To Tame A Countess (Properly Spanked Book 2) Page 7

  And he didn’t want to do that yet.

  Soon, but not yet, because she was afraid. Not only afraid of being married, which she admitted, but afraid of him. He could see it in her eyes, in the way she held her body, that he frightened her. Of course, this both dismayed and excited him, because he was both a civilized man and a beast. Sometimes he would let the beast out to play with her, and she would enjoy it for all that. But tonight, their wedding night, in this carriage with her shaking in terror, he would be the civilized man no matter the beastly thoughts crowding his head.

  He gave her tantalizing backside one last caress, and pulled her skirts down. “Sit up now, and behave. No more grousing about being a married lady. We’ve a nice, relaxing honeymoon to enjoy, and you’ll be pleased to know it won’t involve anyone else in society. Only you, and me.”

  “Oh,” she said, smoothing down her skirts with palpable relief. “That’s good to know. And as you’ve said, there are plenty of beds.”

  Lord save him from innocents. He stifled a sigh. Lady Baxter apparently hadn’t offered his bride any parting words of marital advice. “I perceive you are not very knowledgeable in the affairs of men and women,” he said.

  If she smoothed her gown anymore, she would wear a hole in it. “I only know they should not be in bed together.”

  He raised a brow. “Ever?”

  “It’s best that way, yes. I understand that gentlemen sometimes entertain…wild humors.”

  “Wild humors? My goodness.” He nearly laughed at this revelation, but she looked so serious he composed his expression. “Tell me about these wild humors. Do all gentlemen have them, or only certain types?”

  She looked at him warily, as if he mocked, but he was taking this conversation very seriously. “I don’t know,” she said, biting her lip. “I only know that women and men are not supposed to go to bed together because…”

  “Because why?” He was almost afraid to ask. “Because a man might be seized by wild humors?”

  She swallowed hard. “I don’t wish to speak of it.”

  “Because you’re afraid, which I find very vexing.”

  “I’m not afraid. It’s only that… My mother always told me men were not to be trusted. That they could be aggressive, and harm you.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Some can, I suppose. But it’s hardly an intrinsic male trait. Have I harmed you yet?”

  “You spanked me just now,” she pointed out. “And before, in the woods, you used a switch on me, and that really hurt.”

  “Yes, and I stopped after five middling strokes, because you were teetering on the edge of utter disintegration. At any rate, you needed to be punished because you’d done a bad thing, and you felt terrible about it. There are logical, practical reasons behind the act of corporal punishment. Sometimes a man’s got to dole out a spanking or switching to make a fussing woman come around.”

  “A fussing woman?” She ruffled up like an angry cat.

  “Do not become peevish again, Josephine. You remember what happened, oh, five minutes ago.” The wretched thing went back to smoothing her skirts again, while he thought what a puzzle she was. “My dear, you must admit that you felt better after I spanked you. Expiated and all that. It would have been the end of the whole matter, if Baxter hadn’t found us on the way back.”

  “But he did find us.”

  “Yes, and I married you, which he wanted from the beginning. It has happened and we must resign ourselves to it. Come here, would you? Stop picking at your skirts.” He hauled her onto his lap and clasped her restless fingers in his. “Listen to me. There are men with whom you can feel safe, and men with whom you decidedly cannot. I promise you will always be safe with me, no matter how aggressive and wild you imagine men are. That’s not to say I won’t demand my marital rights.”

  She stiffened in his arms. “What does that mean? That you’ll spank me whenever you like?”

  He laughed, then sobered when he saw her expression. “Oh, my sweet, confused girl. Do you think we’ve been talking this entire time about spanking?”

  He watched the flush spread across her cheeks. “I don’t know. I’m sure I don’t know what we’ve been talking about.” She tried to escape his lap, but he pulled her back and circled her in his arms, and made her face him.

  “Do you even know what marital rights are?”

  “I don’t want to know,” she said, shrinking back from him.

