Maude Cameron and Her Guardian E-Book

anonymous

• Herausgeber: Erotic eBooks
• Kategorie: Erotik
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

"Maude Cameron and Her Guardian" is a Victorian erotic novel, or a narrative written in the style of Victorian erotica. It contains graphic sexual descriptions and themes.
A retired gentleman, of a dominant nature, finds himself responsible for the upbringing of a young girl.

Leseprobe

Maude Cameron and Her Guardian

Anonymous

Maude Cameron and Her GuardianAnonymousThis ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with.If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy.First edition 2014

Volume One

Chapter One

Charles Cameron was forty-four years old and had achieved the happy fortune of being able to select his practice when and as he chose, thanks to an unexpected inheritance from an uncle whom he had dimly remembered from his childhood and who had settled in India some forty years ago. Thus Charles Cameron was able to travel on the Continent during the summer and to enjoy the finest food and vintage wines when it pleased him.

His own parents had died when he was in his twenties, by which time he had become a barrister’s clerk in London, the city of his birth. In due course, he passed his examination and was engaged as a solicitor for the same firm with which he had spent his legal apprenticeship.

He had found the profession of law satisfying as to status in his community and because of the respectability of the profession which accrued to members of it, and his firm was quite proper and old-fashioned so that the litigation in which he was involved was mainly that of estates, transfers of property, and the like. There were no criminal cases, as the senior member of his firm regarded them as demeaning to the dignity of a reputable lawyer.

Charles Cameron had conducted himself with becoming propriety during his years with the firm, but he had never married. It was not that he did not enjoy the companionship of the opposite sex: quite he contrary. It was just that he did not wish to be saddled with the encumbrances that a wife and family would give him, since he wished to feel free to seek his fortune where the wind blew. Had he wished to marry, doubtless the fact that he was employed in one of London’s leading legal offices would have prevented him from seeking a livelihood abroad if the opportunity had presented itself. But perhaps, too, with a bachelor’s cynicism, he had decided that too many of his friends found their pleasures curtailed when they took unto themselves a wife.

Discreetly, then, he had an occasional mistress, taking care that none of his associates was aware of the identity of these lights of love. He was gallant and virile, and rather prepossessing, so it was easy to see that members of the opposite sex could readily be attracted to him.

Physically, he was almost six feet in height, with pleasant blue eyes, regular features, a sensuous mouth given a masculine imperiousness by a carefully trimmed moustache, firm chin and straight nose. His hair was brown, and in his mature age showed as yet no signs of grey.

The inheritance from his uncle came to him when he was thirty-five, and at that time the thought occurred to him to withdraw gradually from practice so that he could have more time to himself and his relaxations. At the very outset he purchased a pleasant little house in the country, about forty-five miles to the northeast of London, and spent most of his summers there when he was not traveling, and an occasional weekend - particularly when in the throes of an amorous affair with one of his pro tem sweethearts.

In his lovemaking, as in his own decisive handling of business affairs at his office, he believed in taking the initiative and being aggressive. Innately, he found himself with a predilection for taking even more authority and command with the opposite sex. This if no way implied brutality or jealousy, but on the other hand, being well read in erotica, he had chanced upon several volumes which he discovered in a Parisian bookstall on the occasion of his first trip abroad following the inheritance. These books had detailed accounts of lovemaking wherein the hero demonstrated an imperious control over a mistress or a love-slave by employing a judicious amount of corporal chastisement. The idea intrigued him and from time to time, when he found a mistress who was rather less inhibited than the average young woman, he sought to introduce into the loveplay and the wooing some of this Gallic imaginativeness. In the main, he found that it was well received and that it led to exciting culmination.

This summer Charles Cameron faced a decision about which he had been thinking for several years, and that was his absolute retirement from the firm where he had spent so many years. To begin with, John Croce, the senior member of the firm had just died, and there was a change in the policy of the firm with new blood coming into it. Young Hubert Rascow, for example, the youngest nephew of the late junior partner, had taken a post of prominence in the office and declared rather pompously that he meant to go after lucrative criminal cases. The atmosphere was not what it had been and it would appear to augur a rather trying time of adjustment. Financially Charles Cameron was well off, and besides he had always intended to enjoy life to the fullest at a time when he still had his physical and mental faculties. This was assuredly as good a time as any.

