AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Warren scowled at him. “You’re supposed to be on my side, you bastard.”
“I would have been on your side a year ago, but marriage changes things. Which I imagine you already know.” He shrugged. “At any rate, I’m sorry I didn’t realize sooner that Lady Warren was hiding at Townsend House. Aurelia will know better than to go along with such a scheme next time.”
“Go easy on her,” Warren said, studying his friend’s determined expression. “She only meant to help my wife.”
“Will you go easy on Lady Warren then? And Minette?”
He thought a moment. “No. I suppose I won’t.”
Townsend clapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll let you get to your business, then, and I’ll get to mine, so the lot of us can move on.” He paused to receive his hat and gloves from the butler outside the drawing room door. “You know, I’m glad I’m not the only married one of us anymore. How did August and Arlington react to the news? Were they alight with congratulations?”
“More like scorn,” said Warren. “I think August was angry.”
“That’s because he sees his own marriage heading down the line. Well, I’ll see you tonight. I’m looking forward to the ball, even if Lady Warren isn’t. Perhaps I’ll even dance with my wife.”
“Scandalous. I hope you do. It will give the guests something to gossip about besides my farce of a marriage.”
Townsend tipped his hat with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Sometimes marriages that begin as farces develop into rewarding unions. Give it some time, my friend. Give it some time.”
Chapter Twelve: Punished
Josephine sat trembling, hands clasped in her lap, outside her husband’s study. The measured smacking noises within, and Minette’s yelps of entreaty, did nothing whatsoever to soothe her nerves. Josephine might have crept off and hidden, if not for the footmen stationed at the end of the hall.
She was glad she had no choice to escape. She deserved to be punished. She only hated that Minette must be punished also for something that was entirely her own fault.
After ten sound smacks, Minette burst out of the study, tearful and red-faced.
“I’m glad you’re married to him and not me,” she said to Josephine. “He’s a horrible, heartless man.”
Lord Warren appeared at the door, and Minette took herself off, muttering about tyrannical older brothers while rubbing her bottom through her skirts. Josephine looked up at him, feeling deep remorse and a quailing sense of dread. Why on earth had she tried to run away? Even if it had worked and she got to miss the ball, her husband would have killed her when she came home afterward. Somehow, in her panic, that hadn’t occurred to her.
But now it did. She could guess from his taut stance, from the forbidding look on his face, that she was in for a much more difficult ordeal than Minette. His lips were tight, pursed in a stern line. He didn’t even speak to her, only motioned her into the study to meet her fate.
He paused after he closed the door, crossed his arms over his chest and looked at her. “Well, Josephine. What have you to say for yourself?” he asked in a deceptively pleasant tone.
She didn’t know. She didn’t know what she had to say for herself, or what he wanted to hear. Her eyes darted to the large, polished surface of his desk. It was utterly bare, except for the short, thick strap that lay across it. She wrapped her arms around herself and stood with her knees pressed together beneath her skirts.
“I apologize,” she finally managed. “I am so very sorry for my foolish behavior. I—I don’t know what else to say.”
“Oh, well. In that case, I have plenty to say for both of us.” His previously pleasant voice took on a biting edge. Oh, this was going to be worse, even worse than she thought. “Do I have it in the right, that you prevailed upon Minette to secret you away from here, and help you hide at the Townsend household until after the ball?”
“Yes, my lord,” she said, trying to sound appropriately abject. “I asked Minette for help.”
“And caused her to be punished also. You left this house without a word to anyone, throwing lives into an uproar, causing my friends and my servants to search for you all night when they might have been resting in their beds. You involved the Townsends in your scheme, thereby creating anger and tension between Lord Townsend and his wife. You’ve embarrassed and insulted me by running away like some abused waif because I expected you to attend a goddamned ball. Is that the long and short of it?”
“Well, the thing is—”
“Is that correct?” he interrupted with unnerving emphasis. “Yes, or no?”
“I told you I didn’t want to have a ball. You knew how I felt, but you wouldn’t listen. What was I to do?”
“What were you to do, my darling? The answer to that is simple. You were to put on your goddamned ball gown, smile at our goddamned guests, and dance a time or two, as any normal English female might do.”
