Under A Duke's Hand (3 page)

He tightened his hands on her waist and
pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of her lips. “Do you wonder
what it would feel like if I spanked you?”

Yes. No. God save me.
“I suppose...
Well. I wonder if I ought to go check on my horse.”

“Your horse is perfectly well.” He gazed at
her in that authoritative manner that made her stomach flutter.
“Shall I give your bottom a smack or two, since you’ve been
naughty? Then you would know what it feels like, and head home to
your Tommy duly punished, with an unburdened conscience.”

Gwen couldn’t imagine why she didn’t run off
at that point, except that his eyes and his lips held her with some
invisible pull. She felt captured in a spell, so that when he
lifted her and rearranged her across his lap, she didn’t protest or
even struggle.

“There we are,” he said, as if this were some
normal interaction, as if he was merely posing her for art. “I’m
sure you’re the type to take a spanking very bravely, with nary a
complaint.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said with an edge of
panic.

He turned up her skirts in the same casual
fashion, leaving her shift down to cover her bottom. A small mercy
for a foolish girl who had definitely let things go too far.
“Please, sir, I’m sure this isn’t proper.”

“You’re probably right,” he agreed, stroking
his palm over her shift. She wondered how his touch would feel
against her bare skin.
No. You mustn’t wonder such things,
Guinevere. You ought to break from him and run away home.

He began to spank her before she could find
the needed words to protest further. The impact startled her, and
she squirmed beneath the powerful sting of his palm. How shocking,
that he would handle her with such familiarity. How shocking, that
the painful spanks made her feel rather...stimulated. She gasped
when she realized this. What sort of woman was she, to become
aroused at this treatment?

What sort of man was he, to do this to her in
the first place?

He had said “a smack or two” but he spanked
her six times, firm, resonating blows atop her linen shift. “Well,”
she said as he raised his hand for yet another. “I believe I know
what it feels like now.”
Even if I don’t understand my
reaction.

When she tried to get up, he stopped her with
a hand pressed to her back. “Do you feel punished enough?”

She looked up and made a conflicted sound of
entreaty. She dared not speak the truth to him, and admit that she
had never felt so excited and agitated in her life.

“If you don’t feel entirely expiated, perhaps
a bare-bottomed spanking is in order after all.” He brushed up her
shift, and she did nothing to impede him. “That is the most
effective way to get a message across.”

What message was
she
getting across to
him
? That she was a wanton village girl who enjoyed this
sort of dalliance? From the start, she had realized this was an
exercise in seduction, not discipline, and yet she had let him do
as he willed. Now he was spanking her steadily, warming her bare,
naked cheeks all over. She looked up at him over her shoulder, her
emotions in a tangle of confusion. He finally left off and rested
his palm beneath the curve of her bottom. “Do you feel punished
now?” he asked again.

“Oh, yes, sir. Please, no more.”

He gave a soft chuckle, a raw, enticing
sound. As he held her gaze, he slid his palm lower, and used his
fingers to part the folds of her quim.

And that went far past any dalliance she
could allow.

She jerked and reached back to stay his
caresses. “Oh, no. You mustn’t. I’m a good girl, sir.”

He stopped at once, as if he had never meant
to do it in the first place. She counted herself fortunate, for she
had played a dangerous game.

“Now you’re a good girl,” he teased, helping
her up. “Now that you’ve learned not to flirt with strange men in
hidden meadows.”

“Yes, sir.” Once she’d straightened her
skirts, she bobbed a clumsy curtsy. She was sure her cheeks must be
as red and hot as her spanked bottom. “I suppose I really ought
to...to be getting back to the village.”

“To see Tommy, I suppose.”

“Yes, and to do my work. I’m not allowed much
leisure time.”

“None of us are, my dear. Life is a busy
business. But I was happy to make your acquaintance this fine
afternoon. I don’t suppose you’ll give me one last kiss?”

She took a step back, and another. “I don’t
think that would be wise. I must bid you goodbye.”

