Dealing With Discipline (13 page)

"And... what is that?" Irene pointed
at the seed coating the curls of her mound without looking at it as
Hugh pushed her nightrail up and her legs down.  She didn't
resist his ministrations even though they obviously embarrassed
her, that fetching blush staining her cheeks
again. 

"That's my seed," he explained,
marveling at Irene's complete innocence.  Were young brides
always this uninformed?  Or perhaps her cold mother just
didn't care to give Irene any more information that she had to.
 He could certainly believe that of the Baroness.  "When
it is released inside of you, that's what will eventually give us
children."

"Oh." Irene blushed, glanced at it,
and then turned away again, wrapping her arms around her upper body
as if to shield her breasts from his gaze.  Frankly that just
made her look even more appealing, as hints of her breasts peeked
out from between her arms... except... Hugh frowned.

"Sweetheart..." He ran his finger over
the pattern of bruises on her upper arm, only visible to him now
because of her position and the light coming into the room.
Certainly he hadn’t noticed it the day before, although he realized
that her dresses probably would have been covering it anyway.
 "Did I do this to you?  Why didn't you tell me I was
holding you too tightly?"

"What?" Irene twisted her head around
to look at then caught his eye, her blush fading as she paled and
glanced away again.  It was starting to bother him how often
she avoided looking at him.  "No, you didn't do that."
 Her normally soft voice was clipped and sharp and he didn't
bother to ask who had.

The Baroness.  Her own mother had
left bruises on her arm, on her wedding day.  Hugh would be
willing to bet his title on it.  And Irene protected her
mother by showing that it was not a topic up for conversation.
 Not that he needed her to tell him.  The Baron would
never handle his daughter so roughly and no one else would have
dared handled Hugh's wife that way. 

"If she ever does anything like that
again, tell me," Hugh said shortly, his voice tense with anger.
 Irene gave him a rather wild look, the way a half-feral cat
might look at a human - hope combined with worry and a tinge of
fear - before bowing her head and using her hand to cover up the
marks as if she was ashamed. Bending his head, Hugh kissed her in
reassurance.  "I'll go get Flora, she can give you a bath to
relax in before breakfast."

Then he had to leave the room before
he lost his temper and Irene saw how infuriated he was with her
mother.  

Rather confused, Irene huddled on the
bed.  Hugh had been so gentle with her last night, but when
his face was lined with anger he'd looked rather ferocious.
 Almost frightening, and not in the way that he normally
frightened her with her reactions to him.  Nibbling her lower
lip, she twisted her head around to look at her arm again.
 The bruises weren't particularly bad, they'd fade after a few
days.  She rather wondered at Hugh's reaction; no one else had
ever really cared how she was treated in her mother's care.
 It seemed as if Hugh was angry with her mother, was that why
he wanted to know if her mother bruised her again?  Would he
make her stop?

Something like hope rose up in Irene's
chest.  While she'd told her father once that her bruises came
from her mother, he hadn't done anything about it once he'd known
they'd been inflicted by his wife.  She hadn't had a champion
since Alex...

Alex!

How did she keep forgetting about him?
 Hugh's very presence was more than disturbing now that he had
complete access to her body and her senses, he was actually driving
the love of her life from her mind!  Irene groaned as her
lower body throbbed with the remembered ecstasy as she focused on
it.  Definitely a mistake.  

Sternly she told herself that she
needed to keep her goals in mind.  She must learn as much as
she could about making love so that Alex would take her as his
mistress, so that at least she could have some small part of him
and pretend to be his wife the way she'd always wanted to be, and
she must keep Hugh happy and satisfied so that he would teach
her.

And also, a tiny little part of her admitted,
because some secret part of her heart wanted Hugh to be happy with
her. 

