History Of Hartman House If you need or want to catch up on the history of what's been going on at Hartman House, but don't have the time or inclination to sift through all the previous posts, here's your solution! Below you'll find a short synopsis of groups of postings, so you can catch up from the beginning, or just figure out what you've missed recently.
Compiled by Aidan McCody
- Posts 1 - 15
- Posts 16 - 25
- Posts 26 - 50
- Posts 51 - 80
- Posts 81 - 121
- Posts 122 - 138
- Posts 139 - 150
- Posts 151 - 173
- Posts 174 - 188
- Posts 189 - 204
- Posts 205 - 217
- Posts 218 - 233
- Posts 234 - 257
- Posts 248 - 258
- Posts 259 - 279
- Posts 280 - 299
Posts 1 - 15:
The scene opens with heavy rain beating against the windows. Lady Kathryn Hartman is lonely and wishes for company. A hurried knock at the door signals the arrival of the new Hartman House vicar from London. Lady Kathryn leaps to her feet and throws open the front door to find Vicar Patrick Mallory sopping wet and in need of a hot bath and tea by the fire. After brief introductions, Lady Kathryn shows him to a downstairs bath where he disappears to bathe and later
await tea in the morning room.After having been deer hunting for a few days, Lord Richard Hartman arrives back home on his black Clydesdale. He lays the carcass of a freshly-slain deer on the butcher's block and then guides his horse to the stable, where he gives him a good rub down. Upon entering his home, Lord Richard sees his wife, Lady Kathryn, attempting to make tea. She hears him and then "spins and squeals in delight" over his return. She explains the tea service and asks whether Richard's
hunting trip was fruitful.Just then, the rear door bursts open and Mariette, the maid, blusters in, "shaking water here and there like a small dog." She scolds her employers for 'overstepping their boundaries by making tea and leaving work for the butcher, and then gathers a mop to clean a trail of water from the front hall to the bath.
Exasperated by the hustle and bustle around him, Richard announces, "Well Darling, I'm desperately in need of a bath myself, I'll be up in our chambers." And, with that, he blows a kiss over his shoulder to Kathryn and then disappears. John, the head butler, meets Richard at the top of the stairs and asks if he is in need of anything. Richard instructs John to find the butcher and get him to skin and quarter the deer. With that, Richard strips off his cloak and continues to the Master suite where he heads immediately to the bathroom.
Posts 16 - 25:
Countess Cameo Vivona "mutters a curse as the carriage bounces and creaks through the rutted road." Felipe and Elizabetta, her two favorite servants, ride across from her as Andre, the coachman guides the horses to Hartman House where they seek shelter from the storm. Andre rings the door pull and waits. Mariette hears the bell and scurries to the downstairs bath to stow the mop and bucket. She flings open the door and "shrieks and covers her eyes at the sight of
a rather large naked man" ... the vicar. She screams for John to "get down here, there's a naked man in the bath!!!" and then slams the bathroom door closed and falls over the vicar's luggage.Richard hears Mariette's scream and "jumps out of the tub, water splashing every which way." He wraps a towel around his mid-section and shoves a pistol into the wrap. He grabs a rifle, makes sure it has bullets in it, and then rushes down the front stairs and to the hallway.
Finally at the front door, Mariette opens it to find Andre, who announces that he and four others seek shelter. Mariette instructs Andre to fetch the Countess and her entourage. The countess makes her way to the door and introduces herself to Mariette. Elizabetta catches the countess' cloak as it falls from her shoulders and lays it across Mariette's outstretched arms. Mariette turns and "presses a small bit of carving next to one of the wood panels that line the foyer." A hidden closet door opens, and Mariette hangs the cloak in there to dry. Mariette leads the countess, her maid, and Andre to the parlor and declares she will inform Lady Hartman of their presence.
"At the sight of another half naked man tearing down the hallway, Mariette shieks again and covers her eyes until she realizes it is Lord Richard. Lord Richard sees Andre and yells, "Get away from the women! And what the hell are you doing in my home, and who was screaming!" Cameo makes a quick guess about Richard's identity and "allows herself a puckish grin and drops the most artfully sassy curtsy she has ever in her life managed." Introducing herself, she then inquires, "And..you are..?"
Just then, Mariette "blushes a deep shade of crimson" and jumps between Lord Richard and Contessa Vivona, "Er, Lord Richard, may I present the Contessa...and the naked man is in there (she points to the bathroom) ... bold as brass without a stitch on!"
Posts 26 - 50:
Richard "bows easily from the waist, not too deeply," and excuses himself to tend to the naked man. He kicks open the bathroom door and yells out, "Just who the hell are you!?" The vicar explains his precarious position and excuses himself to his quarters, never to be seen again. Richard then wonders "how many Hail Marys he would have to go through for this outburst at the vicar." Kathryn slips into the shadows and watches the goings-on. Deciding to dress for the occasion, she steals up the back stairs, runs into John, and instructs him to make tea. Once dressed, she composes herself and
descends the front stairway.After an introductory dialogue with Contessa Vivona inside the parlor, Kathryn chooses the black guest room for her. Another knock at the door signals the arrival of Countess Leanna Raevin and her servant, Armand. Mariette answers the door, and Leanna explains their presence. In the meantime, Richard makes his way back to the master bedroom suite and dresses somewhat suitably for company. He returns to the first floor, greets Leanna, and escorts her to the parlor. Leanna greets Lady Kathryn and requests permission to use her "phone." Not knowing what a "fone" is, Kathryn assumes Leanna wishes to use the facilities and instructs her on the location of a bathroom.
Yet another knock signals Lady Aidan Campbell-McCody, who arrives unescorted, on horseback, and mistakenly believes she has arrived at her cousin, Pearl's home. Mariette answers the door, accepts the lady's calling card, and invites her into the house. Aidan leaves her tapestry valise tied to her horse's saddle and hopes no one will find the bawdy book by Marquis de Sade, which her husband, Major-General Montague McCody has instructed her to read as part of her "training" before he left on military assignment to Egypt. Mariette runs to the parlor and hands the calling card to Kathryn, who does not recognize Aidan's name but, nonetheless, instructs Mariette to draw a bath for Aidan and lodge her in the cream guest room. Flustered that John, the butler, cannot be found, Mariette surmises he must be "prancing about in his room wearing women's panties again." She goes to the kitchen, instructs a stable boy to fetch Aidan's valise, and then returns to Aidan, who she guides upstairs to her room and a hot bath.
Posts 51 - 80:
Mariette readies the tub in the bathroom while Aidan begins to feel uneasy over not finding a trunk sent ahead to Pearl's, that contains her belongings. Mariette raps at the door and the undressed Aidan invites her inside. Mariette's eyes wander over Aidan's semi-naked form as the two talk. Then, Mariette gives Aidan directions to another bathroom, scoops up her wet clothing, and takes it to the basement. Afterward, Mariette returns to the kitchen and takes Aidan's tapestry valise from the stable boy. She finds Richard and tugs on his sleeve, "m'Lord, there are some odd happenings afoot," she whispers. Richard is pleased when Mariette shows him Aidan's valise. He leads her up the back stairway and tells her to place the unopened valise in Aidan's room while he searches for Geoffry, the under-butler, who is getting ready to leave for town so he can "get laid tonight." Richard spoils the man's plans and explains that Geoffry is to keep Aidan under secret surveillance.Lady Kathryn escorts Countess Leanna to an upstairs bathroom and then encounters John, the head butler, who has just stoked fires in the guests' rooms and is on his way to make tea. She gives John orders and returns to Vivona in the parlor. Leanna's servant, Armand, finds the servants' quarters but eventually ends up outside Leanna's bathroom door.
