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It came as no surprise to Gregory when Benedict intercepted him in the hall after breakfast, put a heavy, foreboding arm around his shoulders and looked down at him with that distinct expression of gravitas on his usually pleasant face that was known to make even the bravest of young Bridgertons quake a little in their boots.
“Might I request your presence in the study, little brother?”
Gregory had been expecting it.
Dreading it really, ever since Doctor Blake had removed his splint the previous afternoon and pronounced him back in perfect health. Although there had not been overly much said on the subject at the time of the accident, he knew that it was only his broken arm that had kept him from facing the consequences of his rash climb onto the roof the very afternoon it had happened.
He was therefore not surprised, but only a little grateful that Benedict had the good grace to wait until he was in the hall. He could easily have summoned Gregory to the study while they were still at the breakfast, and how that would have made Hyacinth smirk. Not to mention the faux sympathetic gasps and murmurs it would have extracted from his elder sisters. Or the actual look of sympathy it would have earned him from his mother, which would have been the hardest to bear of all.
He gave Benedict a stiff nod.
“Yes, brother.”
Gregory allowed Benedict to steer him down the hall to the heavy wooden door of the study, trying his best to ignore the way his stomach seemed to be growing heavier by the second.
While the arrival of the consequences he’d been dreading for weeks came is no surprise to Gregory, what, or rather who, awaited him when Benedict pushed open the study door certainly did.
Anthony was sitting behind the desk, rifling through some papers. For all the world as though it was still the old days, and he had not gone off and gotten married at all.
Gregory ground to a halt just inside the door, shaking Benedict’s arm from his shoulders.
“What are you doing here?”
Anthony’s eyebrows lifted. “A simple ‘good morning, brother’ would suffice, Gregory.”
Gregory glared back at him with ill-disguised hostility. His eldest brother had no right to waltz in here and pretend that nothing had changed, when, in fact, everything had changed.
“What are you doing here?” he asked again.
Anthony put down the papers he’d been going through, giving Gregory a look that held a certain warning now.
“Having a discussion with you that is apparently long overdue, Gregory Bridgerton. Take that glare off your face right this instant, please. You are already in quite enough trouble and I wouldn’t deem it wise for you to add to it.”
Taking a step closer to the desk, feeling his shaking hands ball into fists next to his sides, Gregory scowled even harder.
“If I am in trouble it is none of your concern.”
Anthony’s jaw clenched in the most alarming manner, and Gregory found that his heart was suddenly thumping somewhere in the vicinity of his windpipe. It was not a bright idea to continue down the path of resistance once Anthony started looking like that. Despite knowing that, he could not quite bring himself to flatten the look of rebellion off his face, or even to unclench his fists.
“And why, pray tell,” Anthony said quietly. “Would my littlest brother endangering his life and injuring himself with a foolish stunt be none of my concern? When has any of you endangering yourselves been none of my concern? You should know, if not from your own experience at least from the tales told by your older brothers and sisters, just how seriously I take such frivolity with your own life, young man.”
“That was before,” Gregory said, stubbornly. “It is none of your concern now. You have your own family and your own affairs to concern yourself with. You can just leave me to Benedict, as you have done these past months.”
The threatening set of Anthony’s face morphed into a somewhat more thoughtful expression.
“Gregory…” he began, his tone softening as well.
“No,” Gregory said, blindly furious to discover that something wet and nasty and awful was welling up into his eyes just at hearing his name in that tone. It was the one that Anthony used when he was about to be kind and gentle and reassuring and Gregory did not need any of those things. Not when Anthony would only leave again, and then Gregory would have to start missing him all over again. “You have no right to be here. Get out. This is between Benedict and I. Get out.”
“Little brother-”
“I said get out!”
A strong hand clamped around his neck, giving him a firm shake.
“It appears,” Benedict said rather grimly. “That you are in need of a lesson in deportment before we can even begin as discussion of anything else.”