He therefore gave his notice in May that he would leave the firm on what might be termed a Sabbatical at the end of June and he would decide when the summer was over what his future plans would be. He had reason to believe that he would not be greatly missed in the new order of things, but without making a final break, the door would still be open if he decided to return at the end of the summer. So, after standing all the members of the firm a final dinner at Simpson’s, he betook himself to his little summer house and looked forward to enjoying the beauty of the countryside.

A few miles from this sylvan retreat there lived a handsome divorcee named Mrs. Patricia Ellerby who, the last time she had met him in London, had given Charles Cameron reason to believe she would not regard it amiss if he paid her diligent attention. But it was pleasant to be by himself and make plans from day to day, to go on walks, to prepare meals at odd hours, and devote himself to many of the books he had always put off reading until now.

The first week of July brought Charles Cameron a letter which recalled to him a casual promise he had made some six months ago, and about which he had completely forgotten. An elderly attorney by the name of Douglas Rivers, having met him at the City Club prior to Christmas, had found Charles Cameron a sympathetic listener and had confided the story of his life. Rivers had married quite late in life an attractive young woman who had been left penniless by the machinations of a dissolute father and a spendthrift mother. He had taken pity on her, and the pity had turned to love, as it so often does. Having never married before and being in his fifties, Rivers had found the resurgence of a new and exquisite emotion in befriending this helpless and lovely young woman. She, for her part, had reciprocated his feelings with more ardor than he had dared to hope. Out of their union had come a child, a girl, named Maude. But after this bliss, the young wife had contracted pneumonia and died when Maude was only five. Rivers had thereupon hired a housekeeper while he went to the office daily to conduct his business affairs. But now he confessed himself to be ailing - indeed, Charles Cameron had noted the elderly barrister’s jaundiced color and sunken eye sockets and opined privately to himself that Rivers was too long for this world. As a consequence, Rivers had told him, he was greatly concerned over his little girl and what her future would be. He himself had not done too well in the marketplace of life, and while he had been always of the most scrupulous fidelity to the exalted legal profession which he served, pursuit of this had not brought him great material gains.

Charles Cameron had made the usual sympathetic and philosophical reflections which one does when a casual acquaintance unburdens himself of such a story, but Rivers had mistaken this for sympathetic understanding. Seizing Charles Cameron’s hand as he leaned across the table, he had fervently implored the latter to promise him that in the event of his death, Charles Cameron would do what he could to assure the future of the little girl. And Cameron, without giving sufficient meditation to what this promise might entail, had affably agreed. It was true that he had felt sorry for Douglas Rivers.

And now that chance promise, exacted by a chance meeting, had come home to roost with a vengeance. The rural postal carrier on his bicycle had just this morning left a letter from London with the address of Douglas Rivers, but with a woman’s flowing handwriting. Charles Cameron had opened it and sat up with a start It was from the housekeeper, who begged to inform him that her employer had died last week after a lingering illness, and that his final words had been to urge her to communicate with his dear friend Charles Cameron and to remind the latter of the promise that had been made last December. The letter went on, couched in sententious phrases, to inform Charles Cameron that Douglas Rivers had left almost no money for the child’s welfare and that she, Mrs. Beddlington - the housekeeper in question - had scarcely received her own wages for the past several months. She would be deeply grateful if Charles Cameron would arrange to have Mr. Rivers’ daughter come down to him at the earliest possible opportunity.

Charles Cameron winced and rubbed his chin reflectively. The devil take it, he thought to himself. How easy it is to pay lip service to a casual acquaintance and then to find that there is much more imposed upon one as a result of one’s good breeding. If only he had not shown such a sympathetic ear to old Rivers that melancholy December day! But now the harm was done, and here was the proof.

