While she hid and cried, servants bustled in and out with food and wine and trunks of clothes and jewelry, and set about unpacking the necessities of her trousseau. Clement, her staunch, proper lady’s maid from home, wheedled her into a wisp of a silk shift and a ruffled ivory dressing gown and then went to turn down the bed.
Aurelia scooted deeper into the soothing darkness of the curtained window seat and gazed through the glass. With the little light left, she could see a well-tended garden, and neighboring rooftops in the distance. The window seat’s cushions were plump and soft, and the rich lavender curtains provided privacy. She wished she could hide in the little alcove forever.
“Lord Townsend will retire soon,” Clement said briskly. “You must come lie in the bed.” She crossed the room to coax Aurelia from the shadows of her newfound retreat. “Come now, there is nothing to fear.”
“I like the window seat.”
“My lady.” Her voice held a note of reproach. “Your new husband will expect to find you there.”
A knock interrupted her maid’s admonishments. Clement beckoned her wildly and Aurelia skittered across the floor. She’d just managed to climb into the monstrosity of a bed when the door opened. She drew in a deep breath as Lord Townsend entered.
Her husband looked even taller and more threatening in the dim light of the flickering candles. He’d taken off his fine, bright wedding garments and put on a deep bronze dressing gown much more suited to his dark eyes and hair. His gaze moved over her, revealing nothing of his feelings. She clutched the sheets closer to her chest.
His eyes moved to Clement, standing beside her, flushed to her roots. “Leave us,” he said.
Clement gave one last motherly twitch to the sheets, dropped a curtsy, and exited as quickly as her old, sturdy bones would allow.
Even after her lady’s maid left, Lord Townsend remained still, studying her in a very unnerving way. Then he moved toward the bed, his lips turning up in a half smile. “How beautiful you look,” he said. “All golden and shiny, like a princess in a fairy tale. Let me see you.”
His words were soft, but the sentiment behind them felt hard and demeaning. She clutched the sheets closer. He put his hands over hers and peeled her fingers away.
“Let me see you,” he said again, with a bit more steel. He whisked down the sheets, kicking up a breeze of clean linen scent.
Aurelia tensed, her entire body exposed to his regard. Her filmy night rail, made for a bride, left nothing to the imagination. His eyes roved over the silken thing, and she thought to herself,
he had this made for me. He chose this design.
Her mother would not have ordered such a transparent, indecent garment. She looked down, horrified to see the pink tips of her nipples through the material. She lifted her hands to cover her breasts.
He sat beside her on the bed and pushed them back down again. “Don’t hide from me, Aurelia. I would see the woman I’ve married.”
He kept his hands on hers so she had no choice but to bear his scrutiny. He stared down at the outline of her too-ample breasts, then back at her face. “Are you troubled?”
“I’m a b-bit nervous,” she stammered out.
“It’s all right to be nervous.” His hands tightened on hers as she tried to pull them away.
“But...do...do we really need to? Tonight?”
His soft smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yes, we really need to. The Lockridge and Lansing dynasties are at stake.”
“I mean, can we not delay just a few days, until we know one another better?”
His smile deepened. “Do you think it will change anything between us? I’m sorry, Aurelia, but I intend to have you tonight, our wedding night, as custom dictates. Resign yourself to your fate.”
He was practically laughing at her. She tried to summon outrage but found herself too nervous to manage it. His nearness terrified her. She stared at his chest, male and hard beneath his robe. She gawked at defined muscle and dark scattered hair, things she’d never known before in her sheltered existence. He leaned closer, so rough stubble whispered across her cheek.
“It’s only that you’re practically a stranger to me,” she whispered.
He dipped his head lower, released her hands and parted the gathered neckline of her shift. His lips brushed against her neck, the curve of her shoulder. “I won’t seem strange to you for long.” She shivered as he kissed lower. How soft he felt, and yet how dangerous... He nuzzled against the heaving rise of her bosom, just where the material met skin. “I knew you would look this way,” he mused, almost to himself. “I knew you would be lush like this, and soft and sweet. What a beautiful body you have, Lady Townsend.”
