A Captain For Christmas

by Louise Taylor

  "Are you being honest with me?" Serena asked suspiciously.

  "On my honour as an officer and a gentleman," he said immediately.

  He was sincere, she could tell. That was not an oath that any man took lightly. Could it be true? Could he have been desperate to marry her after all?

  "I never got those letters," Serena said weakly.

  "Your parents must have intercepted them," he said, taking another step towards her. "They probably did not want you to hear from me."

  "Yes," Serena agreed. "Yes, my mother would have done that. My aunt would have followed her instructions on the matter."

  "Let me take this time to tell you what those letters tried to ten years ago," he said, taking the final step close to her so that he could take her smaller hands in his.

  "I made the biggest mistake of my life ten years ago when I ran away," he said, looking deeply into her eyes. "I left you behind because I thought that you would do better without me, that you would find a man who could afford to give you everything your heart desired. I told myself that you would be treated kindly by your parents. I know that they loved you. I did not make it ten yards down the drive before I realised just how stupid I had been, and how I had abandoned you so cruelly. My own pride over living off a bride's dowry stood in the way of me doing not only the right thing, but what I truly wanted to do."

  "You wanted to marry me?" she asked, her voice choked with emotion. Tears started to fall, unbidden, down her cheeks.

  "I did. I always have," he admitted. "Let me show you something," he said, unbuttoning his red jacket and reaching inside. He pulled out a scrap of paper, old and folded many times. The ink had smudged a little where it had been rained on, and there were one or two brownish marks that looked like bloodstains. He handed the paper to her, and she blinked, recognising it.

  "This is the end of a letter I sent to William," she said, looking at her own handwriting.

  "You've been a prize idiot, but you're the only prize idiot I have. Come home soon, and come home safe. I love you, even though you probably don't deserve it. Serena."

  She read the words on the scrap of paper aloud, and then handed it back to him. He carefully refolded it and placed it in his inside pocket.

  "I ripped it off the end of the letter you wrote," he admitted. "All of the other fellows had letters from their wives and sweethearts. I pretended that those words were for me. Lord knows, I was a prize idiot," he said ruefully.

  "I never thought I would see you again," Serena said, wiping her eyes. "I used to check the lists the newspaper printed, of the names of the fallen soldiers, and I was always so happy when your name wasn't there. Then I'd get angry with you again, for leaving me, until the next time we got a newspaper and the relief would come back. I hated you – at least, I thought I did. Believing that I hated you was a lot easier than admitting to myself that despite everything that had happened, I still loved you."

  "Do you… do you still feel the same way about me now?" he asked, looking both hopeful and frightened at the same time.

  She looked down at his ruined breeches.

  "I think it's safe to say that I still feel a certain resentment about how the last ten years of my life has been spent," she said dryly.

  "Understandable," he said, smiling a little.

  "But," she went on. "I would be lying if I said that I only hated you. I read a book once – I've read a lot of books in the last decade," she added, "and the author said something along the lines of great love and great hate being two sides of the same coin. If you feel one, then you are very close to feeling the other. I hated you because I loved you, I think, and while I clung to one emotion I could never abandon the other."

  "So, you mean to say that if I worked very hard, I could regain your trust?" he asked. "That, with time, you could love me again? Enough to marry me?"

  Waiting would be a good idea, Serena knew. Ten years was a long time. Jonathan would have been changed by his experiences in the war, and the good Lord only knew how much opposition her parents would bring to the match.

  On the other hand, however, ten years had been a very long time to wait. Ten long years of quiet, sober living, of working her fingers to the bone stitching and knitting for charity after charity. Ten years of pointed looks and nasty smirks and vile rumours repeated as truth amongst her old friends. She had been miserable for ten dull, miserable mind-numbing years. She was nearly thirty, a spinster with no chance of marriage and children, destined to live with her parents, and then her brother, until the day she died.

  She had absolutely no desire to live that life. If it meant giving Jonathan another chance to prove his true feelings, well, she would be bold enough to do just that.

  "If you love me, Jonathan Luttrell, you will get a Special License, and you will marry me immediately," she heard herself say. "We will use my dowry and your salary to support us, and we will be happy, no matter how poor we are, do you understand?"

