by Jaye Peaches
“I have been absent for a long time. I wish to re-establish my own status in town before introducing you to society.” He picked up his knife and continued to dine without glancing at her.
Alice suppressed the desire to screw up her face and answer him back. Did he not trust her to behave out on her own? She grasped her fork tightly and stabbed at a piece of beef, spearing it onto the prongs. Her argument would be lost immediately. She had behaved badly on her own and his precautionary measure was founded on good reason. She clearly had much work to do in convincing him otherwise.
Unfortunately, Edmund’s refusal to countenance her visiting Buxton, and her lack of worthy occupation, caused Alice to drift back to her old practices of thoughtlessness.
After luncheon, she searched the bureau in the library and found patterns for samplers and a tapestry. She requested threads and canvas for stitching and Primrose provided them from the stores in the basement. Settling into a window seat, she began to fashion a red rose.
She could hear dogs barking raucously outside and knew that Edmund had return from shooting rabbits with the gamekeeper. A few minutes later, he appeared in the drawing room, face gleaming with the sultry heat of the day. Bending over to kiss her cheek, he spied her handiwork.
“Pretty,” he commented. “Where did you find the pattern, it looks familiar.”
“In a drawer,” she confided. She bit her lip. “I haven’t been amiss?”
“They were my mother’s,” said Edmund easing into an armchair.
Alice had heard little about his mother, other than she had died many years ago. “Please, would you tell me about her?” she asked sweetly.
“Her painting is there on the wall.” Edmund pointed to a full-length oil painting of an elegant if slightly delicate woman standing in a rural setting.
Alice gazed up at the portrait. “She is most beautiful,” she said truthfully.
Edmund studied his feet rather than the portrait. “She and my father were childhood sweethearts. However, she didn’t take to being an army wife, detested following the wagon train and preferred to abide here while my father toured abroad. She had my sister, who died in infancy, and myself, and then my father died in the Caribbean. Her heart broke and in her weakened state, she succumbed to consumption.”
“I am sorry, Edmund.” Alice put down her needlework. “To lose both of your parents at a young age is tragic.”
Edmund waved a dismissive hand at her emotional response. “Your father took me under his wing. Ensured I went to school and then to officer training. He said he could see my father in me.”
“How did your father and mine become friends?”
“Your grandfather, Henry’s father, married the sister of one of the housekeeper’s here. Henry would come to visit his aunt and met my father. Although of different classes, Henry had been well educated and he took an interest in the engineering books in our library here. My father stuck to the military ones. Nobody minded seeing two boys immersed in books. I think though, they made some mischief about the house.”
“My father!” gawped Alice. She supposed it explain her more rebellious nature. “So, you’re not cross that I took your mother’s patterns?”
“No, she would have liked you to use them.” He paused and his eyebrows furrowed. “However, do not think you may go rummaging in all the rooms. The room at the far end of the East corridor is forbidden to you.”
Alice desperately wanted to ask why, but bit down on her tongue and stowed her inquisitive nature. Edmund had revealed something of his past and she was satisfied. His eyelids drooped and she quietly went about her embroidering while he dozed.
* * *
The next time Edmund went into Buxton on business two days later, Alice was especially restless. She had been told there was to be a dance at the assembly rooms in Buxton and they were invited. It could not come soon enough, and perhaps given the dragging of time, she didn’t pay much heed to Edmund’s warning about the forbidden room.
She entered it on impulse, curiosity driving her to seek some form of entertainment. The unlocked door revealed a room whose walls were covered in pictures. Some paintings, others sketches. They all had the same theme—war. Different depictions of battle scenes, parading soldiers and officers in their dress uniforms. A cabinet contained various memorabilia: medals, shakos, ornate scabbards and sabres.
Opening the door of a great wooden wardrobe, she found uniforms hanging in the closet. Different styles—some cavalry others infantry, all in excellent condition. Alice could not resist their allure. Choosing a black cavalry style, she slipped it over her shoulders and tried it on. Her hands disappeared in the sleeves and the length dropped to her thighs. She gave a twirl in the middle of the room and then peered at her reflection in the closet mirror, giggling at her ridiculous costume and its vast proportions.
