Scandalous Brides

by Annette Blair

  “Do not say Hawk has not touched you since he returned?”

  Alex paled and looked away. “He has never touched me.”

  “What, not even on your wedding night?”

  “We had no wedding night. I lied to everyone and went to the St. James’s Hotel alone. Bryce said goodbye at the church after we married. He left for Dover that night and shipped out the next day. Sometimes I think he still finds me an annoyance, like when we were children. Do you think he does? I think he must.”

  “I do not think so, not from the way he watched you during luncheon when you were not looking.”

  “I wish he would touch me when I am not looking, or even when I am. I have tried to spark his interest, but I cannot. No, perhaps that is not quite right. I have sparked it, but I cannot seem to fan it into flame. God, Bree, when it comes to being a wife, I do not know where to begin.”

  “In the bedroom?” Sabrina suggested.

  Alex smiled. “I suspected as much.”

  “Oh my.” Sabrina sat again and patted the seat beside her. “This is going to be very delicate, Alex, but if you want my help, you will have to share some of the more intimate details of your marriage bed with me.”

  “There are no intimate details.”

  “What nothing? Not even a tense moment when you thought he might devour you as if you were a cream pastry?”

  “When he is asleep, he is very… friendly.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He pulls me close and says my name.”

  “Better than saying another woman’s name. And when he is awake?”

  “There has been some interest, mostly when I am wearing one of the night rails Chesterfield purchased for our honey month.”

  “Does Hawk know who purchased them?”

  “Good God, no.”

  “Then, perhaps you should tell him.”

  “Are you out of your mind? Hawk and Chesterfield detest each other. Hawk does not even want me to wear my bride-clothes. He would be furious, he would—”

  “Tear them off you?”

  Alex grinned. “Like the beast he proclaims himself.”

  “Exactly. It is called jealousy. Hawk might imagine Chesterfield seeing you in, or out, of one of those night rails and realize if he does not claim you…”

  “I… may have ruined the jealousy ploy. I let Hawk believe I might love Chesterfield and now I am afraid he is thinking of letting me go.”

  “Unless he cannot keep from touching you, himself… Once he gives in to that inclination, it will be too late to let you go.”

  Alex laid her head back against the cushions and closed her eyes. “Do you really think so?”

  “We may have to dangle you before him for a time, however, and have you walk away when he gets close. What else has sparked his interest?”

  “Sometimes the way he looks at me is very disconcerting. And there is that portion of him that… reacts. It happens often, but sometimes at the strangest moments.”

  “Like when?”

  “There was the time he said he would make me listen if he had to tie me to the bed. But he stopped talking and got an arrested look on his face and… that… happened.”

  Bree squealed with delight. “Lord I have the perfect situation in mind. But we must start small and work our way up to the ultimate seduction. Fetch a paper and pencil from my desk and let us make a list of the possible ways to catch his attention.”

  “I am not sure if seduction will work, you understand,” Alex said opening the mahogany secretary in the corner and searching for pen and paper. “I am not even certain he is fond of me.”

  “Pish tosh. He is. Let me think about what you will need—”

  “Money could be a problem, Bree, but do not say anything. Hawk does not want anyone to know.”

  “Fine, you have your night rails. Do you have a lace corset in black?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then you may borrow mine, though Gideon might miss it. But we will have to take that chance. I can distract him with another. I will lend you some scented soaps and oils, some ribbons, black too, I think. One for each of the bedposts in the bedchamber where I had Grandmama put you.”

  As Sabrina spoke, Alex began to make her list. Then she looked up. “Ribbons for the bed posts? Ah, Sabrina, will I be tying something to the bed?”

  EIGHTEEN

  HAWK AND GIDEON followed a gangly, red-haired young man into the beeswax-scented office of Mr. Warren Fitzwilliams, Esquire, nephew to Mr. Malcolm Fitzwilliams, solicitor to Hawk’s father.

  “Gentlemen,” Fitzwilliams, the younger, said as he rose from a well-worn, chestnut leather chair. “Won’t you be seated and tell me what I can do for you on this splendid Autumn afternoon?”

