Dealing With Discipline (16 page)

Then he’d reassured her that he didn't
mind her unladylike behavior at all by pinning her against the
rough stone and kissing her senseless.  The kisses had helped
to get the foul taste of the vinegary wine out of their mouths as
well. 

They were going to be spending the
rest of the week exploring the lands around Stonehaven before
moving on to their next destination on their honeymoon - his main
seat in Westingdon.  But this was the land he'd grown up on
and he was eager to show her his favorite spots: the small glen
where'd collected violets to give to his mother, the creek where
he, Edwin and Wesley had caught fish and cooked them on a spit over
a fire, the small series of caves that they'd used to play hide and
seek.  Although he thought he might omit the story about how
he'd fooled Nell into following them in there so that they could
ditch her when she'd been following them around one time.  Of
course Edwin had gone back for her twenty minutes later, with Hugh
and Wes guiltily following; she'd been hunkered down in one of the
caves, crying her eyes out although she stopped the moment they
appeared and pretended she'd been doing no such thing, and he'd
never felt so bad in his life.

That had been the first time his
father had taken a strap to his backside and not one of his best
memories.

But he had plenty of other good
memories about the caves, and he'd known he deserved that
particular punishment, even at the time.  He wanted to show
them to Irene.  Indeed, he found himself wanting to show her
everything about his time here as a child.

"She's wonderful," said his wife,
finally pulling her mare up beside him and nodding at the beautiful
creature’s tossing head.  Hugh grinned at her.  Rex, his
stallion, was about two hands higher than the mare which she'd
named Liberty so she had to tilt her head back to look up at him.
 Green eyes sparkled at him with pure pleasure and the color
was high in her cheeks; little wisps of coppery hair had escaped
her pins during her gallop and she looked incredibly beautiful.
 In fact it reminded him of how she looked in their bed.
"Thank you so much for giving her to me."

"Well if we're going to go exploring
then you need your own mount, as much as I might enjoy having you
share mine."  Hugh winked at her, enjoying the way her cheeks
flushed even darker.  Truthfully he was happy she now had her
own mount, even though it meant she was no longer pressed up
against him. It obviously gave her a great amount of joy, and she
was a fantastic rider. He loved to watch her.

Despite the fact that she eagerly and
passionately shared his bed, she still blushed whenever he flirted
with her.  It was a quality that he found particularly
endearing. 

He was an extremely lucky man.
 Irene was even more intriguing to him out in the country
where they could indulge in their shared interests, and despite her
delicate looks he'd already discovered that she was a bruising
horsewoman and that she enjoyed being outside much more than being
cooped up in a house.  Being away from the city - and perhaps
being away from her mother was part of it - Irene had blossomed.
 And she was just as curious in the bedroom as she was around
the house.

In fact just this morning they'd had
an interlude which had been as erotic as it was frustrating for
him, where he'd allowed his wife to explore his body with her eyes,
fingers, and eventually her mouth.  Although she hadn't taken
it quite to the point where he might have liked it to go with her
mouth before his control had finally snapped and he turned her onto
her back, thrusting his almost angry looking manhood into her soft
wetness.  He'd given her as much time as he could bear to
explore their differences and learn his body, her soft fingers
brushing through his chest hair and over his nipples, seemingly
entranced by the flat brown discs and the tiny nubs in the center.
 When she'd made her way, almost shyly, down to his groin he'd
already been achingly hard and it was only the expression of
curious awe on her face as she gently brushed her fingers up and
down his shaft that had kept him from taking her right then and
there. 

Just thinking about it was already
making it difficult for him to sit in his saddle considering the
tightness of his riding breeches. 

"Where would you like to go first?" he
asked her, desperate to change his mind to other matters.
 Honeymoon or not he couldn't just drag her off to bed this
morning.  Again.  "The flowers in the glen should be in
bloom, it's the right time of year for them."

The smile that he received in return
was brilliant and so very pleased that he thought his heart might
actually burst.  Well, better his heart than the front of his
breeches.  "Then let's go there."

"Catch me if you can," he teased,
before making a sharp turn and jolting Rex into a
gallop. 

He could hear the tinkling of Irene's
laughter behind him and the pounding of hooves as she
followed.

******

The glen that Hugh brought her to was
more beautiful than Irene could have ever imagined.  There
were plenty of trees for shade in almost a perfect circle around a
tiny meadow that was just filled with violets.  It was like a
sea of purple and green at ankle height, and she desperately wished
that she could wade into them without crushing any of the
beautiful, tiny flowers.  That Hugh looked just as awed and
delighted by the glen didn’t quite surprise her, although at one
time it might have.

Some men would never be able to look
masculine while admiring a tiny violet, but Hugh was not one of
them, despite his gorgeous blonde hair and grace of movement. 
With his broad shoulders and strong limbs, the slightly rugged
state of his attire for riding which was so different from the
impeccable gentleman he presented himself as in the evening, Hugh
was decidedly quite manly and it didn’t matter the venue or what he
was doing.

"I used to come here every year at
this time and gather flowers for my mother," he said, reaching down
to cup a violet in his hand.  "Violets are her
favorite."

"They're one of mine too," Irene heard
herself saying.  Hugh looked up at grinned at her, making her
heart thumb unevenly.

He plucked one tiny flower from the
plant, walking towards her as she stared up at him.  When he
reached her, he tucked the violet into her hair, just above her
ear.  Since her mother was not there to lecture her on the
importance of keeping her skin lily-white, and because she was
already married so what did it matter anyway, Irene had gotten out
of the habit of wearing a bonnet when she and Hugh went out.
 He certainly didn't seem to mind.

