Disciplining the Duchess (9 page)

His mind stopped there, incapable of going further without being too tempted to act. He gave Miss Barrett a warning look. “Your need for discipline notwithstanding, this is not an appropriate topic of discussion between us.”

“You were only blustering then, when you said you would give me the sound spanking I so richly—”

“If you were mine to correct, Miss Barrett,” he interrupted, “your bottom would have been striped with a sound switch long before now.”

She swallowed hard, her expression miserable. “Oh, my. I’m sure I deserve it.”

Court leaped to his feet, his chair scraping back with a grating sound in the quiet room. Miss Barrett leapt up too, taking up a place behind her seat. “Your Grace, I am just so sorry about today. About dragging you here. I cannot explain— If I could go back and do things differently—” She pressed her hand to her mouth, her eyes shining with tears.

In two steps he was at her chair. He placed one booted foot upon it and reached for her. Her eyes went wide but she did not resist him.
Right
, he thought to himself.
She’s earned it.
He tossed her face down over his knee, arranging her bottom to be spanked. A birch switch would have been preferable, but his hand worked just as well. He delivered four well-placed smacks before she reacted. A small kick and a gasp of surprise, a whispered
oh, no
.

It was a bit late for
oh, no
’s. He wouldn’t have done this if he didn’t believe they both needed it, he for his irritation and she for her emotional distress. He held her at the waist and delivered a series of sturdy wallops to the accompaniment of her shocked cries. Ladies’ fashions these days provided little in the way of padding, which suited his purposes nicely. Her small kicks became bigger ones, her muted whines louder pleas. It did not deter him from meting out the discipline she required.

“This is for scolding me”
whap!
“and evading me”
whap!
“and leading me on a merry chase across the county with my heart in my throat.”
Whap, whap, whap.
She clutched his leg but didn’t try to get away. She was crying, but then, she’d been crying before he even started. “It’s also for being generally thoughtless and headstrong.”
Whap, whap, whap.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she wailed.

He paused after a particularly throaty sob and tightened his hold at her waist. “Do you know, Miss Barrett, I am actually feeling less cross now.” Another volley of hard spanks across both globes of her posterior, and then he let her up, setting her on the floor. She backed away from him, her eyes wide and wet with tears.

“Where is your reticule?” he asked.

“Wh— What?”

He located her small gray bag and extracted his handkerchief from within. He pulled her toward him, using the linen to dab at her cheeks. “I told you you would need it again.”

She made a little choking sound as he gathered her into his arms, but she did not resist him. He stroked her face, soothing and calming her. “There now,” he said. “Your penance has been paid. You needn’t continue carrying on.”

“I can’t help it,” she said on another sob. “I did not think you really would—”

“I really would,” he said. “You practically begged to be spanked, I assume because you felt such guilt. Do you feel less guilty now that you’ve been punished?”

She mopped at her eyes and took a hard breath. “I will feel guilty as long as you are angry with me.”

“I will be less angry if you assure me you have taken a lesson.” He held her so she was forced to look at him. “Tell me what you’ve learned.”

“Not to go off on my own,” she sniffled. “Not to scold and inconvenience Your Grace.”

“Not to scare me,” he said, his arms tightening around her. He should not be holding her so close, but he couldn’t let go. “I have come to care for your safety. My anger was born of worry more than anything else.”

“I am sorry,” she whispered. “I truly am.”

“Then you are forgiven,” he said, forcing himself to release her. “Let us make a fresh start from this moment.”

She nodded, wiping away the last of her tears. “I would like that.”

“As would I. And perhaps you will find your appetite returned with the loss of your guilty burden.”

She took the hint and sat gingerly on the edge of her chair. Court sat too, to finish eating along with her. His perverse fantasy of spanking Miss Barrett’s bottom had become, abruptly, a reality, stirring his loins to a quick and uncomfortable stiffness. It wasn’t only the act that aroused him, it was her penitence, her tears, the comfort she found in expiation. He had given her that feeling, restored her peace of mind—and her appetite too.

But he felt like a man starved.