Meanwhile, Aidan slips into the clawfoot tub and daydreams of her husband, Monty, and then fantasizes about Mariette. In the meantime, Mariette disobey's Richard and opens Aidan's valise where she finds a wax-sealed envelope from Monty and a copy of deSade's book. She goes to Aidan's bathroom and finds her in a "most suggestive manner." The two engage in several hours of extensive sexual play in the bathroom and in Aidan's room. Aidan ultimately ends up bound and teased with a wooden phallus, while Geoffry secretly watches through the eyeholes of a hanging portrait, and eventually leaves a "stain on the wall."
Posts 81 - 121:
Geoffry responds to a knock at the servants' door and sees two women standing there, Gigi and Lunnas, who wish to fill positions as maids. He immediately hires them and puts them to work, Gigi mopping rain water from the floors, and Lunnas preparing guest rooms upstairs, warning her to stay out of the cream room where Mariette and Aidan are playing. When Gigi is finished, she taps John, the butler, on the shoulder and asks for further chores. In the meantime, Lunnas stows her belongings in the servants' quarters and meets Lady Kathryn at the base of the stairs. She is welcomed to Hartman House and told to first set the dining table for six, after which she is to prepare the upstairs guest rooms and clean the baths. Lady Kathryn then leaves to join Countess Vivona in the parlor once again.Lunnas passes Armand in the hall and they exchange greetings. She offers to help dress his mistress, but he states that he is the only one who dresses her. Lunnas leaves him, and Armand awaits his mistress' answer to his offer to help her dress for dinner. She never replies.
As a prelude to forthcoming letters, one of Monty's letters to Aidan, from long ago, is introduced as being hidden in a secret compartment of his wife's writing chest, now in the cream guest room. He discusses a statue purchased from a village elder, which has outstretched arms, a well-endowed erect penis, and oversized testicles. The statue is said to possess mystical powers, having once been a human warrior who had been turned to stone on his wedding
night by a sorcerer. In a second letter, Monty discusses how he followed Rosemead, Aidan's personal maid, into the attic one day and watched as the statue came to life and Rosemead first orally satisfied "Pasha" and then impaled herself on him. Monty's third letter describes his controntation with Rosemead about the statue, her physical punishment for reluctance to share her knowledge with him, and finally her explanation of Pasha, who she now refers to as
her Master.Gigi finds Kathryn closing the parlor doors and asks whether she has further chores for her to do. Turning together, they talk and walk to the kitchen. Kathryn sees John slumped over the kitchen counter and believes he has gotten into Lord Richard's brandy. She instructs Gigi to make dinner, using vegetables from a basket Mariette had previously brought in as well as from meat the butcher might be preparing. Gigi makes a venison stew and then finishes preparing the tea John had started. In the meantime, Lunnas hears moans coming from the cream guest room upstairs, and gets no reply at the black guest room door where Vivona is to stay. Lady Kathryn sounds the first dinner bell.
Mariette dresses but chooses that Aidan remain naked while they steal their way from the cream guest room to Mariette's room, to find a dress for Aidan to wear. As they pass Armand in the hall, Mariette calls out, "Good afternoon, Sir," hoping he will turn and see Aidan's naked body. Once inside Mariette's room, the two young women tease each other and make a pact to go without underdrawers for the remainder of the night. Mariette chooses a pink gown for Aidan that will match her bottom cheeks, reddened by Mariette's spanking her. To add to the excitement, Mariette brings out a box of Ben Wa balls that Lady Kathryn had given her upon the Hartmans' return from their honeymoon in Paris. Each young woman inserts two balls into their
love channels, play a little more, and then Aidan asks Mariette whether she will be missed if she does not return to Kathryn soon. Mariette nods and leaves Aidan alone to dress herself, neglecting to put out a pair of shoes for her. When Aidan is fully gowned, she reaches for the door knob and suddenly turns back into the room and opens the box with the metal balls. Grinning wickedly, she tucks one up her sleeve and then walks out into the hall.Geoffry peers out from inside the hidden wall passage and waits for the hallway to empty before making his escape. Meanwhile, Kathryn notices Lunnas in the hall and instructs her to help dress her in the master bedroom. In the kitchen, Gigi unsuccessfully tries to rouse John, the butler, who "slips out of his chair and hits the floor with a thud." Gigi "takes a quick look at the butler, the slight smile, the paleness of his skin, the tent in his pants, and finally it sinks in that the man is dead!" She runs from the kitchen, screaming hysterically, "There is a dead body in the kitchen ..."
Posts 122 - 138:
Mariette slips out of the shadows at the back staircase and inspects John's tented dead body. She realizes his death might not be from natural causes, so she backs out of the room in a nervous state. Geoffry makes his way out of the hidden passage and hears Gigi's scream. Deciding not to get involved, he runs down the hallway and disappears into a first-floor bathroom where he gains access to Lord Richard's hidden den via a wall panel. Aidan quickly slips back into Mariette's room, realizing no good could come of her being involved in a scandal the magnitude of someone's death; she plots a clandestine getaway and plans to enlist Mariette's aid in carrying it out. She peeks through the keyhole and finds the corridor empty, so she rushes up the back stairway, to her own room. Leaning back on the chaise where she had earlier been tied and poked, Aidan regains her composure and hopes Mariette will come to her.Lady Kathryn hears Gigi's screaming and, in her half-dressed state, opens her door and calls Gigi in to find out what is going on. Lunnas listens from the next room where she is busy fetching Kathryn's gown and underclothing. Gigi stammers out the story of the dead man with the tent in his pants and finally, in her hysterical state, she "promptly topples over and faints." Lunnas rushes over with a pillow and props up Gigi's head. She then looks over to Kathryn and hopes the lady won't also faint since, "slapping your boss on the first day can't do anything but lead to trouble." Instead, Kathryn pulls a small bottle of smelling salts from a drawer and passes it under Gigi's nose while explaining to Lunnas that living at Hartman House has long since cured her of a faint heart. Gigi awakens, and Kathryn is posed to ask her some questions.
Meanwhile, in his secret den, Richard is surprised when the wall panel opens. Ready to "pounce the person" coming through it, Richard is pleasantly surprised when he sees it is Geoffry. He tells Geoffry they are each other's alibis and then leaves him alone in the den.
Rushing out into the rain, Richard hails the stable boy and tells him to fetch a doctor and a constable. He runs back into the house and up the main staircase to the master suite where he plans to change clothes for dinner.On holiday at a neighboring lodge, Inspector Fenwick ("Wicky") Fluck is out hunting fowl in the rain. Suddenly, a horse jumps the thicket near him, and Wicky instructs the rider to stop. It is the stable boy, who explains his errand. Wicky tells the boy to continue on and fetch a doctor but not a constable since he is a distinguished member of Scotland Yard and will tend to the legal matters at Hartman House. Once his horse and dog are safe inside the deserted barn on the vast property, Wicky makes his way to the front door where he strokes his fringe beard and hopes a "saucy wench" will answer it. The stable boy finally reaches London Hospital where he enlists the aid of an American Doctor, Malcom Morgan and Nurse Megan Stanfield. They set out for Hartman House in the night, along with the doctor's American Staffordshire Terrier, Lewis.
Lady Kathryn instructs Lunnas to go to the kitchen and try to save the burning dinner. The door bell sounds and Kathryn tells Lunnas to first see to the pot of stew and then to whoever is at the door. Kathryn then directs her attention to Gigi and tells her to go into the bathroom, get a cool washcloth, and pull herself together. Kathryn waits for Gigi before dressing in a charcoal grey gown. While waiting, she moves to her writing desk and pens a letter to her father, telling him of John's death and asking him to "come at once." She seals the letter in a heavy cream envelope and once again focuses on Gigi.
