RulingPassion (2 page)

She had a real choice in the matter, though. It would
challenge her to make her way cross country to the nearest convent while
avoiding Sir William’s troops, roving marauders, robbers, and other natural
perils; but she considered herself resourceful enough to do it. Had she thought
him unreasonable or unjust, she’d attempt it without a second thought. Well,
maybe a small regret for what might have been.

But he wasn’t unfair. Nor was his price all that high,
measured against her probable future had he left her in the dungeon.

And then there was the man himself. It shouldn’t weigh in
her decision that he was the most attractive man she’d ever met. It shouldn’t,
but it did. In all likelihood, there would be no future with him beyond the
night and day he asked, even if she agreed to his terms. But if he kept his
promise, there would be some kind of life ahead for her, and perhaps even a
chance for a reasonable marriage.

The truth was she didn’t want to commit herself to the
convent and the veil. She felt no call from God toward that life. Meeting Lord
Jeoffrey, weighing her reaction to him made her realize that more strongly than
ever. She admired the man, and she wanted his good regard. Wanted it enough to
take some risk with her future, as well as a punishment she probably deserved.

She looked up again at the man who sat watching her, waiting
patiently for the outcome of her deliberations. If he cared which way she
chose, nothing of it showed on his face.

Rosalind drew a deep breath and cleared her throat before
answering him. “I agree to your terms.”

His expression didn’t change as he watched her silently for
a moment, then asked, “Why?”

“Why did I agree?” She rubbed together hands suddenly gone
cold and shaky. “Because it’s right. I was dishonest with you and I want to set
it right.”

“And because you have no alternative?”

“I could make my way to the nearest convent on my own should
I feel it the right thing to do.”

“You’re quite sure.” His tone mixed astonishment with an
amusement that didn’t show on his face.

“Aye.”

“Then I honor you for the decision you’ve made.”

“May I ask a favor then?”

“Ask, and I’ll honor it if I can.”

“Can we do it quickly? Have it over?”

“Normally punishment sessions are held after dinner in the
great hall. Since you’re not a member of this household, yours will be
administered privately, in my chambers. We’ll begin the time of your payment to
me immediately thereafter.” He looked down at his desk. “There’s work I must
finish before I can take the time for you. When it’s done, I’ll summon you.”

She couldn’t keep her voice from quavering when she said,
“As you will, my lord.”

He nodded at her, turning his attention once again to the
papers before him.

Chapter Four

Rosalind retreated to the bedchamber she’d occupied the
previous night. Moments later a serving girl knocked on the door and handed her
a bundle of clothing.

“My lord requested this be delivered to you. He asked that
you assume the garments immediately. I’m to help you out of your current
things, but he said you could see to getting into these on your own.”

The girl helped unfasten the borrowed garments Rosalind
currently wore, then she departed. The clothing delivered proved to be nothing
more than a simple shift that went on over the head and draped straight down
from her shoulders to her ankles. A warmer, more enveloping robe accompanied
it. A note included in the bundle indicated she was to wear nothing but these
garments alone when she presented herself at his summons.

She removed the overdress, undershift and hose she’d been
offered that morning, put on the plain shift and robe, then seated herself on
the side of the bed. Terror nearly overwhelmed her as she waited. She wanted to
run from what she faced or chew her fingernails down to the quick. Time dragged
almost unbearably as she attempted to prepare herself for what was to come.
After what seemed a very long wait, a knock sounded on the door. The same
serving girl entered bringing a lunch tray and another message.

“My lord said to convey his regret for the delay to you. A
messenger has arrived concerning a matter that requires his urgent attention.
He said, too, it would likely be midafternoon before he could attend to your
needs, and he begged your patience.”

So she waited for another endless, agonizing stretch of
time, until the knock came as the light was beginning to fade from the sky
outside her window. A different girl entered at her bidding and informed her
Lord Jeoffrey was now prepared to accommodate her. The girl led the way down
several corridors and up a flight of stairs to the lord’s private chambers.

Lord Jeoffrey himself opened the door to them, thanked the
girl and sent her away, then conducted Rosalind into a large, comfortable room.
A warm, welcoming fire crackled at one end, while a sumptuous bed, canopied and
curtained, stood at the other. A table and chair were pushed to one wall of the
room to make way for a long padded bench sitting in the middle. Lying beside it
were several bundles of twigs lashed together into well-branched,
wicked-looking rods.

She stumbled and almost fell against him, but he steadied
her with warm, strong hands on her arms.

“Keep up your courage,” he exhorted her. “It’ll be over ere
long.”

“You won’t be too hard on me, please?” She hated begging,
but staring at the instruments of her punishment and thinking of the damage
they could do sapped her nerve.

“You’ll get exactly what you’ve earned,” he promised, which
didn’t reassure her at all. “Come, now.”

