The Harlot Bride

by Alice Liddell

  He let go of Lucy’s hair, allowing her tear–stained face to return to its previous position of helplessness, and taking hold of one red bottom cheek in each of his big hands, he opened her bum crack so widely that the naughty little hole within was instantly and fully revealed.

  As readers may have already surmised, Mrs. Deegers’ little pot contained a vicious preparation of lanolin and stinging nettles. It was her own recipe, and made every spring at his Lordship’s explicit request. She made only small amounts, as the nettle ointment was not used except when really needed. In fact, it was kept in reserve for special occasions when a more pointed lesson with the button was in order. The last time Mrs. Deegers’ nettle pot had been called into service was several months earlier, when a young kitchen maid had fallen into daydreaming about a young man she fancied, causing a full stew pot of good meat, one that she was supposed to be stirring, to burn into complete ruin.

  Cook had been livid at the loss, and had made the unfortunate girl remove every stitch of clothing, right there in the big kitchen. Then Cook bent the unfortunate girl over a chair, tied her wrists and ankles to the bottom rungs, and gave her a very good dose of nettles deep up her bum hole. The howls had been heard through the great house, giving a lesson to all on the importance of attending carefully to one’s work, and when the girl’s screams had finally subsided into sobs, Cook brought the noise level back up by administering a very thorough birching to that desperately wiggling and already unhappy bottom.

  Mrs. Deegers’ ointment utilized the natural protective oils of the nettle plant, which causes a great deal of irritation when applied to the tender skin in and around a young lady’s bottom hole. It was very instructive in and on its own, but the torment of a nettle treatment could be increased by inserting a button as soon as the ointment was applied. The stretching enforced by an unyielding bottom button made the stinging that much worse. The effects of Mrs. Deegers’ nettle ointment lasted only ten or fifteen minutes, but they were very difficult to bear, so much so that it was almost always necessary to bind the penitent’s hands to something to prevent her from attempting to tear out the button in her agony.

  Lord Tazewell had already decided he would stand Lucy up before him as soon as she’d been nettled and buttoned, and rather than tie her hands, he would hold them fast in his own. In this way he might have the satisfaction and edification of observing every small change in her countenance as she endured her first experience with this very effective method of instruction. He watched carefully as Mrs. Deegers first coated Lucy’s bottom hole with ointment, and then eased the fearful salve inside by pushing her gnarly greased finger deep enough so it disappeared inside well past the second knuckle.

  When this was done to Mrs. Deeger’s apparent satisfaction, and she had withdrawn her finger and stood back up and to his side, Lord Tazewell selected a button from the proffered box and set it quickly and efficiently inside Lucy’s bottom. He did this as rapidly as possible, for he knew that within a minute or two Lucy would begin to feel the effects of the nettles, and he wanted her on her feet while it was still possible to count on some cooperation.

  “Alright, up with you now, Lucy, my girl,” he said, tucking her skirts into her waist band so they wouldn’t fall down and cover her bottom when she stood up. “You won’t find this pleasant, but it can be endured, and I shall hold your hands throughout.”

  By the time Lucy was on her feet, her mouth was pursed into a little “o,” and a moment later she was making little surprised cries as the nettle oils inside and around her bottom hole began to make themselves known to her. Quite unconsciously, she was stepping from one foot from the other, shifting her weight as though trying to dislodge the uncomfortable sensation growing in her backside.

  “Oh, oh, ohhh,” she moaned, now stepping more quickly and trying to pull away, although she couldn’t go far with Lord Tazewell holding her firmly by the wrists. “Oh, oh, it stings!”

  “Very good,” Lord Tazewell opined, watching her face very carefully. “That is precisely what it is supposed to do.”

  “Ohhh, I can’t bear it!” Lucy cried, her eyes rolling up, confirming his suspicion that the nettles would soon be in full burn. Lucy was now waggling her bum in desperation, and pulling futilely at his hold, desperate to get her hands back to do something, anything, to relieve the agony inside her bottom.