He had never spanked any woman but a courtesan. Spanking Miss Barrett had not felt the same, nor had she reacted in the same way the courtesans did. He understood why, but he’d never imagined how satisfied it would make him feel, to spank not just for pleasure, but for emotional reasons.

Miss Barrett peeked across the table at him every so often. He did not frown, nor smile either—although he wished to grin in jubilation. He wished to fall on her and press himself inside her fiercely, and whisper to her that she’d taken her spanking well and he was so, so proud of her.

He wanted to wed Miss Barrett after all.

She would torment and aggravate him hourly, he was sure of it, but at least if she was with him he would know she was safe. He had the power and influence to shelter her from the consequences of the numerous scrapes she would likely get into over the course of her unconventional life. Even better, such numerous scrapes would call for many spankings on her alluring posterior. He felt a softening, a rueful acceptance of her, and in some part of his mind, at that moment, the iron bars of his protection wrapped around her like a cage.

“Your Grace?”

“Yes, Miss Barrett?”

She caught his eyes a moment, then looked down at her lap. “Can you not… Will you tell my brother about…”

He raised a brow. “About what just transpired between us?”

She blushed. “No, about…about my rash actions which have caused us to be here.” She wrung her hands, turning her fingers as pink as her cheeks. “Well, I suppose either way he will find out.”

“Yes,” Court agreed. “I fear we have passed the point of secrecy and discretion, even if we left here and returned at once.”

“Please, let us not. At least let me see the wall first, if I must endure the consequences of his anger.”

“I promised to take you to your wall and I never go back on my word. I also promise your brother shall not lay a finger on you when we return.”

She looked skeptical. “How will you prevent him? He’ll be livid.”

“As I said earlier, there are very few things I can’t do.”

She still looked afraid. There was no way at present to soothe her. If he told her she was now safe in his figurative cage, it would only frighten her. She might mistake safety for captivity, even with her sharp intellect. But in time she would see.

“Might I ask your name, Miss Barrett?”

“My name?” she asked, confused.

“Your full name.”

She looked suddenly, charmingly shy. “It’s Miss Harmony Louise Barrett.”

Harmony Louise. A beautiful name for a beautiful, if quite impossible, woman. She looked at him expectantly.

“I have four names,” he sighed. “Five, including my title.”

“It’s good that I have an excellent memory.”

He shot her an arch look before he recited them all. “Benedict Thomas William Hawthorne, His Grace the Duke of Courtland. A mouthful, isn’t it?”

“What do your friends call you?” she asked, as if his string of fine British names and impressive title was of no consequence.

“My acquaintances call me Courtland or Court.” He waited.

“May I—”

“No. You will continue to address me as ‘Your Grace’ or ‘sir,’ as is proper.”

She regarded him with a thoughtful tap of her lip. “Acquaintances, you said. Haven’t you any friends?”

“A duke does not require friends.”

“Only underlings?” Her eyes were wide with innocence, but he saw the sparkle beneath.

“Miss Barrett, you are exceedingly brave to tease me.”

“I only think it’s sad you haven’t any friends.”

“I have friends.” He waved a hand. “Gentlemen I know, men of my acquaintance. Really, it is not at all like you and your giggling group.”

“They are not my group. I am forced to socialize with them because we are alike in social standing.”

“It is very much the same with me and my friends.”

She played with the silverware. He squelched the urge to correct her like a nagging nurse. “Well,” she said at last. “I will be your friend, Your Grace. Perhaps you will be mine.”

He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I am not at all sure you’re giving me a choice.”

She lowered her face and he had the sneaking suspicion she stifled a smile. How silly it was to speak of friendship when they were all but betrothed. They were both of them going daft at the late hour, or perhaps it was her sweet expression making him feel not at all himself. For a wild moment he thought about seduction, about taking her to his room and kissing her pretty face, caressing her figure, examining her reddened bottom, which was far more voluptuous than any virginal English miss had a right to. She was to become his wife, after all. Why not?

Because he was a confounded gentleman and must act as one.

