‘You won’t? You cannot still want to wed!’
‘Oh, yes I can.’
‘I am not a virgin.’
‘I need not take so much care in the marriage bed then. No, we will wed. But first there is a lesson for you.’
Measureless excitement as he draws the riding crop from his belt and hustles me over to the sofa, bending me over the arm.
‘Can you guess what the lesson might be?’ he taunts, pulling my skirt up over my bare bottom.
Imagining that the princess might be regretting her rash behaviour in no small measure, I bleat, ‘Forgive me, my lord, I beg your indulgence, I have made a mistake but I have learned my lesson now.’
‘You beg my indulgence? When you have whored yourself out to a brigand and come to me to confess that you gave in to him with a will? That you are wanton and governed by your lusts? Oh no, you need this lesson, and it shall be given.’
‘Oh dear.’ I quiver, suppressing a giggle.
He lays the tip of the riding crop against my bottom. How cold and cruel it feels, and he hasn’t even struck me with it yet.
‘I have instructed the bishop and he awaits us in the chapel. We may be a little late, and you may thank your stars that you are permitted to kneel instead of sitting on a hard wooden pew, Your Highness. Now I shall give you twenty strokes, and I don’t intend to spare you.’
He doesn’t either, the first brisk swipe landing with eye-watering impact in the broad centre of my bottom.
I moan a long, ‘Oh,’ and grip the cushion below.
‘Regretting your moment of beguilement now?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘Your arse shall suffer for your cunt’s transgression.’
What a turn of phrase he has! I think he hears my snickering, because the second stroke is sudden and swift, catching me right below the first.
‘Eek!’
‘I’ll wager there aren’t many royal brides who speak their vows while nursing a striped, sore bum,’ he says.
I wriggle luxuriously, turned on amidst the throbbing.
‘I shall see that everybody knows it,’ he whispers, then he lays the third, good and hard, at the top of my thighs.
‘My guards are watching,’ he mentions, piling on the lusciousness. ‘They are at the door, watching you getting whipped. They are going to tell all and sundry that you have been punished for wantonness and your bottom is as red as that bridal gown you are wearing.’
I kick my legs, wanting another stroke, which falls like doom, reverberating around the room.
Slowly and patiently, pacing himself, he applies the whip to my rear, interspersing each stroke with inflammatory comments about my whorish lusts and how I’d better get used to the rod because he will be bringing it out at the slightest excuse now he’s seen how good my bottom looks underneath it.
By the time he reaches twenty, I am squirming violently, desperate for it to both end and continue, embracing the way the burn gains depth and intensity with each stroke.
He puts the crop down in front of me. ‘This will suffice for now,’ he says ominously. ‘Now there is a wedding to attend.’
He pulls me up and makes me kneel on the rug opposite him, holding my hands, while he mutters, ‘Wedding, wedding, yadda yadda yadda.’ I am trembling from the force of the whipping and he has to more or less prop me up.
‘I now pronounce us man and wife and all that,’ he says, pulling me back up. ‘Now for the feast.’
He pops a grape in my mouth as we pass the fruit bowl at high speed en route for the bedroom.
‘And now that’s done – it’s the wedding night!’ He opens the bedroom door and flings me inside, then slams the door behind him. ‘Get your robe off and get on the bed, my lady, on your hands and knees.’