“My, my, what lovely, delicate, feminine underthings,” Fallan drawled over my shoulder, obviously looking at the lower part of my underwear. “Had I known what beauty lay beneath those skirts, I well might have contrived to see it the sooner.”
The three girls added their giggles to Fallan’s chuckle, and I couldn’t hold back the mortified wail that came from Bellna. I was burning up with the humiliation flaming through me, but swinging my arms back in an attempt to hit Fallan did me no good at all. he caught my wrists and held them behind me, clearing the way for one of the girls to reach to the lacings on my underbodice, at the same time looking over my shoulder to watch the process with grinning interest.
Fallan was getting even for everything I’d done to him, and at that point I would have done my damnedest to take him apart if I could have gotten loose, but I couldn’t get loose. I could only pull at his hands on my wrists as I sat with legs straight out in front of me, and watch myself being stripped.
The grinning girl undoing the lacings moved as slowly as possible, trying to increase my misery and Fallan’s interest. As the bodice opened wider and wider, I be-came aware of how close Fallan’s face was to mine; inside my mind Bellna shivered, and all at once she was fantasizing. In her fantasy Fallan reached one hand over her far shoulder, slipped it inside the half opened bodice, squeezed slowly and with infinite relish, then went on to make violent love to her. I would have thought she’d had enough of violence, but some girls are never satisfied. I suffered in silence as Bellna fantasized and the dark-haired girl took her time opening the lacings, but at least fantasy didn’t turn into reality. The real Fallan kept his hands to himself, satisfying his thirst for revenge with no more than words.
“Those breasts could do with a bit of sun,” he observed, his tone thoughtful and faintly critical as the bodice was pushed all the way open “A bit less confinement might also increase their size.”
The girls near me giggled again, enjoying Fallan’s putdown, and Bellna was too wrapped up in her daydreaming to notice. That left the option to me again, and I didn’t mind taking it up.
“Your disapproval of my form devastates me, Captain,” I said, turning my head to look at his very near profile. “How fortunate I am that it is another I must please, and not you.”
“Fortunate, indeed,” he drawled, turning his head to look me in the eye. “I am not a man to be easily pleased, as many a wench has already learned.”
“Some men do come rather late to their manhood,” I allowed with a compassionate smile. “Have patience, Captain, and do not despair. One day you, too, will he pleased as easily as other men.”
The girls around me flinched in silent pain, staring wide-eyed at the thunder my deliberate misinterpretation of Fallan’s meaning put in the big mercenary’s eyes. I was skating close to the edge by insulting him that way, but he couldn’t say he hadn’t asked for it.
Besides, life without risk is no more than existence.
“How good of you to be concerned regarding my manhood, Princess,” he said at last, obviously trying to control the rasp in his voice as well as the look in his eyes. “It must be of considerable interest to you, to cause so great a concern.”
The girls tried to giggle at his comeback, but the laughter came off rather flat, just like Fallan’s try. But he was trying, which meant he hoped to learn the game; could I do less than attempt to teach it to him?
“Alas, Captain, I find it beyond me to aspire to one such as you,” I sighed, trying hard to keep the drawl out of my tone. “I am resigned to having no more than that which I already possess, meager as that position is.”
“Resigned,” he echoed, studying me thoughtfully and with considerably less anger than I had expected. “I find it difficult to believe, Princess, that one such as you finds it necessary to be resigned to any matter whatsoever. Though the pink of embarrassment remains in your cheeks, still do you strive to give me blow for blow in defense against attack. Were you a boy and of the proper background, I would take you in my company and teach you the weapons of a man. However, as you are not a boy and therefore in need of learning the benefits of maidenly silent fear I must further bruise your sensibilities.”