What the devil would he do as the guardian of a little girl, particularly when he had no wife to serve as mother to the child? Of course, he could go about the business of hiring a housekeeper, but that would be to destroy his privacy and, in effect, to leave him as badly off as if he himself had taken a wife under his roof with all the pertaining responsibilities and encumbrances of such an act.

Yet, as he reflected, he realized that in all honor he was bound by what had been virtually a deathbed promise. Well, at least he could give the poor child what amounted to a pleasant summer vacation. Then in the fall it would be time to see about putting her into some kind of school. At the worst, he might scout around among his friends of longer acquaintance to see if there were not some sort of foster home in which she could be placed until she came of proper age to make her decisions for herself. And so, with a sigh of regret in the anticipation of an altered summer, quite different from the months of leisure and self-indulgence which he had promised himself, Charles Cameron penned a letter to Mrs. Beddlington and dispatched it that very afternoon.

Four days later he received another missive from Douglas Rivers’ housekeeper, notifying him that Miss Maude would arrive on the following Thursday afternoon. He had enclosed a fifty-pound note as a gesture of payment of Mrs. Beddlington’s back wages and expenses for conveying the child to his domicile. And so the die was cast.

And now it was Thursday noon already, and in a few hours the little summer house would lose its quiet and peaceful solitude to open its doors to a little girl. Heaven alone knows what a chatterbox or ill-tempered little minx she might be, Charles Cameron gloomily thought to himself as he went to the kitchen to prepare a bite of luncheon. When he had finished, he lighted his pipe and sat out on the back porch overlooking the broad of his little estate. He had no neighbors for several miles, and the only sound he could hear was the chattering of the squirrels in the old oak trees and the chirruping of the crickets as twilight fell on the landscape. Now all this peace and reverie would be broken. Well, it would teach him not to be receptive the next time someone had a hard luck story to tell, he reminded himself.

Chapter Two

On the Thursday named as the day for his meeting Douglas Rivers’ little girl at the rural railroad station, Charles Cameron dressed himself in his finest suit and bowler hat, not forgetting his spats, hitched up the roan mare to the surrey and set out to meet the train. He had spent a rather restless night, reflecting on his folly at having shown such a humanitarian attitude to old Rivers. On the other hand, Rivers had taken advantage of his good nature in a rather maudlin way. However, there was nothing that would be done about it now. There would be problems with a child, especially a female. It would be well if he looked about the neighborhood to see if he could hire a housekeeper, and make temporary plans for the summer. It would probably curtail his own intended endeavors in the amorous field, but that was the price he would have to pay.

It was a beautiful day, not too hot, with a balmy breeze, and the roan mare trotted proudly down the thickly arbored lane towards town and the station. It was a pleasant little town, Charles Cameron felt, with sufficient shops, including a greengrocer who catered to a rather wealthy clientele and thus stocked, in addition to fine melons and strawberries and raspberries from the Continent an excellent wine cellar. Charles Cameron was fond of port and, at times, good German hock, though there were times when a good sparkling Burgundy suited his palate to a ‘T’. The town itself had a population of about seventeen hundred, and most of the residents were affluent country squires or retired pensioners who had had good fortune in their ventures on Fleet Street or speculating in the stock market Altogether, there were refined country gentry here, quite different from the hustle and bustle of London. Scenically, the little town of Rushton offered as much pleasure to the eye as it did to one’s peace of mind. There was a little stream not far from Mr. Cameron’s house, and farther to the north there was a fresh water creek where he could swim if he had a mind to. To the south there were rolling hills and clumps of trees which made hiding a decided sport.

He sighed dolefully as the station hauled into view; taking out his gold watch and opening the face, he saw that it lacked five minutes till the arrival of the train. The station-master was on the platform with a flag and after Charles Cameron had tied the reins of his mare to the hitching post, he struck up a conversation with the rather portly gentleman. It served to spend the five minutes amicably enough, until at last smoke towards one side of the railroad tracks indicated the oncoming train on which Douglas Rivers’ little daughter would be arriving.

