Chapter 23

Curtis Flannery was conflicted. He had a good job. His Lordship gave him much more say in the breeding program than most lords would. That was part of the problem, actually. He had noticed the signs that his sons were sniffing about this or that girl on the estate. But all boys did that, and he hadn't given it a thought. And he almost never went up to the manor itself. He told himself that was why he hadn't noticed all the pregnant lasses around the place. He had been shocked nearly out of his mind when he walked into the garden, ostensibly to watch his sons marry girls he thought were decent women, only to find that his new daughters-in-law were pregnant sluts. That was just the beginning. Wearing his best yeoman's shirt, under his freshly brushed jerkin, he almost pissed his Locksley pants as he saw all the extra brides, those women obviously being sluts also!

In truth, he should not have cared that his sons had married, particularly since they had both wed girls who already worked on the estate. In fact, their future was guaranteed, assuming they weren't so foolish as to go off and try to make it on their own. And a more practical man might have tried to put the best view on it by saying that his new daughters-in-law were obviously fertile, and he wouldn't lack for grandchildren.

But like Aldo and Horace, he was peeved that no one had thought to involve him in the process. The first he knew that his boys were taking wives was when, standing together, they informed him they were taking time away from their duties for the wedding. He hadn't even been invited to the ceremony! He didn't complain, of course. He wasn't stupid enough to hazard his own job, especially since that whore's daughter, Penelope Farnsworth, probably thought his sons could easily replace him.

And a whore's daughter she surely must be. He'd seen her wandering about, the lace that should have been affixed to her bodice conveniently "forgotten" and displaying most of her noble teats to all who cared to look. And he'd seen how Jack looked, when he came back from their rides, fatigued as if they'd ridden days, instead of only an hour or two. And, on top of that, there had been a blanket left in the carriage one day, after Nigel had taken the lady for a ride through the forest, and when he shook it out, to fold it properly and return it to the shelf, he'd noticed the spots on it.

He'd also sniffed them.

He was no fool. He knew well what Nigel did when he took His Lordship around to visit the other lords. Nigel had even admitted it once. He crawled between the thighs of those self important women, who were married to men who couldn't ride them as well as they rode a horse! And if the slut wasn't out "riding" with Jack, Nigel was taking her in the carriage to look at trees? Hah! She was a whore, and her sinful stain had transferred to his sons.

And His Lordship! It was sad. He had been a fine figure of a man, back when Curtis was a lowly groom. He sat on a horse as if he had been born there, back in those days. But these last few years had taken their toll on him. He only rode rarely these days, and more than once Curtis had found himself thinking he should tie the man on, just to ensure he stayed in the saddle. Sooner or later the drunk, old, fat bastard would fly out of the saddle. And it would be Curtis who was blamed.

No ... he was pretty sure he knew what both Jack and Nigel did when they were alone with the whore's daughter.

He just couldn't do anything about it.

And he blamed her for the way his sons had been taken from him without so much as a how do you do. He knew that he should be proud that Charley had bagged a lady's maid. But he had also seen that lady's maid coming from Hugh Hinkman's forge several times. And as best he could tell, she had neither brought anything to repair, nor taken away anything fixed. So what had she been doing in there all those times without a chaperone?

And it wasn't possible that all those girls should swell up like they'd swallowed a pumpkin, without their lady knowing about it.

He wasn't happy ... but there wasn't anything he could do about it.

Geoffrey Flagman had always considered himself as a man who did God's work. The Bible was full of references to grain, and flour, and God had created such that man might prosper. Most of that kind of thought had come straight from his father, who had owned the mill before Geoffrey, and who had taught Geoffrey his trade.

Geoffrey had also taken the scriptures literally when it came to doing his part to populate the Earth. He had sired six daughters, and four sons in that effort. It had eventually killed his wife to do so, but he simply blamed that on her lack of faith.

It had been a tough life, trying to raise that many children and run a mill at the same time. His elder daughters had taken his wife's place, in terms of raising the younger ones and doing the housework. And his sons had come to work in the mill with him when each was six. It had seemed to be the hand of providence when Lady Farnsworth had invited him to send his youngest daughter to be her lady's maid. It had raised his status in the village, and there had been one less mouth to feed.

He had promptly forgotten about Sally, though he wouldn't have characterized it that way. He was simply a busy man, with a lot to think about. And she was off in a safe place, getting a better education than he could have given her.

Or at least he had thought so.

He had known the old lady died, and a new one came to replace her, but he hadn't paid any attention to it. The manor still ordered grain and flour, and his sons still delivered it. It was paid for on time. That was all he cared about.

Or it had been until he found out the truth of things.

As a regular and ardent member of the church, he had been among the first to welcome Vicar Jameson to his new parish. And he was one of the first to listen, in horror, as the vicar whispered of what he had seen in the garden at Farnsworth Manor.

