Punishing His Ward (13 page)

Shocked to his core, he didn't say
anything as Cynthia stoo

d, her skirts rustling back down to the
floor, and turned and fled.  He caught a glimpse of her face,
streaked with tears, eyes glazed with shock.  There was a
moment when she glared at him before fleeing the room.
 

And he was so busy smelling her scent
on his fingers that he didn't stop her.  

Leaning back against the desk, his mind
ran over the possible ramifications of his discovery... and what he
was going to do about it.

******

Locking the door behind her, Cynthia
heaved a few more sobs.  She was still surprised that the Earl
had let her go without a further lecture, but she hadn't been about
to stay and allow him to whack on her poor bottom some more.
 Last time hadn't been nearly as painful! 

Hustling over to the mirror, she yanked
up her skirts to her hips and sucked in a shocked breath.  Her
bottom was so red it was nearly glowing, and when she reached
around to press cool finger tips to its agonized surface, she could
actually feel the heat emanating from her skin.  

"Bloody hell..." she murmured, almost
in awe.  The rounded mounds actually looked rather swollen.
 

If it wasn't for the stinging, burning,
throbbing, she would have been utterly fascinated by its
appearance.  Stroking her fingers over the sensitive surface,
she shuddered.  Even the softest touch caused an increase in
the stinging.  

It wasn't until she noticed that she
was squeezing her thighs together that she realized the delicious
feeling of needy pleasure had built up in her quim.  Cynthia
groaned.  How was that possible?  She hadn't understood
it the first time either, but this was beyond the pale.
 

Gently rolling herself onto her bed,
she hissed in pain when her weight pressed down on her bottom.
 Lifting her skirts up to her hips, she planted her feet on
the bed to help relieve the pressure on her sore buttocks, just as
she had the last time.  When her fingers pressed down into the
folds of her womanhood, the slick wetness was more than it had ever
been before and her little pleasure nub was hard and aching.
 

Cynthia moaned as she began to rub
herself, her free hand reaching into the top of her dress to pinch
and play with her nipples.  Somehow being rougher than usual
with the hard little tips of her breasts balanced out the throbbing
flames of her bottom.  Gasping, shocked at how quickly she was
reaching her pleasure, Cynthia rubbed her little pleasure nub
harder and harder, squealing a bit as her bottom began to move up
and down, bouncing off the bed.

The flashes of stinging pain that
flared every time her bottom bounced intensified the exquisite ache
between her legs, a repercussion she was becoming familiar with.
 She clenched her teeth over a scream as the most delicious
ecstasy ripped through her, her arm becoming sore as she rubbed and
rubbed and rubbed, riding out every last exquisite ripple of
pleasure.  

Gasping, completely out of air, she
rolled onto her side.  Her bottom throbbed.  Between her
legs pulsed.  And this climax had been even more intense than
the last one after she'd been spanked. 

Was there some connection between how
hard the Earl spanked her and how high her pleasure went?
 

Yet, there was a warm ache between her
legs that still wasn't satisfied.  Moaning, Cynthia gently
rubbed little circles over her wet flesh until the insistent need
began to build again and then she rubbed, rubbed, rubbed, until she
was thrashing and gasping again with ecstasy.

After three intense orgasms, the poor
girl was utterly wrung out.  Her bottom was on fire, the ache
between her legs had subsided but still felt like something was
missing, and she was completely exhausted.  After all, it had
been a long morning and afternoon, followed by the spanking and
then more rubbing and ecstasy than she'd ever experienced before.
 It was a wonder she hadn't rubbed her little nubbin
off.

Hazy, mostly sated, Cynthia rolled onto
her stomach and fell asleep with her dress still on and hiked up
around her hips.

When the maid knocked on her door,
awakening her, Cynthia forgot herself so far as to roll onto her
back and sit up. Yelping, she jolted off the bed, whimpering a bit
as her flesh jiggled. Her bottom was still incredibly sore,
although it hadn’t stopped her from her exhausted sleep.

