His Lordship's Little Bride (Little History Series Book 4)

by Ava Sinclair

  “That was quite out of place, young lady,” he said. “Should you attempt to make a servant here feel unsettled again, you’ll answer not to me but to the head of staff, Mr. Holloway. And trust me; he’s a master with the cane. Why do you think Mary is so well-behaved?”

  “You’d let a servant strike me?” Amelia was incredulous.

  “As your guardian, I will offer you up for correction to anyone who can teach you a lesson. If your behavior impacts Holloway, then he will be given leave to correct you, under my supervision, of course.”

  “That’s appalling!” Amelia cried, but at the idea of being spanked, she felt a twinge between her legs that gave way to a throb as she met her betrothed’s stern gaze.

  “I will do what it takes to make you a compliant member of this household. And that is what you will become when we marry—a Darmley,” he said. “Which is why I’ve come to fetch you; you’ve yet to be introduced to my mother and father. They’re in the parlor expecting you.”

  Amelia’s heart began to pound. She vaguely remembered the couple from social occasions, but recalled them to be as haughty and beautiful as their son.

  “I’ve nothing proper to wear,” she objected.

  “Nonsense.” He turned to the door and clapped, and a pretty middle-aged servant walked in with a dress and slippers draped over her arm.

  Amelia instantly recognized the cut of the dress to be not for a woman, but a child.

  “You cannot be serious,” she said in a tearful voice. “I’m to meet your parents dressed as…”

  “Yes, a child. They are more than aware of how I intend to keep you, and are absolutely supportive of my decision. They are, you will find, remarkably unconventional behind closed doors.” If that was supposed to make Amelia feel better, it did not.

  Her shoulders shook with silent sobs as the maid efficiently divested her of the full-length dress and undergarment she’d arrived in and replaced it with a lacy confection that came to just above her ankles. She was not allowed a corset, although the top of the dress was paneled in a way to support her breasts. The only undergarments she was allowed were a child’s petticoat and a pair of stockings. The final indignation was a bow in her unbound hair that matched the large sash at the back of the dress.

  “I look ridiculous!” she observed wretchedly when she stared into the looking glass a moment later. The woman reflected back at her no longer looked like a refined adult but a petulant older child. Amelia forced herself to straighten up and rein in the emotions that only made her appear more youthful.

  At least the servant was kind. “Well, I think you look lovely, dear,” she said. “And his lordship seemed so pleased to have found your attire so quickly delivered.”

  Amelia puzzled at this. She’d only just arrived, after all. How could her clothing have been made so quickly?

  “I look silly,” she said, turning to her betrothed. His smart elegant attire made her feel all the more childish by comparison. “Please, sir, could I not just wear my own dress?”

  “No. This one pleases me, and as you’ll soon discover, pleasing me is your gateway to happiness and pleasure.”

  She looked down at it. “How did you know my size?” she asked.

  Garrett smiled. “It was not difficult to glean such information prior to your arrival. I had a whole wardrobe made for you.”

  She bit her lip thoughtfully. “Were you so certain of having me here?”

  “My dear,” he said. “As you’ll also soon realize, I always get what I want.”

  He took Amelia’s hand then and led her from the room, and for the first time, she got a look at the splendor of Darmley Hall.

  It truly was nothing like she’d ever seen. The Darmley ancestry glared down at her from life-sized portraits lining the hallway leading to the grand staircase. Once in the huge marble foyer, she was guided down a long hallway to the library, its shelves lined with more rich leather-bound volumes than Amelia had ever seen.

  She instantly recognized the striking middle-aged couple sitting side by side on a sofa waiting to receive them. Who else could they be but Lord and Lady Darmley? The resemblance to their handsome son was obvious; he’d clearly inherited the best traits of both.

  Behind the sofa stood two other men. One was tall and handsome, with steel grey hair and hooded eyes. The other was shorter, with coal black hair, full lips, and the kind of noble profile uncommon among the serving class.

