Chapter 1

 

Lady Emma, Countess Ambermere, groaned as she heard the sound of feet echoing on the bare marble stairs in the empty mansion. The carpet that had once made silent the deferential approach of servants to the Grand Bedroom had gone, looted by the Leveller insurgents or sold off like the other furnishings by the Leveller Revolutionary Committee to finance their Militia. Experienced ears identified one set of steps as female, one of her overseers, the other as male, so yet another user.

Carefully she made sure a tear did not disturb her face paint as she moved reluctantly into position before the gilt enhanced mahogany door. The visitor to whom she was to be presented would be the usual low bred Leveller. She must look the picture of aristocratic hauteur and did not expect to be forgiven if anything diminished his intended triumph.

Unlike the rest of Ambermere House, Lady Emma's magnificent bedroom was still furnished somewhat as it had been before the Levelling, with fittings reserved intentionally from looting or from sale exactly to have their effect upon her visitors. The extensive Turkish carpet was thick underfoot. The great bed stood four square in gilt splendour, silk-curtained at the corners and with a painted ceiling depicting the love lives of nymphs and heroes. Her gilt and marble dressing table which had been moved in from the adjacent dressing room, was fully equipped for the enhancement of a lady's person, though now items merely of glass and horn replaced looted ones of ivory and silver. The dangling candelabras had proved too difficult for looters. Purposefully the enormous gilt Venetian mirror had been re-sited to reflect the expansive and yielding interior of the bed. A richly embroidered screen of Chinese silk served to conceal an unpretentious stoneware chamber pot and a common pewter water jug.

More personal adornment had been selected from her own wardrobe with a view to further display though not the assemblage Lady Emma would have chosen herself. She was wearing the most splendid of these garments, a sack-back gown of silk painted with flowers in the finest French style. One be-ringed hand was spread to cover the plunging neckline the other held close the lace-ruffled front of its skirts. Her hair though not powdered was built into an elaborately curled and ringleted arrangement, while a sparkling necklace and dangling earrings completed the appearance at least, of lavish wealth.

Voices outside. The key turned in the lock and the door was unceremoniously thrown open to reveal the overseer, Francine the kennel woman this time, grinning maliciously and behind her the anticipated male figure.

Facing them Lady Emma released her double grip and transferring her fingers to catch at either side of her skirts lifted the heavy folds like the parting of a silk and velvet curtain revealing she wore nothing, neither underskirts nor petticoats underneath. In this state nakedly exposed, she curtsied deeply and without pausing in the gesture slipped completely out of the gown letting it go and falling to her knees before its crumpling magnificent heap, sliding forward in an attitude of obeisance as if to kiss a conqueror's feet, arms extended before her, ringed hands spread open as in surrender.

If her bedroom was in its original state, the shameful figure that Lady Emma presented, almost naked and upon her knees with her aristocratic nose to the carpet and her bare bottom in the air certainly was not. In her mid-forties and mother of two teenage daughters she possessed a buxom shapeliness, wide hipped and with a generous bosom, which in this posture completely escaped from the brief whale-bone-stiffened black basque that clasped her waist and assisted her hour-glass figure. Black silk stockings fastened just above the knee by red silk garters sheathed shapely legs while her feet were clad in high-heeled shoes with sparkling buckles. Between the red garters and the little red bow that secured the basque in the middle of her back however she was entirely on view.

"You are right to acknowledge your debt Milady!" Francine pronounced loudly above her. "Any Militiaman is entitled to use you free at the people's expense. But here is a local man who has paid good money to fuck you!" She was ostentatiously jingling what was evidently Lady Emma's price in the shape of a handful of small silver.

A local? Lady Emma suffered an extra nuance of shame. Someone she knew? A tenant? One of her former servants even? For the first time she focused in anguish upon the male figure moving out from behind her overseer. This was a mere lad! How could he afford her? Lady Emma, ex Countess of Ambermere, now Levelled and condemned to serve as a Public Whore! The Levelling Committee had decreed that ordinary civilians pay a whole Credit, what used to be five shillings in real money, for the privilege of fucking her.

She had taken in as much as she could in a single quick glance from beneath her lashes. He was a skinny creature, ill fed probably with a snub nose and jug ears, short hair that had resisted a comb. He wore a good linen shirt a size too large, woollen breeches with a button missing at the knee, gaily striped stockings with polished brass buckles on his shoes. Dressed for the occasion no doubt. Mouth hanging half open he regarded Lady Emma with a mixture of lust and satisfaction. She had quickly dropped her eyes in shame. She did know this one! He had been employed on the Ambermere estates, Billy or Benny Something? Her heart sank. She was sure that he was the one she had ordered to be whipped. For showing disrespect to one of the girls, Henrietta she thought it had been. Hastily subsuming fear in favour of propitiation she launched into her shameful introduction.

"I am Lady Emma, formerly Countess Ambermere" He knew that already of course but she usually endeavoured not to think about what she was made to say. "I have been Levelled for your use." Her voice had begun to wobble. "Please ah... be pleased sir... be pleased to fuck me!"

She didn't wait for any response but scrambled erect, conscious of the loose swing and bounce of her breasts and then of her fully exposed buttocks as she turned and trotted to the great bed, a tiresome distance on her high heels. She positively scrambled aboard its sumptuous expanse, in haste lest he remembered that whipping and thought how easy it would be to take his revenge, arranging herself in the approved manner upon all fours, knees and elbows sinking into the luxurious softness of the bedding, hands and upturned heels wide parted ready for the expected weight to come, She hollowed her back to thrust her rear upwards the better to exhibit what she was required to offer him, the plump bulge of her sex, furred below by a bleached blonde fluff and split by the pink crinkle of her cunt lips, their recent lubrication lending an apparently receptive glisten and revealing between them the deep and well-used target of her vagina. Surely that was enough to take the creature's mind off any other revenge? She still displayed something of what had served for her own motivation, a general flush of red to the bare summits of her rump. Her overseers had used the birch to cure a fancied lack of alacrity in the last performance. Kept ready to hand in their dressing room lair next door soaking in a bucket of water, the birch made less lasting marks than a cane but was just as effective a reminder to the Countess of her present status and what she could expect in future.

