Dealing With Discipline (14 page)

Quirking his lips, Edwin wondered
if Eleanor was watching their blatant courtship. Certainly she
seemed more interested in it than in the opera.  Or perhaps,
the smile faded from his face, she was wondering if Wesley had the
same unbrotherly affection for her that Edwin did.  It wasn't
beyond the realm of possibility, after all.  Jealousy lanced
through him before he could wrestle the unwelcome emotion away.
 She had done nothing to indicate that her feelings for Wesley
went beyond the friendship that they had always
had. 

Reaching over to rest his arm on the back of
her chair, Edwin let his fingers brush against the back of her
neck.  His wife jumped as his fingertips touch the tendrils of
gold that were falling against her sensitive skin, and he hid a
grin as he watched her gaze slant towards him.  Not that she
actually turned her head, but it was obvious she was no longer
ignoring him.  

Edwin shifted closer so that he could examine
the color in her cheeks and the rise and fall of her breasts as he
brushed his fingers across the nape of her neck again.

Oh... why was he tormenting her
so?!

She couldn't be in the same room
as her husband without being aware of him, and now that he was
touching her in these little ways she was so acutely attuned to him
that she couldn't concentrate on the opera even if she wanted to. A
moment ago she’d been yearning for such touches from him and now it
was all she could do not to jump as his fingers brushed the back of
her neck, played with the short hairs there, traveled along her
shoulder blades...

Inside her corset her nipples were
aching for his touch and she could feel her lower body heating,
coiling.  In the theater!  Their private box was not very
private and this was not Paris, their friends and acquaintances
were in the audience!  Wesley was sitting in front of them,
not even a foot away.  Not that Edwin was doing anything
completely scandalous, Wesley would see nothing but her hot red
cheeks if he looked over his shoulder, but she felt incredibly
exposed all the same.  Maybe this was why Edwin hadn’t been
touching her before; but if so, why had he changed his
mind?

"Edwin," she hissed under her breath, leaning
towards him without turning her head.

"Yes sweetheart?" His lips came so
close to her ear that she could feel his breath against the
sensitive appendage, and she almost lost her train of
thought. 

"Stop it!"

"Stop what?" 

Fingertips brushed along her neck
again and she couldn’t suppress the shiver that went through her at
his touch. 

"That!"

"Stop touching you?"  His voice was
amused as he pressed his fingers more firmly to the top of her bare
shoulder.  "But I like touching you."

"It's distracting."

Edwin leaned closer, his lips right against
her ear so that she could feel them moving as he whispered so low
that it was barely a sound.  "I think you like me touching you
too."

She rapped his thigh with her fan,
hard, and he jumped.  Eleanor glared at him, even harder, when
he grinned delightedly at her in response.  What was wrong
with the loon?  

"Just stop it," she hissed. 

Next to her Edwin settled back down in his
seat but it was with a smug, insufferable kind of air.
 Eleanor seethed quietly for the rest of the performance, head
held high and ignoring the occasional glint of an opera glass
trained in their direction.

During the intermission more
than one lady of the
ton
 complimented Eleanor on her
necklace.  By the third time it happened her smile felt pasted
on as the lady in question cooed over how
generous
 and
thoughtful
 Lord
Hyde was, all the while fluttering their fans and eyelashes his way
as if to indicate their receptiveness to being on the receiving end
of such thoughtful generosity.  It was enough to make Eleanor
grind her teeth, although she felt Edwin's reproving fingers
tighten about her waist every time she began to be a bit snappish
with importuning ladies.

That small reminder from him was
just enough to settle her down, warning her to behave unless she
wanted a spanking when they returned home.  Which she most
assuredly did not.  

