Rebellious Bride (3 page)

“Neville,
I’m so exhausted,” she pleaded her case.

“Then you
take these few without incident, Margaret, and we’ll be on our way.”

The sharp
thing with its long leather shaft and brilliant biting end snapped against her
backside seven times, three on each lovely rear cheek, leaving distinct red
marks each time, a seventh strayed low, catching her at the base of her bottom,
right at the top of her right thigh. She howled like the dickens, and stomped
her feet.

“Oh, god,
please Neville!”

“A good
reminder to you, Margaret,” he said as he lifted her from the desk and
drew her into his arms. “Your support in matters like these is important
to me, I expect a more compliant wife.”

“Ah,
Neville, you’ve had me these twenty some years, you think I don’t support
you?”

He kissed her
lips deeply and she responded.

“Sometimes,
I think the reminder is worth the trouble,” he said. He felt her bare
bottom skin against his hand. He could just barely make out the slight welts by
feeling. She seemed to squirm against him, perhaps stimulated when he fondled
the punished places. “There, isn’t that better?” he asked.

By the way
Neville treated her after a punishment was over, Margaret almost agreed with
him, though she would never tell him so.

The house
hummed with happier tunes come morning. With the bird’s song came the cook’s
sweet tune rising into the air to wind its way throughout the house and dispel
any traces of the disturbance that might remain from the night before.

In her room,
the bride-to-be lounged in her bed as she listened to the morning, trying not
to think of what would be happen
ing
to her before
this day was over. It was too much think about, Aaron, the wedding, marriage
and…
sex .
In typical fashion, Abigail removed the
nervousness from herself, by pretending that there was nothing special about
this day at all. At least she tried to.

A twinge of
pain reminding her of the night before, Abigail felt her bottom. The poor
wounded thing was sore, and likely to be so for some hours for the fierce
licking she’d taken in the middle of the night. Yet it was well worth the
trouble to have had her last hours with Darcy. The childhood friend would
always be special to her. Darcy, like a roving Gypsy, had her own uncharted
path to take; she certainly wouldn’t be following in Abigail’s footsteps into
marriage. She was much more likely to make her way in the world as a
shopkeeper, or a tavern hostess, of even a dance hall girl in some wild western
town where such uncivilized places still existed.

Abigail
envisioned her friend’s life with much more excitement than her own.

“My
mind’s made up, Abby, you tie that knot tomorrow,” she told her, “I’m
off to foreign lands. Somewhere really special. Probably China.”

“You
can’t go to China without me! Besides how are you going to get to foreign
places? It’s not easy for a woman to go alone anywhere.”

“Hell, I
don’t know. But my
daddy’ll
be after me with a
shotgun likely, so I’m not tarrying here. You can bet on that.”

“I wish
you weren’t going,” Abigail said sadly. ,

“Don’t
worry, I’ll catch up with you somewhere.”

“Sure,
I’ll be pregnant in the middle of a sweltering summer and you’ll come serve me
lemonade.”

“Don’t
sell your life short too quickly, Miss Abigail,” she said with sunshine
eyes - they could twinkle even in the dark. “That Aaron Barrow is no boar
of a man. I think you’ll be surprised.”

“How
would you know?”

“Gals
like me hear things.”

“Tell me
what you’ve heard!” Abigail demanded.

“You’ll
have to see for yourself,
luv
. Now you best be
off.”

That was when
all hell broke loose, and the rain fell, and the dress got ruined, and shortly
after, she slipped in the mud and was caught by her father and paddled.

Still, it was
all worth it to hear Darcy’s version of things. That was what she’d miss about her
most, that and the way she made her one of the naughtiest brats around. She
wasn’t sure what she’d do now with no inspiration, then again, being married,
perhaps there’d be other things to inspire her.

In the early
afternoon of that day, Abigail trotted down the aisle of the small chapel on
her father’s arm, smiling broadly. If someone had lifted her dress to show her
bottom, they would have seen small red spots where the cane had marked her.
When she saw them for herself in the mirror, as she was getting ready for the
ceremony, Abigail resigned herself to the fact that the marks would be there
when it was time for bed that night. They weren’t all that bad - of course
there would need to be some
explana-tion
to Aaron -
if he saw them. Then again, she had no idea what would take place on her
wedding night, perhaps her bottom wouldn’t be a factor at all.

Despite her
sore posterior, her bruised feelings and the anger she bore for her father,
Abigail held her head high. She planned to go into her marriage with the same
haughtiness she had for life itself. Nothing at that moment would
tame
her, and getting out from under her father’s rigid
sensibilities suddenly felt like freedom, a lush exuberant freedom to celebrate
as much as she was celebrating a marriage.

Aaron took her
breath away. Standing at the chapel’s altar he wasn’t smiling at her. In fact,
his expression was a little grim, that was the way he naturally was. Serious.
Though he could laugh and smile and frolic, his basic nature was solemn, not in
any severe way to make him morose or surly, but solemn in a calming, reassuring
way. Sometimes she looked at that as an asset; other times she worried that
he’d be no fun. On this particular day, his
solemnness
was comforting, and she found herself moving to his side, passing from her
father’s arm to his, with all her surging independence flooding through her.
Marrying Aaron was a move towards something steady, and perhaps to keep her
exhilaration in check. But most importantly, marrying Aaron was a move to freedom.

When the words
were spoken, the blessing finished, when the good Lord had shined down on the
pair with His infinite mercy, they turned about and marched together through
the chapel.

To Abigail’s
immediate delight, as the two looked towards the back of the chapel, there was
Darcy standing in the doorway, looking like some forest imp, her face filled
with light, wearing the only dress she owned: a diaphanous old thing with
flowers strewn across the front, its hemline slightly tattered. She was a vision
the way the sun-light hit her sandy red hair. Before Abigail and Aaron reached
the back of the chapel, she smiled and waved good-bye, and then skipped out on
her way.

