During her time in India, Catherine had heard whispers of the lustful enthusiasm many men had for the sight of two women in carnal embrace. And she couldn't deny that her fellow captive, with her satin skin, limpid dark eyes, silken black hair, and the warm scent of India that she remembered so well, was a stunningly beautiful woman. But the embrace that she and Lucky San found themselves in was among the least carnally interesting experiences Catherine could recall.
Not only were her wrists and ankles abraded raw by the bonds holding her wrapped around Lucky San; not only did her back and shoulders ache from the strain of being kept in one position for the entire night; not only was the taste of the gag fair threatening to sicken her; but the enforced closeness was doing nothing to thaw the relations between the two women. Lucky San alternated bouts of useless struggling that only caused the bonds to chafe more, with attempts to curse Catherine's clumsiness through her gag. The weary Catherine didn't even bother trying to object: even though she had been perfectly justified in responding as she had to Lucky San's surprising appearance, if she had just kept quiet for a few moments, to let the woman explain, their situation might have been a far better one. To make things worse, she had at least been able to take some solace in the idea of this blasted pirate carrying Charles away to where Lefanu would never find him-- and here she was, bringing him right back to the monster's lair!
After what felt like bare seconds of sleep, Catherine had been awakened by nearly a dozen of Lefanu's grinning troopers, with Pepin at their head. The opportunity to leer over the two captive women might have been responsible for the goodly sized crowd, but the look on several soldiers' faces suggested that the large turnout was principally due to a wary respect for Lucky San's reputation.
Not that Catherine gave a damn at this point: spending the night gagged, and tied face to face with the woman that had kidnapped her husband, had done little to promote sleep. She was hot and weary, her mind almost numb with fear, only the strength of her love for Charles keeping despair at bay. For her part, Lucky San seemed no more pleased to have passed the hours trussed bosom to bosom with the Englishwoman, and as four of the soldiers approached, knives in hand to cut the bonds, she glared menacingly at them over her gag.
Pepin and the remaining men stood a few paces back, three with guns leveled, which pricked some hope in Catherine. Pepin hardly seemed the over-cautious type--indeed, she had rarely met a man with a higher opinion of his own ability to handle a situation--and if he felt that Lucky San was this dangerous, then maybe she was resourceful enough to take their captors by surprise at some point.
But as the soldiers began cutting away their bonds, it was clear that they planned to take no chances. Though they pawed lewdly at Catherine, they manhandled Lucky San far more roughly, never completely freeing her from her bonds, always making sure that as soon as one limb was freed from her embrace with Catherine, it was immediately restrained again. The pirate was eyeing their captors grimly over her gag, but restrained as she was, not even her lithe strength was going to prevail over two men holding her down while two more tied her wrists together with strips of leather, arms twisted behind her back, her elbows nearly meeting as rope cinched her upper arms. They fastened her bound wrists to the back of her waist with rope tied about her middle, and hobbled her with a shorter cord tied between her ankles by two soldiers whose wariness for fear of being kicked by a dusky-skinned bare foot might have amused Catherine under other circumstances.
For her part, though, Catherine had no illusions about trying to escape with so many of the soldiers in such close quarters. Outnumbered and weaponless, the two women would have to bide their time, hoping for a better opportunity. She feigned a submissive gratitude as they removed her gag, though it galled her to give Pepin the satisfaction. She was rewarded for her ruse by being allowed to eat some fruit and biscuits, and drink water from a flask, before her hands were re-tied together behind her back; Lucky San's defiant attitude meant that she had to settle for having water poured over the leather pad that gagged her, and satisfying her thirst with whatever made it past into her mouth. Not that Catherine's pose of acquiescence spared her being gagged again: the leather pad that had fouled her mouth all night was once more jammed between her teeth, and the strap drawn around her head, deepening the grooves it had created in her ravaged cheeks, before being knotted under her long hair in back, digging into the soft flesh at the nape of her neck.
