by Fiona Monroe
Some instinct of caution made Catriona bite back the protestation that had sprung to her lips at this outrageous suggestion.
"Aye," said her guardian, seeing her look. "Don't believe for one moment that I won't. I let my mother take the largest part in disciplining Caroline, but I regard you as my particular charge. I've yet to determine whether you're a fit companion for my sister, and your antecedents are not exactly promising."
He had been toying all the while with a key, with which he now locked the bureau, and put up on a high shelf on the bookcase behind him. Catriona watched this, and then her eye fell on the razor strop hanging, as Caroline had described, from a hook on the wall near the desk. A shudder of apprehension ran through her.
Sir Duncan noticed it. He was, she was beginning to realise, a very sharp observer. She had the idea that nothing much got past that dark, glittering eye, however casual and careless his affected manner. A corner of his lip tugged upwards, and to her alarm, he took the razor strop down from its place and flexed it in his hands. "Ever felt the sting of one of these, Miss Dunbar?"
"No, sir." Catriona tried to keep her voice level and proud, but it came out as a whisper.
He brought it down on the wooden arm of the bureau chair with such suddenness, making such a terrific crack, that Catriona jumped in the air and started backwards. He laughed at her fright, and said, "Aye, it can bring even a grown lad to tears. My father set me right with it a few times in his old study, in the keep, before this room was even built. I can answer for it being damn near impossible to sit a horse, at least, for three days, if it is properly applied. I save it, as he did, for serious offences—but a judicious few licks on top of a good hard walloping can serve to remind a naughty young lady of what punishment awaits her if she really crosses the line. So mind you watch your tongue."
Catriona thought it wisest not to argue. She curtseyed and said, "Yes, sir."
But before she left the room, she glanced once again at the bookshelf where the key was. She had already formed a simple yet bold plan to get at her mother's letter, and perhaps find that evidence of her aunt's fate that she had despaired of only an hour before.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The ruler came down across her backside with a sickening crack that seemed to echo throughout the stillness of the night. There was a moment of numbness, a fraction of a second in which she was aware of the gunshot-like noise and the impact of the blow, and then a fierce fiery pain tore through her buttocks. It made her pull in breath like she was drowning, too shocked to cry out, and buck her whole body in an instinctive attempt to escape the sensation.
With a strong grip on her wrists, Sir Duncan wrenched her arms and upper body closer against him and tightened the clamp of his thighs on her legs. "No you don't, my girl," he said, softly, and he struck her again.
This time, the bright white burst of pain was immediate and agonising. Catriona heard a gasp in her own throat and she ground her teeth shut, determined to endure this indignity without giving him the satisfaction of making her cry. Dimly she was aware of a desperate desire not to make any kind of noise that might be overheard by a servant. She was not going to shriek and beg like Caroline, however much it hurt.
The ruler landed again right on top of the last stroke, and then twice more at the peak of her upturned cheeks, each time harder than before. He had her bottom raised high on his knee and her lower body was quite immobilised. She could not even in this position clench her buttocks together to deflect the full force of the blows, a trick she recalled from childhood wallopings.
At the sixth stroke, mercilessly delivered hard and fast onto a bottom that was already ablaze, her control broke like water from a dam. She let out a moan and then a full-throated cry as he hit again and yet again.
Suddenly, it was unendurable. "No!" she cried, her voice choking.
He brought the ruler down for one more deliberate swingeing blow, with the full force of his arm behind it.
Catriona could no longer help a ragged scream tearing from her, and then she started to sob out loud.
But he stopped.
"No?" he said, his tone mocking. "I don't think we've learned our lesson quite yet, Miss Dunbar. I don't think you're entirely sorry for your impertinence and intrusion."
He ran his hand over the white cotton fabric covering her backside, and she tried to get her breath under control. Her bottom was throbbing deep in the muscles and the skin felt blistered and raw, and his touch exacerbated the sting. That he would strike there again felt unreal, appalling, but she would not beg.
She would not.
He raised his arm and before she could brace herself the ruler exploded against her aching cheeks, and then he seemed to go into a frenzy. In contrast to the first few slow and measured strokes, he brought the ruler down again and again with such rapidity and relentless force that she could neither keep count of the blows nor keep hold of any notion of dignity. Within a very few seconds of this she was bawling and shouting, "No! No! Stop! Stop! Please! Please sir! Please stop! It hurts, it hurts! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"
He stopped abruptly, but did not release her.
Catriona slumped forward over his lap, gasping and still crying, dazed. The dreadful blows had stopped, but her backside was on fire. She writhed and wanted to moan with the pain.
"Now you are sorry, my dear," he said with satisfaction. He put his hands on her and eased her off his knee.
Catriona half-knelt on the floor, clutching her aching backside. It shamed her to touch herself in this manner before him, but she could not help it. The skin felt hot through the cotton of her nightgown, and it hurt too much even to rub at it. Her hair was tumbled into her face and strands of it were stuck to her tears.
"On your feet," said Sir Duncan, with a return of sternness in his voice.
Catriona struggled to a standing position.
He was still holding the long, thin ruler with its metal inlays. She thought, incoherently, that it looked small enough to have inflicted such agony, and she eased herself from foot to foot.
