by Gaelen Foley
Go in and tease him, Robert had ordered her earlier. Under his breath, he had added, You should be good at that.
She made Dolph’s grip on her breast loosen by reaching up and slipping her arms around his neck.
His eyes flickered with hot, quick lust. At once he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against the length of his body. Then he made a small moan and buried his face in the crook of her neck.
“Bel,” he whispered. “Oh, Bel, you’ve been so bad. Bel, I would have done anything for you, but you had to run from me, and now—” His grip around her waist tightened suddenly so hard that it forced the breath out of her lungs.
With his other hand he clutched her hair and dragged her head back.
Bel stared at him, paralyzed with fear.
“Now that you’re mine, I’m going to make sure you never get away from me again,” he whispered.
She gasped for air as he picked her up off her feet and carried her for a few swift strides. The next thing she knew, her back was slammed against the wall and Dolph was suffocating her with fast, wet, savage kisses, leaving her no chance to breathe, let alone protest. Her eyes rolled with terror as she shoved against his shoulders, to no avail. His teeth cut her lips while he used his body to bruise hers, ramming his hips between her thighs. He was roughly unbuttoning her riding habit with a deft, ready skill she had not anticipated.
Oh, my God, she thought with crystalline clarity. He is going to rape me.
Her feet couldn’t even touch the ground, but the most acute horror of all was knowing that the man she loved was in the next room.
Letting it happen.
Too damned quiet in there, Hawk thought, pacing with agitation in the kitchen.
He knew he had to give Bel enough time to work Dolph into a malleable state, but the silence in the next room sat like a knot in the pit of his stomach until he couldn’t take it anymore.
His heart pounding, Hawk stepped into the parlor and saw how Dolph had her pinned against the wall. Crimson rage such as he had never felt rushed up from the depths of him at the sight—and sickening guilt.
With a low oath, he marched over and seized Dolph’s arm roughly. “That’s enough.”
“Get out of here,” Dolph ground out.
Hawk could not bear to look at Belinda, knowing the terror he would see in her eyes. With all his will he clamped down on his wrath. “Let’s get down to business, shall we?”
“I said get the hell out of here!” Dolph roared, turning on him. He dropped Belinda. “I’ve had it with you, Hawkscliffe. What the hell do you want with me?”
Hawk pulled out his pistol and thrust it under Dolph’s chin.
Dolph froze; Hawk stared at him.
Belinda slipped free, crying, then fled. Hawk fought the impulse to go after her, help her.
“I’ll tell you what I want, Dolph. All right? Let’s quit the games.” He thrust the gun harder against Dolph’s throat. “I want to know why you killed Lucy, you son of a bitch.”
Dolph stared at him in apparent shock. “Lucy? You think I killed Lucy?”
“All I have to do is squeeze this trigger. I suggest you start with the truth.”
“Are you mad? Lucy drowned. Everybody knows that!” He glanced down nervously at the weapon. “Put the gun down, Hawkscliffe. What’s the matter with you?”
“You drowned her. Just say it.”
“I had nothing to do with her death—”
“Admit to it. Be a man for once in your life. You killed her for fear that if she bore a child, you’d lose your inheritance.”
Dolph let out a scoffing, incredulous laugh. “And whose child do you think she would have borne if she had been breeding? Jesus, man, why would I kill her? She was my mistress.”
Hawk stared at him, feeling the very earth fall out from beneath his feet. For a long moment he couldn’t find his voice, then it came out as a snarl. “What did you say?”
“You heard me. We were bedmates, and trust me—she didn’t want a brat anymore than I did.”
Fury seized him. Hawk wrapped his fist harder around the butt of his pistol and used it to slam a brutal punch into Dolph’s eye. The baronet cursed and tripped backward over a dainty footstool and went sprawling onto the floor.
Hawk aimed the gun at him with both hands. “Tell the truth now, Dolph. Or I’ll blow your brains out, I swear to God.”
