Rival Desires

by Annabel Joseph

  “First of all, your brother doesn’t know me, not as a friend or acquaintance. We’ve greeted one another in passing, nothing more.”

  “But people talk—”

  “Second of all, it demeans you to speak of brothels, and to listen at doors to other peoples’ conversations.”

  “Do you deny what they said about you?”

  “I’m a twenty-seven-year-old man, Ophelia. I haven’t lived like a monk, no, but I haven’t been indiscriminate either. I’ve no bastards, no mistresses set up in apartments. Women gossip about me out of fascination, or jealousy, and half of what’s been said about me is made up.” He gritted his teeth, his lips in a tense line. “Do you want to know the true details, or have you come to understand that my past ‘assignations’ are none of your affair? A proper wife shouldn’t wish to discuss such things. Although, from your behavior last night, I don’t think you know much of being a proper wife.”

  She would not let him upset her. She would not give in to tears, even if his gruff voice hurt her feelings. “If you’re speaking of my preference for sleeping alone, how would you feel in my position?”

  He made a sound suspiciously near to a snort. “I don’t think you want to know that answer.”

  “You behave as if I’m prudish, but you’re a stranger to me, and not a very kind one.”

  “I was more a stranger the night of the fire, dear wife, and you were pleased enough to spread your thighs for me then.”

  She turned her face, grateful to hide behind her bonnet’s brim. “You enjoy shaming me with that fact at every opportunity.”

  “You admit it’s a fact, then. I remember, Ophelia. I recall everything you said and everything you did, and that you enjoyed yourself very much.”

  His crassness could hardly be borne. Tears rose in her eyes, but she would not shed them. No, she was too angry. “You’ll shame me forever, won’t you?” she cried, turning back to him. “Our entire marriage?”

  “As you will do to me, at every opportunity.” His gaze held hers, his eyes green and flinty. “You should know that we will not go on like this together. I will not allow this sullen, sharp-tongued nonsense every time we converse. I tried to spank it out of you last night. The next time, I’ll not be so gentle.”

  “What, sir?” She fumed. “Will you abuse me?”

  Now his gaze flashed with a dangerous edge. “I’ll discipline you as I must, until you learn to govern your tongue. It’s not proper for wives to be shrill and off-putting with their husbands. Perhaps you don’t realize it, having spent so much time among the Viennese.”

  He said the last bit as if mocking her, as if her years at the music academy had been her folly, her egotistical whimsy. While she sat shaking in fury, he looked away, plucking at his coat’s cuffs and flicking invisible dust.

  “You’ll make me despise you,” she muttered beneath her breath.

  “What?”

  She didn’t know what possessed her to shout it aloud. “You shall make me despise you, Lord Wescott. You’ll make me hate you. Honestly, I haven’t that far to go.”

  “Good God. Very well, then.”

  Before she knew what was happening, he’d lifted her from her place and turned her over his lap. Her bonnet went flying, as did one of her slippers, but that was the least of her worries as he flipped up her skirts. He left only her thin chemise to cover her bare bottom. It offered no protection as he brought his hand down upon her arse.

  “Ow. Oww!” The smacking sounded too loud in the compartment, and the pain of his giant hand was uncalled for and unfair. “How dare you? Let me go at once. Oww! Why are you doing this?”

  “I’m doing this because you lack the most basic respect a wife owes her husband.”

  “That’s because I don’t want to be your wife. I never wanted to be your wife!”

  Her cries didn’t do anything to stop him from attacking her already-tender cheeks. She clenched and squirmed, but each blow fell squarely and left behind an awful, stinging fire.

  “We’ve not yet left London,” she pleaded. “Someone will look in the window and see me—and you—”

  “You ought to have thought of that before now, my little crosspatch,” he said, cinching her restless legs between his larger ones.

  “Don’t call me a crosspatch.” She squirmed to break free. “No, you mustn’t spank me again, please. I’m still sore from yesterday.”

  “That, too, you ought to have considered before now.”