It was the second time he’d called her Lady Townsend, as if reminding her she had his name now. That she was
his
, by societal custom and law. His voice sounded hoarse and low as he murmured more love talk, compliments and endearments. Some response shuddered to life within her, some scary, elemental sort of pulse. His tongue darted out and touched the tip of her nipple through the fine fabric of her shift. She shied back but his arm came around her and held her, and then he sucked at her nipple, hot, warm pressure right through the fabric.
“My lord,” she cried. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer, only turned his head to lick her other nipple. He sucked it through the material, hard, strong pulls, shocking her. Her face burned. Her body burned too.
“No, please.” She shoved at him, trying to twist away.
He caught her hands and she found herself pushed back upon the pillows. “No, Aurelia? You’re my wife now. There are certain duties you’ll be obliged to perform.”
“But I don’t want this.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. However, my will is law in this house, in this marriage, and in this bed.” His face was so close to hers, their noses practically touched. “I won’t be a beast. I won’t demand unnatural acts. I won’t demean or degrade you, but I will require that you make your delectable body available to me. And it is delectable.”
His robe had parted wider when he came over her. She lay trapped under his heavy, muscled body, her heart pounding.
“Do you know why it’s delectable?” he asked.
She shook her head, eyes fixed on his chest. He loosened her shift, drawing the neckline down until her breasts were exposed, framed by the material. The gathered neckline caused them to be lifted and drawn forward, as if offered on display. He ran fingertips over the puckered, sensitive peaks of her nipples, setting them tingling in the most singular way. His slow caresses made the pulse quicken between her legs. A hot wave spread up into her belly. “These breasts are made to be fondled,” he said, squeezing them. “They’re the perfect size and shape.”
“Please, don’t,” she whimpered.
He left her breasts and sat back, and pushed the shift downward until it tore with a harsh sound. “Oh,” she cried as he ripped it nearly to the hem. The elegant thing had been new, and undoubtedly high in cost.
His hands traced down her naked belly to the curve of her hips. “You’re magnificent,” he said in that same hoarse voice. “Your hips, your bottom. This body is mine now, all of it. Do you understand?”
She shook her head as forcefully as she dared while pinned by his intense regard. “It’s not yours. It’s mine.”
When his fingers grasped her derrière, she shot up and tried to evade him again. He caught her over his arm with a soft chuckle. “If you knew how much I wanted you, you wouldn’t bother trying to get away.”
She turned, struggling to escape him. His teeth flashed white in a grim smile as he caught her arms and forced her face-down over his lap. The ripped edges of her shift parted, so she felt the silk of his dressing robe, and his warm, hard thighs beneath her. He caught her wrists and placed his other hand firmly on her back, so no matter how she kicked and flailed, she couldn’t right herself.
“Really, Aurelia,” he said with a tsk. “Is this proper wifely behavior? I’ve done nothing to hurt you.”
“You ripped my clothing,” she said. She wished he would let her up. She felt terribly vulnerable in this position. “You’re frightening me. You’re molesting me, and putting your lips on my—my breasts.”
“Molesting you? I was caressing you, lovely girl. Trying to make you feel good.” His fingers tightened around her wrists. “I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, tonight of all nights.”
“Come to what?” she asked in a high, thin voice. “Let go of me!”
But he didn’t let go. He yanked her shift up and out of the way and raised his arm behind her. His hand landed in a crack of fire across her bottom cheeks.
She was too shocked at first to react. Her husband had
spanked
her. Hard. Before she could draw breath to protest he spanked her again, and again, sharp, smarting strokes. “No,” she shrieked when she finally caught her breath. “Stop! Stop it!”
“I’ll stop when I believe you’ve been adequately punished for resisting me,” he said in a taut voice. “Your body is mine to caress if I wish it. As I said earlier, my will is law.”
His will? What about her rights as a wife, and as a person? Aurelia clung to his legs, the bed sheets, anywhere she could gain purchase, but no matter how she fought him, he overpowered her and bent her back over his lap. She slid on the fabric of his robe, her shift so disarranged that her breasts were exposed along with her smoldering bottom. Each crack of his hand felt like fire.
“Stop. Stop,” she begged, kicking her legs out. “Please stop.”
“I’m not sure you’ve learned your lesson yet.”
