Chapter 1

 

Lady Constance Graham looked excitedly from her mother to her sister.  “You mean Milly and me, and David, will be coming with you and Papa when you go to Naples, Mama?”

The Countess of Tintern smiled at her daughter.  “Yes, Constance.  You, Millicent and David will indeed be accompanying us.  Robert will have to stay here to run things, of course.  As the eldest son, that is his duty but he is looking forward to it and I know he will do it very well … but the king has most graciously agreed that you can all accompany us on this very delicate mission …  Now, as for your Italian, we will need to brush up on your language skills, won’t we …”

The two girls were very excited.  They were like-twins, both devastatingly beautiful: tall and slim, perfectly formed, their golden hair and blue eyes set off their peaches and cream complexions to a tee.  At eighteen, they were at the peak of their youthful beauty and were almost identical facsimiles of their mother who, at thirty-eight, was still a strikingly beautiful woman even after bearing four children and was still in the bloom of her life.

Their brother, The Honourable David Graham, was only a year older than the twins and resembled them in almost every way, unlike his older brother Robert, Viscount Allenborough, who took after his father and was dark of hair and complexion.

The twins and David began a crash course in Italian which, fortunately, they picked up quickly for all three were good students and highly intelligent. They also spent a lot of time studying the Mediterranean and surrounding lands. Constance felt a thrill of horror pass through her body as she stared at pictures of the Barbary pirates which, in the late Eighteenth Century, were still a major threat in the area.  Still, theirs was an official embassy of the King of Great Britain and there would a naval escort.  They wouldn’t have any trouble, she was sure …

 

They didn’t, either, at least not until they were well within the Pillars of Hercules and the earl and his family enjoyed idyllic sailing conditions in the warm summer weather. Then, two days later, the ship appeared.  From its appearance it was obviously a pirate ship, the banks of oars on either side bearing mute testimony to that fact. Their escort immediately made off to meet the corsair but it fared badly, going down under a barrage of heavy fire from the big Algerian ship.  Their own vessel had already turned away to the north but the big corsair steadily overhauled them and the next morning was close to their stern.  A warning shot into the stern cabin had them hove-to in the water and a boarding party, under the command of a tanned, bearded officer, overpowered the small crew of the earl’s ship.

He had not meekly accepted the taking over of his ship, of course, and had screamed at the sailors to fight and then led them bravely but his efforts only met with his own demise and his wife sobbed bitterly as she held the dying earl’s head to her breast.  David fought alongside his father but his lack of experience soon had him disarmed and secured alongside his sisters and mother.

“And who have we here, I wonder?” said the pirate officer in perfect English.

The Grahams stared at him.  “And I wonder who you might be, sir,” replied the countess.  “From your voice, I know you must be English?”

“I was.  But no longer.  Farmer George had me conscripted into his navy but I escaped and now I serve a far more generous boss.”  He stared narrowly at them.  “From your fine clothes, you must be gentry …  Who are you!”

Lady Tintern wavered.  She knew the reputation of the Barbary pirates.  The best they could hope for was to be ransomed but slavery was also a possibility.  Still, this man was English; perhaps he would opt for ransom.  After all, the now dead earl had been a very wealthy and powerful man and a confidante of the king himself as well as Prime Minister Pitt.

She made her decision.  “I am the Countess of Tintern,” she said.  “And this is my son, the Honourable David Graham, these my daughters, the ladies Constance and Millicent Graham.”

“Are they indeed,” the man said, stroking his beard and looking the three women and young man up and down speculatively.  Then he turned to his men.  “Take the crew aboard and lock them below.  They’ll make good slaves …”

He turned back to the four aristocrats and smiled, but it was not a pleasant expression.  “My family were run off our land by your kind!” he spat.  “It won’t be up to me, but I am number two on the ship and I will be recommending you go the same way as that lot of scum,” and he gestured to the crew who were now being herded aboard the corsair.

Lady Tintern slumped.  She guessed this man would have influence with the pirate captain and knew she had made the wrong decision.  Perhaps it would have been better to have pretended to an upper middle class background and promised to have written to relations asking for the ransom.  Still it was done now.  She couldn’t unsay her words and to deny them now would be cowardly and in any case, probably utterly useless.

They were herded onto the other ship together with any valuables the pirates could find and then their ship was left with a prize crew to be brought back to Algiers, to which port they were now headed themselves.

The pirate captain, a Turk, had also looked them over and, like his number two, tugging his beard as he stared at close quarters at the countess and her two daughters.  He was less interested in David, until his second in command whispered something to him, at which he perked up and looked the boy over with a great deal more interest, feeling his muscles through his clothes and glancing down at the bulge in his breeches and grinning to his number two.

“Take the ladies to my cabin,” he said, and then glancing at the boy once more, added, “and him, too …”

Once in his cabin, he told them his name was Selim and that he was now their owner.

Lady Tintern pleaded:  “Will you not consider ransoming us, Captain … please?”