  Smack, smack, smack. He pummeled her bottom cheeks with no respite in between spanks, no time to breathe and process the pain. She didn’t deserve to be punished so harshly, did she? For uttering a few frustrated words?

  “I don’t think you understand how much this hurts.” Her voice quavered on the edge of a cry. “It hurts. Please, it hurts!”

  “There’s a reason it hurts,” he said, tightening his arm around her waist. “You’re going to learn to speak to me civilly, or the spankings will continue, and next time I’ll use a birch rod or cane.”

  “I won’t speak at all, then. I’ll never speak to you again.”

  She clamped her lips shut against the whines and cries that escaped with each smack upon her bottom. She would not admit that she’d earned this punishment. No one deserved such treatment, even if they’d turned their husband from their bed on his wedding night, and berated him the morning after with ill-spoken words. She would never speak again, then, just as she’d decided not to sing. She would go completely silent. How would he enjoy being married to a silent, soundless creature, with no words or personality at all?

  It was hard to be silent, though. She gritted her teeth at the end, to stop herself from begging for mercy. When his cursed hand finally stopped spanking her, he refused to let her up.

  “You’ve had your second spanking now, wife,” he said in a lofty, bullying tone, “and we’ve only been married two days. Now, you’ll apologize for your disrespectful behavior, and pledge that you won’t behave like a shrew again.”

  She bowed her head and kept her lips shut. She wouldn’t talk to him. She’d never speak again to spite him.

  “I’m waiting,” he said, and she knew without looking that his hand was poised over her bottom, ready to resume the spanking if she didn’t comply. But she was afraid if she spoke, the only words she could manage would be I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, over and over.

  “Very well,” he said with a sigh. “Then your punishment will continue, but I shall have to switch hands. My right one is tired.”

  He stood her up and forced her down over his lap in the opposite direction. I won’t speak, she told herself. I’ll never speak.

  But his left hand felt even more painful than his right, and by the tenth spank or so, her outrage was overtaken by the fear that he could spank her forever, that their standoff might never end. Her bottom felt so hot and sore, it might be red for days beneath her skirts. She stared down at the slipper she’d kicked off earlier and made herself say the words.

  “I’m sorry, Lord Wescott. I’m sorry!”

  His horrid hand stopped, the compartment going silent after the onslaught.

  “And?” he prompted.

  “And I should not have...have spoken so rudely to you.”

  She said the words tightly, with her lips half-clenched, because otherwise she’d start to cry.

  “What shall happen, Ophelia, if you continue to be rude to me?” As he said this, his hand traced over her trembling bottom cheeks, squeezing each one, amplifying the pain.

  “You will...” By God, she would not cry, would not give him the satisfaction of tears. “You’ll give me a birching next time, or a caning, for not learning my lesson.”

  “Indeed.” He released her legs from within his and let her rise from his lap. “As much as it hurts to be spanked, a birching or caning will hurt worse, so you had best conduct yourself as a polite wife from this moment forward.”

  She eased back onto the seat beside him, gingerly, as far from his
large, intimidating figure as she could manage. Ow, it hurt just to sit, and to have to sit beside him all the way to Wescott Abbey? She wasn’t sure she could bear it. As she bent to put her slipper back on, the carriage bumped over a cobblestone. She bounced on the seat and hissed at the resulting pain. He had done this to her, this awful man she was forced to marry. What a miserable life she would have, bowing to his disciplinary whims.

  She looked out the window, and found they were already on the outskirts of London. How long had he spanked her? Too long. She smoothed her dress over her knees, trying not to look at Lord Wescott’s long, muscled thigh beside hers. She needed no reminder that he was bigger, stronger, and more powerful than her, not just in their godforsaken marriage, but in every way. Her mind went unbidden to their time at the inn, when he’d pushed his shaft inside her. I know I’m a lusty size, and you so small. Even so, it had come to feel better, almost shockingly lovely to have him inside her there...

