by Nina Mason
On the whole, she had borne her punishment exceedingly well, given the current state of her cheeks, which bore six angry red stripes apiece. Had Maggie not been in the room, he would have given her a good thrashing with his tarse before dismissing her.
For reasons he could not fully comprehend, he’d enjoyed birching the viscountess even more than he’d enjoyed spanking Gemma Crosse. Maybe because the former was Protestant and the latter was of his faith; or maybe because his heart was cold where Lady F was concerned and he’d once been warm toward Mrs. Crosse.
Either way, he now sported a raging erection, which he had no desire to abate before giving his wife her turn. Sliding the expended viscountess off his lap to her knees, he untied her hands and ordered her to kneel before the other chair in the same posture as Mrs. Crosse. Taking a short breather, he darted his gaze between the two bottoms he’d painted red with a feeling of deep satisfaction. He’d not exercised his whip hand in far too long, and sorely missed the heightened intensity of sensation only flagellation could afford.
Not that he found normal relations in any way lacking. On the contrary, he loved swiving his sweet, unpredictable, accommodating wife more than anything else in the world. He just enjoyed fucking her all the more after a good hiding.
“Come, Rosebud.” He reached out to his wife with both hands. “Let your devil of a husband do his worst.”
Though Maggie came to him, she did not recline across his lap. Instead, she sat beside him on the cushion, pulled off his mask, and pushed him back on the settee. “My God.” Her voice was husky with passion. “I had no idea how arousing I would find watching you whip other women.”
“More arousing than being whipped yourself?”
“God, yes. Much more. I am on fire for you like never before.”
As she kissed and caressed him with unbridled fervor, his mind harkened back to an incident many years in the past—an incident she’d mentioned early in their marriage. He’d pretended ignorance of it, of course, for fear she would despise him if she’d known he’d watch in silence as his father beat her.
He’d been in the library reading a book when she’d come in from outdoors. Hoping to catch a glimpse of the girl he pined for in secret, he peered through the gap in the door. He’d not expected to find his father also waiting upon her return, nor to see the duke seize his unsuspecting ward roughly by the arm.
“Where is the blue vase that was on that table?” His father gestured toward the round rent table in the center of the entry hall.
Maggie went pale as fear overtook her features. “I broke it this morning by accident, My Lord, and put the pieces in the rubbish bin.”
His father’s face turned purple. “You clumsy chit. That vase belonged to my late wife and was precious to me. And now you shall feel the pain your carelessness has caused me.”
Robert was equal parts appalled and enthralled by the unfolding scene. His father, still gripping her arm, went to the umbrella stand and withdrew one of the switches he stored there to discipline the domestics.
Maggie’s eyes filled with tears and her lip began to tremble. “It does not seem fair to birch me for something I did not mean to do.”
“Hold your tongue, you insolent girl, and be grateful I spare you the buggy whip.” He dragged her to the table and bellowed at her to prepare for her punishment.
Robert knew better than to interfere when his father was in a temper. Doing so would only make him angrier, and Maggie would pay the price. Besides, the wicked part of him wanted to watch, wanted to see her bared and whipped. How many times he’d imagined similar scenes whilst pulling on his cock?
Widening her stand, she set her hands upon the table and stuck out her bottom—at the ideal angle for her unseen observer to witness the proceedings.
His father stepped forward and, with excruciating slowness, pulled up her layers. First the skirt, then each of three petticoats, and finally, the shift. A quiver of concupiscent longing ran through Robert as he gazed upon the masterpiece his father had unveiled. She now stood naked from her waist to the tops of her stockings under his lascivious gaze. She might have been in the early bloom of adolescence, but he found naught wanting in the way of womanly charms. Her bottom was a perfect inverted heart, her thighs were slender and firm, and beneath her white stockings, her calves were well developed from all the walking she did.
“Now, let me see…how many strokes should I give you to pay for that vase?” As his father mused, he drew the switch through the fingers of his left hand, separating the bristly twigs.
