Secrets Dispatched (2 page)

A few days later, she’d come across one of them wielding a crop on the arse of the same woman, and the other attaching nipple clamps to the woman’s pendulous breasts. Instead of being disgusted, she’d known straight away she was interested.

Shane squirmed in her seat.
Stop it now. You’ve hours to go ‘til you get off the plane, and self help in the loo is not the thing to do. Or in the seat for that matter.
However, try as she might, she couldn’t help reliving the past in her mind.

When she’d met Pete, Shane had thought she’d found her perfect Sir. Right until that last time when he’d changed into a sadistic, unpleasant and definitely un-Dom-like monster. He’d ignored safe words and all things consensual and had left Shane tied up and blindfold for hours while he jerked off to her pleas to be let free. Until then, she’d wanted to learn more.

For a while she’d closed off her true self, until she was able to believe he was no Dom, just a wannabe and an abuser, and she understood and accepted a true BDSM relationship would be nothing like that. However, over the years she’d lost interest, because there was no one she wanted to please in that way.

Mind you, there had been one guy who she could have subbed for, but as a friend of her brothers and ten years older than her, he hadn’t shown any interest in Shane. She didn’t even know if he was interested in kink like her brothers, but to Shane’s admittedly limited knowledge, he sure looked every inch the Dom. He’d made her pussy wet every time he’d looked at her, even when it was in irritation.

Shane got up and went to the galley for a glass of juice and a chocolate bar. She glanced at her watch—which she’d changed to UK time—and realized they’d be landing in Heathrow in a few hours. Then after the shuttle to Glasgow, she’d need to plot just what she was going to do next. A few hours well spent on the Internet had given her an address for the unknown Jess—a castle no less. And if her research was correct, one that housed a private BDSM club. It seemed a strange address for someone who’d been abused so badly, but then maybe she was over everything and had rejoined the lifestyle? Whatever. Shane knew she needed to find out for herself. It would be her own completion, one way or another.

Once she’d discovered exactly where the unknown Jess and the castle were, Shane had hired a car and arranged for hotel accommodation not far away. Now she was so close, she didn’t want to chicken out.

* * * *

In the end it was surprisingly easy to find where she needed to go. The guy at the car hire had supplied her with a weirdly shaped but surprisingly comfortable and easy to drive car, and assured her it had an integrated sat-nav, which was child’s play to program. She wouldn’t say that exactly, but by three-thirty she was driving out of the airport on a gloomy and chilly afternoon and along a winding road to her destination. With the heater on high—after all, she’d left thirty-five degrees sun the day before—and the radio blasting out old sixties songs, Shane was almost happy. As long as she ignored the butterflies in her tummy, and the ever present thought of
what if I’m screwing up?

‘At the next junction, turn left.’
Sally the sat-nav lady was all bright cheeriness, even when Shane had gone wrong and the tinny, upbeat voice had said ‘
Ooops, better turn around now’.
This time Shane did as she was bade and ten minutes later, found herself ensconced in a roomy suite in a boutique hotel, which had stunning reviews for its ambience and food. It was a large, old stone house, overlooking a loch and a mountain and she reckoned the rhododendron-edged drive had been the best part of a mile long. In the summer it would look superb, at this time of the year it just looked gothic and gloomy.

Mist was rolling down the mountain, the loch looked cold and menacing and the sky was dark and heavy. No doubt it was beautiful in the sunshine, but at that moment it showed about as much welcome as you would give to a man in a ladies rest room.

“Snow forecast the morn’s morn.” The dour old man who’d brought her luggage up on an elaborate trolley essayed a smile, which showed a gap where his front teeth should be. “It’s a big bugger, so they say.”

Shane nodded as her heartbeat sped up. She’d better get a move on then. She rummaged in her bag to take out an unfamiliar note and handed him a tip. Evidently it was acceptable because he smiled and doffed his tatty tweed cap.

“Thank you, lass. I’ve to say it’s sorry we are for it being me to do this. Lachie, the doorman, is away to the dentist, and he’ll be back later.” He ambled out of the room. Shane grinned at his quaint phraseology and glanced out of the window.

The weather did look threatening. The color of the sky was a strange gunmetal gray and the clouds low. In the gathering dusk it brought up ideas of strange creatures and ghosts, ghouls and things that went bump in the night.

