The Abduction of Lady Ardis

I heaved her onto my shoulder and carried her inside, then dropped her none too gently onto a stack of hay as I went about lighting a fire. The wood was old and dry and soon a lusty blaze was burning in the hearth, dispelling the foggy chill that had permeated the stable and filling it with a warm glow. I fetched a bottle and a glass from the upstairs and brought them back down, poured myself a dram and pulled one of the rough chairs over to the fire as I contemplated what next to do with my captive.

I must admit, when I'd first made my plans I'd hardly given much thought to what I'd do with my captive once I had her, if I had her. Ransom perhaps. Or use her to wring some concessions from the MacDimmit. But what concessions? I wanted nothing less than his ruin and eternal riddance and the restoration of my family to our rightful place as rulers of this land. But did I really expect him to give all that in return for his daughter? The plan was absurd.

Perhaps I could trade her to some other clan or Laird, some band or person more clever and enterprising than I, and more experienced in the kind of double dealings and negotiations that went on between such people? Hostages were sold and bartered all the time, and there were many who would pay handsomely for the heir and only child of the Laird MacDimmit.

But that smacked of defeat and a sad incompetence, and the thought of handing her over to someone else made me very uneasy. Hostages were bartered and traded all the time, true, but they were also tortured and murdered almost as often.

Then, what?

She sat with her legs beneath her on the pile of straw, still bound and hooded with the burlap feedbag, leaning against a wooden stall. Since I'd taken her she'd hardly made a sound or made any effort to escape. Of course, she was gagged and bound, but even so, her total passivity and refusal to struggle or resist seemed very unnatural, and began to annoy me.

Was she paralyzed with fear? Most unlikely. Could she be so confidant of her rescue that she was ignoring me? Did she fail to perceive me as a threat or appreciate the peril of her current situation? Was this a further display of her insufferable superiority?

And as I looked at her now , I realized I really had no idea what to do with her, and my own foolishness and lack of foresight began to anger me. Her calmness angered me as well, and this anger began to build inside me, and came to a peak as I realized all she had said was true. I was an outlaw now and an outlaw of the most reprehensible kind, and I would no doubt be hunted down and brought back to her father and there endure a most pitiable fate.

And all for what? For this bitch in the corner?

I went over to her and roughly threw her cloak open so I could see her and she stiffened. The tiny kilt had ridden even higher on her legs, a fact she must have realized as the cooler air bathed her thighs. She tried to wiggle back away from me to bring the skirt lower, but she could hardly move.

I lifted the sack from her head and she blinked, then quickly scanned her surroundings to ascertain her location. When she looked back at me, I saw her sudden fear.

No, perhaps not fear. Not exactly as if she expected certain bodily harm. It was more a look of apprehension or nervous expectation, and a new appreciation of her position as the captive of a desperate man. Or so I fancied.

I liked that look. There was surrender in it, and a gratifying uncertainty.

I untied her gag and pulled it free, and she shook her head to free her rich red locks, which the gag had so cruelly crushed. That look of apprehension never left her eyes.

"Where am I?" she demanded. " What do you think you're doing? Release me at once. These bindings chafe my wrists!"

I squatted down next to her. Despite the warmth of the fire, there was goose flesh on the milky skin of her chest. And I couldn't help but notice that her nipples were quite visible, poking through the sheer fabric of her blouse, and seemed eager to make my acquaintance. That was interesting.

"What are you looking at?" she cried, trying to twist away. "Stop it! Stop it at once! I demand you tell me right now what your intentions are!"

I returned to my chair and my whisky, took a good sip and savored it. The whiskey was older than she was, I'd wager.

"I'm not sure yet," I said. I nodded at her clothes. "Does your father know you dress like this?"

She sputtered with outrage. "I told you! I was going to a party! A private party! It's none of your business! It doesn't mean anything!"

I nodded and finished off my drink, got the bottle and poured another. I offered it to her. "Drink?"

She turned up her nose. "I wouldn't touch your swill! I seldom drink, sir, and when I do I prefer wine. And none of your French wine, curse them all. I drink wine from Italy only."

The French were friends to us highlanders, and opposed to these Anglican bastards who were taking our land.

