Punishing His Ward (11 page)

"Wesley!"

Ignoring his mother's outraged gasp at
his language and intemperate tone, Wesley stalked right past her
and out into the hall.  He felt a bit bad about snapping at
her, but really!  After all the complaints that she'd sent him
over Cynthia's behavior and she didn't keep a closer eye on her?
 Intellectually he understood that propriety was met since
she'd taken her maid, and that his mother wouldn't look beyond that
- she would trust that the usual measures would suffice.  But
Cynthia wasn't a usual young women.

No, she was a brazen
hoyden, a sensual temptation, and soon she was going to be a very
sorry young woman with a very red bottom. And to make his temper
even worse, his damn cock twitched again at the thought.

******

It hadn't taken very long
for Cynthia to realize which shops the maids found interesting and
which they didn't.  She picked up some ribbons first thing,
lingering there long enough over the colors that she was sure even
the maid was losing interest, before moving on to search out a new
bonnet, new gloves, and see the new fabrics at the
modiste's
.  Only
after that did she finally make her way to the bookstore, where
there was a very convenient bench outside.  By now they'd been
about for several hours, and she knew the maid would have no
interest in going into a bookstore.

Which was good because Cynthia didn't
want her there. 

"Good afternoon, Mr. Worthing," she
said as she swanned into the shop after giving her maid permission
to sit on the bench and enjoy watching the people who were passing
on the street. 

"Good afternoon, Miss
Bryant," the shop owner said with a little leer.  She gave him
a dazzling smile in return.  As a much older man with a portly
belly, he didn't seem to need more than a smile or two and a flash
of her ankles and calves on occasion to keep him satisfied.
 And in return, he let her have free run of his
shop.

Cynthia wasn't interested in most
books, it was true; she certainly wasn't a bluestocking.
 Romances interested her only so much, and only on rainy days
when she couldn't go outside anyway.  Anything that required
her to sit for any length of time - other than playing the
pianoforte - wasn't high on her list of enjoyable activities.
 

But Mr. Worthing had a
collection of quite interesting books on a high shelf in the very
back of his store.  She didn't think he realized that she knew
they were there, as she'd found them completely by accident and had
hurriedly pretended to be engrossed in something else when she'd
heard him approaching.  Since then she'd come back on several
occasions, hoping to get another glimpse at the interesting
pictures that she'd barely seen.  Maybe even read some of the
passages.  So far she hadn't been able to, as there were
usually other people in the store, but she never lost
hope.

"Miss Bryant," she heard
someone say as she passed by one of the rows of books.
 Turning back, she peeked her head around the corner and saw
Mr. Brandon, second son of the Duke of Manning, one of the men who
liked to flirt with her and steal a kiss.  Not husband
material; the Countess had told her he was only in Bath because he
was outrunning creditors as his father had declined to bail him out
yet again, but he was very handsome and also a very good
kisser. 

"Mr. Brandon," she said, smiling back
and raising her hand for him to kiss.

Today, however, he looked
somehow
less
 than normal.  Smaller, less interesting, less
attractive.  It took her a moment before she realized it was
because she was comparing him to the Earl.  Who was not only
taller and broader of shoulder, but also had much more of a
presence about him.  Perhaps because he was an established
Earl, rather than a second son, even a second son of a
Duke.

"I had no idea, when I stepped out this
morning, that I might be so fortunate as to come across you.
 You look..." His eyes swept over her dress, which was one of
her more modest pieces.  "Enchanting."  Putting his
finger on her shoulder, he trailed it down along her neckline,
causing Cynthia to catch her breath.  Even if he wasn't as
intriguing as the Earl, the sensation made her skin tingle.
 "Teasing my senses by covering what I long to see... to
touch..."

His mouth was coming closer and closer
to hers and she tilted her head back, eyelashes fluttering as she
readied herself for the kiss. 

"Get your damn hands off my
ward."

Cynthia gasped as Mr.
Brandon was wrenched away, the stentorian tones of her guardian
cutting through whatever pleasure she'd felt a moment before.
 Dread and excitement clashed in her stomach, curdling like a
bad mixture of milk and hot water, as she opened her eyes to see
the Earl bodily hauling Mr. Brandon out of the
aisle. 

"Unless you want a dawn appointment
with me, you will not approach her again and I will not hear a word
about this from anyone," the Earl hissed, just barely loud enough
for her to hear.  Oh goodness... a duel?!  

Before she could react,
Mr. Brandon stumbled away, babbling reassurances in a frightened
manner that made her sigh.  Whatever attractiveness he'd had,
he'd just completely lost.  How disappointing.

Then the Earl turned back to her, his
hazel eyes dark and hard.  

"Ah..." she said with a
weak smile, trying to think quickly.  With the Countess it
wasn't nearly so hard to come up with something to say.  "Good
afternoon, my Lord."

Well apparently that
wasn't the right thing to say at all.  Growling under his
breath, the Earl reached out and grabbed her arm, hauling her back
towards the front of the store.  Cynthia dug in her heels, not
particularly wanting to be a spectacle.

"My Lord," she hissed, pulling at his
fingers on her upper arm, "you're going to attract
attention!"

******

The reminder stopped
Wesley in his tracks.  No, he hadn't just demanded that the
scoundrel that had just been about to kiss her - in the middle of a
bookstore! - would keep quiet, only to alert everyone himself.
 In sleepy Bath, bodily dragging his ward down the middle of
the street would do more than cause comment, it could cause scandal
as people speculated over
why
 he might be doing such a
thing.  And then his mother really would have
vapors.