A lighthearted grin lit up his ugly face as he said that, and I didn’t even have the time to wonder what he was up to. He turned my wrists loose so suddenly I was startled, pulled the underbodice off in one sharp motion, then had me around the waist before I could even begin to react. Bellna’s wail sounded in my head as Fallan threw me face down on the ground, put his knee in my hack, and pulled open the tie at my waist. he was doing it by the numbers, the bastard, and the last number was to begin working off the lace-layered undies, as slowly as the girl had unlaced the bodice, letting his palms touch my flesh only very briefly and once in a long while. I screamed with the unbearable outrage and unbearable desire Bellna was sending through me, kicking and struggling as if I really expected to get loose, silently cursing Fallan for playing the game his own way. Using his own rules there was no way he could lose, which was, of course, the whole point.
“And so much for the last of the clothing of a Princess, Fallan said, drawing off the lace undies from my legs and tossing them away. “When once you have dressed again, Missy, you will be no more than a servant to a Princess. You need not be concerned over recalling such a novel position; I have already seen to the matter to assure your memory of the thing. Hurry now, wenches, and assist the new Princess in dressing.”
The three girls who had been helping Fallan turned immediately to the redhead, who was already beginning to get out of her clothes.
Fallan’s knee continued to keep me face down in the dirt and grass, which was playing hell with my struggle to stay in control. Bellna was terribly aware of how close Fallan was, while she lay there stark naked. I could feel the heat all over my body from her embarrassment, and could also feel her out-of-control arousal. She kept expecting Fallan to touch her in some way, preferably intimately, but the redhead was hurriedly laced and stuffed into my sweaty clothes and nothing like that happened. I tried to make myself aware of how good it felt being out of clothing, but Bellna’s sense of humiliation was too strong to overcome. I squirmed under Fallan’s knee in silent protest, inwardly cursing Fallan and Bellna, but it wasn’t what one might consider an effective effort.
When the girls began lacing up my boots on the redhead, Fallan’s weight was suddenly gone from my back. My own first reaction was to get to my feet, but Bellna’s feelings were stronger than mine and they dragged mine along. On the ground Bellna had some small amount of modesty protection; upright there would be nothing more than what my hands could cover, which wasn’t much. A thin, golden haze began obscuring my vision, and I discovered I had lost the battle for control when I tried to move and nothing happened. A flash of frustrated anger touched me, whirling in with the other emotions storming around inside me.
“You may now arise and begin dressing, Missy,” Fallan spoke from behind me, a casual pat on my horribly bare bottom coming just before the sound of his rising. “It will take no more than a moment for you to do so, I know, for I mean to remain here and direct you.”
“You cannot!” I wailed, mortified at the thought of being arrayed so openly before him. “And how may I dress when that-that-peasant has been given my clothing?”
“That is the princess you speak of, girl, and you no more than the peasant,” the brute replied, a chuckle to be heard in his vile tone.
His hand took my arm and. forced me to my feet despite my protests, despite the enormity of such a thing. I searched within me for the new knowledge which would cause him harm for the thing he dared, yet it was covered and kept from me by some means. Instead of finding myself able to chastise him, I was able to do no more than stand with my hands before me, knowing the concealment pitifully inadequate, trembling at the amusement which took him. Deep in my heart I knew I would not find myself able to struggle if he were to step forward and take me in his arms, yet he made no attempt to do so. There were none to halt him there, and none who would dare speak of it were he to thrust himself within me, yet he made no attempt to do so.
“That tinge of red does you no justice, girl,” the beast chuckled, sending his gaze to touch every part of me. “Were you not red-haired it would perhaps be attractive, but as you are best you dress quickly.”
I had no wish to don the crude trappings of a peasant, yet how might I refuse to cover myself against the stare of the brute? The skirt brought me was a plum print, the badly made bodice a thin once-white, the heavy’ shawl dyed an uneven green. Additional insult was given me in that none of the servants brought to furnish service to me lifted even a single hand in assistance. Out of necessity, then, I covered my own body, and when the shawl was tied about my waist the mercenary Fallan stepped closer to look down upon me.
“The lines of your body are more easily seen through clothing such as that,” he murmured, a glint in the dark of his eyes. “Best you stay close to me when you are without the coach, else I may not be able to answer for your safety. Men are no more than men, most considering peasant girls theirs for the taking. None will pause to ask if you are indeed a peasant.”
