Angel of Hawkhaven Read online

  Holding my elbow with one hand, he caught the side of my cheek in the warm palm of his other. “We always seem to come back to this, don’t we? Me perched on the verge of disciplining you and yet trying to convince you that I am not an ogre; you with tears in your lovely eyes, frightened of what I’m about to do.” He gently brushed a fresh drop from the wet tracks on my face. “Still, for what it’s worth, I am not an ogre.”

  About to be beaten, I didn’t believe that for a second.

  “Grimsby,” he called, and the door swung open far enough for the butler to be seen. “The carriage will not be needed tonight after all. Both you and Buckley are dismissed for the evening.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  I felt the butler’s eyes briefly upon my back, but then he was gone, and my lord Hawkhaven and I were left alone.

  He stepped away from me. I tried to be brave, but my tears began to fall faster than I could catch them in the trembling handkerchief I held. Then he took that away from me, too, leaving my hands with nothing to hold onto but each other.

  A gentle touch upon my arm brought me to his desk as Hawkhaven stepped back behind me. “Hold onto the edge. Cry out as you need to, but remain in position until I give you leave to rise, do you understand?”

  My legs shook—no, I shook. All over in fact. This would be the second time in all my adult life that I would have been caned. The first time had been within six months after my father had died, with the implement wielded by my very first employer. Even after all these years, I still remembered his name. Sperry, a cruel and heartless man with sweaty, wandering hands, had punished me for being ‘above’ myself. For daring to fight him when he caught me in the dark, for weeping and screaming when he’d forced me to the floor, all of which had awakened his wife. Of the nine angry strokes he’d given me, I still bore the scars of three across my back. But the beating was all he’d had a chance to do. His wife had found us before he got more than the top of his britches’ buttons undone. She had chased him down the street with that cane, and I’m sure landed well more than nine good clouts. I ran back home to my mother before she could turn her anger on me.

  Hawkhaven looked much taller and stronger than Sperry had been. Trying to brace myself for the coming pain, I still began to cry in earnest as I bent myself over his desk. There was a dry rattle as the cane was lifted from the vase. I ducked my face low, tucking my chin to my chest to keep my head from being accidentally struck in the course of my punishment.

  My knees buckled, thumping into the desk as I cringed, my back arching up to receive that first blow. This was the price for keeping my job, and I would pay it. But I still whimpered when I felt Hawkhaven move; I was that certain I was going to feel the pain right then. Instead, he lay the cane upon the desktop before me. I stared at it through my tears, not at all sure what I was seeing, and flinched when I felt Hawkhaven’s palm come to rest, almost comfortingly, between my shoulder blades.

  He applied a gentle pressure, gradually forcing down the hump of my spine until my back was flat, and my chest came back to rest again upon his desk.

  “Don’t move,” he said as he bent down to catch the hem of my dress. He piled both my gown and shift into the small of my back and pulled at the ties of my bloomers. I almost started upright all over again, except that his hand on my back stopped me. “I said don’t move.”

  I covered my face with my hands as he stripped my undergarments over my hips, down my thighs, and dropped them all the way down to my ankles. I clenched my lips tight together, but couldn’t quite stifle a mortified mewling sound.

  His arm came around my waist, his hand slipping under my belly, both pinning me against his side and arching my hips up and back. “I am going to discipline you because, contrary to my initial instructions, you left my sister to care for herself and she got hurt.”

  My knees bumped the wooden back of his desk again, but his arm around my waist supported me, and my naked bottom did not so much as wiggle half an inch. I felt very strange. This was unlike any beating I had ever experienced before. A half memory came rushing back from my childhood. Me, dangling awkwardly over my father’s knee while he paddled the seat of my skirts, the one and only time I had ever been struck by him. Of the incident I remembered only this: he had been more scared than angry; I had been more stunned than hurt, and I never again wandered more than a few inches from his side at the market.

  In some very odd way, this situation more closely resembled that long ago castigation than it did any beating I had taken since then. Except that Hawkhaven was neither scared nor angry anymore. In fact, he sounded very calm, speaking to me in soothing tones the way a man would speak to an unbridled filly he was coaxing to the bit for the very first time.

