Secrets of Seduction

by Nicole Jordan

  To her surprise, though, Hawk returned to the bedside and gestured for her to give him room to join her. When she complied, he arranged the pillows against the headboard, then leaned back so that he could watch her.

  His smoky gaze held hers, never wavering. “You owe me an explanation.”

  At least he was giving her a chance to present a defense.

  Skye curled her legs under her, her heart pounding at the step she was about to take. Hawk might very well end all her hopes and dreams right then, but she owed him the full truth if they were ever to move past this conflict and deepen their relationship.

  “You will probably think it foolish, but my cousin has a theory about legendary lovers.…”

  Quickly she related Kate’s romantic premise about the Wildes finding their life mates based on classic romances throughout history and literature. “I thought my path to true love could follow the French fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast by Madame Le Prince de Beaumont. Have you read it?”

  “I’m familiar with it, yes.”

  “Well, in my case you are the ‘beast.’ There are a number of parallels between your circumstances and Madame de Beaumont’s story.”

  She could tell she had surprised Hawk and so hastened to add, “I don’t literally believe in fairy tales, but I have always longed to find true love, so I thought my cousin’s premise enticing. Much more important, I have admired you from afar since I first saw you when I was a mere girl. And the more I learned about you from my aunt, the more my esteem for you rose. I came to Hawkhurst Castle to answer the question of whether or not we were suited, and I concluded that you might be my ideal mate.”

  “Might” was too uncertain a word, Skye amended to herself. There was no doubt in her mind now that Hawk was her match.

  Unfortunately, his silence this time held skepticism as well as mistrust.

  “In my defense,” she went on gamely, “I never meant to seduce you that night, or even invite you to my bed. Making love to you was certainly not premeditated on my part.”

  “What of the sponges? You clearly came prepared.”

  “Well … I had hoped that someday … They were mainly a precaution, just in case we ever became intimate. I suppose you have a right to be angry at me for taking my plan too far.”

  “Do I now?” he asked, his drawl edged with sarcasm. “Why should I be angry that you deceived and lied to me from the moment you arrived on my doorstep?”

  “Perhaps I made several lies of omission,” Skye countered in a small voice, “but I have rarely lied to you outright. What else could I have done? How would you have reacted if I had declared my intentions at the outset? You know you would have barred me from your castle.”

  “So you duped me into pursuing your uncle’s lover.”

  “That was entirely an honest request. You were the perfect person to try to find her—which you did admirably, I must say. My faith in you was completely justified. I merely used my uncle’s plight as the way to make your initial acquaintance and then my reason for staying.”

  When Hawk finally responded, some of the heat had gone out of his tone. “I am not your true love, wretch.”

  Skye was surprised he addressed that issue first. “How can you be certain?”

  “The very notion is daft.”

  She couldn’t help a faint smile. “My brother agrees with you wholeheartedly—but it isn’t daft to yearn for love,” she declared stubbornly.

  Perhaps she was a bit mad for hoping for Hawk’s love. This was a man who didn’t share his heart easily. She would have to prove herself his match, of course—if he ever gave her the chance. She wanted to be worthy of him, an enormous feat given his past heroism. It distressed Skye that she could very well fail. Her aunt had been clear; the Guardians were his chosen calling and he wouldn’t give them up readily. But she refused to consider the possibility of failure just now.

  “I am not willing to give up,” Skye added more softly. “I told you before, Hawk, I believe in making my own destiny. I can’t bear being helpless against the whims of fate. And I think you want to make your own fate as well. Isn’t that what you did by joining the Guardians? You became bent on saving lives because you were unable to save your family?”

  She had struck a nerve, she could tell, for Hawk’s gaze narrowed on her. Yet he must have seen some merit in her assertion, for he didn’t deny it.

  “That does not excuse your duplicity,” he finally said.

  “Perhaps not.” She disliked keeping secrets from him. She didn’t need her Aunt Bella’s counsel to know that love could never flourish in secrecy, or that dishonesty was like poison. For that reason alone she was glad this matter had come to a head. But her secrecy was not unwarranted.

