Chapter 2
“Bend over the front of the desk and raise your skirts.”
Amanda had not sat indecorously, as Miss Marchment had taught “her girls” they should never do, as she waited for Alexander Stirling to dress and make his appearance. Instead, having located what Amanda could only assume was his study at the back of the house, she now stood in front of the window looking out at the overgrown garden. Inwardly buoyed by the knowledge she had put Stirling at a distinct disadvantage by discovering him in flagrante delicto with the woman who was no doubt his latest mistress.
As Amanda could not help noting with satisfaction that, after today’s embarrassment, the other woman would almost certainly become his ex-mistress.
But Amanda’s expression now turned to one of bewilderment at her guardian’s instruction. “I do not understand.”
Alex had pondered this situation as he washed the evidence of the afternoon from his body before dressing in a dark green superfine, white linen, a silver brocade waistcoat, and pale gray pantaloons above brown-topped Hessians. Thoughts during which he had been forced to acknowledge he had severely lost the respect that was due him as Amanda Fullerton’s guardian.
If this was indeed his ward, and those unusual-colored eyes of a shade between green and blue Alex had never seen on anyone else but her confirmed she must be, he had decided he must correct that illusion as soon as possible.
He rested his hip against one side of his desk, arms folded. “The instruction was clear and simple enough, was it not?”
“I… Well… Yes.” The color came to and then faded from his ward’s cheeks. “But you cannot expect me to obey such an order without questioning it.”
His lids narrowed. “As your guardian, I both can and do.”
Alex could see the war of emotions taking place within Amanda. The disbelief. The indignant anger. The stubborn defiance. Followed by an edge of uncertainty.
The creamy expanse of her throat moved as she swallowed. “What do you intend doing to me?”
“Guess,” he challenged.
Amanda studied her guardian’s face. His glittering and angry green eyes. His cold and stony expression. And knew exactly why he wished her to bend over the front of his desk.
Miss Marchment had not believed in corporal punishment but had accepted that for certain crimes, there was no other choice. Was this to be one of those occasions?
Amanda winced as she inwardly acknowledged she had lied so that she could leave the school without alerting her headmistress as to her intentions.
She had then traveled alone to London by public coach.
Before deliberately intruding upon Lord Stirling’s afternoon of pleasure.
Nevertheless, she could not accept such punishment without first defending her actions. “I had just lost my father, my only relative, when you placed me in the school and then forgot about me for three years.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you attempting to make me feel guilty for having placed you there?”
“Do you?”
“Not in the slightest,” he answered in a hard voice. “What else was I, still a soldier and away from England for months at a time, supposed to do with the young girl who was now my ward?”
He had a point, Amanda accepted grudgingly. “I am too old to remain at the school any longer. What could I do, where else could I go, but here to you in London?”
A nerve pulsed in his clenched jaw. “You could have waited for me to respond to Miss Marchment’s letter informing me of such.”
Her eyes widened. “She wrote to you?”
He nodded. “Last week.”
“Oh.”
“I am waiting, Amanda,” he said in a deceptively mild tone.
Her chin rose. “I am too old to be spanked.”
He eyed her mockingly. “A recalcitrant woman is never too old to be given a reminder of how a lady should behave.”
“But—” She backed up against the window, Stirling having crossed the room in two strides to now stand mere inches in front of her.
Alex gave a hard smile of satisfaction at the look of apprehension in Amanda Fullerton’s eyes. “If you protest one more time,” he warned softly, “I shall bend you over my knee instead of the desk.” Something he was sure she would find far more humiliating.
Her eyes wide, she attempted one last protest. “I am a woman, not a child.”
Alex nodded. “And you will be spanked as a woman, not a child.”
“There is a difference?”
His smile widened. “An adult spanking is much harder than one administered to a child.”
Her cheeks paled. “I only sought to—”
“I have already heard your reasons, Amanda,” he bit out. “Unfortunately for you, none of those reasons in any way lessens the danger you put yourself in by lying to your headmistress and traveling here alone. Or the rudeness and disrespect you have shown to me since your arrival.”
Her chin lifted. “You are set upon this course of action?”
“Very much so,” he said with satisfaction.
“Very well.” She gave an inclination of her head with a dignity many a dowager would envy, before stepping past him and walking toward his desk. Once there, she bent herself over the front of that piece of furniture, her rebellious and blushing face turned toward him, her eyes glittering with anger.
“Skirts up,” Alex reminded.
She shot him another angry glare before gripping the sides of her gown and raising them until her drawers-covered bottom was revealed to him.