Perhaps, Charles Cameron thought to himself, she had been accompanied by Rivers’ own housekeeper, Mrs. Beddlington, although the latter had not mentioned as much in her letter to him. Certainly if the woman were trustworthy, she would now allow the child to travel by herself, even for such a short journey as from London. Well, that could be seen to when the time came. The immediate thing was to welcome Maude Rivers and try to comfort her over her certain grief through this bereavement and at least try to make a good face of it and give the child a proper home for the summer.

With a great deal of huffing and puffing and squealing of brakes, the engineer drew the train to a halt, and Charles Cameron watched intently as the porters opened the doors and helped down the several passengers who were alighting for a respite. In the first car nearest him, there was a heavily set gentleman with a ruddy complexion and a kind of helmet which suggested that he had seen service in Bombay or elsewhere in Her Majesty’s sway over the embattled provinces of India. He was smoking a black Indian cheroot, which further authenticated his earlier locale.

In the second car, two elderly spinster sisters, twirling parasols and chattering like magpies were helped down by the friendly porter, who took their valises to a waiting surrey driven by a short little fat man with horn rimmed spectacles. Well, now, where was Maude Rivers? There was a stunning young woman alighting from the last coach, with a parasol and a pink flouncy dress which modestly hid even her ankles. Maude at the StationShe had golden hair and a swan-like neck, and her dress was decorous to the utmost, but it did not hide from him the splendid development of her bosom. Charles Cameron eyed the blonde arrival with a glow of sensual appreciation in his eye. She was still in her teens, to be sure, but this did not prevent his admiring the magnificent formature of her haunches and bosom and her legs. To be sure, the word ‘legs’ was one that was highly improper in polite society, but among men of the world, one knew precisely what was meant by it. And despite the bustles and stays and voluminous petticoats which the opposite sex were wont to wear in these days, a discerning male with experience in the boudoir could ascertain what charms were hidden by the thick concealment of garments and of undergarments as well. Charles Cameron rather prided himself on being able to appraise a figure of a woman and detect her flaws and virtues in the twinkling of an eye.

No one else had descended from the three coaches, and now the stationmaster was talking to the engineer, who had once more ascended to his cab and was ready to start on the rest of the journey. Meanwhile, the golden haired young girl, for such she was, approached in his direction, with the porter carrying two of her valises and looking about anxiously, aware that the train was about to start up without him.

She espied Charles Cameron and in a sweet voice inquired, “Are you by any chance Mr. Charles Cameron, sir?”

“Why, yes, indeed I am,” he replied excitedly.

“My name is Maude Rivers. Then I believe you are here to meet me, Mr. Cameron.”

“I - er - yes, of course.” The mature bachelor solicitor recovered his aplomb and strode forward to seize the valises from the porter, whom he generously tipped. The latter hurried back to the coach and clambered aboard, just as the engineer tooted the whistle as a kind of farewell to the rustic village of Rushton.

Charles Cameron felt as if he were transported to another world. Beside him was one of the most beautiful young girls he had ever seen in all his life. She was of medium height, perhaps five feet five inches or a quarter more. Her form had that ripe voluptuousness without excess which can be found in an adolescent female of good breeding. Her skin was a satiny pink, with a gloss and freshness such as one might find on a freshly picked peach. Her eyes were widely spaced, enormous, and a translucent blue, appealing and poignant and utterly feminine. Her forehead was rounded and pure, her nose dangerously snub, with just a saucy hint of a flair to it, while her mouth was ripe, sweet and full. It was a heart-shaped face of character and alluring feminine mystery.

“Then you must be Douglas Rivers’ daughter,” Charles Cameron said rather astonishedly. “You see, I had Mrs. Beddlington’s letter, but I somehow thought my old friend had led me to believe that you were still in the nursery.”

“Oh, fie, no indeed, Mr. Cameron,” Maude Rivers protested. She blushed divinely.

