Jonathan took a bite of his breakfast and glanced at Belinda. Something was different about her this morning. She wasn’t as angry with him as she’d been last night. And she wasn’t trying to wheedle her way out of the upcoming spankings. Instead, she was calmly eating breakfast and drinking her tea. She was even wearing the clothing he’d demanded.

He swallowed a sip of his own tea and pursed his lips.

“You seem to have slept well,” he said. “Pray why would that be?”

“I did. You make a wonderful pillow.” She had her teacup cradled in her hands.

“Indeed? Well, I’m glad I could be of assistance.” He smiled at her, and then took another bite of eggs. It could be a ruse, of course. She could be trying to get out of the punishments. And, truthfully, if she continued on this way she just might be successful.

But then he thought about her words, not only toward Clarissa but now aimed toward him.

“Jonathan. I’m sorry for what I said. I know I can’t take it back, and I know it embarrassed you and made you a laughing stock. I hope you forgive me.”

“I accept your apology, Lady Brat. But it doesn’t change things.”

“I understand.” She shook her head and bit her lip.

Jonathan sat back in his chair and narrowed his eyes.

“Why the change of heart?”

“I just wanted you to know that.” She bit her lip.

“What are you scheming?”

“How could I scheme? I’m not even sure where we are.”

“You’re up to something.” Jonathan pushed back from the table.

“Can’t I be nice to you without you being suspicious?”

“No.”

He watched her face drop and felt a twinge of guilt. He quickly washed it away. She’d felt no guilt when she’d informed everyone that her protector had not tried to have sex with her, and therefore must be impotent.

“I had planned on a ride through the countryside this morning, but since it’s raining, I think we’ll postpone it until tomorrow. Let us go back upstairs.”

He noticed her hands were not shaking as they had been. She put her napkin on the table and stood.

“Very well.”

“I must say, Lady Brat, you’re taking this very well.” Too well. Something was up, he was sure of that. But getting the true details out of her would be difficult. He knew her well enough to know she would say anything, whether it truth or lie, to her own advantage.

“I am truly sorry. I want you to know that by my actions.” Her voice cracked just a bit, and he was sure she truly was sorry. But he couldn’t back down. Or could he? Was there a different way to get her to open up to him, to realize she couldn’t keep acting as she did?

If he changed his mind would she behave here, but act like a brat again once they got to London? She’d mentioned that he made a good pillow. That meant, to him, that she was attracted to him. One way he knew to punish her would bring him pleasure. Would that be the best way?

He wasn’t totally sure, but he would give it try, see what sort of reaction he would get from her. But he had to keep up appearances until he had her in position.

“Are you ready for your first spanking, then?”

He studied her carefully. It took a few moments for her to answer, as if she were trying to decide what to say, exactly. Finally, she nodded.

She walked up the stairs in front of him, and when they were inside his bedroom, he could see her nervousness.

“Tell me, Lady Brat, why you’re being punished.”

“For saying things that hurt others.”

“Why do you do that?” Jonathan watched her carefully; when she hung her head he thought she was crying. Then she lifted defiant eyes to him and violently shook her head back and forth.

“That’s none of your business. Let’s just get it over with.”

Why, indeed?

Belinda grasped the footboard of the bed as Jonathan instructed. To her surprise he didn’t tell her to bend over. She watched as he crossed to the reticule he’d brought and took out two lengths of long material. She’d been tied to a bed before, so she wasn’t shocked by the idea. She supposed he thought it was right, because it would keep her in place for his promised spanking. But that didn’t mean she liked the idea.

Still, she’d promised herself she would not put up a fight. It would do her no good In fact, it would make things worse. She felt naked, even though she wore her corset and stockings, her behind was bare.

The word why kept spinning through her mind. She often wondered when she’d become so adapt at being hateful to others. Years of musings had allowed her to pinpoint the exact time, but she had never told anyone else, and she didn’t intend to start now.

After the first time, being a bitch to people came much easier. She’d never felt good about it, but she’d never been able to stop, either.

She needed to watch herself right now, because she was afraid he would pull the truth out of her, and that would not be a good thing.

“What are you thinking about?” Jonathan’s voice was low.

Don’t tell him the truth, don’t tell him the truth, don’t tell him the truth.

“That you’re an asshole!”

She didn’t expect him to chuckle. “Such words from a lady. Tell me, Brat, what caused you to change your mind? At breakfast it almost seemed as if you liked me. Now I’m an asshole again. I have to tell you it hurts my feelings.”

