Chapter Seven

Katherine woke slowly beneath the soft, flowered covers of her four-poster bed, blinking in the hazy morning light. She was somewhat surprised that her chambermaids were nowhere to be seen—surprised, and perhaps disappointed as well.

She did not really understand it, did not dare to analyze the ramifications of her confused feelings. She knew only that something seemed to have changed. The disturbance made her feel just the faintest bit uncomfortable.

Yet, as her unfocused eyes cleared gradually, Katherine came to realize that one of the girls was, indeed, standing right beside her great canopied bed. The maid’s back was turned, however, and apparently she had not heard Katherine wake. As Katherine watched, the girl seemed to be looking at the floor.

“Oh, you naughty little stain!” came the playful, accented voice, softly enough that it would not have wakened Katherine had she still been sleeping. Delighted, she heard pretty lips cup and caress vowels in that curious way which only the French language seemed to necessitate, as if to be truly French one must have a mouth already predisposed to sensuality. “Celeste must clean you off before the mademoiselle rises.”

That was Celeste, then. And, as she listened, Katherine’s ears could just make out the sounds of Marie polishing and scrubbing in the washroom. How sweet that her diligent Frenchwomen wanted everything to be perfect for their beloved young mistress, she thought.

Celeste bent over at the waist to clean the stain from the carpet…and the flouncy black taffeta skirt of her old-fashioned maid’s uniform rode up over her shapely hips, baring her naked bottom. She wore no panties. Katherine held her breath. Those warm, succulent cheeks were so close to her burning face—

Obviously the girl did not realize Katherine was awake. Yet this—this could not go on. Katherine almost thought to clear her throat politely, but stopped herself. That would only embarrass poor Celeste—and herself as well. She decided it was better to feign sleep, thinking she would begin to yawn and stretch as soon as the girl straightened.

Yet Celeste did not straighten. Katherine frowned at the pale, alluring flesh before her. Those naked cheeks wiggled as the girl’s hands scrubbed at something on the carpet. Her legs were wrapped in sheer black stockings whose old-fashioned rear seams accentuated the sensuous curves of rounded calves and silken thighs. The seductive garter belt framed her creamy bottom most naughtily, making the warm mounds of another girl’s soft flesh seem handfuls to be cupped and fondled.

The skin above her stocking tops was satiny smooth, almost irresistibly tempting to stroke and feel. Where those shapely legs met beneath the soft buttocks, a thick tuft of dense black hair protruded. Katherine could not help staring, hypnotized by an intimate beauty both forbidden and restlessly enticing. Try as she might, she simply could not force her wandering eyes to close on this most alluring of sights.

Celeste bent over a little more, and something dark and furry looked out from under the rounded cheeks of her naked bottom. Nestled between the flesh of her thighs, the girl’s cunt looked soft and warm, almost inviting to the touch of curious dry fingertips. Katherine tried to stop the thought. She knew she should not even be looking at another woman, let alone…thinking things like that. But she could not help it.

As Celeste worked so diligently, unaware of her mistress’s wakefulness, Katherine found herself growing aroused. She could not explain the sudden, wordless feelings within the trembling pit of her hungry belly. She knew only that somehow, despite her best intentions, she was growing very horny. She was restless inside.

Katherine’s teeth bit uncertainly into the soft pink flesh of her full lower lip. No matter what erotica she had perused, no matter how she had spied on the cook and the butler, no matter what she had let herself do with Inge, she had never really thought of another woman’s body as itself an object of desire. Never had she set out to be tempted and excited by another woman. Her arousal had always stemmed from some other, natural sexual stimulus.

Yet the shamefaced Katherine now could scarcely deny the evidence of her own flesh. Still Celeste, exposed and alluring, worked beside her great canopied bed. Still Marie cleaned in the bathroom. It was dangerous, but she did not have much time. Katherine knew it was wrong, but it would feel so good. Slowly she let her hand slide down her naked belly—softly, quietly. She dared not make a sound. Her nails combed through a thatch of auburn curls already beginning to sweat, and her fingertips reached secretly for satiny folds slick with ready moisture. Yes, this was what she needed.

Katherine began to masturbate silently, her half-lidded eyes locked on the pretty nakedness of the girl displayed so provocatively before her. As she stroked her eager digits about a taut pearl of responsive pink flesh, it was all too easy to imagine…other things. She could not acknowledge her feelings, but she could not ignore them; and all the while she prodded the bud of ecstasies between the tender, open portals of the flower of her femininity, she longed wordlessly to touch the soft nest of sensuality so close before her face.

