Taming the Wilde (19 page)

“You will no doubt have to, for you are a respected schoolmaster and I but a lowly thief, escapee from the factory,” I reminded him. “If I am spotted they will make me return to finish my sentence, they will shave my head and punish me every day until I despair of life.”

“I swear Jane, that will not happen.”

“It will not happen because I will not allow it to happen,” I said. I was glad to see Roake again, but given his apparent fall from grace and my tenuous freedom I did not put too much stock in his assurances.

“You must come back to my house, leave this place, this den of iniquity.”

“And what will happen in your house? Will I act as a servant to you and the good parishioners?”

“Jane!” Roake frowned down at me, looking a little like his old glittering self. “You will be my wife of course.”

“Of course? That is how you ask a woman to marry you? As a matter of course?” Perhaps my offense was
ill considered. Perhaps I should have been grateful for the offer of his hand, but it was not so much an offer as an insistence and that did not sit well with me. “Master Roake,” I said drawing myself up so as to look him in the eye from a slightly less acute angle. “Master Roake, I have gained my freedom through my own toil. I will not become a chattel simply because you say it must be so.”

“You are still as wild as the day we met,” he said, looking down at me with admiration. “I shall have my hands full with you and I will love every moment of it.”

“I have still not given my consent!”

“Ah but you must, dear Jane. You said it yourself, if you are to be discovered you will be taken back to serve your sentence. Only marriage to a free man will relieve you of the burden of your conviction.”

“If I wished to escape the burden of my conviction I could have married almost any man in these colonies. I chose not to. What do you think that says, Master Roake?” I intended to remind him that I was an independent creature, but he simply laughed at me.

“That tells me that you were waiting for me, sweet Jane, you knew you belonged to me.”

I found a low growl rising in my throat. I was so glad to see him and yet his arrogance and possessiveness seemed to have grown in leaps and bounds during our separation.

“You must understand,” he said, wrapping an arm about my waist. “That I have thought of nothing but you Jane, for all these long weeks. I have berated myself and prayed most fervently that you might somehow be restored to me.” He looked down at me tenderly. “The good Lord has brought you back to me Jane, and I will not let you go again,”

“The good Lord had bugger all to do with it,” I disagreed sharply. “I escaped, I earned my freedom such as it is. You happened to simply stumble in here looking for some easy flesh to comfort yourself with.”

“And here I found you,” he said, tracing a finger across my lips. “My wonderful, fiery Miss Wilde.”

“Careful Master Roake,” I replied, feeling the old urges rising in my breast once more. “Do not make yourself into another prison from which I must escape.”

His chuckle sounded clear and sober. “Oh Jane. I have missed you so much. I cannot begin to tell you how glad I am you have not changed.”

“I have not changed, but circumstances have. I am not some convict in your care to be ordered about and...” my mind went skittering back to the many times Roake had disciplined me and I felt a blush rising to my cheeks.

“And what Jane... say it.” His voice was a low, intimate purr. He knew precisely what was on my mind and he enjoyed my reluctance to speak the truth aloud.

I stared him dead in the eyes as I spoke the word. “Punished.”

He smiled, his mustache framing his lips, making him appear more rakish than ever. “Things have changed Miss Wilde, but you are still a naughty convict and now I have you I can assure you that you will stay in my care until the life bleeds from my body. As for punishments, I doubt you will be able to avoid them, your little dose of freedom seems to have gone right to your head.”

I looked into his face and saw confident determination there. He truly had taken possession of me, without so much as a by your leave Madame. I was not impressed. “A wife is not an animal to be punished,” I said. “I do not care for your methods, Master Roake.”

I shrieked as his hard hand clapped my bottom through my skirts. “My wife to be needs to know that she is with a man who will limit her wild ways. I will discipline you if I deem it necessary Jane, no matter what your answer.”

“I have made myself free and I will remain that way.” I spoke with deep conviction, for I had no intention of giving up what was so hard won simply because this handsome devil of a man commanded me.

“As my wife you will be legally free, a better freedom than you have now,” he countered. “Do not let your natural aversion to having your bottom spanked queer the deal.” His hand clasped at my cheeks with familiarity. “I have missed your reddened, squirming rump, Jane.”

“Be careful Master Roake, I am losing my temper with you.”

“If you are losing your temper, then it is you who needs to be careful.” He patted my bottom and I patted his face. Perhaps it could have been construed as a light slap. Certainly he seemed to take it that way.

“Naughty,” he said, grasping my wrist and turning me over his knee. He sat on my bed and held me in place, sweeping up my fine dress to expose my underclothes, which he likewise dispatched with, baring my bottom to his gaze.

“This is not proper!” My protest was futile, but I made it nonetheless.

“We are to be married Jane, it is quite proper,” he said, slapping my bottom several times. “Do not fear for your virtue, I will respect it until we are married.”

There was a smile in his voice and a fondness too as he laid his palm across my bare cheeks and rubbed them softly before placing another light slap across the middle. I confess I was not as enraged as I perhaps should have been, finding myself across Roake’s lap, in a position I had never imagined I would be in again, was rather reassuring. I felt small and I felt safe and though he drew back his hand and landed three very hard swats low on my cheeks, swats that made me wriggle and kick my hips against his thigh, I still rather enjoyed his touch.

He let his fingers drift down the crevice of my cheeks and for a brief, fleeting moment I felt his fingers brush across my red nether curls. The touch made me mewl with arousal. My body was responding to him as if he owned it, as if it already acknowledged his claim. My mind was torn in two, caught between tearful surprise at his unexpected return to my life and the fierce independence which made me buck and wriggle and earned several more hard smacks that thrust my hips against his hard body, rewarding me with a sting that turned to pleasure as the bud at the apex of my womanly lips rubbed against my skirts.