Gregory found himself carted off to the corner, despite his earnest attempts at wriggling away. He had grown a lot over the past few months but he was still nowhere near a match for his older brother in size or strength. Or determination, which was perhaps the larger part of it.
Benedict deposited him in the corner with a last warning squeeze to the nape of his neck. “You may stay there until you are ready to use a civil tone of voice when speaking to us.”
Gregory knew better, of course he did, but he that didn’t stop him from whipping around the moment Benedict finished speaking.
“If you think-” he began hotly.
Benedict whirled him around deftly, pointing his nose right back into the corner and landing a good half-dozen scorching swats on his bottom. They were firm enough to make Gregory swallow the rest of his protest in a hasty gulp.
“Stand up straight,” Benedict said. “And do not move until I tell you.”
“Yes, sir,” Gregory said, very much subdued. He squared his shoulders and shifted his feet until his toes were neatly in line. The urge to sneak a hand back to rub at the hot, prickling skin of his bottom was quite strong, but he straightened his fingers next to his legs instead.
The corner was at least somewhat reassuring in its familiarity. The slight pressure where his shoulders rested against the walls on either side. The faded marks on the carpet, where innumerable Bridgerton feet had scuffed around over the years with varying levels of apprehension, boredom and contrition. The long rip in the wallpaper where Eloise had, on one eventful afternoon, allowed her temper to get quite the better of her. It had been carefully patched up again, of course, but it was still clearly visible if you had the time on your hands to look for it. Which Gregory had.
He could hear some movement in the room behind him. Papers rustling, shoes on carpet, a chair being moved around. Benedict and Anthony spoke together for a while, but they kept their voices low enough that Gregory could make out nothing of what they said.
And then there was a sound that made his stomach lurch and his mouth go abruptly dry - the soft clink of a belt buckle and the snick of leather being removed from hoops.
Gregory swallowed hard. This was going to be horrible.
He was left to stew in nervous apprehension for what felt like a small eternity longer. Then he heard footsteps behind him.
“Turn around, Gregory,” Benedict said.
Gregory obeyed, his eyes immediately flying to Benedict’s midriff. He was still wearing his belt.
Anthony, leaning long-legged against the front of the desk, was not. It laid on the gleaming surface next to him, coiled like a viper.
This was not only going to be horrible, but awful and terrible and quite possibly dreadful as well.
“Are you calm now?” Benedict asked.
Gregory nodded slowly, not sure if calm was quite the word for it. He had his temper back under control, yes. But his heart was beating a mile a minute in his throat and he could practically feel how pale his face was. His mouth was dry.
“Answer properly, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
Benedict studied him for a moment, his eyes much too discerning for Gregory’s comfort. “Very well, then. Go to Anthony.”
The protest made it all the way to the tip of Gregory’s tongue before he managed to swallow it back down. Straightening his shoulders with a little jerk, he somehow managed to march himself over to the desk. He came to a halt on the carpet in front of his eldest brother, staring intently at the tops of Anthony’s polished boots.
“Eyes up,” Anthony said quietly.
It took some willpower, but Gregory managed to drag his gaze up until he was looking into Anthony’s dark eyes. The expression on his face was stern, but his eyes held a lot of quiet understanding.
“I will not pretend that our situation has not changed,” Anthony said, very gently. “I am married now, and there are new duties and new tasks that must necessarily take up time that would previously have been spent with my siblings. But that does not take away my love for you, Gregory. Nothing ever will. I am still your brother and I still care deeply for you. That will never change.”
Gregory blinked, pointlessly, against the hot tears welling up into his eyes and spilling over onto his cheeks.
A heavy hand cupped the side of his neck and face, thumbing a few tears from his cold cheek.
“Your safety and wellbeing will always be of utmost importance to me,” Anthony said. “That is why I am here. Everything in our lives may change, but you may depend upon it that the rule regarding endangering your life will not. I love you, and I will not see you hurt yourself through your own recklessness.”
“Yes, sir,” Gregory said, with a rather watery sniffle.
Anthony gave him a small quirk of a smile, before removing his hand and school his face back into sternness.
