Their Master's Pleasure (6 page)

I made my decision: I could not risk humiliating him. No matter what Freddie had in mind for Irene Hammond, she would simply have to endure it. I hoped he would see the danger and end the punishment before the critical point was reached, but it was in the hands of the gods now. I started to back away, at which point fate intervened. Cathy, who was gazing about instead of paying attention in class, spotted the movement at the door and stood up, no doubt thinking I was about to enter the room. Elizabeth and Victoria promptly followed suit, at which point I had little choice but to do the very thing I had elected not to do - I went in.

Needing to make the best of a bad job, I bestowed upon the assembled company my broadest smile. ‘Forgive the intrusion,' I said, addressing Freddie directly. ‘I wanted a word with Mrs Hammond, but I see she is otherwise engaged. Please do carry on. It isn't desperately urgent - I'll just wait here till she's free.'

My godson, who had stopped when I made my appearance, regarded me now rather uncertainly. To his credit he picked things up with barely a missed beat. ‘Continue with the count, Mrs Hammond, if you please,' he said gravely. ‘Remember to speak only in French.'

‘Bien sur, Monsieur Frederick,' she said, with a sorrowful glance in my direction.

In the end he gave her three more, which was exactly the number I would have chosen in his place - enough for it to appear he was still in charge of the situation, but bringing the punishment to a close with a minimum of delay. The final count, forty-two, was a little fortuitous perhaps, three and a half dozen being a perfectly credible total.

‘Very well, Mrs Hammond,' Freddie said, ‘you may now put on your drawers.'

‘Merci, Monsieur Frederick,' she said, bending stiffly to retrieve her discarded underwear.

‘You may speak English also.'

‘Yes, Master Frederick. Thank you, sir.'

I thought that he might simply leave at this point, but my godson showed more flair than that. While the governess sorted out her clothing he proceeded to lecture Elizabeth, Victoria and Cathy on the need to pay strict attention in class, stressing the importance of applying oneself assiduously to one's studies at all times. Considering that he was barely a year older than Elizabeth, I thought it rather audacious of him to lecture them in this fashion, but such was his poise and self-assurance he managed to carry it off.

‘I shall return tomorrow to see if my advice is being heeded,' he declared, managing to inject more than a hint of threat into the words. ‘Good day to you, young ladies. Good day, Mrs Hammond. Good day, sir.'

With a respectful bow in my direction, he departed. My wards watched him leave, then turned to stare expectantly at me. The governess also regarded me, her tear-streaked face very pale.

‘Mrs Hammond,' I said, ‘once again I apologise for disturbing the lesson, but a matter has arisen on which I would appreciate your valuable advice. If your charges can safely be left to their own devices, I would like you to accompany me to the study. I shouldn't need to keep you more than half an hour or so.'

‘Of course, sir,' she said, fighting valiantly to keep her voice steady. ‘Girls, please study your French grammar until I return. Elizabeth, I leave you in charge.'

In the passageway I paused by the governess's bedroom door. ‘Forgive me, but I've just recalled a matter that requires my urgent attention. Shall I see you downstairs in, say, fifteen minutes?'

‘As you wish, sir,' she murmured.

A quarter of an hour later there came a knock at the study door and Irene Hammond entered. She had used the time well, for looking at her face it was difficult to imagine she had just endured a hard beating.

‘Mrs Hammond,' I said, ‘so good of you to come. It appears I've troubled you unnecessarily, however, as I managed to resolve the matter myself. Please accept my apologies.'

‘Not at all, sir,' she said. ‘With your permission I shall return to the classroom and to my duties.'

‘Stay a while, I beg,' I said. ‘We seem to have so little time to talk these days.'

All this excruciatingly polite nonsense, this playacting that fooled her not for a second, had a purpose. I wished to keep her out of the classroom until she had fully recovered her composure, but could not say so openly without further undermining her dignity. I would have preferred to avoid the subject of the beating altogether, but there were things I needed to know.

‘Forgive me for prying, Irene,' I said, ‘but why did my godson punish you, may I ask?'

My use of her given name - a reminder of past intimacies - was intended to put her at her ease; and perhaps it worked, for she spoke up willingly enough. ‘I was giving the girls their French lesson when Mr Frederick entered the classroom. He considered that I was teaching them badly. My accent is poor, he said, and my grammar stilted.'

‘Freddie has exacting standards, clearly,' I said. ‘For myself, I always thought your French excellent. I only wish mine were half so good.'

‘Thank you, sir, though I cannot deny your godson is far more accomplished than I. He gave us a demonstration...'

‘Comparison is hardly fair,' I interjected. ‘Freddie is bilingual. His mother is French; he had a French nanny.'

‘I see. I hadn't known that.'

‘There was no way you could.' Though I was trying so far as possible to avoid overt criticism of my godson, there was one matter upon which we needed to be quite clear. ‘Regardless of the rights and wrongs of it,' I said carefully, ‘I'm concerned that you were punished in front of my wards.'

‘Yes, sir. I was more worried about that than the beating itself. I did ask Mr Frederick's permission to send the girls out, but he said it would be a valuable lesson for them, encouraging them to work harder at their studies.'

I said nothing, but that sounded like sheer hogwash to me. Freddie wanted an audience, nothing more. He was showing off to my wards, demonstrating first his linguistic talents, then his ability to dominate an older woman and a figure of authority to boot. ‘I'll speak with him on the matter,' I said. ‘It won't happen again.'

She looked considerably relieved at that and thanked me, after which I allowed her to return to her duties.

