Wicked Little Secrets (11 page)

Vivienne’s jaw dropped. What kind of person takes delicious delight in spanking?

November 14, 1826: Lovely meeting with Molly O’Brien this morning. I pulled up her petticoats and spanked her jiggly, bouncing bottom as she squealed with pleasure.

Pleasure? Vivienne had been spanked for breaking objects in the house and accidently saying “fudge” when she tore her stocking in church, and it was hardly pleasurable. Was this something all gentlemen did? Was it part of the intimate act? She knew the rudimentary basics of life, thanks to her friend Lavinia Sizemore. She had taken Vivienne and her sisters into the shrubs behind the factories and explained that where babies came out was where they were put in. She pointed to the workers sitting on the walk between shifts, eating muffins. “Every one of those men can’t wait to get his part in a lady’s private place and make a baby. My sister says that’s all they think about, even in church.”

Since Lavinia was prone to exaggeration, Vivienne made their housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson, confirm her friend’s outrageous assertions. “You’re not supposed to be knowin’ those things,” Mrs. Hudson had said, and then held up a long, thick cucumber she intended to slice. “Look here, if you are talking to a man, and you look down at his trousers, and it looks like this here cucumber is in there—sticking up, big and hard-like—then run And never, never touch a man’s thing, no matter how much he begs, unlessin’ of course you are married to him. Even then you don’t have to touch it unlessin’ you want him to get off his lazy arse and do something for ya!”

Her sisters were revolted. Vivienne was intrigued. She had tried to imagine a man’s private part the size of a cucumber. Secretly, she looked at illustrations of naked men in the medicine books in the circulation library, but none of their privates looked like a cucumber, more like carrots and shriveled mushrooms.

However, Mrs. Hudson and Lavinia didn’t say anything about spanking. Surely John didn’t do these things. She hoped.

She stared at the vile book, waiting like a slimy leech on the desk. Taking a deep, fortifying, be-strong-Vivienne breath, she sat again and opened to the first page of the book with the very tips of her fingers as if she might contract some scarring, poxlike disease from it. She quickly scanned the entries, stopping on one dated April 23, 1827.

Adele Jenkinson’s pert little tail has caused a public disturbance. How she flaunted her sweet bum before me, just begging for a smart spankie.

Vivienne’s breath quickened.

On April 29, he wrote:

Naughty, naughty Adele performed a wicked minuet, waggling her rosebud rump before me. Oh, how she did squirm over my knee.

For the next four months, Jeremiah pined for Adele’s sweet broadside in rather Byronesque poetic elegance. However, by September, there was no more mention of Adele or her anatomy. Her rosebud had bloomed, withered, and then fallen off the vine, being replaced by another’s more cozy backside for the wintry months.

Vivienne closed the book and retied the string around the worn leather cover. She put everything back in the wooden box, set it on the desk, and stared at it, waiting for tentacles or grotesque gargoyle-like heads to grow. She felt numb. She grappled with the facts, trying to tack down her disarrayed thoughts.
Adele
Jenkinson
is
blackmailing
Aunt
Gertrude. Adele Jenkinson knew Uncle Jeremiah. Uncle Jeremiah spanked women who weren’t his wife.

Did he spank Aunt Gertrude? Did John spank his early wedding present?

She quivered with revulsion.

She hated being a virgin. She didn’t know what she was doing or how gentlemen were supposed to behave. And the one person she was supposed to talk to about these matters, her fiancé, might be so scandalized as to call off the wedding.

Outside the window, she heard the clomp and rattle of a carriage approaching. The groom called “whoa” to his horses and pulled to a stop next door.

Dashiell!
She could ask him. He was impervious to scandal.
No, Vivienne, don’t do it. You promised John…

Yet her mind felt full to the point of overflowing with murky vileness. She couldn’t go about with these spanking thoughts circling in her head with no one to help her sort them out. And she had made the sacred Bazulo vow with Dashiell… and she should at least tell him that she couldn’t keep her word… and he always made everything better… and John need not find out… and, after all, she would never speak to Dashiell again. Never, ever, after this one last time.

