Under A Duke's Hand (9 page)

Gwen sat unmoving, her face hidden in his
neck.

“Very well,” he said. “But I’m still going to
take you to bed. You can expect to accommodate me every night. It’s
the best way, you know, if we wish to start a family. Heirs are
important to a dukedom. Are you eager to have children?”

She blinked at his friendly, conversational
tone, as if he hadn’t just birched her so awfully.
Yes, I would
like to have children. No, not with you.

He slid his palms down over her shoulders and
to her chest, and cupped her breasts. “Are you eager for children?”
he asked again.

“I don’t know.”

He rolled her nipples between his fingertips
with a thoughtful expression. She hated that it felt good, that he
was arousing her when she did not wish to become aroused. He
pressed kisses beneath her earlobe, and on her neck. He pinched her
nipples again. “Spread your legs for me.”

She felt too worn out to fight him, so she
obeyed. He placed his palm right over the place that most liked to
be touched, and teased her sensitive spot with the tip of a finger.
She bit her lip again, this time to hold back sounds of pleasure.
She would not make those sounds for him. She would
not
.

But it became very hard to maintain her
control as he slipped his fingertip over and around that little nub
of flesh. The teasing tingles set her whole body trembling. She
wanted to protest and say no to him, but it would be ridiculous.
She was wet as a river. Her head fell back against his shoulder as
he stimulated her, urging her toward release.

“Yes, you see,” he said. “These sorts of
activities are very important. Not only for making children, but
for encouraging intimacy between us. I like making you feel
good.”

“Then why did you punish me?” she moaned.

“Because you deserved it.” He stood and
lifted her, and laid her back on the bed. She winced as her tender
bottom contacted the wool coverlet.

“Does it smart too much?” he asked. “Let’s
try this instead.” He took her about the waist and turned her over,
setting her on her hands and knees. “No, don’t lie down. Stay just
like this. Spread your legs wider.”

Gwen swallowed hard, holding the lewd pose.
Behind her, the duke removed his dressing gown and threw it across
a chair. When he returned, he pressed his thick shaft at her
entrance, and she realized how badly her body wanted him, even
through the pain and the shame.

“There,” he said as he slid inside her.
“That’s what you needed to feel better, isn’t it? Answer me.
Yes, Sir.
”

She made a negative sound, not because she
didn’t agree, but because she didn’t want to say it. He gave her
aching backside a slap and she blurted out the words. “Yes,
Sir.”

“
Yes, Sir, I need it.
Answer me
properly.” He slid deeper inside, stretching her open. “Say it, my
naughty, punished girl.”

“Yes, Sir, I need it,” she cried, as he
smacked her bottom again. “I need it.”

“And you shall have it.” He drove into her
with sudden forcefulness. It should have felt bad, but instead it
felt marvelous and exciting. Her nipples tightened as her breasts
bounced from his jolting thrusts. He pounded into her from behind,
hurting her tender cheeks each time he contacted them, but her
arousal grew, somehow, from the depths of this discomfort. She
clenched around his driving length as he reached beneath her to
stroke her quim.

“I suppose you would like to have your
release,” he said.

She jerked her hips against him in answer,
moaning as he tugged her hair with his other hand. “Yes. Please,
Sir. I would like to.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think you deserve
it.” His delightful caresses stopped. He moved his hands to her
hips and held her there, and thrust in her as before.

“I am not...allowed?” she asked.

“Not tonight. Just stay in position and let
me take my pleasure. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll permit you to come, if
you display a more convivial demeanor.”

She stared down at the bed, shocked. Why, did
he think he could control her, even in this? She would show him.
But as she tried to regain those heights of arousal, she found the
ability had passed. Perhaps it was his command to the contrary, or
his displeasure with her, or the fear of more punishment if she
disobeyed him.

Whatever it was, it left her unable to
continue to that needful peak. More tears dropped onto the sheets
as the duke completed his business and pressed into her, spilling
his seed. He was still for a moment, then withdrew and turned her
about to face him. He tipped her chin up when she wouldn’t meet his
gaze.

