The Devil's Surrogate Page 13

  'I don't get you,' Sean said.

  Paddy smirked at him. 'No,' he said, 'I know you don't. But then, like you said, I'm the sergeant, ain't I?'

  'Wait, Oona,' Jane whispered, bending close to the dog-girl's furry head. 'Wait just a little while now and you shall have your sport. Let the stupid bitch wander a little further down the path, and then no one can say we must have seen that ribbon.'

  The pair had been hiding behind the trees, yet Isobel probably would not have seen them had they strolled casually down the middle of the path; since emerging from her hiding place she had not once looked back. The tolling of the tower bell had signalled her wager won, and now it was plain enough to see she had abandoned all caution.

  'But no one said anything about what was to happen after the hour,' Jane chuckled as much to herself as to Oona. 'She may have won her bet with that oaf, but no one has signalled the end of the hunt and she's still fair game as far as I can see. Besides, Bressingham's bird was marked out especially and we see no mark on this one, do we, Oona?'

  Beside her, walking with her distinctive crouch, the dog-girl gave a low growl.

  Jane shushed her. This was a rare chance, she thought, a rare chance to even the unfair balances of life. She had known Isobel de Lednay for a few years now, and the young aristocrat had made her disdain for the common innkeeper's daughter plain enough for all to see. Jane's presence at Grayling Hall owed everything to her childhood friendship with Ellen, and whilst Roderick himself never alluded to her roots (after all, Jane and her little gang were valuable to him) Isobel knew nothing of Jane's nocturnal double life and wasted no opportunity to score points over her.

  Unfair balances were no better illustrated than in Isobel, Jane thought grimly. Born to wealth, she was also beautiful, as beautiful as any female could be, and men fawned after her, even if inside that pretty fluffy head was a fluffy brain. And here she was, still dressed in that ridiculous bird costume, still helpless with her arms trapped in the stiff wings and still with her pretty little mouth filled with the foul leather gag, her face hidden behind the feathered mask and beak. Who could possibly blame Jane, or anyone else for that matter, if they assumed she was just another of the slave girls? So far there had been no sounds of gunfire from anywhere in the woods, so it was safe to assume none of the other hunters had yet run their prey to the ground. If any had, they had done so without resorting to firing one of the numbing slugs first.

  'Time for a little fun, I think,' Jane whispered. 'Our pretty bird is going to find out just what it means to be properly stuffed for the platter. And then,' she added, a malicious grin spreading across the visible part of her face, 'we'll even give her a good basting in her own juices, methinks.'

  The mournful tolling of the tower bell reached Kitty as she was loping along through a long stretch of meadow near the northern perimeter fence of the Grayling estate, although in truth she had absolutely no idea where she was and cared not a jot. For her, the entire hunt scenario had now moved into the realm of sheer enjoyment. She was out and free in the fresh air and sunshine, and the two dildos were sending messages she was quite content to surrender herself to periodically.

  Compared to her more recent experiences, this was as close to bliss as she could ever have hoped to be, and the fact that she knew she would ultimately be run to ground by one of the hunters held no terror for her whatsoever. She raised her arms as she ran and flapped her artificial wings, snorting past her gag with the sheer joy of a freedom she was enjoying to the full.

  She was a bird, a beautiful, gaudy, brilliant and bizarre bird, a creation of men for men, and she felt so good knowing there were men running around out there somewhere whose sole purpose for the next few hours was to claim her for their prize. The feeling was almost overwhelming... so many men, so many rich and powerful men, and the one thing they all had fixed in their minds was claiming her for their own.

  She staggered to a halt and leaned against a sapling, tears of laughter clouding her eyes. Oh, this was so wonderful, so totally wonderful. To think she had risen from what she had been to become an object of so much desire and admiration.

  Kitty peered down at herself and at her awesome breasts, their nipples pulled and swollen with rings and bells, and she knew the power of freedom had been granted her in the form of these two huge orbs. For did not all men stare at them in wonderment and seek to have and hold them? The men here were little different from men everywhere, she concluded. Soon she would be sold again, and this time it would be her ability to please that would ensure she found a master worthy of owning her.

