Training Lady Townsend (11 page)

“To your husband’s lawful guidance.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve been spanked once already for resisting me, haven’t you? And now again. If you persist in this behavior, my love, the punishments will worsen with each subsequent offense. I’ll use a switch, or a strap, or a cane if necessary to stop you doing it. Do you want that?”

She shook her head. “No, my lord.”

“Go stand in the corner by the window for five minutes and think about the things we’ve discussed. Leave your skirt up over your bottom so you’ll feel the air on your punished cheeks as a reminder.”

She turned from him in misery and did as he bade her. It created powerful feelings in him, watching his wife walk to the corner and stand there, compliant, head bowed. He’d spanked countless women but never like this, never with real stakes and a real relationship of authority. His cock throbbed, stiff and thick, squeezed uncomfortably beneath the fitted fabric of his breeches.

He could, he realized in that moment, make her do anything. She’d had a frantic, pained reaction to her punishment, yes, but she’d had a sexual reaction too. Did she feel the same visceral arousal in submission that he felt in commanding her? If she did, she would hide it and deny it as long as he permitted her. It would take skill and patience to bring these submissive yearnings to full flower, especially in a timid creature like her.

But he could do it. Warren had been correct after all.

Aurelia shifted in the corner and made an anxious sound, as if, somehow, she’d been able to follow the direction of his thoughts. He loosened his falls and released his aching cock. He stroked it up and down, staring at his wife’s bottom framed by the fine yellow silk of her dress. He had to have her. He had to be inside her just as she was, with her skirts up and her face in full blush as she faced the wall.

He crossed to stand behind her. When she made as if to turn, he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t move. Stay as you are.”

She shuddered as he stroked her bottom, parting the reddened flesh and delving downward to fondle her hot quim. If anything she was wetter than before, even slicker with feminine lust. He ground his swollen organ against her backside.

“You’re learning, aren’t you?” he whispered against her ear. “You wish to be my obedient, virtuous wife.”

“I... I’m...”

He silenced her with a finger over her lips. “Don’t talk. Your five minutes aren’t up yet.”

His other hand probed her pussy, sliding through honeyed folds. He pushed his breeches down to his knees and pressed his cock to her wet opening from behind. She jerked as if startled.

“Hold your dress up,” he ordered. “Don’t let it go.”

He took her hips and pushed inside her. She was so tight, so inexpressibly satisfying to conquer. She gave a light, breathless whine as he stretched her open with his thick length. At the same time, he manipulated her most sensitive flesh, trying to bring her the same pleasure he felt. It wasn’t long before she melted against him. He clasped her tight, encircling her in his arms. He tipped her chin back and kissed her, once, twice.

She didn’t kiss him back. She seemed altogether lost in the moment, which wasn’t a bad thing.

“Does this feel good?” he asked quietly. “Do you like this?”

She shook her head, but it wasn’t much of a shake. It was a very weak denial.

“You mustn’t lie, remember,” he said, sliding a hand down to squeeze her still-heated arse. “If you lie, you’ll have to learn your lesson all over again, and I’m sure you wouldn’t like that. Answer me. Does this feel good?”

He stroked and teased her little button until she was practically dancing on her toes. “It feels g-good. Yes.”

That whispered admission resonated through his straining muscles straight to his balls and cock. He was going to bring her to climax, his glacial little dormouse, whether she wished it or not. He drove up inside her, stroking and urging her, using her breaths and shudders to judge how to touch her to bring her to her peak. Here his experience served him, for she was, like all women, easily manipulated with the right touches and the right words. He was slow and patient, studying her reactions and using everything he learned to drive her pleasure higher.

When she stiffened against his front, gripping his cock and gasping in the throes of satisfaction, he let out a groan and bucked into her, filling her with his seed. She pressed her hands against the wall as her tight sheath milked him of every last drop. He held her close, reveling in her beautiful surrender. Her skirts stayed bunched between them as he thrust into her with one last surge.
Ahh…

A successful punishment session, this, for more reasons than one.

