Humbling His Bride

by Loki Renard

  “Truly? Rumor had it that you had failed the choosing.”

  “Failed the choosing?” Lydia laughed. “Oh, I was chosen.”

  “By whom?”

  “By Tristan Kane.”

  Esme’s eyes flashed with some indistinguishable but probably unpleasant emotion. “You mean to say the president took you and is keeping you, not in the palace, but in a cottage in the countryside?”

  “I wish I was being held in the palace,” Lydia sighed. “Even the darkest dungeon would probably be better appointed than the hovel in which I live. There is no machinery that far out.”

  “No machinery? How do you survive?”

  “With great difficulty,” Lydia jested. “Tell me you have a spare cigar or cigarette I can take back with me.”

  “Of course,” Esme laughed. “Don’t tell me you haven’t been allowed cigarettes?”

  “I’ve barely been allowed anything,” Lydia said, feeling a little guilty as she complained, but not so guilty she stopped. “The president is so demanding!” She rather enjoyed dropping the title ‘president’ into conversation by way of making it clear that she was now the first lady of New Paris. There had been no fanfare on the subject, but it was true nevertheless.

  “Well, being his love slave probably is demanding,” Esme smirked.

  “Wife,” Lydia corrected.

  “You’re not married. There’s been no announcement. No ceremony. Not even a tatty old ring,” Esme pointed out. “You’re no more his wife than this cake is.” She reached out to a large plate of cake that sat at her elbow, pushed a generous helping of gateaux into her mouth, and smirked broadly around it.

  “Formalities,” Lydia sniffed.

  “Besides, he won’t be president long. The resistance is growing stronger by the day. They…” Esme stopped herself and cast a suspicious look at Lydia. “I shouldn’t speak of such things around you. You are sleeping with the enemy now.”

  Lydia really wasn’t sure why she’d bothered to visit Esme; the woman’s unpleasantness knew very few bounds. She didn’t converse; she hurled barbed words. Lydia wasn’t sure if it was the effects of the cigarette, the pricking of guilt, or some other intuition, but she felt very strongly that it would be for the best if she were to leave Esme’s house at once.

  “Well,” Lydia said. “I must be getting home. Do you mind if I take a few cigarettes with me?”

  “Of course not, take a box,” Esme said, pleased to share her largesse with a pitiful figure. “You have nothing to your name anymore, poor thing. Take two boxes.”

  Lydia helped herself to three boxes, bade farewell to Esme, and scampered back to the car—which threw a rather large spanner in the mechanics of her grand plan by not being there anymore. There was nothing but bare pavement where the vehicle had once been.

  “Oh,” Lydia said to herself. “Oh, dear.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Another one, sir.”

  One of Tristan’s advisers slipped a file across his desk. Tristan opened the beige cover to see the smiling face of a pretty young noblewoman looking at him. It would have been a pleasant picture but for the red lettering underneath: Deceased

  “She was found in the river,” Andrew said sadly. “Had been married but three days, went for a walk one morning and did not return. Her husband is utterly beside himself. Blames himself terribly for her passing.”

  Tristan’s expression drew exceptionally grim as his heart sank. “This is utterly intolerable,” he growled. “Is there any chance this was an unhappy accident?”

  “She was found branded with the same mark as the others,” Andrew said. “Another victim of the resistance.”

  Every time Tristan heard the word ‘resistance’ he felt a tremor of anger run through him. The resistance was a shadowy organization run by a sect of aristocrats who had splintered off from the main government when they capitulated to the new regime. The resistance had put up some military resistance at the outset, but finding themselves very much at a disadvantage they changed tactics and started looking for easier ways to harm less protected targets—the wives of the new regime. Tristan’s country house was not merely an anachronism designed to keep Lydia away from the things she enjoyed and the people she liked. Her isolation was for her own safety. For the same reason, he had refrained from holding a proper wedding ceremony, or letting anyone outside his immediate circle of trusted officers know that he had taken her as his bride.

  “They’re becoming bolder,” Andrew said. “They’re targeting any aristocrat woman who allows herself to be seduced by our regime, as they put it. They consider their actions treason, and the sentence is, of course, death. Five women have been taken in the last forty-eight hours. We have found only three, all dead. And there could be something still greater coming. The black market price of cigarettes has doubled over the last week or two, and as you know, that is their primary source of funding.”

  “So they’re fundraising,” Tristan growled. “And not for any charitable reason, we can be sure.”

  Enough was enough. Tristan had deployed several units to the task of bringing the resistance to its knees, and though they had been successful, more needed to be done. What had initially been nothing more than a minor nuisance was becoming a significant threat to the security of the people he was responsible for. It was time he took matters into his own hands and crushed the last vestiges of aristocratic cruelty.

  “Double the guard and ensure that all girls brought in go to secure locations. Any man incapable of providing security for his wife will board her here, in the palace.”

  “Is there security out at the cottage, sir?”

  “I doubt any of these cowards would dare to leave the city, but send a detail of men out there immediately. I want at least ten armed guards watching the house at all times.”

  “I’ll send a patrol immediately, sir,” Andrew nodded. “I will see to the matter myself.”

