The Scot Corsair Page 12

  "No!" she cried, desperately renewing her struggles to escape. "Stop! No more!"

  "No more? We have only just begun." And he brought his hand down again, this time upon the already-smarting top of her left buttock.

  She shrieked out loud. "It hurts! Oh! It hurts too much! Please stop—please—"

  Her pleading was cut short as he landed several rapid swingeing slaps on the underside of her bottom, making her wail and sob incoherently. She thrashed her legs against the iron grip of his, she bucked her body uselessly, she tried to wrestle free her arms. Still he held her firm, and still his hand came down over and over quite relentlessly on a backside that now felt as though it were on fire. She clenched her bottom together, trying to deflect the worst of the blows, and he struck her several times across the back of the thighs.

  When she could manage to gasp out words she found herself begging again for him to stop. "Oh! Oh sir, I will never—never—do it again—"

  "By God, your ladyship, hold still," he said eventually, sounding a little out of breath but not even pausing in raining down the slaps, "or I swear I'll take my belt to you instead."

  "I cannot—oh!—it hurts too much—ohhh!"

  "It's meant to hurt. Hold still, I say!"

  She burst into tears and went limp, suddenly giving up all fight, and sobbed into the velvet of the chaise longue as he delivered four more excruciating cracks to the tender underside of her bottom. Then she became aware that he had loosened his hold, and that the blows had stopped.

  She lay still for a moment, hardly able to believe it. Her backside and all the way down the back of her thighs were burning and stinging, and still uncovered to his view. She realised too how intimately she was lying across him, and she stirred.

  "Not yet," he said, sternly. "We have not quite finished yet."

  "Oh, sir, please..."

  "Stand up, Lady Elspeth."

  Gratefully, she let him help her to her feet. Her skirts fell back over her aching bottom and legs, and without thinking about the impropriety of the motion, her hands went instinctively behind her to rub and hold the throbbing area.

  "That," he said, "was a great big fuss to make over a wee skelping. My old nurse would have given me worse than that when I was a wee bit lad, for stealing a cake from the kitchens. What you need is a taste of a real punishment, so you'll know what's coming if you disobey me or misbehave again."

  Her heart started racing anew. "I won't, I won't, I promise. I've learned my lesson, I swear I have."

  "Aye, well, maybe. But you've still got to pay for lying to me, and disobeying my orders not to fraternise with the men, and for that delightful little display of temper here in my cabin tonight. And I think, your ladyship, that you need to learn the rudiments of humility. You can start by submitting to a well-deserved chastisement with a good grace."

  She found that by moving from foot to foot and rubbing her bottom, she could assuage the sting somewhat. It had begun to subside to a hot ache. Now her stomach twisted in apprehension as he went to a clothes horse next to his bed, where his more usual garments were folded neatly. While tonight he was wearing breeches, he usually wore a pair of plain trousers fastened at the waist with a wide leather belt. It was this, now fearsome object that he removed from its loops, and doubled over with the buckle tucked in his hand.

  She saw in horror that it was thick, flexible leather, embossed with a plaid pattern. It made a snapping sound in his hands.

  "Lean over the chaise longue," he said, indicating it with the belt. "Come on, now."

  Desperately clutching at her bottom, Elspeth said, "But I am already very sorry, I will never misbehave again—you cannot hit me with that, I am so sore—"

  "Wheest. I'm going to give you one lash for each offence, and the promise of a good long hiding with this belt if you do anything like it again. Now show me you truly are sorry by submitting to your punishment like a good girl."

  She fell to her knees by the chaise longue, and he pressed his hand into her back to hold her down. Then, once more, she felt her skirts being lifted clear of her still-smarting bottom.

  She felt the shame of exposure anew, and the dread of knowing that he was really going to strike her bare, already tender bottom with that fearsome leather belt.

  "For lying," he said, briefly, and there was a swish of leather whistling through the air followed by a white-hot streak of pain across both her nether cheeks.