He stepped away from his wife and let her skirts fall back to her ankles. She stayed facing the wall as he straightened himself and refastened his breeches. That finished, he turned her about, and used a thumb to force her gaze to his.

She looked confused, flustered, and utterly devastated.

“You would have learned how at some point,” he said, stroking his thumb across her cheek. “I would have taught you, little grasshopper, whether you wanted to learn or not.”

She stared at him a long moment, then turned her face away. “I am not an insect.”

“But you are a woman, aren’t you? A woman with desires and feelings, as much as you endeavor to deny that fact.” He released her and walked toward the door. “I expect you downstairs at the dining table within ten minutes time, Aurelia. I am positively starved.”

Her husband stood from his seat at the head of the table when she arrived. Aurelia crossed to her place at his right, feeling the weight of his dark gaze as if he touched her with his very hands. She wondered if any of the servants had heard her screaming earlier. She felt that all of them must know of her shame, but one person certainly knew, and that was Lord Townsend.

She nodded at him as she took her seat. He murmured a greeting in return and watched her shift helplessly, trying to find a comfortable way to sit. Her bottom ached. There was nothing for it. At least he’d given her time to compose her appearance—and her scattered thoughts—before the meal commenced.

Aurelia was certain her lady’s maid had heard her screaming, but the old woman pretended she hadn’t, as any experienced servant should. Aurelia was glad. She didn’t want to talk to anyone about what had happened, not yet. She was still coming to terms with her husband’s actions afterward, and her own body’s traitorous display. The things he had made her feel, both good and bad, defied understanding.

As the servants began the choreographed niceties of the dinner service, she slid a glance at him. He watched her with a studious expression, his lips drawn down in a frown. She was grateful for the food set before her, because it gave her something to do besides make conversation.

Because what on earth was there to say?

“Have you found Townsend House a comfortable home?” he asked abruptly in the silence. “I mean to ask, are your rooms all they could be? Do the servants meet your needs?”

She paused, fork in hand. “Admirably, my lord.”

He made a soft sound. “Will you call me Hunter, damn you? There’s no one else here.”

“Will you refrain from cursing at me, Hunter?” she replied with as much heat as she dared. If she angered him again, she wasn’t sure her backside could endure the result. She speared a sauced potato and chewed it woodenly.

Her husband wasn’t angry. In fact, he seemed amused. “I like when you’re not such a mouse. Yes, I’ll try to stop cursing at you.”

“And using indecent language. It’s very lowering. I’m certain you wish to be thought a respectable gentleman.”

“Like your father?”

She clamped her lips shut, not wishing to enter into a spat. In her peripheral vision she could see Lord Townsend’s mouth curve up in a faint smile. Now and again he made some unobtrusive gesture that brought a footman running to deliver this and that. She sat very straight in her chair and tried to dine as elegantly as he did, but he had some power, some size of presence she lacked. It didn’t help that her bottom ached, and that she burned with embarrassment over the way he’d handled her. Those same fingers that beckoned the servants had been thrust up inside her—and her body had welcomed it.

She almost choked, remembering the humiliation. He glanced at her. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, even though she was
not
all right.

“Do you wonder where I’ve been these past few nights?” he asked.

She pretended not to hear the question as she placed her silverware atop her plate. “I believe I have finished. May I be excused?”

“No.”

She drew in a deep breath and let it out. Yes, she had wondered where he was, but she didn’t really want to
know
. She didn’t want to be taunted with his extramarital adventures. “I’m sure it’s none of my business where you were.”

“Oh, but it is your business.” He put down his silverware too and took a great drink of wine. “You remember that you gave me permission to seek companionship outside our marriage?”

She nodded, swallowing hard.

“I had intended to do it discreetly, for your honor, but your father has denied me such...dalliances.”

She stared at him. “Denied you? How?” She imagined her father standing at the door of some house of ill-repute, barring her husband’s way.

He drank more wine, tilting his head back before he swallowed it. “He has convinced every madam and courtesan in London that it behooves them to turn me away.” He lifted his glass to her, as if in a toast. “I am therefore obliged to be scrupulously faithful, whether I wish it or not.”