Charles Cameron’s keen eye swiftly rode over her face and form, and this blush assured him that she was of a sanguine temperament which augured well for his own sensual interests. It was not without a certain foreknowledge that he found himself enraptured by the sensuous charms of this golden-haired young girl, for after all she had been entrusted to him by a dying man, and he was honor-bound to give her every tender care and aid in this her hour of great loss. But he had already come to the reflection that he would be her legal guardian, under the terms of Douglas Rivers’ letter, and that even in a court of law the lovely creature beside him would be handed over to him until her twenty-first birthday.

For the first time he began to be conscious of his great good fortune, and he began to congratulate himself on his foresight in having agreed to Douglas Rivers’ plea.

“Oh, what a lovely mare!” cried Maude. “It was very nice of you to come to meet me. My father spoke highly of you, you know,” her high, sweet voice assured him.

Charles Cameron helped her into the surrey, not forgetting to feast his eyes on the neatly turned ankles which she exhibited, chastely veiled in rather drab and unprepossessing black cotton hose. She behaved quite like a little lady, holding her skirts just so, and there was a proud bearing to her. Yet the softness and loveliness of her curvaceous body had already begun to excite him. He reflected to himself that the old adage about casting bread upon the waters and having it returned a thousand-fold had never been more truthfully borne out than on this particular day.

On the way back to his house, Charles Cameron put himself out to behave as affably as possible, so as to make the best possible impression on his lovely young ward. For her part, Maude chattered away like a veritable magpie, exclaiming over the natural beauties of the scenery around her, the peacefulness of the landscape and the general neighborhood. Interspersed with these amenities, she provided spontaneous tidbits of information about herself and her father which helped document Charles Cameron on the cruel set of circumstances which had brought her to this virtual orphan’s estate. She revealed also, unwittingly to be sure, that her elderly and ailing father had practiced a kind of deception on her new guardian: Douglas Rivers had purposely neglected to inform Charles Cameron as to his daughter’s actual age, preferring to have the younger man suppose that Maude was a very little girl.

“But I promise I shan’t be the least trouble to you, Mr. Cameron,” she exuberantly declared as the vivacious mare at last stopped before the house. “I learned quite a few things in school and from Father’s housekeeper, you see, and I can sew and cook rather well and I shall try to make myself very useful to you, Mr. Cameron, in return for all you are going to do for me.”

“No, now,” he chided with a pleasant smile, “there is certainly no need to try and compensate me for taking care of you. After all, I was your father’s good friend, and it is little enough to do for so fine a man.” This sentimental speech which Charles Cameron made without unction, and, indeed, with a definite effort to keep from smiling and thus revealing how hypocritical it really was, seemed to delight the lovely golden-haired young girl. She clasped her hands together, sighed, and gave him a dazzlingly beatific look from those enormous and expressive soft blue eyes of hers. That look alone repaid Charles Cameron for having disrupted his placid schedule in going to the railway station to meet his unexpectedly grownup ward.

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” she cried delightedly. “But just bear in mind, Mr. Cameron, all you need to do is just tell me what you wish, and I shall learn to try to anticipate your desires. I wish to make myself useful to the extreme in this my new home.”

Had he been more cynically inclined, the handsome mature bachelor would have retorted that there were innumerable ways in which she could do precisely that. But as to that subject, which was far too titillating and risqué in that day and age for a young lady’s ears, he contented himself with a smiling nod and the noncommittal retort that he would try not to make too many demands upon her good nature.

Her delight was unbounded after he had taken her through the house and shown her the room on the second floor, to the left rear, which was to be her very own. She found his accommodations extremely spacious and much more handsome than she had been used to in London, and she innocently inquired, “But this must be quite a bit of work for you, Mr. Cameron, to take care of so large a house all by yourself. And you say you don’t even have a housekeeper to look after you? Now I know how I can repay you - I shall be your housekeeper.”

Laughingly, he took her soft little hand, brought it to his lips as a Continental cavalier might do, and kissed it, saying, “Then assuredly no house in all England could ever boast a more lovely housekeeper.”