  “I suppose you believe they involve wild humors. Whatever the hell those are.” He shouldn’t curse. He should look at her innocence as an opportunity. Above all, he mustn’t frighten her any more than she already was. “Marital rights are best explained in the moment,” he said. “I’ll tell you more about them tomorrow, once we’ve settled in at Warren Manor. Unless you’d like to start our honeymoon tonight?”

  “Oh. Well. No, I would rather…” She stared past him at the wall, then turned toward the window as the carriage slowed. He could see the lights of the inn blazing in darkness. “I suppose Warren Manor will be soon enough.”

  It wouldn’t be soon enough for him, not by any stretch, but he’d give her one night of respite. He hoped she would come around, not just in the bedroom but in her other misgivings. His friend Townsend had fought tooth and nail against the constraints of marriage, and was now blissfully wed, so Warren felt a calmness about the whole thing. Eventually they would grow comfortable with one another and figure out how to go on, and if he must be married, he preferred the interesting, complex Baroness Maitland to some simpering milksop.

  If only she were not quite so complex.

  Chapter Six: Marital Rights

  They arrived the following afternoon at Lord Warren’s grand ancestral seat, comprised of acres of fields and forests, and a pretty, tree-lined drive that swooped about to the front of the house. No, it wasn’t a house. More like a mansion, or a palace, with rows of gleaming windows and a crenellated roofline, and yes, two round, pointed towers. When Josephine stepped out of the coach to gawp at the towering stone edifice, she came to understand how rich and esteemed a person her new husband was.

  Inside, painted ceilings soared overhead, with ornately wrought chandeliers, and every kind of molded trim. The floors were of waxed and inlaid wood, and they echoed when you walked on them. Hallways led off in every direction from the grand set of stairs. Footmen stood about in bronze livery trimmed in blue, bowing and assisting, and opening doors before one could touch them.

  From the gleaming state of the fixtures and furniture, and the size of the staff, it seemed clear that servants maintained the home even when no one was in residence. Each person, from the head housekeeper to the lowliest stable boy, afforded Lord Warren a respectful deference, and of course, showed her the same deference as his new wife. It all seemed intimidatingly fine, especially when she thought of the ramshackle shelters she’d grown up in.

  But there were no more steaming jungles or parched savannas, or wild animals, or snakes, or spiders the size of her head. There were no more leaking abodes or foreign faces giving one inscrutable and terrifying looks. There was no more danger, which she knew in her mind, but could not quite fathom in her heart.

  Lord Warren’s face was not foreign as they dined together in his elegantly appointed dining room. No, she’d come to know it well over the many hours in the carriage, although his expressions were still difficult for her to figure out. She worried about his propensity for wild humors, and whether and when he might kiss her again, and what she would do when he did. She wondered why he kept looking at her in that assessing way.

  “Do you like your new home?” he asked as the footmen shuttled dishes in and out.

  “Yes, it’s beautiful,” she replied. “It’s very grand.”

  When she was young, her father used to tell her about the time he’d visited a pasha’s kingdom. He said there had been dancing horses and graceful, veiled women, and everything had glittered golden. Josephine always wished they might see something like that again but they n
ever had, and she had started to wonder if her father’s stories were true.

  Perhaps Lord Warren had dancing horses in his stables.

  “If you don’t like the food, I can have the cook prepare something more to your tastes,” he said, interrupting her memories.

  “The meal is fine. It’s delicious,” she lied, for she couldn’t taste a thing.

  He put down his fork and knife, tracing the silver with a light fingertip. “I wish you would not be frightened.” The fingertip stopped its motion and he stood, and put down her knife and fork by taking them from her fingers. Then he leaned down and swept her into his arms.

  She grabbed at him, rendered mute by shock as he carried her past footmen whose faces reflected no alarm at all. “Oh, you must put me down,” she finally managed to cry.

  “Fears should be faced, don’t you think? We’re going upstairs, where I shall assert those dreaded marital rights. You’ll survive it. I daresay you’ll even enjoy it.”

