Downstairs Rules (5 page)

“What sort of errands, Ella?”

“I..I picked up ribbon, mailed a letter to my father, bought some lace…”

“And that is all?”

Ella tried to remember whether she’d seen a familiar face when she picked up the flier, but there had been no one. And she’d obviously dropped it before coming home. This was, she decided, a fishing expedition.

“That is all, M’Lord.”

Lord Baxter reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. As he unfolded it, Ella felt her heart begin to pound.

“If that is all, then why did you have this when you returned?”

“I thought it was lost…” Ella said the words to herself, but all heard them.

“William, the footman…he found them in your things. And he had the forethought to bring it to me.”

“So I will ask you again…Did you pick this up?”

Ella looked at Lady Baxter and then at Lord Baxter. “I did.”

“And were you asked to.”

“No.” The lie was effortless.

“Ella…” Lady Ann looked at her. Tears were in her eyes.

“You don’t have to lie for me.”

Lady Baxter stepped in front of Ella, as if she could shield the maid from her husband.

“I asked her to find information on the suffrage meeting, Malcolm. I want to go. Is that so wrong?”

“That may be debatable in certain quarters, but not here. It’s not even the issue. What is wrong is your disobeying me, and her disobeying York.”

“Lock the door please,” he ordered the butler. And Lady and maid looked at one another with fear.

Chapter Five

“Do you realize how foolish you both are, to think you can deceive me?” Lord Baxter’s face was cloudy with anger. “It’s bad enough to bring trouble on yourself, but now you’ve also visited it on your maid, Ann!”

“It’s not me,” she said. “No one is forcing York to take this disciplinary role.”

“York takes this role because it’s the only other option for this girl aside from being tossed in the street without a reference!”

“I only did as I was told,” Ella said.

“You did as you were told to by Lady Ann,” her husband said. “But York has made it clear that as head of household you were hired to do my bidding.”

“But I’m a lady’s maid!” Tears spring to Ella’s eyes now.

“Yes,” York said, taking hold of her harm. His grasp was firm but not hurtful and as he looked down at her, Ella knew she was completely helpless against what was to come. “And the lady is answerable to her husband, who has made you answerable to me.”

Ella looked at Lord Baxter. “Please, M’Lord…”

“It will be for York to decide your punishment, although I have little doubt of what it will be. And I believe for encouraging you, part of Lady Ann’s punishment should be to watch her made suffer the consequences of being told to defy my rules.”

“NO!” Lady Ann moved towards York. “Don’t you dare, York! I’m lady of this house and I command you unhand my maid!”

York kept his hand on Ella’s arm and looked at her husband, who was looking at York.

“You do understand, York, that my overruling my wife will have no impact on your respect for her, or on your duties to obey her in every other way, correct?”

“I understand completely, sir,” York said. Then he turned to Lady Ann. “I must beg your pardon ma’am,” he said formally. “But I’ve been asked by your husband to correct this young lady and that is just what I intend to do.”

“No!” Ella tried to struggle, but York would not release her. The butler calmly warned her to stop resisting, and when she would not, he lobbed a hard smack to her bottom. Even through her skirt, it hurt, and she cried out.

“If you persist in struggling, I will simply smack your bottom until you stand submit,” he said. “And then you will still get spanked. You don’t want that, do you?”

“I don’t want to get smacked at all,” Ella said, tears pooling in her eyes.

“My dear, I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” he said. “Defying me is one thing, but to lie about it when confronted by Lord Baxter? My dear girl, you should know better.”

York took Ella over to the same couch he’d sat upon to spank her the night before. From across the room, Lady Ann was protesting vociferously.

“If he must do this, have him do it in private!” she pleaded with her husband. “Can’t you at least spare her the humiliation?”

“A little dose of humiliation is exactly what such a disobedient young lady needs,” Lord Baxter said. “And as you watch this - and you will watch, Ann, - just remind yourself that were it not for your instructions, she would not be over York’s knee.”

That’s where Ella found herself now, sobbing and pleading as he pulled her across his lap. York had positioned Ella at least, so that her bottom was facing away from the couple for decorum’s sake, but still when he lifted her skirt it was obvious that he was planning to bare her bottom for the punishment.

“This is too cruel!” she heard Lady Baxter tearfully protest as York pulled down her pantalets.

“Oh, sir, please don’t!” Ella sobbed the words, knowing that York would not heed them.

The sound of the first smack resounded through the room along with Ella’s cry plaintive wail. Across the room, Lady Baxter tried to bury her face in her hands as her maid was punished, but her husband held her hands and pointed at the scene.

