Rebellious Bride (2 page)

“If you’d
let me invite Darcy to my party, I wouldn’t have had to leave the house on the
sly to be with her,
this my
last maiden night.”

“You
rendezvoused with Darcy Greenwood!” Neville shouted. It was reason to be
more livid than ever.

“I
did.”

“That
ruffian.
I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t
be seeing her, and that was months ago.

“I
realize that was our
accommoda-tion
, but I’ve seen
her occasionally. And I saw her tonight.” Her status as a bride-to-be was
making her bold. She never believed her father would wield his usual punish-
ments
under the circumstances.

“I can’t
believe you’d violate my orders so blatantly, and own up to it so easily.”

“You want
me to
lie
to you, father?”

“That is
quite enough, Abigail.”

“I’ll be
a married woman tomorrow. I think that gives me a right to be bold.”

“But,
you’re not a married woman tonight,” he father seethed angrily.
“Margaret, go get the paddle.”

“Neville,
don’t you think tonight
… “

“Tonight
what?” he questioned her. “Excuse this recalcitrant brat!
Never.”

“But it’s
the day before her marriage. It’s just hours away. You wouldn’t dare.”

“You
believe that, Margaret,
then
you haven’t been married
to me for twenty-five years. Go get the paddle and cane, please.”

They’d all
heard the words many times, spoken in anger, with a stern
repri-mand
in his voice. Neville
McPhearson
ruled his domain
with an iron fist, a quick fired temper, and a ready implement of pun-
ishment
in hand. By the looks of things, this punishment
would be particularly severe.

Margaret
McPhearson
knew enough to keep her tongue. Despite the way
she disagreed with her husband, this was not the time to counter him. Not when
he was this set in his resolve. Rising from her seat, she went to the cabinet
where he kept his
collec-tion
of implements. She
always cringed looking at the formidable things, remember-
ing
how they were often applied before her eyes to the bare posteriors of her sons
and daughters. But
never ….
“

“Margaret,
are you coming?” she heard her husband’s stern command.

“I’m
sorry,” she said, sighing deeply.

Returning to
him with the requested items, he took the paddle in his large hand.

“Bend
over the desk,” he ordered his daughter.

“Father,
please,” she said, eyeing the dreadful sight of her father’s hand grasping
the wooden paddle, knowing what that meant. A strong shiver raced up her spine.
“I was hasty in my retorts. I’m sorry. I am tired. Please, just a little
mercy. This is my last night here.” Why her appeal might work this time,
when it never had before, she wasn’t certain; she hoped that somewhere in his
heart, he had some mercy, some small willingness to bend his rigid rules. But
he did not.

“Bend
over the desk, Abigail,” Neville repeated.

“But,
father, really!” She tried a more impassioned approach.

“I should
have suspected something like this from you, Abigail, that you couldn’t behave
yourself on the night your mother and I were proud to host your marriage
cele-bration
. I can’t even begin to think of the hurt it
causes us thinking of the way you repay us with this foolish behavior. You can
consider this an added wedding gift. Now, bend over the desk.”

“Please,
father, no,” she tried once more.

“Another
balk,
and I’ll report this to your intended husband, and
make certain he understands the proper way to control your behavior.”

“You
wouldn’t!” Abigail shrieked. The girl immediately threw herself against
the desk, bending over as she’d done so many times before.

“Draw up
your skirt,” her father ordered.

Abigail wasted
no more time, tugging at the broad soiled skirt. The beautiful satin was a mess
after having been drenched by the sudden downpour that had caught
she
and Darcy off- guard. In her hurry to return to the
house after their clandestine meeting, Abigail had slipped, falling into a mud
puddle, further damaging the dress that her father had paid handsomely for.
Pulling at the once lovely thing now, she gathered the abundant material in her
arms and held it at her waist, then pushed at the waistband of her bloomers
until she’d lifted them over her bottom and presented for her father’s view,
her bare behind.

With just two
small candles to light the room, Abigail’s fair skin glowed like alabaster,
like pure snow, the very thing to present to her new husband in their
unble-mished
state. How that skin would look in the next
day had Abigail’s distraught mother wondering. So many times, Margaret had
witnessed this scene with her youngest daughter. The others had been punished,
but never so many times. As often as she was corrected, Abigail seemed to take
pun-
ishment
as a challenge to try some more
outrageous stunt. Of course, the girl never planned to get caught.

Margaret shook
her head in
resigna-tion
. What a night for this, she
thought. And yet, Abigail had sealed this fate. It was almost like it was
pre-ordained, the whole confrontation, including the blasted thunder-storm.
Neville was simply implementing the inevitable. Perhaps it was for the best.

As usual,
Margaret watched, while Neville worked.

Standing at
his daughter’s side, the angered father raised the broad two foot paddle, his
arm going back some distance to make the blow fierce. Swiftly bringing his arm
forward, the wood landed squarely on Abigail’s upturned bottom.

She grunted
her first response. There had been so many times in the past that she’d endured
this treatment, certainly one more could hardly matter. A second, a third and a
fourth blow landed, as he continued on. By the end of the sixth sharp smack,
the imprint of the paddle was beginning to show as a bright red imprint across
the once white alabaster skin. A pause between each blow, made the anticipation
of the next difficult to bear. But there was much more to endure, her father
was only getting started.