  The young clerk interrupted to offer refreshments, and afterward, he backed, literally, from the room, shutting the door behind him with a soft click.

  Hawk nodded to Fitzwilliams and turned to Gideon. “Gideon St. Goddard, Duke of Stanthorpe, may I present Mr. Warren Fitzwilliams, nephew to my father’s solicitor?”

  Gideon and the solicitor exchanged pleasantries, until their attention shifted to the subject heavy on Hawk’s mind. “Frankly, Mr. Fitzwilliams, I find myself mystified and vexed that my wife was not provided for, like all Wakefield widows before her, when it was erroneously reported that I died at Waterloo. How did this miscarriage of all that is proper come about?”

  Fitzwilliams pulled at his beard for several long moments as he regarded Hawk with a furrowed brow, clearly at a loss. “I do not understand. Why would your wife be provided for?”

  Hawk scowled. “Because I am, or was until my, ah, mistaken demise, the Fifth Duke of Hawksworth. I should think that would be answer enough.”

  “Oh, but… Oh my. Were neither you, nor your wife, present then, for the reading of your father’s will? I did not preside, myself, you see, or even attend. My uncle handled everything, but I remember him apprising me, during his final days, of your father’s peculiar codicil.”

  Gideon sat forward. “Are you saying there were stipulations to Hawksworth’s inheriting, of which he knew nothing?”

  Fitzwilliams regarded Hawk. “Let us allow your father’s words to speak for themselves, shall we?” He rose and went to a cherry wood cabinet, opened a drawer and shuffled through a series of yellowed and dog-eared records. “Ah, yes,” he said. “Here.” He withdrew a pouch of parchment, darkened with age and thick with documents.

  Returning to his desk, he sat and sifted through the pouch, itself, until he came upon one sheet in particular, revealing less age than the rest, the writing upon it so spidery as to be barely legible. That sheet, he slid across his desk toward Hawksworth.

  Aware that he regarded the thing as if it might rise up and strike, Hawk turned to Gideon. “You first.”

  Gideon raised a brow. “Are you certain?” At Hawk’s nod, Gideon took up the document, almost with trepidation, read it once, then again. Shaking his head, he handed it to Hawk and sat back to await his reaction.

  Hawk barely finished before he barked a harsh laugh. “Disinherited by God! The bounder died making certain I was willing to give my life for his bloody approval, handling me to the last, without honor enough to say that I would be stripped of all but my title, if I chose Alexandra as my wife.”

  “I am sorry,” Mr. Fitzwilliams said, calling for his clerk to bring in the brandy.

  Hawk watched the clerk pour. “Managed from the grave, by God.”

  “And damned near into it.” Gideon accepted a goblet, himself. “Insidiously controlled, if you ask me. Did your father never say that he took exception to Alexandra?”

  Hawk took a sip, closed his eyes, opened them and nodded. “Oh, Father did say so. He said so daily. But he took exception to so many people, who paid attention?”

  “But why?” Gideon persisted. “What did he have to gain by disinheriting you? Or, perhaps I should ask what did he have to lose, if you married Alex?”

  “Status for
his name, his title, his heirs. That was all he cared about. Alexandra’s family was not high enough on the social ladder to be considered worthy.” Hawk shook his head. “If he had but known it, back when he first objected, Alex was no more than the pest who shadowed me. He might have put the thought in my head, by forbidding it. Even when we married—” Hawk stopped. How he felt about his wife was immaterial, especially as he had come to care a great deal for her over the last year and a half. More than he had ever thought possible.

  “As ruthlessly controlling as your father was—judging by what you told me and I have just heard,” Gideon said, “the man must at least have expected you to attend the reading of his will. He could not have known you would marry and sail to France before the week was out.”

  “If I did not marry Alex, I could not have gone to France. Every member of my family was the better for Alexandra’s care, better even than if I had stayed. If not for her, I could not have gone to fight Boney, for I had too many responsibilities.”