As I went in search of my godson I thought over everything that had happened. All in all, I was more than pleased with him. True, he had made an error of judgment, but I had committed far greater blunders in my time. He handled my sudden appearance very well, I thought, keeping his head and his own dignity as a result. And from what I had seen of the actual punishment itself, he was a remarkably accomplished spanker for one so young - imaginative, confident and proficient. His control over his victim had been exemplary. My godson had obviously learned early on in his career that a firm tone and an authoritative manner can work wonders.

I found Freddie in the library, reading. ‘There you are, my boy,' I said. ‘I've been looking all over for you.'

He closed the book and rose to his feet, giving me a particularly searching look. ‘I think I know why you're here, sir.'

‘You do?'

He nodded. ‘I suspect I've offended you over Mrs Hammond's punishment.'

‘That's what I want to talk to you about, yes. Two aspects of it, in fact - that you chose to punish her in the first place and that you did so in front of Elizabeth and her sisters.'

His eyebrows rose. ‘I expected you to say I'd been too severe. I never thought... you did give me permission to punish the servants, sir.'

‘The servants, yes, but I don't regard Mrs Hammond as such. You weren't to know that, of course, so the fault is mine for not making it clear. I'm more concerned about the other issue, however. Was there a specific reason for wanting the girls present?'

‘Not really,' he said. ‘It struck me as... amusing, I suppose. Turning the tables on her, as it were.'

I was pleased that he was being honest with me - nothing about it being ‘good for them' or any such nonsense.

‘For myself,' I said, ‘I would never do that. People in authority need to be respected if they're to do their job properly and the quickest way to lose it is to be humiliated in front of your subordinates.'

‘You're right, sir,' Freddie said soberly, ‘I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have punished Mrs Hammond in the first place. As you say, a governess isn't the same as a maid.'

‘Spankers spank, Freddie,' I said, using my grandfather's own words. ‘It's what we do. Sometimes we make mistakes along the way - God knows, I've made enough in my time. What's important is that we learn from them.'

My godson nodded slowly. ‘I'll speak with Mrs Hammond and apologise to her.'

‘Well, that's your decision, of course.'

‘You wouldn't do that?'

‘No. We need to be respected too. Apologising for beating someone gives the impression we don't know what we're doing. I would simply leave things as they are, but be careful to find no fault with her in future.'

‘I understand, sir.'

‘That's good,' I said. ‘The matter is closed and we shall say no more about it. Now then, tell me something - I'm a little out of touch with current fashions. Are bright yellow riding crops all the rage with spankers these days?'

 

 

 

A week or so after this incident, late in the afternoon, Elizabeth came to see me. I was sitting on the terrace at the time, an easel and canvas before me. For the past few hours I had been attempting to capture the grounds in all their splendour - and not doing too well, in truth of fact.

‘Uncle James,' she said, ‘I need to ask a favour of you.'

‘My dear Elizabeth,' I said, dabbing on a blob of Burnt Sienna to represent a molehill, ‘ask away.'

It was unusual for my eldest ward to ask me anything, let alone a favour. The pair of us maintained a kind of uneasy truce, since Elizabeth knew me for the lecherous spanker I was and trusted me not at all in consequence.

‘It's about Frederick,' she said. ‘I want you to tell him not to seduce Cathy.'

I carefully put down my brush and palette. She was standing quite still, hands clasped demurely in front of her, a preoccupied expression on her face. There was no question of telling her I had already secured Freddie's promise on this very topic, for the situation was brim full of possibilities.

‘What do you think of it?' I asked.

‘What do I think of what?'

‘The painting, of course. Be honest.'

‘Oh,' she said. ‘It's... very nice.'

‘It's bloody awful,' I said. ‘Come on, let's take a stroll.'

I led her down towards the lake, though I had no ulterior motive in choosing that particular direction. Boathouse frolics were out of the question, for Elizabeth considered sex outside marriage wicked and immoral, not to mention demeaning to both parties. As I knew from past experience her body thought otherwise, but she refused to listen to it.

‘What makes you think,' I asked, coming straight to the point, ‘that my godson has designs on sweet, innocent little Catherine?'

Elizabeth gave a snort - though a remarkably refined and ladylike one - and a crease appeared between her elegantly curved dark eyebrows. ‘He appears to be systematically working his way through the entire household. Sooner or later he's bound to get to Cathy.'

From everything I'd seen and heard her analysis of Freddie's strategy was an accurate one. So far Molly, Mary, Victoria and Rose had fallen victim to his charms. Judging by Alice's dreamy expression whenever he was near, he would soon have yet another notch on his bedpost.

‘And how about you?' I asked. ‘Has he worked his way through you yet?'

‘Certainly not!' Elizabeth said, her cheeks flushing pink.

I grinned. ‘I did wonder.'

I had come across Elizabeth and Freddie in the conservatory that very morning, so deep in conversation they didn't see me. I had no wish to eavesdrop, for they were entitled to their privacy, but couldn't help catching a sentence or two. It wasn't the flirtatious nonsense I was half expecting, but an apparently serious discussion on the merits of caring for the poor. If Freddie was attempting to curry Elizabeth's favour as a necessary prelude to parting those wonderful thighs of hers, I wished him well, for my eldest ward could spot shallowness and artifice at a mile. If he meant what he said, then the pair of them - despite their many differences - had more in common than I would have thought possible. I smiled to myself at the entanglements of youth and slipped quietly away.

Elizabeth's opinion of my godson was no clearer to me following this latest request, for she would wish to keep Cathy from his clutches whether she liked him or loathed him.

‘So explain to me,' I said, ‘why do you need my help, exactly? You could speak to Freddie yourself. You could even offer to sleep with him in Cathy's place, couldn't you? It wouldn't be the first time you'd sacrificed yourself on her behalf.'