Chapter 5

 

“Alex!”

He had barely stepped inside his own front door before his ward launched herself into his arms, knocking the air from his lungs at the same time as her slender arms clung about his neck.

“I was so frightened!” Amanda trembled against him. “So very frightened.” She buried her face in the side of his neck.

Alex scowled at the assault at the same time as he felt his body responding to the warmth of those lush curves molded so intimately against his own. Accompanied by the soft brush of her loose and flowing auburn hair across his hands where his arms had moved instinctively in support about her waist.

He had done exactly as he intended with the evening: ended things with Maria, dined at his club, and then proceeded to Club Venus. He had perhaps spent a little longer than planned at the most notorious gentleman’s club in London, but that had been because he had fallen into conversation—and sharing a decanter of brandy—with the owner and personal friend of his, Gabriel Templeton, the Duke of Blackborne.

As a consequence, Alex had been feeling mellow and perhaps a little self-righteous as he entered the house, only to be greeted and almost knocked off his feet by his young ward rather than the footman he had instructed to wait up for him. The fact Amanda was wearing only a white silk robe over her equally thin night attire was not helping Alex to maintain control over his rapidly engorging cock.

He reached up to pull Amanda’s arms from about his neck before placing her firmly back on her bare feet on the marble floor of entrance hall. His fingers about her wrists held her at bay as she would have continued to cling to him. “What are you frightened of? Did you have a nightmare?”

She shook her head, her auburn hair a silky curtain about her slender shoulders. “Someone was in the house!”

“Who?”

“I do not know.”

“Where’s Fredericks?”

“I sent him to bed hours ago.”

His eyes narrowed. “You sent him to bed?”

“Yes,” she dismissed distractedly. “Are you not concerned as to the intruder?”

“You have dismissed my footman, against my instructions. You are running about the house in bare feet and wearing only your nightclothes. You launched yourself at me the moment I entered the house, pressing that scantily clad body against mine in a suggestive manner. So no,” Alex stated firmly, “I have absolutely no interest in what story you have concocted to explain such scandalous behavior.”

“But—”

“Go to bed!” Alex thundered.

“But—”

“Go to bed, Amanda,” he repeated through gritted teeth. “Or this time, you will find yourself over my knee for a spanking on your bared bottom.”

Amanda stared at Alex in disbelief. She had waited in a turmoil of trepidation for Alex’s return, terrified whoever had entered the house earlier might return. Now, instead of comforting her and reassuring her, as she might have expected he would, Alex was accusing her of lying and threatening to spank her for it.

Her shoulders straightened. She might have gotten herself into trouble often at Miss Marchment’s school, but never for lying. “Someone was in the house earlier.”

His mouth twisted. “There are many people in this house, Amanda. The footmen. The maids. Cook.”

She shook her head. “This was someone else, I am sure of it. They knocked over and broke a vase outside my bedchamber before running away.”

“They broke a vase outside your bedchamber?”

Amanda frowned at the mildness of his tone. “I just said so.”

Alex breathed out deeply down his nose. All of this—Amanda throwing herself at him in that indecorous way the moment he came home, her lack of clothing and her hair loose down her spine, the story of someone having intruded into the house—was it all because Amanda had broken a vase outside her bedchamber and her only fear was in owning up to it?

Was he such an ogre, then?

Whether he was or was not, he could not allow Amanda’s behavior to go unchecked. “You will come to my study at twelve thirty tomorrow.”

She blinked. “Why?”

Alex breathed in just as deeply as he had breathed out. “You will not question me as to why, but simply do as you are told.”

“That does not seem particularly fair—”

“Let us see tomorrow how fair you think my behavior is when your bare arse is burning after another thorough spanking!”

Her eyes widened. “You are going to spank me for telling you the truth?”

He nodded. “Because I do not believe it to be the truth. And this time, I will not spare you from feeling the full measure of those blows either,” he added grimly.

The last time Alex spanked her, it had not been the full measure?

Amanda swallowed. “You are making a mistake.”

“No, you made a mistake when you decided to lie to me.”

“I did not lie!”

“Just go, Amanda,” he told her wearily. “Before one or both of us says something we will almost certainly regret.”

Her hands were clenched at her sides. “The only thing I regret is believing you trusted me.”

“I do trust you—”

“Not to tell the truth, obviously.”