  “It seems probable that your father had no more consideration for the members of your family than for you,” Gideon said. “He must have known you could die going to war, but he was willing to send you, anyway. I wonder if a place in history might not have been more important to him.”

  “How could my actions affect his place in history?”

  “Then power mattered, the power inherent in his ability to control you and the future, even after his death.”

  Hawk cursed. “It no longer matters though, does it?”

  “I wonder,” Gideon responded, regarding him so keenly that Hawk set his goblet upon the desk and rose.

  “You are in the same place, are you not?” Gideon rose, also. “You would have married Alexandra, whether you knew about the will or not. What is the harm now?”

  “My family’s strained circumstances might have been eased in advance, had I known. I might never have gone, had I known.” Hawk turned to the hovering solicitor. “The past cannot be changed. I understand that. But is there any way in which this codicil, or the results of it, can be overturned?”

  “There are only two circumstances that might produce results, but none are guaranteed. We could attempt to prove your father of unsound mind at the time of the codicil. Or you might seek an annulment or a bill of divorcement.”

  Hawk stopped himself from laughing outright at the solicitor’s words. An annulment, by God. If he let Alex go now, he might regain what little was left of his wealth. If he kept her, he would ruin her life, for she would certainly be destitute for the remainder of it. “My father was cunning,” he said, “but never insane.”

  “If you do not mind my knowing, Hawksworth,” Gideon said, turning to the solicitor, “were there any other disapproved brides named by the old duke?”

  The solicitor turned to Hawk seeking his permission to speak, and Hawk gave it with a nod.

  “Only the bride you chose,” Fitzwilliams told Hawk.

  “Ah, that is rich.” Hawk turned to leave.

  “Oh, wait,” Fitzwilliams said. “I have something for your wife, obtained during the transaction she contracted me to perform for her sometime back. She was supposed to have picked this up on the day of her wed—er, ah…” The solicitor coughed. “She never came for it. May I send it along with you now?”

  “Of course,” Hawk said, taking a sealed missive and placing it in the inside breast pocket of his frockcoat. He shook the solicitor’s hand, as did Gideon, and they made their way from the Leicester Square building.

  At the top of the outside steps, Hawk placed his curly beaver atop his head and regarded Gideon, “Say nothing to Alex of this. I need time to think. I do not want her to know that my father disapproved of her. She will blame herself for the loss of my fortune.”

  “Nonsense. How could she blame anyone, other than your father?” Gideon asked. “But it might be kinder to let her assume that Baxter simply squandered your wealth, which he has about managed anyway.”

  “I would have done Alexandra a great service,” Hawk said, pulling on his gloves as they made their way down the marble steps, “if I had not married her in the first place.”

  “When did you fall in love with her?” Gideon asked.

  Hawk stopped. “In love with her?” Love? He knew nothing of love. “That is rather an impudent question, is it not?”

  “We were comrades, we fought side by side. You died in my arms.”

  “And saw you weep when I did.”

  “Exactly.” Gideon shook his head, denying Hawk’s accusation of impudence. “I am sorry, but I shall retain the right of an insolent brother for the remainder of our days. You were fond of Alex at the time of your marriage. I know you were, but you did not care for her in the same way you do now. That is, also, very plain.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  Gideon held up a hand. “Do not prevaricate. You never revealed any of it, but I believe I came to know you well enough to realize as much. In addition, today I saw the way you regard her.”

  “To use an old cliché,” Hawk said, “I am my father’s son and, therefore, incapable of love. To add another, I have learned that meeting Alexandra Huntington may have been the best luck I ever had. I simply did not know it, until my life passed before me. That really happens, by the way.”

  Gideon shuddered. “You will forgive me, if I am pleased to have no such experience.”

  “The problem is,” Hawk said once they were settled inside Gideon’s carriage. “I have been thinking for months that the best thing I can do for Alex is to let her go. But if I do, what is left of my wealth will revert to me. How is such a decision to be made?”

  Gideon nodded wisely. “With the heart, my friend. With the heart.”

  “Look who is speaking of hearts, the man who once said he had none.”

