An Unforgettable Rogue (22 page)

“Either that or we take Claudia home. I will not have you kissing my unmarried niece in that unseemly manner.”

Chesterfield focused on the blushing Claudia, the light of awareness entering his eyes. “Now is a very good time.”

They left Baxter in the taproom to await the law, and after they did, Chesterfield stopped to face Alex. “I did not forgive the five thousand pounds as I let you believe. Hawk paid the debt, but he did not want you to know.”

Hawk cursed.

Alex ignored him. “When did he pay it?”

“A few days before Giff and Hildy’s wedding, the day he returned from the country.”

“Thank you Chesterfield, for telling me.”

Chesterfield nodded. “Now my conscience is clear. Claudia, will you have me?”

Ian McGillivray married them in a quaint corner of the hotel itself, making their wedding a deal more special than the two-minute, over-the-anvil
ceremony
that might have taken place at the old thatched and white-washed blacksmith shop down the street.

By then Baxter had been carted off, and all four made their way back upstairs to spend what was left of the night. They would set off in a few short hours, so they could be home in time for Christmas Eve with the family.”

“Goodnight, Alex,” Chesterfield said, kissing her cheek and shaking Hawk’s hand. “Goodnight, Uncle.” Chesterfield grinned, put an arm around Claudia, hugged her close, and laughed all the way to their bedchamber.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Hawk escorted Alex into their own chamber, his jaw so rigid by the time the door closed, she half expected him to hand her that bill of divorcement.

“You are
not
carrying his child,” he said.

The phrase—as much of a query as an order—struck like a clap of thunder, echoing off the walls and shivering Alex to her roots.

“Will you raise it as your own? As your heir, if I have a son?”

Hawk paled and wavered, but firmed his stance. “I will.”

That her confirmation did not bring his instant consent to a divorce infused Alex with sorrow and hope, for if she did not force him to dissolve their marriage, he would lose everything … as she would gain everything. If they
did
divorce, there might be enough of his inheritance left to regain Hawks Ridge. “Why?” she asked.

“I realized, on my way here, that even when I could not step from my father’s control, I found a reason to marry you that was more important than him, and more important than me … Beatrix and Claudia. They needed you, so I married you, despite my father.”

Hawk fixed his regard on her then, with such deep concentration—or was it longing?—that Alex began to pace, for she could not stand still. She wished he had opposed his father for his own sake, for if he did that, she would know that he was free and spoke the truth from his heart.

“Bea still needs us both,” he said.

Alex sighed, aching for the one who would suffer most for their parting, but even Bea would suffer if their marriage stood on so rocky a foundation. “I know she does.”

Hawk nodded. “You once said that we must remain together for the sake of the family? Do you still believe it? Though it is a great deal to ask.”

The dart went straight to her heart. “Is it?”

“God’s teeth,” Hawk said. “I mean it is too much to ask of you.”

Alex saw from his appalled expression that he spoke true. “Are you certain that staying together is what you want?”

“More than anything.”

That surprised her. “The rogue of Devil’s Dyke for a lifetime? I do not know. Do you think you can manage me?”

“No one has ever been able to manage you.” Hawk’s eyes actually smiled. “But if you mean, can I bear our remaining married? I can, if you can.”

They were still playing games, of a sort, and Alex despised it. “I would have a promise.”

“Then you shall have it. I am in your debt for at least a dozen.”

She wished she could collect every one. “This is more of a demand.”

“Name it.”

“No more secrets.”

Hawk bent to a hearth framed with delft tiles to light the fire. “What do you want to know?”

The sight of him performing the homey task made Alex want a life with him so badly that she had to swallow twice before she could speak. “Why did you not tell me that you lost your inheritance, because you married me?”

Hawk set tinder to flame then rose to face her. “I did not know about the codicil to my father’s will, until I saw the solicitor, and then it was too late.”

“It was not too late,” she said, her voice rising. “We could have gotten an annulment back then. And you are still speaking in half-truths.”

“Alex, shh.” Hawk stepped forward to take her by the shoulders, as if she
must
hear him. “That it was too late had nothing to do with our consummated, or unconsummated, marriage. It had to do with my unwillingness to let you go.”

“Too stubborn to give up?” she asked stepping away, for her resolve could vanish in such joy, and then she would have no strength left to let him go.

He raised a brow. “Among other things.”

Alex could not bear an elaboration; she carried too many unanswered questions. “Where did you get the five thousand pounds to pay Chesterfield?”