  She tottered across to where a young tree had somehow become uprooted and was lying almost horizontally, its broken branches tangled up in a particularly thick clump of bushes so the trunk was held a few feet perpendicular to the ground. Using one winged arm to steady herself, she swung her right leg over it and settled herself astride the smooth bark. As the pressure of her weight drove the front dildo deeper inside her, Kitty let out a moan of appreciation.

  She was bored with running now... no, not with the running but with the lack of anything to run from, or to. Let them find her, and meantime she would prepare in her own way. Slowly she began rocking back and forth, her weight first pressing on one dildo, and then the other...

  With Oona's weight pinning her down, snarling fangs only inches from her neck and the savage metal claws digging into her unprotected flesh, Isobel offered little resistance as Jane went to work with the thin twine.

  First she bent each of the hapless girl's legs double, lashing her ankles to her thighs, and then, pulling her winged arms behind her, she wrapped more twine around them, pinning them against her body. Finally she added loops from her bound legs over her shoulders and the back of her neck, and completed her task by tightening loops about her breasts so her victim was left doubled over and held immobile in the manner of a bird ready for the oven. She was truly trussed for the table, her head bowed and her buttocks thrust up into the air, the restraining strap and twin dildos removed and cast aside so her sex was left pouting open and fully exposed from behind.

  'Excellent,' Jane sighed, cutting away the unwanted twine with her knife. 'Ready for plucking and equally as ready for fucking. Yes, whether for plucking or fucking, she looks delicious. Doesn't she, Oona?'

  The dog-girl growled and moved around to sniff at the proffered goods, but she made no move to take advantage of the prisoner. Jane, however, was less reserved. Kneeling, she extended a gloved hand and began to caress Isobel's compressed and puckered labial lips, gently at first and then more firmly, until finally she pressed one finger between them to be rewarded by a warm and moist passage. From inside the stricken bird-girl's lips came a whine of protestation that quickly dissolved into an altogether different sound. Oona began to whimper now as the scent of female arousal reached her keen nostrils.

  'Not yet, you greedy bitch.' Jane laughed. 'You've had one prize already, so this one is mine. Don't worry though,' she added, seeing the resentful expression in Oona's eyes, 'I'll only be flavouring her for you. After all, I don't have quite all of your advantages for the actual stuffing.'

  Rocking back and forth astride the fallen trunk in a steadily increasing rhythm, Kitty was so engrossed in her own needs that she neither saw nor heard the approach of the two men until they were virtually upon her. Gasping and groaning, she slowed herself to a gentle swaying motion and stared at the newcomers through hooded eyes all but hidden from them by her mask.

  They were not dressed as hunters, she saw, and instead of specially charged pistols and whips they were carrying muskets. Probably keepers, she told herself, annoyed at them for interrupting her. Perhaps, though, they would be thinking about taking advantage of her helpless situation, and her pulse began to quicken at the thought. But the older man stopped just short of her, and held up a hand as if to try to calm her.

  'Just you sit there, me darling,' he said softly. 'Sean and me mean you no harm, we just need a bit of help. Now, can you speak?
Ah no, I see you can't. Whatever in the name of all that's holy are these bastards playing at with you girls?'

  Kitty made no attempt to reply, and neither did she entirely stop her motion, for the two dildos felt very good as the shifting pressure pushed them in and out, and she was riding very close to the crest of an orgasm. Maybe one of them would...

  'Yes, you just let me help you off there,' the one called Sean said, handing his musket to his companion and stepping towards her with an outstretched hand. Kitty mewled in protest as she tried to lean away from him, shaking her head in frustration.

  'There now,' the fellow continued, 'there's nothing to be frightened of, it's just me and Paddy, and maybe we can get you out of this accursed devil's kitchen before the day's done. You'd like that now, wouldn't you?'

