Chapter 4

They entered the compartment. He shut the door and gave her a stern look. “You should be more careful.”

Her face burned. “I am grateful for your help but I assure you it wasn’t my fault. That woman almost smothered me!”

His lips curved upward. “I could see that from afar.”

The train began to huff out black steam. Clarissa looked around the compartment. It was small, and the curtains over the windows were closed tightly. Even though it was dim in there she could see the narrow berth of bed and the small built-in table and the neat chair pulled up below it.

His luggage, handsomely matched pieces, sat near the bed, and she

blushed as she realized that she was alone with him in his bed-chamber, something no proper young woman should be.

The train lurched forward and she threw toward him. Their bodies collided. His arms came up and went around her. Her breath came out in a hard gasp.

He said, “What is your name?” “Clarissa Banks.”

His body was lean and elegant, very taut. Her breath caught in her throat.

He said, “Miss Banks, you deserve a lesson in how to behave.”

Before she could even think he had flipped her neatly across the bed, yanked her skirts up, and delivered a hard slap to her exposed bottom! An indignant squeal came from her mouth and she managed to right herself. She spun around and said, “How dare you?”

Her face was heated. Her bottom even more so. Her entire body was awash in that heat that had hit her earlier when the village boy had so easily lifted her trunk.

He said, “How dare you speak so rudely? How dare you misplace your ticket and your entire reticule?”

She went down on her belly yet again. Her skirts swung upward and his hand cracked across her bottom again. That time he cupped his palm so that the pain hit directly in the center of the smack. Her cry was one of outrage and desire.

He released her and said, “Now let that serve to remind you to mind your manners.”

There was a knock on the door Clarissa hastily yanked her skirts straight and lifted a hand to her carefully arranged hair. He opened the door and said, “Yes?”

“We’ve found the young lady’s reticule, Sir. It seems a rather large woman had sat up in it.”

“Oh, of course.” He took her reticule while she fumed, opened it, and held her ticket out. It was punched quickly, with the conductor not even looking at the front of it where it was written that she had a cheap seat.

The conductor left and she said, “Well, I will just be on my way.” “Your luggage is here,” he said, pointing to the door, still slightly ajar,

and the valises beside it.

Her face went hot again. “I see.”

He said, “The compartment is much more comfortable than the seats. If they load on more people, and they shall, you may find yourself standing for much of your journey.”

“Well, I can’t stay in here with you, Sir!”

His eyes were a warm and bottomless brown. Her whole body responded to them, and him. He said, “But why not?”

She lifted her chin. “For obvious reasons, of course.”

He said, “Well, there is a second berth, there, above. That bench that makes the lower berth is far more comfortable and longer and wider than any seat out there, but have it your way. Now, if you would like to accompany me to the dining room to have some luncheon I would be happy to pay for your meal.”

Clarissa paused, torn. He’d just spanked her as if she were a child and she was having a very odd reaction to both that and him, and she wasn’t sure she liked any of it. But she was sure that she wanted the chance to find out if she hated it.

Besides, she was off on an adventure! Once settled into her new home she might have to wait years to meet the neighbors in a good way, and she would likely be very lonely again. As lonely as she had been for so very long. He was older, so spanking her had likely been a fatherly thing to do.

Besides, the idea of a luncheon was appealing. She’d packed cold sandwiches and then she’d left the basket sitting in the kitchen. Those rotten mean people who’d taken over her childhood home were probably eating the boiled eggs and the jam-and-butter sandwiches right then.

She’d been living very meanly for a very long time. Since her father’s death and the sale of the stove, she’d subsisted on warm tea and the leftovers from the funeral feast as well as whatever she had to eat before it went bad. She’d had little in the way of hot meals and her young and healthy body demanded she say yes.