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Father yanked her to the corner of the room. From the corner of her eye, she saw her little sister, Ally, open her eyes.
Sophie gasped, icy fear surging through her. She’d just started her courses—her first time—and her body was cramping with pain. The rag she wore in her drawers clung to her private parts, sticky with her blood. Her father had smacked her and Ally around before, but not anything to cause them lasting injury. Though they had witnessed him do much worse to their mother. Both of them wanted to help her, but they were not big enough or strong enough, and their mother had cautioned them never to interfere.
“What a bloody mess!” Father lifted her chemise and pulled her drawers down, baring her bottom. “Women are so filthy. Ye need the filth beaten out of ye.” He turned her over his knee.
Slap! A leather strap came down on her bare bottom.
Sophie cried out. Oh, how it stung, and her belly cramped up with more pain.
Slap! Slap! Slap!
Tears ran down her cheeks as Sophie wailed. “Mama! Mama! Help me, please!”
“Yer mother knows better than to interfere, lass. If she does, I’ll be all the harder on her later.”
“Father, please stop. You’re hurting me. My…my tummy… It’s so sore.”
“I’m not hittin’ ye on yer tummy, am I?”
Slap! Slap!
“Stop it! Stop it! You’re hurting her!”
Sophie looked up. Ally had risen from bed and was pushing at their father.
“No, Ally, please,” Sophie whispered. “Go back to bed.”
“You’re nothing but a coward,” Ally said. “A coward who picks on people smaller and weaker than you are.”
Father pushed Sophie to the floor. She landed, her bones aching. Thankful for being released, she ran to the basin to clean herself, but—
Slap! Slap! Slap!
Sophie turned and swallowed the bile rising to her throat. Ally was now across their father’s knees, her bottom bared.
“Ye don’t want yer your sister to take her punishment? Then ye’ll take it for her.”
“Smack me all you want. You’re still a coward.”
“Oh, Ally, please, be quiet. You’re just making it worse.”
Ally ignored her, continuing to taunt their father.
The door to their small chamber opened quickly. Their mother, Iris, the Countess of Longarry, stood there in her night rail. “Angus, please. Come to bed. Please do not do this to our children.”
“I’ll deal with you later, ye stupid bitch. Leave us!”
“I will not! You will not hurt my daughters.”
Father pushed Ally onto the floor and strode to Mother, cancerous anger in his eyes. “Ye will not talk to me like that again, woman.”
He pushed Mother down harshly, and she landed with a thump on the floor. Then he closed the door to the girls’ chamber and locked it.
“I’m not done with ye.” He grabbed Ally, only eleven she was, pulled her across his knees again, and continued strapping her.
Sophie wept quietly, unable to take her eyes off of the torture befalling her baby sister. Ally’s bottom was bright red. It would surely be bruised on the morrow. Sophie stood, wanting to help, but she was paralyzed except for the drops of blood sliding down her legs.
Slap! Slap! Slap!
