Lydia's Penance, page 20
So far, he hadn’t pulled back from their lovemaking, but sometimes it was an effort. Because he felt he’d opened himself to her there, but she still remained closed off to him here.
Her bottom wriggled and rippled under his hand as he sat there, staring at it.
“Isaac?” His wife’s voice drifted up to his ears, filled with concern and not a little bit of anxiety. After all, he’d had her over his lap for at least two full minutes and so far had not proceeded to the spanking.
Because he didn’t want to. He wanted to indulge in the joys of erotic pain, not visit disciplinary pain upon her every few days. While some of the aftereffects were quite nice, and he enjoyed her reddened cheeks and her passionate reaction when he squeezed them, such an effect could be achieved without the harshness he was forced to use when taking disciplinary measures.
“Lydia... why won’t you tell me? Do you not trust me?” He could hear the revealing pain in his voice, but now that he’d started, it was like a dam had been let loose. He couldn’t stop the words falling from his mouth, an entreaty straight from his heart. “Is spanking you having an adverse effect? Are you afraid I’ll discipline you more harshly if you tell me?”
“What? No! I’m not afraid of you, Isaac, I promise!” She actually sounded a bit distressed by the very idea, and was squirming around on his lap so much now, trying to look at him, that he deemed it prudent to pick her up and sit her on his lap rather than holding her over it.
Her cheeks were flushed pink, her hair already starting to become loose from its pins and small curls framed her face, her grey eyes finding his, filled with emotion. The concern and anxiety reflecting back at him confounded him. Lydia knew what was coming, knew he was going to discipline her, yet all of her concern was focused on him.
Dainty hands pressed against his cheeks, holding his face almost tenderly. “I’m not afraid of you. You’re a good and honorable man.”
Yet he didn’t feel good and honorable. He felt torn. Battered. Worn down. And he wondered, in that moment, if the spankings were having a more detrimental effect on him than they were on her. It certainly seemed that way sometimes.
“Then why won’t you tell me?”
Her mouth opened and closed. Pursed. Guilt welled in her eyes, followed quickly by tears that glimmered but didn’t fall, and her hands dropped away from him.
“I can’t.”
As he opened his mouth to reply, her stress on the second word, suddenly hit him. Every time he’d asked her to tell him why, she didn’t say she wouldn’t, she didn’t say she shouldn’t... she said she couldn’t. Some people might think there was very little difference between those words, but Lydia was very well read, very educated, and very precise in her speech. If she said “can’t,” she meant it.
“Can’t,” he repeated softly, turning the word over in his mouth as if tasting it.
The tears still glimmered in her eyes, her pink lips pinched, as she nodded her head.
He’d become so wrapped up in what she wasn’t saying, he hadn’t been paying attention to what she was. There was a clue in that. In her repeated use of “can’t,” in the guilt he saw weighing her down, in her easy acceptance of punishment.
“You’re.... protecting someone,” he murmured, and something flared in her eyes, flickered across her expression. “Are you protecting yourself?”
There was only the slightest hesitation before she blurted out, “Yes.”
Truth, but not the whole truth, he guessed.
Taking her chin between his fingers, Isaac tilted her head back so her gaze was lifted back up to his from where it had dropped. “Who else are you protecting, my dear?”
Her delicate jaw clenched stubbornly. Lashes fluttered against her cheek. It didn’t take much for Isaac to realize that she wasn’t going to tell him. It didn’t matter. The upcoming house party guest list had been rather revealing. While there had been a few young ladies she’d added as friends to the list, she’d had to think to come up with their names.
The only person she’d shown any true, deep emotion for was her younger sister, Amy. Isaac understood the impulse of an elder sibling to protect the younger, especially as their mother had passed away. Elder siblings could, and would, do anything necessary.
