“Otis?” Frances asked in some astonishment.
Beatrice allowed another glance at her new sister-in-law, and couldn’t suppress a shudder at her disgusting appearance. “Otis always was kind to strays,” she said obliquely, took her fiancé’s arm, and marched up the front steps into the house.
“That is my sister,” Hawk said to Frances. “Ignore her. I’ve always believed she would mellow with age. Perhaps I was wrong.”
“Edmund will keep her in line,” the marquess said.
I certainly wouldn’t want to try, Frances thought. She took herself to her room immediately and ordered a hot bath. It felt good to have Agnes twittering about her, clucking as if she were but a chick. She fell asleep in her bathtub.
“Frances.” “
She felt a hand shaking her shoulder and opened vague eyes. It wasn’t Agnes’ hand on her, it was her husband’s. “You,” she said, and tried to slither away.
“Certainly,” Hawk said. “You will become as wrinkled as a discarded cravat.” He held out a thick towel for her. Frances saw Agnes from the corner of her eye looking at once scandalized and excited. She rose from the tub and felt her husband enclose her in the towel. He picked up another one and began drying her hair.
“What of your sister and Lord Chalmers?” she asked, her voice a bit thin. She was frightfully embarrassed, she couldn’t help it. It was broad daylight and her maid was standing nearby.
“Beatrice is resting and Edmund is looking at the horses.” He was leading her toward her dressing table. She had no choice but to seat herself. “Agnes,” Hawk called, “come and comb out her hair before she falls into another stupor.” He patted her cheek and took himself off.
“Surprised as a toad without a lily pad, I was,” said Agnes as she combed the tangles from her mistress’s long hair. “His lordship entered quiet as could be, saw you in the tub, and ... well—”
“Yes, I know.” Frances said.
“I heard Mrs. Jerkins complaining to Mr. Otis about Lady Beatrice demanding this and that, as if she were mistress here.”
Frances sighed. “It was her home for many years.”
“Still, Mrs. Jerkins is none too pleased,” Agnes said, the bit between her teeth. “And that sour-faced maid of hers—Gertrude, of all silly names—well, she was in the kitchen driving cook distracted, demanding a tisane immediately.”
“Oh dear,” said Frances. “You must dry my hair quickly, Agnes, I must see Mrs. Jerkins and calm Cook down, and—”
“Oh no, my lady. His lordship told me, he did, that you were to be in your bed as soon as may be.”
Frances was too tired to argue with this most recent command from her husband. But sleep eluded her for some minutes. It was Edmund who wanted to buy all the Desborough stock. Was that the reason for his visit? What would Hawk do? She sighed, snuggling down beneath the covers. Obviously he wouldn’t be journeying to London just yet.
Hawk entered her room a while later and smiled down at her sleeping face. He gently lifted a thick curl and rubbed it against his cheek. “What the devil am I going to do with you?” he said very softly.
When Frances awoke late in the afternoon, it was to see Mrs. Jerkins standing beside Agnes, her bosom heaving with indignation.
25
I love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?
—SHAKESPEARE
Hawk stared at his wife over a spoon filled with soupe à la Reine. She looked beautiful, her glorious hair piled atop her head with thick long curls caressing her white shoulder. Her equally white breasts waited firm and soft for his touch beneath the pale pink satin of her gown.
He realized he’d given up his struggles with scarce a whimper, surrendered unconditionally, and he continued to study her with fascinated new eyes. He’d realized it was all over for him when he’d stood beside her tub staring down at her sleeping face. The longer he studied her, the more he’d wanted to haul her over his shoulder, throw her onto his bed, and love her until he was insensate and she as well. Hell, he’d even decided that he’d take her sisters under his wing, if necessary, and to London.
The bachelor was a vague shadowy gentleman who had expired, and in his place was a married man who delighted in his state.
He hurriedly finished his soup. He was still caught in his own startlingly new discoveries when Edmund’s voice pulled him back to the dinner table. “I say, Hawk, you look as worried as a man who has just wagered his fortune on the turn of a card.”
