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  “You are well liked,” she said, suddenly feeling shy with him although she didn’t know why.

  “I’m their lord. They don’t have much choice.” Her praise had him in danger of blushing brightly, and he wanted to avoid that at all costs.

  Fleur snorted. “That’s not true at all. You’re they’re lord and you’re due a certain deference and respect because of that, but these people all like you. That’s rare, in my experience.” She was going to mention that she would bet that her father, even after all the years he’d reigned, couldn’t come up with the name of anyone who served him who didn’t work in the household. And if you asked the townspeople about him, they would have said they were being bled dry by his taxes.

  Not trying to be disingenuous at all, she asked him how he did it, and was rewarded by a tremendous blush that set her to giggling. He looked like she did most of the time around him.

  Not really wanting to discuss this ephemeral subject, he shrugged his massive shoulders. “I’m not sure. Taxes here are probably higher than elsewhere but I do my best to ensure that the money they give me benefits them in roads, or bridges or various types of protection.”

  “Then there you have it. Few lords would bother to be so conscientious.”

  He declined to say anything at all to that, considering that anything he said would sound entirely immodest. They’d been riding for hours, much longer than she was probably used to. “Hungry?” he asked.

  Chapter IX

  When they arrived home, Fleur was all smiles and she couldn’t wait to tell Marianne all about how her day had gone, but someone caught her hand and drew her into his small study off the great hall.

  “Now. I am going to allow you the run of the castle,” he said, his tone deadly serious. “You can help Marianne or do whatever you’d like during the day, but I don’t want you to leave it without my permission.”

  Excited even for that relatively small freedom, Fleur nodded her consent enthusiastically. “Yes, Sir,” she answered primly, unable to contain a smile that practically had Raiz in a puddle at her feet, but he grabbed hold of himself and refused to show her anything but his sternest expression.

  “And you’re not to do anything too strenuous. I probably shouldn’t have let you ride today.”

  “Why not?” she asked blithely.

  “Because you could be with child.”

  She blanched white, as if the thought had never even occurred to her, then she said quietly, “I don’t think so.”

  He didn’t want to know how she knew, but he trusted her that she did. “Well, you must be careful of yourself regardless. If I see or hear about you doing something you shouldn’t then you’re going to find yourself one very unhappy girl, and for a very different reason than you were before.”

  As much as Fleur intended to follow his rules to the letter, she nevertheless seemed to manage to break them almost every day for one reason or another. Once she dashed into town to get Marianne an ingredient for a dinner she was making him and no one else was available. Of course she didn’t see him, but several of the townsfolk saw her, and that was all it took.

  And he hadn’t been kidding about making her unhappy.

  She’d burst through the door to the kitchen, having run the entire way back and forth with the vanilla Marianne needed, only to find him leaning against the edge of the cook’s worktable, his belt already in his hand. She didn’t know how he’d gotten here without her passing him, but then she remembered that he’d lived here all his life and undoubtedly knew all of the possible shortcuts between here and town.

  Raiz removed the bottle from her hand and took possession of it, dragging her along behind him and up the stairs.

  “Be careful of her, master,” Marianne warned, hoping it would prompt him to go easy on her.

  “It’s not her belly I’m going to be whipping,” he replied over his shoulder as he pushed her into the room.

  There was no lecture and he barely said anything to her at all except to order, “Strip and bend over the end of the bed.”

  She started to do as he asked and reached to unbutton her blouse, she saying quietly and with much more dignity than she felt when faced with the excruciating memory of how that length of leather was going to feel when it cracked down on her bottom, “Marianne needed the vanilla to finish–”

  In deafening silence, he put his hand over her mouth to stop her from continuing, then brushed her fingers aside and opened the shirt by force, popping the remaining buttons and throwing it onto the floor. Her chemise was next, then the skirt, rent from top to bottom in a blatant demonstration of just how strong he was. It reminded her of when the tunics they had been given as tributes were ripped from their bodies.

  Her underwear hit the pile on the floor next, and she had never felt so completely vulnerable to him. He didn’t let her position herself, but bore her down onto the bed with a hand at the small of her back, and then he spread her legs rudely apart and bound her ankles to the bed posts.

  The first loud, echoing thwack came without warning a few seconds later without a word of reprimand, and it left Fleur howling, as did every stroke after that until she couldn’t breathe enough to create the sounds, and then, in the end, she had no voice to do it, either.

  “I didn’t give you a long list of dos and don’ts, did I? I just told you one thing get my permission before you leave the premises.”

  She didn’t try to defend herself any further, even lying on her hands so that she wouldn’t try to reach back. It was clear that nothing she could say was going to change her fate, so she didn’t bother.

  “You’re a smart girl. It shouldn’t be to hard for you to obey one rule.”

  Fleur knew he was speaking, knew he was chastising her verbally as well as physically, but all her mind was focused on was the belt, the belt, the belt—when it landed, how long it took him to raise his arm, and how long it took him to bring it back down again …

  For those moments in time, she measured her life in strokes, always dreading, always trying to do the impossible and recover between the times it slashed down on her, always expecting that it was going to stop at that one, then the next one and the next.

