“Palms on the floor,” he ordered. “You may brace yourself better that way. And back here, toes on the floor and legs together.” He ran a palm down her bared legs, drawing them into position. “You must be prim and refined in the face of discipline. Isn’t this better? Much more dignified than flailing around?”
She would not answer such a ridiculous question, and he didn’t press her. Instead, he resumed the punishment—from stroke number one, she was dismayed to perceive. He made her count each strike of the slipper, adding Your Grace at the end as a reminder that she must focus more on manners and polite address.
She didn’t know what polite address had to do with her current situation, but she counted One, Your Grace, Two, Your Grace, Three, Your Grace, at each painful stroke.
“Very good,” he said. “You’re doing very well.”
“Ow! Four, Your Grace. Ow, five, Your Grace.”
It was very hard to hold the position he wanted, because each time the leather sole contacted her bottom, her whole body wanted to curl in a ball and escape the sting. He was patient, giving her time between each blow to compose her breathing, uncurl her fists, and return her toes to the floor. Then another searing blow would come and she would jerk, but she wasn’t fighting. She wasn’t struggling. She would take twenty over fifty any day.
And perhaps he was right. Perhaps the spanking was a bit more bearable when she wasn’t thrashing and kicking through each lick. By the time she reached Eighteen, Your Grace, and Nineteen, Your Grace, her bottom was on fire, but she had not died. Twenty, Your Grace was the hardest smack yet. She screamed in protest and kicked a bit higher than she had previously, but he only placed a palm on the back of her thighs to remind her of the necessary position. She returned her toes to the floor.
“Not perfect,” he said, dropping her slipper back down by the other one. “But certainly more ladylike than you had been before. Don’t bolt up too quickly, my dear.” He righted her and made her stand in front of him, as he had the previous night. Again, he forced her to meet his gaze as he held her hands.
“Tell me what you were punished for,” he said.
Her backside throbbed as she stared into his intent blue eyes. “I was punished for bullying the maid. For using poor language and inappropriate forms of address.”
“Do you display such cruelty to your servants at home?”
She bit her lip. “Yes, Your Grace. I was never taught to respect servants.”
“Servants are meant to serve, but that is not cause to abuse them.”
“But if you are not firm with them, they will not work.”
“On the contrary, I think servants are most diligent when their betters accord them common courtesy, and refrain from threatening, screaming, and calling them names. Do you see my point?”
Violet wasn’t sure she did, but she didn’t want to risk any more spanking, so she answered, very nicely, “Yes, Your Grace.”
“Very good.” He looked pleased, his handsome lips spreading in a smile. “You see, we shall learn these lessons, a few more every day, and before long, you’ll have been taught everything you need to know. We shall not have any more problems with poor and uncouth speech, shall we, Violet?”
It took her a little longer to answer this time, because she had so many raging words wanting to come out. In the end, she swallowed them back and provided the answer he wanted. “No, Your Grace.”
Chapter Four: A Walk in the Woods
He went on like that for a week, holding her to his impossibly high standards, and spanking her when she fell short. She cycled between rebellion and then obedience out of necessity, for her own good. She only managed to avoid punishment one day that first week. Still, of course, there were the unfair and inflexible nightly spankings, which she received whether she earned them or not.
Those spankings were by far the worst, even if they weren’t the hardest, because they were unearned. Afterward, she would be put straight to bed so the last trial of every day was this reminder of his dominion. She would shift in the sheets, her bottom hot and aching, and stare at the door through which he returned to his own room, and hate him. She despised him.
The second week, he came to her in one of his relentlessly cheerful moods.
“It’s not too cold a day, Violet. Will you have a walk with me? I believe you could use some exercise in the sun.”
“I cannot go out. My gown...” She gestured down at the pale blue one she wore today.
“You may wear a cloak over the gown for warmth, and for decency.”
Of course, he was not asking, or giving her a choice about the walk. From the look on his face, Violet did not dare refuse. She accepted the offered cloak and pulled it tight around her, and allowed him to take her arm.
Once they were outdoors, he walked her around the manicured paths of his gardens, making polite conversation. She tried to answer just as politely, if shortly. She did not want to raise his ire. The fresh air and sun was a much-needed balm, and she did not wish him to cut their meandering short. Now and again, a chilly breeze would blow between her cloak and gown, reminding her of her nakedness, and why it was best to mind her manners.
“Are you cold?” he asked, when one such breeze made her shiver.
“No, I’m fine,” she assured him. She did not say “Although I would be better all around if you would let me wear petticoats and a complete skirt.”
The duke was doubtless warm and comfortable in his everyday finery. What foible of the universe made it so she was the one forced to walk about with her buttocks exposed for punishment, when he was so much more of a tyrant than her? She pictured him for a moment with no backside to his breeches. Goodness, she’d like to give him a thrashing or two so he could see what it felt like. It wasn’t fair that he held such power over her.
