‘Ah, very good, Kitty. Bring that over here.’
Despite herself, Amelia watched the maid’s approach with some fascination. She was a very pretty girl with frizzy blonde locks which were barely restrained by a white lace maid’s cap. The billowing skirts emphasised the girl’s narrow waist, and her full breasts seemed about to burst out of the low-cut bodice. Apart from the fact that the girl’s nipples could be seen peeking from the lace trim of the cups, the uniform might have been respectable, if old-fashioned. The element that made it seem peculiar was the sleek leather collar encircling the girl’s slender throat, and matching wrist-cuffs. However, Amelia was most struck by what was on the tray.
To one side there was a plate with expensive-looking sweets; on the other, a stiff-looking paddle of black leather, and a rubber dog’s toy shaped like a bone. The paddle was perforated with regular small holes, and something about it caused a prickle to run down the back of Amelia’s neck.
‘When training girls, I am a strong believer in the carrot and stick approach – or rather, in this case, bon-bons and paddle. Amelia, sit next to me and watch. I suspect you are not quite ready for this yet. Clara, get on your hands and knees.’
Alicia took the rubber toy from the tray. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘I want you to retrieve this without getting from your knees or using your hands. Understand?’
Amelia watched as her cousin, blinking anxiously up at the woman on the chaise, gave a tentative nod. Clara licked her rosebud lips uncertainly.
‘Now,’ Lady Alicia instructed briskly, ‘don’t move a muscle until I say, “fetch”.’ The Marchioness threw the little rubber bone right across the drawing room. It bounced unevenly against the far wall before coming to rest under a chiffonier. Amelia followed its progress and then looked back at Clara kneeling on the floor. Clara was looking up at Lady Alicia nervously. There was silence for a moment as the four women in the room waited, each one of them, so it seemed, holding her breath.
‘Fetch!’ Lady Alicia said at last.
Clara looked up at her, at the bone, and back again, with pleading eyes and ever redder cheeks. For a moment Amelia thought her cousin was going to beg to be excused this duty, but it seemed that something in Lady Alicia’s eyes dissuaded her for, with a small sigh, she turned and crawled across the carpet towards the toy.
Amelia watched her, rapt. Clara’s bottom was quite exposed, her quim peeking back at the women grouped around the chaise. When she reached the chiffonier, Clara had to get her shoulders and head right down, arching her back and lifting her bare behind most prettily.
A moment later, the blonde girl emerged, the rubber toy between her teeth. Amelia could not suppress a smile as Clara crawled reluctantly back, eyes downcast and pure humiliation written across every inch of her lovely face.
‘Here, girl!’ Lady Alicia put out her hand and took the bone from Clara’s mouth. ‘Hold this for me, Amelia.’ The woman held the saliva-slick thing up in front of her face. Amelia opened her mouth and took it reluctantly.
‘Kitty!’
The maid who had been standing silently, bent at the waist, creaking slightly, and proffered the tray.
‘What is it to be?’ Lady Alicia moved her gloved hand from over the sweets to the paddle, and back again. ‘Carrot or stick?’ Her hand went back and forth hesitantly a few more times, fingers flexing. ‘Paddle or bon-bon?’
She sighed theatrically and picked up the paddle. ‘Recalcitrance and hesitation. When I say “fetch”, you must go like an unleashed setter or I shall imagine that you do not wish to please me. Turn around, raise your bottom. That’s it.’
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The little black paddle whipped down three times in quick succession and Clara shrieked with pain. She wiggled her bottom as if it were on fire, gasping and grimacing comically. Lady Alicia placed the paddle back on the tray and took the rubber bone from Amelia’s lips.
‘Stop that silly noise now, Clara.’
Amelia stared at her cousin’s buttocks. The paddle had raised what looked like dozens of little blisters on Clara’s bottom-cheeks. Clara was shaking her head furiously, still gasping from the pain.
Lady Alicia threw the bone again. This time it bounced around the casement window, coming to rest by the crimson velvet drapes.
Amelia looked at it, then at the still-wincing Clara, at the quietly smiling Marchioness, and at the impassive maid. The clock ticked on the mantelpiece and Lady Alicia’s gown rustled a little as she shifted on her seat.
