Lina opened her mouth, believing that she had something to say, but not knowing what it was and still quite unsettled by the commanding voice of Mr. Blackstone, she closed it. She followed the butler, who, for being quite aged, was moving along at quite a fast pace. She hurried to catch up to him, not wishing to be left alone in the dark.
She was left at the doorway of an enormous suite of rooms by the mysterious and silent Mongrave, who disappeared into the labyrinthine corridors without a word.
The rooms were large and well-furnished, and a tray of food, still warm as if it had just been served, was left for her in the anteroom. There was, to her great surprise, an enormous bathroom, and a dressing room, attached to the bed chamber. The rich sheets of the bed, made of a cotton woven until it seemed like silk, were turned down.
Not knowing what else to do, she ate the dinner left for her, and grew drowsy. She discovered that her trunks had been unpacked, which brought her great relief. She selected a night shift, and was asleep, in spite of the anxiety that plagued her, within a moment of her head touching the pillow.
Tomorrow, she thought, she would straighten all of this out.
Chapter Thirteen
A bright light flashed over her face, and her eyes flew open as she sat up with a start.
A maid, in a crisp uniform, with brown hair coiled up tightly in a bun, shook the great, thick curtains and turned to her. “Mr. Blackstone has requested that you take your tea in your sitting room and wear the blue dress with navy ribbon. Mr. Mongrave shall escort you from the sitting room at half-past. Do you require assistance dressing, Miss Blanchet?”
“I...” Lina wiped the sleep from her eyes. “Well, no, I suppose not, but—”
“Good. Don’t dally, miss. It’s already late in the afternoon and I expect that you have been given some reprieve because of your long travels, but Mr. Blackstone does not approve of sleeping throughout the day. I’d move quickly, miss. Mr. Blackstone does not like tardiness. He considers it disrespectful.”
The maid, without another word, left, before Lina could pry her for information.
Tears began to well up in her eyes again, but Lina fought them off. If this Mr. Blackstone was so inclined to play games with her, she would not let it make her cry. But she hurried out of bed, because until she had a better understanding of exactly what Mr. Blackstone did when he found things disrespectful, she had better not stoke his ire.
She dressed, and as promised, was taken by Mr. Mongrave to tea in one of the many rooms of the enormous estate. Try as she might to make a mental map of the passages and corridors of the mansion, she could not; it seemed to her that they never walked the same way, nor a direct way, twice.
“You may explore the library and gardens until Mr. Blackstone calls for you,” Mongrave said, out of nowhere, when she had finished her tea. And then, like a puff of smoke, he was gone.
And Lina was left sitting quite alone in a great room with a door open to a library, and a door from there to the great gardens.
She walked through them for some time, trying to observe signs of someone occupying the house besides Mongrave or Blackstone, or the maid she had seen earlier. But no groundskeeper nor maid nor butler was to be seen, and at last she entered the library in resignation, where she read a book and waited for the return of Mongrave.
He came some time later, and escorted her to Mr. Blackstone.
* * *
The figure before the window of the room was still. Lina’s stomach felt as though it was being wrung like laundry, and she felt herself sway slightly. But she resolutely remained standing—she would not, like the ridiculous Evangeline, faint from fear.
Her eyes took a few quick, furtive glances about, trying to make sense of the objects around her. They fit into no category of furnishing she had ever known, and they were vaguely unsettling, in that same cool, fearful, and wicked way, but she was unable to recognize them and would have been even if she had stared.
The man turned around. His face was in the shadows, and Lina averted her eyes after a moment, so that it would not seem she was staring. “Miss Blanchet,” he said coolly, and the deep voice of Mr. Blackstone traveled through her like an elixir, warming and cooling parts her body as it did: her chest, the backs of her arms, her belly... and lower. She felt herself blush, and stared at the floor, with her neck burning.
Then, because he seemed to be waiting for a response, Lina gave a strange curtsy and stuttered, “Mr. Black...s...s...tone.”
