The Harlot Bride (13 page)

For one desperate moment, Lucy looked frantically about the room, searching for a place where she might hide herself. She heard steps on the stairs, and clutched the curtain. When the door opened, Lucy looked over to see her aunt in the doorway, wringing her hands, and then, sweeping around the old woman into the bedroom, Edward Tazewell, the dashing Earl of Chiltenham, birch in hand.

“Leave us, please, Mrs. Graham,” he said, and the old woman retreated immediately. She couldn’t even look at Lucy, not having understood, by the implement in his hand, what the man intended to do.

When they were alone, Lucy forced herself to look at him. Her eyes met his, beseeching, and she sensed immediately there was something different about him, something different between them. And she felt convinced, by something she saw in his eyes but could not identify, that he must be feeling it too. But when Lord Tazewell addressed her his voice was cold.

“I believe I made it quite clear to you that you were not to leave my estate unless by my express permission, and only if you were accompanied by myself or my agent.”

Lucy dropped her eyes to the floor, crushed.

“Yet at a time when my attention was directed to matters of pressing urgency, you ran away, on my horse, thus requiring me not only to send a man to recover the animal but myself make a trip to London to retrieve you at a time when my presence on the estate can hardly be spared.”

These were charges Lucy could not refute, and she stood silent, eyes down, her face turning red.

“You will pack whatever you need and we will return to Gorham Hall. But first, I will punish you. Present yourself for discipline.”

Lucy knew from bitter experience that it was useless to plead with this man, but she could not stop herself, so horrified was she by the idea of being birched in this house.

Lucy began to sob but she gathered up her skirts and bent for him, her pulse pounding in her head, fearfully awaiting the first fall of the birch. Seconds passed, although they felt like hours to poor Lucy. Oh, she wanted this over with! Why didn’t he start?

From behind her, there was the sound of him clearing his throat.

“I have reconsidered.”

Lucy heard these words with a leaping heart, glad in his mercy to spare her the humiliation of a birching in her aunt and uncle’s home. She rose to face him, ready to fall to his feet with humble words, but as soon as she saw his face, she realized it had been a false hope.

“In fact, I have decided you will remove you underthings completely, for I will have your thighs well apart as I birch you this time. Get your drawers down and off, and fold them. You may set them on the coverlet so you can retrieve them easily when I’ve finished with you.”

As she hurried to obey, he went to the end of the bed, feeling the smooth, rounded wood and satisfying himself that there were no sharp edges or splinters.

“Set those on the bed. Come now, hurry and get those skirts up. Be quick before you anger me any further.”

The footboard was quite high, requiring Lucy to rise on the tips of her boots to get herself over it. She felt the cool wood against her naked belly as she eased her upper body onto the bed. As best she could, she settled her head, arms and bosom against the mattress. The footboard raised her bottom so high that her toes were barely able to reach the floor. Oh, what an unbearable position to be in, and with a stern man behind her with a rod in his hand!

“Please, I beg of you. Not hard. They’ll hear.”

“That’s no concern of mine. Legs well apart, Lucy. This time, I will not permit you to shelter any of your flesh from the birch. Point your toes in,” he added, an adjustment he would insist upon from now on because it forced her thighs open such that the full oval of her sex would be exposed while he punished her.

When Lucy’s legs were well apart, he put his hand between her legs and stroked her where he had never before touched her, lightly yet proprietarily. First on the tender white skin of her thighs, then gently over the light curls that fringed her cunny. The touch was so tender, and so at odds with the cold, hard demeanor of the man himself, that it rocked Lucy completely off balance.

But then Lord Tazewell removed his hand, stepped back and brought the birch down sharply across Lucy’s bottom cheeks. She jerked and pulled the coverlet into her fists but did not cry out. The very instant of the stroke, the creamy white flesh of her bottom transformed, suddenly suffused with pink streaks where the birch had struck. He placed the second and third strokes higher, spreading the color and with it her agony. By the fourth stroke, Lucy was unable to stay silent and let out an anguished moan.

“Oh, pleeease,” she pleaded, pressing her face into the coverlets. “I can’t bear it!”

By way of answer, Lord Tazewell aimed the next stroke such that the birch caught her on both thighs and the pouting flesh between. She squealed and brought her legs together, attempting to rise.

He strode over quickly and pressed her back into position with a firm hand across the small of her back.

“Down! And legs well apart.”

He kept his hand on her then, shifting to the side in order to wield the rod at closer range. He brought the birch down again, whipping her full across her bottom, then along the side of her hips, and up and down both thighs. Her entire bottom was a blaze of agony, and Lucy could no longer stifle her screams. Her pained cries rang through the house, clearly audible in the sitting room one floor below where Mr. and Mrs. Graham sat in stunned silence, listening to each fall of the birch and the cries it elicited, and nearly as clearly next door, where the two spinster ladies listened with sadistic eagerness as the little chippy got her due.

By now, Lucy’s behind was crosshatched with thin pink and purple lines where the supple switches had bitten into her skin, and the coverlet under her face was wet with tears. She wagged her bottom desperately under his restraining hand, twisting atop the bed rail.

Then Lord Tazewell took away his hand, warning her to hold still and not to attempt to rise again, or he would tie her and begin once again from the beginning. Lucy gasped for air and pleaded with him to end her torment.

“No more! Please, I beg of you! I’m on fire!”

“Ten more strokes,” he announced, ignoring her wail of distress at this unwelcome news. “And I shall take my time with these. We will discuss your behaviour as you receive them.”

He adjusted his position so the rod would fall where he most wanted it, raised his arm, and brought the birch down sharply across the very crest of her proffered bottom.

