Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
“She doesn’t mean God?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps God also. When things are so beautiful and peaceful…” He gazed at her. “Sometimes that feels like a prayer’s been answered, a prayer you never even thought to speak.” He took her hand, tugged off her woolen glove, and brought her fingers to his lips. “It will be beautiful wherever we are, Ophelia, as long as we’re together.”
“I know. And I don’t mind being cold at the Abbey, if you think we ought to return. Our families will miss us.”
“They will. The good news is that we can come back here whenever we like, as long as one of my siblings or my parents aren’t in residence. Even then, there’s room to squeeze in together, to a point.” He shrugged. “But there’s no rush to return. As long as we’re home for the holidays, because…”
She heard the note of tension in his voice. “Because…?”
“Because Townsend is coming back from Europe, and I’d like to be there to see him, and try to make things right between us. It’s always been the four of us, you know. Best friends and all that.”
She gave his hand a reassuring pat. “If you and I can come to an understanding together, you and Townsend will as well. Perhaps you can tell him what a crosspatch I am half the time, so he won’t wish he’d married me anymore.”
He cupped her chin with a fond smile. “My little crosspatch. Yes, I’ll tell him you’re terribly prone to misbehavior, and that he was lucky to escape a leg shackle.” His gaze deepened, his eyes vivid green in the afternoon light. “Speaking of misbehavior, darling…”
Ah, that glint. She loved and hated it.
“Misbehavior?” She kept her voice light. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been a perfect angel today.”
“Today has barely begun,” he said with a laugh. “No, I’m speaking of yesterday. Shall I enumerate your trespasses?”
“You make it sound so serious. Yes, enumerate my trespasses.”
“Well, aside from mocking me just now, you talked about stones with my friends yesterday, which was quite inappropriate—”
She interrupted him with a gasp. “I never brought it up, though. That was Marlow and his poor manners!”
“And,” he continued, holding up a finger, “you also tricked me at swordplay by pretending to be tired, which wasn’t very sporting.”
“I suppose I am guilty of that. And of humiliating you before your friends with a sound defeat.”
“A sound defeat?” He gave back her glove and drew her up from the picnic blanket. “I wouldn’t say it was a ‘sound defeat,’ but you will receive a sound spanking in retribution, naughty girl.”
He led her across the clearing as her stomach churned with that familiar feeling of anxiety and excitement. He came to a stump that made too perfect a chair, and sat upon it, drawing her over his lap.
“Wescott,” she said, trying to sit back up. “What if your friends come?”
“They won’t. As hard as I plan to spank you, they’ll hear it long before they come into the meadow and stay well enough away.”
Goodness, she hoped he was teasing about that. It had been such a pleasant afternoon until now. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to these spankings. Even if I deserve one, I don’t want it.”
Perhaps that was partly a lie, though she’d never admit it. She did like the way he held her close and handled her with his strong fingers, and arranged her just so across his thighs before he flipped up her skirts.
But the rest of it…
“Oww,” she cried as he began to wallop her arse. “That hurts. Please!”
“Please what? Shall I spank you harder? I’m not putting much energy into it yet.”
“It feels like too much energy.”
She tensed her cheeks and shifted on his lap, her fingers scrabbling at the roots beneath the stump. By now, he’d used a few different implements to punish her, but his hand was the worst, for he spanked her much longer, and the sting grew without relief.
“Please, I must have a break.”
“Already? I’ve just started. Perhaps you shouldn’t cheat at swordplay, hmm?”
“I never will again.”
Her shrieked promise did nothing to stop the spanking. If anything, the heat increased. When she squirmed too much, he spanked the backs of her thighs, which burned even worse.
“Hold the proper position,” he said. “The better you behave, the more quickly I’ll consider you punished.”
“I feel very punished right now.”
She drew out the last word into a wail, but she also understood by now what he wanted, and so she tried to lie still and take the spanking she’d earned. Afterward, he would hold her and make everything better. She had to trust him. She loved him.
But oh, her bottom hurt. She stayed in position and only kicked a little bit, although she cried louder and louder. At last he left off belaboring her bottom, and she gasped for breath. She would never look at this meadow’s stump quite the same again. She rather wished it had grown over with ivy many years ago.