The Duke's Bedeviled Bride (Royal Pains Book 2) (6 page)

Very well. If he preferred the sting of the birch to the touch of her hand, she would not deny him. She drew back her arm and snapped the switch across his gorgeous globes.

He flinched and gritted his teeth, but did not cry out.

Yet.

But he would before she was through, damn his black soul. The first strike had raised an angry red stripe across his immaculate mounds. She struck him again, slightly lower, drawing another scarlet line.

“You shall address me as Mistress Margaret, you impudent mongrel,” she said, fuming, “and I shall decide when and how you are to be punished. Do I make myself clear?”

“Aye, Mistress Margaret,” he answered dutifully. “Clear as a church bell on Christmas morn.”

Chapter Three

Sweet tongues of fire licked Robert’s cods as he awaited the next searing kiss of the birch. He could almost feel the ecstatic sting of the impact and the sweet, lingering burn of the stripe left behind. A swifter and vastly more satisfying expiation than owning up to his misdeeds in a dark confessional. The first few blows might hurt like the devil, but the pain was only a dissonant prelude to the exquisite rhapsody to follow.

“How many blows do you intend to deliver?”

“As many as it takes to bring you to heel.”

The switch hissed before stinging his rump. He bit his lower lip as feverish warmth flooded the region. The birch struck again—a sizzling fuse across the opposite cheek. He pictured her back there in naught but her stockings, dripping wet from exertion and need. Oh, aye. Did she ache to be fucked as much as he ached to fuck her? He hoped so, for he fully intended to bang her clever brains out the moment she untied him.

For now, however, he was content to enjoy his penance. The birch swished a moment before the branches bit his backside. The shock of the blow shot a fiery arrow through his genitals. God Almighty. If she kept this up much longer, he’d surely shoot his load. He groaned, partly from pain, partly from pleasure.

She cupped and caressed the injured flesh, escalating his enjoyment. After a moment, she moved away. The birch stung again, delivering equal doses of agony and ecstasy. His cods drew up and his cock throbbed with the need for sweet release. He gritted his teeth against the urge. He must not come upon the cross. Not for any sacrosanct reason, but because he wanted to come all over her. He’d promised her a pearl necklace in the coach and meant to keep his word.

The birch bit his backside. Caught off guard, he cried out in pain. His ass was a blacksmith’s forge and his cock the red-hot rod in need of a good pounding. She was doing everything right. Taking her time, striping his flesh, and pausing betwixt blows to salve the welts.

This time, her hands clasped his hips as her tongue stroked the fresh wound she’d inflicted. The moist caresses felt exquisite on the searing skin. She had to be down on her knees. In naught but her stockings. Pleasure gushed up his shaft. He bore down, stopping the surge just shy of explosion.

“Please release me so I can fuck you.”

She withdrew her touch. “You forget yourself, husband.”

The breeze of movement accompanied the whistle of the birch cutting the air. He held his breath, waiting for the strike.

Snap.

“Who is in charge here?”

“You are.”

“That’s better,” she said. “Now do try to remember your place. We will fuck when I am ready and not a moment before. Do I make myself clear?”

As he opened his mouth to answer, the birch struck again with a blistering snap. He grimaced against the assault even as pleasurable heat flooded his pelvis. She reached to stroke and squeeze his cods. As his orgasm charged forward, he forced its retreat with every ounce of willpower he could muster.

“Have a care, Mistress Margaret, or you shall make me come off.”

“I’m afraid I cannot allow that.” She retreated and cracked the switch across his smoldering haunches. “You’ve been exceedingly naughty. And naughty husbands must pay for their transgressions. Thus, you are not to achieve orgasm until I grant you leave to do so. Do I make myself clear?”

“Aye.” He felt deflated, but also curious how she might punish him for ejaculating. By some deliciously cruel means, no doubt. The wee minx was becoming quite the accomplished Mistress of the Chamber.
 
