Royal Discipline (13 page)

The ten minutes of her suffering felt like ten hours by the end, but the duke kept stock of the time by a clock that ticked in the corner, and at the tenth minute he came to her and removed the biting clips. He touched each nipple in a gentle way, perhaps to encourage re-circulation. They were so sensitive, she made begging sounds for him to stop. He undid her hands next, but when she would have soothed her own nipples, he stopped her.

“You should do nothing to relieve your justly earned pain, Violet.”

She gave a little shiver and obeyed. There was additional discomfort when he eased her from the shaft. She felt empty, and still sore. She felt punished, but she felt peaceful too. She had done it. She had submitted to all the pain he gave her, and accepted his admonishments with grace. She met his eyes, and thought he probably understood all the confused and jubilant feelings she could not put into words.

“You did very well,” he said, brushing back a lock of her mussed hair. “Do you think you can sleep better now?”

“Yes.” She fell into his arms when he opened them. “Yes, Your Grace. I’m ready to sleep.”

After that long day and night, everything began to look clearer to Violet. If she was not yet completely changed, she at least felt she was on her way. The following pair of weeks went by with much less animosity between them, although his rigid disciplinary measures stayed firmly in place. In fact, he grew perhaps even more exacting in his expectations, but Violet enjoyed the challenge of pleasing him, and tried her very best.

Oh, she suffered occasional lapses, like the time she left marks on the door by trying to jigger it open with one of the duke’s gold-plated dinner knives, or the time she called him a dark-hearted demon sent from the depths of hell. He did not consider that a proper form of address, and subjected her to a lengthy mouth-humbling session, during which she was made to swallow not one, but two, doses of behavior-improving “medicine.”

But on the whole, she behaved as a well-mannered princess should, and the duke rewarded her by showing her a bit more of his charming side. By the time January blew out with a dearth of sun and a freezing snowstorm, their relationship had nearly thawed to the point of being friends.

Well, not really friends. Even at his most amiable times, he retained his mien of authority, and he did not again appear before her without his full and formal dress, as he had that time she had the nightmare.

That was probably for the best.

That wasn’t to say she didn’t remember it sometimes, the way he looked without his shirt on. She dreamed about it even more often than she dreamed about the wolf. She also dreamed about the pleasurable paroxysms she’d experienced when he strapped her between the legs. He had not used a strap on her since then, perhaps intentionally, but it didn’t stop her from thinking about it.

During her private, sleepy times, at night, after she’d just received her nightly spanking, she discovered that she could touch herself on a sensitive spot between her legs and achieve nearly the same sensations, if not the complete and trembling release. She wondered if that was all right. She did not want to ask the duke, because she didn’t want to admit to him that she still thought about it so regularly. She remembered him lecturing her, saying something about preserving such pleasures for her husband, though she’d been too overwhelmed to listen closely at the time.

So Violet touched herself furtively to soothe herself each night as the sting of her spanking subsided, even though she suspected he would punish her if he knew.

Well, of course, she needn’t tell him
everything
. She was allowed a few secrets, wasn’t she? The duke had his secrets, too. There were so many things she didn’t know about him.

One afternoon when the duke was away visiting friends, Violet worked up the courage to cross to his door and try the lock. To her amazement, the knob turned and the door clicked open. She stood rooted to the spot for long seconds.

She should not go in...should she? But he was away, and she would not disturb anything. She was only so curious, and perhaps a bit fascinated by the mystery of the man. She’d only been in there once, after she ran away, and she hardly remembered anything except for the softness of his bed, and the fact that it smelled like him.

Going to visit friends certainly took a few hours. He was probably not expected back before dinner. Violet pushed the door open and slipped through to the other side. She took a cautious look around. He was not there, but the room was so masculine, so much in the fashion of his own properness and authority, that she almost felt he was there, perhaps glowering at her from some corner.