  “There is a difference between discipline and abuse,” Hawkhaven told me. “I see you have had too much of the latter, so I am not going to use the cane. But…”

  I know he said more after that, but I honestly did not hear it. The air had whooshed from my lungs, and I positively melted upon the desk I was so relieved. He wasn’t going to cane me; I all but babbled with gratitude, “Oh thank you, sir. Thank you, thank you, thank—”

  His palm clapped across the hill of my right bottom cheek with force enough to jolt me right back out of my puddle of relief and silence my gratitude with a breathy squeak. Though he did not use the cane, the hurt was surprisingly intense all the same. He spanked me hard, his palm cracking across my bare bottom in sharp, rapid-fire slaps that had my fingernails scraping his desktop as I scrambled for something to grab on to. I nearly bit my tongue when my teeth clenched, locking back a shrill cry. Within a minute, my poor bottom could not have burned any hotter if he had dropped me sit-side down in the fireplace, and he wasn’t even done yet.

  Hawkhaven had told me not to rise, and oh but I did try to obey. I clung to his desk with a fearsome hold, until the wooden edge bit into the soft flesh of my fingers, almost as painfully as the sharp whack, crack, smack of his relentless hand as it met my bouncing nethers without pause. Until I could bear no more and my hands both snapped back to stay his authority.

  My left arm struck his back and would go no further, no matter how desperately I tried to wriggle it between us or around him. However, my right I got behind me, palm up and fingers splayed to protect as wide an area as I could possibly reach. Hawkhaven merely caught my wrist and tucked my hand close to my side, pinning it half beneath us both with his arm, which held my hips pressed down and immobile upon the desk. Then his hand was again meting out his harsh measure of discipline without any further hindrance from me.

  He made me nearly mindless before he was done. He reduced me thoroughly to tears. All I could feel was flame and fire and the aching, throbbing hurt that radiated out from my bottom. It went all through me, mounting hurt upon hurt upon hurt. Until it was over. Until his hand finally came to a rest upon the flaming curve of my swollen, scarlet backside and lay blessedly still.

  It was almost a full minute before I came back to myself enough to realize he was speaking to me. “You will mind your duties with the utmost care from this moment onward?”

  “Yes!” I both wept and gasped at once.

  He released my hand first and then my hips. I lay upon the desk, sucking one ragged breath after another, my bottom on fire and hurting too much for me to want to move. It was a long time before I even realized his hand still rested at the small of my back. It was a comforting touch. It was completely improper for a master to give his servant, and I was… I was grateful for it.

  “Let us try not to have a repeat of this, shall we?” Lord Deverell said as I slowly pushed to my feet. Even more slowly, he took his hand from me.

  I bent to grab my bloomers, my face burning as hot as my nethers as I covered my wounded backside once more. “Yes, sir,” I whispered, shoving my skirts down and swiping at my eyes with the back of my wrist.

  “Call me Matthew, Ella. I insist. Any woman familiar enough for me to see her naked backside is, in my opinion
, familiar enough to use my Christian name, so long as we are in private.”

  Surreptitiously rubbing my throbbing bottom, I bit my bottom lip to keep from telling him just how determined I was that he should never be that familiar with me again. Unfortunately, I could think of no way to say it that it would not sound as if I were issuing him a challenge. God knows the nobility had enough trouble keeping themselves entertained without making myself a sport to one of them. So instead, I merely ducked into a curtsy and dismissed myself to bed. He let me go without a word, and I managed to keep my tongue firmly behind my teeth until I was safely back in my room.

  Throwing myself back on my bed, I cried myself to sleep, holding my wounded bottom in gentle hands.

  Chapter Five

  The sun had barely made its morning debut over the horizon when my blankets were suddenly ripped back off me and Bess grabbed my shoulder. She shook me so vigorously that for an instant I thought the whole world was being jostled. My eyes flew open just as a uniform dress was draped right over my head.

