by Van © 2024
		Epilogue

Gladburn Castle—Grace & Charlotte

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The only real concession to tourism on the Gladburn estate is a viewing area atop a low hill about a quarter mile from the castle.  It has adequate parking, picnic tables, a small gift/snack shop that sells products from the area farms as well and the usual souvenir knickknacks.  The view is truly magnificent; however, the slope facing the castle is strewn with boulders, overgrown with thorny brambles, and completely impassable.  Also, wetlands, ponds, and thick stands of tall trees screen the castle on either side.

Periodic tours of select areas of the castle interior do happen, but only on an infrequent basis.  The Castle Gladburn Yuletide Festival is especially popular.  (There are decorations.)

Anyway, except on the aforementioned sporadic occasions when tourists might be present, the circuit between the castle's outer and inner curtain walls is available for ponygirl training.  Also, there is a long, low stable of stone construction with a slate roof behind the castle proper.  It is home for Lady Jo's small herd of horses (and had special stalls outfitted for ponygirls).

Grace and Charlotte were impressed.  They compared notes on occasions when they weren't gagged (or wearing bridles with thick rubber bits) and agreed that Lady Jo's historic fortress-estate was larger and more grand that Lady Jocelyn's castle, but smaller and less grand than Amberdale.  Neither of them had yet visited Lady Jane's estate, but by reputation it was the largest and grandest of all.

About half of their time as Lady's Jo's guests (meaning her prisoners) Grace and Charlotte slept (and made love) in the stable.  They passed other nights in various dungeon or tower cells; however, they weren't stabled together every night, nor were they allowed to entertain each other every night.   Two or three nights a week, one or the other ponygirl would be escorted (meaning dragged naked, bound, and gagged) to Her Diminutive Ladyship's luxurious bedchamber for a night of... uh... "counseling" and "special instruction" (see also "wanton debauchery").

That said, the main point of the "guest visit" remained transforming Grace and Charlotte into a magnificent pair of race-winning ponygirls, and that happened.  It involved a fitness regime of running and weight training, as well as yoga to promote flexibility, and special emphasis was placed on training in coordination and working as a team.

There was also dressage training.  Lady Jo not only wanted them to win every race in which they were entered, but to look fabulous while doing it.

Of course bondage was involved... the statement of which is an example of English Understatement if ever there was one.

Both ponygirls were outfitted with multiple training and racing harnesses that rendered them completely helpless while affording the "freedom" of motion required for running.  There were also an array of armbinders that secured their folded arms behind their backs, laced and buckled corsets, and a plethora of leather straps with bronze buckles, all made to Grace and Charlotte's exact measurements.

And speaking of running, the ponies were also fitted with knee-length "pony boots" with horseshoe-shaped soles and elevated insteps that kept them up on their toes while providing full ankle and foot support.  The boots were custom fabricated by a division of Nike®, and if one looked closely one found tiny bronze "Swoosh" logos embedded on the outside calf region of each boot.  Getting the ponies fully accustomed to their magnificent new footwear was an important element of their first two months of training.

Lady Jo's racing colors are scarlet and black, so the ponygirls' racing harnesses were black leather with red stitching and gunmetal hardware, and crests of red-dyed ostrich plumes decorating the headstalls.  (For the most part, their training costumes were all chestnut-brown leather with bronze hardware and usually no feather crests.)

The program was a success.

By the end of their training period "Gracie" and "Lottie" were truly splendiferous specimens!  They were in the best shapes of their lives, with defined muscles and smooth, deeply tanned skin.  Also, their long golden tresses had been dyed to match and elaborately braided into long... wait for it... ponytails tied with scarlet ribbons.  And oh-by-the-way: despite their hours and hours of running the track in harness, they had all-over tans.  To prevent "harness-lines" they had spent extensive "cool-down periods" relaxing (languishing) either time exposed to the sun in chains atop one of Gladburn Castle's towers, or restrained on a tanning bed down in one of the dungeon cells.

Anyway, seven and a half months after they'd left Amberdale Castle, Lady Jo and her new ponies were a great hit at the All Britain Ponygirl Invitational!  They won two of the races, placed in the top four of many of the rest, and made a decent showing in the dressage competition!

Everybody who were anybody had attended, dressed to the nines, including Ladies Jane, Jocelyn, and Paulina, their daughters, and The Rapscallions (this time including Hannah).  Lady Jo, Grace, and Charlotte were competitors, of course, and the rest were enthusiastically cheering spectators.