He grinned back at her.  “I would have but my lieutenant has suggested a much more lucrative use for you – for all four of you, actually.  What that will be I won’t worry you with at the moment.  What I do require is that you strip and show me what you are made of …”

“Strip?” spluttered the countess.  “You mean, take off our clothing?”

“I do.  I wish to see you – all of you - naked …  And if you refuse, I will have you taken back up on deck and forcibly stripped by my crew, all of whom will be only too happy to assist ...  Now, which is it to be?” he added mildly.

“We will undress,” muttered her ladyship, nodding to her daughters and her son but David wasn’t having any of it.  He could not stand by and see his mother and sisters so foully treated.

“We will not!” he said bravely, standing up to the pirate captain.  Selim nodded to the man beside him, a huge brute, who grinned evilly at the boy, strode up to him and stripped his coat down his back, effectively pinioning his arms behind him.  A knee came up into his groin, hard, causing David to bend over, screaming at the pain in his testicles and then the brute gave him a rabbit chop to the back of his neck at which he collapsed on the floor.

All this had taken mere seconds and Anne and her daughters stared in horror at the boy now choking and spluttering on the floor, curled up in a foetal position while the huge seaman slowly stripped one layer of clothes after another from his athletic body, pulling his body this way and that, utterly careless of his welfare, but a cough from the pirate soon had them removing their own clothes.  All were blushing furiously at the shame and indignity being visited upon them but the other crew member now brandished a heavy cane and it was clear he intended to use it on any of them who didn’t strip naked very quickly.

Selim watched these proceedings with a broad grin on his face.  James’ suggestion was a good one.  As slaves, they would bring in a nice sum, especially if he followed the mate’s other suggestion …  Oh yes.  These four would quickly make him an even richer man than he was now.  He would have to reward James …  Perhaps he would make him captain of the prize ship, a suitable reward for his conversion to Islam and his excellent qualities as a first lieutenant.

As the countess removed her voluminous garments, Selim’s grin broadened even more.  She looked more like a sister than mother to the girls.  Her skin was smooth and her body firm.  Of course it could and would be made better but it was already a beauty indeed.

But then, as he saw the flesh of the two girls’ emerging he gasped.  This was unusual for as a seasoned pirate he had stripped many European women.  But none came anywhere near the loveliness of these two.  They were utterly beautiful.  Slender but perfectly formed.  Their breasts were full but not too big and were clearly firm, standing out from their chests like two ripe grapefruit.  Their skins were soft and as smooth as warm marble …  Oh yes, the mother was superb, but these two were even better.

He moved up to the group of three now naked and cowering females, ignoring the now similarly nude, curled up body of the moaning boy on the deck at his feet and ran his expert hands over Constance’s silken skin, admiring its velvet smoothness and the firmness of her muscles.  His hands went all over her flesh: from her breasts, down her flat belly, over her shapely thighs and back up to her nicely rounded buttocks, up her back to feel her shoulders and neck, caress her cheek – and then down over her breasts and belly again – to delve into her most private parts …

She whimpered as his coarse hands moved over her flesh.  No-one had ever touched her like this – even her maid – and certainly not a man.  She felt like a horse that her father was checking out before he bought it.  She blushed furiously, her face and neck a violent pink but she stood there, not protesting for she knew it would have no effect other than to make him grin even more lecherously and perhaps continue this so indecent and so humiliating examination even longer.  He was pleased to find her a virgin.  That would make her an even greater prize for he was now forming more and more ideas around this foursome of English aristocrats – the wife, daughters and son of a real English earl …

Millicent was a facsimile of her sister but he did the same with her, checking out her body and then privates with as just as much thoroughness and just as pleased to find her too a virgin.  He moved then to Anne, Countess of Tintern.  A real life English milady.  He would earn a lot of money from her too, just from her title …

He was pleased to find her flesh as smooth and firm as her daughters’.  Anne had looked after her body, eating sparingly and exercising at every opportunity.  She was the daughter of the marquess of Tunstall and had been born into the nobility but she was not at all a snob and was as pleasant to her servants as to her equals.  She was conscious of the thickening waist-lines of so many ladies of her age though and determined to keep herself attractive for her husband, had worked hard to maintain her beautiful figure.

She now stood there, not proud, but not shamed, either.  She set her face in a mask of neutrality while this hated man ran his expert hands all over her nakedness.  Of course she wasn’t a virgin but he still inspected her intimately, feeling deep inside her and rousing her little bud with the tip of his thumb, grinning as he felt her respond.  Oh yes, this woman, what was her name?  Ah yes, Anne, Countess of Tintern, would put on a splendid show for the wealthy men who were going to become his new clientele.

At last he turned his attention to the boy, who was now recovering from the dreadful pain in his groin.  “Get up, boy,” he said, kicking David (lightly) in his belly and then his buttocks.  The boy climbed to his feet, his face as red as his mother’s and sisters’.  He clasped his hands in front of his privates, trying to hide them from their view.

