Blood Bond Page 6

  ‘Well, madam,’ Nigel said mockingly as he lurched into his bedroom, his spirits buoyed by the copious quantity of wine he had consumed at lunch. ‘How’s the escort agency coming along?’

  ‘Awaiting Your Lordship’s pleasure,’ Diana said, trying hard not to show the disdain she felt.

  ‘I think I’ll enjoy the company of Theresa tonight.’ The words were menacing, the emphasis on the word ‘enjoy’ clearly intended to add to Diana’s discomfort. She could sense his pleasure at being able to dig in the knife by ordering her daughter.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ she said, shrugging her shoulders. He couldn’t hide his disappointment at her reaction, then she quickly added, ‘It’ll serve you right if she gives you the clap.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Didn’t you know your son Miles gave her a dose before he died?’

  She had gone too far. Nigel’s fist knocked her off her feet.

  ‘You’re lying!’ he screamed down at her.

  Diana struggled to her knees and shrugged again. She was lying, but she knew Nigel couldn’t be sure. He turned and walked away. ‘What time shall I send Theresa up?’ she called after him.

  He hesitated for a moment, then without turning replied, ‘Send one of Virginia’s twins instead.’

  ‘No! Not them, I hadn’t…’ Diana’s voice trailed off.

  ‘No, send them both — eight-thirty sharp.’

  Diana was still picking herself off the floor as Nigel’s three sons walked past the door and looked in.

  ‘Walk into a door?’ sniggered Damian, seeing her wipe the blood from the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Yes, Sir Damian.’

  Jasper had noticed his father’s clumsy attempts to fondle Theresa over lunch. ‘I suppose His Lordship has made his choice — Theresa, of course?’

  ‘He’s made his choice, Sir Jasper, but it’s not Theresa.’

  ‘I’ll have her then,’ Greg said quickly. Diana knew Greg had envied Miles. She guessed the young man, still smarting from the fact his father had denied him his dead twin’s room, was determined that he would at least inherit Miles’s woman.

  ‘Of course, Sir Greg. What time shall I send her up? Nine o’clock?’

  ‘Eight,’ Greg replied eagerly.

  Diana was pleased with herself. Not only had she protected her daughter from Nigel, but Theresa had ended up with the least troublesome of the three Chatfield brothers. With any luck Theresa would be safely tucked up in her own bed by eight-thirty. She felt sickened, though, that Nigel had demanded the young twins.

  ‘And tell me, madam, who do you recommend for my delight?’ beamed Jasper. He could have chosen one of the women himself, but it was much better sport to put Diana on the spot.

  ‘For you, Sir Jasper? How about the delectable Jennifer?’

  ‘What, that old boot!’

  ‘A very apt metaphor, Sir Jasper. A woman is, after all, like a pair of boots. An old pair is far more comfortable than a new pair being broken in. From what I’ve heard, Jennifer will be able to show you things about the art of lovemaking that you’ve never dreamt of.’

  ‘Many a fine tune played on an old fiddle,’ Damian quipped.

  ‘Jennifer has forgotten more about sex than you’ve ever known,’ Diana added, noticing a bulge growing in Jasper’s pants.

  ‘We’ll see who can teach who what,’ boasted Jasper. He knew Jennifer was not supposed to be on the roster because she was past child-bearing age, but the hint made by Diana had aroused his interest. ‘Send her up at eight-thirty sharp.’ He slapped his brothers on the back as he led them towards the door.

  ‘What about you, Sir Damian?’ Diana called after them. The brothers hesitated, then Damian turned and walked back towards her as Jasper and Greg hurried off. Diana guessed they didn’t want to hear his answer.

  ‘Who’s left?’ he snapped.

  ‘I’ve had a special request for you, Sir Damian.’

  ‘Who?’ he asked, clearly surprised.

  ‘Cheryl.’

  ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘I’m certainly not, Sir Damian.’ This time Diana was telling the truth. Damian looked puzzled, but attempted an imperious smile.

  ‘Send her up at ten o’clock.’