She crossed to the window and shoved open the stubborn pane. Dashiell was stepping down from his carriage. He held what looked like a painting wrapped in brown paper. Waving off his groom, he started up his walk.

“Lord Dashiell,” she called in a whisper.

He didn’t hear his name above the rattle of the departing carriage.

“Lord Dashiell.”

He continued toward his front steps, unaware of her. She grabbed one of her uncle’s fat law books from the nearby bookshelf and hurled it, intending to hit the ground near Dashiell’s feet. Instead, the heavy volume slammed him on the shoulder.

“Dammit!” he shouted and grabbed his arm, nearly dropping his painting. “What the hell?”

His gaze shot up to where she stood at the window. The night breeze batted the curtains about her and blew her hair into her face. She swept back the stray locks with her hand. “I need to talk to you. Urgently,” she said softly, yet loud enough to be audible. “Can you meet me there in the alley?”

His body jerked, like a soldier coming to attention. “Just let me put you, I mean, this painting inside.”

Six

With the wooden box containing the vile, filthy, disgusting diary tucked under her arm, Vivienne carefully checked the stairwells and corridors, sneaking through the house and out into the dark alley like an unseen thief.

Dashiell leaned against the brick wall, a black shadow in the residual gaslight flowing in from the square. She could see the lines of his biceps straining against the fabric of his sleeves, the flat hard plane of his belly, and the line of strong muscles running down his thighs and calves.

John
was
a
fool
if
he
thought
he
could
knock Dashiell to the pavement
, she thought.

Dashiell was a panther of a man. Sleek, dark, and honed.

He lifted the edge of his hat. His brown eyes sparkled in the darkness, feral, almost dangerous, though she felt no fear, just the quickening of her blood with anticipation. That most private place inside her, that place where supposedly all men wanted to put their cucumber, pulsed.

“What do you want with me?” His voice was a husky whisper.

She intended to say something rational, about the diary and Jenkinson and that he probably shouldn’t look at her that way, but all that came out was some strange string of vowels. She swallowed and tried again, “You mean something illicit, don’t you?”

He leaned down until his face was near hers. She could feel the heat of his body on her skin. “That’s mostly why I meet ladies in an alley, my little butter biscuit.”

Oh Lord, she could kiss him, she had just to lean a little closer and those lips, oh those lips would be on hers, tasting her, teasing her, sating this madness and—

What
are
you
doing? You are engaged to John! Remember him?

She took a big step backward. “Uncle Jeremiah could be the foulest, most disgusting, and vilest of men. But I’m not sure!” The words burst out of her.

“Really? I just learned he was an irreproachable stiff-rump.”

“Oh, please don’t say that word ‘rump’ or I think I will be positively sick. I found his diary in a secret locked compartment in his desk.” She pulled the volume from the wooden box. The sausage casing was stuck on the cover. “And I found this other thing. It was hidden with his diary. Maybe it means something.” She held up the casing to the dim gaslight.

“Vivienne, that’s armor.”

“Armor?” She shook her head, confused. “Like a man wears to war?”

“No, like a man wears on his… you know… when he is doing… things.”

“You are making no sense. What kind of things? Murder things? Blackmail things?”

“Lovemaking things.”

The meaning exploded in her mind. “Are you saying my Uncle Jeremiah wore this on his… his… his…” She dropped the armor and screamed. Dashiell’s lips were on hers in a twinkle of a second.

Oh!!

Oh.

Ohhhh.

The warm softness of his lips sent a hot, heady wave through her that silenced her thoughts. Everything was him. The hard contours of his chest and the tingle of her nipples as they rubbed against him, the taste of his tongue as it caressed the tip of hers, while his thigh pushed between her limbs, invading her, seeking that place inside her that throbbed, deep and wet. She was free-falling, all her muscles giving way to his touch. His hand rose up her back, pushing her against him. He filled her with his musky pine and cardamom scent mingled with brandy, cigar smoke, and something sweet, like ladies’ perfume.

Ladies’ perfume! It felt like the sun burned in her head, incinerating her brain. What was she doing?

She pushed his chest, slamming him against the wall. Her throat was so tight it hurt to breathe. “John says I’m not supposed to speak to you anymore,” she cried.