  Gideon grinned. “Sabrina helped me grow one. And speaking of hearts, you offered tenancies and cottages to seventeen members of our old unit, when I distinctly heard you say you had, what, six cottages left unoccupied?”

  “Right. Remind me to write to my manager today and have my carpenters begin building a dozen more.”

  “But half of the soldiers and families you took on are leaving for St. Albans today. You heard them. Without your inheritance, do you have the blunt to build?”

  “No blunt, but Huntington is enormous. We have a huge home wood and trees aplenty, stone for fireplaces, mud for mortar. And I warned the men, while you were speaking to Stewart and Guilford, that they would be three families to a cottage for a while. Their response was that they would have roofs and hearths, both missing from their lives at the moment. I feel badly that I was forced to take only men with families, however.”

  “Those without have a better chance at the odd job anyway.”

  “True enough.”

  After making the rounds of their clubs, Hawk and Gideon returned to Gideon’s home late in the afternoon. They entered a favorite, small sitting room only to find Alexandra, curled up on a chaise with Juliana sitting on her lap, so totally absorbed that she did not even hear them enter.

  Alex spoke to the babe softly questioning, while Juliana, herself, was so absorbed in Alex she seemed to be trying to respond with little coos and gurgles, her hands waving excitedly in the air.

  It was a sight, Hawk thought. A sight to warm the heart. It made him want… everything he could never hope to have.

  “Do you see how Juliana loves Alex?” Beatrix asked, coming in behind the men with an infant blanket that she brought straight to Alex. “Can we have a baby, Uncle Bryce? Would you not like to have one? Alex, can you get us one?”

  When Bea mentioned getting a babe of their own, Alex looked up, and her eyes found Hawk’s, and when their gazes locked, something deep and ephemeral seemed to pass between them.

  It was uncomfortable and tight, Hawk thought, though he could not put a name to it.

  Whatever it was, he wanted none of it… or more of it.

  NINETEEN

  AF
TER DINNER, Alex went upstairs to see what the duchess and Claudia had purchased in one afternoon of dedicated and relentless shopping. But Hawk had too much on his plate to linger, so he excused himself and went up to their sitting room in search of a glass of brandy and a modicum of peace.

  Just thinking about his father’s will, enraged him. He untied his cravat and tossed it. His frockcoat followed as he dropped exhausted into a chair.

  Quick upon the heels of sitting, he saw the solicitor’s missive for Alex riding a whoosh of air toward the blazing hearth. With an oath, Hawk shot to his feet to rescue the charring note. He had forgotten the thing existed, never mind giving it to Alex.

  Hawk plunged his hand into the flames, grabbed it by its sizzling sealing wax, and jerked his hand away, tearing it open as he did. “Blast and damnation!”

  Hawk forgot his burned finger as he found himself staring at a paid receipt for four thousand, six hundred and seventy-five pounds sterling. A note was added by Fitzwilliams to the bottom. “All debts gathered and paid. All vouchers destroyed.”

  What in the world had Alex to do with such a large debt? Vouchers? Gambling vouchers?

  Had she taken to gambling? To support the family?

  Nonsense. Even if she had gambled and lost, she did not have the funds to repay so high an amount. Devil it; what manner of predicament had she got herself into?

  Her laughter far down the hall made Hawk scramble to hide the evidence of his knowledge. He looked about and secreted the paid receipt in his portmanteau, stuffing that into the back of the closet. Whatever trouble his wife had gotten herself into, he needed to understand to help.

  Poor, Alex, he thought, what had he driven her to, marrying her and leaving her destitute? And to whom did she owe the great sum she had used to pay what seemed for all the world like a gambling debt.

  Alex stopped laughing before she entered her room. Sabrina was right, she needed to concentrate. If Sabrina’s oil was to produce the desired effect, Alex must now appear uncomfortable and in need of her husband’s aid.

  Her hesitation to carry out a set of instructions that seemed patently dishonest fled in the face of Hawk’s appearance—handsome, deeply furrowed brow, open-necked shirt, skin-tight inexpressibles, and a goblet of brandy cupped within his long, tapered fingers.