"The color suits you," he murmured,
cupping her cheek in his hand and leaning down to feather a kiss
over her lips.

Yearning surged inside of her and she
leaned into him, putting her hands on his chest as she tilted her
head back.  He teased her lips with the lightness of his kiss,
just brushing his over hers again and again as she went up onto her
toes to try and catch him.  As he purposefully kept her
reaching, she couldn't help but giggle. 

"Are you laughing at me?" he asked,
putting his hands on her waist to steady her as she leaned against
him, pulling his head back just enough to look into her green eyes
which seemed even brighter out in the sunlight. 

The sun had given her little freckles
across her nose, which he decided he adored, and brought out golden
highlights in her coppery hair.  The violet was a stain of
purple against that sunset background.  

"Of course not!" Irene said, sounding
surprised.  

Hugh just laughed.
 He'd already learned that she didn't always understand when
she was being teased and it made his heart ache when he wondered
what kind of childhood she must have had. So he took every chance
he could to make up for it.  Sliding his hands down her waist,
he reached down and gripped her bottom before his lips descended
again.

This time his kiss was much firmer,
his lips parting hers as she opened for him to thrust his tongue
into her willing mouth.  Irene groaned.

Although she had become less
intimidated by Hugh and her reactions to him, she still couldn't do
anything about the physical disturbance that he caused within her.
 The little flirtations, the teasing kisses, those she could
handle.  Then he was like a different, gentler man, the way
she'd always imagined herself kissing Alex.  But then Hugh
would become something more wild, less contained, and she was
always shocked to find herself responding so ardently.

The most frightening part was that she
was beginning to enjoy the strangeness that he created within her,
as if there was a wildness inside of her that he called forth.
 Something untamed, uninhibited.  It frightened her even
as much as it excited her.  Especially because when he did
that, she completely forgot about Alex.  Her entire body, her
entire world, became about Hugh and what he was doing to
her. 

Surely that wasn't supposed to
happen.

She was still confused about marital
relations and the very large differences between what she had been
told to expect and what she was actually experiencing.  It
made her long for a woman to confide in, but she didn't know her
maid that well even if it hadn't been drilled into her that she
should never trust the servants with her personal secrets, and all
the other women she might confide in were back in London.
 Yesterday she'd tried to write a letter to Eleanor, thinking
that perhaps her new sister might have some insight or
understanding, but it was impossible to put her emotions and fears
into words without sounding quite crazed.  She'd ended up
putting the letter in the fireplace rather than sending
it. 

No, she was on her own.  And on
her own meant trembling and needy in Hugh's arms as he tightened
them around her, kissing her the way he did in their bedroom.
 

When he pulled his mouth away she was
left gasping.  

Hugh considered taking his wife down
to the ground right there in the glen, but he didn't want to offend
her sensibilities.  Or risk having someone come looking for
them, as it was almost time for luncheon.  Although she was as
passionate in the bedroom as any man could ask for, Irene still
blushed when they made love in the light of day.  It was too
much to ask to have her do so outside.  Not yet, at
least.

"Perhaps we should continue on," he
murmured, controlling himself as he brushed one last kiss over her
swollen lips.  "I will show you to the creek before we return
to the house." 

"If it pleases you."  It was
Irene's standard response, one which she had said many times to her
mother, but with Hugh she found herself wanting to please him in
order to see him smile.  With her mother it had been to avoid
an unpleasant scene.

"It does not please me," he said,
pressing his thumb to her lips.  "I would be much more pleased
by a return to the house and our bed, but I wish to show you the
creek and as we have already saddled the horses and ridden them out
it would not be fair to return to soon."  Irene blushed as he
referenced their bed, confirming that his modest wife was not yet
ready for the outdoor activities he would best like to engage in
currently. 

"We do not have to go to the creek..."
Her voice trailed off, and to his delight she truly did look rather
torn. 

"No, we will go to the creek," he
said, releasing her.  But he put his lips by her ear to
whisper: "But after lunch I hope you will be in the mood for a
nap."  The little wink he gave her as he escorted her back to
Liberty gave Irene no doubt as to exactly what he meant by 'nap'
and the blush rose in her face again. 

Hugh helped her up onto her saddle,
settling her in, before he pulled himself up onto Rex.
 Watching his athletic ability as he swung up into the saddle
always made Irene a little breathless.  He was just so strong
and sure of himself, in the saddle, as a man and as a husband.
 Sometimes she wished she were like that. 

"Do you think I might be able to ride
Rex one day?" she asked, thinking that she'd like to show Hugh how
strong she could be in certain situations.  "I would love to
try his paces."

"Absolutely not," Hugh said in a tone
that brooked no argument, it was almost harsh and she looked at him
in surprise.  "Rex behaves well enough for me but he is not a
safe ride, especially for a lady in a side saddle."

Although his words were not
particularly surprising or unkind, his tone was harsher than he'd
ever used with her before.  She was surprised to feel a little
spark of rebellion deep inside her chest.  Hugh knew that she
was a bruising rider, otherwise he never would have gotten her a
spirited filly like Liberty.

"I've ridden stallions before," she
argued.  Hugh was so good at everything, she rather
desperately wanted to show herself to be on his level.  "In a
side saddle."

"Other stallions, but not Rex," her
husband said, his voice still stern although his expression had
gentled as if he realized that he had hurt her feelings by
declaring her riding skills not up to his stallion.  Sidling
his horse closer he reached out with his hand; Irene reached back
and took it although she was still feeling put out with him.
 "I don't know what I would do if anything happened to you,
especially on my horse, Irene.  I would never get over the
guilt."  He studied the disappointment that was clearly etched
on her face.  "Perhaps sometime you might ride double with me
on Rex."