‘Fetch!’
This time Clara fairly scurried across the room, grabbing the toy and turning quickly before crawling quickly back.
‘Here, girl!’ Lady Alicia Feversham took the toy once more and placed it in Amelia’s mouth as Kitty bent and proffered the tray again.
Amelia held her breath and kept her eyes on Clara as her aunt’s fingers hovered. The blonde girl was flushed from her exertions now, and panting a little, and there were some tears visible on her pretty face. Her eyes followed the movements of Lady Alicia’s hand attentively.
‘Carrot or stick? Carrot or stick? I have to admit that that was a lot better. But you could do better still.’ The mauve fingers picked up the paddle again. ‘Turn around and lift your bottom.’
Clara gave a despairing sob, but did as she was bid.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
Amelia watched, astonished, as the wicked device punished Clara’s cheeks again. Her cousin howled in agony as the paddle cracked across her bottom and her thighs. Five hard blows punished Clara’s hindquarters. Amelia, sitting helplessly bound, watched open-mouthed and felt her blood freeze. How Clara kept in position, she could not imagine. The blonde squealed like a stuck pig and wriggled her behind furiously, but somehow she managed not to bolt. Amelia saw her cousin’s knuckles whiten as she pawed desperately at the carpet. Her slender shoulders quivered violently as she convulsively curled and uncurled her toes.
Lady Alicia placed the paddle back on the silver platter, took a bon-bon and calmly placed it in her mouth. She allowed Clara several minutes to recover. Amelia watched her cousin’s bottom and thighs bloom with a fresh crop of the little blister-like swellings. Most of her hindquarters were a furious scarlet, now.
By the time Lady Alicia had finished her bon-bon, Clara had stopped howling, though she was still sobbing. Amelia stared at her cousin’s bottom, wondering if it felt as sore as it looked, and how long she might hope to avoid finding out the answer for herself.
‘Come here, Clara!’ Lady Alicia ordered crisply. Clara turned quickly and raised her tear-splashed face apprehensively. Lady Alicia produced a lace-trimmed handkerchief.
‘Now, cousin, you must stop this silly blubbing.’ Tenderly, she wiped the tears from Clara’s face. ‘What is the matter, did I make your little bottom a bit warm?’
‘I, ah, it… it’s agony!’ Clara gasped.
‘Oh dear,’ Lady Alicia said mildly. She stroked Clara’s cheek. ‘Well then—’ the steel in her rich voice was unmistakable ‘—you had better try a little harder to please me, had you not?’
‘Y-yes… Aunt Alicia,’ Clara sniffled, her eyes wide with terror.
‘Good girl!’ Lady Alicia bestowed a dazzling smile and took the rubber bone from Amelia’s lips. ‘Now, dear, would you care to try the game again?’
‘I think we must be there.’ Emma pressed her face against the iron bars of the coach’s window. The coach had stopped and the driver was talking to a man who had opened heavy iron gates. Both men seemed to be laughing but she could not hear what they said.
The coach lurched forward and through the gates and the girls could hear the wheels scrunch on a gravel drive. Emma tensed in anticipation of their imminent arrival at the hall, but she had not reckoned on the size of the grounds. The coach trundled on as both girls tried to peer out, but it was dark and there was little to see.
Finally, as the coach neared the hall, Emma made out its shape in the moonlight. A looming fortress-like tower was her first sight of the hall as the carriage approached its ancient west wing. Before it reached this ominous-looking keep, however, the coach turned sharply to the left. They found themselves jolted as the wheels rattled over cobbles, and then it lurched to a stop.
They were not furnished with lights, but there was sufficient illumination from without for the girls to exchange an apprehensive glance. Polly’s face and dark soulful eyes looked even lovelier in the moonlight. As the key rattled in the padlock of the door on Emma’s side, she reached across and gave her companion’s hand a farewell squeeze.
‘Good journey, girls?’ The sandy-haired youth who had manacled them into the carriage looked in, grinning. He climbed in and unlocked the handcuff securing Emma. ‘Step outside, if you please.’
Emma did as she was told. A stern-faced, black-clad woman awaited her, next to a big balding man.
