Hall of Infamy (16 page)

He laid the yellow cane across the plump buttocks, producing a reflexive twitch from her muscles, and an anxious gasp from the bending girl.

‘Lovely, quite lovely,' the young man said, watching the nether cheeks flinch in anticipation. ‘That bottom is as plump and sweet as a ripe peach.'

He stepped back and held the stick out, prodding the sex that peeked back between Emma's legs. She squeaked, but held her position dutifully. Reformatory girls, thought Betsy with a knowing smile – they always came at least partly trained.

‘What do you say to a round dozen then, Miss Mischief?' Jamie called out as he took up his position.

‘Um, I, er, please…'

‘Just say “yes please, sir,” you silly little bitch.'

‘Yes please… sir.' The kitchen-maid's voice was now no more than a hoarse, thoroughly frightened-sounding whisper.

Betsy looked from the apprehensively twitching bottom to the face of her master, and saw the rapt smile of one entranced as he raised the cane.

Whoosh
…
thwuck
!

The familiar yellow blur shimmered through the air, and the chubby little bottom-cheeks wobbled visibly from the impact. Emma hissed and her knees dipped, ever so slightly, before she got back into the prescribed position. Jamie waited, and thus the nursery waited. The only sound a pained panting from Emma.

The tramline welt bloomed as Betsy watched. It was almost horizontal, dissecting the girl's bottom-cleft just above the middle of her cheeks. The nursery-maid tried to swallow but found, for some reason, that she did not have enough saliva.

Jamie raised his rod again.

Whoosh
…
thwuck
!

‘Ooh, hoo, hoo, hoo…'

Emma's knees dipped deeply and she wiggled her bottom vigorously. This time, getting back into position was clearly a real trial. Jamie waited as the girl regained control of her tongue, and forced her now violently trembling legs to straighten.

Whoosh
…
thwuck
!

The yellow blur came sooner this time, taking Betsy by surprise. It seemed to have caught the kitchen-maid out, too.

Emma howled. She dipped her knees and back, then straightened up again, several times in quick succession. The howling subsided into a gasping and the humping motion into stamping of her dainty feet as the third weal bloomed across her upper thighs.

‘Come along, girl,' Jamie said impatiently. ‘Resume the position; I haven't got all day.'

Still gasping with pain, the kitchen-maid forced herself to straighten her legs and stick her bottom out towards the man wielding the rod. This time there was no mistaking her reluctance. She pressed her hindquarters out hesitantly.

As Jamie raised his cane, the girl's whole body froze. Furtively, Betsy quickly brushed the fold of flesh sheathing her clitoris, as the yellow flicker rippled the air and the girl's buttocks bounced to the sickening sound of impact once again.

‘
Aiee
…!'

Betsy blinked as she watched the girl react to the stroke. Again, there was the strange bucking dance but this time, as well as stamping, Emma put her left leg back up and across her right thigh, as if somehow she could shield her hindquarters from the blistering onslaught of the cane this way.

Jamie did not even have to tell her. As the girl regained control from the waves of pain that had carried her away, she forced her body back into the ordained position. Her welted bottom twitched violently in accompaniment to a slew of gasps and sniffles.

Betsy hardly knew how she got through the caning; every time the implement whooshed through the air she gave herself a furtive touch, pulling her hand away before Jamie could turn and catch her. How Emma endured the beating without recourse to restraint was an even greater source of wonder. That the small girl felt the thrashing was evident from her shrieks. After each stroke she seemed to find it ever harder to present her trembling thighs and flinching bottom for the next.

Yet, somehow, the kitchen-maid managed to stand relatively still for the full twelve. At the end, this was only achieved with the help of dire threats of further strokes should she fail to get back into position, but she did indeed get into that position.

The twelfth stroke was the worst. Even as she heard the slightly higher-pitched sound as the cane cut through the air, Betsy knew that this one was going to be tight. The
thwack
of hard rod on firm flesh rapped through the nursery only a little more emphatically, but there was no mistaking the ferocity of the final cut.

