To Tame A Countess (Properly Spanked Book 2) (25 page)

He twitched at his hated given name, but he supposed his aunt had the right to use it. “She is the Baroness Maitland, it’s true. Her holdings are near my land in Oxfordshire. And I assure you, she was raised to English ways, although her parents were inveterate travelers.”

“I cannot fathom what inspires proper English people to strike out and travel to such godforsaken places, when they might stay safely at home.”

“I suppose it’s plain English grit and our society’s glorious history of exploration.” He said this with a straight face.

His aunt shone with approval at this bold announcement. “Well, I suppose there is much to be said for good English gumption. I cannot see your lady’s suffered for her absence. She’s obviously as cultured as you or I.”

Warren accepted this compliment on his wife’s behalf with true gratitude, for it meant society was coming to accept her as he’d hoped. Josephine was well on her way to earning the regard of her peers. She played her part perfectly, having pleasant conversation with the younger set of married ladies, mingling about and smiling as he’d encouraged her to do.

He wished to go to her, but he was rather entrenched with his dowager aunt. He looked around and met August’s gaze. He made a subtle gesture—
help me!
In their wilder days of wenching and drinking, they’d developed an entire silent language based on degrees of glaring and secret flicks of fingers or wrists, or angles of their heads. August came obediently over to ask Warren if he would like to make the acquaintance of Lord So-and-So, and he agreed that he would very much like to meet this completely made-up fellow, and so he had the excuse he needed to bid farewell to his aunt and her aged friends.

“Thanks for rescuing me,” said Warren, when they were far enough away. “How goes it? Did Arlington bribe you to come here?”

“No. I came for the cakes and tea, of course, and the scintillating conversation.”

“As bad as all that, eh?” Warren frowned. “I suppose your china doll is here?”

“Yes, she is.” His words gave no hint of his deeper feelings toward Lady Priscilla, either positive or negative, so Warren dropped the subject. They moved onto less fraught topics: August’s new horse, recent debates at Parliament, and all the notable goings-on at their favored gentlemen’s club. Warren was vaguely aware of guests strolling about, children laughing and shouting, and young ladies flirting with their suitors in the breezy, idyllic garden. Minette paid particular attention to a ginger-haired chap, cheering him on when the active game of Blind Man’s Bluff game gave way to an even more active cricket match. Then he realized he hadn’t seen his wife in some time.

“I say, where has Josephine gone?”

“Lost her again, have you?” August chuckled. “Not sure these wives are worth the trouble.”

“Oh, they are,” Warren said, looking around. “With any luck, you’ll understand one day. Blast.” He turned back to his friend. “I’m off to find her.”

“Need help?”

Warren shook his head. “Not this time. She can’t have gone far.”

Even so, it took him twenty minutes to locate her. He couldn’t very well shout for her, or charge about asking if anyone had seen her, and so he had to stroll around in a perfectly casual manner until he saw her rum pink gown peeking from behind a Greek temple folly down one of Arlington’s paths.

He went to her, calling her name when he was close enough. “Josephine. Are you hiding?”

“No.” She emerged, looking sheepish. “Well, yes. A little.”

“Is there such a thing as hiding ‘a little’?” He took her hand and squeezed it in a fit of pique. “You worried me. I didn’t know where you’d gone.”

“I’m sorry. I know Arlington is your friend, but I couldn’t bear it any longer. Everyone is so snobbish and affected in manners. The women’s prattle…” She shuddered. “Warren, you can’t understand how cloying it is.”

“I certainly can. I sat with my aunt and her friends for nearly an hour, for you, Josephine. To have them on our side.”

“Our side? Are we at war?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps we are.” He let go of her hand and leaned against one of the smooth marble columns. Inside the miniature temple, Arlington had installed a whipping pole, along with a chest of aromatic oils and equipment to punish naughty ladies in the manner of a lewd Greek god. Warren might have done so to Josephine, if they weren’t within yards of polite society.