  Moaning and sighing as the man began to lift her clear of the fallen tree, Kitty was not altogether sure she would like that at all.

  Isobel could hear the air whistling in and out of her nostrils like the sound of a demented bellows, and she bit hard into her gag as she tried to fight the overwhelming surges of pleasure her captors' attentions were causing her.

  Trussed up in such an undignified position, she knew she should have been mortified and horrified. And indeed, for the first few moments as Jane Handiwell (Isobel recognised her voice and mannerisms) went to work on her with the twine, she had been enraged and embarrassed to be treated this way by a girl who was a commoner. However, almost as soon as Jane's fingers began to probe and explore the tightly compressed lips of her exposed sex, Isobel's baser instincts began taking over. Now, as the dog-girl's rough tongue rasped in and out of her pussy, lapping eagerly at a clitoris that had grown hard and bold, she could smell her own arousal and feel how wet she was between her thighs. Had either of them been male, they could have taken her with ease, for her usually tight tunnel was now so well lubricated that no amount of resistance on her part could have prevented an easy entry into her body.

  She groaned and screwed her eyes shut as she heard Jane's mocking laughter. Did the common little bitch suspect who she was? The identifying ribbon had come loose before they captured her, so to the Handiwell wench she could easily be just another of the bird-girls, but there was something that suggested to Isobel that Jane knew who she was...

  'Wait on, Oona,' she heard Jane command, and immediately the insistent tongue ceased its work. 'Ah yes, the bitch is lovely and wet now.' She stroked Isobel's sex. 'Well done, Oona, you shall have her properly in a few moments, but first I think we should tenderise this lovely rump she's offering us.'

  As the first stroke of the whip fell across Isobel's naked buttocks the hapless aristocrat knew she had been right: she was going to be made to pay for the slights and put-downs to which she had subjected the innkeeper's daughter ever since they met. Worse still, she knew, the whip would do more than hurt her, for its fierce caress was doing nothing to quench the fires burning inside her. Although she flinched and whined beneath each stroke, the silently demanding screams of desire rising from deep within her flesh sounded louder inside her head than any cries she could utter through her gagged mouth.

  'Titty Kitty?' Paddy echoed. 'What manner of name is that, girl?' He stood holding the shivering bird- girl by the arm, her sodden gag hanging from his free hand.

  'It's what they call me, sir,' Kitty mumbled, looking down at his feet, 'because of these.' She tried to indicate her burgeoning breasts with her winged arm, but she could barely bend it.

  'They're certainly a pair of beauties,' Sean Kelly observed, but Paddy Riley's warning glance silenced him before he could make any further remarks.

  'Well... Kitty,' Paddy continued, 'tell me this, how many of you are here in these woods? I mean, how many girls are running around like this?'

  Kitty pursed her lips thoughtfully. 'I'm not sure, sir, five or six, I think. Or maybe seven, I can't remember. There was this funny girl who bet she could do it better, and we had to wait until they got her ready.'

  'And how many men are hunting you?'

  Kitty sounded even more uncertain. 'Maybe as many as ten,' she said, but Paddy could see this was just a guess. 'And one of them is a woman,' she added, this time sounding more definite. 'She's dressed the same, but she's a woman, and then there's also this dog-woman.' She shuddered. 'She has nasty teeth and horrible eyes,' she whispered, peering up into Paddy's face, 'and they give her these horrible claws, all shiny and sharp! I hope someone catches me before they do. Or have you caught me first?'

  Paddy grunted. 'Looks like that's exactly what we've done, Kitty,' he said, 'but then our purpose is a mite different from those others, or my name isn't Riley.'

  'Oh,' Kitty said, 'you mean you're not going to...?'

  'No,' Paddy said quickly. 'No, we're not going to.' He smiled encouragingly down at her, and to his astonishment saw a definite glint of disappointment in her half-hidden eyes. 'No,' he repeated, 'but we're going to let the next man along here think he's got every chance of doing just that.'