Her husband played the thoughtful
suitor by her side, much the way he had in Paris.  In some
respects it relived her greatly that he danced attendance on her,
apparently oblivious to the flirtatious advances of some of the
women; on the other hand it was a drain to keep herself from
dragging him off to some dark corner as he continued to torment her
with small touches and caresses.  She knew she was being
slightly unreasonable in her resentment towards him for heating her
body in such a way, after all, she had been watching Wesley
enviously with Lady Lilienfield and wishing for exactly that, but
as soon as her wishes had been granted she'd realized just how
awful it was to want intimacy with her husband and be denied for
hours. 

"Lady Grace!" Eleanor called out,
relieved to see her friend in the crowd. 

Immediately the head of
ravens-wing hair turned and Grace's bright blue eyes flashed with
pleasure as she saw who was hailing her.  If Eleanor's mother
had been there she would have chided her daughter for raising her
voice like a fishwife at market, but Edwin just chuckled and
continued chatting with one of his acquaintances as Grace made her
way over to them on the arm of a new rake whom Eleanor vaguely
recognized by reputation alone.  Lord Benjamin Warpoole, son
of the Marquess of Dean, whose dark good looks rivaled Edwin's.
 He looked rather bored, despite having a walking scandal like
Grace on his arm.  Apparently it didn't bother him to receive
the cut direct from more than one person.

"Hello darling," Grace cooed,
exchanging kisses with Eleanor.  She introduced Lord Warpoole,
who almost immediately joined in the male conversation, despite the
fact that he looked singularly uninterested in the topic. Perhaps
that was just his default expression, and not a true indication of
his feelings.  "This is a surprise!  I didn't know you'd
be attending tonight."

"The tickets were a surprise from Edwin,"
Eleanor explained with a little smile.  

For a moment an emotion that looked
surprisingly like envy flashed across Grace's face and then it was
gone, hidden behind her ravishing smile and bright eyes.  "How
sweet... and the necklace?  That must be new, I've never seen
it before."

Again Eleanor's fingers stroked across
the piece, although the compliment from Grace felt remarkably
different than from the other women's this evening.  There
were still undertones, but not the kind that said she was
complimenting Edwin more than she was Eleanor.  Something
lurked beneath Grace's words but Eleanor wasn't quite certain
what. 

"A present for tonight," Eleanor said.
 She smiled rather ruefully, wondering if Grace attached
emotional importance to jewelry... she'd seen some of the pieces
her friend had accepted from her various beaus.  "They match
my eyes."

"They do indeed," Grace murmured.
  She sidled closer, lowering her voice.  “Are you with
child?” Her tone indicated that she thought there must be some
significance to the jewelry. It also sounded rather
envious.

“I don’t think so…” Wonderingly,
Eleanor splayed her hand across her abdomen.  There had been
so many things to think about that she hadn’t thought about it
since her last menses.  Which would be due any day
now.  

Did she even want Edwin's child right
now? 

Part of her said no, another part of
her emphatically said yes.  So, as usual, she was confused.
 Delightful. 

"What's it like?"  Grace's low
musical voice broke through Eleanor's thoughts.  She had moved
even closer, to ensure that not even the men standing next to them
would overhear what they were saying.

"What's what like?"

"Being in a marriage that's not a
travesty."

Eleanor didn't know how to answer her
friend.  Indeed, she'd never seen Grace looking so completely
vulnerable.  Did this have something to do with Lord Brooke
being in town?  She had heard the gossip that neither the Lord
or Lady were showing any signs of leaving London; she didn't think
Grace would give in and bow out during the Season, so that left it
up to Lord Brooke.  Yet she couldn't really say whether or not
her own marriage wasn't a travesty, it all depended on Edwin's
feelings towards her.

Certainly if she loved him and he did
not return that affection than that would be a travesty for her.
 And so far she had no idea.

"It's time to return to our seats,"
Edwin said with a smile, turning back to the ladies before Eleanor
could formulate a response.  Immediately a smooth social mask
shuttered Grace's eyes and she simpered up at Lord Warpoole as he
held out his arm.  Eleanor had never seen the like and she
suddenly had to wonder how much of Grace's flirtations were an act.
Edwin’s hand pressed against the small of Eleanor’s back, rather
possessively.  "Come, sweetheart."

