Taming the Wilde (13 page)

“What are you accusing me of now?”

“Perhaps you like my attentions,” Roake purred in a voice that made my stomach twist and turn. “Perhaps you are not so innocent to the pleasures
of a man's touch, but you know it would not be proper to give yourself to me, so instead you provoke me into taking your body in my hands. Is that it?” He was charming me with his low drone and I was so horrified by what I was hearing that I could not move. “Do you wish that I would take you right now, Miss Wilde? Put my hands on you and strip you of the clothing that separates your body from mine?”

He drew so close I could almost taste him on my tongue, saying terrible things that impugned my honor and stirred my senses. If I had been a lesser woman I would have become flustered under his accusations. As it was I raised my good right arm and struck him soundly across the cheek with open palm.

The slap echoed through the cabin, a ringing sound that seemed to go on and on and on in the silence that followed it. His head had not moved at all, but his dark eyes were focused on me more intensely than ever before. “That was a mistake, Miss Wilde,” he said, grasping me by the forearm.

I opened my mouth and almost made an apology, motivated not by genuine contrition, but by the deep fear that suddenly struck me. “I...I...” I trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. Roake's mouth was in a thin line, his jaw set hard and grim. There was not a hint of mercy anywhere in his gaze as he drew me across the room, sat himself on his chair and pulled me over his lap. I went like a sack of potatoes, temporarily paralyzed by the enormity of my own stupidity.

“You have done many foolish things in the time I have known you,” he said, his words echoing my own silent sentiments. “But that was possibly the worst of them all.” He was not idle whilst he lectured; his hands were busy with my skirt, lifting it out of the way. His fingers settled on the ties of my undergarments and I knew that he intended to bare me.

“No!” I tried to stop him by putting my hand back, but I received a sharp slap to my palm and instead of fiddling with the ties any further he hooked his fingers in the waistband and yanked my underwear clear down to my knees. I was then half-naked over his lap and I must admit that I set up a shrieking and squalling that very well could have been heard back in England.

His hand met my bottom with a harsh slap. “Stop your squalling, Miss Wilde!”

“You mean to molest my person!”

“I intend to do no such thing. I mean to thrash you until you understand that striking me is completely unacceptable.”

And he proceeded to do just that, landing his hard palm on my tender flesh over and over, creating an aching burn, a deep pain that transcended my bottom and seared through my body, jolting and striking me in every place I owned. It was not possible to be stoic and I wailed from the very start, though my cries soon became waterlogged as my tears began to fall. It was grossly unfair, this brutal treatment of my bottom, which he considered to be his to do with as he saw fit.

When he was finally finished I slid backwards off his lap and sank to the floor, quite inconsolable. If I had been next to the railing I might very well have thrown myself off it – not solely because of the punishment I had received, a punishment I knew I would feel for several days, but because Roake had revealed his thoughts about me to be not only impure but entirely derogatory.

I could hear him breathing heavily next to me. The thrashing had been quite a physical affair. He had worn his arm out on me. As I knelt and wept I heard him get up and move across the room to splash some water on his face from the basin next to his bed. “Oh do cheer up Miss Wilde,” he said heartlessly once he was refreshed. “That was less than you deserved and well you know it.”

“I do not know what you think I deserve,” I said through gasps of tears. “But I do know that your thoughts concerning me are both impure and foul.”

He stood over me, then leaned down and took my chin in his hand, forcing me to look up at him like a puppy looks up at her master. “I do not think ill of you, Miss Wilde,” he said gently. “But if striking a man is the way you respond
to flirtation, then I understand your innocence.” There was humor in his eyes. He was laughing at me, mocking me, just as Captain Morrow had. 

“You could never understand innocence or purity or the intentions of those pure of heart,” I swore. “You are a
black hearted devil sent to torment me with pain and filthy temptations of the flesh.”

“Ah, so you are tempted.” There was triumph in his gaze as he stood tall above me. “Quite an admission, Miss Wilde.”