Hawk smiled a bit painfully. “Not at all. Frances, my dear, cease fiddling with your bread. Have some of these delicious pork cutlets.”
Frances dutifully nodded to the footman, James, to serve her a cutlet.
“Your cook sets an adequate table,” Beatrice remarked to her brother.
You expected perhaps raw turnips and cold potatoes? Frances wanted to ask her sister-in-law. She said nothing, of course, and scarce attended the conversation about her. She still felt a shudder when she remembered Mrs. Jerkins’ appalling upset.
“She questioned me as to the cleanliness of the sheets!”
Frances thought that Mrs. Jerkins’ bosom would heave out of her black bombazine gown.
“And that maid of hers, that insufferable Gertrude, had the effrontery to claim that there was dust on the dressing table!”
Agnes didn’t help matters. She gasped in outrage, stoking Mrs. Jerkins’ already blazing fire.
“Giving orders to our staff as if she were mistress here! Carrying on that her portrait was in awful condition and needed cleaning. Restoration is more like it ... and to her, not the painting!”
“I expect,” Frances said calmly, after she finally managed to break into Mrs. Jerkins’ diatribe, “that Lady Beatrice will leave soon enough. I don’t believe that she cares much for the country. We will survive it, Mrs. Jerkins, and I”—she drew a deep breath “and I shall speak to her.”
Mrs. Jerkins gave her a look that spoke volumes—Lady Beatrice would likely chew her up and spit her out with the leftovers.
“I should dress for dinner now,” Frances had said, wishing she were back in Scotland, enjoying one of her father’s fine rages.
Oh dear, Frances thought now, wondering if the inhabitants of the nether regions of Desborough Hall were arming themselves for insurrection. She heard Beatrice demand another serving of sweetbreads in ringing tones, and winced. She smiled toward James, and nodded. He looked impassive, but Frances suspected his ears were a bit red. She appreciated their loyalty, their protectiveness, and imagined that even if Lady Beatrice were of a saintly disposition, they would still refer every request to her.
“I say, Frances,” Beatrice said after enjoying several bites of the sweetbreads, “I imagine you must feel dreadfully uncomfortable here—English gentlemen and ladies must be so vastly different from what you are used to in Scotland.”
“Not at all,” Frances said mildly.
“Not that there is much elevated company here in the wilds of Yorkshire, but stilt—”
“Lord and Lady Bourchier are most charming,” said Frances..
“And most elevated,” said Hawk.
“Ah, poor Alicia,” Beatrice said, giving her brother a drawing look before continuing. “She had so hoped to ensnare Philip, you know, but he would have none of her. She is, of course, only a baronet’s daughter.”
“The Melchers are quite good-hearted.”
“A vicar and his wife,” Beatrice said, and shuddered delicately.
“You have become a snob, daughter,” the marquess said.
“One must simply maintain one’s standards, Father. It is such a pity that poor Philip had to travel to Scotland, for his—”
“I believe,” Edmund Lacy interrupted his betrothed’s overflowing spate of bad manners, “that you have sufficiently abused the topic, my dear.”
And the servants will repeat what you have said to Mrs. Jerkins, Frances thought, and then I shall have a rebellion on my hands. She pictured Otis firing a
cannon toward her sister-in-law, and grinned to herself.
“Well, I only wished to know why my poor brother felt it—”
“Bea, have some macaroni,” Hawk said firmly. “Perhaps also some artichoke bottoms.”
Frances nearly choked on her wine. She sent her husband a warning look, and he smiled at her, an intimate, very mischievous smile that made her feel suddenly quite overheated. She blinked, wondering what the devil was wrong with her. And for that matter, what was he up to now?
The marquess said, “Belvis tells me that you saved Flying Davie’s life, Frances. He is quite upset that the horse sickened from something he ate.”
“He must have escaped the eye of his trainer and gotten a weed of some sort,” said Edmund.
“Mushrooms,” said Beatrice.
“Well, I fancy Belvis will watch him like a hawk now,” Frances said.
“Two birds at Desborough?” Hawk asked.