“I’ll be right next door,” he said when he left her upstairs, “should you need me. Otherwise, stay to your room.” He emphasized the “stay” with a steady glare. “In the morning we shall see this adventure out, shall we not?”

“Yes, Your Grace, thank you,” she said with a bob of her head and an off-balance curtsy. His wife. Blast and dash it.

She was going to be his
wife
.

Harmony awakened the following morning to the sound of the maid’s timid tapping.

“Good morning, ma’am,” the girl said through the door. “His Grace asks that you rise now. I’m to help you dress.”

For a moment Harmony panicked. Her gown was nowhere to be found in the small room, but then she saw it draped over the maid’s arm as she entered, the worst of the dust and stains brushed out.

“Oh, thank you,” Harmony breathed in relief.

The girl looked surprised at her gratitude but gave her a broad smile anyway. “No need to thank me, ma’am. We rarely have such fancy guests here. I’m to help you wash and dress your hair also if you wish it. You were sore tired last night.”

At mention of the word
sore
, distressing memories assailed her. His Grace the Duke of Courtland had spanked her last night, and yes, she had goaded him to it. She’d seen with her own eyes the scarlet blush left behind on her bottom. It had hurt to be spanked by him, but afterward she had felt so much better, as if everything was in balance again. He had held her very gently and even stroked her forehead to soothe her. How confusing. How…extraordinary. How painful, but somehow it seemed worthwhile, even if her bottom still ached slightly as she sat up on the edge of the bed.

Aside from the problem of her smarting posterior, Harmony was bodily sore, and bodily tired. She was not accustomed to riding in a bumpy wagon and she’d done quite a bit of walking before His Grace caught up with her. She bit back groans as the maid assisted her at her ablutions and helped her don her newly-freshened gown. Even her slippers had been passably cleaned and mended. The talented girl tamed her curls into a dainty style, smoothing the rest of her locks neatly against her head. Harmony felt better, certainly, but her excitement to see the Roman wall was tempered by lingering embarrassment over her comportment in the duke’s company. Not to mention her sojourn over his knee.

She would never forget it, not her entire life. It had been so smoothly and easily done, as if spanking a full-grown woman was of normal consequence to him. She wondered if this was the “uncomfortable habit” to which the older ladies alluded. If his habit was spanking errant women, he must have thanked the stars above the day he met her. When she added up all her faults and breakdowns and large and small trespasses since she’d made the duke’s acquaintance, she couldn’t blame him at all for punishing her the night before. Perhaps it would inspire her to curb her improper impulses and stay in the drawing rooms where she ought to.

She shuddered. No, that was no life in her eyes. She would rather be spanked and lectured for her faults than sit like a puppet on some divan making polite talk about gowns and which young man was the season’s best catch. She had attempted that her first season, and her second, and failed miserably. She would simply have to face His Grace this morning and hope he could forgive her for the muddle she’d temporarily made of his life.

Once she was dressed, the maid led her downstairs to the dining room. The duke stood as she entered, looking as composed and severely handsome as ever, even in yesterday’s clothes.

“Good morning, Miss Barrett.”

“Good morning, Your Grace.” She hesitated just inside the door. “I really must… I must begin with another apology. I know it changes nothing, but I am so sorry, so truly sorry for all of the inconvenience I’ve caused.”

“As you know, your apology has already been accepted, and matters settled between us.” He arched one dark brow ever so slightly.

Heat flooded her face. “Oh yes…that.”

The brow arched higher. “Yes, that.” She stared at him, mute with embarrassment and a strange delicious dread. “I trust you suffered no lasting damage?” he asked.

“No, sir.” She flushed even hotter, if such a thing was possible. “In fact, I slept quite well.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Join me and take some breakfast.” He gestured to the empty chair opposite him.

The sideboard was laden with enough food to feed a dozen people. Either the duke had the appetite of a horse and had requested this largesse, or the innkeeper hadn’t been sure what to serve, and so served a little of everything. The duke had already finished his plate. He watched her take some toast, marmalade, and a hard-cooked egg.