“Since you were so adamant about Benedict punishing you, we thought it only fair to give you your way.”
Gregory glanced nervously back at Benedict, who was now seated on a straight-backed chair which he’d moved to the centre of the carpet. Then he looked back, slightly confused, at the Anthony’s belt lying on the desk. It didn’t make sense for Anthony to take of his belt when Benedict would be the one to punish him, unless…
He turned horrified eyes on Anthony.
“Brother-”
“We will both be punishing you,” Anthony interrupted firmly. “Benedict will spank you for disobeying him and going onto the roof after he expressly told you not to. Then I will belt you, for endangering your life.”
Gregory squirmed miserably. “But, brother…”
“No whining, please. It is a severe punishment, but you broke a very important rule. You can never endanger your life like this again, so we must ensure that you not only think twice, but three or four or five times before you even consider risking your neck for the sake of your own curiosity again. To Benedict now, and no stalling.”
It was with leaden feet that Gregory approached Benedict. He paused out of reaching distance, and moved reluctantly closer when only beckoned to do so, giving Benedict a beseeching look.
His brother quirked an unimpressed eyebrow at him and tapped his knee.
“Breeches down and over my knee, little brother.”
Gregory did not remember the buttons on his breeches being so very stiff and fiddly when he put them on this morning, but they proved most troublesome to get out of now. Finally, he managed to get them down and, with a last beseeching look at Benedict, he lowered himself over his brother’s lap.
This, too, was unfortunately not an unfamiliar spot to be in. He was much taller than the first time he’d dangled here, studying the intricacies of the carpet below him. He put one hand down on the carpet and gripped the other around the chair leg.
Benedict started with little warning, as he most often did. There was just a soft rustle of fabric as he lifted his arm, and then the first smack cracked down across Gregory’s bottom. Another fell soon after that, and another, and then they were settling into a steady pattern of rhythmic bursts of pain across his skin.
It hurt more without breeches and on skin that was already a little tender after the warning swats in the corner.
Gregory gritted his teeth, resolving to at least not cry any sooner than what was utterly necessary. He would cry, he had no doubt about that. He was already sniffling after the talk with Anthony, and Benedict was mean once he actually got around to smacking, and there was the belt still coming. But he could hold out for a little while at least, he hoped.
The while was only very little, as it turned out.
Benedict wasted no time in covering his entire bottom with sharp smacks. He then turned his attention to Gregory’s thighs, raising a stinging warmth there as well.
There was a small pause, and Gregory closed his eyes. He knew Benedict too well, and he knew exactly what was coming next.
An absolute scorcher of a smack cracked down at the top of his cheeks, making him yelp without really meaning to.
“Ow! Brother!”
“Don’t ‘brother’ me, Gregory,” Benedict said sternly. “I told you not to get on the roof. I told you to be careful. And what did you do? You promptly climbed on the roof and was so careless in doing so that you fell and broke your arm. You are to listen to me, Gregory Bridgerton, when I tell you do to something. I do not just talk because I like hearing the sound of my own voice. I tell you things for your own safety. Do you understand me?”
He punctuated the scolding with more of those terrible swats, and when Gregory didn’t immediately answer, he tipped him deftly forward and set to work on the delicate skin just below his bottom.
Gregory screeched.
“I understand! I understand! I’m sorry! Brother, please, I won’t do it again. Ow!”
“You better not do it again,” Benedict said, quite unperturbed. He landed a swat to Gregory’s left thigh that made him whimper. “I will spank you every night for a week if you do. Do not test me on this.”
“I won’t, I won’t,” Gregory said, through his tears. “Please, brother, I’m sorry. I’ll listen to you.”
Benedict ended the spanking with a few final swats to Gregory’s undercurve, and then Gregory found himself rather dizzily propped back on his feet, Benedict’s hands on his upper arms keeping him from stumbling.
“I’m sorry,” Gregory said again, trying very ineffectively to keep his voice from shaking. His face was wet, and his bottom burned fiercely, and he wanted nothing more than to throw himself back down on Benedict’s lap, right side up this time, and let himself cry.
