Training Lady Townsend

by Joseph, Annabel

  “Hold your dress up,” he ordered. “Don’t let it go.”

  He took her hips and pushed inside her. She was so tight, so inexpressibly satisfying to conquer. She gave a light, breathless whine as he stretched her open with his thick length. At the same time, he manipulated her most sensitive flesh, trying to bring her the same pleasure he felt. It wasn’t long before she melted against him. He clasped her tight, encircling her in his arms. He tipped her chin back and kissed her, once, twice.

  She didn’t kiss him back. She seemed altogether lost in the moment, which wasn’t a bad thing.

  “Does this feel good?” he asked quietly. “Do you like this?”

  She shook her head, but it wasn’t much of a shake. It was a very weak denial.

  “You mustn’t lie, remember,” he said, sliding a hand down to squeeze her still-heated arse. “If you lie, you’ll have to learn your lesson all over again, and I’m sure you wouldn’t like that. Answer me. Does this feel good?”

  He stroked and teased her little button until she was practically dancing on her toes. “It feels g-good. Yes.”

  That whispered admission resonated through his straining muscles straight to his balls and cock. He was going to bring her to climax, his glacial little dormouse, whether she wished it or not. He drove up inside her, stroking and urging her, using her breaths and shudders to judge how to touch her to bring her to her peak. Here his experience served him, for she was, like all women, easily manipulated with the right touches and the right words. He was slow and patient, studying her reactions and using everything he learned to drive her pleasure higher.

  When she stiffened against his front, gripping his cock and gasping in the throes of satisfaction, he let out a groan and bucked into her, filling her with his seed. She pressed her hands against the wall as her tight sheath milked him of every last drop. He held her close, reveling in her beautiful surrender. Her skirts stayed bunched between them as he thrust into her with one last surge. Ahh…

  A successful punishment session, this, for more reasons than one.

  He stepped away from his wife and let her skirts fall back to her ankles. She stayed facing the wall as he straightened himself and refastened his breeches. That finished, he turned her about, and used a thumb to force her gaze to his.

  She looked confused, flustered, and utterly devastated.

  “You would have learned how at some point,” he said, stroking his thumb across her cheek. “I would have taught you, little grasshopper, whether you wanted to learn or not.”

  She stared at him a long moment, then turned her face away. “I am not an insect.”

  “But you are a woman, aren’t you? A woman with desires and feelings, as much as you endeavor to deny that fact.” He released her and walked toward the door. “I expect you downstairs at the dining table within ten minutes time, Aurelia. I am positively starved.”

  Chapter Seven: Dinner

  Her husband stood from his seat at the head of the table when she arrived. Aurelia crossed to her place at his right, feeling the weight of his dark gaze as if he touched her with his very hands. She wondered if any of the servants had heard her screaming earlier. She felt that all of them must know of her shame, but one person certainly knew, and that was Lord Townsend.

  She nodded at him as she took her seat. He murmured a greeting in return and watched her shift helplessly, trying to find a comfortable way to sit. Her bottom ached. There was nothing for it. At least he’d given her time to compose her appearance—and her scattered thoughts—before the meal commenced.

  Aurelia was certain her lady’s maid had heard her screaming, but the old woman pretended she hadn’t, as any experienced servant should. Aurelia was glad. She didn’t want to talk to anyone about what had happened, not yet. She was still coming to terms with her husband’s actions afterward, and her own body’s traitorous display. The things he had made her feel, both good and bad, defied understanding.

  As the servants began the choreographed niceties of the dinner service, she slid a glance at him. He watched her with a studious expression, his lips drawn down in a frown. She was grateful for the food set before her, because it gave her something to do besides make conversation.

  Because what on earth was there to say?

  “Have you found Townsend House a comfortable home?” he asked abruptly in the silence. “I mean to ask, are your rooms all they could be? Do the servants meet your needs?”

  She paused, fork in hand. “Admirably, my lord.”