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

She had only narrowly survived to serve the revolution's purpose. Her husband the Earl had been intercepted by a mass of armed Levellers, both Militia and local insurgents as his private chariot followed the family coach into his domain. His hired escorts had fled immediately. Dragged out and identified, he had been summarily executed on the spot, hanged from the arch of the ornamental gateway to the park. He had been a marked man. As a member of the hated government he had already been tried in absentia and declared a traitor to Old England. The Ambermere family had only recently vacated the Hall, discharging most of the servants for economy sake, leaving them to seek work in the mills or further afield. Rumour had it that they would eventually be replaced by black slaves imported from the Ambermere plantations in the Caribbean. The Ambermeres two female children were now old enough for their father to aim to marry them to political allies, rich and influential husbands, and the town house was deemed safer and more useful as a permanent residence for that purpose. The move had proved an error. When the fleet mutinied, the Levellers roused and organised a country wide revolt. The city mobs had risen in bloody revolution and the king had fled to Hanover. The Ambermeres had headed back to their vacated country seat seeking refuge where the country people had long been submissive. The coach with Lady Emma and her daughters kept ahead of the mob but had barely discharged them at the empty mansion before pursuers caught up with them. Lady Emma was captured and dragged out into the open and so across the marble pavement of the spacious terrace where it reached out to overlook a wide ceremonial expanse of steps. They were crowding with insurgents both male and female screaming curses and shouts of "Traitor! Traitor to old England!" The Countess was the one to have brought the West Indian estates into the family and was accused of inspiring the spread of slave labour adjudged to be leading the move to import some of the slaves she owned to stock her English estates. A black maid servant who had been discovered abandoned in the coach had cooperatively confirmed the charge.

The Organiser of People who was the recognised leader at least of the Militia element of the mob hastily picked out a jury of twelve, mixed men and women, a favoured Leveller device, who duly adjudged Lady Emma guilty of treason against the people. Rather than being taken back to be hanged alongside her husband however as had been the initial clamour, the jury ruled that she should be made a more immediate example of, and to atone on the spot for her aristocratic sins by being stripped naked, paraded before the people and publicly flogged.

So Lady Emma had been produced on the verge of the steps with the facade of Ambermere House looming impressively behind her, the moonlight aided by that of impromptu torches, from where she overlooked the spreading acres of its park while below her an eager and vociferous mob filled the lower steps and climbed upon the balustrades to get a better view. The volunteer militia both male and female, armed with musket or pike had been swollen in numbers by members of the local country dwellers eager to take part in eliminating the former rulers of their lives and fortunes and wielding the impromptu weapons of the countryside, sickles, pitchforks or flails.

The expertise required for dealing with the intricacies of a lady's complicated garments was willingly undertaken by Francine the Ambersley kennel maid. Retained only temporarily to look after the handful of dogs remaining unsold in the kennels, she had long been a secret Leveller. More expert assistance was enthusiastically provided by Debbie the black slave girl who had been forced to accompany her mistress and owner in the coach. Unexpectedly freed by the action of the mob she had seized the opportunity to change her fortunes. The mainspring of the Leveller Revolution had been public hatred at the decision to make slavery legal within the kingdom. The change had been suspected as heralding its eventual extension to all but property owners. The Leveller ethos allowed equal status to women, the poor and to slaves so the newly freed slaves were fervent supporters. Bought by Lady Emma as a maid for her daughters, Debbie now found herself both free and unrestrained.

Together the pair ruthlessly slashed and ripped at Lady Ambermere's garments, using Francine's meat knife and Debbie's more skilfully wielded dress scissors to increase the speed. As each fragment of lace or silk was stripped away it was flourished aloft for the applause of the mob before being tossed to clutching hands eager for keepsakes.

At last shivering at the top of the steps, Lady Emma was shamefully exposed to the view of a hissing and vitriolic mob all but naked. save for silk stockings gartered at the knee and gilt buckled fashionable shoes. In this state, she was forced to wait in full view while one of the elaborately carved and gilded dining room chairs was brought forth from the Hall. Its former owner was mounted upon this, though in an entirely unorthodox manner, bent over its back head down facing the seat with her bare buttocks elevated and curved over the highest point. Her arms and legs were drawn downwards and widely parted to be secured to the four separate legs of the chair with bonds quickly improvised from shredded remnants of her discarded clothing. For the operative element Francine had volunteered her official dog whip, which as she loudly announced, being part of the equipment of the kennels was Ambermere property and therefore an appropriate implement for correcting the misdeeds of its owner. Francine was a burly female widowed by a guest's carelessly pointed gun and given her poorly paid job in lieu of compensation. She rolled up a sleeve, gripped the short thick whip and taking a firm stance waited impatiently for the crowd to hush before she took her revenge and imposed mob justice.

The dog whip was designed to make a swift impression upon the thick coat and hide of a recalcitrant animal. Upon the delicate skin of an aristocratic lady its effect was even swifter and the response far more notable. Lady Emma's shriek as the black whip laid its flexible length for the first time across her white bottom curves, shrilly aghast as if in disbelief that such a thing could happen to her, aroused a roar of approval from those crowding the steps below. Francine laid into her mistress with all the vigour an experienced arm could apply. Though its wielder was more accustomed to using it upon a quickly scurrying dog, Lady Emma's bare behind helplessly presented allowed plenty of time for accuracy.