He turned from me then to gesture the others from the tent, and then it was me back in control again and not Bellna. I was startled that she’d given up so abruptly, without anything like a struggle, but while I was taking a deep breath and tightening my grip on the control, f found her quaking back in a corner of my mind. Fallan had frightened her badly when he’d told her how men would react to her, and her imagination was picturing her being raped by men without number, none of them Fallan. She wanted Fallan so badly my body burned with the need, but she didn’t want any part of a gang rape by strangers. I can’t say how relieved I was that she looked at it like that, but it’s amusing only to think about afterward. At the time the only consideration involved was that if she had liked the idea, it would have been my body taking the punishment.
Fallan lifted the tent flap and let the “princess” and her servants leave the tent first, then pushed me out after them with a hand in the middle of my back. He came out right behind me, calling to his men to get the tent folded and put away even as he followed us to the coach. The redhead was trying not to move stiffly in her new finery, but the weight of it was already beginning to get to her. She moved her head in discomfort, trying to loosen her collar and let in some of the fresh forest air, and Fallan passed me in two strides to catch up to her.
“You must not hold yourself so timidly,” he instructed her, his voice gentle and supportive as he looked down at her. “You must be as bold and arrogant as the true princess is, for now you are she. Think of the gold you will have when this chore is done, and think of the awe and respect which will be yours when you return among your people.
Think also of the insult which you may give others, without fear of reprisal; you should, by now, be well schooled in that subject at the very least.”
All four of the girls giggled at the dryness in Fallan’s voice, knowing exactly who the butt of his’ humor was. I knew it too, but right then I couldn’t have cared less; I was too busy backing away from the coach, just about ready to make a break for it. No matter how good Fallan was, he’d never catch me once I was into the woods, and then I could finish up that assignment the right way. I backed up another step, then another, almost ready to turn-and backed right into a hard, male body.
“You mistake your direction, wench,” a voice came from the body I’d backed into, causing me to turn my head fast. The mercenary Ralnor stood there, the one who was Fallan’s lieutenant, a faint grin of amusement on his handsome face. His hand came up to take my arm in a deliberately heavy grip and Bellna, remembering what the man had done to the redhead, began quaking even harder in her corner.
“Should there be a mistake, it is certainly on your part,” I told him, fighting hard to keep from growling as Bellna’s shivering had a tendency to make me do. Remove your hand from my arm, and do so immediately.”
“What occurs here?” Fallan demanded, coming up behind me in time to see the grin disappear from Ralnor’s face. Fallan’s lieutenant was no longer amused, and that suited me just fine.
“Captain, I caught the wench attempting to take herself off,” Ralnor said with a growl of his own, his hand tightening even more on my arm. “Allow me to punish her for you.”
His pretty eyes looked at me with a hardness that was supposed to be intimidating; instead of feeling intimidated, all I wanted to do was offer him his best shot. Unfortunately, the role I was committed to didn’t even let me pull my arm free of his hand; the only weapon I could use was words.
“As you realize you must ask permission before offering me harm, you must also realize what will befall you should you attempt the deed under any circumstances,” I said in my coldest tone, holding his eyes the way Bellna would have if she were a little older and more mature.
“It has clearly slipped your mind to whom you give insult, Lieutenant. Were I you, I would retract that insult.”
“And yet you are not I, wench,” Ralnor answered through his teeth, tightening his grip again to the point where I winced against the pain. “No wench, neither peasant nor princess, may speak to me as you do. Such insolence demands a reckoning, and I shall. . .”
“Do naught,” Fallan interrupted, wrapping his hand around Ralnor’s wrist and pulling his fingers away from my arm. “Do you forget the oath we have sworn, Ralnor? Do you forget the cautions we were given?
You declared yourself able to withstand even the haughtiest of princesses. Were you mistaken in the judgment of your strength?”
“Perhaps . . . merely in my capacity for patience, Captain,” the other man grudged, backing down as gracefully as his still-present anger would allow. “I had not meant to approach the wench after the earlier words exchanged between us, and did not; it was I who was approached, and in an unexpected manner. I will now take myself elsewhere, where I will not place our company in jeopardy.”