Claiming His Wife (23 page)

Chewing her lower lip, Grace's mind
raced as she flipped through each piece of correspondence, wishing
that she could read Alex's letters to her father.  What had he
said that had convinced her father to leave her alone?  Why
had he been protecting her? 

Her father even said that if Alex
divorced her, he would continue business with Alex as usual.
 That didn't surprise Grace at all, what did surprise Grace
was that Alex hadn't taken her father up on that offer.  It
had been made almost two years ago.  During all this time, she
had assumed that her father had at least something to do with the
fact that Alex had continued to pay the bills that she sent to him.
 She'd thought something in the agreement he'd made with her
father required him to, that her father must have put something in
the marriage contract about Alex keeping her in the proper style.
 After all, her father cared more about appearances and money
than anything else.

She'd been wrong.  Her father
hadn't even cared that much about her.

Why?

The question pounded at her head.
 Why had Alex protected her from her father's wrath?  Why
had Alex paid for her dresses and food and houses when she'd been
estranged from him and taking lovers?  Why had Alex decided
that he wanted to reconcile when it would have been so much easier
for him to divorce her and take another wife?  Even easier
than she had supposed, as her father obviously wouldn't have put up
any kind of fight, not even for the sake of appearances.

Apparently she had become enough of an
embarrassment that her father was ready to pretend she wasn't his
daughter, but not enough for Alex to abandon her as his
wife.

Why?  Why?
 WHY?

Beside her, oblivious to her turmoil,
Cynthia's head snapped up and she let out a soft little shriek.
 "Someone's home... Blast!  Quick!  Put everything
back!"

Fear coursed through
Grace, horror overtaking her, and she shoved the packets of letters
back into Alex's desk drawer.  If – when - he opened the
drawer, it would be obvious that someone had gone through it, but
that couldn't be helped now.  The fast, heavy tread of
masculine steps was getting closer, ominous and otherwise silent.
 More than one pair of boots, too.  

Next to her, Cynthia was jumping to
her feet, frantically brushing out her skirts to hide the evidence
that she'd been sitting beside the desk.  Grace followed suit.
 She took two steps for the door and then stopped.  The
heavy tread was already coming down the hall and there was only one
way out of this room.  It wouldn't matter if she stepped out;
if Alex was home, he already knew where they were.  The light
in the room would have been visible from the
street. 

"Blast and damnation, what the devil
is he doing home so early?" Cynthia muttered, just before the door
swung open and slammed into the wall.  Grace winced at the
crashing noise, and then took a step back as she looked up to meet
her husband's furious eyes.  Right behind him was the Earl of
Spencer, looking every inch his title and nothing at all like the
playful and flirtatious Wesley that she'd always known.
 Cynthia groaned.  "Dammit."

"What have I told you
about cursing?"  Wesley growled, moving so quickly that Grace
was taken aback.  Even Alex looked a bit surprised as Wesley
snatched up his ward and fiancé, tossing her over his shoulder as
she let out a shriek, and then striding back out the door without
saying another word.  

Cynthia's demands to be put down
echoed through the hall, growing fainter until they heard the sound
of the front door opening and then closing decisively.
 

Both she and Alex stood there,
listening, almost as if they both wanted to ascertain they were
alone.  Her mouth was dry, her heart feeling as though it
might burst from her chest it was beating so hard.  She could
barely look at the man, at her husband, whom she didn't understand
at all. 

"What are you doing in here?"
 The question was clipped, sharp.  Dangerous.  It
sent a shiver down her spine. 

She looked down at the desk in front
of her, her fingers tracing the edge of it in a nervous movement.
 

"This is where we are staying, is it
not?" she asked, trying to think through the fog that had suddenly
clouded her mind.  Part of her wanted to ask him all the
questions that had arisen when she'd read through her father's
letters, and when Cynthia had found the portrait, but another part
of her didn't want to say anything until she'd had more time to
think it through.  That part of her was also curious what he
would do now.  She'd been caught invading his privacy,
snooping through his things, and she was being deliberately obtuse.
 Not to mention, she wasn't supposed to be in this house right
now.  Would his temper overcome him?  Would this be too
much trouble, even if it wasn't going to cause a scandal since no
one knew about it?  

"Yet it is not where you are supposed
to be and there is no reason for you to be in this
room."

Still not looking at him, Grace
shrugged, her hand wiping damply over her skirt.  She felt as
though she was teetering on a knife's edge, waiting for his next
move.  Wondering what the unpredictable man would do, and what
it would mean when set alongside his other actions.

Standing behind his desk, Grace looked
almost like a naughty little debutante.  She avoided his eyes,
traced patterns on the wood top of his desk, fiddled with her
skirts, and did everything she could not to actually challenge him.
 Which was unusual for her.  Someone was definitely
feeling guilty.

"Did you find what you
were looking for?" he asked, his voice rough with his anger and
frustration.  He didn't know what Grace was looking for.
 Letters from a mistress perhaps?  She would be sorely
disappointed on that score.  Although he'd received a few
letters from women since he'd give his last mistress her
cong
é
, he'd tossed them all in the fire without even opening
them. 

The way Grace jumped at his question,
looking even guiltier, he knew that she hadn't found whatever she'd
been looking for.  Probably some kind of evidence to further
condemn him in her mind.  Knowing that she hadn't found it
allowed him to relax slightly, some of his tension leaking away.
 They'd made a lot of progress since coming to Bath and he was
loathe to find that he'd lost ground.

"I wasn't looking for anything," she
said sharply, still avoiding meeting his gaze.  

"Bend over the desk."

Now she looked at him, her blue eyes
wide with shock at his rough order, cheeks flushing and then
paling.  Alex stood there, his anger leaching away as calm
overtook him.  Patiently, he stared back at her, crossing his
arms over his chest.  The door was behind him, there was
nowhere for her to go.  

