He took the salve from the shelf and quickly rubbed it on the tender insides of her thighs, telling her as he always did to spread her legs wide.
“You know you are the sweetest darling,” he crooned as he worked. “But I have to make these marks disappear.”
Within minutes, he was working on her hair, brushing it free of tangles. She loved the heavy feel of it on her naked back.
“Now, down on all fours, little one, and eat those bits of apple,” he said, putting the dish before her.
The apple was to sweeten her breath, of course, all lords and ladies and slaves of the kingdom ate bits of apple on awakening and several times during every day and night, and she enjoyed it, though it was a chore to nibble at it and chew it up without ever using her hands. Now and then Galen or some other efficient groom scrubbed her teeth with apple, and even her tongue. She rather liked it, though the first time had frightened her, her mouth open like that, and fingers prying into it.
Galen had Blanche on her feet again. He pinched her cheeks and rouged her lips. “Gorgeous,” he said. How intent he looked, how thoroughly engaged with his work.
Then he thrust his hand between her legs.
“You’re wet already,” he said reprovingly. “I wonder what would happen if you were spanked for that, for getting wet.”
Ah, it took all her patience to ignore him.
How could she not be moist there? Did he think this was something she could control?
Just the thought of Tristan brought the moisture flooding inside the secret cavity that only Tristan was allowed to fill or even touch. And no, it wouldn’t do any good at all if she were spanked for it. It would make no difference whatsoever except that Galen would have an opportunity perhaps to deliver more of his excellent spankings of which he was justly proud.
And he did do it so very well. Each and every groom had a different manner, a different way of wielding the paddle or the strap. So did every master or mistress. With Galen, the blows came rapidly and smartly, while with his firm left hand he held tight to her neck. “Now, how do you like that, young lady!” he would say to her about halfway through. “You think that’s enough?” She’d always known better than to answer one way or the other, pouring out her incoherent sobs instead. She loved nothing more than to be able to sob freely, her lips politely closed, of course, but her sobs nevertheless audible and unrestrained.
It was marvelous how good he was at it, the spanks coming so rapidly and with a kind of rhythm that she weakened all over as she ached under the paddle and let herself twist and dance without ever really struggling against Galen’s firm grasp.
She said nothing now as Galen pushed her into the bedchamber and motioned for her to kneel down and remain quiet and still. It had been two full days since he’d last spanked her at her master’s urging, and she knew her bottom would be fresh and pretty for Tristan if only Tristan cared to notice, which he very well might not.
The room was deliciously warm. The floor felt deliciously warm. Her beloved master sat at a table to the right of the fire. He was as always writing and he did not look up when Galen told him in a soft voice that Princess Blanche had been “prepared.”
Though she knelt with her head bowed, she could see Tristan clearly and as always the very sight of him caused the desire in her to double and triple in intensity. In a daze, she watched his hand as he moved the quill so rapidly and with such quick little scratches over the parchment. And the other hand, which lay on his thigh, she could see even better gleaming in the light. It seemed to her she could feel that hand on her already. Feel its warmth, its strength. Tristan had such large and beautiful hands.
His soft curling golden hair was mussed and loose and half veiled his face. She longed to be able to touch it, lift it, move it back away from his eyes, but she had never been permitted to do such a thing, and she might never, she knew.
Without so much as looking up or away from the page before him, he said in a low voice, “On your hands and knees, come here.”
At once she hurried to obey, and when she reached the table she at once kissed his feet. He had taken off his heavy boots and wore morocco-leather slippers now and she loved the feel of them under her lips. She dared not touch his ankle, his leg, or any part of him without permission. But she kissed him several times on each foot and then pressed her forehead to the floor. Again, the desire in her intensified. She was throbbing with it all over.
“You have no way of knowing what a momentous night this is,” he said as he continued to move the pen. “The kingdom is saved, our future is saved, and you, little princess, are safe.”
“Yes, my lord,” she said softly.
“Kneel up,” he said.