  9

  Cheryl arrived at Damian’s bedroom at ten o’clock as ordered, knocking timidly on the oak door. Inside the room she could see two candles, one on each of the bedside tables, illuminating the drapes of the four-poster bed on which Damian lay, naked. She could also see the door on the far side of the room, leading to what once had been a dressing room. Now it was Damian’s special room — a room that he kept locked at all times. She felt herself shiver. Was it the chill of the evening or what she had been told lay behind the locked door?

  Cheryl had discarded her grey tunic as instructed and was dressed in a silk blouse and flowing skirt she had selected from the film-set wardrobe.

  ‘What’s in there?’ Damian asked, pointing at the bag she was carrying.

  She laughed softly. ‘Have you never been to Soho, Sir Damian, and seen the strippers carrying their costume bags between clubs?’

  Damian shrugged. He’d been to Soho, but hadn’t been looking at girls.

  ‘A costume for every occasion,’ Cheryl explained.

  ‘And what have you done to your hair?’

  ‘Got sick of it being so long,’ she lied.

  ‘Well, it’s certainly short enough now!’

  Cheryl placed the bag on a chair beneath the window and stood before him.

  ‘Well, let’s get on with it,’ Damian said brusquely. ‘The idea is to get you pregnant. The sooner you’re in the club, the sooner I’ll get His Lordship off my back.’

  She noticed him watching her intently as she undressed and was grateful for the soft light so he couldn’t see her scars. She took her clothes off as seductively as she could; she had a good figure and she knew it. Finally she lowered her knickers to the floor and walked over to the bed, her full, firm breasts swaying before his eyes. Cheryl knelt before him, placed her nipples on his chest and dragging them down his torso until they reached his groin. In the flickering candlelight she saw his penis slowly growing.

  He quickly rolled to straddle her, but it was no use — she felt him slip out almost immediately. She tried to help, but could get no response. As he collapsed on the bed beside her, his back turned away from her, she heard him moan in frustration and anger. She reached over and touched his shoulder.

  ‘Get out,’ he said.

  She didn’t move.

  ‘Get out!’

  ‘Go though to your special room,’ she whispered in his ear.

  ‘What special room?’

  ‘You know where I mean — the dressing room.’

  ‘What do you know about my room?’

  ‘I know everything about your special room.’

  ‘How?’

  She didn’t answer the question. ‘I also know how to make you happy,’ she whispered. ‘Go into your special room and wait for me. I’ll make you happier than you’ve been since Mathew was there with you.’

  ‘How do you know about Mathew?’ he asked warily.

  Again she did not answer the question. ‘I know how Mathew made you happy,’ she said softly. She reached over and felt his penis; it was hard. ‘Now go and wait for me.’

  Damian rose from the bed, collected one of the candles and walked to the dressing room door. She watched as he lifted the corner of a painting and fumbled behind it. So that was where he hid the key.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ she said as he unlocked the door.

  ‘Don’t be,’ he commanded as he disappeared through the doorway.

  Cheryl felt sick. So everything she had been told about Damian and his perversions was true. He had preyed on her younger brother, Mathew, making him his sex slave until Mathew could stand it no longer and had tried to escape. Then the Chatfields had hunted him down and beheaded him in front of the whole community. Cheryl was determined to take her re
venge.

  She hurried to her bag, took out a damp cloth and removed her make-up before combing back her hair, wrapping bandages around her chest and putting on the clothes she had brought with her.

  ‘Hurry up!’ Damian called impatiently.

  He was sprawled on a pink velvet chaise longue as she entered the room. In the candlelight she saw the shock on his face and then watched as the look was replaced by one of pleasure and excitement.

  With her hair parted, her breasts bound tightly and wearing Mathew’s clothes, she was the spitting image of her dead brother.