It was a nice shapely bottom too, Alex noted as he crossed the room to stand behind her, the fullness of those twin globes pressing against the taut cotton of her drawers.
Putting Alex in somewhat of a dilemma as to whether those drawers should remain up or be pulled down to her thighs, at least.
Alex was particularly fond of a plump bottom—
This was his ward, damn it, and the spanking was meant as a punishment for her impetuous behavior, not the precursor to a sexual encounter.
His anger toward himself, as much for his past disregard for Amanda as his unruly thoughts just now, meant he gave her no warning as he raised his hand and brought it down, hard, on those twin globes.
“Oh God…” Amanda gasped and raised up slightly on her tiptoes as the stinging pain reverberated throughout her whole body.
A hand pressed in the middle of her back to hold her in place before a rain of smacks connected to and heated and stung her bottom until she was squirming and crying out with the landing of each blow.
“Please, no more. It hurts!” Amanda finally sobbed when she believed she could stand the pain no longer. “Oh please, stop!”
“Are you going to do as you are told without argument and behave as a lady should in future?”
Was she? Miss Marchment had often commented on Amanda’s unwillingness to listen or to behave the lady, which was what her guardian was paying the school to instill in her. To promise her guardian she would do so now would be to lie.
“No?” Stirling landed another hard blow on her left bottom cheek as he obviously took her silence to be a negative response.
This smack, after that brief cessation, seemed to hurt more than all the others. “I am trying to avoid deliberately deceiving you, my lord,” Amanda pleaded emotionally. “It is not that I do not wish to behave, only that it so often transpires I have failed to do so.”
Alex bit his top lip in an effort to hold back his humor at this candid admission from his ward. He had dutifully received reports on Amanda’s progress from the headmistress at the end of each school term. But he did not recall any of them as stating his ward was both headstrong and outspoken. Clearly, Miss Marchment had been somewhat guarded, if not remiss, in those reports.
Nor should he now have a cock stand at having landed those blows to Amanda’s plump derriere!
His nostrils flared. “Do I at least have your word that you will try?”
“You do.”
It was the best he could hope for, Alex accepted as he stepped back.
“Is it your intention to spank me often?”
Alex frowned at the realization he now seemed to have gained his young ward as a houseguest, for the summer at least. Something which, as a bachelor, might prove socially awkward when there was no other lady in residence.
Did that mean he now had to engage a chaperone or companion for the unruly chit?
He had bought Wetherby House not just to escape all the sexual groans and cries of satisfaction that could so often be heard coming from his brother and his wife’s bedchamber, but also so that he might continue with his own bachelor lifestyle. He scowled at the thought of his sanctuary now being filled with female chatter and clutter.
“My lord?”
Alex glanced at his ward. She was still bent over the desk, her gathered skirts up to her waist. It was something, at least, that she had not moved without being told she could do so.
He could actually see the redness of those plump bottom cheeks through the thin cotton of her drawers and had no doubt Amanda would be feeling her punishment for some time. But would that be enough of a reminder for her to behave in future? The rebellious glitter of those turquoise eyes caused Alex to doubt that would be the case.
Damn it to hell! The last thing he had imagined when he woke late this morning was to have his peaceful existence invaded and destroyed by this headstrong baggage. Or that his aroused cock would press against his pantaloons, eager to bury itself between her plump arse cheeks.
“If you deserve it, yes,” he confirmed harshly.
“Oh.”
Was that eagerness or distaste he could hear in Amanda’s voice? Either was unacceptable.
As was the faint aroma of flowers and the pussy juice he could see had dampened the slitted crotch of Amanda’s drawers.
Had Amanda been as aroused as he was by her spanking?
“Pull down your skirts and stand,” he instructed harshly, watching through narrowed lids as his ward adjusted her skirts before slowly straightening, no doubt to allow for the discomfort of her throbbing arse. Alex was pleased if that was the case. It was the least Amanda deserved for having upset the even tenor of his bachelor life. “You may now remove yourself from my sight. You will find a salve in the cupboard of my dressing room you might apply to ease the burning sensation,” he added as he saw her stiffness of movement.
What Amanda inwardly burned with was humiliation for having been made to lie prostrate over this man’s desk, to lift her skirts, and allow him to spank her bottom!
As well as the tingling of sexual arousal which—
“I trust you remember the way to my bedchamber?” Stirling snapped at her lack of response.
Amanda nodded. Not only did she remember the way, but she also recalled everything she had seen and heard in that room earlier.
Most especially how she had wished the woman on top of Alexander, his cock buried deep inside her, had been her…
The crush she’d had on her handsome guardian three years ago had become a burning need that had made her nipples swell and ache and between her thighs damp.
