The silk sheet was surprisingly heavy when wet. Lucy cursed as she felt it's weight drag at her arms, the slightly unpleasant touch of the soapy water running across her small soft hands. It wasn't fare! here was she, daughter of a land owner reduced to the rank of laundry made all because of Rosetta. Daughter, but illegitimate she reminded herself, fingers gently massaging the heavy sodden silk in the wooden tub, then reaching up to pull a few stray strands of soft brown hair back from her face.
That was the problem. While her father, Thomas Strefon had been alive it hadn't been too bad, true, she'd barely seen the man given his frequent trips to the continent and investments in mysterious financial matters, and while she'd been left pretty much to her own devices while Strefon's own daughter, the spoiled and pampered Rosetta received all the attention, she had at least been left alone. Alone to read and dream and think, alone, until Strefon died.
She sighed mournfully, pulling the sodden bedding out of the tub and struggling to hang it over the wooden drying wrack, pushing it to one end so that it wouldn't actively drip on the straw stuffed pallet on which she now slept.
Sadly she looked around the tiny laundry, her home for the last six months. A flag stone floor and a space full of drying wracks, always with one or other pile of dirty laundry sitting around in one corner or another. To one side was her meagre bed, a straw stuffed mattress over which were slung a few admittedly thick but still poor quality blankets.
To one side was the door leading inwards to the kitchen, to the other, a door lead out to the night and the gravel driveway surrounding Strefon hall.
Perhaps in some other life her and Rosetta had been friends, sisters, Rosetta willing to overlook the bounds of legitimate birth and her father's affair, but not in this life. She briefly contemplated how absurd it would be, the tall, elegant catlike Rosetta, blonde as a goddess, blue eyed as a northern beauty with a body rich and soft and smooth as an evening sky, friends with her, small and plump and plane, or at least so she thought, brown eyed and fat as a cow, drabber than ever since Rosetta had dressed her in a maid's dull grey outfit and forced her to take up working in the scullery.
Lucy grimaced as she remembered the incident earlier that day when Rosetta had supposedly seen a spot on her immaculate silk pillowcase. She'd slapped Lucy hard enough to leave a red mark, then ordered the girl to do all of her laundry and not sleep until it was finished.
Lucy looked down at the depressingly large pile of Rosetta's laundry. It was already late, the night very still and quiet, the house and grounds dark. Were those grass stains on the pink cotton panties? soil stains on the red flared chiffon skirt? It was rumoured Rosetta had already been meeting men secretly in the grounds, perhaps one reason she demanded all her bedding and garments be washed so frequently and flew into a rage if anything was the slightest bit amiss.
Lucy couldn't fathom why Rosetta would be looking at any men, not when she was engaged to Simon.
Mechanically picking up one of Rosetta's suspiciously rumpled white silk blouses and beginning the arduous task of washing it, Lucy found her mind straying to Simon. A burly, muscular man, rumoured a poet and sea captain. Simon with his rich orator's voice, dark hair, blue grey eyes and surprisingly slim, gentle hands.
He'd been so kind to her, she even remembered a moment, surrounded by the clean physical smell of laundry she was folding when their eyes had met, when they'd shared a few whispered words. She imagined what it might have been like, lying down amid the piles of neatly folded sheets and towels and clothing, Simon first kissing her full lips then running those gentle artist's hands ----
The hand that covered her mouth was neither slender nor gentle. A huge, rough paw, clamping firmly across her lips even as a second hand seized her long soft brown hair and jerked her backwards. Lucy let out a startled squeak, her arms flying forward, the blouse splashing into the laundry tub. She heard a masculine voice hiss at her ear "Stay still girl! we won't hurt you!"
But the sudden fear took over and she found herself thrashing, breathing noisily through her nose, her arms waving frantically.
"Here!"
That was a woman's voice. Abruptly, Lucy felt her wrists, surprisingly slender given her generally firm body seized in one hand and brought roughly together behind her, and then a loop of something soft was passed across them, ---- cloth of some kind. First firmly, then tightening in several jerks as knots were tied.
"shhhhh my dear. We really won't hurt you"
The man who still held a grip on her hair and a hand over her mouth laughed softly.
