Dark Shadows (The Mercy Carver Series Book 1) Read online

  Mercy nodded.

  Chapter Fourteen

  After her ordeal, Mercy tried to shut out her surroundings and the terrible scenes unfolding before her eyes. She was witnessing pure evil for the first time in her life and was being crushed by the growing crescendo of anguished moans and screams coming from her fellow captives. She was glad she’d been the first. She had not been subjected to the terrible dread inflicted on the other girls’ minds as they waited for their turns to be poked like a pregnant cow.

  Mercy’s eyes were dry. A lack of sensation had settled in her mind, casting aside her reality, which had become too much to bear.

  Julia, standing beside her, screamed so loudly at the madam’s poking that the horses whinnied and reared up in their stalls. Girls began to scatter in fright. Some went fleeing into empty stalls, cowering in corners. One girl lay on the ground, calling out in a pitiful voice for her mother. Mercy was compelled to watch the scene, yet she still felt strangely detached from it all – and, for the moment, defeated.

  One by one, the girls were dragged back to the line, pulled by their hair. Those who deemed it better to surrender hung their heads and walked back to wait for the inevitable in silence. Eventually, order was restored.

  A few minutes later, Mercy snapped out of her stupor. The madam was screaming obscenities, slapping a girl across the head, left to right and right to left, over and over. The smacking resonated around the stable. “Whore! You’re nothing but a bloody whore!”

  The girl shook her head, denying the claim, but the madam continued to hit her.

  “You’re no virgin. Don’t you dare try to tell me you are with your haughty, snotty denials. Do you think I don’t know the difference? I can feel your used cunt with my finger! You’re as wide as the bloody River Mersey. You’ve had more than a few men float up and down that hole of yours. Do you know what I do with girls like you? I give them to the very worst of my customers, those that like giving it rough. I might even let my men here have a poke at you. That’s what I do with well-used girls I pay good money for. What’s your name?”

  “Annabelle Fellows.”

  The madam turned to Sam and Eddie and smiled. “Sam, Annabelle here is yours tonight, if you’re not too tired. Take her and show her how we deal with young ladies who go about pretending to the whole bloody world that they’re innocent virgins.”

  Finally, after what seemed like hours, the madam gave permission for the girls to cover up their bodies with the shifts that were still lying at their feet. She was quiet and pensive as she watched them. Then she spoke again. “Right, you lot. I am Madame du Pont. You will call me madam. You will curtsy whenever you see me. Is this understood?”

  “Yes, madam,” a chorus of voices said in unison.

  She continued. “I don’t ever want to see a repeat of what’s gone on here today, cos me having to bruise your pretty faces is not good for my business. I’ve invested a lot of money in you, and I need you looking good, so you’ll get some rest now. You’ll eat and you’ll sleep for the next couple of days, and you’ll stay put until your bruises fade. And just so you know, you’re not in London anymore. You’re in Liverpool, way up north. Your mamas and papas will never find you here, so don’t go thinking for a minute that they will. You won’t be getting rescued, not one of you. No one in London knows you’re alive. You’re all dead to the world, and that makes you mine. You’re my property. I paid good money to get you here, and you’ll be paying me back until I’ve finished with you. That’ll be when I believe you’ve passed your prime years for fucking my gentlemen callers.”

  She stopped talking and allowed the girls to gasp at the words she had just spoken.

  “That’s right; I said fucking men. You’ll do my bidding or pay the price for defying me. Now, a couple of you are already whores, as slack as well-fucked breeding cows. That means you’ve lost me some money already, and I don’t like to lose money. You’ll be working harder than the others to make up for the loss. You seem to like being fucked, so you’ll get plenty of it.

  “And another thing: I don’t care what you call yourselves. I don’t care about your family name, how wealthy your family is, or where you came from. I don’t even care if you’re related to the bloody queen. You’re my whores now. Whores to service men in any way they deem fit. You’ll take it up the cunt or up the arse for all I care, and you’ll have a smile on your face cos you will pretend you’re enjoying it.”

  She stopped and grabbed Mercy by the hair, parading her up and down the line as she spoke. “There’ll be no telling the gents about yourselves or about where you came from. You’ll be telling them that you love being fucked and asking for more. There will be no trying to run away. It’ll go bad for you, and you’ll get much worse than Miss Mercy Carver here. You’ll be battered to a pulp and left to heal until you get back to work again. Remember this: if you don’t fuck, you don’t eat.”

  All the girls were crying. Madame du Pont seemed pleased with this response. She pushed Mercy back into line. “Aww, stop your bloody sniffing, the lot of you. You’ll find worse out there on the city streets than inside this house. Girls like you wouldn’t last five minutes without my protection.”

  The madam paused for a second and looked again at the shocked, tearful faces. She smiled, appearing satisfied with the girls’ terrified response. “You’ve all got a couple of weeks to learn what you need to know about being a good whore and a pleasant hostess. You’ll take your orders from Parker here, who’ll spruce you up nicely for when the time comes for your opening night. By then, you better be bloody eager for it, or else. Remember, if you try to run, speak out of turn, or tell on me to the clients, I’ll cut your bloody feet off and boil them for the dogs to eat. Don’t think I won’t.”