  “Rise and shine, slug-a-bed,” she told me briskly. “Her ladyship takes her morning cocoa in half an hour, and you need to get her ready for it.”

  She turned and stalked back out of my room. Beyond her, I glimpsed another servant peeking back in at me. Considering my late arrival last night, I suppose, I shouldn’t be surprised to find myself a curiosity among the other household staff this morning. But she didn’t smile at me, and I didn’t offer the gesture first. Companions, like nannies, were not like other servants in a house and subsequently were not welcome among them. Then Bess closed the door, and I was on my own again.

  Groaning and rubbing my burning eyes, I rolled from my stomach to sit up and then just as quickly rolled right back off my tender bottom. Although my bottom was not sore, per se, the instant my weight had pressed into my battered flesh the heat had flared through my skin and muscle and tissue. It fanned out from my hips to my belly and then all the way up to my face, a very hot and still vaguely throbbing reminder of my punishment the night before.

  The first day of my new start and here I was—beginning it with a sore and throbbing backside. I climbed out of bed, frowning as I approached the tin mirror upon my tiny sitting table. I turned around and lifted the back of my nightgown. Oh my. Even in the poor reflective quality of the metal, I could see where the paleness of my back and the flesh of my thighs were parted by a wide reddish-purplish patch. I could see bruise-dark lines fanning out around the edges of the redness that was my buttocks, the marks his fingers had left behind, I realized with a start.

  I reached back behind me, gingerly caressing the pattern of marks, my bottom flesh still feeling swollen and hot, even a little stiff on the very summits where the bruising was the worst. My gaze rose to meet that of my reflection, and I shook my head at myself, dropping the skirts of my gown around my legs. I shook my head again, and then stripped my clothes away to don the uniform Bess had brought for me.

  I attended my toilette, washing my face and beneath my arms, before buttoning up my gown to cover my shift. The neckline of my uniform went all the way up to my chin and the bottommost hem came a hairs-breadth of dragging the ground at my feet. It was a little snug in the waist and not snug enough in the chest. In all likelihood, the dress had been made to fit one of my predecessors. A white frontal apron frock protected the front of me from getting unduly dirty, although considering my job, waiting attendance on a noble woman, it was difficult to think why I should need the thing.

  I twisted my long braid into a bun and covered it with the ruffled mobcap Bess had provided. For the sake of neatness, I probably should have taken out the braid and brushed it all again, but I simply did not have the time. I made myself as ready as I could as fast as I knew how and, with my bottom and pride both smarting, made my way to Lady Victoria’s chambers. Twinges of discomfort had me wincing slightly, each step sending tiny pangs of awareness up the back of my legs and into the fleshy curves of my buttocks. Though the true pain from my spanking had long passed, each time the muscles contracted I swear I could feel Hawkhaven’s hand all over again.

  I took a long moment, standing small and alone before her broad and imposing door, mentally attempting to prepare myself for the ordeal of my first full day in her employ. No doubt she would be as difficult as she could to get rid of me, either through her own special methods of unpleasantness or through the discomfort of her brother’s stern discipline. Unfortunately for all of us, I needed the money too much to go. Squaring my shoulders, I took that hard first step forward and pushed open the door.

  I was two steps into her room before I realized that, like Bess had the night before, I hadn’t waited for her permission to enter. Unlike Bess, however, I hadn’t even knocked. Even worse, as I took my first look of her in the brightness of the morning, all I could feel was anger bubbling up inside of me.

  I tried to stamp it down inside of me. Being a servant meant I didn’t have a right to be angry. I tried to cover it over with a false cheerfulness. “Good morning, miss.”

  “Go away.” Lady Victoria lay flat on her back, a slender shadow of a girl beneath the drooping curtains of her massive canopy bed. Her eyes were open, staring straight up above her, unblinking and unsmiling. Although Deverell had told me of it, I did not see her blackened eye until I threw back the draperies to let the dawn spill across her. The sight of it startled me, and my eyes went instantly to the bedside table, the culprit of her battery, or so I had been told the previous evening.

