by Golden Angel
"Miss Bryant," she heard someone say as she passed by one of the rows of books. Turning back, she peeked her head around the corner and saw Mr. Brandon, second son of the Duke of Manning, one of the men who liked to flirt with her and steal a kiss. Not husband material; the Countess had told her he was only in Bath because he was outrunning creditors as his father had declined to bail him out yet again, but he was very handsome and also a very good kisser.
"Mr. Brandon," she said, smiling back and raising her hand for him to kiss.
Today, however, he looked somehow less than normal. Smaller, less interesting, less attractive. It took her a moment before she realized it was because she was comparing him to the Earl. Who was not only taller and broader of shoulder, but also had much more of a presence about him. Perhaps because he was an established Earl, rather than a second son, even a second son of a Duke.
"I had no idea, when I stepped out this morning, that I might be so fortunate as to come across you. You look..." His eyes swept over her dress, which was one of her more modest pieces. "Enchanting." Putting his finger on her shoulder, he trailed it down along her neckline, causing Cynthia to catch her breath. Even if he wasn't as intriguing as the Earl, the sensation made her skin tingle. "Teasing my senses by covering what I long to see... to touch..."
His mouth was coming closer and closer to hers and she tilted her head back, eyelashes fluttering as she readied herself for the kiss.
"Get your damn hands off my ward."
Cynthia gasped as Mr. Brandon was wrenched away, the stentorian tones of her guardian cutting through whatever pleasure she'd felt a moment before. Dread and excitement clashed in her stomach, curdling like a bad mixture of milk and hot water, as she opened her eyes to see the Earl bodily hauling Mr. Brandon out of the aisle.
"Unless you want a dawn appointment with me, you will not approach her again and I will not hear a word about this from anyone," the Earl hissed, just barely loud enough for her to hear. Oh goodness... a duel?!
Before she could react, Mr. Brandon stumbled away, babbling reassurances in a frightened manner that made her sigh. Whatever attractiveness he'd had, he'd just completely lost. How disappointing.
Then the Earl turned back to her, his hazel eyes dark and hard.
"Ah..." she said with a weak smile, trying to think quickly. With the Countess it wasn't nearly so hard to come up with something to say. "Good afternoon, my Lord."
Well apparently that wasn't the right thing to say at all. Growling under his breath, the Earl reached out and grabbed her arm, hauling her back towards the front of the store. Cynthia dug in her heels, not particularly wanting to be a spectacle.
"My Lord," she hissed, pulling at his fingers on her upper arm, "you're going to attract attention!"
******
The reminder stopped Wesley in his tracks. No, he hadn't just demanded that the scoundrel that had just been about to kiss her - in the middle of a bookstore! - would keep quiet, only to alert everyone himself. In sleepy Bath, bodily dragging his ward down the middle of the street would do more than cause comment, it could cause scandal as people speculated over why he might be doing such a thing. And then his mother really would have vapors.
Growling, he slowed his pace, taking her hand and firmly wrapping it around his arm before covering it with his own so that she couldn’t get away. While such a stance might seem a bit overly familiar, considering that she was his ward and not a lady he was wooing, it would cause far less comment than his previous hold. To his intense annoyance, she not only gave him a brilliant smile of approval, she then transferred that smile to the owner of the bookstore.
“Thank you Mr. Worthing, I’ll see you another day,” she said with a cheery little wave.
Wesley forebear to tell her that she absolutely would not be seeing the smarmy man another day; he doubted that his mother would be agreeable to coming to this dusty hole in the wall and neither would he. Especially with a man like that, who eyed Cynthia far too speculatively as he responded in kind.
As they walked down the street, Wesley’s temper wound tighter and tighter with every step. The chit didn’t act as if she’d been caught doing something wrong, unlike the blaggard he’d caught her with, she was just as cheerful and chattery as ever. It was enough to drive a man to drink. He stepped quickly, mindful of not making a scene, but knowing that the sooner he got her to the house the better.
Cynthia nodded to and greeted several people, although Wesley kept her moving, giving them nothing but a quick nod. He’d probably get an earful later from his mother about his short demeanor, but he wasn’t going to allow Cynthia to slow him. The second they got back to the house he was going to give her as red a bottom as ever.
Kissing a man! In a bookstore! Where anyone could have come across them!
Growing grimmer by the minute, he darkly wondered how often she met men in bookstores – and elsewhere. What she might be doing with them. Although Edwin’s letter had indicated that so far she hadn’t completely ruined herself (according to what she’d told Nell) as she was being careful not to end up with an unwanted pregnancy, but that didn’t mean she could act however she wanted as long as she didn’t cross that line. If anyone other than himself had seen her and that rogue, it would have been all over town in minutes. And then his mother’s reputation and social standing would have been affected as well.
At least, that's what he attributed his dark rage to. It definitely couldn't have anything to do with the fact that she'd been about to kiss another man, had her pink lips turned up to accept his, her body leaning towards him... after all, Wesley was planning on marrying her off to some poor sod who would get to sample her delights on a daily basis. Why would he feel anything akin to jealousy just because she was about to kiss another man?
