The Reddington Scandal

Renee Rose did a remarkable job with “The Reddington Scandal,” the sequel to “The Westerfield Affair.”   Lord Teddy Fenton starts out as quite the unlikeable philanderer.  He hops from bed to bed, usually engaging partners that are already wed.  When caught in the bed of another Lord’s wife, he is surprised to be saved by his mistress’ younger sister.  Phoebe casts her reputation aside as she proclaims that Lord Fenton was in her bed to save her sister and Teddy from ruin and to remove herself from her brother-in-law’s home and wandering eye.  Teddy is shocked to hear Phoebe’s proclamation, but decides to do right by the girl and marry her.   Teddy and Phoebe take a while to smooth out all of the wrinkles that come with their unusual betrothal.  Unfortunately for Phoebe, many of these issues are resolved while she is over Teddy’s knee.

The door to the study clicked open and she gasped, jumping. It was Lord Fenton, himself, who looked just as surprised to catch her in his chair as she was to be found there.

“Oh! Excuse me, my lord!” Blotting the ink, she hurriedly shuffled the poems into a stack, abandoning the ribbon that usually bound them, and shoving them into her little wooden box.

Fenton smiled a slow, predatory smile, prowling around the desk, looking satisfied to catch her looking guilty. “What are you doing, my dear?” he drawled.

“Nothing! Nothing at all. I—I was just leaving. Forgive me.”

He blocked her exit from behind the desk. “Writing something?”

“No! I was just—” she cast her mind about wildly, “reading some old school notes. My studies, you know.”

Fenton laughed, slipping past her to sit in his chair with his arm catching her waist. To her shock, he pulled her face down over his lap, slapping her upturned bottom as soon as she arrived.

She kicked her legs. “What? Stop it!”

“Never lie to your husband, Phoebe. He does not take kindly to it.” He slapped several more times in rapid succession, then threw her skirts over her head, causing her real panic. She squirmed to free herself.

Fenton was chuckling. “No, there’s no getting free. You’ve earned your spanking, now you’ll have to take it.”

To her utter mortification, he parted the slit of her drawers, exposing her bare bottom to the cool air and continued spanking her with hard, stinging slaps. She could not breathe at all.

“Lord Fenton! I mean, Teddy!” she gasped.

He chuckled again, smoothing his large palm over her bottom, which prickled with heat. “Thank you for remembering. I do believe I promised you a spanking for that mistake, as well.” He opened his desk drawer.

“Unlucky girl. I have tools in here, like rulers and such.” He snapped what must be a wooden ruler across her cheeks, and she felt a searing pain.

“Ow! Please, my lord!”

“Hmm. Can you breathe? Let’s open this,” he said, pulling the laces of her corset. “There. Now I can spank as hard as I like.”

“No!” she exclaimed as the ruler smacked down on her bare skin in another flurry of spanks.

“Please!”

“When I ask you a question, I want an honest answer, little dove. What were you writing? A love letter?”

“No!”

He applied the ruler again, five times in rapid succession.

She whimpered. “It’s poetry!” She braced herself, though whether it was from ridicule or the ruler, she wasn’t sure.

“Poetry,” he repeated, sounding interested. “That you wrote?”

When she didn’t answer, he smacked her three more times with the ruler.

“Yes!” she exclaimed.

He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke again, the humor was replaced with what sounded like honest interest. “May I read it?”

“No!” she cried immediately.

The ruler snapped down on her again, beating a steady rhythm, causing her to buck on his lap in a vain attempt to escape it. “Wrong answer, my love. Don’t you know, you cannot refuse the man who holds the wooden ruler?” With the next spank, though, the ruler cracked, and she could not help but giggle. The rich sound of his laughter filled her ears, warming her, as if they were sharing some kind of joke that made this humiliating event easier. He rubbed her smarting bottom.

“Well, I still have my hand. Would you care to try that answer again? Or shall I continue to spank?”

“No—I mean yes!”

He chuckled, rubbing a slow circle over her bare skin. “Yes, I may read your poetry?”

She hesitated. She certainly did not wish to be spanked any longer. Nor did she wish to turn over the pages that contained her very heart and soul to him. Except some small part of her did long to share her writing, as terrifying as the idea was.

He waited patiently for her answer, stroking and massaging her buttocks with one hand, as the other caressed the nape of her neck.

“Yes,” she answered at last in a small voice.

“Thank you,” he murmured, and pulled her up to stand beside him, one hand still under her skirt, cupping her bare bottom. He picked up the poem on top and began to read it as if it were the most absorbing thing he’d ever laid eyes upon, while his finger began absently tracing the line of her cleft. She could not breathe—the invasion of his finger no less disturbing than waiting for his assessment of her poem. Her knees felt weak and her upper thighs trembled. The hand moved to stroke the place where thigh met buttock, delving closer to her most intimate core. She tried to wiggle away, but he gave her sore cheek a sharp automatic slap, then looked up as if only just realizing he’d been holding her captive beside him with this hand most inappropriately up her skirt.

I very much enjoyed “The Reddington Scandal.”  Renee Rose has written several historical romance / spanking novels and I have loved every single one.  I whole heartedly recommend this title.  Be sure to read the first title of this series, “The Westerfield Affair.”  While these books can be read independently, your enjoyment of them would be enhanced by reading them in order.