by Gaelen Foley
“Lady Borrowdale, may I present my governess, Miss Hamilton,” Jacinda said.
Bel inclined her chin. “Lady Borrowdale.”
“Governess?” Lady Borrowdale looked her over from the brim of her bonnet to the tips of her kid half boots. “Mm-hmm. I thought you were attending an academy in London, my dear,” she said, turning again to Jacinda.
Apparently only those with a title were worthy of Lady Borrowdale’s address.
“I’ve been suspended,” Jacinda announced, grinning proudly.
“Ah, not exactly suspended, my lady,” Bel corrected Jacinda in a chiding tone as Lady Borrowdale’s eyes flew open. Bel contrived to laugh at the girl. “You are such a naughty thing.” She turned to the marchioness with her most charming air of management. “The child is jesting, of course, your ladyship. His Grace merely felt that Lady Jacinda could do well with some country air after so many months in Town.”
“Ah, how nice that the duke of Hawkscliffe consults you on his sister’s well-being, Miss, er, what was it?”
“Hamilton,” Bel said coolly, taken aback by the note of innuendo in her words.
“Of course, so sorry. I marvel that His Grace has not provided additional chaperonage.”
“Miss Hamilton is a highly qualified governess,” Jacinda retorted staunchly, her golden eyebrows knitting together. She moved closer to Bel.
“I’m sure she is, but she looks as though she is barely out of the schoolroom herself. You know, my niece’s governess is looking for a new position, now that her charge has married. Swiss, don’t you know, most efficient. She would be very suitable for you. I’ll be sure to mention the matter to His Grace when we go up to the Hall. After all, what do bachelors know of the proprieties?”
Lady Borrowdale’s eyes darted to Bel again with quick, gleaming malice.
Bel just looked at her. Did this self-important creature really think that the Paragon Duke would fool around with his little sister’s governess? Of course, it was all a charade, but whom did this woman think she was, to question the duke of Hawkscliffe?
“Lady Borrowdale,” she said, unable to hold her tongue, “I assure you His Grace’s sterling reputation is constituted by a keen observation of all the proprieties and a more than ordinary measure of honor.”
There. She had defended her employer like a loyal servant.
But then she saw that if her intention had been to put Lady Borrowdale’s mind at ease about her presence at Hawkscliffe Hall, her words had had the opposite effect. The matron’s small eyes blazed at the challenge to her authority, but Bel stood her ground.
“What extraordinary impertinence!” she gusted. “Is this to be your example of ladylike behavior, Jacinda? A London miss with haughty London airs? It will not do, I say. It will not do!”
“A refusal to grovel to your ladyship is hardly arrogance,” Bel replied, amazed at how easy it was to put down overblown women. It was as easy as setting down overly amorous peers.
Lady Borrowdale gasped. “I will not be talked to thus by a governess! Young woman, apologize.”
“For what, ma’am? I am merely reminding you of His Grace’s excellent good name.”
“I need no reminding from you, miss! Reminding me? Oh, you are bold. His Grace will hear of this.”
At this threat, Bel did the one thing she should not have done.
She knew better. But after so many months of taking hateful stares from women like the odious marchioness, this time she could not help herself. She answered Lady Borrowdale’s glare with a half smile of cool, knowing amusement, as if to say, “Tell him anything you want, he’ll not get rid of me.”
It was the smile of a courtesan.
Lady Borrowdale stared at her, flustered and taken aback.
“Your ladyship,” Jacinda broke in gingerly, “perhaps now isn’t the best time for a visit.”
“We’ve been out to see the ruins today and we’re all a trifle tired,” Lizzie offered anxiously.
“Won’t you come tomorrow for tea?”
“Humph!” said Lady Borrowdale, looking suspiciously from Jacinda to Lizzie to Bel. “Tomorrow I’m engaged. Will His Grace be at home on Wednesday afternoon?”
“It’s hard to say. My brother has been extremely busy of late—”
“Tell him I wish to speak to him,” she ordered Jacinda.