Growling under his breath, Wesley picked up his pace again as they drew closer to the street where his mother's house was. The sooner he could get her inside and vent his feelings on her upturned arse, the better.
******
The look on the Earl's face was not at all helping matters, Cynthia thought with some exasperation. She'd been doing her best to avoid attention by acting normally, but he'd looked as grim as the reaper while he'd been "escorting" her home.
Truth be told, she might have been overplaying her hand a little. After all, it hadn't been strictly necessary to greet every single person that she saw on the street. But it was strangely fun to tweak at the Earl's nerves, especially when he was in a temper. She was feeling rather breathless as how easily he manhandled her, the strength she could feel in his arm.
And she had wanted another spanking after all. If this didn't earn her one from him, then what would? She couldn't have planned it better if she'd tried.
Although his silence and glares made her feel more nervous than she would have expected; she covered up that anxiety with a cheerful bravado that seemed to grate on him. Which, in turn, amused her, and she was quite sure that he could tell she was amused and that it incensed him even further.
Her bottom tingled underneath the swishing skirts of her day dress and she could feel the wetness gathering between her legs. The Earl might be a bit of a prig and a stuffed shirt, at least where she was concerned, but there was just something so delicious about a truly masterful man. None of her other suitors had ever affected her quite like he did, which was really too bad because she couldn't seem to influence him the way she did them.
Then again, perhaps it was that inability to sway him that she found so attractive. It wasn't often that she came across a man such as him, one who was wholly desirable and yet seemed completely indifferent to her, one that managed to both intimidate and attract her, and one whom was completely oblivious to her manipulations. Even when she poked at him, metaphorically speaking, he didn't stop in his track, he just bulled right through and continued towards his own goal.
As soon as he got her in the house, he picked up his pace again, dragging her towards his study.
Sheer perversity ma
de her dig in her heels this time. "My lord, can't you slow down?"
Instead of responding, the Earl halted completely, turning on her with such a burning glow in his hazel eyes that she nearly stepped back. Then he tugged her towards him, swooping low, and the next thing she knew Cynthia was upended over his shoulder, all the air knocked from her lungs.
My goodness.
That was... impressive.
She was very aware of the searing heat of his body, the ripple of his back muscles beneath her hands, and the hot clamp of his palm over the back of her thigh. For once, she decided to be meek. After all, she wanted him to spank her, not throttle her, and she instinctively recognized that his temper was probably nearing the throttling point. Besides, if she struggled, he might just "accidentally" drop her - and she really wouldn't be able to blame him.
If he found anything suspicious in her sudden passivity, he didn't voice it.
By the time he reached his study, setting her down so suddenly that she stumbled backwards - her knees hitting something and causing her to tumble down into the sturdy chair that was behind her, she was feeling a bit dizzy from being upside down for so long. It wasn't necessarily a bad sensation, combined with the tingling of her body that came from being in such close contact with him. Excitement fizzed and popped inside of her, making her feel quite bubbly and chipper.
Which she did her best to hide, but from the way he was looking at her with narrowed, eyes, she had a feeling that it was leaking through. Attempting to put a proper look of contriteness on her face, she folded her hands in her lap and looked up at him through her lashes.
"Explain yourself," he said, glaring down at her and crossing his arms over his chest.
Back to this again. Cynthia sighed. "You gave me permission to go shopping."
"I was under the impression that you were going to do so with my mother."
"I never said that."
"Noted. However, in the future, you will not leave this house unaccompanied by either myself or my mother. Or Lady Hyde if she desires your company."
Cynthia brightened at the thought of more time with Eleanor and then she subsided again under the Earl's gimlet eye. "Very well. If you insist." At least she wasn't being confined. And if she really wanted to get out on her own, she absolutely trusted her own ingenuity to see her way.
"I do. Now. Explain what you were doing in the back of the bookstore with that... that..."
"Gentleman?"
"Not the word I was looking for."
But apparently it would do, because the Earl didn't offer another one. He just glared down at her, one long finger tapping against his bicep expectantly.
"I just wanted to visit the bookstore," Cynthia said, smiling brightly. Quite aware that her attitude was grating on him. "Mr. Brandon found me there and we exchanged some pleasantries."
"And some kisses."
"No." Well that was the truth. While she did want a spanking, just to see if it caused her to get all wet and hot again, she found that it was just as enjoyable to verbally poke at the bear.
"But you would have, if I hadn't come along then," he said grimly, the tempo of that one long finger's tapping increasing as he spoke. "Right in the middle of a bookstore where anyone could have come along and seen you. And your maid was outside where she wouldn't have been any use as a chaperone."
"She's not in trouble is she?" Cynthia asked, suddenly worried. After all, she didn't mean to get someone else into trouble with her antics. And, while the Earl couldn't get rid of her as his ward, it was definitely within his power to dismiss the poor maid. "I quite exhausted her with our shopping, she just wanted to sit and rest."
"I'm aware that she's not up to your weight," the Earl said. "And I have no desire to punish her for something so completely out of her control. But rest assured, you will not be given such an opportunity again." The concern for her maid did her credit, he had to admit to himself, even if she was driving him into a frustrated fury.
