Chapter 4

She could feel the silk of her bedsheets against her body. And the way the silk felt against her made it obvious she was nude.

She was awake but she hadn't yet opened her eyes because her head was pounding and she was afraid opening them would make it worse.

So she lay there. Breathing deeply.

She assessed the damage. Her back hurt horribly and her head was agony. But other than that she was sore, but in one piece as far as she could tell.

For the first time she noticed that there was someone in the room with her. She could hear boots pacing back and forth at the foot of her bed.

Accidentally, she sighed, which alerted him to the fact that she was awake, Now she had no choice but to open her eyes.

Slowly she opened her eyes to slits and cautiously peered around the room. Burke stopped pacing, walked to the door and called Gwen.

While Emma was still reeling from the fact that opening her eyes didn't cause her head to fall off her shoulders, Gwen waltzed in carrying a tea tray.

Burke faded into a corner of the room while Gwen tended to her.

She forced Emma to drink some tea that she said would help the pain.

Emma drank deeply hoping to quench her thirst and the roaring beast inside her head. Almost instantly, she felt a little bit of relief.

Gwen told her she was not to leave her chambers for 2 days and at least one of them had to be spent in bed. Now, Emma hated laziness and she hated not being able to do anything productive with her time. Just laying in bed would practically kill her.

But Gwen insisted that she knew best.

For the next few days Emma practically had to be tied down, and there was a maid posted outside her door to make sure she stayed put.

Extreme measures? Yes, but necessary.

By the time the 2 days was up, Emma was bouncing around with built up energy. In all her life she never just got to sit around and do nothing for more than an hour so 2 days of doing nothing had stored up alot of excess energy.

When she was finally turned loose, she did all her chores and stole chores from other maids as well. She cooked dinner, washed the dishes, scrubbed the floor, polished the silver, she even talked one of the stable hands into letting her muck stalls.

Finally she had worked off her energy and was getting quite homesick sitting on her bed, exhausted. She thought about her father and how he had to run things without her now. She thought about the little old lady who lived down the street whose house she cleaned every Friday, She thought about the funny little shopkeeper who needed her help with the books who liked to flirt with her for fun but never did anything threatening. Oh, how she missed them all.

Suddenly, Burke came storming into her room. He looked like he could chew her up and spit her out.

Emma sat up on bed, wondering what was going on.

"Mistress Emma," He said through clenched teeth. "I want an explanation."

"For what?" At his fiery look, she added, "My Lord."

"I want an explanation as to why you mucked my stalls today."

"Oh that, see being locked up for two days I had alot of energy and my chores just weren't enough so..." She trailed off when he just looked angrier.

"No. Woman. Will. Clean. My. Stalls." He looked like he was struggling to control himself. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, My Lord," She said meekly. He was terrifying when he was like this.

Burke sat down on her bed and told her to bend over his knee. She could guess what this was for.

She was over his knee, and he flipped her skirt up. Without any warning his hand came down on her bare bottom, hard. He spanked her harder than he was ever whipped her before and soon there were silent tears rolling down her face. Before when he whipped her, he never got a reaction. But this time, she couldn't help the salty tears that spilled down her face.

He stopped at 10.

Burke looked at Emma's face once. Saw the tears and knew he put them there. Carefully, he set her aside and left the room.

Emma lay on her stomach tears still silently streaking down her cheeks.

She cried herself to sleep.