“What shall we do with you?” he asked, making his voice stern. “We were just speaking about matters of honor. Give me your cards.”
He plucked them from her fingers as she gazed at him unhappily. “Why does it matter? I wouldn’t have won anyway.”
“Exactly. I’m afraid you must be punished for such behavior, to be sure you never cheat at cards again. You may think it’s just a game—”
“It is!”
“But dishonesty isn’t a game. Not in my future wife.”
She pouted, watching him put away the cards. “You cannot mean to spank me a second time?”
He secured the cards in their box and turned to her, removing his coat and rolling up his white, lace-trimmed sleeves in answer to her question.
“Marlow,” she protested. “You’re being a terrible stick in the mud. I shall not submit to another spanking.”
“You will, darling. Come here.”
He waited for more protests, but they didn’t come. Rosalind was a good, obedient girl at heart and she knew she’d done a bad thing. She did cross her arms over her chest and pout very darkly, but she let him draw her over to the bed.
“Lean down,” he instructed, still using his stern voice. “Bend over and put your hands flat upon the counterpane.”
She did as he asked, blinking as tears gathered in her eyes. Would she cry before he even began? Guilt prodded him, but he pushed it down. Men lost their lives for cheating at cards. It was a matter of honor, and certainly a spankable offense.
He went to one of his trunks, threw back the lid, and dug to the bottom to retrieve a weathered box. He hadn’t brought all his disciplinary tools across the sea. One might cut a switch or acquire a cane anywhere, but there were a few soft, broken-in straps and custom-made paddles that he considered indispensable to his love life. Now that Rosalind was his love, and his life, he might as well pull them out.
She watched him, biting her lip as he considered one of the heftier paddles. Too loud. He replaced it and withdrew a narrow strap with an inlaid-pearl handle.
“What is that box?” she asked with a quaky voice. “Why is it full of torturous implements?”
“I told you before: I punish bad behavior with spankings. These were meant for my future wife in India, should she deserve correction. You are my future wife now, so these…they are meant for you.”
“Hmph. I shall throw that box overboard at the first opportunity.”
He smiled at her, replaced the slim strap, and retrieved the thick paddle after all. Her first spanking had been impulsive, almost gentle compared to his usual disciplinary tactics. He wondered how his pouting runaway would react to something stricter.
“I didn’t mean that,” she said, eying the paddle. “I won’t throw it overboard because that would be naughty and earn me another spanking, and I’d prefer no spankings at all.” She stood to face him as he approached, but he tsked and bent her back over again.
“You’ve earned this spanking, haven’t you, Rosalind?” His voice was calm, though his mind and body were on fire.
“I suppose I have.”
Her forlorn voice transformed the fire to a conflagration. He leaned close, his cheek nearly against hers.
“You are not to move your hands from the bed, do you understand? You are to hold the position I put you in and submit to your spanking as a good wife should.”
“I’m not your wife yet.” Her voice thinned to a squeak on the last word as he began to draw up her skirts. “You are not going to—Oh—You cannot, please.”
He persisted, though she cast him a traumatized gaze. “It will not be a long spanking, but I mean you to feel it. A paddling over three layers of skirts doesn’t carry the same bite.”
“But the first spanking—”
“Was your first spanking. It was a warning, over your skirts and petticoats, to inform you the man you wished to marry is a man of discipline. It was a warning you ought to have heeded, perhaps? Now here we are.”
He lifted the last layer of her skirts, her diaphanous shift, and had to stifle the lecherous groan that rose to his lips. Rosalind’s bottom was glorious, a horse-riding woman’s sculpted buttocks, plumper, rounder, and more heart-shaped than he could have imagined in any of his sultry dreams. It was perfection, so curvaceously taut and pristine he could hardly bear to put marks upon it.
“Will you remember to be still?” he asked, as he struggled to collect himself.
“I’ll try,” she said on a half-sob.