Katherine fingered herself blissfully, imagining with what innocent joy she might reach out her languid hand and run her fingertips across the ripe, opening nether lips of her servant—knowing she could never do it. Yet she could not stop the thought, the wicked fantasy of spreading the dense black fur and parting those sodden folds of velvet with the fingers of one reverent hand, opening up the girl to stare right into her desirable body, to see her gleaming pink and sticky inside.

If she could, she would then extend the trembling forefinger of her other hand. With what gentle innocence might Katherine explore that slippery garden of nakedness? The thought was heavenly—and the faint cloying musk of Celeste’s most secret places reached Katherine’s nostrils, inflaming her desires further. How the sensitive tip of her questing index finger might probe and swirl between those fragrant, pouting lips, stroking the girl intimately.

Katherine’s mouth watered with desire. She imagined what it would be like to push her face even closer, to see inside of her and to smell inside of her, too, wet hair brushing her flushed cheeks. Her fingertips would find a taut pearly mound hiding near the top of those fleshy lips, and soon, taking pity on the girl who writhed under her tantalizing explorations, Katherine might stroke her there at the responsive core of her innermost being. The girl’s back would arch in convulsive ecstasy, and her pretty mouth would open in a scream of passion—

Katherine would have liked to have taken her time, to really revel in the naughty sensations, yet she dared not. At any moment, she knew, the girl might straighten out and turn or her sister might step back into the bedroom. There was no time for finesse now, no time for the tender lovemaking whose subtle teasings could ultimately make her shriek in deliciously delayed delight. No, when discovery threatened at every second, only the dirtiest, most direct act could satisfy her reckless need.

Katherine placed her lubrication-slicked fingers against her throbbing clit and frigged herself off mercilessly. Her mouth opened as the thick spasms of nirvana began to pulse through her fevered limbs, and she struggled to keep herself from gasping aloud. The naked pussy of her servant hung bare centimeters from her lips, soft folds parted ever so slightly. She was sticky inside, Katherine saw, and fragrant with moist femininity. What heaven it would be to lean forward slowly…

She bit her full lower lip to stop herself from crying out. A heavy, syrupy joy welled up from the very center of her being, and Katherine struggled to keep her quivering body from thrashing about beneath the covers. It felt so deliciously good, but she dared not make a sound. She climaxed as silently as possible, scarce believing it really was quiet enough, but praying desperately that somehow the wench would stay bent over and occupied for just another few seconds— Her ripe, moist cunt was so gloriously beautiful.

Finally, her face red and shining with perspiration, Katherine closed her eyes and let her head slump deeper into the pillow. She was completely fulfilled. Still the heavenly vision swam teasingly behind her eyelids.

All too soon, she heard a rustling of crinkly fabric. The cleaning was done, and the pair stepped up to her bed. She stirred fitfully as if awakening from a sound sleep. She rolled onto her back and slowly opened her eyes.

“Good morning, mademoiselle,” her chambermaids chorused, smiling politely down at her. Their coy eyes were enigmatic.

“Good morning,” Katherine murmured.

***

Early that evening Katherine sat in the great dining hall, absently watching the lengthening rays of the sun stroke the soft surfaces of the room’s ancient tapestries. Slowly chewing one of the last delicious bites of her rare filet mignon, she let her eyes roam the wall hangings. Beneath the colorful scenes of feudalism lurked other, more primitive acts. She shifted her hips in the ornately carved chair—a throne, almost, with its strange U-shaped seat.

Vaclav entered, and she sat up with a guilty start. He brought Katherine three or four chilled after-dinner mints on a silver platter, along with a tall glass of milk.

“Inge thought it would complete the mistress’s meal to perfection,” the butler rumbled indulgently as he cleared away the dirty dishes.

“Thank you.” Katherine smiled. She waited until Vaclav left, then put one of the mints on her tongue and let it slowly dissolve. The taste was cool and delicious. As she relished the flavor, her eye came to rest on the glass of milk.

There was no condensation on the fine cut crystal!

Katherine thought suddenly of the cook, and her breath caught in her throat. Since Inge had visited her in her bedroom that night, Katherine had found herself running into the woman two or three times a week. And whenever their paths happened to cross in a deserted corridor of the castle, it seemed, Inge just happened to be lactating. Katherine could scarcely avoid aiding the beautiful cook, for anything less would be thoughtless and unkind. The mistress must always think of the welfare of her loyal servants.

