Claiming His Wife (37 page)

They hadn't been true.  Grace was
fully willing to believe Peters over that lying tart.
 

But for Alex to choose such a woman...
what the hell had he been thinking?  Had he taken Clarissa
into his confidence?  Told him that he wanted Grace jealous?
 Encouraged her?

"My lady?  My lady, please!"
 The alarm in Peters' voice finally drew Grace's attention,
and she realized that she was standing, fists clenched at her side,
fairly quivering with rage.  

That blasted bastard.  She was
going to gut him.

Chapter 15

When the door to his study
flew open, Alex jumped in surprise and looked up to see his wife
stalking into the room like an avenging fury, Peters hovering over
her shoulder looking distraught.  Tension gripped him.
 What the hell could Peters have told her to make her look
like this?

Her eyes blazed with rage, cheeks
flushed, bosom heaving.  If he didn't feel sick to his
stomach, worrying about what had gone wrong, he might have been
aroused by the picture she presented.  

"You
bastard."

Alex opened his mouth - although he
wasn't sure whether he was going to protest, ask what she was
talking about, or scold her for her language, but it didn't matter
because he didn't get a chance to say anything anyway.

"You utter
bastard.
  Lady
Clarissa Heathmore?  
Lady Clarissa
Heathmore
?  Of all the back-stabbing,
mealy-mouthed, three-penny uprights, you had to choose
her
 to try and make
me jealous?!  Do you have any idea how awful she was to
me?"

He nearly choked at
Grace's description, which was all too true, but he hadn't realized
she knew that bit of slang.  She shouldn't have even known
what a three-penny upright was, much less be able to use it in a
fairly correct context.  The women who procured their
clientele from the streets would take a man to a back alley for
three pennies and have him right up against the wall... not
something a delicate flower of the
ton
 should have even passing
knowledge of.

Obviously Grace and Peters had been
having a bit of a talk.  He should have spoken with the butler
beforehand and warned him that, although things looked well enough
from the outside between himself and his wife, they hadn't actually
discussed any details from their past yet.  Peters knew far
too much of what Alex had done and why.  He'd never betrayed
that trust either, until now.  Apparently his allegiance
belonged even more firmly to Grace than Alex had
realized. 

"Grace, let me explain - " he started
to say, and then ducked, as she shrieked wordlessly at him,
throwing the pen she was holding in her hand at his
head. 

She wasn't done
though. 

After one horrified look, Peters
quickly closed the door to the room.  Alex knew he could count
on the man to keep the other servants away, so that they wouldn't
be privy to overhearing the scene that was about to commence in
here.  He ducked again as Grace launched a decorative vase at
his head, growling when it shattered against the far
wall.

"Stop that!"

"Bugger off!  You... you...
nodcock!  Bastard!  Did you and she laugh together about
fooling me?  Did you tell her to spread all those
rumors?"

Ducking yet another flung
object at his head - Alex couldn't even tell what she'd picked up
off the shelf - he practically charged her.  She was so
overwrought she was practically hysterical, he didn't think she
even realized there were tears rolling down her cheeks.  It
was breaking his heart.

He grabbed her, wrapping his arms
around her, and she immediately started struggling against
him.

"Grace, stop it!  Of
course I didn't!  As soon as I heard what she was telling
people, I refuted her!"  

"Too late!" she shrieked,
kicking at his ankles, struggling harder against him, trying to
scratch at him.  It felt like all the pain, all the anger, was
raging inside of her like an inferno, driving her mad, and she was
going to pop if she didn't find some way of venting it.  "And
the Baroness was just as bad!"

Baroness von Wender had followed Lady
Clarissa Heathmore, and she'd been only slightly more discreet.
 She hadn't searched Grace out to taunt her, but when they'd
run into each other, the thinly veiled innuendos and insults had
come fast and thick.  

"I cut her too!"

"Maybe you should have just stayed
away from women altogether!"  She tried to bite him, but the
jacket he was wearing prevented her from snaring anything more than
fabric in her teeth.

Realizing that Grace was
only becoming more hysterical, that she wasn't in any state of mind
to listen, Alex gritted his teeth and decided to revert back to the
only method that had worked in curbing her behavior so far.
 Besides, the way she was cursing and throwing things at him,
she certainly had earned a spanking.  Keeping his arms wrapped
around her, so that she couldn't hit out at him - the kicking was
bad enough - he lifted her and quickly walked over to the nearest
chair.  She managed to bang him a couple good ones on his
shins as she shrieked and hurled insults at him.

Grimly, Alex quickly flipped her over
his knee, wrapping his leg around the back of hers to keep her from
kicking and placing his forearm along her back as she struggled to
push herself up.

"Let me up, you jackass!  Don't
you dare!" 

She screamed in outrage as he yanked
her skirts up and bared her bottom, cursing again as the first
blows landed on her creamy skin.  Alex didn't hold back, he
spanked her hard and fast, barely letting her catch her breath as
she starting yelping and shrieking for an entirely different
reason.  To his relief, he felt her starting to relax under
his arm, her angry struggles melting away as she started truly
crying.

SMACK!  SMACK!
 SMACK!

Every time his hand landed, her flesh
flattened and then bounced back, rosy and bright, her bottom
jiggling with the force of each blow.  He was careful to cover
the entire area, working his way over each cheek, the delicate
crease beneath them, and then down her thighs.  Despite the
circumstances, he was becoming hard as a rock, watching Grace's
bottom turn from creamy ivory to a hot, roasted red.
 

The fight was going out of her, until
she seemed almost defeated, slumped over his thigh, crying out as
he spanked her.  Slowly her insults and accusations melded
into pleas for him to stop, she'd had enough. 

