The Dungeon

Chapter One-2

“You do say the silliest things,” Eleanor said, smiling.

The coach drove on. Lord Darlington’s country seat was ten miles outside London, but it was a pleasant ride through mostly open country, though dusk was fast approaching. It was warm and Eleanor decided to slip off the cloak she was wearing. She leaned forward a little, ostensibly to brush a speck of dust from her dress, but in fact to offer James a good view of her embonpoint.

“You don’t think this dress is just a little too low at the front?” she inquired in a voice full of ill-disguised flirtation.

“I think that it will be greatly admired by every man present, and by none more so than I,” said James.

“Sometimes,” Eleanor said winsomely, “you manage to say just the right thing.”

She had a sudden urge to pull her dress right up to her waist, to let James feast his eyes on the voluminous petticoats and perhaps a teasing glimpse of drawers. She drew a deep breath and the whim passed. She more and more frequently had these urges, to throw over the traces, to kick up her heels and shock people. But despite her active s****l imagination, she had in fact an iron will. She knew she could control herself, and that meant she could control others. James would have to wait.

Their carriage had turned in at the gate of the lodge at the end of the long gravel drive leading up to Grantham Hall. She could see the house all lit up, and hear faintly the sound of an orchestra. Her spirits rose. She loved dancing, loved the sensuality of it, her body moving, so close to the man. There were still some, clergymen mostly, who said that the waltz was sinful, and there was no doubt that feeling a man pressed against her belly, and his legs occasionally brushing hers, engendered the most deliciously wicked thoughts. But at least his hands were prevented from roving, one securely placed in her own, the other firmly planted in the small of her back.

They were met by Lord Darlington’s butler, a man named Stoker who Eleanor thought had a rather sinister look and who gazed at her with an open and not altogether deferential look of interest. He ushered them into a small ante-room where a maid took their coats and such, and then he conducted them towards the sound of the music, turning at the entrance to the ballroom to announce in a loud voice “Lady Eleanor Seward and Mr James Faulkner”.

Lord Darlington came across to greet them. He shook James’s hand then, looking Eleanor up and down with a frankness that was scarcely respectful, smiled warmly and bid her welcome. He was a tall man with a good head of hair, dark and curly, above a face that might have been considered handsome but which Eleanor found a trifle unnerving. A sardonic smile seemed to play about his lips at all times, and those lips were fleshy, red, sensual. His nose was long and thin, but it was his eyes that caught her attention. They were dark, matching his hair, almost black in fact, deep-set, with a steady, almost hypnotic look. They held Eleanor’s gaze steadily, and eventually she had to look away, being somewhat disturbed by their intensity.

He made some polite remarks, but was then called away to greet more guests. The room was filling up, and James led them to the corner, where a bar was set up. He fetched them both a glass of champagne.

“Strange cove, that Darlington,” he said. “They say there are a few stories about him.”

“What sort of stories,” Eleanor asked.

‘Something about his wife. She killed herself, drowned herself in the lake, I believe.”

“Why?”

“There were rumours.”

“What sort of rumours? Don’t be coy, James.”

“It’s said that he abused her.”

“Abused her? How?”

“Not that he knocked her about or anything. He seemed to have had some sort of hold over her, and he induced her to perform certain acts. She did so, consented, technically. But it went against her nature. She was religious and thought she had sinned deeply to do those things. She couldn’t live with it.”

“With what? You are so damnably obtuse, James.”

“Tut, tut, language,” James scolded. “Well, one thing was that he convinced her to let him use her from behind. Like a dog. In the rear orifice.”

“Oh,” said Eleanor. “You mean, he buggered her?”

“You aren’t supposed to know that word, naughty girl,” James said, wagging his finger.

“And what else?”

“Apparently he persuaded her to let him whip her, tied her up and set about her with his riding crop. It was said he drew blood.”

Eleanor shivered. “She agreed to that?”

“Whether she really did so, I don’t know. But I believe there are women who will engage in all manner of perversity if their passions are sufficiently aroused. Or if they are under the influence of someone.”

“How do you know all this?”

“She had a friend, the wife of the lord’s estate manager, to whom she confided things. It all came out at the coroner’s inquiry. It seems the estate manager was sacked after that. He and his wife moved away, disappeared in fact. But no charges were brought against Lord Darlington. The manager’s wife never alleged that force was used.”

“It sounds like beating someone till they bleed is force,” said Eleanor.

“But if she wanted it?”

“No woman would want that,” Eleanor said, her chin tilted upwards in a defiant expression.

James shrugged. “Perhaps there are more things in heaven and earth,” he said. “Up north they say, not so queer as folk.”

“Let’s dance,” said Eleanor, wanting to take her mind off these unpleasant revelations.

