Lady Ann's Holiday: Chapter Twenty Nine - Part Four

7

The power of the pendant wiped out all ordered and conscious thought in Burt’s mind, sending him staggering back, gripping it tightly.

He banged up against the mirrored wall then fell forward, crumpling to his knees.

But Burt didn’t even know this, didn’t feel the impact on his back or legs. The connection with the pendant had wiped his awareness clean, blanking out every sense he had and electrifying him with pulse after pulse of mystical energy.

He let out a long groan, falling onto his side, half curled, tightening the curve of his spine until his knees almost touched his chin.

A shudder passed through him, then another one, then he sprawled over and onto his back and fell still.

Inside his skull his brain sparked and went dark then sparked again.

For several moments nothing at all registered in his mind, then Burt’s eyes flicked open and he knew exactly what had happened to him.

Just as the pendant had communicated to him somehow with his first contact weeks earlier by the stream, it had done so again, not in any kind of language but instead by… By… simply inserting the knowledge inside his memories as though it had always been there.

He sat up and rubbed his head, testing with his thoughts if it was right, but it certainly felt like it was.

The pendant had done something to him. It had done it without anyone else even needing to be present.

It had completed its work – finalizing the change that it had initially set out to do.

He understood now. He knew how it worked: the magic.

The initial contact – the original embrace that had affected the body swap: that had begun the process, allowing the gradual transformation of body and mind to take place.

Over that time the rate of metamorphosis had been controllable, as he had seen, by the application of focused thought and desire. That had been how he had managed to encourage the change in dialect; the fall in intelligence; the gradual assumption of memories and low-born manners.

Burt shuddered again to think of how foolish he’d been to choose to take on more and more traits of the ignorant clodhopper he had become.

Now, touching the pendant again. That had sealed the transformation, preventing any further shift. That was how it worked. The gradual transformation had now been stopped from progressing further.

Who he was at that moment was who he was going to stay. Unless another use of the pendant was initiated to make a new swap.

That meant there was no longer any risk of him forgetting who he had used to be but it also meant that he really was Burt now – this even less intelligent Burt. The memories he had now; almost overwhelmingly Burt’s; were what he was stuck with. Any further shift would not happen. Unless the pendant was used again, those Ann memories and mannerisms were forever beyond his grasp.

He really was nothing more than Burt now. There was no ongoing mystical process. He was just an ordinary, flesh and blood labourer with no manners, a Yorkshire accent and only very limited intelligence.

He put his head in his hands, almost ready to weep from the stress of this realization.

But it didn’t matter, he told himself now. He had already got more than he’d aimed for. He’d protected himself from forgetting who he was. And he had the pendant. All he had to do was get safely out of the manor and then keep hold of it until he could use it to get his life back.

But it was as that precise moment, as he climbed to his feet, that the door pushed further open and standing there glaring at him was Lady Harriet.

Lady Harriet. And she was looking with scorn from his face to his hand and back again. And she’d seen the pendant.

She knew exactly what he’d done and what he’d taken and she’d caught him in Lady Ann’s room, the clothes and underwear riffled through, the lock on the drawer splintered and this piece of exotic jewelry in his hand.

8

Lady Ann Neville heard the man coming and shuffled her body closer to the corner, wishing for the thousandth time that she could get free.

Her hands were still tied cruelly tightly at the small of her back. Her mouth was still gagged with that disgusting stinking oily strip of rag. No one had come to save her. She was alone.

The door to the little room that was her cell opened slowly. Ann let out a tiny moan when she saw the tall man, Blake, standing there, watching her without a word.

She turned her face away from him but the anguish of not seeing what he was doing was even worse. The moment she heard his footfalls coming closer she jerked her head back round in fright, eyes bulging in their sockets as she strained to look up at his face.

He went down into a squat, hands resting limply on his knees, just watching her. Then he turned his mouth up into a slow and sinister smile. “We’ve made the demand for ransom. It’s only a matter of time now.”

She tried to speak but the gag trapped the words she was attempting to form, muffling out the consonants and leaving only vowels.

“I’m going to miss having you here,” said Blake; “miss being able to look at you whenever I want to.” He touched her exposed ankle, making her jerk and ran a pointed index finger up her leg, brushing back her skirt as he did so. Tears came to Ann’s eyes as he exposed her leg up as far as the knee, but there, he paused. “A fancy lady like you. Men like me don’t often get the chance for a really good look. Now that’s ardly fair, is it, eh?”

Ann’s eyes couldn’t have gaped open any further. She couldn’t blink. She couldn’t move. Why had she let herself end up like this? Why hadn’t she become a man again when she had the chance?

Blake pulled the skirt further up her thigh, exposing more and more of her flesh and Ann saw the other men now, lurking just beyond the doorway… watching.

“I’ve always wanted to get me a posh lady friend,” said Blake, the leer evident in his tone of voice. “Always thought I deserved one.” The skirt had still been concealing most of her other leg but that pulled free now, exposing both legs to all the men.

And still Ann couldn’t move.

“But workin men don’t get the pleasure of fancy ladies like yerself,” said Blake. “We ave to put up with the dross wot’s left over.”

Both legs were uncovered up as far as her buttocks and now finally, Ann gave a violent shudder of panic and dread.

Blake sneered. “But not anymore, eh? Now I’ve got a fancy lady all me own and I can do wiv her whatever I want.”

One of the other men chuckled. Blake reached for the open front of Ann’s dress at the chest. Another little cry came from her covered lips as he took hold of the fabric there, then Blake whipped his hand back tearing the front of the dress down to the waist.

Ann yelped in alarm and then started to sob. And Blake slipped his big callused fingers onto the soft skin above her exposed right breast and stroked up to the shoulder.

“You’re beautiful,” said Blake. “You know that don’t you?”