Mary Cromwell held perfectly still in her hiding place, willing herself not to move a muscle as she sat crouched and still. It was cold in the little space between the back stairwell wall and the servant’s quarters. She’d used the hidden alcove as a hiding place since she was a child. At that time she’d used it to avoid her governess. Now, at twenty, her diminutive stature allowed her to still fit inside although she was not hiding.

Her motives were different now. This time, Mary Cromwell was spying.

She could hear them coming and she slowed her breathing now, fearing that someone may see the steam from her breath coming from out the peephole. It was an irrational fear; her eye was too tightly pressed against the peephole for air in any form to escape.

Her heart pounded in nervous excitement as Edmund entered the room with Kate in tow. It had been by happy accident that Mary had overheard two older servants gossiping in the stairwell just half an hour earlier. Kate had been told to feed the geese, but where had she been? Giggling over the wash pots with two other younger servants, even though she had been warned by her cousin that if he caught her shirking her duties again it would mean another spanking.

Her ears had pricked at the word, and her face had flushed. She’d overheard the second spanking Edmund had delivered to his cousin. The sounds had stayed with her for days – the splat of his hand striking her bare flesh, Kate’s pitiful cries and pleas for mercy, his scolding…

“I did not get you this post to have you disgrace me with your laziness, cousin.”

Afterwards, she’d pressed herself against a column at the bottom of the stairs and watched as Mary had passed. The girl’s pretty plump face was tear-streaked and ruddy; her eyes reddened. But it was Edmund she most wanted to see. When he passed, Mary walked out and looked at him boldly. He was a servant after all, and she a lady. He could not look too long at her, but she could stare all she liked.

So when he just gave her a quick glance and moved on, she told herself it was his way of following rules, and not because he didn’t find her as attractive as she found him. A few feet ahead of her, he stopped to inquire of another maid as to the health of her mother. She stopped, too, and pretended to rearrange flowers in a vase set on a nearby pedestal. But as she did, she cast a sidelong glance at him, admiring his thick blonde hair, the fair, fine-boned face so unlike the other servants’, his well-muscled arms and large hands. She wondered if they’d left prints on Kate’s bottom. Then she wondered if those hands would leave prints on her bottom if he held her down and spanked her.

Those sounds, those thoughts, stayed with Mary throughout the day and for many nights afterwards, when she would reflect on them as her hand strayed down between her legs to touch the swollen flesh pulsating with a need she could not explain. Afterwards she would feel ashamed, but then that would pass, too, and she would find herself looking for a glimpse of Edmund. Just that alone would trigger the need.

The obsession grew until she was determined that she had to see what she’d heard. But how? Then she’d heard the gossiping servants and remembered the hiding place which was in wall next to the female servants’ quarters. It was where he’d taken Kate the last time; would he do it again?

And then suddenly, before her eyes – or eye – there they were. Kate’s face was fearful, Edmund’s expression resolute. She was trying to pull away, but he was too big, too strong. No woman could escape such a strong, tall young man.

In her hiding place, Mary sighed.

“Please!” Kate pleaded in a quavering voice. “Please don’t beat my bottom, cousin. Last time I couldn’t sit for three days.”

“And this time it shall be five!” he said.

“No!” She tried to pull away. “I’ll not stand for it.”

To Kate’s surprise, he dropped her arm. “Very well,” he said. “If that’s how you’re going to be then I’ll just send you back to Uncle Peter.”

In her hiding place, Mary mouthed the word “no.”

But as she mouthed the word, Kate cried it out.

“You can’t send me back to father! You know that! He’d…”

“…give you much worse?” Edmund asked. “I’d think so, for you’d be another mouth to feed that he can ill afford.”

He paused. “But that is your choice, girl. Take your punishment or be on your way.”

Kate began to cry, but as she did Edmund sat down on the thin, lumpy mattress of a nearby bed. He seemed sure that his pretty cousin would concede and accept her spanking, even though she knew it would leave her screaming with hurt.

And she did, slowly walking over even as she whimpered and wrung her hands.

In the hiding place, Mary’s legs and ankles were sore from the crouching position but she dared not move, not with her being so close – so close to what she’d been waiting for.

“Over my knee, lass,” Edmund said, his voice rich and commanding. And with a sniffle Kate complied.

Her bottom was facing in Mary’s direction. The view was perfect! She blinked rapidly and then held her eye open, afraid to blink again lest she miss even a second of what was about to happen.

Mary held her breath as Edmund yanked the hem of Kate’s skirt and threadbare petticoat up, baring her bottom. Her eye widened now as she took in the shapely, naked posterior of the other woman. This was wrong. What she was doing was wrong. And yet Mary could not bring herself to look away.