“You and that ridiculous nickname of yours,” Beatrice said with faint distaste, arching a perfect brow.
“Frances quite likes it,” Hawk said blandly.
“How very odd of you,” Beatrice said, staring at her sister-in-law as if she were a newly imported queer thing from an exotic land.
Enough, thought Frances. She smiled at her guests, nodded to James, and let him assist her to rise. “Beatrice, shall we leave the gentlemen to their port and conversation?”
“I didn’t expect a sister-in-law,” Beatrice said, once they were comfortably seated in the drawing room.
“I didn’t either,” said Frances.
“Philip has always been so very free, so opposed to matrimony.”
“He still is—free, that is.”
Beatrice started at that, but quickly forged onward. “I was most surprised to read of my brother’s marriage to an unknown ... person from Scotland. I told Edmund that my father was behind it. The meddling old fool!”
So, Frances thought, even Beatrice knew nothing of the infamous oath. She wondered why Hawk hadn’t told his sister the circumstances when he was in London. “Actually,” Frances said, “I saw your brother bathing in Loch Lomond and quite decided that I wanted him.”
“You saw him naked?”
“He wasn’t bathing in his cravat.”
Beatrice harrumphed.
Frances studied her sister-in-law for a long moment. “I should appreciate it, Beatrice, if you would refrain from directing the servants.”
“I would say that someone needs to give them orders! Why, the dust, the filth ... !”
“Beatrice, you are my guest and my sister-in-law, but you are not the mistress of Desborough Hall.”
“So,” Beatrice said, her eyes glittering, “that is why my poor benighted brother married you.”
Frances stared at her, at sea. “I beg your pardon?”
“You saw him unclothed and seduced him and got yourself with child.”
Frances laughed, she couldn’t help herself. “I never realized before that a female could get herself with child.”
“My brother is a gentleman, of course, and you know quite well what I mean! Your levity is not at all becoming, Frances.”
Frances wiped her eyes and said in a very thick Scottish brogue, “I think I shall play the pianoforte. Be ye fond of a particular tune?”
She didn’t await an answer, but walked to the pianoforte and seated herself. She played until her arms began to ache. She looked only once to see Beatrice yawning. She launched into a Mozart sonata. When she finally paused, she was startled to hear enthusiastic applause.
She turned on the stool and smiled. “Had I known you had come in, gentlemen, I would have spared your ears.”
“Not at all, Lady Frances,” said Edmund. “You play most delightfully.”
“She does many things most delightfully,” said Hawk.
“Rather a surprise,” said Beatrice. “Your technique is most reasonable, for someone raised in Scotland.”
Hawk wondered if he could muzzle his sister. She was quite on her high horse, her lance targeted at Frances. He no longer had to wonder about the purpose of this visit. Edmund hadn’t said much, but Hawk knew that he was here to encourage the sale of the Desborough stock. It was just a matter of time before he came right out with it. But not, Hawk realized, when the marquess was present. Edmund wasn’t at all stupid; he would realize that the marquess would stick his oar in.
He heard his father suggest that the young folk play four-handed piquet.
“Well, Frances?” Hawk asked, sending her that new intimate smile of his that made sweat break out on her neck. “Shall we take on these two? They are both quite proficient, I warn you.”
“I should like very much to play,” said Frances.
When the marquess kissed her cheek, he whispered, “You are doing splendidly, my dear. I am quite proud of you. Go for Bea’s broadside, she is well-endowed in that area.”
With that very unfatherly observation, the marquess took himself to his bedchamber.
Serious players indeed, Frances thought some minutes later as she sorted her hand. She felt as if she were in a life-and-death match. Her husband was a demanding partner, but she didn’t mind, for she had the suddenly overwhelming urge to win. She concentrated with all her faculties. She played with speed and finesse and when Edmund finally tossed down his last card, he exclaimed, “My dear Bea, I believe we have met our match! You two are killers. Pity you can’t take Frances to White’s, Hawk.”