******

Ever since the incident with the spoon Eleanor
had been on her best behavior.  Who knew that a small wooden
implement could hurt so much?  And, more humiliatingly, bring
her such incredible ecstasy when her husband made love to her
afterwards?  The morning after the impromptu discipline and
subsequent soreness of her bottom in the days following convinced
her that prodding Edwin to constantly discipline her was perhaps
not the most effective route to discerning his feelings towards
her.  Once she’d had time to think it over she had also
realized that if he did have any burgeoning feelings, acting a
complete shrew could quite quickly kill them.

It hadn’t helped that he’d
obviously been quite taken with the sore, slightly bruised state of
her chastised cheeks.  They’d made love in a variety of places
for the next few days afterwards, during all hours of the day, and
it didn’t take more than a slight squeeze of her bottom and her
subsequent whimper to have Edwin’s passion flare again.  Hers
too, for that matter.  At least she was well assured that he
wanted her in
that
way, whatever deeper feelings he may or may not have for
her.

“Nell? Are you ready?” Edwin
entered her dressing room as if he had every right to be there. She
supposed he did.

Raising her eyes from the mirror
she was sitting in front of as Poppy worked on her hair, she could
feel her heart squeezing as she took in his handsome personage. He
was formally dressed as they would be attending the opera this
evening, the snowy cravat as his throat tied in a complex knot and
setting off his dark good looks splendidly. With the silvery gray
of his waistcoat and the simple black and white of his shirt,
slacks and jacket, he looked even more like a fallen angel in all
those crisp colors. Many men preferred more decorative dress, but
not Edwin. He had no need of extra decoration, they would only
distract from his good looks rather than add to them, although
she’d become aware that his valet was as responsible (perhaps more)
for Edwin’s style as her husband himself was.

“Nearly,” she said, trying to cover her
roiling emotions with a smile, glancing away from his penetrating
eyes to look up Poppy.

“There,” said her maid smugly,
pushing one last pin into the elaborate coiffure. Smiling, she
turned and bobbed a curtsy to Edwin. “She’s all yours, my
Lord.”

Truer words were never spoken, Eleanor thought
a little dismally. She was all his, but was he all hers?

“You look delectable,” Edwin said, his eyes
dark and hot, drinking in the sight of her and she could feel the
reaction throughout her body. The way he looked at her made her
nipples bud, her lower lips plump and dampen, and her pulse
quicken. “But you are unfinished.”

“Unfinished?” Her voice wavered as
she looked at herself in the mirror, Edwin’s gloved fingers
stroking over her bare shoulders and down to her collarbones.
Immediately her breasts began to ache as she wished he would move
his hands lower and dip them into the low décolletage of her dress.
She was becoming quite wanton now that she was a wife, her
experiences with her husband providing much more explicit material
for her imagination.

“Quite,” he whispered into her ear, and she
turned her head to catch his lips but he was already moving
away.

Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out
a stream of glittering blue.

As Eleanor gasped at the sight of the
sapphires he’d commissioned, picking out the stones himself to
exactly match her eyes, Edwin could only grin with pride. She had
turned in her chair, cooing over the beautiful gems, stroking their
glittering faces with her fingers as if she couldn’t quite believe
they were real. They would look very well indeed with her navy gown
and its silvery edging.

Wrapping the necklace around her
slender throat, Edwin clasped it at the back. The stones were cold
and heavy against her skin although they started to warm
immediately.

“They match the color of your eyes
perfectly,” he murmured as she put up a hand to her throat, staring
in wonderment at her reflection. “I thought they would. Although
they are no match for the brightness and beauty of your
eyes.”

“They’re lovely… Oh Edwin, thank
you!”

His wife’s eyes were shining extremely
brightly, perhaps with tears, but she didn’t shed any as she
twisted around in her seat and impetuously grabbed at his jacket,
pulling him down for a kiss. That was his Eleanor, impulsive to her
core. The eagerness of her mouth tugged at him and for a moment he
seriously considered grabbing his wife and tossing her on the
bed…

But the whole point of this evening was to
reward her for her good behavior the past few days. And also to
indulge in a pastime which they both enjoyed, as well as attend to
their social duties. While Society could be fairly understanding
about newlyweds indulging themselves, at some point they were
expected to reemerge on a regular basis.