  He made a soft sound. “Will you call me Hunter, damn you? There’s no one else here.”

  “Will you refrain from cursing at me, Hunter?” she replied with as much heat as she dared. If she angered him again, she wasn’t sure her backside could endure the result. She speared a sauced potato and chewed it woodenly.

  Her husband wasn’t angry. In fact, he seemed amused. “I like when you’re not such a mouse. Yes, I’ll try to stop cursing at you.”

  “And using indecent language. It’s very lowering. I’m certain you wish to be thought a respectable gentleman.”

  “Like your father?”

  She clamped her lips shut, not wishing to enter into a spat. In her peripheral vision she could see Lord Townsend’s mouth curve up in a faint smile. Now and again he made some unobtrusive gesture that brought a footman running to deliver this and that. She sat very straight in her chair and tried to dine as elegantly as he did, but he had some power, some size of presence she lacked. It didn’t help that her bottom ached, and that she burned with embarrassment over the way he’d handled her. Those same fingers that beckoned the servants had been thrust up inside her—and her body had welcomed it.

  She almost choked, remembering the humiliation. He glanced at her. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded, even though she was not all right.

  “Do you wonder where I’ve been these past few nights?” he asked.

  She pretended not to hear the question as she placed her silverware atop her plate. “I believe I have finished. May I be excused?”

  “No.”

  She drew in a deep breath and let it out. Yes, she had wondered where he was, but she didn’t really want to know. She didn’t want to be taunted with his extramarital adventures. “I’m sure it’s none of my business where you were.”

  “Oh, but it is your business.” He put down his silverware too and took a great drink of wine. “You remember that you gave me permission to seek companionship outside our marriage?”

  She nodded, swallowing hard.

  “I had intended to do it discreetly, for your honor, but your father has denied me such...dalliances.”

  She stared at him. “Denied you? How?” She imagined her father standing at the door of some house of ill-repute, barring her husband’s way.

  He drank more wine, tilting his head back before he swallowed it. “He has convinced every madam and courtesan in London that it behooves them to turn me away.” He lifted his glass to her, as if in a toast. “I am therefore obliged to be scrupulously faithful, whether I wish it or not.”

  “It was none of my doing. If my father has done this—”

  “Your father did it,” he said, cutting her off. “And I don’t blame you, my dear, but I find myself in an untenable situation. Thanks to your father’s interference, there is only one female available to cater to my vulgar appetite for pleasure, and that female is you.”

  Aurelia felt hot and cold and...flabbergasted. “Well, I have allowed you to my bed, haven’t I? I’ll do my wifely duty whenever you insist upon it.”

  “Ah, your ‘wifely duty.’ And grudgingly too,” he mocked, raising his dark brows. “Any man would feel himself replete. No, I’m speaking of more than wifely duty. Surely you realize there is an entire world of pleasures to be explored outside the banality of the marital act.”

  She wished she could disappear, she truly did. “I’m afraid I do not realize, my lord. I am very sorry that we do not share the same moral inclinations a
nd desire for indecent pleasures. I am very sorry that we are trapped in this marriage, but I don’t know what you wish me to do.”

  He leaned closer, and waited until she dragged her gaze to his. “I wish you to change, Aurelia. I wish you to agree to satisfy me in whatever ways I desire, no matter the state of your ‘moral inclinations.’ In light of the servants milling about, I’ll not describe the finer points of my requirements.”

  Amidst the outraged shock, a frisson of fear curled in her belly. “What you suggest would be impossible. Even if I agreed to...to satisfy you in whatever ‘vulgar’ ways you are talking about, I would not know how.”

  “You can learn.” His voice tautened with the straightening of his broad shoulders. “Let me rephrase that. You will learn.”

  The frisson uncoiled into full-blown anxiety. Surely he could not require her to behave as a woman of the night and participate in bizarre, carnal acts for his pleasure? Whatever those women did for their customers, it was nothing a well-bred lady would ever do.