Robert, fixated on Maggie’s bewitching behind, already sported a serious cockstand beneath his kilt. He was so torn it felt as if he was being torn in two. How badly he wanted to stop his father from hurting her. But, just as acutely, he longed to watch him stripe her lovely bottom with that switch.
Raising his hand high in the air, his father made the first cut with vicious force. Maggie’s muscles jumped involuntarily. Long purplish streaks appeared across her snowy posterior. She jerked under the blow and hissed through her teeth, but did not cry out. Again and again, the switch swept through the air and fell with an exhilarating hiss upon that lovely bottom.
She bore it like a soldier, suggesting she’d been whipped before—but when and by whom? He’d only ever seen his father strike one lass before, so he did not believe the duke was the culprit. Whoever had beaten her mattered not. What mattered was that Robert knew in that moment his heart had chosen the perfect wife for him, and that when they were married, he would never whip her as punishment. Only for erotic enjoyment and, even then, not unless she was game to be struck.
Swish, swish, swish, went the branch, driving Robert to the brink of rapture. Swish, swish, swish. Though brave Maggie held her tongue, she began to arch and twist under the bite of the birch, affording him momentary glimpses of her sweet, pink petals. The mouth of her vagina opened and closed as if begging him to save her.
Just as he stepped forward to do so, his father stopped the birching and sent a tearful Maggie to her room. Robert, frustrated beyond measure, retreated to the hidden room behind the bookcase he used for self-mortification. Stripping naked, he dropped to his knees on the prayer chair and, whilst begging God’s forgiveness, flogged himself bloody.
Fingers, warm and light, brushed his sweat-dampened hair back from his forehead. Maggie was straddling his lap, gazing down at him.
“What were you thinking about?”
He smiled up at her as affection swelled in his heart. “Only how much I love you.”
She kissed him, softly, tenderly. A brush of the lips, a touch of tongue, a light nip of the teeth. If there was a more delicious mouth to kiss in all of creation, he could not imagine it. Nor desire it in the least. He was satisfied with what he had. More than satisfied. She’d proved the perfect wife for him. The ideal partner. She was clever and courageous and unconventional. She indulged his vices and he indulged her need for constancy—well, to the extent he was able. She had allowed this night and had clearly enjoyed herself. He, too, had relished letting his dark side off the leash after keeping that part of himself restrained for so long.
Perhaps, when he returned from Scotland—if he returned—they could arrange more evenings like this one. He evicted the thought from his head. Right now, he desired only to be alone with his darling Rosebud.
Freeing his mouth, he said to their guests, who were still on their knees with their backs to the settee, “The time has come for you to leave us, ladies.”
Ever mindful of her duty as a hostess, Maggie climbed off him, helped the women dress, and showed them to the door. Though words were exchanged between the three, he could not make out what was said.
When his wife returned to the parlor, he held out his arms. Without a word, she straddled his lap and pressed her lips to his. He deepened the kiss, entwining his tongue with hers, and let his hands explore. Her skin was smooth and warm, the structure underneath solid yet supple. To him, she felt like perfection itself
.
She was touching him, too. Both of her hands were on his chest, their fingers actively pulling the hairs thereupon. He moved his hands to her buttocks and dug his fingers into the malleable flesh. As he squeezed, he thought back once again to the day he’d watched his father beat her. Guilt rang through him like the chime on their longcase clock. How many times he’d chided himself for watching the beating and doing naught to help her. How much he despised the coward he’d been, but he’d only come home from court for a brief visit. His relationship with his father was already strained and interfering, he feared, would accomplish no more than driving the wedge between them deeper.
Breaking free of her mouth, he let his head fall back against the hard wooden frame of the settee. “Oh, Maggie. Why do you love me when I am so very, very wicked and unworthy?”
“You are not unworthy.” She kissed him with smiling lips. “And your wickedness is your spice, Robert. Without it, you would be far too bland to please my palate.”