“I’m good at acting,” she said. “How do you think I’ve survived all these years?”

“Sooner or later you’re going to have to talk to me, Belinda.”

“Why? Just get it over with!”

“This isn’t just about spanking. The spankings are a means to an end. Hopefully, they’ll open you up enough that we’ll find the root of the problem, and solve it.”

She turned her head toward him. “I just want to go back to London, and get you out of my life.”

“Turn your head back around.” His low voice sent chills up her spine. She braced for the first strike, but it didn’t come. Instead, his footsteps echoed in the room as he rounded the bed and sat down, propped against the headboard.

“I swear, you are in that position more than you are not,” she said. She pulled on the bonds that held her to the bed. He’d tied them tight enough to keep her in place, but not to cause her pain. Something told her he’d done this before.

“Tell me about your marriage. Was it happy?” He sounded as if he were sitting in a salon, taking tea with someone to whom he’d recently been introduced.

“Why are you doing this to me? I…” She felt tears well up in her throat. He’d hit on the one thing that she never wanted to talk about, and he didn’t seem as if he were going to give up on it, either.

“Tell me.” The seductive tone in his voice made her shiver. She turned her head toward the wall.

“Telling you my life story would be worse punishment than the spanking.” Her shoulders were already starting to ache. If he made her stand here much longer there would be true pain. But she’d felt pain before, both physical and emotional. She would be able to endure it to keep her secrets to herself.

“Yes, I figured that out,” he said. “When you’re ready to talk you may sit on the bottom of the bed and begin. Until then, you may stay in the position you’re in, and ponder your wicked ways.”

“Can’t you just spank me? You’re going to do it anyway, whether I talk or not.” Belinda had lost any of the warm feelings she’d had for Barton that morning. She never, ever talked about her early life, and he had no business asking about it. The second he’d started delving into areas where he didn’t belong, she clammed up.

“No, I can’t. I want some information. I want to know what turned you from Lady Strauss into Lady Brat. And I have all afternoon, all of tonight, and all of tomorrow to wait. Barring that, we can extend our trip as long as I see fit.”

Belinda screamed in frustration. She shook her head and stood suddenly, trying as hard as she could to move away from the bed.

“No, I won’t do it.” He stood and, to her surprise, he undid the ties that kept her arms in place.

“Is this some sort of trick?” she asked.

“No, I just want your confession about your past life to be because you want to give it, not because you’re in pain and think I might let you go because of it.”

She rubbed her wrists and rolled her shoulders, wondering what she should do. She judged the distance to the door, then decided it would do her no good. She would still be in the house, and out in the middle of nowhere.

“The rain has stopped,” she said. “Shall we go for a walk?”

“My, my, Lady Brat, you’ll do anything to get out of this spanking, won’t you?”

“Yes,” she admitted, and then she laughed when he did, too.

“Even walk in the mud, in your stockings and corset.”

“If needs be,” she said. “Of course I could put a dress on, too.”

He got up and went to what she’d now started to think of as his array of torture devices. He picked up a whip and let it trail on the floor. Belinda’s eyes widened and she took a step away.

“No, you can’t be serious.”

“I’m going to wrap this around your shoulders, with the ends hanging down over your breasts.” He let the whip trail behind him as he walked toward her. “If you try anything while we’re out, I will use it on you, Belinda. I don’t like the idea, not at all, but I am willing to follow through on it. Do you understand? Do we have an agreement on it?”

“Yes,” she whispered as her gaze stayed on the lethal looking device he held in his hands. “I swear to you I will not try to run.” She had been hoping that, by going outside and enjoying the smell of the fresh rain, the threat to spank her would subside. Now she could see that it would not.

He took a step closer, and then he placed the whip around her neck. It felt cold and shivers ran up her spine as the leather settled on her body.

“I don’t like the feel of this,” she said.

“Remember that when you act up,” he said. “I was taught to use it most effectively. That means I can stand back and smack it against your ass and not break the skin.”

He sounded so matter of fact that it made her shiver. She said a silent prayer that she would never taste the leather in the way he described.

“Shall we go, Lady Brat?”

“I think that is a wonderful idea,” she said. To her surprise he offered her his arm. She looked down at her feet. “May I put on my shoes?”

