Royal Discipline (9 page)

On the eighth stroke, Jeannie gasped and threw her arms out, and clutched at the bench. The duke waited as she composed herself by opening and closing her fists in silent agony. On impulse, Violet reached to touch the back of her hand. To her utter shock, Jeannie grasped her fingers and held tight.

Violet looked down at their intertwined hands, thinking how strange it was, that she would be holding a servant’s hand, that she would ever be in this wretched situation. When the ninth stroke whistled down across the tops of Jeannie’s thighs, Violet held her shaking hand tight to give her strength. The maid still had made no sound other than counting the numbers, and heaving an occasional sob.

The last one is always the worst
, she thought as Thornton raised the cane for the final time. He brought it down with a resounding
whack
, and Jeannie did, finally, let out an uncontrolled shriek before she sobbed the number “Ten.”

For a long moment, there was only silence. The duke pursed his lips and gestured toward Violet.

“You may put her skirt back down.”

Violet let go of the maid’s clammy hand and did as she was ordered. She noted the cane marks in perfectly spaced lines, none crossing the other, in a pink ladder from the center of her buttocks down to her mid-upper thigh. How it must hurt, to have those welts smarting on her backside, and she would doubtless be expected to return to work at once. Jeannie moved slowly as she bowed her head before the duke.

“I’m ever so sorry, Your Grace. Thank you for punishing me,” she said with the greatest sincerity. “I pray you will forgive me one day.”

“You’ve paid the price for your poor judgment,” he replied. “I doubt you will be so careless again. Now leave us. I’ll let you know when you may return to your mistress’s service.”

Violet doubted Jeannie would wish to do so, considering the maid’s punishment was her fault. Jeannie left, casting one last sorrowful look in her direction. The maid could not feel half so sorrowful as Violet herself.

As the duke’s gaze fell on her, she tugged the ragged edges of her crimson skirt to cover her bottom. In short order, she expected to have ten neat lines herself.

“I believe you know what to do,” he said.

Between his expression and his voice’s inflection, she understood that this would be her most severe punishment so far. As she bent over the bench, she was not thinking of rebellion so much as Jeannie’s quiet dignity in accepting the duke’s discipline. Violet wondered if she could do that. She thought she ought to try.

She braced for the caning to begin, but instead the duke walked over to the cane rack and chose a slightly sturdier implement. She supposed it was deserved. Then he went to the door and opened it. A tray was handed in, containing a solitary object. She thought it might be the metal bulb he used to punish her arsehole, but when he brought it closer she realized it was a hefty fig of ginger, carved with a flange not unlike the bulb’s.

“We have observed your aversion to the sting of ginger,” he said. “I believe a fresh fig in the bottom goes perfectly with a caning, when you cannot help but clench your buttocks and make the burning worse. Your punishment should be a bit more painful than Jeannie’s, shouldn’t it?”

Violet bowed her head as he parted her arse cheeks and screwed the ginger inelegantly into her hole. By the time he stepped back and picked up the cane, the sting was already making her twitch. She thought of Jeannie’s quiet stoicism and bit the inside of her cheek.

“Fifteen cane strokes,” he said. “As a beginning. You will count each one.”

As a beginning?
Oh, no.

The first stroke landed in the center of her arse like a line of red-hot fire. “One,” she whimpered. The impact was bad enough, but then the pain radiated out from the narrow line, and inward again, like waves of flame along every bundle of nerves.

The next stroke came too soon. “Two,” she cried out, and thought of Jeannie. “Three. Oh, God,” she whispered as the ginger stung her bottom. Each stroke brought a jerk and a clench, and fresh agony, and then the knowledge that the cane would soon fall again. “Four,” she sobbed. “Five.”

How she wanted to collapse and curl into a ball, or run away again. Why, oh, why hadn’t she been successful in her scheme to get away? “Six. Seven.
Ahh
,” she cried in entreaty. How did Jeannie bear this without shackles and screaming? But she had, and Violet was determined to do so too, even if she felt ready to die.