“Miss? Are you awake?” The maid’s voice
was accompanied by the rattling of the doorknob. “It’s time to
dress for dinner.”

“Yes, yes, I’m awake, just
a moment,” Cynthia said, rushing over to the mirror.

Shockingly, the skin of
her bottom was only pink rather than red now, although the deep
ache from her punishment lingered. Her bottom was still sensitive
to the touch, with a feeling of almost bruising underneath even
though it barely
showed
any ill effects. Somehow the lack of evidence
seemed monumentally unfair, as if she’d been denied a badge of
honor to wear for having endured the punishment.

Another knock on the door reminded her
that the maid was waiting. Cynthia sighed and let her skirts drop
back down again.

******

The composed debutante who
was shown into the drawing room didn’t at all resemble the sobbing,
red-eyed young lady that Wesley had punished. He couldn’t keep too
close an eye on her, however, or Eleanor and Edwin would notice. Or
maybe they wouldn’t; the two love birds seemed rather wrapped up in
each other, although he had noticed that Eleanor was sitting rather
gingerly.

He deduced that Cynthia
wasn’t the only young woman to be disciplined in the past
twenty-four hours.

The Countess looked up and
smiled approvingly at her ward’s appearance. The rose pink damask
set off her sensual good looks, bringing a bright pink to her
cheeks and lips and setting off the rich brown of her hair and
eyes. He wondered if it was anything close to the current color of
her bottom, and when she glanced at him with a challengingly
mischievous look in her eyes, he wondered if she’d purposefully
dressed to remind him of her spanking. The little minx. Although
they didn’t know each other very well yet, he wouldn’t put it past
her. The part of him that didn’t want to think of her as his
responsibility thoroughly approved.

Blast.

But she
was
his responsibility
and he’d resolved to forget the moment of… contemplation that he’d
had earlier in the day. He didn’t want to get married yet.
Especially not to a brazen, bold little hoyden who would keep him
hopping with her antics. And Cynthia needed to be married off
quickly – not just for his mother’s sake, but now for her own.
Before he ruined her utterly.

Of course, then he’d be
honor bound to marry her...

Stop it you bloody
fool.

Pasting a smile on his face, he watched
as his mother’s escort for the evening, the elderly Viscount
Vernier, bowed over Cynthia’s hand, complimenting her on her
delightful appearance. Following Vernier, Wesley bowed over his
ward’s hand as well, murmuring his own compliments.

He watched as she greeted
Edwin and Eleanor, the latter with every evidence of delight. Yes,
he’d been right not to inform her that Eleanor had shared some of
her confidences; the women were well on their way to a true
friendship – and knowing Edwin, he was fairly sure that Eleanor
hadn’t meant to betray Cynthia’s confidences. As long as the chit
knew not to attempt any of those intimacies until after she was
married, he’d stay content. And keep a weather eye out.

“What has she done now?” Edwin asked in
a low voice, sidling up to Wesley as Eleanor, the Countess and
Cynthia began to chat, while Vernier listened with an indulgent
smile on his face.  Wesley wondered if the older man was hard
of hearing, as a discussion about the shops of Bath could hardly be
stimulating to him.

“What do you mean?”

“You look like you want to throttle
her.”

“I do not,” Wesley said gruffly, trying
to compose his features.  It was harder than he’d expected
because he was already trying to cover his initial reaction to
Cynthia’s presence and his thoughts about what color her bottom
might be.  He noticed that when she settled on the couch next
to the Countess that she did so very, very carefully and she didn’t
glance in his direction the entire time.  Knowing that her
bottom was still aching did nothing for the state of his breeches
and he blessed the fact that he’d worn a looser fitting pair than
usual.

Still, he didn’t want anyone to know
that his ward was getting under his skin.  So he forced a
smile and turned away from her so that he could stop focusing on
all the soft, white skin that was revealed by her low neckline and
watching her shift back and forth as if trying to find a
comfortable way to sit on a very sore bottom.

