by Maren Smith
“Blow,” he commanded.
Embarrassed does not begin to describe it, but I did. Half-heartedly.
He looked at me, that tic of those muscles jumping along his jaw. “Blow,” he growled again.
I blew a little harder, and he wiped my nose, handing me the wadded-up handkerchief to use again if I needed to.
“You may count your blessings that Jonathan Hoake is a close friend of mine and will not use that personal information you spouted downstairs to hurt me or my family,” he said grimly. “That is the only reason why I am not now going to present you the sack.”
Wiping a fresh tear with the back of my wrist, my eyes narrowed mutinously. Aching bottom notwithstanding, I still grumblingly corrected him, “You can’t anyway; I already quit, and I meant it.”
The temptation to put me right back down across his thigh must have been a mighty one. But thankfully for me, with that muscle ticking repeatedly in his jaw, he refrained. “You may quit when and if I allow you to and not one second before.” His hand drifted down my back, startling me into a moment of spine-stiffening shock when it settled upon my naked right bottom cheek. He gave me an all too familiar caress, and then patted me briskly. “Get up.”
I don’t know which was more disconcerting. The caress itself or the minute thrill that pat sparked within me as it slightly intensified the burning already under my skin, sending tiny hot sparks darting to that sensitive point betwixt my inner thighs. I cannot describe the sensation, but it inspired a near molten response deep inside me, low down in my womb. At first, I was so shocked to feel such a thing that I almost could not move.
“Ella,” Hawkhaven finally said, and patted me again. A little higher this time, his caress falling into the small of my back. “If you continue to sit there, looking so flushed and perfect and utterly kissable, I think I’m going to have to take ungentlemanly advantage of you.”
My cheeks flared, and I slowly stood. Though no longer perched upon my tender bottom, there was little relief to be gained in standing. The burning intensified as my muscles flexed; the pain swelled. Whatever that tiny thrill had been, the hurt overcame it, and it died beneath the tide of discomfort.
“Oh!” I bit my bottom lip, briefly closing my eyes as I surreptitiously reached back to feel the damage done me. That I had any bottom left at all was astounding. Not only did I still have one, unfortunately, but it felt twice the size it should have been and was once more stiff like leather upon the summits. I winced as I rubbed.
“Now,” Hawkhaven said as he stood up with me. “On to matter number three.”
I retreated from him warily; half afraid he might suddenly announce that the disciplinary aspect of my punishment might not be over. But instead, he reached out to cup my chin; tipping up my face so he could see the minor burns his sister had left on my face and neck. As he studied me in silence, those slight traces of anger that still remained in him turned to grim resignation.
“You were wronged,” he finally admitted. “Again. Follow me.”
When he headed for the door, I numbly struggled myself into my clothes, bending down to grab my bloomers. The threadbare cotton scrapped like the coarsest wool over my abused backside. He did not look back to ensure my obedience, but opened the door and disappeared into the hall. Oh lord. In the direction of his sister’s room.
Almost afraid to follow, I crept after him only so far as my bedroom door. I closed my eyes, wincing inwardly before I summoned the nerve to peek around the corner after him. An iciness settled in my belly when I saw him, sure enough, at Victoria’s door.
My anger rushed back with tidal wave intensity.
“I will not apologize to her!” I heard myself say insanely, mutinously. “Beat me all you like, I will not apologize!”
“Did I ask you to?” he countered, then snapped his fingers and pointed to the floor at his heel. “Come here. Now.”
The force with which he threw open Victoria’s door made me jump, but it was that last irritated stare he threw back at me that cooled the worst of my ire. Though he did not again order me to him, after only half a second, I tied my bloomers into place, lowered my skirts as well as my head, and went to him. But my jaw was tightly clenched, and my nails dug into the palms of my hands. I would not apologize, and if my lord Hawkhaven attempted to spank one out of me, then I really was going to leave this miserable house.
No, you won’t, a soft voice whispered inside me.