As she obeyed, glancing up furtively for a split second, he turned and smiled at her and it was as if a great bright light had washed over her warming her to her soul. How breathtakingly handsome he was. If only she could tell him, but that would never be allowed.
It was absolutely unreal to her that he, Prince Tristan, her master, had once been a slave. She knew the story of course. So did everyone. But she couldn’t imagine it, her beloved Tristan naked and being whipped as she was so often whipped, even harnessed and tethered to a cart or a coach in the dreaded Queen’s Village, where he’d served as a pony for years. Yet when she thought of it, it excited her, she had to admit, and pushed her closer to delirium as she let contrary thoughts collide in her mind now.
“Have you been a good little girl while I’ve been busy?” he asked. He stroked her hair back from her forehead. “Beautiful Blanche. You are so fair and sweet and inviting.” He bent and kissed her lips. The passion inside her boiled upwards; it was all she could do not to rock her hips uncontrollably with it and let loose the orgasm that would humiliate her utterly and infuriate him with her loss of control.
She knelt still, very still, feeling the throbbing between her legs as his lips pressed hard against her mouth. Then his hand slid down to feel the telltale moisture, and he laughed under his breath. “Have you been obedient and chaste?”
“Yes, my lord,” she said. Didn’t he know that Galen had locked her in the chastity belt? Certainly he did.
He stood suddenly, and pulled her up on her feet.
“Darling, you don’t know how happy I am,” he said with a flood of uncommon warmth. He pressed her to his hard chest. “We are all safe once more, Bellavalten is safe!” He kissed her over and over again on her lips.
Tears sprang to her eyes. She went positively limp in his powerful arms.
“Master,” she whispered.
“Yes, we are safe again, Princess. There is nothing to fear. I can’t live anywhere else but Bellavalten, and now I will never have to contemplate such a thing.”
His eyes were wet with rising tears. And his voice was roughened with emotion, with tenderness.
“Do you love me, Blanche?” he whispered as he kissed her ear. “I command you to lie to me if you do not, because I must hear it. I must hear it now.”
“Master, I adore you, and that is not a lie,” she said. The tears filled her eyes. He was trembling and now she felt herself shaking violently, tremors passing through her legs as he held her. “I have always adored you, from the very first moment I saw you. Master, you give my whole life meaning!”
“Ah, beautiful, lovely Blanche. I’ll tell you a wicked secret,” he said, still embracing her tightly, embracing the way people do on greeting or parting, his left hand cradling her bottom, holding her so securely that her feet were off the floor.
“It is safe with me forever, Master,” she answered softly. “Put your secret in my heart.”
He sat down, pulling her onto his lap. Holding her in his right arm, he squeezed her breasts tenderly with his left hand. She thought she would lose all control, but she fought the torment, fought it, gazing at him adoringly, wanting to kiss away the tears from his face.
“Years ago, Laurent, the King, he mastered me just like that. I mean it was so simple for him. One moment he’d been a slave beside me subject to the same punishments, and the next he’d picked up the belt of the Captain of the Guard and made me his trembling slave. How was he able to do that so easily, Blanche? How could he pass from one mode to the other? How could he find room in his heart for either role?”
He looked into her eyes.
“I don’t know, my lord,” she said. “I’ve never understood such things. I long to submit, to lose myself in submitting. I always have.”
“He will make the greatest ruler Bellavalten ever had,” said Tristan. “But it is the new queen who wants you tonight. Are you prepared to please her?”
“Master, how can you ask? I would do anything in this world you ordered me to do, for you, for Her Majesty, for anyone to whom you gave me. You know it.”
“Yes, my darling,” he said. “Well, first you’re mine.”
In a twinkling he was on his feet and so was she. He’d spun her around and his big firm right hand came down in a series of hard spanks.
“Fresh, sweet, beautiful,” he said. “Now at once, over the end of the bed.”
He drove her forward and bent her over the figured coverlet, and pushed her legs wide apart with his foot. The rough tapestried fabric made her nipples tingle. And she couldn’t keep back a loud moan.