“Do your worst, but forget not the cardinal rule of our erotic exchanges.”

“I recall no particular rule.” Worry stained her tone. “Of what do you speak?”

“Whatever you do to me I shall be free to reciprocate.”

“But—that is unfair. You are being punished and I have done nothing wrong.”

“Have you not?” He fought a smile, lest she detect his amusement at her expense. “Was spying on me not a punishable transgression?”

“Not when ’twas unintentional.”

“Was it? Then why, pray tell, did you not make your presence known when I returned to my bedchamber? Or at any time throughout what transpired thereafter?”

“I was hiding from the king,” she said. “And it seemed improper to intrude.”

“More improper than watching what you could have prevented?”

She was silent for several moments whilst she considered his accusations. Then, she said, “Fine. Have it your way. I concede your rule—with the proviso you never birch me.”

“Agreed.”

He knew the nuns had beaten her savagely in the hopes of breaking her spirit. His tutor had done no less to him. Every Friday, whether he’d misbehaved or not, that cantankerous old bastard birched his bare arse until he could not sit down. At first, he’d dreaded the beatings, but, by and by, he grew to enjoy them immensely.

The branches clattered as she set them back in the umbrella stand. A brush of cool air announced her return to him. Then, to his surprise and delight, she untied the leather bands binding his wrists to the cross. When he was free, he lowered his aching arms with a sigh of relief.

When she removed the blindfold, he blinked several times before turning to face her. The light in the chamber was dim, but still an adjustment. His arms ached and his ass burned as though he’d been branded as well as buggered, but he forgot his pains as he beheld her bewitching form, naked but for her stockings and slippers.

What a vision of loveliness was his wife. As he awaited her next command, he drank in her assets. Her willowy frame; the firm, pouting breasts with their dusky pink areolas; the gentle inward curve of her trim waistline; the becoming swell of her slender hips; the tempting triangle of golden fleece where her thighs came together. Lord, how he wanted to swive her every bulge and orifice. Mouth, cunt, arse, and breasts. He’d even fuck her armpits if she’d give him license to do so.

His gaze jumped to her face. Now that he knew she belonged to the Royal Stuart line, the resemblance was obvious, especially around the eyes. Her complexion was fair, like her father’s, rather than swarthy like the king’s, and her mouth had the sensual fullness common to that family. Her eye color, however, was something of an anomaly. Maggie’s were blue, not dark brown like her father and uncle’s, and her nose, the opposite of theirs, was small and well-shaped.

Having completed his inventory of his wife’s attributes, he began to worry about her prolonged silence and pensive expression. What was going on inside the clever head of hers? Did he really want to know? Deciding he did, he said, “What do you contemplate so somberly?”

“I was just thinking of my father and uncle,” she said, still looking preoccupied. “Though I still have trouble thinking of the king and duke in those terms.”

“Completely understandable, given the freshness of the knowledge. Have you as yet given thought to how you will respond when His Royal Highness makes fatherly overtures?”

Her gaze remained glassy and downcast. “Perhaps he will not, and I shall be spared the decision.”

“The king seemed convinced his brother would seek you out upon learning your whereabouts.” As he spoke, he admired her profile and the profusion of golden curls spiraling over her graceful shoulders. “Apparently, the duke knew of your birth and grieved your confounding disappearance.”

Fire ignited in her eyes as her gaze jumped to his. “Were that the case, why did he not take the trouble to investigate my disappearance?”

There was pain in her looks and words—pain he hated to see but was powerless to abate. “Perhaps he did, but failed in the quest.”

Her eyes narrowed to angry blue slits. “Had he truly given a care, he would not have abandoned the search so easily—assuming he sought me out at all.”

“What if he had found you? Would you be better off than you are now? Had he taken you from the convent, he’d only have made you the ward of a family other than mine, for he could hardly impose the illegitimate issue of a dead mistress upon his legitimate household. Especially when the duchess, by all accounts, was proud, jealous and self-possessed to an offensive degree.”

