by Gaelen Foley
Without asking her preference, he turned his curricle off of the West Carriage Drive of the Ring where Hyde Park gave way to Kensington Gardens. As it was a Sunday, the gardens were open. He drove until the curricle’s whirring wheels had borne them away lightly from the hostile, jealous stares.
Nearing the Long Water, he slowed the trotting bays to a halt. He turned and found Miss Hamilton gazing at him in question.
“I thought we might walk by the water a bit,” he said.
She nodded, visibly relieved to have been whisked away from the rude scrutiny of the Polite World. He set the brake, stepped down from the curricle, and went around to assist her down while William assumed his duties, going forward to hold the horses’ heads.
They left the curricle with the lad and walked by the pond along the graveled path. A noisy band of ducks followed them, their squawking for crumbs the only language, for the two of them were silent.
Strolling along with his hands clasped lightly behind his back, he glanced at her, walking slowly beside him with her arms folded over her chest, her slim shoulders swathed in a shawl of filmy blue silk.
She had pushed back her bonnet so that it hung down behind her shoulders, the satin ribbons still tied around her neck. Her delicate profile was pensive as she stared at the glittering water.
“Your groom seems reliable for one so young,” she remarked in a stilted attempt to break the pregnant pause.
“Would you believe he is a former chimney sweep?” Hawk answered with a half smile, grateful for the opening. “Years ago William’s last employer sent him to clean out some of the fireplaces at Knight House, then my cook found him collapsed on the kitchen floor. We realized the child was in a state of starvation and exhaustion. Cook and Mrs. Laverty—my housekeeper—kept him and nursed him back to health. They took him on as the kitchen boy when he was well, but he soon showed a talent for working with horses, so we moved him to the stables. Give him ten years and he might well make head coachman.”
“What a fine act of kindness,” she said softly.
He lowered his chin, abashed by her praise. “It was all Mrs. Laverty’s doing, I assure you. It would please me if you’d call me Robert.”
She smiled at him. “As you wish.”
They both studied the ground as they walked, letting their gloved hands graze and slide in a sensual, ever so subtle flirtation that aroused him more than he cared to acknowledge.
She cast him a tentative smile as they stopped behind a shady bramble of trees. “I fear after that jaunt down Rotten Row, your voucher to Almack’s may be in peril.”
“Almack’s,” he snorted, scoffing to think of the dull quadrilles he dutifully undertook with his colleagues’ prim, marriageable daughters. He would probably marry one of them within a year.
Depressing thought.
More than likely, he would wind up with Coldfell’s deaf daughter, more out of pity or chivalry than anything else. Lady Juliet seemed a good, obedient child from the few times he had seen her. As no one else would have the poor pretty creature due to her disability, it seemed to him the right thing to do.
“I almost went to Almack’s once when I was seventeen,” Miss Hamilton remarked with a sigh as she slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow and started them walking again.
“What happened? Didn’t you go?”
“My mother died a few weeks before the long-awaited date of my entree there—”
“I am very sorry.”
“Thank you, it’s all right.” She smiled at him wistfully. “Being in mourning, of course, I couldn’t go anywhere.”
“You should have gone if it would’ve lifted your spirits.”
“Do you suppose they’d let me in now?” she asked with a wry smile.
“There, there, my dear.” He chuckled softly and patted her hand where it rested on his forearm. “You’re not missing much. The food is terrible, the punch is weak, the company’s dull, and the dance floor is so uneven the whole building ought to be condemned. And they don’t allow you to play twenty-one for kisses.”
“Well, then, I am not a whit sorry to be forbidden there.” Smiling mischievously, she squeezed his arm and leaned toward him with a confidential air. “So, tell me, Robert, where did a paragon like you learn to kiss like that?”
He raised both eyebrows and looked at her.
She dropped her hand from his arm and laughed. “Well?”
“I’ve been around,” he archly assured her, then walked on.