He was rewarded by seeing the soft satiny pink cheeks of his new ward crimson vividly, which made him, connoisseur that he was of female aptitudes and instincts, aware of the intensely and emotionally excitable temperament which his new ward must certainly possess. It would, he thought, augur quite well for the future. For already he had made up his mind to enjoy his authority and his legal tenure of this mouthwatering specimen of young, unprofaned femininity by adroitly, consummately and deliberately seducing her. He had not in all his career as a bon vivant and amorist ever had the opportunity to enjoy an intimate relationship with so young and ravishingly lovely a partner. There were, to be sure, certain technical grounds, and he being a member of the legal profession knew them better than most men, which might cause difficulty in attaining to such a degree of felicitous collaboration with the charming young Maude, but his agile and ingenious mind was already leaping far ahead to determine just how to circumvent even these temporary obstacles.

From some of Maude Rivers’ comments along the return journey home, Charles Cameron had deduced that for all her sweet docility she evinced a certain latent spirit all her own. Now, he told himself, if judiciously he could arrive at provoking her disobedience against his edicts, by challenging that very spirit which he sensed lay within her innermost psyche, then she would be certain to rebel and, naturally, being under-age and completely in his realm of authority and power, such rebellion might be exquisitely chastised in the manner which he himself most enjoyed.

By this, dear reader, it must be known that Charles Cameron, though to this date no scandal had ever been bruited about his name and conduct with the fair sex, had a predilection for the use of the rod as a stimulant to those flights of Cythera on which he was wont to pilgrimage on occasion. Now it was also true that not all of his paramours in the past were complacent to this manner of seduction, but it was equally true that a number of others, notably bolder and more intrepid divorcees and young matrons who had traveled as he had on the Continent, were quite willing to lend themselves to this fascinating sport.

But since in the main he could not always be certain that an amorous conquest would permit him to indulge himself as his secret and erotic nature yearned to do, Charles Cameron had provided himself with a magnificent library, of which at least a third was devoted to works of erotology in several languages, handsomely bound in buckram, tooled leather and hand- canvas, for his leisurely perusal. These books, French, German and also some from the Orient, were kept in a special bookcase under lock and key, and it came to Charles Cameron’s mind that this very safeguard might be used as the very first pretext under which he could subjugate his lovely ward, Accordingly, having shown Maude through the house, he led her into the library and pointed out the fateful bookcase.

“I am sure,” he sententiously declared, “that you will wish to continue your studies and your comprehensive knowledge of cultural things, my dear, and here you will find many excellent books for that purpose. However, the books in that case with the green baize drape over the top are those which I do not wish you to read, and I have consequently locked the doors with a key which I keep on the hook beside it on the wall. I trust that you will observe my one little domestic rule, as otherwise I should regretfully be compelled to punish you for disobeying.”

The golden-haired young girl uttered a charming little laugh, and her pink cheeks colored divinely as she retorted, not without a flair of sauciness, “My gracious Mr. Cameron. However would you do that? I shall be seventeen on my next birthday, which is only a month from today, I’ ll have you know. And Father never punished me at all, except perhaps to scold me when I did something he didn’t quite like. I shall try to be very good, of course, and I will do what you tell me to.”

“So long as you remember that cardinal principle, my dear,” he at once replied with an affectionate smile which hid his true feelings, “I am sure we shall get along famously.”

From the roguish glance which the golden-haired young girl gave him, Charles Cameron felt certain that she would essay to show her independence against this categorical tenet, which of course he had made up on the spur of the moment.

The rest of the day passed quite pleasantly and, having been a lonely bachelor for longer than he cared to remember, Charles Cameron found himself looking forward almost impatiently to the evening, when intuition told him he would have the very first opportunity of taking emprise of Maude. There was, to be sure, a feudal concept involved, whereby to all intents and purposes the virginal, lovely creature whom the dying old Rivers had trustingly put into his custody would actually become his little slave-girl. For Charles Cameron, being in the legal profession himself, was well aware that he could exert the sum total of parental authority in his capacity as Maude’s guardian - and that is what he proposed to do. It would, he was certain, be much more logical if the pretty minx would give him the opportunity he sought without his taking the first step, he assured himself. In that way she could bring upon herself the logical outcome of having flaunted his authority.

