They leave me waiting for at least an hour—and I know nobody really cares about my opinion on the matter, but I wish they’d hurry it up. I’m sure that right now Warren and Ava and Lee are having a long discussion about what to do about me. Most likely, Ava is making herself cry, blubbering to Daddy about how awful I was to her. I’ve seen her whole act before, and at first it made me angry—her blatant attempts at manipulation—but now it provokes something more like contempt. It’s pitiful that the only way she can get her father to do what she wants is by faking tears.
Of course, I can’t get anyone to do what I want, myself. But if our places were reversed, I guarantee that I wouldn’t be weeping at the drop of a hat.
The door swings open, and Lee is on the other side, looking exhausted. I imagine that both Ava and Warren gave him an earful. “Tam,” he says, with the kind of exasperation I’m pretty sure he reserves for me alone. “We talked about this.”
“I’m not sorry.” I stand up and start taking off my shirt.
“We talked about that too.”
I drop the shirt to the floor. “Look, I’m not really in the mood for a lecture. Just beat me and get it over with.”
The whipping post stands against the north wall, eight feet tall and half as wide as I am. I reach up, grab the chains that dangle from the top, and wait.
But the first blow never comes. Instead I hear Lee’s footsteps come closer. “Look, I don’t think you fully understand how serious this is.”
To my surprise, he takes my wrist, slips it through the cuff at the end of the chain, and snaps it shut. I twist to look at him as he does the same to the other side. “I’m not resisting here.”
He gives a short bark of unamused laughter. “That’s a first.” I expect him to unclip the crop from his belt, but instead he crosses to the rack on the wall and chooses a braided stockwhip. I feel a stab of trepidation and force it down. It’ll be over soon enough.
“Legally speaking,” he says, “Master Warren would be well within his rights to kill you.”
"And lose his investment?” I mutter, facing front again and resting my forehead on the pole. Warren is as stingy as they come.
There’s a few whirring noises as Lee swings the whip through the air, warming up. “You attacked a freewoman. That’s punishable by death.”
I snort. “Attacked? It was a straw basket. I’d like to see anybody get injured by that.”
“Miss Ava said there were a few pounds of onions inside when you threw it at her.”
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a streak of fire lights up across my shoulders. The blow jolts me forward, and my breath catches. The burning starts to fade after the first few seconds, but it doesn’t go away completely, and I can feel the welt starting to rise.
“She’s a liar,” I repeat, voice tight. “The basket was empty, and she knows that full well because she was the one who dumped the onions out.” The lash connects again, ripping across my back, and I clench my hands.
“Why’d she do that?” Lee asks. He doesn’t sound doubtful, just mildly curious.
“So she could make me pick them back up again.” I suck in a sharp breath as the third blow connects, leaving a fine hot line across my entire upper back. “For the fourth time in a row.” He swings again, and my nails bite into my own palms. “Please note that I did not throw anything at her the first three times she tipped it over.”
“What provoked her in the first place?” he asks, still with that same slight curiosity.
“I didn’t kneel when she entered the room.”
The next three blows come with silence, aside from the crack of leather against skin, and the slightest grunt that I manage to bite back. Lee always hits exactly the same—hard enough to hurt, gently enough to avoid permanent injury. Sometimes I think the man is half machine.
Unfortunately, though, a whip is much more painful than a crop, even if the force of the blow is the same.
“I’m not going to defend her,” Lee says finally. “But I can’t help but feel like you’re fundamentally missing the point.”
“What—” The lash bites into me. “—point?”
“Ava is your mistress,” he says patiently. “She has the right to give you orders. You have the duty to obey. And I have the responsibility of guiding you.”
Another stripe of “guidance” gets laid across my shoulders, and I clench my teeth.
“My mother always said,” sighs Lee after a moment, “that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. And I thought that would work on you, Tam.” The whip hisses through the air, and I suck a breath through my nose. “I made sure that you were working in the house instead of in the fields, and that you had baths once a week and new clothes twice a year. I even looked the other way when I realized you were stealing food—yes,” he says as I open my mouth, “I know you’ve been stealing food.”
I close my mouth again, and then flinch a moment later as another stinging welt is laid across my shoulders.
“And yet,” says Lee, almost talking to himself now, “it was never enough for you, was it? Maybe this is my fault. Maybe I should have taken a harder line long ago.”
I don’t really want to participate in this conversation anymore, and I don’t really think he wants me to either. When my back lights on fire one more time, I clear my throat. “That’s a dozen.”
“I know,” he says quietly, and the whip snaps into my shoulders again.
Uh-oh. I twist my neck, trying to get a look at him without exposing too much of my face. “Just how many lashes are you going to give me?” I demand.
“Master Warren’s exact words,” he says, winding up again, “were ‘as many as it takes’. ”
Pain rips through me, and I fight to keep my voice from shaking. “As many as it takes for what?”
“There’s only one way this ends, Tam.” His voice is perfectly level. “First you beg me to stop. Then I bring in Miss Ava, and you apologize to her. Profusely and sincerely--or at least a convincing imitation. Then the master decides whether or not you’ve had enough, and we’ll go from there.”
Agony lances through me, and I bite back a cry, pressing my forehead against the whipping post. “I don’t beg,” I say, finally, when I think I’ve gotten control of myself. “You know that.”
“I know.” And as the whip connects again, Lee sounds almost sad. “But we’ve got a long night ahead of us.”
The next time he hits me, I scream.