But he'd still expected her to argue.
 To his surprise, she stepped forward and very slowly began
bending over the desk.  Confusion was clear on her face, as if
she herself didn't quite understand why she was obeying him.
 Seeing her submit so quickly had his cock standing upright,
the rush of lust hitting him so fast that he nearly groaned aloud.
 Perhaps it was her guilty conscience, Alex wasn't sure, but
he wasn't going to argue with the results either.  

"Stretch out and grip the other side
of the desk."

She was short enough that she had to
squirm forwards, her fists uncurling so that her fingers could wrap
around the far edge.  Walking around behind her, Alex could
see that her toes were barely touching the floor.  Perfect.
 The vulnerability of her position was incredibly
arousing.

When he flipped up her skirts, she
made a soft little whimpering sound that wasn't quite a protest.
 Surreptitiously, he rubbed the front of his pants, making his
cock swell even further as he looked down at the creamy expanse of
skin that had been revealed.  The mounded hills of her
buttocks were thrust upwards by her position, the pouting lips of
her pussy, fringed with dark curls that made the cream and pink of
her skin stand out, peeked from between her thighs.  They
weren't wet, not yet. 

Settling one hand down on the small of
her back to both hold up her skirts and keep her from squirming too
much, Alex raised his hand.

SMACK!  SMACK!  SMACK!
 SMACK!

"Ow!"  Grace
protested, although he noticed that she still hung on to the desk,
even as she tried to wriggle out from underneath his hand.
 His cock approved.

"I know when you're lying to me,
Grace," he said sternly.  "I won't tolerate it."

SMACK!  SMACK!  SMACK!
 SMACK!

He kept the slaps to her
ass steady but fast, placing them randomly across her buttocks so
that she wasn't able to guess where each blow would land.  The
flesh of her bottom danced and jiggled, from both the spanking and
her squirming as her legs kicked a little bit.  This was
probably the hardest spanking he'd given her yet, but it was well
deserved.  

The little minx had not only snuck out
of Spencer's house, but she'd done it in order to go through Alex's
private space, and then had the audacity to try and lie about it.
 A firmer punishment than he'd given her before was definitely
called for.

"Ow!  Alex, please,
it
hurts.
"

 
SMACK!
 SMACK!

"It's supposed to sweetheart," he
said, somewhat grimly.  "It's going to hurt a lot more by the
time I'm done.  Did you even think about what you were
doing?"

SMACK!  SMACK!

"Would you like it if I disappeared
from where I told you I was going to be?"

SMACK!  SMACK!

"Have I gone through any of your
private things?"

SMACK!  SMACK!

"What if you'd been accosted in the
streets?

SMACK!  SMACK!

"You and Cynthia could have been
attacked and hurt, coming over here unaccompanied at
night!"

SMACK!  SMACK!  SMACK!
 SMACK!

The idea that she and
Cynthia might have been attacked on this little excursion left him
breathless with anxiety.  Although he loved Grace's spirit, he
wouldn't tolerate her putting herself in danger.  He was just
starting to win her back; it would kill him to actually lose her.
 Anger surged through him again at the lack of care she showed
for her own person.

"Ow!  Dammit, Alex, we were
perfectly fine!"

SMACK!  SMACK!
 SMACK!

Grace howled as Alex's hand came down
between her legs rather than on her ass, smacking against her pussy
lips with a humiliating wet sound.  

"But you might not have
been!"

The panicked rage in his
voice took her aback, even in her own self-involved little world of
pain and embarrassment.  The way he said it, sounded like any
injury to her would have hurt him.  He sounded like Edwin or
Hugh or Wesley... like he really, truly
cared.
  And wasn't he showing
it right now?  Behaving just like them, punishing her because
she'd put herself in danger?  Well, and also the other things
he'd said, but there was no doubting from the force of his blows
what he was most upset about.  

SMACK!  SMACK!  SMACK!
 SMACK!

His hand came down on her pale thighs,
making her gasp and kick at the new sensations.  It stung so
much more than when he was spanking her ass.  The fiery sparks
were licking at her all over, her bottom, between her legs, the
backs of her thighs... it felt like her whole backside was being
roasted.  She cried out, louder, not caring anymore if the
staff might be able to hear her.  

"Please, Alex, I wasn't!  I won't
do it again, I promise!"

"No, you bloody well won't."
 

His hand moved back up to
her bottom, which was already bright pink and sensitive, and Grace
howled.  Tears were beginning to slide down her cheeks and on
to his desk, but even though she kicked and squirmed beneath his
hand, she found that she couldn't let go of the far edge of the
desk.  Her fingers curled around it as if she was hanging on
for dear life.  Why couldn't she let go?  Was it because
she felt like she deserved this punishment?

Because she really did.  She was
feeling more than a little guilty about going through Alex's
things, especially since she hadn't found anything against him.
 There was no righteous anger to give her cause, no
vindication.  All she'd found was a portrait of herself and
letters from her father that showed Alex's protection of her.
 Not to mention, she would have been furious if she'd found
Alex going through her things.  Or if he'd lied about where he
was.  Or if he'd put himself in some kind of dangerous
situation.  Because she cared too.

The tears spilled faster,
not because he was hurting her - although it did hurt quite a bit -
but they came out in a cathartic rush as she accepted her
punishment.  She cried because of her father's lack of care,
because Alex carried a portrait of her and - it seemed - had for
years, because he'd protected her from both her father and Society,
and because he still cared enough to punish her.  To spank her
instead of pushing her out on the streets, alone and unprotected.
 To discipline her, the way her well-loved friends were
disciplined.