Mariette shivers and shudders, which cause her to squeal each time the balls inside her shift. She makes her way up the back staircase, "alternating between whimpering and squealing all the way as the balls continue to roll and crash within her." At the top of the stairs, Mariette tugs at Armand's sleeve and asks, "Have you seen anyone about, Sir?" The male servant "topples to the floor, eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling." Mariette sees the same tent in Armand's pants that John has, so she "opens her mouth and screams at the top of her lungs."
Posts 139 - 150:
Morgan and Megan arrive at the house late at night, and the doctor instructs the stable boy to bring in his bags filled with expensive instruments at once. Fenwick grows impatient at the front door and is surprised when a slight twist of the knob opens it. He hears Mariette's scream and rushes into the house. Hiding behind a large urn in the entrance hall, Fenwick watches.Aidan falls asleep and hears Mariette's screams. Thinking they are part of her dream, at first Aidan smiles. Then, realizing they are not screams of passion, Aidan bolts to her feet and nearly loses her balls. Before she can pluck the metal toys from within her love channel, Mariette screams again, and Aidan runs out of her room to aid her. She sees Mariette hovering over Armand's tented, dead body, and rushes to her. Aidan uses her toes to move Armand's hair aside and finds six small marks on his neck, arranged in three straight columns. Thinking something also might have happened to the person in the bathroom, Aidan knocks and puts her ear to the door. When there is no answer, she opens the door and "cold air blasts her face, and a damp vapor escapes from within the room." She quickly draws the door shut and asks Mariette to lend her a pair of shoes since she may need them later.
Richard bounds up the front staircase and rushes into the master bedroom. Relieved that Kathryn is safe, he "stops to let Kathryn fill him in on what she knows and what is going on." She explains that Gigi has found John's body and that it doesn't seem natural that someone as young as John should die. Kathryn turns to Gigi and asks her to explain what she knows about John's death to Lord Richard. While dressing Kathryn, Gigi explains how she came to know John was dead and, when she got to the part about the tent in his pants, Gigi "turned away and blushed from talking of such things."
In the quiet of the first floor, Fenwick decides to explore the premises. Just then, Lunnas comes to the foot of the stairs and sees him scurrying about. The smell of burning dinner beckons her, and she goes to the kitchen where she also discovers John's body. Blushing at the tent in his pants, she turns to the pot of stew and tries to salvage it. She rushes to the dining room and grabs two soup bowls and two silver settings. Rushing back to the kitchen, she ladles stew into the bowls.
Wicky goes into the morning room where he sits back on a comfortable sofa and falls asleep, resembling a corpse with his hands crossed over his chest. He is awakened by the rustling of skirts in the hall. Suddenly, he realizes he must use the "facilities" since his recent dreams had stirred his bladder, among other things. He makes his way to the bathroom across from the kitchen and watches as Lunnas makes her way up the back stairs while holding a tray up high.
Quietly, Wicky tiptoes across the hall to the kitchen where he is greeted with the sight of John lying on the floor. He kneels near the body and visually examines it. He unbuttons John's pants and sees the man is wearing women's underdrawers. Excited by the apparent physical similarities between this victim and other victims he has recently examined, (i.e., tented pants and neck marks), Wicky determines that the murderer may also be the one who perpetrated the
same heinous crimes known as the "Transylvania Tent Murder Mysteries."Posts 151 - 173:
Mariette "shakes her head furiously to and fro, her curls flying." She refuses to part from Aidan since the killer might be anywhere in the house. As she trembles, her balls shift inside her, and she moans. Aidan grabs Mariette and pulls her into the cold bathroom until Lunnas passes with a food tray. Aidan grabs a hank of Mariette's hair and yanks it forcefully, kissing her nearly violently to stop her hysteria. After a bit of playing, when the hall is again empty, the two young women leave the bathroom and step over Armand's tented body. Lunnas hears the front door knocker, leaves the food tray on the floor in front of the master bedroom, and runs down to
answer the door.Wicky, in the meantime, hears noises behind the bathroom wall. He puts a glass to it and listens. Geoffry, on the other side of the wall, opens a small slit and sees the glass. Concerned about being caught in the hidden den, Geoffry closes the panel and "stands immobile, trying not to even breathe." Wicky soon hears water dripping and realizes he must relieve himself. While in the process, he has "the oddest suspicion that someone is watching him."
Impatient after his initial knocks at the door, Dr. Morgan opens the front door and enters the house along with Nurse Stanfield and Lewis, his wet dog. After cleaning themselves with some towels found near the door, Morgan raps the door knocker several more times. Kathryn hears the faint knocking but decides Geoffry will probably answer the door. Feeling her husband should wear something "more appropriate for the occasion," Kathryn selects a dark, somewhat casual dinner coat for him and hands it to him. She slips the letter she had written, out of her pocket, and presses it into Gigi's hand, hoping she can trust her to take it to the stable and have a boy fetch the vicar and then take the letter to her father. Looking at the jacket, Richard "tries not to make a face." He moves to the closet and finds black leggings, a white flair shirt, and polished leather house slippers to wear with it. Scooping up all the clothing, Richard goes
into the bathroom to dry off and change.Gigi takes the letter from Lady Kathryn and grasps the doorknob. She glances back on her way out of the master bedroom and trips over the food tray, spilling its contents. She shouts back, "I will clean that up as soon as I get back from the stables," then she flies down the stairs, through the kitchen, and out into the rain.
The raps at the front door startle Mariette, so she grabs Aidan and pulls her into the pink guest room. They hear Gigi knock over the food tray so, snugging herself into Aidan's form, Mariette promises, "When it is quite safe, I will fetch you down to the kitchen, I promise." Her voice barely audible and teasing, she continues, "Are your balls quite safe? And snug?" The girls tease each other a bit more and, when all is quiet, they quietly make their way down the main staircase, with Mariette "fighting the urge to whimper at the rolling pulses of pleasure" her own metal balls send
through her.Lunnas arrives at the front door, welcomes the trio into the house, and guides them to the kitchen. On their way, they pass a bathroom where the doctor stops for some towels and hangers, and the nurse enters and tidies herself. Meanwhile, Mariette leads Aidan into the library where she pulls out two sheathed, antique daggers from a locked case. She slides one dagger into her pocket and hands the other one to Aidan, in the event the women need protection. Aidan slips the small, sheathed dagger up her empty sleeve.
Breathless and wet, Gigi instructs the stable boy then returns to the house, running through the kitchen and back upstairs to clean the food from the floor. While cleaning, she ponders the butler's death and is glad he died before she arrived, so she will not be investigated. After cleaning the mess, Gigi retreats to the servants' quarters where she writes a passage in her diary which hints at a previous connection with someone named Manny and the murder of someone named Lady Beth. Gigi hears footsteps and stashes her diary under a pillow, unaware that it is not fully hidden.
Posts 174 - 188:
Once in the kitchen, Dr. Morgan decides to change clothes. He strips down to his pants, while Lunnas and Gigi watch. Mariette and Aidan cautiously make their way to the kitchen door, and Mariette crouches and peers inside. Aidan's eyes blur from the pungent aroma in the air, which causes her to stub her toe on the doctor's bags. As she hops around, the balls jiggle inside her and "stimulate a small stream of her liquid womanhood to trickle down her thigh." Mariette presses her body against Aidan's to suppress the bouncing, and notes that she cannot see much but that they would have a much better vantage point from outdoors ... besides which, the cold-storage shed with the food is also outside.Happy at the prospect of finally eating, Aidan eagerly follows Mariette to her quarters to don a pair a shoes before going outdoors. On the way to the room, Mariette teases, "Perhaps in my room we can find you something else to eat? Sweet, but I daresay not as filling as you are wishing for..." While thinking of the sweet taste of Mariette's nectar, in the hustle and bustle of getting to the bedroom, neither woman hears the tiny 'plink' of something round and metallic hitting the floor and bouncing against Wicky's bathroom door.