“I have instructed the footman to take your luggage upstairs and for two of the maids to prepare a bedchamber farther down the hallway from my own,” her guardian informed coolly. “I am going out for several hours, I suggest you unpack and then rest before joining me downstairs for dinner at eight thirty.”
Amanda walked stiffly to the door before turning. “I truly am sorry, my lord, if I have caused you any inconvenience by foisting myself upon you in this way.”
He gave a disbelieving snort. “If?”
Color warmed her cheeks. “Will you be able to…smooth things over with your…with the lady?”
“I have no doubt I shall,” he dismissed confidently.
“I merely…” Amanda drew in a deep breath before continuing. “I only wished to stop feeling like an abandoned package no one wished to claim.”
Alex winced at this further reminder of his lack of consideration for his young ward’s feelings these past three years. “We will talk of this again later.” He needed to discuss the matter with his brother, and possibly his sister-in-law, before deciding what steps he should take to settle this situation.
“Your ward?” Hawkwood questioned incredulously.
Alex knew Adam had every reason to be surprised when he had not so much as mentioned Amanda’s existence to his brother before now.
“How old is she?” Emma, his sister-in-law, prompted in a gentler voice.
Alex frowned in concentration as he did the mathematics inside his head. “Eighteen, almost nineteen, I think.”
His brother scowled his displeasure. “Clearly you have not given any thought to this matter at all!”
“Because I believed her to be safe and cared for at school,” Alex defended.
“You—”
“Adam.” Emma spoke quietly, the warm and loving smile she gave her husband taking the sting out of her reproof. “If this really is a problem for you, then Miss Fullerton must come and live here with us here,” she told Alex.
“I could not—”
“Absolutely not!”
Alex and Hawkwood spoke at the same time, Adam’s protest much stronger than Alex’s. For obvious reasons. Having Alex move out of Hawkwood House had given the newly married couple the privacy they needed in their relationship. Was it any wonder Adam now bristled at the possibility of having an eighteen-year-old girl who was Alex’s responsibility rather than his own foisted upon them?
“Much as I appreciate your kindness, Emma,” Alex drawled with a mocking glance toward his brother. “I believe it best if Amanda remains at Wetherby House with me. I am her guardian, after all,” he added with a frown.
“Exactly.” Hawkwood nodded his relief. “But there is no reason why you should not call upon Miss Fullerton, my love,” he added as a sop to mollify his wife’s kinder heart.
Emma chuckled as she moved to stand in her husband’s embrace. “You are simply hoping to avoid having to use restraint in the bedchamber if she were living here with us.”
“I’ll not deny it,” he confirmed without apology.
Alex gave a grimace. “I really do not need to hear any of this.”
His sister-in-law laughed. “Do not pretend you did not have to resort to putting a pillow over your head at night when you lived here to shut out the sounds emanating from our bedchamber.”
Alex gave his brother a sideways glance. “I have to admit that Adam’s groans and demands for mercy could be somewhat intrusive to a peaceful night’s sleep.”
As, Alex now realized with a frown, Maria’s groans and screams of pleasure must have been audible earlier. Meaning his ward had deliberately intended to cause the couple in the room embarrassment.
Inappropriate arousal, be damned, Alex now wished he had spanked Amanda harder than he had.
“When the two of you have quite finished…” Hawkwood was every inch the arrogant duke in that moment, his gaze steely. “I suggest Emma calls upon your ward tomorrow, with a view to deciding how best we might help you deal with this situation.”
“As long as it does not involve Amanda living with you?” Alex taunted.
“As long as it does not involve that, yes,” his brother confirmed, again without apology.
Alex was feeling slightly less concerned about the situation now that he had discussed it with his brother and sister-in-law.
Even if that conversation had done nothing to resolve the problem as to what Alex should ultimately do with Amanda Fullerton.
“Maria Dalrimple…” Emma now murmured speculatively. “Whoever would have thought? How shall I ever look her in the eyes again?”
“Preferably from a great distance, considering what we now know about her morals,” Hawkwood drawled in a hard and disapproving voice.
“I shall never want or be with any man but you, Adam,” his young wife assured.
“Just as well,” he bit out. “I would be forced to resort to killing any other man who so much as looked at you with lust in his eyes.”
Alex gave an impatient sigh. “Could we please return to the subject in hand?”
His brother glanced at him. “The one where you shocked your young ward’s sensibilities by being caught in bed with a married woman, you mean?”
Alex gave a dismissive snort. “I was not caught, as you put it, but in my own bedchamber, in my own bed, enjoying an afternoon of debauchery with whomever I chose to be with. Amanda burst in without knocking or apology. Nor,” he added with a scowl, “did she appear in the least shocked.”