"Hurt you no, ---- though perhaps I might please you"
She squirmed, mewing through the hand across her mouth, smelling a strong, sooty Oder of the man standing so close to her, her head held firmly between his great rough hands.
"Jude Enough of that!"
This voice also belonged to a man, but was lighter in tone than the first. Take your hand away from her mouth so I can make sure she stays quiet"
The hands behind her were still efficiently securing first her wrists, then her forearms, tying them together at the small of her back. For a second the pressure increased as several more knots were applied, then slackened as the hands dropped away, Lucy again squeaked against the rough paw over her mouth as her shoulders took the strain of her bonds.
A man then stepped into her field of vision, a finely dressed younger man with shoulder length blond hair and an aquiline look that would've made him handsome in other circumstances.
"Now my dear. You won't be harmed, but it will be necessary to silence you. I apologise for the necessity, but I am sure you understand. I also apologise for the materials we must use, but this is a laundry after all"
His tone was cultured, almost polite. Behind her, Jude laughed, giving her hair a little tug.
"This dirty little maid I'm sure won't care about that"
"Jude!"
This time it was the woman who spoke, her voice sounding from somewhere behind Lucy and near the floor.
"Lets get on with it, we need to make sure she's secure before we get the one we want"
Lucy felt her feet seized and something, likely another length of cloth was passed around them several times, the woman pulling it tight provoking Lucy to whimper again.
Lucy's mind whirled, "one we want", one what.
"We want this one"
Muttered Jude, and let go of her mouth, still retaining the grip on her hair.
"What are you ---- mmmmmph!"
Lucy's frightened whisper was abruptly cut off as the handsome man grabbed the pink panties from the laundry pile and stuffed them into her mouth, not tight enough to be dangerous but certainly enough that she would have to work to remove them. Again, she panicked instinctively, bucking against the cloth ties on her arms and legs, her nipples standing out firmly against the thin grey cotton of her workaday dress.
"Shhhhh my dear"
The man said, running a hand caressingly down her cheek.
"I promise you won't be harmed"
Lucy watched as the blond man picked something else from the pile of dirty washing, one of the delicate white silk shawls that Rosetta liked to wear with her evening dresses. Deftly, he rolled and folded it until he had a long length of white silk which he proceeded to wind about her head, pulling the strands tight over her lustrous hair and knotting at the back , before running the two ends back around her face to tie a second, tighter knot over her mouth, keeping the stuffing in firmly.
"There"
He said, not unkindly.
Lucy wailed through the muffling layers of cloth, feeling the pull of the silk on her hair, shaking her head in a futile effort to loosen the gag. She heard herself making a low, pleading mew, but one scarcely loud enough to carry beyond this room. Her mouth was full of the feel of smooth cotton, the acrid, strangely sweetish taste of Rosetta's body and sweat, and in her nose she still smelled a hint of the heavy perfume Rosetta had last worn when she donned this particular shawl.
"Now lets finish up"
The still unseen woman pushed Lucy forward so that for a second she lay face first in the pile of dirty laundry. For a moment she feared smothering, but as another tie was passed around her waste and her already securely bound hands Lucy realized what was happening, grunting slightly through her gag as the waste tie was cinched about her ribs.
"there! all done"
The woman's tone was satisfied. Lucy felt herself picked up, from the gentleness of the hands she suspected it was the blond man and dropped neatly onto her own straw pallet, the mattress giving out a soft whisper.
She moved her legs, trying to draw them up, feeling her initial panic give way to something numb, almost accepting even as she heard the whistle of her constricted breath and the low, plaintive mewling from her plugged mouth. Here she was, bound and tied like a package, her mouth covered tightly. She realized she was entirely helpless, that whatever these people had in mind for her (and she had a nasty idea what was in Jude's mind at least), she could offer no resistance.
Raising her head, Lucy looked at her captors from above the white shawl, her brown eyes wide and full of fear.
There were two men and a woman. The men were finely dressed in black suits with ruffled shirts, white silk handkerchiefs in the pockets and cravats, one, the blond aquiline man who'd gagged her wore it with the familiarity of a second skin, the other, the hulking rough bearded fellow wore it with the unease of someone unused to fine clothes.