  “Oh, but— Must we? Right now?”

  “Yes.”

  He carried her up the curving staircase and down the hall, past more stone-faced footmen. When they reached his bedroom, she took in the surroundings with a wary glance: tall windows, stately wainscoting and furniture, and a massive canopied bed against the far wall.

  “I think—perhaps—I would rather go back and eat,” she said.

  The door shut behind him as he crossed to deposit her on his bed. “I’ll have them send up a tray later if you’re still hungry.”

  As soon as he let her go, she scrambled off the bed and nearer the window. Faint light still shone from outside, but he lit more candles, and she was glad because she was sometimes afraid of the dark. Tonight she was afraid of so many things.

  He began to undress, taking off his coat, his high collar and cravat, his waistcoat and shirt, and his shoes and stockings. He stripped with a focused intent that alarmed her, as he revealed shoulders, arms, chest, waist, broad and masculine parts comprising a startling whole. She had seen scantily clad natives, even fully naked natives in her travels, but this was different. She was used to seeing Lord Warren covered in layers of clothing, looking a civilized gentleman, and he looked less and less civilized the more he took off. When he wore only his breeches, he appeared positively primitive and more than a little dangerous as he turned to her in the oppressive silence.

  She clamped her lips together as she stared at the physical reality of him. His shoulders were smooth and round and wide. A ladder of muscles defined his torso, two of them trailing to disappear below his waistband at either side of his hips, along with a trail of glinting hair. He looked tall and powerful, and even with his breeches on, she could discern the sculpted strength of his upper thighs. When he shifted, the muscles flexed, and when he moved toward her, she saw the same fascinating flexion in his arms and chest. She didn’t remember such showy musculature in the natives. Perhaps in the wild animals in the wood…

  She was not yet ready to see him in the altogether. She simply wasn’t. When he approached, she backed away with a shake of her head. He dropped his hands, his expression softening. “Josephine. Come here.”

  She didn’t want to go to him, but she had nowhere else to go. She had backed herself to the wall. She stared at him wide-eyed, wondering what he would do if she didn’t comply with his request. Would he lose his temper? Grasp her and drag her forcefully to the bed? She thought, wild humors. The idea frightened her so much she moved toward him as he asked, feeling leaden and scared.

  She only made it halfway. He came the rest of the way and cupped her face in his hands. “How brave you’re being,” he said, even though they both knew it wasn’t true. She felt like her insides were about to melt out through her navel, like her face was about to catch fire. “Shall I help you undress?”

  She understood it was a rhetorical question, as he turned her around and started on the laces of her second-best black gown. Her wedding gown. It wasn’t at all the thing to be married in black, but she couldn’t be bright and pastel when none of this was what she wanted, and when she had no control of her life and her future.

  Marital rights… She didn’t know why he should have the privilege of them, or anyone else.

  “Please,” she whispered when he had loosened her dress enough to draw it down off her shoulders. “Please, I would rather wait a bit longer for the honeymoon to begin. A few more days.”

  “This is going to happen now,” he said. “But don’t worry. It’s not a frightening thing.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s only… Well, if I knew you a little better…”

  “Fortunately, you needn’t know someone extremely well to accomplish this task.” His fingers worked at her stays, giving gentle tugs. “You’re afraid because you’re not well informed, but I intend to change that.” His breath whispered against her nape. “My darling, there’s so much I’m going to teach you. Eventually, we’ll know each other very well.”

  She could feel his heat against her back. She clutched at her stays as he unhooked the front and drew it from her waist. Next, he knelt and removed her shoes, as if she were helpless as an infant. At last she stood shivering in only her shift and stockings, feeling so vulnerable, so cold, that when he took her in his arms she went willingly, hiding herself against the expanse of his chest. He made a soft sound and then began to pluck out her hair pins, finding them with an oddly attuned facility, as if he knew where every pin was. She heard a faint clink as he put each one down on a nearby table.

