The Harlot Bride (11 page)

Lucy’s feet had already started kicking, and the noise of her boot tips against the floor, as well as her screeches, and the rhythmic sound of the spanks themselves, had drawn curious onlookers. Mrs. Deegers was in the doorway, and Cook and Betts, the serving girl, were just behind her. Lord Tazewell let the ladies get a good look as he continued to punish Lucy’s red bottom. He didn’t mind in the least that they were watching, even if it took them away from their duties for a short time, as he was a firm believer in the value of public punishment. After a few more smacks, he decided this was as good a time as any to let Lucy know she had an audience.

“Mrs. Deegers,” he said, not looking up as he delivered more crisp spanks, although the mention of the housekeeper brought a fresh round of struggles from the girl across his lap. “I’m nearly finished here,” he continued, speaking loudly so he could be sure he was heard. “Please bring me the button box and salves. It would appear that we have a very naughty bottom hole, one in need of another lesson, and I can’t think of anything more suitable, Mrs. Deegers, than a big button and your special nettle preparation.”

The housekeeper withdrew from the room, but the cook and the maid stayed on. Lord Tazewell delivered two more crisp slaps for good measure, and then stayed his hand. But he had no intention to let his well–spanked little miss up just yet. Lucy was crying most earnestly, and seemed to be having trouble catching her breath, but she would remain face–down and bottom up until she’d been dosed with nettles and properly buttoned. It was better she learned quickly how things were done, Lord Tazewell knew, or she’d fight him all the harder the next time.

As he waited for Mrs. Deegers to return, Lord Tazewell rubbed the small of Lucy’s back, his fingers venturing to just above the reddened area where she’d been spanked. This he did partially to soothe her, but also for the pleasure of following the voluptuous lines of her young body. Given her ridiculous performance outside his bedchambers two nights ago, he had intended to make her wait a good long spell before he’d issue a second summons. But as his fingers played along the soft white swell of her hip, and with the throbbing in his trousers almost painful, he thought he might have to reconsider.

But Mrs. Deegers had returned with her box, and there were more pressing matters to be dealt with. Lord Tazewell resettled Lucy’s skirts just enough that he could see her face, but not so to in any way conceal her naughty red bottom. He reached down and took up a handful of hair, forcing her head up and to the side so she must look at him.

“Mrs. Deegers is here,” he informed her, unnecessarily. Lucy could see the housekeeper’s long skirts and boots, and was keenly aware that there were many eyes upon her naked, spanked bottom. In fact, she was almost beside herself with mortification to be seen in such undignified and obviously castigated position.

“You, young lady, have earned yourself another session with the button,” Lord Tazewell intoned, “and as that is the case, I am going to hold your bum cheeks open so Mrs. Deegers may apply her special salve. But I warn you, it’s anything but soothing.”

It was difficult for Lucy to speak in this awkward position, bent forward over his lap but with her head pulled back roughly, but she nevertheless summoned all her strength to plead that he spare her the ignominy of being violated by a woman.

“No, please,” she begged. “Please, please don’t let her touch me there!”

“If you don’t want Mrs. Deegers to finger your bottom hole, then you had better behave in the future,” he retorted, nodding to the housekeeper to ready her jar of salve. “Mrs. Deegers knows a great deal about disciplining young ladies and I have no compunction about baring you to her, any part at all, when I desire her assistance.”

He let go of Lucy’s hair, allowing her tear–stained face to return to its previous position of helplessness, and taking hold of one red bottom cheek in each of his big hands, he opened her bum crack so widely that the naughty little hole within was instantly and fully revealed.

As readers may have already surmised, Mrs. Deegers’ little pot contained a vicious preparation of lanolin and stinging nettles. It was her own recipe, and made every spring at his Lordship’s explicit request. She made only small amounts, as the nettle ointment was not used except when really needed. In fact, it was kept in reserve for special occasions when a more pointed lesson with the button was in order. The last time Mrs. Deegers’ nettle pot had been called into service was several months earlier, when a young kitchen maid had fallen into daydreaming about a young man she fancied, causing a full stew pot of good meat, one that she was supposed to be stirring, to burn into complete ruin.

