"As much as I appreciate the invitation, I'm not able to make any firm plans at this time," Alex said. "I've decided to reconcile with my wife. And I have no idea how long that might take or where I'll need to be at the end of the Season." Although his expression didn't change, Irene could see the weariness in his eyes.
Anger rose up inside of her. Not that she could claim to be the best wife to Hugh, and her plans had sounded alarmingly like the way Lady Grace lived her life, but she couldn't have any sympathy for the other woman when she'd obviously hurt Alex so. Humiliated him. Whenever he walked into a ballroom, whispers tittered around the room. He was a man whose wife had left him and brazenly flaunted her affairs without ever providing him with a heir.
While Irene was well aware that she had thought of doing something similar, she had never planned to be indiscreet or to hurt Hugh – even though she almost had been. Lady Grace's behavior seemed almost designed to be as painful and humiliating as possible for her husband, on purpose. Irene just couldn't countenance it, especially because Alex was such a good man. She knew he would be a wonderful husband to Lady Grace if the woman would just allow it.
"Ah... do you think she'll be amenable to that?" Hugh asked, looking rather doubtful. He would have greater insight on Lady Grace than most, Irene realized, considering his sister's close friendship with the woman. Not that she blamed Eleanor for her loyalty to a friend, even if she thought that her sister-in-law could have better taste in said friends.
"Highly doubtful," Alex said, shrugging his shoulder as if it didn't matter, but Irene could see that it did. Just because he didn't show his emotions very well didn't mean he was without them; Grace's desertion and actions had hurt him and Irene had always been able to see that. "I wouldn't be surprised if she makes me grovel."
"How can you even countenance that?" Irene cried out, infuriated on his behalf. "She should be grateful for another chance to be your wife and to redeem her reputation."
"Perhaps, but if I ever want an heir then I must play by her rules."
It was on the tip of Irene's tongue that he should just divorce her, but she bit down before the words could escape her mouth. After all, she certainly didn't want Hugh to think that she approved of something as shockingly scandalous as ending a marriage, not when they themselves were so newly-wed and she'd almost ruined their own relationship. Besides which, the indifferent pragmatism in Alex's voice rather took her aback.
Was that how he planned to broach the subject to Lady Grace?
"I hope that's not how you plan on approaching her," Hugh said, half-choking on a laugh as he echoed Irene's thought. He looked both fascinated and slightly horrified. "I can't imagine the lady appreciating your reasoning. Grace was always ah... quite romantic. Flowers or some other gesture might work better."
For the first time, Irene felt a small spurt of sympathy for Lady Grace; she couldn't understand Alex's reasoning either. If Alex didn't care for the woman, why did he want to use her as a brood mare? Because that's all it sounded like he wanted from her, an heir. Irene couldn't believe that he had started out their marriage that way; although lately she had begun to question her perceptions of Alex, she'd never thought he would value a wife for nothing other than her ability to bear him an heir.
"I've sent her quite a number of flowers over the years," Alex muttered. "It doesn't seem to have made much of a difference."
"I'm sure you'll think of something. Myself, in such situations, I prefer the stick over the carrot."
Heat rose in Irene's cheeks; it was a very oblique reference to the spanking that Alex had witnessed. At the time, he'd said he was thinking about using such tactics on his own wife. It had been shocking to know that Alex didn't disapprove of such discipline, but despite his words that night she still couldn't quite believe that he would ever do such a thing. Even to his wayward wife.
But then again, Irene had already proven to herself that she didn't know Alex the way she thought she had. She would have never thought he’d stand mildly by while any man, even her husband, spanked her.
And when she'd first married Hugh, if someone had asked, she would have never thought him capable of such a thing either. He claimed that Edwin was also a strict disciplinarian to Eleanor, who had grown up with such punishments. It was all rather bewildering sometimes. But she couldn't deny that there were certainly worse things than being spanked, and that she had certainly deserved some kind of retribution for her actions. Hugh was fair. She was sure that Alex would be too.
"I've been thinking about it," Alex said, although the shortness of his tone indicated that he didn’t want the conversation to go any further down that line of thinking.
Irene knew her friend, if he was even considering it than the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Alex was very decisive over the things he absolutely would not do. She wouldn't be surprised if he tried more conventional tactics first, but if Grace proved to be as stubborn as she had been over the past years, Irene had no doubt that Alex would prove a strict disciplinarian. In her youth she wouldn't have been able to imagine it; now she saw that he had hardened and grown jaded.
To her mind, Lady Grace deserved a sound punishment, even if inwardly she winced with sympathy at the thought of a spanking.
******
Alone in their bedroom, later that night, Hugh indulged in his favorite routine - brushing Irene's long, red hair. The strands gleamed in the candlelight, sliding against his palm like silk. She always sat patiently, watching him in the mirror, and allowing him to indulge for as long as he wanted. The way her eyelids would flutter, half-closed, indicated her own pleasure in the act.
"Stand up," he said suddenly, realizing that he'd stopped brushing and was watching the rise and fall of her breasts under the thin, silk night rail that she was wearing.
No matter that she never slept in a garment, she always insisted on putting one on before bedtime. It was fast becoming one of Hugh's fantasies to have his wife walking around naked before him, covered in nothing but her shining hair, as he prepared for bed.
Her eyes fluttered all the way open in surprise, but she stood without protest, a small smile lighting up her face. Hugh loved seeing the flashes of her passionate sensuality through the modesty and propriety that had been hammered into her over the years.
Tilting her head back at him, her smile grew. "Thank you so much for bringing Alex here tonight."
While Alex was certainly not something Hugh particularly wanted to discuss right now, he did enjoy the way that Irene was looking up at him. As if he'd done something noble and heroic. Which made it all worth it.
"I assumed we'd be seeing more of him in the future anyway, and I didn't want things to be awkward," he murmured as he stroked his fingers along the silk covering her shoulder, tugging it gently downward to reveal her creamy skin.
"You're an incredibly generous man," she said solemnly, placing her hands on his chest and looking up at him earnestly. Those guileless green eyes were completely open to him, something that he savored as it had only happened recently, after everything had happened with Alex. Until then he hadn't realized how much Irene had kept parts of herself hidden to him; since then she'd been his, all his and he reveled in it. "I don't deserve you."
"I heartily disagree, Lady Stanley," he said, lowering his mouth to hers for a kiss.
It was evident to Hugh that she still felt a great deal of guilt over her actions a few weeks past, as well as trying to run from him afterwards. While he understood that she hadn't liked being spanked, at all, it had certainly brought about a pleasing change in behavior. Hugh had enjoyed spanking her much more than he thought he would, although he didn't feel a pressing need to indulge unless she truly deserved it.