He allowed her to prepare supper, and found that she could make good her boast of being quite able to cook. It was a pleasant contrast to have a charming young girl opposite him at the table to wile away the evening which would otherwise be spent in locking himself up with his beloved books and conjuring up fantasies of those secret erotic intricacies which had become so keenly absorbing to his desires. And the prospect of having a flesh and blood virginal ingenuous and totally helpless partner at his disposal for experimental purposes in carrying out these fantasies was absolutely breathtaking.

At about nine-thirty, he judged that the day had been sufficiently exciting to the newcomer in his ménage, and so tactfully suggested that Maude would feel more receptive with a good night’s sleep. Accordingly, he rose and with a final smiling reminder that she might, if she so chose, sit up for a little bit and amuse herself with all the books in his library except those in the locked bookcase which he had already pointed out, he took himself off to bed. His own master bedroom was on the first floor at the back, so that Maude was directly above him, and the thought that only a flight of stairs and a door separated him from her virginal bed was positively intoxicating. Pouring himself aglass of sherry from the cut-glass decanter which he kept on the little buffet stand hear his bed, he savoringly sipped it and, closing his eyes, let his mind run riot with the most vivid and speculative pictures of delights to come.

About an hour later, having donned his dressing gown over his night shirt, and slipping his feet into a pair of heavy felt slippers, Charles Cameron tiptoed from his room and went down the hall to the library. It took only a moment to ascertain that his spirited ward had defied his interdiction referring to the forbidden books: true, the case was still locked and the key remained on its hook as before, but there was a noticeable gap on the first shelf, and two books had been tilted rather naively to hide the loss of one which obviously the charming Maude had taken off to bed with her. Another glance told him that the book was none other than ‘Life at Miss Belissa’s Boarding School,’ an extremely spicy volume which told of the experiences of two attractive teenaged sisters who discovered that at the private school to which their aunt had sent them, they would be introduced to not only corporal punishment when merited, but also scandalous clandestine nocturnal encounters with their female classmates, who would seek to initiate them into the tender rituals of Lesbos.

Charles Cameron smiled with zestful anticipation upon discovering the title of the volume which his ward had seen fit to pilfer. Of course, there was no clue to let him know whether she had simply made a random choice or had simply had spent time enough perusing the various tomes on the shelf and thereby acquainted herself with the extremely candid and lasciviously outspoken volumes of his erotic collection. In either instance, she deserved chastisement for having first defied him and secondly taken reading matter which he had forbidden her on the grounds of her tender years. There remained only to catch the culprit in flagrante delicto and then apply the requisite penalty.

Chapter Three

Charles Cameron felt the blood pounding in his veins and that exquisitely indescribable feeling which always is the prelude to carnal adventure as he tiptoed down the hall to Maude’ s bedroom. In preparation for what he fully anticipated would be required - which is to say, the very first chastisement of his beautiful young ward at his hands under his own roof - he had put into the pocket of his dressing gown a flexible, stingy metal leafcutter which had hitherto been used to cut the pages of newly issued French novels which his London book agent frequently purchased for him, since Charles Cameron read French as fluently as he did his native tongue. He stood before Maude’ s door, made certain that his gown was belted and that he observed - at least at the outset - the strictest propriety of demeanor. Suitably, he adopted a stern expression on his handsome face and then knocked at the door.

Listening intently, he could at once detect that Maude was flustered by his unexpected visit, for he heard movements, a little gasp, and then after a few moments a quavering gasp, “Who is it?”

The sly little minx, he told himself with a grin. She intends to play Miss Innocent to the very hilt. So much the better! “It is I, Charles Cameron,” he called sternly. “Open the door at once.”

“Yes, Mr. Cameron. I - I was just going to bed.” He heard the stammered and obviously frightened reply, closer to the door this time. He waited, standing patiently and erect as befitted a mature guardian of so tender a ward, until at last he heard the bolt slip back and the door opened.

