Highborn girls from highborn families who concerned themselves with embroidery and courtesies and how best to sip their soups were rarely given the sort of treatment as those who had been raised by devout servants of the Faith. Those girls – girls like Alayne Stone – were carved to rigid completion under the harsh kiss of the switch and reed. Any ankle exposed was soon to be snapped back beneath the hem of a skirt; a set of slumping shoulders would receive a harsh lash at the base of the neck; unkempt nails were wont to inspire rosy knuckles split by braided tether. Obedience and piety were valued above all. Alayne’s transgressions, then, were most severe, and would be treated appropriately as such.
From across the room Baelish’s gaze followed each of Sansa’s steps as she moved to position herself firmly braced against the desk. Standing. Oh, that simply would not do. The smile playing over Petyr’s lips did not waver, but grew further still, his eyes falling down the form of her body, following the rucks of her gown where they gathered near her feet. “A valued change from your earlier opposition, Alayne.” A step, then another, and Baelish was beside her, looking down the line of her shoulder, his head tilted so that he might best observe her face. “I appreciate your sudden eagerness to obey, but the form is all wrong I’m afraid.” Just barely, she would feel his touch at her back; a gentle press of fingers came before the full weight of his palm. “The angle must be severe…the skin stretched taut. And…your skirts, my dear. Draw them up.” There was pressure, then, and he was guiding her down to bend at the waist, encouraging her cheek to kiss the well-polished wood of his desk. "You are meant to feel it, are you not?“ The skirts, however, he left to her. He would not dare be accused of impropriety, after all.
Lord Baelish as an entity seemed to control the very elements; how otherwise could he know the actions of players many leagues distant, days or moons before they themselves might? Or how could his smiles permeate a room, creeping through it like an uninvited draft, as this one did? Alongside deepening flush it crept, spider’s legs skittering down her neck, along exposed décolletage. Though Sansa could not see him, indeed before the lord’s boot heels ever tapped out sly approach, she felt him lurking smugly beside the fire. Little wonder that with such abilities a diminutive boy possessing no fortune of coin or high-born love had elevated himself to the Vale’s highest perch. And it was in these private moments, when one might expect a demonstration of rebellion to prove most effective, that Sansa understood how truly powerless she was.
“It has been some time,” the girl murmured, thinking perhaps it was the ruse, rather than its full enactment, which tempted Baelish so. Pride stuck thick in a throat which could still taste sweet peasant tarts, the smoke of an open fire, incense from the grinning crone’s tent. It choked her with familiar bitterness, a flare of indignation she dared not indulge. “You must forgive me.” Papers moved in dry hiss across his desk, pushed aside with considered slowness as her palms slid outward to accommodate the lowered pose. Even fully clothed Sansa felt exposed, vulnerable, as though every kitchen maid and stable boy managed to peer through the lofty perch of their Lord Protector’s window to witness his chosen censure. Her breathing had deepened, turned ragged by embarrassment — raise her skirts? Oh yes, the girl knew intimately what it was Petyr desired. From the desk both hands slid, fingers curled tightly into silken drape. Even more slowly than her descent was the lifting of gown and shift beneath; as chill air caressed first her ankles, then her calves, then the beginnings of her thighs Sansa though surely now he would deem her punishment complete. Yet when her hem tickled at ivory smallclothes she knew this farce could only continue on. With white-knuckled fists she bunched the tangle of fabric at her waist, a meager bolster against the desk’s harsh bite. “My lord.” As hotly as pale skin burned, perhaps even where she stood exposed Baelish would see the telling flush of shame.