Under A Duke's Hand (30 page)

“Is it locked?” asked Barrymore.

“Locked or not, if George wants to get in
there, he’ll find a way,” said Warren. “My son can be devilishly
clever when it comes to mischief.”

“I’ll go head them off,” said Townsend,
hurrying across the clearing.

Aidan hid a smile as a garish blush spread
over his wife’s cheeks.

“Well?” said Josephine. She studied them with
a speculative look. “You must tell us now. What on earth is inside
that temple?”

Barrymore chuckled and Warren burst into
laughter. Gwen shook her head and spread her hands. Aidan rescued
her by passing over a sandwich.

“I’ll describe it to you later,” said Warren
under his breath. “It’s too delightful to be believed. But not a
place for children to go exploring.”

“No, not a place for children,” Barrymore
echoed.

“Tell us,” begged Minette. “Don’t tease.”

Barrymore turned and made sure young Felicity
and Augustine weren’t listening. “Let’s just say it’s on par with
Townsend’s illicit literature collection. Perhaps even better.”

“Oh, my,” said Josephine. Minette put her
hand over her mouth and blushed. Aurelia raised a brow and grinned
at Gwen.

“Have all your gentlemen friends been in
there?” Gwen whispered to Aidan.

He made a helpless gesture of apology. “We
threw some wild routs in our younger days. Aurelia was right. We
needed rescuing. Some of us more than others, I’m the first to
admit.” Before she leaned away, he drew her closer and spoke in her
ear. “You know, it’s been a while since we visited the temple. Too
long.”

“I was just thinking that.”

The children came running back in a
chattering group, corralled by Lord Townsend. Adorable, all of
them, with their smudged coats and disheveled curls. They joined
the babies, and Felicity and Augustine, and sprawled on the
blankets to devour what was left of the afternoon’s repast. Aidan
caught his wife’s gaze as she hummed and rocked the baby. Later, he
would take her to the temple and have her.

And she would go willingly, judging by the
pleased flush lingering in her cheeks.

* * * * *

They set out after dark, when the children
were sleeping soundly under their nurse’s watchful eye. Gwen held
Aidan’s hand; he carried a lamp with the other. It was so dark in
the garden at night. The flame threw shadows that heightened her
excitement and nerves.

They nearly always came here under cover of
darkness. Gwen felt freer at night, more capable of surrender,
whether she was to be pleasured or hurt. Sometimes she was punished
in the temple, generally after one of her “Welsh hellion fits,” as
Aidan called them. She didn’t misbehave that often anymore, but
when she did, she submitted to whatever consequences her husband
deemed necessary. He was always fair, if strict, and she always
felt better afterward, as if the tensions between them had been
eased.

But tonight was not going to be about
punishment. She had been very, very good of late, an estimable
duchess who was finally earning the regard of the
ton
. She
had even merited another audience with the crown, during which she
had managed to be absolutely inoffensive, even charming. Aidan
marveled about it afterward, but it was easy to be happy and
charming when one was in love.

At last they reached their private temple of
iniquity, and Aidan unlocked it with a key they kept hidden in a
vase. He gestured her inside with a suggestive smile. Gwen turned
about in the marble chamber while he hung the lamp in the corner.
“It feels different to be in here, now that I know all your
gentlemen friends have been here too.”

“We didn’t all crowd in together,” he said.
“I let them borrow it sometimes. At parties. And other times.” He
grinned at her dark look. “There were ladies before you, my
darling, but none I remember by name.” He gathered her close and
kissed her, and began to work at her gown. “None of them even half
so lovely and fascinating as you.”

Gwen started undoing her husband’s clothes,
pushing back his coat and unbuttoning his waistcoat. All the
garments were discarded posthaste, thrown into a careless pile. “Do
you think your friends will want you to share it again?” Gwen
asked.

“What?”

“I mean, when they tell their wives what sort
of garden folly this is... Do you think they will all wish to try
it out?”

Aidan chuckled. “Perhaps. It depends whether
they are as depraved as you, my love.”

“I am not depraved.”

