An Unforgettable Rogue (19 page)

“Who?”

“Claudia. She is like the sunshine, that one, and she has the ability to slide beneath your defenses when you least expect it. She makes me want to make a pet of her one minute and throttle her the next.”

“Did you never experience that wild urge to beat me?”

Chesterfield shook his head. “Never.”

“You are in love with Claudia.”

“Do you suppose that wanting to beat someone is love? I had rather suspected not.”

“Alex nodded. I think any strong emotion is certainly a sign.”

“So of course you wish Hawksworth would become so enraged as to want to beat you?”

Alex turned away.

“Even in moonlight, I can see the glint of tears in your eyes. Are you that unhappy with the sorry state of your marriage?”

“The state of my marriage is not your business.”

“It is my business when you cannot repay me the money you owe me. Some marriage, if you must keep such things from your husband.”

Alex bit her lip in shame, because he was right.

Chesterfield took her into his arms. “Ah my poor Alexandra.” He removed his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped her eyes, then he kissed her, but more like a brother than a lover.

Yes, he cared for Claudia, Alex thought regarding him fixedly, but no good would come of it.

“Do not think that your pretty tears will get me to forgive the five thousand pounds you owe me,” he said.

As if she had been slapped, Alex stepped from his embrace.

“A good thing you let her go, Chesterfield, else I might have had to remove her by force.”

Alex shivered. “Hawksworth!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Hawk raised a brow. “Chesterfield, you seem to make a habit of kissing my wife.”

“I grew fond of the custom during the months before our wedding.”

Jaw set, Hawk took Alexandra’s arm and led her toward the garden, glad the Duchess chaperoned Claudia in the ballroom. His mind held no doubt now that Alex was jealous of Chesterfield’s attention to Claudia, and if he were forced to go back inside at this moment, and had to be civil, even once, he might do something rash.

Having also just learned that his wife borrowed five thousand pounds from her lover did not improve Hawk’s mood, though he supposed he should not be surprised. Whether the borrowed money paid the mysterious
vouchers
was another matter, though Hawk was willing to make an educated guess that it did.

The funds to repay Chesterfield would be hard to find, Hawk thought, though find them, he would. Why had Alex taken the blackguard’s blunt in the first place? And why did she not trust her own husband enough to confide in him?

He just might have to beat her later, Hawk thought,
after
he removed her clothes and slathered her with oil.

From the garden, they made their way around the Wellbank Mansion to the front. Hawk sent a note inside to the Duchess saying that Alex was ill and he was taking her home. Did she mind chaperoning Claude on her own?

Her reply was prompt. She would be happy to help. As a postscript, she added, “Get Alex to bed.”

Oh, he would. He certainly would.

In the carriage, Hawk pulled the curtains down before the vehicle had barely begun its trek across town. Then he pulled his wife onto his lap and took her mouth.

Hawk ran his hands through her hair, dislodging pins, holding her head still so he could ravage her mouth, suckle her tongue. “I am furious with you for nearly marrying him, for kissing him, and for taking money from him,” he said when he came up for air.

She seemed to revel in his less than gentle tactics but stopped to catch her own breath. “I am furious with you for leaving me after our wedding, for not providing for us, for not telling us you survived, for—”

“Shut up and kiss me.” Hawk made love to his wife with his touch, his tongue, and his lips.

Alex followed suit.

Why she suddenly slipped her hand into the front flap of his inexpressibles, Hawk knew not, he knew only that she had found herself a handful of randy man, hard, pulsing, and ready to spill. He covered her hand to stop her. “Do not.”

“But you said you needed practice to regain your staying power.”

“And so I do.”

“I want to help, and I want to touch and know all of you.” She knelt on the floor of the carriage, no matter that he kept trying to pull her upward, and she kissed him. There.

Hawk shuddered, he called her name, but he remained in control, and improved his staying power.

The carriage slowed. “Devil take it, he must think I called for him to stop,” Hawk said. Gathering his wits, he called for Myerson to go on. “Circle Hyde Park,” he added, and when he felt the vehicle change direction, Hawk knew his instructions were being followed. Myerson might suspect what they were about, but he would never reveal any of it.

Hawk pulled Alex from her knees, and brought her astride him. He wrapped her hand around him and gave her the rhythm. Then he played the same cadence, slow and easy, at her center.

Damn Chesterfield to hell. She was his
.

