only be the maid Ardis MacDimmit. She was covered by a heavy traveling cloak with a cowl that hid her face, but even so there could be no mistaking that regal bearing and air of easy command. I raised my hat. "Good evening, ladies. Calm yourselves. I do apologize for the inconvenience." Their quaking and fearfulness only increased, but the maid MacDimmit leaned forward and regarded me from beneath her hood with a gaze that was direct and perhaps even a bit amused. "Who are you, sir, and by what right do you accost us? Are you indeed a brigand, with so poor a mask and outlandish a costume? Or might you be in the employ of my friend the Lady Montclair, and this yet another of her silly follies, a jest at my expense?" "This is no jest, Maid MacDimmit, I assure you. You will oblige me, please, by stepping out of your coach?" She looked at me again, more curious now yet still without fear, then boldly reached across the others for the handle of the door, and brushing away their attempts to restrain her, exited the coach and hopped prettily to the ground. This drew another fluttering wail from the ladies inside, whom maid Ardis impatiently silenced before turning and addressing me. "Sir- if I may dignify you with such a form of address—if you're playing a role, you play it poorly, and you must tell Jenny Montclair or whomever it was who sent you that they must ask for their money back, for I am utterly unimpressed. "But if you are in truth a brigand, I must tell you that you've made for yourself a most grievous mistake. For surely you see the escutcheon on my coach? And surely you know who I am and who my father is, and how he treats with those who so much as appear to threaten my safety, even in mime. Or do I accord to you too much common sense?" She spoke very well, and with great poise and confidence. Arrogance even, to call it what it was. "Now release us at once and clear the road," she went on, "and perhaps I'll forgive your ignorance and treat this as a silly but innocent prank. Proceed with your farce, and nothing will save you from my father's most certain and terrible wrath. He does not tolerate robbers on his roads, and he values my safety above all else." A pretty speech and admirably delivered and I must admit that for a moment I hesitated. But only for a moment. I turned to the coachman and said, "Here is your chance to make of yourself a hero, granddad, and preserve your Mistress's life and well-being. Drive from this place as ever fast you can until you reach the village of Inchkelling. Anything else and her fate will be upon your head. Now go!" And I fired a pistol into the air, so alarming the already skittish horses that they almost leaped from the road and tore off at breakneck speed across the little stone bridge with carriage in tow, rocking and bouncing as the women inside shrieked in terror and the coachman bounced cruelly in his seat till they were at last lost from view, swallowed by the dark of the forest. The lady Ardis and I were left in silence, and I turned to her now to find a young Mistress much changed in attitude and regard for the seriousness of my purpose. The pistol shot had no doubt alarmed her. She was still far from fearful, but she looked at me with a wariness and cautious respect that was more to my liking. "That was a rash thing to do," she complained. "A very rash and foolish thing. I must ask you now, sir, if this be not some foolish bachelorette trick, just what is your purpose?" It was chill on the road and she cowered in her heavy cloak, more from the cold than from fear of me, I think. "You must come with me now, Lady Ardis. You are my prisoner." "Am I now?" She smiled defiantly. "And by whose authority and under what law?" "By the authority of the Laird MacBeuse, whose lands these rightfully are, and under the law and custom of warfare, in which we're now engaged. " "MacBeuse? War?" She blinked at me and stared harder, trying to read my face. "Ah. I see. You're one of that infamous bunch? Clan MacBeuse, that tribe of nefarious barbarians my father ousted from these lands, with charter from the Duke of Northumberland, I might add. Yes, I should have recognized that hideous tartan. Which has been banned, sir, as you well know, along with all males in your mangy line! You are a criminal, sir, and you'll be treated like one. Hunted down and taken, and broken in the dungeon before you're hanged, drawn and quartered and your head displayed on a pike!" "Bold words from a maiden to an armed and desperate man on horseback, and we alone on this empty road in the middle of the night." "Sir—?" I dismounted and approached her, and she stood defiant till I came right up to her and used my pistol to open her cloak, whereupon she immediately snatched it closed and turned away in furious outrage. "Sir how dare you!? How dare you touch my person!?" But her anger went hardly noticed compared to the shock of what I'd seen. Beneath Maid Ardis's cloak she was attired in a most unseemly and salacious way, in a manner I'd not seen since my days in Italy as a student thoroughly soaked in debauchery, wallowing in the sin and depravity of that most singular land. It was a costume of sorts, fit only for the private salons and secret rendezvous of Carnival, and then only if accompanied by a mask complete enough to conceal the wearer's identity from the certain scandal and ignominy such a costume would engender. That peek beneath her cloak had revealed clothes that were a lascivious parody of highland dress, a kilt so scandalously short that it not only revealed the little pink bows at the very top of her white hose, but gave a generous view of the fair skin above them. And as short as her skirt was, just so snug was the black velvet bodice she wore on top, and this over a white chemise-shirt of some fabric so marvelously fine and sheer that it was all but transparent