by Lee Savino
“I do not know. He used to be close with us, as a brother and a friend, but he went away for a few years, and when he came back that all changed. I feel I no longer know him.”
“Whatever happens, I’ll be here.” He took her arm again, a thrill going through him as she leaned on him.
“We should go help Ana with her goat.”
He sighed. “I suppose we’ll have some time alone tonight.”
She cocked her head at him. “Why? Do you have big plans?”
“Oh, I intend for us to have a fine time. Or at least I will. You will, perhaps, after your punishment.”
She gave him a sharp look. “Punishment?”
“I told you to take a guard with you when you went out.”
“I thought you meant at night.”
“Night or day. Until I know it’s safe.”
“I am protected. No one would harm me.”
They entered the garden, and he looked pointedly at the boards over the windows of her living room.
“You said the shooting was only to scare me.”
“And next time, they may intend much, much worse. I’m not arguing about this, Francesca. When you need to go out, you will take a bodyguard. Promise me.”
She huffed. “I will not.”
He glanced over at Ana, who was bending over a garden bed, plucking herbs. He lowered his voice. “Then whenever I catch you at it I’ll turn you over my knee and you won’t sit for a week. I mean it, Francesca. You’re too important to risk your life.”
She cursed under her breath. “Cyro would never restrict me so.”
He crossed his arms with the look of a man who was settling in to wait out the storm.
“Sebastian, I must come and go as I please. I must to do my work. There are herbs to be gathered, unguents to be made by the light of the moon. I do not want some clumsy fool plodding along behind me. You cannot keep me here.”
“No, but I can blister your bottom when you return.”
“You would not dare!” she hissed.
He bent down to eye level. “Try me, little wife.”
She tore away, still muttering under her breath to disappear into the kitchen.
Sebastian decided it was time for another walk. He’d inspect the fields, perhaps stop to cut some more switches to make a birch. His new bride wasn’t going to make it easy on him. And he was just fine with that.
*
Cage caught up to him late afternoon. “Everything all right?”
“Right as rain.”
The guide eyed the bundle of twigs tied to the back of Sebastian’s saddle, but didn’t comment.
“How are the fences?” Sebastian asked.
“Fine. Juan and I spent the afternoon hiring a few more men to patrol regularly. They seem a good sort. I’ll watch them for a few more days and then send the shirkers packing.”
“Jolly good. Does this mean you’re staying for a few more days?”
“May as well stick around. Keep an eye on things.”
“Make sure I’m properly ensconced in matrimonial bliss?”
“Something like that.”
They entered the yard and Ana glanced up from her weeding, saw Cage, and looked away, flushing. Sebastian noticed that Cage feigned indifference, while stealing sidelong glances of the buxom woman.
“Milord,” Ana called to Sebastian. “The señora wants to see you. She’s in the apothecary.”
“Thank you, Ana.”
With a final glance at Cage, she disappeared into the kitchen. Sebastian raised a brow at Cage, who cleared his throat loudly.
“Here, uh, let me take your horse,” the silver-haired man said. “Wouldn’t want you to keep the little lady waiting.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Sebastian said, untying the twigs. “A little patience might be good for her.”
“My advice, son, do everything you can to start this marriage off on the right foot. You’re going to have your hands full enough as it is.”
*
Sebastian took his sweet time putting together the birch. He left it on the bed, with plans to use it when he and Francesca turned in for the night. As much as he enjoyed playing in the apothecary, he wanted his first time savoring his bride to take place in a cozy, warm bed. The soft mattress would be kinder to her birched backside.
Everything in place, Sebastian strode out to meet his bride, whistling a cheerful tune.
As he approached the apothecary, he frowned at the gaping door.
“Francesca?” he called, but the place was empty.
He cursed, and heard someone’s laughter floating over the field. he caught a glimpse of his wife’s dark form on the edge of the forest, just before she stepped into the woods and disappeared.
“Francesca,” he bellowed, but she was gone. “Bloody hell.” He stalked over the field, his anger returning. What game was she playing? He almost wished he’d brought the birch.
The sun slanted low over the land, spilling like liquid gold into the trees. Sebastian plunged into the forest, picking out an easy trail and hoping his delinquent bride wanted him to catch her.
She needed a spanking. It had been a long day, and he was ready for the honeymoon.
It didn’t help that he’d been nursing a hard on for days. A nightly session with a handkerchief wasn’t enough to spend his ardor. A glimpse of the fine blade of her face or her dark, dancing eyes and he ached for her again.
Just when he thought he’d lost her, the path widened into a small clearing, and there she stood, like a lovely wood nymph, waiting for him. She’d laid her cloak on the ground and wore only a white shift. When she lifted her arms to him in invitation, he could see her naked form. There were candles all around; their soft glow lending their magic to the air.
Sebastian slowed, pausing at the threshold of the grove. She’d gone ahead and prepared this place for him, lighting the candles and dressing in virginal robes. In comparison, he felt dirty and irreverent.
The candles shimmered around the sacred space. This was her temple, and he was her supplicant. It didn’t seem right that he enter as he came.