  “You have your own secrets about the Guardians of the Sword,” she pointed out. “In all fairness, how can you expect me to share mine when you refuse to share yours?”

  Hawk looked irked by her argument. “Keeping confidences is vastly different from dishonesty and deception. I took an oath to protect the league’s anonymity. There are things I can’t tell anyone, certainly not a strange young lady I met barely a fortnight ago. Secrecy is not just a whim of mine. Lives are at stake.”

  Feeling rueful, Skye nodded her head. She fully agreed that Hawk’s career not only needed to remain clandestine, it was of vital importance. Indeed, she thought it awe inspiring that he’d devoted his life to righting wrongs and had risked his life many times over.

  His powerful form was now covered by his cambric nightshirt, but she remembered his ravaged flesh very well.

  “I have seen your body, Hawk. I know your burns came from the castle fire, but those other scars are not burns. One looks to be a bullet wound; another a cut from a knife or sword blade.”

  “A scimitar,” Hawk said curtly.

  He was watching her through his long lashes now. His eyes were heavily guarded, his emotions like shadows, but he was considering her confession, she could tell.

  His contemplation gave her hope, and made her recall the other urgent reason she had chosen to storm his castle.

  “I might have tried to meet you in the normal way by seeking a proper introduction from my aunt, but you never go into society. And time was a huge factor. You were supposed to begin courting Sir Gawain Olwen’s niece soon.”

  “I still am.”

  Unless she convinced him otherwise.

  She needed to delay his courtship long enough for him to fall in love with her, Skye reflected. If so, she had to begin planting the seeds in his mind that he shouldn’t wed Miss Olwen. After all his valiant endeavors, Hawk would be miserable with a quiet, retiring girl like Sir Gawain Olwen’s niece. She, on the other hand, could be his perfect match, if only she could make him see it.

  “Do you truly want to wed Miss Olwen? From all reports, she is your complete opposite. You would not be happy married to her, I think.”

  “My happiness is beside the point.”

  “It shouldn’t be. You have already made numerous sacrifices for your country. You shouldn’t have to make a marriage of convenience out of duty to your mentor.”

  Hawk dismissed her argument abruptly. “If you know of my obligations to Sir Gawain, then you know why I must choose his great-niece for my bride.”

  “No, actually I don’t know why.”

  “She is a direct descendant of the league’s original founders. For me to become the new leader, I must have a blood connection to the founders, a requirement of our charter. Sir Gawain is growing too old to continue as head and wishes me to succeed him.”

  Skye’s heart sank. “Oh.” She’d thought Hawk had chosen Miss Olwen merely to please Sir Gawain. “Does that mean … you could never marry me?”

  “Only if I want to abandon becoming Sir Gawain’s successor.”

  “But … you insisted you would wed me if I am with child.”

  Another shadow crossed his features. “A child would change my calculations entirely.”

  Indeed it wo
uld, Skye thought despondently. She hadn’t realized that by marrying her, Hawk would be forced to make an enormous decision—which made the obstacles to her winning his heart even greater.

  She wouldn’t admit defeat, though. “Regardless of our dilemma, I still think Miss Olwen is not the right bride for you.”

  His eyebrow rose. “Just recently you offered to help me court her.”

  “Yes, but I would be acting under duress. It goes against every romantic fiber in my body to aid a courtship that is so unsuitable. And much more importantly …” The things Skye had wanted to say for a long while spilled out of her. “You should be free to live your own life, Hawk, and not be compelled to wed for duty. Even if you never wish to marry me, it is time you think of yourself. Your happiness should matter. You cannot keep punishing yourself for the tragedy to your family.”

  His mouth tightened. “I am hardly punishing myself.”

  “Are you not? That night when I found you in the burnt wing, outside what remained of the nursery, you said you were to blame and that you should have died with them. I don’t think your late wife would have wanted you to die with her. Instead, you need to try and move on with your life. You deserve to be able to live again, to know laughter and joy and love.”

