Flashman and the Angel of the Lord. George Fraser MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ said, of oll the bad men he had known, you were quite the worst!’ She shook her head, wide-eyed. ‘So of carse I must see for myself, you knoaw? Are you so verree wicked … Harree?’

      ‘Here, I’ll show you!’ says I, and lunged at her, but she drew back, with a pretty little comical flutter towards the hall, where I supposed the butler was lurking, and pressed me to try the tidbits, especially a great sticky bowl of creamed chocolate – in summer! – which she spooned into herself with gluttonous delicacy, between sips at her sling, teasing me with sidelong smiles and assuring me that the mixture was ‘quite heavenlee’.

      Well, women flirt all ways to bed: there are the kittens who like to be tickled, and the cats who must be coaxed while they pretend to claw, and the tigresses who have only one end in mind, so to speak. I’d marked Miranda Spring as a novice tigress at our first meeting, and our grapple in the hall had shown her a willing one; if it amused her to play the wanton puss, well, she was seventeen, and a chi-chi, and they’re a theatrical breed, so I didn’t mind – so long as she didn’t prove a mouse, as some of these brazen chits do at the first pop of a button. She seemed nervous and randy together – yet was there a gleam of triumph in the eager smile? Aye, probably couldn’t believe her luck.

      ‘So Papa warned you off, did he? And did he tell you he’d sworn to kill me if I came near you?’

      ‘Oah, yess! Jollee exciting! He is so jealous, you know, it is a great bore, for he has kept away oll sarts of boys – men, I mean – ollways thee ones I like best, too! Nott saying he would kill them, you understand,’ she giggled, ‘but you know how he can be.’

      ‘M’mh … just an inkling. Cramps your style, does he?’

      She tossed her head and dabbed cream from her lips with a fold of her dress. ‘Nott when he is in Grahamstown!’

      ‘When the cat’s away, eh? Finished your pudding, have you? Very good, let’s play!’ I made another lunge, and got home this time, seizing her bosom and stopping her mouth, and the lustful slut lay there revelling in it, thrusting her tongue between my teeth, with never a thought for the butler, and I was wondering how we were going to perform the capital act on a cane swing only four feet long, when she purred in my ear: ‘Once upon a time, the cat came home …’

      Fortunately the swing was anchored, or we’d have been over.

      ‘What! D’you mean –’

      ‘Oah, not from Grahamstown, sillee! Papa was here, in town, but not expected. It was two years ago, when I was onlee fifteen, and quite stupid, you knoaw – and there was a French gentleman from Mauritius, much older, but whom I liked ever so … And Papa flew into a great rage, and forbade him to see me – but then Papa was absent, and Michel came to the house … to my room, quite late … and Papa came home from the club, quite early …’

      ‘Jesus! What then?’

      ‘Nothing, then … Papa looked at him, in that way he has, and said “You’re receipted and filed, mister”, and Michel laughed at him, and went away.’ You’re a better man than I am, Michel, thinks I. ‘And a little time after, they found poor Michel on Robben Island. He had been flogged to death with a sjambok.’

      Just what a fellow needs to hear when he’s coming to the boil, you’ll agree – but I’m the lad who bulled a Malay charmer in the midst of a battle on the Batang Lupar, regardless of shot and steel – and now the wicked bitch was half way down my throat, and rummaging below-stairs with an expert hand. And while I didn’t doubt her story, knowing her fiend of a father, I knew she’d told it only to plague me. And Spring was in Grahamstown – I’d inquired.

      ‘I’ll give you sjambok, my lady!’ growls I, and lifted her bodily out of the swing, but even as I cast about for galloping room, she left off gnawing at me and panted: ‘Wait … let me show you!’ I set her down, and she seized my hand, hurrying me down to the garden and through a screen of shrubs to a small stone jetty beyond, and there was the smartest little steam yacht moored, all brass and varnish shining in the sun, and not a soul aboard that I could see.

      ‘For our picnic,’ says she, and her voice was shrill with excitement. She led the way up the swaying plank, and I followed, slavering at the plump stern bobbing under the muslin, and down into the cool shadows of a spacious cabin. I seized her, fore and aft, but she slipped from my lustful grasp, whispering ‘A moment!’ and slammed a door in my face.

      While I tore off my clobber, I had time to look about me, and note that J. C. Spring, M.A., did himself as well afloat as he did ashore. There was polished walnut and brocade, velvet curtains on the ports, fine carpet and leather furniture, and even a fireplace with a painting of some Greek idiots in beards – it was a bigger craft than I’d realised, and rivalled the one in which Suleiman Usman had carried us to Singapore; through an open door I could see a lavatory in marble and glass, with a patent showerbath, which for some reason made me randier than ever, and I pounded on her door, roaring endearments; it swung open under my fist, and there she was, on t’other side of the bed, posed with her back to the bulkhead. For a moment I stood staring, and Spring and old Arnold would have been proud of me, for my first thought was ‘Andromeda on her rock, awaiting the monster, ha-ha!’ which proves the benefit of a grounding in the classics.

      She was stark naked – and yet entirely clad, for she had cinched in her long hair with a white ribbon round her neck, so that it framed her face like a cowl, while beneath the ribbon it hung in a shimmering black curtain that covered her almost to her ankles. Her arms were spread out, desperate-like, on the panelling, and as I goggled she pushed one knee through the silky tresses and pouted at me.

      We never went near the bed, for it would have been a shame to disturb her tableau vivant, much; I just heaved her up and piled in against the panels, grunting for joy, and I’ll swear the boat rocked at its moorings, for she teased no longer when it came to serious work, and I wasn’t for lingering myself. It was splendid fun while it lasted, which was until she began to shudder and scream and tried to throttle me with her hair, so I romped her up and down all the way to the lavatory, where we finished the business under the patent showerbath, once I’d got the knack of the dam’ thing, which ain’t easy with a mad nymph clinging to your manly chest. Most refreshing it was, though, and brought back memories of Sonsee-Array, my Apache princess, who was partial to coupling under waterfalls – which is deuced cold, by the way, and the pebbles don’t help.

      Miranda Spring knew a trick worth two of that, for when we’d come to our senses and towelled each other dry, with much coy snickering on her part, she showed me to a little alcove off the main cabin where an excellent collation was laid out under covers, with bubbly in a bucket. We recruited our energies with lobster and chicken, but when I proposed that we finish off the wine on deck, she came all over languid and said we would be ‘ever so comfee’ on the bed – and if you’d seen that exquisite young body artfully swathed in her hair, with those fine ivory poonts thrusting impudently through it, you’d have agreed.

      But she must finish her dessert, too – like all chi-chis she had a passion for sugary confections – so she brought it to bed, if you please, and gorged herself on eclairs and cream slices while I fondled her, well content to play restfully for a change. Not so madam; being a greedy little animal, she must satisfy both her appetites at once, and call me conservative if you will, I hold that a woman who gallops you while consuming a bowl of blancmange is wanting in respect. I left off nibbling her tits to rebuke her bad form, but the saucy little gannet stuck out her tongue and went on eating and cantering in a most leisurely fashion. Right, my lass, thinks I, and waited until she’d downed the last cherry and licked the spoon, settled herself for a rousing finish, and was beginning to moan and СКАЧАТЬ