Staking Their Claim by Ava Sinclair Read Free Book Online

If you won’t take your gown off, I suppose you’ll have to just come to the table as you are.”
    Jenny seemed almost surprised at his lack of resistance, and looked genuinely pleased as she rose and strode past him, her pert nose in the air. At the table, she sat down and was preparing to place one of the buttery biscuits on her plate when Nigel stayed her hand.
    “Oh, dear. I’m afraid you won’t be enjoying the meal I prepared. As you’ve come to the table in improper dress, you’ll be taking a less than proper meal.” There was a pot on the stove containing the remains of the unsavory oatmeal leftover from Cody’s earlier breakfast. Now Nigel ladled an unappealing glob of the stuff into a bowl, and removing Jenny’s plate, put the bowl before her in its place.
    Jenny stared at the oatmeal with disdain. “I’m not eating this.” She pushed it away.
    Nigel pushed it back. “In this house,” he said, “you eat what you are given, even if you don’t want it. There are men out there starving.”
    Jenny pushed the bowl away again. “How convenient,” she said. “Then you can give it to them.”
    Nigel picked up the bowl and placed it on the stove. Then, without a word, he walked over, took Jenny by the hand, and raised her from her chair.
    “I told you the day you arrived that I would not hesitate to punish impertinence,” he said. “There are rules for a young lady living in this house, Jenny. If you come to the table unsuitably dressed, you will not share in the prepared meal. If you turn down what is offered, you will get six strokes of the cane.”
    “Cane?” Jenny abruptly sought to move her arm from Nigel’s grasp, but was unable to.
    “Caning is the traditional punishment from my country, my dear,” he said calmly. “When I came here, I brought along a few sentimental items from my home, including the cane that once belonged to my grandfather. It is still most effective, I assure you, as you will soon find out. Now bend over the table.”
    “Bend over…?” She looked up at him, her blue eyes wide with indignation. “I most certainly will not!”
    He looked down at her, his dark eyes determined in his sharp-featured face. “Oh, but you will,” he said, and pulling over a nearby chair, he sat down and pulled his charge across his lap.
    There was no preamble as he began to spank her, the hard crisp smacks quickly eliciting cries as they impacted Jenny’s upturned nates through the thin fabric of her nightgown.
    “Ow! Ow! Ow!” Within moments she was kicking and pounding her little fists against the legs of the chair helplessly. “Please stop!”
    And he did, but only long enough to ask her if she was ready to comply. When Jenny told him he could ‘just go to the devil,’ he renewed his assault, and soon she was sobbing loudly under his punishing hand.
    It took three rounds of hand spanking before the strong Englishman convinced Jenny that he would spank her indefinitely if that’s what it took to gain her compliance. By the time she bent over the table—her eyes just inches away from the tempting meal she’d forfeited by refusing to dress—she was already well punished.
    But Nigel wasn’t finished. As Jenny lay sobbing and bent over, he retrieved a cane from a stand by the door. As he tapped it against his hand, he wondered if it wasn’t providence that had convinced him to bring such a curious item from his home. To him, the cane represented order and tradition. He’d told himself that if he ever married, it would be employed in the running of his household to assure adherence to his rules. Now as he took in the sight before him—Jenny bent over with her glowing posterior visible through the thin fabric of her gown—he decided if ever a woman needed a lesson, it was this one.
    “You’ll get six with the cane,” he said.
    Jenny looked back, her pretty face flushed and tear-streaked. “But you already punished me,” she said, the words quavering pitifully.
    “No,” he