‘Yours, I think, Mrs Pritchard. I can’t see this little chit winning the Silver Cup!’
‘Emma Swift?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Emma gave an awkward curtsey.
‘You’ll need to be swift here, girl, if you wish to save your tender skin.’
There was a creaking from the carriage as the boy and Polly descended. The man and woman looked from Emma to the tall girl.
‘And this must be your filly, Mr Blackstock. Come along with me, Emma.’ The woman turned on her heel and hurried off.
Emma half-turned to follow her, then looked back at her new friend.
‘Polly Thomas, sir.’ The big girl gave a curtsey in her turn.
As Emma turned to scurry after the receding back of Mrs Pritchard, she heard the groom growl, ‘Not any more, you’re not.’
‘That’s it. Good girl.’ Lady Alicia beamed at Clara who was flat on her belly and fervently licking the woman’s stockinged toes. ‘The little darling really tries to please, don’t you think, Amelia? She just needs some rigorous training to stop that silly thinking about orders. Soon, I am quite sure, the little love will learn to just obey!’
Amelia could neither see nor guess what Clara could do to be more submissive or obedient. For the last few throws of the rubber toy, she had waited for the order to fetch, poised like a retriever, as Lady Alicia stroked her golden hair. Then she had shot across the room and grabbed it in her mouth, hurtling back on hands and knees as fast as ever she could. Trembling, Clara had awaited the judgement. Twice she had been given a sweet and time to eat it as tears of relief and gratitude welled in her eyes. Once more she had been judged deficient and received another five hard cracks across the bottom with the paddle. Amelia had never heard her cousin, or anyone else, howl quite so heartbreakingly before.
Amelia’s need to urinate had not grown any less pressing as she sat watching her aunt train Clara. Part of her was delighted by the sight. Part of her was truly frightened for, at any moment, she knew she might replace Clara as the object of Aunt Alicia’s spite. Mostly though, she did not really care what was happening to Clara, but just wanted the performance to end so she might get the chance to go and seek relief.
‘Very well, Clara, put my shoes back on. I think it must be time for us to join the gentlemen. Kitty, you may go up to my chamber now and prepare yourself. I doubt if I will be very long.’
Amelia was aghast as her aunt picked up her leash. She looked down at her still-naked and shaven quim, and back up at Lady Alicia.
‘Please, Aunt, you can’t. I mean—’ The cold look in Aunt Alicia’s eye stopped her mouth, but she continued pleading with her eyes.
The woman patted her on the cheek consolingly. ‘Amelia, don’t make such a fuss. You don’t have anything down there that these gentlemen have not seen! Now, come along girls. No, Clara, no need to get up.’
It was an odd little party that made its way down the corridor; the elegantly turned-out Lady Alicia, rustling in her mauve silk gown and lingerie, Clara crawling in her little smock and stockings, scarlet bottom glowing like a beacon, and Amelia, similarly attired, arms still in bondage, trotting along stiff-legged on Lady Alicia’s leash.
‘All right, girl, get those clothes off and get into the bath.’
The scullery was stone-flagged and gloomy, but at least it was not cold. A tin bath had been placed and filled in the middle of the floor. Emma looked up at Mrs Pritchard uncertainly, and started to unbutton her grey reformatory dress.
‘Get undressed.’
The stable smelled of leather, hay and horse-sweat. Polly looked up furtively at Mr Blackstock and the two grinning stable-boys. She could not stop the blush, but there seemed to be nothing else for it. Dropping her gaze, she began to unbutton the coarse uniform.
‘Ah, splendid! The ladies at last. Amelia, my dear, and Clara too. May I say you both look radiant.’
Amelia stared at the floor as Lord Alex greeted them, and tried not to pout too obviously. She was having difficulty standing still now, the insistent pressure of her bladder becoming more and more uncomfortable by the minute. However, this was not so distracting as to materially lessen her sense of shame. She could feel the hem of her smock against her belly, just too high to cover her freshly shaven quim. Furtively, she leant forward, in a futile attempt to lower the material enough. There were three men in the smoking room: as well as Jamie and Lord Alex, who she had expected, there was a well-built man in a dog-collar, who had been chatting when the girls’ entrance brought the gentlemen’s conversation to a sudden halt.