  “Let this be a lesson to you, young woman. When I say I expect you at the table before I arrive, I mean it. A prudent girl would have had herself in place a quarter of an hour before me, even if it means rising earlier and waiting with folded hands, rather than risk my displeasure as you have done this morning, and on many occasions before.”

  It was hard to tell whether Lucy had heard this, for she was now gasping like a fish and hopping from foot to foot while churning her backside. It was quite an engaging dance to those observing, although certainly not to she forced to dance it. Lord Tazewell was rapt, his observant, intelligent eyes taking in every change in her expression, but Lucy seemed too distressed to focus on him in any way, except, perhaps for the hold he had on her wrists.

  “Oh, let go! Oh, please! It’s burning!” she cried. “Oh, my bottom is burning up! Oh, take it out! Take it out!” Lucy begged again and again, changing only the order of her exclamations and pleas as she writhed and struggled.

  It was in this manner that Lucy’s punishment passed, an eternity to her but in fact not much more than ten minutes. Gradually the effects of the nettles faded and the burning subsided, and with those changes came a reduction in Lucy’s anguish and activity.

  Lord Tazewell dropped her hands, with a stern warning that she was not, under any circumstances to touch her bottom, led her to the corner of the room opposite his own seat on the table. There, he pressed her nose to the wall, arranged her skirts so they were well above her red bottom and told her to keep them there. He then stepped back a few steps to regard her, and returning close behind her, made her rearrange her stance so that her feet were more open and her backside protruding, a position that opened the bottom cheeks sufficiently that it was possible to spy the end of the button protruding from between.

  “You will remain exactly like this while I take my morning meal,” he said, adding that she, through her tardy appearance, had forfeited the opportunity to breakfast with him. It would do her no permanent harm to be hungry until midday, he thought as he took his seat at the table. As he ate his breakfast he enjoyed his view of Lucy’s bare red bottom, with the provocative bud protruding from the crevice in the centre. He took particular satisfaction from her sobs and sniffs, and the little jump she made when she heard the footsteps and different voices of the kitchen maids who invented innovative ways to serve him so they might enter the breakfast room and take a gander at the newcomer relegated to the corner with her spanked bottom on display. Lucy was put to sobbing anew when she heard the masculine voice of the butler, whom Lord Tazewell had summoned with a request.

  When at last his meal was over, Lord Tazewell rose from his chair and crossed over to Lucy.

  “You may turn around, but keep your skirts up in the back.”

  Lucy turned, eyes downcast, and it was only when he cupped her chin in his hand and raised it that she looked at him, a sad pout on her tear–stained face.

  “We are not quite finished, young lady. While you did your penance in the corner, I had my man prepare a fresh birching rod for you.

  Lucy gasped and tried to pull away.

  “I am going to give you a taste of the birch now, upstairs in your own room. I want you to know exactly how it feels to be punished with the birch because that is what you may expect the next time you disobey me. When I am finished, I will hang the birch next to your bed, where it will stay until I need to apply another lesson to your naughty bottom. And immediately thereafter you will change into riding clothes and accompany me on my morning rounds, which you have already delayed with your disobedience.”

  He released her chin. Lucy stood frozen, looki
ng from him to the frightful rod in his hand, unwilling to believe he would use it on her when she had already suffered so much, and even more incredulous that he would expect her to sit in a saddle on such a punished bottom. She burst into fresh tears, and pleaded with him to desist, but he was deaf to her entreaties. Birch in hand, he marched her upstairs past various members of the staff who had found reasons to be in the hallway to witness this unhappy parade, as the master of the house steadfastly prevented the unhappy miss to allow her skirts to drop.

  ** ** **

  A short time later Lucy found herself seated on her horse, perched uncomfortably atop an unbearably tender bottom that had not only been spanked to a bright red hue, but also nettled, penetrated and even birched! Each trot, each lurch of the horse was a fresh agony, and it was all Lucy could do to keep herself seated in the saddle. More than once she cried out loud enough that he seemed to hear, for he turned and looked at her from his horse, before turning back and urging his mount to adopt a somewhat more energetic pace.

