Spanking the Abbess


On the eve of the battle fir Muzillac, the Earl of Edrington has better things to do than deal with the fact that his sergeant-major has apparently been abducted by naughty French nuns. Somebody is about to find out just who is master!


Part One

"Dammit, Stanley! Don't you knock?" Major Lord Alexander Edrington's hand made a smart but orderly retreat from down the front of his breeches and he sat up on his cot as his freckle-faced adjutant entered the tent.

"Sir! I scratched at the flap, sir," stammered the boy, blushing furiously. "I guess you didn't hear me, sir. Sorry sir, I didn't know you were…busy, sir!"

Edrington stood, calmly buttoning the flap of his breeches. He was still at half-staff, damn it, but if the boy knew what was good for him he'd keep his eyes front. Normally, he was not much disposed to self-abuse, and quite frankly, there was generally no need, but recent circumstances and the demands of duty had conspired to leave him in a prolonged dry spell, and it was beginning to affect his concentration.  He almost couldn't remember when he'd last had a decent bit of crack, although he could well remember the last one he'd almost had. A narrow miss, that. Damned Gordon's sister. He'd had it on good authority that she'd already been had by three-quarters of Horse Guards, but he'd done no more than kissed her in the back of a barouche, and the tricky little wench had run to her brother, crying she'd been compromised.  He'd be damned if he'd be run into marriage by a prick-tease slut of a Duke's daughter, and doubly damned before he'd fight a duel over a kiss. A fuck, possibly. Well, no matter, his orders had come through in the nick, and Gordon would've had plenty of time to think better of it by now.

"Well, what is it, Stanley?" he barked, stuffing his shirttails into the waist of his breeches.

Stanley straightened and Edrington detected a trace of amusement twitching at the corners of the young man's mouth. He liked Stanley. When he'd been an Ensign he'd once walked in on a pair of Brigadier Generals having at it like rabbits atop a mahogany desk littered with campaign maps and orders. Three weeks later, a vacant lieutenancy in the coveted Ninety-Fifth was his, one of the swiftest gazettes in the history of Whitehall, it was said. The ability to confront the unexpected with grace and composure, as well as the proper exercise of discretion would always be valuable qualities for an officer of the King's Army.

"Sir, there's been a bit of trouble in the camp," Stanley began. "There were some girls from —"

"Damn it!" Edrington spat, the thwarted discomfort in his groin making him snappish. "Did I not give orders that all wicks were to be kept dry until further notice? I don't want half my companies coming down with the bloody French pox! All I need is a detachment of dribble-dicks slowing me down! Where the hell is Sar'nt Major? I told him to tell the men they'd have crack a la mode when we get to Paris, and they can bloody well either have a pull or wait till then!"

"Yes, sir. He told 'em sir, and the men are following orders sir, but these girls…"

"These girls what, Stanley?"

Stanley stood at attention, pale blue eyes staring straight ahead. Edrington contemplated telling him to stand at ease, but he was in a testy mood, and the part of him that considered it a duty, and occasionally rather enjoyed to discomfit his inferiors wouldn’t let him just yet. That Lieutenant Hornblower, for instance, was such fun to pick on. Like shooting Frogs in a barrel, but still fun. Now, there was one wick that needn't go dry tonight. He'd seen Hornblower go off after dinner with that stick insect of a schoolteacher. Were he forced to lay a bet on it though, he feared he'd have to wager against a wick wetting for the young Lieutenant.

Stanley was speaking. "These girls, sir, well, they marched right into the camp. Two of 'em. Pretty, sir. I've never seen such pretty girls! And just alike! Twin sisters, I think they were. The thing is, sir, they were…well, I don't know how else to say it, sir but they were looking for trouble, if you take my meaning."

"What meaning is there to be taken, Stanley?" Edrington asked crossly. "I take it they were whores, and Sar'nt Major should have seen them off, so why are you troubling me?"

Stanley blinked and shifted imperceptibly. "Whores, sir? No! That's just the thing. O'Meara, sir, he's a Catholic, and he said they looked to him to be a couple of little nuns. Novices, he says."

