Dealing With Discipline (26 page)

Even if the thought of never spanking
her again did cause a little pang of regret in his
chest.

******

Upon reaching the bedroom, Irene threw
herself on the bed and burst into tears again.  She hadn't
known where else in the house to go, even though Hugh had just as
much right to enter this room as she had.  More than her.
 There wasn't a single bit of space that was just hers other
than her vanity in here, but she couldn't sit on the stool there
because of her poor bottom!

"My lady?  Are you alright?"
 The worried voice of her maid, Flora, penetrated through the
haze of misery.  The stern lectures that her mother had driven
into her head about never revealing too much to the servants were
shattered by Irene's response to a sympathetic and worried
voice. 

Lifting red rimmed eyes and
tear-streaked cheeks to the worried gaze of her maid, Irene shook
her head.  "My husband is a monster!"

"Viscount Petersham?!  No, my
Lady... please tell me what happened," Flora begged.  She'd
never seen her mistress in such distress, not even during the years
when the poor thing had put up with the awful treatment of her
mother, the Baroness.  Biting her lip, the maid worried about
the proprieties and then decided to break her own training.
 In her short time in the Viscount's household she'd noticed
that the family had a preference for servants who were cheerful and
respectful, but there was an obvious amount of care that went both
ways between the classes.  Sitting on the bed, she made
soothing noises as she stroked Irene's back and hair, grooming it
with her fingers and getting it back into some semblance of
order.

"He... he
beat
 me!"

"Oh dearie... where?  I have some
salve that might help," Flora said sympathetically, hiding her
shock.  The Viscount didn't seem the type that she'd seen, but
then vicious men could easily hide themselves behind a facade.
 Obviously the period of goodwill between master and mistress
was over and she was sorry to see it go, although she knew that
both she and Irene were well versed in placating others.  The
Baroness had seen to that.  She had begun to hope for better,
for both of them... perhaps if the Viscount was only occasionally
brutal, things wouldn't be so bad.  

"On... on..."  Letting out
another heart rending sob, Irene patted her bottom.

A little line appeared down the center
of Flora's forehead.  "Anywhere else, my lady?"

Irene shook her head, not looking at her maid as she let out
another sob. 

For herself, Flora felt a sense of
relief.  She knew from experience that a bottom, although it
could be painful, would heal quite easily and could actually take
quite a bit more ill-treatment than other parts of the body.
 Still, she should check and make sure that her mistress had
not been completely ill-used, although if she had made it up to the
bedroom on her own two feet then surely the damage couldn't be so
bad. 

"May I see, my Lady?" she asked,
turning and tentatively lifting the hem of Irene's skirt.
 With another little whimper, Irene nodded, huddling into her
arms to avoid looking at Flora's face as her maid saw her
shame. 

"Oh Miss...." To Irene's shock, her
maid laughed with relief.  "You had me going there!  You
won't need the salve at all."

"What?!  But...
but... he
brutalized
 me!"  Irene jumped up and ran over to the mirror
as Flora watched, some sympathy as well as some contempt in the
maid's eyes.  Lifting her skirts, Irene turned her back to the
large mirror, looking over her shoulder and then gaping as she saw
what Flora had seen.

A shapely bottom, very pink to be
sure... but nothing else.  No welts.  No bruises.
 It wasn't even a very dark pink.  In fact, it was the
same pink that Irene's face was now turning as she wondered why
something that had hurt so badly... but then had it hurt that
badly?  She'd endured true pain when she'd fallen out of a
tree when she was younger and sprained her wrist.  It hadn't
even hurt as badly as that.  

"A man has a right to discipline his
wife, my Lady," Flora said, having remembered herself and reverting
back to Irene's new honorific.  There was quite a bit of
sympathy in her voice, she realized that Irene had never been
spanked that she knew of.  No doubt it had been a bit of a
shock to the young woman.  While the Baroness was often cruel
and vicious, she hadn't needed such measures to keep her daughter
in line because she'd kept her constantly cowed.  Now that
Irene was coming out of her shell, she would need someone to set
boundaries for her.  But Flora also knew how much a spanking
could hurt, especially when it was unexpected.  "Now that you
know what to expect, next time won't be so bad."

"Next time..." Irene shook
her head and dropped her skirts, turning to face Flora and ask the
question that was now burning in her mind.  "My mother... she
showed me a maid being spanked once, she had... it looked so
painful
... Malvin was
doing it..."  The butler who ran the household on her father's
estate, although he'd been hired by the Baroness and reported to
her rather than to the Baron.

"If it was Malvin then you saw a
caning, not a spanking," Flora said, shivering a little.  She
remembered Malvin's form of discipline all too well.  "He has
a liking for the cane, he does."

"You...?" 

Flora pursed her lips and nodded her
head.  "I druther a spanking any day."

Putting her hands over her bottom,
which was still a little sore although she already could barely
feel the after effects unless she actually pressed against the
rounded curves, she couldn't imagine a punishment how much
something worse would feel. The spanking she’d just received had
hurt enough as it was.  To know that Flora had endured
something even more painful…

"That's awful."

"Yes, my Lady," Flora said.  She
paused and then decided that she'd already stepped so far beyond
the bounds of her usual duties that she might as well give a last
little warning.  Lord knew the young woman's mother had never
seen fit to give the poor thing any useful advice.  "I'd be
careful around the Viscount, my Lady.  He seems a good sort,
but he still has the right to discipline you as he sees
fit."

"Thank you Flora," Irene said through
lips that felt numb.  She gave herself a little shake.
 "Can you help me out of my dress? I think I'd like to lay
down for a bit."