Growling, he slowed his
pace, taking her hand and firmly wrapping it around his arm before
covering it with his own so that she couldn’t get away. While such
a stance might seem a bit overly familiar, considering that she was
his ward and not a lady he was wooing, it would cause far less
comment than his previous hold. To his intense annoyance, she not
only gave him a brilliant smile of approval, she then transferred
that smile to the owner of the bookstore.

“Thank you Mr. Worthing, I’ll see you
another day,” she said with a cheery little wave.

Wesley forebear to tell her that she
absolutely would not be seeing the smarmy man another day; he
doubted that his mother would be agreeable to coming to this dusty
hole in the wall and neither would he. Especially with a man like
that, who eyed Cynthia far too speculatively as he responded in
kind.

As they walked down the street,
Wesley’s temper wound tighter and tighter with every step. 
The chit didn’t act as if she’d been caught doing something wrong,
unlike the blaggard he’d caught her with, she was just as cheerful
and chattery as ever.  It was enough to drive a man to
drink.  He stepped quickly, mindful of not making a scene, but
knowing that the sooner he got her to the house the
better.

Cynthia nodded to and greeted several
people, although Wesley kept her moving, giving them nothing but a
quick nod.  He’d probably get an earful later from his mother
about his short demeanor, but he wasn’t going to allow Cynthia to
slow him.  The second they got back to the house he was going
to give her as red a bottom as ever.

Kissing a man!  In a
bookstore!  Where anyone could have come across
them!

Growing grimmer by the minute, he
darkly wondered how often she met men in bookstores – and
elsewhere.  What she might be doing with them.  Although
Edwin’s letter had indicated that so far she hadn’t completely
ruined herself (according to what she’d told Nell) as she was being
careful not to end up with an unwanted pregnancy, but that didn’t
mean she could act however she wanted as long as she didn’t cross
that line.  If anyone other than himself had seen her and that
rogue, it would have been all over town in minutes.  And then
his mother’s reputation and social standing would have been
affected as well. 

At least, that's what he attributed his
dark rage to.  It definitely couldn't have anything to do with
the fact that she'd been about to kiss another man, had her pink
lips turned up to accept his, her body leaning towards him... after
all, Wesley was planning on marrying her off to some poor sod who
would get to sample her delights on a daily basis.  Why would
he feel anything akin to jealousy just because she was about to
kiss another man?

Growling under his breath, Wesley
picked up his pace again as they drew closer to the street where
his mother's house was.  The sooner he could get her inside
and vent his feelings on her upturned arse, the better.

******

The look on the Earl's face was not at
all helping matters, Cynthia thought with some exasperation.
 She'd been doing her best to avoid attention by acting
normally, but he'd looked as grim as the reaper while he'd been
"escorting" her home.  

Truth be told, she
might
 have been
overplaying her hand a little.  After all, it hadn't been
strictly necessary to greet every single person that she saw on the
street.  But it was strangely fun to tweak at the Earl's
nerves, especially when he was in a temper.  She was feeling
rather breathless as how easily he manhandled her, the strength she
could feel in his arm.

And she had wanted another spanking
after all.  If this didn't earn her one from him, then what
would?  She couldn't have planned it better if she'd tried.
 

Although his silence and glares made
her feel more nervous than she would have expected; she covered up
that anxiety with a cheerful bravado that seemed to grate on him.
 Which, in turn, amused her, and she was quite sure that he
could tell she was amused and that it incensed him even
further. 

Her bottom tingled underneath the
swishing skirts of her day dress and she could feel the wetness
gathering between her legs.  The Earl might be a bit of a prig
and a stuffed shirt, at least where she was concerned, but there
was just something so delicious about a truly masterful man.
 None of her other suitors had ever affected her quite like he
did, which was really too bad because she couldn't seem to
influence him the way she did them.  

Then again, perhaps it was that
inability to sway him that she found so attractive.  It wasn't
often that she came across a man such as him, one who was wholly
desirable and yet seemed completely indifferent to her, one that
managed to both intimidate and attract her, and one whom was
completely oblivious to her manipulations.  Even when she
poked at him, metaphorically speaking, he didn't stop in his track,
he just bulled right through and continued towards his own
goal.

As soon as he got her in the house, he
picked up his pace again, dragging her towards his
study.

Sheer perversity made her dig in her
heels this time.  "My lord, can't you slow down?"

Instead of responding, the Earl halted
completely, turning on her with such a burning glow in his hazel
eyes that she nearly stepped back.  Then he tugged her towards
him, swooping low, and the next thing she knew Cynthia was upended
over his shoulder, all the air knocked from her lungs.

My goodness.

That was...
impressive. 

She was very aware of the searing heat
of his body, the ripple of his back muscles beneath her hands, and
the hot clamp of his palm over the back of her thigh.  For
once, she decided to be meek.  After all, she wanted him to
spank her, not throttle her, and she instinctively recognized that
his temper was probably nearing the throttling point.
 Besides, if she struggled, he might just "accidentally" drop
her - and she really wouldn't be able to blame
him. 

If he found anything suspicious in her
sudden passivity, he didn't voice it. 

By the time he reached his study,
setting her down so suddenly that she stumbled backwards - her
knees hitting something and causing her to tumble down into the
sturdy chair that was behind her, she was feeling a bit dizzy from
being upside down for so long.  It wasn't necessarily a bad
sensation, combined with the tingling of her body that came from
being in such close contact with him.  Excitement fizzed and
popped inside of her, making her feel quite bubbly and chipper.
 

Which she did her best to hide, but
from the way he was looking at her with narrowed, eyes, she had a
feeling that it was leaking through.  Attempting to put a
proper look of contriteness on her face, she folded her hands in
her lap and looked up at him through her lashes.