The sun was cresting the horizon as they were herded out of the slave compound. Slanting sunlight cast a scarlet blanket across the buildings of Lefanu's estate, and it seemed insane that the business of preparing for the day's work, with grooms working the horses in their corral, hands setting out for the cane fields, and the general hum of activity, should provide so mundane a contrast to the sight of two barefoot, disheveled women in the tattered remnants of their clothing, being paraded, bound and gagged, through the grounds. Catherine wished that the stupid pirate woman would stop resisting their captors, twisting and pulling at every turn--doesn't she see that our only chance is to catch them off guard? More than likely the woman was simply incapable of giving in to a man, under any circumstances… Catherine could sympathize, but couldn't the stupid bint save it for another time?
They finally arrived at the enormous house that dominated the front of the estate, with more of Lefanu's troops milling about on the large veranda than ran along the front of the building; the slanting sun was just breaking the tops of the thick copse of trees that hid the manor house from the road, and starting to warm the dull white paint of the mansion, and the armory and outbuildings beyond. A few chairs woven of some sort of cane were scattered about, but no one was sitting: two of the soldiers stood at attention, and between them was the grinning death's-head visage of Colonel Lefanu.
"Lady Catherine. How delightful that I shall so soon be able to fulfill the pledge I gave you in the coach." Catherine glowered at him, swallowing as best she might the revulsion that brought, recollecting Lefanu's boast of his plans for Charles' death, and her debasement. But in fact, he did prompt her to wonder just how close Charles might be--even if Lucky San hadn't told her, it would have been obvious they must have come here together--and, perhaps more ominously, just why Lefanu and so many of his troops were gathered on the veranda at this hour.
Around the perimeter of the open porch area hung heavy white boxes of trailing plants. One box seemed to be missing, though, leaving just the large metal hook upon which it had hung. Over the hook had been draped a thick length of heavy twined rope. Pepin snickered as he pushed his captives forward to stand before Lefanu.
"Now all we need to do is find her husband," he crowed.
Lefanu scoffed. "No need to go to much trouble. He wouldn't have abandoned his compatriot, or their plan, whatever it was. He is close. He is watching us… and he is about to surrender himself."
The leering Pepin seized Catherine by a fistful of her hair and sneered. "Of course!" He shook Catherine like a hound with a terrified small animal in its jaws. "He surrenders or she dies!"
Lefanu lashed the back of his hand across Pepin's cheek.
"You overstep yourself," he said with mild reproof. He took Catherine from him by her bound arms. "She is mine; and I have given my word that none but I shall molest this woman, and I will permit myself that indulgence only when her husband is in my power." He pushed the bound girl into the arms of one of the soldiers, and turned a satanic smile to Pepin. "But that moment is at hand."
"Damn you!" the young dandy snarled, rubbing his face where he'd been slapped. "Well, if you won't use his wife against him-"
"But my dear Jacques, there is no need." He looked at Lucky San, whose captors each had one hand on a shoulder, the other holding her upper arm tightly; she stared daggers back over her gagged mouth. "After all, she is not the only woman here."
He nodded, and the soldiers holding Lucky San used knives to slice the rope about her waist. They then proceeded to shred the shapeless slave's blouse she was wearing. In moments, her lush breasts and fine smooth-skinned back were exposed, tatters of cloth hanging down all around her waist. Next, the knives severed the bonds at her wrists and elbows, and Catherine could see the fire in the dark eyes as Lucky San considered seizing a weapon to cut her way free. But she could also see that Lucky San's arms were as numb as her own from their prolonged bondage, and refused to answer when she made as if to spring into action. Instead, she had no choice but to allow her limp arms to be drawn in front of her, and before the feeling could even begin to return to them, her wrists were re-tied in front with the heavy cord. One soldier took the other end, and pulled it across the hook, just enough to draw Lucky San's near-lifeless arms up to her face level.
