[Brat 01] - Princess Brat

by Sharon Green

  “You sound as if you followed your mother around for a few days, seeing for yourself that she did little or nothing,” Derand commented, certain that Seea was voicing a prejudice rather than discussing anything she’d actually witnessed. “How long ago did you do that?”

  “Have you forgotten that I’m a princess and was raised the proper way?” she countered, now kicking at the grass under her boots. “I was taught everything I need to know about running a household of any size, up to and including a palace. As I said, the pressure and strain are more than I could handle.”

  “I had forgotten girls are taught that,” Derand muttered, now at a loss as to what to say. Seea wasn’t just sounding off about something she didn’t have firsthand knowledge of, she’d been put through whatever the training was like. The problem was obviously going to be more involved than he’d thought, but it didn’t have to be solved right this minute – thank the gods.

  “Let’s stop talking and get to bathing,” he said, more than happy to drop the subject. “I’d like to be ready to go when my men get back, not caught in the middle of scrubbing my hide.”

  Seea seemed just as willing to let the matter go, but happiness was conspicuous by its absence. Derand stopped a short distance from the towels and soap and began to get out of his clothes, his weapons first placed in a way that they could be gotten to quickly. Seea moved over to a bush before beginning to undress, her clean clothes put down carefully on the grass, her well-worn ones simply dropped. Although she wore less Derand was ready first, a fact which wasn’t terribly surprising. People who couldn’t swim were usually afraid of the water, so he had to show her there was nothing to fear.

  Moving to the bank and slipping into the water took only a moment, and then Derand was enjoying the feel of wetness all around him. The water was warmer than he’d expected it to be, which meant it was refreshing rather than chilling. He bent to wet his shoulders and chest, and then he turned to Seea.

  “You won’t have any trouble standing up right here,” he said, gesturing around him. “Even the bank comes right down to the water, so you can simply slide in. I’m also right here to catch you, so stop hanging back and join me. As they say, the water’s fine.”

  “At least there’s one bright spot in all of this,” Seea muttered as she made her reluctant way to where he stood. “If something hungry comes swimming up out of all that water, it will probably eat you first.”

  “It will definitely eat me first, because I probably taste better than you do,” he agreed with a grin, putting his hands up. “Come on, now, just slide in.”

  She gave up hanging back with a sigh and sat down at the edge of the bank, then slid into the water. He caught her just as he’d promised he would, and held her until she stood as firmly as it’s possible to stand in water. He really had no interest in letting her go even then, but she did need to find a measure of confidence before the fear eased its hold on her.

  “Now we can get to washing,” he said as he reached for the large pouch lying next to the towels. “The soap is in here, so help yourself as you need to.”

  She turned carefully to look at the pouch, then used the bank to pull herself closer to it. The soap had been broken up into slivers that would foam up in a bather’s hand once water was added, making it much easier to use. If it had been left in large lumps the way it usually was, the person bathing would have to keep track of the lump he or she was using – and hope that they didn’t drop it.

  Derand had already helped himself to a handful of slivers, so he used them to wash his chest and arms. He’d shaved before breakfast came and Seea woke up, and once Seea began her own washing he took more slivers to use on his hair. He even did his best to wash the parts of him that were underwater, and once he’d rinsed all the soap away he stood and waited for Seea to be finished. She hadn’t moved at all from her place right beside the bank, but that would change.

  “Now, doesn’t that make you feel at least a little better?” he finally asked once she’d seen to the final rinsing. “I usually enjoy taking my time in a bath, but today we have too much to do. Are you ready to get started?”

  “Started with what?” she asked warily as he began to move closer to her, and then she remembered.

  “No, really, I don’t want to learn how to swim right now. We can do it some other time, after – Don’t!”

  By then he had his arms around her and had lifted her from her feet, an action requiring no effort at all, thanks to the water. She gasped and threw her own arms around his neck in fright, a reflex that made him want to hum with pleasure. Her bare breasts were thrust into his equally bare chest, and if she hadn’t been so frightened

  But she was that frightened, so Derand pushed his fantasies aside with a sigh and got on with his reason for picking her up in the first place.

  “Try to relax and pay attention to the water around you,” he said, bending his knees in order to lower her. “Can you feel the way it wants to make you float in spite of your not wanting to? Are you on the verge of sinking like a rock, or floating like a fish?”

  “I’m on the verge of having hysterics,” she muttered in answer, but not seriously. Her death grip on his neck had eased fractionally, and she did seem to be paying attention to the way the water treated her. She was too full-figured to be anything but buoyant, something Derand had been sure of but she would never have believed.

  “I’m going to take your hands in mine and hold them,” Derand warned her next. “I won’t let you go under, so don’t be afraid. The stream current here next to the bank is very gentle, and you’ll be perfectly all right. No, don’t tighten your grip on me, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  It was clear from Seea’s reaction that she didn’t agree with the statement, but again Derand wasn’t surprised. It took a while to get her to relax again and a bit longer to talk her into taking his hands, but when she finally did she floated out away from him like a banner in a wind. The expression on her face said she didn’t expect the condition to last, but after a minute or two she gained enough confidence to kick her feet a bit.

