my body. I was only vaguely aware of clapping from my audience.
But I was to be spared further comment or threat from my situation and the Viscount when there was a crash and one of the tall Georgian windows was broken inwards by a large stone. Lord Drake stopped spanking me and leaned over to cover and protect my helpless naked body from the flying glass. The room was in uproar, women and men scattered everywhere. Through the broken tattered glass, ten gentlemen stepped through, three of them soldiers. As the Viscount jumped from his chair, the women screamed and the other men began to fight the intruders.
“It is about time,” Lord Drake pulled me up. “I have been here for days with these scoundrels.”
The Viscount issued an order. “Take the women. Do not let them get my beauties. I will never have a collection like it again.”
Lord Drake swiftly scooped me up in to his arms with extravagant ease and walked over the glass to one of the unoccupied beds. He set me down next to it and pulled the velvet cover off the bed. He threw it around my body and pulled it tight.
“We must leave,” he said, before calling out to one of the soldiers, “Constable, you have taken your time. I trust it was well spent in rescuing the women from the stables and outhouses. I have located more women. One is being kept upstairs. She has been whipped but not taken. There are other women tied in beds throughout the house. I must get this pretty damsel to safety, Lucas. Make sure you find the women and round up the scoundrels.”
The man grinned and nodded.
“Always to the rescue, Alexander. You have done well. I could not have found the rascal without your help. The Viscount and his club will be dealt with severely. I will visit you later.”
Lord Drake picked me up and pulled me neatly over his shoulder. He started to make for the door, punching quickly at a male club member who dared to step in his path and pull at the velvet cover to take me from him.
Lord Drake carried me out of the house as though I were a treasured possession. Clearly he had been involved in a conspiracy to unveil the Viscount and his despicable rakish club in which helpless women were kidnapped, sold and used for pleasure in slavery to men. Yet his confident conduct within which he bared, spanked and pleasured my body left me in no doubt he was a rake, albeit a one with a heart and some morals.
I was relieved my fate was not to be as a slave in the Viscount’s harem or to be sold on as common chattel. But I had been exposed and pleasured by a man, Lord Drake, and I was in two haughty minds as to whether or not I was endeared to him because of his treatment of me or appalled. All I could console myself with after my ordeal was with the prospect of returning home to my aunt and my bed. I needed time to collect my thoughts and make sense of my feelings regarding what had happened and my strong attraction to Lord Drake. I voiced my thoughts loudly.
“Thank you for my rescue, Lord Drake, but I wish to return to the safety of my home and my aunt.”
“Out of the question,” he said, surprising me with the swift directness of his discourse as he walked briskly to the stables to seek out a horse.
I was unable to express my indignation or ascertain why he would not allow me to go home when he began to engage in conversation with two soldiers outside about procuring a horse.
The soldier nodded and ran off to fetch one. Lord Drake lowered me to the ground and my bare feet made contact with the cool, frosted grass. He was to keep tight hold of my arm. People were running everywhere. Many were leaving the house hurriedly in carriages or on horseback. Two men came out of the portico leading the Viscount to a carriage in irons. Others were brought forward in a similar fashion.
There was sudden confusion. Two men ran from the house chased by three others. I recognised one of the men as
Learning to Kill: Stories