Cook had been livid at the loss, and had made the unfortunate girl remove every stitch of clothing, right there in the big kitchen. Then Cook bent the unfortunate girl over a chair, tied her wrists and ankles to the bottom rungs, and gave her a very good dose of nettles deep up her bum hole. The howls had been heard through the great house, giving a lesson to all on the importance of attending carefully to one’s work, and when the girl’s screams had finally subsided into sobs, Cook brought the noise level back up by administering a very thorough birching to that desperately wiggling and already unhappy bottom.

Mrs. Deegers’ ointment utilized the natural protective oils of the nettle plant, which causes a great deal of irritation when applied to the tender skin in and around a young lady’s bottom hole. It was very instructive in and on its own, but the torment of a nettle treatment could be increased by inserting a button as soon as the ointment was applied. The stretching enforced by an unyielding bottom button made the stinging that much worse. The effects of Mrs. Deegers’ nettle ointment lasted only ten or fifteen minutes, but they were very difficult to bear, so much so that it was almost always necessary to bind the penitent’s hands to something to prevent her from attempting to tear out the button in her agony.

Lord Tazewell had already decided he would stand Lucy up before him as soon as she’d been nettled and buttoned, and rather than tie her hands, he would hold them fast in his own. In this way he might have the satisfaction and edification of observing every small change in her countenance as she endured her first experience with this very effective method of instruction. He watched carefully as Mrs. Deegers first coated Lucy’s bottom hole with ointment, and then eased the fearful salve inside by pushing her gnarly greased finger deep enough so it disappeared inside well past the second knuckle.

When this was done to Mrs. Deeger’s apparent satisfaction, and she had withdrawn her finger and stood back up and to his side, Lord Tazewell selected a button from the proffered box and set it quickly and efficiently inside Lucy’s bottom. He did this as rapidly as possible, for he knew that within a minute or two Lucy would begin to feel the effects of the nettles, and he wanted her on her feet while it was still possible to count on some cooperation.

“Alright, up with you now, Lucy, my girl,” he said, tucking her skirts into her waist band so they wouldn’t fall down and cover her bottom when she stood up. “You won’t find this pleasant, but it can be endured, and I shall hold your hands throughout.”

By the time Lucy was on her feet, her mouth was pursed into a little “o,” and a moment later she was making little surprised cries as the nettle oils inside and around her bottom hole began to make themselves known to her. Quite unconsciously, she was stepping from one foot from the other, shifting her weight as though trying to dislodge the uncomfortable sensation growing in her backside.

“Oh, oh, ohhh,” she moaned, now stepping more quickly and trying to pull away, although she couldn’t go far with Lord Tazewell holding her firmly by the wrists. “Oh, oh, it stings!”

“Very good,” Lord Tazewell opined, watching her face very carefully. “That is precisely what it is supposed to do.”

“Ohhh, I can’t bear it!” Lucy cried, her eyes rolling up, confirming his suspicion that the nettles would soon be in full burn. Lucy was now waggling her bum in desperation, and pulling futilely at his hold, desperate to get her hands back to do something, anything, to relieve the agony inside her bottom.

“Let this be a lesson to you, young woman. When I say I expect you at the table before I arrive, I mean it. A prudent girl would have had herself in place a quarter of an hour before me, even if it means rising earlier and waiting with folded hands, rather than risk my displeasure as you have done this morning, and on many occasions before.”

It was hard to tell whether Lucy had heard this, for she was now gasping like a fish and hopping from foot to foot while churning her backside. It was quite an engaging dance to those observing, although certainly not to she forced to dance it. Lord Tazewell was rapt, his observant, intelligent eyes taking in every change in her expression, but Lucy seemed too distressed to focus on him in any way, except, perhaps for the hold he had on her wrists.

“Oh, let go! Oh, please! It’s burning!” she cried. “Oh, my bottom is burning up! Oh, take it out! Take it out!” Lucy begged again and again, changing only the order of her exclamations and pleas as she writhed and struggled.