  The last time it did, she collapsed down onto her knees, mouth open on a silent scream.

  Raiz untied her ankles and placed her on her tummy in the middle of the bed, deciding against putting anything—even the sheet—over her. Then he put the belt back where it lived in his armoire and left his bedroom, his head down, lips a tight slash in his face.

  But as he took the stairs to the first floor, he could see that a small crowd of servants and workmen had gathered at the bottom. Some of the women had tears rolling down their faces and the men looked stricken, some of them had their hats in their hands as if they were going to beg him for something.

  “Get back to work!” he yelled, bursting through them as they all scattered to do his bidding.

  When he got to the door that would lead him out to the stables, Marianne was there holding it open and the look on her face said nothing so much as “Good riddance”.

  Raiz didn’t come home that night. He spent it out on a raiding party with his soldiers, none of whom knew about—or none of whom dared to say anything to him about Fleur. In fact, they encouraged him to avail himself of one of the wenches the tavern they ended up at offered.

  The owner came over himself, honored by the presence of his king, bowing so ridiculously low that the older man could barely recover from it and right himself.

  “My girls are fresh, Your Majesty. Tributes, just brought in a month or so ago.”

  His mood, which had been surly at best in the first place, descended into hell where it belonged after that as he turned away from that generous offer, his fists clenched with his effort not to punch the man.

  When he finally did reappear at home several days later around sunrise, he found the place up and buzzing as always, although there were nowhere near as many enthusiastic welcomes as he usually got
; in fact, there weren’t many of any kind. Everyone seemed to be doing their level best not to see him, to be inordinately interested in whatever it was that occupied them at the time. The only ones that seemed genuinely glad to see him were the children, who flocked to him regardless of the fact that he didn’t have anything for them. Raids weren’t much conducive to producing treats for eager little mouths. Their mothers came to get them a lot quicker than they usually did, he thought, and none of them were wearing their usual smiles when they came to hustle their children away from him.

  Things didn’t get any better when he got home, either. No one was outright disrespectful, of course, but none of them were their usual friendly, chatty selves, either.

  “Have a tray sent up,” he said to no one in particular as he mounted the stairs.

  He had thought that she might be in bed, given the condition he’d left her in, but the room was empty. Before he could descend into a panic, the door burst open and Marianne barreled in, dropping the tray onto his small table from what seemed like an improbable height, so that the crockery rattled when it hit, turning to march back out without even having looked at him, the air around her frosting as she moved through it.

  Raiz immediately settled down to his meal—he was starving. He’d left his men just barely over the boarder into his own land, suddenly realizing how much he wanted to be home even though he wasn’t likely to get the best of receptions from much of anyone, especially the one he was most concerned about and he’d ridden hell bent for leather all night.

  But the meal was barely edible. The bread was so hard he thought he’d break a tooth on it. The ham was so old it had a stomach-turning layer of slippery slime on it. The cheese was fuzzy and green—and not meant to be—and the apple was shriveled and riddled with worms. He didn’t know what she’d done the cider—he shuddered to think—but one sip had him rethinking just how thirsty he was.

  He left it—pretty much untouched—on the table and went in search of Fleur. Something in him gave him a driving need just to set eyes on her. He had to scour the entire place, but he found her in some obscure bedroom that hadn’t been used in a dog’s age, changing the linens. He walked into the room and closed the door behind him.

  Hers was the first kind voice he’d heard since he got home. “Good morning, milord.” He couldn’t hear any recriminations in her tone at all and he couldn’t quite believe it.

  She was dressed plainly, as befitted her station, in one of the outfits he had had made for her. It was of a pale green and it seemed to play up her eyes so that they were the only thing he could see, staring at them as if he’d drown in them.

  Raiz didn’t know what came over him, but he strode over to her, as confident as could be and lifted her onto the bed, just holding her for the longest time before he brought his mouth to hers in the gentlest kiss he thought he’d ever bestowed on any woman.

  He couldn’t believe it when she began to kiss him back, and two slim arms wrapped around his neck. His hands began immediately pawing at her skirt, lifting it up enough that he could get to her more tender bits and amazed, as always, to find that she was already wet and waiting for him.

  Sinking his fingers into her had the both of them sighing as his thumb began to tease her using just the right pressure. He was surprised to realize that she sounded as if she was very close to climaxing already, and he’d barely touched her.

  Not that he was objecting, because he had a hair trigger himself. He reached down and lowered his pants quickly, desperate to be inside her. When he drove himself into her to the hilt with one powerful thrust, he reached beneath her to pull her that much closer to him and she arched away from his touch—and thus further into him—with a yelp.

  “Still sore?” he asked, kissing her much more gently than his hands were being with her bottom.

  She looked sheepish, as if she felt guilty about him punishing her so severely. “Yes, Sir.”

  And then he remembered what he’d read of Master Cromwell’s assessment of her—he’d said she needed a strict hand and that she responded well to pain.