“And have her destroy all the collective manly pride? I thank you, no, Edmund. I shall keep her and all her talents right here, with me.”
She frowned at him, wondering what was in his mind, what his motives were. Did he mean with those somewhat double-edged words that he wasn’t returning to London?
Tea had come and gone long ago. It was time for bed, but Frances wasn’t at all tired. She felt terribly excited, filled with anticipation. She looked to see her husband studying her intently, and she flushed, wishing she could kiss him and throw her cards in his smug face.
He grinned, a very masculine, satisfied grin, and she decided she would prefer to stuff the playing cards down his throat.
Hawk rose and stretched, yawning elaborately.
“Frances, my dear, are you ready too for your bed?”
“I believe so,” she managed to say with just a slight tremor to her voice.
She wanted him to come to her—she wasn’t about to deny it to herself. She waited patiently for the sound of his footsteps at the adjoining door. He entered some moments later, eyed her from across the room, and smiled.
“Hello,” he said, stuffing his hands into the deep pockets of his dressing gown.
Time to beard the lion in his den, Frances thought. “Hawk,” she said, “what are you doing?”
“Preparing to love my wife until she wraps herself around me and yells and becomes hot and—”
“I mean, what are you up to? You are not behaving as you should.”
“That worries you, my dear?”
“You are so slippery,” she said, frowning at him. “I wish you would stay exactly where you are until I understand.”
“May I sit down at least?”
“I suppose so,” she said grudgingly. She hadn’t intended that he sit on her bed, but he did, of course. He sprawled on his back, his head resting on her thighs.
“Now, what worries you, Frances? You are handling Beatrice quite well. Otis has regained some of his color and informed me that Mrs. Jerkins won’t poison my sister’s tea.”
“Your sister doesn’t like me,” Frances said, side-tracked for a moment.
“No, but she will come about. She cares about me, at least I think she does a bit, and when she observes that I can’t keep my hands away from you, she wilt—”
“Enough of that! You are utterly impossible and I won‘t—”
“Won’t what, my dear?”
“You are putting my legs asleep,” she said acidly. “You are heavy.”
; “I certainly wouldn’t want that,” Hawk said, and in a graceful, swift motion, brought himself up beside her. His fingertips touched her nose, her chin, and finally stroked lightly over her lips.
“Hawk—”
“You are beautiful, Frances,” he said, and there was no mockery in his voice now. Indeed, he sounded faintly worried.
He was leaning over her, his green eyes darker now, with desire, she knew, and she gulped. “So are you,” she said, quite honestly.
He grinned, and the knowing, very warm intimate look was back. She felt his hand lightly touch her breast, and her eyes widened.
“I never knew that a simple touch could make me feel so very strange,” she said.
“It makes me feel strange too.” He closed his eyes a moment, and Frances had the feeling that he was memorizing her, learning about her.
He said abruptly, opening his eyes, “You will not sell your ring, Frances.”
“I ... I don’t wish you to be forced into doing anything you don’t wish to do. I don’t wish to be beholden to you.”
“I am your husband,” he said, and she realized those words meant to him that any further arguments from her would be more than unwelcome. Likely the grounds for a shouting match, she thought, and gave it up, at least for the time being. There was not another thing in her mind, all her thoughts having vanished as the very pleasurable sensations were beginning to course through her body.
“Hawk,” she said, her fingertips stroking his face, “I want you.”
Those simple words, spoken so softly, with such longing, made him a wild man. He brought her with him, making her as wild as he. When he gently covered her mouth with his hand to feel the soft cries and raspy moans erupt, he lost what control he had left. His mouth replaced his hand and she felt his harsh, very warm breath fill her mouth as his manhood, thrusting deeply within her, filled her very being with him.
“Christ,” he said on a long sigh, collapsing on top of her. “You will kill me, madam, before I have reached thirty.”
“Well, I have nearly reached twenty, and am on the very brink myself.”
He rubbed himself over her, felt himself growing hard within her again, and laughed at himself. “You make me a randy goat, Frances,” he said, and began to fill her and move within her again.
Midsummer Magic Page 29