Edmund raised his hand and brought it down, the force of the blow flattening an ample buttock which sprung back into shape, jiggling, as she imprint of a large palm and five fingers bloomed pink across the skin. Kate cried out, and so would have Mary had she not thought to bite down on her own knuckle. Her bottom tingled at the scene before her and she wished she’d not been born a lady but a servant. And not just any servant but the one before her, stretched out and helpless over Edmund’s knee.

“Hold still!” Kate was already kicking, her legs parting in a way that exposed the downy fleece covering her cunny. Mary blushed.

Edmund raised his hand again and this time caught the under curve of the opposite buttock, propelling his cousin forward with the force of the blow. He was spanking her rapidly now, concentrating his initial efforts on the soft, vulnerable skin just above her thighs so that Mary was given a full-on view of the torture Edmund’s unflagging hand was inflicting on that vulnerable skin.

Kate was rocking back and forth now, her legs still kicking as she bawled apologies and promises to work harder. But Edmund was not finished with her and had begun spanking her higher on her bum now, his hand spanking randomly so that no amount of squirming and rocking on his cousin’s part could evade the hand of justice.

When he finally stopped, Kate was crying so hard she was unable to speak or catch her breath. Edmund tipped her up to her feet, and as he did, her skirt fell over Kate’s hands that were already seeking to rub away some of the burning sting.

“Now go back to work,” he said. “And should I hear of you shirking again it will be the strap you feel next time.”

Kate turned and fled the room, leaving Edmund alone. Or so he thought. From the space in the wall, Mary continued to watch, her eyes admiring the muscular back now turned to her as Edmund smoothed the bedclothes from where Kate’s hands had clawed them away from the pillow.

Mary felt cramped in the space, her thigh muscles screaming their objections now at having been compressed for so long. She was almost relieved when Edmund turned to leave the room. He was almost out the door when her foot shifted and she lost balance, her elbow striking the wall.

He stopped, looking right towards her. Quickly, Mary pulled her eye away from the peephole. He was still standing there; she could tell because she did not hear his footfalls.

“Oh god,” she prayed. “Do not let him look for the source of the sound I made.”

She tried to imagine what she would say if she were discovered huddled there in a space between the walls. There would be nothing she could say. Edmund would quickly figure out she’d been spying. And then what?

She imagined him hauling her out, telling her that she could either accept a spanking or be informed upon to her father. Mary imagined herself reluctantly agreeing and being led, trembling back to the bed and taking Kate’s place over Edmund’s lap. She imagined him lifting the hem of her skirt as she whimpered, imagined the cool air of the room on her bare bottom just moments before…

“Edmund?”

A voice came from somewhere down below. Another servant.

“Edmund! Are you up there?”

“Yes. I’ll be down in a moment.”

“A moment.” Mary swallowed nervously. He was still standing there. She waited, waited for him to walk over, seeking the source of the sound.

But instead he walked out and she wasn’t sure if she were disappointed or relieved. Her legs hurt terribly but she waited for a full ten minutes more before making her way out of the space. She stretched and then leaned to massage the backs of her aching thighs.

Her legs were still sore as she hastily made her way back down the stairs and into the main part of the house. It was like a different world from the drab quarters that housed the household staff. It was the Season of Epiphany and everywhere she looked signs of the holiday were apparent.

In the huge hall of her family’s sprawling home, a blaze roared in the massive fireplace. The mantle was topped with greenery, the heady pine scent filling the room. Heavy candle holders rose like branches from amongst the needles, the beeswax candles slowly melting, their drippings hardening into stalactites.

Two young women walked by and Mary vaguely recognized them as distant cousins who had visited a year before. They nodded at her but did not speak. There were so many cousins she had a hard time remembering their names.

“Mary!” Her mother’s voice came to her from an undetermined direction. “Mary Beatrice Cromwell!”

Mary sighed. “In here, Mother!”

Eleanor Cromwell, her plump form stuffed and cinched into a pretty blue gown, hastened over to her daughter. Her expression was irritated and Mary knew she’d probably been looking for her for some time.

“Child, where have you been?” her mother demanded to know. “I’ve been all over this house, as have several of the maids! We have guests, in case you have forgotten, and as part of this family it is your place to..”

“…to greet and converse with them,” Mary said. “Yes, I know, mother.”

“Do not take that tone with me, daughter,” Eleanor Cromwell said. “Is it not enough that you burden me with your presence?”

Mary scowled. “Such a kind thing to say.”

Her mother groaned. “Do not infer that I lack love for you. You know that is not true. But you should be married by now, Mary. Your father is too indulgent. He’s always been partial to you and now his coddling puts you at risk for spinsterhood!”

“Father loves me!” Mary rebutted. “That’s why he won’t force me into a loveless marriage the way you were.”

Her mother’s look of hurt told Mary she had gone too far.