"An effective enough instrument of instruction," he said, and put it back into the bureau, crisply. "I thought it was appropriate to the offence. I trust it has cured you of any desire to read my private correspondence in future. Well?"
"Y-yes, sir." The dreadful burning sting simply would not abate. It made her want to wail anew.
"Any repeat of this kind of behaviour, you can expect twice as much, twice as hard, and with no skirt in the way. Just because you're no blood relation, doesn't mean I'll hesitate to bare your backside for a proper thrashing. With a proper instrument."
At this, she lifted her head and followed his gaze to where the razor strop hung on its hook.
"And now you will apologise properly."
"I'm... very sorry, Sir Duncan, that I opened your desk and read your private letters. I... promise I will never do anything like that again." Her voice sounded breathy and hoarse to her own ears.
"Aye. I think we'll just make sure of that. Kneel in front of the chair, and bend forward over it."
"What? No!" She had cried out the words in disbelief and panic before she could think whether they were wise.
Instantly, his face darkened. "Miss Dunbar! You will obey me, or we can have a lesson in obedience, too."
She stumbled forward and sank to her knees in front of the chair. She felt him press his hand down into her back, pushing her into a position whereby she was bending into the leather cushion seat with her throbbing backside tipped slightly upwards and exposed.
His hand left her back, and she twisted round a little to see what he was doing. He was taking the razor strop down from its hook, and tapping it gently against his hand. He stood behind her, legs planted apart.
"Stay in position!" he barked, as he saw her move.
Catriona pressed her forehead against the warm leather seat, and squeezed her eyes shut.
There was no warning, beyond a hiss of leather swishing through the ai
r.
"In future, when I tell you to get in place for your correction you damn well do it and don't argue," he said harshly, just as the strap lashed full across her already-bruised behind.
It was an entirely different kind of pain from the sharp, heavy sting of the ruler. It seemed to blaze across her whole backside, as if he had lashed her with fire. She let out an involuntary scream and tried to rise from the chair, but he anticipated it; he pushed her back down with force, his hand pressing hard into her shoulders.
"Hold still! You'll learn to take your punishment with proper humility, or we can do this all night. Three more licks to give you something to think about, and if you move I'll take it as defiance and start again."
Catriona gripped the arms of the chair, and once again clenched her jaw tight and vowed not to let another sound escape her lips. She took the next lash in determined silence and without moving, breathing heavily through her nose, grasping the armrests so hard that her fingers hurt. She thought that perhaps her bottom was going numb, so that the next stroke too was almost bearable.
Sir Duncan paused, and she heard him shift position. She pressed her cheek into the leather and breathed through her mouth again. Only one more to endure. But the slight numbness was quickly wearing off, and a burning far worse than before was rapidly building up across the whole of each nether cheek.
The final stroke of the razor strop landed not on her backside, but directly across the exposed top of her thighs just below the crease of her buttocks. It hurt more than she could have imagined possible, far more than the same lash on the fleshy cheeks. She howled and jumped up involuntarily, clutching desperately at the injured area.
"What did I say? Back down you go. That one is discounted."
"No! Please, sir, I've learned my lesson." She burst into sobs again. "Please don't hit me again, I truly cannot bear it. It hurts too much."
"Aye, and it's meant to hurt. That's how the lesson gets remembered. Back into position, my girl. You're getting two more now—one for moving, one for arguing. And they're going to be good ones. Help you remember tomorrow, when you sit at breakfast."
She could do nothing else. She fell to her knees again, and bent over the chair, and told herself that it would soon be over.
They were as promised good ones, with all his strength behind them, and both one on top of each other across the top of her thighs. She gripped the armrests and screamed, but she managed to stay in place.
And she stayed still, until he told her in a gentler tone to get up.
She stood before him, head hung, trying to control her weeping, unable to take her hands from her bottom.
"There now," he said. "You won't do that again in a hurry."
"No, sir."
"You may thank me for correcting you."
"Th-thank you, sir."
"Now get back to bed."
Catriona had little memory of stumbling back through the darkened castle back to her room, except that mounting the steep steps of the spiral staircase pulled painfully at the tender muscles in her backside. There was only moonlight in her chamber, and the low remains of the fire; not enough to examine what damage had been done to her poor behind.
She threw herself down on the bed, on her stomach, and wept bitterly for a while. There was no water in the room, no cool flannel to attempt to draw out some of the maddening sting. She rucked up her nightgown to expose her bottom to the cool air, unable now to bear even the light pressure of the cotton fabric over the welts. For a time it felt that the pain was getting worse, and that she would never be able to sleep.
But after a while, the immediate sting subsided to a bearable warm ache, and her thoughts began to torment her instead. As her backside cooled, her face blazed. She was heartily ashamed of herself. What had she been thinking? Creeping through the castle in the middle of the night in her night attire, entering Sir Duncan's private study, and actually reading his private letters? Though that one letter had shown him to be capable of shocking, reprehensible behaviour himself, her own wickedness in reading it seemed a far worse offence. Her mother had taught her far better principles than that, and she had shamed her memory before the very people who had injured her.