Edrington smirked. He'd heard that French whores were creative, but he'd thought they would apply themselves more in the area of provocative undergarments and nouvelle oral techniques. Still, he'd once had a Colonel who liked his mistress to dress up as Jean d'Arc, in full armor. Bloody lot of racket if one was trying to sleep in the room next door, like a lot of pots and pans being bashed about in the scullery, and her shouting "Vive la France!"  and cursing him for a “cochon anglais”.

Well, someone should have told them they needn't have gone to the extra effort for a half-battalion of randy Redcoats who would fuck mud if it would only say, "yes", or rather, "oui".

"The Sergeant-Major, sir, he was minding your orders about no women, and he and I saw them back to their, what-do-you-call-it…"

"Their convent?" Edrington suggested, remembering fondly the cozily cloistered "convents" of Berkely Street and Covent Garden where a young, unattached gentleman of means might while away many a happy hour in contemplations of the divine—

"Right, sir, the convent. It's about a mile from here. I can show you."

Edrington crossed to the folding table in the corner and topped up his glass of cognac from a silver flask that had been a gift from his mamma. He must remember to write and explain to her about the Gordon incident. Mamma, he knew, despised the Dowager Duchess of Gordon, who had been given a standing round of applause when she appeared at the first night of the opera last Season, a fitting tribute, it was thought, for a woman who had managed so far to marry off three of her daughters to two Dukes and a Marquess. Perhaps this little bit of information might shed some light on the secrets of her success.

He took a swig of the cognac, swirled it in his mouth and swallowed, content to feel the pleasant heat as it slid smoothly down his throat. Presently, a question arose in his mind.

"Why, pray, do I need to know where the nunnery is, if you and the Sergeant-Major have seen the little dears safely home, Stanley?"

Stanley cleared his throat, still standing at attention, still staring straight ahead. "Well, sir, like I said, the Sar'nt-Major and I saw them back there, and we gave our word that they were not interfered with in any way, but the lady in charge, sir, the…the…"

"Mother Superior?" Edrington supplied helpfully.

"No, sir, something else, starts with an "A"…"

Edrington thought. "The abbess?"

"That's it sir. The abbess told us she wanted to see the commanding officer."

The major pulled out his folding chair and sat down at the table. He reached out and pulled his rosewood writing box towards him, thinking he would write his mother now, before it slipped his mind again.

"Stanley, it is coming dark, and I have a busy day tomorrow. I haven't time to be running about the countryside, apologizing to nuns for nothing, and I frankly don't know what possessed you to waste my time with this, " Edrington said tartly, flipping up the top of the box and searching for his pen and ink.

"But Sir, the lady insists…"

"Thank you, Stanley, you are dismissed."

There was a moment's hesitation. Then the adjutant blurted, "But sir, she's got Sar'nt-Major Sobey!"

Edrington looked up, irritated. "What do you mean, she's got him?"

The boy's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard and said, "Well, she's got him sir, and she won't let go of him until you come, she said."

"Stanley," Edrington said evenly, as he slowly lowered the lid of the writing box. "Are you telling me that my Sergeant-Major is being held hostage by nuns?"

"I'm afraid I am, sir."

"Bloody hell," growled the major, tossing back the remains of the cognac and reaching for his scarlet coat from the back of the chair. "Bring my horse, Stanley."

*****

Once he'd passed through the stand of trees that skirted the outer edge of the camp, he could see in the distance the high walls of stone, softly washed with the remnants of a coral pink sunset that was barely streaking the lowering western sky as it surrendered to night above a calm, black sea. The place looked more like a fortress, and a ruined one at that, with its crumbling, crenellated turrets and narrow black slits for windows, perched on a high, barren bluff.

Apollo tossed his head and snorted. His back felt high and tight under Edrington's seat. He was skittish, out here alone in the dark, and no doubt would have preferred to be back on the picket line with his fellows, but Edrington knew there was not a cowardly bone in the horse's body. Like an old soldier, Apollo simply knew that to be aware was to survive.

"My beauty," Edrington whispered, stroking the silken neck, and he leaned forward for a moment and buried his face in the mane, breathing deep of the warm, sweet, horsy smell. Evocative, like the scent that rose from a woman's hair, or the thin, acrid pall of gun smoke that hung in the air after a battle, it took him to another place; it calmed him.

