by Emily Tilton
Mr. Rand turned to the doctor in surprise. “You approve of her ladyship’s plan, Doctor?”
“Within limits,” said the doctor with another secretive smile, “but I hope that Lady Ambers will be so good as to allow me to explain, despite her understandable distrust of me. My treatise is read by very few women—and none, I believe, of her ladyship’s social stature.”
James, who found modern treatises of various kinds to bestow some of the most valuable insight he had gained into nature, law, and history, wondered what Dr. Brown’s might contain. The expression upon Mr. Rand’s face seemed to say that it would be worth James’ time to seek out a copy.
Lady Ambers seemed a little mollified by the compliment, as well as by the doctor’s provisional support for her plan to punish Miss Adams. She nodded slightly.
Dr. Brown now addressed his host. “With your permission, Mr. Rand, I believe the only thing that will answer is to lay out the facts before her ladyship, as they will be known in town.” James heard in the doctor’s final words an emphasis he could not quite understand at the moment of hearing it, and his puzzlement only grew when Dr. Brown looked meaningfully at James as he finished speaking.
As the physician continued, though, the meaning of the emphasis and of the look quickly became clear, for the version of the facts presented by the doctor did not contain very much of what James knew actually to have occurred in the matter of Miss Rebecca Adams.
“This young man, Mr. James Oakes,” the doctor said, laying a hand briefly but very companionably upon James’ shoulder, “has earned the gratitude of his grace the Duke of Panton and indeed also of Miss Adams, though she may prove rather slow to recognize her debt. It was he who first attempted to discipline her, for the misadventure in which her drawers were lost.”
Lady Ambers seemed receptive to this series of partial truths. She nodded sagely, as if confirmed in her belief that Miss Rebecca Adams stood in dire need of correction. “And what precisely was that misadventure?” her ladyship inquired. “Pray spare me anything salacious, but I should like to know in outline at least, so that the correct story is told in town.”
James understood fully, then, what Dr. Brown meant to do. By giving to Lady Ambers the version of events he had decided would be most likely to save Miss Adams’ prospects, he had guaranteed that that version would spread like wildfire and, perhaps more important, Lady Ambers’ authority would ensure that every other version was stamped out.
He also could tell that Lady Ambers had no true desire to be spared even the most lascivious details. Venomous hypocrite, James thought. You and all your set. Except, perhaps, he reflected then, the Duke of Panton, who had clearly in some way sent Dr. Brown to his daughter’s aid.
“The truth,” the doctor replied, “is merely that Miss Adams gave in to those urges that attend all girls’ youthful bloom…”
Lady Ambers’ eyes went wide. James wondered now what the doctor could possibly mean to say.
“…and waded into the pond in Mr. Rand’s park in hope of cooling off her feet, raising her skirts sufficiently, but getting her drawers quite dirty and attracting Mr. Oakes’ attention—rather shocking him, indeed, by the sight of those drawers—was it not so, Mr. Oakes?”
James could hardly help laughing, as he understood it all and saw Lady Ambers’ disappointment. “Indeed,” he said.
“The young lady foolishly burnt the drawers to escape Mrs. Rand’s censure for her rebellious and wayward act,” Dr. Brown said in a genial voice. “Perhaps Mr. Oakes should not have taken it upon himself to remonstrate with Miss Adams, but I am convinced—as is Mr. Rand, I believe—that he meant to save Miss Adams’ reputation thereby. When discovered, he nobly attempted to take the full responsibility upon himself, did you not, Mr. Oakes?”
James nodded, confident in the part the doctor meant him to play. “I did. I spoke foolishly, about the drawers, I suppose, and indeed I should perhaps not have taken it upon myself to spank Miss Adams, but—”
“No, no,” said Lady Ambers in a lofty, magnanimous voice, her admiration for James apparently—to James’ own very great surprise—to have grown enormously. “I only wish you had been allowed to complete the spanking, for perhaps it would have saved the girl the cane.”
