by DJ Black
"Lucy, I'm bored," Amelia pouted. "I know it's raining and we couldn't go for our evening walk, but being sent to bed so early is too much."
"Heavens yes, at 17 we are almost old enough to come out; it is too tiresome to be sent to bed when it's barely eight o'clock," Lucy agreed.
"I say we could sneak out anyway. No one would know; we could go to the village and see what's happening at the inn."
Lucy's eyes lit up at the idea until Amelia mentioned the inn. She had tried that stunt once before, and it led to a confrontation with Papa that was all too disagreeable.
"That awful housekeeper of yours has taken our things to be brushed," Lucy remembered, happy to have an excuse not to risk the inn where they would almost certainly be recognised.
"To the garden then, as we are, the sunset will be awash with colour in the rain, like a painting by Mr Turner," Amelia enthused.
"We will get soaked and our night things will be ruined, and then we are sure to be caught," Lucy pointed out.
Amelia returned a stare with an expression like her face would explode in mirth.
"Not if we took them off and went as nymphs into the woods. Despite the rain, it is certainly warm enough," Amelia grinned impishly.
"Oh Amelia, the very idea." Lucy's jaw hung open in shock, although she had never been so excited by an idea.
"I dare you," Amelia said, deciding something.
"I dare you; it's your idea," Lucy replied, beside herself.
"All right," Amelia said with a firm nod as she pulled her nightgown over her head.
Lucy gasped, startled by her friend's beauty, unaccustomed as she was to seeing nudity.
"Come on," Amelia giggled as she bolted to the door.
Lucy hesitated for a moment longer and then followed suit.
What a sight they made, two naked girls sneaking down the back stairs to the little-used back door. Lucy, overwhelmed by excitement, could not stop her giggles.
"Hush or someone will hear us," Amelia said, giggling just as much.
Outside was cooler than they had thought and the rain felt chillier still as it peppered their bare skin with its spray. As they reached the edge of the woods, Amelia wished she had worn her slippers at least, as the pricking of fallen brush and twigs made her dance. However, Lucy looked sideways at her like a wild pony and threw all caution to the wind as she embraced their adventure.
"Whee," she squealed as she ran into the fiery red woodland.
They were shivering by the time they reached the woods' far edge where the land fell away to the horizon. As expected, the red sky was awash with fluid purple and blue as the rain smudged the sunset like an artist's watercolours.
"The sea is only five miles that way," Amelia said in wonder. "Oh, we should go there as we are one day and swim."
Amelia's faraway gaze disturbed Lucy, and she hugged her arms to her breasts to shield them from some imagined observer.
"Less than 200 years ago the Morissco pirates used come ashore there and take the women from whole villages into slavery. Imagine being the plaything of some evil sultan in far Araby."
"Oh my," Lucy gasped as wild images flooded her soul and something stirred below like she knew it shouldn't. "Would we be whipped by them?"
Lucy could not believe she had said the last part out loud, and blushed.
"Oh yes," Amelia whispered, her eyes fixed on the horizon. "Whipped and whipped until we begged."
They stood, despite the growing cold, until the light had faded from the sky and the rainy summer night turned from chilled to cold. Then, flesh wet and glowing in the moonlight, they fled back through the woods towards the now-distant lights of the Weighbridge Hall from whence they had come.
To their horror, the back door was locked.
"Fiddlesticks," Amelia cursed as she shook the sealed old door. "Bridge must have gone to bed early. Never mind, we can get in through the other side by the library."
Lucy didn't argue, but as she followed her friend, she remembered that this route entailed a dash for the main staircase. In all likelihood, one of the maids would see them. She hoped they wouldn't snitch.
The door by the library was also locked, but Amelia shook it loudly and it gave enough to slip the latch. Then they were standing in the hallway. They had scampered as far as the foot of the stairs when the library door opened.
"Lucy Bennington, Amelia Weighbridge, what in heaven's name are you doing?" a voice roared behind them.
They both turned doubled over in terror, hopelessly covering themselves with their arms.
"Papa," Lucy said in shock. "What are you doing here?"
As she spoke, Sir Richard Weighbridge, Amelia's own father, emerged behind Lord Bennington.
"Good god," Sir Richard exclaimed. "I say this is, I mean to say."
He turned side on to the girls and spluttered in shock. Amelia was strangely embarrassed more by her father's lack of composure compared to Lord Bennington, than by her sudden exposed public nudity.
"What am I doing here? What am I doing here?" Lord Bennington bellowed. "You impudent hussy."
He gave his moustache an unconscious tweak and then quickly took off his jacket and wrapped it around his daughter. Then he seized her by the scruff of the neck and propelled her back into the library before any of the servants saw her.