“Calm down, Hawkscliffe! Jesus! I’m trying to tell you—”
“She was not your mistress. She was not. She was— pure.” He was shaking with fury and some strange, terrible knowing that had begun to settle around his heart like molten metal cooling, hardening.
“Pure? Lucy? You’re jesting.”
“I am not jesting,” he whispered. “You violated her, just as you would do to Bel if I gave you the chance.”
“The hell I did. Look, mate, she was the one who seduced me—”
“She would never do that. She was—Lucy. She was—a virtuous woman.”
“If you think that, then you didn’t even know her—but of course, Lucy didn’t want you to know the real her, because then the mighty Hawkscliffe wouldn’t have wanted her anymore. She was playing you, Your Grace, sleeping with half the lads in Town while she angled to become your duchess. And I’ll tell you something else, you poor noble Dupe of Hawkscliffe,” he said with a malicious grin, “I’ll tell you how pure our sweet Lucy was—she used to get undressed in front of her bedroom window just to torment the stable boys.”
“I’ll kill you,” Hawk whispered as a bead of sweat ran down the side of his face. “You’re lying. She was not your mistress and I know that for certain because for months you’ve been in love with Bel.”
“Love?” he scoffed. “Since when do you have to be in love with a woman to accept an invitation to her bed? God, you’re a prude.”
He absorbed this, horrified. “She was your uncle’s wife.”
Dolph shrugged. “Yes, well, perhaps a tad perverse, but it was Lucy’s idea. I was merely obliging her.”
“You son of a bitch, that’s a lie!” he bellowed, cocking the gun. He was going to do it, too. Kill Breckinridge here in cold blood. His finger alighted on the trigger just as a soft, firm voice reached him.
“Robert. Don’t.”
Bel had fled earlier, but returned once she had composed herself. She had been standing in the other room long enough to hear most of it. She was there now to watch Robert’s dream of courtly love crumble. His face was harsh, streaked with moonlight, like a savage in warpaint. He tensely gripped the gun, his aim fixed on Dolph’s heart.
Bel took another step toward him. “I’m not going to let you do this, Robert.”
“What do you care about him?”
“I care about you and this is not who you are.”
“He’s a liar.”
“He is an unarmed man. Robert, please. You could hang. He’s not worth it. Besides, he could be telling the truth.”
“I am telling the truth,” Dolph muttered, slowly sitting up.
“Prove it,” Robert ground out.
“This cottage belonged to her. She left it to me,” Dolph said. “This is where we would meet. I think she had other liaisons here, as well, but she always insisted on complete discretion so that my uncle would never find out.”
Bel glanced at Robert. His mouth was pale, his eyes glazed. He looked like he was in shock. She turned again to Dolph. “Prove that any part of what you say is true, then we’ll take it from there.”
“I don’t know—check in that desk over there.” Dolph nodded to the left, not taking his eyes off Robert’s gun. “Maybe you can find a bit of her personal effects in there that will convince you.”
“Go,” Robert ordered her.
Bel found a small oil lamp atop the desk and felt around in the dark for a tinderbox, finally lighting it. As the small flame rose, she opened the slanted lid of the writing desk, peered inside, and riffled through its contents.
“Shall I check fo
r letters or something like that? Oh, there’s a sketch book, drawings.”
“Bring it here.”
She obeyed, picking up the workbook of charcoal sketches. She brought it over to him and opened to the first page.
“Swans. Very gracefully done,” she said dryly, then turned another page. “Daffodils. A picture of a girl.”
Robert glanced over, his eyes tormented, his lips white. “That’s Coldfell’s daughter.”
Bel started to turn to the next page, but when she glimpsed it, she stopped in shock. Oh, dear.
“Robert,” she said gingerly, “do you believe this to be Lady Coldfell’s work?”
“I’d know her hand anywhere. But that doesn’t mean she used this place for trysts.”
“Well, you’d better look at this, then.” With a wince of distaste Bel turned the page to reveal a nude sketch of Dolph Breckinridge lying in bed in a sated sleep.
Robert looked over, stared in shock, then cursed. “Take this,” he growled, thrusting the gun into her hands. “If he moves a muscle, pull the trigger.”
