Robert and Clara - Gaol Break

The cell was grey. Gray stone, single grey blanket, grey walls and door, grey straw on the floor. Gray light coming in through the tiny opening. There was a bucket in the corner which contained grey water. He was thirsty, but could not bring himself to drink it. Instead, he tried to clean up the dried blood which stuck to him and made his skin itch. The pain in his head made it hard to concentrate.

There was a tiny aperture in the door of his cell, through which the gaolers could check on him. It was closed, but if he stood at the right angle, he could see a tiny sliver of the passageway outside. Occasionally, he caught a glimpse of shackled prisoners being walked along it.He had no way to measure the passing of time. It had not been full dark and no-one had brought him food so it must still be the same day. It felt as if years had passed since he was shoved into the cell. Keeping control of his sanity was becoming more and more difficult.

The distant screams of inmates proved that not everyone was successful.

He heard steps outside, and rushed to the aperture, hoping for anything to break the monotony. He caught a glimpse of a woman stumbling past. She was naked to the waist and her back was raw and bloody. The gaoler with her grabbed her elbow and said "Next time you cause trouble, it will be thirty lashes."

For one awful second, he thought it was Clara, until he realised this woman was a different size. The thought of Clara in here made him feel ill. Thank God she was on her way to London. Clara would not be able to resist causing trouble.

The light dimmed. His door opened with a rattle of keys and a dish of gruel was shoved in. He ate it with his hands. His arm started to throb again. There was no honey to put on it.

In the darkness, the smell of the prison was stronger. Despair, dampness, human waste. He heard rats moving around and moved to the door to see if there was anything more entertaining outside.

There was a faint light, and two voices of the night gaolers. Occasionally, one walked up and down the cell block, but mostly they stayed in the little ante room and played cards.

The light flared brighter, and he heard a female voice. It sounded familiar. No, it couldn't be. He pressed his ear to the door and heard Clara say "Gentlemen, I was hoping to visit a prisoner."

The voice was hers, but the tone was different. She now had a country accent, and she sounded as if she were flirting. She laughed at something one of the gaolers said, sounding so like Isabelle that his head swam.

"Why, the notorious red-headed one, of course. I want to share a cup of wine with him."

It was killing him that he could not hear their answer. He desperately wanted to see Clara again, but wanted her far away and safe. His palms sweated as he flattened them against the cold door.

Clara's laugh. "What a pity. Perhaps I should have a drink with your two handsome gentlemen instead?"

A masculine laugh. A clink of glass, more laughter. He needed Clara to go away. He was a peer of the realm, he couldn't be tried like a common criminal. Once they realised who he was, they'd release him. But she had no such protection.

Laughter. Voices. Clara flirting. He didn't know she could flirt. She was arguing about how much of her wine they had drunk. She mustn't get drunk, she would give herself away.

A groan. Hurrying steps. Silence. Then the door of his cell opened. Clara stood there. "Robert?" she whispered.

Of course, he could see her as clear as day, but he was in total darkness to her. He blinked when he looked at her. Her hair was loose down her back, and her dress was scandalous. Nipped in at the waist to show her curves, and with a top so small her breasts were in danger of falling out.

"Did any of them touch you?" he demanded. Surely no man could avoid grabbing that bounty.

She made a disgusted noise, and moved into his cell. Once inside, she closed the door and lit a candle. He blinked in the bright light. "Quick, strip off your clothes and put these on." He had obeyed before he looked at what she had for him. It was a dress.

"Are you mad?" He couldn't possibly pass for a woman.

"Put it on." Her tone left no room for argument. He obeyed reluctantly.

"What happened to the guards?"

"A bad case of the runs. They must have drunk too much wine." She was laughing, damn her.

The dress went over his shoulders but stopped at his shins. He looked like a fool. She hauled him down, slapped a wig on his head and pulled out a box of paint. She rubbed paint on with a practised hand. Muttering about stubble, she put extra on his chin and cheeks, then finished by sticking two large warts on his nose and chin.

She grabbed his discarded clothes, stuffed straw into them and arranged them on his bed. From the doorway, it might look like a sleeping man.