  “You ask the impossible.”

  He steepled his fingers, studying her. “Yes, I thought the same thing. That is, until this evening, upstairs.”

  “I do not wish to speak about that,” she said quickly.

  “Oh, we’re going to speak about all manner of things going forward, such as the fact that you don’t really have the right—or power—to deny me this request.”

  He called it a request, but it was a demand, one no civilized husband would set forth. There was no room to be a mouse here. She had to stand up to him or sacrifice her long-held virtue. She lifted her chin. “And if I refuse to submit to such outrageous and immoral expectations?”

  “Then you shall be spanked nightly until you realize that submission is a far less painful choice.”

  She stared at her plate. The filigree design blurred as she tried to control her emotions. She couldn’t believe they were having this conversation, that he would demand such things of her, his own wife. “You’re a monster.”

  “I’m a man. I’m your husband, which gives me certain rights. Whether they are monstrous, well, that is a matter of opinion.”

  “When my father finds out—”

  He gave a sharp bark of laughter. “You’ll never tell your father the result of his ill-thought-out meddling. You would expire of shame and embarrassment before you uttered the first word.”

  “I’ll tell my brother then. He’s not so lofty as Papa. He’ll listen to me and he’ll not allow you to shame his sister in this way.”

  Hunter shrugged. “Of course you can tell Severin, but then he’d be honor bound to call me out. We’d have to meet at dawn with our pistols, and I could very well end up killing him. His wife is pregnant, isn’t she? It would not be well done of you, I’m afraid to say.”

  Aurelia closed her eyes against the image of Brendan lying shot and bleeding in the morning’s dim light. “Or my brother might kill you,” she said, to chase away the thought. “He might prevail, setting me free from this horrible marriage.”

  But as she said it, she pictured Lord Townsend lying dead on her behalf and wished she could take the words back. She hated him, but she couldn’t wish him dead. In truth, she didn’t even hate him. She disliked him. No, she didn’t even dislike him, not fully.

  She didn’t know how to feel about him.

  She didn’t know how to feel at all.

  Oh, why was everything in such a muddle? Her feelings, her marriage, her entire life? Townsend would have let her be if her father hadn’t interfered, she was sure of it. Everyone called her father Laudable Lansing because he was so upright, and so was she.

  But perhaps it was not the best way to be in a marriage. She had no warmth, no sensual qualities. She knew it, but she didn’t know how to develop those qualities for a man she barely knew. She was so sheltered, so hopeless in the ways of the world that she didn’t even understand what acts he might want her to do.

  What a hopeless situation. No wonder they were both angry, and sad.

  “I don’t want there to be a duel,” she said, covering her face with her hands. “And I don’t want you to suffer for marrying me. I know you’re disappointed in me, that I’ve never learned to be exciting and licentious in the way you would like. Take me back to my father if you wish. Marry someone else.”

  “You know I can’t do that. And I don’t want anyone else. Aurelia, come here.”

  She stared at him, at his outstretched arms. His tone and stance had softened, but his eyes looked so sharp, so direct. There was nothing to do but obey his command. She stood and moved to him, accepting his embrace when he gathered her close against his side. She was coming to know the feel of his body, as well as the layers of his scent: shaving soap, leather, and sandalwood. She stared at his lips, mere inches from hers. They were wide and full, and—she was coming to learn—quite expressive of his moods.

  “I’m not taking you back to your father,” he said with resolute emphasis. “Ever. So you might as well put that idea out of your mind. We must find a way to rub along together.”

  “But I don’t wish you to spank me every night.” Don’t cry. Don’t cry, Aurelia. “And I don’t want to learn to do...unnatural things.”

  “Why ‘unnatural’? Because you’ve been taught they’re wrong? I find them quite natural, not to mention necessary to my contentment.” His dark eyes held hers as his hand traveled up and down her back. “There are many wives who feel the same, although they’d never admit it. There are countless women who find pleasure in having ‘unnatural’ things done to them. You were one of them, not even an hour ago.” His hand stopped upon the curve of her still-sore bottom. “Will you disappoint me by denying it?”

