His Spoilt Lady

by Vanessa Brooks

  Terrified, Linnett drew back under the deep shade of the tree. She saw Will frantically trying to swim across the fast flowing water, but the bear dropped to all four paws and waded in after him. Linnett moaned in fear for Will, pressing her hand to her mouth to stifle the sound. The bear walked easily against the swirling currant, the fast flowing waters parting either side of the huge body, its sheer size anchoring it to the river floor. The bear reached out one huge paw and scooped Will up into its arms, bending its massive head and jaws towards him. Linnett fainted.

  John heard the horrible noise and made his way carefully towards it, watching in helpless horror as Will was attacked by the bear. There was nothing he could do to save the man; he was just too far away across the river. John’s fearful concern was focused on finding Linnett, but where on earth was she? He made his way along the riverside, trying to keep himself hidden from the bear, who was, however, occupied enough with catching hold of Will. John was careful all the same.

  Finally, John stumbled across Linnett folded in a heap under a tree, and for one devastating second, he thought she was dead. As quietly as possible, he lifted her into his arms and carried her back to the clearing and his horse. Cradling Linnett, he found mounting up was difficult, but finally, he was astride the horse with Linnett secured to him. Ned would have to remain unburied; they had to leave now. Linnett came to, feeling groggy and nauseated. Quietly, she turned her face to John’s shoulder and wept.

  They stopped to rest briefly, mainly so that John’s horse could recover from carrying them both. Linnett clung to John, weeping piteously for much of the time. As darkness began to fall, John reined in and handed Linnett down to the ground. They silently searched for wood to make a fire, and John saw to the horse’s needs. John rolled out the blankets and put water on the fire to boil for coffee. They ate the last of the bread that John was carrying.

  Linnett, exhausted, fell asleep rolled up in a blanket within seconds of lying down. John watched his young wife sleeping and then he contemplated the dark, star-lit sky. Sleep seemed a remote possibility; his stomach was knotted with a deep, burning anger at his wife’s repeated foolishness. At last he fell into a fretful sleep, punctuated by horrific nightmares, all involving Linnett facing some terrible danger from which he failed to rescue her.

  Exhausted and hungry, they rode into the farm late the following day. Hans was outside the barn when he noticed the tired trio riding towards him, the gallant horse’s head hanging low with thirst and exhaustion. When they drew level with him, John lowered Linnett to the ground, but Hans made no move towards her. He stood regarding her from under a stern brow. Linnett was unsure of how to approach him; it was obvious that he was very upset with her. Linnett stood still, chewing her bottom lip indecisively. John dismounted and went over to Hans.

  “Hans, how is Peter?” he asked immediately. Hans glanced at John and reached out to take the horse’s reins from him. “He is much improved but it will be a while before he can walk again. I see that you found your wife.” Linnett flushed at the tone of voice and spoke to him falteringly, “Hans, please understand that I did not ask Peter to come with me…I wasn’t even aware that he had followed me, not until John told me. We too have had the most terrible time.”

  Hans looked incredulously at her. “You really are a most self-centred creature, Mrs. Foster.” Hans looked as if he would like to say more, but after muttering something in Dutch, he turned and led the horse away.

  John barely glanced at Linnett. “Wait here,” he instructed curtly, striding after Hans. The two men spoke intently together for a while. Linnett strained her ears, but they spoke too quietly for her to hear what was said. Finally, they both turned and looked at her, then Hans slapped John on the back and walked off to stable the horse. John walked back to where Linnett stood waiting.

  “What was that all about?” she asked him anxiously.

  “I was explaining about Penny,” John told her, taking hold of her arm and leading her into the barn.

  “What are you doing?” she asked in surprise. “I am tired and I want to go to bed now. Oh, surely Hans won’t make us sleep outside in the barn because of this misunderstanding, John?”

  John didn’t reply but pulled the door shut behind them and dropped the wooden bar across to lock them in. Linnett watched him, baffled. When John turned to face her, his face was so stern and forbidding that an uneasy apprehension began to fill her. He spoke brusquely and to the point.

  “Linnett, you have caused a huge amount of suffering these past few days. I wonder if you have any idea of the anguish you have put me and Hans through. A man and a horse are dead because of you, and a small boy nearly died. The son, I might add, of the very people who saved our lives!”