  In the eerie light the nude men and boys on the posters taped to the walls seemed to come alive, watching as she slowly unbuckled her trousers. So this was where he’d brought the drugged Mathew, where he’d tied him up and raped him. She had to push away that knowledge, to steel herself, to fight every urge that made her want to run away. She let the trousers slip down and, with her back to Damian, walked over to the strangely constructed apparatus in the centre of the room. She pulled the shirt up above her buttocks, bent over and grasped the handles.

  When it was all over she heard him moan again, in a mixture of pleasure and relief. He lay draped over her back, stroking her neck, running his fingers through her hair. She knew it wasn’t her hair that he imagined he was caressing.

  ‘Go,’ he said.

  She sensed that he wanted her to leave before the spell was broken. But it was time for reality to return. As he returned to the chaise longue she turned, unbuttoned the shirt, took it off and removed the bandages, revealing her breasts. She stood before him again as a woman.

  ‘Get out!’ he yelled.

  ‘Tomorrow I will come again. Wait for me in here. I shall come as Mathew and I shall leave as Mathew. If you are a good boy, you will never see me as a woman again in this room.’

  He was unsettled. ‘Why are you saying this?’

  ‘I’m your special little boy, Damian,’ she said softly.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’

  ‘Because if you ever’, she began, her voice hard as steel, ‘touch Ruben or Harry, or any of the other children in Haver, His Lordship will know your dirty little secret.’

  She was not surprised when he suddenly fled from the room or when he burst back in, waving his pistol. She had already picked up Mathew’s clothes from the floor.

  ‘Don’t shoot me, Damian,’ she said softly. ‘Do you think I came here tonight, having made all these preparations, without thinking everything through?’ Unnerved, he lowered the pistol. ‘If you harm me, or my children, or any of the other children at Haver, I promise you, the letter I have already written will be delivered to your father.’

  ‘You bitch.’

  ‘No, Damian, I’m not a bitch,’ she said as she walked past him into the bedroom. ‘I’m your special little boy. And tomorrow night your special little boy will return, and you’ll make love to him and stroke his hair and be happy. Wait for him in your special room. He’ll be here at the same time.’

  Trying to hide her shaking, she put Mathew’s clothes in the bag, donned her skirt and blouse, and slipped from the room.

  The next night she returned. Damian had left both the doors ajar and was waiting in the dressing room as instructed. Alone in the bedroom, she quickly transformed her appearance, then slipped through the door into the dressing room and over to the strange apparatus.

  He was with her immediately: anxious, caressing and impatient. When he was satisfied, she left. Not a word had been spoken. Words would have broken the illusion.

  She returned every night. Her days were spent dreading what lay ahead. But each night the thought of what he might otherwise do to her children forced her up the stairs towards his room.

  He was always waiting for her. Neither of them would speak. Sometimes he would snuff out the candle and in the darkness she would act out rituals that took him to strange worlds of fantasy and violence.

  Damian often boasted to his father and brothers of the good time he was having with Cheryl. The other members of the Chatfield family, however, kept their business between Diana and the women concerned.

  Nigel watched Jasper’s eyes follow Jennifer as she worked on the stone wall at the end of the garden. Earlier he’d heard Jennifer giggling when Jasper had sauntered down to relay his father’s instructions to build the wall a foot higher.

  ‘Are you screwing that woman?’ Nigel demanded.

  ‘Sure am — that woman’s forgotten more about sex than any other woman I’ve ever slept with,’ Jasper boasted, winking to his brothers.

  ‘She’s too old,’ spat Nigel.

  ‘Many a fine tune played on an old fiddle,’ Jasper said, recalling Damian’s words.

  ‘She’s too old to have children, I mean,’ Nigel said. ‘Your job is not to pleasure yourself, it’s to produce more subjects. That goes for the rest of you, too. I want pregnant women. I want male heirs.’

  The edict delivered, he stormed off, passing Diana on the way back to his quarters. ‘I’ve had enough of those stupid young girls. I need a real woman. Send me Jennifer.’

  ‘Yes, Your Lordship.’

  Diana, suppressing a smile, hurried off to tell Virginia the good news that she had at last managed to persuade Nigel to leave her daughters alone — at least for the present.