Maude was absolutely breathtaking, as she stood there blushingly, her eyes big and round as saucers. Over her nightgown she had hurriedly drawn a robe of rather dull grey cotton twill and had belted it circumspectly. Her golden hair was tousled, indicating that she had gotten out of bed in a hurry.

“Whatever is it, Mr. Cameron?” she ingenuously demanded.

“I am sorry to see that on your very first day in my house, my dear, you have seen fit to disobey me,” was the stern rejoinder.

“But I don’ t understand what you’ re saying, Mr. Cameron!” the lovely blue-eyed face expressed wonder and not a little apprehension. “I read a little bit, and I was just now going to bed when you knocked.”

“I am quite certain that is true, my dear, but you remember that I expressly forbade you the use of books which are far beyond your years and which are kept under lock and key in a particular space in my library.”

“Oh, I remember that you said that, Mr. Cameron, and I took pains not to disobey you, truly I did,” she hastened to explain. “I was reading a novel by Bertha Southworth. I brought it off to bed with me - perhaps I shouldn’ t have and I’ m sorry.”

“It is not with that book I am concerned, Maude. Let me see for myself.” With this he walked toward the bed, and Maude hastened after him, wringing her soft little hands, her brows arched and her rosy mouth a delicious circle of adolescent apprehension.

“But I am telling you the truth, Mr. Cameron,” her voice nervously persisted. ” I-I put the book under my pillow, you see.”

“I told you that I am not concerned with that innocuous piece of trash. But one of my other books is missing, and I have reason to suspect it may be concealed somewhere in this room,” and with this he reached under the two fluffed-up pillows and drew out the book to which his ward had referred.

“There! You see?” she triumphantly exclaimed.

“Yes, I see the one but not the other. Let us have a more extensive look, if you don’t object, Maude,” he retorted, and he began to thrust his hands down beneath the covers which she had drawn up almost to the pillows. Maude bit her lip and stared at him with growing alarm. He felt a bulge over to the side of the bed, and his fingers at last encountered the volume and drew it forth.

“And what do you say to this, pray?” he confronted her, holding up the tell-tale book in his right hand.

Maude was speechless in her fright at having been found out both in deception and a lie.

“My gracious,” she tried her best to recover her aplomb. “I must have brought that along and never noticed. Truly, that’s how it happened.”

“I should be inclined to believe that, Maude, if it had not been necessary for you to obtain that book by taking down the key, opened the bookcase, and selected it from among the various shelves and their contents,” he said deliberately. “And I daresay that you took pains to glance through the other books, all of which were forbidden to you. This is a fine way to repay my kindness in taking you in as my ward, you know.”

The lovely blonde was very nearly in tears, and with clasped hands before her, her lips trembling, she stammered an almost inarticulate explanation which he impatiently silenced with a wave of his hand:

“Do not try to add to the seriousness of your offense by inventing implausible explanations, my dear. I can see exactly what you have done, against my express request. I am afraid I shall have to punish you, Maude. If I am to be your guardian and have every authority over you, you must allow me to regulate your conduct as I see fit, being many years your elder. Now, to temper the enormity of your fault with your confession, which might lead me to leniency with you, I will ask you if it is not true that you took my remark about the forbidden case as a kind of challenge and decided you would see if you could get away with it. Isn’t that so?”

He stared at her levelly, until her blushes spread down to her lovely rounded throat, and he watched her nod silently. By that nod, of course, she was delivering herself up to his tender mercies, and nothing could have suited him more at this moment. The robe did not quite conceal the provocative dishabille of her thin, clinging, lawn nightgown. It seemed to him that her bosom almost boldly thrust out into the nightgown, making her beauty even more tempting than if she had been naked. As a voluptuary, he savored both her scanty attire and her mounting distress at the thought of being punished, particularly the uncertainty of what form that punishment was going to take.

And a moment later she confirmed his suspicion in this regard by stammering, “Oh, truly I did not intend to disobey you, Mr. Cameron. Won’t you please say you forgi [...]