“Do not pout,” he said. “Show me you’ve
learned something from that thrashing you took earlier. Be
biddable, Guinevere. Kiss me now, and smile.”

She offered her lips and accepted his kiss as
coolly as she dared. The demanded smile was weak, very weak, but
she managed.

“I’ll let you in on a secret,” he said, as he
drew her down beside him on the bed. “Good wives get all sorts of
gratifying things.” He stroked her nipple. With her lingering,
unsatisfied arousal, it caused a particular sort of pain. “Bad
wives get bad things. Whippings and lectures. Disciplinary
sodomizations.”

She shivered. “What is that?
Sodomization?”

“A cock up your arsehole. It’s an excellent
method of teaching submission to rebellious wives.”

Her mouth fell open. “I’ve never heard of
such a thing.”

“Well, now you have. Lie on your front,
please. Leave your birched bottom exposed to the air a while
longer.”

She soon realized he asked this for his own
benefit, as he squeezed and toyed with her sore cheeks, and left
her to fidget in helpless need. She was still wet as a well, with
no hope of release. She understood now why everyone bowed and
scraped to her husband. He was not to be trifled with. His cock in
her arsehole? Shocking. Repulsive. She hoped he was only trying to
frighten her with an empty threat.

I never threaten, Guinevere. I decide upon
consequences, and then I act.

No, it was not a threat. He would do it if he
thought she deserved it, and she would have no choice but to
submit.

“We’ll arrive at Arlington Hall tomorrow,” he
said, drawing her into his arms. “And I don’t wish us to begin in
tension and misery, so I suggest you brighten up, and resign
yourself to this marriage before then.”

Chapter
Six: Good Girl

Her husband didn’t ride in the carriage at
all the second day, which was just as well, since Gwen spent the
entire journey alternately fidgeting and crying.

She had put away her traveling clothes and
donned one of the finer gowns her father had ordered over the
summer. It was pale green silk, with ruching and rosettes, and a
matching fan and gloves. She took the gloves on and off and fussed
with the fan, and avoided looking out the window lest she see
him.

No matter how she sat, her bottom ached and
reminded her of the punishment he’d dealt her. Her sex ached too,
for he’d left her wanting. Those unassuaged echoes of desire still
needled her. After tossing and turning all night, she decided she
must act in self-preservation, and be the perfect and subservient
wife until she developed some workable strategy to survive this
marriage.

Then they arrived at Arlington Hall, and all
her thoughts became this:
God save me. What am I to do?

The duke’s country estate was shockingly
vast, with forests and meadows, and acres of manicured gardens, and
a long meandering roadway of cobblestones that curved between a
line of trees and led right up to the house. Not the house. The
palace. She could not imagine the king’s own residence was so fine.
There was a circle-shaped courtyard at the front with a fountain in
the middle, the same fountain from his sketch book. She gawked at
it as the groom helped her alight from the carriage.

The duke strode across the courtyard to take
her hand. “Welcome home,” he said.

Lines of servants assembled in arcs beside
the front doorway. Her husband approached a stern-faced man at the
bottom of the stairs.

“Greetings, Dorset. The staff looks smart.
Thank you for the welcome. I’m honored to introduce my wife, the
Duchess of Arlington.”

The butler bowed to her. “May you find great
happiness at Arlington Hall, Your Grace. We are at your
service.”

“Mrs. Haverford,” the duke said, turning to
the housekeeper, “please ask the cook if she knows how to make any
Welsh dishes. My wife is already homesick.”

He said it lightly, but Gwen knew the
housekeeper was noticing her red, swollen eyes. Gwen lowered her
gaze as her husband relayed a litany of orders to the butler.
Bring the modiste at once, contact Mr. Beaumont in London,
summon Lord and Lady Langton for tea, and oh, has my sister written
while I was away?
Gwen hadn’t even known he had a sister, but
she apparently lived in Leicestershire, had four children, and
didn’t write often enough.

“Shall we see the house, and your new rooms?”
he asked, turning to her.