Bel took the gun in dismay as Robert walked away with the sketchbook and went to lean against the arm of the sofa, nearer the lantern.
Dolph started to get up.
“Don’t tempt me, you barbarian,” she warned, drawing a bead with the pistol right between his eyes.
He sneered at her. “You wouldn’t shoot me, Bel. I’m the only one who really cares, remember?”
“Shut up!”
“Breckinridge,” Robert snarled in warning.
Dolph sank back down to the floor like an angry cur at its master’s rebuke. Then Robert turned the page.
Bel glanced at his stricken face as he turned leaf after leaf, showing gracefully executed black-and-white sketches of not merely Dolph, but a carefully selected collection of the other young bucks of the ton, all in various states of undress.
“Oh, my God,” he said in a hollow voice.
She looked over and saw his dark, stormy eyes fill with stunned sorrow as he came to a three-quarter foreshortened sketch of his own face.
Bel felt his bewildered pain as her own in that moment.
He turned page after page, staring at drawings of himself in a dozen different attitudes. Whatever games Lucy had played with his heart, clearly the woman had wanted him. Longing was clear in every fine, feathery stroke of her pencil. The countess must have studied him at great length, however furtively, to have drawn him so beautifully from her memory. She had captured the restlessness in him and the passion locked within his rigidity, and his integrity and high noble pride.
He lifted his fractured gaze to hers, at a loss.
“I think she was making a conquest of you and you didn’t even know it,” she said softly.
“Of course she was,” Dolph muttered. “That’s what I just said.”
“If it was Hawkscliffe she wanted, then why did she seduce you?” Bel asked Dolph.
“Why do you think?” he retorted. “My uncle wasn’t any use to her. She needed a man between her legs, unlike you, you frigid—”
“Recall that I’m holding a pistol before you insult me,” she advised him even as she read the flicker of guilt behind his eyes. She studied him. Perhaps he had not killed Lady Coldfell, thank God, but she began to sense that he was definitely hiding something.
Robert pushed up from the arm of the sofa. “Breckinridge, you’re free to go. I apologize for this debacle. Obviously, I was in error.”
Bel looked from one man to the other in uncertain protest.
“Well, I daresay,” Dolph snorted. He climbed cautiously to his feet and dusted off his flamboyant clothing. “I am tempted to call you out for this, Hawkscliffe, but lucky for you, I, too, can play the paragon. I forgive you,” he said with a sarcastic snort.
“Robert, I think he’s hiding something. I know this man—”
“He didn’t kill Lucy,” he interrupted sharply, disgust flaring in his dark eyes. “Beyond that, I don’t give a damn.”
“A wise answer, Your Grace. Now, you got what you wanted, so if we are quite through with this travesty, Belinda and I will be on our way.”
“No!” she cried, holding Dolph at bay with the gun.
“A deal is a deal, my heart,” he said with a leering smile.
“Robert!”
Hawkscliffe returned to her side and gingerly took back his pistol. “Go outside and mount up,” he murmured to her.
“I’m not going with him!” she cried, appalled.
“Yes, you are,” said Dolph.
“No, she’s not.”
Dolph’s eyes narrowed to slashes. He stepped toward Robert in spite of the gun. “She’s coming with me. That was the point of all this. You gave me your word—information for the girl.”
“I lied,” he said.
Dolph stared blankly at him. “You lied?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe this. I give you the truth and this is how you repay me? With trickery?”
Robert didn’t move, holding his stare.
Bel backed away but could not bring herself to leave the room—she could feel it in her bones that something terrible was about to happen.
Dolph glared at him in outrage. “You—Hawkscliffe, the high stickler? Why, you’re nothing but a damned liar! You fraud!”
Bel reached for her protector’s hand, certain now of what was about to happen. There was only one possible outcome when a man called another man a liar. Honor had its price. “Come with me, please, he’s not worth it,” she whispered.
“You’re a dead man,” Dolph said.
“Please, Robert, let’s go—” Dolph was a famous marksman and a crack shot.