“You will watch every smack, and hear every cry,” he said.

“He’s hurting her!”

“He’s teaching her a lesson, Ann. And afterwards you will be taught one as well.”

His wife paled at the comment as, across the room, Ella was sure if she was going to die of pain, humiliation or both. York was right; what he’d done the night before was nothing to the relentless cascade of heavy smacks that he rained down over and over on her rapidly reddening bottom. She tried to move away from his hand, but he dwarfed her in size and strength and finally there was nothing she could do but succumb completely and endure what seemed like an endless and painful humiliation. York tipped Ella forward, delivering the last ten smacks especially hard on the very bottom of her buttocks just above the thigh. Ella screamed with each blow and when it was over she just lay there, wracked with sobs, as he rearranged her undergarments and skirt with great care.

He stood her up as he had done the night before and ordered her to look at him. Ella did, tears streaming down her face.

“Ella Carter, will you do as you are told now?”

She could only nod, hyperventilating too hard to answer.

York looked to his employer, whose curt nod indicated that he was satisfied that the girl had indeed gotten a proper comeuppance.

Beside Lord Baxter, his wife was crying, and now he sat down on another sofa and pulled her across his lap.

“No…not in front of the servants!”

“I can leave,” York said. “And I can take Ella.”

“No,” Lord Baxter said. “I think it is important for both these young ladies to endure this together. Perhaps if they won’t act in their own best interest, they will act out of concern for the other’s.”

Ella tried to turn away when Lord Baxter pulled his wife’s gown up. She’d seen her lady naked when she helped with her bath, but not like this. It was heart-wrenching, and when Lord Baxter produced a small rod and raised it up in preparation to strike, Ella pleaded with York to help her. But York turned Ella around and held her by the shoulders, forcing her to watch as Lord Baxter thrashed her bottom until it was welted and his wife’s face was red and streaked with tears.

“I’ll see my wife to her room,” Lord Baxter said when he was finished, and Ella’s heart was broken when her dejected lady could not even meet her gaze from the shame. When they were out of the room, Ella broke down and began to sob. It was a few moments before she realized that she was sobbing into York’s chest. His arms were around her, his large hand soothing her back.

“Breathe now,” he said. “Breathe…”

“It’s not fair!” she cried.

“Fair has nothing to do with it, little one.”

Ella pushed away from him and stepped back. “How can you be so cruel to me one moment and kind to me the next? Don’t you hate this? Don’t you hate betraying your own kind on the whim of another?”

“I’m not betraying you, Ella,” he said. “And I don’t see such a division between us and the people we serve. My father served here, and I served here. They are as much my family as my own blood. We function as a whole. If Lord Baxter is the head, then we are the heart. I know it is hard for you to understand, but if they - if…I…- did not care about you, then you would not be corrected, but dismissed.” He produced another handkerchief and handed it to her. “I would never see you dismissed.”

“William…he went through my things… I have no privacy, Mr. York. I have no say. I’m treated like a child.”

“You’re not treated as a child. You have a great responsibility. But it is Lord Baxter’s firm belief that a good spanking is effective for a woman as it is for a little girl, and far less damaging than being cast aside.”

But Ella wasn’t so sure. She was devastated to have witnessed Lady Baxter’s punishment. A maid, she believed, should never see her lady humiliated so. It wasn’t right. Now whenever Lady Baxter saw her, she would think on what Ella had seen. It would change things between them.

Ella asked York if she could go to her room.

“I was going to send you there anyway,” he said. “I’d like you to spend the day thinking on what has transpired.

But Ella decided she had no reason to think. She wiped away tears as she penned her letter of resignation. She held it for some time, trying to summon the courage to give it to York, but decided that she could not deal with another confrontation. She would simply leave. She waited until the staff was busy with dinner arrangements and - being careful to avoid detection - slipped out the back door. It was a cool evening, but the moon was full. Ella figured if she walked through the night she’d reach the village and could telegraph her father from there. How would Malcolm Carter react to his daughter’s decision? She decided she would not tell him what had happened. She had disobeyed, after all, and would hope that if Lady Ann Baxter had any influence at all, she would wield it to convince her husband to at least give Ella a reference.

Ella decided to keep close to the hedgerows, and then take the path by the garden cottage to the main road. It would take her through a small wooded area, but would keep her from being seen from the windows.

As she walked towards the cottage, she heard the sound of a twig snapping. She stopped.

“Hello…is anyone there?”

