Gold Raven (64 page)

As soon as they entered the room and closed the door behind a
stiff Timothy, the women turned and ordered, " Strip... we'be needin'
t'see what we workin' wiv, 'plus we be needin' ta'check ya' fer'
biddies! The bowls yonder fer warshin'!"
Anthony thought he would die.

Rory's heart almost leapt out of his throat, but he refused to
hesitate, while Randy could not strip fast enough. Following suit,
Rory did the same. Randy must have thought it was a race, because
the clothes were off and he tossed his shirt aside last, raising his arms
with a fat smile on his face, and a fully erect participant. He eyed
them with a message that was clear. "Your turn." The women were shocked and laughing, able to see, that he would no doubt become a
regular.
Rory braced himself to remove his drawers, the minute his organ
hit the air, an immediate erection announced he was ready to play.
Wheatly elbowed Amy. "These'un look'like they b'abit'o fun t'play
wiv."

"Aye, we gonna have a ball, or two, or three or four." They
dissolved in laughter, as Amy flexed her brows at Rory, showing appreciation for how well
equipped he was.
"Hey — what about mine! It ain't so bad!" Randy asked with it standing still in bold view. Wheatley walked up to him and kissed him
on the cheek then stroked it. "I, ain
^’
bad'a'tall." He groaned at her touch as Anthony stood after much hesitation in his shirt with his
hands cupped on his privates.
"Well, les’ see'it' then?" Wheatly asked, still standing before Randy.
Anthony finally mustered the nerve to bare himself, when Amy
commented, "Hm, well - that won't be taken long - sure ain't n’
more hidden unner’yon shirt?"

Wheatly looked and did what Anthony dreaded most, she
laughed.
"Blood'ee 'ell! We'shud do'im for free!" And exploded into more laughter with Amy following suit. Making matters worse, Randy
looked and was laughing as well. Humiliated beyond what he could
stand to endure, Anthony snatched up his clothes covering himself
and ran from the room screaming for Abram as he put them on in the
hall. Abram was too far into his own pleasures to stop now, but
Anthony's screeching increased to the height of hysteria. Still laughing, Wheatly ran to the doorway of their room calling
down the hall to him, "Aaah sweet, com'back. We'ain’ mean'ye
n'arm. Come back, sweet...come - ba-a-a-ck!" She dissolved into
more laughter at his screaming and running
, tripping in the hall where his small white bottom was bared for
her to see. She turned back into the room and closed the door, their
laughter echoing throughout the house.

Holding his pants trying to get his leg in, Abram hopped
, calling out to his young charge that he was heard, and was coming. Doors opened left and right with angry curses for the boy to shut up, "He's
put me off he has! Bloody dick!" Someone complained.

By the time Abram reached Anthony, he was dressed and by the
door at the bottom of the stairs, Anthony blasted the madam with a
threat of closing her down.

"Just wait until my father hears of this and you! What took you so long; I have your hide for taking so long!
! I shall have your hide for
bringing me to this wretched place! You just wait! All of you, she'll
pay, they'll all pay!"

His screaming could still be heard inside after Abram closed the
front door, as Anthony made his way down the street with Abram
following as he fumbled with his shirt buttons, leaving the other boys
behind.

Randy did not care; he was in heaven, getting his money's worth.
Rory enjoyed himself as well after he gave in and no one disturbed
Timothy, who lay napping on the floor, still out from his faint.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Rory walked down the block with his school jacket over his shoulder, it was late and dark. He shook his head at the looks he
received from Timothy's parents after he took him home. They were
going out of theirs minds worrying about him; most of the staff had been out searching for him. His father had just returned home to
report that he hadn't been found when the boys stepped up to the
door. Timothy's mother was in tears, almost hysterical by the time the
servant opened the door to find them standing there.

With an angry glare at him, Timothy's father snatched him inside,
slamming the door in Rory's face. He could not say that he blamed
him, if he was a father with a son like Timothy, he wouldn't want him hanging with someone like him either. Rory shook his head as his gut
twisted with the envy of it. There would be no such things happening
at his home. No hysterical mother with tears in her eyes, unable to
face the horrors of what might have happened to her son. No
servants searching high and low at the command of his father, and
certainly ... no father snatching him inside to scold and punish, while
insisting he was to break off his associations with his friend. In
Timothy's case, that friend would be Rory — the troublemaker because
he had worried them all to death. No, he would find no such thing
upon
his
arrival home.
He swallowed back painful thoughts of his mother. Here it was
well past eleven o'clock and no doubt, she was fast asleep.

Maybe
even dreaming and hoping this time that he would not return, since
this was not the first time he had returned home so late. The first
time he had done it, Sandra had worried, sending someone out in search
for him ... not his mother, not Lena.

In the silent dark of the night, he swallowed back the lump in his
throat and the tears that threatened to come to his eyes wondering,
'Why do you hate me? Or the very least of all, why do you not like me?'
Then
Mailon came into his mind and what Anthony and Randy were about
to do to her.
'Is that why you don't like me Lena? Did the man who fathered
me, rape you as they were about to do with her? Is that why you refuse to discuss
him?'
He tried to see back to a time where she may have been treated
in such a way, but he could conjure no image of her past — because he
did not know the woman who was his mother. Upon reaching the
mansion, he got in as he usually did, by tapping on Sheldon's window
at the back of the house.