She was afraid to look at him, afraid of her
weakness, afraid of what he might see. But Gwen forced herself to
meet his gaze anyway, because she knew with absolute certainty that
she would never see him again. She was getting married in a couple
of days to some duke she didn’t know, and that duke was going to
take her away to England. Jack would have his sketch of her as a
memory, if he even cared. It seemed to her now that he might not.
It seemed to her now that he was a commonplace rogue, the type of
rogue who might have kissed a thousand women, and pretended they
needed spankings.

Gwen felt embarrassed and terribly ashamed,
but she forced herself to smile for Jack because he’d given her her
first kiss, and done a commendable job of it. He’d made her feel
soft and warm and...womanly. It had been good, and bad, and
confusing, and really, very embarrassing and sad. All in all, a
complicated memory to keep, and she didn’t even have a sketch to
remember him by.

She brushed a hand over her skirts to be sure
they were modestly arranged, and then turned and hurried to mount
her old horse. The last view of her precious meadow was hazy and
unfocused because of her rising tears.

You ought to cry
, she chided herself.
You behaved like an utter strumpet.
But she was really
crying because she felt silly and used, and because it was so hard
to say goodbye.

Chapter
Two: First Impressions

Aidan proceeded from the village inn to
Lisburne Manor in full ducal splendor, ensconced in his best
traveling coach. Not that he’d traveled here in that traveling
coach. He’d come from Oxfordshire by horseback, and directed the
coaches, baggage carts, and servants to trail behind for his new
duchess to utilize afterward, on the journey home. He’d brought a
newly hired French maid to attend her, and his favorite valet, of
course. He employed four valets altogether, to manage his vast
wardrobe and state uniforms, and coronets, and jewels, and all the
other nonsense he had to drape himself in because he’d been born
the first son of a duke.

Now he would marry this Guinevere and make
children on her, and his firstborn son would be a future duke, with
an abundance of wealth and property and social connections and duty
and headaches to look forward to. What was the point of any of it,
except to uphold tradition? He’d been bred to tradition from the
cradle. Honor, title, legacy. As soon as things settled down, Aidan
would hire an artist to paint their portrait in rich and formal
tones:
The Eleventh Duke and Duchess of Arlington.

Because as much as he resisted the idea of
marriage, he had always looked forward to joining the parade of
ancestors in the East Salon, had even practiced regal poses in a
mirror, when he was not observed, of course. Taking a wife was a
damned nuisance, but somewhere inside, he also craved the civilized
dignity of a state marriage and family.

To that end, he had kept himself respectable,
waiting for the king to recommend the most appropriate and
advantageous match. At social functions, he’d often pondered which
high-born daughters might suit him best as a wife. The pool of
candidates, in his mind, had been small and exclusive. He and Lady
Aurelia might have made an excellent pair, if she had not been
promised as an infant to his friend the Marquess of Townsend. Other
prospects: Lady Caroline, who was well-bred and refined, and
intelligent Lady Hester, upon whom he lavished attention whenever
they crossed paths. Lady Frances and Lady Arabella were both dukes’
daughters, and either young lady would have made him a suitable
bride.

He sighed, gazing out the window as the dark,
squat Lisburne homestead rose into view. His actual bride was not
an English aristocrat, or even a titled lady. She was a plain old
Miss, being daughter to a common-born baron who was also,
unfortunately, Welsh. Aidan tried to think of positives. She would
doubtless be heathenish, if not an outright hellion. Plenty of
opportunity to discipline her, a pastime he very much enjoyed.
Furthermore, he imagined she would be of hardy, peasant-like stock.
She’d breed well, birth lots of strong children, and bring new
vigor to the Arlington line. Best of all, she would be grateful to
wed him, being naturally in awe of him as a much more distinguished
person.

And he must act like a distinguished person,
now that he was marrying. No more dalliances with ebony-haired
village girls in quiet meadows. When it came to carnal pleasures,
he preferred a skilled courtesan, but there had been something so
tempting about that young woman yesterday afternoon. He’d wanted
her from the moment she’d drifted into the clearing and taken off
her bonnet, and shaken her black hair down her back like some wild
fairy queen.

