Killing Violets, Tanith Lee [the two towers ebook .TXT] 📗

“You see to it, Lily,” said the groom.

And Lilith moved around Anna. She leant down, and taking two handfuls of the silk skirt, ripped them apart.

Anna felt a primeval awe, as if her skin instead had been torn wide as a curtain.

The gown only just covered her, now, parting about an inch below her crotch. She put, her hand there, involuntarily, and realized she must look like a coy Venus on a shell.

The groom was lifting her anyway. There was no chance to protest or resist. She was there already, on the horse’s back, sitting awkwardly side-saddle. “Swing thee lug oover.” said the groom impatiently. He looked up now, waiting for the flash of her most private part. But she pulled the skirt upward to cover herself as she eased her right leg to the other side of the horse.

Now she sat bareback on it. It was restive, and she felt the rolling muscles in its top, and smelled its hot wet smell. How could she have imagined this might be erotic? She was afraid, and clutched the horse’s mane. She had no idea what to do with the horse.

On the ground – far down – the servants in the grove were voraciously laughing at her, their little cruel eyes very bright. Anna laughed too, to show them how clever they were and how she approved of everything they did.

But her body was shaking with alarm. The horse jerked and ambled, free of the touch of the groom, and sensing doubtless only panic from Anna, her knees gripping, slipping, her hands pulling at its mane and trying to find, hopelessly, purchase on its neck. She called out, blithely. “What do I do?”

“You’re all right. He won’t bolt. Maybe.”

But they would tire of this jest in a few minutes. She had noticed before, such people often lost interest swiftly in all things, even their dearest and most perverse pursuits.

She patted the horse’s neck firmly. “Steady,” she said.

The horse shied its head from her. Damnable thing. It hated her too.

The fiddler had struck up a tune abruptly. It was syncopated, and modern, some song that might be heard on a gramophone record.

The horse began to walk through the grove. Frozen, Anna sat rigidly upright. The horse took her slowly, decidedly, practiced, across the lines of girls and men, and into the thick trees beyond.

At once, the moon melted into darkness. The horse stepped on. Behind them, the laughter and jibes merged away like the light.

Nerves tingled in Anna’s spine. They were deep into the nightness of the park. Fragrance rose from the flowers and clover beaten by the rain, crushed now by the hooves of the horse.

She wanted to call, but there was no one to call to. There had never been, of course.

Anna sat still, facing through the dim ghost-greyness that filmed between the tree trunks.

A firefly sparkled. It was a cigarette. Raoul walked out into her path.

“Where are you going?” he asked. Like a prince meeting a royal fairy-lady in the wood.

Bleakly Anna ordered her mind. But she was suddenly sick of it now. So bloody sick of them all. She had tried so hard. These games. Always these foolish deadly games.

“I don’t know,” she said, “Raoul.”

“Well, I think you came to find me, didn’t you, Ann?”

“Oh, yes,” she concurred listlessly. Tears pushed inside her eyes. She held them in, and instead her eyes began to burn and ache.

Raoul now was guiding the horse.

Distantly, she heard a couple of loud communal cries back in the grove. The fiddle sawed and squeaked. But here in the dark was another world.

“You’re a treasure. Ann,” he said. “You’re worth a lot to me.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, Ann. I like you like that, all dolled up. I liked you in the apron, too. Your quaint little curtsy. You’re awfully good, Ann. I knew you would be.”

“Thank you.”

He must have indicated something to the horse. It stopped. Raoul came around its body, and put his hands on her bared leg.

She said, “The dress got torn.”

“I’ll buy you another.”

“When we go to London?” she asked, before she could control her tongue.

Raoul laughed softly. He ran his hands up her leg, and clasped the join of her body, and a thrill of disgusting arousal stabbed through her, but divorced from her utterly, as though mind and flesh had separated.

“Shall I mount?”

She said nothing. He swung up on to the horse as if it were no trouble at all. He was behind her. And for him, the horse kept still.

Raoul slipped his arms around her. He fondled her breasts, pressing into her body.

“Do you like this?”

“Yes.”

“It’s better when he gallops. Like to try it?”

“No,” she said, “I’ll fall…”

“I’ll keep hold of you.” he said. And he kicked the horse in the side.

Anna screamed.

“Yes,” said Raoul.

The trees miraculously parted. They were flying over rough tumbling open ground, and the moon raced with them overhead.

Every leap of the muscles of the horse slapped Anna upward, and as her body came down each time his fingers penetrated her more deeply.

She was sick with fear and lust. Her head flung itself back. She thought in a moment she would be dead, but she wouldn’t feel it.

Only what he did to her, this ugly grunting man, mattered.

She had let go of the horse. The monster, Raoul, kept her on, kept her from being dashed away. Omnipotent.

When it ended, she was crying. Raoul sat behind her, swigging from a silver flask, He did not offer it.

“Wonderful Ann,” he said. “Remember, I won’t let you go. You belong to us. You know I’d kill you, if you ran away again. And; anyway, where would you go? To hell and back, eh? But you understand. It’s sorted out now, isn’t, it? You just needed a bit of guidance. Eh?”

“Yes,” she said.

They rode back. He controlled the horse expertly, a bit of guidance. Anna seemed boneless, mindless. She had lost everything, surely. Or, only realised that she had lost everything already, long ago.

In the grove, men and