The only question was, how did Lydia’s presence in his household protect her sister? How it protected her was a bit more obvious; whatever fears she had for herself, they were ameliorated by her position as a duchess and her presence in a household where whatever she feared was absent. But as to protecting her sister... it didn’t make sense.
“Isaac?” Lydia’s voice was almost shy, hesitant. He blinked and focused on her again, realizing that he’d become so lost in his own thoughts he’d almost forgotten she was there. Waiting.
Whatever determination he’d gathered dissipated. He couldn’t do this anymore. It went against every grain in his body, in his heart. He didn’t know how else to press a confession from her, but he couldn’t continue to punish her now that he’d realized her motivations, which had nothing to do with him. It also went against his grain to admit there were situations over which he had no control, but in this case, it was certainly true. Whatever she was afraid of, whatever she needed protection from, she obviously thought she had found it here with him, and she also thought that she couldn’t protect her sister if she confided in him.
Perhaps in a day or two he could build up the proper amount of sternness or betrayed feeling to spank her again, but today... he couldn’t.
“Go,” he said with a sigh.
“What?”
“Go.” He stood, lifting her from his lap and standing her on her feet as he did so. “I have work to do.”
“I don’t understand.”
Taking her by the arm, he guided her towards the door of his study. His chest felt too tight for his heart, for the breath he was drawing in. He needed time alone to think and to decide what he was going to do next.
“I’m not going to punish you today, and since I’m not going to punish you, I have work to do.” Practically pushing her outside of the door, Isaac dropped a kiss to her forehead. He could see she was slightly distressed, but she couldn’t be any more distressed than he was. “I’ll see you at dinner, my dear.”
Closing the door, he slumped back against it.
What now?
An elder sister protecting both herself and her younger sister wasn’t going to reveal her secrets for a spanking, no matter how harsh. Which made him feel all the more an ogre for having put her through it in the first place. Why hadn’t he noticed earlier that she always responded with “can’t”? Or, rather, he had, but it had taken uncommonly long for him to realize the implications. Then again, when he’d first married her, he hadn’t known her well enough to realize exactly how deliberate she was whenever she spoke, he hadn’t known her well enough to know she always spoke exactly.
Feeling defeated - not an emotion he was accustomed to nor did he enjoy the experience - Isaac wandered over to the window and stared blankly out on the sunny afternoon sky above his estate. He almost wished he’d married one of the ninnyhammers. He might have been bored out of his skull, but he wouldn’t have felt like this.
For one wild moment, Lydia considered pounding on the door and demanding her spanking from her husband.
But what kind of person would do that?
She stared at the thick, wooden door, completely at a loss, feeling strangely bereft. What did that make her, that she was actually disappointed her husband hadn’t spanked her? The unsettled feeling in her stomach didn’t dissipate. The anxiety which had followed her into the room had also followed her out of it. There had been no relief, no reconnection, no apology on her knees...
Slowly, she turned away from the door and walked away, excepting that at any moment it would open again and Isaac would call her back.
He didn’t.
She turned the corner.
Walking down the hall, she could actually feel her bottom tingling. Her body knew she should have been punished. But he didn’t. Why not?
And the look on his face when he’d led her out the door... she’d thought he’d become cold between the day of their wedding and the arrival of his siblings, but this was something different. She’d never seen him look quite so blank in expression. Never seen his shoulders slump like that.
Resignation. That’s what it was. He’d finally resigned himself to the fact she wasn’t going to answer him.
Which was a good thing... wasn’t it?
Then why didn’t she feel better?
If anything, she felt worse than when Rigby had found her and told her Isaac would like her to come meet him in his study. Since she was only ever called to his study for one reason, she’d known immediately that the presence of his siblings wasn’t going to stop his questions or the spankings. She’d gone to the study reluctantly, but resigned, knowing what was coming. When he’d asked, she’d given him her answer, and then obediently gone over his lap.
