by Laetitia
It was enough to jar Kait to her senses and she began to run up the stairs, glancing fearfully over her shoulder to make sure he wasn't following her.
Having reached the relative safety of her room, she slammed the door shut with a loud bang.
Benjamin smiled once more, took a short detour into his study and retrieved a key from his desk drawer...just in case. He took the stairs at a dignified pace.
He almost relished the battle to come.
* * * *
After fifteen minutes had passed, Benjamin had all in readiness. He had changed from his evening clothes to his dressing gown, laid out one of his old cravats, and checked the small sofa for sturdiness. He glanced at the clock once more, took a deep sighing breath and walked toward the connecting door between her room and his.
"Fifteen minutes are up, Kait," he said through the solid mahogany door.
"Kaitland, get in here. Do not make me angrier than I already am. Kaitland!"
Ben rapped harder on her door.
With each bang of his fist, Kait, curled up in a protective ball on her bed, shivered. She had changed into her nightrail and robe, but she had no intention of joining her obviously distraught husband in his rooms. She would simply hide here until he grew tired of pounding on the door and went to bed. She would discuss his reprehensible behavior of this night later...much later.
"Kaitland Lindsey! This is the last warning you will get. Get over here and open this door right now, or you'll wish you had!"
"Go away," she shouted back at the door.
Silence, then she heard the unmistakable metallic click of a key being inserted into a lock. She jumped off the bed and looked around frantically for something to use to block the door. She wasted precious seconds trying to push the heavy bureau from its place along the wall. Before she could find an alternative, her husband was already standing in her room. Lord have mercy, she thought. He looks murderous!
"Did you not understand my instructions, Kaitland?" Ben asked in a deceptively quiet voice. "Come here," his voice turned cold and he waited by the door.
Kait had tried to take refuge further into the room, placing her fragile dressing table chair between herself and her husband. Ben looked at the chair, and then at Kait. One of his eyebrows rose in an unspoken question.
"Kaitland, let me try to explain to you what is going to happen. You are going to be turned over my knee...and spanked...twice. The first spanking will be for not obeying me this evening, and the second will be for going with Annalise Burke to The Deuces Wild without permission or escort..."
"Who told you...?" Kaitland tried to cover her mouth in time to shove those damning words back down her throat, but she could tell by the look on Benjamin's face she had condemned herself thoroughly.
"Come here, Kaitland...unless you'd like to receive three spankings in one night..." He let the threat hang in the air between them.
"Please Ben," she hated the sound of pleading in her voice, but she was truly frightened. She didn't recognize this sternly visaged man who was threatening her with bodily harm. Well, perhaps that was overstating it, she thought. A spanking is a child's punishment! How bad could it be? What was she thinking! "Ben, can we just talk about this?"
"No! Come here!"
Kait's eyes darted around the room looking for an escape route, but before she could move, Ben took two long steps into the room, wrapped his arm around her waist and carried her, braced against his hip through the door and into his room. He kicked the adjoining door closed, then seated himself on the small sofa. He dragged Kait's squirming body across his knees and gripped her body with his left arm. He just sat there for a minute and waited for Kait to quit wiggling.
"Ben...I'm sorry...truly, truly sorry!"
"I'm sure you are...now."
"Please let me up. I'll be good...I promise!"
Ben took the bottom edge of her nightrail and dressing gown and with a slight flick of his wrist flipped them out of his way.
Kait felt the cool air on the back of her legs and her bottom, and could not have been more shocked if he had doused her with ice water.
"Oh Nooo!" She tried to stretch her hand back to cover her backside, but Ben caught it and held it immobile by her side. Now tying her hands with the cravat made sense , he thought. Well this was just going to be a short lessoning spanking. He'd take care of her hands before the longer one.
Ben began raining hard-handed swats to her bottom as he kept up a loud and vigorous scold.
"When I tell you to do something...SMACK!...you'll do it...SMACK!...You will not feel free to defy me... SMACK!... Do you understand?... SMACK!...
SMACK!... SMACK!
"YES!... YES!... YES!...Please! Please stop!"
Miraculously, he did. In one simple motion, he covered her once more and swung her off of his lap into a heap on the floor. Kait sprang up from the floor like it was on fire. Her hair was tousled, her face red, and her green eyes were blazing. She was grabbing anything that came to hand and kept a steady barrage of priceless bric-a-brac flying in his direction.
"You animal!" she screeched at him. "How dare you lay violent hands on me!
You beast...you boorish pig! I can't think of anything bad enough to call you!"
Ben was deflecting most of the missiles with a large pillow and advancing on her with single-minded focus. "Stop behaving like a fishwife! I don't care how many things you throw at me, you're going over my knee again. The only question remains is how long will it be before you will be able to sit with any degree of comfort when I'm done."
He reached from behind the pillow and captured one of her arms and jerked her toward him. She crashed into his hard chest and he grabbed her other hand. Holding them tightly, he pulled her over to where he had placed the cravat and made short work of tying her hands together. Kait wiggled and squirmed, screaming invectives and trying to twist herself free from his iron grip, but once her wrists were tied she could be controlled fairly easily.