“Yes, go, Hawkscliffe,” the baronet spat in contempt. “Go home to your mansion, you false bloody hypocrite, and take your whore with you. My second will call on you shortly. Then we’ll settle this like men.”
“No!” Bel cried, but Robert lifted his chin without protest.
Dolph stalked out between them and slammed the front door as he left.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
They rode back to Knight House in grim silence, Robert brooding and taciturn, while Bel fought panic, knowing that at dawn that insufferable lecherous boor was going to put a bullet in the man she loved. Clutching her horse’s reins, she stole frequent anxious glances at Robert, riding beside her. Moonlight limned his broad shoulders and sculpted his aquiline face, but his remote, dark stare remained fixed on the dusty road ahead. After an hour’s ride south through the moonlit countryside back into Town, they rode down Regent Street and turned right on Piccadilly.
The crowds thickened as they neared Green Park, when suddenly a series of great booms and explosions echoed through the streets, spooking their horses. Robert brought his stallion under control then reached over and grasped her gelding’s bridle, calming the animal. Once the horses were steadied, Bel and Robert, each in their own dismal worlds, looked up and saw fireworks exploding across the black sky over Green Park, opening the Regent’s Victory festival.
August the first had arrived. The terminal date of their contract.
The bursts of color rocketed then bloomed, practically atop the roof of Knight House.
Bel felt a slow tremor of loss move through her body.
She looked at Robert, saw the red glare illuminate his rugged face. Neither said a word. Bel fought a surge of emotion, remembering the last time they had watched fireworks together on that deliriously romantic night at Vauxhall. Avoiding her gaze, Robert clucked to his horse.
They proceeded through the gates of Knight House, where the grooms took their horses. Bel dismounted, removed her riding hat, and wiped the sweat from her brow, watching Robert walk wearily up to the front door. The gold light from the lanterns that flanked the doorway cast a ruddy halo over his wavy black hair.
Her heart ached for him as she watched him disappear inside. After all his honor and gallantry, his shining ideal lady had been proved an utter fraud.
Amid her compassion for him, however, was guilt, for she knew that, in her way, she was as much a fraud as Lady Coldfell. How could she let him go on thinking she had pushed him away as a ploy to get more gold out of him? Unlike Lady Coldfell, however, she still had a chance to come clean with him, if only she dared. This might be their last chance to make peace.
She stared up at the grand, ornate house, half expecting its flawless facade to come tumbling down like everyone else’s had this night.
Another tremble of cold fear ran the length of her body, but she squared her shoulders, knowing what she must do. As humiliating as this was going to be, he was her protector and she owed him the truth.
In the library Hawk dispatched two servants, one to locate his brother, Alec, to serve as his second, the other to ride to Coldfell’s villa to alert him that the long-awaited duel was set for dawn.
When they had gone he sat down at his desk and slowly pressed his eyes with the heels of his hands. He rested like that, feeling defeated and utterly alone.
He couldn’t believe how wrong he had been. Good God, but Lucy had fooled him. He had gone into this thinking himself the righteous avenger and had come out of it looking like a blundering fool.
He couldn’t blame Dolph Breckinridge for calling him out. Any man accused of so heinous a crime would have done the same. Hawk knew full well he was in the wrong and supposed his only honorable option, therefore, was to delope.
“Robert?”
He looked up at her soft call. Belinda stood in the doorway amid the shadows, her face tense and pale. Her beauty caught him like an unexpected blow to the chest. He picked up a quill pen and pretended to examine it.
“Is there something you require, Miss Hamilton? I’m afraid I’m in a bit of a rush. I have some business to get in order, as it appears there’s a jolly good chance I’ll be leaving this world with rather unforeseen haste.”
She flinched and lowered her head at his words. He stared at her.
“Silent, eh? Let me guess—you’ve come to say ‘I told you so.’ And well you should. You knew from the start that Dolph didn’t kill Lucy, but I refused to listen. Your point is well taken; I defer to your greater wisdom and shall remain to the bitter end Lucy’s fool—and yours.”