Once Neville’s
initial twelve were over, he started in more briskly, leveling the paddle
against the flaming rear with quick sharp smacks that instantly made the sting
fierce, and Abigail’s cries more animated.

She begged
him, pleaded with him, raised her voice with impassioned words, “Oh
please! Father stop! I can’t take any more!

“You’ve
taken much more than this, young lady, and you’ll take more tonight. Stop your
hollering,” Neville barked.

“I
can’t,” she wailed as another blow stuck.

“Suit
yourself. If you want the whole house listening in, you might be blushing
pretty for lots of reasons tomorrow morning.”

“Please,
father, no!”

He leveled
another series of blows that stung like crazy, so much so that Abigail danced
her feet, as if she might dance away.

“Neville,
don’t you think …” Margaret interjected in her daughter’s defense.

“Hush!”
he barked, and at least another twelve smacks followed until he was finally
considering the paddling over.

“If this
is my last lesson to you, Abigail, I want it to count.”

SMACK!

“Oh,
please!”

“I hope
you’ll behave better for your husband, or surely you’ll be facing
this your
life long.”

“Please,
no more!” she wailed.

SMACK! SMACK!
SMACK!

They were the
finishing blows, but nonetheless fierce; they left their own imprint on her
bottom, the whole mass of once white skin was a hot-fired crimson, and Abigail
was sobbing.

“The
cane, Margaret,” Neville ordered.

Both women
shriveled at this new command.

“Not
marks, Neville, please don’t forget tomorrow.”

But ignoring
his wife’s comment, Neville grabbed the cane away from her and pushed Abigail
back in her place.

As fierce with
the cane as he was with the paddle, he was at least quick. Ripping off a half
dozen sharp cuts within seconds.

“
Yeeeeeawwww
!
Oh god!”
she wailed with each one, though it did no good to cry because the next
followed rapidly on the heels of the last. Certainly by now, the whole house
knew that Abigail had been duly whipped and caned.

Thankfully,
the caning was over in a few moments, even though the burn in Abigail’s bottom
seemed to attack her
every where
with a pain that
lingered long, and sobbing that didn’t cease until the sharp sensations finally
diminished.

Stepping back
from his task, Neville eyed the punished bottom, the fading glow of red, and
the distinct lines where the cane struck. He was satisfied, satisfied that his
sobbing daughter would enter her marriage just as she should. For Abigail, a
well punished posterior was her trademark, a
testi-mony
to the fact that this young woman would probably need substantial correction
her
life long
. And for his part, Neville would
certainly do his best to see that her deport-
ment
was
adequately handled in the future. It had been a quandary to him for days, what
to do with his opinion of Abigail’s conduct. But, with one last punishment, one
last glance at her crimson cheeks, he made up his mind to fulfill his duty in
giving his fair but rebellious daughter to another man. He’d talk to Aaron
Barrow before the
cere-mony
.

“You can
go now,” he announced.

Neville
watched as Abigail came to her feet again, pulled her bloomers about her bottom
and let the muddy skirt drop to her feet. “You won’t tell Aaron about
this, will you?” she asked. Stopping at the door on her way out of the
room, she implored her father with a sadly tear streaked face.

“I
should,” Neville replied, coldly.

“Oh,
father, please no, I’ll take another whipping, please don’t tell him!” She
was absolutely petrified at the thought of Aaron knowing about this. “He doesn’t
need to know of this, marriage will be a much different life for me,
I
know that.” She might have gone on pleading with him,
but her father wouldn’t hear of it.

“Hush
child, I’ll consider your request when I have a calmer mind,” Neville
replied. “Of course, if you behave yourself, there’s no need to worry
anyway. Now go to bed.”

Once Abigail
was out the door, Margaret sighed deeply, having nothing to say to her often
fierce husband. Love him as she did, she’d always found the man too severe.
Rising from the chair, she was about to give him her goodnights - it was far
too close to morning to consider anything else for this one day - but Neville
called to her. “Margaret, you can take your place now.”

“What?”
She turned wearily around at the door to question him.

“You
heard me.”

“You’re
going to chastise me too?” she asked.

“As
if you weren’t half this
insurrec-tion
.”

“I will
not!” she vowed.

“Don’t
shame yourself, Margaret, by acting your daughter’s age. It doesn’t become
you.”

“But
Neville, it’s so late, and we all need to be up early in the morning.”

“Then you
should have considered that earlier. Take your place, or I’ll tie you
down.”

With another
sigh, Margaret
McPhearson
made her way back to the
desk, and like her daughter had done, bent over the massive wood structure.

“I found
your attempts to defend her most deplorable.”

“Neville,
I was simply trying to make peace.”

“If
Abigail wanted peace, then she should have behaved herself in the first
place.”

“But why
this now?” she asked.

“Because,
my dear, you deserve it, and we both deserve the satisfaction later.”

He reached for
the bottom of his wife’s skirt to pull it up himself. Unlike with his daughter,
Neville took great inter-
est
in baring his wife’s
bottom. It was always
a breathtaking sight that first glance
at her white rear cheeks, that even with age had not ceased to allure him. For
her pun-
ishment
, rather than the hard wood paddle, he
chose a buggy whip that would snap against her skin, making small marks and
sharp pains in her posterior. A few of those was all he needed to convey his
message to her. Time and experience had made his wife a more compliant woman
than he first knew her to be. Now submissive to his will most of the time, he
only considered this a small complaint, even if he was treating it with his
typical intensity.