And oh-by-the-way, as a result of all that time together, Grace and Charlotte were now very much a loving couple (which their mothers had conspired to make happen all along).

Tydwell Castle—Lizzie & Brie

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Cat and Pru didn't know it when they first met her at Amberdale Castle, but Lady Jane Tydwell was the recognized matriarch of the British kink community (Peer Division).  Everybody else did know that, of course, and that was why Lizzie and Brie knew something of what they were in for it when they were "volunteered" to follow Lady Jane and Cressida home to Tydwell Castle.

Once they saw the place, the youngest Honorable Hardy Brat and The Evil Brie were suitably impressed.  The Tydwell estate was huge!  Magnificent, ancient, and huge!

There was no provision for tourists.  None.  Zero.  Bupkis.  No tours.  No gift shop.  Extensive fencing, locked gates. and manned gatehouses barred all entrances, and the estate and its immediate surrounds enjoyed a formal exemption to the "Right to Roam" Act.  (The Tydwell family had pull.)

Anyway, upon their arrival, Lady Jane explained to Lizzie (and Brie) that "her dear friend Paulina" had requested a little "advanced education" for her youngest daughter Elizabeth, and she was only too happy to comply.  The favor dovetailed well with Lady Jane's own agenda: her daughter Cressida's persistent request for training in... training.

So, Cressida would be the teacher and Lizzie the pupil.  The curriculum would be advanced bondage, advanced erotic torture, and advanced submission.  As direct experience was required for true understanding, Lizzie would find herself on the receiving end of all three; however, the youngest Hardy was also there to learn dominance, to receive tempering as a top.

That was where Brie came in.  Lady Paulina's Tours Manager didn't need much training in being on top; however, she made an excellent "Bondage Barbie" for Lizzie.  Elizabeth would learn dominance by dominating Sabrina!

Also, while the maids back at Amberdale Castle were all tolerant of Lady Paulina's "monkeyshines," they weren't players but highly amused bystanders.  In contrast, the entire Tydwell Castle staff was fully involved in the Lady Jane's "eccentricity," which meant that when Cressida would need a break from the drudgery inherent in being Lizzie and Brie's instructor, the Tydwell Maids were ready, willing, and able to take up the slack.  In fact, they would revel in the experience!

Anyway...

Afterwards, when it was all long over and during future visits to Amberdale Castle, Cat and Pru were most decidedly not briefed on the details of everything that had happened at Tydwell Castle.  After all, there was always the possibility (perhaps the distinct possibility) that at some point the model/actresses would be invited to visit Lady Jane and Lizzie and Brie didn't want to spoil any of the terrifying surprises that awaited them (or to scare them off completely).

That was true, of course, but Cat and Pru couldn't help but notice that Lizzie had... changed.  She wasn't as immature as before (not that she'd been what they'd thought of as a childish ditz before).  Perhaps the best way to put it was that Lizzie was out from under her big sister's loving shadow and was acting with more self assurance.  She also demonstrated more creative and refined rigging skills than she'd had before (not that her previous rope-work had been shabby before).

As for The Evil Brie, she was as "evil" as ever, but now seemed more willing to let one of the others take the lead in their games (especially The Evil Princess Lizzie).  Other than that...

What happened at Castle Tydwell stayed at Castle Tydwell... except when it spilled out into practical demonstrations for the "benefit" of Cat, Pru, or even Gracie when they were the designated bottom(s) du jour and Lizzie was the designated top.

Castle Caer—Cat & Pru

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Castle Caer is only real structure on the Isle of Caer, which is a few miles off the coast of Lancashire and not far from Blackpool.  (Islands are like that, meaning they're somewhere off the coast of someplace.)  The island's inhabitants are Lady Jocelyn and her small staff (plus the odd American bird-watching tourist who had visited and stayed on to join the staff as Her Ladyship's resident Ranger and wildlife trust manager).  There were regular visitors from the nearby villages on the mainland, but mostly life on the Isle of Caer was a pretty isolated existence.

The castle itself is charming, if that can be said that about a massive stone castle.  Even its dungeons and torture chamber were charming... and scary.

In short, Castle Caer was the perfect setting for a nice relaxing vacation of languishing in chains, being inescapably restrained in leather harness or rope, or being strapped and/or clamped to a terrifying but ultimately harmless torture engine.  Cat and Pru could have done (and had done) all that at Amberdale, but the amenities and the "service" on Lady Jocelyn's island were just as "entertaining" and the venue bracing and novel.