“Oh-ho, have you?” She skipped after him. “Spill, Hawkscliffe!”
He laughed. “I shall never in my life kiss and tell.”
“Oh, come on, you can tell me!”
“Well,” he murmured, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial tone. “If you must know, there was a lady of my acquaintance once. A widow.”
“A merry widow?”
“Very merry,” he whispered with a grin. “I was younger than you are now. Ah, I was lovesick for two, three years,” he said in short disgust. “Even asked her to marry me.”
“The vicar’s mousetrap, Robert? For shame!”
“I know, strange, but that’s what I wanted.” He shrugged. “I don’t believe in idle dalliance.”
She laughed at him as though she’d heard that before. “Oh, don’t you? What do you believe in, then?”
He glanced at the glittering water, tempted not to answer at all, but the single word escaped his lips softly, foolish as it was.
“Devotion.”
She stared at him for a long moment as though she couldn’t decide if he was serious or jesting, then suddenly forced a blithe smile and walked on as though he had said nothing.
He realized he had flustered her and raised one eyebrow as she walked lightly ahead of him.
“Refused the duke of Hawkscliffe! How very singular! So, why wouldn’t your merry widow marry you?”
Hawk’s gaze slid after her, intrigued by her nervous reaction.
“She had done her duty, provided heirs,” he said casually. “She had her fortune and wanted nothing to do with settling down a second time, not with me or anyone. God, how I wanted her. But she only desired to be free and independent.”
“There’s nothing wrong with independence if a woman can get it.”
“Well, this particular lady has lived to regret her choice, I assure you.”
She turned back and looked at him finally. “Came crawling back to you, did she? The merry widow wasn’t so merry after she’d had her fun?”
“Rather.”
“So you cast her off? Tossed her into the street?”
He smiled wryly as he gazed ahead down the path. He was too much a gentleman to admit that willing bed partners had never been in short supply for him. Still, though he preferred discreet, exclusive liaisons with sophisticated women, sooner or later, every lover he had ever taken ended up shrieking hysterical, baffling accusations at him that he didn’t care about them, or was too absorbed in his political career, or something along those lines. When they threatened to leave him, he rarely argued, for in his experience, women could be neither pleased nor comprehended.
He jarred himself back to Miss Hamilton’s expectant gaze. “Suffice it to say that people only get one chance with me, my dear. I am generally intolerant of the foibles of those around me; I cannot abide foolishness. It is a failing in my nature, I know, but I’m repaid for my lack of charity by laboring under an even higher set of standards for myself than those by which I measure others. Now, I’m sure that is quite enough about me,” he declared, taking her hand. He led her gently off the graveled walk to the waterside. “I want to know about you.”
“What do you wish to know?”
He steadied her as she stepped daintily from one large gray rock to the next, holding her soft yellow skirts clear of the mud. “Everything.”
“There isn’t much to tell. Born: Kelmscot, Oxfordshire, third September, 1791. Languages: French, some Latin. Accomplishments: plays the piano indiffer
ently, can’t draw. Loves history and cats.”
“Cats, eh? What about dogs?”
“A little wary of dogs, I confess. Especially large ones.”
“Hmm, I have six of them. Mastiffs and Newfoundlands. Each one weighs more than you do.”
She shuddered. “His Grace lives in a kennel.”
“They’re not allowed in the house. Tell me something else.”
“Such as?”
He looked straight into her eyes. “What’s going on between you and Dolph Breckinridge?”
She stiffened, staring into his eyes for a long moment, looking utterly wary.
“Dolph Breckinridge is an ass,” she said finally. “That is all I have to say on the topic.” She looked away, pretending to gaze at the water.
“Do I detect a jilt?”
“Don’t make me laugh.”
“Well?”
She snorted with ladylike disdain. “Dolph has been the bane of my existence these past ten months. You saw the way he behaved with me last night. I know that you saw.”