  Raiz leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Well, then you’ll have to be good or I’m going to have to give you another whipping.”

  He’d never talked a woman into an orgasm, but it seemed he could with her. Just mentioning that to her had her bucking and writhing, seconds from exploding.

  As he pushed her shirt up to expose her breasts, he remembered that he’d essentially destroyed one of her outfits in order to thrash her.

  “I think you have a punishment coming because I spent good money on your clothes and yet I had to punish you and ruined an outfit of yours in the process.”

  Her mewed, “No, please!” got him so hot he nearly lost it right then and there, disgracing himself in the process.

  “Yes, I think so.” One hand grasped her nipple and twisted it cruelly as the other reached beneath her and pinched her bottom, enjoying how it caused her to jerk up against him to try to avoid his fingers. “I think you need to be punished on a much regular basis—at least every day. Every evening, before I fuck you, I’m going to blister your behind. You’re never going to be able to sit down comfortably again, because that’s just going to be your maintenance discipline. Your other punishments will be on top of that.”

  That was more than enough for Fleur, who lost control at his words and the scolding tone in which he delivered them. He wasn’t much better, spurting helplessly within her seconds later.

  He was still between her splayed legs when there was a quick knock and Marianne entered the room, only to exit it again seconds later. “Beg pardon,” she barely got out, her face redder than Fleur’s backside still was, but with a smile a mile wide, too.

  Although she couldn’t believe how they had come together so well after he’d been so strict with her, Marianne didn’t look gift horses in the mouth. The master was home at night—every night he could be and still see to his duties—and Fleur was out and about on her own, going pretty much anywhere she wanted to although no further than the town, just for safety reasons.

  As she had pointed out to the master, with that hair and those eyes, she wasn’t going to be going anywhere unnoticed.

  Raiz took to bringing her out with him most days and began to introduce her around, although everyone she met already knew whom she was. They treated her with a deference befitting a position she didn’t fill in this household, but Raiz was perfectly happy with they respect they showed her. Now she was the one that the children and their mothers surrounded, who the old men smiled at and blushed when she smiled at them, and who the shopkeepers insisted on gifting with perfumes and flowers and baked treats.

  They spoiled her much more than he did. He wasn’t the type. He was the type who made good on the promise he had made to her that day he’d returned from the raids and instituted a daily punishment. It wasn’t a token one, either. He had her in tears every evening before or after he made love to her—depending on how hungry he was for her—and always before he let her drift off to sleep in his arms.

  It had been almost six months since she’d been hunted down and carted off by him, and Fleur had never been happier in her life. She was the de facto mistress of his house—although if she was asked she would never have claimed that position as it was well above her station. She ran it with a woman who had quickly become a surrogate mother to her—loving and frank and cranky and not afraid to tell her what she needed to hear. She didn’t know what she’d do without Marianne.

  And without her Lord and Master—the first thing she saw in the morning and the last thing she saw at night. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he’d make sure she never sat comfortably again—he had long since given it up for standing, and he teased her mercilessly about it.

  Still, despite the punishments, she enjoyed her freedom, even though it certainly was hard won. He seemed to have forgotten those who hadn’t seen him as she did in the past, and she had more than proven herself trustworthy to him.


  In fact, she was on her way into town to see the green grocer and get some herbs for the dinner she and Marianne were concocting, although she had another little errand to do. She wanted to stop in to see the local seer and ask her a very important question.

  She had a feeling that she was going to have the opportunity—within the year—of giving Raiz that which he most coveted in the world: a son.

  But well outside of town, just about equally as far from home, she met up with a man who seemed somewhat familiar. He was dressed in outlandish style that reminded her of what she’d seen at the empress’s court—a body hugging jacket of several bold, bright colored vertical strips of silk with an epically proportioned collar, a lace shirt beneath, and pantaloons that where a patchwork mixture of everything. His hose was as black as were his high-heeled shoes, he wore a hat that was nearly as big as his horse as well as a mask that covered most of his face.

  “Why if it isn’t little Fleur. Just the person I was looking for.”

  Before she could say or do anything, he reached down and grabbed hold of her arm and said, “I suggest you keep your mouth shut and cooperate, tribute, or I’ll have the empress declare your master to be a renegade and confiscate his lands. I’ve acquired quite a bit of power since you last saw me, and I can have that done in a second.”

  He drew his enormous purple silk coat over her, covering her completely, turned his horse around and road through town on his way to the boarder, and Fleur was powerless to stop him. She wasn’t about to betray Lord Arndt that way, but he was certain to think that she’d deserted him.

  But she knew who it was that had kidnapped her now: Zay, the chivalrous young man who had helped her into the wagon when her time as a tribute had just begun.

  Despite how happy he was with his life currently, which could be attributed to a certain gorgeous wench who’d come to live with him, there were two clouds on Raiz’s horizon. They were hopelessly intertwined and poised to wreak havoc with his newly found joy when they finally let loose: she was not yet pregnant, despite these months of trying more than daily, except when she had her monthly.