  The only problem was, it did not look so much like a wound sustained by whacking oneself upon the corner of a nightstand. With that, one would expect to see some sort of injury: a cut or a dark, swollen angular mark within the dark swelling below her eye. But on Lady Victoria’s face, there was a small, soft bruise on her cheek and an ugly blackness around her eye. It almost looked… as if she had been struck by hand. Having lived in hell for so long, where poverty and domestic battery went hand in hand, I had seen more than my fair share of tearful and bruise-marked mornings after.

  Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “Your brother struck you?”

  “I said get out,” she said simply, flatly, not even bothering to look at me.

  “No.”

  Victoria did not sit up, but her nostrils flared and her eyes sharpened and locked on me quite balefully. “This is my room. I give the orders here.”

  Not without some small pleasure, I said, “The only orders I obey come from the master of Hawkhaven, and not from you.” For the first time since coming here, it was my turn to smile. “Last night was the last time I will ever take chastisement because of you. Now, do you want breakfast in bed or in your chair?”

  Her eyes flashed. “Whore,” she seethed, and I reached for her, deciding for myself that she should break her fast in bed. She slapped at my hands, but I heaved her up far enough to stuff two fluffy pillows behind her back. “You are in league with him!”

  My arms stung from her slaps by the time I could let her go. A better servant would have ignored it, but I wasn’t that forgiving. “After what you did to me last night, I would ally myself with the devil just to spite you.”

  The words were recklessly out of me before I could bite them back. Needing something to occupy me before I said something worse, I began to pick up yesterday’s clothing, much of which was scattered across the floor around her bed.

  The angry heat of her gaze burned into my back, following me around the foot posts of her canopy. “My brother did not beat you long enough.”

  “Not for the lack of your trying,” I said flatly.

  My audacity this morning was beyond even me, but the burning beneath my skirts made it so I didn’t even care. She could tattle on me, I’m sure, but I was more than willing to bet my Lord Hawkhaven would be less inclined to heed to her snide comments after last night. Of course, I could well be wrong about that. The fine hairs along my nape prickled; the tender skin of my bottom crawled. This was no way to start the d
ay; especially when I already knew by experience that Hawkhaven’s arm was tireless.

  I bent down to pick up her discarded stockings and my eyes fell upon a sparkle of something metal beneath the ruffle of her bedspread. I blinked twice and then reached beneath the curtain of fine lace. It was a silver cufflink. Such as one would find on a gentleman’s coat. I straightened slowly, turning it over in my fingers until I saw the inscription carved in very small letters upon the polished back: To A. Love V.

  “Put that down!” my mistress suddenly screeched. “You thief! You snoop! Give it to me!”

  My eyes met Victoria’s over the cufflink. Her face had turned almost ashen, and she pushed herself up on trembling arms, thrusting one hand out to me, palm up.

  “Give it to me right this very instant!” she demanded, her blue eyes fixed upon the silver link.

  I stared at her blackened eye, suddenly more certain than ever that a man’s hand—not a fall into a bedside table—had done that damage. A man had come into Lady Victoria’s bedchambers. He had been here after she had dismissed me, but before Hawkhaven had come to bid his sister goodnight. He had been the reason she was so engrossed by the window last night.

  “Are you deaf?” Victoria hissed, her beautiful face twisting into an ugly sneer. She lowered her voice after a quick glance to the open door of her boudoir. “I said give it over!”

  My fingers closed around the cufflink, fastening that damning silver evidence in my fist.

  “I really will have you whipped this time,” she warned, narrowing her eyes at me cruelly.

  “Like you did last night?” I replied. My bottom tingled and ached as I struggled to consider my options. I could give the cufflink to Hawkhaven, in which case Victoria would make my life here miserable beyond bearing. How many more times would I have to bear the brunt of the master’s temper before I couldn’t bear any more? But then again, what kind of beating would I receive if the Lady Victoria became pregnant in my care? Surely for something like that it would be delivered with the cane. Surely it would be beyond my imagining.