“I know,” Benedict said softly. “And I forgive you. But we’re not finished. There is still the matter of you endangering your life.”
For a moment, Gregory was sorely tempted to throw himself into Benedict’s arms anyways, and beg and plead to not get a whipping as well. His bottom already hurt so much, and he was already sorry and he didn’t need to be whipped.
But gentlemen did not beg, and he knew that if Benedict or Colin or Anthony were in his place they certainly would not do something as shameful as that.
So, he drew in a deep breath, steeling himself and giving Benedict a tight nod.
“Yes, brother.”
The effect of his brave march over to the desk, where Anthony and that wretched strip of leather was waiting, was somewhat diminished by the fact that he had to waddle with his breeches around his knees. But he got there somehow.
Anthony nodded at the desk.
“Bend over, please.”
It was what he always said, with the exact same downturn in his voice at the end. Gregory wondered, not for the first time, if that was what Father used to say. He wondered it only fleetingly though, the majority of his mind preoccupied with what was about to happen.
The surface of the desk was cool against his flushed cheek, as he lowered himself across it and gripped the far end.
“Why are you in this position?” Anthony asked.
“I endangered my life by doing something foolish,” Gregory answered promptly, as Anthony expected him to.
“That you did,” Anthony said grimly. “You climbed somewhere that you knew were dangerous, all for the sake of satisfying your own curiosity. And you did end up falling and hurting yourself. You are only fortunate that you did not receive a fatal injury. Next time you might not be so lucky, and there can never be a next time. You must consider what it would do to Mother if you were to die in an accident. You already worried her to death by simply getting hurt. There can never be a repeat of this behaviour, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Gregory said, wretchedly. There was nothing worse than imagining hurting their mother, nothing worse than being reminded that he’d already caused her distress through his ill-advised actions. “I won’t do it ever again. I give you my word.”
“And I will hold you to that.”
Anthony lifted his shirt, baring his bottom, and pressed it to his lower back with a firm hand.
“Do not get up until I give you leave.”
“Yes, sir,” Gregory said, through clenched teeth, his fingers tensing around the smooth sanded edge of the desk.
Even though he knew exactly what was coming, the first stripe still somehow caught him by surprise. It cracked across his bottom, making him jolt at the sound and leaving a broad line of white-hot pain in its wake. Another followed after a moment, and then another and another, casting his entire rear into a raging inferno.
Gregory, well past the point of even trying not to cry, buried his head against his one outstretched arm and burst into heartfelt sobs. Anthony did not spank and talk at the same time, as Benedict did, and there was nothing to take his mind of the terrible pain in his bottom and the deep regret about his own actions, which was somehow diminishing even as the belt descended over and over again.
And then, finally, just when Gregory thought that he could bear it no longer, it was over.
The belt buckle clinked softly, as it dropped to the floor next to the desk.
“Come on,” Anthony said softly. “Up you get.”
Gregory somehow managed to push himself up with shaky arms, turning to face Anthony on equally unsteady legs. There was one more thing to be done, and then it would really all be over.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Anthony asked.
Gregory hiccuped, but managed to clear his throat enough to speak.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I do mean it. I will be careful from now on. I’ll…I’ll listen to Benedict and I will not ever endanger my life again. And I’m sorry…I’m sorry for shouting at you, brother. I do not…I should not…it is not that I begrudge you your happiness. I am happy for you, and for Kate. Truly. It is only…it is only that I missed you. I am sorry. I do not mean to be selfish.”
Gregory was drawn into a tight embrace. Anthony’s chest was wonderfully solid and warm against his cold face, his arms wonderfully strong around Gregory’s shaking shoulders.
“I forgive you,” Anthony said, quietly into his hair. “And I do not think you selfish. You have every right to miss me, seeing as I have missed you a good deal too.”
Gregory leaned into him, hard, and allowed his tears to spill into the folds of Anthony’s white shirt.