He requested she remove the outer robe and she did so, then
stood before him in nothing but the shift. His gaze ran up and down her body,
and for a moment something hot and yearning and hungry lit his face. He
suppressed it, reached out to take her arm, guided her to the bench, and helped
her lie on it, face down.

“Normally I’d have someone hold you,” he said. “But since
we’re doing this privately, I’m going to fasten you down. It’s too much to ask
a person to keep themselves still and not try to get up or protect themselves
during such a punishment.”

Her heart began pounding even harder and her breath became a
pant as her wrists were tied with soft lengths of cloth to the legs of the
bench just beyond her head. Her fear grew when he raised her shift, pulling it
up over her legs and derriere, exposing her from the waist down to the cool air
and his hot view.

“My lord!” she protested. “It isn’t seemly!”

He laughed. “You forget the rest of our bargain. The payment
you’re offering me. I’ll shortly be seeing even more of your body, so fret it
not.”

“Do you thus punish everyone in your household?” she asked.

“In general I feel punishment is most effective on bare
flesh. And I think the act of unclothing oneself to receive discipline is a
salutary reminder. I make exceptions in some cases where it seems warranted. I
see no such circumstances here.”

A length of cloth went around her waist, over the bunched
material of the drawn-up shift and under the bench so that it held her in place
on the bench and kept the garment from sliding back down. Finally, cloths wound
around her ankles were fastened to the other legs of the bench.

Fear escalated to the point of nearly choking her, but
oddly, mixed with it was a strange lacing of excitement and satisfaction. At
some level she trusted that Lord Jeoffrey might cause her pain, but he wouldn’t
injure her or hurt her any more than was due for her lie. And in some peculiar
part of her mind she was pleased he cared enough to do this for her; and
realized she wanted to give this to him. She wanted to show him her sense of
honor matched his own, even to accepting discipline she knew would be painful.
She would never have guessed it could be so, and would have stridently denied
it had anyone suggested such a thing to her.

Every other thought but fear fled her mind when she heard
the rustle of the twigs as he picked up the birch rod. She shut her eyes and
tensed her muscles in expectation of the first stroke and resolved to bear it
as bravely as she could. No cries, moans or pleas would escape her lips if she
could help it.

The branches made a whispering hiss as they whipped through
the air and emitted a series of closely-spaced, sharp cracks when they struck
her flesh.

The shock of impact barely preceded the explosion of burning
pain fired by the twigs clawing into her flesh. She jerked as far as the
bindings would allow. However much she’d tried to anticipate the pain of the
whipping, nothing could have prepared her for the rush of agony that centered
in her bottom and spread in a hideous burn through every nerve and muscle of
her body. Despite her resolve, she couldn’t suppress a whimper. It was
terrible: fierce and burning. Worst of all, she suspected he hadn’t used
anything like all the force of his arm behind that cut.

Eleven more to go. She couldn’t take it. She’d die of the
pain long before they reached a dozen.

The fiery sting had settled down to a more bearable itchy
burn when she heard the ominous hiss signaling the imminence of another lash.
It landed even harder than the previous one, spreading a corrosive fire across
her derriere. She jerked more this time and struggled against the bindings
holding her in place. A soft, low moan escaped as she tensed against the
red-hot sting.

Again and again the birch rod printed ribbons of fire on her
bottom. Between each lash he waited for some time, letting the pain of the
previous stroke rise, crest and begin to settle before delivering the next. The
third one set her moaning again and bouncing up and down as far as she could,
but the fourth was so agonizing it drew a shallow scream and the pleas she’d
hoped wouldn’t be dragged from her.

“Please,” she begged. “I can’t bear it. I can’t. Please
stop. I’ll never lie again. I promise. Never.” The entreaties ended in another
shrill squeal when the birch cut again, lower down, so that some of the twigs
clawed at her upper thighs.

She sobbed and moaned. Her hands clutched at the legs of the
bench, squeezing as hard as she could while her body heaved and jerked so hard
the cloth binding around her waist pinched. “Oh, my lord, my lord,” she groaned
as the fire engulfed her bottom and scraped along her skin to every extremity.

The next lash was full across the backs of her thighs, not
as hard as the previous cut, but still with enough force to bury the ends of
the twigs deep into her flesh where they printed more agonizing welts.

“Oh my lord, I can’t stand it,” she wailed. “It’s killing
me.” Her bottom throbbed horribly, streaks of fire smoldering on her flesh. Her
breath came on a series of short, hard sobs and she desperately wanted to rub
the stinging areas.

The next cut laid down additional lines of fire, engulfing
her in a pain unlike anything she’d ever experienced before in her life. She’d
lost count of the strokes and had no idea how many more were yet to come, but
she felt sure she couldn’t stand even one more. It would surely kill her.

