An Unforgettable Rogue (18 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Reed Gilbride bowed before Alex. “Alexandra, may I have the honor of this dance?”

At her husband’s urging, Alex allowed his fellow rogue to lead her onto the dance floor.

“You are preoccupied,” he said after a few silent minutes.

Alex nodded. “Guilty. I apologize.”

“Care to tell me about it?”

“It appears as if I might have made a judgment based on flawed information.”

“A common enough occurrence, and mostly harmless. Anything I can do to help?”

“Tell me more of Belgium.”

“Hawk’s time there, you mean? You are in love with your husband, I think. Is that not frowned upon in this Society?”

“You force me to say that you are impertinent and I must deny you an answer.”

“You must, because you do not want your avowal repeated, I think. I wonder why?”

“Tell me about the family who nursed him back to health? Did you ever meet them? What were they like? Did they live in a thatched hut or a brick manor?”

“I never went to their home, but I did meet the patriarch and the boy, in fact, on the day they brought Hawk to the ship to sail home. I had a commission to dispatch for Wellington here in England and we traveled home together, Hawk and I.”

“When was that?”

“About eleven months ago.”

Hawk had been back much longer than anyone knew, Alex realized, then, but he had not contacted Gideon and Sabrina right away, either. The pain around Alex’s heart eased, somewhat, for after speaking to Sabrina, she now understood that he had taken the time he needed. “What did
you
think of the people who saved Hawk’s life?”

“They were generous to house and nurse a man they did not know. The family was poor, that was apparent, though not so poor when Hawk left as when they took him in.”

“What do you mean?”

“As young Gaston accompanied Hawk, on his litter, aboard ship, the old man told me that Hawk had given them his gold buttons, his jewelry, everything he owned of value, including the greater portion of his military pay. The old codger tried to give it all back to me, so I could return it to Hawk. But I thought if he wanted them to have his thanks, then he would not take the gifts back, and I convinced the Belgian to keep it. Did I do wrong, Alex?”

“No. Oh no. I would have given them anything for what they did,” she said, aware that the only jewelry Hawk had taken were his signet ring and his wedding band. “You have answered a question that has been plaguing me, though. I will purchase him a new signet ring for Christmas, perhaps. Do you remember if it was the one set with rubies, or emeralds? I cannot seem to recall.”

“Hawk never wore a ring that I noticed in the months we fought together. I was surprised he had any to give them.”

And for Alex, that said everything. His wedding band had received no better treatment than his signet ring.

When Reed returned Alex to her husband’s side, however, the sight that met them made Alex feel as if the past five years had never happened, that they were back at the St. Albans Assembly Rooms, and she was a fool to love the Rogue of Devil’s Dyke.

Women buzzed around Hawk like bees in a summer garden. Except that he looked as if he did not enjoy his popularity as much as he used to, which improved her mood somewhat. Still, she could not help disliking the beauties in his entourage for their lash-batting and simpering.

“You might have discouraged them,” she told Hawk in the carriage on the way home.

“Discouraged who?” he said, taking her hand once more and cupping it upon his thigh, his atop hers, as if to keep it there. This time he had not even bothered to sit across from her, but beside her from the first.

“The women who were flirting with you?”

“Flirting? Are you daft? With this face?”

“Are you blind? They were all about you.”

“Reed or Claudia probably mentioned my catching the volley meant for Gideon, though I wish they had not. But there could have been no other reason, believe me, except a morbid curiosity for grisly details.” Hawk’s eyes lit with wisdom. “Are you jealous, Alexandra?”

Alex sighed with disgust for overplaying her hand. “Of course not.”

Hawk shrugged, philosophically. “I rather thought not.”

“You seem to think it impossible that a woman would find you attractive.”

“Alex, I am a fright. Of course it is impossible.”

“I will grant you that as opposed to your former perfectly chiseled countenance, your scars give your perfection more of a hard edge, but you—”

Alex thought Hawk would growl or laugh, he looked so incredulous. “There is nothing perfect about this face.”

“Perhaps not, but your appearance is striking, nonetheless. I am extremely sorry to say that your scars give you an aura of danger that will draw women like moths to a flame.”

“The Devil you say.”

