Chapter 7
Alex stared at the woman now sitting in the chair facing the desk he sat behind, the heavy piece of furniture concealing the erection still tenting the front of his pantaloons.
Whatever he had expected the now infamous—to him at least—Sophia Marchment to look like, this was most certainly not it.
The headmistress was much younger than he had imagined, possibly aged only in her mid to late twenties, and taller than average for a woman, with plump breasts above a slender waist and hips. Golden hair surrounded a face of exquisite beauty: deep blue eyes, creamy complexion, a slightly retroussé nose, the perfect bow of her lips a deep rose color.
She and Amanda had greeted each other with affection once Alex had unlocked the door and taken a seat behind his desk before instructing the footman to bring Miss Marchment to his study.
Alex was doing his best not to think of what he and Amanda had been doing shortly before the headmistress arrived.
Except his best wasn’t good enough, because he had only to blink to still see Amanda’s bared and tempting bottom. A bottom he admitted he was fast becoming obsessed with.
Totally inappropriately.
As were his lingering thoughts on how erotic his handprints had looked on that smooth roundness.
He had no idea how or why Sophia Marchment came to be here, but it was perhaps as well she was. Otherwise, Alex dreaded to think where his preoccupation with Amanda’s bottom might have taken him. His resistance to Amanda’s plea that he pleasure her had definitely been waning.
Alex glanced briefly at her as she sat, having lowered herself gingerly down onto the chaise in front of the window once she had greeted the headmistress warmly. Amanda’s gaze was demurely lowered, and she appeared every inch the young lady. As if butter would not melt in the mouth that minutes ago had been begging him to pleasure her to release or to allow her to pleasure him!
He had no doubt her red and throbbing bottom was making it difficult for her to sit at all…
Alex’s lips firmed as he glared at Sophia Marchment. “Why are you here?” he demanded.
The headmistress returned his gaze coolly. “I received your letter informing me of Amanda’s whereabouts, and as I had to come up to London anyway to interview the family of a potential new student, I thought it prudent if I called here first and reassured myself as to Amanda’s well-being.”
Alex bristled as he sensed rather than heard the criticism in the woman’s modulated tone. “As you can see, my ward is luckily none the worse for having been allowed to leave the school unaccompanied before then traveling alone to London.”
Sophia Marchment smiled slightly as she gave an inclination of her head. “I pride myself on my girls being able to rise to any occasion or situation by the time they leave the school.”
His eyes narrowed. “I have been learning from my ward some of the ways in which they are taught this self-sufficiency.”
The woman raised cool brows. “Indeed?”
“Indeed,” Alex challenged through gritted teeth.
The headmistress gave an affectionate smile in Amanda’s direction before turning back to Alex. “Amanda was ever one of my keenest students. Curious. Enquiring. Never happy until she had mastered each task presented to her.”
Amanda gave a choked cough to conceal the impulse she felt to laugh as each word Miss Marchment spoke only caused Alex to look angrier. His eyes glittered darkly, and a nerve pulsed in the tightness of his jaw.
“My words were not meant as a compliment,” Alex accused.
Miss Marchment’s brows rose. “Oh?”
“Are you aware— Of course you are aware,” he snapped. “My ward appears to be in possession of knowledge no young lady of her age should be aware of, let alone be putting into practice, and I now understand that knowledge to be completely down to your teaching.”
Amanda recognized the expression on Miss Marchment’s face as being the one that usually preceded a setdown to whomever she was conversing with. In this case, that would be Alex.
Perhaps Amanda should attempt to avert what would no doubt be a clash of titans, and she was unsure which would be the victor?
Alex had an inborn arrogance and a sense of exactly who he was and his place in the world as a gentleman of nobility and advantage. But Miss Marchment had something of far more value in this exchange: a total lack of deference to arrogance, nobility, or the advantages those two things afforded any man. No matter what Miss Marchment’s place in the world might be—and none of the girls at the school had really known for sure, although they suspected she was highborn—she believed herself to be any man’s equal, of whatever rank or standing, and treated them accordingly.
Besides, Amanda did not feel much like averting this clash of strong wills when her bottom was so sore and throbbing from the spanking Alex had given her. It was only by placing her hands on the chaise either side of her she was able to keep her sore bottom slightly elevated from direct contact with that piece of furniture.