Even the free-spirited Jacinda looked cowed. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Driver!” Lady Borrowdale barked. She shot Bel one last pointed glance as the driver and postilion worked to turn the carriage around.
They stood by the road and watched as the marchioness and the milksop sisters rolled away in their landau. Jacinda turned and stared at Bel, her eyes sparkling with incredulity. Bel returned her gaze uneasily, but Lizzie was the first to give way to a giggle.
“Oh, the look on her face! I thought she’d fall out of her carriage on the spot!”
“It was wrong of me,” Bel started, but both girls began laughing uproariously and even the footman chuckled.
“She deserved it! She’s deserved it for years!” Lizzie cried, wiping away a tear. “My dearest Miss Hamilton, please, will you teach me how to fight back like that?”
Robert smiled at the story of what had happened with Lady Borrowdale and assured her he would smooth it over, but Bel had been right—the marchioness and her daughters were only the first of many, and not all were as plain as the milksop sisters.
Demure and beautiful innocents from around the district came calling on the pretext of visiting Jacinda, meanwhile poking their noses into every room they passed like curious kittens, always trying to catch a glimpse of Robert. He had all but evacuated the first floor in order to avoid them.
That night, as Bel lay awake watching him sleep, his profile limned in moonlight, she found herself brooding on the knowledge that he had to marry someday. Then what was she going to do? Stay? Leave?
She had no idea. It was a subject they never discussed; there was no reason to discuss it, for his choice of brides had nothing to do with her. Marriage for men of his class was based on power and property, and it was as simple as that. She did not begrudge him his duty; she had known that so highborn a lover could never offer her his name and she had never expected it.
Still, it hurt.
She consoled herself with the knowledge that though she’d never share his name, she had what mattered—his passion, his fire, his heart.
All she had wanted, starting out, was to be free and independent with a fortune of her own for security, and now, she had that. She was on her way. He had given her back so much of herself, reclaimed from the darkness and shame that had nearly swallowed her, that she did not see how she could betray her earlier vow never to become entangled with a married man. Every hard-won ounce of her integrity meant too much to her to throw it away again. If and when Robert married she would have to find a new protector in order to be able to live with herself.
She banished the chilling knowledge by reminding herself that he had shown no interest in any of the young ladies who had come in the hopes of snaring him. There was no need for panic yet. If he had any plans for marriage, perhaps they were still years off. A wave of need for him rippled through her. She stared at him in the darkness.
Moving closer to his warm, powerful body, lax in sleep, she woke him with a possessive caress down his chest and beautiful ridged belly, a touch meant to entice. His skin was so warm, so smooth. He was such a beautiful man. She kissed his cheek, his chest. She needed to make him know in this moment that he belonged to her.
She kissed his neck, stroking him softly until he began to stir. He moaned, waking, and surrendered to her will as she coaxed his sex to roaring life. She eased atop him and kissed him. Holding him down, owning him, she took his stiff member inside her and rode him awake, making love to him in tempestuous devotion.
“God, you are my fantasy,” he breathed as she used every trick she knew to heighten his pleasure, ravishing him until he spilled her off of him and pressed her down o
nto her belly. His heavy breathing filled her world as she felt the hard wall of his chest against her back. He slipped his arm around her waist and held her still as he penetrated her from behind.
She arched with pleasure, reveling in his dominance. She forgot her fears in the primal joy of their coupling. He entranced her with each deep, powerful stroke; she grew drunk on his groans. The rest was a blur of need and pleasure and passion as they strove to have their fill of each other, but when they came together some time later, Bel felt tears rise up behind her closed eyes—tears of release that left her empty with despair.
It was all for naught. He was in her arms—he was in the very palm of her hand, she knew, but she would never really possess him, as he possessed her.
When you love a man, you are in his power, she thought, forlornly musing on the Cyprians’ rule which she had so confidently discarded. When a courtesan loves, she is destroyed.