  "Yes, sir!" he said, jumping to attention and saluting in such a professional way that she burst into laughter. "Permission to speak, sir?"

  "Permission granted, Captain," she said, waving a hand loftily.

  "Your dowry can be yours to do what you want with, sir!" he said, grinning. "My grandmother's estate has a very rich seam of coal running straight through it, which is becoming more valuable as each day passes!"

  "You mean to say that we could have married ten years ago and avoided all this… all this—"

  Her words were cut off as he grabbed her and pulled her into kiss far more breathtaking than any of his previous ones had been.

  "Enough talk of the past," he said softly. "Let's think of our future, shall we?"

  "Very well," she agreed, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him again.

  He leaned back away from her.

  "There is just one thing," he said, smiling wickedly.

  "What?" Serena demanded.

  "Well, wife, you do seem to have a habit of damaging valuable items of my clothing," he said, indicating his ruined breeches. "And I do seem to remember the punishment for that was a spanking."

  "One spank for every shilling you paid," she said, licking her lips. "And then, afterwards, you touched me here."

  She pointed to the meeting of her thighs.

  "I did," he said, taking her hand and leading her to the armchair before the fire.

  He sat down and waited for her to decide what she was going to do next. Slowly and deliberately she unwrapped the shawls from around her shoulders and let them fall to the ground. Next, she undid her wrapper, and let that fall too. With only her long linen nightdress on, she gracefully arranged herself over his lap. He found the hem of her nightdress and pulled it up to reveal her backside to the warmed air of the fireside.

  He let his large hand rest on the curve of her derriere.

  "Now, these breeches were very expensive, as I recall," he said, rubbing her pale skin with a hand now callused from holding a sword and firing a rifle. "They cost at least fifty shillings."

  "Fifty!" Serena said, outraged, wriggling to see his face. "There is no way that you are going to spank me fifty times, Jonathan!"

  He lifted his hand and let it fall once with a satisfactory smack.

  "They have two legs, so let's call it two sets of twenty-five," he said cheerfully, smacking her again.

  His first spanks weren't so hard; these weren't delivered in anger, as he had first spanked her so long ago. These delivered a gentle warmth to her skin, which faded after a few moments. The sensation was actually rather pleasant, she decided, raising her backside slightly to encourage the blow. Once her skin had been warmed, he started to spank her harder, which felt more familiar. These stung for longer, and they fell more frequently than before. She started to wiggle in his lap, and he held her more firmly.

  "Some big ones coming up now," he warned her. "Get ready for them."

  She wasn't entirely sure how she could be any more ready for these next blows than the last, but the
se made her shout into the silence of the room. These hurt! He'd always been strong, but so much time in the saddle must have given him the muscles of Atlas in his arms.

  There were ten of these such painful spanks, and he counted them for her evenly as she howled and wriggled and tried her best to avoid them. When the tenth one was over and done with she was scooped up and sat on his lap as she cried into his chest.

  "That hurt!" she managed to say between sobs.

  "Nice to know that I haven't lost my touch," he said, pulling up her nightdress and running a hand along her thigh.

  Obediently she opened her legs, expecting him to start massaging her expertly again, but she had a surprise coming.

  He stood up, supporting her as he did so, before pulling her nightgown up and over her head and throwing it to the ground.

  "Back into the chair," he said firmly, dropping to his knees in front of it.

  When she had settled her aching bottom into place, he put his hands under her knees and lifted her legs, pulling her forward slightly and draping them over his shoulders.

  "Jonathan, what are you… oh!" she screamed, as he gently pulled her folds open with his hands and started to lick at her slit. His tongue made three or four long passes over the length of it before he settled his attention to a small area at the top.

  She had never imagined that such a thing was possible! The sensations he created were beyond any that he had coaxed from her ten years ago. He was determined, suckling at her as if the devil himself was on his heels. He let his hands run up over her body, finding her breasts by touch alone as he continued to let his tongue explore her secret folds.

  The tension was building up in her again, down in the pit of her stomach, and she threw her head back and howled with ten years' worth of pent-up feelings as the tension broke and the ecstatic bliss broke out in waves through her body. Jonathan did not stop, however, and to her surprise, she felt another, smaller pleasure wave crash through her, and then another.

