Reformed by the Scotsman Read online

  Horrified at her weakness, she buried her emotions and fought him with redoubled effort. It hurt, though, and despite the fact she didn’t stop fighting him, his swats gave her pause for thought. How long would he keep this up? Could she fight back for longer than he could spank her?

  “If you continue resisting me while you are over my knee, and threatening to tattle to your father, I will give you some letter paper once this is over and I will stand beside you and make you write a letter to the Earl of Hathersedge detailing exactly what I am doing right now, including how you are dressed, how your bottom feels, the color it has turned—a tantalizing pink, if you care to know—and what, precisely, you did to earn the punishment, starting with the rummy business at the train station.” Edward paused spanking her and gently caressed her bottom. It burned so much that it even felt pink, especially when he touched her.

  He continued outlining the potential future punishment as his fingers trailed along her skin. “I will then expect you to address it and take it to the post office where you will tell the postmistress that you are writing to your father to inform him that you are in disgrace, although you will kindly spare her the details as I wouldn’t want you to offend her sensibilities.”

  He landed some particularly hard swats on the skin between the top of her thighs and her bottom cheeks and she growled in frustration. It was so undignified and she growled at the sharper sting as his hand connected with the sensitive skin there.

  As if his threat of humiliation and enforced spanking weren’t bad enough, he leaned down to her ear and quietly murmured in a low voice, his Scottish vowels piercing his otherwise refined English accent, “Of course, when writing to your father, you can leave out the fact that your knickers are soaked through.”

  A bolt of lightning exploded in her belly when he said that, and as she gasped in horror that he knew her secret, her face flushed with warmth. Something between her legs throbbed with need, and her heart felt exposed as tears threatened her eyes.

  The punishment was throwing up some emotions she’d buried deep inside herself years ago, and as they appeared, she was barely able to identify vulnerability and sadness before they transformed into fuel for her ever-burning anger.

  After a while, Edward turned her off his knee and stood up. Adeline stood barely eighteen inches from him and glared with resentment and fury.

  “You are thoroughly incorrigible,” he declared. “Go and stand in that corner.”

  “I will not.” She turned to walk out of the sitting room, but before she reached the door, he had seized her by the upper arm. He wasn’t rough, she noticed, just firm. Again, a thrill of sexual energy coursed through her body before she forcibly dismissed it and replaced it with more anger.

  “Corner.” He frog-marched her there and left her. The moment he released her arm, she tried to run for the door.

  “This ends, now.” He lifted her off the floor and put her over his shoulder. She pummeled on the back of his dinner jacket with her fists, and squeaked when he spanked her several times in rapid succession, adding a fresh fire to the burn in her bottom.

  She stopped hitting him and lay limply against the expensive black cloth of his dinner jacket, realizing this whole situation was not only impossible to fight, but also unbelievably arousing. Something between her legs came alive and seemed to vibrate with energy and need. It was the same thing that sometimes awakened her on hot summer nights, filling her with an unexplainable need for something she couldn’t put a name to.

  She had a view of the polished wood floor as he crossed the room to a bureau and opened a drawer, removed something then closed it again, before he deposited her on the floor in front of another armchair and positioned her so she was kneeling on the floor with her upper body pressed against the seat. He pinned both her wrists in the small of her back with one of his big hands, then something cold and leathery touched her bottom cheeks. He spoke clearly, and a slight trace of his Scottish accent was detectable through his upper-class enunciation.

  “I wasn’t going to use this, particularly not on your first day here, but your behavior today has been downright shocking. You have been evasive, disrespectful, and extremely ill-mannered. If I didn’t know your parents, I’d wonder if you were raised under a bridge. There are consequences for poor behavior in this house, and I advise you to choose your future actions more carefully unless you wish to be punished most harshly.”

  Not really understanding what he could possibly do, Adeline lifted her head and replied with, “Ooh, I’m so scared of the grumpy Scotsman. What are you going to do, feed me porridge until I promise to let my hair grow?”

  The thing touching her bottom was lifted, and she thought he was about to release her. It thundered down against her cheeks in an almighty crack and she shrieked as it landed; the effect was instantaneous and pain seared through her bottom in a thick line. She struggled to try to get her hands away but he pinned them firmly. When she could speak again, she did.

  “What was that?” she demanded.

  “It’s called a tawse. It was invented for punishing naughty bottoms in schools. I acquired it to ensure Felicity remained on the straight and narrow after our parents passed away.”

  Too astounded to speak, Adeline shrieked again as the tawse landed across her bottom a second time. It burned as it touched her skin.

  “It’s very simple, Adeline; you can entirely avoid this experience by good conduct. Act with decorum. I am not being harsh and the things I asked you to do were not unreasonable.”

  Adeline disagreed. The things he had asked of her were all the things a good little society girl should innately do, but she thought they were an utter waste of time and belonged in the past. She wanted to go out and see her friends, to drink liquor and drive around town in an automobile. She didn’t want to be stuck in a house, day in, day out, until someone saw fit to marry her. Anyway, with the national shortage of men, that was an unlikely thing.

  Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. The lines of one of Wilfred Owen’s poems came to mind. Edward wanted Adeline to behave with more decorum. Fat chance; it hadn’t done the soldiers any good. The tawse landed on her rear a third time and she shrieked again from the pain, but she refused to cry. She’d done all her crying over her brothers, then one day, she had drawn a line and decided there would be no more tears. Nothing else was worth crying over. Not now. She gritted her teeth and fought against the sadness. Most days, it took all her self-control, which didn’t leave a lot of restraint for her general demeanor.

  When Edward tipped her upright, his expression had softened.

  “You shall remain in your chemise within the house until you decide to dress yourself in a manner befitting your station. Skirts should cover your knees. There will be no more feathers in your hair or shirts which expose your bosom, either. You are heiress to the Hathersedge title and estate, not a music-hall bawdy.”

  She stared at him, waiting for him to finish, and refusing to concede to his wishes. When she didn’t speak, he nodded as though the matter were settled.

  “Very well, you shall eat in your chemise this evening.” He led her back to the dining room and pulled a chair away from the table.

  She sat down gingerly, feeling like she wanted to rub the maddening sting from her bottom but not giving him the satisfaction of knowing how much it bothered her. He took his place at the head of the table, and dinner finally commenced.

  * * *

  At bedtime, Adeline lay on the soft mattress, blankets pulled up to her neck, and waited for sleep to come. It didn’t. The ache in her bottom still echoed from the tawse. She hardly ever slept these days. Anyway, there was a whole city full of people she’d never met, aside from a few acquaintances, and she wanted to go out on the town. The novelty of being in Edinburgh was too exciting, and there were so many places she’d heard about that she wanted to explore.

  She sat up and looked for her clothing. Slipping on a skirt and top, she carried her shoes and purse as she crept o
ut of the bedroom. At the top of the stairs, one of the floorboards creaked loudly, and she was certain that she would be caught, but nobody stirred.

  Placing her feet very carefully, she tiptoed all the way down to the ground floor and turned the handle of the front door. It was locked. The key didn’t appear to be nearby, so she decided to use a ground floor window, instead. Curiously, most of the rooms were locked, too. She opened the only door she could, which led to the parlor where Edward had punished her previously.

  No sooner had she stepped into the room than the light snapped on. Edward sat in an overstuffed armchair, a stern expression making his features more angular. A tingle coursed through her body as she realized he’d been waiting for her; corralled her, in fact, with all the locked doors.

  “You knew?” Her heart leapt into her throat as she wondered if he was going to punish her again.

  “Of course.”

  “How?” There was no possible way he knew she was going to try to escape before she did; it was barely five minutes ago that she’d had the impulse to sneak out.

  He gave her a look that suggested he had expected better of her, but he had anticipated the worst anyway. For some reason, it made a glowing warmth spread through her nether regions to know that he’d bested her.

  “Come along; I will return you to your bed and I don’t want to hear another word about sneaking out.” He was beside her in no time. The perpetual gentleman, he took the shoes and purse out of her hands and carried them for her, even as he grasped her arm with his free hand and guided her back upstairs to her room.

  “Good night, Miss Hawthorne,” he said firmly, then closed her door. To her dismay, she heard him locking it from the other side. When she thought about it, she realized he could have locked it in the first place, but apparently he had wanted to give her a chance to behave herself. She tried the big sash window, but it wouldn’t slide up, and she was forced to concede that he had somehow locked that, too. At this point, she realized that she could simply go to bed and never think about making an excursion into town, but the unknown world beyond this stuffy room beckoned to her. The street outside looked so much more interesting than staying in her room. She cursed the day her eldest brother had brought the Wolstantons into her life. Edward was very attractive, which didn’t help, and she’d been furiously aware that his touch had made her long for him to take her in his arms and never leave her.

  But love was for ninnies who believed the romantic notions of bygone years. Adeline refused to accept the idea that a man and a woman could ever fall in love, when the whole world was waiting to tear them apart.

  If she stayed here, she was in grave danger of falling in love with Edward, which only concluded with being married to him, and he was so strict, that would be the end of her considerable freedom. She was angry at her parents for sending her here, angry at herself for not fighting them harder at King’s Cross station this morning, and especially, angry at Edward for being so attractive. The whole situation was infuriating. She hated showing specific emotions, such as love or sadness, almost as much as she hated experiencing them. They made her too vulnerable because they opened her heart up to a world where she could get hurt, and that made her feel stupid. There was no need to ever upset herself like that, and being angry would bury the glimmerings of her other feelings before they became uncontrollable.

  When she heard no further sounds from the rest of the house, she rose from her bed and went to her window. It overlooked the street. The drop was about twenty feet, but she was confident she could do this.

  Making up her mind, she waited until she was certain that everyone was truly in bed this time. If she did this, she knew she would have to never return. Her carpetbag was already packed. She wrapped a woolen sweater around her hand then she hit the windowpane with all her might. The loud smashing noise was satisfying, but the pain in her hand was immense, and when she unwrapped it, she saw a lot of blood that, once the sweater wasn’t in the way, poured everywhere.