Heartened by her answer, he eased her onto his erection. Her hot, wet encasement felt so sublime, he came close to spilling himself. A low moan of pleasure escaped his throat as he seated himself to the root. She made a similar noise as she rotated around him. Then, she lifted herself almost to the brink of separation before coming all the way down again. She repeated the motion again and again with exquisite slowness until he was sure he would die from the pleasure of it. Gradually, she accelerated the action until she was riding him fast and hard. She was working her inner muscles, too. Tightening her grip on his pole as her slippery, swollen cunny slid up and down. At the bottom, when fully seated, and at the top, when on the verge of disconnecting, she circled her hips, driving him to the edge of madness. In between, she was all insulating bliss. A superb combination of lush heat and firm pressure.
Christ, she felt good. So good, it was painful. He was so engorged, so aroused, so ready to explode, his cock was throbbing like a finger smashed in a door. Only it was a sublime kind of pain. Agony heavily laced with ecstasy. A delicious torture he hoped never would end.
He thrust into her descents, burying himself to the hilt, and breathlessly held on as she threatened to terminate their connection. When he felt her striving toward completion, he grasped her hips more firmly, drove upward, and held her there. As she pivoted around his full length, he drew back his right hand and gave her bottom a smack. Not a hard one. Just firm enough to push her over the edge.
She bore down, squeezing his cock with such excruciating force, he lost control. As she convulsed around him, he drove upward again and again and again with reckless abandon until an eruption of ecstasy shot him into heaven with her.
As she fell down upon him, spent and sated, he threaded his fingers through her golden curls.
“Are you happy with me, Rosebud? Truly happy?”
“Yes, Robert,” she said against his shoulder. “But will be inconsolable if you should not come back from Scotland. Promise me you will do everything in your power to ensure your safe return—or I shall never know happiness again.”
The smaller part of him—the selfish, possessive part—wanted her to be miserable without him. The bigger part, however—the part that truly loved—wanted only her felicity. “If I should not return, I want you to remarry, Maggie. But not until you find a good man who loves you as I do and can embrace the light and dark in you in equal measure. And I trust there is no need for me to tell you not to marry a Protestant.”
Upon uttering the words, he broke down. As soon as he could regain command of his voice, he said, “I only say these things because I cannot bear the thought of you alone, unprotected, and unhappy.”
Maggie pushed back and gazed into his leaking eyes with the dew of emotion in her own. Wiping the moisture from his cheek with her finger, she offered him a sad smile. “I have loved none but you and should not know how to love another. Thus, should I be so unfortunate as to lose you, my dearest husband, I shall exempt myself from ever thinking upon what you propose.”
Chapter Twelve
Hands shaking with anticipation and fatigue, Robert used his bone-handled letter knife to cut away the silk-floss bindings around Anne’s letter before breaking the dual wax seals. Had he his druthers, he would have sent the communique on to Holland were it free of incriminating sentiments, but the elaborate method of concealment made that impossible. It also rendered the missive cloaked within all the more suspect.
When the closures were broken, he carefully unfolded the intricately folded and pleated sheet. Maggie stood behind him, positioned to read over his shoulder what Anne had penned to Princess Mary of Orange.
The clock struck midnight just as he began to read. The letter was written entirely in French, the language of the court, and was peppered with ciphers. As he scanned the lines, these words, halfway down the page, lit a fire in his chest:
“…the bastard child he dotes upon as he never did his legitimate daughters. It sickens me to see the constant favoritism he demonstrates toward that papist spawn of his sin against our mother. The other day, Lord M caught her in my private chapel, practicing her papist sorcery. When I complained of this flagrant violation, do you know what our Sire had the gall to tell me? ‘We must forgive those who trespass against us, if we would have the Lord forgive our own!’ Can you believe his nerve? He will, I have no doubt, be less eager to forgive his own trespassers when your husband knocks the crown from his empty head.”