“Mother, I’m sorry…” she began, but Eleanor had already turned away.

“Just mingle,” she said to her daughter. “And introduce yourself to those relatives you forgot existed.”

Mary turned away, her eyes stinging with guilty tears. Her mother needed no reminder of Henry Cromwell’s emotional detachment from her. Nor of his womanizing. He’d gone from being mildly discreet, when his daughters were young, to careless as they approached adolescence. Now that all but one of his six daughters were married, he practically flaunted his stream of younger women. He didn’t even bother to hide the lustful glances he exchanged with buxom servant girls who licked their lips even as they bent forward to offer him a drink…along with the promise of something else.

Mary wanted to hate her father for the way he treated her mother, just as her sisters did. Like their mother, they’d been forced into loveless political unions with uncaring men – a bond they shared with Eleanor.

But Mary – the fairest daughter of them all - escaped that fate. She was her father’s favorite. It was a favoritism he did not even try to hide from his wife or other daughters. Henry Cromwell ignored their resentments – and his wife’s repeatedly shrill call to marry their youngest daughter off over her objections to a parade of suitable mates.

“I need no more political connections,” he’d say when Eleanor pointed out the advantages of a pairing between Mary and some prominent man. “Let the girl be.”

Mary knew the affection her father showed her was part of the reason her mother disdained her. It was affection and devotion Eleanor would have loved to have but here he was, giving it to the last of the brood she’d dutifully given him. Mary also knew her mother resented her for something else that was not her fault – she’d not been born the son she’d wanted to bear, the son Eleanor thought would finally win her husband back from his lovers.

She’d failed her mother with her gender, and had seen more care and kindness from governesses than the woman who bore her. Eleanor had always picked the sternest and coldest of nurses to care for her youngest daughter. They had been strict with Mary, whose bottom regularly bore the imprints of their surprisingly strong hands. But even the hardest of caretakers could not help but be won over by their plucky charge. Mary had a way with people; aside from her mother rarely did she run up against someone she could not eventually charm or manipulate into giving her what she wanted.

And what she wanted now was something she didn’t think she could ever have. She wanted the attention of a servant whom she knew by first name only. She wanted him to be the one to finally tame her. She wanted to feel herself helpless over his knee and to hear her herself whimpering pleas for leniency. She wanted him to master her wholly and completely. And then she wanted him to touch her as she so often touched herself when she thought of him, alone there in her room.

Edmund. Tall, blonde, handsome. It seemed so unfair that he was so unlike the other servants. In a fine coat and breeches he would be as well-turned as any man of wealth. His carriage was always straight, his manner of speaking certain. She knew from listening to the gossiping servants that he could read and write. He commanded a natural respect, so much so that even the older servants looked to him for advice and counsel.

“King of the servants,” she mused, unaware that there was someone behind her.

“What are you babbling about?” a voice said.

Mary turned, surprised, to find her cousin Caroline standing there. She sighed with relief; Caroline as one of the few cousins whose company she actually enjoyed. In Caroline’s company she’d be free of her mother’s scrutiny and demands to mingle and entertain.

Smiling, she hooked her arm through Caroline’s elbow and turned to walk through the room with her.

“I’m not babbling about anything of note,” Mary said. “Just frightfully, dreadfully bored.”

“Bored? At this time of year?” Caroline through back her head of brunette curls and laughed a tinkling laugh. “Glowing candles, decorations, guest, presents, feasting…..I shall never understand you, Mary Cromwell. When I am set up in my own fine house I shall be endlessly entertained by the pretty things my husband surrounds me with.”

Mary stopped, shocked. “Husband?”

Caroline turned to her, eyes merry. “Did you not hear? I am to be married!”

“Married? To whom?”

“To Peter Fitzroy!”

Mary furrowed her brow. “Young Peter Fitzroy is already married,” she said. “Did his wife die?”

“No, not him. His father. The senior Fitzroy, recently widowed.”

Mary could not keep the stunned look off her face. “But he his old!”

“I know.” Caroline cast her eyes down now and Mary could tell that her jolly demeanor had been an act. Still, her cousin tried her best to keep her tone optimistic.

“True, he is older. But he’s kind enough. And wealthy, too. My house shall be nearly as fine as yours!”

“But do you love him?” Mary asked.

“I don’t really know him that well,” Caroline admitted. “But he brings me lovely jewels and calls me his poppet…”

“Your father does that,” Mary said.

Caroline scowled. “Don’t judge, Mary,” she said. “It is an advantageous match and pleases my parents. So Peter is not young, an older man will be more settled and less prone to stray.”

Mary thought of her own father, but stopped herself from telling Caroline that this was yet another lie she told herself.

“Besides, I can learn to love him. I know I can. And once I am set up in my own fine house and you are married then you and your husband can come visit me and Peter.”