I took another sip.

"You don't remember me, then," I said, removing my mask. "We were in Rome at the very same time. Both in schools, but very different ones."

She reacted with more surprise than I'd expected, and for a moment she seemed genuinely shocked. "You? You're a highland savage. What do you know it? I doubt we traveled in the same circles!"

"No, we did not. But I knew of you all the same. I was in a seminary, as difficult as that may be to believe. And you were in a very exclusive finishing school where young female savages were taught to be continental ladies. Your school was across the square from us, so I knew of you. I had some awareness of your comings and goings, your balls and fetes. You were quite active, socially."

Her face darkened. "And you were studying to be a priest? Well I have no doubt. All you papists are sunk in sin and venery, and your priests are the worst of the lot! Good and evil, sin and salvation, all are the same to you. Idol worshippers and veritable pagans!"

I smiled. "Oh, I don't know about that. That's why they threw me out. Not enough venery and licentiousness for my taste. I was never cut out to be a priest."

"No, I would say not. But I know your type, a Scotsman abroad, soaking himself in Roman depravity. I used to see enough of them lying in the gutter at night. Disgusting."

"At what hour of night was that, my lady? When you were returning from your soirees and masques an hour before cockcrow? You were with a fairly scandalous crowd, weren't you? Discreet, and rich enough to buy the discretion of others. But I heard too many rumors to discount them all. I'm amazed you managed to keep your innocence."

"You are a dog, sir! A vile cur and slanderer! Nothing but a filthy thief and kidnapper!"

Her anger flared and so did mine, and suddenly I was on my feet and looming over her.

"Aye, and who made me so? Who stole our lands and usurped my father's title? And whose lies and perfidy led my father to an ignoble death?"

My sudden rage made her draw back, and for the first time I saw real fear in her eyes. The little pink bows at the tops of her white stockings were showing, and above them the smooth skin of her thighs. And above, her fulsome breasts pressed against the gauzy fabric of her blouse with delicious insistence, and suddenly I saw her not as the daughter of my enemy, but as a woman, ripe with a woman's charms.

And as a captive. My captive, and a spoil of war, whom, by custom immemorial in the clans, I could do with as I wished. And she already dressed for debauch.

Immediately she sensed my change of attitude and tried to press herself back into the straw.

"No," she cried. "No! I'm betrothed! My virtue is sacred! I'm not one of your highland peasants who—"

I grabbed her arm and pulled her easily to her feet. Her lightness amazed me. On the road she'd seemed so formidable, I'd expected a warrior's bulk, but no. How could such a slip of a girl project such power and authority? How could she radiate such beauty and desirability to make a strong man weak?

"No! What are you doing with me? Put me down!"

I untied her elbows. I untied her hands. I brought her wrists around in front of her and retied them, then held them in one hand while with the other I pulled over the hook of an old rope hoist. Again, she hardly fought, confining herself to gasps and murmurs and sounds of outraged dismay.

I put the hook between her wrists and held her up as I found the fall, then pulled. The old wooden pulleys creaked softly as the hook began to rise, lifting her bound hands along with it.

With ankles and feet tied she was losing her balance and I had no intention of suspending her by her arms, so I knelt and untied her ankles and continued my lifting. She squealed in alarm as her hands rose over her head.

"You're inhuman!" she cried. "You're a torturer! A fiend! Stop it! Stop it at once!"

I'd stepped back to watch and could see the whole process as her arms were stretched and her body elongated as she rose up on her toes. And now at last she was struggling, now when it was too late, twisting and tugging at the bonds, fighting the inexorable power of the hoist.

As I lifted, her tiny kilt began to rise as well, the hem sliding even further up her thighs, and at a certain point it just cleared the junction of her legs and there I stopped in stunned astonishment. Just stopped dead still and stared as Ardis continued to swing and struggle against her bonds, struggling, I now realized, to hide what the rising skirt revealed.

My first shock was her absence of drawers, or indeed anything that might hide her shame and preserve her modesty. She was all bare skin!

My second shock was that her nether crown, the little tuft of hair that men call Adam's pillow, was very odd in appearance. I am no stranger to a lady's intimacies, or the secrets of the female toilette, but Mistress Ardis MacDimmit appeared very strange down there, so that I had to bend down a bit and stare most rudely.