They went downstairs, passing two servants as they walked. It struck her as off that neither of them looked at them as if anything was out of the ordinary. It made her wonder how many women he’d had at this house, how many he’d paraded around half-naked.

It wasn’t a subject she could bring up, truthfully. If she asked him about former lovers he would want to do the same with her, which meant she would have to tell him about the number of men who had been in her bed. There were quite a few; maybe not as many as people in society thought, but there had been far too many. The thought made her sad, because if a man knew about it he would not respect her.

That was the main problem in it all, respect. And she didn’t help matters by acting the way she did, by treating people as she had treated Clarissa.

“You are deep in thought,” he said as they stepped from the house into the gardens. “Do you want to tell me what it is? I promise you, Lady Brat, that anything you say to me will not be spread throughout the realm.”

“Really?” Belinda laughed softly. “Something tells me that you are not telling me the truth. People have rarely told me the truth. Even Taylor, whom I loved deeply, lied to me. I had no idea he was a thief. People don’t really believe me, but it’s the truth.”

“I believe you,” he said. “You returned Clarissa’s jewels. Of course you did it because Alice spoke to Taylor in the séance at the house party. Do you believe such things?”

“I do,” she said. “I would like to talk to Alice about it, still. I have not had the time to speak with her personally.”

He moved them toward a cupola, and she knew they were not really going to go for a walk. Still, leaving the bedroom without being whipped made her feel better about things. Maybe she could talk to him. Heaven knows she had never talked to anyone else… not really. She’d never even told Taylor about her beginnings.

They sat down on the bench just under the stone covering just as the rain started again. She shivered a bit, but the heat from his thigh, which rested against hers, was a comfort.

“Let me tell you something about me.” He paused and then continued, “Those of us who are the youngers, who are so far behind in the line that we will never become the earl, were not given as much care as the older ones.”

He glanced at her, and then put his hand on her knee. Like the heat of his thigh, she rather enjoyed this feeling.

“One day, me and my cousin decided we were tired of hanging around the house and doing nothing.” He paused again, and she wondered where this story was taking them, what it would reveal about him.

“We were very bad boys that afternoon, and it got us into a great deal of trouble,” he said. “It was the first time I’d ever tasted a strap, and I hated it. It’s why I don’t really want to use one on you. I know the pain of it, and the anger that it brings.”

She was so glad to hear that, but it made her decision tougher. She either had to tell him the truth about herself, or submit to something that even he did not want to do.

“Tell me what you and your cousin did that day,” she said. “What was his name?”

“Ian,” he said. “He is now a landowner near the Scottish border,” he said. “He has a wife and three children and from the letters that he sends me he enjoys his life very much.”

“And you, do you enjoy your life?” she asked.

“I do, well, sometimes,” he said. He didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t push. If she pushed him he would push her.

Instead she decided to change the subject. “You didn’t tell me what you did.”

“It’s horrible,” he said. “I’m embarrassed by it, truthfully. And it is still remembered at my home near York. It was on All Hallow’s Eve.”

He paused again and she said, “Go on.”

Despite her prodding he didn’t speak again, and it made her wonder what had happened. Had he killed a man? Had his cousin?

“Ian and I went to the graveyard,” he said. “We didn’t do it to call upon a spirit. We knocked over two headstones and made it look as if someone had tried to dig up a grave, a very old one.”

She could tell by the sound of his voice that he was still feeling the effects of what he’d done.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Well, we went back home, and the next day the event was all over the village,” he said. “They accused two young boys who were known to cause trouble. It wasn’t for another three days, when they threatened to send the boys to the reformatory school as punishment, that Ian and I finally confessed.”

“And you still feel guilty,” she said.

“Oh, yes.” He reached his arm out from under the cupola. She watched as rain filled his palm.

“Why?” she asked, and then she laughed. “You talk about me not opening up to you, and trying to get you to tell me this story is like pulling rotten teeth.”

He laughed. “Rotten teeth would be easy to pull,” he said. “It is good teeth that would be hard to get out of a person’s mouth. Very well, since you bring up a good point I will finish the tale without any more prodding.”

He cleared his throat. “At first the authorities did not believe us,” he said. “We were the sons, after all, of noble men. Our fathers owned land, my father was an earl. They thought we were trying to save the boys from their fate. But when I gave the names of the people buried under the stones we’d damaged they knew we were telling the truth. They had kept the names silent.”

“They did not send you to reformatory school,” she said.