  It was therefore with some relief that Lucy slowed her horse to match his when they approached a cottage in the western valley. There was a man outside, struggling with a fence piece, his arms around the great log as he tried to maneuver it up and into the joint in a post.

  “Hallo, Simon! Wait, and I’ll assist you,” Lord Tazewell called. He threw his reins to Lucy, and slid quickly out of his saddle before the horse was at a full stop, then crossed to the fence with two long strides. He took up the log a few feet from where the man had his grip, and the two of them working together made fast work of the task that had confounded one.

  “Tis a good thing you come when you did, milord,” the man said gratefully, wiping a prodigious sweat from his brow. “I feared I was gointa drop the mighty thing and crush a foot!” He was older than Lucy had at first realized, and probably too far along in years to be doing such heavy work on his own. She looked at him curiously until he raised his eyes and looked at her.

  “I’d heard you brought some sort a bride up from London,” the man said, addressing Lord Tazewell.

  “This is Lucy,” his master replied, not bothering to answer the real question in the man’s query.

  “She’s a fine lookin’ girl.” The older man looked at her again, a new curiosity in his gaze. “But isn’t she sittin’ all a geegaw? Is there something wanting in her saddle? T’is dangerous to ride with a saddle wrong.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the saddle, Simon, but I thank you for your concern. If she’s sitting strangely it’s because I gave her a very sound spanking this morning.”

  Lucy couldn’t believe her ears! Simon’s face broke out into a grin, and he moved a little closer so he could peer up at her.

  “Aye, now I see it. You’re all red–rimmed around the eyes. Had a good cry over his lordship’s knee, did ya, missy?” He turned back to look at Lord Tazewell. “I hope, sir, the job was done in proper Chiltenham style?”

  “Of course, “Lord Tazewell said with a smile. And to Lucy’s eternal mortification, he shamed her in front of a man who was a complete stranger to her by speaking aloud about her punishment. “Lucy’s bare bottom was soundly spanked, and before I let her up, she was well nettled and buttoned. And when she finished her silly howling, she went nose–first into the corner with her naughty red bottom on full display.”

  So unbearable was her shame that Lucy had to close her eyes.

  Chapter 8

  Lucy swooned in shock, and had to grab the saddle horn to keep herself from falling off the horse. Here she was, listening to two men discuss her punishment in lurid detail, without the slightest regard for her feelings! She was still too new to the area to know that the men of Chiltenham often discussed the discipline of their females in this easy, open manner.

  “Well, ‘tis a fine thing to see a girl whose just learned a good lesson,” the older of the two commented gleefully, all but leering up at Lucy as she blushed and tried desperately not to cry. “Stinging salve up her naughty bottom hole, too! Why, I wish the Old Lord was still alive to see you, sir! Yur father’d be right proud of you, Milord!”

  Lord Tazewell laughed pleasantly. “I finished her off with a bit of the birch, so she’d have some fresh stripes to feel as she rode with me on my morning rounds.”

  The old man swung back to smile at Lucy. Her face had gone bright red, and she could barely hear for the pounding of her heart. She suddenly had an image, that came to her with a terrible jolt, that the horrid old man would at any second ask to see her welts, and she had not the slightest doubt that Lord Tazewell would order down off her horse and over his knee so he might pull up her skirts and oblige!

  So very much without thinking, in her old habit of rash and impulsive action, Lucy kicked her horse hard while pulling its head around to one side, and with a violent start horse and girl were suddenly cantering away from the men and toward the woods at the western edge of the estate. She hadn’t meant to take Lord Tazewell’s horse, but he had thrown her the reins, and the startled grey stallion ran with them for several hundred yards until the reins slipped free and it heard the shouts of its master from behind. Lucy looked back, and saw the two men running to catch the horse as it slowed and turned.