His chuckle transformed to a laugh. “Tell me
that again in five minutes. We’ll see if it’s true.” He led her
toward the whipping post. “Raise your hands in surrender, my
perfectly demure wife.”

“I didn’t say I was demure either.”

He put a finger over her lips. “Enough
chatter. While the cuffs are on, you’re not to speak, do you
understand? Not unless you’re spoken to.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” The authority in his voice
sparked an aching pulse between her legs.

A few years ago, her husband had commissioned
some fine leather cuffs which were now affixed to the pole at her
precise height. He still used rope sometimes, if he wanted to give
her some leeway to pull and writhe about. He used the cuffs when he
wanted her fixed and controlled. She studied his handsome features
as he secured her wrists in the restraints. She still found him
every bit as beautiful as Jack in the meadow. If anything, he’d
improved with age.

He met her eyes when he finished, his lips
curving up in a smile. He had a daunting ability to read her moods
and thoughts. He kissed her, simultaneously pulling down on the
cuffs to make sure she was secure. When he was satisfied, he
smoothed his hands down her arms and to her nape. He took her hair
down, pin by pin, until it cascaded down her back. Then he wrapped
it around one hand and pushed the lot of it forward over her
shoulder.

She shivered as he caressed her bare back.
Please, take me now
, she wanted to beg. How wise he was, not
to let her speak, for she’d be babbling like a madwoman.
I love
how you caress me. I love the heat of your body at my back.
How
strong he seemed, how commanding when he explored her this way. His
thick cock poked against her bottom, a delicious threat, although
he rarely buggered her except after punishments. Disciplinary
sodomizations, as he called them, for naughty wives.

He made a low sound as he nuzzled her nape.
“How good you’re being,” he said. “Not a sound, although I can see
you trying to rub your quim against the pole.”

Oh, yes, she was, although her husband
discouraged such lascivious lapses of discipline. He held her waist
with one hand and palmed her pussy with the other, thrusting his
middle finger deep inside. It slid within her moisture, betraying
copious arousal.

“Not depraved, my sweet?” His laugh was rough
and lewd as his touch. “You’re hot enough to burst into
flames.”

She moaned as he stroked her, taking his
time, bringing her closer to that peak but not allowing her to
reach it. Oh, she wanted his cock inside her now, but she knew he
would play with her first, play with her until she was reduced to a
needy and desperate puddle of longing. It appealed to the tyrant
and sadist in him, to make her wait. To even, occasionally, leave
her unsatisfied.

Goodness, she hoped this wasn’t to be one of
those nights. She couldn’t even beg for what she wanted, because
he’d taken away her permission to speak.

And you love it
, she thought.
His
control excites you beyond bearing.

She heard him rummage in one of the trunks,
and shifted from foot to foot. The cool air had her nipples hard as
pebbles. She felt his hand on her hair, and then soft fabric
against her face. He looped a length of silk around her eyes and
tightened it so she couldn’t see. She made a soft pleading sound,
wanting to be touched, stroked, anything. She heard rummaging
again. No point in turning to look. Not that she ever turned to
look, since that only made her more anxious.

Oh, hurt me, please.

She felt his palm against her arse. He
smacked it a few times, readying her, she knew, for something
harder. Then he stood back and dealt her a stinging blow that could
only have come from the tawse.

She shrieked and danced on her toes. It hurt
so badly, stung like spreading fire on her cheeks. He gave her four
more blows in quick succession, so she thrilled and hurt and nearly
jumped out of her skin. Heavy impact, heavy sting. She feared the
tawse, for it could be such a brutal implement. She gritted her
teeth so she wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t cry out loud for him to
stop.

After the fifth blow, she felt his heat and
presence behind her. His thick cock slid between her legs and then
thrust strongly into her quim. She struggled in her dark world to
reorient herself from pain to pleasure. Another thrust, and
another, stretching her in ecstasy, and then he was gone, leaving
her empty.

“No,” she cried, even though he’d forbidden
her to speak. Because she knew what was coming. Teasing, and more
pain.