Her voice dripped with hypocrisy. James could hear in every word how very much her ladyship looked forward to seeing Miss Adams’ bare bottom well striped for her misbehavior, in her ladyship’s own august presence. The well-punished backside, Lady Ambers’ face declared, would give a visible sign of the honor due the noble personage whom the wayward girl had insulted. The penitent tears and cries, as the remorseless cane fell again and again across Miss Adams’ pretty young cheeks, secured in place over the block for condign discipline, would sound as sweet music to her ladyship’s ears.
The urge to protect Miss Adams rose again in James’ heart: he supposed that she needed the lesson she had earned, severe though it would be, but he would much rather have given her that lesson himself, in private. His cock swelled at the thought of applying the cane to the little bottom he had seen without its drawers, and of comforting her afterward. He had better put that fancy away, he knew, as terribly dangerous—the sweet, naughty girl had, after all, almost seduced him into fucking her, for which he would never have been able to forgive himself had it taken place, as delicious as he knew her cunny would have felt upon his hard cock as he held her hips and thrust into that velvet sheath.
Dr. Brown broke this brief reverie in the most surprising way imaginable. “Indeed,” said the physician, seeming to become very earnest as he enlisted Lady Ambers’ support for his new proposal. “I think that for the girl’s best hope of amendment to be realized, Mr. Oakes should wield the rattan.”
Chapter Fifteen
Mrs. Rand came to bring Rebecca down from her room to the drawing room for her caning a few minutes later. With Jenny’s help she had again disrobed, thinking bitterly but still without capitulation of the number of indignities it seemed must attend the life of a flirt.
She did not mean to apologize. She certainly felt not the slightest bit of remorse for calling horrible Lady Ambers a beast. When she thought of the cane, in the hand of the coachman, her heart beat fast and her hands shook, but Rebecca felt that she had reached some point of decision, and she refused to shrink from it.
Perhaps Dr. Brown’s instruction had taught her that the path she had chosen had many more turnings than she had suspected. It seemed apparent, too, that in future her life would be governed by the desires of those who had employed him to come to Rand Park and to ferret out the truth of her loss of innocence. Nevertheless, Rebecca had learned, too, from her interview with the doctor that while her body and her heart seemed to have some need for masculine mastery, she had also a need to defy any mastery at all, including that of the man who sought to bend her to his will.
She must show the world that the force coercing her, above all when that force did so without justice, would never break her spirit. Perhaps she should not have called the noblewoman a beast, but Lady Ambers had insulted Thomasina for exactly the same kind of behavior in which Rebecca herself meant to engage! They could whip her until her bottom plainly showed their cruelty to all present at this horrid household exhibition Lady Ambers had demanded, clearly thinking that the humiliation would overcome Rebecca’s resistance.
But the news Mrs. Rand brought changed the appearance of the matter enormously, though Rebecca felt no less defiant.
“Rebecca, I must tell you,” said the matron, “that it will not be Lady Ambers’ coachman who canes you.”
Rebecca frowned. “Mr. Rand will do it, then?” Part of her wished to beg Mrs. Rand to ask her husband not to whip her very hard. She did have to confess to her heart that she feared the pain of the rattan, the way it would burn its stripes across her poor bottom like no discipline she had felt. Dr. Brown’s strap had hurt terribly; Rebecca knew the cane would make her scream and cry and beg for mercy. It would not, however, make her apol
ogize.
“No, my dear. It will seem strange to you, but Dr. Brown—”
“I thought the doctor had departed!” Rebecca interrupted very abruptly, her words tumbling out of her mouth in a frightened rush.
“No, Rebecca. He left the house to find Mr. Oakes.”
“Mr. Oakes?” Had she heard that name before today?
“James, the footman,” said Mrs. Rand, giving Rebecca a very meaningful look as she spoke, as if trying to determine exactly what lay buried in her wayward young friend’s breast concerning Mrs. Rand’s erstwhile servant.