“You are dressed like a courtesan,” he said, squeezing my bottom. “I cannot tell you how great the temptation is to treat you as one, to press you over the bed and claim your sweet maidenhead as mine.”

“Please...” I begged. “Do not do such a thing...”

“Do not fear, Miss Wilde,” he said, letting me up. “I will not claim you until we lie in our marriage bed.”

I did not look at him as I rearranged my skirts, but I could feel his eyes on me, devouring me with lust. “What if I do not wish to be claimed, Master Roake?”

“Do not be afraid, Jane,” he said. “I know circumstances rather force your hand. I know you are innocent to the ways of men, and indeed, even to me.”

“You think I am a stranger to you, Master Roake?”

He smiled as if I had amused him. “You do not so much as know my first name.”

“This is true.”

“Allow myself to introduce myself,” he said, standing and taking a low bow. “I am Percival Roake.”

“Percy!” I giggled.

A look of mock severity met my merriment. “You find my name amusing?”

“It... it is simply odd to hear it,” I said. “But it suits you rather well I think.”

“I am glad you think so,” he said, his expression becoming earnest as he looked deep into my eyes and cast all pretense of power or control away. “Please Jane, do not let your wild and spirited nature come between us. I want nothing more than for you to be my wife, to live the rest of my days with you by my side. I do not ask you in order to imprison you, I ask you because living without you has bought me more pain than I think I can bear.”

This was the man who had taken me in hand and spanked me, but I was the one with the power to make him happy or crush his heart. His sincere appeal completely melted the final shreds of my resistance. How could I turn him down? Though I had not been nearly so effusive in my speech, I knew I could no more stand to see him leave than he could stand to go. “In that case, Percy,” I said sweetly, “I will consent to be your wife.”

Master Roake's smile grew broad with almost boyish joy. “Miss Wilde, you have made me the happiest man in all the colonies!” He swept me up in his arms, clutching me to his chest as he pressed more feverish kisses to my face and neck. Caught up in his embrace and charmed by his enthusiasm, I allowed myself to return several of those kisses and soon we were at the brink of no return yet again as our passion threatened to overflow. It was Roake who managed to contain us both. “We have waited almost a full year for this, Miss Wilde,” he said, holding me at arm's length. “We can wait a few nights longer.”

I must have pouted, for his smile was lustful. “I promise you Jane, it will be worth the wait. Your quivering loins will soon know the touch of the only man meant for you. In the meantime we must be patient.”

“Patience is not one of my virtues,” I said, speaking with flushed cheeks, my voice sounding breathless even to my own ears.

“Then I shall enforce our patience most strictly,” he said with a little growl.

“You have never managed to enforce anything with me, Master Roake,” I said sweetly. “What makes you think you will be successful now?”

“You arch little wench,” he said affectionately. “I would thrash you, but you speak the truth and I do not know if I can stand to see your bare cheeks and that sweet, virginal peach displayed to me once more this evening. I am at the very limits of what any good man can stand.”

It was tempting to tease him, but I was not as bold as I made myself out to be. We were speaking of marriage and marriage meant a marriage bed and a marriage bed meant that the flirtation of the voyage would come to fruition with this tall, vital man pressing his flesh inside mine. The thought was enough to make me tremble with a maidenly fear I would have rather died than admitted.

We were married three days later in a simple private ceremony. Roake looked magnificent before the registrar, his suit was new and his hair was shorn – along with his facial foliage. I would almost not have recognized him without his long dark mane and mustache if it were not for his commanding eyes and imperious bearing. I wore a simple white gown, one he'd insisted on purchasing for me though I said it was not necessary. I would have been happy to be married in bare feet and a pinafore, but Roake said it was not proper and when I persisted in the matter he threatened to thrash me
. 

“Jane,” he said tersely on the afternoon before the wedding. “I must insist that you behave with some measure of propriety.”

“A lady chooses her own dress, that is the way of things,” I argued pertly. I had already been compelled to wash my hair over and over at his behest and now that it shined bright copper red I felt I had complied with his wishes quite enough for one day.

“You will wear a proper dress and you will wear shoes, or you will feel leather on your bare skin before the evening is done,” he threatened quite crossly.

“If this is how you are going to be, perhaps I won't marry you,” I said, hoping to take advantage of the situation. It was not entirely successful, for Roake growled and pulled me over his lap yet again. I had already taken two trips to that region that day and the third time was to be the charm.

“Jane,” he said, rustling through my undergarments to find the pink flesh beneath. “Believe me when I say that I am thrilled to be marring you. Believe me also when I say that this cheek you are treating me to will not be tolerated.” His hand came down across my bottom with a hard slap that echoed throughout the room and I let out a predictable sort of yelp.

I was not irritating him merely for the satisfaction of seeing him irritated. I was being argumentative because of the nervousness that assailed me whenever I was not over his lap. I think perhaps he knew that, for he did not lose his temper, nor did he seek out a harsher implement to use. He simply spanked me until I whimpered and then he sat me on his lap and held me close. Each time I tested him he repeated the treatment until finally I was put to bed with a bottom too hot and red and sore to sleep on – and yet I slept more deeply than I had in a very long time, albeit on my stomach.

On the day of our marriage my nerves threatened to consume me as I promised myself to the man who had once been the very bane of my existence. The ceremony was short and simple and to my nervous mind it seemed to be over almost as soon as it had begun.

After the wedding we changed into more simple attire, took a wagon and headed east to a little place called Castlereagh, one of five towns recently founded by Governor Macquarie. Roake drove the horse and I sat beside him, feeling rather bereft of reality. My life had suffered yet another abrupt change and though I knew I should be happy, I was afraid. I could barely believe that we were married, though a golden band glistened on my finger. I could not stop looking at it, and I felt its weight constantly.