Dealing With Discipline (21 page)

"I don't know what you're thinking so
hard about, but stop it," Edwin said, pulling away from the kiss
with an almost amused expression on his face.  "I want your
attention here, on me."

Without waiting for a reply he was
kissing her again, his hands moving down her arms to her head,
cradling it and massaging her scalp as his lips moved over hers.
 Letting go of her worries and doubts, for now, Eleanor sank
into the moment and gave herself over to loving her
husband.

Chapter 10

The next morning Eleanor woke up
to an empty bed.  It wasn’t entirely surprising since she
always needed more sleep than Edwin, especially after a night like
the night before.  He’d kept her up for hours.  Even now
she had a sore but satisfying ache between her legs. 
Unfortunately her bottom was still sore too but that couldn’t be
helped.

With a sigh, she forced herself
out of bed and rang for the maid to help her dress and put up her
hair.  She had planned to visit Grace today, but she knew that
the visit was going to go very differently than she'd originally
thought.  While she still had a good deal of sympathy for her
friend, her own impression of Lord Brooke last night said that he
was not the man Grace described.  Of course Eleanor was seeing
him from a completely different viewpoint, but she couldn't shake
the idea that she was missing something from the
equation. 

Perhaps Grace was missing
something too.

"Good morning, my lady," said Poppy cheerfully
as she bustled into the room.  "His lordship is having
breakfast and invites you to join him as soon as you're
able."

"Thank you Poppy," Eleanor said
with a smile.  It wouldn't surprise her to learn that Edwin
had been in his office doing work until she had rung for a maid,
specifically so that he could join her for breakfast.  Little
gestures like that made her think that perhaps he did care for her,
in the way that she wanted him too.  At the same time, she was
afraid to read too much into them - after all, her father had done
similar things for her mother when they were actually in residence
together.  The very next day, however, he might order her off
to Bath or Stonehaven again.  So Eleanor could not rely on
those little gestures to tell the whole story.  But she could
certainly enjoy them.  "I'll be visiting Lady Grace after
breakfast. I think I'll wear the rose damask today."

"Yes, my lady," Poppy said,
searching through the wardrobe for the requested dress as Eleanor
stood and stretched.

******

"Ah Lady Hyde, please come in," Peters,
Grace's butler said.  He scanned over her head as if assuring
himself that there was no one behind her as she came in the door.
 

"Is everything alright, Peters?"
she asked, a small frown on her face.  

The normally stoic butler actually hesitated
before answering her.  "Her ladyship is not at home today,
although she gave me special instruction that you were to be the
exception.  We've had a number of callers come to the house
the past couple of days." His voice lowered, despite the fact that
there was no one to overhear.  "It is my opinion that most of
them were only here to drop gossip in her ladyship's
ear."

Eleanor's mouth tightened.
 She could just imagine the kind of gossip the
ton
would bring to
Grace's house in hopes of eliciting a reaction.  Thank
goodness her friend had the loyal and stalwart Peters to help
shield her from the supposedly morally upright but less savory
members of their class.  The butler had been protective of
Grace for as long as he’d been in her employ and it appeared he'd
become even more so - and not without
cause. 

“Thank you, Peters,” she
murmured as he showed her into the sitting room. It was decorated
in cheerful yellows and pinks, not overly bright but enough that
anyone in the room couldn’t help but eventually feel a bit more
hopeful and happy. She wondered if Peters had chosen this room on
purpose so that Grace would feel its effects.

Settling herself onto the cream sofa,
Eleanor stared up at the familiar decorations on the wall; Grace’s
favorite flower paintings were scattered about the room, as well as
some watercolors that she’d done herself. Grace truly was a rather
gifted artist, rather than just cultivating the talent because that
was what young ladies had been expected to do.

Fortunately she didn’t have to wait
long before Grace swept into the room, her usual cool demeanor
looking rather fractured. The dark circles under her light eyes had
deepened, making the blue of her eyes look almost feverishly
bright, and her dark hair was slightly rumpled, as if she’d been
touching it too much. Something Eleanor knew her friend only did
when she was agitated. The deep violet of her dress normally looked
quite well with Grace’s dark hair and creamy skin, but today it
only emphasized the bruised looking skin beneath her
eyes.

“Grace,” Eleanor said, by way of
greeting, as she got to her feet.

“You have no idea what a relief it is
to see you,” Grace responded, before Eleanor could say anything
more, coming forward and hugging Eleanor to her. The trembling in
her friend’s body unnerved Eleanor, as did the impression that
Grace’s bones were poking through her skin. It had been only a few
days since they’d last seen each other and yet it felt like Grace
had lost even more weight! Weight she could ill afford to lose.
Grace laughed, but it was a brittle sound. “The vultures have been
more relentless than ever the past few days. I miss one or two
functions and suddenly everyone has a burning desire to see me at
home.”

“Thank goodness for Peters,” Eleanor
murmured.

A genuine smile broke out
on Grace’s face, bringing back her loveliness even as she looked
more delicate than before. “Yes, thanks goodness for Peters. I
don’t know what I would have done without him. He’s like Cerberus
guarding Hades.” She gestured around them a little wildly, as if to
indicate that the house she was living in was the embodiment of
Hell.

“Oh surely it can’t be that
bad!”

“How would you like to be
trapped in your house, unable to go out without facing public
humiliation?” Grace asked, her voice snapping. She rubbed her hands
over her face as Eleanor looked at her reproachfully. For all their
occasional competition, they were rarely actually snappish with
each other. “I’m sorry Nell… I’m just tired and upset and I
shouldn’t take it out on you. I’m feeling rather… wild if you must
know the truth. I truly think I must quit London and go out to the
country. I’m ready to cede the field to Alex. He can have London, I
don’t care anymore.”