She hadn’t realized his own turmoil until he’d sat her back up. Seeing the agony in his expression, the reluctance to punish her, had hurt her far more than his hand could. Being sent away, without the relief of performing her penance, had left her feeling far worse than any of the spankings had. Her bottom might feel relief, but she did not.
There was a knot in her stomach, making her feel rather sick, and tension in her shoulders that was tightening her back and stirring a headache.
“Your Grace?” Mrs. Huffington came bustling down the hall, a smile on her broad face. Seeing her was a slight relief, as Lydia knew the housekeeper would provide distraction. “Arabella was hoping to finalize the guest list so the invitations could go out today.”
“Yes, of course,” Lydia said. The knot in her stomach seemed to tighten further. The house party, with her sister and stepfather in tow, and her husband trying to discover her secrets, not to mention the ball introducing her to the neighborhood. What could possibly go wrong?
Only two bright notes stood out in the day. When Lydia mentioned Mr. Joseph Tilding and her sister’s note to Arabella, Arabella had brightened and revealed her family was quite familiar with the Duke of Kent, including his various cousins. As they were near in age, Benedict and Joseph were friends; not good enough friends that he would normally merit an invitation to a more private party like this, but as the connection to Amy was there as well... apparently excited by the idea of matchmaking, Arabella had insisted on adding him to the list. The second bright spot was her insistence on taking a trip to the nearby town of Westbury, only two hours away, and spending the day shopping for necessities and Amy’s birthday presents. Lydia was relieved at any excuse to leave the house tomorrow and immerse herself in some distraction.
She braved Isaac’s study again, to ask for pin money, which he agreed he would have ready for her on the morrow, before gruffly dismissing her again. If it hadn’t been for Arabella, she might have spent the rest of the day quite despondent, but her sister-in-law was determined to throw the best house party and ball possible, which meant they spent the afternoon combing through the attics looking for any kind of decorations which might be useful or especially apt.
“I was also thinking we should go hunting at some point... perhaps for fairies or leprechauns?”
Jerked out of his reverie by his brother’s nonsensical question, Isaac swiveled his head around to stare at Benedict. His brother stared back at him, the corner of his mouth twitching with amusement.
“Woolgathering, was I?” Isaac asked, his voice deceptively mild.
“For at least the third time this afternoon. I feel as though we’re looking out the same window but seeing remarkably different views,” Benedict said, tilting his head as he leaned towards the window, looking out over the estate and - as it happened - the road leading into the house. “Or perhaps you’re seeing what’s not there... such as the two ladies of the house?”
Lydia and Arabella had left after breakfast that morning, much to Isaac’s consternation. Part of him had wanted to go with them... but he’d claimed the need to work and stayed behind. It was the first time he and Lydia had been separated since the wedding, and he thought it should feel a relief, but instead he felt almost itchy knowing she was absent from the house. Knowing he couldn’t just walk out and find her, watch her, check on her... He didn’t like it.
Especially when he was uncertain as to her state of mind. Last night he’d walked her to her bedroom, and had been seriously considering going straight to his own rather than opening himself to intimacy with her again, but she’d practically dragged him in with her. For the first time, she’d been the aggressor in their sexual relationship; in fact, she’d been almost desperate for his touch. If he hadn’t physically pulled her mouth from his cock, she would have sucked him dry before he’d managed to bury himself inside of her.
The deeper intimacy from the past few nights had been missing, but it wasn’t as far a step back as it could have been. Some of the intimacy lingered. The tenderness he felt towards her certainly did.
“You know, I was a bit worried when she trapped you,” Benedict said, still looking out the window. “But I did think you needed shaking up, and I decided any young lady with the gumption to drug you would probably be a better match for you than the fainting milk-and-water misses you were perusing. And, once I actually spoke with her, I felt her actions were quite a bit out of character. Besides which, it was already too late to change anything, so we all felt we might as well support you and help make the best of the situation. But it does seem to have turned out rather better than any of us expected.”