The woman was a tall tanned creature in her forties dressed in a sensible looking black and practical blouse, cinched in with a wide leather belt, holding a leather satchel in her hand. From her dark sensibly braded hair to the tips of her flat sturdy shoes, She looked cool and competent and utterly pitiless. The three of them filled the small laundry, their presence making this familiar space of drudgery and endless lonely hours of work into something frightening, nightmarish, the light from the couple of candles glowing menacingly across them.
"now we can get on, what time is it?"
The woman's tone was businesslike, plainly with Lucy restrained she no longer considered her worth her notice. The blond man pulled a large fob watch from the breast pocket of his jacket,
"ten to eleven, I imagine she'll be out in ten minutes or so"
Jude walked over to sit on the straw pallet beside her. He didn't speak, but laid a hand almost gently on the mound of her breast, large fingers exploring slowly. Lucy gave a muffled gasp, then as Jude's fingers tightened she made a longer mewing sound, her voice rising.
"Stop that Jude!"
"Oh Francis, I'm only having some fun"
"Your fun could wreck this plan and get us out of a substantial fortune, do you want to hang for the sake of one maid? When your a rich man there will be maids throwing themselves at you"
Francis laughed sardonically.
"You won't have to tie them up then"
Jude grinned a wolfish, hungry grin from inside his beard, a grin that made Lucy's body shrink.
"But I like them tied up!"
"Hello?"
The conversation was abruptly cut short by another voice, a soft, feminine and to Lucy's ears extremely familiar voice.
Hello are you there?"
The woman crossed the scullery to the outside door, the door that lead to the side of the house, not the one that let on to the kitchen.
"I don't know why you wanted to meet outside the scullery of all places, but I'm here"
Lucy whimpered again through her gag. Rosetta might be an insufferable harridan who'd made her life hell, but she didn't deserve whatever these people were planning to do with her.
The man called Francis reached over and edged the door open, letting in the smell of the night and a jet of fresh air into the over heated room.
"I have a matter to discuss with you. I and my sister Marian"
His voice was pleasant, amicable, as though meeting at a cocktail party.
"What matter!"
The voice was shrewish and harsh, a familiar tone that Lucy had often heard proceeding a slap or an order, but this time perhaps tinged with fear. Lucy strained again at her bonds, pushing each muscle in her young strong body, taking as deep a breath as she could through her nose then attempting to let loose with a warning shriek.
Jude grinned evilly, pushing down on her gag, forcing her to gasp and quickly push her tongue against the strongly tasting panties packing her throat.
"None of that girly"
He said softly.
Lucy turned her eyes to the door. At the angle of her pallet she could only see a dim strip of the starlit gravel drive and a few branches of the oak outside waving in the night wind.
As she watched a figure appeared. It was unmistakably Rosetta, long golden hair tumbled around her stunning face, tall straight body with it's sleek, voluptuous curves hugged by a long blue velvet evening gown with full sleeves and appliqué around the chest. obviously she'd just returned from some sort of social function or other, and was presumably keeping an appointment. Lucy wondered if she even remembered whether Lucy was there, and then cursed herself for being thoughtless. What did it matter now what Rosetta thought of her.
Francis stepped out, Marian flanking him, their feet crunching on the gravel as they approached Rosetta. The girl in her gown stopped, and Lucy gathered from her pose that she was probably apprehensive.
"what on earth were you doing in the scullery. ---- anything with that little bastard slut of a housemaid?"
Lucy abruptly felt slightly less sorry for Rosetta.
"Not exactly"
Francis' voice was still pleasant.
"It was necessary to meet here for some certain dealings"
He and Marian were now nearly in arms' length of Rosetta, and from her position viewing mostly from behind Lucy could see Marian slip one hand into the satchel.
Abruptly, Francis moved, pulling the handkerchief from his pocket and making to stuff it into Rosetta's mouth. The startled girl flinched backwards, letting fly with a piercing scream that rent the night air before it was abruptly muffled as Francis reached her face, wadding the silk and stuffing it roughly between her lips. No soiled panties for the heiress thought Lucy uncharitably, her own mouth working at the mass of sodden material it was stuffed with.
They'd probably tie her with the finest silk scarves too.