That hot little pang of heat so confusingly near to pleasure licked up betwixt my thighs as I felt again the touch of his hand upon the small of my back. His fingertips barely brushed against me as he ushered me into the room ahead of him, and yet I felt that touch much further south than it actually was. I felt it on my bottom, fanning the fire that was already there, only with tenderness this time. Intimacy. Eroticism. I felt it inside of me, growing warmer by the second.
Something must be seriously wrong with me.
“To A. Love, V,” Hawkhaven read dryly, standing at the foot of his sister’s bed. He was silent for a moment, turning the cuff link over in his hand as if pondering a mildly difficult puzzle. Then he fixed Victoria with a darkly unyielding stare. “Albert Fisk,” he said, his tone leaving no doubt as to the identity of ‘A.’
Victoria met his icy glare with one of her own, lifting her chin in cool defiance. “He loves me.”
“Balderdash.”
Victoria’s cool veneer cracked and a flurry of hot tears came bubbling to her eyes. “He. Loves! ME!”
“He loves my money,” Hawkhaven snapped back. “You are the spoiled and pampered hurdle that he must jump to get it.” He held the cufflink up. “Who did you convince to go behind my back and commission this for you?”
I stood as silent as a shadow by the door, unwilling to venture any farther inside. This was a conversation better left to the siblings and in privacy; the last thing I wanted was to draw attention to my presence. Not that my relationship with the Lady Victoria could get any worse.
“You are hateful and cruel!” Her face turned an apoplectic shade of red. Unable to reach anything else, she grabbed one of her pillows and flung it at him. Her brother merely slapped it from the air, knocking it to the floor while she screeched, “You have only ever been cruel to me, incapable of fathoming how anyone could love a cripple!”
“You work very hard at making yourself unlovable,” he countered.
“Albert loves me.” Again, her chin went up in defiance.
“He loves you so much he blackened your eye.” Hawkhaven’s jaw clenched.
So did Victoria’s, and through gritted teeth she maintained, “I fell.”
“Liar.” He turned from the bed and went to her wardrobe.
“What are you doing?”
“Punishing you in a way you will notice.” Hawkhaven flung open the doors, revealing a rainbow array of beautiful gowns and shifts.
“What are you doing?” Victoria pushed herself up off her mountain of pillows. “Let it alone, Matthew! Those are mine!”
“You are callous and abusive,” her brother told her as he began to sift through the dresses. “You make me ashamed.”
Victoria’s eyes grew huge in angry surprise. “I make you… I?!!! You shame yourself!” She shoved herself up on her arms, shrieking, “I am everything you have made me to be!”
Hawkhaven’s hands paused; the line of his stern jaw ticked. Then he simply took a dress from the wardrobe and brought it across the room to me.
“Don’t you dare!” Victoria shouted. “Don’t you dare give my clothes to your whore!”
He snapped around, his eyes crackling with such a display of temper that my bottom instantly clenched in upon itself and my hand ducked back to cover it. The response was purely instinctive since not an ounce of that temper was directed at me. And of that small fact, I was oh so supremely grateful.
“You will mind your mouth, young lady—”
“Or what?” Victoria demanded, and she actually had the nerve to laugh at
him. “Will you beat me too, now?”
His jaw clenched, and then clenched again as he stalked back to her, looming over her bed like an angry storm barely kept in check. And when he spoke, he was so soft I had to strain to hear it. “No, I will not beat you. But I guarantee, if you use that word again, I will take a bar of soap and scrub your mouth until you breathe in bubbles.”
I believed him. Victoria must have believed him too. She stared at him, her lower lip protruding in petulance while she considered her options. “That is still my dress,” she finally said, her voice once more dropping back into normal tones.
Hawkhaven thrust it into my hands anyway. It was a lovely piece. White and pink satin, with a flouncing bow across the bustled rump and sleeves made all out of lace. It was the sort of dress I had not felt against my skin in years. Completely unsuitable for the sort of laborer I had become. I was sorely tempted to put it on anyway.
“Thank you, but I don’t want it,” I said flatly, and it held it back out for him to take back.
