The flogging was more intense and more prolonged than any she had received before this. The younger Master seemed unsure of himself at first, and Master Ethan showed him how to apply the belt to her backside in such a way that it was the broad, flat side which made contact with her flesh and not the thin edge. "It marks her less," he explained, but his concern was not to spare his victim but rather to prolong her agony. Each stroke was applied to a different part of her skin but onto flesh lacerated by her previous whipping. After every few lashes the men paused, to allow her screaming to subside, but only to make the resumption of her punishment all the more harder to bear. As before, they turned her so that none of her, front and back, between her shoulders and her knees, escaped the onslaught.
She wondered if the other residents of the house could hear her cries, whether it was a familiar sound in the middle of the night, whether anyone cared for her plight. She had wondered if she'd be treated any differently from the other females in the house, if her special status had conferred on her some degree of immunity from the worst of the treatment which the rest of the women (albeit willingly) suffered. Knowing now the answer, she considered more keenly what lay in store for her when the new day arrived.
The two men left her still sobbing. They'd freed her hands and extended her chain, for which she was grateful as she hobbled into the bathroom. Thereafter she went to sleep lying on her stomach, which was the slightly less inflamed side. The silk and satin were cool and soothing.
Just before sunrise she was awoken by Rachel, who replaced her metal bracelets with leather ones. The woman's expression when she saw Jane's fresh scars was revealing. It was (Jane later discovered) unusual for a newcomer to be flogged two nights in succession, especially when her body, abused by strap and cane, had not been entered by any of the Masters. But Jane wished that she hadn't seen Rachel's reaction, because it reminded her that her skin still burned. Yet for a reason she was only just beginning to understand, amidst the bitter memory was a sweetness that she could not have imagined before coming into the Château.
And that might have bewildered her, because she had never been conscious of this proclivity. But she was beginning to understand it, that it was something latent within her, an inheritance. She thought about that painting hanging on the wall of the dining room downstairs. The stern-faced man was Grandpa Joe, and the naked woman kneeling beside him was his sister-in-law, Daniel's grandmother, Jane's great-aunt. The rumors of an affair had not been wrong; but its nature had remained a dark secret. And by the looks of it the portrait had been made many years ago, around the time Joe acquired the great house which became the Château Chaînerie.
The sky outside the tiny window was grey, with just the faintest rosy blush of the coming dawn. Jane was taken downstairs. It was the first time she'd gone all the way through the house without a blindfold. The kitchen was on the ground floor at the back, and several women were already at work preparing breakfast. None turned to greet her, except for the supervisor, Justine, a statuesque, dark-skinned girl. Like all the females she was exquisitely, intimidatingly beautiful. Although she considered herself attractive, next to these creatures Jane felt plain. They were working naked over the stoves. Jane wondered if the women were permitted to protect themselves when dealing with hot pots and pans but out of pride chose not to. She did not ask. Apart from Justine giving curt orders, nobody uttered a word.
Jane and two other girls, Suzanne and Isabella, were assigned to serve the Masters. Before they began, each had her ankles shackled. The chain was just long enough that Jane could shuffle across the floor without a fear of stumbling (unless she was careless). As she picked up the first tray, containing bread-rolls, croissants and other assorted pastries, Isabella showed her how to hold it correctly, at belly button level such that her breasts and lower parts remained visible and available for inspection. So it amused her when the diners seemed more interested in what was on the tray rather than under or above it. Only her cousin paid any attention to Jane. She was charmed, in a way, that Master Daniel, with so many naked females at his service, could still be distracted by her bare body, until she realized he was staring at the pink welts and purple bruises covering her flesh. Their eyes made contact again, for just an instant before Jane lowered her gaze to the floor, where it belonged... although more in embarrassment than in accordance with the rules. Yet the shame had a sweet savour.
The same dozen men were seated as last night, but not Lydia. As the men ate, those women not serving, including Lydia, stood silently at one end of the room facing the wall, their hands behind their backs but with the cuffs not linked. Two girls were playing music on violins and they were very good. Every now and then a couple of the standing women were commanded to dance to entertain the Masters as they dined, but then they returned to their places against the wall. Jane was glad that she was not one of them, but was instead kept busy, because the breakfast lasted more than an hour.
All of the females in the house appeared to be present. Jane had counted twenty altogether, which she knew was but a fraction of the total number who spent time at the Château. She had but a vague idea of how many women belonged to the Chaînerie -- perhaps a hundred -- and wondered if even the Masters knew for sure. Lydia alone had that knowledge. It was also difficult to estimate how many Masters there were altogether. In the house at present the females outnumbered the males by just two to one. But from what Lydia had told her, it seemed that the sex ratio (slave to Master) was often twice that. And more to the point, the men were on average several years younger than their slaves. They were all aged, it appeared, in their early to mid-twenties. There were no women as young as the youngest male, and some were in their thirties.