  As before, the first blow shocked her silent.

  "For disobedience."

  The second lash fell diagonally to the first, and it was agonising. This time she screamed, and tried to rise, but he pushed her firmly back onto the chaise longue.

  "And for temper."

  She opened her mouth to beg to be spared another lash, but then squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists instead. If she was really sorry, she realised suddenly, she ought to take it without protest. The belt landed low across her bottom, almost on her thighs, and the lash bit more painfully than either before it. She thought he had swung it harder. It drew an involuntary moan from her, but she tried not to cry out loudly.

  He put a gentle hand on her arm and drew her to her feet.

  "There," he said, kindly, and he put a hand to her face and wiped away a tear. "Soon over, but I hope, not soon forgotten. It's a pity nobody took the care to do that for you a long time ago."

  She hung her head and would not look at him. Underneath her skirts, the three lashes of the belt he still held in his hand throbbed insistently on top of the subsiding sting all over the rest of her nether regions. She had never felt more uncomfortable in her life, and yet...

  And yet she felt a strange peace within, a feeling of warmth and acceptance. Tentatively, she lifted her eyes to his face and saw that he was looking at her with an expression that was intense but unreadable. He had not taken his hand from her cheek, and now he touched the hair that was cascading freely over her shoulders.

  She did not dare move. She wanted very much for him to take that one step towards her, and kiss her; but if she offered any encouragement for him to do so, perhaps he would take it amiss. He had just given her a sore bottom for wanton behaviour, after all.

  Instead, he dropped his hand and said, "I'll expect your better behaviour from now on, your ladyship."

  "Y-yes, sir."

  "Come on, then. I'll escort you back to your cabin, and I suggest you get a good night's sleep. We should make port at La Guiara tomorrow."

  Chapter Ten

  La Guaira was a higgledy-piggledy scattering of little pale houses climbing up steep wooded hills from the shore, and a harbour; a great stone sweep of harbour wall, enclosing the bright azure water. Elspeth ran onto deck to watch the approach, her heart thumping with fright. She was sure that they would be attacked, and all arrested for being a pirate vessel. But as the Chieftain of the Seas sailed into the mouth of the bay, with the Heron steering along behind it, she saw that there were so many ships at anchor there—a forest of masts and sails—and so many different kinds of people, of all costumes and complexions, that they were unlikely to attract any special notice. Indeed, they seemed positively sober and respectable, alongside the ship nearest to their eventual mooring point; a great round-bellied monster of a vessel with a bright red hull, black sails and the face of a roaring dragon or sea-monster painted in white around its bow. A solitary crewman was on deck, almost naked from the waist upwards, his teak-coloured skin gleaming in the sun. He was watching the Chieftain manoeuvre into its mooring, and Elspeth found herself catching the man's dark, flat eye. Only one eye indeed, for the other seemed to have disappeared under a long, jagged scar.

  "Lady Elspeth."

  She started at the Captain's voice, and at the hand he had placed on her arm. She did not immediately protest as he steered her away from the railing and down towards her cabin.

  "I don't want you to be seen on deck," he said. "You must stay below while we're in port."

  "Stay below? But—am I not to go a
shore?"

  "Go ashore?" The corner of his mouth twitched. "Your ladyship—do you not thoroughly understand the meaning of the word prisoner?"

  She stared at him, feeling stupid and a little hurt. She had genuinely forgotten that she was, in strictest truth, being held captive. She had, even in this short time, come to see Captain Scot as her protector. "Oh, but I promise I would not run away. Where could I run to? I want to feel ground beneath my feet and—and touch a tree," she finished, helplessly.

  "I'm sure you would not intend to run anywhere, Lady Elspeth, but the fact is—La Guiara is no place for a young lady of gentle breeding. And I do not want it to become known that we have a beautiful Scottish noblewoman on board."

  His describing her as beautiful gave her a flutter at her heart, but she pouted anyway.