She handed him a walking stick. "You're 60 years old. Bend your knees and hunch over so that the skirt falls to the ground. You can use the stick to help you balance. And don't talk." Then she led him out of the cell, locking it behind her.

She led the way out of the cell block, past the guards' room. She dropped the ring of keys on the floor and walked on towards the main gate. Robert lumbered along beside her, forced to take small steps with his knees bent. He was glad of the stick.

The guard at the main gate was alert and eager for a flirtation. He smiled at Clara, and she smiled back, somehow revealing her cleavage as she did so. Robert ground his teeth. "Any luck?" the guard asked her.

She shook her head. "They wouldn't let me see him. I'm going to lose my wager after all."

The guard produced the sheet where she had signed coming in, then looked at Robert. "Who's this?"

"That's my granny. You don't think I would come to a place like this on my own? I'm a good girl, I am."

The guard frowned. "She didn't sign in."

"She can't write. But she goes everywhere with me."

The guard frowned and made Robert put a mark on the page. The tremble in his hand was genuine as he marked an X. The guard could not take his eyes off Robert's warts and never looked at his big hand. Then they were out, and moving away from the goal.

He laughed aloud as he took breaths of clean air.

Clara hustled him through the streets of Ely to the White Hart Inn, and brought him in the back door and up the stairs. Once inside a large bedroom, she locked the door and leaned against it. "We've made it. We're safe." she said, and laughed.

He looked around at the luxurious chamber. "Whose room is this?"

"Yours. I reserved it for the Earl of Oxbridge."

He was really free. He took a deep breath, hauled her into his arms and kissed her.

It was like putting a spark to powder. All the terror and adrenaline turned to desire, and he couldn't get enough of her. It must have been the same for Clara too, because she turned to flame in his arms.

Without ever breaking the kiss, he was shoving his hands into her bodice to free her breasts. He couldn't spare a hand to bring her closer, so he used his body to slam her up against the door so that he could press into her and feel all those luscious curves against him.

Clara was as eager as he was. She tried to yank his dress down to get at his skin, but his arms were in the way. She made a sound of frustration and pulled it up instead.

He was naked under the dress. Her hands moved up his thighs and landed on his shaft. She gripped it firmly and refused to let go. He pulled back just enough to see her.

Her breasts had tumbled out of her dress, their nipples erect and proud. Her lips were wet and swollen, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes glittered. "Take that dress off, I want to see it." She kept one hand on his cock while the other tugged at his dress.

He ignored the sound of ripping as he dragged it off, then he was naked and unstoppable. He pulled her skirt up round her waist and ran urgent hands over her legs and buttocks. "So perfect," he groaned, then couldn't resist her mouth any longer.

He swooped down and seized her lips greedily, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, unable to get enough of her. Her scent rose, intoxicating and maddening while her nails dug into his back.

"Now. I can't wait." He barely recognised her voice.

He pulled one knee up to his hip and slammed into her. She made a noise that was half groan, half scream. "Again."

He did. She was hot and wet and welcoming, and delighted in his out of control thrusts. She urged him on with knees and voice and nails.

The harder he thrust, the higher her voice rose. In this position, she could not control her response, and spurred him on with demands for more. As he speeded up, she tightened around him and screamed as she collapsed into his arms.

He roared as he followed her over seconds later.

Only the sound of their laboured breathing broke the silence that followed. Robert was vaguely aware that he was crushing her into the door, but couldn't summon the strength to move. Finally, she stirred and reluctantly, he forced himself to release her.

She opened her eyes and looked at him, dazed. "That was - astonishing. I want to do that again. And soon." She moved away from the door and looked over her shoulder. "I think I have splinters in my behind."

But Robert wasn't listening. Desire had turned to fear and fury. "No, you are never doing that again," he said.

She turned to stare at him. "What do you mean?"

"Any of it. Dressing up. Breaking into gaols. This." He indicated their state of undress and recent activities with a gesture.

Her eyes narrowed as she glared at him. "I saved you tonight."

"I didn't need saving. As soon as they knew who I was, they'd have let me go."