  John stopped speaking for a moment and turned away from her, shrugging off his coat. Linnett watched in astonishment as next, he rolled up his sleeves. When he started to unbuckle his belt, an anxious chill swept through her and she slowly backed away from him.

  “John, what are you doing?” she asked, her voice quavering. “You do know that I am truly, truly sorry about everything that has happened, and you must know that I intended no harm, especially to young Peter!”

  John sighed heavily. “Yes, I am sure in your own way that you are sorry, but, Linnett, you have to learn to take responsibility for your actions, and you have to learn how to acquit yourself. You must think before you act so rashly, putting yourself and others in danger, and last, but certainly not least, you must to learn to obey me, your husband!”

  Linnett was indignant. “This is absurd. I have obeyed you! When I left here, it was to find you! How can you blame me for what other people choose to do? I didn’t ask Peter to follow me.”

  John snorted and his words cut sharply across Linnett’s outburst. “Linnett, I do not intend to stand here arguing the case with you. Tell me, what was the last thing I told you to do before I set off to look for Penny?”

  John frowned as he noticed his wife trying to edge her way towards the barn door. “Linnett,” John barked, “stand still and answer me, madam! What did I tell you?” His voice was cold with steely resolve.

  Linnett stammered, “I...I....look ...John, I didn’t leave the camp. I just went to fetch water for the journey! This is absolutely ridiculous. You are treating me just like a child, and I insist you stop this scolding – you are frightening me, John, and I am after all your wife! “

  “Yes, miss, you are indeed my wife, and as such, I have every right to punish you as I see fit, and I fully intend you to remember that fact from this moment on!” John lopped his belt through the buckled end and slipped his hand into the loop. Crooking his finger he beckoned to her. “Come here.”

  The line of the belt rippled in his hand, swotting nastily against the leather of his boot. Linnett blanched. “John, you are not serious. I do not believe you would beat me. You cannot!”

  A cold shudder ran through her as she noted the unyielding set to her husband’s face. Incredulously, she realised he meant to do just that, John intended to beat her! Linnett knew that the law stated that a man could beat his wife and daughters, providing he used something no thicker than the thickness of his thumb to carry the punishment out. A belt was considered a perfectly acceptable instrument for such a purpose. Linnett blanched further, pivoted and made a dash towards the barn door.

  John strode grimly after her. While she struggled fruitlessly with the heavy bar across the door, he grasped her around the waist and swung her off her feet. In vain, she kicked and bucked against him, but John hauled her over to a pile of hay and threw her down. He stood over her, his eyes narrowed to steely slits, his face set and his gaze pitiless.

  “Damnit, I warned you that I would take my belt to you if you left the camp, and yet you dared to defy me again!” he shouted. “It has become a habit for you to ignore my instructions and I intend to remedy that. Roll over onto your stomach!”

  Linnett, who had no intention of submitting to such callous treatment,
started to scramble away on all fours. John grabbed one of her legs; Linnett fought him like a wildcat and managed, by twisting her head round, to sink her teeth hard into his forearm. John let out a harsh bellow of pain. “Right, that does it, and by God you deserve this lesson, my girl.”

  Despite Linnett’s desperate struggles, John flipped her over so that she lay face down in the hay .With his hand square in the middle of the back of her neck, he held her fast. As he took in the sight of her bucking posterior, clothed in his own breeches no less, his rage intensified. How dare she gallivant around the country showing off her body to any man who cared to look! Damnit, no wonder she was almost raped! He laid the belt aside and grabbed the offending garments, yanking them down to her knees to leave her buttocks bare.

  Linnett immediately swung around and sat up, hurling abuse at him, using every expletive she knew and even a few she did not, gleaned from sailor curses aboard the ship. Her swearing did not help her case and merely galvanised John into furious determination. Taking a firm hold of the belt and undeterred by her struggles, he grabbed her arm. Twisting her ignominiously onto her stomach and wrenching her arm up her back, he held her in an inexorable grip. The first painful lash across her bottom was such a shock she opened and closed her mouth in a silent scream, but roused by the pain into defiant action, she kicked and bucked. John, unrelenting, held her fast.