Ben's attention was caught by the sight of his flat-backed hairbrush. He picked it up off his dresser and carried it with him as he dragged Kaitland to the sofa.
This may not fit the Burke Family plan, he thought, but by Heaven, it may become part of the Lindsey Family plan if she is going to fight me like this all the time!
He threw her across his knee once more. Again he flicked her nightwear out of the way. Bracing his arm across her lower back, he rested the back of the brush against her bottom. Kaitland ceased her straining as the enormity of the threat she was now facing began to penetrate her hysteria.
Ben was trying to remember what was supposed to happen during the first step of the lesson. Ah, now he remembered! He needed to clarify why she was here.
"You are in this embarrassing position because you have endangered yourself." SMACK! He aimed his first blow to the base of her already pink globes. Kaitland arched her back and screamed. The pain was worse than she thought she could bear.
"You went to The Deuces Wild even though I had expressly forbidden you to!" SMACK! SMACK! He delivered a blow to the crest of each of her rapidly reddening bottom.
Picking up the pace now, he continued to thrash her bottom and explain her transgressions without pause. "You also dragged Annalise with you into this dangerous situation." SMACK!...SMACK!...SMACK!
"Because I love you and I don't ever want you to do something so inherently stupid and dangerous again, I intend to spank you so hard you will remember this lesson for a long time." SMACK!...SMACK!...SMACK! Kaitland was screaming and crying non-stop now, so Ben paused for a moment.
When she realized he had stopped, she quit screaming and tried to catch her breath. "Is it over?" she asked meekly.
"Not even truly begun my dear. That was just to get your attention. This pause is simply the only chance you will be given to tell me your side of the story...any mitigating circumstances which might lighten your punishment. I have to tell you though, I am not feeling particularly merciful after your childish display. I
am beginning to believe that I should have done this a good bit sooner in our marriage.
"You...you leave me alone...so...so...much..." Kait tried to control her sobs and hiccoughs.
"So you defied me, put yourself in danger, put Annalise in danger, all because you were lonely and bored? I'm told that you rarely obey me because you don't think I would ever catch you. Is that true?"
"Which...which part?"
"Either...both."
"Yes..but..."
"But...?"
"But why are you doing this? You've never cared before what I did. Why are you all of a sudden so angry with me?"
"I have been angry with you before," Ben admitted, "but I never knew how to deal with it. So I compounded this situation by staying away more than I really needed to. I can promise you that from now on, I'll be home more often and I'll be watching you closely. I can also promise you that you will be spending a lot more time in this position if your behavior doesn't change. "
"I HATE YOU!" Kaitland yelled at him over her shoulder and twisted herself off his knee. She tried to get up off the floor and run, but Ben's arm snaked out and grabbed her around the waist and she ended as she had begun across his knee. This time however, he pinned her legs beneath his leg, locking them down.
"Now that was unwise, Kait" That was the only warning that the spanking was going to resume...and resume with a flourish! Ben applied the flat of his brush in overlapping the reddening spanks again and again. He ignored her curses, her promises, and her pleas, concentrating on making sure he completely covered her bottom. He knew immediately when she gave up the fight. He felt her go limp across his knees.
Ben dragged a small footstool over with his foot so that he could rest his right leg at a higher angle. It tilted Kaitland's bottom much higher in the air as Burke had told the men to try if they really wanted to make an impression...and he did. He pulled Kait closer to his body and began to rip smacks to the untouched area at the base of that lovely round rise. Kait screamed, arched her back, tried to twist away, but the blows kept coming.
And so did the orders.
"You will not see Annalise unless either her husband or I am with you. You will not leave this house for the next two weeks. You will no longer stay in bed all morning. You will be up by six A.M. and begin to take an active interest in this household. If you do not, we will meet like this again and I will fire all the household help. Do you understand?"
SMACK!...SCOLD...SMACK!...SCOLD...SMACK!...SCOLD...SMACK!...S
COLD........ finally, he stopped.
Both of them rested there frozen in a bizarre tableau. Both of them tried to control their emotions and catch their breath. Ben recovered first and he gently lifted Kait into his lap and held her there, close to his heart. Well, he thought , it's a beginning.
The better part of a week had passed since the three friends had attended Annalise Burke's over-her-husband's-knee educational session. All of the men knew that Kaitland Lindsey had probably gotten her own lesson later that same evening, if the look on her husband's face was any indication as he carried her slung over his shoulder from the posh gaming club, The Deuces Wild. The remaining three men hadn't seen Justin or Ben since that night.
"They're probably sticking closer to home these days," Christopher Myrick said as he sipped his brandy. "It didn't seem like something you could just do once, then walk off and leave."
"Have either of you tried it yet?", Darren Stone asked the question they'd all wanted to ask.
"No. Have you?", Jeffery Powers asked.
"I don't truly know where to begin with Amanda," Stone answered rather sheepishly. "She's been holy terror for as long as I can remember."
"You begin at the end, old boy!" Myrick joked. "Don't you remember? You begin at the end."