Dr. Morgan determines he really needs to get the dead man with the tent, (John the butler), up on a table for examination. Just then, the dog trots back into the kitchen, carrying something metallic in his mouth which the doctor ultimately takes and pockets. At the same time, a metal ball rolls under Wicky's bathroom door, and he picks it up to examine it. Wicky sniffs at the ball and quickly recognizes the "female" scent on it. Thinking it fell from inside the tall, black-haired maid, Lunnas, Wicky's own pants tent a bit as he thinks about finding the ball's mate between the maid's thighs. He realizes work comes before pleasure, so Wicky places the ball in his pocket, leaves the bathroom, and creeps across the hall to the kitchen where he sees the half-naked man and two women. He reasons that the man must be master of the house and playing sex games with his servants, so Wicky hides in the shadows and watches. He hears Gigi suggest that the doctor not use the table for examining the dead man since "there is a cot here in the servants quarters, I am sure the Lady of the house would prefer you use that over the dining room table."
While the doctor gets John ready to transport, Mariette and Aidan arrive at Mariette's room. Aidan claims she only feels one ball inside her, so she suggests that Mariette search for the other one, thus reversing earlier roles when Mariette took the lead. Aidan instructs Mariette in what she wants done, and Mariette obliges her. After a short play session, Aidan ends up with shoes and Mariette finds Gigi's half-hidden diary, which she nestles down into her pocket, not realizing there is a hole in her pocket and, while her keys catch and hold a few of the diary's pages, the bulk of the book drops back out.
Mariette and Aidan make their way out into the bone-chilling rain. They run to the cold-storage shed that's built into the side of a small rise. Although a bit of a tomboy at heart, Aidan is afraid of the dark, but overcomes that fear when Mariette grabs the hem of her apron and uses it as a basket as she "pulls two small wheels of cheese down from a shelf, plus ... several apples ... radishes, leeks, carrots ... two bottles of milk ... AND a handful of smoked sausages."
The doctor lifts the dead man and carries him to Mariette's room where he "almost throws the corpse onto the cot." Gigi whispers to the doctor, "Is there anything more I can do for you Sir?" And he replies that they should get a sheet over the dead man, and that he will dress himself in this room. In his wet pants, Dr. Morgan "absentmindedly sits down on the end of one of the beds, still soaked."
Meanwhile, Mariette and Aidan leave the shed with the bounty of food tucked inside Mariette's apron well. On their way out, Mariette prods Aidan's behind with a sausage and causes Aidan to recall, "The last time I felt something that stiff and large at the back of my skirt was when I was teasing my husband, Monty, at his farewell dinner." Then, Aidan "grasps the long, thick meat, and wraps her hand around it," and eventually prods Mariette with it, as well.
The two young women see figures in Mariette's window and realize the doctor and maids are in that room. They take turns on tiptoes, finding the dead man is in Mariette's bed, and Aidan gasps in disbelief as she tells Mariette, "It appears there is a large wet spot radiating onto your bedding from under the seat of that strange man's pants." Rather than speculate what the wet spot might be from, Aidan suggests Mariette see for herself. Mariette declares she will never sleep in that bed again and then questions why the "strange, almost undressed man has dampened her sheets, and why is he half dressed with a corpse, the maids, and a dog, anyway?" In the midst of their spying and speculating, neither woman hears a small plop on
the muddy ground at Mariette's feet.A deafening clap of thunder jars Aidan's memory of "Frankenstein" written by a distant cousin, and Mariette asks, "You don't think... that J..J...John will b..b..b...be... tampered with?" Aidan raises onto her toes and spies John's "tent" which sets off thoughts of his "tent pole" being the potentially tampered part.
At this point, having sufficiently scared each other, Aidan suggests they go to her room and Mariette, "still trembling from the cold and the fear that was creeping along her spine like an icy knife," leads Aidan to a corner of the house where she pulls out a stone from the foundation and twists a key until "there was a small groaning sound and Mariette grunted as she tried to pull the heavy panel open."
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"Grasping Mariette's hand in her own, Aidan gladly follows her into the passage and out of the elements." Meanwhile, a woman (Duchess Katya Van Kleff) raps at the front door and stumbles inside to the entry hall. Tattered clothing and bruised flesh are telltale signs that she's been attacked. Blood flows from her mouth. As she strikes the floor in a faint, her forehead gapes open, and a letter tumbles from her hand.Fenwick, the detective, peeks through the bathroom keyhole and watches the naked Nurse Stanfield drying herself. Once again, he is excited, but his excitement abates when he wonders why there are two bathrooms directly across from each other. He quickly turns his attention to the people who have taken the dead man into the servants' quarters and is surprised, not shocked, when he is nearly certain the strange man is "wetting the bed." Fenwick hears an ungodly scream and runs to the entry hall.
Fenwick kneels at the duchess's side and brings his face close to hers. He pockets the letter lying at her side and carries her to the morning room. Laying her down on the sofa, he pulls out his handkerchief and tears it in half. With one half, he bandages her forehead, and with the other half, he stuffs her bleeding mouth. Then, he looks down at the woman's mouth, wishing circumstances were different since he loves the sound of "muffled screams of passion induced by erotic pain." During Fenwick's absence, the doctor, nurse, and dog leave Hartman House. Later, he surmises the strange little man may have taken the woman hostage, but he allows them to continue their departure, knowing Scotland Yard will pick up the man's trail if needed.
Deciding the unconscious woman is stable, Fenwick goes to the servants' quarters where he surprises the two maids and interrogates them. With her heart pounding, Gigi explains that she is the one who found the dead man, and that she was helping the doctor move the body. Lunnas faces Fenwick and explains that she is also a maid and saw him hiding behind the pot earlier that night.
Meanwhile, Kathryn tells Richard she has seen two women run across the grounds and into the cold-storage shed. Thinking it odd, Richard suggests they use the secret passageway and go down to investigate. Kathryn presses a sequence of small bits of trim, and the passage door opens. Her husband goes first, and Kathryn follows while holding his shoulder. Suddenly, at the bottom of the stairs, Richard bumps into something, and Kathryn nearly falls onto him. "Love, what's wrong?" Kathryn asks. Before he can answer, Mariette "oomphs" and one of the apples spills from her apron and rolls outside. She calls out, "M'Lady, is that you? T'is Mariette, and I have the Lady Aidan with me." Mariette extends her hand to the chest in front of her and asks, "M'Lord, is that you?"
Far off in Egypt, Monty dreams of the final night he spent with his wife, Aidan. He recalls how he teased her during the day and how she, in turn, trailed her fingers down his trouser front and wiggled her hips saucily while they had guests that evening. His recollections include the time after their friends had departed ... his orders that she strip to nothing but her choker-collar ... the way she proudly knelt and openly displayed herself to him ... the silk ropes and lash ... and her wonderful screams and cries of painful passion and passionate pain administered by his loving hands.
Back at the Hartman House secret passage, Aidan bounces against Mariette in a chain reaction and "feels a little metal ball fighting its way to escape the confines of her channel from the sudden jar." Mariette introduces Lady Aidan to her employers and tries to explain to them how the two young women ultimately ended up in the hidden passage. Aidan manages a clumsy bow while holding the ball inside, and extends her hand past Mariette in a gesture of friendship.
