“I’ve no need to write anything further of you, Lord Hawke, for it is unlikely my opinion of you will change. You will make no woman a good husband, I think, and so will I say should any of my friends consult me in the matter—which is also unlikely. So, to respond to your question, no, your answer will not find its way into my journal.”
Both of his eyes were open now and fixed upon her. “Then why do you ask it? Never say that it is because you are interested in me.”
He was smiling now, and she felt the tug of an answering smile on her own lips. Their eyes held too long, though, and her smile faded. “Why do you sit up and drink so late every night?”
He looked away, staring up at the cream-colored tufted leather ceiling. “That should be obvious to a woman of your keen perceptions. I do not like the nighttime and so I drink to get me through the long hours of darkness.”
Olivia traced one finger back and forth across the spine of her book. There was nothing obvious about it. “Wouldn’t sleep be a better solution?” she asked in a softer voice.
“I have trouble at night sleeping unless I am completely exhausted—or completely drunk. It is that simple and that complicated.”
Olivia considered him, the long muscular body, the strong profile—the lines of weariness that bracketed his mouth and fanned out from the corners of his eyes. “I hope you do not intend to drink here, in my presence.”
She thought that might provoke a rise from him, and indeed, she would have welcomed a tart retort, for there was something unsettling about this conversation. There was a vulnerability about him now, a humanity she did not like being forced to acknowledge.
“Never fear, Miss Byrde. I’ll try not to offend your sense of propriety.” He glanced at her, then away, then closed those moody blue eyes once more. “If I snore, I hope you will not add that to my list of sins. Just kick me and I’ll try to stop.”
He remained silent after that. Whether he slept, she could not tell, for he did not snore. But his breathing came slow and even, and aside from grimacing once or twice when the road grew especially rough, he did not stir.
Olivia, however, was not nearly so fortunate. Her mind spun, incited by the nearness of this man who managed to rouse so many new emotions in her. She focused repeatedly on the erstwhile heroine of her book, but Emma’s machinations paled beside the complications of her own situation. The most exasperating man she’d ever known slept not two feet from her. How could she not stare and wonder and let her imagination soar?
He had a series of scars along his jaw. From the war? He suffered from sleeplessness and probably had been drinking most of the night. Again. Was that also due to his experience on the Continent? Or could it be due to something else? The, loss of his family, perhaps. Or the loss of a woman.
Olivia gnawed the side of her mouth as she mulled over that somewhat unwelcome thought. Yet as her eyes roamed over him, she could not shake the idea. He was a man that women would always seek out. She knew the type. He was not the pretty, dandified sort that was so often preferred in the drawing rooms in town. But in the bedrooms …
She felt hot color rise in her cheeks. Heavens! She should not think such vulgar thoughts. Yet they persisted. Neville Hawke was no doubt the sort of man who knew his way around a woman’s boudoir. Certainly he knew how to kiss a woman—and very well. He knew how to seduce with only his taunting eyes and his challenging words, never mind those overwhelming kisses. That bespoke a considerable experience, something she did not wish to think about. Those strong arms, those wide shoulders. He would be able to handle himself in a fight as well as in a lady’s bedroom, and it behooved her to remember it.
Still, watching him sleep softened all that knowledge. It cast his vices in a more generous light. She did not wish to see his vulnerabilities, yet she could not look away. He needed a haircut, she decided, and someone to ease the lines of worry in his brow.
But not her.
She forced herself to stare out the window, to locate Sarah and examine the passing countryside. But her thoughts remained stubbornly on Neville Hawke. She did not intend to write anything further about him on the crowded page she’d given him in her journal. She’d vented herself more than enough on his account. But if she were to write about him again, it would only be fair to say that the night was not his friend, and that he was kind to children.
She turned again to gaze at him.
And that he was beautiful in his own hard, masculine manner. Almost too beautiful for her to resist.
Almost.