  “Blast!” She was very aware that she ought to staunch the profuse bleeding before she did anything else. It was damn inconvenient. To make matters worse, the noise of the window breaking had roused the house, and someone was running upstairs. She panicked as she heard the key in the door and decided to risk climbing out of the window. As she perched on the windowpane amidst jagged shards of glass, she heard the door slam open, and then she growled in frustration. A twenty-foot drop and no drainpipe that she could reach. Lightheadedness overcame her, and she shook her head to clear it, but before she planned her descent, she was hauled back inside.

  “Good grief! Why did you do it? Is being here really all that bad?” Edward’s eyes fell on her hand then, and he seized it. After a perfunctory glance, he lifted her over his shoulder and ran down the stairs with her. She heard him lift the telephone’s earpiece.

  “Operator? Yes, Doctor MacGregor, please.” He waited a few moments to be connected. “Hallo, old chap. Terribly sorry to rouse you at this hour; I’ve an emergency. Girl’s cut her hand on broken glass. Rather nasty scratch. Oh, would you mind? Thanks awfully.”

  He replaced the receiver then carried her into the room with all the armchairs, where he tightly bound her hand with some gauze and held it above her head while they awaited the doctor. The entire time, he did not speak a word to her.

  The doctor arrived and looked at her hand as she sat in one of the armchairs. He shook his head in amazement.

  “How on Earth did she do this? Might have lost the use of her hand if she’d been a tenth of an inch lower!”

  Adeline shook her head and pressed her lips together as Dr. MacGregor stitched the wound. The sensation of the stitches pulling on her skin was unnerving, and she didn’t trust herself to speak.

  “She put her hand through a window,” Edward explained.

  “Won’t do that again in a hurry, I’ll wager,” Dr. MacGregor remarked, as he worked methodically. Once the wound was closed, he dressed and bandaged it.

  “I’m going to give her something to help her sleep,” he told Edward. Adeline’s heart sank. She didn’t want to be sedated at all.

  “Thank you. Ordinarily I’d ask if it was really necessary, but given the circumstances I’ll concede. That was her second attempt to sneak out of the house, and if she keeps getting these ridiculous ideas into her head, I dread to find out what the third try would have been.”

  The doctor gave Adeline a pill to swallow. She shook her head and pressed her lips together, but he forced his fingers into her mouth and pushed the pill inside, then watched her drink some water with it. She thought about biting his fingers while he was making her take the pill, but part of her longed for sleep. As Edward showed him to the door, she considered running past them, but she didn’t like the idea of being out somewhere when this pill took effect. When Edward returned, she opened her mouth to explain.

  “No. I never want to see you hurt yourself like that again. You have caused enough trouble for one day. I shall punish you tomorrow. It would be most uncivilized to attempt to do such a thing before we have eaten, so I intend to do it after breakfast. Between now and then, you can sleep in another guestroom which doesn’t have a broken window, because I don’t wish you to catch a cold, and you can jolly well remain in your new bed until I personally fetch you at seven a.m. sharp.” He took her back upstairs and showed her into a different room, not bothering to get her belongings for her. With a length of rope, he tied her hands and feet so she could sleep, but couldn’t escape.

  “So help me, if you escape from this, you will be sleeping in a straitjacket tomorrow night; I’m sure I can procure one from somewhere.”

  The pill that the doctor had given her was starting to take effect, and Adeline found herself far too drowsy to try to resist, so she closed her eyes and went to sleep instead. For the first time in her adult life, she didn’t dream about looking for her brother Max in the trenches.

  Chapter Two

  Edward was vexed. Since her arrival,
the girl had not demonstrated any redeeming qualities. In fact, she was downright flighty. He had hoped that she might have a good reason for her behavior but she appeared to merely be pursuing self-indulgence.

  Once she was unable to escape, Edward went to his own bed and attempted to get some sleep, but thoughts of her kept popping up like some sort of wanton Jack-in-the-box, dressed only in her chemise, dancing around him, teasing him. He kept seeing her bound to the bed, helpless, and completely at his mercy.

  He began to silently recite Rudyard Kipling’s poem If, to drown out any thoughts of the girl, and soon his arousal had subsided. At the thought of Kipling, Edward’s mind wandered to his heady youth in India, where his parents had made their fortune, and then he was asleep and dreaming of the elephants in Mandalay.

  When he rose, Edward took a cold shower. On the advice of his manservant, he had recently had a pipe installed that poured water over his head and deposited it into the bathtub, and while the temperature was usually too cold for comfort, he appreciated it this morning because it sobered his thoughts. The girl was in his house to be reformed, not to be wooed. He needed to remember that his duty was to ensure that she became a model citizen, nothing else. With that decided, he dressed then went to fetch her.

  When he opened the door to her room, she was still asleep, and Edward thought she looked more peaceful now. When she was awake, her eyes were constantly moving, looking at the fine details of everything, and he saw her thoughts forever trying to draw conclusions and make judgements about things as utterly insignificant as the pattern of the wallpaper or the quality of Felicity’s needlework. She needed to settle down somehow; hone her focus onto something.

  Unfastening the ropes that had prevented her from further escape attempts, he wondered what sort of thing would help her learn better character. He shook her awake, his hands touching the warm, soft flesh of her shoulder.