“Grace… are you sure…” Eleanor paused,
trying to think of how to phrase what she wanted to say. Somehow
she didn’t think Lord Brooke would want Grace to be suffering like
this, or to be driven from the social scene that she loved so much,
but how could she say such a thing? “I met Lord Brooke last night,”
she finally said rather tentatively. “He didn’t seem the type to…
well…”

“Ah. So you spoke with
him. He can be quite charming when he wants to be, can’t he?” Grace
closed her eyes, leaning back against the sofa. “Did he say
anything about me?”

Curiously, Eleanor watched her friend,
but with her eyes closed she couldn’t tell what Grace was feeling
at all. Those wonderfully expressive eyes were usually what gave
away her emotions while her face was placid and neutral.

“He defended me to Edwin
after I was rude to him,” Eleanor said. “He said that he admired my
loyalty to you. Well, he said that he appreciates
loyalty.”

“Ha,” Grace said with a snort, her
eyes snapping open, bright with anger. “I’m sure he does.” Her
mouth primed, tightened, and she looked away from Eleanor as if all
too aware that she was showing a wealth of bitterness and hurt and
she didn’t even want her best friend to see it.

“Grace… you’ve never really told me
what happened between you and Alex…”

“It was too humiliating,” Grace said
in a quiet voice, the anger seeming to drain out of her as she
looked down at her hands, twisting them in her lap. “That’s why I
never really told you.”

Reaching out, Eleanor put her hands on
top of Grace’s. “Will you tell me now?”

Grace gave her a rueful smile. “You
know that I married Alex at the end of my first Season and that I
didn’t particularly want to be married yet.”

“I remember.” She and Grace had both
had similar sentiments when it came to enjoying the social whirl,
even if they’d had different reasons. Unlike Eleanor, Grace had
wanted to marry for love. Eventually. Once she’d enjoyed London to
the fullest.

“It was
arranged.”

“I knew that too.” It was why Eleanor
had never blamed Grace for her behavior. She always thought that
Grace’s father should have realized his daughter would rebel in one
manner or another, although she’d thought on more than one occasion
that Grace had gone too far.

“My father saw me as
nothing more than an item to barter,” Grace said, holding her chin
up in defiance of the worth her father had placed on her. “I
was
useful
because I could get him something he wanted. I thought that
Alex at least cared for me… we weren’t in love but there was… there
was
potential
. I
thought I could come to love him and that he could come to love me.
We have plenty of mutual interests. He was so attentive and
charming… I enjoyed speaking with him and I found him to be quite
exciting. After our wedding night and honeymoon I even thought I
was falling in love with him.”

“Then what happened?” Eleanor asked,
completely enthralled. This was all new information to her, as she
hadn’t seen Grace until a month after she’d returned from her
honeymoon and by that time her friend had already set up a separate
household from her husband. She’d always assumed that Grace had
been dead set against the wedding from the beginning.

The bitter twist of Grace’s
mouth could have been interpreted as an attempt to smile. “I
overheard a conversation he had with my father after we returned
home. They were congratulating themselves on the deal they’d made
with my marriage contract and their alliance. Alex said that one
woman was as good as another for a wife, but at least with me he’d
gotten something
useful
in the bargain. That’s when I knew that he didn’t
care who he’d married, but the alliance with my father had gotten
both of them what they wanted. No one cared what I wanted or how I
felt.”

“Oh Grace…” Eleanor’s heart ached for
her friend. No wonder Grace had turned so brazen and scandalous. At
least Eleanor still had hope that Edwin might have emotions for
her, she certainly knew that he cared for her as a
person.

“It doesn’t matter,” Grace
said almost fiercely. “I don’t care anymore.” But it was obvious,
to Eleanor at least, that Grace did still care. That she was still
hurting. That no matter how many lovers she’d had since her
husband, they had not healed the wound to her pride, her
self-esteem or her heart.

“Of course not,” she said, anyway.
Grace could keep her pride in front of Eleanor, that was something
she could give her friend at least.

More than ever she could
understand Grace’s desire to leave London now that it was apparent
that Alex was staying put. She could understand Grace’s animosity
towards her husband. No matter how polite Alex had been last night
that didn’t mean that he was right for Grace. Unfortunately his
attitude was not uncommon amongst the
ton.
There would have been many
women who would be willing to marry such a man for his title and
money, but not Grace. While she might seem cold and hard on the
outside, her inner core had always hidden a soft
romantic.

“You want him to divorce you,” she
said suddenly, the revelation slamming into her. It explained so
much. Grace could have chosen any other kind of rebellion against
her father and her husband, but she’d deliberately chosen something
to shame Alex, something that would make him want to set her aside.
Something that would allow him to set her aside. It was very like
Eleanor’s original plan for dealing with Edwin, although of course
the motivations were completely different.

“Yes.” Grace gripped
Eleanor’s hand, giving her a sad little smile. The dark smudges
beneath her eyes looked more like bruises than ever. There was a
vulnerability to her that Eleanor had never seen before. Then she
shored it up again, regaining control over her features, shutting
down her emotions behind a cold mask.

Eleanor wondered if that was what she
would look like if she discovered that Edwin didn’t love her. If
she would use those same defense mechanisms of shutting out the
world and pushing away her emotions.

“I once thought he might divorce me
and marry someone more willing,” Grace said. She laughed softly and
shook her head. “Of course, the most likely candidate is married
now herself.”

“Who?” Eleanor asked. She didn’t
really care but she welcomed the change of topic. Stepping around
the conversational minefield surrounding Grace’s marriage and the
details she’d just confided to Eleanor was daunting.