The headmistress now looked at Alex with cold blue eyes. “From the things I heard of you, both before and after I had accepted Amanda as a pupil in my school, I had not believed you to be one of those gentlemen. Indeed, that is the reason I accepted Amanda into the school without having first met her, or you, as is my usual custom.”
Alex’s green eyes were just as icy. “One of those gentlemen?” he repeated in a deceptively soft voice.
Sophia Marchment gave a haughty inclination of her head but added nothing to the statement.
“What ‘things’ have you heard of me?” Alex demanded. “And from whom?”
The older woman’s brow cleared, and a slight smile once again curved her lips. “Your sexual conquests are well known, my lord. As to where I heard them… I would never dream of betraying the source of a conversation told to me in confidence.”
Alex scowled darkly, well aware he was behaving the hypocrite considering what he had been doing to Amanda shortly before this woman arrived. But if not for this woman’s teaching, Amanda would not have known of her own pleasure or how a man might ease it.
Which was the whole point; Amanda should not have known those things.
Why shouldn’t she, another voice asked inside his head.
Alex rose abruptly to his feet now that his erection had subsided sufficiently. He could not allow the conversation to be steered away from the point by censorious remarks as to his own behavior. “It is as well Amanda has already left your establishment. Otherwise, I should have to remove her after what I have learned of the goings-on there these past few days.”
Sophia Marchment also rose to her feet, reminding Alex that she really was very tall for a woman, possibly only four inches or so shorter than his own six feet and two inches. She looked coldly down the length of her nose at him. “Goings-on?” she repeated in a deceptively soft voice.
Alex forged ahead anyway. “I know from Amanda that you are teaching the girls subjects which would be better left until they are at least betrothed.”
Amanda rose indignantly to her feet. “I have not said anything that is remotely detrimental to Miss Marchment or her school,” she defended with a glare in Alex’s direction.
Alex’s mouth thinned. “Your actions have done that for you.”
Her cheeks blushed as fiery a red as those upon her bottom. “I have done nothing of which I am ashamed.”
“Then perhaps you should be.” As Alex was. He should not have threatened Amanda with a bare-arsed spanking at all, let alone actually carried it out.
The headmistress’s top lip turned up in a sneer of disgust as she gazed at him critically. “You are one of those gentlemen.”
He scowled his irritation. “Explain yourself, madam.”
She eyed him pityingly. “I believe in the tenet ‘what’s sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose,’ and I teach my girls to believe in that same equality.”
“You are a confirmed spinster.”
She snorted. “I am afraid it is much worse than that, my lord, I am a suffragist. In that I dearly believe, hope, that before this century is over, perhaps not here in England but certainly elsewhere in the world, women will have earned the same rights as men. To vote, to retain possession of their money and property after marriage, and to choose whether or not they wish to have children, and if so, how many.”
Alex was at a loss as to how he should answer what was obviously a gauntlet being thrown down at his feet and which Sophia Marchment’s challenging gaze was daring him to pick up.
The problem was that Alex believed in those things too. He had never approved of the inequality between men and women. It was even worse for women from wealthy families in that not only did they become the property of their husband after marriage, but all their worldly goods too. He knew Adam was of the same opinion as he, and that his brother had attempted, several times, to petition the House to have the law changed. As the majority of the men in the House had benefitted from wealth or prestige through marriage, those petitions had so far been unsuccessful.
He gave a shake of his head. “It will not happen in our lifetime, madam.”
“Does that mean we should not at least try to educate hearts and minds to the injustice even if we do not succeed in changing the law?”
Alex glanced at Amanda as she listened silently to the exchange. Not because she did not have anything to say on the subject herself, because Alex was sure that she did; Amanda, he had quickly discovered, had an opinion on most things.
But on this occasion, those turquoise eyes were gazing at Sophia Marchment with an admiration and respect bordering on hero worship. Alex was sadly in danger of damaging those feelings if he continued in this same vein.
He might not agree with the older woman’s methods of teaching her students as a way of attempting to help create that change in society, but that did not mean she was wrong to at least try. Amanda was certainly more self-sufficient and knowledgeable on any number of subjects than many of her peers in society, and an altogether more interesting and capable woman because of it.
He had no doubts that Amanda’s future husband would find himself blessed with a wife of deep passions and convictions. Unfortunately, many gentlemen of Alex’s acquaintance would not be as appreciative of those qualities as he was.
Alex stepped back to bow to the older woman. “Please accept my apologies. I meant no offence by my remarks. Perhaps, by way of accepting my apology, you would like to stay here with Amanda during your visit to London?”