  When all of them were gone he ran his fingers through her hair, spreading it out upon her shoulders. “You’re every bit as beautiful as I imagined. You are beautiful, Josephine.”

  “I’m afraid,” she said in reply. “I don’t want to do this.”

  He gave her a long, silent, rather unnerving look. “You don’t even know what we are to do. Shall I show you?”

  “Must you? I have no choice, do I?” Her voice sounded petulant as he dragged her toward the bed. “I have no choice in anything, whether I am rich or a baroness, or whatever.”

  He lifted her up onto the mattress as if she weighed nothing. “You’re a countess now. My countess,” he emphasized with the arch of one brow. He came over her, a great, heavy shape that seemed to trap her. “You did consent before a priest, and signed the marriage lines. You signed a binding contract.”

  “Because I had to,” she said, bracing her palms against his chest. “Because no one would let me live in my cottage.”

  He gathered both her hands in his. “If you don’t leave off about your cottage, Lady Warren, I’ll spank you again.”

  She hadn’t realized how close she was to tears until they burst out of her in a rough, broken wail. She couldn’t muffle the harsh sound for he still held her hands. Wetness flooded her cheeks as her body shook with tremors she couldn’t control. He frightened her so, with his power and his will. “Please,” she whispered. “Please, please, please, please.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say, only that one word over and over in a hysterical repetition.

  She heard him curse through the maelstrom of her terror. He let go of her hands and pulled her against him. She could feel the smooth fabric of his breeches between her thighs, where her shift had ridden up. She wanted to fight but was afraid of how he would subdue her. “Please,” she begged again.

  “Please stop saying please,” he whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you. My God, this is more than a virgin’s fear.” He brushed her hair back and wiped away her leaking tears. “Did someone previously abuse you?”

  If she lied and said yes, would he release her from this duty? But she felt too scared and raw to lie. “It’s just t—that— I’m— I’m a—afraid you will h—hurt me.” Her voice guttered out in fits and starts that humiliated her on top of the panic. “I d—don’t know what you int—intend to do.”

  “You’re behaving as if you expect me to lop off your arms and legs. It’s nothing like that. Will you listen to m
e? Stop crying for a moment and listen. Take some deep breaths.” He paused and made her breathe, in and out, in and out, along with the rise and fall of his chest. He wiped away more tears and left his thumb there on her cheek, stroking back and forth. “Whatever you imagine is about to happen, you have been misinformed. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to try very, very hard to make you feel good. Although you are making it damnably difficult for me to maintain my confidence. Keep breathing, my dear. Would it upset you terribly if I kissed you?”

  “Kissed me?” She lay stiff as a board, her palms open against the bed.

  “Yes, kissed you. It’s this thing where we press our lips together and move our heads back and forth. We did it once before, you remember. Shall I demonstrate?”

  Before she could reply, he lowered his lips to hers. She did remember this, of course, in a vague sort of way, although now, in a bed with him looming over her, it felt different. The first contact was carefully gentle, a solemn press of warmth underlain by control. “And now I shall tilt my head that way,” he said, and she knew he was making a joke. She couldn’t laugh. She was too tense, too nervous about what this might develop into.

  Once he tilted his head, his tongue came out to tickle at the edges of her lower lip. “Open for me. Ah, yes, you remember now.” When she parted her lips, he parted his too and gave her open mouthed kisses that felt even more intimate than the previous ones. Now and again he licked her lips, or the tips of her teeth, in a way that made her think he was very practiced at this kissing thing. In fact, as time went by, her limbs relaxed and her body began to react quite outside the agitation of her mind. Her stomach muscles fluttered. Her back arched and her hips snuggled closer to his.

  “That’s a brave, good girl,” he said in a hushed voice against her mouth. “It doesn’t hurt, does it?”

  She shook her head, and he drew back. “You taste as beautiful as you look,” he said, rising a bit above her on his elbows. “May I…?”