Katya awakens and pulls the "large piece of cheap linen" from her mouth. She tries to stand but when she hears Fenwick shouting from the other room about the "tented dead man," fear grips her, and she falls back onto the sofa "into a deep faint." Fenwick continues spouting out questions to the maids and "pulls out the ace in the hole, the little metal ball from his pocket." Slyly, he asks them both what they know about the ball.
At Richard's suggestion, the women in the secret passageway go to the master bedroom, while he lags behind and "closes the wall." Mariette and Aidan file past Richard, dampening his pants with their wet skirts. Once in the room, the wet women warm themselves at the fireside, while Richard enters and sits next to his wife. Mariette unloads the food from her apron and lays it across the hearth. Realizing she still has hold of a sausage, Aidan hands it to Mariette and asks her to "please tend to this weiner."
Mariette "bursts into giggles, overcome with the memory of Aidan earlier grabbing at the wooden 'weiner' to take care of it, when it had been left inside of her." Aidan tries to maintain a semblance of dignity but loses it when she watches Mariette fondle the sausage in a "knowing" manner. Aidan "lets out a series of loud, hearty chuckles, sucks in her breath to stop herself but, as she does, she hears the 'plink' of something metal fall against the stone hearth."
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Gigi glares at Fenwick and explains who she is. When he pulls out the metal ball, she continues, "I haven't a clue whose that is and as for what it is for, a true gentleman would never ask a lady, even if she was just a maid, what that is for, when he knows perfectly well how it was used." With that, Gigi leaves the room in search of someone who might be able to direct Fenwick to a cool place where he can store John's body."Damn this rain," Michael growls as he steps up to the door. He is soaking wet, though it will make it easier to convince people that he has traveled far, from town. He knocks on the door and Gigi rushes to open it. Michael introduces himself as the new vicar, and Gigi "looks right into his eyes and steps back in surprise, 'M...M..Manuel??'" Surprised at running into Gigi, Michael/Manuel denies who he is, surmises that Gigi won't give him any problems since she helped with Lady Elizabeth's murder and, judging by the way she is acting, she still loves him ... something that he can turn to his advantage. Gigi directs Michael to the servants' quarters where he sees the dead body and meets Fenwick. Thinking Michael looks familiar, Fenwick sizes the man up and asks for his assistance in removing the body to cooler quarters where the vicar would then be expected to perform prayers over the "croaker." Seeing the vicar's entrance as a diversion she can use to exit, Lunnas "quickly grabs her belongings and commences the long walk back to town."
Gigi goes off in search of Lord and Lady Hartman, as well as the cellar. Thoughts of Manuel cloud her mind and she walks into the library where she pulls her diary out of her pocket and writes about Manuel. In the middle of a passage, she drops her pen and "one hand strays under her skirt and into the waistband of her petticoats, stroking and caressing herself, all the while imagining it was Manuel's hands upon her." At this point, Gigi does not realize her diary is missing pages, and those particular pages contain details of Lady Elizabeth's murder.
Unbeknownst to Aidan, sitting atop the writing table in her room is an unopened letter from Monty. Her husband's letter tells of a possible posting back at the War Office, "if all goes well." Also included is a description of a Belgian acquaintance who fled his country hurriedly due to an incident involving the local magistrate's daughters found "in a 'compromising position' while both were wearing symbols of servitude around their necks and marks of the man's 'instruction' on their bodies." The acquaintance had since opened up several establishments in Egypt, "where those activities took place" and, after inviting Monty to one, Monty "decides to take some training in the subject and will teach Aidan some of the finer points when he returns." A small, inner envelope contains a more intimate love letter, in which Monty describes his thoughts of Aidan and ends with the declaration, "You are My light, My rock, and My love."
Geoffry sneaks out of the hidden den and out the adjoining bathroom. Sliding along the wall he peeks into the morning room where he sees Duchess Katya lying on the sofa. "MY GOD! Someone else is dead ... he goes to see exactly what happened to the woman since, up to this
point he has no details on how or why people were dying." He sets his fingers against her neck and exclaims, "MY GOD! She's alive!" He ponders the situation, "a passed out woman, and he here, all alone, with no one around," but his sense of duty overcomes lusty temptation, and he leaves the room. Sliding the library doors open, he hears Gigi and he exclaims, "MY GOD! the new maid seems to know how to enjoy herself!" He thinks his opportunity to watch the maid is spoiled since he is not hidden betweel the walls, but then he says, "...or maybe not." Completely unaware she has any kind of audience, Gigi's "other hand strays to her breasts, massaging and squeezing them, as if Manny was there, and they were his hands upon her."Earlier that morning, Henry Hegewish had chosen to ride a wild, new mare with a streak of stubborness that piqued his interest. After watching the stable boys struggle with her, Henry gained eye contact with her and eventually had her saddled . At first she was tense and attempted to fight him, but soon settled under his firm control, and they rode through the day and into the night. Now past midnight, Henry sits in the drawing room at the fireside, waiting for a maid to bring him nourishment. The baron enters and tells Henry of a letter he has received from his beloved daughter, Lady Kathryn. Patrick (the baron) explains that John, Kathryn's butler, has died but that Kathryn and Richard are safe. Still, "she may need a representative for the estate if there are some suspicious circumstances involved." Henry vows to insure Kathryn's safety, and the baron informs him that a carriage is being readied as they speak. Henry goes to pack for his journey to Hartman House.
Posts 218 - 233:
"Knowing that a good manner is the best letter of recommendation to strangers," Aidan locks the sole of her shoe over the metal ball and explains the odd circumstances that have led to her presence at Hartman House. She asks Lady Kathryn to allow her to stay the night and to allow Mariette to provide her with a "special form of comfort."The ball slips from under Aidan's foot and she accidently taps it, "sending it rolling a good distance across the open floor." Fearful of murderers, Kathryn bolts the door which is impossible to unlock except from the interior of the room. She steps closer to Aidan and invites her to extend her stay. "As the small silver ball rolls to a stop at her feet, Kathryn cannot suppress a laugh. She looks back and forth between the two girls and knowingly says, 'I see Mariette really has been offering you the full realm of comforts today.'" Mariette meeps as she sees the ball and then claps a hand over her mouth. Then, Mariette "clutches her internal muscles, hoping to feel the balls inside of her ... feeling nothing, another small meep escapes the hand over her mouth." She stammers a bit, grabs an apple, bites into it with a loud crunch, and then lowers her eyes to the floor."
At a loss for words, Aidan gazes into Kathryn's eyes and finds them the same color as the moving eyes in the portrait. Thinking Kathryn might be the voyeur who watched "as Mariette tied her and used the wooden phallus to drive her into a passionate frenzy," Aidan wonders if Kathryn also engages in the same sorts of play. Testing the waters, Aidan comments, "Mariette is reminiscent of Eve biting into the apple in the Garden of Eden; she really is a rather tempting morsel, don't you think?" "Breaking into a grin for the moment, Kathryn chuckles lightly and, half under her breath, replies, 'Well it seems you would be the one to verify that, m'dear.'" Twisting the ball between her fingers, Aidan asks Kathryn, "Now where do you suppose Mariette got this little ball?" Kathryn grins again and plucks the ball from Aidan's hand, eyeing it closely, "I think, dear, that since this ball seems to have come from beneath your skirts, the better question would be... where do I suppose you got this little ball?"
With that, Kathryn places the ball in Aidan's palm and folds her fingers over it. Aidan smiles innocently and, once Kathryn lets go of her hand, Aidan slips the ball up her sleeve, allowing it to join the one that remains hidden there. Kathryn invites Aidan to eat, so Aidan wraps her fingers around the length of a well-handled sausage and teases the two women with deep and appreciate moans as she slowly sucks it into her mouth. She savors the delicacy and swallows every trace of it, licking the residue from her oily fingers with a grin.