  “Good man,” Tristan clapped his aide on the shoulder. “One more thing. I don’t want Lydia to become panicked or afraid. So take care that she does not see the guards, and if she should somehow stumble across one of them, they are not to mention a word of the resistance or their activities. I want her to enjoy her innocence.”

  * * *

  Lydia was in trouble. She had wandered around the entire neighborhood and not found a single sign of the car whatsoever. Having boxes of cigarettes tucked under her arm was far from an ideal situation either. She was a walking violation of the law, and the longer she spent wandering, the more sure she was certain that serious trouble was brewing on her personal horizon.

  Her dilemma ended rather abruptly with the smooth purring of a very familiar engine. The car she had vacated an hour or two earlier slid up beside her, came to a halt, and two soldiers disembarked. She tried a friendly smile, but it was met with two stern scowls as first her cigarettes were confiscated and then she herself was taken into custody.

  Not a word passed between Lydia and her captors as they drove her in the direction of the palace and, presumably, her less than impressed husband, but as the grand building came into view, Lydia found her voice. “Is there any way you could perhaps not deliver me to the president?”

  The soldier not driving gave her what could possibly have been a sympathetic look and shook his head curtly in a ‘more than my life’s worth’ sort of way. She could hardly blame the man. Even though he was six foot tall and brawny as an ox, he didn’t want to deal with Tristan’s wrath. She didn’t want to either. As the journey came to a rather swift end, Lydia sat back and tried to come up with a plausible story as to how she had been found in the city with three boxes of illegal cigarettes. She couldn’t quite think of anything. Her stomach fizzed and twisted with anxious excitement as she began to fathom just how much trouble she was in. To say that Tristan would not be pleased was an understatement.

  The guards took her directly to Tristan’s office where, of course, Tristan was waiting for her. Lydia had no doubt that he knew
absolutely everything already. She was led before him much as a prisoner would be. He gave no affectionate greeting, but stood with his hands behind his back, his legs slightly parted, his presidential uniform making him appear so imposing he seemed almost more than human in that moment. Tristan was handsome. She knew that, but she appreciated it with a new force as she looked up into his face and met eyes that were hard with resolve. She felt a tremor run through the very core of her as she was left in Tristan’s displeased presence by the guards who seemed to simply melt away.

  “I’m not sure precisely where to begin,” he said after an extended silence in which she alternately glanced at his face and then let her eyes fall to the floor. “You steal my car, drive into the city, meet with known agitators, and take contraband substances into your possession. That is not merely one crime, Lydia. That is a spree.”

  “I didn’t meet with known agitators,” Lydia said quickly. “I met with my friend, Esme.”

  “Yes,” Tristan said. “Exactly. Let’s start at the beginning. You stealing my car.”

  “Not stealing. Borrowing. I was going to bring it back. I wasn’t going to stay in the city forever. I just thought…”

  “No, you didn’t,” he interrupted tersely. “Thinking is the very last thing you did. You had to come through a checkpoint to enter New Paris. Did you not know I would be informed that my car had just been driven in?”

  “I suppose I didn’t,” Lydia admitted.

  “The issue of ownership aside, cars are exceptionally dangerous machines,” he lectured. “If you had hit something while driving, you would have been severely injured, or worse. Do you even know how to drive?”

  “Clearly,” Lydia said. “I drove all the way into the city, didn’t I?”

  He let out a low growl of displeasure and she shut her mouth quickly.

  “Lydia, you have put yourself in an excessive amount of danger, of which you were only aware of a very small fraction. You must never do a thing like this again, do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” she nodded, looking suitably penitent. “I’m sorry.”

  “I am sure you are,” he said in gravelly tones. “I suspect you thought you would not be caught. You probably thought you could come into New Paris, supply yourself with illegal substances, and drive back home with me being none the wiser. Do I have that right?”

  “Well, I didn’t plan on getting any cigarettes…”

  “But you smoked one or two, didn’t you? I can see the glaze in your eyes.”

  “Well, one… and then another,” Lydia admitted. “But I only came to the city because I was bored… and lonely. There isn’t anyone else out there and I’m not used to spending the day by myself. I don’t like it.”

  Tristan gave a little sigh. “New Paris is not safe for you anymore, Lydia. I kept you at the house for a reason.”

  “It’s not safe for me?” She frowned. “Why are you saying that?”

  “Because I have access to information you do not. Because your status as my wife elevates you…”

  “Esme says I’m not your wife,” Lydia said. “She said there’s no contract and there’s been no ceremony, and…”

  “Lydia, you are my wife in every way that matters. There will be a ceremony in due course,” he said. “Make no mistake about it. I do not want you to see Esme again. She is not a suitable companion for you.”

  “You’ve taken all my other friends and divvied them up among your men,” Lydia complained. “This is your fault.”

  His brows rose. “My fault? Your outrageous disobedience, your thieving, your drug taking, all of that is my fault, is it? Well. If it is my fault, then I will remedy it. Come here and bend over my desk, Lydia. I will see what I can do about avoiding another of these incidents for which I am clearly at fault.”

