“This is very nice,” Frances said with great but inadequate sincerity.
She awoke during the night at the caressing kisses against her neck and a strong hand kneading her belly. Hawk was pressed against her back, his manhood hard and ready against her buttocks. She sighed and smiled in the darkness.
“Lift your leg, Frances,” he said softly, and she did. She pressed her hips back when she felt him come into her. “Oh,” she whispered, “all right, yes ... oh!”
She felt him explode inside her, flooding her with his seed, even as his deft fingers sent her spinning into pleasurable oblivion.
He was still resting inside her when she fell asleep again.
Hawk awoke early the next morning, feeling as if he could conquer the world single-handed. Frances was cuddled next to him, so deeply asleep that he couldn’t bring himself to awaken her. But he wanted to, oh yes, he did indeed. He sighed, rose, and went to his bedchamber.
He was feeling the happiest man alive when he entered the breakfast room sometime later. He was further pleased to find only Edmund at the table.
“Good morning, Hawk,” Edmund said in his pleasant deep voice. “The ladies are still abed, I gather.”
“I trust Frances is,” Hawk said. “She had a most exhausting ... day. She needs her rest.” He wasn’t aware that his face was a study of a contented man, but Edmund was.
“Marriage appears to agree with you,” he observed.
“Yes, I concur. I found it most alarming, until I gave it up, so to speak. Have you and my sister set a date yet?”
“Yes, in September. I trust you and Frances will come to London?”
“Of course.” Hawk allowed Rosie to serve him, then dismissed her. “I will tell you immediately, Edmund, that I have decided not to sell.”
Edmund sucked in his breath at the stark, very final words. He was surprised. He supposed that he had assumed Hawk would allow him to convince and argue and cajole. But he hadn’t, damn him!
“I see,” he temporized.
“The stud, the thoroughbreds, they all mean a great deal to Frances.” He took a bite of kippers, staring thoughtfully in front of him at nothing in particular. “I suppose,” he said more to himself than to Edmund, “that I wanted to avoid taking over. It was Nevil’s, after all. I felt, perhaps, that I would be stepping into his shoes and that it wasn’t right.”
“But you have changed your mind. Irrevocably?”
“Yes, I have.”
“Well,” Edmund said slowly, “I guess there is nothing more to say on the matter.”
“No, I guess there isn’t. You and Beatrice will stay with us awhile, won’t you?”
“I would be delighted. However, it is possible that your wife may wish to pull out Bea’s locks before too long.”
This proved, unfortunately, to be quickly the case.
Hawk strolled to the paddock to see Beatrice instructing Frances on the training of Tamerlane. He groaned inwardly. Frances looked ready to spit in his sister’s face. Belvis looked mildly amused, and poor Henry, an assistant trainer, stood gawking, his rather protruding blue eyes going from one lady to the other.
“Your method is all wrong,” he heard Beatrice say in her ringing voice. “Must I keep reminding you that—”
“Good morning, ladies, Belvis.” Hawk planted himself between the two women and began to stroke Tamerlane’s nose. “He is quite a winner, don’t you think, Bea? Frances, my dear, you aren’t in your riding habit and I told you explicitly to be ready by eleven o‘clock. Go along, now.”
Frances escaped with alacrity. Although Beatrice put her back up, she had to admit, albeit grudgingly, that she certainly knew about racers.
When she returned to the stables but a half-hour later, dressed in a severely tailored dark blue riding habit, a jaunty hat over her hair, Hawk was waiting for her, quite alone. She skittered to a halt, suddenly very embarrassed.
He, however, was very matter-of-fact. He tossed her into the saddle, quickly mounted Ebony, and motioned for her to follow him.
“As the master instructs,” she said to her mare, Violet, and sent her into a canter.
Hawk said nothing until they reached his special, private place by the River Ouse. He dismounted, tethered Ebony to a low branch of a yew bush, and lifted Frances from her mare’s back.