“You have twisted my words,” I replied, gathering myself from the floor. “I made no such admission.”

“Ah but you did.” His smile was quite broad. “And we both know it, don't we?”

“Damn you, Master Roake. I will not be another conquest on this vessel. I will not face the prospect of Lizzy's unfortunate condition and I will not give myself to any man who is not my husband.” I drew myself up to my full height and a little bit beyond as I lifted myself on my toes. “You may take amusement in imagining your beatings to be the advances of love, but they are no such thing. The man I give myself to will be a gentleman. He will never deign to strike a woman and he certainly will not stand by idly whilst she is distressed and imprisoned. He will be sweet and he will be kind and he will have a sensitivity of understanding that you could never hope to have.”

Roake listened to my tirade with a glimmer of a smile still on his lips. “Oh Miss Wilde,” he said when I was finished. “You truly are an innocent. You would tear the sort of man you are describing to shreds, he would be dead within a year of marriage from nervous consumption.”

“So I am so terribly broken that I am only fit for a man who will beat me?” I sneered at Roake. “Save your stories for some poor soul simple enough to believe them.”

“You are not broken, Miss Wilde,” Roake said. “You are spirited and entirely without guidance. A good wife is submissive to her husband, but you have no understanding of what it means to be submissive at all.”

His insults were never ending. “Now you dare say I would make a bad wife?”

“Again you put words in my mouth,” he said, sighing. “You would make a fine wife to a man capable of appreciating you for what you are, and handling you as you need to be handled.”

“Handling me? You make me sound like a horse.”

“An unbroken filly,” Roake agreed with an unrepentant smile that made my innards tumble.

“I will thank you to keep your impure thoughts to yourself,” I said, girding myself with a failing sense of dignity.

“And I will thank you to remember who is in authority here,” he replied. “You have become increasingly troublesome of late, Miss Wilde and the captain's patience wears thin – as does mine. You can expect more nights in the brig if you do not curb your tongue and behave as a prisoner should.”

I began to drop into one of my deeply sarcastic curtseys, but he stepped forward and took me by the chin before I could perform it. “Enough, Miss Wilde. I will not tolerate any more of your antics.” His dark eyes bored into mine with a serious gaze and I felt certain that to continue to provoke him would be vastly unwise. I stood straight again and lowered my head with a muttered apology.

“Run along Miss Wilde, I will see you tomorrow morning for lessons.”

I escaped from his lair at haste. The spirit of goodwill that had been extended to me by those in authority truly was beginning to wane. I felt the tide turning against me as I took refuge in the relatively comfortable bunk at the back of the prison deck. Lizzy was snoring in the bed below mine and I looked on her fondly as I prepared to lay my head down. I would have put myself in harm's way a hundred times over to protect her and the spark of new hope that resided so innocently in her womb. If that meant enduring Morrow's ire and being tossed into the brig, so be it.

As I laid myself down my thoughts went inexorably back to Master Roake. He claimed to care about me, yet he had not had the slightest trouble letting me languish in a dark hold for three days. Indeed he had the nerve to tell me he had quite enjoyed the notion of my being locked away in that miserable place. It occurred to me that he was only interested in simple carnal pleasures - a physical release and nothing more. I was not at all interested in sating Roake's lusts and I became quite agitated there in my bed as I thought about the nerve he'd had to so much as address them.

When the next morning came I marched straight to his cabin and announced myself with the stiffest propriety. “Master Roake,” I said, my head held high. “I have thought upon your statements of last evening and I have come to the conclusion that if we are to continue this arrangement, certain conditions must be met.”

Caught halfway through the act of tying his cravat, Master Roake was taken aback at first, but he recovered from his surprise with admirable haste. “Do enlighten me, Miss Wilde.”

“You will not speak to me in common, filthy terms,” I said. “You will not claim to have an interest in me, nor will you make uncouth references to my person. You will behave as a gentleman. Am I making myself clear?”

