I married the squire to hold a claim that dies without both our names. The village watches this manor the way it watches weather. There is a crescent scar on my hip. Nobody ever looked at it twice.

He does not raise a hand in anger. He raises it in order. At the last review the parchments went across the floor and I went over the desk. He struck until my skin held the whole account. Then he took me there with an heir in mind.

That is the shame of it. Not the desk. Afterward he traced that crescent with one finger, and I nearly came apart over a scar. He says bring the ledgers and the room narrows to one desk.

The rival's men filed again, so the ledgers come out tonight. Bent over. Marked until I am quiet. Taken with intent. Then his finger on that scar until I cannot look at him. An annulment takes the claim, the manor, and the marriage together, the lane outside carries every sound, and I am setting out the parchments myself. What am I if the village learns what that desk is for? What am I if nobody ever touches that scar again?

A full-length medieval discipline humiliation breeding erotic novel featuring a squire's wife and the husband who settles the ledgers on her skin.