Once she overcame her reservations, she moved farther into the dim space. The fire had subsided, so the room was slightly chilly. This did not deter her in her prowling explorations. There were a series of chests along the wall, and when she opened the drawers, she found a variety of items. Books and journals in one, gloves and snuffboxes in another. On top of the third chest, she discovered the oak paddle he sometimes used on her, and decided not to open any of those drawers.

Beside the chests, there was a washing up table and a privy closet, and in the rear of the chamber, the duke’s dressing room. She peeked inside, awed by the neat organization of his male clothing. Her dressing room at the palace was always a mess, no matter how she shrieked at the maids. She supposed it was because she demanded such an outsized collection of gowns, to include every accessory known to man in every style and color. Perhaps she had been excessive on that account.

She wondered, if she became more moderate in her demands for costuming, if she could have a neat and organized dressing room like the duke’s. Why, she’d subsisted for weeks now wearing the same five understated gowns—with no backs to them, thanks to her captor.

She walked inside the smaller chamber and drifted along the rows of his shirts, coats, and breeches. There were more formal coats in bright colors with ducal insignia. She had seen such at court, when Hastings’ aristocrats came to visit her father. How striking the duke would look dressed up in such finery, with his ice blue eyes and mahogany hair.

On the other side of the dressing room, she found rows of high boots, low boots, riding boots, even formal court shoes with heels and ribbons. The polished, high quality leather reminded her of the strap, and she pressed her fingers over her eyes and moved back out into the other room.

The duke’s huge four-poster bed took up the rest of the space against the soaring back wall. She could not help climbing upon it, but she did not burrow under the covers as she wished to, for the bed had been flawlessly made up by the maid. It seemed everything about His Grace was organized and flawless, while she was all scattered. Perhaps if she kept working on her behavior, she would become more like the duke, more regal, more respectable.

In the silence of his room, upon his velvet-canopied bed, thoughts of the duke assailed her. She thought about the lofty way he stood, and his stern expressions. She thought about the night he’d gathered her in his arms, against his bare chest, and chided,
I did not think you would give up so easily and run away from me.

Next she knew, she was spreading her legs and drawing up her skirt, and touching that spot, that magical spot she knew she probably ought not to be touching. It was only that she felt such a strange combination of happiness and conflict here in his room. She worked at herself, stroking, caressing, sometimes slapping that sensitive place so it would feel like being hit with the strap. Here in the duke’s bed, with patient concentration, she could almost bring herself to that trembling ecstasy she’d experienced before.

She rested awhile and began again, basking in the duke’s scent, trying not to think what he’d say about her behavior. As she toyed with the damp folds between her thighs, she closed her eyes and spread her legs wider. The peak was coming, barreling toward her as she explored herself. She pressed hard, riding upon her hand, and then was rewarded with the same clenching, pulsing ecstasy that she had experienced before.

“Ohhh,” she sighed, turning her head into the pillow.

“Violet!”

The duke’s deep, stern voice had her hands flying from beneath her gown. She hastily tried to arrange the fabric as if she’d done nothing wrong. But she
had
done something wrong. She’d stolen into his room, made herself at home upon his blankets and pillows, and been caught doing exactly what he had cautioned her not to do.

There was only one answer to her predicament: she must go on the offensive. She glared at him. “I thought you were out visiting friends.”

“I was,” he said, striding closer in his buff breeches and jacket. “We were playing at sport. Now I’ve returned to find you doing your own ‘sporting.’” His gaze darkened. “In
my
bed, no less.”

“Well… I...” She tried to think of a plausible excuse. “There was a...a spider in my room. I could not stay there, so I laid down in here to calm myself from my confrontation with that ghastly, multi-legged creature”—she paused to shudder for effect—“and, well... The easiest way to calm myself was to...to make myself feel good.”

He shook his head. “If you think I shall allow you to blame your disobedient and immodest choices on a damned spider, you’re sorely mistaken. I suspected you had continued touching yourself for pleasure even after I told you it was not a good idea. I hoped you would gain more self-control once your initial explorations were over, but I see that is not the case.”