He'd truly thought that spanking her on the day of his arrival had signaled to her that things would be different now that the head of house had arrived. Instead she seemed completely unaffected. Well... perhaps not entirely unaffected. She'd become immediately docile once she'd realized how very serious he was, and she had kept him from dragging her through the streets, which would have cause quite a bit of gossip. But he wasn't going to tolerate this kind of behavior from her.
Abruptly deciding that he wasn't going to mention any of the information from Edwin's letter, because if he did then Cynthia might not let anything more useful drop to Eleanor, Wesley uncrossed his arms and stepped back. His ward had given him plenty of reason to punish her without bringing that up; and he and his mother would be keeping a very close watch now so she wouldn't have any opportunity to sneak off and meet with any of the bastards.
"Stand up."
Looking at him almost curiously, a gratifying hint of wariness entered her movements as she stood. At least he knew that his looming intimidation wasn't entirely ineffective. With any other young woman, he'd admire the brazen spirit and her obvious sense of humor; he was much less enamored of it in a young woman whose reputation and future was his responsibility.
"Bend over the arm of the chair and lift your skirts."
Even though she knew that he was about to spank her, discipline her, a trembling excitement went through her limbs. Feeling rather breathless, Cynthia turned and placed her upper body over the wide arm of the chair. The leather padding cradled her hips, pushing her bottom high into the air, while her upper body rested on the wide chair. She could feel her nipples hardening as she reached back to grab her skirts and pull them upwards. It wasn't the most efficient position to do so, but catching a glimpse of the Earl's face, she realized that he was rather enjoying the slow bunching of her skirts around her hips and the way her long legs were revealed to him inch by inch.
She realized that he was looking at him as a man looks at a woman, the way most men looked at her. Was that how he'd looked the last time he'd spanked her?
And this position was so much more revealing than being over his lap. Cynthia's breath came in short pants as she realized how much of her lower body, her secret areas were exposed to his gaze by this position. With her legs spread to maintain her balance, she could feel the cool air coming in through her split drawers and wafting across the heated inner lips of her womanhood. It was quite exciting to be so exposed to her trenchant guardian's eyes, to watch his face and see that his gaze so intent upon the upturned curve of her buttocks and the pink flesh between them.
A surprising amount of apprehension settled in her belly, despite the fact that she wanted this. Now that she was in position, offering up her buttocks for his chastisement, memories of how very much that first spanking had hurt were suddenly bubbling up. Somehow she hadn't thought about that part of it when she'd been remembering; she'd just thought about the incredibly intense pleasure that had followed when she'd rubbed herself.
The sudden touch of his hand brushing against her flesh, just barely skimming it as he parted the split in her drawers and drew them to each side, brought her back to the present. Biting her lower lip against the anxiety that was coiling inside of her, Cynthia tried not to squirm.
Seeing that creamy expanse of skin and the pouting pink lips of her pussy, lined with darling dark curls of hair, Wesley's cock came to immediate attention. Somehow, up until then, his anger had overridden his desires and he'd managed to keep his physical response in check; but having her so submissively, vulnerably proffered up to him was his undoing. Fortunately, as she was already bent over with her face firmly pressed against the leather seat of the chair, there was no way she could know of his response.
"You will not leave the house again without one of the chaperones I've described."
Smack! Smack!
Cynthia gasped at the sudden assault, her creamy skin immediately showing pink and then fading as his hand landed and retreated. The way her flesh jiggled was more
than a little enticing.
"You will not meet with any gentleman in private."
Smack! Smack!
The next blows landed below the first, one to each cheek. He had started at the very top curve of her sweet cheeks and he was going to make his way down to the bottom of each mound before coming back up again. At least.
Smack! Smack!
"If a man attempts to speak with you in private you will immediately search out your chaperone."
Just thinking about that bloody bastard in the shop, leaning in, ready to kiss her, had Wesley's ire jumping again.
SMACK! SMACK!
The blows that he landed on the undercurve of her buttocks were swiftly followed by two slaps directly on her sit spots. Cynthia cried out, her bottom wagging up and down as she danced to avoid the burn.
"Stand still," he ordered, smacking the insides of her thighs as her legs began to come together. Immediately she planted her heels back on the ground.
SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!
Pinkened flesh jiggled as he worked his way back up those ample hillocks again, his cock throbbing as he watched every ripple of her body; he spanked her hard enough to leave an imprint of his hand on her soft flesh and make it jig and bounce. The first row of slaps down her buttocks had been a warm-up, to pink her skin and make her ready for the real spanking.
He hadn't started out with a certain amount in mind, he was quite ready to continue until her bottom was burning a bright cherry red. She certainly wouldn't be sitting comfortably in Bath's Assembly rooms tonight. There was no point in forbidding the outing, as he, his mother, as well as Edwin and Eleanor would be there to watch over her; besides, he needed to inspect the field of suitors for a husband for her. But he was determined that she wouldn't be able to sit without remembering his warnings and why she must be on her best behavior.