She was completely in this man’s thrall and she knew it. It was only a matter of time before she must pay the price for her folly.
Robert stroked her back in long, tender caresses. With her head resting on his chest, she listened to his strong, slow heartbeat. He kissed her forehead.
“I love you,” he whispered.
I hope so, she thought, staring off into the darkness.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Perhaps it was the duel and his brush with death that had given Hawk his newfound lust for life. He felt invigorated and alive; he was happy and in love, and knew himself to be loved in return by the one woman who made him feel complete. The only flaw that marred his satisfaction and his peculiar new sense of belonging was the niggling guilt that this situation was unfair to Belinda, and now, the new complication of the letter he had just received from Lord Coldfell, on which his destiny seemed to hang.
It lay, discreetly folded, on the desk before him. Pondering the offer, weighing the risks, he sat with his crossed heels propped on his desk, his hands carefully whittling a sharp point on his writing quill with a penknife.
Months ago he had heard about Bel’s quaint rule against involving herself with married men. As surely as he knew that it was his duty to marry according to his station and produce heirs, he knew with equal certainty that, when the time came, he would go to any lengths necessary to make her stay with him. He was never letting her go back to that courtesan life. It was for her own good.
All that remained before answering Coldfell’s letter was to make sure that Belinda’s love for him was such that she would not be able to say good-bye when the time came for him to marry. Perhaps it was cruel of him to strip her of what she saw as her last surviving moral, but he knew full well she needed him, damn it, and he was never letting her go. If she really loved him, she would bend to the necessity of his marriage with her usual dignified grace.
What could be done for it? he thought with a sigh. His sole answer to the uneasiness of his conscience had been to work diligently on the promise he had made to her about doing something to mitigate the plight of the flash house waifs.
Days ago he had written to the major London relief societies, surveying them for information, statistics, a report of the conditions of their facilities, and so forth. When he had his findings in order and returned to Town, he meant to sit down at the club with Lord Sidmouth, the home secretary, and rally him for a promise of support.
For a moment his mind drifted back to her waking him in the middle of the night with her delicious lovemaking. He savored the memory of her sweet demand, especially since he alone knew how far she had come, once fearing to be touched. What mortal man hadn’t dreamed of being ordered to service so luscious a beauty? He never knew what she was going to do next. No wonder he found her so exciting. God help him, but he had fallen hard for her.
The sound of footsteps in the corridor snapped him out of his hazy reverie, then a knock sounded on his study door.
“Yes?”
The door opened and one of Jacinda’s latest visitors peeked in, an insipid young miss with auburn side curls framing her face. “Oh, Your Grace, I’m so sorry to disturb you! Your servant said I might find Lady Jacinda in here.”
“Ah, no, only me, I’m afraid,” he said, rising to his feet, wearily polite.
The chit lingered, inching in, hanging on the doorknob. “What a happy accident. You are well, I hope.” She gave her curls a flounce.
“Er, yes, thank you.” Brazen little thing, he thought in irritation, recognizing her as the daughter of the baron of Penrith. Accident, my foot.
“Did you hear I’ve just come back from my first Season?” she said with an affected, fashionable lisp.
“Congratulations. I’m sure you were quite a toast,” he said cordially.
She twirled a curl around her finger, mincing closer. Hawk glanced around for an escape and saw none.
“I was so sure I would see Your Grace at Almack’s or somewhere, but you were nowhere to be found.”
He froze and stared at her, wondering if she’d heard the rumors in Town—more than rumors—about him and his famous mistress. Surely her elders had not permitted this young miss to hear such talk. But, good Lord, what if she had seen them together somewhere? What if she recognized Bel?
“Don’t you enjoy Society, Your Grace?” the girl simpered, inching ever nearer.
“Well, it’s been a very busy time for the government,” he said, donning his smoothest smile. “What with the sessions and the war finally coming to an end.”