  He flogged her with a ruthless resolve. As each stinging stroke found its mark, she screeched and wailed, alternately begging him to stop and then screaming abuse at him. Had she remained silent, John would have stopped after only a few strokes, but her continuous abuse only served to make him more and more livid and more determined to punish her thoroughly. Relentlessly, he brought his belt down again and again across her backside, impervious to her cries, until her bottom was criss-crossed with crimson stripes and burned with a furnace heat.

  When at last John released her, he drew back, breathing heavily. “Perhaps now, madam, you will reconsider before recklessly defying me in future.”

  Linnett rolled away from him, her rounded bottom flaming. “You b.. bastard!” she spluttered. “I h..hate you! You said you l..loved me! How could you possibly treat me this way if you loved me! W..well I hate you! I h-hate you, do you h-hear!” Linnett shrieked and sobbed, her tear-streaked face glaring furiously up at him.

  John’s eyes narrowed dangerously, his lip twitched. “Why, darlin’,” he drawled with tender malice, “I love you with all my heart and soul. In fact I’ve a mind t’ show you just how much I love you.”

  He advanced purposely towards her. Linnett frantically tried to stand upright, but hampered by the breeches around her knees, she fell backwards onto the straw. She had no idea of the provocative picture she posed, with her hair in tumbling disarray and her clothing revealing far more than it covered. Her swelling cleavage was revealed by the gaping shirt ,and her shapely limbs were sprawled upon the bed of hay.

  John, fully aroused by the sight she presented, strode over, throwing himself down beside her. She cringed away from him, trying to roll out of his reach, but John held her still by winding his hand tight in the loose cascade of her hair and pulling her unceremoniously against his chest, his arm clamped tight around her. His mouth found hers, silencing her protests with a harsh, demanding kiss. His tongue raked the soft inner flesh of her mouth. Breaking the kiss, he lifted his head his gaze, meeting her tear-flooded eyes. He spoke in deep and deadly tones, “You are my wife, Linnett. It’s time you accepted that fact. Learn to know me as your husband.”

  John reached down and wrenched the breeches from her ankles, ignoring her shriek of pure rage and clawing hands. He administered a couple of hard slaps to her scalding posterior before he grabbed her knees and pushed her legs apart, yanking her spread-eagled body down towards him. Kneeling forward, his heavy weight subduing her resistance, he penetrated her, impaling her with a savage thrust that made her gasp and cry out. Always in the past, John had considered her needs and pleasure before his own. This time, Linnett realised, with a frisson of fear, was to be very different. This time he meant her to know her master, and some deep and primeval need within her gloried in his rough possession, even as she fought against him.

  John pressed her down hard against the scratching hay, ramming into her with an unrelenting force. Sliding his hands beneath her, ignoring her whimper of pain as he clutched her smarting buttocks, he raised them up to meet the full force of his thrusts. “I will tame you, madam!” He glared down into her eyes. “Make no mistake, Linnett, you have met your match . . . your master . . . and you will know me as such!”

  John’s voice was a hoarse growl in her ear, his teeth grazed her neck, and his body demanded her surrender. Linnett whimpered, and her hands clutched his shoulders at first, clawing and then sliding down his back, digging her fingers into his taut buttocks. Then, as he rode her hard, she was with him, her hips rising and falling involuntarily with the rhythm of his onslaught.

  His deep, hammering thrusts forced her suddenly to the edge of a shattering and surrendering climax. “Oh, oh, ahhhh... John!” She groaned out the words in quivering ecstasy. “Yes, yes…. oh yes!”

  With deep satisfaction, he heard her cry of supplication; John continued to pound against her yielding flesh, frenziedly thrusting deep within her, riding her and using her unremittingly. Moving his hand over her full breasts, his fingers roughly branded them as his own. Finally, he arched against her and convulsed in the surging release of ultimate rapture. Then they were still, their laboured breathing slowing to a normal pace. John raised himself onto his elbows and smoothed the tangle of thick honey hair away from Linnett’s hot, flushed face.

  He grazed her lips with his, and looking deeply into her smoky green eyes, he asked her softly, “Do you know me now?”

  Linnett nodded hesitantly, understanding what it was he was asking of her.

  “Tell me,” he commanded her, and she said, breathlessly, “Yes... husband... I know you.”

  Her mate... her... match...her master.

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