  She shook off such thoughts. He did not arouse her anymore. She could not imagine him ever arousing her again, now that she understood his true character. Not only was he a rogue and a rake, but he was so haughty and overbearing a husband it could hardly be believed. She put her hands to the pins in her hair, to the neat coif that Rochelle had worked so hard to create. It was all mussed now, but she had no mirror to put it to rights.

  “Give me my bonnet,” she told him. “It’s there by your feet.”

  “Ask me with a civil tongue, so help me, Ophelia, or I’ll stop the carriage and find a birch tree to cut a switch right now.”

  She thought she’d explode from the indignity of it. How many more hours to Oxfordshire? She would lose her mind. “Please, Lord Wescott, will you hand me my bonnet?”

  “No, I will not. I can’t see your face at all when you’re wearing that blasted thing. You may have it back when we stop to rest and stretch our legs.”

  He would not even hand her her bonnet. Why, by God, must he wield power over her in all things? It was the extent of what she could bear and still keep her composure. Her tears overflowed her will and rolled down her cheeks, silent, but so copious he could not help but notice. She turned as far from him as she could, staring out the window, seeing nothing as she wiped at the tears with her second-best pair of gloves. Hateful. So hateful. She hated him beyond reason. He was so utterly cruel and unfeeling. She had let him touch her once, caress and kiss her, and get so close to her it felt like magic, but now, it was all she could do not to throw herself from the carriage to be away from him.

  I despise you. How she wanted to scream it at him, but she couldn’t. Over the past week, she’d lost three things that mattered: her voice, her virginity, and her freedom. She feared she would never be happy again, that she had lost that ability along with her vaunted voice.

  She put a hand to her throat and tried to stop crying, for it would solve nothing. A man as hard and unkind as the Marquess of Wescott would not be moved by tears, and they were not helping her at all, aside from giving her a headache. In time her lids grew heavy, and she closed her eyes and rested her head against the bolster at her side.

  It seemed only minutes later that Lord Wescott nudged her awake. “We’re here,” he said.

  “Here?” She blinked up at him, wondering why her head rested on his shoulder. “At the coaching inn?”

  “At Wescott Abbey. You were sleeping so soundly, I let you be when they changed the horses.”

  How had she ended up sleeping against her husband, rather than the bolster? She could hardly believe she’d done so the whole way to Oxfordshire. She felt groggy as she sat up and put her gown to rights. He handed over her bonnet and she arranged it atop her sleep-disordered hairstyle as well as she could. Only then did she look out the window to see the country house belonging to the marquess.

  House? No, it was hardly a house. It looked more like a sprawling, ancient castle, the thick stone walls rising three stories high, washed by time and sunlight. There were great, round towers at each corner of the house, with high windows and sloping peaks, and massive, carved battlements along the roof line. A vast lawn and manicured gardens surrounded the structure, bringing modern order to its archaic wildness. Her family’s country retreat was grand, but not on this scale.

  She gawked at the stone edifice, half expecting a parade of knights to issue from the wide front doors. Instead, lines of servants appeared, walking down the imposing staircase and taking up places alongside the entrance. All of them were dressed in Wescott livery, like the servants at his grand home in town.

  “Let me help you down,” he said, alighting before her. He held her hand as she emerged from the carriage, the polite and doting prince now that everyone could see. She didn’t feel like much of a princess, with her wrinkled skirts and aching bottom. She tried to walk normally as he led her to the castle’s entrance, where a stern-faced butler bowed to welcome them.

  “Good afternoon, Dorset,” said her husband. “This is my new wife, Lady Wescott.”

  “My lady,” said the butler, bowing low again. “And my Lord Wescott. We congratulate you and the marchioness, and wish you a warm welcome home.”

  Ophelia wondered if the servants knew why they’d married. It had happened so quickly, they must have an idea it was somehow improper. She tried to smile as Lord Wescott led her past them, but could not achieve a natural effect, so she looked down at the stairs instead. Bewigged footmen pushed open the huge double doors at the top, and Wescott ushered her inside.

