Under a Stern Reign (14 page)

It was as well to clinch their association, she decided, and so with coolly disguised reluctance she drew upon her resolve and returned the homage she'd received, wincing as the animated woman clutched her raven hair and thrust her face between her splayed thighs.

Upon leaving the room Madame Coubette again made her promise of alliance to Elise, who smiled wryly, telling her new collaborator that her promise would be met with equal commitment.

 

At breakfast the count was distant but courteous to both females, reluctant to look into either's eyes. He informed them curtly that he intended to travel to the old hunting lodge that morning to collect Genevieve, and in light of her tales, he wanted Elise to accompany him.

He then informed Madame Coubette that once he had the girl safely back in his charge, they would travel on together in his coach and see the woman safely home.

The coach ride passed in silence. Elise sat next to de Tranville, and Madame Coubette sat opposite them both, each of them spending the entire journey looking steadfastly out of a window. Nobody uttered a word let alone dare mention the previous night, the atmosphere uncomfortable as each of them brooded.

Eventually they reached the lodge, set back from the rutted road just to the left. They stepped down from the coach and the count instructed the driver to wait for them, then the threesome walked up the path, the only sound the gentle breeze rustling the leaves of the surrounding trees.

It was a grey morning, but although the rain had stopped a fresh downpour threatened.

They reached the front door, but the count noticed that the heavy window shutter to the side hung partly open. He moved closer and pulled it wider, peering in to see a room, a table and chairs, a blazing fire in a stone hearth, and there, standing together in front of the sink, were Genevieve and Emelie.

The count watched, his anger rising as he saw Emelie stroking Genevieve's cheek with an evident affection that could only be proof of what his stepdaughter had told him about the shameful pair. They were talking together, although the lurking man could hear nothing of what they said, and though he would not admit it to himself, they looked happy in each other's company, holding hands with natural ease.

Madame Coubette and Elise peered over the count's shoulders, watching in silent awe, and each without the other knowing it silently celebrating an astonishing piece of good fortune. The fabrications created by Elise about Genevieve and Emelie for the count's benefit were perhaps much closer to the truth than either the scheming stepdaughter or the jilted madame could possibly have hoped. Elise in particular felt utterly vindicated for the allegations she'd made, and actually rather proud of her judgement; the two unwitting girls were fully corroborating the tale she had concocted.

The more Count de Tranville watched the more a rage gripped him, fuelled by the quiet mockery of the two females standing behind him. Elise had told the truth, he had to acknowledge that now. Genevieve was a slattern and a lover of other women, and as such she was unfit to be his wife.

But, he argued with himself, if he abandoned her now to such depraved lusts, would he be guilty of shirking his responsibilities as the girl's guardian? Perhaps he would be doing her a long-lasting and damaging disservice if he were to abandon her to her questionable lusts. Instead of accepting his misjudgement and discarding his plan of marriage, perhaps, for the sake of the girl, he should continue on his previous course of action.

He could still marry Genevieve, he asserted with a silent but fierce determination, he would just have to cleanse her of such dangerously frivolous behaviour. He looked back at the coach and eyed his driver, sitting straight-backed, waiting patiently, respectfully staring ahead at nothing in particular, his short whip gripped in one hand...

A lesson was sorely needed: and it had to be a harsh, lasting lesson.

 

Count de Tranville made light work of the stout wooden door. He thrust it open and stood framed in the entrance, glaring at the two startled girls.

Emelie shrieked and Genevieve clutched her tight, the girls instinctively using each other for comfort and protection.

He remained silent, staring, his knuckles white he gripped the whip so fiercely. What a despicable spectacle the two girls made to his affronted eyes... but how stunningly beautiful they were.

Like angelic twins. They were the same height, both with the same slim, nubile frame, the same light blonde hair, the same fresh, rosy complexion. Their matching beauty was like something from a fairytale. They were two wood nymphs, caught frolicking by a jealous, angry ogre... but then he shook the fancifully ridiculous thoughts away.

Elise and Madame Coubette blustered in too, the older woman sneering at the speechless girls.

‘
Now
do you believe me?' Elise demanded, the smugness in her tone stirring him from the trance in which the vision of the girls had gripped him.

He strode further into the room, the whip held threateningly, then without warning he raised it and slashed it down onto the tabletop beside him, the loud crack making the girls gasp and flinch, hugging each other even more protectively, wondering what they'd done to attract such menace.

Genevieve felt her heart thumping in her chest, staring aghast at Count de Tranville.

‘I allowed you to stay in my home because of my deep respect and friendship for your family,' he said to her slowly. ‘It was for that reason that I've treated you with affection, as one of my own, but it seems that such generous affection and consideration has been misplaced.'

‘She should be severely punished,' Madame Coubette urged. ‘And the other little strumpet, too!'

‘The first time I found you committing these unnatural practices was with Elise,' he went on, hearing the woman but ignoring her, ‘and I punished you in the way I thought best. But even then I punished you with consideration, not sure which of you was the guiltier. It is clear to me now, and I am only sorry that I doubted my dear Elise. Your presence in my home has only brought shame upon me, young lady.'

‘But...' Genevieve managed, utterly aghast at the unexpected appearance of Count de Tranville and the two females, and of what he was accusing her, ‘we haven't done anything. We're doing nothing wrong. Emelie has been kind enough to?'

‘Shame,' he repeated angrily, cutting her off and shifting his stern stare to Emelie, ‘such as this girl once brought, too.'

‘It's not true!' Emelie blurted defensively.

‘You will be silent unless spoken to!' he roared, and she wisely made not another sound. ‘What are you doing here anyway?' he demanded. ‘I dismissed you and sent you away. What are you doing still on my property?'