“Hush,” he reminded her, and then the swish
and thwack of impact echoed in the marble room. The heat was more
intense now, coming on the heels of the too-short respite. Five
blows again, as she cried and danced about, going nowhere. Then his
cock drove inside her again. She used to be ashamed that such rough
play excited her, but not anymore.
Oh, oh, oh...

“You feel that?” he asked, pressing inside
her. “Feel how hard I am for you. You want to be fucked, don’t you?
You want me to fuck you until you come.”

“Yes, Sir,” she answered, taking the
opportunity to speak, even if she could barely form the words.
“Please let me come.”

“After you take your spanking,” he said. “You
know you come much harder and longer after you’ve been properly
spanked.”

She shook her head, and pulled at the cuffs
in frustration as he left her again.

“Please,” she cried out as the tawse resumed
its stinging torture.

Rather than chide her for speaking out of
turn, he put his hand over her mouth and gave her a good, steady
volley of whacks. She protested against his palm, but oh, it felt
so good. It felt intense and scary, and wonderfully liberating,
because she was so completely under his control, unable to speak,
unable to see. She lost track of how many times he spanked her and
fucked her in alternation, never letting her get a foothold on her
way to climax.

She would feel this tomorrow...even though it
was play, this sort of spanking would leave bruises. She’d feel it
when she walked, and when she sat to tend the children. Whenever
she had time alone, she would pull up the back of her skirts and
gain perverse pleasure from gazing at the marks in her looking
glass. That was the type of duchess she was, for better or worse,
and her husband rejoiced in it.

Especially at times like these.

“I want you to come now,” he said at last. He
placed his hands over the cuffs and thrust inside her, banging his
hips against her tender arse. “Come for me, Guinevere. I want
it.”

Nothing triggered her pleasure more reliably
than his gruff, insistent commands. Her pelvis contracted, her
pussy clenching around his pounding shaft. He drew rigid behind
her, with a jerk and a long groan. His final thrust nearly lifted
her from the floor. The cuffs rattled on their chains as he held
her close, sighing contentedly against her ear.

She didn’t speak yet. She wished to be a good
wife and obey his directions, so she waited until he removed her
blindfold and released her from the cuffs. Then she turned to him
and threw her arms around his neck.

“I love you,” she said. “I love you. I love
you. And that
really hurt
.”

She reached one hand behind her to rub away
the sting that remained, but of course, Aidan stopped her.

“You know better,” he said, clasping her
wrist. “Perhaps we ought to begin all over again with a real
punishment, if you’ll disregard my rules.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I’ll be good.”

She put her arm back around his neck and
hugged him, unwilling to break the connection that came from this
intense sort of play. After a moment, he lifted her so she was
eye-to-eye with him at his prodigious height.

“Say it again,” he prompted. “I like those
words.”

“I’ll be good?”

“No, the other words.”

“I love you.” She hugged him tighter,
pressing a kiss against his ear. “I love you. I love you.”

She drew back and gazed at him, the fairy
queen and her king in their marble temple. His hands smoothed over
her back and cupped her bottom with a tender grip.

“I love you too, Gwen,” he whispered. “I’ll
love you forever.”

And for that, she’d always be his perfect,
obedient duchess.

Ask the heavens for what your heart
wants.
In her case, someone had answered. Someone tall and
commanding, and sometimes a bit lofty, with a Viking marauder
smile.

THE END

A Final Note

Endings are always bittersweet. I’ve had a
blast writing about these four gentlemen in 1790’s England, and if
you’ve read all four of the Properly Spanked novels, thank you from
the bottom of my heart for supporting the whole saga. I hope you
found something in each novel to love.

But maybe this isn’t the end. Wouldn’t it be
great if all those children in the Epilogue grew up and had
adventures, and maybe even paired up romantically around 1820 or
so? Hmm, that would be pretty fun. We’ll see.

If you enjoyed
Training Lady Townsend
,
To Tame A Countess
,
My Naughty Minette
, and
Under
A Duke’s Hand
, I would be eternally grateful for a review or a
recommendation to a naughty-minded friend. Your reviews and
encouragement are so helpful, and keep me motivated to sit in the
chair every day and give you my best work. I also love to hear from
my readers at [email protected].