But he didn’t. Instead, he told his sister, “The dress is now Ella’s. That is my decision,” he turned that same dark look upon me, “and it is final.”
Legs or no legs, I was certain Victoria was going to launch herself out of bed right after me. She screamed in absolute, unabashed fury, beating the mattress with her fists and throwing her body back and forth amongst the pillows. Again I was startled, not so much by the vehemence of her tantrum, but by the motion of her feet as she almost seemed to kick.
Briefly closing his eyes and growling in disgust, Hawkhaven snapped back around and shouted, “Be silent! My God, Victoria, Ella acts more the lady than you do!”
“You cannot give her my clothes!”
“Not only am I giving her your gown to replace the uniform you sullied with your tantrum, but you are going to pay restitution for the pain you caused her!”
“Pain?” she screeched. “None of you know what pain truly is!”
“You threw hot chocolate on her!”
“I don’t want her here!”
“Too damned bloody bad! Until you can get out of this bed and take care of yourself, Ella stays! And you had best pay attention to this right now, little girl, because if you succeed in running her off, there will be no one else. My God! I doubt if there is another companion in all of England that would take on the Herculean task of you!” Pressing his lips tight together, Hawkhaven drew himself stiffly straight. “So help me, Victoria, either you get along with Ella, or I will place you in an institution!”
Victoria’s jaw dropped, and then she fell back amongst her pillows totally silent. Totally still. When her eyes flooded with tears, her brother turned and marched from the room.
Feeling terribly out of place, I chased him outside. “Wait!”
Holding up a staying hand, he kept walking, his long, stiff-legged stride forcing me to run to catch up.
“Lord Hawkhaven, please…”
“Matthew.”
“Oh, for the love of—! Matthew! Matthew, please, I—”
He stopped and spun sharply to confront me. “Ella,” he snapped, halting the words in my throat with one stiffly pointing finger. He slowly shook it at me, and I almost choked in my haste to bite them back. “I have had all the arguments that I want from errant females today. Unless the next words from your mouth are, ‘Yes, Matthew’ and ‘Thank you for the dress,’ then I warn you now” —he drew a deep breath before shaking his head at me— “either you court another unfair thrashing or a thorough kissing.”
He tried to smile at me, though obviously his heart wasn’t in it. “You are beautiful,” he said, as his eyes flicked down, gazing longingly at my lips. He shook his head again, this time I’m certain it was at himself. “My temper is difficult to judge. It could go either way.”
Even knowing he was joking, I took a healthy step backwards. Looking down at the dress, feeling all but useless. I stifled a sigh. “Thank you, sir, for the dress.”
He inclined his head, then turned and started walking again. Halfway hoping he was more inclined to kiss than spank, I ran to catch up to him. “Please, if you would just tell me…”
“Tell you what?” He turned when he reached the staircase and started down them, leaving me standing helplessly on the landing above him.
“Why can she not walk?”
His angry gait began to slow and halfway down the stairs, he finally stopped. His shoulders drooped. After a moment, he sighed and turned back to face me. “Our carriage overturned, Ella. She was inside, and I was driving the bloody, fool thing.”
“Yes,” I said, trying not to sound impatient. “But why can she not walk?”
For the longest moment, I thought he would not answer me. Finally, he shrugged and shook his head. “Initially, the doctors were hopeful that she might make a full recovery. But the more she tried, the more it became clear that she could not keep her balance. Her knees would buckle, and she would fall. Even with the aid of a cane, she couldn’t keep her feet, and it got worse with time, not better. My father bought her a chair, and she has been in it ever since. You have seen her legs, Ella; the muscles have shriveled away to nothing now. I doubt she could walk even if she wanted to try.”
He left me standing on the landing, disappearing into his study and shutting the door firmly behind him.
My gaze dropped to the fine dress I held, and then it was my turn to sigh. I walked slowly back to my room to change, but I would not wear the pretty pink gown. I was already well and truly made up in my mind about that. We got on poorly enough as it was; the last thing I wanted was to give Victoria even more of a reason to fight me.