  Evidently, the earnestness in her plea on his behalf was unexpected. For a long moment, Hawk simply stared at her.

  Then his mouth twisted. “You are the most infernal, interfering busybody I have ever known.”

  At the reappearance of his familiar exasperation, relief flooded Skye. “Yes, but my motives are pure.”

  “Your motives are absurd—finding true love based on a fairy tale.” His tone was part scoff, part disbelief, yet he reached out his hand to her. “Come here.”

  She returned his gaze warily. “What do you mean to do to me?”

  His eyes were penetrating, perceptive, yet no longer cold. “To hold you. I ought to wring your pretty neck, but we both need to get some sleep.”

  When Skye tentatively moved toward him, Hawk drew her into his arms so that her cheek rested on his shoulder, and pulled the covers up over them both.

  “You will let me stay the night with you?” she mumbled almost humbly into his nightshirt.

  “For a few hours at least. You will need to return to your own room before daybreak, but for now we will comfort each other.”

  Skye was slightly stunned that after all her revelations, Hawk hadn’t banished her or worse. If he wasn’t willing to wholly forgive her pursuit of him, at least his anger seemed to have tempered. That was progress of a sort.

  Hawk was nearly as surprised by his decision to let her stay. For all her brazen intrusiveness, Skye Wilde knew human nature very well. She wasn’t wrong about Sir Gawain’s niece. In truth, he was already having second thoughts about the sacrifices he would have to make in order to wed her. The girl would doubtless make a terrible match for him—but in some ways, that was a very good thing. He would never be at risk of loving her. A convenient marriage would suit him well enough.

  Moreover, his obligations to Sir Gawain were no small matter. During his younger days, Hawk had lived the carefree life of a wealthy noble buck. His work for the Foreign Office had started more as a lark than a worthy occupation, but he quickly learned he had an aptitude for espionage, and he’d come to relish doing his small part to defeat the little French tyrant who was bent on world domination.

  After Hawk’s tragic loss, Sir Gawain had saved his sanity by recruiting him into the Guardians. The highly elite organization was a covert arm of the Foreign Office, dedicated to protecting England and its allies from threats and championing the cause of justice across Europe. Hawk had devoted himself wholly to the league to atone for his guilt. He hadn’t saved his wife and son, so he’d turned to saving others. He’d accepted the most dangerous missions because he had nothing left to lose. He’d challenged death unafraid because his life was so very empty.

  His work had become profoundly rewarding, though. And leading the Guardians after Sir Gawain’s expected retirement would continue to offer a fulfilling purpose, Hawk believed, even if the need for protectors and champions had diminished somewhat after Boney’s final, bloody defeat at Waterloo.

  As for Skye’s other arguments … For years he’d been a stranger to laughter and joy and happiness, so he wouldn’t miss them, whether or not he deserved them.

  And as for Skye herself? His anger was chiefly because she’d duped him from the first, Hawk admitted. But she hadn’t tried to entrap him in marriage. Were that her intention, she could have easily forced his hand after he’d claimed her maidenhead and spent the night in her bed. But Skye had adamantly refused his grudging proposal.

  Oh, she’d been very willing to give him her innocence that night. He couldn’t forget how she’d clung to him when he’d wanted to withdraw, or the ardent way she had locked him to her body with her slender legs.

  But he couldn’t hold on to his anger now. In fact, he was strangely flattered by her desire. And how could he fault her for following her romantic ideals?

  They were totally unrealistic, yet he had to admire her determination to control her own destiny. He shared that trait with her. He couldn’t bear being helpless, at the mercy of capricious fate. However quixotically Skye strove to change the world to her liking, that made her deserving of his respect, even when he was her target.

  Admittedly, he’d been hard-pressed to resist her sweet persistence. Now that he understood her chief goal, though … well, forewarned was forearmed. He wouldn’t let her seduce him.