Though the last line was the golden nugget he’d hoped to unearth, he could not ignore the injury done to his wife.
“Take not to heart her slanders, Rosebud. You are worth ten of her, and then some.”
“I know that, Robert,” Maggie said, “and store no stock by the opinions of hypocrites. For, however pious my sisters might profess to be, in my opinion, any who make a practice of hatred and judgement defy the teachings of Jesus Christ and shall, therefore, never know the peace of God.”
Contented she’d not been upset by Anne’s slight, he carried on reading.
Whilst on the subject of William, allow me to tell you how aggrieved I was to read in your letter of the 9th that he has taken up with Lady V, though I cannot claim surprise. For, in my estimation, all in that family are naught but opportunists and whores. Is it not vexation enough that he has proven himself a taciturn and unfeeling husband? Must he also add the injury of infidelity to the insults of tyranny and primness? I would not put up with it if I were you, dear sister. Not that you have much choice in the matter, I suppose, unless you divorce him and return to England. Still, you can do your wifely best to plague his heart out and pray that, through God’s help and your coldness, he will come to see the error of his ways. Not that a husband who cheats is ever likely to reform, however much his wife complains, as we know from observing our parents…
So, the rumors of William’s faithlessness had been confirmed, as had those of the priggish prince’s cruelty toward his wife. More than one report had reached Robert’s ears of frequent physical abuse and mental cruelty on the Dutch prince’s part toward his English wife. Would that he could devise a way to use the information to tarnish William’s luster in the eyes of his Protestant supporters throughout Britain.
He returned his attention to the letter. What remained were invectives against the Church of Rome and court gossip, all of which Robert had already heard, so he refolded the letter, set it atop the sideboard, and, with shaking hands, poured himself a whisky.
“Do you fancy a drink, Rosebud?”
“I would not say no to a glass of port,” she said, setting her head against his back.
“I will go to your father in the morning with the letter.” He poured the fortified wine she’d requested. “How did you leave things with Mrs. Crosse?”
“She will return in a se’nnight to perform the—oh, I nearly forgot. She gave me something to give to you.”
“Did she? How kind of her.”
Assuming the apothecary had left the ointment she’d mentioned to dec
rease the unsightliness of his pockmarks, he was utterly unprepared for the article Maggie set before him on the sideboard.
“She said she found it in a pawn-broker’s shop not long after you left her father’s house, but she knew not where to forward it.”
Through the blur of sudden tears, Robert gazed with awe and gratitude upon the item he’d believed lost to him forever. But here it was, restored to him as if by holy miracle: the cherished seed-pearl rosary that had belonged to his mother.
* * * *
Perched upon an opposing chair, Robert waited on tenterhooks whilst King James read the intercepted letter. ’Twas early in the day and His Majesty had yet been abed when his son-in-law was admitted to the royal bedchamber (after greasing the palms of the page guarding the door). There was a silver tray across the monarch’s lap with what appeared to be a stoup of ale and a half-consumed egg tart. The pie’s appetizing aroma teased Robert’s nostrils, making him acutely aware of the emptiness of his belly. So eager had he been to share the inculpating missive, he’d sought an audience before breaking his fast.
After many mordent sighs and woeful head shakes, the king looked up from the letter, his face etched with despair. Fixing Robert with a heavy-lidded gaze, he said, “Woe is me. ’Twould appear my own daughters have turned against me—if ever they were behind me to begin with. For I fear the die was cast against me when my brother insisted they be raised in the Church of England—and be married off to Protestants.” He spoke the last word as if it were a curse. “And poor Mary, having to suffer that Calvinist’s abuse and neglect. He has ruined her disposition. Did you know that? When I visited them last year at the Dutch court, I could scarcely believe she was the same sweet, forthright girl I once knew. Oh, Dunwoody. Seeing my eldest daughter so altered was like gazing upon a rose someone had pressed between the pages of a book.” Narrowing his eyes, the king added sourly, “The Book of Common Prayer, I suspect in this case.”