Kate and Julia: Abducted in India (19 page)

“Courtney Sahib has returned sooner than expected,” he said. “He awaits you in his study,
mem-sahib
.”

“Thank god,” Penny said with heartfelt relief. Now perhaps she could get on with rescuing the girls.

As soon as the servant had gone she dressed quickly and made her way to the study. She knew the residency well, having spent two months in Jargahal when Tom had commanded the garrison there. That had been in the days before the troops had been withdrawn and replaced by occasional visits like the one Wetherell was making. It was a sign of the Raj’s trust in the frontier state’s ruler, though shrewdly backed up by the annual payment of
khillat
that bribed him and his people into behaving themselves.

Penny had got to know Clifford Courtney quite well during her time there. She remembered an after-dinner conversation during which he had revealed his profound interest in and admiration for the native people and culture. He had seemed an amiable, rather eccentric character who had spent so many years in his post as British Resident that he had virtually ‘gone native’.

He could almost be a native, she thought, as she entered the study, sat in the chair he indicated and eyed him across the width of his desk.

His face was tanned as dark as any Pathan’s and he wore a silk
chapaan
; a loose, long-sleeved, native robe. Penny wrinkled her nose. And he still smoked the foul-smelling, black cheroots he had the last time she had seen him. He must be close to fifty now, she guessed, though he seemed little changed since their last meeting.

“It’s been a while, Mrs. Winter,” he said, and his crisp English accent immediately dispelled any impression that he was a native. “I must say I never expected we would meet again, particularly under the circumstances Macdonald describes.” He picked up a letter from the desk, scanned it briefly and put it down. Penny assumed Wetherell must have brought it with him.

“Then I don’t need to explain my dilemma,” she said. “I do hope you can help me get the girls back.”

Courtney drew on his cheroot, eyes narrowing. “We’ll see. First, let me belatedly say how much I regretted hearing about the loss of your husband. It was a most unfortunate business. I gather there was some doubt about the exact nature of his demise.”

The British community on the North West Frontier was small and insular. Everyone knew everyone else, even if they were hundreds of miles apart and did not see each other for months at a time. It appeared everyone minded everyone else’s business too, even when it took place on the other side of the world. Penny shifted uncomfortably on her seat, but Courtney had always seemed to have a sympathetic ear for her when she had previously been in Jargahal.

“There was no evidence it was anything other than an accident,”

she said, still feeling defensive after Wetherell’s recent accusations. “But Tom was never the same after the… the court martial. He didn’t seem to care whether he lived or died. I tried to get him to act more responsibly but….”

“You mustn’t blame yourself,” Courtney said when she faltered.

“He wasn’t the most strong-willed of men, was he?”

Penny’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. She did not feel responsible.

It was Tom who had chosen to take his Lagonda off into the darkness night after night and driven too fast down narrow country roads in spite of all her attempts to dissuade him. And it was not polite for Courtney to be commenting on the character of her dead husband.

“Oh, come now!” he said when she told him so. “When the two of you were here it was perfectly clear who was in charge. I always thought you needed someone who could give you a proper measure of control.”

He smiled without humour. “Someone a good deal more assertive who knew precisely how to keep your waywardness in check.”

Penny’s annoyance increased. He had no right to be commenting on her relationship with her husband, or making unflattering observations about her character either. Of course she had been the dominant one in their marriage. That was the way she had wanted it. Only in the bedroom had Tom ever asserted himself. Everywhere else it was Penny who had almost always got her way.

Perhaps that was what had attracted her to George and why their lovemaking had had an edge to it that she had never felt with Tom.

George had never let her manipulate him. One stern word had been enough to bring her to heel. After a while, despite the sex, she had not been able to put up with being controlled that way and had ended their brief affair. Suddenly aware of the pregnant silence and that she was staring vacantly into Courtney’s impassive features, Penny forced the memory from her thoughts.

“That is no business of yours, Courtney,” she said indignantly.

“Neither is it to the point. Macdonald said you can tell me where to find the slavers. Are you going to do it or not?”

The man laughed. “Ah, there’s the Penelope Winter I recognise.

