Lady Meriwyn's Punishment by Renee Rose Read Free Book Online Page A

staunchly kept an arm around her.
    She sat down as slowly and gingerly as she could manage without calling attention to herself and Conrad watched and then patted her knee under the table. It wasn't sympathy, exactly, but it was better than him gloating or finding it amusing. She looked down at his large hand resting on her thigh. That hand knew every inch of her body. A tiny shiver ran up her spine and she felt a throb in her sex thinking of it. She wondered what he could possibly have in mind for her tonight. It was odd how the idea of standing naked in the corner waiting for his instruction was now an arousing, rather than infuriating idea. How much she'd changed in just one night.
    He kissed her forehead after breakfast and bid her goodbye until dinner. She watched him leave, already missing his presence beside her. She spent the day spinning and weaving with the women, doing her best to ignore her sore bottom. By supper, she had little flutters of excitement in her belly about her further “punishment.”
    Conrad smiled at her warmly when she joined him at the high table, but he grew serious when Anna appeared. It was the first he'd seen Anna since hearing about her fight the night before.
    “Anna,” he said sternly. “I understand you are responsible for that bruised eye I saw on Redwald.”
    Anna's eyes widened and she looked at Meriwyn with an expression of horrified betrayal.
    “Nay, it wasn't--” Conrad started to say, but Meriwyn interrupted.
    “It wasn't right of me to hide things from your father,” she said firmly.
    Conrad gave her a tiny smile but turned back to Anna. “What do you have to say for yourself, young lady?”
    Anna flushed. “I'm sorry, Papa.”
    “Why did you hit him, Anna?”
    “He called me a tomboy and said I'd never have a husband because I'll never be a proper lady,” she said with quiet resentment.
    Meriwyn guessed that remark had come close to a real worry for Anna. She would speak with the child later about it-- not all little girls love to sit by the hearth or weave at the loom. She didn't see any harm in Anna's interest in weapons and hunting. There would be time enough to prepare her for marriage in the years to come.
    “Just because I bested him with the sling,” she added.
    Conrad did not smile. “I don't care if he told you that your Papa's a pig's arse, you don't start fights.”
    “Yes, sir,” Anna muttered, her eyes lowered.
    Conrad said nothing, but just looked at his daughter for a long stretch, allowing the tension between the three of them to build.
    Anna lifted her eyes to his again. “It won't happen again, Papa, I promise.”
    Conrad sighed. “Be sure that it doesn't.”
    Relief showed on Anna's face as she correctly deduced that she was not going to be punished. “Yes, sir,” she said enthusiastically.
    “And Anna--”
    “Aye?”
    “Do not resent your mother-- it was not she who told me and she has paid the price for her deceit,” he said.
    Meriwyn went ice cold before a furious heat flushed through her limbs. How dare he? To speak of punishing her in front of his daughter-- at the high table, no less -- was, well-- unforgivable. Inexcusable. He had demeaned her, lowered her to the level of a child, flaunted his authority over her. She was so angry she could not speak. She barely made it through the meal, though her unbearable husband didn't seem to notice. As soon as the king stood she leaped to her feet and departed the Great Hall as quickly as she could.
    She paced their chamber, her anger growing by the minute. She felt like the worst kind of fool for accepting his punishment like a meek little mouse the night before. He had treated her abominably. She glared at the corner where she'd stood with her bare bottom facing him. She would die before she stood in that corner for him again! What was she to do? Last night he had suggested she sleep downstairs with the serfs. Well, she'd rather do that than submit to him ever again.
    “No help tonight,