Raising his eyebrow, Isaac turned his head and caught his brother’s eye, silently asking him to elucidate. He found himself curious what his and Lydia’s relationship looked like from the outside. It was also nice to know his friends and family hadn’t completely turned against him and had accepted Lydia as a way to make his own life easier. Well, except Arabella. Isaac was quite sure her reasons had more to do with what she wanted than anything else, although he was honestly relieved she’d accepted Lydia – his little sister could easily make life unbearable for all of them if she wanted to.
Benedict grinned. “Well, she’s rather perfect for you, isn’t she? She’s got a bit to learn about the household and throwing soirees, but Huffy and Arabella have that well in hand and she’s certainly a quick learner. Her manners are faultless, and she’s even had a calming effect on Arabella. Sure, Arabella still goes riding astride every morning, and can be rudely blunt with us, but she’s much more ladylike when she’s interacting with Lydia, and I rather think that’s due to Lydia’s encouragement. And even though she obviously adores you, she’s not a pushover about anything. Just look at the way she set you down at breakfast.”
At breakfast, Isaac had begun lecturing Arabella on appropriate purchases - his usual spiel when his sister went shopping - but Lydia had interrupted and calmly, politely, and firmly backed his sister up. Apparently, as her first Season was now behind her, Arabella would be allowed - even expected - by Society to wear slightly darker colors (still light, but not necessary pastel) and, as a more mature debutante, her necklines could be lowered. Isaac had glowered and protested, and Lydia had pointed out that - unless he wanted the matrons and gentlemen to think Arabella was immature and out of touch with fashion (neither of which would stand her in good stead with Society) - she should at least have some dresses which marked her as a more established deb. Especially as the pastel colors weren’t as flattering on her coloring as more vibrant tones would be.
While he didn’t like the idea of lowered necklines or brighter colors on his sister - although both ladies assured him that she would still have to wear light colors - he had to give way to Lydia’s coolly logical arguments. After all, if he did hear anyone denigrating Arabella - or Lydia for not steering her sister-in-law correctly in the matter of dress - he’d be quite a bit more vexed at that person than he was at the idea of Arabella showing more décolletage. It had better be only a bit more, though.
Something Benedict said suddenly pushed its way to the fore of his conscience.
“Lydia adores me?”
The look his brother shot him was almost disbelieving. “Well... yes. She reminds me of a puppy dog, actually.” Benedict’s gaze unfocused for a moment, looking inward. “Perhaps I’ll get her a puppy for Christmas. I bet she’d like one.”
“You’d have to get Arabella one as well,” Isaac muttered, although his mind was more focused on what Benedict’s comments.
Lydia adored him? The imagery of a puppy dog made him think of being followed around by big, adoring brown eyes. He couldn’t quite see it. Lydia reminded him more of a kitten. Sometimes affectionate, sometimes secretive, and he did know how to make her purr...
“And that smile right there is why I also think she’s good for you,” Benedict said smugly. “I’ve never seen you smile like that before.”
Wiping the expression from his face, Isaac coughed. “Let’s get back to work,” he said gruffly. Benedict laughed, but complied as they refocused their attention away from the window and each other and back on the papers in front of them.
Well, at least as much attention as Isaac could muster.
He knew his emotions for Lydia had certainly been engaged, but considering the state of affairs between them, he didn’t particularly relish anyone else knowing. Not even his brother. On the other hand, his brother was likely the only one who knew him well enough to notice.
Hearing from an outside observer that Lydia adored him... well, he supposed Benedict was a somewhat biased outside observer. Of course he would want to think Isaac’s wife would be adoring of her husband. On the other hand, might Benedict be seeing something Isaac wasn’t? He wasn’t exactly unbiased either, as he had trouble reconciling the idea of an adoring wife with a wife who kept secrets from her husband. When it came to Lydia’s adoration, he wasn’t exactly unbiased either, as he certainly wished Benedict’s supposition was correct.