Her head went back and she pulled air from her lungs. When he could tell from her moist, swollen bud how ready she was, as swollen and ready as he, Hawk shouted for Myerson to take them home.

Alex whimpered, she was so undone, as he redressed her. She laid her cheek against his shoulder while he put himself away, something of a challenge.

“We have arrived,” she said when they stopped.

“Not quite,” he said, and then he carried her from the carriage, and up the stairs.

The black lace corset was shed in a flash and Hawk laid Alex atop the covers, where he could devour the sight of her. Then he lay beside her to free himself and urge her astride him, but this time he rocked her and inflamed them both, until they reached a modicum of satisfaction.

Alex wept. Hawk understood. It was not enough, yet it was the best he could give her.

They were doomed. Whichever direction they went with their lives, together or separate, would be the wrong direction.

For days, Hawk rose before Alex and went up to bed after her, as well. He was confused, his mind filled with either taking her to bed, or murdering her lover.

Because he was thinking of returning to the country, he asked Reed and Gideon to join him in taking Beatrix, Damon and Rafferty to Astley’s Royal Amphitheater in Lambeth, as he had promised.

While Reed did not consider taking children anywhere a good idea for any reason, Gideon thought it a splendid notion and readily agreed. Eventually, so did Reed.

Hawk had not given his niece and nephews much attention since returning from Belgium. Besides, he desperately needed to turn his thoughts to something, or someone, other than Alex.

Beatrix was the daughter he never had, and he adored his nephews, scamps that they were. He had missed them all, and spending time with them held the promise of a certain peace.

Gideon generously procured a private box on the arena level, though the children might have swung from the rafters, as sat on their bottoms, they were so excited, making Hawk question his notion of peace.

Damon favored the performing monkeys, but Rafe much preferred the equestrian showmanship for which Astley’s was famous. Beatrix adored the bespangled dame who performed with a broadsword, cutting and slashing her way across the arena, though later, she said she saw Baxter across the way kissing that lady. Hawk stepped between Bea and the view, concerned that Baxter was slipping into his old ways.

Not even the boys were fond of the
thunder, lightening and hail
spectacle, and when the reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo began, the three men regarded each other with disgust, and left without another word. Hawk was glad, however, that they attended, almost as glad as the children, though Reed ended the evening more skittish about children than ever, after Bea vomited in his lap.

They got home late, and by the time Hawk got Claudia to help clean Bea up and put her to bed, he found Alex asleep, or so he thought. He had no sooner pulled the covers over himself, than she came and burrowed into him.

Hawk sighed with a mixture of satisfaction and frustration, and a need to speak, as he placed his arm about her, so as to pillow her head on his shoulder. “Why did you borrow five thousand pounds from Chesterfield?” There, it was said.

Alexandra’s sigh was impossible to gauge, though
bowing to the inevitable
seemed a good interpretation. “I did not
borrow
the money. I was never supposed to return it. We were
supposed
to be married.”

“Ah. But what did you use it for?”

“I cannot tell you that.”

“Why can you not be forthcoming with me?”

“I am being as forthcoming with you as you have been with me.”

“We are talking, again, about my not contacting you upon my return, are we not?”

“
You
are.”

“Imagine that.” Hawk sighed and tried to curb his irritation. “Alexandra….”

“Yes, Hawksworth.”

“Gambling … while seeming to be the answer to acquiring vast sums of money with little or no effort—”

“How did you guess?”

“Brilliant deductive powers … and a hot fire.”

“What?”

“It does not matter. Simply give me your oath that you will never gamble again and I will say no further word about it.”

“I can honestly say that I have not placed a wager since I asked Fitzwilliams to pay the vouchers, nor will I gamble in the future.”

“Thank you, I—”

“Will say no further word about it.”

“Right.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Why are you still awake?” he asked, barred from probing further into her gaming. “Are you unable to sleep?”

“I have been thinking.”

“Come to any conclusions?”

“Not a one.”

“I have,” Hawk said.

Alex rose and leaned on an elbow to regard him, though the light cast by the moon shone too pale to read her.

“Tomorrow, I am going home to Huntington Lodge.”

“You are leaving me?” … again, Alex thought.

His turn to raise himself. Had she sounded regretful? “Leaving you? Nonsense. I need to speak to the estate manager, or he needs to speak with me, I should say, judging from his letter. And I would like to check on the property, the progress of repairs, visit the new tenants, see how they get on, and make certain they have enough to eat.”