“Ahh,” she said, then she started chattering about Society as if she were one of the Lady Patronesses in the making.
Hawk’s whole body was tense.
Not only did he fear what might happen if she laid eyes on Bel, but he also knew he had to get out of this room. Knocking along in time with his heartbeat, he could feel that great etiquette clock ticking—the one that signaled the timing when a young miss’s reputation began to be compromised by a visit alone in a room with a gentleman—even if she was uninvited. Even if it was all a sly feminine ploy.
Rules were rules, and dozens of the ambitious young schemers and their parents had already tried to slip the noose around him by this means in the past. They had failed and so would she. Marriage was bad enough without being tricked into it.
“The country seems monstrous dull after Town, don’t you think? Lonely, too,” the baron’s daughter sighed, inching ever closer.
“Well, I’m sure a charming young lady like yourself has innumerable friends. Like Jacinda,” he said pointedly. “Let me go get her for you—”
“Oh, don’t trouble yourself, please, Your Grace—”
“It’s no trouble,” he interrupted with a taut smile. “I’ll just... go get her and send her on.”
He heard the girl stamp her slippered foot in frustration as he strode out, clearing the room with seconds to spare.
Hearing the baroness and some other women talking in the drawing room, he was forced to sneak by like a burglar in his own house lest they accost him. The mothers were always in on it, he knew from experience. He took the stairs two at a time and barely felt quite safe from their predations when he reached the upper floor, mentally grumbling about his sister making these appointments and then forgetting about them.
Had the girls gone out? he wondered, for he found them nowhere when he searched the upper floor. Bel would have told him if they were leaving for one of their daily excursions through the fells.
Seeing Jacinda’s maid, he asked if the woman had seen his sister. The maid paled, nodded, and confessed their whereabouts: “They’ve gone into the duchess’s old boudoir, Your Grace,” she said, cringing as she bowed.
His eyebrows drew together and his face darkened. “Pardon?”
“Yes, sir. They’re in the duchess’s chamber, sir.”
Glowering, Hawk pivoted and stalked down the hallway. He couldn’t believe his sister had directly defied this longstanding taboo. He marched stiffly up the stairs to the fourth floor. He clenched his jaw at the sound of
girlish laughter from inside a room down the corridor, and when he flung open the door, fiery wrath leaped into his eyes at what he saw.
Jacinda was seated at their mother’s gilded vanity, looking utterly ridiculous under the towering white wig woven with jewels that their mother had once worn. She was dabbing the little brush from the glue pot on her cheek and pasting on another of their mother’s silk patches.
“What are you doing?” he ground out in a menacing snarl.
All motion stopped.
Jacinda jumped up off the cushioned bench and whirled around, quickly whipping off the tall wig. “Nothing.”
Lizzie Carlisle slipped off the feather boa she’d thrown around her neck and went to stand behind Jacinda, looking frightened.
“You know you are not allowed in here,” he said in a deep voice, crisply enunciating every word.
“M-Miss Hamilton said we could,” Jacinda stammered.
“Robert, what’s the matter with you?”
He looked over at the sound of Bel’s voice.
She had been curled up reading in the window seat. She presently snapped her book shut and got up, coming toward him with a frown. “There’s no harm in it.”
She could not know, obviously, what a nerve this had struck in him. “No one is allowed in this room, as these girls are perfectly well aware.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so. Jacinda, take those hideous patches off immediately and hie yourself downstairs. The baroness of Penrith and her daughter have been waiting for you for a quarter hour.”
“Why are you so mean?” she cried. “You’re just like Papa. She was my mother, too!”
“Look at yourself. You look like a slut. Take those things off your face!” he roared.
“Robert!” Bel stepped in front of him. “Don’t shout at her. She’s just a child playing dress up.”
“Stay out of this. Jacinda—”
“I’m going!” She peeled the last silk patch off her cheek and scurried past them, looking frightened and hurt. Lizzie silently rushed after her. Robert gave his ward a severe look of reproach, as well.