Hawk’s quick smile weakened her knees, boding ill for her cause. “Remember the tiny alabaster bust we dug up near the water-meadows a hundred years ago?” he asked.

Alex could not stop her smile. “You love that piece.”

“I love it even more now. I sold it for a tidy sum. My good luck, I should have realized, began the day I found you. I will tell you all about the sale later, but know that, even after paying Chesterfield, there is enough left to set the Lodge and property to rights and begin breeding horses.”

“How much were you able to get for it?”

Hawk grinned. “Fifteen thousand pounds.”

Alex gasped. “But that was enough to buy back Hawks Ridge! Why did you not give Chesterfield the money for your estate? Why pay
my
debt?”

“It was not your debt.”

“You did not know that at the time.”

“Freeing you from Chesterfield was more important—no, that is wrong.
You
were more important to me.”

“But Hawks Ridge is your heritage, your home.”

“Alex, my home is wherever you are, whether in a mansion, or at the bottom of the Dyke. Besides, I find myself looking forward to the challenge of bringing Huntington Lodge back to its former glory.” He took her hand and brought it to his lips. “Which is something I want more than my next breath for us to do together.”

Alex might rejoice at Hawk’s words, if not for his father’s will. “Your father warned me,” she said, turning away, fingering a blue damask bed-curtain. “He said I would be the worst possible wife for you.” She looked up. “I should have listened, for now I have made you turn your back on your birthright.”

“My father was a heartless schemer, whose machinations served only him, his plans, his power to control.
You
are the wife for me, Alex, the best wife, the only wife I want.”

Beguiled by his words, Alex pulled away. “No. Listen. If I had not married you, you would not have been able to go to war, so you would not have been wounded and scarred, or lost your home and your wealth. Hawk, you have lost
everything
, because of me.”

“I have lost everything,
only
, if I have lost
you
. Why will you not believe me?” he asked, stepping once forward for each of her steps back. Catching up, he placed his hands on either side of her face. “Listen to my words, Alex. I love you, and I want to stay married to you. In so saying, I am fully cognizant that I repudiate my father, thereby burying him and his hold over me—over both of us—once and forever.”

Alex nearly shouted for joy. Hawk’s declaration was everything she dreamed, but it was time for her to be honest as well. “You should know,” she said, stepping to the window and looking out, “that I planned to seduce you as a form of revenge.”

Hawk wanted to tell her that hers was a sweet revenge, but he could see that she was serious, and this was no time for levity. “Why did you?”

“After you left for France, I heard your friends talking—though you recently said they are not your friends. Still, they knew that you married me only to care for your family. They said you could not bear to touch me, and since you had not … touched me, I thought they knew what they were talking about.”

“Oh, Alex, I am so—”

“Do not say it. I am sick unto death of people being sorry for me. When you came home…. No, you never did come home, did you? When you stopped my wedding, and
still
you did not touch me, I vowed to seduce you, until you said exactly what you just did, that you wanted me, loved me, and then I was going to walk away. And because I learned your true feelings from someone else, I was going to have someone else tell you mine.” She did not say that she planned for them to go on with their marriage afterward, because now they could not.

“How could you learn my true feelings from someone else, when I did not know them myself?” Hawk shook his head. “I cannot believe that you thought of vengeance as you seduced me? As we loved, Alex?”

She looked away.

“So,” he said, “is it finished then? Are you planning to leave me now?”

Alex looked at the door and knew she must, but before she took two steps, Hawk blocked her path. “I meant what I said; I love you, though you have never said as much to me.”

“And have it thrown in my face? I think not.”

“Then you do love me?”

Alex laughed, mocking them both. “Only forever. Only since I looked up from the bottom of Devil’s Dyke and saw
you
coming to my rescue.” She raised a hand at his step forward. “No, do not come any closer. My admission does not mean that I will fall at your feet. Besides, I was never good enough for the handsome-as-sin Rogue of Devil’s Dyke. Why am I now?”

“Alex, you are—”

“Is it because people say I am … no longer unattractive. Is that why you think you love me? Because Hawk, beauty fades with time. Always.”

“I have learned a great deal about beauty since my return. I have seen it, first-hand, in a little girl’s adoration. In a little boy and his motley cat. An elderly couple’s love.” He smiled. “I saw beauty every time your back ached.” He touched her lips with reverence. “I see it in the way you kiss my scars.”

Alex’s eyes filled. Hawk wiped away a tear. When had he stepped close enough?