Alex kept his arm on the small of her
back, keeping her in place, as he rested his other hand on her
bottom.  The heat of her skin sank into his palm, which was
also a bit sore from spanking her.  His arm had gotten tired
as well.  Maybe he should invest in a paddle or the like,
that's what Wesley had recommended.

"Do you know why I spanked you,
Grace?" he asked, keeping his voice light, reasonable.  He
caressed her hot bottom, soothingly. 

The little sniffles that accompanied
her reply somehow made him even more aroused.  "Because I
threw things at you.  And insulted you."

"You acted like a child, throwing a
tantrum, didn't you?"

"Yes."  It was said resentfully,
but at least she admitted it.

"We need to talk, Grace.  This
wasn't quite how I planned on doing it, but since you've forced my
hand - literally - I think this might be the best time."

Grace wanted to die.  Not because
her bottom hurt so much, although it did, but because she couldn't
imagine a worse time for the discussion that they'd both known was
coming.  Hanging over his lap, with a freshly beaten bottom?
 She started to wriggle.

"Let me up!"

SMACK!  SMACK!

He landed a blow on each cheek, making
her shriek, although she immediately went still afterwards.
 Alex returned to running his hand over her reddened rump,
patting and gently caressing the tender, red flesh.

"I think I like you right here, where
I can make sure you listen.  Now.  Apparently you've
talked to Peters. I will admit, I made mistakes when you left me.
 I was prideful and arrogant.  I should have gone after
you, rather than trying to make you jealous and trying to force you
to come to me.  I chose the wrong woman to make that point
with, and when I became angry that you'd taken a lover, I chose
wrongly, again.  Not just in my choice of mistress, but in
taking a mistress at all.  Again, I should have come after
you."  He allowed his regret to fill his voice.  "I
cannot express how much I wish I had.  I'm your husband.
 I should have never let you run wild the way you did and I
take full responsibility for that.  I am sorry for all the
pain those women caused you.  I wish I had never put them in a
position to be able to do so."

His voice was so sincere, Grace found
herself confused.  She was also a bit peeved at his taking
responsibility for letting her 'run wild,' even though it was his
fault she'd taken it in her head to do so.  Still, his apology
about the women was entirely sincere.  As was his admission
that he should have come after her. 

"It wouldn't have made a
difference."

Alex's hand stilled.
 "What?"

"It wouldn't have made a difference if
you'd come after me," Grace said, fighting against the part of her
that wanted to give in and forgive him.  The part of her that
had apparently forgotten how much he'd hurt her.  "You
couldn't have said anything that would have made a
difference."

"Why not?  Why did you leave,
Grace?  I've never understood that.  You called us
foolish... told me I was a liar... and you've never explained."
 The frustration in his voice was accompanied by fingers
digging into her flesh, sparking little flashes of pain in her
stinging bottom.  Grace wriggled, panting, and the tight grip
of his fingers relaxed.  "Why did you leave me, Gracie?"
 The pain in his voice set off her temper again.

"I didn't think you would
care!"  Bitter fury engulfed her again.  Somehow it was
easier to say everything when she couldn't see his face; when she
was over his knee, her poor bottom throbbing from the spanking he'd
given her, she could just shout out her emotions to the floor.
 "After all,
one woman is as good as
another
, isn't she?"

"What the hell does that
mean?"

"That's what you said to my father!"
 Grace started to struggle again, tears filling her already
swollen eyes.  She could barely believe that she had any left
to shed.  "You and my father, bastards, both of you,
congratulating yourselves on your damned business deal... he got me
off his hands and you got a wife.  It wouldn't have mattered
who your wife was, you didn't care, but at least you got some extra
benefit out of marrying me because of that damned
arrangement!"

Something clicked inside of Alex's
head.  The hazy memory of a conversation from so very long
ago, when Grace's father had come to talk to Alex after they'd
returned from their honeymoon.  Although Alex had never
particularly cared for the Duke, the deal they'd arranged had been
highly lucrative on both sides.  Yes, Grace had come as part
of that bargain, but...

SMACK!

SMACK!

SMACK!

He spanked her already pained bottom
until she stopped struggling again, taking the time to get his
chaotic thoughts under control, until she hung limply
again. 

"I hate you."

Alex's heart contracted.  "You
listen to me, Grace Eileen Greville, and you listen to me good.
 Your father is an unmitigated arse.  At times, I may
behave like one too, but I definitely cared who I took to wife.
 I wanted you.  Not any of your sisters or any other
woman, just you.  But when you're making a deal, you don't
show your hand.  You should know that from all the shopping
you do.  The less interest you show, the better off you are.
 If your father had known how much I wanted you, he would have
wrung me dry in the financial part of the bargain.  When you
heard that conversation, the papers hadn't been finalized yet.
 I couldn't let him know how I felt about you because there
were still some small details being worked out in the deal.
 You were the best part of that deal.  No matter how much
money I made from it."

Silence hung in the room, only broken
by Grace's sniffles.

"Do you believe me?" Alex asked, after
a few minutes, his chest tightening with worry.  She didn't
answer.

SMACK!

"Answer me, Grace."

"I don't know."

The sad, soft little voice
was one he'd never heard from her before.  Immediately, Alex
had her pulled up onto his lap, cuddling her close.  The heat
of her bottom pressed against his erection, but he had no impulse
to indulge in that right now.  Holding her tightly in his
arms, he snuggled her against his chest, tucking her head under his
chin.  

"I'll pull out, if you
want me to," he said softly.  While both he and the Duke had
made quite a bit of money together, over the years, there were
other ventures he could make just as much money from.  "We're
secure.  I don't need the deal with your father, I can find
another.  Grace?  Do you want that?"