There was a knock on the door and the second of Sir James Wellborn's three teenage stepdaughters walked into the sun-filled library.

Dilly stood in front of the pink newspaper, her short summer dress revealing most of her thighs.  She pushed a stray wisp of fair hair from her face while she waited for him to speak.  Sir James folded down a corner of the Financial Times.

- So, you insulted the cook?

- I didn't mean to, she said.

- But you did?

- Yes.

Their eyes met, two shades of blue.

- After you have apologised to Mrs Traynor, you will go to your bedroom.  I'll be in the study at four o'clock.  Clear?

- Yes Daddy.

Dilly sat on her bed.  Sometimes she hated calling him 'Daddy'.  She often wished her mother hadn't married him.

It was twenty to four.  She'd said sorry to Mrs Traynor, who had been very nice, saying 'never mind, missy,  I know you didn't mean it'.  Then she gave her a glass of lemonade from the fridge.

But Dilly did mind.  She was going to get the slipper and it was going to hurt awfully.  Her little sister Alice was such a cow.  Always telling tales.

In truth, the three sisters were forever telling tales on each other.  Only last week Dilly had got Alice slippered for skipping school. It was different when the boys were back from boarding school.  It was more fun then.  Their stepbrothers didn't like blabbermouths, considered them cowards. They'd be home for the summer soon.

Dilly couldn't wait.  She really missed Freddie.  He was only a year older and they were very close.  At Christmas he'd showed her the stripes on his bottom made by the cane.

- Look Dilly, he'd said, Mr Brown gave me six of the best.

They were fierce and took ages to fade.  Freddie said the housemasters were very strict.  Then he'd persuaded her to show him her bum after a slippering.  She didn't want to but he kept on and on.  In the end she gave in because he made her laugh and promised to take her fishing.  In the hut by the tennis court she'd lifted her dress and pulled down her knickers.  He seemed impressed, even though the bruises were nearly gone.

At a quarter to four Dilly began taking off her things.  She unbuttoned her dress and allowed it to fall in a circle around her feet.  Her hands were clammy.  Reaching behind, she unhooked her bra and shook out her breasts.  Then she put on her nightdress.  When she pulled it over her head and let it fall, the thin cotton clung to her skin.  Before going downstairs she took off her knickers.

The house was as quiet as a church.  Her mum and sisters were in the orchard, pruning.  Sammy the spaniel was asleep under the clock in the main hall.  She wanted to pet him, but thought she didn't have time.

She waited outside the study, barefoot.  Dilly hated the study.  It smelled of leather and old flowers.  It had a varnished floor and blue velvet curtains.  It was a corner room, and sunlight poured in through two long windows.  She heard her stepfather clear his throat inside.  Then the clock began to chime the hour and she knocked.

She stood on the rug in front of his desk, waiting for the lecture.  The windows were open and a gentle summer breeze circled around her bare legs.  The sun penetrated the thin nightdress, outlining her figure beneath. She wished he'd hurry up.

Sir James closed the dossier he was reading, sat back in his office chair and began to speak. She heard familiar phrases: people of our class… never rude to servants… time and again… duties and responsibilities… next time, the cane.

As he spoke he undid the buttons of his right shirtsleeve and began folding back the cuff.

- Have you anything to say? he asked.

- I'm very sorry, she said.

Sir James stood up and walked to the window overlooking the orchard.

- You know what to do, he said.

Dilly knelt on the soft leather chair and lay over its big padded arm.  She put her forearms on the low table on the other side.  The soft wind from the windows carried the smell of cut grass and blew wisps of loose fair hair across her face.  Her sisters were laughing as they worked with their mum in the orchard.  She rested her head between her arms before turning to watch her stepfather.

In a wicker basket behind his chair stood a school cane.  This was mainly used on the boys, but her older sister Lucinda got it once for hiding Freddy's spectacles.  From a drawer in the desk Sir James took out the slipper.  It was an old brown one with a rigid leather sole that stung like hell.

He laid it on the desk while he pulled up Dilly's nightdress, making sure the material was clear of her thighs in front and folded across her waist behind.

Then he walloped her bare bottom as hard as he could with the slipper.  An ear-splitting crack shattered the silence.  Dilly snorted but didn't cry out.  The second was just as fierce, landing on the left cheek.  Again she resisted an urge to scream.  The third landed on the right cheek with an almighty crack, just below the first, while the fourth returned to the left, leaving a livid red imprint on the pale skin.

And so the rhythm began, right buttock followed by left, each stroke accompanied with a whip-like crack.  A methodical man, Sir James was in no hurry. He had decided that his middle stepdaughter needed a good leathering, and he wouldn't cease until her bottom and thighs were scarlet and welted.  He wanted to make sure she remember her punishment.

