Hall of Infamy (24 page)

Betsy's breasts were stippled with hundreds of tiny little white spots. Amelia's own breasts hurt just from looking at them. She could not imagine how on earth the maid managed to hold her place. But she did so, somehow. Lord Alex cast the used nettle aside and walked back to the lectern. Betsy kept her eyes screwed tight shut and her fists clenched as she held up the frock. She blew and hissed and slowly bent double in pain, before straightening and then bending again.

‘All right, you wicked girl, go and take your place on the bench,' Lord Alex ordered.

Still hissing, Betsy managed to prise open her eyes. She hobbled, still holding up the garment, to the Penitents' Bench. Amelia supposed her breasts were now so tender that even the weight of cotton might seem unbearable on them.

‘Poor girl,' Lady Alicia said slyly. ‘After that stinging nettle, I do not think she wishes to leave the dock!'

This witticism provoked much chuckling from the audience. Betsy knelt beside Lucy on the bench and quivered there. The marks of her birching were still lurid on her great behind. Her ordeal was not over, however. Lord Alex took the nettle bunch from the lectern and strode over to the bench.

Betsy must have heard his tread because she gave a little whimper and her trembling became even more pronounced. Lord Alex thoughtfully plucked a leaf from one of the nettles.

‘Something to keep your mind on your manners, minx!' he said cheerfully, and pushed the nettle leaf into the top of her stocking, against the inside of her thigh.

‘Ooh!' Betsy gave a pained groan. Lord Alex's gloved finger probed higher, between her legs, and she gave a subtly different moan. Then he placed a second leaf in her other stocking.

Amelia watched, appalled, as he walked down the little line, plucking leaves and placing them in the stocking-tops of all the kneeling girls. Lucy whimpered. Kitty gave a breathless little gasp. Clara gave a series of pained sobs. Lord Alex placed the rest of the nettles on the bench beside the blonde girl. Then he turned around, caught Amelia in his gaze, and winked. ‘Do carry on, Reverend,' he said with a smile.

Something cold and slithery entered Amelia's soul. It was happening. From the corner of her eye she saw him take the birch rod from its place on the side of the block. In front of her were the four well-birched bottoms, each one quivering as the nettles did their work. They might as well have not existed. All Amelia cared about was the dreadful presence behind. She tried to swallow, but had run out of spittle. Amelia set her teeth and closed her eyes.

The sound of it, the whispering hiss as the birch cut through the air, reached her ears just before the rod arrived at her bottom. Her stomach had just started its involuntary lurch when the pain cut in. Amelia imagined fireworks. A hundred pinpricks of scalding white light. She had sworn to herself that she would not cry out, and she kept her teeth clenched tight and somehow managed it. It was hard, though. So very hard. It was like no pain she had ever felt before.

The blaze in her bottom reached a peak, levelled into something like a plateau, then started to recede. The whispering hiss froze her soul again.

She would not cry out! She would not scream! She would not give him that satisfaction! Amelia clenched her fists harder, digging her nails deep into her palms. She shook her head until her auburn curls danced about her ears. It was so hard not to scream. The birch just hurt so much. It was true that the impact was much lighter than the tawse or cane, but it stung so terribly.

As Lucy had warned her, the pain grew worse and worse with every passing stroke. No numbing of the nerves compensated for ever more sore and welted bottom-flesh. She felt as if she had been scalded, as if the punishing birch was a torch of scourging fire.

At five a hiss escaped her gritted teeth. At six, a wicked cut across her tender thighs, she yelped.

When the seventh searing stroke seemed to skin her underbum, Amelia shrieked.

From then on she was lost in a red mist of agony. The strokes were hardly distinguishable as discrete lashes any more. They were the crests of waves in a scalding sea of pain. Someone was screaming, a girl, perhaps, somewhere. Someone was fighting, uselessly, against tough leather restraints. All Amelia knew was that she was lost, engulfed completely by insanely, impossibly intense pain.