  The home looked as ageless within as without, with a soaring stone entry hall lit by a massive hammered-iron chandelier. She wondered how many centuries old it was. Directly ahead, a wide staircase led to the second floor, where high, leaded windows let in filtered light. The whitewashed walls displayed large velvet tapestries, and the wood furniture was imposingly sturdy and plain.

  “It’s quite an ancient place,” he said in a conversational, almost blasé tone. “Monks lived here ages ago, before this was Arlington land. The Abbey predates the main house by centuries, being an outbuilding of the original Arlington keep.”

  He spoke so casually of centuries, as if he’d truly come to England with the Vikings. She could so easily imagine it, with his long blond hair and light eyes, and his natural propensity for cruelty.

  “It’s been worked on over the years,” he said, looking around, “so it’s no shack, but it’s not a palace like my parents’ house, either. I’ll give you a tour of the place when you’re in the mood for it.”

  She’d been committed to disliking Wescott Abbey, since anything to do with her husband must be a bad thing, but she found herself fascinated instead. “This is a nice house,” she said, in sullen understatement.

  He gave her a look that brought to mind the spanking she’d gotten earlier, as well as the one she’d suffered last night. What could he do, turn her over his knee now, in front of all the servants?

  “Mrs. Samuelson will show you to your rooms so you can rest and collect yourself,” he said, indicating the housekeeper at her side. “Her staff is doubtless upstairs already, unpacking your trunks. Dinner is served at eight o’clock here. If necessary, one of the footmen will show you to the dining room. You need only ask.”

  There were haughty looking footmen everywhere. Such wealth he must have, to maintain this staff year-round.

  No, she would not be impressed, for that would please Lord Wescott. She straightened her bonnet again and set up the stairs after Mrs. Samuelson, feeling his eyes on her backside the entire way.

  Chapter Eight: A Honeyed Moon

  Wescott ate dinner alone in the Abbey’s echoing dining room. His wife claimed to be too exhausted from the trip, and he let her hide behind this predictable fiction while the servants pretended nothing was amiss. He could have taken a tray upstairs and eaten with her, and spent the remaining evening hours alone with her, giving her pleasure and finding his own, but she wouldn’t welcome that, especially after he’d punished her in the carriage for her poor wifel
y manners.

  Well, she would have to learn.

  After dinner, he went directly to his room. She was set up next door to him, in a grand suite recently refurbished for his eventual wife. He could have taken the few short steps to wish her good evening, but he feared receiving a cold reception. He’d try again tomorrow, or the next day. By God, Ophelia had not endeared herself to him so far. They’d have to find some way to present a united front in public, and raise children together when she finally uncrossed her stubborn thighs and let him inside her again.

  Ah, he would like to be inside her again. He lay in bed in the dark, palming his cock, stroking its length and remembering how trusting and open she’d been at the inn. He’d experienced how sensual, how abandoned his prim Lady Wescott could be, and now that he couldn’t have her, he seemed to be taking out his annoyance on her backside. Too bad for her.

  As for him, it was not such a hardship. He enjoyed the disciplinary arts, and her lovely, round arse had colored beautifully under his hand. He stroked himself faster, imagining more creative ways to punish his new wife. Sodomy, perhaps. A bit of bondage. He imagined her tied face-down on his bed, squirming and pleading for mercy as he oiled her arsehole for a little buggery. There was no more pleasurable or effective way to discipline a naughty woman, and he brought himself off with breathless intensity, relieving the tension that had churned within him since she’d refused him last night.

  He fell asleep soon after, relaxing into the clean, crisp sheets. The scents and sounds of this house were familiar enough that he drifted peacefully into dreams. Then, a terrified scream roused him from bed.

  “My lord.” His valet bent over him, shaking him to wakefulness. “My lord, it’s Lady Wescott.”

  He was on his feet moving to the door as another scream rent the silent night.

  “Would you like to dress first, my lord?” his man asked.