  "Stop," she begged, after the third. "Stop, I beg you! It is too much!"

  He grinned up at her from between her legs.

  "It's only the beginning," he promised her. "I swear to you, my love, this is only the beginning."

  It was the beginning of a night of pleasure that Serena would never forget, right to the end of her days. They anticipated their wedding vows several times, reaching such heights of joined bliss that Serena was reluctant to let him leave her bed the next morning! However, he would not wait another day to marry her, and he had to cross London and the Thames to obtain a Special License from Lambeth Palace, the official residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Serena had heard of such marriages, but they were very rare. Most couples called banns in their parish church and waited three weeks, but both Jonathan and Serena were too impatient to wait that long.

  It took him all day, leaving Serena alone in the house with the scandalised servants who had learned of Jonathan's presence only when the maid entered the bedroom early in the morning to light the fire and open the curtain. She sent the footman to Bessie' house with a note, and her friend arrived bursting with the righteous ire of those that defended their weaker, vulnerable friends. It took Serena some time to convince Bessie that she was marrying Jonathan willingly, and that her love for him had survived the ten years of bitterness. In the end, her friend agreed to stand up with her at her wedding, and sent for her husband to come and act as witness.

  Jonathan arrived late in the afternoon, in the middle of the still-falling snow, bearing an obliging vicar, a friend and fellow officer to stand with him, a wedding ring and the important license stamped and sealed by the Archbishop. The friend and fellow officer turned out to be William, who had been sent by the family to escort her back to Kent. He was delighted to see his younger sister happy at last, and gave his blessing to the match, promising to help smooth the problem over with their parents.

  Grateful at the thought of at least one of her family being at the wedding, Serena asked William to give her away at the small service held in the library. The servants watched from the door as the couple said their vows and Jonathan slid a ring onto Serena's finger, making her forever his wife.

  "A wedding ring on my finger won't save us from being talked about all over town," she told her husband later, when their guests had gone and they were lying in bed in Serena's room.

  She lifted her hand and admired the glint as the candlelight bounced off the most important piece of jewelry she would ever wear.

  "We shall be scandalous," he agreed, smiling. "And I wager we shall not want for invitations, either. Everyone loves a good love story, you'll see. Those old biddies who tolerated Lady Serena Olston will be anxious to receive Lady Serena Luttrell, just you wait and see!"

  "You think that this second scandal will remove the stain of my first?" she asked, sounding dubious.

  "I think this second scandal will make you the most popular woman in London," he said confidently. "And when people get to know the real you, they will forget about the scandal, and take you into their hearts.

  "Then we shall cut them, live in the country, and raise our children in peace," he said firmly.

  "Children?"

  "Yes, children," he said replied. "And since my unconscionable actions have delayed their presence for ten years, I believe we should get started on their conception as soon as possible!"

  Laughing, Serena extinguished the candles, and loved her husband.

  Louise Taylor

  I'm Louise Taylor, and I love writing historical romantic erotica. I have two novels published in my Victorian Vices series, with the third about to be released. All my novels will be published by the lovely people at Blushing Books.

  All my books have elements of power exchange, spanking and BDSM, but none of my heroines are weak-willed or easily dominated—they make their men work for their love!

  I live on the beautiful Welsh coast, and I love walking the cliff tops and visiting some of our wonderful historical ruins. I get my best ideas when I'm in the great outdoors and you can usually find me chasing after the piece of paper I've just scribbled my notes on!

  I live in a Victorian house with wonderfully high ceilings and no central heating; thank goodness for my fabulous fireplace. I'm owned by Alfred The Great, an enormous tom cat with very decided ideas about who gets to sit where on the sofa and how long I am allowed to stay in bed in the morning!

  Find her on Twitter:

  @LTaylorRomance

  Visit her blog here:

  louisetaylorromance.wordpress.com

  Don’t miss these exciting titles by Louise Taylor and Blushing Books!

  The Victorian Vices Series

  Spanking The Governess

  Spanking Miss Sophia

  Spanking The Heiress

  The Ruttingdon Club Series

  Book One: The Duke’s Proposition

  (available December 20th 2015)

  Anthologies

  Halloween’s Treats

  with Courage Knight and Lizzie Steele

  .

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