  An expert horsewoman from years of riding in India, Lucy correctly calculated she had would have no more than a two-minute lead by the time Lord Tazewell caught the horse and mounted, and she intended to make full use of it. She had no idea where she was heading, but she was determined to get as far away as possible from her husband and his horrid punishments.

  Lucy Farquhar may have been good on a horse, but she on her mare was no match for Lord Tazewell on his far more powerful mount. By the time she was charging up the second rise he was very close behind. He would have caught her easily in the next minute had it not been for the unexpected sight that met their eyes as they came over the top of the hill.

  As each rider flew over the rise, first Lucy and Lord Tazewell just half a minute later, they caught sight of angry billows of black smoke rising from a large wooden shed in the valley below. In between the columns of smoke one could spy licks of hot yellow flame. Men were running around the building in a frenzy of activity, everyone shouting and calling for buckets and bags.

  Lucy wasn’t sure what the building was, but thought it was probably for storage of winter fodder. She knew enough about agriculture to know that it was critical to save that shed and its contents if the tenants were to have any chance of getting their animals through the long winter. She slowed her horse, her breath coming hard and fast from the exertion of the ride, and looked back at Lord Tazewell just as he caught sight of the fire. He was sitting forward hard in his saddle, trying to make out what was happening, his brow furrowed with concentration. Then suddenly he looked over to her, and their eyes met.

  Lucy held her breath. It was obvious he was weighing his options, making unseen calculations at lightening speed. Whereas just a moment before Lucy had been hell bent on escape, seeing him there now before her, so manly and proud upon his horse, she half wanted him to choose her, at whatever cost, even though it would surely mean great suffering for the tenants to lose their fodder. And of course another spanking for her for running away. But in her heart she knew he would put duty first, and he did.

  Edward Tazewell, Earl of Chiltenham, gave Lucy a hard look, and seemed about to call out something to her, but then he kicked his horse and sped away from her and down the hill. Lucy watched him go, furious at him for choosing the tenants over her but also exhilarated at this second chance at freedom. With an angry kick of her heels she spurred her horse down the hill in the opposite direction. She had seen a road leading into the woods, and she hoped it would take her far, far away from this hateful man and his hateful estate.

  ** ** **

  Lucy did not receive the reception she expected in London. It was late evening by the time she turned wearily onto Pickford Street. She knew she was a sight from the way people stared at her, or crossed t
he street to avoid her, but she’d been traveling all day in the rudest of conditions and there was little she could do to mend her looks.

  That morning, when Lord Tazewell had desisted in his chase of her to attend to the more urgent matter of the fire, Lucy had traveled through the wood and into the fields beyond, riding at breakneck speed for the better part of an hour until both she and the horse were exhausted. She stopped at a stream so the panting horse could drink, but was afraid to get down lest she be unable to get back into the saddle unaided. While the horse lapped thirstily from the stream, she felt in the pockets of her skirt and was astounded to find a one–pound note, folded and pinned and forgotten long ago. Surely this would be enough to get her back to London!

  Greatly encouraged by this stroke of luck, Lucy urged the horse on again. Doing her best to avoid the houses and cottages, where people might recognize her horse as belonging to Gorham Hall, she pressed on until she reached a crossroads where two young boys were playing. She hailed them and inquired about the nearest railway station, which turned out to be in the next town, just two miles down the road to the left.

  She dismounted before she got to the station, not wishing to arouse more suspicions that necessary, although the few witnesses looked askance at the spectacle of a lady trying to dismount from a horse on her own. She tied the mare’s reins to a post, and hurried away, careful not to look around lest someone try to stop her and question her.

  Things didn’t go any easier at the station. The station master was naturally suspicious of a young woman traveling without baggage or escort, and refused to sell her a ticket. “Come back with your father or husband, and then we’ll see about that ticket,” he said, waving to the next customer in line. But Lucy stubbornly kept her place, babbling out some tale about a coach that broke down, although it was quite obvious he didn’t believe a word she was saying.