Droit De Seigneur (15 page)

“That’s very astute of you, milord,” she answered, not trying to hide the sarcasm behind the statement.

Piers reached down and pinched and twisted her nipple, hard, holding his hand over her mouth as he did so, so that she wouldn’t disturb the others, especially the King. “I didn’t ask for a cheeky response, did I, wife?” He still held and pinched the nipple tightly.

“No, my lord.”

He released the injured part. “There are ways to punish you that don’t make a sound, Amber, so watch your tongue. Why don’t you like your sister?” She relayed the reasons for their animosity, explaining that it was much more the other way around.

“Well, I meant what I said about having them come live with us, so I want you to make peace with her.”

Amber thought, “With any luck, she’ll be married off by then.” But she knew her husband well enough that what she said was, “Yes, my lord.”

“Do you think that she and Bruce are a good match?”

“Do you want my real opinion, or do you want me to say what I think you want to hear?” Piers rose up on his elbow, looking down at her. “I always want your truthful opinion, Amber, but I always want it delivered in a respectful manner.”

“I think he’ll have his hands full. I think that,” she cleared her throat, treading carefully,

“if he’s as strict as you are, he’ll be fine. If not, she’ll run roughshod over him in a fortnight.”

“Wise counsel, as always, my flower.” He kissed her on the temple, saying, “We best get some sleep.”

It wasn’t more than three weeks later that she received a visit from her sister. Only it wasn’t really a visit, it was more like a confrontation.

“Sister, what were you, out of your mind to tell him that I needed to be handled strictly?” Starr burst into Amber’s chambers one morning when Piers was out with the men.

Amber rose to what there was of her full height, which wasn’t as tall as Starr, but she’d come into her own a bit in the past few weeks. She’d stepped into her role as Countess more, and Starr was just about to learn that.

“Curtsey when you enter a room where you find either my husband or myself, Starr.

Neither of us is a country bumpkin, but rather we are peers of the realm, and we will have that respect from you,” she said, in a tone that brooked no disobedience.

Stunned, Starr nevertheless did as she was told.

“And you will address me as ‘my lady’ in public from now on, Starr. Sister is fine when we’re private, but the proprieties must be upheld.”

She was slowly taking the wind from Starr’s sails. But Starr was no more easily deterred from a point than her older sister. “Did you or did you not tell your husband that I needed a strict hand?”

Amber smiled. “I did, because it’s the truth.”

Star fairly wailed at that admission. “Then it’s because of you that I got this last night from Bruce!” She turned around and showed her sister a bottom that had had very close attention paid to it by, if Amber had to guess, someone’s very broad palm, and then something probably leather – a strap or belt. The backs of her thighs weren’t ignored, either, and the entire of her backside looked fairly dreadful.

“Dear me. It must be quite painful to sit down.”

“It’s all your fault!” she cried. “Bruce said that I needed to be taken in hand, and that, if we were going to be married, that he was going to take his husbandly duties – all of them, especially the ones having to do with chastising his wife – quite seriously.” By way of answer, Amber rose, and lifted the beautiful green tunic her husband had bought her in Sunder, and showed Starr the results of the chastising she had received from her own husband recently. “This was from night before last, for sassing him and forgetting to say

‘my lord’.”

Starr put her hand over her mouth and wept openly. “How do you stand it? It’s much worse than when father did it!”

This was dangerous territory, as far as Amber was concerned. What worked for herself and her husband wasn’t necessarily going to be right for anyone else. “Um . . . do you like Bruce?”

“Yes, yes, I do.”

“Do you . . . desire him in your bed?”

“What do you mean?”

Sighing exasperatedly, and realizing she was going to get nowhere with Starr, she gave the girl a sweetmeat and sent her to her chambers, which had recently been vacated by Josette and Lady Constance, who were on their way with the newly created Earl to claim his territories.