“Hello,” he said very softly as he eased her down the length of his body. Then he kissed her, most thoroughly.
He eased her back in the circle of his arms, delighted with her quickened breathing and her flushed face. “Now, how am I to get you out of all those ridiculous clothes? Not that you don’t look charming, indeed you do. Perhaps I shall simply raise those skirts. Yes, that is what I shall do.”
“Hawk!”
He grinned at her, lifted her gently, toppling her onto her back. She felt the soft grass beneath her, smelled the sweet scent of wildflowers.
“Lift your hips, sweetheart.”
She did, her expression bemused.
She felt his hands on her body, felt him ease her skirts up about her chest. Then his hands were roving up her thighs to touch her.
“It’s daylight,” she said stupidly, watching him unfasten the buttons on his riding pants.
“Yes,” he said, his voice deep and smooth as honey. “I can see you, all of you, at least from the waist down, most clearly.”
She looked up at the shafts of sunlight filtering down through the overhanging branches and leaves. Then he was over her, and she saw only him.
He came into her and at the same moment slid his tongue into her mouth.
“Frances,” he breathed, her name almost a blurred sigh.
And she responded, wildly.
26
An oyster may be crossed in love.
—RICHARD SHBRIDAN
Frances’ face was flushed, her heart pounding. She ran Hawk aground, thankfully alone, in the estate room.
He smiled upon seeing her, and quickly rose. “Hello, my dear. What do—?”
“Hawk,” she gasped, quickly closing the door behind her. “I found them together!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Beatrice and Edmund! I wished to speak to your sister, and entered her room, after I’d knocked, of course! They were in her bed, together!”
“Ah,” said Hawk, grinning at her.
“They aren’t wed! It was most mortifying. He was all over her, Hawk!”
“Did they observe your interest?”
“No, I slipped out before they saw me.”
“They are to be married, Frances,” her husband said mildly, sitting back to enjoy himself.
“Well,” she said, puffing herself up to a bantam’s stance, “you certainly weren’t in my bedroom before we were married!”
That brought visions of the ghastly dowd. “God, no,” he said, then grinned wickedly. “Actually, I was in a lovely widow’s bed in Glasgow before we were married.”
Frances stared at him, certain that she hadn’t heard him aright. “What did you say?”
“Her name was Georgina, as I recall. Most lovely.”
“You insensible block! You ... you miserable ...”
“Bastard? Bounder? Come, Frances, certainly you haven’t lost your tongue? ... So you have, huh? Well, silence in a woman is occasionally quite becoming. If you will take the trouble to remember the facts, Frances, you will recall that not only were we not married but also we both loathed each other.”
“I still loathe you!”
“No you don’t,” he said, drawling out his words to a most improbable length. “You adore me, you desire me until the point of exhaustion, and as I recall last night—and that after lovemaking in the forest!—you rendered me limp as a—”
“I more than loathe you, I detest you!”
Hawk skirted his desk, his eyes darkening, even as the smile remained fixed on his lips. “Would you like me to prove your adoration, my dear?”
“No,” she said, backing up against the closed door.
<
br /> Hawk wondered vaguely if she would plant her fist into his belly. One could never tell with Frances, the unaccountable little witch. He very slowly, with great attention to her fisted hands, drew her against him. “You smell so nice, Frances.”
“That isn’t at all the point,” she said against his shoulder.
He continued stroking his large hands up and down her back. “Why did you wish to speak to my sister?”
He felt her stiffen, and put her away from him so he could see her face. “Why, my dear wife, did you know that Edmund was with his betrothed? Did you enter her bedchamber on purpose?”
Her flush betrayed her. He was vastly amused at the thought of his wife wanting to see another man and woman in bed. “Did they look like us, Frances? Was your curiosity satisfied?”
“I don’t know what we look like! I didn’t mean ... well, truly, it was horrible, I should never have listened to Gertrude—”
“What did grating Gertrude have to do with it?”