“Sir,” he corrected quietly.
Lina’s eyes lifted quickly, from the floor to the shadowy face. Remembering what Charlotte had told her about him being a monster, she looked quickly above his head. “I... I...” she stuttered again.
“Mr. Blackstone, sir,” he said, each word scraping at the insides of her wildly beating heart, though she could not tell if the sensation was painful or pleasurable. Her neck burned hotter. “You will address me properly.”
Lina’s mouth was open, and words failed her. A sinking sensation was overtaking her, and in truth she did feel quite faint; perhaps Evangeline had the right idea, in the end, fainting when overwhelmed.
“I am waiting,” Mr. Blackstone prompted, when she said nothing.
“Mr. Blackstone,” she managed to say hoarsely. “Sir?”
He had an odd cane in his hands, which Lina noticed now only because he placed it in front of him, one hand over the other, atop the knobby end. He lifted it and gave a hard blow to the ground, making Lina jump. “That’s better. When you speak to me—and you will do so only when I say you may—you shall use the appropriate address. ‘Sir’ will do in this context. At other times I shall request that you call me ‘master’.”
Lina felt the queer sensation in her lower abdomen again. She sucked in her breath and lifted her eyes.
There was another, louder smash of the cane against the wood of the floor. “The first lesson you will learn, Miss Blanchet, is to keep your eyes on the floor unless you are told to keep your eyes somewhere else. Do you understand me?”
Lina did not, so her head was shaking as she said, quietly, “I... I... do not understand—”
“You will.” His voice interrupted her without him raising it, and an even icier chill traveled through Lina, though for some reason, it was strangely thrilling. Then, without warning, he yelled, “Doyle!”
The immense bookshelf swung open near the back corner of the room, making Lina look up in that direction. A man was entering the room, also curiously obscured by the shadows and the arrangement of the candles so that Lina could not make out his face. His figure was smaller than Mr. Blackstone’s, and his hair lighter.
Lina squinted into the glaring candles so arranged that his face was obscured. She did not care for being unable to see someone’s face.
“This is my physician and right-hand assistant, Dr. Doyle,” Mr. Blackstone said, with menace in his voice.
Lina stared for a moment, then looked at the floor, and then, not knowing what else to do, curtsied.
“Dr. Doyle,” Blackstone continued, “is... my eyes and ears, in a way. Especially in the city.”
Lina’s heart felt even heavier, and colder. She stared at the floor and clasped her hands in front of her.
“And do you know, Caroline Blanchet, what Dr. Doyle might have seen and heard in London on his most recent trip?”
Lina thought she just might, but she was struck silent and stared at the pattern of the rug on the floor, her heart beating wildly. Surely, surely, if he had gotten wind of the scandal in London, he would not have sent for her?
“Miss Blanchet? Your master has asked you a question, and now you will answer.”
“I do not,” Lina said limply, after taking a deep breath to compose herself.
There was a noise as Mr. Blackstone took a deep breath, loudly, causing Lina to look up at him. His neck was exposed in the light, and he was looking at the ceiling. She still could not see his face, but his neck seemed... well, normal. When he lowered h
is chin, she caught sight of a mouth, with full lips and snarl, but certainly nothing monstrous.
“You do not,” he repeated, sending her eyes back to the floor with the venom of his words. “You do not, what?” he seethed.
Lina’s eyes watered, and inside she felt torn in a thousand directions.
“I do not, sir.” This final syllable left her mouth more snappily than she had intended, and once it left her mouth she feared it would anger him. At the same time, somewhere in the back of her mind, she was wondering if this man had any proper claim on her, to be forcing her to speak to him thusly.
“Doyle?” Mr. Blackstone asked, after a pause.