“It was none of my doing. If my father has done this—”

“Your father did it,” he said, cutting her off. “And I don’t blame you, my dear, but I find myself in an untenable situation. Thanks to your father’s interference, there is only one female available to cater to my vulgar appetite for pleasure, and that female is you.”

Aurelia felt hot and cold and...flabbergasted. “Well, I have allowed you to my bed, haven’t I? I’ll do my wifely duty whenever you insist upon it.”

“Ah, your ‘wifely duty.’ And grudgingly too,” he mocked, raising his dark brows. “Any man would feel himself replete. No, I’m speaking of more than wifely duty. Surely you realize there is an entire world of pleasures to be explored outside the banality of the marital act.”

She wished she could disappear, she truly did. “I’m afraid I do
not
realize, my lord. I am very sorry that we do not share the same moral inclinations and desire for indecent pleasures. I am very sorry that we are trapped in this marriage, but I don’t know what you wish me to do.”

He leaned closer, and waited until she dragged her gaze to his. “I wish you to change, Aurelia. I wish you to agree to satisfy me in whatever ways I desire, no matter the state of your ‘moral inclinations.’ In light of the servants milling about, I’ll not describe the finer points of my requirements.”

Amidst the outraged shock, a frisson of fear curled in her belly. “What you suggest would be impossible. Even if I agreed to...to satisfy you in whatever ‘vulgar’ ways you are talking about, I would not know how.”

“You can learn.” His voice tautened with the straightening of his broad shoulders. “Let me rephrase that. You
will
learn.”

The frisson uncoiled into full-blown anxiety. Surely he could not require her to behave as a woman of the night and participate in bizarre, carnal acts for his pleasure? Whatever those women did for their customers, it was nothing a well-bred lady would ever do.

“You ask the impossible.”

He steepled his fingers, studying her. “Yes, I thought the same thing. That is, until this evening, upstairs.”

“I do not wish to speak about that,” she said quickly.

“Oh, we’re going to speak about all manner of things going forward, such as the fact that you don’t really have the right—or power—to deny me this request.”

He called it a request, but it was a demand, one no civilized husband would set forth. There was no room to be a mouse here. She had to stand up to him or sacrifice her long-held virtue. She lifted her chin. “And if I refuse to submit to such outrageous and immoral expectations?”

“Then you shall be spanked nightly until you realize that submission is a far less painful choice.”

She stared at her plate. The filigree design blurred as she tried to control her emotions. She couldn’t believe they were having this conversation, that he would demand such things of her,
his own wife
. “You’re a monster.”

“I’m a man. I’m your husband, which gives me certain rights. Whether they are monstrous, well, that is a matter of opinion.”

“When my father finds out—”

He gave a sharp bark of laughter. “You’ll never tell your father the result of his ill-thought-out meddling. You would expire of shame and embarrassment before you uttered the first word.”

“I’ll tell my brother then. He’s not so lofty as Papa. He’ll listen to me and he’ll not allow you to shame his sister in this way.”

Hunter shrugged. “Of course you can tell Severin, but then he’d be honor bound to call me out. We’d have to meet at dawn with our pistols, and I could very well end up killing him. His wife is pregnant, isn’t she? It would not be well done of you, I’m afraid to say.”

Aurelia closed her eyes against the image of Brendan lying shot and bleeding in the morning’s dim light. “Or my brother might kill you,” she said, to chase away the thought. “He might prevail, setting me free from this horrible marriage.”

But as she said it, she pictured Lord Townsend lying dead on her behalf and wished she could take the words back. She hated him, but she couldn’t wish him dead. In truth, she didn’t even hate him. She disliked him. No, she didn’t even dislike him, not fully.

She didn’t know how to feel about him.

She didn’t know how to feel at all.

Oh, why was everything in such a muddle? Her feelings, her marriage, her entire life? Townsend would have let her be if her father hadn’t interfered, she was sure of it. Everyone called her father Laudable Lansing because he was so upright, and so was she.