Rebecca’s face did not disappoint her hostess, as far as visible signs went, for she felt the blood drain from it and then return all at once. She felt very faint as she thought of Dr. Brown speaking with James Oakes, inquiring about Rebecca and telling the tall, dark-haired man all about what his hands and his speculum had discovered between her legs—about the whipping he had had to give her to ensure her compliance.
Then her reason began to work upon the matter, and to try to piece together the various things Mrs. Rand had said, and she wondered what Dr. Brown could have to do with the punishment decreed by Lady Ambers, and whether Mr. Oakes might have something to do with it. Surely… Rebecca felt the color leave her cheeks once again.
“My dear,” Mrs. Rand said. “Dr. Brown has persuaded Lady Ambers that Mr. Oakes should be the one to punish you, because the doctor has ascertained that he attempted to do so here in your chamber yesterday. Apparently Mr. Oakes’ willingness to correct you raises him greatly in Dr. Brown’s estimation, and that of his employers—including your father, and…”
Mrs. Rand’s words trailed away, and her own face became a little red. Rebecca bit her lip and felt her brow crease. The flutter in her belly and the jump of her pulse in her throat seemed unbearable. How could this be? How could it be James who would… who would do that to her, today, in the drawing room?
A tiny voice, deep in her heart, whispered that it should be James—that Dr. Brown had understood her character precisely, and that whereas the coachman could have whipped her with the cane until she could no longer stand up, all in vain, James Oakes’ firm hand could bring something new from Rebecca Adams. But the defiant coquette angrily silenced that idea, for the point of this terrible exercise did not lie in Rebecca changing or learning: it lay in resistance.
“And what?” she whispered, desperate now to know what else might be stored up for her thanks to Dr. Brown’s ministrations.
Mrs. Rand’s color mounted even further. “And the doctor thinks that Mr. Oakes’ previous experience in punishing you makes it likely that he can help you mend your ways.”
Rebecca could not meet her friend’s eye. “I will not apologize,” she said quietly.
“Rebecca, you must,” Mrs. Rand pleaded. “Lady Ambers will not relent until you swoon with the pain, and I do not think I can bear it, even if somehow you can. You do not know how much power she has, my dear. You will have this dreadful thrashing, and it will all be for worse than nothing because you will have her for an enemy all your days. Dr. Brown has told us that you only went paddling in the pond, and that that is why you burnt your drawers, and it will all come out right if you only let it.”
Tears welled up in Rebecca’s eyes, for she knew Mrs. Rand’s advice had merit—especially in light of this news about the story the doctor had concocted to hide the stain upon her honor from her fucking by William. She knew it was unjust, but still she blamed her friend, and held her even more responsible in light of the doctor’s efforts. “How could you let this happen?” she demanded. “How could you allow her to insult Thomasina, and then give her her way, in… with… the… caning?” Her voice trailed off nearly to nothing as she said the terrible word.
Mrs. Rand, too, began to weep. “Rebecca, I am thinking of you. I wish I could persuade you. I brought Lady Ambers here to help you. Please, please apologize!”
Rebecca saw it. She understood, but… she could not obey. How strange that she felt such a need to defend Thomasina’s honor, when the pact the friends had made at school had indeed truly been not to have any honor at all.
“I won’t,” she said softly. “I am sorry—to you, I can say it, Mrs. Rand, because I know you do think you have my best interests at heart. I must follow my own ideas of justice and injustice.”
“Even when it will be James Oakes who canes you?” Mrs. Rand asked slowly, as if she could not keep herself from inquiring though she did not truly wish to know the answer.
Rebecca felt her face crumple. Truly, she thought, I do not know how that matter stands. But she nodded, conscious beyond everything else of the need to resist for as long as she could, to show… to show them…
To show him, though? Yes, of course: to show James, the man who had taken it upon himself to punish her, more than anyone else in the world. Show that Miss Rebecca Adams meant to live as she pleased, and smell the flowers on the path of vice whether they gave forth an aroma lovely as roses or musky as… as… that… as her wicked fingers, brought surreptitiously to her nostrils after masturbation in hot-faced embrace of her wanton nature.