“You are a better man than the one who went to war.”

“Balderdash. Quicksilver is due to foal any day, and if the new cottages are coming along, I thought I might start the men on enlarging the stable. Gideon has offered me the pick of his breeding stock, you know, with the excuse that I would not have lost my inheritance, if I did not watch his back and
die
in his place.”

“And you are willing to accept his offer?”

“Of course not, but I am considering borrowing his best stallion to cover Quicksilver next spring. There is pride rooted in honor, but there is also a point where pride becomes stubborn and foolish.”

“I am pleased you finally realize it for the most part. You are going to make the estate profitable, are you not?”

“I certainly hope so. Will that please you?”

“Only if
you
are the one managing it.”

What a remarkable statement, Hawk thought, disturbingly intuitive. “Go to sleep.”

“How long will you be gone? Do not forget that we are invited to remain through Christmas. Gideon and Sabrina will come to stay as well.”

“I shall be home in plenty of time for Christmas.”

“Oh, Grandmama’s birthday celebration is the week before. Perhaps you can be home in time for that?”

“We will see.”

Alex wanted to weep. She wanted to beg him not to leave her again, but she could not bring herself to do so. He was sorry he had married her; she knew he must be.

His father had been right. She had never been good enough for Hawk

* * *

The Huntington Lodge estate might not be thriving, but it was a beehive of activity and progress. The most important repairs on the house were done, inside and out. No more roof-leaks, broken stairs or drafty windows. The house, itself, was still plenty ugly, but warm and dry and infinitely more livable.

Aunt Hildegarde and Uncle Gifford were not only grateful for the improvements, they were downright agreeable, so much
in complete agreement
, as to make Hawk almost as suspicious as he was pleased to see them.

The new cottages stood two stories high, thatched of roof and simple of design, but warm and cozy. The soldiers and their families worked hard—clearing land on the home farm for a larger spring planting, digging foundations for more cottages, repairing and whitewashing the old, building the new—whatever his manager set them to.

Most of the tenant cottages now housed only two instead of three families. Several of the male tenants, members of his old unit, could not seem to break the habit of saluting him, but Hawk was working on that as well.

Mrs. Parker baked bread and made soup daily to keep everyone fed, which Hawk had asked her to do, to see their tenants through the winter, until they could begin to plant their personal gardens and fend for themselves.

Hawk either observed the daily activity from atop Alexandra’s horse, or on foot, or he got right down and worked beside his tenants. Sometimes Giff rode with him.

Hawk spoke with everyone, man woman and child, alike, listening to their ideas to improve the estate. The fact that he was nearly as penniless as they were made them seem to want to work the harder.

One soldier’s wife suggested a pottery, and Hawk thought that might be a good idea, given the clay on the land. Another suggested a weaving loom or two, given the sheep, for blankets and wraps for winter. If they kept this up, Huntington Lodge would become a community unto itself.

Four soldiers brought horses they could barely afford to keep, so they were happy to lend them to the breeding pot, up at the stable, for winter hay and feed. Not that Hawk would use all of them, but he
would
make use of at least one.

Through all the positive progress, however, Hawk worried … about his marriage, about Alex, for he saw her everywhere. He worried about how he was going to repay her debt to Chesterfield. Five thousand pounds might as well be fifty thousand right now.

Why did she love Chesterfield?

Did
she love Chesterfield?

A prosperous Huntington Estate would be an excellent gift with which to leave Alex. But working beside her for a lifetime, to turn it into a successful venture, would be the greatest gift of all.

But a gift for whom? Him? Or her?

He wanted to make their marriage work, but he did not want to assure his happiness at the cost of Alexandra’s. Except … how could she have gone from Chesterfield’s arms that night at the ball to practically mounting him ten minutes later in the carriage?

Which of them did she love? And was he an idiot for imagining he might be counted as a possibility?

His uncle approached him one day as Hawk was fretting over the problem and pacing the winter-barren orchard. “Would you like to talk about whatever is bothering you?”

Hawk shook his head. “I suppose it would be useless to say nothing is?”

Giff chuckled. “Sometimes I think you favor me in temperament more than you favor your own father.”

“Thank you. That is the nicest thing you could say.”

“You still ache to please him, though, do you not?”

“How did you guess?”

“I never succeeded, either, and as old as I am, a little part of me wishes I could do more than please him. Just once before I die, I would like to best him.”