“Haughty, Harmony?” He struggled to swallow. “I am not haughty.”
“Sometimes you are. That night, you were haughty and dark and tall, and so very handsome, and very forbidding. All the ladies noted it. When you dress for dinner I always think of that night. When I see you like this…” Her hands were back to teasing at the folds of his cravat. “I…I do not know what comes over me. I have the most…unladylike…thoughts.”
Court came to a slow and bemused realization. His wife was trying to seduce him—whether intentionally or innocently, he did not know. He did not care.
“Untie it,” he said in a low voice.
Her steady gaze flickered for a moment. Innocently, then. It did not change his response. She paused, then he felt her fingers working at the linen. “I hate to disturb it, it looks so lovely,” she said as she placed the sapphire-tipped pin in his palm.
He slipped it into the pocket of his coat for his valet to find later. “Tell me about these unladylike thoughts.”
She drew a deep breath that made her breasts rise and fall beneath her velvet dressing gown. A narrow sash held the garment closed. As she worked at his cravat, he tugged her sash open and drew off the gown to reveal a filmy nightdress. He could see the merest hint of her breasts beneath the silk. “Tell me,” he repeated, as he caressed over one and then the other with his thumbs. “What unladylike things do you think about when you see me dressed this way?”
She gasped as he touched her. Her eyes fell closed a little. “I am… I am too ashamed to say. Wicked thoughts. That night at the Darlingtons’, I could think of little else but—but—” He brushed over her nipples again through the thin fabric. She abandoned untying the cravat, clutching his shoulders.
“But what?” he prompted.
Her eyes refocused slowly. “Well. I hadn’t any point of reference, but…” She resumed her task and managed to tug one tail loose. “To be honest, I tried very hard to imagine what you might look like without your clothes on.”
He seized his cravat as she pulled it free of his collar. “You ought to have been spanked for that.”
“Yes, I ought, but there was no one around then to make me behave.”
“Wasn’t there?” He stroked the lacy edge of the neckcloth down her cheek. “How fortunate I am here now.” He draped the crisp length over his shoulder and unfastened the front of his wife’s nightgown, pushing it over her shoulders and down to pool at her feet. She stood naked and lovely before him, still perched upon his mother’s esteemed Welsh chair. When she moved to cover herself he stopped her, catching her hands. He nuzzled his cheek into hers, aroused by the way she trembled beneath his touch.
“Do you wish me to make you behave, naughty girl?” he whispered. “Punish you for your wicked thoughts?”
She made a small, excited sound and buried her face against his neck. “I am ashamed,” she whispered.
“Yes or no?”
She leaned into him a little more, right against the front of his coat. “Yes. If you think it would be best.”
He pulled his cravat from his shoulder and took it between thumb and forefinger. With his other hand, he caught her wrists. He began to circle them with the linen, putting her under his power and authority. She watched for a moment, biting her lip. Such beautiful anxiety…but he did not want her to be confused.
“This is not for the spoon incident, you understand.” He watched her until she nodded. “What is this punishment for?” he prompted.
“For…for having lurid thoughts about you when you’re in your fine dinner clothes, with your neckwear tied just so.”
“Exactly,” he said, easing comfortably into his role of disciplinarian. “Lurid thoughts are never becoming in a lady. Particularly a lady of your esteem.”
“I have esteem?”
He knotted her bonds with a sharp glance, leaving a small length free. “You are the Duchess of Courtland. I shall not remind you of that fact again.” At that, she gave him an impish grin that nearly set him laughing. “Behave yourself. Or this jesting punishment will become all too real.”
“Are you only jesting?” She looked down at her bound wrists and back at him.
“I am half-jesting.” He placed a hand beneath her elbow and helped her down from the chair. “You are very naughty, climbing on chairs and thinking lurid things, and doubtless deserve a spanking whether it is in jest or not. Come.”
He drew her across the room and positioned her so she faced the front left post of the bed. He looped the cravat around the post and tied it so her wrists were trapped, then stood close behind her and stroked her hair. “Now, naughty wife, you shall stand still and await me until I return.”