She was aware, in a way, of the first rod being cast aside. Some vestigial fragment of functioning intelligence noted that the Reverend had taken up the second birch, and told her that this was something to be feared. Most of her mind was too overloaded by the stinging of her bottom and thighs, to even know what fear was any more.

The second dozen was administered pitilessly. Amelia was hoarse but she still shrieked as the strokes came down and down again. Her wrists were rubbed raw as she fought the bonds, but this was a discomfort too small to register in a mind completely overloaded and overwhelmed with pain. Slowly, the agony began to ebb. Little by little she became aware of who and where she was. Her bottom still throbbed atrociously, but at least the pain had subsided to the point where she could register other things. It must have stopped. The red waves had stopped crashing on the shore. There was just a long, slow, searing blaze of heat.

Amelia stopped screaming. She was gasping now, desperate for air. Her disoriented mind tried to make sense of it. The Reverend Dawes tossed the second shattered birch rod on the floor.

‘Two dozen,' the man behind her called.

Sense was returning to her mind in fragments. It must be over; she had survived somehow. Oh, thank God for that, Amelia thought. The blaze in her behind continued to subside. The decrease in intensity had slowed, though, and she still could not seem to catch her breath. Amelia let her head drop with exhaustion. The Revered Dawes was beside her now; she sensed his presence and it made her tense. He must be coming to undo her wrist-straps, she hoped desperately. No, he seemed to be picking something up.

What? Amelia thought wildly. Surely not another rod? She had had two dozen strokes, had she not? Somehow she had survived them. But now her bottom was as tender as a—

‘Ow!'

Something told her it was just his hand, and that it was no more than a gentle pat. Her bottom-cheeks were so sore it felt more like a blow-torch had been passed across it.

‘Ready, Amelia?' The Reverend's voice rang in her ears, teasing, mocking, belittling her once again. ‘Don't tell me you have forgotten about your final six, my dear?'

The wicked whispering hiss cut through the air again.

‘Ooh… ooh… ooh…' Clara whispered as Jamie spread the cooling ointment over her delicious little bottom. The slender girl wore nothing but her corset and her stockings, and he found the sight bewitching, draped as she was over his knee.

‘Hush now,' he told her, though his voice was fond. He gave the still-welted bottom a pat, and Clara gasped and squirmed a little on his lap. The rubbing of her hip and belly against his aching erection threatened to provoke an eruption at any moment.

After the afternoon's activities Jamie had brought Clara back up to the nursery. After the Sunday Service, as was customary, the denizens of Hope Hall had severally gone off for a rest before supper was served. Each member of the company had chosen his or her companion from the ranks of those who trembled on the Penitents' Bench. Then each chosen girl had been chivvied off to assist her betters in taking their ease.

It puzzled Jamie a little that he had chosen Clara. He had noted the smile on Lady Alicia's face when he had made haste to bag the slender young blonde. He understood that smile. Why would he pick the chit who quivered under his rod every day of the week? Why not choose Lucy or Kitty for a pleasant afternoon of change?

He gave the bottom on his lap another, harder, slap, as if cross with Clara for having such an entrancing effect on him. The girl gave a whimpering cry of pain as his palm cracked against the sore skin of her so recently birched bottom.

‘Get up,' he ordered gruffly, ‘and get that corset off.'

Clara scrambled to obey, struggling with the fastenings on the front of her corset until he gestured her to step forward and helped unhook the thing. Betsy had laced it preposterously tight, she realised as he grunted with effort. The nursery-maid saw the waspies as a way to vex the cousins, and the minx would use them mercilessly if he allowed her to. Which, of course, he would.

Clara stood uncertainly, naked now except for her white silk stockings, an arm's length away. She regarded him solemnly. Her slender hands were held obediently at her sides, though she could not prevent her fingers fluttering. Unlike her cousin Amelia, Clara had soon learnt not to cover herself when made to stand naked in his presence like this. Only the beginnings of a blush betrayed her shyness, and the fact that she continued to find this exposure a real ordeal.