  She clung to him, hiding her face against his hair. “You made that happen. You caused me to feel those things. It was your fault.”

  She thought she might anger him to say so, but instead he chuckled low against her ear. “If it makes you feel better to believe that, I will hold my peace. But we both know the truth.” He squeezed her bottom in such a rough, possessive way that she began to feel the same confusing excitement she’d felt up in the room before. He grinned at her as if he knew it. “I’ll keep your secrets, if you will keep mine.”

  “Oh, please,” she said, wringing her hands. She was so afraid of everyone knowing, of people seeing the improprieties he forced upon her like some new blush on her skin. He scrutinized her, one dark brow arching up.

  “Is that what you fear? That people will discover the peculiarities of our marital bed, and judge you for it? The secrecy of such play is the most delicious part. Imagine meeting my eyes across the length of some dinner party or some ballroom, and seeing writ there the memory of our salacious adventures, our intimate, sweat-slickened hours.”

  Aurelia cringed. She didn’t like to sweat. She didn’t believe she’d so much as uttered the word “sweat” her entire life. “We are so different,” she said mournfully.

  “Yes. And I am selfishly demanding that you make me happy. But it can go both ways, can’t it? What can I do for you? What is lacking in your life, in this marriage, that would make you happy?”

  Lord Warren, she thought, but she didn’t dare say it. “I don’t know,” she said aloud. “I suppose I would like to live a peaceful, safe existence. I would like a family. Children.” She considered her husband, trying to picture him as a doting father. She could not quite accomplish the task.

  “I’ll give you children, as many as you want,” he assured her. “That goes without saying. You’ll have a home and safety the rest of your life. But there must be something more, something frivolous you would enjoy.”

  She thought hard, but for the life of her could think of nothing. “I have never been very interested in frivolities.”

  “You haven’t been interested, or they’ve been denied you?” His face took on that dark look again. “In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never heard the sound of your laughter. I’ve never seen a true smile.” As he said
this, he brought his hand down beside his plate in such a way that his fork launched into the air, landing with a dull thunk against his forehead.

  A bark of laughter escaped her like a pistol shot. She clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle it as the utensil slid down the front of his embroidered dinner coat to settle in his lap.

  He regarded her in mock reproach as he waved away a footman and mopped his forehead. “If that was supposed to be laughter, Aurelia, you’re making a very poor show of it. It sounds more like this.”

  He threw back his head and laughed with such good-natured vigor she couldn’t help laughing too, though her giggles sounded soft and weak compared to his. He nodded. “That’s a little better.”

  How strange, the way his face transformed when he smiled, so he looked handsome rather than dire or threatening. In fact, just at this moment, he regarded her the way a loving husband might dote on his wife. It created powerful, alarming feelings inside her.

  “What would you like from me, little grasshopper, in exchange for your forced cooperation?” he asked, pulling her right into his lap.

  She blinked at the easy, casual way he held her, and primly rearranged her skirts where they’d ridden up. “I don’t know what to ask for. I suppose I am very spoiled by anyone’s standards. I’ve always had everything I needed.”

  “If you think of anything, let me know. You may find this difficult to believe, but I mean you no harm. I would like for both of us to be happy in this marriage, particularly if it’s to include just us two. Perhaps if we try, we can find some way to assuage the tensions in our relationship.”

  She knew he was extending an olive branch. If only she was brave enough to accept it. “I fear you will be disappointed,” she said, holding herself stiffly. “I can only be as I am.”

  He stroked light fingertips across her cheek. “I wonder if there’s more to Aurelia, the Marchioness of Townsend, than you yet realize. My darling, don’t be afraid of me. I want you to be happy. If you want safety, I swear I’ll keep you safe.”