She looked over her shoulder in alarm. “Where are you going?”
“To get a birch,” he said, thrilling at her wide-eyed gaze. He crossed to leave, then turned back at the door, taking in the sight of her tied naked to her bed, awaiting his punishment. “Take care not to tug on that neckcloth,” he added as an afterthought. “It is my second favorite one.”
Harmony pressed her forehead to the bedpost, wondering why she was so raving mad.
She had recklessly teased and flirted, inspired by his gaze and the beauty of his smartly attired body. She had played with something she’d never known she possessed before she married—feminine power. Power over her handsome, towering husband, who reacted to her touches with an intensity that thrilled her.
But he’d turned her antics back on her and now here she was, fixed to her own bedpost by his lace-trimmed neckcloth. Somehow, as she’d become lost in their interplay, she’d forgotten her husband knew how to wield power much more deftly than she.
A birch, God help her. He kept a birch rod in the house?
Of course he would have them in the house, “uncomfortable habits” and all that. For all she knew, he kept a collection of flagellatory mistresses in far-flung rooms. His home was such a vast property, she would never know if he did. She could not be so spoiled as to say she was unhappy, but she was not at ease in this St. James mansion or in her new role as his duchess. There was so much to learn, from how to dress, to making calls, to navigating around the obsequious house staff and prickly dowager. It was all so complicated, except for this—being alone with her husband.
He had come to her every night since they’d wed and stayed with her for many hours, touching and exciting her beyond decency. She wasn’t sure if this was normal or excessive marital behavior, but she didn’t want to ask anyone. The great amount of time they spent together suited her just fine.
But this was the first time he’d spanked her since their wedding night. She turned her head at a distant footfall. Was that her husband in the hall or was it a servant? What if someone entered and caught sight of her in this ignominious position? Dear God, what if her husband had sent a servant to assemble a birch rod, and some footman was even now delivering it to him at the door to her bedroom? After all, she couldn’t picture His Grace lowering himself to stroll out to his own woodlands and collect the switches to bind together. Would all the servants know?
Of course they would know, you ninny. Of a certainty, they knew his proclivities before you showed up.
Everyone in the
ton
knew, she realized now. A couple days before, while visiting his library, Harmony had glimpsed a newspaper on his desk with a caricature of a scowling old gentleman taking a switch to a kicking, becurled young lady, her skirts tossed in the air. The caption read,
The Esteemed Duke At Last Finds Wedded Bliss
. Court covered it with other papers as soon as he noticed her looking at it, and that was when she’d realized with shock that it was a cartoon of them.
She didn’t care. She
didn’t
. She didn’t care if people snickered behind their hands at them. She wanted to do what excited him, because it excited her when he became so lustful and wicked. But now that the price was about to be exacted, she was reconsidering her choice to play at this game. She had never been birched before, although she knew her father had lit into Stephen a time or two when he’d done something particularly bad. Afterward Stephen had moped and sat quite uncomfortably.
My husband will not hurt me.
I don’t think he will hurt me.
At least not too much.
The door opened and Court returned. He crossed the room in stealthy silence until he stood just a few feet away. She wanted to hide and cover herself, but with her hands confined she hadn’t the choice, so instead she huddled right against the post. Her eyes dropped from his forbidding stance and his steady gaze to the birch rod in his hand. It did not appear freshly cut, which was a relief. In fact, it looked not much larger than a nursery birch. She let out a breath.
“Sir…I think… I am quite certain… I believe a stern lecture might do as well to teach me the needed lesson.”
One corner of his lips quirked up. “You believe that, do you?”
“Yes, sir.”
He tapped the birch against the side of one polished boot. “I am not inclined to let you off with a lecture.”
“Oh.” She imagined even a smallish birch hurt a little. “I see.”
He tossed the implement on the bed and took off his coat, then his waistcoat, never taking his eyes from her until he turned to set them aside. He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it over the other garments, then turned to her in only his trousers and boots. He looked dangerous. Daring. Sexy. He smoothed a hand across the front of his falls. She could see the outline of his shaft there, pressing against the material as he rearranged it. When she looked back up at his face, his half-smile had widened to a grin.