As long as no one else was around, it was not really much of a chore for Katherine to fondle the blonde’s big breasts out of her bodice and relieve the pressures which plagued her. And if while Katherine sucked the sweet mother’s milk from those great crinkled nipples into her hungry throat, Inge gratefully reached down between her mistress’s loosening thighs and masturbated her in return…what could be more natural?

She reached out slowly and felt the glass warm under her fingertips. She began to pick it up hesitantly—

Just then Marie and Celeste entered. “Pardon, mademoiselle,” Marie said.

“What is it, Marie?” Katherine asked with some hesitation. She turned to see the dark-haired beauties in the wide doorway.

“Some dusting, mademoiselle,” Marie replied apologetically, yet with a hint of an impudent smile. She held up a dust cloth, while her sister smiled silent and dark-eyed behind an improbable-looking duster of ostrich feathers. “I am afraid that we still have some cleaning to do in the dining hall today. We do hate to disturb the mademoiselle’s after-dinner milk…”

“No, not at all.” Katherine’s face was hot as she nodded for them to begin.

“Thank you, mademoiselle,” they chorused and began dusting the great room.

Katherine set down the milk quickly and began to reach for another mint. While Marie worked along the walls, Celeste started to dust the long table and many high-backed chairs with her great feather duster. Katherine fidgeted, but Celeste was ignoring her politely. Nevertheless, it was difficult to sit there as the girl flourished the big plumed duster, up and down, back and forth. Slowly Celeste moved from the far end of the table toward Katherine, then away again down the opposite side. Finally, silently, she got down on her hands and knees and commenced dusting the legs of the tables and chairs.

Katherine dabbed the napkin to her lips uncomfortably, out of the corner of her eye watching Marie mill about the great room with her busy dust cloth. Perhaps it was simply her imagination, but sometimes the girl almost seemed to be watching her as well. She tried to occupy herself with unwrapping her mint. Yet now she was thirsty as well.

Lips pursed, Katherine reached for the glass of milk…and she saw Marie smiling faintly. Slowly, Katherine brought the glass to her lips. Self-consciously, she tipped the rim of the glass to her tingling lips and let a warm, sweet mouthful of milk course across her tongue and down her throat. Marie watched Katherine as she swallowed purposefully, relishing the warm, liquid, wicked sensation. The chambermaid almost seemed to nod; then she turned away purposefully.

Suddenly Katherine jumped as something brushed her bare ankle.

“Pardon, mademoiselle!” Celeste exclaimed, out of sight beneath the broad table. “I am dusting off mademoiselle’s throne.”

“Would you like me to move?” Katherine asked, grateful for the opportunity to leave gracefully. It was one thing to lie in her room, eyes closed and body trembling—but it was quite another to sit out here in the open while they fluttered around so provocatively. She tried to look down, but the great expanse of the table and the sweep of her flowing skirt impeded her view of the girl.

“Oh, no, Mademoiselle Katherine!” came the girl’s surprised voice. “Do not ever think that the mademoiselle must move for Celeste! Please continue your dinner, and I shall work around you.”

“Very well.” Katherine frowned and stared straight ahead. “Thank you.” She resumed unwrapping the expensive chocolate mint, but every now and then the maid’s duster chanced to brush against the naked flesh of her lower leg. Though she ignored it as best she could, the sensation sent chills along her body. She attempted to move her leg quietly out of the way, but she found she could not predict where the tickling instrument would next fall. Celeste seemed to be dusting almost at random.

Katherine tried to ignore it. The touches, however, began coming with increasing frequency. The soft feathers danced lightly across her ankles, her rounded calves, sometimes even the tender skin behind her knees. The pressures were faint, unobtrusive, slightly tickling—but they made her belly feel fluttery inside. She found she could not avoid them as Celeste, in front of her and under the table, worked the duster beneath the recesses of her ornately carved chair.

Though she wriggled inwardly, Katherine was careful to show no outward sign of her discomfiture. The hair on the backs of her arms prickled as the teasing feathers traveled innocently over polished wood and sensitive flesh alike. Her body felt warm and vulnerable beneath her clothing.

Yet gradually Katherine came to realize that something was wrong—very wrong. Celeste seemed to be taking such a long time to dust beneath her chair—and now the soft feathers began to move higher, purposefully up under her skirt and onto the trembling flesh of her naked white thighs. Biting her lip, she looked across the room to Marie, but the girl merely smiled enigmatically, then averted her gaze politely.