Unbidden, he stripped off his shirt and boots, and stepped into her sanctuary.
They didn’t speak but there was no need for words. In the twilight, they stood before one another. With her white shift and unbound hair, Francesca looked like a witch, dark and feral, powerful and pure.
Sebastian reached and touched her hair and the spell was broken.
He grasped her hips, her arms went around his neck and their mouths met. They sank to the blanket together and quickly lost the rest of their clothes, their lips still fastened together.
*
Afterward, they lay together, two melded lines, limbs flung together, each body a half circle become whole.
“What brought you to America?” Francesca’s fingers stroked down his bare chest as his played in her hair.
“It’s not a happy tale.”
She tapped his collarbone. “Not everything is happiness. Tell me.”
“There was a girl.”
“A lady?” Francesca prompted when he paused too long.
“A commoner. Father did not approve.”
“Tell me about her.”
He sighed. “She was at the time, the love of my life. I would’ve married her. I would’ve raised our child.”
Francesca blinked. “You have a child?”
“No. She told me she was carrying. I agreed to support her, and I meant it. I would’ve made a life with her. My father found out. Went behind my back. Gave her some money told her to ‘take care if it.’
I was traveling, and by the time I returned she’d gone to London. I spent a few weeks tracking her down. And learned she’d died in an alleyway, outside of the residence of a so-called doctor.”
Francesca sucked in a breath.
“Later, her mother told me that she thought I didn’t want the child anymore. My father had lied to her. I confronted him, and he told me I should learn my lesson.
Be a man. And that is how I came to America.” He took her hand and kissed it. He didn’t know how to tell her how sorry he was.
“A sad tale,” she said. “Thank you for sharing it.”
“Now you know the type of man I am.” He kept his voice light, but watched her face closely.
“You blame yourself for her death?”
“How could I not? I was traveling, Francesca. Not on business. On pleasure, to visit friends when I should’ve been at her side. I knew what my father was like. I left her exposed. Who knows how many women he’d given money to, said the same words to.”
“You feel the guilt. You carried her with you, all this way. Her and the babe.”
He met her dark eyes. “Yes.”
She nodded slowly, and rose, padding to a fallen tree where the largest candles sat flickering in the near dark.
“These are my mothers,” she said, waving a hand at the candles as she pulled out a pitcher and a bowl from behind the log. “All the women who have given birth in my and my mother’s care. Some have died. Some have lived. I remember them as long as I must.” She filled the bowl with water. “The largest ones are my own mother, and her mother, and her mother before me. All named Francesca.”
“You really are a fourth?”
“Mmm,” she murmured, returning with her offering to kneel before him. “I tell you the truth, James Sebastian Chivington the third.” Taking a cloth, she dabbed water on his face and chest.
“Is this a baptism?”
“Call it what you like. I am washing you clean.” She finished and sat back on her haunches. “What was the woman’s name?”
“Penelope,” he said, his voice almost gone. “Nell.”
“Nell. You must know that she forgives you. She and the child.”
He rubbed a hand down his face. “I didn’t do right by them.”
“You did the best you could. And now they are in a good place.”
She set the bowl away and rose, going about the grove to light bundles of herbs in the bowls placed at several points around the space. This time, when she returned, she gave him a candle.
“Light a candle for her, my love.”
He hesitated.
“Do not be afraid. You are not saying goodbye. She will be with you as long as you remember.”
Finally, he nodded and took the candle. He rose and lit it from the largest one, the one Francesca said was her mother. He felt that was right. For a moment he remembered Nell’s face, her smile. He tried to think but could only recall a happy time. He left the candle sitting on a log, and walked back to his wife, who welcomed him with open arms.
*
They held hands as they walked home. Halfway to the hacienda, he glanced back.
“Is that where you go when you disappear at night?”
“Sometimes.” She smiled. “There and other places. I go where Madonna sends me.”
“You’ll have to take your husband with you from now on.”
“I cannot do it.” She stopped and he faced her. There was just enough light in the hacienda’s windows to illuminate her smile. “We cannot go everywhere together.”
He took her chin in two fingers. “I want you to be safe.”
“I know.”
He dropped his hand. “This is one area I am not willing to yield.”
“I understand, Englishman. Do what you will to me. There will be times when I wake you and times when I don’t.”
“When I do wake, and you’re gone, when you come home, I’ll be waiting with a whip.”
Her smiled deepened, as if to say, I look forward to it.
*
Ana had left some food out for them, dishes covered in cheesecloth. The newlyweds fell on them as if they were starving.
“So how long have you been a healer?”
“My mother took me on her appointments, as her mother did before her, and hers before her. I learned much before she died. Ana helped me with the rest.”
“I watched you with that mother. You were amazing.”
She made a noncommittal noise.
He found a bowl of cherries and offered one to her, holding it by the stem. Craning her neck, she took it in her mouth and licked her reddened lips.
He fed her the rest one by one, then kissed her, tasting her sweetness along with the juice. Their pulses quickened, even after their magical evening together. She started to pull him to her, and he stopped her, lips curving in a wicked grin. “Naughty one. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about the punishment you earned.”
She raised a brow.