 

“As I said last night, I do not like liars, Amanda.” Alex gazed at her sternly the following day as she sat on the seat in front of the desk in his study.

Alex had spent most of the morning dealing with the matter of acquiring a butler, a middle-aged man whose previous employer had recently died. As a consequence, the man was free to move in later today and begin his duties immediately; Alex did not wish for a repeat of last night’s debacle.

Any more than he had any real wish to have to chastise Amanda for having lied to him. But he remembered from his own childhood that there had to be lines drawn, ones that should not be stepped over or suffer the consequences. His father had taken delight in administering the strap to both Alex and Adam many times when they were growing up.

At least Alex was not proposing to do that to Amanda.

Although she was certain not to like the two choices of punishment he was about to give her.

“But—”

“You will find yourself in far less trouble if you own up to breaking the vase,” Alex warned, “than if you continue to lie about it by trying to blame it on some ghostly apparition having knocked it over before promptly disappearing. Yes, the vase you broke was worth a lot of money, but I cannot say I particularly cared for it,” he dismissed. “I believe it belonged to my paternal grandfather at one time.”

This was the thanks Amanda got for waiting up for him last night—until he stumbled in at almost one o’clock in the morning rather than midnight, smelling strongly of brandy, she might add—to be accused of breaking the vase herself and then trying to cover up the crime by making up a story about an intruder.

“There was nothing ghostly about whoever knocked over the vase,” she maintained firmly.

Alex shook his head. “Are you so desperate for my attention, you would go to such lengths to get it?”

“I— What do you mean, am I so desperate for your attention?” Amanda demanded indignantly. She had believed she had managed to keep her increasing attraction to Alex to herself these past five days.

He sighed heavily. “It was obvious to me by the way in which you arrived here and the behavior which followed that you will do whatever you feel is necessary to garner attention.”

“I disagree.” She frowned. “Nor do I see how that equates with my demanding your attention specifically?”

He gave a pitying shake of his head. “There is only you and me here. Who else’s attention could it be?”

Her cheeks burned with humiliation. “I— You— That is utterly ridiculous!”

“It is unacceptable but understandable,” Alex soothed. “You have been alone for a long time. These past three years because of my lack of a presence as your guardian, I admit. Although your father must also have been absent for long periods of time before his death?”

“He was in the army, so of course, he was away a lot.”

He nodded. “My own neglect was less acceptable. My only excuse, and it is not really a valid one,” he acknowledged with a grimace, “was I had absolutely no idea how to be the guardian of a fifteen-year-old girl. But that is about to change,” he added in a hard voice.

“In what way?” Amanda prompted guardedly.

“In the way that I intend to take my duties as your guardian much more seriously in future.” He leaned against the side of his desk. “That being so, I have had time to give more thought to this situation since last night, and it now seems to me that you have two choices of punishment rather than one.”

She gave a pained frown. “I do not see why I need to be punished when all I did was alert you to the fact that someone entered the house while you were out last night.”

“Someone who conveniently broke the vase outside your bedchamber,” he mocked. “As I was saying,” he sobered, “you have two choices in your punishment for having lied to me. Firstly, you can choose not to attend the Stamford ball tonight.”

“How can you be so cruel as to even suggest that?” she choked, her feeling of disappointment immense. “I have had a gown made especially for the occasion. The Prince Regent is expecting to meet me there.” Amanda had been looking forward to this evening.

Alex shrugged. “He will understand when I tell him the reason you were unable to attend after all.”

“I do not understand!” It was totally unfair when all Amanda had done was tell Alex the truth—

“Or you can do as I suggested last night,” Alex continued, “and once again bend over my desk while I spank your arse for the second time in a week.”

Amanda stilled. Whatever Alex did or did not believe, there had been someone in the house last night, and that someone was also responsible for breaking the vase outside her bedchamber, not her.

But the thought of having Alex spank her again now took precedence over everything else. Even her indignation at being unjustly accused of lying.

Amanda’s whole body had been tingling with anticipation of that spanking by the time she returned to her bedchamber the previous night—or, as it had actually been, the early hours of this morning.

She had briefly considered dealing with that arousal herself, as she had last time, but her other emotions were in too much turmoil for her to be able to relax and enjoy that pleasure.

But that tingling of awareness had now returned to her breasts and between her thighs, a sensual ache that this time demanded satisfaction. “My bare arse,” she reminded as she looked at Alex from beneath lowered lashes.

