His Spoilt Lady (23 page)

“Hans, how is
Peter?” he asked immediately. Hans glanced at John and reached out
to take the horse’s reins from him. “He is much improved but it
will be a while before he can walk again. I see that you found your
wife.” Linnett flushed at the tone of voice and spoke to him
falteringly, “Hans, please understand that I did not ask Peter to
come with me…I wasn’t even aware that he had followed me, not until
John told me. We too have had the most terrible time.”

Hans looked
incredulously at her. “You really are a most self-centred creature,
Mrs. Foster.” Hans looked as if he would like to say more, but
after muttering something in Dutch, he turned and led the horse
away.

John barely
glanced at Linnett. “Wait here,” he instructed curtly, striding
after Hans. The two men spoke intently together for a while.
Linnett strained her ears, but they spoke too quietly for her to
hear what was said. Finally, they both turned and looked at her,
then Hans slapped John on the back and walked off to stable the
horse. John walked back to where Linnett stood waiting.

“What was that
all about?” she asked him anxiously.

“I was
explaining about Penny,” John told her, taking hold of her arm and
leading her into the barn.

“What are you
doing?” she asked in surprise. “I am tired and I want to go to bed
now. Oh, surely Hans won’t make us sleep outside in the barn
because of this misunderstanding, John?”

John didn’t
reply but pulled the door shut behind them and dropped the wooden
bar across to lock them in. Linnett watched him, baffled. When John
turned to face her, his face was so stern and forbidding that an
uneasy apprehension began to fill her. He spoke brusquely and to
the point.

“Linnett, you
have caused a huge amount of suffering these past few days. I
wonder if you have any idea of the anguish you have put me and Hans
through. A man and a horse are dead because of you, and a small boy
nearly died. The son, I might add, of the very people who saved our
lives!”

John stopped
speaking for a moment and turned away from her, shrugging off his
coat. Linnett watched in astonishment as next, he rolled up his
sleeves. When he started to unbuckle his belt, an anxious chill
swept through her and she slowly backed away from him.

“John, what are
you doing?” she asked, her voice quavering. “You do know that I am
truly, truly
sorry about everything that has happened, and
you must know that I intended no harm, especially to young
Peter!”

John sighed
heavily. “Yes, I am sure in your own way that you are sorry, but,
Linnett, you have to learn to take responsibility for your actions,
and you have to learn how to acquit yourself. You must think before
you act so rashly, putting yourself and others in danger, and last,
but certainly not least, you must to learn to obey me, your
husband!”

Linnett was
indignant. “This is absurd. I have obeyed you! When I left here, it
was to find you! How can you blame me for what other people choose
to do? I didn’t ask Peter to follow me.”

John snorted
and his words cut sharply across Linnett’s outburst. “Linnett, I do
not intend to stand here arguing the case with you. Tell me, what
was the last thing I told you to do before I set off to look for
Penny?”

John frowned as
he noticed his wife trying to edge her way towards the barn door.
“Linnett,” John barked, “stand still and answer me, madam!
What
did I tell you
?” His voice was cold with steely resolve.

Linnett
stammered, “I...I....look ...John, I didn’t leave the camp. I just
went to fetch water for the journey! This is absolutely ridiculous.
You are treating me just like a child, and I
insist
you stop
this scolding – you are frightening me, John, and I am after all
your wife! “

“Yes, miss, you
are indeed
my wife,
and as such, I have every right to
punish you as I see fit, and I fully intend you to remember that
fact from this moment on!” John lopped his belt through the buckled
end and slipped his hand into the loop. Crooking his finger he
beckoned to her. “Come here.”

The line of the
belt rippled in his hand, swotting nastily against the leather of
his boot. Linnett blanched. “John, you are not serious. I do not
believe you would beat me. You cannot!”

A cold shudder
ran through her as she noted the unyielding set to her husband’s
face. Incredulously, she realised he meant to do just that, John
intended to beat her! Linnett knew that the law stated that a man
could beat his wife and daughters, providing he used something no
thicker than the thickness of his thumb to carry the punishment
out. A belt was considered a perfectly acceptable instrument for
such a purpose. Linnett blanched further, pivoted and made a dash
towards the barn door.

John strode
grimly after her. While she struggled fruitlessly with the heavy
bar across the door, he grasped her around the waist and swung her
off her feet. In vain, she kicked and bucked against him, but John
hauled her over to a pile of hay and threw her down. He stood over
her, his eyes narrowed to steely slits, his face set and his gaze
pitiless.

“Damnit, I
warned you that I would take my belt to you if you left the camp,
and yet you dared to defy me again!” he shouted. “It has become a
habit for you to ignore my instructions and I intend to remedy
that. Roll over onto your stomach!”

Linnett, who
had no intention of submitting to such callous treatment, started
to scramble away on all fours. John grabbed one of her legs;
Linnett fought him like a wildcat and managed, by twisting her head
round, to sink her teeth hard into his forearm. John let out a
harsh bellow of pain. “Right, that does it, and by God you deserve
this lesson, my girl.”

Despite
Linnett’s desperate struggles, John flipped her over so that she
lay face down in the hay .With his hand square in the middle of the
back of her neck, he held her fast. As he took in the sight of her
bucking posterior, clothed in his own breeches no less, his rage
intensified. How dare she gallivant around the country showing off
her body to any man who cared to look! Damnit, no wonder she was
almost raped! He laid the belt aside and grabbed the offending
garments, yanking them down to her knees to leave her buttocks
bare.