Dilly managed to contain herself until the twelfth stroke.  Then the pain became too intense.  First came the sniffles and the suppressed sobs.  In just a few minutes the tears and the promises flowed freely.  Soon the teenager abandoned all attempts at decorum as the agony in her bottom became overwhelming.

Crack! crack! crack! The unrelenting slipper bit into her bottom and thighs. After ten minutes tears and snot ran down Dilly's swollen face and she pleaded for the slippering to stop. But Sir James had no intention of stopping, not for a long while.

Alice had joined her mother and Lucinda in the orchard.  The sound of the spanking from the open window silencing the horticultural trio.

- Is father slippering Dilly? said Lady Wellborn, somewhat needlessly.

- Sounds like it, grinned Lucinda, stretching on tiptoe to snip a slender wand with her pruning knife.

- Whatever for? said her mother.

- She was rude to Mrs Traynor, Alice said in an annoying sing-song voice.  We were baking cakes and Dilly called her a really bad word.

- And you told Daddy? Lady Wellborn said.

- But of course, said Alice, beaming.

Eleanor Wellborn took her youngest daughter by the upper arm and led her to an overgrown bed near the plum trees, far away from the exciting sounds emerging from the study.  She set her a weeding task that would take at least two hours.  A sulking Alice sank to her knees, trowel in hand.

The crack of the slipper echoed from the study as the statuesque Eleanor Wellborn made her way through the hall.

Sammy the spaniel lay flat under the clock, his long face resting on one paw.  Occasionally his ears twitched. He had a sheepish look in his eyes.

Upstairs, the lady of the house sat on the bidet.  Soapy hands and warm water washed away the sweat and grime of the garden.  She put on a sleeveless shift of plain cotton.  From a cupboard she removed a fat bolster and arranged it in the centre of the bed.

Downstairs, the chastisement came to an end.  Minutes later a door shut and a sobbing teenager climbed the stairs to her bedroom.  She sniffled and she hiccoughed, sounding like a child after a tantrum.  She slammed the door behind her and all fell silent.  Lady Wellborn guessed Dilly was lying face down on her bed with at least one hand reaching back to rub her sore behind.

Moments later the study door closed a second time and a heavier foot mounted the stairs.

Full of anticipation, Lady Wellborn raised her shift and lay over the bolster.  She tried to relax her bottom.

- Ah, you're here my love, Sir James said.

- I'm so very sorry for Dilly's behaviour, she answered in a meek voice.

- Never mind, my pet, we'll teach them manners yet - there's still time.

- The Vaseline is on the chest, she said, hearing him unbuckle and slip out of his trousers.

- Not today, my angel, he said.  I'm sure you're still tender.

The bed shifted as he knelt behind her, his naked warmth a feral presence behind her.

- Let's have a look Eleanor, he said, tapping her magnificent rump with his palm.

He sighed as his beautiful ash-blonde wife spread her knees for him.  Then she arched her back and her bottom opened like a flower.

- That's the girl, he said, parting the cheeks further.  Still a bit sore my pet, he said, inhaling her femininity and feeling a bolt of desire surge through his being.

He kissed his wife's behind with great passion, enjoying the exquisite intimacy as he delved deeper between her cheeks, running his tongue over her sensitive anus.  He lived for moments like this.

Fully aroused, Sir Wellborn entered his spouse naturally, revelling in the slippery warmth.  He bid her close her knees so he could enjoy the full curve of her bottom.

- She was taught a good lesson today, he said, keeping up a steady rhythm and wetting the pad of his thumb.  Rudeness to servants will never be tolerated under my roof.

He prised open his wife's buttocks again and gently thumbed her anus while he reamed her. Soon his breathing became hoarse and his climax approached.

Outside, the day slumbered in the late afternoon heat.  The sun had dropped, leaving streaks of red and purple in the western sky.  Two teenage girls laboured in silence in the orchard, each deep in her own thoughts.  Their sister's slippering had filled them with strong emotions.

In her pink bedroom, Dilly lay on her side nursing a sore bottom.  She had stopped crying.  She wore only a cotton nightdress, pulled up past her hips.  She pushed her right knee further up the coverlet to part her thighs.  With her fingers, she coaxed  waves of pleasure from between her legs.  Freddie would be home soon.  She wondered if he'd want to see her bum again.  She thought he might and she was sure the bruises would still be there.  She nibbled the knuckle of her left forefinger, delighting in the forbidden joy filling her lower belly.  She clenched her bottom as she careered headlong towards the flood of release.

Across the corridor, her strict parents lay spooned on the marital bed.  Holding his obedient wife in his arms, Sir James felt at one with the endless universe.  The sound of a train in the distance, galloping upcountry, reminded him of long-gone summers, warm beer and village cricket.  He held the rhythm for as long as he could, before slipping towards sleep.