“Who was
that?” Aaron whispered to her.

“Darcy
“

“Darcy
Greenwood? My she’s changed,” he said.

“You know
her?”

“Ah
yes,” he said.

Abigail was
intrigued by his reply, though by then, the two were too crowded with friends
and family to continue the con-
versation
.

The family
mill where Aaron worked and lived was some twenty-five miles from the
McPhearson
home. For Abigail however, going to her new home
was like moving to another country. In her childhood there were times she tried
to get as far as possible from her parent’s house, but she’d never been
twenty-five miles from home on one of her runaway excursions.

When their
carriage stopped at the big gray house Abigail thought her new home looked a
bit like Aaron himself, tall, substantial and solemn. While the house had been
his mother’s, she was dead some fifteen years, and with the remnants of his
family moving out so that Aaron could have it for his bride, the place was a
bit sparse.

“Things
need to change in here soon,” Abigail said, when she stepped into the
meagerly furnished parlor, and wandered around the room.

“You
think so?” Aaron replied, gazing at his stunningly beautiful wife.

Abigail was
suddenly feeling nervous.
Here.
Now. Festivities
over, it was just she and Aaron and lots of expectations. She thought her heart
was thumping in her brain.

“So, I’ll
be changing a few things,” she said, whipping around to look Aaron in the
eye.

“It’s all
yours, my love. You can do with it just as you like.”

She smiled, as
she quaked inside. “So, show me the kitchen,” she said.

“You want
to see the kitchen?” he asked, surprised. Even he knew that Abigail was
not particularly the domestic type.

“I
suppose I should, shouldn’t I?” Aaron paused a moment. “I think not,
not now,” he said. He came to her side, put his hand on her shoulder.
“You’re nervous, aren’t you?”

“Nervous?
About what?” she replied. Looking up to his face, he seemed taller than
ever, his stature having grown miles since the wedding a few short hours
before.

He didn’t
answer with words, but seemed to scoop her up into him, bringing his arms
around her, while kissing her on the lips. Gently lifting her from
he
feet, he carried her upstairs.

She didn’t
think about one thing she saw on the short journey to his bedroom, before he
deposited her in the big fluffy bed of soft comforters. Without thinking
another thing, she was caught up in the feelings of love and desire and
sensation that pulsed everywhere through her. Not even realizing what was
happening to her, they were soon both unclothed, their bodies melting against
the other like it was when they danced, only much closer and more intimate, as
his hands explored places on her that he would never have touched the night
before. Her hands responded, finding his flesh a curiosity, his muscles a
thrill to touch, their firmness making her more possessed by what was happening
inside her. Even as he gently entered her, she was so mesmerized by the
sensuous commotion that she forgot the twinge of pain that grabbed her between
her legs. He whispered comforting things to her in her ear, and her body
responded, relaxing into the steady movement of his manhood. No ever said it
would be this way. She was in awe of the feelings, from the fierce tin-
gling
sensations to the passionate degree of love that was
making this more than just another adventure.

Something in
her own body swelled, and a delightful peak of energy surged with a rush, and
then died pleasantly away even as Aaron shuddered himself, and then fell back
on the bed next to her.

When he turned
towards her, after they’d rested awhile in an exhausted silence, she pulled the
covers about her, while Aaron did nothing to cover his naked body.

“You
don’t have to be modest,” he said, running his hand through her blonde
hair.

“You know
your eyes are so dark,” she observed, not responding to his comment.
“You are modest,” he said.

“It’s a
first time… ” she replied.

“Then I
won’t push,” he said, pulling his arm around her body. “So, Mrs.
Barrow, you like the bedroom, or do you have to go to kitchen right away?”

“I like
this just fine,” she answered. “And to hell with the kitchen.”

He smirked and
hugged her close.

After a long
silence, with the need pressing, Abigail grabbed the sheet about her body and
moved towards the chamber pot at the far side of the room. The truth was,
Abigail wasn’t so much modest as fearful of Aaron seeing her naked. The marks
from her punishment had not faded in the least. They stood out rather boldly on
her pale skin, and she was sure he’d say something if he saw them. Finishing
her task, she returned to the bed, plopping down beside her husband, giving him
a sweet smile.

“Tell me,
Aaron, how do you know Darcy Greenwood?” she asked.

Aaron smirked,
but said nothing, as if he was fishing for words.

“What’s
going on here?” she asked, suspiciously.

“I don’t
know if I should tell you, it might be rather embarrassing for Darcy.”
“My love, I know Darcy as if she was a twin sister. We’ve been friends for
years.” “Yes, I’ve heard,” he said wryly.

“You
have?” Abigail wondered aloud.

“Darcy
Greenwood and I go back a number of years,” Aaron began. “Her father
used to work for my family. I first met her. when I was seventeen, she was
about ten and bit of a rascal, to say the least.”

“She’s
the most wonderful person I know,” Abigail said in her friend’s defense.

“The most
wonderful?”

“Except
for you, maybe,” she teased. “But she’s always been a hellion, a
bonafide
brat.”

“Just
like me.”

“Not like
you, not exactly.” Aaron spoke as if he knew exactly what he was talking
about.

“So,
what’s behind all the mystery, you’re not telling me everything. She is my best
friend. I think I have a right to know.”

“I
suppose it wouldn’t hurt, it was a while ago,” Aaron said. “Darcy was
always shuffled around from relative to relative, though I suppose you know
that. She’d spend a few months each year with her father, Darcy hanging around
the mill because Buford Greenwood had
no where
else
to take her. She was just an ornery brat most of the time, and I’d tease her,
but then a couple of years ago, I caught her with her hand in the
til
, taking money right out from under my eye.”