And not a moment too soon, either. Amber had been instrumental in hurrying them on their way when she’d found Lady Constance beating one of the servants. She’d happened on them in the corridor on her way to her chambers. Her husband was waiting for her after the evening meal. She could hear someone crying in distress and hurried her steps, only to see that the person in distress was one of the young maids, and the distress was being caused by Lady Constance, who was wielding some sort of leather thong and beating the girl about the back with it quite mercilessly.

Amber wasn’t about to abide that within her household. If anyone needed beating, she would do it, and if that meant it wasn’t likely to happen – which it wasn’t – then that was her problem to deal with, as she was in charge of the household. Disarming Lady Constance was like taking candy from a baby. It was obvious that no one had ever confronted her before, because all Amber had to do was walk up and take the thing from her.

The look the old biddy gave her was priceless. She stopped in mid stroke, wondering where her implement had gone, until Amber brought it down three times, hard, on the old lady’s back, to see if she liked it herself.

Then she pocketed the implement and helped the maid to her feet, quite ignoring the huffing and puffing that Lady Constance was doing. Amber made sure that the maid was all right. She gave her a coin from her own allowance, and sent her to her room for the rest of the evening.

Lady Constance had turned to open the door to her chambers, but Amber twirled her around and gave her what for, telling her that she was, under no circumstances, to ever lay a hand on any of the servants, villagers, peasants, animals, birds, visitors or vermin anywhere within a ten mile radius of de Montforte land, or there would be a lot more than three strokes of the leather coming to her, and they’d be delivered by Amber’s own hand.

Of course, Amber had lived to regret what she’d said – and done – to the old woman.

Luckily, the King was already gone, but he was sure to hear of it eventually. She was also a peer, and Amber couldn’t go around assaulting fellow peers willy nilly.

But she defended herself that night, after Lady Constance had come whining to her husband about the bruises on her back, however faint. She wouldn’t even let Piers look at them, due to modesty, so they were probably nonexistent, anyway.

Piers was beginning to wonder if the excitement ever ended with his new bride, as he came to stand at the end of the bed and rub his eyes and sigh.

Amber leaned up against the head of the bed, pulling the furs around her chin, wishing he wouldn’t look at her that way. “But she was beating the girl for no reason! She’d just brought her the wrong kind of cheese! There’s no such thing! Cheese is cheese!” The bad thing was that he agreed with her. Not that he could let her know that. He didn’t like other people stepping in for him. He would never countenance anyone else disciplining his wife but him. Anyone else who laid a hand on her would be killed as soon as he found out about it.

But this was different, and Amber, as altruistic as her motives, needed to learn to rein them in sometimes, and apply different measures, especially those that didn’t involve smacking old ladies with titles.

“Come here.”

He was gratified to see that she had learned to obey him, instantly, almost always. There were still some times when she hesitated, but those were few. And he could see that there were more times when she wanted to hesitate and didn’t, but those were fewer still. Usually, she came to him when he asked her to.

She came into the circle of his arms quite willingly, even if she knew she was to be punished, and he found that gratifying to no end. It felt like he was doing something right for her, as if she was acknowledging it without having to acknowledge it, which he knew would be a very hard thing for her to do.

“You have to be punished, you know,” he murmured against her hair, which smelled like the English sunshine and flowers, as it always had.

“No, I don’t. I’m right! Why should I be punished when I’m right?”

“Because it’s not right to hit old women.”

“It’s entirely right to hit old women who are hitting younger women.”

“Amber.”

That tone meant that the argument was over, and he had declared that she had lost, even if she didn’t think she had, she had to stop arguing with him about it. It was a very unsatisfactory outcome, as far as she was concerned, mostly because she knew that the next step was a spanking.

And it was.

Having called her to him, he hugged her tightly, then carried her back to the bed. She gave him a quizzical look, but he just shrugged his shoulders and said, “I changed my mind.” She was already naked, which he pretty much required when they were alone in their chambers, and he lay her right across his lap, which was a position he didn’t use very much, although he enjoyed the level of intimacy it afforded. Usually, what she’d done called for a more serious level of correction. And it could be argued that this did, also, but he wasn’t of a mind to agree with that, probably because if he had come upon that scene instead of Amber, he might just have done much the same thing, only he might not have stopped at giving the old biddy only a few strokes of her own medicine.