Stop it now.
Shane gave herself a mental shake and poo-pooed her fanciful ideas. After all, it wasn’t even Halloween, so she had no excuses for paranormal thoughts. It was around sunset on a late winter’s night. Not that there was any sun.

The old man had said snow in the morn’s morn. Surely that meant the day after tomorrow? Time therefore to get over her jet lag before she did what she’d come to do. A meal, a bath then an early night with a book and a wee dram, as she’d learned to call a tot of whiskey, sounded perfect.

It was.

Three hours later, at a ridiculously early hour, Shane snuggled under the softest, warmest, duvet she’d ever encountered and switched on her Kindle. This latest BDSM love story was what wet dreams were made of. To say nothing of a juice coated pussy and damp thighs. Plus a need to make herself come. She glanced at her bullet she’d put conveniently on the bedside table and began to read.

The insistent ringing made her jump. That wasn’t in the story, surely?

Shane opened her eyes to see weak sunlight edging around the curtains, and the digital display on the bottom of the television saying ten-thirty a.m. She’d slept the clock round and more. She fumbled for the phone and picked up the receiver. Who on earth was it? She’d rung her brothers before she’d fallen asleep and wasn’t due to ring them again until that evening.

Well, ask who it is
. She didn’t get a chance. As soon as she said hello, someone burst into speech.

“Missy, are you wanting breakfast? Service stops at eleven. If you’ve got that jet lag, you’ll be needing food.” It was the dentist-going Lachie, who she’d met the evening before, and who, he’d informed her, also worked the desk and the phone. The hotel was small and the staff all multi-tasked when necessary.

“Oh sh—shoot. Please. I’ll be down in ten.” Shane scrambled out of bed and had the quickest shower on record, before she dressed and dashed downstairs to beat the deadline by just over five minutes. As she thought, the dining room was empty of guests, but a cheery waitress showed no signs of annoyance at a tardy diner. It wasn’t long before Shane tucked into a full Scottish breakfast, right down to black pudding and haggis, and washed it down with strong black coffee. She sat back and looked at her empty plate. If she carried on eating that amount every day, she’d need two seats when she flew home.

The promised snow hadn’t materialized yet, and mindful of the diktat ‘the morn’s morn’, Shane thought it might well be best to suss out the landscape so to speak, and see if her quarry was at home. She couldn’t find a phone number, either for Diomhair Castle or J. Sutherland, and guessed both must be unlisted. Therefore she would need to drive over and see for herself if Jess was around. If she was and they talked, then Shane could come back to the hotel and maybe decamp into the city before the probable storm hit.

“So, what are you up to today then?” The waitress had arrived to clear the table. “If you want to see something of the area, you’d best do it today. There’s maps and guidebooks to borrow at the reception desk, and if you don’t have a British mobile, we’ll lend you one. Too expensive to use a foreign phone all the time. Tomorrow will be a sit in front of the fire and read a book day. The library is the wee room to the left of the front door, if you need something to read. Mind you with thon e-readers, it’s easy now isn’t it? We’ve generators and coal fires if the electricity goes down. Oh, don’t worry. At this time of year the snow doesn’t stand for long, and they have the lines fixed in no time, but tomorrow now? Better not be outside. You could have a spa session or something, eh?”

Shane nodded, somewhat bemused by the flow of information. “I’m going to look at your local castle, I think. It said on the net it’d been restored.”

The look on the waitress’ face was wary. “It’s private.”

“I thought there was no law of trespass?” Shane said airily. “I know I won’t be allowed inside, but surely I can go and look?”

The waitress—Katrine, her name badge read—looked dubious. “Hmm, Tuesday isn’t it? Yes, I reckon you’ll be okay to drive up and look. It’s close… Er, close by.”

Shane would swear Katrine hadn’t meant to say close at all. Closed maybe? Did it mean she knew about the club, and it was closed on a Tuesday? Maybe that would make it easier to see Jess and talk to her? Whatever. Shane made her mind up to set off as soon as she could.