Yet he wielded that power so easily, so effortlessly, as his God-given right, notwithstanding her royal stature over him. His arm felt strong and solid as ever beneath her fingers, and his gloves covered hands that, with a few well-placed and forceful spanks, could reduce her to tears.
It was not fair. And she didn’t know how much longer she could bear to live this way.
“Your Grace,” she said, trying her best to sound demure and mannerly.
He glanced over, one of his dark brows arching the slightest bit. “Yes, Violet?”
Someone so awful should not have such beautiful eyes. Another unexplained foible of the universe.
“Your Grace, I really feel...I feel I must speak with you on a matter of great importance.”
He patted her fingers. “I’m listening.”
She gazed off into the distance, trying to summon the proper words. “It’s been a week now, and I have been very...patient...with your treatment of me.”
“You’ve been somewhat patient,” he said. “When it suits your purposes.”
“The thing is, I’m not sure I can bear much more of this. The spankings and the scoldings, and the lewd form of dress.”
“I’ve told you before, the backless gowns have nothing to do with lewdness and everything to do with discipline.”
“But—”
“I’m not your husband, Violet. I do not make connubial demands upon your person, only disciplinary demands.”
She shuddered as she imagined him as her husband, then erased that appalling concept from her mind. “You shouldn’t use that word,” she said, focusing instead on her outrage. “And to a lady. You accuse me of being uncouth!”
“What word?”
“That...that word you just used. The C word.”
“The C word?” He thought a moment. “Connubial?”
“There, you’ve said it again.”
He chuckled, rumbly and low. “Do you know what that word means?”
She thought it meant something altogether lusty and inappropriate, but now she was not so sure. “I will not tell you what it means,” she said as he continued to regard her. “I prefer not to speak such words.”
“It mean
s ‘of or relating to the married state,’” he informed her in a bland tone.
Oh. That was not what she thought. She ought to have paid better attention in her lessons, but she had been nearly as abusive to her tutors as she’d been to the household staff. Now, under Thornton’s tutelage, she’d come to understand how very wrong and selfish that was.
“I must go home,” she burst out. “I am ready to go home.”
“Violet—”
“No, please, let me explain. I know you think me a spoiled and wretched princess, but I do understand now. I understand that I’ve been awful, and I understand that I must do better. I will do better. I’ll go home and be entirely better.”
He was silent for a few moments following this outburst. She prayed it was because he was considering her words.
“You’ve taught me...” She struggled to press her case. “Why, you’ve taught me that I must not call people names, and that I must not snap orders, and act as though I am the only person who matters. I know now that I mustn’t do those things.”
“Because I punished you,” he said.
“Well...yes.”
“And because you know you shall be punished again if you continue those habits.”
“I don’t like being punished,” she said.
“I know.”
“So, you see, the thing is, Your Grace, I’m not sure you understand how intolerable this is to me. I’m deeply, deeply unhappy here, and now that I understand how I am to behave going forward, I simply must return home.”
He was silent again, a longer while this time. When he spoke, it was in a firm and thoughtful voice. “Of course, I would like to fulfill your wish, Violet, but I can’t. You’re not ready yet.”
“But I am ready,” she protested. “I’ve just told you everything I learned.”
“Yes, you’ve learned, as anyone with a brain would have learned, but you have not changed. You haven’t become any more caring or self-aware, or patient, or pleasant. You’re still thinking only about you. With such a superficial understanding of proper behavior, I fear nothing would ‘stick.’ As soon as you returned home, you would immediately fall back into your old habits, with no one to take you to task.”
“Oh, but I wouldn’t.” Although she’d been thinking just that—that once she was away, she could do as she liked, and he could not prevent her. “I think you’re not listening to me.”
“And I think you’re not being sincere,” he said, raising his voice above her protests. “You wish to leave because it would be the most comfortable and convenient outcome for you. But for the rest of us, your father, the citizens of Hastings, the future of your kingdom, there are greater goals at stake. You must stay here at my home and submit yourself to my training until you are changed in a deeper and more permanent way.”
“But your training is horrible.” He would not let her leave. She understood that, and it filled her with dread. “How long will you keep me here?”
“I told you,” he said. “Until Saint Valentine’s Day. People need time to change.”
“I don’t want to change!”
He placed his hand firmly over hers, and held it there. “Before you lose control, I beseech you to remember the things we talked about. Good grace and manners, and the proper modulation of the female voice.”
“I don’t give a donkey’s arse about the proper modulation of the female voice,” she said, and she did not sound modulated at all. She was losing control, and losing her sanity. “If you won’t let me go, I shall have to run away. I’ll find someone to help me.”
“You’ll not be able to manage that.”
“Then I shall kill myself. I’ll run to the top of your horrid, rotting, stone castle and fling myself from the uppermost tower.”
He stopped and turned to her, halting their progress on the edge of the path. She knew by the set of his jaw, and the tension in his mouth, that she had gone too far in her passionate threats. She could not bear to meet his gaze, although she felt it burning on her face.
“Look at me,” he said in an icily stern tone.