“It’s not the thing, to go wandering off during these sorts of functions,” he said. “It makes you look sullen and impolite. It invites others to gossip and wonder what you’re up to. It’s one thing to go off with other ladies, but you mustn’t stroll away alone.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you do it? Townsend and Aurelia found themselves in an unwanted marriage after going off alone into the woods.”

She gave him an arch look. “So did we.”

Warren straightened and crossed his arms over his chest. “All the more reason not to go off by yourself. Someone might see it as an invitation and join you here and make inappropriate advances, and nothing you could say or do would save your reputation.”

“Of course my reputation is all that matters.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. Why must she make him out to be the ogre? They weren’t his rules, and it wasn’t his fault they had to attend these parties. “I thought we agreed you were going to make a go at society. That you were going to give it a chance.”

“I have.” Her voice sharpened, rising with the color in her cheeks. “I’ve been trying but it’s so tiresome. It never ends.”

“The season ends in August, Josephine. It’s not much longer. A few more weeks, and the social whirl will die down. Come, let’s return before someone sees us quarreling out here.”

“We wouldn’t be quarreling if you’d only let me have a few moments in peace to collect myself. But, apparently, that is not permitted.” She gathered up her skirts and flounced ahead of him, onto the path toward the house.

Again, he considered dragging her inside the temple and fixing her to Arlington’s whipping pole, but it would only fuel gossip when he returned her to the company all rumpled, with tears in her eyes. He caught up with her and took her hand. After a small battle of wills, she permitted him to place it upon his arm.

“Behave yourself, for God’s sake,” he muttered. “You’ve been doing so well.”

“I’m tired of doing well. I’m tired of everything. I’m tired of talking about recipes for lemon tarts, and fashions from Paris, and which damned ball is the one to be invited to this week.”

He arched a brow at her rough language. “Perhaps we ought to head home, if you find the company so tedious that you must curse.”

“Are you going to spank me there?”

“I believe you’ve earned a spanking, yes.”

“For cursing?” She blinked at him in outrage. “You curse all the time.”

“It’s not only the cursing. You promised you would try to behave as a proper lady and countess. You promised to let me help you.”

“I don’t like the way you help me. Your spankings hurt, and they don’t work to change me anyway.”

“Whose fault is that?” He refused to continue arguing with her, not now when they were in sight of all the guests. “Go and sit with Minette and her friends for a while if you wish to be cross. They’re merry enough that they won’t notice. Only stay where I can see you,” he said as he released her. “And Josephine?”

She looked back at him with a frown.

“Next time you head into the woods alone,” he said, “rest assured I shall join you with a freshly cut switch.”

*** *** ***

They didn’t leave at once. In fact, her husband made her stay at Arlington’s affair for two more hours, while she seethed and twitched, and fretted over her coming punishment. At last, an impending rainstorm broke up the gathering and sent everyone home.

Later, as Josephine prepared for bed, a maid tapped at the door and delivered a silver tray Josephine had come to know well. She wondered what Warren would do if she took the ginger from inside and hurled it out the window. He’d undoubtedly be cross, and send to the kitchen for more. He seemed to have access to an endless supply.

If she protested loudly enough, would he cease doing these things to her? Did she want him to? It confused her, how she despised and yet desired his “punishments.” The authority in his voice, the intensity in his gaze, the tension in his body as he arranged her over his lap. She had come to be excited by these things, even the ginger. She wanted these awful, indecent things, while polite aspects of society seemed beyond her grasp.

She could only conclude that she was an awful, indecent person. How else to explain her frustration with social niceties, and her boredom at balls and parties? But if she wanted Lord Warren with his grins and seductive depravity, she had to find a way to do the other things he wanted, like smile and be polite, and behave as a hoity-toity countess should. Otherwise she’d have to stay in the country, away from him, lest she threaten his all-important standing in society. In her absence, he’d be obliged to take a mistress or satisfy himself with other women; a man of his appetites wouldn’t stay quietly at home if there was no one at that home to see to his needs.

By the time he showed up, she was nearly in tears about it. She let him think they were tears of penitence and remorse, as he stood her before him and delivered a lengthy lecture on manners and expectations, and all the woeful things that might happen to her reputation if she didn’t play by the rules.