to the eye. The bodice was tightly laced, thus emphasizing the thinness of her waist and the generous flare of her hips, but ended most immodestly beneath her breasts in a style I hasn't seen since the flesh pots of Rome and Venice, making show of the fullness and impertinence of her lewdly proffered bosom as well. All in all, a scandalous outfit, and one hardly suitable for a highland maiden. Of all the hazards and dangers I had anticipated in my abduction of the Maiden MacDimmit, I had not anticipated anything like this, and I was for a moment paralyzed with confusion. Moment enough for her to close her robe tightly and stammer a hurried defense. "It's for a ball! A masque! As if you would you even know of such things! I'm betrothed! I'm attending a ball in my honor given by my friends. Lady friends. High-born lady friends. A costume ball. Do you even know—" "Oh, I know the custom quite well, my lady," I replied. And indeed, in a family with five sisters, and given my own keen interest in the fair sex, I knew quite a bit about woman's matters, though never nearly enough. I knew of the kind of unladylike ribaldry and scandalous behavior that often went on at these private pre-nuptial celebrations, where girls and women alike gathered to laugh and howl and shock each other with vulgar and outlandish tales of the marriage bed. "I very much doubt that!" she rejoined. "And I resent that look in your eye. Stop it at once! You're disgraceful, sir, to roll your eyes and leer at what you don't understand. Contemptuous, like the rest of your kind. And that silly mask you wear! How ineffective it is! My fiancé would cut you down like a dog in an instant! Do you think me afraid?" I seized her easily by the arm, and so unaccustomed was she to being handled or touched that she offered no resistance. I pulled her to me and she staggered. "I care nothing for your feelings nor your fiancé, my lady," I said. "Nor indeed for my own life either. So you would do well to come with me." "Sir, unhand me! Oh creature most foul! Help! Help!" I paid her no heed, nor her cries, which hardly would have roused a sleepless mouse. And for all her bold words and fiery attitude, she knew nothing of how to protect herself in even the most rudimentary and instinctive manner, such resistance being as foreign and unaccustomed to her as would be preparing her own food or emptying her own chamber pot. Such little squeaks and yelps as she offered did nothing to slow my actions. I quickly relieved her of her cloak and spun her around, leaving her for a moment standing shivering in the moonlight, a piteous sight in her naughty outfit with one arm crossed protectively over her chest and the other pushing down the hem of her tiny kilt. I took her wrists and fastened them behind her and then bound her elbows behind her as well for added caution. I stopped her whimpering with a kerchief tied over her mouth. Then, bending down, I tied her ankles smartly together. But perched precariously on her Italian costume slippers with their outlandishly high heels, she quickly lost her balance and began to fall, forcing me to stop what I was doing and catch her in my arms. For an instant our eyes truly met without pretense, as man to woman, and I thought she perhaps recognized me as my father's son. But the look in her eyes was not in recognition of my person, but in recognition of something of far more consequence, yet something I would only learn of later. In any case, that look so disarmed me that I cast about for some way to blindfold her or otherwise cover her eyes. But I'd done a poor job in preparing for this abduction, and the only thing that came to hand was a small feed sack from Bess's saddle. It was crude and ignoble and the weave was so coarse that it would not block her sight, but at least it would keep me from the power of that look. I slipped it over her head in spite of her muffled protests and hastily put her cloak back on her and did it up lowering her hood to hide her face. It was then that I remembered the strong box that had been tossed from the coach. I laid Maid Ardis against the flank of the hill and retrieved it and turned it over in my hands. It was no such money box as I had ever seen, but a small and intricately inlaid box of wood without keyhole or hinge, with not even a sign of a crack or joint that would indicate it was not all of a piece. Yet when I shook it, some subtle shift of weight suggested there was something within, something heavy and presumably metal and therefore probably of value. I slipped the box into Bess's bag for later consideration, then returned to the bound and hooded Maid MacDimmit. Lifting her up onto Bess's back, I sat her on my saddle like a man, with legs astride, short skirt and pretty stockings be damned. I climbed on after her, and wrapping one arm around her waist, off we went. Over the bridge and then skirting the woods, and coming out in the vale of Tyree, I put spurs to old Bess, and anyone who'd seen us would have wondered at the sight of a man racing across the moor with a scarecrow on his mount in front of him, for so looked the Maid Mac Dimmit in her cloak and feedbag hood. The sense of speed and wild ride did me good, as did the bouncing and pressing of maid MacDimmit against me as I held her snug, for her own safety's sake, of course. Somehow in my plans I had failed to take into account the maid Ardis' beauty and feminine attractiveness, believing my enmity and anger toward her father and herself would preclude such tender feelings, but now they were having a most disturbing and unsettling effect on me, and rendering level-headed concentration on the task at hand quite difficult. Occasionally as we raced along, my grip slipped and I felt the pressure of a firm yet yielding breast against my arm, or she slid back and her backside impinged against my loins, which