Another lash sent the wicked twigs raking across her
derriere again, biting at welts already there and laying down new ones. She
screamed shrilly and then burst into loud sobs.

So distracted was she by the engulfing pain, she was stunned
when the next stroke on her body didn’t come from the birch rod, but was a
gentle brush of Lord Jeoffrey’s hand across her cheek. She opened her eyes and
met his. The lord knelt on the floor beside her, leaning over and watching her,
his face serious and worried.

“Is it over?” she asked.

“There are four strokes remaining. I was worried about you.”
He brushed her cheek again and the contrast between the gentleness of his
fingers and the harsh bite of the rod made her heart flutter. “You’ve never
been punished this way before. I’m afraid it might be too much for you. Can you
handle four more?”

Her throbbing derriere demanded she say no. She met his
worried gray eyes. The expression on his face, the concern showing there as
well as the respect for her confirmed her suspicions that beneath the sternness
lurked a kind and caring man. A man she could admire and respect. A man whose
respect and admiration she wanted. Wanted badly.

“I can handle it,” she said, fighting to get the words past
her fear.

He smiled at her. The way it lit his face warmed her soul
and soothed some of the ache in her flaming bottom. He leaned closer and his
lips brushed hers, stopped and came back to linger. His tongue brushed gently
across her bottom lip and her body ignited in flames, a torch set alight by the
contact.

The heat and pain of her whipped derriere fed another sort
of heat that settled in her nether regions. Every inch of her skin felt
super-sensitized, awake to the least touch. Her female parts swelled, moistened
in a way she’d never experienced before and a yearning roused, a need that
wanted something more to complete it. She didn’t know exactly what it was but
suspected Lord Jeoffrey could supply it, should he choose.

Had she not been fastened so securely to the bench, she’d
have moved to press herself against him, to investigate the strange new
feelings his touch roused in her. Instead she fluttered her lips and parted
them to provide entrance to his tongue. When it slipped into the opening she
offered, the flames flared brighter and hotter. A desperate, needy wanting
roused and she welcomed the hot intrusion of his tongue, moaning deep in her
throat when he explored the sensitive walls of her mouth and wiped across her
teeth.

Their tongues danced and twined together in a way that set
her blood pounding in its course. No man had ever done this to her. She
couldn’t imagine ever letting any other man of her acquaintance do something so
intimate and exciting.

When he carefully broke the suction and pulled his mouth
away from hers, she felt bereft and abandoned. He swept a caressing finger over
her lips as he smiled at her again and said, “More soon, my dear. Be brave now,
while we finish up your discipline so we can get to more pleasant activities.”

He stood up and moved back. She closed her eyes after she
saw him pick up a fresh rod from the floor and shake it out.

She might harbor a small hope that the kiss would induce
some mercy, but she didn’t expect it and didn’t get it. In fact, the next lash
was the cruelest yet, as the fresh rod whipped across her bottom with more
force than he’d previously used. Her scream hurt her throat and shocked her
with its agonizing protest.

One small concession she did gain: the next three strokes
followed in more rapid succession. Those strokes tortured her with an agony
she’d never have thought she could bear. But oddly, they also fed that other
flame, the one that had roused in her loins when he’d kissed her. As the blaze
in her bottom and thighs tormented her, so too did the flames of need and
wanting sing in her blood until she was awash in sensation to the point of
becoming light-headed.

One last lightning bolt of blinding pain struck. She
screamed and was so wrought-up she couldn’t stop screaming even when she felt
hands on her face, brushing tears off her damp cheeks.

“Shhh,” Lord Jeoffrey hushed her. “It’s over now. All over.
Please calm down.”

He brushed her hair back and smoothed it, running gentle
fingers into it to hold her. Her shrieks settled to a whimpering that didn’t
stop until his lips came down over hers. In one stunning shift, she moved from
the hell of torturous pain to the bliss of his kiss feeding the rampaging fire
of need singing through her.

It went on and on until she lost track of time and place and
situation. Her awareness narrowed to her body and the man beside her. She
murmured a protest when his lips finally left hers and he stood up again. He
unfastened the bindings and helped her up. She was stiff and the pain in her
bottom flared into renewed sting as she moved. He grabbed her when she wavered
and lifted her into his arms. Holding her carefully against his chest, he moved
across the room to the immense bed, pushed the curtains aside, and sat on the
side of it, still cradling her. With his legs spread wide, her derriere slid
down between them so that no pressure was put on it.

Strong arms held her firmly against his chest. For a moment
she just rested there, listening to the strong, reassuring thud of his heart
below her right ear. When he pressed a thumb under her chin to tilt her head
back, she yielded and met the bright gaze of his gray eyes.

His finger moved up her face to flick away the tears still streaking
her cheeks. His mouth twisted into pain and he leaned forward to rest his
forehead against her temple.