Selim allowed this for a minute or so but then grinned.  “Hands up behind your head, boy – or would you like another taste of Rashid’s discipline …?”

David quickly complied.  He glanced at the huge crewman who had so hurt him and then stripped him naked.  No way did he want another taste of the man’s knee in his groin.  The ache in his testicles was still too vivid, but as he removed his hands from them and placed them, as ordered, up behind his head, his face went an even darker shade as he felt his sisters’ eyes on his manhood.  Selim’s was too, now and they widened in disbelief as he stared at the massive hosepipe dangling from between the boy’s muscular thighs.  They were matched by a spectacular set of testicles and as he then allowed his eyes to move up over the boy’s well-defined belly muscles, the broad slab of his chest to his handsome face, he knew that James had hit on a real money-maker.

David angrily shrugged off his hand as he reached out to feel his smooth muscles but Rashid was there in an instant, his whip held high and David backed off.  He had already had one taste of this man’s ‘discipline’ and he didn’t want another, not at least while his balls were still aching so badly …

Selim smiled and again put out his hand.  This time David stood there, staring straight ahead, refusing to let his mother or his sister catch his eye and see his shame as he submitted to this so indecent fondling of his body.

Selim was pleased with David’s fine athletic physique but the size of his genitals really put the cap on it.  They were going to be a further draw-card that would ensure his clients would pay a great deal of money to watch as he performed …

“All right, you can dress again, but not in all this finery.  That will bring a good price together with your other clothing …”  He turned to the mate.  “Find them something else to wear …”

James Purvis grinned.  “Sure, captain, but they’d better wait down here.  If I take them up on deck like this, we’ll never hold the crew back, even from this pup,” he said as he grabbed David’s muscular biceps muscle and squeezed it appreciatively.

Selim grinned back.  “All right, but make it snappy.  I want them secured down below.

 

Once back at Tangier, he set in train the arrangements he had been planning ever since James Purvis had ignited the spark in his mind.  Until this time, he had always simply informed the various slave dealers in the city that he had a cargo of new slaves to dispose of.  They had come down to the ship and made him offers.  Some individual, some for a group, for slavers often specialised in particular types of merchandise.

Over the voyage back to the city, he had examined the crew of the earl’s ship as well as the Grahams’ servants and had segregated some off from the others – the better ones: the more comely girls amongst the servants and the more youthful, handsome and muscular among the male crew.  These would form the support group of his new venture and their functions would revolve around the nucleus – the Graham family.  He wasn’t sure how long he would engage in it; that would depend on how things went but at the moment, he was excited about the prospects.

He carefully screened the Grahams’ and the others he had selected for himself off and then sent for the slavers.  They inspected the English crew and the older and less comely Graham servants, the corsairs stripping them naked on the deck of the ship to be fingered and felt; and then they were given a rag to wind around their middles and marched off to the slavers’ barracoons to begin their lives as Christian slaves to Muslim owners.

His own group, he kept on the ship while he investigated suitable premises for his new venture.  He took James with him and, while they walked the streets, informed him of his new idea.  The germ had come from James himself but Selim had developed it into a full scale business venture and now, after explaining the detail, offered his lieutenant one of three choices:  “You can take over the English ship yourself – I will give it to you as a gift – you have earned it James …  Second choice is to take over as captain of my ship.  It will still be mine but you will be in command …  Third choice is to stay with me in this new venture …?”

James didn’t hesitate.  Tempting as the first two offers were, he had no doubts as to what he wanted to do.  “Thanks, Selim.  It would be good to be captain, but I want to see how you develop the other idea.  I have a deep hatred for the English aristocracy and to see them brought so low will be even better than being captain of my own ship …”

“So be it.  In any case, the English ship is yours.  Do with it what you will…”

Most of the other crew members of his ship were as enthusiastic about the idea and wanted to join in too but as it happened, none of them did, not even James.

As they moved around the city looking at possible establishments, they visited one of Selim’s customers, who wished to retire.  When Selim told him of his plans, the slave dealer laughed politely and congratulated him but when he asked about staff and was told the crew (and James) all wanted to assist, he roared with laughter.

“I am sorry, Selim, for being so rude.  It’s just the very idea of all those brute sailors running a slave establishment is so funny …” Selim still looked miffed so the dealer went on.  “You see, you need eunuchs to run such a business.  If you used your pirates, they’d have all your females slaves knocked up in the first week and you don’t want that, not from what you’ve told me …”

Selim shrugged.  The point hadn’t occurred to him and he realised there was a lot about this business he didn’t know.  He looked at his first mate and said, “Perhaps you’d better reconsider, James, and take over the ship.  In any case, we are going to want more beauties such as those back on the ship and you will be able to continue our supply?”

James was unconcerned about the change.  “Sure, Selim.  And I know the crew will stay on, too.

Selim turned back to the slave dealer:  “Abdul, if I was to buy your shop, would you stay on for a few months to give me a few pointers?”

The dealer grinned.  “Of course.”

“Very well.  Then all we have to agree on, is price …”