Despite herself, Katherine felt the muscles of her rounded thighs loosen. Her legs opened wider almost imperceptibly. The tantalizing feathers seemed to sense her wavering uncertainty, and as if in response they moved more boldly. Her legs rested on the strange branches of the U-shaped seat, while the duster, unchallenged, drifted familiarly into the open space between. Dry feathers danced swirling across warm flesh which found it could no longer easily shrink from such caresses. Katherine’s face felt hot.

Her breath caught in her throat as she felt something else move slowly up under her flowing skirt. The loose fabric billowed out easily as a much larger mass rose more quietly between the branches of the throne’s U-shaped seat. The overhanging table mercifully kept Katherine from seeing anything—but she could hardly deny the evidence of her other senses. There was no mistaking the way her skirt gradually rose from her thighs, the soft feeling of hair brushing lightly between her knees…the breath, ever so faint, which the reeling twenty-year-old dared not admit to herself she could now feel on the opening petals of her moistening crotch.

Her heart hammering beneath her stiff-nippled breasts, Katherine waited uncertainly. Her young body quivered with an uneasy, nameless dread. She looked wildly around, but she could see no escape, no way to leave without admitting what was happening.

Katherine felt herself trapped by the situation unfolding inexorably around her—and by her own shadowy desires as well, for she was no longer even sure that she wanted to leave. She knew not what it meant, but something kept her from screaming and running from the terrible scene. She scarcely understood herself. Marie eyed her knowingly again from across the large room and looked away pointedly.

Then Katherine felt something nose gently around the secret warmth of her vulnerable womanhood. It brushed lightly against the moist chestnut tangles between her open thighs, and she almost thought her ears caught the faint sound of a slow intake of breath. She shivered as she felt warm lips nibbling at the soft skin of her upper thigh, licking and sucking at the smooth flesh. The agonizingly erotic sensation made her shamefully wet inside.

A nose pushed slyly into the lush auburn fur below Katherine’s trembling belly. Fingertips reached into her and spread her wet, hairy lips purposefully, exposing her most intimate nakedness. She felt breathing there, soft and slow.

Blushing, Katherine knew that wanton eyes must be staring right into her. She knew it was wrong…but it just felt so good to let someone do that to her. And, though she understood it only on a primitive subconscious level, it was powerfully exciting to think that someone would want to do that. It made her feel so recklessly free that she hardly cared how dirty it was. Her quivering young body craved…more.

Then someone lightly kissed the salty pink nub which waited there in its moist crevice, and she could not help but sigh aloud. This was it, she realized dizzily. A grateful feeling of utter contentment rippled through her, warm and shockingly erotic. This was the delight which somehow, instinctively, she had sought. Yet she had not known it could be like this…

She let her eyes slide closed as a mouth opened and sucked the soft morsel of flesh tenderly between caring lips. The sensation was heavenly, better than any pleasures she had ever been able to give herself. Her very center of bliss was engulfed by the selfless, worshipful lips of another, stimulated from all sides. This was how it should be.

Katherine moaned as that warm mouth traveled up and down the open flower of her womanhood. A tongue lapped unashamedly over her sensitive skin, outside and in, and she felt her body respond eagerly. The skillful tongue lashed dizzyingly against a throbbing bud where nerve endings clustered deliciously. It darted daringly right between her slick pint petals and lapped inside of her.

Strong slim hands slipped possessively beneath her and began fondling her buttocks while that wantonly slurping mouth reveled in her slick, sticky pink flesh. It was tremendously arousing to know that somewhere down under the table a pretty face wallowed shamelessly in her open crotch, flushed cheeks slippery with her lubrication. Loving lips and tongue explored naked wetness, nursing on sensitive feminine flesh whose jangling nerves made her writhe in uncontrollable delight.

Her womanhood throbbed, and she felt deliriously light-headed. Her body responded naturally to the intimate attentions a knowing mouth placed upon shameless, hairy lips which no longer knew how to resist. It felt so right.

Then other hands began working at the laces of her bodice, and she felt another pair of lips nursing sensually at the nape of her neck, and the erogenous flesh behind her ears. She writhed ecstatically, soon feeling fingers upon her burning nipples, fingers that pulled and pinched and plucked and twisted, sending powerful erotic shocks straight to her agonized vulva. Marie knew just what to do. Katherine whimpered in delight.

Katherine jumped as she felt warm milk from her glass splash between her breasts felt smooth palms rubbing the sweetness into her achingly still nipples. The girl cupped her high mounds eagerly, squeezing as appreciatively as any boy might. It excited Katherine powerfully to think that Marie enjoyed it, too.

