“I was helping Merit. I was trying to help.”
He reached down and hauled her to her feet with a vehemence that had her babbling in fear. “I’m sorry. I was wrong, I know. I’m sorry—”
“Sorry changes nothing. You must be taught a lesson. You must be punished for this.”
He didn’t say it with any of the usual care or affection evident when he punished her. She felt afraid. Her gaze shied from his hard eyes to his tense lips. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“You are always sorry,” he said, drawing her through the stables and out into the courtyard. “You are always sorry after the fact, but that’s not enough anymore. I’ve been patient, Harmony, but as of this evening, my patience has run out.”
It was true. He’d been so patient, given her all the tools she needed to please him, but too often she still did as she wished no matter the consequences. She’d known earlier she shouldn’t have gone out to help Merit with the dog, but she’d done it anyway, trusting that Court would understand even if he didn’t approve. She’d thought he might give her a curt reproach for being late to dinner, perhaps a bit of a spanking. She’d been so headstrong and foolish. She knew, beyond a doubt, she was going to receive much more than a bit of a spanking over this.
Footmen held open the front doors as he steered her inside. The house was quiet, all the guests gone home. He hauled her past the darkened dining room, the scene of her crime, now cleaned and set for tomorrow’s breakfast. She wondered if this house had a dungeon. If it did, he might lock her away there for a week. A month.
He didn’t take her to a dungeon, but a room very like one. He opened the heavy door and escorted her through into an echoing space that smelled of must and disuse. She saw half-filled shelves and an old desk larger than the one in the library upstairs. This was a study, but not his study.
He turned and stared at her. She put a hand to her hair and then tried in vain to smooth her mussed silver skirts. This beautiful, magical dress, ruined. She could never bring herself to wear it again. A piece of straw dislodged itself and fell onto the wood floor.
“It pains me to do this,” he said. He seemed about to say more, then clamped his lips shut and pointed. “Approach the desk and bend over it.”
She would have liked to say no, to run out the door screaming for help, but she knew she couldn’t. She’d earned this punishment. She’d earned it by causing havoc and breaking the dowager’s wrist, and shaming him in front of his company. In front of prim and perfect Lady Wembley, who should have been his wife.
She forced her legs to move and carry her across the room to the desk. The top was dusty, its hard surface offering nothing to comfort her. She couldn’t bear to bend over it. She looked at her husband, her support, the one ally in her life who usually defended her.
“I’m so sorry. Please! You must understand I didn’t mean any of it to happen.”
Nothing changed in his face. If anything, it grew harder as he removed his coat and waistcoat, stripping down to his ivory linen shirt. “You caused my mother grievous injury. You humiliated me in front of my closest family and friends.”
“In front of her,” Harmony said bitterly. “If she had not witnessed it, would you be so angry?”
He scowled, not condescending to answer her. He crossed to a corner, to a rack containing canes of various length and thickness. While Harmony’s insides roiled with anxiety, he inspected them, selecting one of middling size. He turned back to her, his eyes, once warm, two chips of ice.
“I instructed you to bend over.”
“I don’t want to.” She sounded like a whiny child but she was too frightened to come up with dignified words. “Please, I’m sorry. I don’t want you to whip me with that.”
“What you want does not signify at the moment.” He crossed to her, the wicked cane clutched in his hand, and forced her down over the desk.
“Please!” she cried out.
“You can make all the noise you wish but no one will come. This was my father’s study. It is removed from the rest of the house for a reason.”
“Stop, please!” She struggled against his hand pressing her down. “I will become like Lady Wembley, I swear. I’ll be just like her if you but give me one more chance.”
“This is not about Lady Wembley.”
“You wish you had married her,” Harmony sobbed, fear making her lash out. “I want to be like her. Do you think I don’t? I know you would be happy then. You wish I was her! So do I!”
He pulled her up, his arm around her waist nearly robbing her of breath. “Do not shriek at me, Harmony. Do not engage in emotional games. You sound childish and mad, which is exactly why you’re about to be caned like a naughty pupil.”
“If I was her you would not do this!”
He raised one haughty brow. “If you were her, I doubt I would need to do this. However, before we wed, you agreed that I might improve your behavior through a program of physical consequences. What do you believe you deserve for your actions this evening?”
Harmony shuddered in his arms. He was right. She had agreed to a marriage where he might spank her if he wished, if he thought she deserved it. And if she ever deserved it, it was now.
“I suppose I deserve a spanking,” she said sullenly. “But I don’t think I need to be caned.”
“Something lighter then? A few smarting slaps with my hand?” He raised the cane so she could see the thin, rigid menace of it. “Unfortunately I do not agree. I think you need ten strokes of the cane across your bottom and then I expect to hear a very handsome apology for your behavior at dinner. I am your husband but I am also your disciplinarian, and it is for me to judge how best to guide you.”
Ten strokes of the cane. She didn’t hear any of his lecture after that. She knew everything he said was true but she really didn’t want to be in this horrible, dark room. She didn’t want to be in disgrace and she didn’t want to be caned.
“I promise— I won’t— I’ll never again do anything so—”
He placed a finger over her lips. “Enough. You know that isn’t going to work. It is time to receive the discipline you have earned.”
How cold he was. How businesslike. When he spanked her in the bedroom it was so much less traumatizing. Harmony let him bend her over, burning with humiliation.
“Reach forward and grip the edge of the desk,” he instructed her. “Every time you choose to let go, I shall add an additional stroke.”
“Yes, sir.” She was already in tears. As her fingers closed around the wooden desktop, Court moved behind her to lift the skirts of her gown and drape them over her back, out of the way. He had spanked her on her bare bottom before. He had even used implements, but not like this. Not with this cold and detached demeanor. She stared ahead of her, biting her lip, tasting her own tears.
He braced a hand at the small of her back to steady her. She heard the cane whistle through the air and then felt the impact. Oh no! Sweet mercy. The fiery pain was a shock to her very core. She cried out and flung a hand behind her. Her husband tsked and tapped at it with the tip of the cane.
“I suggest you find some self control or you shall end up very punished indeed. You have just added an additional stroke.”
“I can’t—”
“Can’t what? Can’t bear the pain?” Whack! “Perhaps you will remember that next time you decide to go after stray dogs rather than attend the dinner you were supposed to.” Whack!
Harmony sobbed into the surface of the desk, gripping the opposite edge for dear life. She could not let go again, she simply couldn’t. He delivered each stroke with an exacting and excruciating force, occasionally pausing between them to let her catch her breath. There was no playfulness about it, only firm resolve. Whack!
What was that? Six? Seven? “Oh, please,” she wailed. “I’m sorry.”