“Yes, but I wasn’t sure what I was witnessing, a lover’s spat or what.”
“A lover’s spat?” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Ugh, I’d sooner kiss a toad. Must we talk about this? The very thought of him spoils the day—”
“My dear Miss Hamilton, you know full well that Dolph is going to come after me in a fury the moment he hears that I kissed you—”
She held up one finger. “Excuse me, but it was I who kissed you.”
“Either way, I deserve to know what I’m dealing with.”
“It’s your own fault. You’re the one who insisted on a second kiss,” she reminded him, poking him in the chest.
“Oh, you didn’t like it?” he asked pleasantly.
She gave him an arch look, turned, and strutted on ahead of him.
Hawk stared after her, beguiled by her honeyed walk, then he suddenly followed with an odd rush of lusty exhilaration. God, she was a tempting minx. “I intend to win you, you know, so you might as well tell me everything,” he said with deliberate breezy high-handedness.
“Do you really?” She turned and regarded him in wary surprise. “Harriette says you look down your nose at our kind.”
He lifted her hand and placed a gallant kiss on her knuckles. “I am no more immune to great beauty than other men,” he deftly flattered.
“Do you always know just what to say?”
“Usually.”
She heaved a sigh. “Oh, very well, but realize that I’m taking you into my confidence.”
“I would never repeat what you tell me in confidence.”
“I met Dolph last fall at a Hunt Ball. I had no desire to meet him, as I had noticed him standing all night by the wall making fun of us provincials, but he decided I was worthy of being asked to dance. He knew one of my neighbors and sought an introduction: I could not escape. It took me all of three seconds to discover how odiously obnoxious he is. Sir Dolph, however, took an unfortunate fancy to me and began pursuing me the very next day. When he realized I was serious in refusing his advances, his pursuit turned ugly.”
“How ugly?” he asked, knitting his brow.
“He had my father thrown in the Fleet. That’s how it began.”
Hawk stopped and stared at her. “How did he manage that?”
She winced faintly. “I’m afraid Papa is rather an obsessed collector of illuminated manuscripts. You would have to know him to understand. Everyone who meets my father loves him. Even our duns were never very hard on him. They would come to collect and he would drag them into his library and show them the latest manuscripts he’d bought instead of paying our bills. The duns would become caught up in his enthusiasm and let him go with a warning to pay next month, but he never did. Then Dolph came along and bullied the shopkeepers to collect. He promised to send them business from his London friends if they would only press for what was due them from my father. In no time, Papa was in the Fleet. He is there now— and here I am.”
“And here you are? What does that mean?”
She gave him a faint smile of dismay. “You know what it means, Robert.”
“Pray, Miss Hamilton, what is your father?”
“A gentleman—”
“A gentleman? A man buys old books and leaves his daughter to sell her body or starve, and you call him a gentleman?”
“Do not insult my father, sir. He is all I have,” she said sharply.
Hawk clamped his jaw shut, but he was not at all satisfied. Apparently he had also pricked her defenses, for she looked riled and could not let it lie.
“My decision to become what I am is not my father’s fault. It’s Dolph’s fault for taking away everything we owned. How dare you look down your nose at me? I had no choice.”
“And what does your father think of you whoring to save his hide?”
“Papa knows nothing of this.”
“Famous as you’ve become, don’t you think it’s likely that someday he’ll find out?”
“My father doesn’t even know what century it is!” she cried, throwing up her hands. Then she heaved a frustrated sigh and turned away.
Hawk could barely contain his displeasure. “Do you mean to say that your father could not be persuaded to part with his cherished books even to save you both?”
“He no longer owned the manuscripts. He donated them to the Bodleian collection.”
“Oh, I never heard of such nonsense,” he muttered, exasperated beyond any need to hold his tongue. “Begging your pardon, but your father sounds like a fool. That is just the sort of thoughtless, irresponsible idiocy I despise—”
Her jaw dropped with indignation; her eyes flashed like fireworks. “This visit is over.” She pivoted, her bonnet swinging behind her, and began marching away from him, not in the direction of his curricle.
