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)
“Shall I call Rochelle?”
He moved toward the bell pull and saw the choices flash across his wife’s expression. If Rochelle came, Ophelia might plead for her help, but that would only put Rochelle in an awkward position. Worse, the servant would know her mistress was being punished.
“Very well,” she said, half in tears. “I’ll remove my gown. But I cannot undo the buttons.”
He moved behind her to assist, easing her tiny pearl buttons from their loops. He felt a pang of guilt. She was so young compared to him, so small and afraid and inexperienced. He would not hurt her, not really. He was only showing her what intimacy meant to him, and therefore, must mean to her.
“You may lay your gown across the divan,” he said.
She obeyed, crossing to the dark furniture in her underthings. Her frilly froth of a dress looked out of place in his bedroom, which was hard and dark and masculine. How gracefully she moved, perhaps because of her stage training.
“Remove the rest,” he said when she turned back to him. “I’m your husband now. You must learn not to hide your body from me during intimate times.”
She didn’t want to follow his instructions, but she did, stripping off her stays, chemise, and stockings while sniffing back theatrical tears. Poor thing. She was right about one thing…her life would have been very different if she hadn’t married him. But she had.
He removed his coat and rolled up his shirtsleeves, going over his plans in his head. He might not seduce his way inside her tonight, but he would teach her the power he wielded over her. A quiet knock at the door told him the tools he needed were at hand.
“You may stand behind the bed,” he said, “so the servants do not see you.”
She scurried over to the head of his bed, to the long, obscuring velvet curtains, and waited there as a pair of maidservants laid the cane upon a table, as well as the tray containing the oil and an already trimmed and feathered ginger plug. When the maids left, pink flushes upon their cheeks, Ophelia stayed hiding behind the curtain.
He moved a chair over beside the table and seated himself, patting his lap. “Come, little crosspatch.”
“I don’t want to.” Her voice was muffled in the corner. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to put a ginger fig in your bottom to make you feel naughty and punished, and then I plan to stand you against the bed and subject you to the cane.” He picked it up and showed it to her. “Have you ever been caned, Ophelia?”
“No,” she cried. “And I don’t wish to be.”
“Hmm. But I think you need it. Come here and lie across my lap, so you can see how it feels to be gingered like a bad girl.”
“I don’t want to,” she pleaded.
He gave her his sternest Arlington glare. “Shall I drag you, then, and throw you over my knees? Either way, this is happening. If I must force you, you’ll receive twice the cane strokes. That’s an ongoing rule in this house. Refusal doubles the punishment.”
“You are a despicable man.” She approached him with a quick, panicked gait, covering her breasts and her mons with her hands as well as she could. He drew them away as soon as she reached him and arranged her across his knees. She was so tense she could barely bend. “Easy,” he said. “If you fight me, it will go worse.”
“But I don’t want this.”
“Indeed, but wanting and needing are two different things.”
He held her protesting form still with one hand upon her waist and reached for the ginger with the other. If she was one of Pearl’s wanton courtesans, he would have made a point of shaming her, spreading her cheeks and teasing her small hole before he thrust in the ginger, but this was his wife, and she was shy and afraid. He felt a perverse spark of lust, as well as protectiveness.
“This will feel cold and uncomfortable,” he warned. “As it’s meant to. If you fuss and toss around as I punish you, it will become more uncomfortable still, so behave, and resign yourself.”
She stiffened as he prodded the narrowed tip of the fresh ginger against her tiny arse hole. When he began to slide it in, she made frantic sounds of dismay. It was slim, too slim to really hurt her, but her embarrassment was evident. She trembled violently as he pushed it home, so it rested just inside her rectum, with a flange outside her bottom to keep it seated.
“There,” he said, holding her steady across his lap. “Now, you may feel it tingle and burn. This is to remind you how naughty and stubborn you’ve been.”
“It hurts,” she said weakly. “Please, take it out.”