  “Well, I’m impressed,” Derand said then, smiling down at her. “Adults don’t usually learn this much this quickly, so you ought to be proud of yourself. Maybe we’ll be able to come back later for a second lesson.”

  She parted her lips as if to protest leaving, but at the last moment decided against speaking the words. She still wasn’t truly confident in the water, and Derand wanted to get her out of it before some accident happened to ruin the small amount of confidence she did have. The next time she would approach the idea of learning to swim with the memory of a pleasant time to color her outlook, and that would make all the difference.

  Derand helped her up on the bank, then waited until she had a towel and had moved out of the way before following. He felt refreshed and relaxed as he picked up his own towel, watching Seea take herself behind her bush. He would have enjoyed following her and giving them a reason to return to the stream to rinse off, but making love to Seea there in the open would have upset her. He knew she still pictured his men watching them from hiding, and since it might even have been true at the moment he would simply have to wait. Maybe once they got back to the cabin

  It was a foregone conclusion that Seea would be dressed before him, and that turned out to be true. When Derand pulled his boots on and stood, he saw the girl staring out across the stream to the other side. She held her worn clothing in the crook of one arm, and seemed to be viewing the stream with newfound appreciation. Derand chuckled to himself at that and turned toward his swordbelt – only to go motionless with a strangled exclamation.

  “What is it?” he heard Seea ask quickly, and then she added, “Oh, no.”

  By that Derand knew she’d seen what he already had: the skunk which had come out of the woods to stand right behind his weapons. The thing looked up at him with a calm that was downright disconcerting, and then it began to move toward him with its tail high. Derand lost no time i
n backing away, half a step for every full step the skunk took. He wasn’t very far from the edge of the stream, he knew, and he didn’t want to –

  Derand discovered the hard way just how close the stream was when his latest step proved not to be there. His arms windmilled as he went over backwards into the water with a giant splash, and once he surfaced again it took a moment before he had his eyes wiped. When he did, though, he saw something he hadn’t expected: the skunk had disappeared, and Seea stood convulsed with laughter.

  “Where did it go?” he tried to ask the girl, but she was too busy enjoying herself to respond. He finally made his way to the bank and up onto it to stand dripping, and that seemed to add to her amusement. She laughed with very clear delight for almost another minute, and then she shook her head.

  “The skunk seemed to like water even less than I do,” she finally managed in a breathless way. “When you splashed it like that, it got insulted and ran away. I think it might have had a crush on you, and now you’ve ruined its day.”

  “Well, as long as you were amused, it wasn’t a total waste of time,” Derand growled, looking down at himself. He did have another set of leathers to change into, but not here at the stream. What he had was the choice of squishing back to the cabin as he was, or getting back into clothes he’d worn for too many days. He didn’t like either option, but finally settled for the squishing. That, at least, would save him from needing another bath right away.

  “You were right about it being fun to visit a stream,” Seea commented in a very bland way, her expression finally back under her control. “When do you think we can do it again?”

  Rather than answer, Derand simply growled wordlessly and went to gather what had to be taken back with them. He held his swordbelt instead of putting it on and stalked into the woods, and Seea trailed after him with her clothes and the towel she’d used. There wasn’t another sound out of her, but Derand could feel the smirk she wore.

  When he reached the cabin, Derand left a wet trail across the front room as he stomped into the bedchamber. He also swung the door closed with moderate strength, intent on showing that he hadn’t appreciated Seea’s attitude. He’d wanted to see her smile not make her laugh, and especially not at him. After all he’d tried to do, even after he’d started to teach her how to swim, she still hadn’t hesitated to laugh at him. That hurt, but as Derand stripped off his wet clothes before using the towel again, he told himself with grim satisfaction that he didn’t have to hurt alone. It was obvious that she didn’t care anything about him. The least he could do was show that he felt the same even if he didn’t

  Elissia winced as the bedchamber door slammed shut, telling her more clearly than words that her company wasn’t wanted any longer. All during the walk through the woods back to the cabin she’d been trying to think of a way to apologize for having laughed at the beast, but the proper words had refused to come. She knew well enough from having grown up with her brother that men did tend to have very little of a sense of humor when it came to something that made them look foolish. If she’d remembered that soon enough to keep from teasing the beast over what had happened

  But she hadn’t remembered soon enough and hadn’t been able to find the words to apologize, and now he was really angry with her. She would have enjoyed believing that he had no cause to be angry, but she knew well enough how she would feel if someone laughed at an accident she had. She would hate that person, even if the only thing she felt for them before that was pity

  Elissia sighed as she walked to a chair and sat, then reached for the skin of tea which had been left on the table. She’d been startled when the beast had tried to insist that their marriage wasn’t going to be annulled, but then she’d understood what he was doing. He must have thought that she felt shamed at sharing a bed with a man who would soon no longer be her husband, so he’d taken pity on her and lied. But he hadn’t been able to keep up the lying for long, which showed that basically he must be a fairly honest person. And he hadn’t taken advantage of the lie to put her beneath him yet again, which someone else in his place might well have done.