You disappoint me. I expected you to employ your seductive charms before you resorted to a show of petulance – a tantalising glimpse of those famous long legs or a deep, slowly indrawn breath to pull your dress tight across your big tits. Do you think I’m too old to appreciate such things, Penelope?”

While Penny was still too stunned by his comments to respond, he rang a small hand bell on his desk. A shapely young Indian girl entered and gave him a bow. Courtney spoke to her in Hindi rather than Pashto, proving the girl was not a local. She began unbuttoning her short bodice.

Before Penny had fully grasped what the girl was doing her brown-skinned torso was bare and she was loosening her skirt. With a twinge of envy at the firm jut of her full breasts Penny rose to her feet.

“Really, this is too much! I won’t stay here and...”

“You will if you want me to even consider helping you,” Courtney interrupted. “You’ll stay, and you’ll do as you’re told.”

Penny’s stomach turned over. “Oh god, not you too!”

Courtney patted the letter on his desk. “Yes, me too. I have received a rather graphic account of your meeting with Macdonald and I spoke to Wetherell a little while ago. He’s very annoyed with you. He told me about your attempt to seduce him yesterday. And I have had a lurid report from one of my servants about what took place in my parlour afterwards. That sort of thing just isn’t done, Penelope. Even you should know that.”

Cringing inwardly with embarrassment, Penny looked away from his leering grin and saw the Indian girl had stripped completely.

Courtney stretched out an arm and the nude native went to him and let him curl it around her hips with his hand resting on the bare mound above her sex. Penny gulped.

“This is Ranee. She was a gift from the men you’re looking for. A bribe, if you like, to allow them to operate here in Jargahal without any interference.” His fingers rubbed gently on the plump swells of the girl’s pussy-lips. “She’s very talented, Penny, superbly trained and obedient.

If they were willing to give me something so valuable to persuade me not to reveal their whereabouts, I find myself wondering what you think you can offer me that might change my mind.”

There was no mistaking his meaning. With her gut twisting, Penny forced herself to meet his eye. His smile was cold as he deliberately lowered his eyes from her face to the rise of her breasts as she sucked in an anxious breath.

“Wetherell doesn’t know or care why you’re here, Penny,”

Courtney continued, “but Macdonald thinks getting those girls back means a great deal to you.” His fingers separated Ranee’s outer labia and rubbed the pinky-brown petals of the inner ones. “So do I, but you can easily prove me wrong. Just go to your room now, pack your case and return to Peshawar. I can provide you with transport.”

She was trapped again, Penny acknowledged, fearful but resigned.

Once more she would have to submit. Her pussy tickled alarmingly.

When she did not move, Courtney gave her a self-satisfied smile that fired her resentment. She fought it down, eyeing him warily.

“Take your clothes off,” he said in his crisp, commanding tone. He was the master here in the Residency and it was plain he knew it. So did Penny, but still she balked.

“The servant,” she said, intensely embarrassed.

“Stays where she is.” Courtney got to his feet. There was a large map board on the wall behind his desk. He took the wooden pointer from its ledge and tapped it on his palm as he moved towards her. Before Penny realized what he intended, its tapering, two-foot length smacked across the thin cotton dress covering her bottom. She clutched at her buttocks with a yelp more of surprise than pain.

“Clothes off, I said.”

Pulse racing, Penny stripped off the dress and the camisole she wore beneath it and, studiously avoiding looking in Ranee’s direction, her silken panties.

“Stand straight. Get your arms by your sides,” Courtney ordered as her hands went automatically to hide her breasts and sex. He stood in front of her and looked her up and down. Penny lowered her eyes from his acute gaze.

“It’s years since I’ve seen a pair of white tits,” he said. “Your nipples look so pink, and I see you’ve shaved your cunt too.”

She shuddered, worried that his crudity was not the only cause.

There was a warm prickling between her thighs as she stood still and let him look at her naked body. She felt again the strange, unsettling mixture of fear and excitement that she had experienced with Macdonald and Wetherell; a perturbing yet somehow stimulating awareness that she was powerless to influence what was going to happen. As her pussy tingled and her heart thumped, Penny realized it was also the feeling that had driven her to end her affair with George. She hated not being in control, so why was she becoming aroused?