“Yes, I’d like that,” she mumbled. She felt
utterly overwhelmed.

They proceeded up the stairs together, as
each of the servants bowed or curtsied. They were all more refined
than she could ever hope to be. The double front doors, which had
looked so huge from the carriage, were even larger when one stood
before them. The butler pushed them open and bowed again—so much
bowing!—and Gwen stepped inside.

The large entry hall soared in every
direction, decorated with ornate molding. A massive staircase
dominated the middle, curving up and away to a second floor. The
ceiling arched overhead, to a dramatic apex painted with figures of
gods and angels. One hallway went to the right as far as she could
see, and another to the left, and another down the center behind
the stairs. The duke called these “wings” as he explained the
layout of the house. The east wing, the west wing, the south wing.
Her own home had been a rectangular box with battlements on top,
and rough gray walls, and dirty fireplaces. There had been no wings
or curved staircases. There had been no angels painted on the
ceiling.

“It’s very beautiful,” she said. The echoing
walls collected her voice and sent it back at her as if to say,
we don’t want you. You don’t belong here.

He showed her some of the first floor rooms:
the cavernous ballroom, the library with row after row of shelves,
the first parlor, which was green, the second parlor, which was
gray, the study, the card room, the third parlor, which was blue,
and the conservatory, which really just looked like a smaller
ballroom with more windows. Hundreds of candles lent each room a
warm glow. He must have servants whose only job was tending all
these candles. She couldn’t imagine the luxury of it, the
expense.

They went upstairs next, to three more
hallways again, each of them lined with suites of rooms. Each and
every room was aired and furnished with linens, and each had at
least one large, curtained window. Today’s light was fading, but on
a sunny day, Gwen imagined the house was wonderfully bright. The
ducal chambers—his and hers—dominated the central hall. A pair of
footmen stood by the stairs, not moving a muscle as they passed.
Gwen could almost imagine they were statues.

“Why are they standing there?” she
whispered.

“Because they’re supposed to be,” he
whispered back. “If you need anything, you tell them, and they’ll
help you.”

“Oh.” Her father’s house had servants, but
you needed to pull the bell to have them come. They weren’t the
sort who stood around awaiting your pleasure. What did these men do
when the duke was away?

They entered a room on the right, a grand
suite of chambers too huge and masculine to belong to anyone but
the master of the house. The sitting room boasted deep, upholstered
sofas and a writing desk the size of four of her writing desks back
home. Beyond the sitting room lay his bedroom, with a wide poster
bed of deep green velvet, and massive pieces of French-style
furniture with carving and gold leaf. A door on the right led to a
dressing room, and, as he showed her, a bathing room beyond.

She stared in wonder at the gleaming fixtures
and oversized tub. “You can get hot water from below,” he said. “An
ingenious new system with pumps and pipes. If you wish, I’ll have
them outfit your bathing room too.”

“I have a bathing room?” She thought of her
rooms back at her father’s house, her sensible bedroom with her
sensible, homemade furniture, and her dressing room you could
barely turn about in.

“Come, I’ll show you.”

He led her across the hallway to a room with
the same oak doors, and doorknobs made of crystal. There was
another sitting room, this one outfitted for a lady, with ivory and
gilt furnishings and vases of daffodils to match the pale yellow
drapes. The bedroom was an airy, feminine space dominated by a pale
yellow poster bed. Two tall windows rose above cushioned window
seats, and a marble mantel framed the fireplace. That mantel was
taller than her, perhaps as tall as the duke. Above it hung a
lifelike portrait of a man who looked very much like her husband,
and a smiling woman in an elegant lavender gown.

“My parents,” he said when he saw her staring
at it. “You would have liked to know them. My mother died like
yours, from the fever, and my father a few years later, of too much
drink and an ill-thought brawl.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. They enjoyed life while they
lived it.” He gazed at his parents’ painting with a reverent
expression. “We’ll have our portrait made when we go to London.
I’ve already engaged the artist. What else is there to do, when
most everyone is rusticating in the country?”