The Patriot Bride (8 page)

He couldn’t be soft on her. Not now, not for this. “Do you require my assistance, Madame Preston?” he asked, quirking and eyebrow at her.

She shook her head very slowly and reluctantly, and Wolf saw several more tears fall but he couldn’t concern himself with them right now. Apparently the two lessons he’d given her last night hadn’t made much of an impression, and he intended that this time, she would never forget who she was and what he expected of her.

When she was finally naked, her delicate ankles swathed by her bloomers and her chemise neatly folded on the bed. He had to clamp down on his iron hard will as his eyes roved eagerly over that creamy white flesh. Her bottom was the absolute perfect shape – if a bit spare for his tastes – a lovely inverted heart set atop two beautiful slim columns of legs. She had a natural, feminine grace of movement that drew him like a lode stone, and he knew that if he peeked over those too slim shoulders he’d see those beautiful mounds he’d caressed last night and - . He stopped his mind right then and there, because he knew if he didn’t, he’d never be able to do what needed to be done. He’d throw caution to the wind and probably impregnate her, and then he’d never know if the child was his or some by blow from whoever she’d been lying with since she got here – or before.

Those thoughts were enough to help him bring his rampant libido under control, and stoke a bit more of the anger he’d been feeling when she’d shot at him. It was amazing how quickly his desire for her blotted out her very real attempt on his life, and he didn’t like it. Not one bit.

“Lean forward and put your palms on the bed, and God help you if you let go.”

Hannah didn’t like the sound of that, not one bit. But she did as she was told. Whatever he did to her, whatever she was forced to endure for the next few hours or the next few months, she would get through, until she could get away from him. That was the thought she tried to cling to in her mind.

She knew this wasn’t going to be easy, and it hadn’t been easy last night, either, and she hadn’t done anything nearly as bad then as what had happened a few minutes ago.

So she did as she was told, her entire body trembling in nervous anticipation of what was to come. She kept her head up, and could see a little of him out of her peripheral vision. It made her wish ferverntly she’d kept her head down.

What she saw was him going over to the chest of drawers that was tucked against one wall, grabbing something he wanted and then coming to stand to her left side. Whatever it was was folded in on itself until he had assumed his position, and then he let all but the very end of it drop next to his uniform covered thigh.

It was a razor strop, and it had to be nearly three inches wide if it was an inch, and she didn’t want to think how long it was, but it was probably long enough to wrap around her waist at least once. And that was more than enough for her. Hannah was feeling as if she wanted to faint, but she couldn’t quite get here. Certainly he wouldn’t whip her while she was unconscious, would he? Wouldn’t that take all the fun out of it for him – she wouldn’t be screaming and crying and begging him to stop?

Wolf didn’t waste any more time. He drew back the leather as far as he could – as if he was playing golf, almost – and let it fly back down at her unprotected rump, enjoying an immense feeling of satisfaction as he heard the resounding crack it issued when coming in contact with her bottom flesh. And then she screamed, and that was the most satisfying sound of all.

He gave her ten swift slices before he started to lecture, punctuating various words with strong slaps of the unforgiving leather that had her jerking and dancing to his cruel tune. “I don’t care what you want, I don’t care what you think. You are my wife. Even if you don’t believe the document I showed you, I have provided you with incontrovertible proof, and from this moment on, you will comport yourself as a lady. As my lady, which means that your behavior is to be above reproach, and that does not include trying to shoot your husband.

“I have never met a wench who was as stubborn as you are, and I hope I never do again. One is too much, believe me, especially when one is saddled with her for a lifetime.”

Hannah was beside herself. She’d thought the spankings she’d received last night had been horrible. They were nothing in comparison to what he was doing to her now. She felt as if he was peeling away her flesh, strip by strip, every time that awful thing unerringly found every inch of her bottom and down the backs of her legs. The belt was a wide line of fire that made her arch her back painfully and scream with each flaming kiss.

Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she knew that just the dance she was doing – called by his unrelenting tune – was beyond obscene. Her bare breasts wobbled with each sharp movement, and her arching movements brought her bottom into unrelenting prominence, as if she was silently begging for each horrid lash of her tender flesh.