Lena lay in bed listening to the tick of the clock in her room. She
finally threw her cover aside after tossing and turning, holding her
breath while listening for the tiniest odd sound, feeling her heart
pound erratically from the worry. She walked to her window, which gave a view
of the front lawn and driveway; she stood there looking out again. She
had walked the path from her bed to the window so many times that
she’d lost count, looking for Rory, who she thought wasn't home yet.
There was no way she could lay down and close her eyes to sleep until
she knew that he was home and safe.

'God, why does he do this to me? I can't stand it. Anything could be
happening to him out here, anything. I know I promised to leave him alone, and I
will, as long as I know he's safe...and home.'
She agonized. In her room,
away from the eyes of Sandra, she paced. She remembered the first
time he had come home late; she had reacted before she could think.
Sandra in observance had challenged her, telling her that she did
in
fact love him. "I can see that you do! Why do you pretend
otherwise?" She had entreated.

"I'm just concerned about him; as I would be about you, or
Sheldon, or Rollo." She defended. Sandra had raced about looking,
shaking her head as she knew better. Lena had been on the verge of another breakdown. She had struggled to hide it, but had failed to do
so. She had been so upset had that Sandra had ended up having to give her an extra dose of laudanum to calm her down.

Doing so, ended up knocking
her out for hours, while Sandra and the others searched for him,
unable to find him. After they gave up the search, he had snuck in
under their noses and gone to bed.

Sandra
, worrying about Lena, had finally gone
up to check on her and just to be sure, had gone to his room. There
he was, in bed. With a sigh, she’d turned and left without a word to
him.

Bringing her thoughts back to the present, Lena went back to her
bed where she sat against the headboard. She knew she should be
used to his late returns by now, but she still worried, afraid the one time she didn't would be the time when something would happen to
him. As much as she swore to guard her heart against loving him,
something inside of her blocked her from succeeding. The hard
truth that she simply had no choice but to face, was that she
loved him so much that it was part of the reason for her emotional
breakdowns.

She remembered when she finally had to face the reality that Manny would not find her. She'd sent
out three missives to him and waited. Any attempts to
seek him out otherwise only endangered her and her hiding place.
Consequently, one thing after another occurred until a depression of
helplessness fell over her. Unable to shake it, she even entertained a
desire to miscarry, of purging Rory from her body. Crying with
supplication to God as to why he could be so cruel to have cursed
her womb with another child of Manny’s, when it was certain that she
would only end up losing this one as she had her others. She sat
thinking about the shameful prayer to God repeatedly pleading him to take this one now... before it was too late. Yet, Rory clung
within her womb.

George and Sandra had her working in the kitchen when she had first arrived. She had scrubbed the floors to an unusual extent in the worse possible position to cause strain, carrying heavy filled buckets of water in both hands, among other heavy objects.
The outcome had been nothing more than backaches and minor
cramping that never increased. The child had clung to her womb tight
and strong. She contemplated throwing herself down the stairs,
standing at the top, staring down the length she would need to fall
until lacking the nerve she sank down to the top step and cried,
holding onto the railing. Replaying Katherine's fall in her head, sure that that would end her pregnancy but she just couldn't do it.

The night he was born, Sandra begged her to take the child to her breast. Lena remembered refusing; she would not even look at him.
Finally Sandra had laid the child on the bed beside her. She had
turned her back to him, and before long, he began to cry.

She had
ignored him, at least she tried to, she had even struggled up from the
bed, though shivering and weak she made her way to the door,
calling out for one of the three women servants to please come and
get him. No one had responded, by request of Sandra.

He continued to cry. Closing the door, she leaned there with her
forehead pressed against the doorframe. Tears falling as she swore
she would not touch him. She had worked her way around her bed, keeping her eyes from him towards her bedroom window seat. There she sat, staring out of the window, blocking out his crying. Slowly
pulling her knees up, hugging them to her swollen aching breasts,
rocking and singing soft lyrics to some
song she had once learned,
to herself, she ignored him
, refusing to give him a glance.

Finally, it happened, the crying stopped. Without realizing it, so
had her singing as her body froze, trapped in a tug of war between
her heart and her mind. She forced herself to stare out the window but
she could not bring herself to start singing again, bracing herself there not to move, leaving him silent and alone in her bed, small, innocent and helpless. A few moments had passed but the crying had not resumed
and none of the usual smacking sounds of a newborn using its tiny
fist to pacify its self, nothing... just dead silence.

Lena had leapt from the windowsill so quickly she had sprained her ankle in her urgency to reach the child lying on the bed.
Once there, she looked down at him for the first time, her eyes
widened in shock. He was still, with both tiny fists up beside his head
and didn't seem to be breathing. With her heart lodged in her
throat, she had picked him up in a panic giving him a slight shake, a
sob choking her as she did.

He jumped and resumed his wailing.

Lena broke down and bawled holding onto him. She climbed into her bed against her headboard, and placed the child that had been her
biggest of all born to her, at her breast. He latched on
and Lena felt shame that she had entertained
such notions as letting him die.

Looking down at him, she noted that he was simply, red; the
slight down on his head and his skin, red. Roberta, the kitchen cook
took one look at him, because he was still without a name, and
said. "Red Rory, look at him, red as can be." Sandra had agreed and
added the other part to his name, Everard. She had said he looked
like an Everard, and so he was Rory Everard.