Her person, however, he was very much ready to deal with. Too ready. Eager. Hawk straightened his spine and remained in place.
“Good,” Alex said as she continued advancing. “You will allow me to catch you, I take it?”
“We will see who is caught,” Hawk said, reaching out and pulling his wife firmly into his arms.
FOURTEEN
ONCE HAWK HAD ALEX well and truly captured, she raised her arms and feathered the hair at his nape with her soft, sweet fingers, kissing his scars and giving him her full, tantalizing attention. He responded by opening his mouth over hers at first opportunity.
Her response thrummed him to life, and he moaned and tasted a trace of mint on her lips and thought it never more delightful.
Hawk had barely acknowledged, even to himself, since his return to England, the strength and inevitably of his attachment to Alex, his overwhelming desire for her, yet suddenly the veracity of it seemed written, as if in blazing stars, across the darkening night sky above them.
She had always been his.
He wanted her more than he had ever wanted another woman in his life, and with an intensity that startled even him.
What a caper-wit he was, to perceive it, only now when it was too late and he could not have her.
She loved another. And he, her husband, who knew nothing of love, who had never wanted to, was broken of body and bound to let her go.
The rogue of Devil’s Dyke rides no more, he thought wryly.
Yes, the situation was laughable, but he could not laugh. For the first time in years, he was attracted to the irreverent brat who had teased and exasperated him their entire lives, to Alexandra, his wife.
The tardiness of his realization shamed Hawk, for he wanted her, almost to the point of madness. He sighed and kissed her again. Belated or not, the truth remained the same. They belonged together.
If only he could make her believe it. Now he had gone quite daft, for if he could make her care for him, if he was fool enough to try, might he not risk negating the likelihood of an annulment in the attempt?
Hawk set the quandary aside, for overriding sanity, his bride was eager and his body fit and pulsing—that worry answered to his relief and satisfaction. Finally, he was certain that, yes, he was physically capable of making love to his wife. Now he must simply find the strength to keep from it.
“Would that I could carry you up the stairs to our bed,” he whispered, his arousal firm and ready between them.
His bride smiled, coy, teasing. “And what would you do with me when you got me there?”
Hawk paused, sobering. What, indeed? “Excellent question.” He stepped back and ran his hand through his hair. What, indeed? Trap her in a loveless marriage with a disfigured rogue? Or set her free to choose the husband of her heart?
“Why do you not go up to bed,” he suggested when he saw her shiver. “The air has cooled and you will catch a chill. I will be up shortly.”
Alex sobered as Bryce stepped away and the brisk night air encircled her like the caressing talons of an icy villain. Her heart sank when she perceived that somehow, his mood had shifted and he no longer intended to make her his own, if he ever did.
Dispirited, she turned and without a word, strode toward the house.
“I am sorry,” she heard him say behind her, but what could she say to that? For she was more sorry then he.
In her bedchamber, Alex wandered aimlessly about, until her surroundings came into focus. A lush bedchamber prepared to receive a bridegroom, a moonlit night, perfect for seduction. What, after all, did she have to lose for trying when a mesmerizing web of sensuality ensnared her still?
Alex set tinder to flame in the hearth, producing a blaze that reflected the inferno raging inside her. By the time she finished bathing, she needed to open the windows to cool herself and the room.
From her dresser, she chose a most gossamer satin and lace negligee, sheer and striking. The cloth of pale jonquil shimmered even more diaphanous and alluring, with its threads of gold, than the white she had worn previously.
“Shame on you,” she had told Chesterfield, upon opening the box wherein the jonquil beauty nestled, and even with her betrothed’s passion-glazed eyes smoldering down on her, Alex remembered thinking that she would have liked for Bryce to see her wearing it, for him to see her as a bride bedecked for her bridegroom’s pleasure.
Poor Chesterfield. He never had a chance.