Except, they were not the very people who had injured her mother and her aunt. Even if Sir Wallace had been the blackest knave on God's Earth, even if he had really murdered his first wife, Sir Duncan was not answerable for his father's crimes. The only member of the family who might conceivably have had any involvement was the present Dowager, but Catriona did not know whether Lady Buccleuch had even so much as met her predecessor.
She supposed it might be possible to find out whether the present Lady Buccleuch had visited Lochlannan while the first Lady Buccleuch was still alive.
No. She groaned and shifted her legs, and rubbed where it was still sore. She was going to give this up, and stop behaving dishonourably when there could be nothing to gain. Sir Wallace was dead, and so were her aunt and mother; how could disgracing his family name make any kind of amends to anyone?
She would dearly love know what was in the letter from her mother, all the same...
No. Now that it was over and done with, she was almost glad that Sir Duncan had chastised her. She knew quite well that it had been a hiding thoroughly deserved, and though she had been shocked at how much it had hurt, her guilt was quietened by the justice of the punishment. Though she burned anew with humiliation when she remembered being so close across his knee that she could smell the smoke and brandy odour of his clothes, and how his long fingers had stroked her backside rather gently through the cotton of the nightgown, she thought of the bite of the ruler and the blazing sting of the razor strop with a kind of satisfaction. If only she could have held back her cries, and taken it bravely, and not shamed herself by weeping and begging.
She wondered with a shudder how it would feel without the protection of the fabric; how much a blow from the heavy wooden ruler, or worse—the rough, thick strap—would hurt against naked skin. And how she would feel to bare herself before Sir Duncan's mocking gaze, or to lie across his lap with her nether regions all exposed.
To her surprise, as she conjured that image in her mind and thought too of his fingers caressing her bare behind, she felt a different, sudden and powerful sensation; a warm, rushing tingling between her legs, building to a tantalising ache. She put the thought determinedly away, told herself that it would be a shocking and insupportable humiliation to be bared by her cousin, pulled her nightgown back down over her legs and eased herself under the covers.
She slept on her stomach, but she did sleep very deeply and peacefully, and did not awaken until the maid was setting the morning fire.
Catriona was very thankful that Caroline had not witnessed her punishment, as she had been obliged to witness hers. She had hopes, indeed, that nobody else in the household would ever know that Sir Duncan had put her across his knee and reduced her to tears, that her conduct and her just chastisement in the dead of night would remain a secret between them.
As she entered the dining hall for breakfast, all three members of the family were already there. She had walked about the grounds alone in the hour before breakfast, reluctant to encounter anyone, or at least, putting off the inevitable. She could still feel a tingle in her backside even as she walked, although it was no longer acutely painful.
Once the maid had left that morning, she was able at last to examine herself for any lingering signs of the thrashing. She was oddly fascinated to see a mottling of tiny blue bruises all across her backside, which must have been from the blows of the ruler, and the distinct purplish streaks over the buttocks and the tops of her thighs, from the lash of the razor strop. When she touched them with the tips of her fingers, there was still a tenderness there.
She could feel the deep blush mounting her face as she became aware of Sir Duncan's eye on her, and she seated herself firmly in a momentary show of pride. It was not acutely uncomfortable to sit, although she could certainly feel
the effects as the welts on the underside of the crease of her bottom pressed into the hard wooden seat. Perhaps that was why he had taken care to land three particularly severe lashes on precisely that spot, so that she would be reminded of the lesson whenever she sat down the next day.
"Good morning, Miss Dunbar," said Sir Duncan, in a loud, congenial tone. He was draped sideways in his chair as seemed to be his usual attitude, holding a letter up in one hand and eating with the other. "I trust you slept well?"
She observed this in one swift glance, then lowered her eyes. She was sure that Caroline and Lady Buccleuch must see how hot her face was, but neither were paying her much attention. Lady Buccleuch was looking through her own correspondence and Caroline was staring moodily at her kippers and bacon, seeming lost in gloomy contemplation. "Very well, I thank you, sir," she said firmly.
Their eyes met, and it was as if for a moment they were quite alone with the secret.
Catriona immediately felt a rebellious rise of anger. She forgot that she had felt ashamed of her own behaviour, and half-grateful for his punishing it, when she saw the lazy half-smile that claimed possession of that secret.
"Another letter from Ross," he said, turning his attention to his sister. "Unless there's a June snowstorm and the road into the glen becomes impassable, he confirms that he'll arrive some time Monday fortnight. Better have your maid get your best gown ready, sister."
"I am sure I may meet Mr. Ross in any one of my gowns." Caroline's tone was subdued, close to sulky, but Catriona thought there was the tartness of defiance there.
"Indeed you may. I'll warrant he's more interested in what's inside, at any rate."
Caroline made a small noise in her throat, but said nothing to this. Her scowl deepened and her lower lip protruded.
It seemed, Catriona thought, that her lesson the other night had only had a temporary effect. Miss Buccleuch was certainly on the verge of speaking disrespectfully to her brother again, and although Catriona could and did sympathise with her situation, she thought she ought to resist the unwelcome match with greater dignity.