Truly she just wanted time to think,
and if Hugh did come searching for her then at least she could
feign sleep.  For a moment she'd felt conflicted, realizing
that perhaps her husband was not quite the monster she'd painted
him to be immediately following the spanking.  Then she
reminded herself that she shouldn't be feeling relief about that,
it shouldn't matter.  Her whole reason for marrying him
without a fuss, other than the help it gave her family, was to
learn how to please a man so that she could become Alex's
mistress.

It didn't matter what Hugh
thought of her or whether he allowed her to ride his horse.
 From now on she would only focus on two things, getting him
an heir and cultivating Alex for after she'd done her duty to Hugh.
 Just like the other ladies of the
ton
 in arranged marriages,
she'd been foolish to think that hers might be any different.
 A man with feelings for her would never treat her so, Alex
would never treat her or any other woman in such a manner... Hugh
was unworthy of the false feelings he'd managed to engender in her
with his facade of gentleness and caring. 

Slipping into the bed, Irene hardened
her heart against him, glad that they were to return to London
soon.  Perhaps it had been for the best that his true colors
had not been revealed till now.  She had greatly enjoyed
learning how to please a man and soon a man deserving of such
pleasure would reap that reward.

Chapter 12

Eleanor wasn’t pregnant
and she didn’t know whether she was happy or sad about it. As
usual, with anything to do with Edwin, her feelings were incredibly
conflicted. Part of her was saddened, because she had enjoyed the
idea of carrying Edwin’s child and having a part of him irrevocably
tied to her. Another part was frustrated because now she didn’t
feel as though she could leave with Grace, not without becoming the
kind of scandal that Grace had invited upon herself, and Eleanor
knew that neither her father nor her husband would bear that
quietly the way Lord Brooke had. The worst part was, she was
relieved. Relieved that she had a reason to stay with Edwin.
Relieved to have her plan to leave his presence stymied.

Relieved to still be trapped with
him.

Logically she knew that she was being
ruled by instinct now rather than logic. Emotion rather than
intelligence. Her brain knew that she was sinking closer and closer
to the abyss of misery that her mother lived in. Her heart didn’t
care, wanting to wring every last bit of happiness that she could
out of her life and her husband before the rug was pulled out from
under her.

In the meantime she
distracted herself by organizing the dinner which would welcome
Hugh and his new wife home. After her discussion with Grace, who
had begun venturing out of the house for exclusive teas and
at-homes, although she’d retreated from Lady Carrington’s ball last
night when Lord Brooke had appeared around midnight, Eleanor was
very curious to know how her brother’s honeymoon had
gone.

******

Hugh helped his wife out of the
carriage in front of his London house, trying not to look as
impatient and frustrated as he felt.  Ever since he’d spanked
her Irene had become cold rather than warm – although last night
he’d managed to heat her up once they’d gone to bed.  He
supposed that he should have expected that she wouldn’t return to
her normal self immediately, but it hadn’t made for a very pleasant
carriage ride.  Eventually he’d given up on making
conversation in the face of her single word answers.

It was good to be back in
the city. The first thing he wanted to do, after making sure that
Irene was settled into the household and introduced to the staff,
was meet with his father and then his friends. His lips twitched
downwards as Irene swanned by him, barely even glancing at him as
she headed straight up the steps to the doorway, forcing him to
step quickly after her to catch up.

The introduction of Irene to the
household went fairly well, although she barely glanced at him once
she met the Housekeeper, Mrs. Lewiston. Obviously eager to show the
new mistress around, the two of them went off together. Although
Hugh had hoped to show Irene around the London house, he realized
that to force his company on her might do more harm than good at
this point.

Grumbling under his breath he let
Marling, the butler, know that he was going out before grabbing his
coat and hat and making a tactical retreat.

******

An hour later he found
himself in Edwin’s billiard room, rapidly losing his second game of
pool. Unfortunately his father had gone with his mother to Bath
almost as soon as Hugh had left on his honeymoon, and unusually his
father was still
there.
The household was mostly closed up, although he
had been presented with a packet of letters and work that his
father wished for him to tend to now that Hugh was back in the
capital. He’d only given it a quick look through but it seemed as
though Lord Harrington was taking a page from the Earl of
Clarendon’s book. Like Edwin’s father, he wanted to spend some time
in the country and was giving his son the responsibilities of
tending to affairs in town.

“You seem more agitated
than I would have thought,” Edwin said, raising his eyebrows in
Hugh’s direction as he missed yet another easy shot. “Honeymoon not
as wonderful as you made it sound in your last letter?”

In the absence of his father, Hugh
needed someone to unload his burdens onto and Edwin was the next
best thing. Even if he hadn’t been married much longer than Hugh
himself.

“It was, all the way up until the day
before,” he said gruffly, watching as Edwin moved to bend over the
table in his usual graceful way. Normally they were well matched at
billiards; today he was giving Edwin barely any sport at all. “She
tried to sneak out and ride Rex.”

Edwin laughed as he stood up, the ball
he’d aimed for sinking neatly into a corner pocket. “That sounds
like something Eleanor would try to do.”

“Yes.” Hugh scowled.
He
still
didn’t
understand what had made Irene try to do such a stupid thing,
especially after he’d warned her not to. “I had already warned her
to stay away from him and she refused to promise not to try and go
near him again, so I told her that I would blister her bottom if
she did.” He sighed. “She didn’t seem to believe me and she became…
well I ended up giving her a small spanking.”