manners.”
He turned to the door. “Miss Quinn?”
A woman entered at his call. She was wearing a maid’s uniform, but lacked Mrs. Philbert’s softness. This woman was taller, and with a posture as erect as her employer’s. Her hair was jet black, her face pale and angular and coldly pretty. She stared directly at Imogen, who felt a fresh unease under this stranger’s scrutiny.
“Miss Quinn is a trained nurse,” the officer told Imogen. “She has cared for men in my regiment; that’s how we met. When she left the service, I personally sent her, along with a recommendation, here to Stonehaven Manor. My intention was for her to succeed Mrs. Philbert when she retires. But your arrival presents a more suitable post: nanny.”
Imogen felt herself pale. “Nanny?” She slowly stood, looking from Royce to the staid woman at his side. “No! I will not allow it!”
She made a move to push past him, but found herself held fast by Major Kingsley on one side and Miss Quinn on the other. She struggled and screamed as they took her to the bed and laid her down.
“I’ll get her things,” Miss Quinn said, relinquishing full control to Royce. Imogen looked up at him, her eyes now wild with anger and defiance and fear.
“Things?” She glanced after the departing woman. “What things?”
“Why, the accouterments of your new station, of course.” He paused. “As my little girl.”
“No!” The nurse was coming back in the room now, and Imogen’s eyes widened when she saw the array of items the woman was laying out on a table pulled to the bedside. There was a simple white nightgown in a childish cut, a white square of fabric and a large pin, a straight razor and a mug of shaving cream.
She barely had time to consider the items further before Miss Quinn began undressing her.
“No! You mustn’t!” she protested, turning her panicked eyes to Royce Kingsley’s stern gray ones. But he was unmoved, and before Imogen knew it, her traveling dress was unbuttoned and off, followed by her thin undergarments, stockings, and slippers.
She was naked before these two people and— horrors!— now the awful woman had produced two leather straps and was affixing one around Imogen’s left ankle. Imogen could only sob helplessly as first one ankle and then the next was secured to the foot of the bed, spreading her legs wide. Major Kingsley sat on the bed beside her, soothing her now as he explained what was about to happen.
“You have chosen to behave as a sullen child, and so a child you shall become. And as we know, children are bare below, as you shall be.”
Imogen understood now the reason for the razor, and could only watch in helpless humiliation as the tall nurse leaned over to brush shaving cream on her plump pubic mound. The bristles tickled, and in spite of Imogen’s fear, the throbbing between her legs could not be denied.
“There’s more than a bit of cream here,” the nurse said frankly. “When this one’s ready to act as an adult, she will be more than willing.”
Imogen moaned, realizing that the nurse was referring to the wetness she felt slip unbidden from her throbbing core. That she could be so flushed and needy after just one tumble with this man, and under these circumstances… she turned her face into the bedclothes and scrunched her eyes tight in mortification at her body’s unbidden reaction to their handling.
“Nooooo.” It was the only sound she could utter as the razor sliced the hair away to reveal buttery soft labial skin. Imogen glanced up just long enough to see Major Kingsley’s eyes following the path of the razor. She felt his hungry gaze plundering her as surely as his cock had done, for in the inn it had been dark, and he’d not been able to look upon her there. But now, bound and spread, her charms were on full display. She groaned in humiliation, knowing that once shaved bare, she could not hide what he must notice—the slick, engorged inner lips, tinged with her dewy