only inflamed me further. And I couldn't put out of my mind what my sister Annie had once told me about women who sit astride their mounts like men, and the secret and shocking thrills this practice affords them. Concentrate, concentrate! Once we reached Donbeleath and the braes of Smoove I slowed Bess to a walk and made for my family's hunting cottage hard by the moors of Skweekellen. Skweekellen Cottage had fallen into disrepair and neglect since last anyone used it, which I took as a good sign that its very existence was still unknown to the Laird MacDimmit, for this was far from the rich pastures and villages he favored ruling. The first floor was crude, having seen double use as both a stable and the stable boy's quarters in years past, but the hearth still drew, and the crude and rustic furniture was dusty but intact. Sturdy doors and narrow windows made it an ideal place to keep the Maid MacDimmit, and the ample supplies of rope and tackle could be useful in insuring her confinement. Upstairs where the servants weren't allowed were the guests' lodgings, which didn't interest me now. The roughness of the stable would do for now. The Abduction of Lady Ardis I heaved her onto my shoulder and carried her inside, then dropped her none too gently onto a stack of hay as I went about lighting a fire. The wood was old and dry and soon a lusty blaze was burning in the hearth, dispelling the foggy chill that had permeated the stable and filling it with a warm glow. I fetched a bottle and a glass from the upstairs and brought them back down, poured myself a dram and pulled one of the rough chairs over to the fire as I contemplated what next to do with my captive. I must admit, when I'd first made my plans I'd hardly given much thought to what I'd do with my captive once I had her, if I had her. Ransom perhaps. Or use her to wring some concessions from the MacDimmit. But what concessions? I wanted nothing less than his ruin and eternal riddance and the restoration of my family to our rightful place as rulers of this land. But did I really expect him to give all that in return for his daughter? The plan was absurd. Perhaps I could trade her to some other clan or Laird, some band or person more clever and enterprising than I, and more experienced in the kind of double dealings and negotiations that went on between such people? Hostages were sold and bartered all the time, and there were many who would pay handsomely for the heir and only child of the Laird MacDimmit. But that smacked of defeat and a sad incompetence, and the thought of handing her over to someone else made me very uneasy. Hostages were bartered and traded all the time, true, but they were also tortured and murdered almost as often. Then, what? She sat with her legs beneath her on the pile of straw, still bound and hooded with the burlap feedbag, leaning against a wooden stall. Since I'd taken her she'd hardly made a sound or made any effort to escape. Of course, she was gagged and bound, but even so, her total passivity and refusal to struggle or resist seemed very unnatural, and began to annoy me. Was she paralyzed with fear? Most unlikely. Could she be so confidant of her rescue that she was ignoring me? Did she fail to perceive me as a threat or appreciate the peril of her current situation? Was this a further display of her insufferable superiority? And as I looked at her now , I realized I really had no idea what to do with her, and my own foolishness and lack of foresight began to anger me. Her calmness angered me as well, and this anger began to build inside me, and came to a peak as I realized all she had said was true. I was an outlaw now and an outlaw of the most reprehensible kind, and I would no doubt be hunted down and brought back to her father and there endure a most pitiable fate. And all for what? For this bitch in the corner? I went over to her and roughly threw her cloak open so I could see her and she stiffened. The tiny kilt had ridden even higher on her legs, a fact she must have realized as the cooler air bathed her thighs. She tried to wiggle back away from me to bring the skirt lower, but she could hardly move. I lifted the sack from her head and she blinked, then quickly scanned her surroundings to ascertain her location. When she looked back at me, I saw her sudden fear. No, perhaps not fear. Not exactly as if she expected certain bodily harm. It was more a look of apprehension or nervous expectation, and a new appreciation of her position as the captive of a desperate man. Or so I fancied. I liked that look. There was surrender in it, and a gratifying uncertainty. I untied her gag and pulled it free, and she shook her head to free her rich red locks, which the gag had so cruelly crushed. That look of apprehension never left her eyes. "Where am I?" she demanded. " What do you think you're doing? Release me at once. These bindings chafe my wrists!" I squatted down next to her. Despite the warmth of the fire, there was goose flesh on the milky skin of her chest. And I couldn't help but notice that her nipples were quite visible, poking through the sheer fabric of her blouse, and seemed eager to make my acquaintance. That was interesting. "What are you looking at?" she cried, trying to twist away. "Stop it! Stop it at once! I demand you tell me right now what your intentions are!" I returned to my chair and my whisky, took a good sip and savored it. The whiskey was older than she was, I'd wager. "I'm not sure yet," I said. I nodded at her clothes. "Does your father know you dress like this?" She sputtered with outrage. "I told you! I was going to a party! A private party! It's none of your business! It doesn't mean anything!" I nodded and finished off my drink, got the bottle and poured another. I offered it to her. "Drink?" She turned up her nose. "I wouldn't touch your swill! I seldom drink, sir, and