“I’m not going to tell you the number of strokes.” She turned her head as he took the strap and went to stand behind her. He pushed her skirts up a bit higher. The air felt cool on her bottom. “And I’ll not bother with ginger, since the pain of each stroke will far outstrip any pain a ginger fig could cause. You may cry and scream as much as you want, but you’ll submit to this strapping until I feel you’ve learnt your lesson.”
Her trembling increased as he pressed a hand at the small of her back. “Do not reach behind you and impede me. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lord,” she said. It came out a whimper, and then the first blow fell.
Josephine cried out, trying not to throw her arms behind her. The strap’s impact felt like a hot iron laid against her skin. “Oh, no, please, don’t!” she begged.
His only response was to increase the pressure of his palm at her back. Whap. Whap. Whap! Blow followed stinging blow, with only a few seconds’ measured pause between them. Somehow that pause was the worst thing of all, because it showed his control and determination, when she had little of either.
“Oh. Oww. I’m sorry. Please!” The words spilled from her, pleas and gasps and quiet begging. Meanwhile, the pain increased, each period of respite allowing just enough relief for the next blow to cause a fresh explosion of pain.
This was punishment, then. She’d been an ignored child, mostly left to do as she pleased. She’d never been severely disciplined for anything. She’d never really understood the reality of “punishment” before, but now she did. She thought back almost longingly on her previous “spankings,” which she realized now had been nothing but child’s play. Fun and games. Real punishment hurt, and it frightened her and made her feel powerless. It made her feel remorseful too. She knew she would do anything to avoid this in the future.
When she kicked up her legs at the continuing pain, he pushed them down and admonished her to keep them still. “You’ve no right to resist this strapping,” he said. “You earned every stroke. Keep your legs down and your hands flat on the desk.”
He had long since surpassed the number of licks he’d given Minette. Josephine supposed that was only fair. In fact, she was being punished for wronging him and hurting Minette, who might not even remain her friend after this. She felt so guilty and so bleak, and each relentless blow brought more hot tears to her eyes. She began to weep, all her begging and whining replaced with pure, miserable devastation.
She spread her palms against the desk, her body wracked with shuddering sobs. The strokes were not increasing in intensity…they were only so steady and so unending, each one a hotly blooming pain upon her right cheek or left cheek, or both cheeks at once, or the sensitive skin at the apex of her thighs. Her entire backside burned with a throbbing, aching fire. “Oh, please,” she cried out between blubbering sobs and hiccups. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Please!”
His palm moved higher on her back, holding her still as her body instinctively tried to push up and escape the unending torture. The pause between blows lengthened, each crack resonating with greater force so her entire body shuddered at the pain. Tears coated her cheeks, running into her mouth as she screamed out at each stroke. Whap! Whap! She gasped, making frantic, pleading sounds, waiting for the next one. Whap! She couldn’t bear much more. She sobbed so hysterically she could barely catch her breath. Whap! That one was the hardest blow yet. The sting spread out, radiating down her thighs and into her middle. She went limp against the desk, her fisted hands opening and then clenching again beside her head. She screwed her eyes shut. She couldn’t bear any more, she couldn’t.
But no more blows came. She heard him set the strap on the desk. “Stay right where you are,” he said. “Don’t move.”
She lay still, wrung out and drowning in tears. Was there to be more? Was he only having a break? But he didn’t take up the strap again, or spank her with his hand, or touch her anywhere except for the place he held her down. She gulped in air, trembling beneath the carefully exacted pressure of his palm at her back. Her bottom felt swollen beyond its normal size, throbbing and pulsing so badly she thought it might burst into flames.
At last he removed his palm, but he wouldn’t let her stand. “You shall remain in this position a few more minutes, and think about whether you wish for such a punishment again.”
“I don’t,” she sobbed. “I know I don’t.”
“Still, think about it. It’s important, Josephine. If you haven’t learned anything from this, I’ll have to punish you even more harshly next time.”
A ragged cry escaped her lips. A harsher punishment than this one?
He walked across the study while she lay there. He poured some brandy from a decanter, then returned to pick up the strap and stow it in one of his lower desk drawers. Through all this, she remained with her bottom in the air, skirts bunched around her ears. It was a different kind of punishment, to be stung with shame rather than hot, sharp pain. She wiped at her tears until her cheeks were dry, and closed her eyes.
After fifteen minutes or so, he came to her and rubbed a hand across her exposed bottom cheeks. They still ached, but it was less hot throbbiness and more a deep, nagging discomfort that reminded her she’d just been thoroughly strapped. He lifted her from the desktop, steadying her when she swayed on her feet. Her skirts fell down over her punished backside, both a comfort and added torment as the petticoats scratched at her sensitive skin.
“Now,” he said, gazing into her eyes. “You are going to tell me everything that troubles you. Everything.” His grip tightened on her arm. “You are to leave nothing out.”
“It’s just… The ball…” she said miserably.
“No, it’s more than that. Something greater is at work here.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Go and sit,” he said, indicating a chair near the fireplace. “I’m going to ring for tea while you compose your thoughts, and then we’re going to have a very frank discussion, during which you will explain to me the source of your distress and fears.”
When she didn’t move, he guided her to the assigned chair and settled her into it. She winced as her freshly-punished bottom came in contact with the firm seat. She had endured the punishment to avoid this very outcome, the telling of her secrets, the baring of her soul. Lord Warren’s servants were too quick with the tea, so a tray arrived while Josephine was still trying to think of a means of escape, or some falsehoods she could tell to satisfy him.
He brought her a cup balanced atop a saucer, fine Warren china with ivory trim, as if he hadn’t just had her in screaming agony. She was sure her face was encrusted with tear trails, and her hair a mussed-up disaster upon her head. He sat across from her with his own cup and gave her a look as if to say, “Talk.”
And to Josephine’s utter surprise, she did.
“I dream about tigers,” she said.
Lord Warren added more sugar to his tea. “Why do you dream about tigers? Did you see them on your travels? I confess I’ve only seen them at various zoological displays.”
His tone was so mild, so conversational, that Josephine continued in a halting voice, relating a story she’d never meant to tell anyone.
“When I was young, we traveled in India a lot. There were English people there, but my parents avoided them, staying away from the colonies and setting up households in the native areas. I always had an ayah, a native girl, a nursemaid or minder to look after me so my parents wouldn’t be bothered. They had never really wanted a child.”
Her throat closed up at the pain of that revelation, which she had known from her earliest age to be true.
In the lengthening silence, Warren asked in that same mild and guiding voice, “Did your parents abuse you?”
“No. They never raised a hand or voice to me, except to tell me to go away. They ignored me and left me in other people’s care. I think they always assumed a fever would take me, or that I wouldn’t survive the places we went to. They never tried to
protect me.”
“But you thrived nonetheless,” he said with a slight tilt to his lips. “You were speaking of India, and your…i-yah?”
“Ayah. I don’t even remember this one’s name, but she didn’t look after me properly and one day I wandered off. I don’t remember this. I was told about it later.”
“You do have a way of wandering off.” He said it so drily she almost smiled. He, however, looked sober. “What happened?”
Josephine stared hard at the arm of the chair. “When it got dark and my parents realized I wasn’t at home, and that my ayah didn’t know where I was, they told all the servants to go looking. I was found…” Her voice faltered. “I was found in a clearing near a river bank, in the company of a…a tiger.”