Jamie dropped his gaze to her shaven quim. It was so pretty that he felt the urge to kiss it, and his cock twitched eagerly at the sight. ‘Feet wider apart,' he ordered thickly.

Clara complied. Her pussy-lips were neat, the inner labia hidden by her swollen mons. It had been more than two days since the barber's last visit, but he would hardly have known. Her pubic hair had been fine and blonde, and the only hint of stubble was the suggestion of gold dust in the region, glinting when she moved and caught the light. Or was that something else that glistened there?

‘Come here,' he grunted.

Clara took a tentative step forward, bringing her more easily into his reach. He reached forward, grasping her left leg above the knee and gave a squeeze. Jamie enjoyed the feeling of flesh beneath the silk, but his need was too great now to dally very long. He heard her moan, and noted the trembling in her leg as his finger traced its languid way up her inner thigh.

‘Legs further apart,' he said gruffly. ‘I do not want to have to tell you that again.'

Clara obeyed with alacrity, adjusting her position so that her feet were now a good two feet apart. His fingers resumed their upward journey. As they rose, the soft warm flesh of her inner thighs was increasingly slick and wet to his touch.

‘You really are a little tart, aren't you, Clara?' His fingers teased her sex-lips and she gave a loud moan. Jamie kept his gaze on her distracted face. Clara had closed her eyes and was biting her lip. Jamie slid his index finger deep inside her. ‘Such a pretty little pussy,' he said as he probed, enjoying the way she moaned and writhed in response. ‘It needs something, though…' Jamie used his thumb to stroke the outside of her swollen flesh as his index finger continued to explore her slit. ‘A silver ring, perhaps two, through these lips. Something I could use to chain you to my bed, or padlock to ensure your chastity.'

Clara's writhing and moaning was getting ever more distracted. His heart thrilled to watch the shy girl succumb to his touch with such helpless abandon. It was a game he could have played for hours, another day. This afternoon, his own desire was barely more in check than that of his companion. He considered making her suck him, torturing her by taking his pleasure while denying her the chance to assuage her own obviously desperate need. Jamie smiled at the thought, but he wanted something else at that moment.

He withdrew his finger, which glistened with her juices, and stood up. Bending over, he pushed forward, scooping Clara over his shoulder in one move. The girl gave a little startled gasp as he carried her away. Jamie was no weakling and Clara was so slender that he carried her with ease into his bedroom. He tossed her casually into the centre of his bed, and hurriedly stripped off his clothes.

It took but a moment, then he turned, his erection arching skyward. Clara was lying where he had thrown her, waiting, her eyes regarding him with their usual solemnity. Jamie gave an animal growl and leapt at her. Clara squealed and clutched the counterpane, but did not attempt to get out of his way.

Then he was upon her, covering her body with his hands, biting her perfect breasts and invading her rosebud lips with his tongue. For a few frantic moments he felt and kissed and bit every tender morsel of her body as Clara cried out distractedly in response. Then he was inside her. Clara was tight and Jamie was not lightly endowed, but she was so ready that he went in with a few well-lubricated thrusts.

‘Yes, oh yes, yes, master… oh
yes
sir,' Clara called out as she bucked beneath him, more frantic by the second. For all that her frame was slight, her thrashing was so violent that Jamie had to hold on to her waist with all his strength. The sight of her lovely face in ecstasy turned his own simmering juices up to boiling point. They came together, Clara crying out like a wounded bird as Jamie grunted obscenities.

‘Sir, master… Can I tell you something?

They lay entwined together on the bed, both bodies lightly misted with perspiration. Jamie's cock, though no longer hard, was still inside her. He did not want to withdraw it, for the feeling was so pleasant and comforting. Her vaginal muscles held him in a firm caressing grip.

‘You may call me Jamie, if you like, just while we are alone like this.'

Clara snuggled into him, rubbing her little nose into the hollow where his shoulder met his chest. Jamie squeezed her tight.

‘I just wanted to say, sir… Jamie.' Her pretty face was looking up at him seriously. Her eyes were so blue and wide and trusting that a man could fall right into them and drown, he thought.