Her actions had been unforgivable where he was concerned. She should not have said she would marry him, for she never stopped thinking of Bryce, not even for a moment, not even as she marched down that aisle.
The gown and wrap fit like a dream and looked as if they were made of spun sugar. Before her mirror, Alexandra brushed her hair till it shone like polished mahogany, the glow from the fire reflecting the silver lights within it.
She expended a week’s candle allotment, placing lit tapers on every surface, small scattered tables, the tall dresser. She set several upon her dressing table, where the mirror reflected them double, a lush, enchanting image.
When Bryceson still had not come up, she glanced out the window, down to the terrace, and saw that he was making his slow way toward the house at long last.
Panic set in then and Alex wondered where he should find her when he came in. Not in the bed, for that was not romantic enough, by half, not in the truest sense. On the floor before the fire would be best, she thought, but why would she be sitting there?
She remembered Bryce coming to her the night before, to take the pins from her hair, and she went to pin it back up, shoving in hairpins, helter-skelter. Then she grabbed her hairbrush and hurried to sit on the carpet before the fire, her back to the door.
By that time she was so warm, she dropped her dressing gown from her shoulders, leaving her in the dangerously low-cut, cap-sleeved night rail.
Looking down at herself, Alex noticed with pride that she overflowed the bounds of her bodice.
Even better.
When she heard the rattle of the doorknob, she removed the first of her hair pins, brush in hand, as if she sat there, half naked, all the time.
The door opened and Bryce’s uneven footfalls stopped.
The silence pulsed.
After a dozen or more beats, Alex turned to see what was wrong.
Hawksworth the arrogant, tension investing his splendid frame, looked as if he had been turned to stone. Stubborn and craven, he wore an expression of cold horror but heated fascination.
A quick glance proved to Alex that that interesting portion of his anatomy had also taken note.
Better and better.
She returned her gaze to the hearth to conceal the light of triumph that she knew must be reflected there. “Come, Hawk, sit by me. I find it relaxing to brush my hair by the fire. Are the cool air and the warm blaze not a perfect combination?”
The mild scent of roses wafted up from the garden as the curtains billowed in the night-cool breeze, and the candle-flames danced. Close to the fire, warmth enveloped Alex, until she thought she might prefer no gown at all.
What a delightful notion. Except that if she threw off the gown as well, Hawk might turn tail and not look back. Her battle-scarred husband was definitely not ready for so advanced a stage of attack.
For half a beat, Alex wondered where the rogue of Devil’s Dyke had gotten to. What else had happened to him in Belgium that he had not brought his old self home again?
Perhaps she was pushing him too far, thinking to seduce him or die in the trying, so she relaxed and vowed to take her conquest a deal more slowly.
“Come,” she repeated, “sit by me.” She almost thought he would leave and go back downstairs, but he did not. Instead, he came to sit on the floor facing her, despite his obvious difficulty in lowering himself so far a distance.
“I am sorry,” Alex said when he winced as he did so. “I have hurt you, again.”
Hawk shook his head. “Stop reading my expressions and read my a
ctions. I am here, where we both want me to be.” He took the brush from her hand and set it on the carpet.
As he pulled out her hairpins, she reached over to remove his diamond stickpin, the one he had worn at their wedding then given her to take home for safekeeping. She untied his cravat and removed it, feeling very much a wife with the simple but intimate task.
She encouraged him to shrug from his frockcoat and waistcoat and tossed them on a nearby chair. He let her remove his shoes and stockings. And after she did, she stroked his long, slender feet.
He took up her brush to run it through her hair as she removed several of his shirt studs and investigated the texture of the crisp, curling mat within the exposed vee.
His heartbeat quickened beneath her fingertips.
He shuddered and stopped her from removing any more studs, so as to keep his shirt. Then he moved closer, so close Alex lost her breath. As he leaned near, to bring her wrap up to cover her shoulders, his breath kissed her neck, his eyes bearing a spark so bright, she expected his lips to curve upward at the corners, and even when they did not, she might honestly say that he smiled.