“Help,” she screamed, thinking perhaps a footman or maid might come to her rescue. “Lord Townsend is beating me. Please! Please help!”
If anything, the blows rained harder and hotter. “No one is going to rescue you, my dear,” he said between spanks. “My will is law for them too. Scream all you like. It won’t do any good.”
She cried instead, hating him for holding her down across his lap, hating his will and his horrible, punishing hand. She cried great, gusty tears of entreaty that didn’t seem to affect him in the least.
“Such dramatics,” he said, landing some smacks to the sensitive skin of her upper thighs. She gasped and bucked upon his lap. “Didn’t your father ever spank you this way for being a bad girl?”
“No!” she wailed. “I’ve never been a bad girl.”
“I beg to differ.”
He gave her three more solid cracks and then righted her, setting her on her feet. When she tried to set her shift in order, he tore the rest of it off her. If he’d ordered the garment, he’d destroyed it too. She stared at him, her bottom throbbing and her knees trembling. When she reached to cover her breasts, he made a sound of denial that stopped her.
“It’s my body, Aurelia. It’s not yours to cover any more, is it?”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer. No one had warned her that marriage might be this way. In her wildest nightmares of life with Lord Townsend, she hadn’t imagined this. “I want to cover myself up,” she said plaintively.
“That may be so, but I get pleasure from looking at you naked, so if I take your clothes off, you’ll leave them off. If I want to kiss and suck your breasts, you’ll let me kiss and suck your breasts. If I want to push you back and take you, you’ll spread your pretty little legs and damn well let me do it.”
Each word was delivered with cool, crisp inflection, until the quiver in her knees became a shake.
“Now, apologize for resisting me, on our wedding night of all nights,” he said. “Say it prettily, my love. ‘
I’m sorry, my lord husband, for resisting you.
’”
What else could she do? She couldn’t bear to be spanked again, and she knew that’s what would happen if she didn’t comply with his command. She wiped the tears from her face. “I’m sorry, my lord husband, for resisting you.”
“Look at me, Aurelia.” He waited until she managed to drag her gaze to his. “Let’s be clear about things from the start. If you resist me in this again, you’ll be punished. If you whine, if you disobey, if you act disrespectfully, you’ll be punished. If you annoy me, you’ll be punished. Fair warning, my darling. Do you understand?”
She stared into his dark eyes. She was so unsettled, so frightened, so
traumatized
, she couldn’t think for a moment. “I don’t want that to happen again.”
“Then you must behave, mustn’t you?” His gaze softened the slightest bit. “It was silly of you to resist when I was only trying to give you pleasure. Husbands and wives do these things. They kiss and caress. They make love. How do you think I felt when you pushed me away?”
“Angry,” she managed, when it became clear he wanted an answer.
“Yes, angry. Frustrated. Rejected. Now you have a sore bottom because of it. Turn around.”
She did, aching with shame. For long seconds he made her stand there and endure his scrutiny. She flinched as his cool hands traveled over each throbbing bottom cheek. “You’ll sit prettily for a couple of days. A helpful reminder for you.” He turned her back around. “Lie on the bed and spread your legs now, and try to behave as a good wife should.”
She swallowed hard. She had been taught her whole life to keep her legs closed, to be pure and prim. Didn’t he understand how difficult this was?
At her hesitation, he gave her a warning look. “I’ll get a whip next, and you won’t sit for a week.”
“I’m so afraid.” The words burst out of her, weak and humiliating.
“You’re afraid because you’re resisting. If you’d let it happen, you’d find it’s not as bad as your maiden’s fears.” He let out a sigh. “Has no one educated you about sexual intimacies in marriage?”
“I was educated,” she said, sniffling. But that education didn’t mention tearing clothes, and spankings, and whips.
“What would your parents think about the way you’ve conducted yourself this evening?” he asked. “You’re here in my beautiful home, my own lawful wife, and you had to be spanked like a naughty child for refusing my touch. I’m nearing the end of my patience.” He pointed to the bed.
Aurelia crawled onto the counterpane, certain he was staring at her hot, aching bottom. When she tried to slip under the sheets, his sharp voice stopped her.
“No. Lie on top. Spread your legs as I told you.”