"Come on, boy," he urged. Straightening in the saddle, he barely pressed his calf to the horse's side, and Apollo bounded forward. In the growing darkness Edrington could feel, rather than see the way the ground fell gently away, and he anticipated its rise as they approached the foot of the bluff. He tipped his head back and watched the sky, feeling the lift and thrust of the canter, the familiar, provocative rhythm that produced a humming in his loins. Damn! He needed to stop thinking of women! Unbidden, an image rose in his mind of an altar arrayed with fat, white candles, a woman robed in white, the soft fabric falling away, her long, pale body lying back against the dark wood; sculpted knees rising slowly, opening, a red mouth curving in a wicked smile…Good God! He rose in the stirrups and asked for the gallop.

The entrance to the castle was through a high, narrow arch at the top of a steep, earthen ramp, treacherous with loose, shaley stone. An inner courtyard was torch lit, but empty, until quite possibly the oldest person Edrington had ever seen appeared, shuffling across the cobbles to lay a hand on his bridle. There was no telling even what sex the thing had ever been. All wrinkles and sparse, white hair, it looked like nothing so much as the hideous "shrunken head" he'd paid a shilling to see one boring night aboard the Indefatigable. The seaman, Styles, had claimed it was a souvenir of his days aboard a whale ship, taken from the cannibal islands.

The thing said nothing, but kept its gnarled grip on Apollo's bridle and bowed its head. Edrington dismounted and stood uncertainly in the deserted courtyard as his mount was led away. His mind briefly (and rather belatedly, if he must admit the truth, further evidence of his lapse in concentration) entertained the thought that he might be walking into some sort of ambush, but he dismissed the notion almost as quickly as it arose. The thing was, his balls always itched when he was in danger. He could not explain it, but it was a sense that had never failed him, in all his years of soldiering. Why, he'd needed to scratch so bad at Hondschoote in '93, he's scarcely been able to hold his sword! In any event, if he couldn't manage a dear little old nun, he'd no business calling himself an officer.

The summer air was heavy with a fragrance that was thick and sweet and smothering, like a breath of honey. Behind him he could hear the tinkling of a fountain, and he could see that the courtyard was laid out in parterres like mamma's formal garden in London, symmetrical beds interspersed amongst the ancient paving stones, and thickly planted with herbs and the lushest, most voluptuous of flowers. He stepped forward and put out his hand to cup a blossom, as big and round as a four-pound shot. The tall, thick stem drooped under the weight of the dark red flower, and he saw its golden center from which rose a stout, arching stamen with a bulbous, purple head. He barely brushed the head with the soft part of his thumb and was startled by the sudden burst of yellow pollen that spurted, with a short, spitting sound, onto his hand.

"Christ!" he exclaimed, backing away, and then remembering where he was, glanced around him, wondering if anyone had heard the oath. Just then his eye was drawn to a ribbon of light crossing the stones. In the shadow of the loggia that shaded the sides of the courtyard a door was opening, and he moved toward it.

The door was low, heavy, constructed of heavy blackened timbers, studded with iron nailheads, and tall as he was, he needed to duck as he passed through.

He stood up in a high, square chamber, its stone walls glowing amber with the flickering light of many candles, its corners softly shadowed.

"Major Edrington."

She was coming toward him, a tall woman robed in white. A linen veil was loosely draped over her head and shoulders but he could see her hair, the color of spring copper beeches, a swirling peak of flaming red that dipped onto her smooth, pale forehead and swept the sides of her high-boned cheeks. "Beware, chestnut mare," the silly rhyme sprang ludicrously into his thoughts. He removed his hat and tucked it beneath his arm, then he shook his head to clear it as he took a step towards her, and reached to take her slim, outstretched hand. The nails were smooth, perfect ovals, as shiny as glass.

"Welcome," she said, in perfect English. Her mouth was wide and full, her eyes the color of wet, fallen leaves. Her fine face was elegant, ageless. She could have been twenty-five, or forty.

"I am Soeur Dominique. Welcome to L'Abbaye de Sainte Sabine des Plaisirs."

Go to Part Two