It was in this manner that Lucy’s punishment passed, an eternity to her but in fact not much more than ten minutes. Gradually the effects of the nettles faded and the burning subsided, and with those changes came a reduction in Lucy’s anguish and activity.

Lord Tazewell dropped her hands, with a stern warning that she was not, under any circumstances to touch her bottom, led her to the corner of the room opposite his own seat on the table. There, he pressed her nose to the wall, arranged her skirts so they were well above her red bottom and told her to keep them there. He then stepped back a few steps to regard her, and returning close behind her, made her rearrange her stance so that her feet were more open and her backside protruding, a position that opened the bottom cheeks sufficiently that it was possible to spy the end of the button protruding from between.

“You will remain exactly like this while I take my morning meal,” he said, adding that she, through her tardy appearance, had forfeited the opportunity to breakfast with him. It would do her no permanent harm to be hungry until midday, he thought as he took his seat at the table. As he ate his breakfast he enjoyed his view of Lucy’s bare red bottom, with the provocative bud protruding from the crevice in the centre. He took particular satisfaction from her sobs and sniffs, and the little jump she made when she heard the footsteps and different voices of the kitchen maids who invented innovative ways to serve him so they might enter the breakfast room and take a gander at the newcomer relegated to the corner with her spanked bottom on display. Lucy was put to sobbing anew when she heard the masculine voice of the butler, whom Lord Tazewell had summoned with a request.

When at last his meal was over, Lord Tazewell rose from his chair and crossed over to Lucy.

“You may turn around, but keep your skirts up in the back.”

Lucy turned, eyes downcast, and it was only when he cupped her chin in his hand and raised it that she looked at him, a sad pout on her tear–stained face.

“We are not quite finished, young lady. While you did your penance in the corner, I had my man prepare a fresh birching rod for you.

Lucy gasped and tried to pull away.

“I am going to give you a taste of the birch now, upstairs in your own room. I want you to know exactly how it feels to be punished with the birch because that is what you may expect the next time you disobey me. When I am finished, I will hang the birch next to your bed, where it will stay until I need to apply another lesson to your naughty bottom. And immediately thereafter you will change into riding clothes and accompany me on my morning rounds, which you have already delayed with your disobedience.”

He released her chin. Lucy stood frozen, looking from him to the frightful rod in his hand, unwilling to believe he would use it on her when she had already suffered so much, and even more incredulous that he would expect her to sit in a saddle on such a punished bottom. She burst into fresh tears, and pleaded with him to desist, but he was deaf to her entreaties. Birch in hand, he marched her upstairs past various members of the staff who had found reasons to be in the hallway to witness this unhappy parade, as the master of the house steadfastly prevented the unhappy miss to allow her skirts to drop.

** ** **

A short time later Lucy found herself seated on her horse, perched uncomfortably atop an unbearably tender bottom that had not only been spanked to a bright red hue, but also nettled, penetrated and even birched! Each trot, each lurch of the horse was a fresh agony, and it was all Lucy could do to keep herself seated in the saddle. More than once she cried out loud enough that he seemed to hear, for he turned and looked at her from his horse, before turning back and urging his mount to adopt a somewhat more energetic pace.

It was therefore with some relief that Lucy slowed her horse to match his when they approached a cottage in the western valley. There was a man outside, struggling with a fence piece, his arms around the great log as he tried to maneuver it up and into the joint in a post.

“Hallo, Simon! Wait, and I’ll assist you,” Lord Tazewell called. He threw his reins to Lucy, and slid quickly out of his saddle before the horse was at a full stop, then crossed to the fence with two long strides. He took up the log a few feet from where the man had his grip, and the two of them working together made fast work of the task that had confounded one.

“Tis a good thing you come when you did, milord,” the man said gratefully, wiping a prodigious sweat from his brow. “I feared I was gointa drop the mighty thing and crush a foot!” He was older than Lucy had at first realized, and probably too far along in years to be doing such heavy work on his own. She looked at him curiously until he raised his eyes and looked at her.

“I’d heard you brought some sort a bride up from London,” the man said, addressing Lord Tazewell.