Then there was another splash, more this time, and the sweet milk ran down her chest and flat young belly. It felt good to be as wet on the outside as she was on the inside. The waistband of her skirt was quickly lifted out of the way, and Katherine felt the liquid rolling down her abdomen, trickling through the dense auburn thatch of her pubic bush.

She felt the creamy wetness soak right down to her open pussy, gasped as she felt tongue and lips cup the milk against her spasming clitoris, cried aloud as the agile tongue eagerly lapped up the sweet, salty mixture of milk and lubrication.

It was the very thought of that dirty, intimate, loving act which finally pushed Katherine’s heaving body over the brink. Yes, there were the delicious physical pressures of lips and tongue against clitoris, relentless fingertips on nipples, soft mouth on the nape of the neck. But, finally, it was the thought of that shameless girl lapping the thick creamy juices right out of her sopping cunt, drinking thirstily from the smooth pink chalice of her exposed, naked womanhood.

At last Katherine threw her head back and cried out. Her hips began bucking and her hands suddenly flashed beneath the table to grab instinctively at an unseen head, grasp soft tresses through the loose fabric of her skirt, and press the willing mouth deeper into a vulva which pulsed ecstatically under the wanton pressures of uninhibited, slurping lips and tongue.

Katherine gasped in wild breathless ecstasy as the pretty young Frenchwomen stimulated her so worshipfully. The full, honey-rich waves of a deliriously fulfilling climax rolled inexorably outward from the open core of her very sexuality, through belly and thighs, through puckered nipples, through shaking calves and forearms, even through the fingers that held their sweet tormentor so relentlessly, so lovingly. On and on her shameless pleasures drove her.

Gradually, gradually, her breathing slowed. Somewhere beneath the table, the tender licking grew soft and faint, finally ceased altogether. Katherine felt a kiss there, then a cool draft as something ducked out of her skirt.

Katherine let her eyes stay closed for a moment. Her breathing slowed, and she felt the linen napkin rub quickly over her torso, drying her. She waited as quick fingers laced up her bodice and smoothed it down.

At last Katherine opened her eyes. Marie, standing behind her, brushed a wisp of chestnut hair from her mistress’s face. “I believe our work here is done now, mademoiselle,” she said, her lips close to Katherine’s ear. Katherine’s skin there still tingled from the exquisite fluttering of the girl’s tongue. “Do you approve?”

Katherine saw Celeste smoothing out the black taffeta of her old-fashioned maid’s attire. Her face was flushed. Her red lips were moist and glossy. Katherine shuddered as the girl licked them off slowly, her half-lidded gaze never leaving Katherine’s face. The girl smiled with sweet devotion.

“Very nice, girls,” Katherine whispered. She nodded at the silver tray on the table before her. “May I offer you a mint?”

“Thank you, mademoiselle,” Marie and Celeste chorused. Each placed a mint upon her tongue and took it slowly into her mouth. Katherine watched their pretty cheeks as they chewed and swallowed.

“That will be all,” Katherine said softly.

“Thank you, mademoiselle,” they replied. Then they curtsied and left.

Her nerves still ringing, Katherine moved unsteadily through the castle. She needed a walk to clear her head. She could scarcely believe what had happened. No matter what those alluring beauties had done before, this was somehow different.

Katherine tried to analyze her reactions, tried to understand herself, but she was still too emotional. After so unreservedly giving herself up to the tender ministrations of her affectionate little chambermaids, she could hardly think straight. Nothing seemed to make sense.

She tried to convince herself that what she had just allowed to happen in the dining hall was really little different from what she had already come to accept from her girls. After all, she let them touch her every day, let them do things to her body that barely a month before would have been but the wickedest fantasies.

Katherine had always been responsive to the needs of her maturing sexuality. She knew how to pleasure herself, how to make her body feel wild and glowing and alive. For years she had done it freely. And to let those girls touch her every morning, stroke her naughtily between her shamelessly spread thighs until she cried out helplessly while they watched her naked body in delight. Well, perhaps that was innocent enough.

Maybe everyone said you weren’t supposed to do things like that, but what was the harm? Katherine knew there was none. If she was aroused, and Marie and Celeste wanted to take care of her, why should she not let them? She still liked boys, but…another girl would not get her pregnant or give her a disease or break her heart. And, she had discovered, their knowing caresses just felt so good. There was no denying it.