"She'll be a pretty bauble hanging there, no?" Lefanu laughed to Pepin, who swallowed his resentment enough to join in the laughter. At a nod from Lefanu, the rope was pulled again, and now Lucky San's arms were elevated completely over her head. Lefanu picked up a coiled black leather whip, and strolled around the captive pirate, stroking the whip lightly along her exposed back, then trailing it across her naked breasts. She ventured a barefoot kick at him, but the hobble between her ankles kept her too off-balance to even connect with her target, much less do any damage. He took her chin in his other hand, digging his fingers into her smooth flesh so she couldn't flinch away.
"No doubt, as a pirate, you know the necessity of inflicting pain in the furtherance of one's ends." He drank in her furious glare, then lowered his voice to near a whisper. "But necessity be damned. I am going to enjoy this for its own sake." He released her chin to slap her across her gagged face, sending her long black tresses flying. At his nod, the soldier began to pull once more on the rope, and now Lucky San's body began to stretch, up on her tiptoes. Catherine could see the tendons beginning to twitch beneath her dark skin, the shoulders tremble with the strain, and sweat break out on the pirate's brow. Guttural rage came from behind the leather pad in her mouth, and Pepin turned to Lefanu.
"How the hell is she to tell us where Redmond is if she's gagged?"
"She need tell us nothing." Lefanu walked up behind Lucky San's straitened form, now hanging with her toes a full inch off the wooden boards of the veranda, the other end of the rope tied off to the porch railing. He stroked her agonized shoulders, ran his fingers through the silky torrent of her black hair, then yanked backwards on it, licking the side of her face where the leather strap cut into her flesh. Lucky San grunted into the gag, and Catherine sensed that no amount of pain would have brought such a reaction: Lefanu's molestation was a humiliation that Lucky San would pay back in blood… if she somehow lived through this.
"Charles Redmond is a gentleman," Lefanu continued, "who would never abandon a woman--or any comrade in arms--to torture." He released his hold on his captive, and strode around to stand in front of her, her eyes still refusing to offer plea or surrender; he stroked the whip once more across her perfectly-shaped breasts, and drew back his arm to deliver the first terrible stroke.
"Stop." The voice came from a darkened patch of brush to one side of the mansion. In the slanting rays of the morning sun, Catherine noticed that long shadows still obscured much of the wooded area surrounding them… and that those shadows had been her husband's hiding place!
Charles Redmond stepped out from the copse of trees, his foes shielding their eyes against the sun's sharp angle as he ascended the steps. He was dressed in rough sailor's garb; though she hated herself for it, Catherine couldn't help wondering if Lucky San had given it to him, and if she'd been there when he changed from his own clothes.
He stood, facing Lefanu, as though the muskets leveled at him were beneath his notice.
"I am here, coward. I give you one chance to release these women and let us go our way."
Catherine sobbed into her gag as her husband stepped up onto the veranda. For all that her heart nearly exploded with joy at the sight of him, she couldn't believe he was throwing his life away like this! No, No Charles! Don't let them do this. Leave me. Run!
"Lord Remond." Lefanu bowed in mocking courtesy. "How nice of you to join us. I hope your death will provide sufficient entertainment for your wife's amusement." His voice hardened as he snapped, "Take him."
Two of the soldiers seized Charles by the shoulders and a third placed the barrel of a pistol at his head. A small man in the apron of a blacksmith stepped nervously onto the porch, metal clinking in his hand. Under Lefanu's supervision, he placed manacle cuffs on each of Charles' wrists. He slid a length of chain between them, and was shortening the chain when Lefanu interrupted him.
"One moment." He gestured with the whip to the imprisoned Charles. "Expose his back."
As the little blacksmith watched nervously, the two soldiers who had sliced Lucky San's shirt to ribbons repeated the process with Charles Redmond. When they stepped back, he surveyed his captors with a look of cool menace; though he stood shirtless and chained before them, there was no hint of his being cowed. He turned to Lefanu, who was coiling the whip in his hand lovingly, and smiled.