After the tenth stroke, the duke paused as if to allow her a moment of respite. Little good it did her, when she knew she must bear five more, and endure the ginger burning her bottom. Stroke eleven had her up on her toes, dancing back and forth. He waited until she resumed the proper position and delivered the twelfth stroke to the backs of her thighs. A scream escaped, but she stifled it. She reached back halfway to cover herself, but somehow managed to control her hands and return them to their place.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Please forgive me.”

“Take care, Violet. You know what happens if you interfere during your correction. It is grounds to begin again.”

“Yes, Your Grace. I understand. It was merely a moment of weakness.”

She clung to the underside of the bench with all her strength. The thirteenth stroke was especially hard, laid just beneath the previous one. The backs of her thighs were on fire, throbbing, aching, trembling with the effort to be still. By now, she was sure she looked like Jeannie, with welts up and down her posterior, and she still had the two last, worst strokes to go.

The fourteenth was delivered with a crisp
whack
to the space between her buttocks and upper thighs. Her legs bowed up as she gripped the bench.
Do not reach back. Do not resist him!

She clenched, bracing for the final swipe, moaning softly as the ginger in her arsehole redoubled its potent torture. She had thought a cane would feel something like a switch, whippy but not unbearable. But no, it was so much worse.

The last stroke fell, and Violet collapsed onto the floor, crippled by the blazing pain. She crawled back up on the bench, sobbing, squeezing helplessly on the ginger. Her legs hung limp as her bottom cheeks throbbed with lingering waves of heat.

“We’re not finished yet,” he said, “but you may rest for a moment.”

Violet closed her eyes. Would the rest of the punishment be worse? Or had he begun with the most terrible part? She was too overwrought to beg for mercy, and she knew she wouldn’t get it anyway. She hadn’t been as stoic as Jeannie, although she’d tried. Nor did she feel expiated, as Jeannie seemed to feel afterward. Violet still felt guilty and frustrated. She was almost relieved when Thornton came to her and repositioned her along the length of the bench, making her lie face down upon the elevated center platform.

She stayed very still as he shackled her feet together at the end of the platform, and her wrists at the other end, just beside her head. A strap in the middle held her tightly to the bench by her waist. Her chin was placed on a sort of notched shelf at the end of the platform, so she was forced to hold up her head and stare forward. The position was restrictive and uncomfortable, and exacerbated the ginger’s burn.

“You’re going to be whipped now,” he said, “not for running away, but for placing so many lives in danger above and beyond your own. You threw my household into a panic and drew men with families out into a freezing storm, into a forest known to harbor packs of wolves. Do you understand the seriousness of this offense?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” she whispered.

“You understand that you’re being punished now for your selfishness and disobedience?”

Oh yes, she understood that. “Please, Your Grace. I’m so very sorry.”

“You’ll be sorrier when we’re finished,” he said in a tight voice.

He walked to the wall and selected a slim, braided, leather whip, about two and a half feet in length. The handle was thicker, providing a place to grip, while the implement narrowed closer to the end. He struck it against one of the bench’s supports with a crack that made her jump.

“I don’t know if you’ll be able to stay as quiet during this one,” he said. “I’m also not sure how many strokes I’ll give you. You’ll simply accept the pain as retribution for your crimes.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” Her voice finally wobbled, and broke. She was so afraid. What if he lashed her to pieces?

The whipping commenced, and he did not slice her to pieces, but he did lay it on heavily, nearly as heavily as the cane. The pain was different, lashing and quick, so that she jerked over and over again in her bonds. The blows came steadily, on her bottom, her flanks, the backs of her thighs, even her calves, until she squirmed to get away from the burning flicks. When the ginger nearly came loose, he worked it in again, twisting it even deeper this time. She sobbed, wishing she could hide her face, but her head was propped up. How evil, to create a spanking bench where the penitent could not hide her shame.

