Joy V. Sheridan writes

Charity Amour

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE part 3

The coach pulled to a halt and with his perfunctory rudeness, Rispian was out and into the house, without once turning back to see if his companion might need a hand alighting. She bade the driver unharness and rub the horses down. She also bade him feed the horses hay. She also gave him orders to prepare two stalls for some incoming riders. In the distance was the unmistakable clip-clop of the homing henchmen.

She wrinkled her nose as she entered the drawing room: the logs which had been thrown into the fire place smelt fusty and damp, with another nasal connotation, as though they had been urinated upon. It was quite possible, as she knew. In the darkness an overfull bladder wasn't considerate about just where it might discharge its liquid overload. Or mayhap, the previous evening, somebody with a sense of fear where household fires were concerned, had seen that the logs balzed too fiercely and being too lazy or too drunk to douse them with water, had sprayed them instead with a cannon shot of piss. 

It was all so utterly distasteful. How she longed for the Château des Amourettes: how very much she longed to be back there ... Madame picked her way to her small bedchamber. She really ought to find something warmer to put on before appearing downstairs for breakfast. Rapidly she found a salvaged garment from the Château and slipped it on. On the way down the passageway she pushed open the guest chamber which accomodated his lordship.

Again, her nose wrinkled in distain and distaste. As she had thought, it smelt of sweat, urine and fornication. And something else beside. She all but slammed the door too and continued her way downstairs. How much longer would this regrettable state of affairs have to continue? Oh, she was all but resolved now! There would be no boarding of any vessel destined to convey his Lordship Fitzroy Rispian - on his journey which would convey her also.

He was seated at breakfast already. He did not look up when she entered the room. He was stuffing the fried foodstuff hungrily into his mouth. She didn’t think that she could bear to sit and watch him eat, and with that in mind, began making up a small tray to take to her bed chamber.

“What, Nat, not staying here to partake of a bite with me?” He scowled up at her from his seat. “Surely that is rude to your guests?”

He indicated his two henchmen, who had now entered the dining room and were likewise making of things a very hearty breakfast. “I have a slight chill, dear Fitzi, a slight chill.”   She tried using the pet name: somehow, it didn’t sound sincere.

“Very well me dear. You run along upstairs. Can’t have you sickening on us, can we? I shall want you to act the very proper hostess for me, sooner or later.” He concentrated on his food again then with his mouth half full and, not taking his eyes off of his plate, addressed Hinches. “Those maids – d’you think you can locate them for me?” “Yes sir, I reckons I can.”

Hinches tilted his head back and looked across Lord Rispian’s own bent head to where Jarvis was lifting a forkful of fried liver to his mouth: “When d’ee need them, Sir?” “After I have finished here. Yes, after I have finished me breakfast. A man’s got other appetites ya know, Hinches!” “Fair enough your lordship. Where shall I bid the little doxies repair to? To your chamber or would you rather set to things here?” “Send ’em in here, man. And stay. You might enjoy some fun yourself. You too Jarvis. Don’t want me men saying ‘It’s this for the King Gander but naught for the serving geese!’” 

Hinches dropped his tools and made to go out.

He went through the low front door and turned sharp right.

He headed towards the cowshed where bales of hay were stacked and he whistled – hard.

Two female heads appeared amidst a garbled chuckle of words and sighs. The two village wenches, one buxom with large breasts, hands and posterior; the other taller, thinner with striking, curling red hair, appeared before him.

“Entrez, s’il vous plait.” He smacked the stouter one on the behind and grabbed the lankier one by a wrist, pulling them with him.

Madame d’Esprit sat before her reflection in the misted glass. Although she was preparing to retouch her toilette, her eyes were fixed blankly as she reflected back over the previous evening’s small dinner party she had shared with Lord Rispian.

How gross his face was becoming! Why, not even copious amounts of white powder, mixed with a little green could disguise the purple and broken veins showing on his nose and cheeks; the lines frogging their way from the corners of his eyes, down his nostrils, forming deep furrows on his brow. Even his eyes, perhaps his best feature, were beginning to look sloth-like and beady.

Gone, gone, she sighed, was the becoming young dandy she had first encountered. Had the years treated her just as badly but with the gentle lighting she had insisted on at the Château des Amourettes, had she mayhap have disquised, no - hidden - the ravages of time behind the tinted mirrors of her own calculated timelessness?

Tears slipped over her cheek and the bitter taste trickling into her mouth shook her out of her transfixed reverie. The Château? Rispian’s consoling words? What she knew of the stockpile of hatred and envy he had built up against his cousin: that so handsome, so very rich cousin of his! She knew that he intended to murder the man and inherit his goods and his title too, if that were possible. During one of his more sodden moments Rispian had confided this much in her.