Chapter 15
It rained the last two hours of their journey that day. Roused by the storm, Neville rejoined Bart and the horses, while Sarah and Mrs. McCaffery returned to the shelter of the carriage. As was her wont, the housekeeper swiftly dozed off, as did Sarah.
But Olivia did not sleep. She peered glumly past the tied-down curtain, out into the gray slashing rainstorm. As the team of horses labored down the uneven highway, and the rumble of the wheels sloshed accompaniment to the irregular rumble of thunder, she told herself that the poor animals and the drenched coachman and guard had more troubles than she, for there seemed no relief in sight from the storm’s violent onslaught.
Sympathy for the others did nothing to dispel her own dreary thoughts. She was behaving like an idiot where Neville Hawke was concerned, but she could not manage to stop herself.
The lowering clouds brought an early dusk, and though the rain relented to only a miserable drizzle, they were late arriving at the Bull’s Manger alongside the Tyne River in Prudhoe. It was a place similar to last night’s accommodations, and as before, the three women dined in a small private room. When Sarah and Mrs. McCaffery went up to make their nightly ablutions, however, Olivia remained behind. She wished only to check on John Coachman. But it was another she sought, and as she approached the low-ceilinged taproom, she could not deny it.
They sat at a scarred plank table, five men with Neville Hawke at the head. When he spied her he pushed at once to his feet. The others, following the direction of his gaze, turned toward her. There were a few other women there, but Olivia nonetheless felt intensely out of place. John Coachman rose also and hurried to her side.
“Is everything a’right, miss?” Without a hat his bald pate gleamed in the smoky light.
“We are fine,” she answered, focusing with an effort on him. “I simply wanted to reassure myself that you have not taken a chill or … or anything.”
He beamed at her. “Not a’tall, miss. Not a’tall. We saw to the horses—gave’ em an extra portion just like you said. Then we shed our wet duds and had us a good hot dinner.”
“Yes. Well.” Olivia glanced past him to the table where Neville had reseated himself. But he still stared at her. She looked away. “Yes. Well, good night, then. We’ll see you in the morning.”
Once upstairs she prepared for bed and read a short while by candlelight, alone in one moss-filled mattress while Mrs. McCaffery and Sarah shared the other. She was tired. Exhausted. Yet sleep remained elusive. She lay in the dark staring up at the ceiling. Was this how Neville Hawke spent his nights, his body weary but his mind churning with thoughts he could not escape?
She repositioned the coarse bed linens across her chest, then folded one arm under her head. Was that why he drank, to deaden his mind? Certainly he did not overimbibe during the day, or any other time he was in mixed company.
Unlike her father.
In the quiet of the darkened room—and the relative safety of it—Olivia closed her eyes. Perhaps Neville Hawke was not as much like her father as she initially feared. Except for their first unfortunate meeting—and his misunderstanding of who she was—she would have found him a perfectly acceptable fellow.
Across the room Mrs. McCaffery let out a snort. Sarah mumbled something, but the two of them quickly subsided to the even breathing of deep sleep. Olivia sighed at her own perversity. The truth was, Neville Hawke could never be classified a perfectly acceptable fellow, for he was like no other
man she might place in that unobjectionable category. Or at least she reacted differently to him than she did to any of those other men.
Should she examine more closely the reason for that?
Was she fighting an attraction to him that she ought instead to explore? Olivia blew out a frustrated breath. She grew more confused by the day.
Turning onto her side, she grimaced at the stiffness in her back. Two days on the road was getting to her, no matter how well-sprung the carriage. She should have accepted Lord Hawke’s offer to ride one of his fine animals.
She thought of his face as he lay sleeping in the carriage today, so peaceful and yet still so ruggedly handsome. She sighed and wriggled into a more comfortable position. Maybe tomorrow she would be a little friendlier toward him. Yes, friendlier, she thought as she drifted off. There was no harm in being pleasant to the man, was there?
She awoke with a start, groggy and confused, unaware she’d gone to sleep at all. What time was it? Where was she?
