Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
“There’s a reason it hurts,” he said, tightening his arm around her waist. “You’re going to learn to speak to me civilly, or the spankings will continue, and next time I’ll use a birch rod or cane.”
“I won’t speak at all, then. I’ll never speak to you again.”
She clamped her lips shut against the whines and cries that escaped with each smack upon her bottom. She would not admit that she’d earned this punishment. No one deserved such treatment, even if they’d turned their husband from their bed on his wedding night, and berated him the morning after with ill-spoken words. She would never speak again, then, just as she’d decided not to sing. She would go completely silent. How would he enjoy being married to a silent, soundless creature, with no words or personality at all?
It was hard to be silent, though. She gritted her teeth at the end, to stop herself from begging for mercy. When his cursed hand finally stopped spanking her, he refused to let her up.
“You’ve had your second spanking now, wife,” he said in a lofty, bullying tone, “and we’ve only been married two days. Now, you’ll apologize for your disrespectful behavior, and pledge that you won’t behave like a shrew again.”
She bowed her head and kept her lips shut. She wouldn’t talk to him. She’d never speak again to spite him.
“I’m waiting,” he said, and she knew without looking that his hand was poised over her bottom, ready to resume the spanking if she didn’t comply. But she was afraid if she spoke, the only words she could manage would be I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, over and over.
“Very well,” he said with a sigh. “Then your punishment will continue, but I shall have to switch hands. My right one is tired.”
He stood her up and forced her down over his lap in the opposite direction. I won’t speak, she told herself. I’ll never speak.
But his left hand felt even more painful than his right, and by the tenth spank or so, her outrage was overtaken by the fear that he could spank her forever, that their standoff might never end. Her bottom felt so hot and sore, it might be red for days beneath her skirts. She stared down at the slipper she’d kicked off earlier and made herself say the words.
“I’m sorry, Lord Wescott. I’m sorry!”
His horrid hand stopped, the compartment going silent after the onslaught.
“And?” he prompted.
“And I should not have…have spoken so rudely to you.”
She said the words tightly, with her lips half-clenched, because otherwise she’d start to cry.
“What shall happen, Ophelia, if you continue to be rude to me?” As he said this, his hand traced over her trembling bottom cheeks, squeezing each one, amplifying the pain.
“You will…” By God, she would not cry, would not give him the satisfaction of tears. “You’ll give me a birching next time, or a caning, for not learning my lesson.”
“Indeed.” He released her legs from within his and let her rise from his lap. “As much as it hurts to be spanked, a birching or caning will hurt worse, so you had best conduct yourself as a polite wife from this moment forward.”
She eased back onto the seat beside him, gingerly, as far from his large, intimidating figure as she could manage. Ow, it hurt just to sit, and to have to sit beside him all the way to Wescott Abbey? She wasn’t sure she could bear it. As she bent to put her slipper back on, the carriage bumped over a cobblestone. She bounced on the seat and hissed at the resulting pain. He had done this to her, this awful man she was forced to marry. What a miserable life she would have, bowing to his disciplinary whims.
She looked out the window, and found they were already on the outskirts of London. How long had he spanked her? Too long. She smoothed her dress over her knees, trying not to look at Lord Wescott’s long, muscled thigh beside hers. She needed no reminder that he was bigger, stronger, and more powerful than her, not just in their godforsaken marriage, but in every way. Her mind went unbidden to their time at the inn, when he’d pushed his shaft inside her. I know I’m a lusty size, and you so small. Even so, it had come to feel better, almost shockingly lovely to have him inside her there…
She shook off such thoughts. He did not arouse her anymore. She could not imagine him ever arousing her again, now that she understood his true character. Not only was he a rogue and a rake, but he was so haughty and overbearing a husband it could hardly be believed. She put her hands to the pins in her hair, to the neat coif that Rochelle had worked so hard to create. It was all mussed now, but she had no mirror to put it to rights.