  One night, after a couple of weeks, Cheryl sensed that Damian was agitated. When she entered the dressing room he was sitting on the edge of the chaise longue, shoulders hunched, his chin cupped in his hands. She went through her routine a little more slowly, a little more seductively. She felt him move behind her.

  ‘You’ve got to get pregnant,’ he blurted. ‘His Lordship says my brothers and I have to produce babies and build up the community’s numbers. It’s all Jasper’s fault.’

  She didn’t ask him what Jasper had done; she simply turned around, arched herself across the apparatus, took his penis and drew him into her.

  ‘It’s no good,’ he said as he struggled unsuccessfully to maintain his erection.

  She spoke to him for the first time in over two weeks. ‘Give Mary-Claire back to me,’ she said softly, ‘and I promise I’ll get pregnant.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘That’s my problem — leave it to me and don’t worry. No one will ever know the baby’s not yours.’

  ‘There’s no way I can get Mary-Claire back to you.’

  ‘I’m sure you can persuade your father if you really try,’ she said gently, then added more sternly, ‘If I don’t get pregnant, your father will force you to sleep with other women. Do you want everyone to know your secret? Now come on, stop worrying — just get Mary-Claire back to me and everything will be all right.’

  10

  As Archangel sailed from Cape Town, the mood aboard grew increasingly tense. Mark fretted about the lack of stores. He knew he should have stayed longer and gathered more food, but he’d felt pressure to leave Cape Town — not only from Steven, but also from Robert and Luke. He was also annoyed that having to leave in such a rush had not given him the hoped-for opportunity to spend some time alone with Allison. With the loss of Adam, at least there would only be the two of them on the twelve-to-four watch. In the early hours of the morning, when everyone else was asleep, they would at last have time alone together.

  During the day, Allison was spending much of her time with Luke and Robert, who had become quiet and withdrawn since the death of their father. She shared in their grief; Adam had been her brother.

  ‘Why didn’t you come when you heard us fire the four shots?’ Robert asked Mark angrily on the second morning out from Cape Town.

  ‘It wasn’t safe.’

  ‘What was the point of arranging a warning signal if you didn’t have the guts to come and help us?’

  ‘Your father was told to be back before dark.’

  ‘He was just doing his job, finding food for everyone else. You should have come for us.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ said Fergus quietly. �
��Your father was already dead.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Fergus shook his head. The piercing scream and deathly silence that followed had been proof enough for him.

  ‘If we had come for you in the dark there could have been further fatalities — probably would have been,’ Steven said.

  Robert, followed by his sad-faced brother, stomped below with a scowl on his face.

  ‘You shouldn’t be so harsh on them,’ Allison rebuked the others. ‘They’re only fourteen and fifteen, for heaven’s sake, and they’ve just lost their father.’

  Mark felt hurt. Once again she hadn’t supported him. It seemed that her family loyalties really were stronger than her loyalty to him.

  The happiest couple aboard were undoubtedly Fergus and Jessica. It was like they were treating the voyage as a game, with the purpose of seeing how often and in how many places they could make love, under the noses of their relatives and out of sight of the ever-inquisitive Tommy and Lee.

  Steven and Penny’s lovemaking was more restrained. Despite that, they shared a deeper, more mature love than Fergus and Jessica — a love that kept Penny awake at night listening to Steven calling to his sister Jane; a love that had her ready to comfort him and coax him back to sleep when he awoke from the nightmares.

  She had thought it was the nightmares that were causing him to sweat so profusely on the third night of their onward voyage, but it wasn’t. By the time dawn broke she was sweating herself. And, like several others aboard, they were both coughing.

  Uncharacteristically, Steven was reluctant to get up for the eight-to-twelve watch. He had a headache and appeared to have a fever. It was sheer willpower that drove him to drag himself up the companionway into the cockpit. He found his father and Allison hunched together there. They looked terrible.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Steven asked.

  Mark shook his head. His nose was bleeding slightly. ‘How do you feel?’