“Quite clear,” he said with a small smirk I found most irritating.

“And you will not lay a finger on me. I find the familiarity with which you feel entitled to...to... handle my person to be entirely inappropriate.”

“Miss Wilde, I would not ever have had cause to handle your person, as you so put it, if you did not require a great deal of handling.” His mustache quirked as he smiled with a deep amusement. He enjoyed it far too much when I made my delicate allusions to the way he thrashed me.

He was making me furious. “I am not some slattern to be teased and pricked,” I insisted.

“Am I teasing you, Miss Wilde?” He drew close to me, his voice lowering a touch. “Is that why you are in this rage, because you have been teased too long and can no longer stand to go unsatisfied?”

Cold fingers tickled down the length of my spine as I felt myself becoming prey once more. “I do not know what you mean.”

“You know precisely what I mean,” he said, reaching for me and drawing me so close that there was barely light between us. I could smell his scent, a rich musk that pervaded my senses as he lowered his head and gently tipped my face up to his with his forefinger. My breath came short as his lips drew closer and then they were pressed against mine, his heat reaching into my skin as our mouths met.

Time itself ceased to march as his chaste kiss warmed me and then my lips were parting, his tongue snaking into my mouth. I quivered, startled at the intrusion but he gentled me with a touch and as I felt his limber tongue caress mine it was as if my whole body became caught up in the kiss. I became weak just as he grew stronger and bolder, wrapping his arm about my waist and holding me close, pressing his hard frame against my softness.

When he drew his mouth away I was left dazed in his arms, entirely speechless. I made some small noises, but no words came out as I stared up at him, quite amazed by what he had done to me. His eyes were soft as he returned my gaze, brushing the rust red strands of hair back from my face with gentle fingers. “Have my lips shown you what my words could not?”

“I...” I had no answer for him. Words were beyond me in that moment. My body was still reeling and I felt almost as if I were drunk, but my senses were not dulled as alcohol would have made them. They soared with joy. I forgot my proper speeches as I lifted my face and was once more rewarded with another of those hot kisses as Master Roake's agile tongue penetrated me, went inside my mouth and pleasured me in a way that made my very toes curl. When he pulled himself away a second time I felt hot and faint. “I think I am ill,” I said, putting a hand to my forehead.

“That heat you feel is not illness,” Roake chuckled with deep amusement.

In an instant I understood what the poets meant when they spoke of love as a burning flame. Every part of my body was tingling with new sensation and my face was suffused with heat. “You should not have done that.”

“I will never apologize for having tasted heaven,” he replied, brushing the pad of his thumb across my lower lip in a delicate caress.

As the excitement of my first kiss faded, a panic took over. “I will not give up my virtue so easily, Master Roake! I will not end up in Lizzy's condition.”

“You are unlikely to find yourself in Lizzy's condition as a result of a kiss,” Roake said
with a wry smile. “Now come, we have work to do.”

I did not feel at all in the mood for teaching, but there was no avoiding it and so it came to pass that I instructed my students in short words whilst every glance from Roake made me go hot and cold all over. I could still feel his lips on mine and the memory of his tongue, now deployed sharply against those who would shirk their eduction, pleasuring me in ways I had not properly comprehended, lingered on for hours.

My distraction was so evident that Roake took me aside between classes and cautioned me. “Your mind is elsewhere Miss Wilde, that much is plain, but do try to at least pretend to be paying attention to your students.”

I blushed. His presence was sending tingles through my belly. I had alternately feared, loathed and admired Roake over the course of our association, but now I desired him and that was perhaps the most dangerous feeling of all. My mind felt too dull to attend to simple matters, like making a reply. All my attention was focused on the hand at my elbow, wishing that it would move elsewhere on my person. I fancied I had gone mad. How could I possibly desire him so? Could a kiss alone inflame passion so deeply? I was in dangerous waters, I knew that much and now Roake was circling me like a shark. “Are you hearing me, Miss Wilde?”