when I do I prefer wine. And none of your French wine, curse them all. I drink wine from Italy only." The French were friends to us highlanders, and opposed to these Anglican bastards who were taking our land. I took another sip. "You don't remember me, then," I said, removing my mask. "We were in Rome at the very same time. Both in schools, but very different ones." She reacted with more surprise than I'd expected, and for a moment she seemed genuinely shocked. "You? You're a highland savage. What do you know it? I doubt we traveled in the same circles!" "No, we did not. But I knew of you all the same. I was in a seminary, as difficult as that may be to believe. And you were in a very exclusive finishing school where young female savages were taught to be continental ladies. Your school was across the square from us, so I knew of you. I had some awareness of your comings and goings, your balls and fetes. You were quite active, socially." Her face darkened. "And you were studying to be a priest? Well I have no doubt. All you papists are sunk in sin and venery, and your priests are the worst of the lot! Good and evil, sin and salvation, all are the same to you. Idol worshippers and veritable pagans!" I smiled. "Oh, I don't know about that. That's why they threw me out. Not enough venery and licentiousness for my taste. I was never cut out to be a priest." "No, I would say not. But I know your type, a Scotsman abroad, soaking himself in Roman depravity. I used to see enough of them lying in the gutter at night. Disgusting." "At what hour of night was that, my lady? When you were returning from your soirees and masques an hour before cockcrow? You were with a fairly scandalous crowd, weren't you? Discreet, and rich enough to buy the discretion of others. But I heard too many rumors to discount them all. I'm amazed you managed to keep your innocence." "You are a dog, sir! A vile cur and slanderer! Nothing but a filthy thief and kidnapper!" Her anger flared and so did mine, and suddenly I was on my feet and looming over her. "Aye, and who made me so? Who stole our lands and usurped my father's title? And whose lies and perfidy led my father to an ignoble death?" My sudden rage made her draw back, and for the first time I saw real fear in her eyes. The little pink bows at the tops of her white stockings were showing, and above them the smooth skin of her thighs. And above, her fulsome breasts pressed against the gauzy fabric of her blouse with delicious insistence, and suddenly I saw her not as the daughter of my enemy, but as a woman, ripe with a woman's charms. And as a captive. My captive, and a spoil of war, whom, by custom immemorial in the clans, I could do with as I wished. And she already dressed for debauch. Immediately she sensed my change of attitude and tried to press herself back into the straw. "No," she cried. "No! I'm betrothed! My virtue is sacred! I'm not one of your highland peasants who—" I grabbed her arm and pulled her easily to her feet. Her lightness amazed me. On the road she'd seemed so formidable, I'd expected a warrior's bulk, but no. How could such a slip of a girl project such power and authority? How could she radiate such beauty and desirability to make a strong man weak? "No! What are you doing with me? Put me down!" I untied her elbows. I untied her hands. I brought her wrists around in front of her and retied them, then held them in one hand while with the other I pulled over the hook of an old rope hoist. Again, she hardly fought, confining herself to gasps and murmurs and sounds of outraged dismay. I put the hook between her wrists and held her up as I found the fall, then pulled. The old wooden pulleys creaked softly as the hook began to rise, lifting her bound hands along with it. With ankles and feet tied she was losing her balance and I had no intention of suspending her by her arms, so I knelt and untied her ankles and continued my lifting. She squealed in alarm as her hands rose over her head. "You're inhuman!" she cried. "You're a torturer! A fiend! Stop it! Stop it at once!" I'd stepped back to watch and could see the whole process as her arms were stretched and her body elongated as she rose up on her toes. And now at last she was struggling, now when it was too late, twisting and tugging at the bonds, fighting the inexorable power of the hoist. As I lifted, her tiny kilt began to rise as well, the hem sliding even further up her thighs, and at a certain point it just cleared the junction of her legs and there I stopped in stunned astonishment. Just stopped dead still and stared as Ardis continued to swing and struggle against her bonds, struggling, I now realized, to hide what the rising skirt revealed. My first shock was her absence of drawers, or indeed anything that might hide her shame and preserve her modesty. She was all bare skin! My second shock was that her nether crown, the little tuft of hair that men call Adam's pillow, was very odd in appearance. I am no stranger to a lady's intimacies, or the secrets of the female toilette, but Mistress Ardis MacDimmit appeared very strange down there, so that I had to bend down a bit and stare most rudely. I was astonished to see that what I'd taken for pubic hair was in fact a little tassel hanging over her sex, right there over the beginning of her cleft: a little fringe, silvery so that it sparkled, and beset with a little pearls. I stared. "Oh God! Stop! Stop!" She was trying to cover herself by ineffectually shifting one leg over the other. It was charming, but ultimately of no use, and I could clearly see it now: a little fringe artfully arranged so it would slap gently and surreptitiously against her clitoris as she moved or walked. A clever little device designed for a secret, salacious, self-flagellation of the most personal kind. A toy for auto-erotic stimulation, and one that