  “Mother, father. I’d like to introduce you to my betrothed, Lady Amelia Chesterfield.”

  Amelia felt cheated. What should have been a moment of pride at being introduced as a future wife was one of abject humiliation. That she was in such grand company dressed in such a juvenile fashion was almost too much to bear. She kept her eyes to the floor, dreading the smirks.

  “What a lovely girl.” Lady Darmley was the first to speak. “Isn’t she a rose, Winston?”

  “Quite,” said the elder Lord Darmley. “But so shy. Raise your eyes, dear. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “Yes. Look up, dear.” Lady Darmley’s tone was soft but commanding.

  Amelia instantly obeyed. Her heart began to thud as Aster Darmley stood and walked over. The older woman was silent as she coolly assessed her son’s choice for a mate.

  “I know why you’re so shy,” she said. “It’s your attire. But understand that the earl and I are both aware of the circumstances of your coming here, and of our son’s plans to keep you as his ward and his wife. Please understand that no one will think any less of you.” She paused. “Do you realize how lucky you are, being chosen to be a little one?”

  “A… little one?” Amelia asked

  “Yes, dear,” Lady Darmley replied. “A grown woman who lives as a child.”

  Amelia felt skeptical. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “No. I suspect you have not. But I suspect you have much to learn. There are many different kinds of marriages. What you often see between couples is sometimes different than the reality.”

  Amelia could feel the woman’s eyes on her again, the steady gaze moving boldly up and down her body. It made her feel flushed and exposed. She looked up to see the servants eyeing her with equal boldness. Who are these people?

  “Promise me you’ll never feel out of place here, Amelia,” Lady Darmley said, taking her hand. “In a home such as this, you’ll fit in quite well.”

  Aster Darmley led Amelia to a chair across from the couch she returned to. Garrett took the one next to it.

  “So, dear,” she said. “Have you had any formal lessons?”

  Amelia swallowed nervously before answering. Her ladyship’s attempts to put her at ease had made her—if anything—more unsettled. “I-I studied painting and drawing in London. And of course, I can read quite well, and write. I know nothing of running a household, however.”

  “You won’t need to,” Lady Darmley said quietly. “I am lady of this house, after all.”

  Amelia felt heat creep to her face. “Yes, of course.”

  “Of course,” Aster Darmley repeated quietly.

  “Connaissez-vous le français?” Her ladyship quirked a brow.

  Amelia just looked at her puzzled.

  “I was asking if you know French. I take it your parents did not expose you to different languages.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Lady Darmley turned her attention to Garrett. “My dear, you must hire a tutor for her.”

  “I’ll see to it, mother.”

  “Do you have any questions, Amelia?” Now the earl spoke. His expression was kinder than his wife’s, at least, but Amelia was tongue-tied. What could she possibly ask under these odd circumstances? She summoned what boldness she could to ask the one question that had been nagging her—the obvious one.

  “Why me?” Her eyes traveled from the man she was to marry to the stately couple sitting across from her. “I’m of a lesser family, and come with a scandal you’ve thought to cover. Even if this is what your son wants,
why are you as his parents not objecting?”

  She was unnerved when everyone in the room—including the servants—all exchanged knowing glances before answering.

  Lord Darmley took a sip of his tea before answering. “My son and I had but to spend a moment with your family to recognize that everything they did was geared toward improving their social standing. It’s much the same with ours; if word got out that our son was marrying a young woman who’d spread her legs for a gardener, then it would do grave harm to our reputation. But there’s a benefit to being at the top of the structure; you can buy the silence to strangle such a scandal in its crib. We live by our own rules here, and are guided by our own pleasures. I suspect you’ll see things that will surprise you, but as a member of this household, you will see that we strictly enforce discretion. My son sought a wife, and your circumstances made you the ideal choice.”

  Amelia understood now, and didn’t know whether to be angry or impressed by the clear calculation of her selection. They’d chosen her because she had nowhere else to go. Whatever the handsome Garrett Darmley had planned for her, she’d have to endure. For if not, where were her options? She knew none existed. They knew it, too.