His dear, beloved, pure little Sally had been soiled, possibly even tied down and raped! It must have happened that way, because his precious Sally would never have voluntarily entered into the depravity of being bedded before she was properly married. Of that he was positive.

And, like Curtis Flannery, he was also positive that it was not possible for all those girls to be with child, and the lady of the manor not know of it.

His logic was simple. The lady of the manor was responsible for the safety and security of the girls in her employ. Before the new Countess of Haversham arrived, all had been well. After the new lady arrived, the place had become a den of iniquity. Penelope Farnsworth was responsible for that.

And Penelope Farnsworth must therefore be punished.

He waited for God to smite her.

And while he was waiting for that ... he caught his youngest son Louis sneaking out of the house one night. After liberal application of the rod, the boy confessed as to where he was going ... and what he had expected to do once he got there.

That was when Geoffrey Flagman, filled with righteous indignation, decided God was taking too long to punish the harlot who had caused so much sin to soil his children.

It could be said that Geoffrey was the most intelligent of the men who came together to exact satisfaction from the lady of the manor. The main argument for that would be that he knew that exacting such satisfaction could have serious consequences, unless it was done the right way.

To his mind, the proper punishment was to flog her, as Christ had been flogged by the Jews. It didn't occur to him that that made no sense. It just appealed to his somewhat limited imagination. In his twisted dreams, the stripes left on her bleeding body would heal into scars that would brand her to all who saw her as the sinner she no doubt was.

He was also intelligent enough to know that a single man could not achieve this goal. He would need help. And it seemed obvious there would be other fathers who felt the same way he did.

So he sought them out.

He found eager allies in Aldo and Horace. To be fair to Geoffrey, he did not explore with them what kind of justice they thought was appropriate. To be honest, there were some convergent lines of thought among the three of them. She should feel extreme shame at the end of her punishment, for example. And all thought she should be stripped naked during her punishment. At that point their imaginations diverged. The purpose for stripping her, to Geoffrey, was simply to expose all her skin to the lash. Aldo and Horace had other reasons in mind.

The problem, now, was access to the bitch. None of the men could think of a way to get onto the estate, and into the manor, without being either seen, or caught. And neither of those outcomes was acceptable.

It was purely by accident that a solution to that problem presented itself.

Curtis Flannery came to Geoffrey's mill to discuss changing the mix of grains used to feed His Lordship's breeding horses.

Sally wasn't concerned that her brother Louis had failed to appear as planned. She had, the last time he delivered flour, invited him to come see her new cottage. She couldn't invite him to the wedding, because the wedding was being done in secret. Things had gotten mildly out of control when it turned out there was no vicar to perform the marriages, when the marriages were originally planned.

But she could invite Louis to come and stay with them overnight in her new house. She was, in fact, going to introduce him to Cynthia, at Lady Penelope's request. It was true that Louis was two years younger than Cynthia, but Sally knew Louis was much more mature than his chronological age. In any case, Her Ladyship said she had a plan involving Louis and Cynthia, and that Cynthia was eager to pursue it.

When Louis failed to appear, as scheduled, Sally simply assumed there had been some problem that prevented him from getting away.

Had she been able to see him, bruised and battered, lying in a fetal curl on the woven reed mat that had been substituted for his straw mattress, she would have been horrified. And hearing his sobs of pain and humiliation at having betrayed her and her friends ... she might have known something was coming.

Instead, she and her new husband served Cynthia a modest meal, and they got to know each other a little better.

Curtis knew he couldn't take part in the comeuppance the whore's daughter was going to get. He would be recognized by his voice alone.

But he could grant the others access to their target.

He tried to be clever about it. He actually sought me out, coming into the manor, and asked me what time folks up in the manor doused their lights and went to bed. He said he wanted to do some repairs that would involve hammering, and didn't want to disturb anyone's sleep.

I thought it a singularly odd thing to plan ... hammering a nail in the dark, when he would have just had a whole day's sunlight to assist him. But it never occurred to me that there was evil in his heart, and so I informed him of the usual time when things got quiet.

Of course now that the girls were wed, things were a lot quieter in the manor of an evening. In the wait for the vicar to appear, four cottages had been completed. They were set beside each other in a line, and all were alike. There would be a shared garden some day. The lodgings were most modest, and would be too small if more than two children were produced by any couple, but they had been built such that a room could be added onto the back, if required.

This did not mean, however, that it was quiet in Her Ladyship's bedchamber. As an example of the very definition of 'irony', while all her servants got with child ... she did not.

It wasn't for lack of trying. She had Jack at her beck and call. Jenny, having been thoroughly debauched, did not mind Nigel also contributing to the cause. And the other girls were just as lost to moral decency. None of them would have tried to deny their new husbands the opportunity to breed the mistress of the manor.

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Penelope, Mistress of the Manor

Lubrican

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