Disciplining the Duchess
“Enough. Your behavior alarms me.”
“Then don’t pull at me.” She gazed up at him with tears in her eyes. “Why are you always so angry with me?”
“I’m not angry,” he lied. “Just resigned. Come.”
She clung to the bedpost. “Where are we going?”
“To the place where misbehaving wives learn lessons. Your screaming and tantruming has pushed me beyond my limit.” He kicked at the letters covering the floor. “Beyond my limit of patience and far beyond my limit of understanding.”
“No,” she wailed. “Please, no.”
“Yes,” he said, peeling her fingers from the bedpost. “And this time, hopefully, I will teach you a lesson you won’t forget.”
*** *** ***
Harmony thought if she fought him hard enough, someone would intervene on her behalf. She cried out for the dowager when he dragged her past her rooms. She cried out to the footmen and servants they passed, but each and every one of them pretended not to hear her. At last, tired of her struggles, he lifted her and carried her in the bands of his arms. “The more you fight me,” he said through gritted teeth, “the greater your penalty.”
By the time he crashed through the study doors and released her, he seemed in a fury indeed. If she could have gone back then and done things differently, she would have. He was going to punish her, probably more harshly than he would have, because she’d so infuriated him. Now she’d also embarrassed him in front of the dowager and his servants. She’d behaved horribly.
As usual.
She couldn’t help it. That must be clear to him now. Nothing he could do to her here would change the fact that she was impossible. “Just leave me alone,” she said, turning on him and backing away. “You can’t fix me. I don’t want you to fix me.” Her voice rose to a scream.
“I can fix you, and I am going to fix you,” he returned in a stern and cool voice. “By whatever method it takes. Come with me.”
He took her by the arm and dragged her over to the rack of rattan canes. “If you are so fond of being punished, choose one.”
“I am not fond of being punished, and I will not choose one,” she cried.
“Very well.”
He promptly chose the stoutest one when she might have chosen a less threatening option. Stupid, stupid girl. As he walked her back over toward the desk, she broke away from him and ran. The cane clattered to the floor behind her as she bolted for the door, but he caught her long before she reached it, hauling her back against his front. He put a hand at her neck, not to choke her but to immobilize her. His voice was low and intent at her ear.
“Listen to me, dearest. You will submit to this punishment, willing or not. If you will not submit under your own power, I shall enlist the help of two strong footmen to hold you until I’m done. Which would you prefer?”
She shook her head against his palm. “You wouldn’t.”
With a violent sound of anger, he dragged her toward the door. “Once I call them,” he warned, “I will not give you the chance to reconsider.”
Harmony could not bear the ignominy of witnesses. It was bad enough to be punished again like this, but to be held down by servants? She dragged her heels, shaking her head. “No, please. I will… I will submit. Please don’t call for anyone.”
He hauled her back toward the desk. Harmony fought him, only because she was tired of being dragged around. “Release me, then. Stop it! I will walk.”
“You had your chance to obey me with dignity earlier. Now you’ll be treated like the headstrong termagant you are.”
Moments later, she found herself bent over the horrible desk, gripping the hard edge of it. Her skirts were swept up, Court’s hand braced at her back.
“I hate you,” she screamed.
“I’m sure you do.”
Whack! The pain was so much worse than she’d remembered, so hot and cruel.
“No,” she wailed, arching off the desk. She must escape this. She must...
“Shall I fetch the footmen?” he asked.
He would. His voice communicated complete and utter inflexibility. He was angry and cold. “No, but...please...” she whimpered. “Please, I can’t bear this.”
“You will hold the edge of the desk. Each time you let go I will add five additional strokes to your punishment.”
“But…” She could barely speak through her sobs. “How… How many will there be?”
“As many as you need.”
What did that mean? His arm lifted again and Harmony braced for the pain. Whack! She held onto the desk for dear life. How was she to survive this? Each stroke was followed by an awful pause during which her bottom continued to throb in agony. Then another would come, and another. She wished she could go numb but the pain got worse, not better.
“Stop it!” she finally screamed, kicking back at him.
“If you do not keep your legs down and in position, you will be caned on the backs of your calves and the bottoms of your feet.”
She went limp again and sobbed into the dusty desktop. Another stroke, and another, as she cried out in helpless agony. “You are killing me.”
“I am disciplining you,” he said, tapping the cane against the heated pain of her cheeks. “I’m trying to, at any rate.”
“I’ll write to my father. He will come for me.”
“It’s my right as your husband to discipline you. The fact that you aren’t yet understanding the connection between your actions and this punishment compels me to continue.”
“I understand.” She jerked at a particularly vicious stripe. “I understand, but this is too much.”
“On the contrary, I sense it is not enough.”
Three more strokes, four. Oh, when would he stop? Think, Harmony, how to make him stop? “I’m sorry,” she said over and over. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t believe you. I think you simply wish this painful punishment at an end.” Whack! “By tomorrow you will be back to your usual behavior, doing as you please with no thought to propriety or discipline.”
In her hysteria, in her panic to escape, some glimmer of understanding penetrated her brain. The only way to make him stop would be to accept his discipline, whether it was fair or not. Perhaps the letters weren’t enough to warrant this type of whipping, but the way she’d screamed at him was.
She truly cried then, cathartic, heartbroken tears for mistakes made and for the bleak future of her life. She couldn’t change who she was, couldn’t change her impulsive nature. Therefore, this pain and suffering would become all too familiar in weeks and years to come. She sobbed until she choked from it, but she held herself still beneath the fire of her husband’s discipline, enduring the pain of each blow. She felt the hand on her back lose some of its tension. After one more measured stroke to her burning posterior, the cane ceased to fall.
Harmony waited, frozen, dreading more but resigned to it. She’d learned her lesson. The lesson was that each time she earned it, she would experience another session like this. Her husband’s discipline would rule her life, and she had better get used to it.
“Stand up.”
She wrenched herself upright, letting her skirts fall down of their own accord. She was afraid to rub her aching bottom or adjust herself or do anything without his permission for fear of angering him again. His steady gaze prompted the abject apology she knew she was supposed to deliver.
“I am sorry for my disrespectful and outrageous behavior. I will not… I will not…”
“I will not challenge your authority again,” he suggested curtly when she got stuck. “I will not write to gentlemen without your knowledge. Repeat it.”
“I will not challenge your authority again. I will not write to gentlemen without your knowledge,” she parroted, not quite able to keep the bitterness from her voice.
He stood for long moments staring at her. “I hope you meant the things you just said. I hope they were not empty promises because I will hold you to them. You will be punished i
f you engage in these behaviors again.”
She bit hard on her tongue. “Yes, sir.”
“Why do I punish you, Harmony?”
“To instill discipline in me, Your Grace.”
His face hardened at the terse honorific, but he let it pass without comment. He lashed her with cold words instead. “If this marriage cannot be based on trust and respect, wife, it will be based on discipline.”
He said nothing whatsoever about love.
Chapter Eighteen: Rescue