Chastising Milady: A Novel of Painful Pleasures

Chapter Two-1

Chapter Two

During Amelia’s life, the complicated political circumstances of her dissolute Father changed in many ways. He continued to enjoy his passion about science through his leadership of the Royal Academy. However, his gambling and other notorious behaviors (especially involving the backsides of attractive women) continued to cause great embarrassment to the Royal family as well as severe financial stress in covering his gaming losses. His Father the King died after the longest reign in British history when Amelia was eight years old, to be succeeded by Augustus’ eldest brother, George IV. This worsened the Prince’s circumstances, as his Royal revenues were sharply cut by his disapproving older sibling. This only seemed to worsen Amelia’s Father’s rebellious ways. To the surprise of no one, when our heroine had just turned nineteen years old, she was informed that Augustus had died of a fit of apoplexy while ‘in flagrante delicto’ with a London courtesan.

This news was a great relief to the blue-eyed blonde beauty, who had little affection for Augustus and had grown to fear her Father’s increasingly severe spankings every night when he was in residence (even though tempered by her secret post-punishment rewards at the able fingers of Lisette). Nonetheless, once her spankings ceased our heroine continued to secretly pleasure herself every night. She was a bit alarmed by the fact that her wonderful total body ‘explosion’ seemed to require that she fantasize about her newly deceased Lord belaboring her bare buttocks. But before a month of her mourning had passed, everything changed yet again.

It seemed that His Majesty George IV had decreed that all of Augustus’ estates were to be confiscated by the Royal Treasury in lieu of decades worth of the Prince’s gambling debts. His bastard daughter would retain the title of Lady, since her royal bloodlines were not in doubt, but there would be no financial settlement on her. Instead, like Mistress Ramundo and hundreds of other impoverished noblewomen, she would be trained as a Governess at a private school that specialized in preparing the often spoiled upper class daughters for this humble new role in life. Amelia was allowed to gather up a few trunks full of clothing but none at all of her jewelry (which would be sold against the Prince’s debts). After a tearful goodbye to Lisette, our heroine boarded a coach provided by the King to carry her to her new life.

Mrs. Urquhart’s School for Young Ladies was located in a large rather run-down mansion that had been the country estate of a long-since bankrupt Baron whose properties had been confiscated by the Crown. Its twenty sparely furnished bedrooms were occupied by forty young upper class women in similar straits to our heroine. All were struggling to be resigned to their fate as old maids for life since the absence of a dowry made young noblewomen unmarriageable in their cutthroat world. They were caught in an impossible conundrum: their status was too high for them to be paired off with lower class men who might otherwise have found them quite desirable. But without sufficient funds they could not meet the bride price that their society deemed necessary for the families of noble daughters to compensate the groom’s clan for the lifelong expense of supporting a dependent new member.

One way this problem got addressed was by farming out the old maids (most of whom were perfectly lovely young women) to relatives who were well off enough to afford an additional household member to be a chaperone for young ladies. But it was also managed by training them in establishments (often supported by Royal grants of unused mansions and funds for their management as a charity of the Crown) such as Mrs. Urquhart’s for service as Governesses in other wealthy households. These schools for young women were of varying quality in the education they provided as well as the conditions under which their denizens must survive until they were placed in appropriate circumstances.

In specifying this particular institution, George IV was playing a particularly unkind trick, or so he thought, on the bastard daughter of his despised wastrel youngest brother. For he had chosen a school whose Headmistress was well known to enjoy dispensing the very same brand of corporal punishment as the Prince was notorious for delighting in inflicting on the bare bottoms of his bed partners. The King was even reputed to have joked as he signed the order, “In Ecclesiastes the Bible has it that the sins of the Fathers are visited upon the sons even to the fourth generation...why not upon the daughters, pray tell? I’ve heard Lady Amelia has a pert young bottom, which shall no doubt find a great deal of employment by Mrs. Urquhart if what I’m told about her academic disciplinary practices is at all true! Perhaps I’ll insist on a viewing the next time I’m in that neighborhood...”

That was not exactly likely, as the Institute for Young Ladies was secreted in an out of the way corner of the Cotswolds, far off the beaten path of society followed by the Royal court. Amelia gawped out the window on her long coach ride to her new lodgings, never having been off her Father’s estate in the previous nineteen years. The final drive up the rutted dirt road through the overgrown grounds of the Institute was perhaps the least heartening stretch of an otherwise rather lovely journey through the English countryside at high summer. It was still quite bright outside even though nearing eight o’clock when the carriage pulled up to the shambling mansion and our heroine alit from her coach. The driver summarily dumped on the ground Amelia’s two chests containing all of her earthly belongings and drove off in a cloud of dust. For better or worse, she had arrived in the next phase of her adventures.