His insinuation came through loud and clear, that she wasn’t normal. Didn’t he understand that was exactly why the idea of this ball made her run away?
“You won’t listen,” she said, wringing her hands. “You won’t listen to me. You don’t care.”
“Don’t I?” He had seemed somewhat calm when he first admitted her to his study, but no longer. The volume of his words rose with each syllable as he stalked back and forth. “Do you have any idea the tormented thoughts that ran through my head while you were gone? I feared you had been abducted, or ravished. I feared you were hurt or lost somewhere. I thought a thousand terrifying things. Does that sound like I don’t care? Have you any idea how anxious I felt when you turned up missing?”
The harsh emotion in his voice scared her almost as much as the thick, black strap. “I only planned to stay away until the ball was over, you see. I would have come back.”
“Damned right you would have come back.” His exclamation made her jump. She backed up as he walked toward her. “You’re a married woman and your place is with your husband. I arranged that ball in our honor, for your well-being, to secure your place in society and discourage careless talk. I’m trying to fix things, while you’re doing everything in your power to make things worse. It’s as if you want to marginalize us. It’s as if you want to ensure I’m forever apologizing for you in polite company.” He stopped nose to nose with her. “Did you even think about how it would have looked to everyone when you weren’t there?”
“I don’t care,” she said in a high voice. “Don’t you understand? I don’t care how it looks to everyone. I don’t care what people think of me.”
“I care!” His thunderous reply echoed off the walls. “I understand that you don’t care. You’ve told me that lie enough times, damn you, but what about me? I care, as you very well know! You’re my wife. You belong at my side, supporting me, bringing honor to my name. It’s not your job to embarrass me in front of hundreds of guests because you don’t care.”
He was furious. Her smiling, easy-going husband had been transformed—by her folly—into a very wrathful man.
“I understand that I shouldn’t have done it.” She spilled out apologies, only wanting to mollify him. “It was weak of me, and selfish, you’re perfectly right. Please, don’t hurt me. Don’t punish me. I won’t ever do such a thing again.” She swallowed hard, knowing from his expression that her pleas were in vain.
“I wish I could trust your words, but I don’t.” He gave her a hard look. “I punished you at Lord Baxter’s for sneaking off behind his back, and now you’ve done it again. You did what you wished, not sparing a thought for anyone else’s feelings, and embroiled my friends—even my own sister—in
your scheme. Such actions call for a very harsh consequence, because I’ll be damned if I have to punish you for this on a third occasion.”
She’d lost count of the times he’d cursed at her, and now he was going to punish her harshly, which she surely deserved. Oh, how she wished she could dispute his accusations, but all of them were true. She should never have hidden away and frightened everyone. She hated herself for her cowardice, more than he knew. To explain her past to him, to explain the reasons she did so, might spare her some of his anger. It might even spare her this punishment, but she couldn’t bear to speak of the bleak experiences that had made her into the coward she was.
He paused, as if he too wanted her to explain these awful shortcomings in herself, but she could not. With a sigh, he walked toward the desk. “Up to this point, I’ve only spanked you to calm you down, to refocus your attitude, or to address minor trespasses. This will be a severe punishment spanking and it will hurt considerably worse. Come here, Josephine.”
Her insides wrenched and turned over. She felt like she might empty her stomach as she plodded to the desk. She eyed the stout, weathered strap resting on top, affixed at one end with a sturdy handle, marking it as a tool of punishment for despicable miscreants such as herself. “The finest English leather,” he said, as he noted her studying it. “For correcting regrettable mistakes. You will bend over the desk and raise your skirts, please.”
She could not move. She could not imagine doing something so far outside the bounds of common sense. His temper seemed to have peaked over the course of his scathing lecture. Now there was only this frightening, detached authority.
“Of course, any resistance or refusal to accept your punishment will only make things worse,” he said. “Bend over and raise your skirts. I won’t repeat it again.”
She stepped to the edge of the desk and folded herself over the top. It was precisely the right height for such a use. The rounded edge of the wood supported her hips, and her feet had firm contact with the floor. She reached to her sides and drew up the skirts of her gown. A humiliated flush flooded her cheeks and heated her ears and neck. Her whole body trembled, anticipating the pain to come. The strap appeared pliable and worn, a prodigious punishment instrument.