A shout, then an angry voice, brought all her senses suddenly alert. But the brouhaha was far away, not in the hall nor even in the room adjacent to theirs.
At a cry of pure anguish and a crash, she jerked upright in the bed. What in God’s name was going on?
Mrs. McCaffery grumbled in her sleep; Sarah did not react at all. But Olivia slid out of bed, thoroughly alarmed. Some altercation was taking place. A man shouted, words she could not make out. Another voice broke in, then another crash. Were they fighting?
She snatched up her wrapper and ran for the door, though what she could do about such an imbroglio escaped her. Still, something niggled in her mind. She hoped Neville was not involved in the melee.
When she slipped out into the hall, she realized with a sinking heart that he was.
“Jesus God!” The voice was unmistakably his—and unmistakably drunk.
“C’mon, lad,” a lower, calmer voice urged.
“Get the hell away from me. Get away!”
Olivia shrank back from the rage and misery in Neville’s voice, a voice too much like her father’s had been that time he’d struck her mother. The other man said something she could not make out, but Neville’s reply was clear enough. “Oh no. Oh no. I’m sorry, Bart. I’m sorry.”
“C’mon lad. It’s all right. You’re just too tired. I’ll help you up to your chamber abovestairs.”
“I can’t sleep,” Neville replied, in a voice laced with agony. “Ah, damn! Leave me be. Leave me be!”
Olivia bit her lip in indecision. Foolish as it was, she wanted to go to him. He’d just proven to her that he was exactly what she did not want in a man, and yet she foolishly wanted to go to him and somehow ease his unhappiness.
“But you can’t,” she said out loud. Then startled by her own voice and the tread of heavy feet up on the stairs, she pressed back against the door to her room, her arms wrapped tightly around her.
“We’ll see to the damage,” she heard Neville’s horse trainer say to someone belowstairs. “You needn’t fret on that score.” That he spoke with the authority of someone who’d dealt with such scenes in the past only depressed Olivia further.
The footsteps grew nearer. Olivia knew she should slip back inside her room before anyone saw her. But something urged her to stay put.
“D’ye need help, milord?” Bart called up the stairs.
“No.” Neville’s response was slow to come. “No.” Then he trudged up the last few steps to the landing and into her view.
Clad only in his shirtsleeves, with his hair disheveled and his posture a little unsteady, he reminded her in that instant of the first night they’d met. But then he’d been all smiles and charm, despite the considerable amount of liquor he must have consumed. Now he appeared truly miserable, his face haggard, his shoulders drooping.
She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. It was all so tragic.
He hesitated at the top of the stairs, raked his rumpled hair back with both hands, and turned away from her shadowed crevice. But then he paused and swung around—and speared her with his eyes.
Even in the dim hall, lit only with one flickering wall lamp near the head of the stairs, he managed to spy her. She stiffened at once, and he, too, straightened.
“Ah, Hazel,” he murmured. “Still creeping about at night, I see.”
“I … Something—a noise—awakened me.”
“A noise. A dream.” His eyes seemed to focus somewhere between them. “A nightmare.”
She swallowed, and despite her garb of nightrail and thin wrapper, she stepped out of the protective doorway. “Were you dreaming? Is that it? I thought I heard someone fighting.”
“There was a fight.” His voice was strange and distant, only slightly slurred. Then, as she advanced nearer still, his gaze refocused on hers. “You are here.”
Olivia stopped. She was an arm’s length from him. Far too close. Far too dangerous. Yet after watching his face this afternoon as he slept, she was hard-pressed to fear for her safety. And she needed to understand why he was so unhappy. “Neville,” she began.
“Shh.” He lifted one finger to his lips. “Shh. There’s people sleepin’.” His gaze sharpened and ran over her. “You should be sleepin’ too—or at least in bed.”
Then without warning, he caught her by one wrist and began to drag her down the hall, away from-her room and toward his.
Olivia struggled to get away, digging in her heels and twisting her arm. “Neville. Stop this. Stop it!”