He kept his voice stern. “Go and wait for me in the bedroom.”
Once she was gone, he set about carving up the ginger plug he’d bought in the market place. Just the thought of inserting it into his wife’s tender arsehole made him grin. The burn would spread through her body like wild fire, igniting more than just pain in her nethers. Her cuntpurse would be red and weeping by the time he was done and ready to take her from behind, his hips slapping into her bright, birched ass.
When he entered the room, she was naked as he requested and lounging on the bed. He took a moment to admire her, her breasts tipped with firelight, her tiny waist flaring out into wide hips and a delicious bottom. Her face was a picture of haughty indifference, her smooth, straight nose, lovely dark eyes and brows framed by the raven wings of her hair.
He couldn’t resist crossing to her, leaning down and kissing her. His cock struggled to get out of his pants. “What have you done to me, my lovely little witch? I will never be able to sate myself with your body.”
She made a low satisfied noise in her throat.
He broke the kiss and looked about for the birch.
“Where-?”
The fire flared and caught his eye, and he found his birch, now a smoldering bundle of twigs, still tied with the ribbon.
“Francesca.”
She gave a sexy shrug. “The fire was low. We needed kindling.”
He knelt at the hearth for a second to see if he could salvage his birch, then rose and met her sharp grin.
“Oh, you are going to regret that,” he said, and stalked to the bed to pull her across his lap.
His hand smacked down over and over again without preamble, and her caramel cheeks jiggled with each blow. She shrieked and fought, but he easily held her in place.
“Do I need to gag you?”
She cursed him and he took the opportunity to bottle her up with a handkerchief, then pinned her wrists in the small of her back.
“Fair warning, darling. This is going to hurt.”
He whaled on her ass for a good few minutes while she struggled and screamed through the gag. Her legs kicked, and when he tried to throw his leg over hers to weigh her down, she wriggled out of his grip and got away.
“Oh, no you don’t,” he growled, and chased her around the bedroom. They ended up on either side of the chaise. Sebastian faced not his wife, but a wild thing, savage and feral, chest heaving, hair wild. She glanced at the door.
“Go ahead,” he offered. “I’m sure the new guards would enjoy the sight of your naked ass racing past them.”
She hesitated, and he took that moment to hop over the chaise and grab her.
“I have you now.” A second later, his triumph turned to rage when she bit him.
*
A few minutes later, Francesca found herself ass up over the wide arm of a chair in her late husband’s office. Her new groom had tied her legs down, and finished fastening her wrists to the other side. The result had her stretched over the seat of the chair, face down, with her posterior well presented for any punishment Sebastian might dish out. He gagged her again, and finished by stuffing a pillow under her chest for comfort.
“That’s better.” He ran a hand over her back and bottom.
Francesca tried her best to wriggle free, but her bonds held fast.
“Stay,” her new husband said as he stepped out of the room, a determined look in his eye. She could only hope it
was too dark for him to pick another birch.
Perhaps biting him hadn’t been the best idea.
All too soon he was back and fussing with something behind her.
“I almost forgot. I have something for you. Since you like spankings so much, you need something extra when you’re getting punished.”
She grunted behind her gag.
He showed her a brown root he’d carved into a little plug.
“Recognize this? It’s ginger. I’m surprised to find it in the market here, but it was my lucky day. Or your unlucky one. Horse masters in England use it to liven up their old, tired nags. And while I don’t think you need livening up,” he slapped her butt cheek, “I do think a little burn inside your bum while I cane you will do you good.”
Her brow furrowed in confusion.
“It’s going in your ass.”
She started struggling wildly, throwing her body around as much as the bonds would allow. The heavy chair didn’t even move.
“What’s the matter, Francesca? Can’t take your punishment?” He set the ginger down and moved out of her line of sight. “Tell you what. If you can take your licks like a good girl, I’ll skip the ginger for now. It’ll be a shame to have it go to waste, so you’ll have to be very, very good, and count each swat and thank me for it.” He showed her the implement he’d dug out to use instead of the birch.
With a sinking heart, she recognized it as the rattan rug beater Ana used during spring cleaning.
“I like this clover pattern.” Sebastian tapped the canes against his hand. “Should leave a nice imprint on your luscious behind. So what will it be? Are you going to prove to me that you can behave?”
She sighed and bobbed her head.
“When I remove your gag, the only thing I want to hear is ‘yes, master.’”
Once the gag came out, she let loose a burst of Spanish.
“What’s that?”
“I just told you to ‘go stick your cock up a diseased dog’s ass,’” she said sweetly. “It sounds so much better in Spanish, doesn’t it?”
*
Ten minutes later, Francesca’s throat hurt from shouting into her gag as the rug beater did a number on her burning buns. Sebastian took his sweet time between strokes, walking around to check on her waning levels of defiance, practically whistling as his fingers traced the swirling marks the cane left on her poor behind. Before each strike, he touched the implement to her skin, lining it up before drawing it back and letting it whistle and crack against her cheeks. The muscles of her bottom would clench around the plug, making her yelp as fresh fire poured through her body. Caught fast in her bonds, she couldn’t even wriggle.