no doubt accounted for at least some of the high color in her cheeks. How very interesting. And my, how that changed things! I tied the rope from the hoist off to keep her in that position and approached. Too late she realized she could creep around and turn her back to me, but I stopped that in its tracks, taking her arm and leading her back to where the light could shine on her face, red of its own accord now, and eyes clenched tight in denial. "And what have we here, then?" I chided as my fingers flipped the little fringe. "Part of your festive ensemble, my most virtuous mademoiselle?" "No, don't! How dare you!?" But I wasn't paying her any attention any more, and I slid my finger through the little curtain of pearls and touched flesh that was hot, damp, and softer than any words can describe. No rose petal, no lily's calyx, no soft roll of fat round a plump baby's wrist could begin to compare. She sobbed and her body jerked violently in spite of the hoist which kept her so cruelly stretched and suspended and balanced on tip toe. I wrapped my arm around her to keep her close and pulled her body against mine. I watched her face as my finger caressed that maddening crevice. "Sir I beg of you," she whispered, her words tumbling out in a breathless torrent. "You have me at a disadvantage. But this costume you see is only that: a costume, worn for sport, worn for a private gathering of intimate friends, for jest. Do not make assumptions based on my attire, sir. Do not presume they say or suggest anything about me or— Oh!" Without ado I slid the tip of my finger inside her, barely entering her, yet forcing from her a gasp that cut off her words in midstream. How amazing it is that a woman's body can have such a mind of its own, and not give a fig about her honor and dignity that so busies her mind, nor for her precious senses of virtue and self-regard. Her body was stiff and her eyes wide with shock and upset, but that sweet little cunny gripped my finger with stubborn insolence, greedy for my rude intrusion and completely unmindful of its mistress's despair over such humiliating betrayal. Ardis moaned in her throat and clenched shut her eyes, and her head fell back in denial, but naked lust roared through my body with shocking vehemence, and without thinking I pulled her head up to accept my kiss, which was every bit as predacious and invasive as the finger that now basked in her secret heat. She sobbed and mounted a feeble defense, her tongue meeting me bravely behind the ramparts of her teeth and trying to block my way, but her snug little sheath was already sucking at my finger and whispering secrets to me like a spy all too ready to reveal all the weak points and secret entries to the palace. And all too soon her tongue gave up and fell away, letting me enter that sweet mouth to pillage and plunder and do as I would. She pulled herself away and turned her head to the side. "No, no! You mustn't! You mustn't!" But it was all moot now. The garrison had fled, the parapets were deserted and the fortress was in my hands. As was her proud and shapely ass, which I found naked and tensed beneath her skirt in back. I could discern now the rest of her little panty's scandalous design: the fine silver chains that left her sex exposed yet kept that devilish fringe in position, the little clips and loops that kept it pressed against her. I took a buttock in my hand and squeezed hard and then slapped it smartly, smiling as I felt the answering spasm of her pussy on my finger. She felt it too, and looked at me imploringly, begging that I not humiliate her further. And I might have given in to her silent plea had I not suddenly hit on an even more diabolical plan. I would put her hood back on her so I wouldn't have to see those beseeching eyes. And at the same time I would thus rob her of the last remnants of her dignity and pride and whatever claims to authority she might still be able to summon out of her dire predicament. She'd become a body to me, a ripe female sexual simulacrum without the ability to either object to or encourage whatever I might choose to do to her. For at this point two beings raged within me: one a noble Christian gentleman still affected by the nobler sensibilities, and one a ravening beast afire with the basest of carnal hungers. I'd still know very well exactly who she was and whom I was so piteously assaulting, but without the trepidations or nagging civility that might bedim and beshadow that pure flame of savage desire. A slut. A hooded slut. A princess turned into a sexual plaything. She made no attempt to avoid the hood as I slipped it back over her head. Perhaps she thought I was doing her a service by granting her a last bit of anonymity before I shamed her with her own pleasure. Because I had no doubt now that I had a naughty one on my hands; that princess or no, heiress or villain, this was a woman whose body ached for a man's depredations and the punishing release of his unchecked lusts. There were rivers inside her that ran hot and deep, and I'd be the first t plumb their depths. She squealed as I pulled down her wee kilt and slid it down her legs and tossed it aside. But with her wrists held in the hoist, there was precious little she could do to stop or even hinder me. With the skirt off. that sinful little fringe glowed in the firelight, and was no more now than a last feeble barrier, a tiny little veil, barely protecting the last remnant of her modesty. I knew she could see me quite well through that feed-sack hood, but little did I care. Let her look and see the gleam in my eye! Let her quail and shudder at the sight of my evil intent! Her bodice called to me. Her nipples already looked like they would burst through at any moment and seek refuge in my hands, I had to cup and comfort them and tell them freedom was just a few tugs away, but when I touched