“It would seem that Miss Blanchet behaved inappropriately and had inappropriate relations with a young gentleman at the Chattoway ball. I found her stretched out upon the lap of a gentleman, asleep from too much drink, having engaged in most inappropriate—”
“It isn’t true,” Lina pleaded, looking up suddenly. The words were pouring from her mouth and she could not make them stop. “I did no such thing; it was all a trick—”
“Miss Blanchet,” Mr. Blackstone said icily, again managing to cut her off as though he had shouted with the pure ice of his tone. “I did not ask you to speak.”
“But, but, but...” she said, looking at Dr. Doyle, who had a serious but not mean expression as he looked back at her. “But it isn’t true!”
“I saw it with my own eyes, Miss Blanchet. It is quite true.”
“It isn’t true that, that... that... but I didn’t...” Lina attempted to explain but was unable to put what she wanted to say into words quickly enough.
“Because of your indiscretions... thank you, Dr. Doyle, I shan’t be needing you any further,” Mr. Blackstone interrupted her mumbling. Dr. Doyle turned toward the bookshelf to leave.
“But wait!” Lina interjected, forgetting herself and her fear. “This is not... not fair!”
Doyle began to turn around slowly, but Mr. Blackstone waved him away, and so he obeyed him and headed to the door as Blackstone turned toward Lina and breathed like a dragon. “Silence!”
Lina’s eyes filled with tears, but she closed her mouth, for the man’s voice had such an effect that she felt she couldn’t speak any more, even if she very much wanted to.
The bookcase door swung closed, and Lina stared at the floor. There was a long and awkward silence.
“Let us start again, Miss Blanchet. You have lied to me, and for that you shall be disciplined severely—”
“I did not lie,” she said, in a trembling voice. “I must defend—”
“You lied when you said you knew not of what Dr. Doyle spoke,” Blackstone growled. “And you have been disrespectful, speaking out of turn. You shall learn your lesson this evening, Miss Blanchet.”
Lina looked up. Blackstone had retreated into the shadows without her realizing it.
She sniffled. “Mr. Blackstone, sir,” she said quietly, and had to wipe her nose hastily before he turned around. “I apologize for my impertinence—”
There was a crack in the air, which silenced Lina. She recognized the sound, though she could not place it.
“You shall, indeed, apologize for your impertinence, Miss Blanchet. And you shall apologize for your indiscretions. And you shall be instructed firmly in the ways of submission and obedience.”
Lina’s heart went cold. While the words stirred something almost pleasurable inside of her, in her naughtiest places, they also struck her chest with a knife of fear.
Her eyes scanned the shadowy figure before her, looking for the source of the sound, her mind almost grasping it, not quite prepared to believe that it was what she thought it was...
As the realization that the crack had been that of a whip spread through her mind and then, like molten lava, through her body, she stepped backward, looking from side to side, as though for help. The furniture of the room began to take on a kind of recognition in her mind, though it was far too vague to materialize as a complete thought. The visceral reaction inside of her, however, was very clear: she felt a terrifying thrill.
“Because of your most inappropriate behavior, Miss Blanchet, I have dissolved the previous conditions of your contract.”
Lina was walking backward, though Blackstone was not approaching.
So... she was not to be married to him?
She had retreated so far that she ran into the heavy door, and she began to fumble around for the handle without turning her back. “Sir, Mr. Blackstone, if that... is... the case... then I...”
Then she what? Then she was free, yes, but the Harlowes were sure to turn her out of the house.
The whip—for it was a whip, indeed, she knew that now—cracked again, silencing her completely. “I have, however, spent a good deal of money on you, Miss Blanchet. And I,” he snarled with an evil undertone, “always recuperate my money. Fortunately enough, I have a wealthy... associate, who finds your... lack of discretion and wantonness to be quite appealing. He is, however, quite insistent that you be trained properly before you are transferred to his harem. He has... many requirements and it is imperative that you conform to all of them.”
Lina let out a breath in a huff. She did not know what most of this meant, not really, though like the instruments and furnishings in the room, she possessed a shadowy frame of reference for it all and it was one she did not much care for. “I shall not be... I shall not. If the contract is dissolved, then I shall return home. Call me a carriage at once, I shall depart immediately.”