* * *
When they reached the drawing room, Rebecca’s irregular sense of shame and modesty flared up as high as it ever could, for Lady Ambers had done just as she promised, and it appeared that Mr. and Mrs. Rand had been unable to prevent it: the entire household had gathered there, including the Rands’ coachman as well as Lady Ambers’, the scullery maid, the cook, the housekeeper, Mr. Thomas the butler, Jenny and Sally, the chambermaids, Mr. Rand’s valet, Mrs. Rand’s and Lady Ambers’ lady’s maids, and…
William stood next to Mr. Thomas. James stood next to a strange wooden article of furniture that had leather straps affixed to a frame built of wooden slats. She could not look either of them in the face, and her own cheeks burned. How had this all started? she wondered desperately. In the hall, with the unworthy William… in the little woods, with him. She hoped William looked uncomfortable, now.
And how did she hope James looked? He had a long, thin, pale thing in his hand, and the sight of it, of the cane that would lash her bare bottom, made her suddenly want to fall upon her knees before him and beg for mercy—or perhaps that he could take her somewhere private, and… and whip her there, alone.
“Come here, Miss Adams,” she heard his voice say as she entered the large, beautifully furnished room where Mr. and Mrs. Rand, Dr. Brown, and Lady Ambers sat in elegant chairs while their servants stood about the walls, watching the daughter of a duke enter dressed only in her chemise. “Lay yourself down over the block.”
Block. It didn’t look at all like a block, did it? But perhaps in some bygone age there had been a true block of wood? From a stump, perhaps? And over it girls had gone, with their bottoms up, for whipping? Rebecca’s mind raced like a startled hare, trying to find shelter in abstract historical thoughts, but found no cover for her fear of the wooden thing with the straps, of the long rattan in James’ hand.
“If you please,” Lady Ambers said with great emphasis. “I shall give the commands here. I am the insulted party, and this correction occurs at my request.”
To Rebecca’s astonishment, Dr. Brown spoke up. “Your ladyship shall certainly make clear to Miss Adams the nature of the lesson she must learn. But I will insist, as the representative of Miss Adams’ father, that Mr. Oakes must be in charge of the punishment itself.”
Rebecca had not managed to look anyone in the face in that drawing room yet, whether servant, gentleman, or peeress, but now she found that she couldn’t keep her gaze from rising, so that she could take in the expressions of the three persons concerned in this strange little struggle.
She saw that Lady Ambers was not best pleased to find her intention of command crossed by the doctor, and that the doctor had on his face his little smile that Rebecca now began to suspect had behind it some great claim to power over even those the world held up as great.
When she turned her eyes, just for an instant, t
oward James Oakes, though, she found that he met her gaze with his own dark one, with an expression that made the blood rush hotly into Rebecca’s face as she thought it never had before. Nothing of insolence, nothing of arrogance. Care and concern, she thought. And… admiration. How could she have seen admiration? What did it mean?
Admiration. Desire, too? Surely not! But had she not, when he had rubbed her bottom, thought that perhaps he, too, might fuck her? Had she not wanted so terribly to see what he had under his breeches?
At that moment Rebecca did not know how she could ever have thought herself shameless, because when she thought about seeing James’ penis—how she had wanted to see it, yesterday, and how she wanted to see it here and now in the drawing room, standing out stiff from his loins as he whipped her—the blush in her cheeks seemed to glow like the sun. She did not think she could ever lift her eyes from his shoes again.
“Very well,” said Lady Ambers at last. “Come here, Miss Adams, then. Before you go over the block I shall make very certain indeed that you know the nature of the lesson you will learn once you are strapped down to it with your naughty rump bared to receive its just reward.”
Chapter Sixteen
James watched Miss Adams walk slowly and hesitantly toward Lady Ambers’ chair. He felt he could read her thoughts, could tell that the redness in her face came not from the shame in the amorous pleasure she had known in the little woods, but from anger at the injustice visited upon her by the vindictive noblewoman.