The sound that first emerged from the girl's lips was not a scream. It was an almost soundless gasp, as if the pain were so intense that she could not get the air out of her lungs. Nor did she move; she seemed to have been turned to stone for a full second. After this brief interlude, it was as if a coiled spring had been released. Emma first jumped high into the air before falling to the floor, her legs convulsively thrashing.

The little maid gurgled and shrieked and gasped, clutching and furiously kneading her bottom as she writhed on the floor, so violently that her corsets creaked in protest.

Betsy glanced at Jamie, who was watching with a satisfied smile. He allowed the kitchen-maid to wriggle on the floor for several long minutes, apparently content to watch her squirming in distress, until her cries had subsided to a low sobbing.

‘Ooh, it h-h-hurts, s-s-so m-m-much…'

‘All right, girl. No need for all this fuss. Get up now and kneel on the chair; let us see that bottom!'

Sniffling and panting heavily, wincing as she moved, the kitchen-maid slowly got onto her knees on the chair. Her hands moved away from her bottom-cheeks with reluctance. She gripped the back of the chair so hard her knuckles whitened. Her pretty head sagged and her slender back was racked every few seconds by a new rictus of convulsive sobs.

Betsy stared at the sight the girl presented. Twelve scarlet stripes now barred Emma's bottom and thighs. Just twice the tramlines crossed where the strokes had made an agonising intersection, but overall the welts were remarkably parallel. The painter of the pattern stood and admired his handiwork with a satisfied expression. His left hand worked busily in his trouser pocket as he waved the cane with his right, as if conducting some silent melody.

‘There now,' he declared at last. ‘A well-grilled bit of rump, if I ever saw one. I should think Cook will be well satisfied with those when you show her!'

This comment only provoked a fresh torrent of sobbing from the kitchen-maid. Jamie bent and planted a tender kiss on the nape of her slender neck.

‘There, there, never mind, sweetheart. I tell you what.' He pointed at his bedroom door with the cane. ‘Cut along to that room and wait for me. I have a job or two to do.' He looked at Betsy with a smile that froze the buxom maid's blood. ‘But when I've finished, I'll come and give you something to make it better!'

The kitchen-maid turned and looked at Jamie with wide eyes and a solemn expression. Her gaze followed the pointing cane to the door it indicated, then back at the cane again. She swallowed hard, and then stood and bent to retrieve her drawers.

‘No,' Jamie said quietly, and waved the tip of the stick admonishingly. ‘No, I don't think they will be needed, my dear.'

The girl took a deep breath, a last appalled look at the still-straining cousins, and trotted off to Jamie's bedroom, wincing with every step.

‘Right.' Jamie retrieved the tawse from the chaise longue, put down the cane and beamed at Betsy. ‘Where the devil were we?' He winked as Betsy's stomach turned a somersault. ‘Oh, yes. Now then, Betsy, back to business. Stick that hand out. Steady.'

The dreamy glow that had enveloped Betsy as she watched Emma being thrashed turned back to terror in an instant. Her hand trembled violently as she held it up, and even gripping the wrist with her free hand could not persuade her perspiring palm to stop quivering completely.

There was something about Jamie's demeanour – that and the ruthless way he had caned the kitchen-maid – that told Betsy with a sickening certainty that he was in a mood to fairly skin her. Oh, how she hated it on her hands. As her sense of panic mounted, she wondered if there was any way to persuade him to belt her bottom instead.

He took up his position. The thick leather strap swung idly in his hand. Her fingertips quivered expectantly.

‘Keep it steady, now, Betsy. I want to give your hand a really good crack this time,' Jamie said conversationally.

Betsy closed her eyes tight and held her breath. The seconds that ticked away seemed to slow to minutes as she waited. It was so hard not to snatch her hand away. The struggle to keep her upturned palm in place was so difficult she was amazed that her knees did not give way beneath her. Another second crawled by… another… another… each cranking up the tension evermore unbearably.

