Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 78100 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78100 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“Yes, because they didn’t choose you.”
“You little fool.” He embraced her though he knew it was ill-advised. He could be angry and still gather her against his chest. “You mad little fool.” He clasped her close, resting his chin against her hair. They rocked together with the ship’s motion and he felt her energy fill him, her pure, hopeful virgin’s desire.
“I knew you still loved me,” she whispered against his neck. “I knew it.”
“I adore you, as ever. But you’ve put me in an impossible position. Your father and brother will murder me for this.”
She pulled away, shocked. “Why? It’s not your doing.”
“They won’t believe you could embark on such a caper without my urging. I still can’t imagine how you’ve managed to be here.”
Her face fell. “I made up stories. I lied awfully.”
“Did you leave a note behind? To explain everything?”
“I didn’t dare in case they found it before I was well away. But I knew the groom would confess he took me to the docks. I told him I wanted to join my parents there to wish you goodbye.”
He couldn’t imagine the Lockridges’ chagrin. They must have assumed she’d already eloped with him at sea. These past few weeks, he’d been part of the season’s, no, the decade’s most outrageous scandal and he hadn’t even known it. He and the Duke of Lockridge’s youngest daughter had stolen away to India together. He shook his head at the audacity.
“This black gown. This whole story about traveling as a widow.” He remembered that his father had met his mother while she was dressed in mourning, recently arrived from India. He’d heard the story as a child and now history was circling in on itself. “Your family must be beside themselves. Both our families! Everyone! Rosalind, you’ve done a shocking thing.”
“For us to be together.” She wrung her hands, so delicate and vulnerable even as she tried to appear assured. “I thought you would kiss and hold me, and shout with joy instead of behaving as if the world is ending.”
“Kiss and hold you, the way I couldn’t in England? You’re still a proper lady, Rosalind, and I’m a titled gentleman. Are we to break every rule now because you’ve been naughty enough to run away?”
“Yes, because we love one another.”
“There is a traditional way courtships are meant to proceed.” He scolded because to do what she asked, to hold and kiss her, would lead to her defilement in short order. “You ought to be punished, not rewarded. You deserve to be spanked well and soundly, hard enough that you can’t sit down for a week.”
“What a terrible thing to say,” she protested as he fantasized about walloping her bottom. “Don’t you love me at all?” Her voice rose as high as the color in her cheeks. “Have you only been playing with my heart all this time?”
“I adore you, Rosalind.” He was sure of that. He was also flabbergasted by what she’d done. “I adore you enough to regret the harm you’ve done to your reputation. Even if we marry—”
“If we marry?” Tears spilled onto her cheeks again. “How can it be a question? I thought you wanted a life with me.”
“Rosalind—”
“Or are you the scoundrel everyone warned me you were?” Her eyes widened as she dabbed at her tears. “You’re running to India to get away from me and I’ve followed you like a fool.”
He didn’t know what broke his control. Perhaps speaking of spanking her was too much for his psyche to handle. Perhaps it was the high emotion between them or the accusation that he didn’t truly love her. That he was a scoundrel, a label that hurt ten times worse coming from her soft, sweet lips. Whatever it was, he found himself reaching for her, grasping her tightly and sitting on her bed to toss her over his lap.
“What are you doing? Marlow!”
She struggled but he collected her flailing arms easily, holding both her wrists in one hand. “You have been an incredibly bad girl,” he said, “and I’m going to spank you for it.”
“You can’t spank me. That wouldn’t be proper.”
“You want a life with me, yes? You want me for your husband. Well, I punish bad behavior with spanking. Most husbands do.”
She would be his wife. He wanted her for his wife, despite her questionable way of making it possible. So, he was giving his future wife her first spanking. Part of him wished to pause and savor the moment. The other part of him wanted to get on with it before sanity returned.
He landed the first smack over her black skirts, an opening shot to subdue and settle her. She cried out, kicking her elegant legs. He knew how to handle that. He balanced her over his left thigh and used his other leg to pin her restless ones. He wanted more than anything to throw her skirts and petticoats up and spank her bare bottom, but he understood that would be the end of him. One glimpse of her heart-shaped posterior would slay him. Even now, its contours were enticingly obvious beneath her pinned skirts.