Truthfully, he’d never heard aught the least complementary said of Anne Hyde, the duke’s first wife. Had Robert so odious a wife, he would keep mistresses, too. But then, James Stuart was rather notorious for his appalling taste in women. So much so, in fact, the king had once remarked that his brother’s paramours must be sent by his priest as penance for the duke’s sins.

Maggie looked contemplative for a moment before heaving a weary sigh. “Perhaps you are right. As it turned out, I ended up a ward of your family’s, which I regret not a jot.” Her eyes hardened as she added, “Well, not most days, leastwise. Be not fool enough to mistake resignation for forgiveness, husband. I still have every intention of punishing you for what I witnessed at court.”

The warning kindled a sweet blaze down below. “Is that a promise?”

“I can promise you this much.” Her tone mirrored her stern expression. “I’ve not finished making you pay for your unfaithfulness.”

“My unfaithfulness?” He compressed his lips as affront bloomed in his chest. “Have we not already established what you witnessed in no way constituted infidelity?”

She looked exceedingly dissatisfied with his explanation. “We established naught of the kind. You merely stated your belief in your own guiltlessness. To establish a thing, the parties involved must reach accord. Since I did not agree, we in no way settled that the liberties taken by you with Lord Hardwick and that, that…
courtesan
…fell within the boundaries of our vows.”

“I see.”

In truth, he did not see at all. By current definition, coition required the merger of cock and cunny. His member had only penetrated oral cavities. Ergo, he’d been faithful to their vows.

At the same time, he could not help but be impressed by her argument. His darling wife was as clever as could be—a fact that more often than not caused his chest to swell with pride.

Right now, parts lower down were doing the opposite of swelling in the wake of all this chatter. “I remain in your thrall, Mistress Margaret,” he said with a deferential bow. “Shall we get on with the promised punishment?”

She pursed her lips and stroked her delicately pointed chin—another attribute she’d doubtless acquired from her maternal side. “Do try to contain your enthusiasm, husband. For the method of censure I have in mind will not be to your liking.”

Worry blanketed his mind, suffocating his budding arousal. “Oh? And to what means do you refer?”

“Silence.”

All the heat in his body shot to his chest. He’d much rather she caned him, even severely, than subject him to stony silence for days on end.

The way his mother, God rest her sainted soul, had in her last hours.

The memory of her death dampened his spirits. After a fight in which he’d said unforgiveable things, she’d fallen from her horse. For nearly a se’nnight, she’d lingered in a coma. The enduring silence had tortured him beyond measure.

On the day she died, his heart and soul were ripped from him as surely as if he’d perished, too. He continued to breathe and walk about, but seldom smiled and never laughed. In time, he became someone none who knew him before could recognize.

All his life until then, he’d striven to do the right and proper thing. He’d been devoted to his faith, attended Mass without fail, and went out of his way to avoid sin and temptation. Because he’d been raised to believe right behavior brought reward. Yet, God punished him in spite of his goodness by taking from him the person he cherished most in the cruelest way possible.

He could not comprehend the Lord’s callous disregard. Nor find it in his heart to forgive such cruelty.

So, he rebelled. Against his beliefs, his family’s values, and society’s mores.

He drank to excess and indulged his every licentious inclination, however depraved. Rather than resist temptation, he pursued vice with a vengeance. All the while believing to the core of his being he would never again know love. That no one could ever pull him out of the blackness engulfing him.

Shortly after the monarchy was restored, his father, an avid royalist, dispatched him to the royal court both to oblige the king and be rid of his wayward heir.

At Whitehall, Robert was pressed into service as a Page of the Bedchamber—the title given the young aristocrats charged with guarding the door to His Majesty’s private apartments. Though a rather lowly post in the scheme of things, the pages controlled access to the king, a coveted commodity many, including himself, sold to the highest bidder at every opportunity.