“I may need to enlist you
and Eleanor to help my mother and I keep an eye on her this
evening,” Wesley said in a low voice.  He hadn’t told his
mother that Cynthia bore stricter watching, mostly because then he
would have to explain
why.
  And if Eleanor and Edwin
were going to be there, then he could rely on them.  Well, on
Edwin, certainly.  Nell might help out, but she was also just
as likely to take Cynthia’s side, as far as she thought Cynthia
could be trusted.  Wesley had a feeling that Nell’s definition
of how far Cynthia could be trusted differed greatly from his
own.

Edwin raised one dark eyebrow. 
“Never thought I’d see the day when you admitted to a woman being
too much for you to handle.”

Scowling, Wesley waved his hand, as if
to wave Edwin’s words away.  They needled, particularly
because there was just the smallest grain of truth to them.
 "I've never met one that was so bent on her own
destruction."

Laughing, Edwin clapped him on the
shoulder, giving him a nod that was both apologetic and accepting
of the request as the ladies looked up at them, obviously
distracted from their own conversation.  Interestingly, when
Cynthia met Wesley's eyes for the first time that evening, she
blushed.  

Then he saw the way her
lips parted before she looked away and he realized she hadn't been
blushing.  She'd been aroused.  Was she thinking about
her spanking?  As his breeches tightened uncomfortably, Wesley
realized he was contemplating his ward in a way that he'd firmly
decided
not
 to.

Damnation.  He needed to find her
a husband and quickly, and he needed to find himself a feminine
distraction even more quickly.  He would definitely use the
Assembly tonight to achieve both goals.

******

If Wesley had thought that the evening
was going to be easy, his first glimpse of Cynthia in a ball gown
rudely disabused him of the notion.  She was temptation
incarnate; if they'd been in London men would have been throwing
themselves at her feet with the more dangerous rakes and roués
circling like the hungry wolves they were.  The low dip of her
neckline revealed what seemed a scandalous amount of the upper
curves of her breasts, all that gleaming white flesh an invitation
for lips and trailing fingers.  One brunette curl rested on
her shoulder, showing off how pale and creamy her skin truly was;
the rest was wound about in an elaborate coiffure with a silver
ribbon that matched the gauzy netting over a dress of
aquamarine. 

The entire ensemble made her look both
older and more tempting than ever, with those wide, laughing hazel
eyes and curved, smiling lips.  This was no hoyden, this was a
sensual siren, elegantly draped and expertly presented to the
entice the male senses.  He was so intent on controlling his
inevitable reaction to the way the gown clung to her ample curves
that he didn't even notice the flash of feminine awareness and
satisfaction that went through her eyes.  Cynthia was not the
usual young miss; she was quite aware of her effect on men and she
was finally seeing the same symptoms in the Earl. 

It was immensely satisfying.

When he raised her hand to his lips,
meeting her eyes, his gaze suddenly shuttered as Wesley realized
he'd been thrown enough by her appearance to show his true
reaction.  He actually had to remind himself that he wasn't
going to marry the chit just because he ached to bed her.
 

The lazy smile that slid across his
face was a mask, but it was also a smile that was designed to set
women's heart's fluttering.  A smile that had actually caused
a debutante to swoon earlier in the Season when he'd favored her
with it - not that he expected Cynthia to behave in the same manner
as that silly chit, but he knew that it should at the least make
her uneasy.

"You look... absolutely divine tonight,
Miss Bryant.  I'm sure even in sleepy Bath the gentlemen will
be clamoring for your attention.  Just remember not to give
any of them too much of it."

Cynthia felt rather breathless.
 When she'd dressed for this evening she'd wanted to stun the
Earl, to show him that she could do the pretty and play the part of
a proper lady, just to get a rise out of him.  Certainly not
because her bottom was still aching and she was worried about being
on the receiving end of another spanking - surely the Countess
wouldn't allow any disruptions to their planned evening.