She put her hands on her hips. "I have news for you, my lord. There wasn't a man in that gaol who wasn't prepared to swear blind that you were Thomas South and that you fired the shot which injured dragoon Williams. By the time someone could identify you as a peer, you might be a corpse swinging from a noose. I saved your life."

He shook his head, infuriated. "You took appalling irresponsible risks tonight without any thought for the consequences and I'm going to make sure that you never do anything so reckless again."

"How?" Her very stance challenged him.

"Like this." He grabbed her and dragged her over to the bed. She went willingly, until he sat on the edge and pulled her down over his knees. Then she started to struggle like a wild thing. She screamed and clawed at him, and it took all his strength to subdue her. Finally, he had her hands behind her back and one thigh over her kicking legs.

Her bottom was bared to him.

"You take stupid childish risks, by God you'll be punished like a child," he said, and walloped her with his hand. Smack! Her buttocks absorbed the spank with a satisfying degree of resistance, and turned red. She shrieked at the top of her lungs.

He did it again. She shrieked again.

"You took years off my life when I heard you in that gaol." Smack. "You have to learn not to take stupid risks." Smack. Smack.

He kept smacking her, but gradually he realised that she was no longer shrieking, and that he was not hitting her as hard. Instead his hand was lingering on her flaming buttocks, and she was wiggling against him in a way that did not suggest pain. And he had an enormous erection.

Appalled at himself, he let her go. She twisted away from him and landed on her back on the bed. Her dress was bunched around her nipped in waist, leaving her naked above and below it. She hissed in pain and flipped onto her front.

"Look what you've done, you brute." She glared at him over her shoulder as she displayed her crimson bottom. "You did this, you can make it better."

Robert was torn between shock at what he had done, and a tiny perverse satisfaction in having managed to shake her up. "Make it better how?"

"Rub it until it stop stinging."

He sat beside her on the bed and tentatively put his hands on her bum. The heat shocked him. He started to rub. She put her face down into the bed covers and made a moaning noise. He stopped at once.

She turned a narrow eyed look on him. "I didn't tell you you could stop." She put her head down again and he resumed, and tried not to react to the noises she was making. God, she sounded like a woman being pleasured. As the fierce heat lessened, his touch became lighter, more caressing. Her moans changed, became more throaty.

He ran his hands down her thighs, and up to the small of her back. He was unable to go any further because of her dress, so he went back down again. Her legs had opened, and he slipped his hands between them. She twitched, then raised herself to his seeking fingers.

"Do that more," she said.

"In a minute. I need to take this off you." He looked for a fastening on her dress, couldn't find one. Instead, she raised herself onto her knees, loosened it and pulled it off over her head. She turned to look at him. "You are not finished."

He ran his fingers down her back, from the top of her spine to her buttocks. Shocked at the pleasure, she collapsed onto her hands and knees. She started to move, but he stopped her. "I like that. Stay like that."

She did.

In this position, he had the freedom of her whole body. He nibbled at her neck and kissed his way down her back, while caressing her breasts. When he got to her bottom, he licked and kissed until she wiggled against him. He slipped his hand between her pink globes and caressed her. She was so wet. He slipped two fingers inside her and tormented her.

"Enough," she cried. She was shaking, her muscles trembling. "I can't stand any more. Shaft me. Now."

He doubt he could have stopped if the roof fell on them. He moved behind her, pushed her thighs a little wider, and slid home. They both gasped. Never in his whole life had anything felt as right as this did.

He held her hips, controlling the speed and trying to go slowly, both to prolong the exquisite sensation and to prove to both of them that he was not an animal. He pumped in and out slowly, revelling in the silken tightness that gripped him like a glove, and the noises she made every time he pushed home.

But she wasn't having any of it. "More. Faster," she demanded, and pushed back against him. He was unable to resist, and plunged in harder and faster. She met him stroke for stroke, until she screamed as she came. He plunged in one last time, and felt as if he was pouring his life blood into her.

She collapsed down onto the bed. He followed after her, and just had the presence of mind to flip the bed cover up over them before he passed out.