“Nevertheless, she was very brave to travel all the way from Portsmouth on her own,” Emma admired.
“Or extremely stupid,” Alex snapped. “Hopefully she has seen the error of her ways after I spanked her ars—” He broke off with a self-conscious grimace as his sister-in-law gave a gasp. Emma was not averse to making her feelings known on any subject, least of all her brother-in-law’s private life. Alex doubted today would be the exception.
Emma eyed him curiously. “You spanked the ward you have only just met again after not bothering with her for three years?”
“How shocking.” His brother’s added tut-tut did not sound in the least sincere, and the laughter glittering in Hawkwood’s eyes confirmed Alex’s suspicion that Adam was amused by his behavior rather than disapproving.
Emma’s lips twitched with the same amusement. “Did you administer this spanking with Amanda’s bottom bared, or did you leave her the dignity of retaining her drawers?”
“I am curious to know that too.” Hawkwood raised questioning brows in Alex’s direction. “Personally, I prefer to feel the bareness of a juicy rump beneath the skin of my palm.” One of his hands now caressed his wife’s plump bottom through the skirts of her gown.
“It does make all the difference,” Emma purred.
Alex scowled at his brother and sister-in-law. “Something has become distinctly warped about your sense of humor since the two of you married each other!”
Hawkwood openly chuckled. “At least I now have a sense of humor.”
“True,” Alex conceded. Until Emma’s advent into his brother’s life, Adam had been far too serious for his own good.
Alex knew the reason why he had. Their father had not been kind or attentive to either of his sons, or his wife, taking the strap to the former whenever they displeased him and, once she had provided his heir and spare, completely ignoring the existence of his wife.
Alex’s response to such treatment, once he was old enough, had been to comfort and bed any married ladies who showed willing. Adam’s had been to put up emotional barriers.
Emma had removed that wall of restraint one brick at a time—one spanking at a time?—until the duke had gone down on one knee, in the middle of a crowded ballroom, no less, and bucked against the convention of a lady’s father making that decision for her by asking Emma to marry him. Not because Adam did not already have Lord Harris’s approval, because he did, but because he was in love with Emma and she had required that Adam make that proposal to her personally.
“Is your ward beautiful as well as young?” Emma now enquired.
“I have not… Yes, I suppose she is,” Alex conceded when his brother raised skeptical brows.
“Oh dear.”
Alex’s expression sharpened with suspicion. “Oh dear what?”
“I believe it is time for you to leave, Alex.” Adam, obviously bored with the conversation, now had eyes only for his wife. “Emma and I have other things we wish to do just now.”
Considering his brother and Emma found it difficult to keep their hands off each other, and their conversation just now regarding spanking, it wasn’t difficult to guess what those things might be.
Emma’s hands moved in a caress across her husband’s chest. She confirmed Alex’s suspicions. “It is an age since you spanked me.”
“Only three nights ago, my love,” Hawkwood murmured.
Emma nodded. “As I said, an age.”
Alex could contain his curiosity no longer. “You actually enjoy having Adam spank you?”
Alex had indulged in the practice with members of the demimonde in the past for the enjoyment of seeing that flesh wobble and grow redder after each smack. But he had never thought to do so with the married ladies of Society with whom he occasionally dallied, had believed, until now, that a lady would protest at such treatment.
He frowned at his sister-in-law. Emma looked so innocent and ladylike on the outside, but the fact she was more than a match for his arrogant and fifteen-years-senior brother confirmed that innocence must cease at the door of the couple’s bedchamber.
Emma’s eyes danced with merriment as she stood within the warmth of her husband’s embrace. “As long as it is meant to arouse rather than punish.” She nodded.
“My intention was to punish Amanda for her reckless behavior.” The dampness of Amanda drawers between her thighs told him he had not been altogether successful…
“What you meant to do and what occurred can be two different things entirely,” his sister-in-law explained. “Amanda is young and no doubt as curious as I was at that age.”
“You are only twenty now, my love,” Hawkwood teased.
“But I have also been married to you for two months,” she reminded.
“True,” Hawkwood accepted.
Emma turned back to Alex. “Seeing you with your cock buried inside Maria will almost certainly have sparked that curiosity in Amanda, if it was not already there, in regard to physical relations between a man and a woman. If that is the case, then I would not be at all surprised if your young and beautiful ward did not become aroused by being spanked.”
Alex wondered if introducing Emma to Amanda was the right thing to do, after all. The two women were very much alike, and he dreaded to think how much more willful Amanda would become under his sister-in-law’s influence.