I was astonished to see that what I'd taken for pubic hair was in fact a little tassel hanging over her sex, right there over the beginning of her cleft: a little fringe, silvery so that it sparkled, and beset with a little pearls.

I stared.

"Oh God! Stop! Stop!" She was trying to cover herself by ineffectually shifting one leg over the other. It was charming, but ultimately of no use, and I could clearly see it now: a little fringe artfully arranged so it would slap gently and surreptitiously against her clitoris as she moved or walked. A clever little device designed for a secret, salacious, self-flagellation of the most personal kind. A toy for auto-erotic stimulation, and one that no doubt accounted for at least some of the high color in her cheeks.

How very interesting.

And my, how that changed things!

I tied the rope from the hoist off to keep her in that position and approached. Too late she realized she could creep around and turn her back to me, but I stopped that in its tracks, taking her arm and leading her back to where the light could shine on her face, red of its own accord now, and eyes clenched tight in denial.

"And what have we here, then?" I chided as my fingers flipped the little fringe. "Part of your festive ensemble, my most virtuous mademoiselle?"

"No, don't! How dare you!?"

But I wasn't paying her any attention any more, and I slid my finger through the little curtain of pearls and touched flesh that was hot, damp, and softer than any words can describe. No rose petal, no lily's calyx, no soft roll of fat round a plump baby's wrist could begin to compare.

She sobbed and her body jerked violently in spite of the hoist which kept her so cruelly stretched and suspended and balanced on tip toe. I wrapped my arm around her to keep her close and pulled her body against mine. I watched her face as my finger caressed that maddening crevice.

"Sir I beg of you," she whispered, her words tumbling out in a breathless torrent. "You have me at a disadvantage. But this costume you see is only that: a costume, worn for sport, worn for a private gathering of intimate friends, for jest. Do not make assumptions based on my attire, sir. Do not presume they say or suggest anything about me or— Oh!"

Without ado I slid the tip of my finger inside her, barely entering her, yet forcing from her a gasp that cut off her words in midstream.

How amazing it is that a woman's body can have such a mind of its own, and not give a fig about her honor and dignity that so busies her mind, nor for her precious senses of virtue and self-regard. Her body was stiff and her eyes wide with shock and upset, but that sweet little cunny gripped my finger with stubborn insolence, greedy for my rude intrusion and completely unmindful of its mistress's despair over such humiliating betrayal.

Ardis moaned in her throat and clenched shut her eyes, and her head fell back in denial, but naked lust roared through my body with shocking vehemence, and without thinking I pulled her head up to accept my kiss, which was every bit as predacious and invasive as the finger that now basked in her secret heat. She sobbed and mounted a feeble defense, her tongue meeting me bravely behind the ramparts of her teeth and trying to block my way, but her snug little sheath was already sucking at my finger and whispering secrets to me like a spy all too ready to reveal all the weak points and secret entries to the palace. And all too soon her tongue gave up and fell away, letting me enter that sweet mouth to pillage and plunder and do as I would.

She pulled herself away and turned her head to the side. "No, no! You mustn't! You mustn't!"

But it was all moot now. The garrison had fled, the parapets were deserted and the fortress was in my hands. As was her proud and shapely ass, which I found naked and tensed beneath her skirt in back. I could discern now the rest of her little panty's scandalous design: the fine silver chains that left her sex exposed yet kept that devilish fringe in position, the little clips and loops that kept it pressed against her. I took a buttock in my hand and squeezed hard and then slapped it smartly, smiling as I felt the answering spasm of her pussy on my finger.

She felt it too, and looked at me imploringly, begging that I not humiliate her further. And I might have given in to her silent plea had I not suddenly hit on an even more diabolical plan. I would put her hood back on her so I wouldn't have to see those beseeching eyes. And at the same time I would thus rob her of the last remnants of her dignity and pride and whatever claims to authority she might still be able to summon out of her dire predicament. She'd become a body to me, a ripe female sexual simulacrum without the ability to either object to or encourage whatever I might choose to do to her.

