Dealing With Discipline (22 page)

“Your new sister-in-law of course,”
Grace said, looking at Eleanor with something akin to real
amusement. “I know Alex was at her wedding, surely you didn’t miss
that she’s head over heels in love with the man.”

“Irene?” Eleanor felt her
jaw dropping. “And… your husband?... But… but…”

“Oh dear…” The amusement
on Grace’s face immediately faded. “Don’t tell me that it’s a love
match for Hugh? I’d heard it was arranged by your parents and
hers.”

“I’m not sure. I know he cares for
her… he wouldn’t have married her if he didn’t feel something for
her… but she didn’t… she wouldn’t…”

Grace laughed mirthlessly.
“Oh she would. I was there when she and Alex saw each other for the
first time after I married him. I saw her face. At the time I felt
sorry for her. Two months later I felt sorry for
myself.”

“If you felt sorry for
her, then why are you so mean to her?”

Soft pink lips hardened into a
straight line again. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Silence fell over the room
as Eleanor tried to remember every interaction between Irene and
Lord Brooke at Hugh’s wedding that she’d witnessed, but she’d been
so preoccupied with avoiding Edwin that she hadn’t been watching
anyone else. Of course, Irene had been rather quiet and subdued
when she had joined Eleanor’s company, but Eleanor had assumed that
was due to the Baroness. That woman was enough to make anyone try
to shrivel into themselves in an effort not to be
noticed.

“Do you think that she’ll be
unfaithful to Hugh?”

“It wouldn’t matter if she wanted to
be,” Grace said with a shrug, her face was calm but that was belied
by the nervous movements of her fingers within Eleanor’s. “Alex
never has affairs with women who are married.” Still, there was a
tension about her that said she wasn’t as sure of her words as she
sounded. Eleanor wondered if Grace worried that Irene would be the
exception to the rule.

She’d been wondering for
so long about the estrangement between Grace and her husband that
the new curiosity had been almost startling. Now she wished that
she had never asked. The knowledge that Irene might – Eleanor was
fervently hoping that Grace was mistaken – be in love with Lord
Brooke was something she wished she didn’t know.

Should she warn
Hugh?

Should she tell Edwin?

******

Laughing, Irene waded through the
creek’s bubbling waters as Hugh pretended to mistake her feet for
fish, doing his best to catch them in his hands. Her handsome
husband had divested himself of his coat and boots, his trousers
were rolled up to display his calves and the damp fabric of his
shirt clung to the muscled lines of his body. Sunlight glinted off
of his golden hair and his white teeth flashed as he grinned,
reaching out and trying to catch one of her feet, his fingers
grazing her ankle. With a playful shriek, Irene ran back to the
bank.

That one was too close and,
truth be told, she didn’t entirely trust him to let go if he
did
get a good hold on
her. All she needed was to go toppling into the water and reveal
that she wasn’t wearing a corset beneath her light cotton riding
dress. With such a beautiful day, and knowing that they were going
riding again, she’d opted for less constrictive undergarments, and
Hugh hadn’t seemed to notice – he’d said she looked
beautiful.

Perhaps he didn’t notice the freckles
on her nose. Or perhaps, she thought a little rebelliously, her
mother was wrong and men didn’t mind freckles as much as she
claimed.

Little thoughts like that
had been cropping up in Irene’s mind quite often during her
honeymoon. They’d made the transition from Stonehaven to the
Stanley House and she couldn’t remember a time when she’d been
happier.

No – wait… of course she could. Or at
least, almost as happy. Whenever Alex had been home; his presence
had always protected her somewhat from her mother’s harsh words.
She might be happier here but of course it wasn’t fair to compare
the situations, because Hugh had the advantage since her mother was
far, far away in London.

“Come back here,” he demanded,
standing with his fists planted on his hips, mock-glaring at her
from the shallow water as she clambered back up onto the
bank.

“No,” she said
impishly.