  “We want you to be happy, Amelia,” Lady Darmley said. The dark-haired servant was moving around to pour her some more tea, and Lady Darmley smiled up at him. When her cup was full, she placed her slim hand on the servant’s gloved one and held it there as she looked at her future daughter-in-law. “We all have our needs, dear. In this house, we don’t suppress them.”

  Was it Amelia’s imagination, or was the servant staring at Lady Darmley now with a sly, almost hungry look? Amelia glanced at the earl, wondering if he’d noticed. He was looking at his wife and the servant, but his expression was almost bored.

  “You will make the most of things, dear.” Lady Darmley said bluntly. “We want our son to be happy, of course, but we want you to be happy, too. It will be so much easier if you just embrace your situation.”

  Amelia nodded. Later, she would only recall the rest of the conversation as a surreal blur. She’d never thought she’d regret escaping marriage to Hamish Foxcroft. She knew she should count herself fortunate that circumstances would lead her not to ruin, but to marriage within the region’s most powerful family. But she realized now that she was more afraid of the Darmleys than she’d ever been of the Foxcrofts. With the latter, life would have been predictable. But there was something almost ominous in the uncertainty of it all.

  * * *

  “You did very well, my dear,” Garrett said when they were back in her room. “It can be very intimidating, meeting the parents of the man you are to marry.”

  Amelia shook her head. “If it were only that, I’d not be so vexed. But the way your mother looked at me, and the things she said…” She fought to find the right words, and to summon the courage to look at the handsome man who was standing so close to her. “Please tell me what to expect, my lord.”

  “I already have,” Garrett replied. “You will be my wife and my little one. I will coddle and care for you and—if need be—punish you. You will be conditioned to obey me, and to both give and receive pleasure. Your training will begin tomorrow.”

  “I’m afraid,” she said suddenly.

  “Of what?”

  “That’s the problem,” she said. “I do not know. Of you. Of this house. Of my new life. Of everything…”

  “Now you listen to me,” he said, gently tipping her face up. “There’s no need for you to be afraid, not with me to take care of you. When I say you are my little one, that’s just what I mean. Yes, I will correct you when you need it, but first and foremost I will see to your safety and security.” He paused, and Amelia realized that he’d captured her gaze with his grey eyes and she could not look away.

  “You’re such a beauty, Amelia,” he said. “And such an innocent.”

  “I’m not…”

  He laughed at this. “You think you are not a virgin simply because of one swift bedding? There are more virginities than one, but you’re still too pure to understand that. In time, I will claim you in ways you never thought possible.”

  His voice was low, husky and his finger trailed down Amelia’s jawline as he spoke, down her shoulder and then down the swell of her breast. She could feel the tip of it graze a nipple that had gone suddenly and inexplicably tight. The throbbing between her legs had resumed, more intense now. The man before her exuded something invisible that drew a reaction from her body.

  “Amelia,” he asked. “Have you ever touched yourself between your legs?”

  She shook her head.

  “I’m giving you permission to do so tonight, after I put you to bed. I want you to think of me, to think of me touching your breasts, even of how I spanked your pretty bottom. I want you to rub that place between your thighs, the place that is throbbing even as we speak.”

  “It’s not…”

  “Don’t lie to me, naughty girl,” he said. “Your cheeks are pink, your pretty lips are parted, your breathing is rapid, and your pupils are dilated. If I were to touch you now, I’d find your little pussy slick and ready for my cock. But I’m not going to do that. Instead I’m going to let you do it, so long as you remember that you are never allowed to touch yourself there unless I say so. Understand?”

  She nodded, left speechless by the frankness of his words.

  “Good girl,” he said. “Ah, here comes the maid to help you get changed for bed.” He dropped a kiss on top of her head and then winked. “Sweet dreams, poppet.”