  She had known this part was coming. The discipline. Still it sent a little jolt of fear through her belly. He had something leaning beside the desk, a rather long and swishy looking cane that her instincts told her would soon find its way across her bottom. Lydia cast a sad look at Tristan, hoping he would take pity on her, but it was far too little, far too late.

  He pointed toward the desk with a one-word order. “Over.”

  Sighing, Lydia obeyed. What else could she do? She had been caught absolutely red-handed. It was a little exciting, really. In her previous life as an obedient, doting daughter she had never once done anything lawless or even naughty. Now she found herself being treated as a wayward woman, and some small part of her enjoyed it.

  She bent forward over the desk, pressed her cheek to the cool oak, and maintained her position as Tristan tossed her skirts up over her back, hooked his fingers in her undergarments, and pulled them down to her knees. They slid the rest of the way to the floor, pooling around her heels. She felt his foot between her ankles, nudging them wide so her intimate regions were spread and exposed.

  “You, my bride, are trouble,” he said in grimly affectionate tones. As she had predicted, he picked up the cane. He put it on the desk in front of her and walked around, leaning down so that she could look into his eyes as well as see the implement that was about to belabor her bottom.

  “I want you to learn this lesson well, Lydia,” he said in measured tones. “You must not leave the house without my permission. That is for your protection and safety. You are certainly not allowed to drive my car, and cigarettes are out of the question. These rules are fairly simple. Do you understand them?”

  “I understand,” she admitted—and it did feel like an admission because she had understood them implicitly all along.

  “This cane will sting,” he said, taking the implement in his hands. “It will sting a very great deal and I am certain you will find it rather unpleasant. When you feel it land across your rear, remember why you are being subjected to it and perhaps you will avoid further instances of such punishment in the future.”

  The formality of his speech was almost as frightening as his comments about the cane. Lydia felt the loss of his soft, kind demeanor as a physical pain in her stomach and she wished fervently that she had not disappointed him in such a dramatic fashion. There was a solemnity to his demeanor that went beyond mere annoyance at her misbehavior. He was taking these proceedings entirely seriously, and so, therefore, must she.

  She felt him walk behind her and press the length of the cane across the middle of her bottom. He tapped it there once or twice, seeming to get a sense of placement. Then the cane lifted away entirely. She heard a swishing sound, which terminated in a very loud crack. For a second, Lydia felt nothing at all. Then a line of dynamite detonated across her bottom, rocking her up to her toes and sending her squealing from his desk. She would have run out of Tristan’s office if he had not caught her by the arm and swung her about to face him.

  “That hurts!” Tears were already swimming in her eyes and she didn’t dare reach back and rub. The hot line across the center of her cheeks was aching terribly.

  “I know it does,” he said with surprising gentleness. “But you need to understand that there are real consequences for doing what you did today. This isn’t the sort of series of offenses that warrant a little spanking and a telling off. You’ve committed real crimes today, Lydia. And you will be punished accordingly. Now, back over the desk.”

  She did not know what was worse: having to take up the position for another stroke of the cane, or anticipating what it would feel like. Reluctantly and with no small amount of whimpering, Lydia obeyed. She bent herself over the desk, felt Tristan arrange her feet wide once more and then stand back. She closed her eyes tightly, every muscle in her body tense.

  “Breathe.” Tristan dropped a kiss on the back of her head and smoothed his hand down her spine in a caress that felt affectionate in spite of the punitive situation in which they found themselves. She let out a little sob as she took a deep breath and relaxed slightly.

  Again she heard the swish of the cane and once more the sound of it meeting her bottom cracked around the ro
om like a gunshot. The second stroke landed an inch or so below the first and blazed just as painfully. Lydia let out a cry and almost popped up out of position again, but this time Tristan kept her in place with his strong palm on her back. Her legs were the only part of her free to flail—and flail they did. She kicked and squirmed and wriggled for almost a full minute before settling down enough for Tristan to once more put her into position and apply yet another stroke of the cane. The third one cut across the first two and summoned from her a furious curse accompanied by a sudden flood of tears.

  She sobbed across his desk, overwhelmed by the heat and the sensation that shot through every nerve in her body. It wasn’t just her bottom that hurt. The pain of the caning was everywhere, making her toes curl, her hands pound against the table, her eyes squeeze shut even as tears poured from them.

  Tristan’s arms wrapped around her and lifted her up before turning her toward him and holding her in a close embrace. Her tears soaked his shirt as she stood there, her bottom pale aside from the three long welts that felt like thin trails of wildfire burning perpetually across her skin.

  “They used to give six strokes as standard,” Tristan mused. “But I don’t know that another three would do you any good.”

  “Please,” she sniveled. “I don’t want any more.”

  “You’re not cut out for caning, are you?” He murmured the words against her ear while cradling her close. “Better refrain from activities that earn it as a consequence.”

  Lydia agreed in watery tones that it was probably a good idea.

  “Don’t think you’re getting away with just those strokes either,” he said, lest she think her punishment was over. “I have no interest in breaking you, Lydia, but you will pay the full penance for your behavior today.”