“Let me tell you something else. I never saw beauty in the man you termed a
handsome-as-sin rogue
. What I saw in that man was worthlessness. My father approved of rogues, so I became one, and I enjoyed the role, for a time, but I am not that man. Not quite. I am the man you have encouraged me to become. The man you see before you.

“As, layer by layer, everything I once thought important was stripped away, I saw, revealed to me, what was truly important. You, the girls, Aunt Hildy and Uncle Giff, Gideon, Sabrina, and their children. Us, working and making a home, together, caring for our family … together.”

Alex made to speak, but Hawk stopped her with a finger to her lips. “Let me try to explain why I could not bring myself to come home to you. If I never thought the handsome rogue worthy—and I did
not
—imagine how I felt about the
beast
, who, by some foolish blunder of fate, cheated death.”

Alex sobbed and stepped into his arms. “You are not a beast, you are n—”

Hawk opened his mouth over hers and kissed her with passion, with hunger and wonder, desperate to make her understand how much she meant to him. To take her love and give it back, to connect with the mate to his soul.

“Beauty,” he said, looking into her eyes, “resides where gentleness and love are the most wondrous of gifts.”

“And within one who would give his life for a friend.”

“I fell in love with you,” Hawk said, “while I was healing in Belgium, long before I saw how beautiful you had become … or so I thought. But sometime during my long ride here, I traced my love as far back as that mud-spattered urchin at the bottom of the Dyke.”

Alex toyed with his cravat. “Perhaps you love the memory of me.”

Hawk urged her toward the canopied four-poster, the fire in his eyes reminiscent of that night-stalking lion. “I am certain that is not the case, for I am in love with a hoyden,” he said, “who would shoot an arrow through the roof to get her husband into her bed.” He began to undo the buttons at her bodice with single-minded determination. “I am in lust with a siren who would tie said husband to her bed to seduce him … exquisitely.” He kissed her neck and nudged aside her bodice to kiss the crown of a breast.

“I cherish the woman who gave a mother’s heart to the orphaned daughters of another.” He kissed her brow. “I thank and honor the Lass who kept a curmudgeon’s greatest secret to give him the gift of his family’s respect.”

Alex bit her lip as tears blurred her vision.

“Do not go out that door, Alexandra Wakefield, for I would only follow. Do not walk away from me, please, I beg you. I could not bear to lose you.” He tried to pull her down on the bed with him, and despite her attempt to resist—to do the right thing and let him go—she toppled, landing atop him, her gown’s skirt settling over her head like a veil.

Hawk’s eyes darkened as his hands traveled the length of her body. “Will it hurt the babe, if I make love to you?” he asked, melting her to her marrow and making her his for good and all.

“Ah, Hawk, I can resist you no longer. You think yourself unworthy of love, but you are so worthy, you would raise another man’s child as your own. But there is no need, my love, for no man has touched me, save you. How could you not know?”

He became endearingly sheepish. “I fear I imbibed rather a lot that night.”

“Ah … speaking of secrets….”

His eyes widened. “Damn. You drugged me.”

“Never, but I did make certain that your brandy glass stayed full.”

“Sorceress.” He nuzzled her breasts, and rolled her onto her back, to rise above her. “This bed is too bloody big,” he said with a grin. Then he bent to her and threaded his fingers through her hair, on either side of her face and brushed her cheeks with his thumbs. “How would you feel about giving Beatrix a mama and a papa, both, for Christmas? We could adopt her, if you—”

“Oh, Hawk, yes. And we could give her the baby she wants.”

“This Christmas, she will have to settle for a mama and papa.” The fire in his eyes leapt and his body surged to life. “Though, if we begin now, and try very hard, perhaps we can fulfill her second wish next Christmas.”

“Yes, yes, and ye—” He stopped her with his kiss, unable to wait a minute longer to have her mouth again.

Some while later, Alex cupped his cheek. “I love you.”

Hawk was humbled and so grateful he could hardly draw breath, and neither the lump in his throat nor the speck in his eye mattered. “You will keep this wreck, who—all the king’s horses and all of his men failed to put together again?”

“I should beat you for doubting it.”

Hawk shook his head. “I should have known that you would accept me, broken as I am, but you deserve so much better, that I had the devil of a time asking it of you.”

“No need to ask.”

“I do not deserve you, but God help us both, I love and want you. Please, will you forgive this unforgivable rogue for waiting so long to come home?”

“Not unforgivable, but unforgettable. Even as I walked up the aisle to marry another, I thought only of you.”