“Who's in here with my wife?” the lord rasped.
His words bounced from wall to wall. His startled wife opened her mouth to scream; my flat hand came down, stifling her possible yell. Within a second, I was on my feet, moving swiftly and silently as I scooped my clothes from a chair, many feverish thoughts running through my head.
Lord Haversock was supposed to be away from his bed for at least one night, yet here he stood with pistol in hand. Why had he returned? Or, had he ever departed? Had he laid a trap for me?
Had he suspected somebody would sneak in to have sex with his lovely young wife? I had come in under dark to the lady's window, the trees hiding me in the night.
Had a servant seen me sling a leg over his wife's window? And had that same servant somehow contacted Lord Haversock and so informed him?
“I daresay, who is in this room?” his lordship thundered.
Already, I had slipped through a side door into another room, hoping I'd not forgotten a bit of clothing. Dismay surged through me, mingling with fear. I packed no sidearm. I had been on the verge of shattering a maidenhead, a great honor. I had not broken that maiden's veil.
I had been false to the cocksman's code. This falseness consisted of two elements: I had not consummated my sex session and I had stupidly allowed myself to be caught in a married female's bed by the said female's irate spouse.
I slid up a window. Naked, I dropped to the ground. My bare feet were in a flower bed. I looked about. I saw nobody. I made a dash for the heavier darkness of the trees some thirty feet distant.
Then rang out the female voice. “He goes this way, m'lord. And the sonofabitch is naked, m'lord. Come, come, come-with your pistol!
I come, Mattie, I come!”
Luck favored me. The housemaid-or whoever yelled-had no arm. I tore naked for the brush. My stage and driver were on a far street, awaiting my return. I dressed as I ran.
I discovered I had left my bottom underwear in my lady's room. Well, it held no identification, so that was just as well. I realized I heard no shot. Evidently Lord Haversock had not killed his wife. He had the right to kill her for her deceit, too.
When I came to my carriage I was walking and breathing normally. I climbed into the box and called up, “Home, John,” and my man said, “With pleasure, m'lord,” and the carriage rattled off, my four gray steeds making clattering hoof-sounds on the ancient stone road.
My head was now clear. I did some constructive thinking. I had nothing to fear unless m'lady got frightened and revealed my identity to her husband. He then had the right-under this stupid king-to shoot me on sight, even with my back turned to him.
He could challenge me to a duel, too.
Suddenly my driver called down, “M'lord, another carriage approaches from the rear and comes in very, very fast.”
I parted the window curtain. Fog had swooped down, as it does in London, without a moment's notice. You couldn't see your hand in front of your face.
“How do you know another carriage comes? You cannot see like the cat, can you?”
“No, but I hear good. And this is Charing Cross Lane and many carriages have been robbed here by hard driving bandits in coaches, m'lord.”
He was right. Periodicals lately reported many robberies here on Charing Cross Lane. “Use the whip,” I ordered.
This he did, my coach lurching ahead.
Thus began a chase, coach after coach, which was and still is about the most illogical and senseless thing in which I have ever been ensnared, for I really thought the wildly approaching coach was really driven by bandits who would force my stage to the curb and mount it, much as pirates lash their marauding ship to the merchant ship and swarm aboard the enemy, cutlasses in teeth and long blades working.
Let me set the stage for my readers. The hour was slightly after midnight. London's fog lay in big patches. At this hour few honest citizens were on the streets. They were home in bed, windows and doors barred.
And through these patches of fog thundered my hansom, an ornate coach, probably one stolen from a rich man, thundering behind and, to my surprise, gaining steadily, for my horses were fresh and oats-fed and very, very fast.
“More whip,” I hollered up.
“The steeds have no more, m'lord!”
I looked out the back window. We were now in deep fog. Instantly, we were out of fog. All was clear-the narrow street, cobblestoned and rough, the houses, leaning this way and that, the weirdness of the whole thing-and my coach, lurching in its speed, steel-rimmed wheels whamming stone.
And the other coach, driver lashing his plunging chargers, gaining, steadily gaining, and I remembered the naked fair Lady Haversock, my knob only in her cunt.
With sinking heart, I realized I'd not broken her maidenhead. I vowed, then and there, I'd someday break her veil, my bulb coming out with her membrane draped over it.
The reader will remember I wrote that I finally broke the good woman's maidenhead, but that was another time.
I glanced back at the coach. My heart sank. It had indeed speedy steeds, for it had gained much between the last two patches of fog-free periods.
I wished, devoutly, I had a side-arm but, of course, wishes did not supply this, and I hurled forward, disarmed and slightly fearsome.
For who, in my helpless position, wouldn't be afraid?
Episode Number Seven
As I have said, the whole affair bespoke of insanity. Fog coiled upward. Stages plunged through this fog. My driver drove as though our lives depended on the speed of our chargers, which we both thought at that time was the truth. And behind us roared the second stage, driver standing as he plied his lash over the steam, plunging backs and rumps of his four horses.
I glanced back in a clearing. My heart went to my boots. The cab behind belonged to Lord Haversock. The gaudy crest on its front told me that. My god, had he recognized me, a cuckolding cocksman, in the dark?
I remembered his lordship standing in the dark doorway, his huge pistol in his hands. I looked about for some instrument to use to defend myself and of course found only my fists.
How terribly fate had and was treating me. I had behaved like a gentleman from first to last in m'lady's boudoir. The lady had been entirely willing-nay, she'd
Her husband did not deserve such a beautiful young wife. He had gone up her rectum, had he not, and not into her vagina? And she'd begged me to implant a life in her womb.
Lord Haversock, the sonofabitch, was the villain, not I. I had been merely trying to right a terrible wrong.
Thus my feverish mind, working through fear and doubt, built up its case-and then it occurred to me that his lordship possibly had not recognized me, as I had feared.
Evidently he'd found no man in the bedroom of his terrified wife. Somewhere in the night he'd heard a carriage thundering out and he'd ran to his hansom, which evidently had stood ready for emergency-horses and with driver.
And he had then had his driver follow this cab, thinking it the strange hansom.
All this was conjecture, of course, but later, as this sordid recital will show, this conjecture proved correct. But let us return to the present, with my driver lashing my horses for speed… and more speed.
And behind me another driver lashed his steeds, and his steeds were faster than mine, for they were overhauling my carriage rather rapidly. Fear struck me momentarily. Lord Haversock's teams plainly might run over