All three men laughed, but then they began to mentally review the issues in their marriages which had prompted them to ask Justin Burke to share his family secret in the first place.
"Very funny," Stone replied. "Have you tried it?"
"No," Myrick answered. "With my wife it is just a matter of time before I catch her misbehaving. Speaking of which, I need to go to the VanKirk's ball this evening. If my darling Jesseca runs true to form, she might just begin her education this evening." Myrick stood and gathered up his hat and coat. "Wish me luck, men," he smiled with pure relish as he placed his top hat at a rakish angle.
The two remaining friends watched Myrick leave.
"I wonder how he meant that Jesseca might be misbehaving?" Stone asked aloud.
"She's one of the biggest flirts around. Haven't you heard?" Powers answered.
"So are half the women of our set. Why so particularly Jesseca? I never thought Chris was the jealous type."
"He isn't normally, but Jesseca Myrick is notorious for engaging in flirtations that go well beyond the accepted. Even women who are carrying on full-blown affairs are more discrete."
"Good lord! Chris doesn't suspect anything like that does he?" Stone was just a little shocked.
"No. Of course not! Chris, however has told her on numerous occasions to behave more like a married woman and less like a cat on the prowl."
"Heavens! Did he actually say that?"
"So I've been led to understand." Powers crossed his legs at the ankles and stretched them out in front of him ,contentedly sipping his brandy.
*****
Had his two friends been privy to the extent that Christopher Myrick had gone to try to modify his wife's behavior, they would both be shocked. At least once a month, the Myricks would engage in a shouting match that alarmed the servants and decimated the ge-gaws and bric-a-brac which littered every surface in their home.
Lord, but Jesseca had the Devil's own temper and a fairly strong throwing arm, Myrick thought as he absent-mindedly rubbed his finger over the small scar above his eyebrow. She didn't usually throw things at him, being content to punctuate her anger with smashing things to the floor, but on this occasion she had aimed a porcelain statue of a shepherdess directly at his head. He hadn't been expecting it, and although he ducked, it caught him and opened a gash over his brow.
He remembered she had been horrified equally at the fact that she'd done him bodily harm, as well as by the amount of blood that was soaking into his white handkerchief. Both of them had been appalled at the escalating level of violence it symbolized, and although they didn't speak of it, Myrick was aware of the deleterious effect it had on their relationship.
They began spending even more time apart. The rumors of her public dalliances and the smirks of the ton behind his back had become unendurable.
He had been contemplating carrying her off to his country estate keeping her pregnant and far from town, when he'd struck the deal with Burke. The Burke Family plan seemed made to order for the tempestuous little temptress who was his wife. By Heaven and Halifax, tonight she'd be given her first taste of the new Myrick Family plan!, he thought as his carriage pulled to a stop in front of the VanKirk's rambling two-storied home.
All of the windows were glowing with golden light. Streams of people were either leaving or arriving. Lord, this is going to be a crush, Myrick thought with distaste as he climbed from his carriage.
"Drive around the square for awhile, would you Murphy? I don't intend being in there too long."
"As you say, sir," Murphy replied with a small salute and a smile. All of his servants knew Myrick's dislike of large social gatherings.
Myrick took the stone steps leading up to the door two at a time. He felt positively jaunty at the prospect of beginning anew with his beautiful wife. He handed his coat and hat to one of the liveried footman, pulled his vest tightly down to rest just above his cummerbund, adjusted his snowy white sleeves, and prepared to do battle. He had deliberately timed his entrance to be late enough that the formal announcement of his presence would be omitted. He didn't want Jesse to know he was there.
He nodded to several acquaintances on his way to the double parlor which had been emptied o
f most of its furniture to facilitate dancing. The hair on the back of his neck raised as he noticed how frequently people would nod at him and then let their gaze shift guiltily away from his. A sure sign that Jesse was being outrageous again. He found a spot by the vaulted archway, and leaned casually against the opening, half concealed by a large potted palm.
The orchestra was tucked away in the opposite corner. Myrick let his eyes wander over the dancers as they twirled in and out of an intricate dance. He spotted Jesse right away. To his way of thinking, she was the most beautiful woman in the room. He allowed himself the pleasure of watching her. Her gown was dark green satin, cut in the empire style, tight and low across the bosom and falling in graceful folds from a band just under the bust. Her black hair was piled high on her head and cascaded in a riot of curls which bounced as she danced by. She didn't see him standing there as she whirled by in the arms of a tall, blond young man.
But he saw her. More to the point, he saw the young man's hand as it drifted from the small of Jesse's back to her gently rounded bottom. Myrick waited for her to react to this blatantly public sexual overture, but she continued to dance as if nothing untoward was happening. She gazed into the young man's blue eyes adoringly and smiled so broadly that the dimples on either side of her luscious mouth deepened temptingly. Just as the young man began to dip his head in anticipation of a kiss, he felt a fairly sharp tap on his shoulder. He stopped and turned around only to find himself pinned by the glacial stare of the lady's husband. Dash it all! he thought. She'd said he wouldn't be here tonight!