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With Lady Mary, obedience has always been her lot. Oh, sure, anyone downstairs would say, Anna’s devoted to the lady. But they had no idea.
Lady Mary liked to have Anna kneel by her dressing table while she put on her scent and took a last look in the mirror – Anna remembers the first time she asked her to, she laughed a little. It seemed so silly and old-fashioned, but it only took one flash of her lady’s dark, imperious eyes to make her drop to her knees with a quickness that was, frankly, embarrassing.
Even when she misbehaved, Lady Mary didn’t hit her very often. Usually, her hard pinches and scratches, always where they’d be hidden by Anna’s sleeves or stockings, were more than enough to straighten her out. But sometimes Lady Mary came upstairs from a party where she had been a great success, eyes glowing with a strange fever, and she would sit in her chair, all elegant lines, and look up Anna up and down. Keeping her waiting.
Until she finally said, tasting each word ever-so-slowly until Anna was trembling, “I think you want some discipline, Anna.” And Anna tries not to either shiver visibly or smile too much with anticipation, and the next day if her wrists ache from the knots and her backside from the hairbrush or – rare treat – her lady’s hand, you’d only know it from the dreamy look on her face and maybe a little extra care when sitting down.
Mrs Hughes knows, of course. Mrs Hughes knows everything. She knew at once, that first time, when Lady Mary was only seventeen and Anna had already fallen hopelessly in love, in loyalty, in belonging. Lady Mary, pricklier and even harder to please in her adolescence, had slapped her for some mistake. Instead of crying or storming out indignantly to give her notice, Anna had gasped for breath, openmouthed, head tilted down in the direction of the slap, lashes lowered. Lady Mary, with flush high on her cheeks, took Anna’s face in her hand, turned it towards her, and kissed her with a hunger that made Anna almost crumple to the floor. “You will obey me,” Lady Mary had said, and that was that. Mrs Hughes never said anything, of course, but she’s even been known to slip a cushion onto Anna’s place on the benches in the servants’ hall after a night when Lady Mary had been particularly thorough.
Today, Anna had spent nine hours mending the complicated beadwork on three of Lady Mary’s gowns, and her fingers stung and eyes smarted by the end of it. Lady Mary swept into the room, fresh from dinner, black jet earrings catching the light, color high, eyes glittering. Anna swallowed, and tried to ignore the curl of anticipatory pleasure curling in her belly. She knew that look. “Kneel in the corner, Anna, facing, out, and keep your eyes on the floor like a good girl,” Lady Mary said carelessly, sweeping around to the other side of the bed to inspect her maid’s handiwork. It took over twenty minutes. Anna itched to peek and see her lady’s face as she examined them, but she didn’t dare. The punishment for that would have been dreadful. She bit her lip, and tried not to smile a secret, naughty smile. She’d left –
Lady Mary crossed her arms and cocked an eyebrow. She’d found it. Anna still wasn’t looking up from the floor, still obeying like a good girl, but she could hear Lady Mary’s slightest displeasure from a mile away.
“Anna.” Her voice cracked like her crop on her favorite black mare. It was so, so dangerous, and Anna tried not to love it too much. “Four of these beads on my cream chiffon are still the emerald, when I specifically instructed you to replace all of the small ones in this pattern with the sapphire. Did I not?”
“Yes, milady.”
“Then why have you failed to do it?”
“I must have missed them, milady. I apologize very much, I’ve been careless.”
“Indeed you have.” Lady Mary crossed the room and reached down with one long black-gloved hand, tipping Anna’s chin up until she had to look her lady in the eye. “And what happens to careless girls?” Anna tried to keep her gaze steady, but the same could not be said for her voice. “They must be punished, milady.”
“Quite.” Mary released her hold on Anna’s face with a not-very-gentle shove to the side. “Get up and take off everything but your slip, and then stand, eyes cast down, in the other corner while I decide what to do with you.” Anna obeyed, but as she rose she wondered if she shouldn’t make her lady ready for bed first. Mary saw her expression, and slapped her. When she spoke, though, her voice was low and sweet, and she reached out to caress Anna’s reddening cheek. “Now, Anna, do not presume to question me – even with your eyes. Go.” Her outer clothes were off very quickly and neatly folded on the footstool in the corner. She loosened her hair a bit, even though she wasn’t told to. Lady Mary always likes her the slightest bit disheveled. In her white cotton slip and bare feet, she feels very defenseless indeed. She waits, looking down at the intricate patterns in the carpet.