Rose, his fairy queen. He thought of her this
morning while his valet shaved him and dressed him in a deep bronze
coat with gold embroidery, and tied his cravat just so, until Aidan
could barely move his neck. It might have been a noose, the perfect
metaphor for marriage. He stuck a finger inside the linen knot but
then lowered his hand without loosening it.

Instead he drew on his gloves and checked to
be sure his long, thick hair was tamed into its queue at the back
of his neck. He often wore it down about his shoulders, his one
foible of hedonism in his otherwise dutiful world.

But not today. First impressions were
everything, whether one was greeting a scion of English society, or
a lowborn Welsh bride.

* * * * *

Gwen almost tripped on her way downstairs to
gather with the rest of her family. That would have wreaked havoc
on everyone’s agendas, having the pawn, er, bride break her neck in
a fall. She stepped more carefully after that, and tried to pull
her scattered thoughts together.

She’d wanted one last adventure before the
bonds of marriage closed in on her, and she had gotten one. Jack:
artist, Viking, traveling Englishman. Flirt. Scoundrel. He had
smiled at her and drawn her close, and awakened a new awareness
within her, a yearning and need she recognized as desire.

It frightened her, the lingering strength of
that desire. She was passionate about many things: horses, birds,
weather, gardening, most things to do with nature, but she had not
realized her own earthy nature until her handsome stranger had
taken her in his arms. He’d elicited powerful responses in her
body, tightenings and dampness and urges that made her cry into her
pillow when her maid finally left her alone. He’d overcome her
reason, at the same time appealing to her basest instincts. She had
let him
spank her
, and it had only made her eager for
more...

You’ll have nothing more
, she scolded
herself. The Duke of Arlington was on his way to meet her, and dine
with her family and some other local gentry. She could barely
breathe in the fitted constriction of her formal blue gown, and her
scalp ached because her hair was so tightly braided and pinned
against her head. Her lady’s maid had brushed it nearly an hour to
achieve the requisite shine, then placed a slim gold coronet on top
which had been her mother’s. Her father had brought her mama’s
diamond-drop necklace too, although Gwen’s wrists and fingers were
bare.

There was a great sense of trying to impress
this duke, when they did not have the necessary affluence to do so.
They’d scrimped and saved for this dinner for weeks now. The gown
she wore had been procured along with four others when the marriage
contract had been finalized. Shoes, gloves, fans, hats had been
ordered which they could not afford. Gwen possessed these things
already, in reasonable variety, but her Aunt Meredith had insisted
they were not fine enough, and would humiliate them before the
duke.

Because of this, Gwen had come to despise her
future husband before she even met him, as she noticed her father
drinking less wine, selling off horses, and quietly letting go a
few servants in order to buy things fine enough to impress this
kingly envoy, who would only grace their presence for a couple of
days. The gown she wore this evening was the finest thing she’d
ever owned, aside from her ivory and silver wedding gown, which
hung upstairs for tomorrow’s ceremony. Even with the effort and
sacrifice, Gwen feared the duke would look upon them and sneer.

So she waited with great trepidation beside
her father and her brothers and their wives, all of them dressed in
unaccustomed finery. The duke’s gilded, crested coach came gleaming
down the rutted pathway to the courtyard. It was drawn by a team of
four, all of them midnight black, in the same crested livery. She
heard her brothers murmuring about fancy horseflesh and heard a few
titters from her sisters-in-law.

Gwen stood rigid, hands clasped at her waist,
wondering if she ought to smile or look serious, or run away
screaming the way she wanted to. Her father would get money and
land from this match, and a tenuous link to the monarchy. The duke
too would be gifted lands in Wales, for future sons or daughters to
inherit. This had all been explained to Gwen, that this fine and
laudable match was important because it would secure the future of
the Lisburne dynasty. So running away screaming was not an option,
as much as she wished it were.