Why did Alex always have the feeling that it was his ward who controlled these conversations and situations rather than himself?

Possibly because it was!

He had been more than a little worse for wear from brandy consumption the night before when he made that threat to her. Eyeing the elegantly but alluringly clad ladies parading about the public salons at Club Venus had stirred his passions. He would never have made such an inappropriate suggestion to his ward if he had not already been affected by those things.

But to back down now would be to completely nullify his assertion that he intended to pay more attention to his role as Amanda’s guardian in future. He knew that if he said he was going to do something, then he had to do it or lose all authority over her.

That being so, if he had threatened to spank Amanda bare-arsed, and if she chose that punishment—and it looked as if she was leaning in that direction rather than missing out on this evening’s ball—then that was what he would have to do.

“Well, which is it to be?” he challenged.

Amanda made no reply as she rose to her feet before lifting her skirts and unfastening and pulling her drawers down to just above her knees, then draping herself across the polished top of Alex’s desk.

From where Alex stood beside the desk, he could clearly see the bare globes of Amanda’s arse. Round and fleshy orbs, and utterly tempting.

“This is your choice?” he rasped.

“Yes.”

A woman’s musk now permeated the room, along with the smell of fresh-cut flowers. Amanda’s unique perfume. It invaded Alex’s senses, making him feel lightheaded as the blood drained rapidly from his brain and stormed into his now rigidly hard cock. A pulsing throb that demanded attention.

Alex had never needed to exercise restraint when it came to women. Married or otherwise, most, if not all, had always fallen at his feet, ready to worship his cock if he showed the slightest interest in them.

But this was his ward, damn it. The young woman for whom he was responsible. The one woman he should not, could not, allow himself to desire.

Easier said than done when Amanda was bent over his desk with her bare arse in the air presented for his chastisement!

Perhaps just this once, he could relent in punishing her without it seeming like weakness. Because if he put his hands on that warm flesh, he was going to—

“Well?” She turned to look at him.

Alex’s mouth tightened at the defiant challenge in her tone. “I have changed my mind.”

“You have?” she taunted.

He nodded abruptly. “Instead of bending over the desk, you will place yourself across my thighs. That way, I will have better leverage and placement of those smacks.” He moved to lock the study door before sitting in the chair she had recently vacated, at which point, he had an even clearer view of the cheeks of her bottom and the forbidden hole hidden in the darker cleft between them. “Now,” he barked when she stayed exactly where she was.

Amanda slowly straightened. Surely Alex could not be serious about this? She had truly believed if she were to challenge him that he would relent in regard to the spanking. It seemed Alex was a man of his word.

“Leave them where they are,” he instructed as she would have pulled up her drawers. “Those too,” he rasped before the skirts of her gown could fall about her knees. “Walk over here to me exactly as you are.”

Her cheeks burned as she turned to face him and saw he was sprawled in the chair fully dressed, legs splayed slightly apart. Amanda quickly looked away so as not to be caught staring at the fullness of his balls and the bulge of his cock pressing against his pantaloons.

He felt no such qualms himself as he openly watched her efforts to stumble across the room to where he sat.

“I cannot walk like this,” she protested when her drawers gathered above her knees allowed her to take only little steps, all while her newly shaved mound was completely bared to Alex’s hooded gaze.

Amanda had spoken to an initially embarrassed Emma about the practice, and it seemed that, in what was the French fashion, most young women of Society, married or otherwise, now preferred to remove their pubic hair. Amanda could now understand why; she found it extremely sensual to feel her bare mound brushing against her drawers as she walked. The drawers which were now down about her knees as she stumbled toward Alex.

“This was your choice,” he reminded her without sympathy.

Yes, it had been, but by asking her to place herself across his thighs, Alex was making it far more intimate than on the previous occasion he had spanked her.

She would be able to feel the muscled heat of his thighs beneath her abdomen.

To hear as he breathed in and out.

Know every intimate touch of his hands, the heat of one through the material of the back of her gown as he held her in place, the bareness of skin against skin as his other hand struck blow after blow against her bare bottom cheeks.

Recalling her response the last time Alex spanked her, he would be able to smell the evidence of her arousal as between her thighs first became damp and then damper still. Perhaps even feel that release soaking into his pantaloons as her pussy became wetter and wetter with the landing of each blow.

Her humiliation would be complete.

Which was, perhaps, his intention.