Duchess Katya opens her eyes and realizes she is in the Hartman House, where Jake had sent her ... "far away from her beloved estate and the body of her Lord and Master." She carefully stands and decides she must find her hosts. Making her way to the hall, Katya "becomes aware of a gentle moaning coming from another room." At the same time, Geoffry watches Gigi moaning and playing, and ponders his three options ... "stand there and whack off like a gibbering idiot (which his 'little fellow' seemed to be going for at the moment), go to Gigi and offer a hand, or jump her and get it on!" Just as he decides on the third option, Katya pushes open the door and sees Gigi, "obviously lost in the throes of self pleasure." She calls out, "You! Girl! Help me! Help me NOW!" and slips, once more, to the floor.
Startled by the shouts, Gigi looks for the source and finds Katya on the floor, and also sees Geoffry. Gigi asks him, "You there, er...um...can you help me here? maybe we can move her to the couch or chair?" Disappointed, Geoffry sends Gigi off to get some warm water and cloths for the duchess' wounds, and he scoops Katya into his arms and carries her back into the morning room. Laying the unconscious woman down, Geoffry "pushes her legs open a little bit...running his hand over the calf...thinking, hrmm...well, she'd never know...wonder, how long was Gigi going to be?"
Still daydreaming of Aidan, Monty's mind travels back to their final morning together. Aidan had awakened and stirred under the blankets, teasing his manhood to erection with her bottom. During the intense lovemaking that followed, Aidan enjoyed multiple orgasms while Monty took her from different positions. After they had both been thorougly sated, it was near an hour before Monty forced himself to rise and prepare for his journey and, as difficult as the separation might be, they both would remember this morning until the time Monty returned."
On the way to the ship, Monty and Aidan enjoyed one last, intimate mix of love and lust. Aidan knelt naked between his legs and pleased her husband orally while pleasing herself manually. Afterward, as passion ebbed, the two dress hurriedly and Aidan clung to her husband as he soothed her. She whispered, "I love you, my Darling Husband and Master, always and all ways." He kissed her tears and replied, "My beloved, you are my wife and soulmate, as well as a slave to my passion." All too soon they arrived at the boat, where Monty kissed Aidan's hand and then left for Egypt.
Back in the master bedroom, Aidan asks Kathryn to dispatch a stable boy to Hawkpen Manor so the McCody staff, particularly Aidan's personal maid, Rosemead, will not fret over her absence. Kathryn glances at the mantle clock and stifles a yawn. She decides no one is to leave the room until Lord Richard returns. She gives Aidan and Mariette a choice, "If you would prefer, you can stay here on the sofas... or if you don't mind sharing, you both can join me in my bed..." Aidan's eyebrows perk and she asks Kathryn, "Would it be acceptable to you if I declined any sort of nightwear?"
In the kitchen, Gigi warms a pot of water on the aga and tears her apron into strips for bandages. She rushes to the morning room with supplies in hand "but stops short when she notices where Geoffry's hand is... opening her mouth to say something, she thinks better of
it and fades into the shadows, watching him quietly..." Duchess Katya "feels the hands on her body and her mind rushes back, thinking in her confusion that she is yet again being attacked, she begins to scream, LOUD, long shrill and piercing...over and over and over!!!"Posts 233 - 247:
Wicky lifted the dead butler while muttering expletives toward the unmoving
vicar. He dropped John to the floor, scooped him up by the underarms, and
dragged him out the back door. The seat of the dead man's pants and his shoe
heels left snail trails in the mud. Wicky propped the croaker up against the
root cellar door just as a huge clap of thunder rang out. "Oh bloody f_ _ _"
Wicky screamed out as lightning struck John. Several smaller bolts flashed,
and John soon resembled a charred Jack 'O Lantern. Without looking back for
fear of what he might see, Wicky left John. Along the way back to the house,
he followed footsteps that led nowhere and then pocketed a muddy apple. Wicky
picked up another glistening metal ball from the grass and plopped it into the
pocket with the matching one. In the kitchen, Wicky surmised that all the
women in the house must be hot to trot.Gigi heard screams from the morning room, ran in, and scolded Geoffry for
having his hand between the bloodied woman's calf, "Are you mad, man?" Fenwick
had just started eating his apple when he also heard the screams and ran to the
woman's aid. He scanned the room and, upon seeing Gigi, he jiggled his
pocketed balls. Wicky turned his attention to Geoffry who he checked for
tented pants but couldn't tell for certain because Geoffry was not standing
erect.The blood curdling scream also woke Vicar Michael out of his trance-like state.
He rushed to the morning room and put in an appearance. Michael noticed Gigi
and secretly motioned with his hand to tell her to leave the room with him when
he does. Finally, the duchess stopped screaming and Gigi ministered to her
wounds. She leaned over and whispered to Gigi, "Little one, I would appreciate
something to cover me and then I think it wise for you to find your employers!"
Gigi responded caringly, "Please mistress, do not move too much. You are in
obvious pain, even if these idiots are too stupid or horney to notice." Gigi
ran out of the room and into the servants' quarters where she scooped up one of
her own dresses and ran back with it in hand. She helped the woman dress and
then secretly nodded to Michael as she left the room under the pretext of
getting her employers.Michael (Miguel) and Gigi went to the library to talk. Behind closed doors,
Michael grabbed her neck and kissed her hard. He demanded, "Kneel slave. When
you are with me you will keep your mind on what I wish." She knelt swiftly
with her head lowered, "As you wish, Master," she replied. Her body reacted to
his intimate touches, yet her mind fought them. They talked of the past they
had shared and how Michael had asked Gigi to do some "pretty awful things"
which resulted in the death of Gigi's previous employer, Lady Beth.
Ultimately, Michael convinced Gigi that he had thought of her often but could
not come to her before now. He sent her off to find the Hartmans, and as he
watched her leave, "A smile played at his lips as he thought, 'I've got her
right where I want her, again.'" Afterward, Michael returned to the morning
room and informed Katya that Gigi was, indeed, looking for her employers.Meanwhile, Mariette helped Lady Kathryn out of her clothing and into a
lavender-scented nightgown while Aidan watched and wondered if Kathryn would be
her second intimate contact with a woman. Kathryn turned to Mariette and told
her to please get someone to fetch Lady Aidan's things. With that comment,
Kathryn crawled under the covers and snuggled into her pillow while Aidan
removed her clothing. She laid her sheathed dagger on the washstand and the
two metal balls onto a towel located on a bedside table. Mariette turned down
the covers on Lord Richard's side of the bed, knowing Aidan would soon occupy
the space. Aidan sat on the side of the bed for a moment, her thoughts turning
to her husband who she missed terribly. She slid under the covers, and
Mariette nodded to her as she moved toward the sitting room, "I'll see if I can
find someone about to send after your things."Mariette tried, in vain, to rouse someone by using the speaking tube in the
sitting room. Fearful of murderers, she reached into her pocket and felt the
dagger still there, along with rustling papers. Realizing they were part of
the diary she had found under her pillow, Mariette flipped through the pages.
Worry turned to anger, and anger turned to suppressed fury as she realized she
was reading details of a murder. A knock startled her, and she called out,
"Who is it?" A thick, foreign accent replied, "Tis Lady Leanna," the woman who
had arrived earlier with her now-dead slave, Armand. Mariette denied the woman
entry into the room, and soon "there was an odd scratching noise at the door, a
shifting and rustling, then Mariette saw an odd white mist start to seep under
the door," similar to the mist at the bathroom door that she and Aidan had seen
earlier. Fearful, Mariette scrambled for access to the secret passageway she
had used earlier. She tore out across the lawn, reversed her steps, closed the
secret panel, and ran off to the stables, leaving Leanna in the sitting room.In the meantime, Wicky pulled the duchess' letter from his pocket and unfolded
the damp, limp paper. He scanned the words, "Mistress... Duchess...