  And he would quickly have to disabuse her of the notion that he was her life’s mate. She wanted love in marriage, and he had no love to give. He’d known true love once. He’d been smitten by Elizabeth at their first encounter and had married her by the end of the Season. But their love had ended in tragedy, and he couldn’t—wouldn’t—endure feeling that kind of agony again. He would never let himself dream or hope for happiness, certainly not love.

  On the other hand, he knew full well that he needed to move on with his life. He was resolved to overcome the pain of his loss. After ten years of wallowing in darkness, it was time.

  His thoughts were interrupted just then when Skye caught his fingers and brought the back of his hand to her lips to press a soft kiss against the savage scars there.

  “The burns you suffered must have been excruciating,” she said quietly.

  “Not as much as losing my wife and son.”

  “I can only imagine.”

  Raising her head slightly, she looked up at him and searched his face. Her eyes were full of sadness and sympathy. She’d been lying there reflecting on his tragedy, Hawk realized. She was softhearted enough that she couldn’t bear to think of him in pain.

  “I hope I can make the hurt feel better,” she murmured, reaching up to touch his lips with her fingertips.

  Deliberately, Hawk shifted his gaze to the bedside table. Reaching out, he snuffed the lamp so he wouldn’t have to see those deep, soft eyes of hers, and then turned back to claim her mouth. He had planned to let her rest before taking her again, but her obvious invitation convinced him otherwise.

  He would have to clearly show Skye that he couldn’t love her, of course; that nothing could fill up all the dark and empty places in his soul. The key would be to shut her out emotionally. Their carnal relations would simply serve to relieve his sexual pain and hers, just as she’d suggested earlier.

  As she’d also said, in all likelihood this would be the last time they would be intimate together. And Hawk calculated that there was no harm in comforting each other in the few hours they had left.

  Upon arriving in London late the next morning, they delayed only long enough to change carriage horses and to visit a milliner’s shop, where Skye purchased two fashionable turbans for Rachel to wear in public until she was able to dye her hair.

  In London, they parted ways with Macky. Hawk had ordered a detailed investigation into Rachel’s past, so Bow Stre
et Runner Horace Linch had already been dispatched to Brackstone in Kent, to find out all he could from the locals about the late Baron Farnwell, William. Macky would focus on the current Baron Farnwell, Edgar, since Hawk wanted to know exactly the sort of man they would be dealing with. Edgar had not even been born until three years after Lady Farnwell had fled England, so whatever knowledge she had of him was hearsay from a long distance away.

  Understanding his temperament would allow them to judge how he might react to her “return from the dead”—whether he could be reasoned with or if they could expect a battle royal.

  Additionally, Macky was to deliver Skye’s message to her uncle at Beauvoir, the family seat of the Marquises of Beaufort, also in Kent. Lord Cornelius had made his primary home there since assuming guardianship of the five orphaned Wilde children.

  Learning of Rachel’s survival would likely be a huge shock, and Skye wanted to prepare her uncle in person, rather than baldly springing the news on him in a letter. Thus, she said she had great need of him and begged him to come to Hawkhurst Castle in East Sussex to aid in restoring the earl’s library to its former glory. She was certain Cornelius would comply with alacrity, since he had always put the youngsters’ welfare above his own, and a library in desperate need of restoration would be an irresistible lure.

  As they traveled closer to Hawk’s home, however, she grew more concerned about both Rachel and Hawk. Rachel’s doubts were once again rearing up, so Skye spent the remainder of the journey trying to ease her fears and giving her a wide-ranging account of how British society had changed in her long absence. Skye herself was highly sociable, with the innate ability to put others at ease, but she was looking forward to getting assistance from her Aunt Isabella, who was a champion at raising spirits.

  Hawk, on the other hand, was more worrisome. Skye observed him as they drove through the iron-pillared gateway of the castle. His features were shuttered, and when the looming edifice came into view, all hint of emotion disappeared from his expression, leaving only a cold, impassive mask.