  She stopped lecturing and turned to the head servant. “Parker, get these girls fed, watered, and bedded down. Make sure you lock up properly.”

  With this, Madame du Pont turned on her heel and clip-clopped back up the couple of steps to the door, with Sam and Eddie following meekly behind.

  Downstairs in the dimly lit room, each girl claimed a mattress on the floor. Mercy grabbed Julia’s hand and gently guided her to the mattress next to her own, covering her with a blanket when she was settled.

  Food came soon after: a hot stew with plenty of meat and potatoes. The servants carried the luscious-smelling fare in steel buckets. Each girl received a bowl and spoon, along with a slice of fresh bread.

  Mercy tried to coax Julia to eat. After three attempts, she realised that Julia was not conscious of the food, her surroundings, or what was going on at all.

  After she’d finished eating, Mercy cast her eyes around the room.

  Disbelief and shock were etched on the faces of young upper-class ladies who had heard the word whore over and over again. There were no more unanswered questions for any of them. Their futures had been spelled out clearly. They would, for as long as they were useful, open their legs and be mauled, squeezed, poked, and prodded by men of any size, shape, or age. They would succumb to humiliation night after night. Their vaginas would be used not by aristocratic or well-to-do husbands but by any man who paid Madame du Pont money for the pleasure of it.

  She looked at Julia’s sleeping face for a moment and made her decision: She wouldn’t kill herself as her father had. She would escape, and when she did, she would take Julia with her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Liverpool, 1860

  Madame du Pont, real name Margaret Mallory, finally found the time she needed to get herself nice and relaxed and ready for the evening to come. She had been busier than usual these past couple of weeks, overseeing the inclusion of the new girls downstairs and sorting out the experienced ones upstairs.

  She had made arrangements for tantalising foods, fine wines, whiskies, cigars, and champagne to be ordered for today. She was exhausted. She’d packed men in every night this last week. Tonight would be even busier than the past seven days and bursting at the seams, for an array
of ships had arrived from America, and the American cotton men were her favourite customers.

  She used to have so much energy, but the passage of time was catching up with her. There seemed to be fewer hours in a day, more responsibilities that she shouldered alone, and pains in her joints, which swelled to the size of apples. Thank God for opium, for without it, she just wouldn’t be able to manage.

  She flopped down on her chaise longue, her swollen feet slightly raised atop a silk cushion, and pondered for a moment. She barely had time to think nowadays, yet bothersome thoughts were never far from her mind. Everything was changing, and not for the better.

  Her establishment ran on secrecy and trust. It always had, and she’d done a bloody good job of keeping it that way, she believed, despite the never-ending possibility of betrayal.

  The local coppers that knew about her and the goings-on in her house were kept quiet with regular bribes and an odd fuck for free. But the news coming from London was not good. In the past six years, forty-eight young ladies of standing had been abducted in central London, she’d read in the newspaper. No one could possibly connect them to her here in Liverpool, of course, but nonetheless, the abduction of these girls was becoming big news.

  An organised branch of coppers from the Metropolitan Police was widening the search for the girls she had just received. Their reach extended far beyond London, and they had already concluded that all the missing girls were connected in some way.

  The latest newspapers from London also stated that suspicion was falling on a long-standing but yet unknown syndicate. She had scorned this term; she was no bloody syndicate. She was a one-woman show who had pulled this off for years without the help of any other group or mastermind. She shrugged, for what she read in the papers didn’t frighten her in the least. She was so far away from London. Her safe house in Knightsbridge was secure, and its housekeepers had never been told of the girls’ destination or who they were for.

  Her whores would never disclose anything about themselves, for she had made examples of those who had attempted to relate their stories to customers. And as for her elite clientele – well, she had enough dirt on them to destroy their lives, families, and businesses. She made it her business to vet and find weaknesses in every single member of her exclusive club, from the poker players to the whoremongers.

  Some of these so-called gents were depraved and sadistic. Most wanted virgins and youngsters. Even after these girls had been fucked for the first time, the same men came back for more, usually from the girls they’d deflowered.

  Some men had their own sexual agendas that she turned a blind eye to, as long as the girl wasn’t strangled to death. There were also clients who simply liked the atmosphere and came for the poker and the gambling. Customers came from far-off countries, and she saw them only for a few nights of the year, usually when their ships came in from the Americas, the East, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa. After a long sea voyage, they were desperate for the feel of a woman and couldn’t care less about where the girls had come from.

  Cotton men from Virginia, Georgia, Louisiana, and the Carolinas were her best customers, albeit her less frequent visitors. But she made a bundle of money during their short stays. That was the reason this particular week was so important.

  She had all these worries on her shoulders to contend with. She had no one to turn to apart from Parker, Sam, and Eddie.

  Eddie, Eddie – he held a special place in her heart by servicing her whenever she felt the need for a man between her legs. He was a great fuck and made her feel young and desirable.