With an effort he pulled himself away,
although he kept his hands on Nell, pulling her from her seat at
the same time so that she was standing beside him.

“Come, my dear,” he said, pulling her arm
through the crook of his. “You know I abhor being fashionably late
to the opera.” While he didn’t mind it at all with balls, he cared
more about watching the stage than watching the audience when they
went to the theater. Smiling up at him with complete adoration,
Eleanor fairly floated alongside him out of the house.

******

Throughout the first act,
Eleanor stroked her necklace over and over again.  They were
sharing the Clarendon box with Wesley and the Dowager Countess of
Lilienfield, a lovely widow in her thirties who had been married to
a much older gentleman.  She had never remarried, preferring
to raise her son, the current Earl, under the guardianship of her
brother as laid out by her late husband’s will.  It gave her
quite a bit of freedom, including that of taking lovers amongst
the
ton’s
rakes,
of which Wesley was most assuredly now a part
of. 

They sat in front of her and
Edwin, flirting and touching each other, exchanging meaningful
glances.  It was a subtle dance that Eleanor now recognized,
knowing just how potent those small touches could be.  Next to
her Edwin was sitting close enough that the hairs on her arms were
standing up, but he wasn’t touching her. Just sitting so close as
to distract her. She wondered why they weren’t exchanging the same
touches and smoldering looks as the unmarried couple sitting in
front of them.  Was it because he was truly engrossed in the
opera?  Or was it an indication of his true feelings for
her?

When she’d originally imagined a
marriage, she’d thought about the jewels and presents her future
husband would shower her with. 

Now these jewels felt cold
around her neck, just like when he’d first put them on her.
 Cold and not nearly as indicative as she would have liked.
 Had she truly thought that such gifts would make her feel
more loved?  Instead she felt as if Edwin had spent money
rather than time and affection on her, as if he'd gone the easier
route of buying a token rather than giving her true emotion.
 Still, the sapphires
were
 the exact color of her
eyes and he'd made special note of that. 

Interpreting every little gesture
he made was exhausting and yet she couldn't seem to stop herself.
 She was so confused.  At one point in her life she would
have thought that a trip to the opera accompanied by a fabulous
necklace would show proof of a man's feelings.  Now that she
had those things she felt as though she was floundering more than
ever.  Money spent did not equate to love.

"Stop fidgeting, you look beautiful," Edwin
murmured into her ear.

Eleanor's breath caught in her throat.
 She'd been so caught up in her thoughts that she hadn't even
felt him shifting closer to her.  Immediately she dropped her
hand onto her lap.

"I'm sorry," she said under her
breath.  To all appearances, she immediately turned her
attention to the action on the stage.

Frowning, Edwin leaned back,
feeling rather at a loss. She’d seemed so happy when they’d first
left for the theater, but sometime during the first act she’d
become closed off again.  

No matter what he seemed to do,
his wife was constantly running hot and cold.  Well, except
for at night when they were in their bed and she blazed with fiery
passion in his arms.  He'd thought the trip to the opera would
please Eleanor, but instead she seemed distanced and distracted.
 Was she even paying attention?  She'd been practically
tugging at the necklace, as if she wanted it off, when she'd seemed
so elated about it earlier in the evening.

For all the years they’d known
each other, for all his knowledge of women, Eleanor continued to
confound him.  

Which, he had to admit, excited
him as much as it frustrated him. Life with her would certainly
never be boring.  Studying her profile, he saw the high blush
in her cheeks which said she knew he was looking at her, but she
didn't turn her head to acknowledge him.  Instead her eyes
dropped to where Lady Lilienfield's hand was obviously in
Wesley's lap.