“What? You were the one who wanted to meet in the alley. Maybe I’m wrong, but I assumed that would entail speaking.” Then he laughed—that rake had the gall to laugh, a thick vicious sound. “Or maybe that wasn’t your intention. After all, you were the one with the armor.”

The roar of rushing blood filled her ears. He had said just a few words too many. Something broke inside her; some wall crashed to the ground. “Aren’t you clever? Standing there, reeking of perfume. No doubt you were in some brothel like Seven Heavens before you came here. Who knows, maybe you ran into John? Maybe you two had a little orgy of prostitutes.”

“Can you keep your voice down? I really don’t want to be arrested.”

“I think it would be an interesting little experiment to go door-to-door in the square and see how many men are actually at home with their wives—their perfect wives—and how many are with some woman under a dark bush in Hyde Park with thingies on their things.”

He pulled her back to him, wrapping his arms tightly around her, as if to subdue her. “Hush, love.”

“Don’t touch me! Don’t call me love! Don’t… don’t…” In all decency she should pull away, but his arms felt so safe and gentle, like being tucked under a layer of warm blankets as the early morning rain pattered on the window.

“Now tell me what is the matter,” he whispered, running his palm soothingly down her loose curls.

“I found an Adele Jenkinson in Uncle Jeremiah’s diary. They knew each other.” She pressed the diary into his chest, but couldn’t bring herself to describe what she found there.

“I can’t read it out here. Follow me.” He took her hand, squeezed it, and led her around to the back gate of his mews. “Wait,” he said and slipped inside.

The horses stared at him as he took a brass lantern from the wall. Outside, Vivienne waited, her arms wrapped tight around her. The beautiful golden light spilled into the courtyard, illuminating her face. He had the urge to draw her to him again; he wanted to feel the exhilaration of her touch, disappear in her scent and lips again.

But she must have sensed the danger, for when he stepped closer, she edged away from him and held the diary out, pinched between her two fingers, like it was fouled baby cloth, careful that her fingers did not accidentally touch his.

He opened the diary and read aloud. “Pauline was a naughty
jeune
fille
and needed a smart spanking. I gave each cheek a good—” He burst into laughter. “Hi ho, old Bertis was a spanker! This is fine, indeed.”

“Is this normal?” Vivienne asked, her face a tense ball of angst and confusion. “Is this how men behave? Do you go around spanking women?”

“No!” That wasn’t entirely correct. “I mean, not unless they want me to.”

She shook her head. “I’m so stupid, so ignorant of a man’s world.”

“You might be shocked how very little there is to it.”

She studied him. “Why do you smell like ladies’ perfume and spirits? Where were you before you came here?”

“Do you really want to know the vile, revolting truth?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Let’s see,” he said, rubbing his chin, pretending to be serious. “I went to Christie’s and bought a painting.” He left off irrelevant details such as it was a nude by Lawrence James and the model’s eyes glittered all seductive and beautiful just like Vivienne’s in the dancing lantern light. “Then I went to a club with a solicitor where several ladies, reeking of perfume, came up to greet me. I ordered some crank and asked the solicitor about Jeremiah Bertis. Then I—and this is where it really gets depraved, you may want to cover your ears—I came home and kissed a hysterical lady in an alley to keep her quiet.”

Vivienne’s shoulders drooped. “I’m bad, aren’t I?”

“Not as bad as your uncle.”

“I’m just so confused about everything, Uncle Bertis… and… and… John.” He brushed her cheek. The feel of his skin on hers felt so lovely, yet she had to turn away. “I shouldn’t let you do that. I belong to another and you know it.”

A breeze blew down the alley. She shivered. The night was suddenly somber and colder, though nothing had radically changed in the weather.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

She nodded. For a few seconds, they said nothing, just listened to the sounds of London at night: distant curses, the clomp and rattle of traffic, and an occasional nightingale.

“Is spanking normal in relations between a man and a lady?” Vivienne asked again.

“Maybe a fun pat or as a little lovemaking game, but not to the extent your uncle did. This is quite perverse and, frankly, embarrassing.”