  "I will bring you," he said, "a selection of delicious fresh delicacies, and we shall dine tonight in my cabin on the finest fare Venezuela has to offer. But I cannot risk you becoming prey to less gentlemanly fortune-hunters here. You will stay here in your cabin until I come to fetch you."

  "Very well. Send Birnie to me."

  He raised his eyebrows. "Don't take that peremptory tone with me, your ladyship. I am not, as you may have noticed, the footman. Birnie is engaged elsewhere."

  "Engaged elsewhere? She is my maid!"

  He sighed.

  "Where is she?" Elspeth demanded suspiciously.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. "She is going ashore with Washington."

  "Oh, it is not fair!" she cried, provoked beyond endurance to an outburst of undignified petulance.

  "It would not be my choice. I don't think it's a good idea, but there is nothing I can do to prevent it."

  "Will she be safe?"

  "With Washington as her protector? Nobody will lay a finger on her. I still don't think the bars of La Guiara are any place to take a respectable girl."

  Elspeth bit back the retort that Birnie was no longer, if she ever had been, respectable. It was spiteful, and unworthy of her.

  "Believe me, your ladyship, you are missing out on nothing that you would enjoy. And it won't be long before you are ashore at Bridgetown, and free."

  "No I won't be," she said sulkily. "Never that again."

  She had felt, for a while after he had punished her, all the turbulence of her heart and mind quietened. It was an extraordinary thing. She had lain alone in her cabin afterwards—Birnie absent yet again, God knew where—sobbing in humiliation and rubbing at her still-tender backside to quell the sting; yet the feeling of being chastened, of being firmly corrected and then forgiven, was actually a pleasant one. She was comforted, she felt cared for. She would not have it happen again for any consideration, but now that it was over, she felt that the pain of his hand striking her bare nether cheeks had burned away her disgust and self-recrimination at her foolish behaviour with the man Stirling. She shuddered to think that she would actually have allowed him to take her maidenhead, when he was not -

  When he was not the man she wanted to do that. She knew with absolutely certainty then, what she had already begun to suspect of herself. She sighed and stretched on her back, allowing herself to feel the heat and irritation in her bottom. If she had to marry Mr Crowther, if there was no escaping that fate, then she wanted the pirate Captain to deflower her first.

  But it seemed that Captain Scot had no intention of obliging her. Elspeth determined to be very good, partly because she had believed his promise that he would take his belt to her if she misbehaved again, and that one small taste of it had been quite enough to make her sure that she would do anything to avoid such a punishment; but also, because she wanted to please him. She sat meekly in her cabin while the crew and Birnie went ashore in row boats—she could see some of the comings and goings through the porthole—and leafed through Stirling's eclectic collection of books.

  She had assiduously avoided the First Mate since the incident, and she wondered if he and the other men knew that the Captain had chastised her. Sounds travelled easily between the wooden walls of the ship, and it seemed likely that half the crew had heard her screams and cries.

  It was yet another reason why she was not wholly averse to hiding herself away, and she resolved that if it were ever to happen again, she would take her punishment in silence.

  Not that she was going to give the Captain any reason to repeat the lesson. She did not even glance sideways at any of the other men, but directed her sweetest smiles that evening at the Captain himself when, as he had promised, he served her a strange but delicious meal of baked fish and delightfully fresh vegetables, sweet milky flan and odd little wrinkled fruits which opened to reveal bright, fragrant, pulpy seeds.

  "They're called passion fruits," he said seriously.

  "Oh... truly?" She blushed, then laughed, and took what she hoped was the opportunity to catch his glance coquettishly.

  But he was concentrating on scooping out the pulpy innards of the fruit with a silver teaspoon, and seemed to be not looking at her quite deliberately.

  After they had finished the last of the fruits he escorted her back to her cabin and planted one very proper, very chaste kiss to the tips of her fingers before bowing and saying goodnight. He did not even squeeze her hand. She was left to lie alone in the deepening gloom, wondering why she could not make her powers of feminine allure work on this one man. He had seen her half-naked, he had put his hand upon her bare behind, and yet he seemed not to desire her. Had she imagined him touching her hair, after he had punished her?

