The brush, which he’d been about to use on her hair again, hovered just above it as his head jerked up to look at her in the mirror.
“I ah, meant on your bottom.”
“My bottom?”Now she was even more confused.There was no hair on her bottom.It would have made more sense if he had said ‘on her womanhood’, though the hair there did not need brushing.
“To spank you,” he clarified.
“I do not know what that means,” she confessed.She’d never heard the word before.
“Ah, well, it means I would smack the hairbrush against your bottom.”
“And that is enjoyable?”
“Well, no, it would be meant to be punishment for being cheeky.”He lifted the brush and inspected it while Johanna turned the notion over in her mind, uncertain how she felt about it.“Probably not with the brush, to be fair, that would be rather harsh for just being cheeky.But I was not intending to, anyway.I was just teasing.”
“So, it would hurt.”
“Yes.And no.Some women rather enjoy it.”He shrugged and started brushing her hair again, leaving her feeling aroused and confused at the same time.“I know Gregory and Nathanial have both spanked their wives, and they seem to have no complaints.”
“Tiffany and Kalina?”Johanna was rather aghast; she could not imagine either Gregory or Nathanial hurting either of them.Perhaps it did not hurt very much.Though she was uncertain how it could hurt, yet a woman could still enjoy it.“Have you ever been spanked?”
“No.My father used to belt me,” he said matter-of-factly.“But he did not think spankings were harsh enough discipline for a boy.It hurt like the dickens.When I was very young, I would scream the house down, but eventually, I learned to be quiet.Do not worry, I would never use a belt on you.”
Johanna’s stomach had flipped over for another reason entirely now as her heart went out to the young boy that he’d been, and anger roused in her breast at his father.
“You mean your father used to hit you with a belt until you screamed when you were naughty?”The very idea made her clench her fingers in her lap.How dare a man do that to a young boy?She could not imagine allowing anyone to do such a thing to Micah.
“Naughty, did not complete my lessons, did something wrong…” The way Matthew said it sent chills up her spine, as if he had accepted that it was his due that his father hurt him.“Eventually, I found my coin when I was in secondary school, and that helped a lot.That or he’d given up on me, by then; I could never decide which.”
“Is that… do you plan to do that to our children?”
“Oh, no.”Matthew shook his head.“It was not effective at all, I don’t think.And I rather hated my father, and I do not want our children to hate me.I do not think my father liked me very much; he just needed an heir, and I had a lot to learn to be the heir he wanted.I do not have those same expectations of my heir.I do things very differently from my father, and so far, all has gone well.”Now he sounded positively cheerful, and it was all Johanna could do not to shake her head in wonder.
Her parents had never used any kind of punishment that had hurt her, Rose, or any of her younger siblings.Johanna had never even heard of such a thing.Some of the women who visited her mother for potions talked of terrible things, but nothing like hitting a child for being naughty.Nor had they spoken of being spanked as punishment.Or because they enjoyed it.
It was all very confusing.
The one thing she did feel very sure of was that her husband would not hurt her.And that it was a miracle he was as warm and cheerful as he was.
“Do you want to spank me?”she asked.
The brush stroke paused, and he looked up at her in the mirror again.
“Do you want me to?”He sounded more curious than eager, but to be fair, that was how Johanna was feeling as well.
“I do not know.I want to know how it feels.How you felt.”
“I never want you to know how I felt.”He shook his head.“It is very different, what my father did to me and what Gregory does with Tiffany or Nathanial with Kalina.It would be very different with you and me.”
“Do all husbands spank their wives?”
“I do not know.It’s hardly proper to go round asking them.”Matthew chuckled at the thought, which made Johanna smile, too.There was nothing she could do about how his father had treated him as a child, but at least she could make him smile now.
Staring at him in the mirror as he refocused his attention on her hair, she considered his words.She wanted to know something of what he’d been through.She was also curious as to his very confident statement about Tiffany and Kalina, though, apparently, the topic was not a common one among gentlemen.The dukes were very close, though, in their friendships.They must be comfortable talking about subjects that were not for lesser acquaintances.
“There,” he said with some satisfaction.“That is done.”
Grinning widely, he moved around the side of her chair to place the hairbrush on her vanity and held out his hand to help her to her feet.