Lady Alicia bent and placed the handle of Clara’s leash in her mouth. ‘Clara and I have been playing fetch. I’m afraid I had to smack her bottom a little bit. Scamper over there now, mischief, and show Master Jamie your behind.’
Clara did as she was told. Amelia glanced up long enough to see that the three men’s eyes were locked onto her cousin’s still-red rear. Then Lady Alicia clapped her hands together.
‘But, for heaven’s sake, where are my manners? I forgot that you have not been formally introduced. Miss Clara Tattershall and the Honourable Amelia Colinbrooke, may I introduce our rector, the Reverend Richard Dawes. I expect you might have heard of him, for he is rather famous.’
Heard of him? Amelia was thunderstruck – of course she had! How could any girl not know the name of the author of Dawes’s Domestic Discipline, a copy of which sat on the shelves of every house of quality in the country? Who did not know the name of the man who had written a dozen best-selling works on every aspect of corporal chastisement, with especial regard to the punishment of girls? The man whose disciplinary skills had been called upon by the highest in the land, and whose cane had been applied, so it was rumoured, across the bottoms even of royal princesses.
Amelia was no coward, yet even so she might well have preferred not to meet the man at all. To meet him so, half-naked and helplessly bound, was enough to make the bravest young lady quail. There was nothing for it, though. She took a deep breath and looked up, determined not to reveal the extent of her trepidation.
He was quite a handsome man. At least, his visage was less diabolic than she had imagined. He was clean-shaven, with rather short brown hair, greying at the temples. His face was ordinary – except for his eyes. They were grey, a cold slate grey, and there was something about the intensity of his gaze that caused Amelia, just for a moment, to forget to breathe. It was as if the man looked straight into her soul, searched and judged and found her wanting.
He kept his eyes on her for a long moment, and Amelia found herself mesmerised, unable to look away whilst he kept her locked in his gaze. Then he looked down at her lower belly.
‘Charming,’ he said at last and took another pull at his cigar. Then he looked down at Clara, who was wincing as Jamie stroked her martyred bottom.
‘Well, Jamie, it looks like you are teaching them a thing or two.’
‘Oh, it’s early days,’ the young man said. ‘And Clara is a good girl, really. Would you not agree, Aunt Alicia?’
Lady Alicia murmured her heartfelt assent to this as Jamie gestured with the stub of his cigar towards Amelia. ‘Of course,’ he said languidly, ‘that little minx is a different prospect altogether.’
‘Oh, yes,’ the Reverend Dawes said quietly, ‘yes, indeed. That I can see. For one thing, the way she is fidgeting, one might conclude that she had ants in her pants.’ He paused. ‘That is, had she any pants within which to contain such minuscule arthropods!’
Amelia’s cheeks burnt as the company roared with laughter. Just as this was fading, there was a tap at the door and Mrs Pritchard entered.
‘The secure carriage has arrived, milord. You asked to be informed.’
‘Quite right, thank you, Pritchard – and the filly?’
‘Is in the stables now, sir.’ She turned to Lady Alicia. ‘The new maid has been put to work in the kitchen.’
Lord Alex stood and bowed to the Reverend Dawes. ‘Going to beat you this year, Richard! Please excuse me, I need to go and check my secret weapon.’ He stood and hurried out.
‘Would you think me very rude if I were to leave you with Jamie and the girls now, Richard?’ Lady Alicia asked. ‘I also have some pressing staff matters to attend to.’
The Reverend Dawes expressed his perfect satisfaction at being left with Jamie and his charges and Lady Alicia withdrew, to the accompaniment of a great deal of rustling.
‘This is the way it’s going to be, see.’
Polly was completely naked now. Her long hair had been pulled into a ponytail by Mr Blackstock’s surprisingly deft fingers, and a rope halter put around her neck. He had led her into a little stall. Open at the front, this consisted of a stone back wall and two partitions of planking, about two yards in length, and four feet apart. The floor of this was strewn with straw which tickled her bare feet as he led her into it and secured the rope on a large iron ring.
Hall of Infamy Page 7