Mary thought Caroline’s voice sounded hopeful, like a child speaking of a play date centered around a new dollhouse. She could not bring herself to tell her friend what she had decided, which was that she would never marry because the one man she wanted was the one man she could never have.

The two young women resumed walking, with Mary leading the way over to a low table laden with food.

Food, food, food. It was everywhere in abundance during the twelve day celebration, which began on Christmas Day and ended on Epiphany. During that time, the large Cromwell house was filled with the sound of merrymakers and the smells of food. Something was always available, even before the nightly feasts that featured slabs of beef and pork and goose and all manner of breads and puddings.

On the last day of the celebration came the huge King Cake. Everyone in the household was given a small slice. Two beans were baked in opposite halves of the cake, which in the Cromwell house was split down the center between the men and the women. The man who ended up with the bean – regardless of station - was declared the King of Misrule, the woman his Queen. Together the two ruled the day, and all within the walls of Cromwell Manor were subject to their dictates.

Last year it had been Mary’s insipid cousin Harold and one of the cooks, an unlikely pairing that had the drunken revelers guffawing with laughter as the “Queen” ordered the cooks seated so the nobles could serve them. Harold was served too – hand-fed by the prettiest maids before demanding to ride one of Cromwell’s finest horses. Henry Cromwell had not been pleased with the dictate, but tradition was tradition. A horse was saddled and brought round to the front of the house. An inebriated Harold staggered out, mounted and promptly fell off. The next day he could remember nothing of his short time as ruler.

A huge bowl of wassail sat in the center of the table. The heady scent of cinnamon and nutmeg assailed Mary’s nose as she ladled up a cup for herself and a cup for Caroline. She topped each with a sop – a small piece of toast – and handed a steaming cup to her cousin.

“My mother is all a-twitter about the wedding,” Caroline said with a satisfied sigh. “I shall, of course, wear the dress she wore. We hope to wed in the spring when the gardens are just starting to…”

But Mary wasn’t listening. He’d come into the room – Edmund. He was carrying an armload of wood and walked carefully through the crowd. He stood a head taller than most of the men, his curly blonde locks glowing in the candlelight. Mary noticed that he carried the load of wood as if it had no weight at all. The other men in the room seemed soft and weak by comparison.

She began to walk towards him, as if drawn.

“Mary!” Caroline said. “Are you not listening to me?”

“I am,” Mary said. “I just need to see to something. Will you excuse me?”

She did not turn to see if Caroline had given her leave. Instead, she walked over towards the fireplace, her confidence buoyed by the few sips of wassail. Mary’s heart pounded with each step. By the time she reached Edmund she fancied he could hear it.

He was crouched down, placing logs on the fire. She was taller where she stood. She waited until he was on the last log before she spoke.

“Serving boy…”

He looked up. His eyes were gray with a hint of green. Her heart twisted a little. He tossed the last log in the fire and stood, wiping his sooty hands on the front of his pants. She watched, looking at the hands and thinking how earlier they’d spanked a bottom placed across those very thighs.

“Yes, Lady?” he asked.

She had to say something. For a moment she stood there. Then she looked up at the mantle.

“These candles,” she said. “They’re burning down. Replace them.”

Edmund looked at the candles. They still had a quarter left at least.

“I’ll send someone in to keep watch and replace them within the hour.”

“Replace them now.” Her tone was haughty, authoritative. It occurred to her that she could make him do as she wished. Perhaps she could even antagonize him so that she would be rewarded with the same stern, disapproving look he’d given his cousin Kate.

He looked at the candles again. And then he looked at her. But his expression was blank.

“As you wish,” he said. “I’ll see to it immediately.”

He turned and walked away, leaving her disappointed. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it had been something else. Something more. Mary looked down at the fire he’d just built and felt disappointment. But then she perked up. He’d have to come back with the candles. She’s see him in just a few moments. So she stood there, thinking of what she could say to him to leave a lasting impression. She wanted to say or do something he would remember, something that would plant a seed of her in his mind that would set root and grow as his did in hers.

But as she was struggling to think of something she looked up to see not Edmund entering the room, but Kate. She was carrying a basketful of candles. As she approached, Mary felt herself grow angry.

Kate said nothing as she approached the mantle and it occurred to Mary that Edmund had simply told her to replace the candles. He’d not mentioned that the order had come from the beautiful youngest daughter of Cromwell himself. She felt insulted, furious even. But she would not let herself turn that fury towards Edmund.

If she could not get him to notice her, then she’d settle for something else. Kate raised herself up on tiptoe, raising a taper to put out the flame on the nearest candle. Mary’s eyes followed the line of the servant’s back down to the pleasant swell of her hips and knew then just what she would do.