The door slammed behind her. Alice jumped in her skin. She didn’t need to turn to see who had entered, the reflection in the mirror showed Edmund looming behind her, his grey eyes intense with anger.
With trepidation, she turned about slowly, heart racing uncontrollably.
“I told you this room is forbidden!” he snapped.
“I… thought they were yours, I… forgot.” She doubted her floundering words would convince him.
He pointed a finger at her garb. “The uniform you wear belonged to my father. This room contains everything I know about my father.” His eyes tracked about the room and his expression changed. No longer did she see red-faced anger. He seemed lost in thought and remembrances.
She quickly removed the coat and hung it up in the wardrobe, closing the door. She felt terrible. The room contained the personal memories of a much-admired father—a treasure trove of keepsakes maintained by Edmund even in his absence. She lowered her eyes to the floor, unable to match Edmund’s stern stare. She shuffled her feet nervously, waiting for him to speak.
He frowned. “I’m disappointed. I’m sorry to say this countermanding of my stipulation will result in you being spanked. Curiosity is one thing, but you flagrantly…” He shook his head slightly, as if in disbelief. “You should not have touched his uniform.”
She opened and shut her mouth in disbelief. The sense of sorrow at her actions vanished and instead, she pouted at his mention of spanking. Somehow, she had to convince him not to do it. She straightened her shoulders and tried to come with a suitable cause for mitigation. “Please, don’t spank me. It’s not fair. I didn’t know who the uniform belonged to, did I? I assumed it was yours.”
“I asked you not to enter the room, never mind touch the contents of the wardrobe. If you had stayed out, then you would not have made the mistake. Your disobedience led you here, not your ignorance.”
She scrambled to find a response to his statement, running a hand through a lock of hair. “If you’d shown me the room…”
“Alice! I have made my decision. Go to the bedroom, get undressed and wait for me there.” He spoke with a flat tone of voice and it signalled finality.
Alice slipped past him, closing the door quietly and dashed down the corridor to the master bedroom. Shutting the door behind her, she burst into tears. She wiped her tears away with the back of her hand and opted to prepare herself for his chastisement. She removed her blue gown. Normally Primrose would assist in her undressing if Edmund chose not to do it himself, but in the maid’s absence, she would have to manage on her own.
With still no sign of her husband, she continued to strip. With shaking hands, she peeled off each of her layers of undergarment until she reached the chemise. Hesitating, she understood its significance to him. To remove it in the bedroom would show her compliance to his request for her to be naked—another stipulation she could ill afford to ignore in the current circumstances. She slipped it off over her head. Wrapping her arms around her chest, she hovered uncertain as to what he would expect from her.
Should she sit on the bed, or perhaps bend over the edge? Her legs shook and it helped with her decision. Bending her
knees, she lowered herself on to the floor and rested there on her folded legs.
As she waited for Edmund to appear, Alice pondered her situation. Another spanking! Would he take her over his lap again and hold her down? She didn’t want to resist this time, as much as she disliked his intention to punish her, she would rather not grapple with him. A pointless exercise—his strength would quickly overpower her. She decided that outwardly she would do as he wished, but in her head, she would remain defiant and refuse to be humiliated. She proudly lifted up her chin to show her readiness, then thought better of it and dropped her head. The door opened and Edmund entered the bedroom.
She risked peeking at him. His cravat had been loosened and his jacket unbuttoned. In his steady hand, a leather scabbard, swordless, plain and thick. He signalled for her to rise. Alice quickly clambered to her feet.
“I am disheartened by your thoughtlessness,” said Edmund, gripping the scabbard in both hands. “But I know you are too. It is for this reason your punishment will be brief. Nor do I wish to attract the servants. You will lie on the bed and I will whip you six times with this scabbard. You must be as quiet as possible.”