‘This house was given to me by my husband, Jacques,' Emile told him, lifting her chin defiantly.

The count frowned. ‘This lodge was never his to give to anyone,' he told her frankly. ‘I let it to him on a peppercorn rent some years ago. Where is he now?'

‘He left me,' Emelie confessed.

‘I am not surprised,' he said cruelly, widening the smirks on the faces of the two females behind him. ‘You are an unnatural little whore who has found her equal in this one,' he nodded at Genevieve, and saw her eyes flicker in the direction of his stepdaughter.

‘So, despite all this you still have eyes for my Elise, do you?' he said. ‘You depraved little vampire.'

Genevieve fought for something to say, words with which to defend herself against such unjust accusations, but they continued to elude her.

The count stepped back beside the raven-haired girl. ‘Tell me,' he went on, still addressing the poor blonde girl, ‘when you gaze upon her beauty, what do you feel?'

Genevieve still didn't know what to say.

‘Do you feel like a man would feel?' he asked. ‘Do you feel you want to kiss her and touch her like a man would?'

Genevieve stared at Elise, her cheeks burning, but still she failed to defend herself, and as she faltered he moved with surprising speed and agility, grabbed her wrist and flung her facedown across the table. She shrieked, but it was too late to take evasive action, and before she knew what was happening a large hand between her shoulders pinned her down and his other raised, the whip held aloft.

‘Now, you little hussy, let's see if you will learn
this
lesson!' he hissed, his eyes wild with rage. ‘So tell me, what are you feeling now?' he provoked through gritted teeth. ‘Do you feel lusty still? Would you like to make improper with my stepdaughter again?'

Without giving the restrained girl a chance to respond he swung his arm powerfully down, cracking the whip across her unprotected bottom. Thankfully the nightdress offered a little protection, though it was scant and the cruel strike still caused Genevieve immense hurt.

‘What you feel is only natural for someone with a cock!' he taunted. ‘So you must learn that unnatural desires only bring pain and shame. And it is pain and shame you will remember every time you look at another of your own gender, you reprehensible creature!'

‘Please,' Genevieve managed at last, ‘please, sir, I do not deserve this!'

‘You will be quiet and accept your punishment with dignity!' he roared, and then as the other three females looked on - two with wicked triumph sparkling in their eyes, the third rooted to the spot in shock at what was unravelling before her - his arm powered down again and the whip cracked viciously against the bent girl's hindquarters, the awesome sound muffled only very slightly by the cotton of her nightdress.

Beneath his hand the count felt sweet Genevieve's back stiffen and her lithe frame attempt to arch up rebelliously against his hold, and it amazed him how the actuality of restraining her on the tabletop, and the spirit indicated by her attempted resistance, transmitted extremely pleasurable sensations to his groin, and he realised his cock was stiffening significantly inside his breeches. He gazed down at her pert buttocks, tormented by the thin white cotton that hid them from his hungry stare.

Fear filled Genevieve. The eyes of everyone were upon her. Her shame was so great she felt light-headed, sure she was about to faint at any moment.

Behind her stepfather Elise lurked, like a voluptuous princess of some dark and savage kingdom, relishing the display before her and congratulating herself for such a successful outcome - better than she could ever have hoped for when the seeds of a plan began to propagate the night before. Her breasts quivered faintly with her breathing, for there was something darkly erotic about what was happening to naïve little Genevieve. Her stepfather raised his arm again and she held her breath, feeling her nipples tingle deliciously.

The whip swept down again and Genevieve wailed, tears trickling down her cheeks and wetting the scrubbed tabletop. Her eyes were tightly closed against the pain and shame. The bite of the whip stung increasingly.

Svit!
It cut down across her buttocks again, causing her to sob aloud and the three onlookers to gasp - two in admiration for the count, one in sympathy for Genevieve. The pain of the beating was spreading from its various points of contact and making her whole bottom alive with heat... but she could feel the treacherous heat between her thighs shamefully merging with the heat in her buttocks.

Then the count grunted his frustration at the protecting shift, slammed the whip on the table and hoisted the interfering garment up to her waist. Then, without pausing, he delivered a fusillade of smacks to her naked bottom and thighs with the flat of his palm. Genevieve wailed and put her hands protectively back to her punished bottom, but he ordered her to lay her arms on the table above her head and to stop complaining, then for the next few minutes the only sounds in the small lodge was flesh striking flesh and the distraught girl's pleas for mercy. He became a man possessed, his bulging eyes devouring the way her mouth-wateringly curvaceous buttocks quivered beneath each noisy impact, the unexpected and secret pleasure he experienced in spanking her almost making him forget why he was dispensing the punishment in the first place.

Eventually his arm slowed and the chastisement came to an end, Genevieve lying exhausted on the scrubbed pine and the count breathing heavily, his shoulders slumped, his palm tingling pleasantly. He gazed down at her beaten, blotchy buttocks, and for the first time in his life he experienced a powerful yet inexcusable urge to expose his erection and feed it between those deliciously firm globes, pierce her tight anus and relieve himself deep in her most private passage. From where had such an unnatural desire surfaced?

‘Now,' he said to Genevieve, quickly pulling himself together and suppressing the aberrant thought, ‘whenever you are tempted by unnatural urges, you will know and remember what pain and shame they bring. Do you understand me?' Still slumped over the table she nodded, sobbing more quietly now. ‘You will thank me one day for ridding you of such deviant weakness.

‘And you,' he said, turning to Emelie, ‘will get off my property this instant, before I lose my good humour and have you arrested as a trespasser.'

Emelie burst into tears. ‘But, what will I do? Where will I go?'

The count gazed at her blankly. ‘That is not my concern,' he said, then turned and walked out of the lodge.