For the next hour, she and James whizzed round and round the dance floor. She also danced with other young men who had asked to be put on her dance card. She couldn’t resist flirting with them a little. She could see from their manner how attracted they were, and this stimulated her into the occasional saucy remark. But as soon as they took that as evidence that they might make some progress with her, she cut them off and went back to James.

She complained to James that many of the men could not resist staring quite rudely at her bosom, even trying to peer down the front of her dress to see more.

“But isn’t that what your gorgeous breasts are on display for, to be looked at and admired?” James said. He was often struck by the contradictions that beautiful women set up for themselves.

“You are horrid to say such things!” she retorted. “If you dare to look at them yourself one more time I shall refuse to dance with you again.”

James laughed. “Oh, dear Eleanor. You are so adorable. I vow never ever again to look at your fabulous breasts.”

“I shall hold you to that promise,” she said. All was forgiven as they set off for another dance, but the exchange had set off a thought in her mind. Eleanor found dancing with James very stimulating. Once or twice she had bumped against him (or had he deliberately engineered the contact?), and felt a definite hardness in his groin. She ought to have told him that such contact was not permissible, but she was stimulated by it, and it was more than she could do to ignore it. In fact, in the next dance she deliberately drew closer, to the extent that she was able to rub herself against him, though discreetly. James was well aware of her manipulations. He steered her towards the French windows on one side of the room, and then, in a twirl, out through the windows into the garden.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“I think you know,” he said.

“I hope you are not going to be a bad boy,” she said.

“Do you?”

“You are a sweet boy, James,” she said. “But a naughty one. You must stop it.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked.

Eleanor was silent. She knew well enough she could not give an honest answer to such a question. She looked about her. “Come this way,” she said, leading him into some bushes. In the middle of the clump of bushes was a small open space, just big enough for the two of them.

“I’m going to give you a treat, James,” Eleanor said. “But you must promise that you will do as I say, and only as I say.”

James was almost beside himself with excitement. “Anything,” he said. “Anything at all.”

Eleanor had been debating which of several options that were playing in her mind she should follow through on. She was sorely tempted to lift her dress and arrange her drawers so that James might catch at least a glimpse of what was inside them. But on balance she decided that should wait until another day. She didn’t want to work through the options too quickly, and that one was just about at the limit of how far she was willing to go. Better that she now showed him something a little less inflammatory, but still alluring.

“Step back a pace,” she said. He moved back, right up against the bushes.

“Now I am going to expose something to view. But you are to shut your eyes tightly when I say and not dare to open them again unless I say you may. You must not move an inch from your spot. You must not say anything. And when it is over you must not beg for more. Agreed?”

“Oh, yes,” said James breathlessly. At that moment he would have agreed to any terms whatsoever. If she had told him he must first go jump in the lake, he would have done it.

It was quite dark inside the little clearing. James wished fervently that there was more light if he was going to see something. But he was close to her and his eyesight was good. He waited expectantly.

Eleanor put her hand up to the top of her dress. It was firmly resting on her shoulders, her beautifully creamy white shoulders, but the front was scooped very low. It was the work of a minute to pull the dress down off her shoulders so that it hung loose, revealing the top of her corset. Her breasts billowed out over the top, pushed forward and upwards by the tightness of the corset.

“Open your eyes,” Eleanor said.

James stared at her bosom, his eyes greedy with desire. She then very slowly, so slowly that James was in an agony of suspense, put her hands inside the top of the corset, which too was cut very low, As he watched, hoping against hope that more would be revealed, she pulled her breasts free of the corset, covering them with her hands.

“I had thought to let you see them, but you have been so rude and coarse that I have decided not to. So close your eyes now.”

James had never been told to do anything so difficult, but he knew that Eleanor was a woman of her word. When she said something, she meant it. He screwed his eyes tightly shut, then heard her say that she was now dropping her hands to expose her bosom fully, but that he was forbidden to look.

James looked so crestfallen, so utterly bereft, that she was seized with pity for the poor boy. Perhaps, after all, he might be offered a glimpse, but no more. She dropped her hands.

“You may open your eyes again,” she said. James stared at what was revealed. He was the first man who had ever seen them in all their glory, perfectly shaped, firm and proud, with dark brown n*****s that had quickly become erect. He ached to be able to plunge his face between her breasts, or cup them in his hands and squeeze, or take the n*****s in his mouth one by one and suck them hard. Eleanor knew all too well what things he was thinking. She rubbed her n*****s teasingly, pulled on them, even twisted them, and moaned softly. God, it felt good! But she had resolved, this much and no more. To James’s infinite disappointment the breasts were carefully placed back inside the corset and the dress pulled up over it, to sit on the top of her shoulders once more.

“You may speak now if you wish,” she said.

James took a deep breath. “A vision of heaven,” he said. “My life will have been lived in vain if I do not get to see such wonders again, and even touch them.”