She spun on her heel, with every thought of opening the door and strolling imperiously down the corridor to the corner, where she would run. She had taken note of the twists and turns, and she believed that she could find the stairway.
But her thoughts, running ahead of her feet, were suddenly spinning around as wildly as her own body, for Mr. Blackstone had crossed the room with lightning speed and the silence of a panther, to catch her wrist. He then encircled her waist, and suddenly, she was spinning, moving, and then being pulled toward a hard and rubbery object like a large rocking horse, and then bent at the waist over the object.
The details of her predicament from there came to her in waves: the sensation of leather around one wrist, then the other. Her voice, loud and protesting, leaving her mouth at an absurd volume. She kicked back with her feet but found only air, and then her arms began to pull ahead of her, pulling her down and over the furnished piece she had seen, and was now realizing, simply, was some kind of monstrous device for... for...
For what?
She could no longer lift her head, and her hair had come tumbling from the loose arrangement she had hastily created, so she could not see from behind her brown curls, nor push the hair from her face. What was more, she could feel a hand—a man’s hand, warm and slightly rough, closing around her ankle.
She was so shocked by the impropriety of his touch that she fell silent, and went stiff. Her ankle was enclosed by leather as well, and then the process was repeated on the other side.
When Mr. Blackstone pulled her legs apart, spreading them, shame washed over her, cold and hot at the same time. “What are you—Mr. Blackstone! I insist that you... you stop! Immediately!”
But this humiliating and utterly inappropriate position was nothing compared to what happened next, as darkness fell over her head. For a moment she did not know why, until, incredibly, she felt the cool air of the room against her bare skin.
The bare skin of her legs, her thighs, and ... her backside.
“The very first lesson that I must impart upon you, Miss Blanchet, is about obedience.”
“This is most improper!” Lina screeched. “I... I... I demand that you... release me... at once.”
Instead of being released, however, she felt a further humiliation being added to her predicament: Mr. Blackstone was pulling on the strings of her silk drawers and pulling then open, so that the silky fabric slipped down her thighs and caught about her knees, leaving her bottom entirely exposed.<
br />
She did not have long to consider this impropriety, however, because her skin suddenly felt as though it had been set on fire, and the accompanying sound of a slap reached her ears shortly thereafter. Just as she was processing that she was being spanked, like a child by a father, her skin was again set afire.
Initially, she had been too shocked to say anything, and the second slap took the wind from her lungs. But as the third spank cracked against her skin, a sharp bite in a spreading sea of uncomfortable warmth and numbness, she shrieked and began to attempt to kick her restrained feet.
“Now. Miss. Blanchet,” her tormentor said calmly, punctuating each word with a painful spank. “You will be made to understand. That. You shall obey orders. Not give them.”
“Stop! Stop! I insist that you stop this at—ah!”
A rain of slaps, each one more sharp than the last, fell upon her already burning bottom, and she was suddenly without words. Evidently, so was her captor, for he did not lecture her or speak. She kicked and gasped and cried and flailed, and demanded, then begged, for him to stop.
But he continued on, and tears poured from her eyes and her legs and arms ached from the struggle against the restraints.
At last, for there seemed nothing else to do, she went limp, and closed her eyes, sobbing.
A final crack, and she braced for the next sharp sting, which she felt she would be unable to bear. But it did not come.
She sobbed, tears running down her face, hanging limply over the terrible device.
The man behind her said nothing, and fear coursed through her, making her legs tremble, as she anticipated that he would begin his spanking anew.
But something much, much worse was happening, and she could not explain it: the funny feeling, that very same feeling that had been inspired by Mr. Blackstone’s voice, or when she allowed the word “discipline” to careen about in her thoughts for too long, had returned. It was now so strong that it was branching out to the most immodest of places, where she could feel a pulsing, pleasurable heat.
And wetness.
Theirs to Train: A Victorian Menage Romance Page 7