The towering front door creaked open, clearly thirsty for oil both on its weathered wooden face and its rusty hinges. Two figures emerged, one a rather wizened older man wheeling a cumbersome dolly, the other an imposingly tall and severely beautiful middle-aged woman with masses of black hair pulled up into a chignon. This imperious presence strode forward rather manfully and extended her hand to shake our heroine’s in a grip firm enough to be intimidating and announced, “You must be the Lady Amelia. I am Mrs. Frances Urquhart, but as with all of our students you are to address me as Mistress Frances. We’ll get you settled into your room after Mr. McGillicuddy wrestles your trunks up the stairs. But in the meantime, you and I can repair to my office where we will conduct your admittance interview. No sense in wasting time on a nice long summer evening, I’m sure you’ll agree!”

If Amelia had any foreknowledge of the nature of the impending interview, she might well have disagreed rather emphatically. But the basically compliant bastard noblewoman meekly dipped a well-practiced curtsy and murmured, “As you wish, Mistress Frances.” The older woman led the way through the dusty foyer and up a once-grand spiral staircase to a large corner room on the second floor of the old pile. The door closed with an ominously solid click as the Mistress secured them inside while murmuring, “It’ important for Admittance Interviews to be conducted uninterrupted, no matter how long they last. I imagine you might be ravenous after your journey, but as you’ll soon discover sometimes it’s better to have an empty stomach. Cook has been instructed to leave you a snack for once we’re done here, so you need not fret about going to bed hungry your first night in our humble establishment, Lady Amelia. I’m afraid you’ll have to remain standing for the initial portion of our little chat, but I expect that might be something of a relief after a long coach ride. In any case, fear not, you will not have to remain upright for most of our conversation once I’ve collected a little information about you!”

This was all spoken in a very cultured, cheerfully ironic upper class accent by the strikingly beautiful older woman, whose large dark eyes glinted with apparent excitement about the impending interview. The Mistress seated herself behind her large mahogany desk, which was also rather the worse for wear as seemed to be the case for everything physical about the Institute. Amelia was left standing a bit awkwardly; awaiting what she assumed was her impending inquisition though about what exactly she had no clue. It was not as though her life had been particularly eventful until that very day, after all.

The first part of the examination concerned the new student’s education. She was rather pleased to be quizzed quite expertly about her studies, the older woman rapidly switching between fluent questioning in each of the languages Amelia had studied. The depth of her knowledge of mathematics and science was also rapidly plumbed, as well as her knowledge of music and composers. The Mistress ascertained that additional studies in history, art, biology, and physics would be required to bring Amelia up to snuff as an educator of upper class children in the whole range of subjects they would need to know. Amelia was also queried about her riding background, though she was informed that there were few horses stabled on the grounds, so her passion for equitation might have to await her eventual placement in permanent employment.

Then the Mistress’ eyes lit up as she declared, “And now we come to the most...delicate part of our inquiry. Please inform me about your history with receiving corporal punishment, Lady Amelia.”

Our heroine flushed, never having been asked about being spanked even though it had happened many more days than not in her two decades on the planet. She stammered a bit prompting her inquisitor to chide, “Don’t be shy, young Lady, you are soon enough going to be doing a great deal more than talking about having your bottom spanked! And I assure you that if you are one iota less than totally cooperative with our little chat, a certain part of you that is already in for a very challenging evening will receive a double dose of treatment it would very much rather avoid!”

Amelia’s heart sank as she realized that her new life was not going to be devoid of painful attention to her poor backside. It seemed that everyone under whose charge she came shared a penchant for spanking her buttocks. She wondered if this was just the nature of the world, or if there was something particular about her own rear end that seemed to elicit this sort of interest. Perhaps she could discuss with the other students, whom she was very much looking forward to meeting, never having had playmates or friends.

But this little moment of confused reverie as she contemplated what to say about her history of being spanked cost her dearly. Before our heroine could muster language to respond, the Mistress stood and declared, “Very well, my uncooperative young Lady, it seems that we’ll have to spank the information out of you! Not a good start for our relationship, I can assure you.”

Amelia’s flush deepened as the much taller brunette took her firmly by the arm and led her to a strange piece of furniture she had not noticed before. It was centered in front of the unused fireplace to the left of the desk, where it was bolted into the dusty hardwood floor. The device to which she was escorted resembled nothing so much as a sawhorse like the ones used to hold her saddles in the tack room back at the Prince’s estate. But this one was of finely sanded hardwood as opposed to the rough lumber of the ones she had used once her rides were done. And its crossbar was a rather large sturdy wooden dowel four inches in diameter and five feet long, the center of which seemed ominously polished no doubt by the enthusiastic squirmings of previous young lady occupants. It was against this that the Mistress guided Amelia’s hips before stepping away.

“Bend over, girl!” the older woman ordered. Our heroine meekly complied, unwilling to risk worsening her plight by objecting to the suddenly ominous course the proceedings were taking. The height of the horse was such that the relatively tall blonde’s chignon avoided grazing the dusty hardwood floor by a few inches. The Mistress instructed sharply, “Grasp the bottoms of the legs of the horse with your hands, Lady Amelia!” Her wrists were soon secured in place five feet apart by sturdy cords attached to the furniture in question. She had never been bound for punishment before, always having her hands held by her chambermaid. This seemed far more final: there was to be no interference to whatever the Mistress chose to inflict on her poor bottom.