them, Ardis began to whimper and moan. "Oh no! I beg of you!" she said from beneath her burlap hood. "I am not what you think! I am not some simple toss-puff! You fancy me a tavern bawd or loose-kirtle or common hayrick drop-stocking? A common shagnasty or trolleymog, or one of your grassbacked naughty-nells from some lowland gin-mill? You are mistaken, Sir! You will find my morals incorruptible and my virtue adamantine! You will find my— Oh! Oh, my! No, Sir! I tell you no! No—!" It took no more than a tug on the bow at the top of her bodice to cause the entire garment to burst open like a St. Andrew's pudding from breast to belly. Though her chest was still covered by her chemise-shirt, the lass gave forth a piteous whine and the shock of being so displayed seemed to cease her struggling. Since she'd been mostly naked under her skirt, its loss apparently hadn't affected her half as much as this new salacious affront to her bosom, and it looked like all the fight had drained out of her with this new indignity. I threw the bodice open and took but a moment to admire her breasts through the sheer cambric of the chemise, hardly more than a gauze, and hardly the kind of undergarment a chaste Christian woman would wear out on the public way. One good yank and the thing split down the middle and there she was: maid Ardis MacDimmit revealed. Powerless I was to contain my fervor, and I quickly captured her snow-white breasts in my hands. I was greedy for the feel of her like a parched throat is greedy for water, and I kneaded them and squeezed them and lifted them to my lips, which ached with a hunger no food or drink could allay. I kissed them and sucked them and ran my teeth over them as a merchant runs his teeth over a string of pearls to test their worth. Such lovely paps! Warm and lush and benign, guileless and without bone or blemish, and promising all the loving nourishment and sensuous pleasure that a woman is: virgin and vixen, both at once. I've heard it said how a woman's sex is a mysterious flower that keeps its pleasures hid, but her breasts speak a language that all mean immediately understand, though none can explain. Let the learned doctors dispute what lies beneath the skin of a human being by studying their Aristotle and Galen. For Ardis MacDimmit, I already knew what made her up: sweetness and pleasure and a man's lurid satisfaction, and I know that if I'd allowed myself to suck just a bit more, I would have tasted that womanly nectar as it seeped through those eager and proffered nipples. I know because I could already taste the ambrosial savor of her skin. She mewled softly as I nursed on her, and as I did my free hand found the clasp on her naughty little panty and opened it. The gossamer garment parted easily and would have fallen right off her had she not clamped her thighs together so tightly that it lodged between them some distance above her knees and just hung there. I would make her open those legs though, and I released her breast to slide my finger against her feminine slit, which was wet. Quite wet. She drew her breath in sharply and froze, and her words when they came weren't said so much as whimpered: "Please, no, you mustn't. Please, stop, I beg you! I beseech you! No, no..." The Abduction of Lady Ardis But rather than listen to her, I pushed harder until she did indeed open her thighs just a bit, just enough so I could continue my fondling and confirm what my first caress had already suggested: Ardis MacDimmit was aroused. To her obvious dismay, she was lubricating as richly and profusely as any highland slattern. I quickly loosened the haul of the hoist to give her a bit of slack, and lost no time in finding a stout cudgel which I dropped at her feet. I bent and tied her ankles to the stave so that they were perhaps two feet apart and I stood up and tightened the hoist again. I came over and found the hook on her little pearl panty and took it off her, laying it on a table for later use. Do you understand what I'd done now? She stood with her legs apart, with her arms still lifted above her head, no freer in her movements than she'd been before, and now mostly naked, with just the open bodice and torn chemise hanging from her shoulders, and the old feed sack over her head. All her feminine charms were exposed there in the firelight, and behind her only the darkness of the old stable. The maid was defenseless, with no way to hide or conceal her charms save the doubtful bit of concealment the worn burlap hood gave her. Perhaps that's why she was trembling so and pulling at the ropes? Or was she more frightened of what we both might find? In truth I hardly cared. On my mind was only enjoyment of what I had before me. I slid on my deerskin gloves and took up my crop and approached her. Her legs were apart as I have described, so I slid the stalk of the crop against her sex and heard her gasp. The touch of that smooth polished leather must have roused some last bit of alarm in her, for she declaimed: "You will regret this, highwayman! You will curse this day you abducted the daughter of the Laird MacDimmit and mistreated her so cruelly!" "I would save my breath now, Miss," I said. "You'll be wanting it for when you're stuffed full of my cock." Is there such a thing as a silent gasp? For that's what I heard now from beneath that hood. A sudden stillness, followed by a stream of invective "You wouldn't dare! You go too far! Ransom me, yes. I'd expect no better from one such as you! But rape must surely see you thrown to the hounds!" I played the crop easily between her legs. Enjoying the way she tried to contain herself and maintain her outrage. "Aye, surely it will," I said as I continued my wicked game. "Such is the fate of any man who poaches on the MacDimmit's domain. " I sidled up behind her and passed one arm around her waist, pressing her back so she