When her hair was brushed to a sheen, Bryce pulled her down with him as he reclined upon the rug, bringing her full-atop him.
What an amazing place to be, Alex thought, looking into a hawk’s golden eyes, knowing they blazed with desire only for her.
As if to hold her in place, he filled his hands with her bottom, a satisfied sound rising from deep in his throat. Then he slid the skirt of her gown upward, ever so slowly, allowing the breeze to caress her ankles, her calves, her thighs and higher. And when he cupped her—bare hand to bare bottom—Alex gasped with the pure carnality of his claim.
He arched and pressed his firm male self against the place where she ached. If he grew any larger, he would be as big as a stallion.
Claude had been right. Men were just the same.
Lord, she loved her husband’s hands on her. She loved this decadent, intimate embrace.
“Like contented cats before the fire,” Hawk said, his lazy drawl animating the picture he created with his words.
“Is it your intention, then, to make me purr?” she asked.
Hawk nearly laughed. His bride had just issued a challenge, pure and simple, and she did so with a full complement of lowered lashes and tongue-moistened lips.
God’s teeth, she was a natural.
He could do this, he thought. He could bring them both pleasure without consummation. How else would he know where their relationship stood? How else to make her care enough to stay… if he was so foolish as to try.
“Sorceress,” he said, as he learned her with his hands, from her bottom to her core. He took to planting kisses as he did, upon a singular brow, along her nape, the pulse at the base of her throat, her luscious and willing lips.
And when he raised a knee and slipped it between her legs, she cooperated to the point that arousal darkened her eyes to midnight velvet, and softened her kiss-swollen lips to a pout of sensual invitation.
Keeping a firm hold on her bottom, Hawk cupped a breast, and the seductress arched to fill his palm. He fingered the nubbin, rubbed the silk of her gown over the puckered tip, back and forth, until she was peaked to perfection, pouting and proud.
He made her moan, and he grew harder.
He slipped his hand inside her bodice, callused flesh, to flesh of silk, and he grew harder.
In counterpoint to his firmness, Alex slid bonelessly to the carpet beside him, and Hawk lost not a moment in the transition. Seeking greater access, he tugged a bodice ribbon and slipped her gown off a shoulder to expose her creamy skin. He laved the crown of a breast, continued between the full and luscious globes, and watched her eyes smolder with sexual awakening.
He must be her first. He must.
Laving her and taking her into his mouth, he took to suckling, encouraged by her hands in his hair, at first pushing him away, then pulling him closer, now holding him in place with a purr of pure contentment.
He eased her to her back and rose above her.
Her mewling sounds of awe and pleasure served to arouse him further, until he was the Hawksworth of old, the rogue of Devil’s Dyke once more.
And when he perceived she would welcome him, he slipped his hand up her leg, until her breathing changed to short, quick gasps as her womanhood wept in anticipation of his touch. And when he breached her, her tears had readied her to receive him.
Only a virgin, literally untouched, could be prepared so readily. A virgin… whose sexual initiation should be undertaken by no one less worthy than the man she loved.
The intrusive thought struck Hawk like an ice bath. He swore and moved off her like a clumsy schoolboy, like the thoughtless cad he had proved himself. “I am sorry,” he said. “Alex, forgive me. I did not mean to take it so far.” He would not touch her again. He could not be trusted.
Struck, as if with horror, she rolled to her side and curled into a ball, her back stiff, yet, somehow breaking under the weight of what she had almost allowed. He would swear that if he touched her now, he would be pricked by a score of invisible spines.
“Forgive me,” he said again. “You deserve better. You deserve the man you love.” If he did not put some space between them, he would break every rule he had set for himself concerning this wife of his.
In London, he would begin as he meant to go on. Separate bedchambers would make it easier, which surely the duchess would afford them.
Alex said nothing as Bryce undressed and climbed into the bed.