“Oh yes, please do,” Amanda encouraged as she crossed the room to take the other woman’s gloved hands in both of hers, at the same time bestowing a warm smile on Alex for having made the suggestion.
The tension eased from the older woman’s shoulders as she looked at Alex knowingly. “Perhaps you are not one of those gentlemen after all.”
“Perhaps I am not,” Alex acknowledged dryly.
“Nevertheless, I am afraid I shall have to refuse your kind invitation. I am to be the guest of one of the patrons of my school whilst I decide whether or not this potential student will be a good fit to my method of teaching.”
Teachings which were completely against the ways of current society, but which, now that Alex had met and spoken to Sophia Marchment, he could not in all conscience condemn.
Even if those teachings now meant he had a suffragist of his own to deal with.
One, moreover, he was finding it increasingly difficult to stop himself from touching and caressing. In particular that part of her between her bottom cheeks.
“Then perhaps you might care to dine with us tomorrow evening?” he suggested politely.
“I am unable to do that either.” Sophia Marchment gave an apologetic smile. “But, with your permission, I would dearly love the opportunity to go shopping with Amanda, perhaps on Monday morning?”
Alex bowed. “Of course.”
“Would you care to walk out with me, Amanda?” The headmistress smiled at her ex-pupil as she prepared to leave.
Amanda would be only too pleased to stretch her legs and hopefully ease some of the hot and throbbing discomfort of her bottom at the same time. It also gave her respite from Alex’s disturbing company.
“My lord.” Miss Marchment nodded polite recognition of Alex’s bow. She waited until the two ladies were outside the study and walking down the hallway before speaking again, her voice laced with concern. “Is he ill treating you? I could not help but notice how uncomfortable you were when you sat down, and again when you stood up,” she explained as Amanda gave her a startled glance.
Her cheeks blushed hotly. “Considering I arrived so unexpectedly, his lordship has been very kind.”
“That is not sufficient reason for him to ill treat you.”
“Oh, but—”
“You have been spanked.” The older woman gave her a reproving glance. “And recently, if I am not mistaken.”
Amanda avoided meeting that piercing—and all-seeing—gaze. “Alex believes I lied to him.”
“About what?”
Amanda related the tale of last night’s events as the two ladies crossed the entrance hall together.
“Foolish man,” the older woman snapped. “Why, I’ve a good mind to—”
“Please do not.” Amanda’s hand on the other woman’s arm stopped her as she would have turned and returned to Alex’s study.
“You have a sharp and enquiring mind, but you have never been a liar.”
“Alex does not yet know me as well as you do, and so has no reason to believe that.”
“He has no reason to disbelieve you either—”
“Oh, I think he does.” She smiled ruefully. “I was hardly honest when I left the school in the way I did to come here,” she reminded her.
“Once I received His Lordship’s letter, I thought of our conversations before you left and realized that not once had you actually said you would be staying with Barbara’s parents, only that they had invited you and you would be gone for the summer. You did not lie, only cleverly allowed me to put those two things together and come to the incorrect conclusion that was where you had gone,” the older woman recalled self-derisively.
“And I am sorry if I disappointed you by doing so. As I also add my apologies for my guardian having been so rude to you just now.” Amanda frowned.
“He is not the first, nor will he be the last,” Miss Marchment dismissed lightly. “As I am not hindered with the presence of a maid, I shall call for you here at eleven o’clock on Monday morning, if that suits?”
It suited Amanda very well. In fact, she was already looking forward to it.
“An interesting woman.”
Amanda turned to face Alex as he stood beside her looking towards the front door where Miss Marchment was now departing. A shaft of jealously shot through Amanda at the admiration she could see in his gaze for the older woman.
Was she to feel jealous of every woman Alex so much as looked at?
It appeared to be the case.
She eyed him coldly. “Are you attracted to every woman you meet?”
Alex’s brows rose at his ward’s accusing tone. “I said she was interesting, not that I found her attractive.”
“With you, they appear to be one and the same thing!” she snapped. “If you will excuse me? I wish to return to my room now.”
“It is time for luncheon.”
“I am not hungry.” She gave him one of those haughty glances she seemed to reserve just for him before crossing the entrance hall and sweeping up the stairs without so much as giving Alex a second glance.
Leaving him in no doubt that she was not yet ready to forgive him for spanking her.