“No.” He brought his hand back under the canopy and let the water that had collected in his hand drop to the ground. “My father paid to have the stones replaced, and then he took a strap to my ass, every day for a week.”

“Every day?” Such an idea shocked her.

“Fifteen strokes a day,” he said. “I swear I was sore for a year. Ian’s father took him to their home, and I have no idea of his punishment. He won’t talk of it, even to this day.”

“It must have been something horrible,” she said.

“Yes, I think it was,” Jonathan said. “I have never forgiven myself for it, but I have learned to live with what happened. The shame of it, the pain that I caused my parents. It took years before the people of the village forgave them. They blamed them for my actions.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “But I still don’t understand how it hurt you so much. You didn’t kill anyone.”

“We disrespected the dead,” he said. “My father taught me that you don’t ever disrespect the dead. You learn from them. He said it was almost as if we were trying to erase them from the world, which was a horrible thing to do.”

He cleared his throat once again. “I need scotch,” he said with a laugh. “But, as I said, I’ve come to terms with it. You learn to forgive yourself.”

Something told her he was going to ask her to confess next, and she really wasn’t ready to open up to him.

“I’m rather hungry,” he said. “I think it is probably time for luncheon. The cook here makes a very good stew. I hope that’s what she’s prepared for this meal. If not I’m going to suggest it to her for tonight.”

He stood and looked down at her. “I have a feeling you need to go upstairs and change, though. I don’t mind you prancing around half naked; as a matter of fact it stirs my blood. But I don’t think you should go to the table like that. Call for a maid, her name is Brandy, I believe, and she will help you dress.”

“So that means no spanking?” she asked in disbelief.

“Thinking of my own beating makes the idea very distasteful,” he said. “We’ll eat, and then later in the day we’ll talk again.”

“While I appreciate your story, I don’t think that I’m going to open up to you,” she said. “I am a person who stays only to herself.”

“We shall see,” he said. He helped her up, and once they were in the house he left her at the stairs. “I’m going to check the kitchen. You go and ready yourself.”

Once she was upstairs she took off the whip and tossed it under the bed. “Out of sight, out of mind,” she said, just as the maid came in. She dressed quickly, and when Brandy was gone, Belinda sat down near the window and looked out at the rain.

She knew that she could tell him her secret, let him know what had set her on the path that had led her to ruin. But what good would it do? He wouldn’t care, would he? No man ever had. She was alone, by herself, and telling him of her past would do nothing but cause more pain.

The more she thought about it the angrier she got. How dare he try and delve into her past? It had nothing to do with him, nothing at all!

To her surprise the door opened and Jonathan came in.

“If you’ve come for a confession you won’t get it,” she said. “You’ll just have to beat me again. My life is none of your business.”

“You’ve received no beating, Belinda,” he said. “I’ve come to tell you that lunch is ready, a slab of beef and a good soup. The stew is for dinner.”

“I don’t want your stew, or your pity,” she said.

“I only offer food,” he said.

In response she picked up a nearby figurine and threw it at him. He ducked and strode from the room and she picked up a glass figurine, the nearest thing she could find, and threw it at the door. It shattered into pieces but he didn’t return.

Belinda threw herself onto the bed and burst into tears. She knew there was no way around it. At some point she was going to have to tell him everything. And when she did, her carefully planned world would come crumbling down.

She was the only person who knew what had happened, who understood the horrible hand that life had dealt her. Now she was going to have to tell him, and she was sure that he would tell every person that he knew.

She would be the laughing stock of London. She lay down on the bed and closed her eyes, tears streaming down her face. She wasn’t certain how long she lay there.

When she opened her eyes again the room was darker. She could hear the sounds of a broom. She looked up to see a maid sweeping up the remnants of the figurine she’d broken.

Jonathan sat in a chair nearby, an open book on his lap.

“How long have I been crying?” she asked.

“Quite some time,” he said. “Long enough for me to enjoy the tray of food the maid brought up. Would you like something to drink, or eat?” His voice was low and even.

She shook her head. The maid left and Belinda turned to him.

The silence stretched out and then Jonathan cleared his throat.

“Tell me, Belinda, did your behavior start before, or after, your husband’s death? And what brought on this crying fit just now?”

She shook her head and ran her hand through her disheveled hair. She hadn’t the strength to keep her secret intact any longer.

“My husband is not dead. His death was faked. He is now living in Paris with my sister.”