“That’s great then. I’ll go into the village for souvenirs once I’m ready and do my sightseeing. I’ll be back in time for dinner, so can you book me a table for seven?” That way, she’d made sure someone knew where she was. Ever since Poisonous Pete the Plonker, as she’d dubbed him eventually, Shane had been extra careful about letting someone know her whereabouts.

She waved a thank you to Katrine and returned to her room. Once she’d seen Jess, she’d feel a whole lot better and be able to move on.

Shane scrambled into her boots and thick coat, borrowed one of the British mobile phones and went outside to the car. By the time she’d driven out of the grounds of the hotel and turned onto the route that sat-nav Sally assured her was the correct way to go, the weak sunshine had turned to a misty drizzle. Within ten minutes it became sleet that covered the road in whiteness and made it incredibly slippery. For one brief moment, Shane wondered if she should turn around and go back to the warmth and safety of the hotel. However, she reckoned she only had a few more miles to go to her destination, and there wasn’t anywhere to turn. Not only that, if the weather forecast from the hotel was correct, the next day would be a no go. Best to carry on.

A white van came out of nowhere and sped past her in the opposite direction, spraying muddy slush over her windscreen, which blocked out her view. The car swerved and for one heart-stopping, and she admitted bowel-clenching, moment, Shane was unable to see the road. She swore. The last thing she wanted was to end up in the ditch. She’d have to pay a fortune if the car was damaged, to say nothing of then trying to find her way to the hotel with a broken ankle or something. She drove on slowly but steadily and thanked the fact she’d learned to drive on muddy dirt roads as well as asphalt. Mud or sleet, Shane was of the opinion there was not a lot of difference in the slippery stakes.

However, the one problem with sleet, Shane decided ten minutes later, was that it turned to snow. Heavy fat flakes that rapidly covered the windscreen, which the wipers had a hard time to dispel. Snow wasn’t something she encountered very often. By then, she was traveling along a narrow drive, which, according to the now annoyingly cheerful Sally and a tiny discrete plaque on the gatepost, was the entrance to Diomhair, and was a private road—no trespassers. It was irritating to have to get out of the car to brush the snow off to read it, and debate on the wisdom of turning on to it. However, Shane was sure she’d read somewhere that there was no law of trespass in Scotland, even if Katrine hadn’t actually agreed with her when she’d asked the question earlier. Therefore, she ignored that bit as a warning to tourists and itinerant sales people.

Do you even get those these days? Isn’t it all telephone calls and spam emails?
She was somewhat hazy on the subject and after all, this was Scotland, not Australia. How was the net around here? Her phone, as well as the one she’d borrowed from the hotel, was hovering on one bar of reception, and the radio in the car delivered very little music and almost total static.

Shane rounded a bend with care and was relieved she had done so when the back of the car fishtailed and slid into a skid. She drove into the skid with competence and corrected it. She wasn’t an outback girl for nothing, even if she did live in the city now.

Ahead, almost hidden in the gloom, she could just make out a tall, dark stone building with a turret.

A turret? Wow.
It was a real castle it seemed and not some mock Victorian monstrosity. Shane hadn’t had time to research the history or even if this Jess lived in it as her private home. Was it one house or apartments? Was it offices and a health club as well? Whatever it was, it was big and imposing and austere against the white of the snow. Shane fell in love with it there and then. How fantastic to live in it in any way.

The brief information she’d found on the net had been vague in the extreme. The car lurched over some unseen object, well hidden in the snow, and Shane brought her mind back to the alleged roadway. Wool gathering wasn’t a good idea in that sort of weather. She realized she was probably driving over the verge and not on the tarmac surface. If it was even tarmac, she had no way of knowing.

With hindsight she regretted setting off from the hotel without bringing an insulated mug of tea or one of the delicious looking cookies she’d spied to sustain her. Even though she’d had that big breakfast not long before, her tummy rumbled and her mouth was dry. Apprehension or excitement? A bit of both probably.

Nevertheless, by the time she pulled up outside a big wooden door, she was shaking and it wasn’t all down to the weather and lack of food. She decided she was scared. Scared that Jess might not be there, scared she was. Scared that Jess would hate her, not be prepared to talk and leave Shane unable to find completion. Shane switched off the engine, and watched the snow fall. It better slow down soon, or she’d be hiking back. Was it quicker cross country? How dare the snow defy the weathermen and come a day too soon?