“More lascivious thoughts?” He reached for the birch rod on the bed. “How needful of punishment you are.” He paused. “The correct answer to that is ‘Yes, sir.’”
“Yes, sir,” she forced out through the tightness of her throat.
“Dear, you are already flinching. You must not flinch and tense, or you’ll bruise.” He inspected the slim switches that comprised the birch rod. “At some point I may need to make use of a ginger fig.”
She was nearly afraid to ask. “A ginger fig, sir?”
“To prevent you clenching your bottom when I spank or whip it.” He seemed about to explain more, but then shrugged his shoulders. “You’ll learn about it later. The technique is most quickly understood in the course of its use.”
That thought did not soothe her at all. He approached and stood behind her, one hand on her shoulder, and her body felt like one great cringe.
“Bend forward,” he said. “Just a little, that’s right. There will be ten strokes. I would like you to count each one.”
“Yes, sir.”
Oh, my. Oh, my!
Harmony leaned forward, clutching the bedpost. He pushed her down a little more until she was posed to his liking—but not hers. She felt too vulnerable, with her backside stuck out and about to be punished. She was not at all sure she liked this game. She shut her eyes tight until she heard the faint sound of the implement swishing through the air. The birch connected with her bottom, bringing a sting but not unbearable pain. If it was only this discomfort, she believed she could bear it. “One,” she said, taking a deep, centering breath.
He rubbed the birch rod along her bottom and she shivered a little. Then it was gone and she braced for the next blow. “Two!” This one was a bit harder. It stung very uncomfortably, like a hundred tiny pricks. The next came before she’d sorted out the effect of the second. “Three!” she cried, gripping the post. He stopped for a moment and she realized that the sting left behind was not lessening, but growing worse. The next blow made her go up on her toes. “Four!”
Five was the hardest yet. Harmony counted, then whimpered softly and shifted from foot to foot. Her husband’s broad hand spread upon her bottom, massaging, caressing.
“We are halfway there,” he said. “As I punish you, you must think about how to be better.”
“Yes, sir. I have been thinking. I think I have…I have already learned my lesson—”
The birch came swishing against her bottom mid-sentence and she cried out “Six!” “Seven!” “Eight!” He paused but a second or two between each one. They were not any harder than the ones that came before, but the pain rose and rose, burning ever hotter. She clenched and twisted and on the eighth she straightened up and turned to him. “Please. You’re hurting me awfully.”
“Awfully?” His eyes were mild, as was his voice. “You are not even crying, so I believe you can survive two more strokes.”
She frowned at him and turned, and pressed her body to the bedpost. Just as during the wedding-night spanking, she felt aroused as much as she felt pained. She wanted to take two more to please him—oh, but it was so hard to bend down and accept them. He was right that it wasn’t really awful. She hadn’t yet felt such agony that she must beg him to stop. It just
hurt
. He waited, watching her. Finally, she took a deep breath and forced herself to bend and offer her aching bottom for more punishment. He made a soft, pleased sound and she was glad she’d been so brave.
“Only two more,” he reminded her. “Count them aloud.”
The birch whipped against her bottom, erupting in a bloom of pain. “Nine!” she said a bit truculently. Surely he needn’t hit her that hard! Just one more…
The last was the hardest, a stiff, sharp whack that did, finally, bring a haze of tears to her eyes. “Oh…ten! Please! No more!”
His hand smoothed over her sore, stinging cheeks. “There will be no more.”
Harmony fidgeted at his touch. In a way it soothed her, but in another way it made her wish for a different sort of caress. He guided her upright and said, “I’m pleased you were such a good girl during your punishment.”
“Oh, but I wasn’t.” She pressed herself against the bedpost again. Behind her, she could hear him undressing the rest of the way. Boots pulled off, trousers pushed down in a whisper of cloth. “I tried to think about being better…”
“Did you?” His warm body pressed to hers from behind.
“But it didn’t do any good. I am still having those…those wicked thoughts about you.”