A slow smile spread across Hugh’s
face, replacing the pretend-forbidding look, a smile that Irene
recognized and her heart began to pound faster. “Are you saying I
should come and get you?”

Instinctively she took a
step back, licking her soft pink lips as she stared at
him.

“No?”

“Oh, I think you are,” her husband
said silkily, his tone dark and dangerous in the kind of way that
led to all sorts of sensual pleasures. Irene blinked at him before
glancing around, as if worried that someone else could hear what he
was saying.

Hugh almost laughed. She
had no idea how delectably tempting she looked, like a sweet nymph
about to take flight. He was feeling decidedly satyr-like at the
moment. There was nothing he would enjoy better than chasing his
little innocent down and making love to her outdoors. Irene had
been shocked when he’d first made love to her outside of their bed,
catching her unawares in the drawing room where she’d been staring
out the window wistfully the one day it had been raining. By the
time he finished with her the wistful expression had been replaced
with one replete with feminine satisfaction.

She was always shocked when he showed
her something new. Shocked but curious, passionate and quick to
learn.

Taking a step forward he felt his
desire surge as she took another step back. Her hands were still
clutched in her skirts, showing off her slim ankles and feet,
sunlight had turned her hair into golden flame, and her breasts
heaved beneath her dress. Even though he was at least fifteen feet
away from her he could see the excitement rising in her emerald
eyes, he knew that her heart must be beating as quickly as his
own.

“Are you going to run from me,
wife?”

“Should I?” She teased,
taking another step back and Hugh surged forward.

With another shriek, Irene
turned and fled, giggling madly. Behind her she could hear Hugh’s
chuckles and his pounding footsteps, gaining rapidly on
her.

The end of the chase was
already a foregone conclusion. She tried to dodge aside, but his
arms wrapped around her and he twisted, bringing her down on top of
him, gentling her fall. Then he rolled on top of her, pinning her
to the ground with his hands about her wrists, holding them on
either side of her head, and his lower body pressed against
hers.

Inside her chest her heart beat
frantically against her rib cage as she gasped for breath, staring
up into the hot need in Hugh’s eyes. The blue was so bright it
practically glowed as he stared down at her, the gentle man she
married erased by the lusty pillaging rogue who had just caught his
prize. Tingling awareness spun through her, the disturbing
sensations she felt around him no longer felt so disturbing – they
had become familiar and somehow exciting.

Lowering his lips to hers, Hugh
ravaged her mouth. Normally he tried to be more gentle with her,
but the chase had gotten his blood up and he kissed her hard and
possessively. Beneath him Irene moaned and kissed him back, her
legs spreading to cradle him more completely against
her.

When his lips moved to
kiss the side of her neck, Irene opened her eyes to see nothing but
bright blue sky. The same color as Hugh’s eyes. But instead of
drowning in it, it reminded her of where they were.

“Hugh! We can’t here!
Let’s go back to the house – OH!” She gasped as his teeth nipped at
her skin on her shoulder in a spot where he knew she was
particularly sensitive.

“No,” he said definitively. “I’ve been
wanting to make love to you outside since the glen at Stonehaven…
no one’s going to be looking for us for hours and even if they did
come looking for us they wouldn’t know where to start.”

“But it’s improper!” Irene protested.
Of course the very impropriety of it was only making her more
aroused. Hugh brought that out in her, a wildness that she’d never
suspected. A wildness that was becoming more and more focused on
him. She moaned as he kept his hands on her wrists, ignoring her
attempt to move them as he moved his mouth across the fluttering
pulse in her neck.

“But darling, you so like it when I’m
improper,” he murmured into her ear as he transferred his hold on
her wrists to one hand, just above her head, the other beginning to
work at the tiny buttons down the front of her dress. “Like on
Sunday when I put my mouth on your sweet pussy in the study. Or
last night when I showed you how to put your mouth on
me.”