For at this point two beings raged within me: one a noble Christian gentleman still affected by the nobler sensibilities, and one a ravening beast afire with the basest of carnal hungers. I'd still know very well exactly who she was and whom I was so piteously assaulting, but without the trepidations or nagging civility that might bedim and beshadow that pure flame of savage desire.

A slut. A hooded slut. A princess turned into a sexual plaything.

She made no attempt to avoid the hood as I slipped it back over her head. Perhaps she thought I was doing her a service by granting her a last bit of anonymity before I shamed her with her own pleasure. Because I had no doubt now that I had a naughty one on my hands; that princess or no, heiress or villain, this was a woman whose body ached for a man's depredations and the punishing release of his unchecked lusts. There were rivers inside her that ran hot and deep, and I'd be the first t plumb their depths.

She squealed as I pulled down her wee kilt and slid it down her legs and tossed it aside. But with her wrists held in the hoist, there was precious little she could do to stop or even hinder me. With the skirt off. that sinful little fringe glowed in the firelight, and was no more now than a last feeble barrier, a tiny little veil, barely protecting the last remnant of her modesty.

I knew she could see me quite well through that feed-sack hood, but little did I care. Let her look and see the gleam in my eye! Let her quail and shudder at the sight of my evil intent!

Her bodice called to me. Her nipples already looked like they would burst through at any moment and seek refuge in my hands, I had to cup and comfort them and tell them freedom was just a few tugs away, but when I touched them, Ardis began to whimper and moan.

"Oh no! I beg of you!" she said from beneath her burlap hood. "I am not what you think! I am not some simple toss-puff! You fancy me a tavern bawd or loose-kirtle or common hayrick drop-stocking? A common shagnasty or trolleymog, or one of your grassbacked naughty-nells from some lowland gin-mill? You are mistaken, Sir! You will find my morals incorruptible and my virtue adamantine! You will find my— Oh! Oh, my! No, Sir! I tell you no! No—!"

It took no more than a tug on the bow at the top of her bodice to cause the entire garment to burst open like a St. Andrew's pudding from breast to belly. Though her chest was still covered by her chemise-shirt, the lass gave forth a piteous whine and the shock of being so displayed seemed to cease her struggling. Since she'd been mostly naked under her skirt, its loss apparently hadn't affected her half as much as this new salacious affront to her bosom, and it looked like all the fight had drained out of her with this new indignity.

I threw the bodice open and took but a moment to admire her breasts through the sheer cambric of the chemise, hardly more than a gauze, and hardly the kind of undergarment a chaste Christian woman would wear out on the public way. One good yank and the thing split down the middle and there she was: maid Ardis MacDimmit revealed.

Powerless I was to contain my fervor, and I quickly captured her snow-white breasts in my hands. I was greedy for the feel of her like a parched throat is greedy for water, and I kneaded them and squeezed them and lifted them to my lips, which ached with a hunger no food or drink could allay. I kissed them and sucked them and ran my teeth over them as a merchant runs his teeth over a string of pearls to test their worth.

Such lovely paps! Warm and lush and benign, guileless and without bone or blemish, and promising all the loving nourishment and sensuous pleasure that a woman is: virgin and vixen, both at once. I've heard it said how a woman's sex is a mysterious flower that keeps its pleasures hid, but her breasts speak a language that all mean immediately understand, though none can explain.

Let the learned doctors dispute what lies beneath the skin of a human being by studying their Aristotle and Galen. For Ardis MacDimmit, I already knew what made her up: sweetness and pleasure and a man's lurid satisfaction, and I know that if I'd allowed myself to suck just a bit more, I would have tasted that womanly nectar as it seeped through those eager and proffered nipples. I know because I could already taste the ambrosial savor of her skin.

She mewled softly as I nursed on her, and as I did my free hand found the clasp on her naughty little panty and opened it. The gossamer garment parted easily and would have fallen right off her had she not clamped her thighs together so tightly that it lodged between them some distance above her knees and just hung there.

I would make her open those legs though, and I released her breast to slide my finger against her feminine slit, which was wet. Quite wet.

She drew her breath in sharply and froze, and her words when they came weren't said so much as whimpered: "Please, no, you mustn't. Please, stop, I beg you! I beseech you! No, no..."