An hour later, lying beside him, she wondered where she had gone wrong. He had almost broken her, changing his mind at such a time. But had he done so at her instigation? His words would not leave her. You deserve the man you love.
Had she made a calculated error in convincing him she loved Chesterfield? Had this entire debacle been her fault?
How could he not know ’twas him she had loved forever?
She supposed that they had made some progress. He did want her, if only physically, as she most assuredly wanted him, though her want was more encompassing, for it included hearts and spirits, minds, even faults and imperfections.
At the moment when he had left her aching with need, she thought she might wither and die where she lay, and yet there had been such a ridiculous amount of relief as well. But why?
Because Hawk’s father believed she was not good enough for his son, and she believed it as well?
What was wrong with her when she did not even know what she feared?
Sabrina would understand about her fears. She would know how she should go about seducing Hawk, if she should.
Simply telling Hawksworth that she loved him, after pretending to love Chesterfield, would make him think she pitied him for his scars, especially since he thought the world saw nothing but the scars.
How could she make Hawk understand that she wanted and cared only for him? That he was worthy of love?
How could she undo a lifetime of harsh persuasion?
How could she keep from losing him forever?
FIFTEEN
DURING THE NIGHT, Bryceson the rogue inevitably returned. Always, when Alex got near him as he slept, he clasped her close, as if she were his long lost love, precious and adored, and spoke her name before drifting back to sleep.
No matter how many times she approached him in the night over the next weeks, every time she did, she was taken aback with joy. Sometimes tears slipped down her cheeks unheeded as she drifted off in his strengthening arms.
If only he wanted her when he was awake in the same way he seemed to want her in sleep.
Blast it; she must spare no stratagem when it came to her seductive vengeance. Her goal was selfish, Alex knew, but she wanted everything marriage entailed, including a lesson in love for her husband.
A week before they left for London, Hawk threw his cane out a second floor window in a fit of frustrated rage.
Beatrix had slipped on a wet stair and
landed on her bruised little bottom.
Because of it, Alexandra had climbed atop an old barn ladder in the second floor hall to replace the upper molding of a window, where rain had been driven in during another of the season’s torrential rains. The rising stream had floated down the hall and ultimately down the stairs.
While Bea had laughed at her flying antics, Alex had worried aloud that Hildy or Giff might be seriously hurt. And Beatrix made the mistake of adding that Hawk, with his cane, might also be, which bruised his fragile ego to begin with.
“Of course I would not,” he said. “It is for us to worry about the elderly, not the young.”
“But Alex says you are in pain sometimes and your leg is weak and we should be careful, Uncle Bryce.”
He raged all the while she and Beatrix dragged the ladder up to the landing. “Stop, I tell you and go away. I will tend to it, myself,” he charged them, but neither of them stopped to listen or do his bidding.
“Alex, do not climb that ladder, I tell you. Do not,” he shouted as he made his way up the stairs. But by the time he arrived at the base of the ladder, Alex was prying the rotted slat away and preparing to affix a fresh piece of wood to the spot. She was so preoccupied with her task, however, that when he spoke her name, she jumped and nearly fell from her perch.
That was when he swore, pushed up the sash and tossed his cane out the window. Then he slammed it shut, climbed the ladder, cursing all the way, grasped Alex by her waist and, with surprising strength, lifted her down to replace her, himself.
After that, without the use of his cane, Hawk walked with more discomfort and less grace, but he refused to take it up again from that day on, performing every single task anyone mentioned needed doing, no matter how difficult.
As good as his word to secure tenants and improve the estate, Hawk advertised locally and interviewed dozens of prospects. ’Twas not difficult to find applicants, given the soldiers and sailors seeking employment now that the war was over. There were, also, millworkers displaced by factory closings across the breadth of England, and farmers who lost their land because the summer rains and endless hailstones had ruined their crops, the wheat suffering worst of all.
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