Her answer was met only with silence.

“Hello….?”

She walked on, telling herself that what she’d heard was just an animal. But then she felt a hand cover her mouth and a strong arm clamp across the front of her body like a vice. She cried out against the hand, and pulled helplessly against the arm as she was pulled into the garden shed. Her suitcase fell on the ground, its contents scattering.

Ella did not have to guess who’d abducted her. William slammed the door as he pushed her aside. She stood there, wondering what to do as he lit a lamp, keeping the flame low enough to provide the bare minimum of light.

“Well, well, well…If it isn’t our little anarchist.”

“You,” Ella said. “You stole from me.”

“I only stole that which shouldn’t have been taken,” William said. “And the whole household knows you got your wee bottom beaten for it. Some are speculating that maybe you like it.” He touched her face as he spoke and Ella slapped him. She’d never hit anyone, and she was surprised at how her hand stung from impacting the footman’s smooth cheek.

And she instantly regretted it when William grabbed her and pulled her up against his body. He was lean and muscular, and Ella’s heart fluttered like a frightened bird in her chest. She opened her mouth to beg him not to hurt her, but the words would not come.

“You’ll pay for that, lass,” he said. “You’ve left service. I snuck up to your room and got the note.” He reached into his pocket and pulled it out. “They’ll think you took to the road without so much as a by your leave. Fancy that..You were given this great opportunity and you just threw it back in their face.” He paused. “You’re a pretty thing, so you could get married, but who will have you once you’re disgraced?”

“I’m not disgraced,” Ella said.

“No? He raised his eyebrows. “You’re about to be.”

His hands went to the buttons of Ella’s coat and he undid them with remarkable proficiency as she struggled against him. Ella felt the coat fall away and then his hands were everywhere, sliding down her back, squeezing her still-sore bottom, roaming her waist. William laughed throatily as she tried to escape him. Ella tried to kick him, but her foot missed and connected with something hard behind him. Pain shot through her ankle.

“I’m going to enjoy this, I reckon,” he said. “You’ve been an uppity little thing since the first day. But York didn’t know the proper way to put a little upstart like you in her place. It takes a real man to settle a spirited woman.”

He pushed her over to the garden table, and Ella felt herself laid back and her legs lifted. She could feel William’s cock against her leg, feel his breath on her ear as he told her what he was going to do. Ella whimpered in fear, tears sliding down her face.

“I will not beg for mercy,” she said, not from him.

She felt her undergarments rip and closed her eyes, but almost at the same moment she heard a crash and felt William’s weight lifted off of her. There was another crash and she looked up to see the footman crumpled against a far wall, dazed.

“My dear girl.” York lifted her up as if she were a broken doll. He tilted her face up. Ella could say nothing.

“Did he…?”

“Would you respect me any less if he had?” she asked, a tear sliding down her face.

“Wait here.”

York turned. William was not a small man, and was younger, but York had the advantage of size, strength and the rage to fuel it. He picked William up by the back of his coat and pants and literally threw him out the door. Ella heard the younger man scream. A hedge of brambles grew by the door of the shed; she was sure that was where William was now lodged, judging by his curses and cries of pain.

The bulter came back in.

“How did you know I was here?”

“I sent Mrs. Pilcher up to check. You weren’t there. She said there was no note. No good maid leaves a house, not even permanently, without letting someone know. It’s just not how we are bred. And you are a good maid, and no mistake. One of the other maids had seen William on the stairs. I was sure he’d been to your room, and if he knew you’d gone then I was sure he’d followed. I’ve never liked the way he looks at you. If he had…”

His voice died away, the words choking.

“He didn’t Mr. York…”

“He will pay for what he has done,” York said. Ella tried to take a step towards him but cried out.

“I think I hurt my ankle,” she said. “I tried to escape and kicked something. I don’t know what, but it hurts.”

York picked her up as if she weighed nothing.

“Hang on,” he said. “We’ll get you looked after.”

Ella did not argue. She could feel York’s concern as he bore her back in the house and called for a doctor. The other servants peeked from around corners until he admonished them to mind their own business, sending them scattering except for Mrs. Pilcher who had once been a nurse.

“It looks sprained,” she said. “But we’ll need it looked at. I don’t think it’s broken..” She looked at York. “William?”

York nodded. “I blame myself…”

He picked Ella up again. She’d been sitting in a chair and now he took her up to her room. By the time he’d gotten her settled in bed, it was apparent that word had spread and Lord Baxter came into the room. All the servants stood.