Transylvanian... demise... heinous crime." Upon realizing there was still
another croaker upstairs, he made sure the duchess was comfortable and then
rushed out to the hallway where he found Gigi sitting on the main staircase,
pondering her next move. He bellowed out to her to get up and help him move
the other croaker out into the garden. Sighing, Gigi thought, "Oh, why can't
he just leave me alone??" She stood up and followed him upstairs while the
duchess looked up at the two men remaining in the morning room and said, "I
would sell my soul to bathe right now!"Posts 248 - 258:
In a dreamlike state, Aidan felt a discomforting chill. She propped herself up
and looked around, suddenly noting an odd white mist seeping from under the
sitting room door. The vapor seemed woman-shaped as it billowed toward the
bed. It stopped abruptly before a thin stream of dawn's breaking that had
crept through a slit in the drapes. Certain her weary mind was playing tricks,
Aidan laid back down and snuggled against Kathryn, where she fell into a deep
and restful sleep.Upon reaching the top of the stairs, Wicky felt an icy chill. He motioned for
Gigi to follow him to Armand's stiff body, with it's slightly bent knees and
hands held upward as though he were being robbed. Wicky noticed three sets of
puncture wounds and flapped open trousers that revealed woman's underdrawers
... a sure indication his death was linked to John's murder. Wicky told Gigi
to grab the man under his arms while he grabbed his knees. They would carry
him down the front stairs since he was too stiff to bend around the winding
back ones. Wicky told Gigi that, once in the garden, Armand would keep John
company until Scotland Yard could get there to investigate and cart off the
bodies. The mention of Scotland Yard caused a flicker of fear across Gigi's
face.As Mariette ran across the muddy lawn, "the steadily lighting sky revealed a
charred and truly horrible vision ... John ... his pants had been undone and
were flapping open, his hair was charred nearly completely off and ... oh dear
god ... she was staring at two hollow, empty eye sockets! With a shriek of
true horror, Mariette took off for the stables at a flat out run, her voice
carrying along with her as she ran."Fenwick led the smiling croaker and the nervous maid downstairs. A dainty
knock at the door signaled the arrival of Lady Gabrielle Morlet. Standing in
the rain at an ungodly hour, Gabrielle had left her unfaithful husband and was
now stranded, due to a broken carriage axle. Wicky heard the gentle knock, but
no matter; getting rid of the croaker was more important for now. As they
padded through the kitchen and out into the rain, Fenwick started his
interrogation of Gigi. At first his questions were simple and pleasant. He
wanted her to lower her guard. They reached the shed, and Wicky warned Gigi
not to look at John's charred remains. "Did you know a person's eyeballs pop
when struck by lightning?" He asked, and then added, "You had better be careful
where you step, too." Gigi "willed herself not to look down. The last thing
she wanted to see was a stray eye looking up at her." After propping Armand up
and knocking his head on the door, Wicky grabbed Gigi's arm and forcefully led
her to the house. Along the way, "Wicky heard and felt a rather odd swush
under his foot ... like a hard-cooked egg."Back inside, the two went to the other servants' quarters, and Wicky sat Gigi
down on a hard, wooden chair while he paced and continued interrogating her.
She "shifted uncomfortably ... trying to stall him and ignore his questions."
His questions increased in intimacy ..."How long have you known the vicar?" and "What is that stain on your dress
from?" (recognizing it as feminine juices). Gigi stuttered and avoided
answering, and she finally tried to escape. Wicky grabbed her and threw her
back into her chair. He pulled out his metal balls and confronted her, "You
are quite unable to control your urges and are willing to do anything to meet
them, aren't you?" Gigi shouted at him, "Those are not mine, and I have no
clue who they belong to!" He demanded an answer, "You killed both of those men
in a manner that caused the tenting in their pants so you could use them later
to appease your base sexual needs in a most ungodly manner, didn't you?" She
yelled back, "Damn you! I killed nobody ... if you think I have done anything
sexual with either of them, then you are sicker than I thought!" His final
question put Gigi over the top, "Have you had sex with the vicar?" "Yes," she
shouted before she could catch herself, "I...I mean no."Wicky sensed she would withdraw from him if he continued. Knowing Gigi would
never leave without the vicar, Wicky dismissed her, telling her to "get that
front door." Gigi was relieved to be dismissed. With "one last glare at him,
she quickly ran from the room, "leaving the inspector to whatever he was going
to do next." Gigi yanked open the front door wide and invited Lady Gabrielle
into the house, hoping that Geoffry would soon come to her aid and tell her
where to put up the three guests who still had no rooms.Posts 259 - 279:
The scene in the morning room continued as Geoffry half-heartedly offered to
help Katya upstairs. With all that had happened thus far, Geoffry wondered
why, "Everyone in this house was getting some but him, damnit! When was it the
Butlers turn to DO IT?" The vicar stepped in and offered to help Katya while
ordering Geoffry to search for her bag. Katya was convinced that Michael was
not a real vicar, yet she accepted his offer and practically pushed him into
the hall where she heard a knock at the door.Gigi opened the door and welcomed Gabrielle into the house. Seeing Katya and
Michael, Gigi led the three people upstairs where she assigned guest rooms to
them and then stepped across the hall to draw Katya's bath. Surprised at being
unnoticed, Lord Richard stood off to the side and watched Gigi while wondering
where Geoffry was. Richard saw that Gigi has mistakenly assigned a guest room
to the vicar who, as a cleric, had taken a vow of poverty. Richard reassigned
him to the chapel, and gave him directions that it was out back and down the
road a bit of a way. Afterwards, Richard turned and headed down the main
staircase.In the meantime, Fenwick searched the kitchen for food but left hungry. He
heard the commotion upstairs and observed in the shadows , convinced after
watching Gigi's demeanor that she was not really a maid. After everyone
retired to their rooms, Wicky went upstairs and found the ideal room for
himself ... well, nearly perfect, except that the walls were painted "as pink
as a trollop's smacked ass." Resigned to the pink room for "justice sake,"
Wicky half undressed and went to sleep still wearing his underwear and yellow
gartered stockings.A coachman brought Henry to Hartman House in grand style. With the house in
sight, Henry noticed a carriage with a broken axle and told the driver to stop
near it. Reluctantly, at Henry's command the driver helped him load a woman's
luggage from the other carriage, into their own. They continued on to the
stables in back of the house. "Pausing, Henry wondered why his driver hadn't
let him out at the house ... likely retribution for making him work in the
rain."Inside the stable, Henry opened the top half of a Dutch door and heard a woman
screaming her heart out. Sobbing over having discovered John with his
empty-socketed face, Mariette accidently ran into the bottom half of the Dutch
door while screaming to Henry, "Oh god, the dead are walking! The eyeless
dead!" She clutched at him and suddenly realized "with his indecently long
beard and odd gaze he might be a witch doctor." As Mariette started to topple
over in hysteria, Henry took hold of her upper arms and "hoisted her tiny frame
up and over the closed bottom half of the door." Settling her on a half barrel
near a hot stove, Henry took her hands in his and warmed them. A stable boy
handed them warm blankets, and Mariette instructed the boy to get word to
Hawkpen Manor that Lady Aidan was a guest at Hartman House and was well, but
needed her things.Mariette looked at the strange man and asked, "And who are you, anyways?" to
which Henry replied, "Sir Henry Hegewish, at your service, m'Lady. Mariette
suddenly realized she needed to get help to Kathryn and Aidan, since she had
left them with the mist in the suite. "Please," Mariette asked, "We must go
back to the house, I beg you..." Henry pulled the blanket over Mariette's head
and pitched her over his shoulder. He moved out into the drumming rain and
jogged toward the front door. Mariette bounced atop the man's shoulders and
asked that he "St- St- St- Stop!" but her words were lost in the storm, so she
did her best, as they made their way to the house, to keep an eye out for John
who might be up and roaming about.Impatient, Katya crossed the hall to the bathroom and her bath. She stripped
off her clothes and stepped into the hot water. She noticed a small vial with
sweet smelling, unknown contents and surmised it was filled with bath oil. She
soaked the oil into a cloth and washed herself, Then, suddenly, she felt a
sharp pain in her heart and she "shuddered hard as death took her and she
slipped beneath the water."Meanwhile back at Hawkpen Manor, Monty expected to surprise Aidan as his relief
had arrived a month earlier than he had anticipated. As he approached their
home, he saw an unfamiliar stable boy in the distance, and watched as Rosemead
loaded Aidan's trunks onto a carriage. When he greeted Rosemead, she related
Aidan's tale to Monty, and he beckoned the Hartman stable boy closer to get
information about his employer, Lord Richard. Determined not to spend his
first night home without his wife, Monty instructed Rosemead to have his
favorite stallion saddled while he changed clothes and looked through some
inter-agency dispatchesabout Richard Hartman. Later, as Monty approached
Hartman House, he surmised that the lord of the manor was, indeed, the same one
whom he had read about.Fenwick awoke from his light sleep to the words, "Oh god, no!" He thought it
might be Gigi "being deprived of an orgasm, judging by the urgency in her voice
and her erratic breathing pattern," so he quickly pulled his pants on and snuck
across the hall, to the bathroom door, where he heard a faint "glub, glub,
glub." Peeking through the keyhole, hoping to catch Gigi in the throes of lust
Wicky saw, instead, two legs draped over the rim of a deep clawfoot tub. He
pulled out a ring of skeleton keys and found one that unlocked the door. After
letting himself in and checking the woman's neck and nipples, he determined her
death was not related to the Transylvania Tent Murder Mysteries. He pocketed
some buttons that had been torn from her dress as well as the empty vial.