Mulling over the mysterious
implications of Grace's question, Eleanor allowed her husband to
sweep her back to their seats.

******

When they returned home Edwin gave his
wife a kiss before she went off to attend to her nightly toilette
and he retreated to his study.  He felt in dire need of a
brandy.  The rest of the opera hadn't gone any better than the
first part, although the opera itself had been magnificent.
 Eleanor had been thoughtful and distracted after the first
intermission and he wondered what Grace had said to
her. 

Although he did not want to
try and dictate his wife's friendships, he didn't particularly
think that Grace was a good influence on her.  The Lady had
been rather wild since her marriage to Lord Brooke and most of
the
ton
 did
not find her acceptable company.  Indeed, sometimes it amazed
him that she was invited anywhere considering her utter disregard
for the social conventions.  Yet gossips loved scandal;
inviting Lady Grace Brooke anywhere was sure to cause some minor
flutter, whether due to her behavior or her latest amour.
Especially since, for whatever reason, Lord Brooke didn’t insist
that she be ostracized.

Definitely not the kind of influence
he wanted his wife to have, and yet she'd been friends with Grace
almost as long as she'd known him. 

He wondered that Lord Brooke put up
with it.  After meeting the man at Hugh's wedding, he and
Wesley had run into him several times at White's and had sat down
to a drink and a meal with him.  He didn't seem the kind of
man to tolerate the behavior his wife indulged in, and yet nothing
had ever been done to stop her.

It was a mystery, but when he'd
queried Eleanor, he'd discovered that she didn't know much more
than he did.  Only that Eleanor assumed it had something to do
with Grace’s father arranging the match. Eleanor claimed that Lady
Grace was a romantic although Edwin couldn’t quite picture it.
 

Perhaps the two were completely
incompatible.  Not a problem he and Eleanor had, he thought
with a small smirk as he readjusted himself in his chair. They
proved their compatibility nightly. He sighed as he relaxed back
into his seat.  After a night of sitting at the theater it was
a relief to be reclining on his favorite armchair with its
well-worn cushions.   

Still, he mused, it's not as if there
weren't plenty of incompatible marriages within the ton.  But
the wives still managed to produce an heir for their husbands
before embarking on their various extramarital activities.
 Grace was a rather glaring exception.  Why did Lord
Brooke allow things to go on as they had? 

Perhaps once he and Edwin became
better acquainted the other man would confide in him.  Not
that it was any of Edwin's business, but he couldn't help but be
curious.  Or perhaps Wesley would find out first; he had been
spending a fair amount of time with Lord Brooke now that Hugh was
on his honeymoon and Edwin was spending his evenings in with
Nell. 

Glancing at the clock, Edwin decided
his wife had had enough time to ready herself for bed.
 Tossing back the last of his brandy he got to his feet, and
then paused to open one of the draws on his desk, examining the
contents with a thoughtful eye.  Picking up a small glass
bottle, he held it up to the light and then closed the
drawer. 

After all, it was rude not to utilize
Wesley's wedding present at some point.  Nell didn't even know
what he'd given them. 

Whistling happy, Edwin tucked the bottle into
his pocket and went off in search of his wife.

Chapter 7

Standing in front of the full length
mirror in their bedroom, Eleanor examined her body. She'd dismissed
Poppy in order to do so, as this wasn't something she felt
comfortable having a maid around to witness.  Staring at her
stomach, she ran her hand over it and wondered if there might be a
baby growing in there.  Certainly she and Edwin engaged in
intimacies often enough that it must be possible.

The question of a baby had arisen in
her mind more than once, but often she pushed the idea off to the
side, not wanting to worry about whether or not Edwin's passionate
interest in her might alter once she was with child.