“She told me that she’d been looking for Edmund and when she couldn’t find him she went to Bea’s room and heard strange sounds and—”
“But you knew, didn’t you, my dear? Indeed, you just made that up.”
She looked as if she would protest a bit more, then hung her head. She nodded. “I suspected as much. All right, I did invent a bit of it.”
“And then you come running to me with all this assumed ire! Most human of you, Frances. I find it delightful that there is a bit of wickedness in you.”
“I am as dreadful as Gertrude, I suspect,” Frances admitted, feeling like an absolute fool. Would he always see clearly through her? It was most disconcerting.
“Well, I shan’t punish you. Indeed, I believe I should like to ...” He broke off, casting a swift glance to the desktop. Unfortunately, it was covered with papers, books, and various odds and ends. He gave her a rueful smile. “I suppose I shall just have to reward you with some good news.”
She gave him a suspicious look.
“I told Edmund that I will not sell out to him, or to anyone.”
“Hawk!” She threw her arms about his back, alternately squeezing the breath out of him and exclaiming with delight.
He kissed her temple. “Such enthusiasm, love. It pleases me to please you.”
Love. That made her suddenly very silent, very wary. Was it just another endearment gentlemen employed with little meaning?
“You are not returning to London, then?” she asked, holding her breath.
He arched a black brow upward, studying her face. “Do you wish me to leave, Frances?”
“I simply assumed that you would wish to. After all, your mis—”
“Ah, yes, my mistress. Most gentlemen have mistresses, you know. Do you mind, Frances?”
She didn’t hear the grave seriousness in his voice, only the mocking drawl. “Why should I?” she snapped. “If you gave her up, then I should have to give up all my ... lovers!”
“A dreadful prospect,” he said, only the mocking drawl present now.
“You are remaining only because your sister and Edmund are here!”
“That could be partially true,” he said.
“You are staying only because you are not yet bored with me!”
“Frances,” he said very calmly, catching her chin in his palm and forcing her face upward, “you infuriate me, you make me want to throttle you, you prick huge holes in my man’s pride, but you never bore me.”
“You’re remaining only until you have gentled me—your words, my lord!—and made me weak and silly.”
“What an awesome memory you have, my dear. Are you feeling particularly gentled? Weak and silly yet?”
“No! Never! I shaft—” She broke off suddenly at a shove against the door.
Hawk pulled her forward, and Marcus entered, saw the two of them together, and blushed furiously. “Oh, I didn’t know ... well, I can see to—”
“My dear Marcus,” Hawk said pleasantly, releasing Frances, “her ladyship and I were just discussing the problem of the missing bills of sale. Have you discovered anything more?”
Marcus felt as though his collar were choking him. “No, my lord,” he finally managed to say with but a ghost of his considerable aplomb. “I did, however, find bills of sale for others of the horses. But none for the three- and-four-year-olds.”
Hawk actually didn’t give a tinker’s damn for the entire matter, but he managed to look suitably concerned. He smiled slightly toward his wife, who had regained a bit of her proper balance, and said, “Incidentally, Marcus, Lord Chalmers was regaling me earlier with stories of the racing world. He tells me there has recently been more than the expected amount of corruption, accidents, and the like. A prize thoroughbred of Lord Demerley’s was poisoned before a race. The jockey was responsible and fled the country with quite a few guineas in his pocket.”
“That is dreadful,” said Frances. “I didn’t realize that such things happened.”
“Wherever money is involved,” Hawk said dryly, “I suspect dishonesty is firmly entrenched.”
“Speaking of jockeys,” Frances said, her common sense firmly in place again, “I am used to riding, Hawk. And I don’t weigh much. Do you suppose that I—”
“No,” he said. “A lady doesn’t do such things, Frances. I believe Belvis has a young nephew who is almost as small as you, my dear. He expects him to arrive by the end of the week. Since he is related to Belvis, I suppose we can trust him not to poison the horses.”
