Teena: A House of Ill Repute Read Online Free Page B

Gregory, I'd simply whack Mad Meg over the head, dump her down the well, and that'd be an end to it. After all, you never lost your personality or real identity when you went back in Angelina's body, so there's no reason to suppose I'd end up as anything but myself, regardless of whatever body I was in.'
    'But what's the likelihood of you going back in the first place?' I queried. 'I know Andy did, but that could be for a number of reasons, one of which you couldn't possibly duplicate, not with the best will in the world.'
    'Maybe not duplicate, exactly,' Anne-Marie agreed, 'but who's to say it needs to be exact? There's something between all three of us, I reckon, and fate is a funny old thing.
    'No, you're right, I can't guarantee much,' she went on, 'except that we're all going to get maudlin and miserable if we just sit around here doing nothing. I suggest we try taking our minds off it for a bit and let whatever's going to happen whenever and whatever. And I've got a few ideas that I can guarantee will distract you. In fact, they'll distract all three of us. No, don't ask, just trust me, it'll be a surprise.'
    'Yes, well, I reckon I've had enough of surprises to last me a lifetime,' I sniffed.
    Anne-Marie wasn't about to be deflected. 'There are good surprises and bad surprises,' she persisted, getting to her feet, 'and this one will be a good one, I promise. So, trust me?' She smiled down at me in her most disarming fashion and although I tried to resist, I knew I'd lost, at least for the moment.
    'Call me a fool,' I replied, 'but yes, I trust you, though I reckon I'll end up wishing I hadn't!'
     
    Maudie moaned softly and fought to open her eyes, her lids feeling as if they'd been weighed down. For a minute or so, as the vague patterns of light and shade struggled to form some vague semblance of order, she felt completely confused, wondering if this was just another of the weird dreams she had been experiencing since her arrival at the house. In those dreams her entire body felt tight, stiff and heavy and her limbs felt as if they were stuck in thick mud.
    Very slowly her head began to clear and with it her vision, yet nothing she saw or remembered seemed to make any sense. The last thing she recalled was sitting at the small table by the bedroom window drinking the glass of wine the maid had brought in to her after her tea. She seemed to remember she had suddenly felt very tired, and that she then stumbled her way across the room to lie on the bed, but she most certainly was not lying on the bed now, for the surface beneath her felt hard and uncomfortable and, as things began at last to swim back into some sort of focus, she could see she was no longer even in the bedroom.
    Instead, above her she saw rough-hewn timber beams, and above those what had to be dark tiles. Wherever she was it was not even inside the house, she realised, but rather some sort of outbuilding, too small to be a barn, but perhaps a storehouse or even a stable, for she could smell leather strongly now and from one side of her vision she could make out small heaps of straw.
    Maudie made an attempt to lift her head, automatically moving her right arm to use her elbow as leverage. Except her right arm refused to bend, and her neck, when she tried to move it, felt stiff and awkward. At the same time she felt the 'thing' pressing down across her tongue, and when she tried to cry out, all she could manage was an incomprehensible animalistic squeal.
    'Lie still for a while more.'
    She blinked, her eyes darting around at the sound of Miss Crowthorne's voice, and she realised her field of vision was far more restricted than normal, even though things were more or less back in focus now. She blinked again, unable to believe what her eyes were telling her, but the pressure against her ears and cheeks and forehead provided further undeniable evidence. She was wearing some kind of hood, and the reason she could not see properly to either side was that she was