Chapter 15
When the door to his study flew open, Alex jumped in surprise and looked up to see his wife stalking into the room like an avenging fury, Peters hovering over her shoulder looking distraught. Tension gripped him. What the hell could Peters have told her to make her look like this?
Her eyes blazed with rage, cheeks flushed, bosom heaving. If he didn't feel sick to his stomach, worrying about what had gone wrong, he might have been aroused by the picture she presented.
"You bastard."
Alex opened his mouth - although he wasn't sure whether he was going to protest, ask what she was talking about, or scold her for her language, but it didn't matter because he didn't get a chance to say anything anyway.
"You utter bastard. Lady Clarissa Heathmore? Lady Clarissa Heathmore? Of all the back-stabbing, mealy-mouthed, three-penny uprights, you had to choose her to try and make me jealous?! Do you have any idea how awful she was to me?"
He nearly choked at Grace's description, which was all too true, but he hadn't realized she knew that bit of slang. She shouldn't have even known what a three-penny upright was, much less be able to use it in a fairly correct context. The women who procured their clientele from the streets would take a man to a
back alley for three pennies and have him right up against the wall... not something a delicate flower of the ton should have even passing knowledge of.
Obviously Grace and Peters had been having a bit of a talk. He should have spoken with the butler beforehand and warned him that, although things looked well enough from the outside between himself and his wife, they hadn't actually discussed any details from their past yet. Peters knew far too much of what Alex had done and why. He'd never betrayed that trust either, until now. Apparently his allegiance belonged even more firmly to Grace than Alex had realized.
"Grace, let me explain - " he started to say, and then ducked, as she shrieked wordlessly at him, throwing the pen she was holding in her hand at his head.
She wasn't done though.
After one horrified look, Peters quickly closed the door to the room. Alex knew he could count on the man to keep the other servants away, so that they wouldn't be privy to overhearing the scene that was about to commence in here. He ducked again as Grace launched a decorative vase at his head, growling when it shattered against the far wall.
"Stop that!"
"Bugger off! You... you... nodcock! Bastard! Did you and she laugh together about fooling me? Did you tell her to spread all those rumors?"
Ducking yet another flung object at his head - Alex couldn't even tell what she'd picked up off the shelf - he practically charged her. She was so overwrought she was practically hysterical, he didn't think she even realized there were tears rolling down her cheeks. It was breaking his heart.
He grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her, and she immediately started struggling against him.
"Grace, stop it! Of course I didn't! As soon as I heard what she was telling people, I refuted her!"
"Too late!" she shrieked, kicking at his ankles, struggling harder against him, trying to scratch at him. It felt like all the pain, all the anger, was raging inside of her like an inferno, driving her mad, and she was going to pop if she didn't find some way of venting it. "And the Baroness was just as bad!"
Baroness von Wender had followed Lady Clarissa Heathmore, and she'd been only slightly more discreet. She hadn't searched Grace out to taunt her, but when they'd run into each other, the thinly veiled innuendos and insults had come fast and thick.
"I cut her too!"
"Maybe you should have just stayed away from women altogether!" She tried to bite him, but the jacket he was wearing prevented her from snaring anything more than fabric in her teeth.
Realizing that Grace was only becoming more hysterical, that she wasn't in any state of mind to listen, Alex gritted his teeth and decided to revert back to the only method that had worked in curbing her behavior so far. Besides, the way she was cursing and throwing things at him, she certainly had earned a spanking. Keeping his arms wrapped around her, so that she couldn't hit out at him - the kicking was bad enough - he lifted her and quickly walked over to the nearest chair. She managed to bang him a couple good ones on his shins as she shrieked and hurled insults at him.
Grimly, Alex quickly flipped her over his knee, wrapping his leg around the back of hers to keep her from kicking and placing his forearm along her back as she struggled to push herself up.
"Let me up, you jackass! Don't you dare!"
She screamed in outrage as he yanked her skirts up and bared her bottom, cursing again as the first blows landed on her creamy skin. Alex didn't hold back, he spanked her hard and fast, barely letting her catch her breath as she starting yelping and shrieking for an entirely different reason. To his relief, he felt her starting to relax under his arm, her angry struggles melting away as she started truly crying.
SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!
Every time his hand landed, her flesh flattened and then bounced back, rosy and bright, her bottom jiggling with the force of each blow. He was careful to cover the entire area, working his way over each cheek, the delicate crease beneath them, and then down her thighs. Despite the circumstances, he was becoming hard as a rock, watching Grace's bottom turn from creamy ivory to a hot, roasted red.
The fight was going out of her, until she seemed almost defeated, slumped over his thigh, crying out as he spanked her. Slowly her insults and accusations melded into pleas for him to stop, she'd had enough.
Alex kept his arm on the small of her back, keeping her in place, as he rested his other hand on her bottom. The heat of her skin sank into his palm, which was also a bit sore from spanking her. His arm had gotten tired as well. Maybe he should invest in a paddle or the like, that's what Wesley had recommended.
"Do you know why I spanked you, Grace?" he asked, keeping his voice light, reasonable. He caressed her hot bottom, soothingly.