The reason for this positioning became clear when he paused in the whipping and strode around to stand before her face. As she stared, he unfastened his breeches and took out his cock. It looked as big and frightening as ever. “Open,” he said.

Tears ran down her face, mixing with her saliva as he drove within her lips, all the way into her throat. She gagged, but she was helpless to do anything to stop him. Her hands were still manacled to the bench. She made urgent sounds for mercy and he withdrew to let her breathe again. The reprieve was momentary. He took her head and made prolonged use of her mouth and throat as the whip rested against her hair.

“I hope you feel punished,” he said as he shoved himself inside her. “You deserve to feel punished for what happened last night.”

He abruptly left off, withdrew from her mouth, and recommenced whipping her. The lashes were no harder or softer than before, just steadily and rhythmically torturous. She was sure he raised welts above and beyond the cane welts. Her backside must be a terrible sight by now. Every so often a whip strike would feel especially excruciating, and she knew he had laid it—intentionally—over one of the cane tracks.

Again, he left off with the whip. He returned with his cock thrust out and Violet opened her mouth. For perhaps half an hour this dual assault continued. First he would whip her until she was crying in agony, and then he would thrust into her mouth until she couldn’t breathe. Her jaw ached, her skin ached, her arsehole ached. She deserved this because she’d been thoughtless, and endangered so many people. She’d caused Jeannie to take a rough caning, because she hadn’t considered anything but her own selfish desire to escape. It was no way for a princess to behave.

“Are you ready for your medicine?” he said at last with a grunt.

She was not sure it would fix all the things that were wrong with her, but she swallowed the bitter fluid he spewed into her throat.

After that, he went for the long, thick strap. She cried and tried to shake her head, but what could she do? Her welted, exposed bottom and legs were finished off with twenty resonating licks from the brutal leather implement. All she could do was thrash in her bondage and sob. The ginger hardly registered anymore. Her whole lower body was one great mass of layered pain. It was as if she could feel each of the fifteen cane tracks beneath the numerous whip welts, and the strap brought it all to a final height of agony. She could take no more.

When she thought she must truly die, he desisted and walked across the room to hang up the strap. She watched his measured steps, and the rigid way he held his body. He crossed then to a tall oak chest in the corner and opened one of the drawers. He withdrew an ebony shaft similar to the flanged bulb he used for The Handle, but this shaft was thicker, and much more daunting in size. From his pocket, he produced a jar of oil she recognized all too well.

“Please, no,” she begged. “I cannot bear it.”

“But you shall,” he replied. He took the ginger from her bottom and spread her cheeks again, this time to add a copious amount of the stinging oil. She was still bound, and could not do anything to avoid her fate. With the help of the oil, he pressed the thicker shaft within her bottom hole.

“Ow,” she cried. “Ow, ow, ow, ow,
owww.
” She tried to escape the discomfort, but the waist strap held her fast. Her tears, which had only just calmed, burst out again. Between the pain and the wretched burning of the ginger oil, she thought she would expire. “It’s too big,” she begged. “Please, take it out.”

“It’s slightly bigger than the other one, but still not as large as my cock.”

Violet took that as a warning, and stopped squirming so desperately. The duke added more oil, and eased the shaft in and out of her until it settled into place, filling her up in that secret, aching place. Only then did he unshackle her hands and her feet, and unbuckle the waist strap. She found she could not walk, so he lifted her instead and carried her toward the great cage against the wall. She watched their approach with renewed dread.

“You mustn’t lock me in that iron cage,” she pleaded. “I won’t be able to bear it. Please, no!”

“Yes. It’s the final part of your punishment for attempting to run away. You’ll stay here the rest of today, and overnight.”

He let her down by the door and made her walk inside. There was only a thin pallet on the floor, and a coarse wool blanket. There was a tray with a pitcher of water, and in the corner, a chamber pot.