And somehow it seemed doubly arousing to be naked in their gaze, to writhe, sweaty and gasping, while hungry eyes roamed her body. It was tremendously exciting to know in that most intimate and vulnerable moment as you climaxed that someone was watching you—smiling, stroking, caring. That was the ultimate in eroticism and self-expression, it seemed: to lie exposed and unashamed, beautiful with bliss, knowing that heavy-lidded eyes craved to watch you, that every spasm of your uncontrollable delight inflamed the desires of the wicked girls who fondled your nakedness.

Katherine shivered just to think of it. And yet somehow the idea of another girl—well, sucking her down there—was different. Intellectually she knew it should not be. But it was hard to see that act as mere experimentation, something as innocent as using this hand or that, trying a new stroke, looking at a different erotic magazine. This was something very purposeful, something lesbians did. It seemed so much dirtier, so much more forbidden. Hesitantly Katherine wondered if that made it even better.

What Celeste had done was more than just touching her. It was so much more personal—not merely her fingertips stroking and prodding, but using the very lips and tongue of her pretty face. Yet to see another girl’s face as a source of erotic pleasure was somehow—unthinkable. Though she might let the chambermaids masturbate her, Katherine would never think of pressing her open lips to theirs and letting her tongue swirl inside. No, that was only for a boy. No matter what dirty things others did to her, a kiss was different.

What Celeste had done was a kind of a kiss. The girl must have been powerfully aroused, Katherine realized slowly. There was no other way she could have done it. You simply could not do that kind of thing if unless you really wanted to. You could not make yourself…lick another girl there unless you craved to pleasure her more than anything else. You had to put aside all your inhibitions and give yourself up to the naughty delights of reveling in responsive pink flesh.

Celeste had put her face down there and gazed upon Katherine’s most secret, sensitive place. She had smelled her mistress, had tasted her. There was nothing more intimate. The girl herself had loved it so much that she had buried her face in Katherine’s lubrication-slicked pussy and wallowed sloppily in it, thrusting her tongue right up inside Katherine’s body. She had felt Katherine’s clitoris spasm within her shameless mouth.

Katherine’s face felt warm. Her pulse pounded. Though the act was so much more personal and intimate, perhaps it was really not so much different from what she had already accepted. She tried to reassure herself with that thought. It was different in degree, not in principle. And she certainly had not initiated it. If something like that were to happen again—she did not know how she might respond.

Katherine looked around. She had reached a part of the castle she had not seen before, a long hallway stretching ahead toward a heavy door. She kept walking.

When she tried the door, it cracked open onto darkness. Startled, she groped for a light switch, and clicked it on. The electric bulbs revealed curving stone steps which led below ground. She hesitated. Then, curious, she went down.

The corridor below was windowless, illuminated by dim incandescent bulbs hanging at rather long intervals from the stone ceiling. Air circulated from vents cut into the ancient dark stonework, chilling her. Suddenly she was covered with goose pimples. There was nothing here, she decided. It was apparently a dead end, some building project begun and abandoned centuries ago. She was about to turn back. Yet clearly the air conditioning was new.

Katherine could just make out another door at the end of the hallway. Probably it was simply a storeroom or something like that. Still, as long as she was down here, she might as well take a look. She headed toward the door.

She pulled on the rusty handle, and the great mass of iron-banded oak swung outward. But Katherine could find no light switch. She shivered and peered into the gloom. Her eyes had adjusted to the dimness of the corridor, and with the light of those weak bulbs shining in from behind her, she could see a little.

Although there seemed to be no electric light, the walls of the chamber were adorned with unlit torches. They had been freshened recently, for her nose picked up the tarry smell. Many of the castle’s less-frequented areas were equipped like this, but it seemed strange to have electricity in a hallway, yet not in its only room. She kept looking.

However, nothing made sense. In the center of the room was a ring of black iron bolted into the rough stone floor. Along the walls lay heaps of…something—dark pillows and rolled-up rugs, it seemed. There was some sort of strange, skeletal couch made of strips of metal which gleamed vaguely. In one dark corner stood an object which almost looked like the sarcophagus of an Egyptian mummy, or perhaps an iron maiden, she realized slowly. One wall was hung with shadowy implements she could not quite make out. Were some of those things—whips?

Katherine’s body gave a convulsive shudder. What was this strange room? The tapestries, the library—these things she understood. Yet this place was confusing and strange, dark and almost frightening. What kind of man had her ancient relative been that he maintained such an underground chamber?

She bit her lip uncertainly. Then, frowning, she pushed the heavy door closed and headed back the way she had come.