So he was happy that she’d been able to keep it down to only a few licks across the old wench’s back. But still, she needed to know that he wasn’t happy with her actions overall.

“You understand why you’re here, don’t you, my flower?”

Amber sighed. “Yes, milord. I shouldn’t have strapped Lady Constance, despite the extreme provocation.”

That was about right, and she’d managed to say it without sounding sarcastic.

Piers had taken to running his hand over her bottom and back possessively. Jesu, her skin was like silk. He never tired of touching her. There was just something about her, about the fact that he could reach out in the middle of the night, under the pile of furs, and pull her against him, and claim her body with his, and she was always receptive, her skin was always warm and pliant and she was moist and hot and –

And if he didn’t stop thinking about such things, she would end up well fucked instead of well punished.

The spanking was administered with the flat of his broad palm, and each swat made her catch her breath as if he was using a strap instead. It had been a few days since she’d been punished – probably the longest stretch since they’d been married, actually – and her bottom had returned to its normal creamy white color, which pinked immediately on the first round through, then down the backs of her thighs, which had her kicking her feet high, lifting her legs, first right then left, depending on the cheek the swat landed, always one behind.

One heavy leg over those calves solved that dilemma, though, but had her whimpering like a kitten and Piers chuckling at the sound. His wife didn’t often whimper, except occasionally, when he was pleasuring her.

As an afterthought, he commanded, “Put your hands out in front of you, and don’t move them, or this’ll get worse.” If she behaved, this wouldn’t be very bad at all. But whether or not she would behave during a spanking was a big question with Amber.

He snorted. Whether she would behave at all was a big question with Amber.

He brought that luscious skin from a rosy pink to a deep rose, then beyond, just watching it change and listening to her trying to absorb the pain, doing her best not to react, as well as trying to keep her arms out in front. She was doing an excellent job, and he knew she needed some kind of reward, beyond the one that was inevitable from him, so he made a mental note to send someone to bring the rest of her family to live with them. They were going to end up in the new place anyway, and he knew that it would make her very happy to have them with her, and maybe it would ease the tensions between the two sisters.

It did, to a certain extent. Da and Faine arrived not long after Starr barged into Amber’s room. Amber spoke to her husband as soon as she could about how he needed to speak to Bruce about introducing the complimentary element to punishments, which he didn’t seem to be doing for Starr, who wasn’t very enchanted with just the punishment aspect.

And her husband wasn’t very enchanted about the idea of having to broach that subject with his friend. He wasn’t at all sure how to go about it. Amber told him she wished desperately that she could be a fly on the wall to hear that discussion between those two brawny men.

Especially Bruce, who tended to be a bit shy around women in the first place, and she could imagine that he would be that way around men, too. He never really said much of anything to anyone, and she could feel Piers’ sincere discomfort at the mere thought of having to discuss this topic with him.

But he must’ve done something right, because they were betrothed within the next month and married the customary forty days later, in the great hall with all of the usually celebrations that followed.

Since they were motherless, Amber took it upon herself to speak to Starr the night before her wedding the way Mrs. Tulane had tried to talk to her, only she hoped she would be a bit less embarrassed and a whole lot more informative.

Starr’s chamber was a lot smaller than hers, but she’d done it up nicely with tapestries and flowers. Since they weren’t the best of friends, it was unusual for Amber to be there, but none the less, she sat down next to Starr on the bed and patted her hand.

“I don’t know where you are with this, so I’ll just say it. I’m not making any judgments or assumptions. You’re going to be married tomorrow anyway. But if you have any questions about what goes on in the marriage bed, I’d be glad to answer them for you.” To her surprise, Starr began to giggle. “Sister, I was going to ask you if you had any questions.”