There was a distinct metallic clink, followed by an awful pause.

‘Clara! You naughty girl!'

Betsy opened her eyes and peeked cautiously. Jamie was shaking his head resignedly and looking at the blonde girl. The nursery-maid glanced down to see Clara's guinea gleaming on the platter between her feet.

Jamie sighed. Turning back to Betsy, he shrugged and winked at her. Then he rubbed his right shoulder as if it were getting stiff.

‘Good God,' he said. ‘Did you ever hear that expression, Betsy,' the young man asked ruefully as he turned back towards Clara, ‘no rest for the wicked?'

‘Ah, Monsieur Jamie, how good to see you. These must be the young ladies we spoke of on the telephone, no? Miss Clara and Miss Emily, no? How pretty.'

‘Mademoiselle Isobel.' Jamie gave a short bow and gestured towards Clara. ‘This is Miss Clara and—' he indicated her companion and corrected the mistake ‘—Miss Amelia.'

Amelia had heard of Mademoiselle Isobel, the celebrated couturier and corsetier. Her emporium was the largest and most fashionable establishment in the three counties, and was the sort of boutique more likely to be found in a major city than in a little town like Hatherby. So grand and modern was the emporium that it was even furnished with a telephone and the new electric light!

In the flesh, Mademoiselle Isobel proved to be a pretty, dark-haired little woman in her thirties. Amelia, unable to suppress the competitive streak in her character, was forced to admit that the lady displayed her trim figure to perfection in an elegant gown of dark green silk. The chic propriety of the woman's attire made Amelia's present situation all the more unendurable. Her state of mind was not helped by the way Mademoiselle Isobel perused the cousins, who had been leashed, bound and humiliatingly exposed once again. The woman's green eyes twinkled with amusement as she studied the blushing girls.

‘Yes, you were right to bring the little dears to me, Jamie. No doubt you need to keep them on a tight rein, but do you think that, for the fitting, they might be unleashed?'

To Amelia's joy, Jamie assented easily. The various straps and collars that bound the two girls were unbuckled and unlocked by Betsy, and she was soon able to move her unbound arms with relief. There were customers and shop-girls all around, and she moved to lift her hands to shield her breasts, all too aware that the flimsy silk of her smock was failing, as usual, to veil her nipples properly.

‘Keep them at your sides, Amelia,' Jamie said sharply.

Somehow managing to suppress the urge to glare mutinously at him, Amelia sullenly bit her lip but did as she was told.

‘You mean to keep them in these pretty little frocks for much longer, Jamie?'

Fervently, Amelia closed her eyes and prayed. Surely Mademoiselle Isobel would point out the impropriety of their costumes? Perhaps she was about to suggest more suitable attire for girls of their age and status to their tormentor? After all, even the common shop-girls scurrying about the boutique were elegantly and modestly dressed!

‘Oh, yes.' Jamie's voice was a self-satisfied drawl that curdled Amelia's blood. ‘These frocks will do them for the rest of the summer, certainly. After that, we shall have to see.'

Until the end of the summer? But that was months away! Amelia had to bite her tongue to prevent a bitter protest. One day, someone would pay for this ordeal, she promised herself, as she struggled against competing tides of fury and despair.

‘Yes, yes.' Isobel clapped her hands delightedly. ‘Most suitable for such pretty little girls. But you were right to be concerned about the corseting. They must be laced up tight. It will enhance their charms and help to curb their youthful appetites for mischief. I suggest we run them up some short waist-cinchers which will leave their titties and their pretty bottoms entirely free for disciplinary and training purposes. Now, if you would care to follow me?'

Amelia hoped fervently that they would be led to private fitting-rooms, but the Frenchwoman took them to one side of the shop where some seats had been set out. This was clearly the lingerie section of the emporium, for there were racks of frilled and ruched underthings all around, and there were several mannequins, all with impossibly narrow waists, on which were displayed various styles of corsetry.