"Father," Amelia wailed, still crouching at the foot of stairs, dancing from foot to foot in embarrassment.
"Go to your room, Amelia, we will talk about this in the morning," Sir Richard said with a huge sigh.
Amelia didn't need telling twice as she bolted for the stairs and the haven of her room, flashing one last glimpse of her white bottom as she fled.
Back inside the library, Sir Richard thought that the semi-naked Lady Lucy would melt under his lordship's very vocal rage.
"Papa, it was only a game," Lucy wailed.
"A game, you say. A game," Lord Bennington exploded. "If anyone heard about this I could not marry you to a tinker."
At these words, he fell into a chair and dragged his daughter over his lap. Then turning up what little protection his jacket afforded, he began to belabour her bare bottom with his hand.
"No, Papa, please," Lucy shrieked as the spanking set her damp white bottom ablaze.
Sir Richard watched in amusement as Lady Lucy's bottom went rapidly from pink to red and then violet. The girl herself announced her distress with great, groaning, gurgling sobs.
"I ought to horse whip you," Lord Bennington raged as he spanked on.
By the clock, it was 15 minutes before the spanking stopped, and then Lord Bennington berated his daughter again.
"I could not have come back a moment too soon," he yelled. "Tomorrow I will take you home and give you the thrashing of your life. Too long has my cane lain idle. Then as soon as I might, I will find you a husband who knows how to deal with a baggage like you."
"Steady on, old boy," Sir Richard interjected. "Just high spirits and all that, you know."
Lord Bennington was only slightly mollified by Sir Richard's reason and snatched up a whisky that had been poured for him.
"Well, girl?" he snapped. "What you waiting for, another damn good thrashing? Get to bed, you whelp."
Lucy, who had been hopping from foot to foot grasping her nether cheeks heedless of Sir Richard's presence, suddenly made a break for the door, offering one last flash of her scarlet posterior as she did so.
Up in her room, Amelia was waiting for her.
"Oh my, was it bad?" she whispered.
Lucy just nodded and began to cry.
"What did my father say?"
"It's not what your father says that counts. It's what my Papa says. He says I am to have another whipping. With the cane this time. Oh, Amelia, however will I stand it? Then he is going to marry me off."
Amelia said nothing, but as she dabbed at the swollen bottom of her friend, she wondered what a spanking and a caning would feel like.
The next day Lord Bennington and his daughter set off early, leaving Amelia to face the music alone.
"I do not take quite the doom-laden view of last night's affair as Lord Bennington does, but still it really is too much. It is hardly the behaviour of a respectable woman," Sir Richard chided. "I really ought to spank you as Lucy was spanked last night. I really ought."
"Yes, Father," Amelia said her eyes downcast. She had heard this speech before. Last time it had been for riding a forbidden stallion.
"Well this really is the last time. We are going to have to take measures."
"Yes, Father."
"I am so disappointed in you," Sir Richard continued in the familiar vein. "I have already sent for a governess for you. That will buck up your ideas. I talked it over with Lord Bennington last night. He knows the perfect young woman for you."
This was new. Amelia baulked.
"Father, I am too old for a governess. I am to come out next year," Amelia protested at the preposterous notion.
"Oh no, my girl, there is no question of that. You are far too wilful to be let loose on the world. A year or two under the tutelage of a strict governess is what you need and what you will have. Since your mother died, I have been far too lenient with you. Lord Bennington is right. You need a firm hand."
"Lord Bennington is a brute. He beats Lucy dreadfully."
"How dare you? Lord Bennington is a friend, and as for Lucy, she needs a firm hand, as do you. Now go to your room and stay there for the rest of the day."
"Yes, Father," Amelia said dutifully.
She knew that this ridiculous governess idea would pass, and within a few days, it would all be forgotten.
It did not take her long to find out how wrong she was. Within three days, the house was alive with gossip about the new governess. Amelia was mortified to know that her father's threat had come to pass, and even more so when she heard that he had received her in the library and her own presence had not been required.
As Amelia speculated on what changes were about to befall her life, the new governess was being interviewed by her father.
"You seem a trifle young, Miss Cambridge, you hardly seem older than my daughter. Just how old are you? If I may inquire," Sir Richard said as he stood at the fireplace stirring his teacup.
"I am 23, Sir Richard; this will be my third position," Caroline Cambridge replied.
"Well, I must say that Lord Bennington recommended you most highly. May I ask what is your connection with the Benningtons?"
"I was at school with one of Lord Bennington's nieces, and from there I acquired a post looking after the French Ambassador's daughter during her short stay in London, just six months. My service was adjudged adequate, and I then spent three years as governess to the Fotheringays, Lord Bennington's own cousin. They had three daughters whom I had the privilege to guide until they were finished and came out."
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