  Chapter Six: Capable Hands

  It was not the kind of thing Amelia expected to see when summoned to the study the next morning. She’d never seen a naked bottom; her sisters had always bathed privately and she’d been discouraged from even looking at her own form in the looking glass. So she was understandably speechless when she was escorted into the oak-paneled room to see a maid bent over, her very full and very bare bottom on display.

  She knew it was a maid because the distinctive fabric of a servant’s uniform framed the presented hindquarters. The black of the stockings the maid wore further accentuated the paleness of the woman’s skin.

  Amelia herself was clad in another childish dress, this one edged in the finest lace she’d ever seen. She felt like a doll—pretty but helpless in the hands of its owner.

  She’d refused to obey Garrett’s order to touch herself, even though she’d ached to. She would not reward the body that betrayed her with apparent, unfathomable need that felt so contrary to her situation. Even now, she knew she should feel indignant by the display of this bared maid. And yet, even now, she could not look away.

  “Amelia, you’re here.” Garrett was standing to the side of the maid along with Mr. Holloway and a tall, imperious-looking woman in a starched blue dress and white apron.

  “This is Prue Steadwell,” he said, indicating the tall woman who was now coolly appraising Amelia in a manner that made her heart pound. “She is applying for position of governess.”

  “Governess?” Amelia asked, and the pounding in her chest turned to a sinking sensation, for she already knew the response to the question she was about to ask. “For whom?”

  “For you, of course,” Garrett said. “I intend to devote much of my personal attention to your training. But I do help father run Darmley affairs, and when I can’t be with you, I want you in the hands of only the most capable minder. Miss Steadwell has already established her qualifications to care for and tutor you. All that remains now is a demonstration of her corrective techniques.”

  Amelia’s gaze moved to the maid, and then back to Garrett. When she addressed him again, her tone was incredulous. “And you mean to punish an innocent maid as some sort of… cruel demonstration?”

  A tall man stepped forward then and Garrett introduced him as Mr. Holloway, head of the Darmley staff. Amelia recognized him as one of the servants who’d been in the room the day before when she’d met her future in-laws. Amelia fell quie
t as her future husband gave the tall, stern-looking man leave to explain.

  “I assure you, miss, that this maid is not innocent,” Holloway said, and as he spoke, the little maid bent over the chair began to cry. “She has been engaging in gossip, which is the gravest breach a staff member can make. Betty here has been given a choice between dismissal and a sound bare-bottom punishment. She has chosen the latter.”

  When Amelia gave no reply, Holloway turned to the woman in blue. “You may begin.”

  For a young woman already struggling to process her diminished place in an authoritarian household, the beautiful but stony governess represented a whole new thing to fear. Prue Steadwell had moved to the side of the whimpering maid now and reached into the deep pocket of her starched white apron to retrieve a small oval paddle. Amelia felt her stomach clench with empathy; the younger Lord Darmley had already awakened her to the agony of a spanking, and that had just been with his hand. She could only imagine what the burn of unrelenting wood would feel like against such delicate skin.

  When the first blow fell, the little maid shrieked like a whistle, and Amelia so visibly startled that her betrothed put a hand on her shoulder to steady her. The oval imprint of the paddle flared pink before turning a deep red. Miss Steadwell landed another crack of the paddle below the first. Then another. And another. The maid’s cries filled the room. Amelia could feel tears choking her throat, a flush heating her face, and—worst of all—Garrett Darmley’s eyes fixed not on the maid’s reactions, but on hers.

  Amelia knew the spectacle was as much for her benefit as poor Betty. And as much as she wanted to, she could not force herself to look away from the scene unfolding before her.

  The maid was holding position as best she could, but as her bottom rapidly reddened, she struggled to stay still. The white thighs, so tightly pressed together at the outset, now splayed as the girl wriggled in pain. Amelia’s eyes widened when the governess barked for the maid to stop struggling and widen her stance. In such a position, the punished cheeks were slightly spread, revealing her most private of places.