Alice nodded and did as he asked, lowering herself onto the bed.
“Put your hands above your head,” he said approaching the side of the four-poster.
His hand rested on the small of her back and the other raised the scabbard and brought it down with a whack. Alice kicked her legs up and her teeth bit down, suppressing a cry. It hurt far more than she had imagined. Six was a small number, but he didn’t hold back with the force of his sweeping arm.
The next came a few seconds later, slicing through the air with a swish and landing with a thud, and with it came her tears. So much for defiant thoughts, she felt only his disappointment in her. His hand rubbed about the raw pain, tracing his fingers over the rising welt. Each blow was an equal to the previous one. By the end, her tears had wet the bedcovers and her bottom throbbed with an intense burning. The scabbard had left a row of blistering hot lines on her behind.
Edmund tossed the scabbard aside and drew the sobbing Alice into his arms. She curled up on his lap, crying into his chest.
“Alice,” he said calmly, brushing the hair away from her face with his fingers. “Alice, it is over. Please stop crying.”
“I am so sorry, Edmund,” she said sniffing. “I never meant to be disrespectful to your father’s memory. I have been insensitive.”
“No, you didn’t know. I should have explained to you why that room is special to me,” said Edmund with a sigh. “It wasn’t your curiosity that mars your behaviour, it was that you went against my specific instruction not to go in there. It is your defiance, Alice, which causes us strife.”
“I am mindful of its attendance throughout my life,” agreed Alice, faintly aware of his steading heartbeat next to her ear.
“It is not that I wish you to be dull, my dear, or lacking in inquisitiveness, it is the act of snooping and prying that I despise. When I take you into the company of others, people of good standing and rank, you must learn to contain your gossiping nature.” He tilted her chin up and lowered his mouth, kissing her sweetly.
“So you do like my wit, my ability to enchant you?” she enquired with a modicum of humour.
“I,” Edmund paused a fraction, “love it in the right circumstances and in its correct place.”
“Love my wit or love me?” She ventured. He seemed to be happy once again, full of sweet mannerisms and tenderness. Such a contrary man and she speculated it would become increasingly hard to resist his controlling manner if he continued to exact his will while tempering it with his loving ways.
“It would seem I cannot have one without the other,” he chuckled and then with a swift twist of his body, pushed her back on the bed. Looming above her, she waited, breathless and certain his forthcoming actions would both enthral and tantalise long into the evening.
Chapter Seven
The day of the dance had arrived. Alice spent it in a state of feverish excitement, trying on numerous gowns without making a decision. Primrose liked them all, which didn’t help Alice. The chosen gown, pale green in colour, demonstrated the latest fashions with its lacy frills at the edges, a daring décolletage, which lowered her neck line and a similar lower waistline below her bosom; each feature was met with Edmund’s approval. Alice selected a golden brown, velvet pelisse to wear on their return, a turban bonnet and long gloves.
The previous week, Edmund had finally escorted Alice into town for visits. Her husband had provided her with pin money, an allowance to spend as she saw fit. One trip took them to shop at a haberdashery to buy more threads and needles for her embroidery, another at a seamstress, to commission further gowns and the third visit to walk about the streets upon his arm. Each adventure into Buxton served a purpose in introducing Alice to society. She had been immensely relieved to be out and no longer hidden away.
She had been especially careful with her behaviour since he had spanked her with the scabbard, but she occasionally struggled to keep her insolent tongue at bay.
“Of course when we have our ball, I shall insist on you wearing your uniform again. I cannot imagine you parading around without it.” She announced on the way to the Assembly Rooms in the closed carriage.
Edmund flicked a moth away. “My uniform days are over. I will wear something appropriate to my position in society.”
“Poppycock,” snorted Alice. “I want you to wear it, so you should.”
Edmund’s raised an eyebrow and folded his arms across his chest. “Alice!” His voice rose and ended with a slight hiss.