"This is goodbye, Colonel. Take some satisfaction in knowing that in leaving this world, you are doing more good for it than ever you did in life."
Lefanu was still studying Charles' face, puzzled, when the first shot rang out.
The echoing report seemed to paralyze the troops on the veranda into a tableau, and it was only when an arrow came zinging out of the treeline, taking a screaming soldier down, that it hit home that they were under attack. Two more arrows plunged into the frame of the house behind them, and a bullet took another soldier in the leg.
"They're in the woods!" Lefanu bawled. "Shoot! Fire!"
"On my count, camarades," Pepin drawled coolly. He drew his sword and directed a small volley into the trees, then another. In his other hand, he got off a few shots with a repeating pistol.
There were whoops from three sides now, and though the soldiers banged away with their muskets into the copses of trees ringing their positions, it was impossible to tell if they'd hit anything. Certainly they were doing little to stem the flow of arrows and lead balls that continued to smack into the wood around them.
Lefanu pulled a pistol from his belt, and clubbed Charles on the back of the head, kicking him to his knees. Catherine yelled bloody murder into her gag at the sight of her husband's fall, but the guard held her fast.
Lefanu discharged a shot in the direction of the attack, then snarled to a sergeant.
"Get to the armory. More men, more ammunition." The man dashed away, evidently pleased to be moving in the opposite direction from the firing. Two more of Lefanu's men fell, and the others withdrew further back up the veranda, under the eaves of the house, still firing.
Lucky San was trying to twist her body, kicking her feet, hanging in the air, to get a better view of what was happening, when Pepin suddenly wrapped an arm around her waist, and pulled her to him; her body strained even further as the rope suspending her was pulled taut. She twisted and wiggled, but the rope was now tight as a bowstring, the tension threatening to dislocate her shoulders, leaving her helpless as Pepin held his sword to her throat.
"Bien! Assez! Surrender this instant, or I'll kill her!"
Catherine desperately tried to wrench herself free as Lucky San's squirming stilled at the feel of the blade beneath her chin. For an instant, it was as though the sounds of battle had faded away, captor and captive poised on the veranda… and in the strange silence came a sharp whistle of air disturbed, a glitter of steel… and the rope holding Lucky San parted with a loud twang, cleaved by a thrown dagger that clattered to the wooden floorboards below.
It was as though a spring had uncoiled, as the tension released by the snapping rope sent Pepin tumbling off the end of the veranda and Lucky San sprawling to the floor of the porch in a heap.
To Catherine's astonishment, the pirate scrambled to her feet; moving gingerly but still moving, despite all she had endured. She raised her tied hands to her mouth and yanked the gag away, spitting out the pad and leaving the leather strap dangling about her neck. As she did so, Diego O'Rourke bounded out from his covered position onto the porch, with a pair of his bully boys, side by side with one of the huge Oriental villains from Lucky San's Southern Witch. Catherine realized that Lucky San hadn't told her everything: she and Charles had come ashore in advance, in hopes of freeing Catherine by stealth, but with O'Rourke and the rest of the pirates from both ships held in reserve should the plan fail. The three pirates continued in pursuit of Pepin, while O'Rourke stopped in front of Lucky San, who extended her bound wrists. As O'Rourke used his sword to slice them free, she commented hoarsely, "Your aim is excellent, Captain."
"Excellent, hell," grumbled O'Rourke. "I was aiming at that bastard with the sword."
Lucky San's sweat-stained face broke into a weary grin at that, and she accepted a second sword that O'Rourke drew from his belt. After she cut her ankle hobble, the two of them turned to where Catherine stood, still bound and gagged; her guard, like Lefanu and the others, staring in stupefaction at the rescue that had taken but the blink of an eye. O'Rourke took a step toward Catherine as Lucky San swung her blade back to face down Lefanu… when the world seemed to shift on its axis, a roaring sound filled Catherine's head, and all of her senses dissolved into light and heat.