Hawk and Gideon had an appointment at Gentleman Jackson’s the following day. Gideon suspected that a boxer’s footwork might strengthen Hawk’s leg, and Hawk thought anything worth trying.

“Listen, Hawk,” Gideon said before they stepped from the carriage onto the pavement before the boxing salon. “When Bree and I use that aromatic oil, I find that only sandalwood soap removes the telltale scent of its perfume. You might take a few jests this morning for that air of the
boudoir
about you.”

Hawk regarded his friend quizzically. “What aromatic oil?”

“The one you and Alex obviously borrowed last night. I would know that scent anywhere. It makes me randy as hell.”

“Well, stay the devil away from me.”

“Do not be cross. What games a man plays with his wife in the bedchamber are his business.”

“Obviously not, for you know more about it than I do. Tell me; are there any healing properties to this aromatic oil?”

Sabrina introduced Alexandra to the most amazing and decadent wonder in all England, a huge bathing tub wherein one or two people could immerse themselves to their chins.

Gideon had recently had them specially made in Edinburgh for all of his houses, including his grandmother’s. Sabrina said that some of her fondest memories had been created since theirs had been delivered.

Alex was afraid that by the time her seduction was complete, she would not be able to look Sabrina’s husband in the eye again.

She intended to use the tub that night and had come up to bed first, but she did not order it filled until she heard Gideon’s carriage depart. He and Hawk had been closeted together all evening discussing estate management and horse-breeding.

The last kettle of hot water was just being poured when Hawksworth entered his dressing room. “Here you are,” she said. “I thought that perhaps you would like a nice hot bath before retiring tonight. It is all ready.”

Alex left her husband to keep his dignity and undress in peace, while she, in her own dressing room, undressed and slipped into a peach silk dressing gown.

When she heard sounds to indicate that Hawk was settling into the tub, she waited another few minutes before returning.

Could his eyes have gotten any bigger, Alex wondered, than when he beheld her in the silk wrap that outlined her every curve?

“God’s teeth, you are breathtaking.” Hawk seemed less appalled, for once, than fascinated, which Alexandra thought a very hopeful sign, indeed.

“Thank you. Now close your eyes.”

“Why on earth would I do that?”

“So I may get in with you.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I do believe you are stuttering, Hawksworth. We seem to have misplaced the oil for my back, again, remember? And the hot water will ease my pain. Now close your eyes or I shall be forced to drop my wrap and offend your sensibilities.”

Alex suspected from that sound deep in his throat that Hawk fought a chuckle as he closed his eyes. Then she waited one tantalizing moment, to see if he would peek, before lowering herself into the heated bliss.

Hawk sprang to vibrant and willing life as his outrageous and seductive wife tangled her naked legs with his in the stroking water.

That was when he began to believe that across the tub from him sat a seductress, formidable, determined, no matter how innocent she looked with her cinnamon hair piled atop her head, loose wisps framing her face. A siren, with the crests of her breasts skimming the top of the water. A woman. His woman.

What would she do if he claimed her now? which he was beginning to believe she wanted. Of course she would wonder why he had not as yet made her his wife in every way. Except that, he would have thought, if she loved another, she would be relieved, not anxious for a consummation.

Why the aromatic oil disguised as a healing salve?

Where
did
he stand with her?

Perhaps it was time to find out.

“This is heaven,” Alex said, sighing and purring, her head resting against the edge of the tub, her eyes closed, a feline smile playing about her full and luscious lips.

“Much like when we were children,” Hawk said, “when we swam after digging in the mud for treasure, except that the sky is not blue above us and the water is a vast deal warmer.”

Alex opened her eyes and grinned—God’s teeth, hers was a lethal smile. “And we cannot catch frogs or lie in the sun to dry,” she said.

“How does your back feel?”

“The warm water does soothe it.”

“Come, turn around and I will soothe it the more.”

As he suspected, Alex was ready, with barely a surprised blink, to try anything. Hawk spread his legs and settled her between them, her facing away from him.

Kneading her torso beneath the warm water became an exercise in pure sensual pleasure, and the sounds and sighs coming from his wife only served to heighten the experience.