She gave him a twitchy smile. “I’m just saying… that’s all. I mean, it’s your decision.” She mumbled. He wouldn’t dare spank her in the carriage, would he? She did not wish to find out and kept her mouth shut for the rest of the journey.
Arriving at the Assembly Rooms, they entered the grand room with its painted ceiling.
“Colonel Seymour and Mrs Seymour!” Boomed the announcer at the doorway.
Alice swept into the room with as much aplomb as she could muster.
The Rooms were laid out in a traditional fashion with the ballroom and small group of musicians, the card room, which Edmund showed little interest in and a supper room for refreshments. The Master of Ceremonies presented Alice with her number, indicating her place in the dance and when called out, she and Edmund joined the lines of dancers.
Edmund’s willingness to join in the dances greatly pleased Alice, but after three rounds of cotillion, Edmund retired and Alice could only watch others perform the quadrille. There was, much to the consternation of the older guests, a demonstration of a waltz. The new style of dancing, with its contact between partners, elicited either a frown of disgust or a smile of intrigue.
“What a most intimate style of dance, do you not think, Edmund? I do hope it catches on quickly.” She tapped a foot in time with the rhythmic beats.
Her husband grimaced. “I do not think it is appropriate.”
Alice’s foot halted in disappointment. “May I circulate a little on my own? I will be good.”
“Soon. Let me introduce you to the daughters of our town’s most esteemed families. I’m sure your natural friendliness and lack of shyness will assist you in making new friends, dearest,” he said dryly. Alice cheerfully ignored the sardonic tone and went upon his arm to greet his chosen acquaintances.
Within minutes, Alice found herself surrounded by various young ladies keen to know how she had caught the renowned Colonel Seymour.
“A family friend,” had been her answer each time. The answer she had been instructed to give by Edmund. Although not a lie, it felt like a half-truth. She had barely known Edmund before their engagement.
As they moved about the fringe of the dance hall, she sipped on a glass of sherry.
“You may have one glass.” Edmund had told her when handing her the rather small glass.
“Just one!” She pouted. He gave
her one of his now familiar stern expressions. “Oh very well. I mean. Thank you.”
Edmund peered over her shoulder into the distance. “I shall let you take a turn on your own. Be good.” He gave her an encouraging nod and then he moved through the crowd away from her.
A gleeful Alice kept her ears open to the chattering mouths of her new friends as she hovered at their sides. Just like her companions in Macclesfield, there was always some tittle-tattle to spread and rumours to believe or disbelieve. One tale, which captivated the small gathering, related to a spinster who lived with her brother on the outskirts of Buxton.
“According to the innkeeper, who services the mail coaches to London, she had sent numerous letters to a Frenchman, who lives in the south of that country.”
“Despicable,” exclaimed a freckled face girl of Alice’s age. “The war may be over, but the French will not be endeared to me for many a year after the good men we lost to them. How could she engage in love letters to a foreigner and hold her head up high.”
“Love letters!” shrilled a red-head before shushed by another, whose head swivelled about in case they were overheard.
“Who knows, but why else would a single lady, not yet of thirty years, be in correspondence to a man,” said freckle face.
Alice listened engrossed as their gossip intensified. How long had Miss Fanshawe been chin-wagging with her Frenchman? Did they correspond during the war? Was she a spy! The young ladies embroidered their own fanciful tales around the unfortunate Miss Fanshawe. Alice loved a mystery.
The break in the dancing finished, the eligible gentlemen quickly whisked off the young ladies to dance once again, leaving Alice to seek out her husband.
Edmund stood near the unlit fireplace, glass of wine in hand and elbow resting on the mantel. Alice paused to take in her fine-looking husband. Although no longer dressed in his formal uniform, he remained a grand specimen in whatever attire he chose. The black breeches, which seemed to be the latest fashion for evening wear, hugged his thighs tightly. The double-breasted coat tailored to perfection about his chest and shoulders, narrowing to a snug fit about his waist. Smiling at her fortune, she wandered closer to him, weaving between others.