Cat and Pru weren't kept in bondage all the time, not both of them simultaneously, although that did happen.  Usually one of them would be sequestered somewhere, naked and helpless, and the other "forced" to submit to their hostess, either by being forced to attend a tea party while naked, dusting and sweeping while naked, birdwatching wearing only boots and socks (weather permitting), or naked yoga, swimming, and other forms of strenuous exercise.  And just to be clear, Lady Jocelyn was never the one who was involuntarily naked (except during the yoga sessions).

Perhaps not surprisingly, in the course of all the rollicking fun Cat and Pru became good friends with The Lady of Caer.  They comforted Her Ladyship as she pined for her absent daughter who was away at Gladburn Castle busy becoming a world class racing pony; however, truth be told, Charlotte was usually away managing the Caerwyn family's financial interests most of the year anyway, so Lady Jocelyn didn't require all that much comforting.

And speaking of business, Charlotte's "Equine Sabbatical" was the first extended leave of absence she'd ever taken, so now and then Lady Jocelyn was required to step out of retirement and conduct video conferences with her offices in The City of London.  Cat participated in one such conference while naked—elaborately and tightly bound from toes to shoulders with conditioned hemp rope—well gagged with a wadded handkerchief and a strip of Elastoplast tape—and sitting on the floor at Lady Jocelyn's feet.  She was completely out of view of the camera, of course, and tightly tethered to one of Her Ladyship's chair-legs.  Also, Cat was blindfolded and wearing noise-cancelling headphones over ears that were already stuffed with foam plugs, all of which assured the confidentiality of Her Ladyship's business decisions.

Poor Cat's only distraction was Her Ladyship's warm, smooth hand gently stroking her rope-framed shoulders and gently squeezing her breasts.  Warm and fuzzy captivity!  It was a singular (and memorable) form of languishing.  Pru was actually jealous when Cat told her about it that night in their shared bedroom.  Poor Prudence had been naked and chained to the wall of a subterranean dungeon cell while the video-conference was happening... which was boring and in no way singular with respect to her solitude.

Anyway, two weeks passed... and the visit was over.  Cat and Pru said their goodbyes to Lady Jocelyn and her staff, were transported to the mainland on a local fishing boat, then they were driven to their shared flat in London in Lady Jocelyn's BMW sedan (with their luggage from Amberdale Castle in the boot).  Once safely there, they resumed their modeling and acting careers.  (Cat and Pru also went back to their semi-regular bondage-boinking nocturnal activities.)

A little more than six months later they attended the All Britain Ponygirl Invitational as Lady Paulina's invited guests and witnessed the triumphal debut of "Gracie and Lottie the Pretty Ponies!"

It was only then Cat and Pru agreed they their Great Amberdale Castle Adventure was finally over.

That said, there's one more item that needs tying up (so to speak).

Amberdale Castle—Lady Paulina & Hannah

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As soon as the Junior Rapscallions (including Cat) were away from the nest (Amberdale Castle), Hannah began doing her very best to console Lady Paulina.  Her Ladyship was demonstrably worried about her darling daughters, as well as the rest of her proverbial chicks (Brie, Pru, and Cat).

Their days were spent in the usual activities.

Lady Paulina kept busy with her social obligations, like hosting casual tea parties with various prominent friends, popping down to greet the tourists at least once a day, and video-conferencing with the executives at her corporate offices down in London.

Hannah made sure the estate business continued humming along like the proverbial well-oiled machine.  She also kept a helpful and non-intrusive eye on the staff of the castle's Tours Program as they ran the operation in Brie's absence.

Inevitably, night would fall, Hannah would knock on the door of Her Ladyship's luxurious bedchamber, brief her on the status of the estate, then the consoling would commence in earnest!

Somebody would get stripped naked—somebody would be bound and gagged in a creative and inescapable manner—and somebody found herself subject to intensive snogging and boinking!

Was the "somebody" in question Hannah Riley, manager of the Hardy estate?

Was it Lady Paulina, Dowager Countess Wrenbury and Unchallenged Mistress of Amberdale Castle?

Or on any given night might it be either one of them?

The answers to these questions remains a mystery to this day.

Hannah never told her little sister (who therefore never had a chance to tell Cat) what had happened, just as Lady Paulina never told her darling daughters (or Sabrina).

As for the Amberdale Castle maids... maybe they knew... and maybe they didn't.

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Chapter 11

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