She only half listened. By now she’d heard a thousand variations of this theme. The weather worsened as he droned on at her. Hard droplets of rain pelted her bedroom windows and rumbling thunder provided an air of menace to the proceedings. She started to cry in earnest, miserable, silent tears that he occasionally wiped away.

“It’s not your frustration I’m punishing you for, you understand? I’m not punishing you for feeling angry or sad.”

“I know. It’s because of what I do.”

“Precisely. It’s your actions, your choices. You didn’t need to hide away at the garden party. If you wanted to escape the ladies’ prattle, you might have gone to cheer at the game, or gone to the refreshment table, or visited with me for a while.”

She nodded. She knew. Of course she knew.

“And when I came to fetch you, you were unnecessarily cross with me. You knew it would mean a spanking and you sniped at me anyway.”

He didn’t yell or scold, only stated the damning facts in a calm voice that made her feel ten times guiltier. “I know. I know,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “I knew it was bad behavior, but I was just so tired.”

“You’ll be more tired still when this is over. Something to think about next time.” He gave her a long, hard look and stood from his chair. “You will take off your dressing gown and shift, please, and bend over the side of the bed.”

She undressed as quickly as she could with her hands shaking and her legs trembling, and her vision blurry with tears. As she bent over the bed, she saw him taking off his coat and waistcoat, and turning back his sleeves. He went to the tray for the ginger, the root carved as usual into a rounded bulb with plenty of feathered edges. She buried her face in the covers as he parted her bottom cheeks in a humiliatingly perfunctory way and inserted the rounded ginger. This wasn’t the kind of touch that aroused. Oh, why couldn’t she behave?

It always took a few minutes for the ginger to really start burning, which is why he made her wait there, clutching at the bed linens and dreaming of escape. The storm grew even more violent, with lightning flashes illuminating the dim room. Her bottom clenched around the fullness of the ginger, and all too soon the smarting, tingling sensation grew into a steadier ache.

When she started to moan and wiggle her bottom in anguish, he pulled her up and sat on the edge of the bed, securing her over his lap. Like most of his punitive spankings, there were no soft smacks to start with, to accustom her to the pain. No. The first one hurt, the second one hurt, and every spank afterward hurt. She gasped over his lap, knowing this was only the beginning, with much more to suffer. It already hurt so much!

The ginger’s sting grew more acute, rising a degree in temperature each time he made her tense upon it. Her tears of guilt and sadness became tears of torment, as he punished her without any softness or sympathy. The smacks rained down, his hands hard like stone. Palms and fingers that touched her so gently now punished her with their rigid strength.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she cried. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” he said, though he didn’t stop spanking her. “You must learn proper behavior at social gatherings. You must learn to hold your tongue rather than say words which are neither pleasant nor respectful. And of course you must”—
smack
—“stop”—
smack
—“wandering into woods.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

He’d taught her by now that she might say
I’m sorry
as much as she liked, but not
no
, or
stop that
, or even
please, please stop
. Because he would never stop, not until he decided she’d had as much punishment as she deserved. He made her feel so powerless—stripping her, putting ginger inside her, holding her firmly over his lap. She squirmed, but only so far. She cried, but only so hard.

Because some part of her needed this reassurance that he wouldn’t give up on her.

“I’m so sorry,” she wailed as the spanking picked up pace. When that happened, they were nearer the end than the beginning, not that it was much of a comfort. He moved from the throbbing center of her cheeks to the less punished areas lower on her bottom, alternating so each part stayed equally achy and hot. He was so skilled at punishing her to maximum potential, which was not at all a good thing.
Ow, ow, owww.

He didn’t stop until her entire backside felt flaming and used up. He lifted her off his lap and made her stand before him once again, only this time she was shivery and naked, and so sorry she hadn’t just swanned around the party, and smiled, and simpered on about various topics the way she ought to have done. Were they worth it, her petty acts of defiance, when they only ever led to this? The storm seemed to have positioned itself directly over Park Street, for the thunder and lightning continued unabated, rattling vases and windows and lighting up her husband’s face.