Over luncheon that day, it appeared that Beatrice was ready to launch her own battleships. “You really don’t know anything at all about racing, Philip. Bringing in mares for stud isn’t difficult, of course, but racing! You must know that Edmund owns an excellent stable, the largest in Devonshire. And you have never cared anything at all about Desborough.”
“Which comment should I respond to first, Bea?” Hawk asked mildly.
“I think you should sell. Edmund and I both are most excited about such a purchase.”
Hawk arched an eyebrow, baiting her with his silence.
Beatrice frowned a bit, but forged ahead. “You know that everything would have come to me had I but been born a male. Unlike you, I have pride in Desborough, the tradition, the—”
The marquess spoke for the first time, smoothly interrupting his daughter. “You shall have Edmund’s stables to muck about in, my dear. Hawk has obviously made up his mind. Leave off, I beg of you.”
“It is her doing!” Beatrice said, glaring down the table at Frances.
“In part that is quite true,” Hawk said honestly.
“She should go back to Scotland where she belongs! Why you should marry a nobody who—”
The marquess threw his spoon at his daughter. She gasped as it bounced off her bosom.
“Father!”
Edmund began to laugh. He leaned over and took Beatrice’s hand and gently squeezed it. “You go too far, my dear. Perhaps Hawk will change his mind in the future. After all, the racing world is most demanding, quite costly, and there are all sorts of wicked people who must be dealt with. Finish your lunch and let us go riding.”
An hour later, Frances was staring pensively around her bedchamber when Hawk entered through the adjoining door. She looked up and gave him a pained smile.
“How is my little nobody?” he said.
“I was surprised that you didn’t tell your sister of the odd circumstances of our marriage.”
“Had I fed her even a clue, it would have been raging through the ton within an hour. I had no desire to be pitied, laughed at, and otherwise mocked. Lord, I can just imagine how Brummell would have reacted.”
“So, no one knows then, save us.”
He flushed, and she pounced. “Who, my lord?”
“ ‘Hawk,’ ” he corrected automatically, buying himself some time.
But it was no use, she was tenacious. “Who, Hawk?”
“My mistress,” he said baldly.
“You told
your mistress about us?”
“You really should thank her, Frances,” he said, trying to cover his chagrin with bravado. “It was Amalie who informed me quite clearly that I should make love to my wife as I made love to her.”
Frances closed her eyes, but in her mind she saw her husband kissing and caressing a very beautiful woman whose face was blessedly blank. She turned slowly away from him, feeling a dreadful pain that she didn’t understand, and walked blindly toward the door.
“Frances, you will not leave. If you don’t come to a complete halt this very minute, I will ravish you right here on your Aubusson carpet. Your show of missishness is absurd.”
“You can’t ravish me,” she said, and reached for the doorknob.
“Try me,” he said, his voice grim.
She suddenly realized the import of her words, and blanched a bit. She looked at him very straightly and said, “I am not pregnant, as of this morning.”
He groaned with heartfelt distress.
“It appears that you will have to visit a lady in York!”
“Were that my intent, she would not be a lady.”
Frances lowered her eyes to the floor.
“Do you feel ill, Frances?”
“No, certainly not,” she snapped, still not meeting his eyes.
“Then why are you acting like an embarrassed chit?”
“I don’t like you,” she said clearly. “I am not a chit, nor am I embarrassed. It is just from what you have said ... well ...”
“Frances, what is in that active mind of yours?”
“Ladies are not supposed to enjoy lovemaking.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then threw back his head, laughing uproariously. He was laughing at himself, of course, but he was quickly brought to see his mistaken course when he felt a candlestick strike his chest.
“You intoxified brute!”
“ ‘Intoxified’? What the devil does that mean?”
“Well, perhaps I meant ‘intoxicated,’ but that doesn’t really make much sense. Oh, you are still a wretch!”
Midsummer Magic Page 30