could feel the weapon concealed beneath my kilt. Her warmth and proximity made him jerk with tumescent excitement. I put my lips against her head and whispered through the trembling burlap: "But they hang you just as high for poaching a comely doe as for some wee fingerling fishy, don't they?" I belayed the crop and pressed my gloved finger into her womanly cleft. The pressure made her moan softly. "So why not die with a belly full of warm venison, I ask you, rather than just some scales and a bit of eel?" With that I could feel her fair skin erupt with goose-bumps and she fell back against me, no longer able to keep her frame erect. The outer portals of her sex now encased my finger, and even through the leather I could feel the viscid secretions of her innocent puss easing the way for me. "Oh Sir Highwayman, then take what you must but spare at last my life, and I swear on my honor to endeavor to spare yours when at last you are taken before my father's court." I smiled and let the crop fall softly into the hay at our feet. I increased my hold on her, capturing again her breast with my free hand with no intent of setting it free. "Ah, fear not for your life, my beauty, for I would never harm so lovely a creature, beyond what is strictly necessary, of course. I'm neither a murderer nor a fool. Nor am I a rapist. I do not go where I am not welcome. I do not enter without invitation." "Sir—?" I gave her no time to finish her query, my fingers having already lodged against her clit and begun a lewd and leathery massage, for I knew what she was going to ask, and I was in no mood for more of her dissembling and protests of innocence and goodness. She girl was naked, tied, and hooded, and she was mine as much as anything I owned. I flipped up my kilt so that my cock was against that fine arse, and held her even tighter. "Don't play the dummy with me," I hissed. "I'm going to have you this night, and in many ways as I want, and you're going to want every one. You're going to beg me and plead for this thick hard dick despoiling you and making a woman of ye. You're going to fuck me and suck me and take me in your arse if I want it! You're going to grovel and call me Sir and Master and be my whore this night, and learn your rightful place, and I promise you, my dear, that just as many bad things are going to come out of that pretty mouth as go in afore I'm finished!" She was trembling now, quivering like a doe before it takes flight as I played on her clitty, all sticky now and slick with her feminine excitement and fear. I turned her face back to me and kisses her through that burlap hood, finding her mouth by the same instinct that guided me to all her holes and orifices. My cock slid between her legs and emerged in front, and I used my hand to press him up between her folds and sawed against her in a lewd imitation of coitus, making her ride him like a hobby-horse and giving her a taste of my need. No more words from her, just whining mewls and moans and her body slick with perspiration from the heat of the blaze in the hearth. Those tits grew heavier in my hands, I swear, and her hips began to buck in a lascivious dance she'd never learned from a lesson, and all the while that delicious and maddening struggle within in her as she fought with the slut within and its slutty needs. At last an oath—"Oh God! Oh please!"—and she succumbed to her body's demands. That mouth opened behind her hood and she sought me in abject surrender. My cock was all but dripping from her copious emissions, and her nether muscles were trying in their feeble way to capture me and draw me in. But never had nature intended those muscles for that kind of strength. Never had they been intended for resistance. Moans and whimpers on the very verge of speech spilled from beneath the hood, but I could wait no longer for her full capitulation. My dick was like a fusilier's bomb, the fuse short and packed with explosives, so I stepped back just enough to drop my sporran and kiltie and get to my knees and undo her shapely ankles, then stood in front and seized her ass in my gloved hands, pulling her so close that King Richard pressed against her palace doors, and here I paused, fighting my own savage urges. "Say it," I hissed. "Tell me what you want!" The hood wobbled as she shook her head in violent denial. My fingers sunk into her bottom as I lifted her hips to me, raising her feet above the floor so that she hunk helplessly from the hoist. "Say it!" I yelled. "Say it or you'll get nothing!" "I cannot!" she cried. "I cannot say such things!" "Like hell you cannot!" And so saying I pulled her onto me and thrust forward at the same time so that my big dick slid easily into that hungry hole. Just an inch, perhaps two. Not even the length of a digit, but thick he was, and hard as steel, and so hot and demanding that I swear he hissed with steam like hot iron plunged into a smithy's trough. That one taste of her soothing heat was too much, and with no small violence I plunged all the way in, stretching her wide and lodging inside her, taking her completely. She screamed and her head fell back but I did not relent. Mercy was beneath me now, burned up in my savage need. I held her arse in my hands, her legs dangling helplessly on either side as I bathed in that cruel concupiscent ecstasy, feeling as if from a distance her cunny quivering and trying to adjust to this violent penetration. And I was vile enough to just hold her there in her sudden agony, savoring her pain and realization of ruin. Aye, so cruel was I that I even flexed my tool inside her, digging him in just as an angler sets his hook. Her chest was heaving. The feed sack moved with each of her labored breaths. The bitch hung like a side of beef, but all aquiver, shaking like an uppity servant before a wrathful master who's at last caught her in her lies. I held