“Keep still,” Courtney barked as he reached out the map-pointer, and Penny flinched as it pressed on the underside of her left breast. He used the tapered rod to lift the heavy mound, and then pulled it away to let her teat bounce back into place. “You always did have a fine pair of tits, Penny. Not quite so firm now as they used to be, eh? But still pretty good.”

With a pang of resentment, she could not stop herself glancing at the tight, out-thrust breasts on Ranee’s young chest. The native girl was staring at her. Penny looked away and tried to force the knowledge to the back of her mind. Courtney tapped the map-pointer uncomfortably firmly on the upper curve of her right breast.

“Now to the matter of your disgraceful behaviour in my parlour.

You nearly shocked the life out of poor old Ghairat when he walked in on you. Fingering yourself in the public areas of the Residency is strictly prohibited, Penny. I must say I’m surprised that even you were prepared to abuse my hospitality with such a wanton display.”

The pointer slapped firmly down on the jut of her teat when she opened her mouth to reply.

“I’m not finished,” Courtney snapped. “I could make allowances for the fact you haven’t done much fucking while you’ve been widowed.”

Or during the year before Tom’s death, Penny thought. He had never so much as given her a peck on the cheek since his court martial.

Oh, what was she doing thinking about that? She ought to be feeling nothing but her disgust for the way Courtney was behaving. What had happened to the amiable eccentric she had always taken him for?

“But knowing you, I doubt that’s the case,” he continued, much to her annoyance. “Anyway, that is hardly an excuse and I’ve no intention of letting you off scot-free. There’s an apology to be made for a start.”

“I’m sorry,” Penny said, and her sex quivered.

“Not to me, silly girl. To Ghairat.” Courtney rang the bell on his desk again.

Penny wrapped her arms around herself and dropped to a crouch on the floor as the middle-aged servant who had caught her masturbating came into the room. She stared up at Courtney in horror.

“Oh, you can’t! For heavens sake.”

“On your feet. Stand up straight. If you want to see those girls again you’ll do as I say, Penny.”

She rose slowly, covering herself as best she could with her hands and turned sideways on to the servant. Unfortunately that presented her bare bottom to Courtney who immediately smacked the thin pointer across it in a stinging blow.

“Ow! What the…?”

“Hands by your sides, I told you,” he said sharply. “And face Ghairat.”

Belly knotting, Penny obeyed. The briefest glimpse from beneath her lowered eyelids revealed the native staring wide-eyed at her nudity.

She ached with an awful humiliation.

“Kneel to him, look up into his eyes and tell him you beg his pardon for being such a slutty little bitch.”

“No! I’m not...” Her protest was cut off by the sharp splat of the pointer striking her bottom and the fiery sting that immediately followed.

Eyes watering, Penny sank to her knees. “I… I beg… your pardon for b… being a slutty… little… b… bitch,” she choked out, cheeks ablaze with embarrassment. The man’s black eyes glittered as he looked down into her own.

“Good tits, eh, Ghairat?” Courtney said.

“Very good, Sahib. Good round arse too.” The native grinned, revealing the gaps in his yellowing teeth.

Penny hung her head in shame. The servant made for the door.

“Ghairat,” Courtney called as he opened it, “she did come, didn’t she?”

The man laughed. “Oh yes, Sahib. She was coming very much when I found her.”

Courtney hauled Penny to her feet. Completely mortified she looked at him with tear-brimmed eyes. “I… I thought I could count on you as a friend.”

He snorted a laugh. “You never had any friends here, Penny. You saw to that yourself. You made all the women hate you and all the men want you, including me. I don’t expect you noticed, but I fell for your seductive act as well. You didn’t even realize you were doing it half the time. I suppose it became second nature. All the men wanted to fuck you but none of them liked you much. There were times even Tom had his doubts.” Her sudden gasp made him smile. “Oh, yes! He told me one evening when the two of us were dining alone. He always loved you, but he didn’t always like you.”