Lady Vengeance Read Online Free Page B

grunting as he spent his passion, then he collapsed beside her, breathing heavily. The effort had sobered him a little and he looked at the still form beside him. He found her lack of response unnerving and was not sorry to return to the cheerful fireside with his comrades.
    Elinor did not move. She was oblivious to the chill air, her numbed brain conscious only of a wish that she might die, and soon.
     Julian Poyntz followed Rowsell. He hesitated when he looked at the pale face, the half-closed eyes red-rimmed from crying. His glance strayed to the coverlet, where even in the gloom a dark stain proclaimed her lost virginity. The marquis approached, bearing a lighted candle. His cold eyes took in the scene in an instant.
     ‘What ails you, Julian, losing your nerve?’ he taunted the young man. ‘I have brought you a light, that you may see what you are about.’
     There was more coarse laughter from the others.
     ‘Aye, I’ve long wondered about your manhood, Poyntz,’ Boreland called out loudly. ‘Perhaps you should become better acquainted with our dear bishop.’
     ‘Now there’s a thought,’ murmured Thurleigh, laughing softly as he returned to the fire.
     Poyntz resolutely turned his eyes towards the almost lifeless form upon the bed.
     ‘Damn you, Boreland, you’ve no call to talk like that!’ he declared, and began to unbutton his small-clothes with grim determination.
     After Poyntz came Boreland, a big bull of a man with thick black hair that covered most of his body. Elinor had shown no emotion towards the previous two men, remaining inert and submissive beneath them, but Boreland’s huge frame rekindled her terror and she tried unavailingly to hold him off. He laughed at her feeble attempts to fight him, his massive strength easily overpowering her. Elinor thought she would be crushed by his weight upon her own small frame while the thick hair of his body and the brandy fumes from his hot breath threatened to suffocate her. She felt her strength failing and cried out at the pain as he abused her already aching body. Then, mercifully, she felt herself slipping away into blackness.
    * * * *
     How long Elinor lay in the darkness upon the bed she could not tell, although she was aware of the chinking of glasses and the murmur of conversation in the room. The big bearded man forced himself upon her once more, but her body so ached with dull pains that she was beyond caring. At last, Lord Thurleigh came over and tossed her clothes upon the bed. She stared at him blankly.
     ‘Get dressed, Mistress Burchard. We are finished with you.’
     ‘She doesn’t understand,’ mumbled Rowsell, who had come up and was now leaning heavily against the bedpost. ‘Come along, m’dear. I’ll help you to dress.’
     ‘So too will I!’ declared Poyntz, struggling out of his chair and staggering across the room.
     Amid much laughter and joking, the two men hustled the girl into her stockings and petticoats, and Poyntz claimed the privilege of tying the pair of embroidered pockets around her dainty waist. He carefully turned his head to look for them – sudden moves made him feel sick. When he observed that the pockets had slipped down from the bed and were now lying upon the floor, he did not even attempt to bend down and retrieve them, for to lower his head to such an extent would, he knew from experience, result in his making a most undignified descent to the floor and being quite incapable of standing up for a considerable period. Instead he lowered himself gently on to his knees. As he did so, his attention was caught by a dull gleam from just under the edge of the bed. Carefully turning his attention in that direction, he picked up the object and squinted at it with drink-misted eyes. It was a heavy gold brooch, intricately wrought and set with a single large ruby. In the recesses of his wine-sodden brain Poyntz remembered seeing the ornament in the lace cravat of one of the gentlemen present,