Irene whimpered at the reminder, his
words fanning the flames of her arousal higher as he slid his hand
into the top of her dress and squeezed her breast.

“No corset… I see I’m not the only one
feeling improper today,” he grinned wickedly down at her as he
tweaked a nipple. Hot need lanced through her, straight to her core
and Irene bucked beneath him.

“I didn’t leave it off so
you could do
this
,” she protested, although she had already given up on trying
to stop him.

“I don’t particularly care
why you did it, sweetheart.”

Baring her breast to the
warm sunlight, Hugh sucked her nipple into his mouth and felt his
wife writhe beneath him. She was so damned responsive, it made it
almost impossible for him to control himself. So damned responsive
and so damned eager. Last night he’d nearly spent himself in his
pants when she’d looked up at him with those big green eyes and
asked if it was possible for her to pleasure him with her mouth the
same way that he pleasured her. He’d been only too happy to
demonstrate exactly how possible it was, and over the moon when
he’d warned her of his impending climax and she’d asked what he
wanted her to do and then had willingly swallowed the entire load.
The incredibly erotic dichotomy of his innocent wife sucking him,
with her pure and prim mouth, and then swallowing his seed had made
him so randy that he’d barely needed another minute to recover
before he’d had her on her back in their bed.

Now he had her on her
back, in a field.

Pulling at her skirts he
bared her legs to the world as well, fumbling at the front of his
trousers as Irene moaned and clutched at him. She looked
beautifully wanton in the sunlight, the rays sinking into her
creamy skin, enhancing the adorable freckles on her nose, her
breasts bared and framed by the fabric of her dress, nipples hard
and upright. When he’d freed himself from the confines of his
trousers he felt for her core and found her wet and
ready.

The touch of Hugh’s
fingers against her flesh had Irene writhing. She was shocked at
her reaction, considering their location, but she’d already learned
that Hugh was a master at sending her into unthinking and eager
bliss. The gentle strokes of his fingers through her slick folds
made her moan loudly as she stopped caring about whether or not
someone might hear her or come upon them. The warmth of the sun on
her skin was like a balm against her anxieties, her insides heating
up as did her outside.

“Hugh, please,” she begged as his
fingers teased her, his mouth suckling at her nipple. The
sensations coursing through her begged for relief and she was still
new enough to love play that she wanted her satisfaction
immediately. Hugh enjoyed keeping her on edge, listening to the
edges of her voice growing more and more ragged until she
completely lost control and would come screaming on his mouth,
fingers or cock. “I need you inside me.”

Biting gently on her nipple, he
slipped one finger inside of her, probing deeply for that sweet,
rough spot in her channel. Irene groaned – that hadn’t been what
she meant and she knew he knew it. Still, it felt wonderful to have
his finger pumping gently, even though it didn’t stretch her the
way she knew his organ would.

Switching to her other nipple with his
mouth, Hugh stroked her pussy, pressing the heel of his palm
against her clitoris. Smug success came as Irene’s hands pulled at
him, trying to drag him more fully on top of her.

“Please Hugh,” she said with a
whimper, almost a sob as her body tingled and flamed. “Please,
please, please…”

Releasing her nipple from his mouth
with a pop, Hugh stared down at her. The blue of his eyes had
darkened with passion, no longer the color of the sky above them,
they were the deep blue of the ocean. “Touch your breasts,
sweetheart.”

Shuddering, Irene cupped her breasts,
pinching her nipples as she tried to find relief for the aching
need that was throbbing inside of her. She loved it when Hugh told
her what to do, how to make their love-making more passionate… at
first she had always told herself that it was because she was
learning how to please Alex, but during the actual interludes of
love-making with her husband, her childhood friend was the farthest
thing from her mind. Indeed, her entire world was currently focused
on Hugh and pleasing him, on tempting him to do what she wanted –
needed – as she arched her back and offered up her breasts to him,
twisting her nipples slightly and relishing the little bites of
pain that only seemed to spur her pleasure to further
heights.