Love's Savage Bonds by Jeb

nuzzling up to her as if in some ludicrous dream of their
marriage.
     
    Catherine lay in the bed, now,
helpless, bound, gagged, her snoring husband half-sprawled across her. Across
the room, she watched the guttering candle, and prayed that it was not an omen
of her own life flickering out.  

Chapter Five
     
     
    Catherine had held out the faint hope
that morning would bring some inspiration or opportunity for her to slip out
from beneath her snoring husband and effect an escape, but in the cold light of
dawn, Mrs. Williams' knots retained their ruthless efficiency. She was twice as
miserable, physically and spiritually, as she had been, waking the previous
morning a bound and gagged prisoner in Charles' small cabin. She’d alternated
between deciding to remain awake, to look for some slight chance of escape, and
trying to sleep to gather her strength, with the result that she remained too
harried and fatigued to fight her captivity.
     
    For all that, exhausted sleep finally
claimed her just before sunrise. It seemed to last but moments, though, as the
swaying of the mattress roused her into wakefulness, to find Philip gone, and
light from the window assaulting her bleary eyes.
     
    Left alone on the bed, she resumed
trying to free herself from her bonds, but her husband’s absence had done
nothing to make them any less secure, and she whimpered frustration into her
gag as Philip emerged from her small dressing room, his clothes now as stiff
and neat as he could make them after sleeping in them.
     
    "Now, good wife, let’s see about
preparing you to receive our very special visitor."
     
    From his pocket, Philip withdrew a
pen-knife, which he used to slice through the ropes holding Catherine to the
bed. Leaving her wrists still bound behind her back, he reached down, took a
fistful of her nightgown in one hand, grasped her benumbed arms with the other,
and yanked her to her feet, Catherine’s unsteady legs nearly buckling under
her.
     
    She staggered, trying to retain enough
of her dignity to frustrate him, but he just laughed, sure of his control over
her as he pushed her toward the door.
     
    The fact that he hadn't ungagged her
suggested to Catherine that he might still consider himself vulnerable to some
form of appeal from her—and, for that, she was almost glad of the gag stopping
her mouth, for she was determined that she would beg this man for
nothing.  Let him do with her as he would, he would not have the
satisfaction of seeing her crawl.
     
    Forcing her downstairs and through the
hall, Philip tightened his grip on her arm, and for an instant, she recalled
the glittering party which had been held in their honor, back in that other
lifetime barely two days ago. Then, she had easily slipped his grip. Now,
however, her bound and weakened state, and Philip's determination to have her
secrets, caused him to keep a strong, easy grip on the helpless girl, as he
smiled down at her.
     
    "I believe I shall join the
Colonel for breakfast. Are you hungry, Catherine?"
     
    The girl growled wearily into her gag
in response, and Philip laughed.
     
    "Perhaps I shall have Mrs.
Williams fetch one of the dogs' dishes. It would seem most appropriate to feed
a bitch in such a manner."
     
    Too miserable to even resent the flagrant
insult, Catherine shuffled along at her captor’s control, trying desperately
not to think of how hungry and weak she truly was.
     
    The door to the dining room stood
slightly ajar, and Philip pushed casually at it as he forced his bound and
gagged wife ahead of him. Philip was still following her through the door when
Catherine stopped short, goggling. Philip bumped into her back, took a look,
and gave tongue to their mutual astonishment.
     
    "Mrs. Williams!"
     
    Catherine's eyes  were wide over
the gag as she regarded the figure posed on a chair near the center of the
room: the buxom housekeeper was seated in a posture so erect as to be almost
unnatural-- a posture enforced by the way