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Blair shifted his position slightly in order to adjust the angle, and he delivered two more strokes in rapid succession, this time to her left cheek. He moved again to repeat the treatment on the right side. With every whoosh of the switch through the air, with every harsh, unrelenting slice to her poor, vulnerable buttocks, the agony built. The pain grew, bloomed, then exploded across her scorched flesh.
Roselyn shrieked and cried out, begging, pleading with him to stop. It occurred to her in a more lucid moment as her throat became raw with screeching that he need not have worried unduly about his clansmen knowing that justice was being done, she was announcing that loud and clear. Well, loud certainly.
She had attempted to count the strokes at first but soon abandoned that effort. There was no point, it was immaterial. He would stop if, when, he chose to. Oh, sweet Lord, he might never stop.
Roselyn wept, her shrieks subsiding to agonised moans as the blows continued to rain down on her unprotected bottom.
He paused, and for one glorious moment Roselyn believed it was over. But it was not, he had merely stopped to replace the bundle of switches which he had worn out on her punished flesh. He returned and resumed his attentions with renewed vigour, this time directing most of the whipping against the backs of her thighs. This hurt even more, though she would not have believed it possible. Roselyn was past struggling now, the fight sapping from her as blow after blow set her thighs alight and sizzled across the sensitive skin of her bottom. When he started to concentrate on her lower curves, the very spots where she would sit, she knew she would hurt for days to come.
“Sir, please, I am sorry. So sorry…” Her agonised whimpers were almost inaudible but were the best she could manage. She was utterly spent.
The pain subsided, a brief respite, she knew but she lay still, gasping through her agonised sobs.
“Again, please.” Blair’s tone was gentler now. He seemed to require something of her.
“Sir…?”
“Say it again, please.”
“Say… what?”
“Your apology. I wish to hear your contrition and know that you do truly mean it.”
“I do. I surely do. I am sorry and I beg your forgiveness and that of your people.”
“You have mine, though I cannot speak for others. We are almost done here.”
“Almost? My lord, I beg of you…”
“Now that I have your submission, and your true contrition, you will accept the retribution due for my sister’s life, her family, her unborn bairn. Will you do this, Roselyn? Can you accept your punishment and welcome the release it will bring to you?”
Long moments passed as she lay before him, in pain, scared, almost crushed under the weight of her remorse. Yet one word of his resonated in her head, one word repeated, over and over.Release. He could, would unshackle her from the bitterness of regret. She could move on. He would forgive her, so might his people. And she could, would, forgive herself.
“Yes, sir. I can. I can. Please, I want you to punish me and set me free.”
He laid his palm on her smarting bottom and Roselyn flinched. He squeezed, not hard but enough to drive the pain deep into her body, as though he could caress the heat into her very core.
“Very well, I shall do as you ask. Ten more strokes, this whipping harder than before. You will count, and with every stroke know that your part in this tragedy is absolved.”
Roselyn chewed on her lip and clenched her bound hands. She could do it. Surely, she could bear this. She must.
Blair covered both her hands with his and he squeezed her fingers. “It will be quick, I promise. You have only to count…”
She nodded and closed her eyes tight.Please, let it soon be over.
“One.” Roselyn ground out the number as he resumed the switching. “Again, please.”
“Good girl,” he responded. The next stripe was laid across both buttocks but somehow Roselyn managed not to clench. She could absorb the pain, accept it, and allow it to cleanse her.
“Two, my lord. Three. Four. Five.”
He struck her again and her body trembled under the onslaught. This time she remained silent, her powers of speech deserting her.
“Roselyn?”
“Five,” she murmured soundlessly.
“Nay,” he stated. “That was six. But it may as well be ten for all the good the next four will do. We are finished here.”