  She had always loved sex since she was a child of twelve, when her uncle first introduced her to the art of being pleasured. She didn’t much care about pleasuring a man, and she had the luxury of not having to; that’s why she had the whores. No, she enjoyed lying back, feeling that wonderful sensation of being taken up into floating clouds of blinding orgasms without having to do any of the work herself. Sex, for her, was like opium. It calmed her nerves and dulled the pain of never having been loved. She had to have it often. When it was not available, she was not a happy woman.

  She opened her flabby thighs, devoid of muscle now, and stroked herself until she sighed loudly with pleasure. She could feel him inside her already. Her impatience was growing. She hated having to stroke herself, but she couldn’t wait. She’d been wet with desire all morning. Eddie, with his toned young body and handsome face, never failed her. His cock knew exactly what it had to do to please her in every way, every time. Sometimes she sucked him, but that was only when she felt like doing it, which was not that often. She didn’t mind admitting this, for Eddie was paid well enough. As far as she was concerned, he should bring all the goods to the table, giving her orgasm after orgasm until she felt in the perfect state of mind to conduct her business with an unending smile in place all night long.

  Madame du Pont unwillingly jolted her thoughts and focused now on the night ahead. She had nine girls downstairs. There should have been ten, but she’d been forced to get rid of one a couple of days ago, and she was still fuming about it. The stupid bitch’s demise had cost her money. She was not in this game to lose hard-earned coin. She forced herself to cast the dead girl from her thoughts. Nothing was going to blemish tonight’s inauguration.

  They were a fine young bunch of females in the basement. The boys had done a good job in London, although it was a shame about the ones who were not as virginal as they had appeared. It wasn’t Sam or Eddie’s fault, of course, for it was a game of chance. But she felt cheated. “Bitches,” she hissed, thinking again about the girls who had been slack. She would make sure they were used by the most brutal of her clients. They deserved to be punished. Their parents probably hadn’t chastised them, so she bloody well would!

  The new girls were looking good. They were completely different now to the bedraggled bunch brought in just two weeks ago. The bruising had gone from their bodies, and their feeble brains knew enough to comprehend that to speak out of turn meant death.

  Madame du Pont smiled. Life was good. It would continue to be good until she thought it prudent to close her establishment down, along with everyone in it. When that time came, and it wasn’t far off, she would disappear with a new name and get herself on a ship to America, where she would live like a bloody queen and indulge herself in all the extravagances life offered her. She had the means and money. She would buy a house, hire servants, seduce men who would fuck her brains out, and live the life she was meant to live in elite American society on an equal footing.

  She rolled her tired body off the chaise longue and walked to her dressing table covered with jars, pots of rouge, kohl pencils, an assortment of powders, and red paints for her lips. She sat in the velvet chair in front of the mirror and stared at her unpainted face. Her exhausted state stared back at her. The crow’s feet around her eyes, with their grey hanging bags underneath, sat on each side of a slightly hooked nose. Her round, flabby face and double chin settled on a neck that resembled a plucked chicken’s – slack but with more layers. Her priceless necklace was hidden inside the folds of her neck, invisible to the eye. It was her only childhood possession, a gift for her sixteenth birthday. It now choked her, but it was something she would never remove because of the small gold key that hung on the golden-linked chain.

  She stood, removed her red velvet dressing gown, and studied her naked body. All trace of muscle had gone, leaving flabby arms and breasts with no rise, making them hang and swing like soft bags of flour. Her arse was also flat atop her thighs that rubbed together when she moved, giving her a permanent rash as a result. Her bloody job had done this to her, she thought, not age. She worked during long hours of darkness, barely saw the sun, never took a stroll in fresh air, and could not remember the last time she had been given a moment’s peace.

  Her voluptuous form had always dazzled men. She had once been sought after by the most powerful gents in Liverpool. Some of them were long-standing patrons, using her young whores
while blind to their own aging facades.

  She still possessed the power to attract men, but she had neglected her appearance of late. She would take better care of herself when she eventually shut this place down. Plenty of rest would smooth the wrinkles and ugly bags around her eyes. Her complexion would brighten, and her muscles would tighten with brisk long walks. Parker was two years older than she was, yet she looked much, much younger. She hated having to admit this, but it was the God’s honest truth. Parker had never worked as hard. She’d been given an easy life, not like her, imprisoned by hard labour for far too long.

  She carefully removed her wig and scratched her balding head, with only a few grey strands here and there remaining. She should never have started wearing these blasted hairpieces. She used to have a perfect head of hair. She stared at the red patches and scabs standing out just above the hairline and behind her ears, where residual glue remained after the wigs were removed. These scabs hurt, but she continued to scratch at them, causing some to bleed. She couldn’t help herself. Her bloody itchy head was the bane of her life!

  She covered up and rang the bell. Her maid would appear instantly to bathe her, paint her, dress her head with her favourite blonde wig, and squeeze her into the red corset Eddie loved so much. Then she would wait for him to come fuck her before her customers arrived and work began.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jacob Stone felt the exhilaration of pride whenever he stepped aboard one of his ships. For him, it was the culmination of a year’s hard work and a pleasurable event to travel with his full load of cotton, cured tobacco, peanuts, and wheat bound for England.