“Shh.” He caught her by the other arm as well and pressed her against the wall. “Shh. Hazel. Olivia.”
She knew where this was going. Every fiber in her body knew where it was going. She knew also that she ought to scream the house down and let him deal with the repercussions.
She knew all that, and yet she was unable to do it. Or unwilling.
“Lord Hawke,” she began again, trying, despite the violent thundering of her heart, to strike a reasonable tone. “You’ve had too much to drink. Please don’t do anything now that you will regret come the morning.”
“Regret?” He shook his head slowly, keeping his dark blue eyes fastened upon her lips. “When there’s so much else to regret, how can I possibly regret this?”
Olivia expected him to kiss her. In truth, a part of her wanted him to. But though he lowered his head nearer and nearer, he did not kiss her. Instead his thumb traced the shape of her lower lip, then stroked slowly down her chin and throat. But that lightness of touch was a deception, for the impact on her equanimity was profound.
Then he drew his hand further down her chest to the valley between her breasts.
Olivia sucked in a breath, but otherwise she could not move.
“For once, no regrets,” he murmured. Then that thumb moved to stroke across the taut peak of her left breast. He stroked across it, then around it, then back and forth in the most sultry manner imaginable.
No. In the most sultry manner unimaginable. Olivia never could have imagined him touching her there, or that it would affect her so.
She should make him stop. She had to make him stop!
But Olivia was frozen in place, frozen in this moment as he explored parts of her body only a husband should explore. Then he cupped that breast, taking its full weight in his hand, and undulated his palm against the aching peak of her nipple.
“Oh my.” She breathed the words, feeling for all the world as if she were melting beneath him. “Oh my.”
Heat welled up from her belly, damp and sweet, and she could hardly stand upright. Then he caught her other breast, kneading them both, and she had to clasp his arms not to melt into a boneless puddle on the floor.
That was when he chose to kiss her, capturing her mouth with his lips and tongue and taking full possession of it.
How Olivia loved his kisses. Despite all her protests to the contrary, in her heart of hearts, she admitted that she loved his kisses. But this kiss, as deep, thorough, and mind-drugging as it was—this kiss was not
right. It was all wrong.
Though she rose into the kiss and his bold, rousing caress, some part of her drew apart from him. Then she realized the problem.
Whisky! He tasted of sweet, pungent whisky.
Olivia twisted her head aside. How could she forget he was drunk? Like on that first night he was drunk and willing to kiss any woman he happened upon—and perhaps do far worse than merely kiss her.
“No.” She shoved against his chest, but he might have been the wall itself for all the effect she had. “Stop it. Stop, or I’ll scream!”
When one of his hands slipped around to cup her derriere, however, and pressed her belly against his loins, the sound she let out was more a gulp than a scream. Her breasts. Her bottom. Was there no part of her that his touch did not bring to hot, seething life?
“Oh help,” she murmured, though it was more a prayer than a cry for aid. She was succumbing to him, when she knew full well she should not.
He seemed to sense it as well. “At last, my Hazel,” he whispered hotly in her ear. “At last I have you.”
But he did not have her, she vowed on a renewed spurt of resolve. “I am not your Hazel,” she swore through clenched teeth. She ducked down under one of his arms and managed somehow to evade his off-balanced grasp. She scrambled away, “I’m not Hazel at all!”
Then she fled, not looking back, nor wanting to see whether he pursued her or whether he was content to let her go.
Once in her room, she shoved the door bolt home, then leaned heavily against the sturdy planks, her heart racing. With eyes closed, she bowed her forehead against the door. But in her mind’s eye she could still see Neville, shed of his coat and waistcoat, so tall and strong, yet weak and swaying, brought low by the quantity of liquor he’d consumed.
Just like that first night.
Despite her growing desire to explain that incident as an aberration, to justify it and ignore the greater implications, she knew she could not. That night had been no fluke, nor was tonight. It was the sleeping man in the carriage, vulnerable and momentarily at peace, who had been the aberration.
The Matchmaker Page 17