Rosetta raised both hands, her mouth working at the gag, hitting out at her captors, catching Marian a startling blow on the side of the head as the woman moved in plainly with the intent of restraining her. Lucy heard the straw mattress whisper again as the huge Jude stood, running across the scullery and out of the door to help his two comrades secure their captive.
Jude's broad, rough hands came down like iron vices, grasping Rosetta's wrists, clamping them firmly in front of her. Lucy could see by the way that the well born girl strained that plainly it was useless, Jude's brutish strength was more than too much for her.
She watched as Marian produced a silk scarf from her bag, a scarf which caught the scant light in a way that only expensive, dark silk could and wound it several times around Rosetta's face, obviously keeping the white handkerchief in place in her mouth.
For a second Rosetta whipped her head back and forth then abruptly, as Marian whispered something into her ear she became still. Lucy wasn't close enough to see the other girl's expression, but something in the rigidity of her body, the way she stood, the skirt of her dress rustling showed that she was terrified, a dear caught in a bright light.
Marian bent down, but instead of securing Rosetta's ankles she grasped the hem of her skirt and drew it upwards, revealing delicate stockings of creamy satin beneath the even more creamy skin of the girl's thighs, then as the velvet rose, a set of black silken panties, a very shear set Lucy noticed. Lucy wondered what was going on, some sort of sexual assault, but then she saw Francis helping Marian to pull the skirt up and over Rosetta's blond hair so that her torso was encased in a soft neat bag. Finally, Marian reached up two hands, gathering the ends of the skirt into a point and tying them off with the strip of cord from her satchel, leaving the girl a well trust bundle, standing mute and terrified, the blue velvet covering her body moving slightly with the pointless, entrapped struggles of her arms.
Suddenly, there was another call, this time a man's voice, and the sound of footsteps on floorboards, not from the driveway but the other direction, from the structure of the house itself. Obviously Rosetta's single scream had roused someone.
"You idiot!"
Marian's tone was hushed and strident.
"Why didn't you wait until we were ready for her"
"Don't blame me Marian, it's that thug you hired who was too busy squeezing that serving maid when he should've been helping us"
"Hay! Don't blame me"
Jude's tone was almost offended.
"Enough!"
Marian's voice was harsh, commanding.
" we can't stand here bickering until the police arrive, we've got to get this one into the carriage"
"And the maid? If she's found so soon she'll give away our location"
Jude laughed a low, unpleasant laugh.
"She can come with us. I am sure I can think of something we can do with her"
Lucy let out a muffled squeak through her gag. Go with these people? Certainly she didn't like any of the ideas Jude obviously had for her, and bad as her life at Strefon hall was, it was at least home to her.
Before she could do more than mew a stifled protest however Jude had crossed the scullery and was standing over her. She felt rough hands, hasty and furtive and urgent grasp her shoulders, fingers painfully pinching through the thin cotton of her maid's dress.
She was thrown on her back, then she felt a rough but soft material thrown over her. She was being bundled up in her own blanket, turned over and over, each turn digging painfully at the tie around her waste and elbows. A few seconds of confusion followed as she was bundled up, then she felt Jude's arms grasp and lift.
She was uncomfortably deposited onto a meaty shoulder, the bone and muscle digging painfully into her stomach, her bound hands jouncing with the big man's steps. Her breathing already constricted by the cloth in her mouth, Lucy groaned softly, trying not to lose consciousness as she was carried into the night, Jude's steps and those of the other kidnappers crunching on the gravel.
Then abruptly without any warning she was throne down like luggage, a helpless parcel onto a hard, slightly yielding surface. From outside she heard the clop of horses and the sound of harness jingling, even as a second warm weight pressed against her and she heard the muffled sobbing of another captive, Rosetta. Obviously they had been deposited in the back of a carriage of some kind and were driving off into the night.
Lucy snuggled down into her blankets, trying to ignore the cramp in her muscles and the wadding in her mouth. Her wrists were chafing and her shoulders becoming sore, and the constriction of her breathing was making her feel faint.
To her own astonishing surprise, she found herself falling asleep, rocked by the gentle rhythm of the carriage and her utter helplessness to know what was coming next.