“But the spider—”

His frown grew very grim. “Pray remember that lying is severely punished.”

She covered her face, ashamed. “There was no spider.”

“Why, then, are you in my room, losing your dignity upon my bed?”

“I cannot even say why. I do not know why.”

He came to sit beside her. She regarded him warily.

“I suppose I deserve to be punished,” she said. “But the truth is, I’m finding it very, very hard to not...to not...do that thing you just caught me doing.”

“It is called self-stimulation.” He put a hand over her skirts, just over the area of herself she’d been stroking. “I perceive you have realized you have a little part here, a very nice-feeling part. You might think of it as a flower, because it is very lovely and beautiful.”

“Yes, I’ve felt it,” she said, nodding. Blushing. How lovely that she had a flower.

“The thing about this flower, though, is that it should only bloom for your husband. Are you listening? This is very important.”

She blinked at him as he moved his hand away.

“But how...” She shifted, pressing her legs together. “How am I to keep it from blooming at other times?”

“The best way,” he said sternly, “is to keep your hands out of the garden. You’re a princess. It’s not dignified or admirable to indulge in such activities whenever the feeling strikes. Why, if I did that...” He gave a slight shake of his head. “I’ve told you, such activities are best carried out in the company and control of your husband.”

“But I don’t have a husband!”

He pursed his lips at her rising tone. “Whose fault is that? You might have had a husband by now, many times over, if you’d been a more biddable and mannerly candidate when they came to court you.”

“
Candidate
?” she scoffed. “How businesslike you make it sound.”

“It is businesslike, for a princess. And when you snap and scoff and roll your eyes,” he continued, “you devalue yourself. You become something less. When you do not practice common dignity and self-control, you become something less than a princess.”

Violet looked away from him, crossing her arms. She’d gone into a pout, on the way to a full-blown fit of temper. She knew what he said was true, and yet she could not seem to help herself. She was so frustrated with his lecturing, and annoyed that he had arrived just at the moment she managed to make her flower bloom.

“So I’m not to do it at all?” She crossed her arms tighter. “That thing you said? That ‘self-immolation’?”

“Self-stimulation,” he corrected. “For God’s sake. Your lack of knowledge sometimes frightens me.”

“But I’m so confused. Why does it feel good to touch my flower, when it’s a bad thing to do?”

“It’s not a bad thing to do.”

“You just said it was.”

He drew in an irritated breath, and let it out slowly. “I only mean it is bad to do it now. Someday, your body will belong to your husband, in the same way your exposed backside belongs to me as I train you. At that time, it will be for your husband to bestow pleasure if it’s earned, or to withhold it if you’ve been naughty. Until you’re married and settled beneath your husband’s dominion, you ought to not pleasure yourself at all.”

“At all?” she echoed, aghast.

“I believe I spoke very clearly, just as I’m sure you perfectly understood me.” He gave her a dire look. “After all the progress you’ve made, you will not wish to misbehave.”

He would not bend on this, she could see that from his expression. He’d made it clear that touching her flower in any fashion was not to be allowed. She felt like a child whose favorite toy had just been snatched away by the village bully.

But he was right. She did not wish to go backwards after all her progress, and be contrary and undignified. She swallowed hard and met his steady blue gaze.

“If you think it is best, Your Grace, I’ll not do anything more with my flower until I’m married.”

He nodded his approval. “You might find it takes a bit of willpower, but the best behavior often does.”

“I’m only worried...” She wrinkled her forehead in dismay. “I’m only worried I won’t be strong enough to resist when the urges come upon me.”

“Well,” said the duke, who had an answer for everything. “You must still be disciplined for your actions today. I have a punishment in mind that will both train you to resist such urges, and convince you not to repeat the offense.”

“Because it will hurt so badly?” she asked in a plaintive voice.

“Punishment always hurts badly,” he reminded her. “That’s how you learn.”

The last thing Violet wanted to learn was how
not
to touch her flower, especially since the duke always taught her lessons in the most excruciating ways.