She didn’t know how long it went on, but she knew that it was much longer than she had thought she could stand. Hannah had felt close to a faint since before he’d started, yet something kept yanking her back to consciousness. Oh yes. It was the searing pain of every stripe he very strategically placed across her bottom. Even so, she was wearing out, and her bottom was burning so badly it had nearly gone numb from the overload of sensation. But not quite.

Wolf had been watching her very carefully throughout. He wasn’t a stranger to this type of thing, and he knew that eventually she’d get to the point where she wasn’t feeling what he was doing. He knew he needed to end it before it got to that point for the punishment to have its maximum effect, and he did just that, laying on one last, full strength wallop, always excruciatingly careful that the tip of the strop landed well within the range of her buttocks and didn’t wrap around to the more tender and much less punishment worth flesh of her hips or belly.

Her full throated scream announced that he’d found his true target, and with that he uttered but one word. “Stay,” sounding much as if she was one of his hounds. A rueful smile crossed Wolf’s face as he returned the strop to its rightful place. Unfortunately, she wasn’t nearly as well behaved as his dogs.

When he turned around, he was gratified to find that she was right where he’d left her. Hadn’t moved a muscle. Perhaps she was trainable, after all. He stood next to her, much as he had during the punishment, noting the faint hint of blue bruising beginning around the edges or middle of some of the stripes he’d inflicted. Then he noticed that her bottom was still trembling, and he frowned.

Surely she’d seem him put the strop away, he thought, frowning. Maybe she thought that he was going to top her off with a hand spanking, and the idea did have some merits. Then he followed the line of her body to her head, which was partially obscured by masses of gold ringlets. But he couldn’t mistake the dark splotch beneath her head for anything other than what it was. Tears.

Wolf frowned. He’d disciplined women before. He’d never hesitated to take any woman to task about her behavior, be she a servant or a member of the ton, and they had all cried and screamed and moaned, and some of them had even become very aroused, although if pressed they would probably have denied it flatly.

None of their tears had affected him in any way. He’d spanked or whipped or paddled them without even a semblance of a care, before, during or after. Now, a woman crying for no particular reason was likely to send him into spasms trying to find a way to end it. But punishment tears were another matter entirely to him. Or at least they had been.

So why was it that the spreading evidence of her copious tears made his heart clench in anguish? He didn’t want to respond that way – with his wife least of all, truth be told. He needed to maintain the upper hand in this relationship – he would maintain the upper hand, come hell or high water. He had to. But there was something about this upstart colonial that tugged at his heart strings, and, if he had to admit it, his ego.

Why else would he have moved Heaven and Earth to find her when he’d found out that she’d jilted him. By all rights, he should have just let her go and found another more willing and appreciative bride. But she’d humiliated him, not in front of anyone but his immediate family, of course, but that was quite enough.

And once he’d seen her, peeping out from behind that rickety door, he was lost. He’d wanted her right then and there, and from that moment on was determined that she would accept him as her husband.

“You can get up now, and get under the covers,” came the surprisingly soft, quiet command.

Afraid of disobeying him again in any way, Hannah began to move immediately, if slowly. She felt like she’d been bent over for years rather than minutes. Everything she owned hurt, and it was a painful crawl between the fine linen sheets, but she made it, lying on her side with her back to her husband. She found it interesting to note that although the gunshot had brought everyone running, the full-throated screams and pleas of mercy she’d been so easily reduced to hadn’t been sufficient cause for even the nervous innkeep to take note.

Right now, she had to admit to herself, that it didn’t much matter whether he really was her husband or not. He thought he was, and since he held all the cards right now, that made him right.

But she wouldn’t stop looking for an opportunity to escape. She’d just do her best not to rebel so obviously in the future. It wouldn’t be easy. Meek acquiescence went against her grain, made her jaw set against it, but she would do it. She would bide her time.

For as long as it took.

Hanna drew a deep, slow breath, tugging the sheet up over her shoulder and closing her ever swollen eyes. It seemed around him that certain parts of her would always be swollen around him, for one reason or another. She could hear him puttering around the room, and she supposed she should have found that soothing, somehow. But tears overrode everything else in her world, and, to her horror, she began to cry in great, unwieldly gulps.