“Where are you going?”
“Home,” she answered, not looking back.
“Don’t you want a ride, Miss Hamilton?”
“I don’t want anything from you!”
“So, you’re just going to walk,” he drawled.
“Yes!” She spun around to face him, her cheeks crimson with anger. “That’s what people do when they don’t own fancy curricles. You can drive that blasted thing into the Long Water for all I care,” she shouted, then whirled and continued on her way.
Hawk stared after her in amazement, then clicked into motion, striding after her. “Miss Hamilton. Miss Hamilton!”
She turned in aloof query, looking haughty and impervious again, neatly shutting him out. God, that is a maddening trick, he thought. “Miss Hamilton, I’m sorry. It wasn’t my place to say anything. Please. I tend to be opinionated. I can’t help it.”
She tossed her head and huffed primly.
Now that all his prying had uncovered the fact that she had almost as much reason to despise Dolph as he did, Hawk decided the moment had come to cast off the games. It was time to get down to the business at hand.
“The truth is I need to talk to you. Privately.”
She folded her arms over her chest and gave him a dubious look, apparently unconvinced that it was talk he was interested in. “About what?”
“I’ll explain everything, but this is not the place.”
“Why, Your Grace, don’t tell me you’re going to offer me your carte blanche, too?”
Her audacity maddened him.
“Miss Hamilton,” he replied in his starchiest tone, “I could not be persuaded to give my carte blanche to Venus herself. I am not that great a fool—though you may be the closest facsimile to the goddess that London has ever seen.”
“A prettily worded recovery, Your Grace, but without an offer of carte blanche, we have nothing to discuss— privately or otherwise. Good day.” She began walking away.
“Belinda!”
“Please don’t waste any more of my time. I’m trying to make a living, you know.”
“Be reasonable, you little cutthroat,” he muttered, s
tomping down the path after her. “I can’t give you unlimited credit to my accounts when I am responsible to my whole family for the management of our fortunes. You could be a gambler. A thief, for all I know. Besides—” He captured her hand and stopped her from walking on, holding her in place.
Her arm outstretched, she turned and scowled at him. “Besides what, you insufferable prude?”
“Prude, eh? Do you need another kiss to remind you what a prude I am?”
He tugged her closer with a gentle pull, smiling roguishly in spite of himself.
“Don’t you dare.”
“Then don’t call me names.”
“You started it.”
Though her eyes sparked with defiance, she allowed him to pull her all the way to him until the tips of her breasts grazed his chest. She held his stare, both of them instantly swept up in the magnetic fascination that tempted their hungering bodies to touch despite their clash of minds and wills.
“I can give you something better than carte blanche,” he murmured as he slid his hands around her slim waist, savoring the feel of her lithe, splendid body through the thin layer of muslin. He gloried in her lack of protest at his touch, but though she permitted it, she still clung to her air of defiance, tossing her chin at him.
“What could be better than carte blanche?”
He bent his head and paused, grazing his lips along her earlobe, barely able to resist, though he cursed himself for a traitor. He waited until she shivered with desire, then whispered, “Revenge.”
She went motionless—glanced up at him warily. “On Dolph?”
“Interested?”
“Maybe.”
“Shall we go somewhere and have a chat, Miss Hamilton?”
She eyed him warily, but allowed him to lead her back to his carriage. As he headed back to Harriette’s house, he only hoped their mutual enemy wasn’t already there waiting for them.
CHAPTER FIVE
They found Harriette’s house quiet when they arrived a short while later. Still incensed at the duke’s imperious judgment over her and her father, Bel led him in cold, bristling silence into the parlor where their visit had begun. His tall, broad-shouldered physique radiated stamina and command, seeming to dwarf the dainty room.