There was a little jar of salve waiting for me on my bedside table, compliments of Bess, no doubt. It smelled atrocious, but worked like a wonder when I gently daubed it on the tenderest parts of my neck and chin. Sinking down to sit on the foot of my bed, I slowly mulled over what I had seen. My Lady’s legs did work, whether she wanted them to or not. Whether he wanted them to, or not. So how was one supposed to go about getting a crippled woman to walk again?
Elbows on my knees, I bent to cup my chin in the palm of my hand, wondering if I should even try.
Chapter Seven
My resolve not to wear Lady Victoria’s dress lasted three days, then my vanity got the best of me. It was Sunday and the day of my first free afternoon. Regardless of this, the master’s house was a God-fearing one, in which everyone was expected to attend the local service. This meant I had to hurry to get Lady Victoria washed, dressed, and her hair and makeup perfect before rushing back to my room to prepare myself. Most of the staff attended the Sabbath in their uniforms, but my eyes fell upon Victoria’s beautiful pink gown and all I could think was: When else would I ever find the opportunity to wear such a fancy dress?
My work roughened hands caught on the delicate fabric, but my skin remembered the heavenly touch of satin. My ears delighted at the whisper it made as I walked, vain as a peacock, down the steps and across the entrance hall with my head held high.
There were no formalities on the Sabbath. Both the master’s coach and the servant’s wagon were waiting out front, and I could all but hear Victoria’s squeak of outrage when I wore her gown from the house. None of my fellow servants said a word, however, as I was helped up to sit in the wagon alongside them. Companions, as I had discovered, were on par with governesses when it came to the intricate social stations of the serving class. The only friend I had in all of Derbyshire was Hawkhaven himself, and that was a singularly depressing thought to dwell on.
That’s all right, I told myself as we rode to church in silence. I needed money and security, not friends.
Since this was my half-day, it was Bess who pushed Victoria’s chair up to the church steps. Three strong men lifted both her and it together, muscling it up twenty-seven steps into the cathedral. I was no architect, but it was an impressive old church. Tall and square, and in the midst of renovations. Two stories of scaffolding fenced in the lovely sta
ined-glass windows, bare bones without so much as a hint of a worker anywhere upon them. Not on Sunday, not when the building in question was a church.
Although located almost dead center in the middle of town, not a single person who was not a member of the Hawkhaven household attended the service, which left a good number of empty pews in that long, gold-gilded nave. Hawkhaven and his sister sat all the way up in the very front, bare feet from the apse and the priests who performed the service. Victoria held herself as regal as a queen in her wheelchair, with Bess a short distance behind her in case she was needed. After that, seating of the servants was arranged by the same social hierarchy that ruled our lives, beginning with the dour butler, Grimsby, who sat opposite of Bess on the other side of the nave.
I should have been up front with Bess. I could all but imagine sitting behind Hawkhaven, breathing in the spice of his cologne, perpetually distracted just by his sitting there. So, with Victoria’s fine dress upon me, painfully aware of having obscured that very fine line between the serving and the served, I sat all the way in the absolute rear of the church. From here I could barely see the subtle movements at the altar, but Hawkhaven was also mostly obscured, so I saw more of the service back here.
I was also not the only woman firmly in the mind of keeping myself inconspicuous. Two upstairs maids deigned to sit with me. But while I sat quietly, listening to the singsong sermon and wishing I still remembered enough of my Latin to follow along, these two women whispered and giggled throughout the entire Liturgy of the Words. They did even worse during the homily, and barely kept still for the moment of silence. Halfway through the Apostles’ Creed, Hawkhaven had had enough.
He turned around in his seat, and we might as well have been sitting directly behind him for all the difficulty he had pinning us in his dark, unsmiling stare. Both women stilled as he gave each a long assessing glare. Then he shifted his eyes to Grimsby, who only nodded. That look must have spoken volumes, but like the Latin, I only understood it in parts. The maids, I suppose, understood it with crystal clarity. They exchanged miserable looks and neither so much as fidgeted again for the remainder of the service.