“Nonsense. You will have eight more strokes of the birch –– seven after this one,” he said, swishing the birch painfully across the back of her thighs and eliciting another scream. “Are you going to run away again?”

“No! No! I swear!”

Lord Tazewell brought the birch down again, angling the rod carefully so the tips of the twigs caught her in the crease between her buttocks, scoring her bottom hole. She cried out in anguish, buckling her bottom open and closed in a most lewd fashion, such that he could quite clearly see the red lines rising across her little pucker.

“Open your legs,” he ordered, for she had unconsciously brought them together, and as soon as she had done so, he delivered two stinging blows in rapid succession, striping the tender inner skin of her thighs. For the final three strokes, he stood to her side, each time placing the birch against her bottom for a long moment so she could feel the sticks on her itching, burning skin, then raising the rod high to deliver each of the smart, swift blows.

“That is all for now,” he said, setting down the birch on the bed by her tear–streaked face where she could see the instrument of her correction, “but remain as you are.” It gave him satisfaction to see his little whipped runaway bent for him, sobbing, her legs splayed open.

She would take much more before he would consider the matter closed, but the rest of her discipline would be administered at Gorham Hall. To that purpose, he had left instructions at the estate that certain preparations be made in his absence. Lord Tazewell intended to deal with Lucy harshly, to subjugate her so completely that it would never again occur to her to try and run away him.

He reached to help her up.

“Come. We are leaving now.”

She took his hand, and when she was on her feet, if shakily, she looked up at his face. An unreadable expression flashed in his eyes, and suddenly his stern features softened into a countenance of unguarded honesty.

“You beautiful, foolish girl,” he said, his voice strange and tight. And for the first time, Lord Tazewell took Lucy into his arms. He kissed her with such a fierce passion that her lips were crushed beneath his own, and she nearly lost herself in unfamiliar sensations of his moist, insistent mouth upon hers. Their first embrace, and through it he held her so tightly that she was quite breathless when she was at last released. She stood before him, gasping for air, her hair and eyes wild.

His voice was oddly hoarse when at last he spoke. “Straighten your skirts, woman,” he commanded. “And gather your things. We are returning to Gorham Hall immediately.”

Chapter 9

The return journey to Chiltenham was an uncomfortable one, particularly for Lucy, who quite naturally found it difficult to sit upon a bottom so recently birched. She tried her best to find a comfortable position, shifting her weight in tiny increments to the left or right so as not to draw attention to herself for fidgeting. But Lord Tazewell had been thorough in his discipline, and the small adjustments she was able to make in the cramped seat of the carriage failed to provide relief. Yet as much as the skin on her bottom burned and itched, Lucy was far more pained by the unyielding silence inside the carriage.

Hadn’t this man just taken her into his arms and kissed her passionately? Had she been so mistaken in believing this embrace might at last move them into a new understanding in which each might shed their prickly artifice in order to forge a life together? How could he, having tasted of her sweet mouth, now ignore her in this cold manner? She had been so sure that at any moment he would turn to her in true remorse, gather her in those strong arms and beg her forgiveness for having punished her so harshly.

But Lord Tazewell remained still and erect, his face turned stonily to the window as the bricks of London gave way to more rural views. He made no move to address her, even after an hour in the carriage, and Lucy was, for once, hesitant to speak. It was not only because he still had the birch rod close at hand, now laid across his knees. It was also that Lucy Farquhar was suddenly unsure of herself, her emotions roiling in new and unfamiliar directions. So she sat unhappily beside him, this man who was supposedly her husband, the physical space that separated them so small that she could feel the warmth emanating from his body. Yet the gulf between them was huge.

The miles rolled by, and with them the distance between man and wife seemed to grow, until at last Lucy felt an evil chill creep back into her insides, her pride and resentment welling into the space so recently drained by the vigorous application of his rod and her own contrition. Lucy turned her face away from him, looking glumly out the window, in no way glad to be returning to Gorham Hall.

Then, very abruptly, Lord Tazewell broke the silence.

“The responsibility is mine,” he stated flatly. He did not look at his traveling companion, and continued to stare out at the road.

“I knew you were impulsive. I knew you were impetuous. I should have kept you in the saddle with me, or left you inside Gorham Hall with appropriate supervision.”

He turned to her now, his eyes moving over the features of her face, studying her seriously as if seeing her for the first time.

“How foolish I was to allow such an unthinking young woman to command her own mount.”

Lucy blinked at his words. A moment later, her unfortunate temper rose in a flash. “Unthinking? How dare you!” she protested most fiercely. “I am hardly that!”

“Aren’t you?” he retorted, his dark eyes hard upon her. “Did you give any thought whatsoever to the risks to a woman traveling alone? Have you even the slightest notion of what might have befallen you?”

“I made my way quite safely!”

“Only by the grace of God!”

Lord Tazewell took hold of Lucy then, drawing her roughly forward so that she all but lost her seat. Her face was barely an inch from his own, and her heart was beating wildly as she tried to push away.

“Unhand me!”

“Do you really have no knowledge of the sort of rapscallions and scoundrels who prey on solitary women? Foolish girl!” He shook her. “For two days now I have been sick with worry!”

Lucy was taken aback by the passion of his reproach, yet remained unconvinced by these sudden professions of concern for her person. He had demonstrated precious little solicitude a few hours earlier, when wielding the birch so mercilessly across her backside.

“I regret having caused you worry,” she said, although there was not the least bit of genuine contrition in her voice. “I certainly didn’t think...”

The words were out before she could stop them.

She clasped a hand over her mouth, silently berating herself for having admitted to precisely the fault of which he so vehemently accused her.