A Highland Bride
Page 16
She realised he was kneeling with her, and caressing her back, and kissing her, and pressing her bare breasts to the roughness of his coat.
Then he lifted her up, and with the arm that was not still wrapped around her, reached for something and pulled it towards them with a clatter. She found herself bent forward over the old wooden stool, with her elbows and knees on the flagstone floor and her bottom, still covered in the damp petticoat, raised high in the air.
"Hmm." He stood, and looked around, and found a roughspun cushion on one of the fireside chairs. This he took up and tucked between the stool and her stomach, so that her backside rose even higher. It felt scratchy, as if stuffed with straw.
She clenched her fists, wondering and fearing what was coming but determined to endure it. From her prone position, she saw the edge of his coat as he flung it onto the table, and heard a rustle as he fetched something from near the door.
"A half dozen cuts of the riding crop," he said. "That will be punishment enough for your folly in running away, and putting yourself in danger. Then we will put this dreadful night behind us."
"Yes, sir," she whispered, her heart flooded with gladness, and her body thrilled with terror. The riding crop! She had often watched him wield it while riding, a stout, flexible whip bound round with a thin lattice of hard leather. Its slightest touch spurred their old and sluggish brown mare to quicken its pace.
"I will leave this petticoat in place," he said. "A horsewhip on the bare may break the skin, and I would not do that. But I want you to feel it, as you ride back to your proper home on the pony."
"Yes, sir." She closed her eyes. It would be hard indeed to jog on horseback up a steep, uneven path on a newly-thrashed backside, but she knew how richly she deserved it.
He did not, as he usually did, interrogate her as to her understanding of the offence for which she was being chastised. So she had no real warning beyond the hiss of the whip in the air before a heavy, dull thud slammed against the still-clinging fabric covering her backside.
The force of it knocked her forward and she had to scrabble with her hands on the stone floor to steady herself, but at the moment of impact she felt nothing. Then, a second later, it was as if the line across her buttocks where the whip had fallen was starting to catch fire. The burning built to an unbearable pitch of pain, and when - after a good long pause - the second lash fell across it, she threw back her head and screamed. She could not bear a single further blow, and yet there were four more to come.
She curled her body into the stool, clenched her fists and bit her lip hard. She had no choice, if she wanted to atone for her flight. She was desperate to prove to him that she was sorry for running away, and taking this punishment humbly and without fight or protest was the only way. But despite the flimsy protection of the wet petticoat, the riding crop hurt so much more even than the tawse! A half dozen strokes had seemed like a light enough punishment when he pronounced it, but she was finding that it was not so.
She was conscious of him moving his position, and then the third lash fell from the other side to cut across the first two burning welts. The effect was agonising, and she broke into wracking sobs. But she did not plead for mercy, all those words that usually bubbled up irresistibly from within when in the throes of a hiding were silent today. Her feelings were too deep. She knew he was letting the pain of each cut build up before delivering the next, with a sharp swish of the crop through the air that was unlike the sound of any other instrument.
She felt his hand in the small of her back, pushing her forward gently and holding her down.
"And now," he murmured, "to make the last two count."
She braced herself. The whip fell with all his considerable strength once, twice, not over her buttocks but across the backs of her legs. She bucked her body, howling and crying, and then he was holding her in his arms again and kissing her.
He flung the horsewhip aside and lowered her onto the rag-rug in front of the fire, and barely pulled his breeches halfway down before taking her without any preliminaries. Flora clung hard to him, digging her fingers into the fabric of his shirt, the fresh weals on her backside blazing as they pressed into the rug, the sweetness of fulfilled passion burning likewise.
* * * * *
"Farewell and God bless you, my wee lamb."
Flora kissed Auld Nettie before handing her up into the pony and trap, in which Mr Farquhar had generously insisted John should drive her all the way back to Edinburgh. "It was so kind of you to come, Nettie. And please don't forget to tell my father how well and happy I am."
"Aye. Now you be sure to be a guid girl, and always do what your husband tells you."
"I always will. Now that I know he loves me, I will always do my best to be the wife he deserves. I'm so sorry, Nettie, that I wrote such terrible things of him. I am ashamed, but he has forgiven me."
"Aye, and seen that you don't forget, too?"
Without thinking, Flora rubbed at where the cuts of the riding crop had left a lattice of six livid purple welts, which were only now, after three days, fading into an impressive constellation of bruises all across her buttocks and thighs. Despite its brevity, it had been her most severe chastisement yet; but it was the one she knew deep down that she deserved the most, and she had no resentment in her heart. Riding back from the cottage on the grey pony had been almost the most painful part of the punishment, and she had begged to be allowed some of Mrs MacDonald's soothing balm as soon as they reached the Manse. Far from requiring her to suffer the full effects of the whipping longer, Mr Farquhar himself had taken her up to the bedroom, and gently rubbed into the weals, then slowly and tenderly loved her once more.
Seeing her hand go to her bottom, Auld Nettie smiled ruefully. "It's a pity it wasnae done sooner, but you're in guid hands noo."
"I know. I have the best husband in the world." She hugged the little old woman.
Mr Farquhar came down the path just as the trap was pulling away, and was in time to raise his hand in farewell. "Well, Mrs Farquhar. I trust you do not wish you were returning to Edinburgh with her."
"Oh! No, sir." She paused a moment. "For I would not want to ride all that way again on a sore backside."
He gave her an unfathomable look, then the corner of his mouth twitched up. "I can skelp you for impudence if you like it, Flora."
She smiled at him. "That won't be necessary just now, sir."
"Hm. I'm not so sure."
Flora made so bold as to tuck her arm under his, and they went back into the Manse together.
The End
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
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