her just so till her stubbornness turned to soft beseeching sobs and she at last began to move feebly in my hands. I knew what she was feeling and I knew what she wanted even before she did, but I refused to smile. I just held her there motionless, absolutely still except for a reflexive tightening of my hands on her buttocks, or the occasional throb of my deep-sunk cock. At last, as if it could no longer be denied, her whole body jerked and I heard what I wanted to hear: "Oh God! Fuck me! Please! Fuck me. I can't stand it! Take what's yours!" Ah, yes! Yes! How the blood surged in my body! How my cock swelled inside her with rapacious greed! Ardis MacDimmit, that most lovely and chaste of maidens, stuffed with my hard male meat—nay! Dangling off my cock like a shot sparrow—pussy splayed and stretched, legs hanging uselessly and arms tied above her head, face hidden by that crude and shapeless sack, begging for my cock. Begging to be plundered! I was in a heaven of sin! Slow I started. Just a bit of it. Just enough to elicit another breathy moan and feel the grip of that silky sheath, the sweet friction of delicious violation. Then a bit faster as reason began to slip away from me. God help me but that sack aroused me! And not just because it made me imagine her battle with the look of sluttish surrender struggling to emerge on that lovely face. But also because it showed how completely I possessed her, disarming her of her one great weapon. The hood over her mouth moved like a bellows, showing the force of her breath and her arms labored against her bonds, though to what end, I do not know. I held her weight in my hands, and with my strength was able to move her easily upon my cock like a rag doll to serve my needs, making a place for myself inside her, creating a nest, a sheath for my cock, a receptacle for the drench of seed that was surely coming. I was grunting now with raw pleasure and fucking her faster, my cock sluicing into that tight and juicy hole as she groaned and whined 'neath that obscene mask. Her tits shook, her little belly quivered and knotted and her legs swung uselessly by my sides like shapely pendulums as I gorged myself on the sweetness of her body. The suck and clench of her female desire was now raw and pronounced and something she must have felt as well, a feeling she could not deny nor any man resist. Was the maid MacDimmit a virgin? Did I care? Let God determine who's a virgin or not, for it makes me no bit of difference in a such a rapture as this. That she was a virgin to this kind of love, I had no doubt. She was a virgin to her own whorishness and the lusts that now impelled her, and the rope and pulleys began to creak as she urged that lithesome body against me, legs wide, the gasps and grunts from her hood urgent and feral. She was milking me with her pussy, drawing me in, squeezing, demanding her woman's reward as her body took control of her and made her writhe with the lurid cunt-hunger of a woman too long denied. I was shocked by her mad fervor! Struck dumb by the lassie's lascivious grinding and pumping, and the stream of lewd imprecations that began to spill from beneath the hood in a harsh and urgent whisper: "Oh you're fucking me! Fucking me! Your cock is so deep in me! Take me! Take what's feckin' yours! Do no' stop noo! Don't ye dare! Harder! Harder!" "Ach! You'll make me cum, my beauty! You'll make me spill all I've got in ye!" My words only make her redouble her determination, bouncing in the ropes now like a marionette puppet as she slammed herself wildly against my loins, taking me the very hilt. "Och aye! Aye! Aye!" She cried. "Give it to me then! Make me your whore! Finish me! God in heaven, I cannot speak! I die! I die! Breath fails me!" I pulled the hood from her head. I had to see her face. The last bit of unveiling which would leave her utterly exposed. My eyes feasted on her expression: her look of astonished surrender as she fell into the jaws of her own ecstasy, her look of fear, and of overwhelming rapture. Oh, if tongue could tell what I felt at that moment! Is there anything more beautiful than a woman's convulsive orgasm when your cock's deep inside her and she's trembling in your arms! All the streams in Scotland rushed within me and all the brooks and torrents and falls and rills. I felt birds take flight and wild winds blow over angry seas, and all the stars in the black night sky wheeled drunkenly within me and made my head spin. The flames of damnation licked up my legs and my spine and singed my scalp and everything clenched as a thick bolt of seed shot from my dick and into her depths. And then another, and another, as my swollen balls discharged their load into that sweet little pussy. She found the strength to pull herself up enough in her bonds that she could grind against me, clutching me, sucking, eager for every drop. I pumped her so full of man-milk that it started to overflow and seep back out around my tool, bathing me in my own semen and making long strands of it drip from her pussy like sticky dew. I've never felt a woman so hungry for cum. Nor seen one enjoy a man's ejaculation with more salacious pleasure, licking her lips and smiling with lewd satisfaction at her sexual accomplishment. My legs wobbled and I pulled out of her, just managing to unhook her from the hoist before we collapsed both together into the hay. But no sooner had we sunk into it than she crawled over me and sought me out, as blind and hungry as a suckling babe looking for a tit, and pressed her body tight against me, kissing my chest and uttering little moans and sighs, soft and sweet and warm as a kitten. I cradled her in my arm and tried to make sense of all this, but what sense was to be made? Maid MacDimmit quickly slipped off into a deep but gentle sleep, ironic after the violence of our lovemaking, and I lie there thinking...