Then, he folded her legs back into the tub so her presence would go unnoticed
by anyone who might use the facilities. With that, he grabbed her dress and
corset, and returned to his girly pink room where he examined the clothing for
evidence.Lord Richard heard Lord Montague rap at the front door and let him in, hoping
all the while that he wouldn't get rain-soaked as he so often had over the past
day or so. The men introduced themselves to each other, and Monty inquired of
Aidan's whereabouts. Richard replied that she was upstairs with Kathryn. They
chatted while climbing the stairs and headed toward the Master suite. Richard
knocked at the door and heard his wife cry out. When no one unlocked the door,
Richard leaned back and slammed his foot into it, breaking it wide open. After
more screams from both women, Richard noticed the mist shaped woman, Leanna
Raevin. He slashed at her with his dagger, but to no avail. The women clung
to each other in fear over the mist and ongoing commotion. Monty stepped to
the window and threw open the drapes. "Shafts of sunlight broke through the
storm clouds" and one fell across the hissing mist. "Then, as though the skin
started to dissolve and burn apart from the inside...the thing fell to the
floor in a pool of the light and disintegrated into ash."Aidan realized Monty was truly there, and as she knelt on the bed to embrace
him, the blanket fell away and revealed her nakedness to Richard who was
embracing Kathryn. Richard whispered to Kathryn, "You should probably get
dressed darling, with company in our bed chambers." He had to stop himself
from bursting out laughing knowing that his wife would go into a fit once it
sunk in that her nightgown did little to cover her from Monty's eyes. Monty
also laughed and whispered in Aidan's ear, "wife, I think that you need to
ahhhh put something on before you scandalize our host."Monty bit back a chuckle when he saw that Aidan had pulled the sheet from
Kathryn's hands, leaving her sitting on the bed in her nightgown. It was
obvious that both men shared the same unusual sense of humor, and both wondered
why their wives were in bed together. Richard took hold of the sheet and
whipped it onto the floor. Aidan glanced down at her empty hand and then
exclaimed, "I don't have ANY clothes here! Proper or improper!" Monty wrapped
her in his cloak and teased, "My love, isn't it a bit late to worry about
proper or improper, seeing as how our host has seen most all your treasures?"
At the same time, Kathryn "tugged at her nightgown and started to crawl out of
bed, half toppling as she tangled her legs and arms and the nightgown all
together. She landed with a yip and a soft thud, her bottom directly on her
husband's feet."Monty looked across to Richard, "Well, Lord Hartman," he said with a slight
bow, "At lease we were properly introduced." Richard laughed softly and
nodded, "Quite right...quite right...and a pleasure it was." Richard invited
Monty down to the billiards room, "Perhaps we should leave the women to get
something on, you could probably use some refreshment of your own. You do play
pool, don't you?" Monty answered, "I have been known to dabble at it once in a
while." He laughed aloud and thought about other interests he shared with Lord
Hartman.Posts 280 - 299:
After a long and harrowing ordeal, Gigi made her way to the servants' quarters. She chose to stay in Geoffry's room where she undressed and slipped into bed. In the meantime, Geoffry, who was feeling neglected, found the duchess' valise and took it upstairs to her steamy bathroom. He entered the room and found the duchess, dead in the tub, with her bruised leg hanging over its side. Hastily, he tossed the valise under the tub and then exited. Tired and frustrated, Geoffry returned to his room, stripped off most of his clothing, and pulled back the bed covers. When he looked down, he found Gigi asleep. In his words, "This morning might be the good start to a wonderful day...." However ... Unable to find the blanket in her sleep, Gigi awakened with a shiver. She sat up and searched the room and, when she realized Geoffry was standing over her nearly-naked body, she snatched the covers from his hand and hid her body from his view. Glaring and hissing through her teeth, she asked, "Can I help you?" Rather than cause a scene, Geoffry shook his head and dragged himself over to John's bed where he "flopped down, pulled the covers over his chest, and closed his eyes."Feeling badly about her behavior, Gigi crawled out of the bed she was in and quietly crawled into the other bed with Geoffry, hoping he wouldn't mind. It had been a scary day, and cuddling next to his warm body would somehow make her feel safer. At first, Geoffry was unsure of how to react. Ultimately, he slipped an arm around Gigi and drew her closer while his other hand slid idly along her thigh. Gigi slipped her leg over his and whispered, "I do hope you don't mind." With that, she kissed his cheek before lying on her back once again.
Sometime during the course of events, Cameo slipped out of the parlour with her servants, Betta and Andre. Once settled in their guest room, Cameo sat back and instructed Andre to strip out of his wet clothing while she sat back and watched.
Kathryn and Aidan sat on the bed and discussed how Aidan would dress for the day. At the moment, she was clad only in her husband's wet cloak. Given that Kathryn was quite a bit taller than she was, finding suitable attire might be challenging. Kathryn chose a yellow dress with a scandalously low-cut bodice that would, no doubt, reveal Aidan's "delights." For herself, she chose a cream colored morning gown. Before dressing, the two engaged in a bit of intimate play which included alum cream and two sets of oriental pleasure balls. After generously coating a carved wooden set with alum, Kathryn seated them deep inside Aidan. In return, Aidan swiped her finger across the excess cream on her cunny and ran it along Kathryn's slit. Then, she inserted a metal set of balls inside Kathryn, and the two women giggled, wiggled, jiggled, and finally got dressed to go downstairs ... each with the secret toys lodged deep.