Linnett
immediately swung around and sat up, hurling abuse at him, using
every expletive she knew and even a few she did not, gleaned from
sailor curses aboard the ship. Her swearing did not help her case
and merely galvanised John into furious determination. Taking a
firm hold of the belt and undeterred by her struggles, he grabbed
her arm. Twisting her ignominiously onto her stomach and wrenching
her arm up her back, he held her in an inexorable grip. The first
painful lash across her bottom was such a shock she opened and
closed her mouth in a silent scream, but roused by the pain into
defiant action, she kicked and bucked. John, unrelenting, held her
fast.

He flogged her
with a ruthless resolve. As each stinging stroke found its mark,
she screeched and wailed, alternately begging him to stop and then
screaming abuse at him. Had she remained silent, John would have
stopped after only a few strokes, but her continuous abuse only
served to make him more and more livid and more determined to
punish her thoroughly. Relentlessly, he brought his belt down again
and again across her backside, impervious to her cries, until her
bottom was criss-crossed with crimson stripes and burned with a
furnace heat.

When at last
John released her, he drew back, breathing heavily. “Perhaps now,
madam, you will reconsider before recklessly defying me in
future.”

Linnett rolled
away from him, her rounded bottom flaming. “You b.. bastard!” she
spluttered. “I h..hate you! You said you l..loved me!
How could
you possibly treat me this way if you loved me
! W..well I hate
you!
I h-hate you, do you h-hear
!” Linnett shrieked and
sobbed, her tear-streaked face glaring furiously up at him.

John’s eyes
narrowed dangerously, his lip twitched. “Why, darlin’,” he drawled
with tender malice, “I love you with all my heart and soul. In fact
I’ve a mind t’ show you just how much I love you.”

He advanced
purposely towards her. Linnett frantically tried to stand upright,
but hampered by the breeches around her knees, she fell backwards
onto the straw. She had no idea of the provocative picture she
posed, with her hair in tumbling disarray and her clothing
revealing far more than it covered. Her swelling cleavage was
revealed by the gaping shirt ,and her shapely limbs were sprawled
upon the bed of hay.

John, fully
aroused by the sight she presented, strode over, throwing himself
down beside her. She cringed away from him, trying to roll out of
his reach, but John held her still by winding his hand tight in the
loose cascade of her hair and pulling her unceremoniously against
his chest, his arm clamped tight around her. His mouth found hers,
silencing her protests with a harsh, demanding kiss. His tongue
raked the soft inner flesh of her mouth. Breaking the kiss, he
lifted his head his gaze, meeting her tear-flooded eyes. He spoke
in deep and deadly tones, “You are my wife, Linnett. It’s time you
accepted that fact. Learn to know me as your husband.”

John reached
down and wrenched the breeches from her ankles, ignoring her shriek
of pure rage and clawing hands. He administered a couple of hard
slaps to her scalding posterior before he grabbed her knees and
pushed her legs apart, yanking her spread-eagled body down towards
him. Kneeling forward, his heavy weight subduing her resistance, he
penetrated her, impaling her with a savage thrust that made her
gasp and cry out. Always in the past, John had considered her needs
and pleasure before his own. This time, Linnett realised, with a
frisson of fear, was to be very different. This time he meant her
to know her master, and some deep and primeval need within her
gloried in his rough possession, even as she fought against
him.

John pressed
her down hard against the scratching hay, ramming into her with an
unrelenting force. Sliding his hands beneath her, ignoring her
whimper of pain as he clutched her smarting buttocks, he raised
them up to meet the full force of his thrusts. “I will tame you,
madam!” He glared down into her eyes. “Make no mistake, Linnett,
you have met your match . . . your master . . . and you will know
me as such!”

John’s voice
was a hoarse growl in her ear, his teeth grazed her neck, and his
body demanded her surrender. Linnett whimpered, and her hands
clutched his shoulders at first, clawing and then sliding down his
back, digging her fingers into his taut buttocks. Then, as he rode
her hard, she was with him, her hips rising and falling
involuntarily with the rhythm of his onslaught.

His deep,
hammering thrusts forced her suddenly to the edge of a shattering
and surrendering climax. “Oh, oh, ahhhh... John!” She groaned out
the words in quivering ecstasy. “Yes, yes…. oh yes!”

With deep
satisfaction, he heard her cry of supplication; John continued to
pound against her yielding flesh, frenziedly thrusting deep within
her, riding her and using her unremittingly. Moving his hand over
her full breasts, his fingers roughly branded them as his own.
Finally, he arched against her and convulsed in the surging release
of ultimate rapture. Then they were still, their laboured breathing
slowing to a normal pace. John raised himself onto his elbows and
smoothed the tangle of thick honey hair away from Linnett’s hot,
flushed face.

He grazed her
lips with his, and looking deeply into her smoky green eyes, he
asked her softly, “Do you know me now?”

Linnett nodded
hesitantly, understanding what it was he was asking of her.

“Tell me,” he
commanded her, and she said, breathlessly, “Yes... husband... I
know you.”

Her mate...
her... match...her master.

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