Once again seated in the regal carved chair before her dressing table, Lady Mary hums to herself a bit, a pretty tune from that evening’s performance. She adjusts her long silk gloves – how Anna dreams about those hands in those gloves – but she doesn’t take them off. She reads through a letter or two she has on her dressing table, and toys with one of her necklaces. Anna tries to be patient.
Finally, she speaks, not turning from her own reflection as she adjusts the starry jewels in her hair. “Anna, fetch me the silk cords and my jade hairbrush. No – the heavy chased silver one, I think.” The silver hairbrush! Anna pales a little but she does as she’s told. Lady Mary holds out her hand for the silk cords and Anna gives them to her. Her wrists are promptly and securely tied together in front of her and she kneels. The ends of the cords are long, in order to held beneath Lady Mary’s heel – the significance of which has never escaped Anna for a moment. Next, the silver hairbrush is in her lady’s hand and the side of Anna’s face is pressed flat against her lady’s thigh – a delicious thought if it weren’t for the imminent threat of the silver hairbrush, so heavy and cold. Lady Mary pets Anna’s hair for a moment before tangling her gloved fingers in the golden strands and holding her down with what Anna thinks is rather excessive firmness.
That is, until the first stroke. Anna gasps with the pain and instinctively tries to arch away, but her lady holds her firmly and she isn’t going anywhere. Mary gives her five hard smacks, and then pauses thoughtfully. “How many did you earn tonight, Anna? I rather think ten for each one, don’t you? Now, how many is that?”
Anna swallows hard. “Forty, milady.”
She counts aloud, as she’s been taught, but by the twelfth she’s gasping out the numbers through tears and Lady Mary has to put her hand over her mouth. Anna tries to breathe through the scented silk, tries not to moan too loudly, but it doesn’t work. Once or twice Lady Mary caresses her burning backside, and after the thirtieth stroke she bent down and dropped a whisper-light kiss on Anna’s flushed and tear-drenched cheek. But she doesn’t pause or falter in her merciless rhythm, and Anna knows she’ll get every one of forty. Lady Mary is nothing if not meticulous.
Finally, it’s over. Mary smoothes Anna’s hair and pets her cheek, tracing a thumb over her mouth. She unties her and puts the cords and hairbrush back into a drawer of her dressing table. Anna, slumping down in dizzy exhaustion to sit gingerly on the floor, leans her head against her lady’s knee. Lady Mary strokes her hair. “What a good girl, my Anna,” Lady Mary croons. Anna, all self-control gone, whimpers a little at these endearments and nuzzles her face a little closer to her lady, who allows these liberties for bravely suffering a punishment. Lady Mary likes bravery, but Anna suspects that she likes her tearful, unthinking obedience almost as much. Which is brave in its own, selfless way.
Lady Mary lifts up Anna’s tearstained face and plants a warm, gentle kiss right on her mouth. “Now, dear Anna, I think you might undress me.” Anna smiled. Even in her current state, she would always love doing that. She laid her lady’s jewelry safely away in its boxes and unhooked her dress. She moved slowly, but Lady Mary did not rebuke her. Instead, she watched her maid’s movements with unconcealed interest. When Anna turned to her with her nightdress, she shook her head. Tossing her heavy braid over her shoulder, she lay down slowly, languidly, on the bed. Without actually wearing anything. “
Come here, Anna.” Now Anna had never moved faster. She was at her lady’s side in an instant, hands shaking with the need to touch, but she stopped herself. And waited. Lady Mary reached up one white hand and grabbed Anna’s hair, shoving her maid down between her thighs. Even so close, Anna waited. She thought she was going to die from want, but she waited for permission. Lady Mary tightened her hand in Anna’s hair and smiled indulgently. “Make me come, Anna, like a good girl.” Anna’s mouth was on her in an instant, ravenous, tasting deeply. Lady Mary threw her head back and gasped, bringing her other hand down to pull Anna closer. Heaven, but Anna could make her feel like she was in the clouds. Anna moaned wordlessly into warm, wet heat. Lady Mary tasted so good. She tried to savor it, but she also wanted to make her lady come.
She tried to ignore her own arousal, but Lady Mary knew the meaning of those little whimpers. “Touch yourself, Anna.” That did it. It was only a few more minutes until they both came, Anna first and Lady Mary shortly after. Suddenly boneless, Anna slid down to the floor, the ends of her hair still slipping among Lady Mary’s fingers. Mary motioned her back up, and gave her one last, lingering kiss. “Good girl, Anna.”
By the time Anna got back to her room, it was past three in the morning, and sank into the most exhausted yet satisfied sleep she had ever experienced. The next day, there were two cushions at her place in the servants’ hall, and Mrs Hughes didn’t say a word about her being over half an hour late to breakfast.