Chapter Six

Wolf was just about to join her beneath the sheet, but the sounds of her sobs gave him pause. She was crying harder now than she had when he’d been taking the strap to her, and it was setting his teeth on edge. Worse than that, it was causing him an anguish he’d never felt before, combined with a strange compulsion to comfort that he simply could not resist.

He didn’t want to hurt her any more than he already had, but he did slide himself across the bed to press himself gently behind her, realizing with a start that she was just barely clinging to the edge of the bed. Shaking his head at her stubbornness, he curled an arm around her waist and tugged her back with him, more towards the center of the bed. She didn’t protest or make any other sound, just continued to sob as if he’d ripped out her heart, somehow, when all he’d done was give her bottom a very well deserved striping.

Before he knew what he was going to do, he had her flipped over and held close in his arms, and his chest was being drenched by an even more violent tear storm. She tried to struggle out of his hold, but he wouldn’t let her go. Since he didn’t know what else to do, he just held her tight, and his hands just naturally began to rub her back in a repetitive motion he hoped she would find soothing, as if she was a nervous filly he was trying to settle.

Eventually, her sobs died out, but he knew she wasn’t sleeping. As she’d stopped crying, he knew she’d become more aware of her condition – nude, and plastered against the side of her equally naked husband. Her body had become progressively stiffer as her tears ended. But he didn’t want that. He didn’t want her to be afraid of being in his arms, of him in general. Yes, he wanted an obedient wife, and frankly he wanted one who was much less outspoken and bull headed than the one he’d gotten, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. He certainly couldn’t complain about her looks – he couldn’t have built himself a woman who was more appealing to him, although she could stand to be fattened up a bit, which he would surely see to.

Wolf pushed gently on Hannah’s shoulder, tipping her over onto her back, with care for her sore nether parts. It was going to kill him to do it, but he was going to comfort her in the best way he knew how.

Hannah wasn’t much interested in lying on her bottom at all, but it wasn’t quite as bad as she thought, as long as she didn’t move around too much. The sheets were incredibly soft, and the mattress beneath her was dense enough that she felt she was going to sink right through it. Plus, lying on her back in front of him made her feel so exposed. At least when he was holding her, he couldn’t be looking at things she didn’t want him to see, and she could pretend that they weren’t even there.

But when she was stretched out like this, even in the darkness, she was sure that somehow he could see every inch of her appalling nudity. And what was even worse was that, for some reason she didn’t understand, that mere thought made her nipples go all hard and achy, the way the usually did only when she was extremely cold. Unfortunately, her body seemed to have a mind of its own, but only when he was around.

A big, firm finger traced the curve of her cheek, then down her neck to her prominent collar bone, and beyond, to the very beginning swell of her right breast, when she reached up and clamped her own, much smaller fingers, around his wrist, even though they barely made it halfway around, and she had no hopes of actually stopping him. It was a truly automatic response, and she hoped against hope that it wasn’t going to get her another spanking.

But it didn’t. Instead, he reached up and pried her fingers from around him with marked gentleness, then set her hand back at her hip. “I’m not going to hurt you, Hannah.”

She realized that it was the first time he’d said her given name. Usually, he was trying to reinforce his contention that they were married, and calling her “Mistress” or “Madame Preston”, with as much sarcasm as he could muster.

“Despite what you probably believe about me, from your already checkered punishment history with me, but I’m not a cruel man, I don’t think. At least, I don’t consider it my life’s work to be cruel to anyone, including you. But I’m not going to let you stop me from touching you whenever I want to. And you have my word that the only time I’m going to spank you is if you’ve done something that you probably know is wrong, too. Other than that, I’ll do my level best not to hurt you myself, and you might actually find me to be a reasonably good protector and provider.” Wolf could not believe that he found himself in the distinctly peculiar position of having to sell himself as her husband, but he reigned in his outrage at the thought. Barely. He found it considerably galling that he was having to wheedle his way into what was his by right when she had probably given it away to someone else long since.