  Guy Bressingham listened to the slow tolling of the tower bell as it echoed through the woods, and smiled to himself. The sound meant Isobel had won her bet, but this did not worry him in the least. He had calculated that his chances of capturing her within the specified hour were probably not much better than one in four, and the money involved he had considered written off before the hunt even began. His smile widened into a grin. The money meant nothing to him; he had inherited a medium-sized fortune and had since managed his affairs so well it was now a good-sized fortune. No, the money was as nothing to him, but Isobel... now there was a prize worth having, and have her he would. For the stupid girl had not specified that she was to be released at the end of the hour, only that if she stayed free for that time she would receive the money. Bressingham would happily honour that end of the bargain. The money was already in Grayling's hands ready to be paid over to Isobel when the hunt was over.

  When the hunt was over.

  Bressingham snickered to himself as he plodded along the trail. The hunt included the after-hunt celebrations and Isobel had volunteered herself for this part of the proceedings, that ended only when the birds had been enjoyed by their captors. He and Grayling had discussed the matter thoroughly; there could be no contesting that, when Bressingham finally caught his bird then he would have the right to her as much as any other hunter would have the right to his own catch.

  She would hate it, he knew, but then she would have no means to protest against the decision since the leather gags the girls wore beneath their bird masks prevented any comprehensible speech. Neither would she be able to free herself. The stiffened leather of the tightly laced wings had been well designed; once in place the wearer could not remove them, and neither could she use her hands for anything remotely dextrous.

  No, Isobel de Lednay would remain a bird until well into the night, perhaps even until the following morning. Bressingham felt his pulse begin to quicken at the thought. He could almost feel himself sliding into her defenceless pussy, her beautiful backside raised towards him so invitingly by the traditional trussing he would enjoy carrying out first. It had taken all his control to restrain himself when she first appeared in her gaudy outfit, her breasts invitingly exposed between her feathers, her sex lips bulging enticingly from either side of the gusset strap holding the plugging shafts inside her.

  'She'll maybe not like the thought,' Grayling had said, 'but by the time she's run around in the woods with those things in her arse and pussy, she'll be hot for something, believe me, and she won't be able to help herself if you stuff her thoroughly!'

  Bressingham had been astonished when Grayling suggested the scheme to him earlier that day. He was aware that Isobel and Roderick had known each other for a long time, and that Isobel was sweet on the young landowner's son, so much so that he was able to treat her with the utmost contempt at times and yet she was still not swayed from him. But this deliberate conniving to deliver her helpless into the clutches of another man... would she e
ver forgive him this? But then, he thought, she would never be told it had been Grayling's idea in the first place. And she had played into their hands so easily, rising to the bait so quickly, she could hardly blame anyone but herself for whatever happened to her.

  Grayling would play the part, all right. He would shrug his shoulders and sympathise, but then he would insist the rules were the rules, the same for everyone, and he could not break them or make even the smallest exception, not even for her. Perhaps especially not for her, for people would then surely accuse him of favouritism.

  He would repay Isobel for her rebuffs, for her thinly veiled insults, for her sarcastic quips and her constant parading and flaunting before him, which she knew had such an effect on him. 'I'll parade you all right, bird-slut!' he hissed as he paused at another junction in the path. 'You'll make a pretty enough picture wriggling on the end of my cock on the main table tonight, and you'll remember your stuffing for many a year to come!'

  Isobel had long since lost count of the number of small orgasms Jane's whip and her probing finger had triggered within her. Held rigidly by the cunning twine bindings, her head down and her buttocks raised, she gasped against her gag as fiery darts of ecstasy pierced her through and through.

  Twice Jane had stood back and let the dog-girl at her, the bitch's long tongue pressing inside her like a small penis, its rough surface working on her throbbing clitoris with devastating effect. Time and again Isobel came, whining and wriggling, panting and moaning until she could no longer tell whether it was tongue, finger or whip her body was responding to so fiercely.

  Finally the combined assault ceased, and although Isobel's vision was still hazy, and her other senses were equally befuddled by her ordeal, she was dimly aware that Jane was speaking.