  She fell asleep eventually, but she was woken up some time later by the thumps and bangs and loud rough singing of the men returning to the ship after a night drinking in the bars ashore. Then she heard Birnie's voice, loud and happy, and the deep rumble of the Quartermaster, passing her own door. Before too long, the scuffles and groans and moans started again.

  She pulled the bolster over her head and wrapped it around her ears.

  Lady Elspeth Dunwoodie was one treasure that could not be secured in a chest or buried on a remote island. True, Roderick had entertained passing thoughts about both such methods of protecting their bounty until they could turn it into honest gold, but when it came to it, he retained too many chivalrous impulses to do anything other than abandon his men to the dubious delights of La Guiara and go back to the ship to make sure she did not spend the evening alone. He was almost certain that she would not attempt to escape, but he thought that she ought not to be left unsupervised.

  He only wished—fervently—that she were not so beautiful.

  He told himself that she was half his age, that she was a spoiled little madam, that she was a would-be strumpet and that she was engaged to be married whether she liked it or not. He did not even have to add, that she was the daughter of a peer of the realm and he was a hardened buccaneer, steeped in years of villainy, whatever he might be by birth. In every respect, she was unsuited to him; there was every kind of reason why he could not have her.

  And yet, no such woman had come his way for more years than he could count. In truth, no such woman had ever come his way, none as fresh and lovely and full of fire as Lady Elspeth. He knew that he was in danger of being drawn to her simply because she was the first woman of his own class he had come into contact with for close to twenty years, but he thought that even if he had met her in the course of his former life, she would have shone out brilliantly against the common crowd of indistinguishable young ladies in an assembly room. His younger self then might have lost his head entirely over her, resolved against marriage though he had always been.

  It was depressing to consider that she had been—as she herself had pointed out—a mere babe in arms at that time.

  He was not sorry to have taken her in hand. If anyone deserved a well-skelped behind, it was young Lady Elspeth, and clearly it had been long overdue. But he knew that he had not punished her entirely for the sake of her own safety, he had been aware even as she lay squirming and so delightfully bare across his knees
that he was jealous and disappointed. He had landed some particularly hard slaps on that lovely pink-white bottom from anger and hurt, rather than cool castigation.

  Yet afterwards, she had looked so very contrite and ashamed of herself that he had nearly lost control and taken her into his arms. He grimaced at the memory, at the feeling of her golden silken hair in his fingers. Handing her over to be married to a stranger, particularly as she was averse to the match, was going to be very much harder than he could have anticipated when he had first learned of the existence of Mr Isaac Crowther.

  At least the negotiations for sale of the stolen cargo of hardwood had gone well. Roderick felt not a little smug that he was going to be able to tell Washington that despite his disdain for the value of dead trees as booty, he had—while the Quartermaster revelled in the portside drinking dens and made the beast with two backs with his new lady-love—managed to offload the lot for a bag of gold to a French importer who evidently wasn't the curious type. Few merchants asked many questions in La Guiara. And since the necessity of entertaining Lady Elspeth had excused him from the revelries, Roderick was awake early in the morning feeling far brighter than the rest of the crew.

  He strode out onto the deck and took a deep breath of La Guiara's hot, damp air, looking at the somehow sad dark hulk of the Heron bobbing along at anchor beside the Chieftain. It was useless to indulge in sentimental regrets. He would give the men until noon to recover from the excesses of shore leave, then he would call the crew together and work out a plan for sailing to Barbados in the other ship and approaching Crowther when they got there.

  "Captain."

  Roderick looked around, surprised to hear the deep tones of the Quartermaster. In the relentlessly bright Venezuelan sunshine, Washington looked crumpled and drawn. He was blinking red-shot eyes against the morning light, and he was wearing nothing but beltless ale-stained trousers that looked as though they had been pulled on in a hurry from a heap on the floor.