She swallowed and peered up at him. “I—I didn’t mean that.”
“Whether you meant it or not, the fact that you would say such a thing severely disturbs me.”
“Your castle is not rotting,” she said, backtracking under his baleful gaze. “Thornton Manor is not horrid, it’s very nice.”
“I did not mean the bit about Thornton Manor,” he barked, so forcefully that she jumped. “I meant the bit about you flinging yourself from the tower.”
She looked away. His angry scrutiny frightened her. She didn’t think he’d truly been furious with her until now. “I didn’t mean it,” she repeated. “I was just...just losing control of my tongue again. I suppose you will punish me for it.”
“I suppose you deserve to be punished.”
He dragged her by the arm into the meadow alongside the path. It was slower to walk among the shrubs and roots, and Violet did not enjoy nature. She enjoyed it even less when he stopped to twist a stout branch from a birch, and strip it of twigs and leaves. She wished to protest, but she kept her mouth shut, for his face was still set in those furious lines.
A little farther down the path, he led her to a great log and unhooked her cloak. He spread it over the rough bark as cold air assailed her naked backside. She trembled as he bent her over the log, for her gown offered no protection from his gaze, or the switch.
“Why are you being punished?” he asked.
“I’m being punished because I spoke impetuously. I lost my temper and said a bad thing.”
Thwack!
She cried out at the slash of burning pain. “I’m sorry!”
He made no response, only lashed her with the switch again. Thwack! The fresh birch switch was large enough to hurt, but small and fresh enough to feel torturously whippy. She grasped at her cloak, balling it up in her hands. Thwack!
“Oh, please, Your Grace.” She went up on her toes, bouncing, barely able to be still.
Thwack! Thwack!
She shrieked and looked over her shoulder in entreaty. “How many strokes must I endure? It hurts so terribly.”
“You spoke so terribly,” he said. “So I suppose you shall have enough strokes that you won’t wish to speak such shocking words again.”
“But I can’t...” She squirmed as the switch striped her upper thighs. “I can’t bear it. I can’t be still for this.” He had trained her well on how much movement was allowed when she was punished, and what called for further punishment. Reaching behind her or trying to elude discipline always resulted in extra strokes, but it was so hard not to do those things in the throes of pain. “Please, I can’t,” she said.
He moved closer and placed a firm hand at the small of her back. With the other hand, he swung at her bottom and upper thighs again and again, a steady rain of torment with no mercy and no breaks. She kicked and cried, and would have tried to escape, if not for his restraining palm on her back.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped between the stinging blows. “I’m so sorry. I lost my temper, Your Grace. I’ll try not to do so again.”
“It’s not the lost temper,” he said. Thwack! “It’s that you only think about yourself.”
“I’m sorry!”
“Are you truly sorry?” But he left off and flung the switch into the woods. “No,” he said, when she tried to rise. “Stay where you are. Your punishment is over, but I want to tell you a story.”
Violet shifted on her toes. It was cold, but the chill had a soothing effect on her overheated arse. She turned her head, but she couldn’t see the duke to know if he still looked stern and angry. His voice was soft when he spoke.
“I had a childhood friend when I was a boy, a baron’s daughter who resided in a nearby manor. She was a lot like you, spirited and given to fits of temper. Like you, she charmed everyone around her. No one ever disciplined her.”
He was silent a moment. Violet lay with her head against the c
loak, wishing she was brave enough to reach back and massage her throbbing welts. “What happened?” she asked.
“When Ada was seven, and I was nine, she fell to her death. Not from my house, but her father’s house, a true disaster of a place. She’d been told time and again not to play on the battlements. One of the old things crumbled...and I saw her...”
Violet drew a startled breath and turned her head to look at him. “You were there?”
“I told her to come away. I reminded her it was forbidden, but Ada would do what she would do. I ran to the edge to try to save her...”
He did not say more. He didn’t have to. She could see the dreadful memory in his expression, the regret in his eyes.
“After that experience, I set myself to mastering the art of discipline, Violet. I’ve made it my life’s work. I decided long ago that no wife of mine, no son or daughter, no friend would ever suffer pain or harm because of my inability to guide their behavior.”
In the silence that followed, she understood what he wanted her to realize. This was the reason he went about her “reformation” with such vigor, the reason for her altered dresses and nightly spankings, and his rigid demands for her behavior.
“What happened to your friend was an accident,” she said. “And your obsessive preoccupation with discipline will not bring her back.”
His expression turned so violent that she righted herself and backed away.
“It was not your fault she died,” she insisted in her retreat. “Even if you were there. It was an accident. Children never listen.”
“My children will listen.”
In that moment, she pitied his children, just as she pitied his future wife. “Do what you will to them, your children will still disobey you sometimes. It’s human nature. Children are not perfect. Even perfect people are not perfect. Even you.”
The violence on his face eased a bit, transformed into something more like regret. “I never said I was perfect.” He came to the tree and caught up her cloak, and brushed it off.
Royal Discipline Page 4