But what if things went the way Rispian demanded that they should? What would be her fate, once they were en route for England? She could, oh, so easily, be disposed of: with as much thought, so she construed, as one might give to a demolished chicken carcass. She could not help suppress her smile as she peered harder into the mirror, noting the few wrinkles on her now ageing neck. Like chicken skin!

Liberally she began rubbing white cream into her neck, taking it in upward strokes over her still unlined and unblemished face. She moved the fronds of hair off her forehead. No, there were as yet no wrinkles along the smooth ivory tones of her forehead.

She opened her mouth and looked at her teeth: they were white still, small and sharp. Her eyes? Despite a few crows’ feet at the corners, they still shone with that iced provocativeness which so many gentlemen - and a few ladies too - had found irresistible.

She took the wig from off her head. And despaired. Was there no preparation which would enhance those few thin strands of hair which remained atop her head, to further grow? It had seemed like some dreadful damnation’s pronuncement when she had finally come to consciousness after a raging fever which had all but killed her some ten years previously. The result? She was all but bald. She groaned inwardly as she surveyed the scene. Then looked a little closer. She touched the top of her head. There did seem to be a slight suggestion of a thicker layer of hair. Perhaps the lotion she had bought from the Countess was beginning to show signs of being successful after all!

Sighing, she replaced the wig. Touching her lips with a little carmine, she smiled. She was still beautiful. Very beautiful, despite her thirty three years of age - and her body, why that was the body of a woman much younger. She stood up and pressed her hands up and down the slender but erotically-contoured body.

She should still be able to use her bodily charms to win over any roving sea captain - even if she didn’t have it in mind to pay him her fare in coinage.

She lay on her bed, her head aching slightly; the food untouched. In the distance she heard footsteps treading heavily on the stairs and Lord Rispian’s unmistakable booming laughter.

Did he have any women with him as early in the day as this was? She propped herself up on her pillow, listening for signs of other voices. He approached her door. She called out in response to his query. “Yes?” “Listen, Nat, I’m off to Bordeaux later on in the day. I shan’t be back 'til supper time, but I shall look forward to seeing you then.”

She heard a hard, flat sound, like a hand against a board and girlish giggling: the voice continued, ”Got a little thing I should be doing at the moment. See you this evening then, me lady!”

She heard the footsteps echo off down the passage-way and the hard slam of the guest chamber door. She tried to sleep and must have succeeded. It was late afternoon when she wandered out of her room. She went downstairs to fetch a cooling drink: she was now sneezing and her mouth felt both on fire and parched. She returned past Rispian's room and heard the jarring creak as the door was opened.

Turning, she saw two tousle-headed wenches, wearing nothing more than a shift apiece. A large, bare, big pink-teated breast oozed out from under a strap.

“’Lo Madame. Don’ mind us maids stayin’ do ’ee? His Honour like said we should wait fer ’im here. Wanna bit ... o’ company yerself ’til he gets back like?” Madame had her hand on her door handle. The girls looked dirty, like raggle-taggle gypsies; neither of them was older than fifteen or sixteen. “I’m afraid, my dears, you’d best entertain yourselves. Or why not run along home: I am sure his lordship won’t, after all this time, mind you going?” “Oh no, we can’t do that: and besides, ’ees gotta pay us yet.”

It was in Madame’s mind to give the girls some coin herself, but she was reluctant to part with any cash until she knew she was safely en route out of France. “Yo’ sure we can’t come up an’ see yar?” “I rather think NOT my dears. You see, neither of you is actually MY type!”

She slammed the door hard shut behind her and bolted it. She turned and pressed her back and the palms of her hands against the shuttered door.

How she sighed for the company of just one of her girls; one of her lovely, tutored butterflies, from the Château des Amourettes... Justine, Claude-Marie. Did they live? Oh, what had become of them all? She had been affronted at the remark the taller of the girls had made. Really, these peasant filles were so intolerably coarse and they did smell so terribly high. She could not help but notice that fact as they had spoken to her from a few feet away.

The larger of the two gypsy girls, for such they proclaimed themselves to be, bared her teeth at the retreating back and tugged at the skinnier one, taking her back into the tumbled bed. “Seems like we’m no’ good enough fer ’er high an’ mighty ladyship then...” She reached up and grabbed the redhead, pulling her down on top of her. “Right then, we’ll jus’ ’ave to amuse ourselves til ’e gets back, shan’t us, Marie?” “I spose yer right. Now, where be that nice big tit of yourn Simone...” “Naw. Down there: that be more like it. Cor!” She directed the redhead to the triangle of matted hair which lay between her over-plump thighs. “Attagirl, Mar; go to it then. Whaddya waitin’ fer?”