  And to thank him for that, as well as for trying to teach her how to swim, she’d laughed at him. At first she’d thought he would share the amusement, but when he didn’t why hadn’t she had the sense to understand what was happening? Did a tree have to fall on her before she saw the obvious?

  “You’re not quite as good a person as you like to believe, are you?” she muttered to herself after putting the skin of tea back on the table. “And you still can’t think of what you might say to him ”

  And that, she knew, was partly due to what she’d felt this morning, when he’d awakened her in an unexpected way. He’d taken the device out of her again after she’d fallen asleep last night, but when he came to her this morning it was almost as though the horrible thing was still inside her. She’d wanted him to touch her, and to kiss her, and to put himself inside her, just as though she really did expect to be the wife he cared for from now on. And when she’d fallen asleep again afterward, she’d dreamed about being gently held by him, just the way she wanted to be.

  But that was never going to happen, and she knew she’d better get used to the idea. He was being kind by lying to her, but hadn’t even been able to deny the fact that she wasn’t needed to run his household. She would be completely useless as his wife, and probably worse than useless. He’d denied that she caused him trouble, but if that was so why did he keep spanking her? No, she was nothing but trouble to him, and he would separate himself from her as quickly as he could once Gardal was safe.

  Elissia looked down at her hands where they twisted together in her lap, struggling not to break down and cry. She made trouble for the man just by being there with him, she made him feel so guilty that he was forced to lie, and then she repaid his unnecessary kindness by laughing at him. Not only did he have no reason to want to keep her as his wife, he had every reason not to. She was such a flaming success at everything she tried, it was a wonder she hadn’t yet managed to destroy the world. But by accident, of course, only by accident –

  “Are you resting comfortably?” the man’s voice came suddenly, startling her. She hadn’t heard the bedchamber door opening, but obviously it had. “You exerted yourself quite a lot back at the stream, so you probably need the rest. A pity you won’t be getting it quite the way you had in mind.”

  Elissia didn’t know what he was talking about, but she had no time to question him. He strode over to her without another word, pulled her out of the chair, then moved the two steps necessary to reach his own chair. Once there she was quickly put across his knees, her trousers and drawers were taken down, and then he began to spank her.

  If she’d thought he was angry yesterday, she now learned the real meaning of anger. His hand felt as hard as a wooden paddle, and the strength he put into every slap and smack hurt more than ever before. And since she hadn’t quite gotten over the last spanking, he quickly had her howling and kicking and struggling to escape. But there was no escape from the punishment, and even her sobs were drowned out by the sound of his hand striking her bottom.

  The spanking lasted for quite a while, and when it was finally over he picked her up and carried her into the bedchamber. She was crying wildly by then, and didn’t even stop when he dropped her on the bed. She just turned to her belly as fast as possible, then buried her face in the quilt.

  “You’ll stay there, just as you are now, until I tell you that you have my permission to get up,” he said in a voice as cold as a winter’s night. “And while you’re lying there resting, you’d better keep in mind that you still have to ask for a spanking sometime today. The one you just got was a bonus, so it doesn’t count on your side of the slate.”

  And with that he walked out and closed the door, leaving her all alone in her misery. Her bottom really hurt, she felt horribly embarrassed needing to lie there with her trousers and drawers still down around her ankles, and there was no doubt that he�
�d decided not to waste any more kindness on her. All she wanted to do was get up and run into the woods so that she would never have to see and hear him like that again, but she’d given her word not to. She’d have to continue on with him, knowing how much he now hated her, also knowing that it was entirely her own fault. It looked like she had managed to destroy the world, only she hadn’t noticed right away. She’d notice from now on, though, without the least doubt

  Just like her inner pain, the tears and crying refused to stop. They went on, and on, and on

  Derand sat slumped in his chair for a timeless time, his thoughts too black for him to want to examine them carefully. He was brought out of it by a knock at the door, which turned out to be one of his men with their lunch. He accepted the package without comment, handed over the used bowls from breakfast, then went back to his chair again but didn’t sit. He had very little appetite himself, but maybe the girl did.

  The girl. Derand laughed bleakly at himself for no longer calling the girl by the name he’d given her, but he couldn’t help it. Seea was someone who was supposed to grow into the woman he really wanted, a woman who would want him in return. But “the girl” was just a passing stranger, someone who would be out of his life as soon as her brother was rescued. It had become very clear which one she wanted to be, and all he could do was accommodate her.

  He walked over to the bedchamber door and paused to knock, but knocking would have been stupid. The way he’d left things she had no say about his coming and going, so he simply opened the door and went in. She’d know better by now than to say the wrong thing to him, but most probably she’d be thinking all sorts of indignant and outraged curses

  Derand stopped short when he saw that she wasn’t doing any kind of thinking. The girl had fallen asleep, but even in her sleep she still seemed to be crying. Her slight body shuddered with muted sobbing, and that made Derand retreat in confusion. She’d certainly cried hard enough during the spanking, but that could be considered an attempt to make the time easier on herself. He’d naturally ignored her tears, but now How could he ignore the fact that hours had passed but she was still crying, even in her sleep.