When Hawk brought his arms around and began to stroke her midriff, Alex relaxed against him. When he cupped her breasts, she stiffened for a moment, likely in shock, and then she arched to fill his palms. But when he skimmed his hands lower, she about stopped breathing.

He kneaded lower and lower … until he found her core, and she squeaked and reared back, encountered his erection, and surged forward, as if she planned all along to reclaim her original place across from him. “There,” she said. “That feels better.”

Hawk coughed to hide a bubble of laughter, surprised that mirth had claimed him so wholly. “How did you know this tub existed?” he asked, to alleviate her obvious chagrin. “This is not the one in which I bathed previous.”

“Is it not splendid? Sabrina said that the servants will always bring the small slipper bath, unless you ask specifically for this large one.”

Alex must feel more adventuresome at a distance, Hawk thought, for she was calling his bluff and stroking his inner thigh with her foot. He closed his eyes then, and suspended his own breathing, for she was definitely working her way higher and higher, until….

Hawk wanted to kill Sabrina for this fantastical notion she put in his wife’s scheming head. He could not even rise and leave the bloody tub, because if he did, then the most horrible of his scars would be visible, not to mention the size of his—

The moan of pleasure he heard must be his own, Hawk realized, which shocked him to the point that he opened his eyes, and met Alexandra’s very surprised ones. “What did I do?” she asked. “Did you like it? Or hate it?”

“Liked it,” he said. “But do not expect me to run, as you just did?”

“Did you feel as I did, before I ran?”

“I think it highly possible.”

“But you will let me do as I wish?”

Hawk nodded, trepidation skittering along his nerves. “No more running for me,” he said, reminding himself as well as her. “Do what you will. I am staying where I am.”

He expected she would rise on the instant, like a nymph from the sea, and make a startling exit from the tub. As a matter of fact, he looked forward to the sight.

But while she did rise like a pearl-glistening sea nymph, she did not leave the tub, but stood, perfect in every way. Then she took two steps in his direction and looked down on him, smiling, full and deadly, and lowered herself to straddle him, luscious breasts to hairy chest and pulsing core to rod of steel.

All Hawk’s fight left him as he surged to heartier life. He could do nothing but gape, and throb, and devour her mouth when she set her lips to his.

He kissed his brazen wife with the appetite of a man starved for nothing resembling food. He skimmed her every curve and hollow, in the same way she grazed every inch of him.

Every throbbing inch.

When she closed her talented hand around him, her instincts were flawless.

A year of celibacy and a week of hard torture … and Hawk came on the instant.

“Bloody hell!”

“Good Lord, did I break it?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Baxter Wakefield came back to town on the thirteenth of November, and the first thing he did was show himself at Basingstoke House to pay his respects to his no-longer-deceased cousin
Bry
.

Hawk would rather the blighter had stayed in America as enter polite society, but what could he do but allow his cousin to be admitted to the library, at least, wherein the Duchess kindly allowed them some privacy.

“Dissipation looks to sit heavy on your shoulders, cousin,” Hawk observed. “Or should I say that it sits dark beneath your eyes and
heavy
upon your person. Hard work depleting a fortune, is it not?” Hawk raised the decanter his way. “Brandy?”

Baxter laughed. “I may not have gotten the title, Bry, but the money’s a good sight more fun.”

“I daresay.” Hawk knew he could not ask his cousin to keep the conditions of his father’s codicil to himself, for if Baxter even suspected that Hawk wanted it kept from Alex, there would surely be a price for his silence. A price Hawk could not afford to pay … any more than he could afford not to.”

“What do you want?” Hawk asked.

The blackguard fingered a Bristol Glass brandy decanter and a French silver salver, before going on to examine the Rubens and Canaletto on the wall. “Believe it or not, I want to make peace with my family,” he said, though Hawk noticed that he did not say it while looking him full in the eye.

Hawk frowned. “Out of money already, are we?”

“You are, and though I have spent more than you will see in your lifetime, I am still a rich man.”

Bully for you, Hawk thought, as he considered the ramifications of one good, hard right to the solar plexus.

Baxter grinned as if he could read Hawk’s thoughts. “Since I am ready to settle down, however, I yearn to have my family about me.”

“You yearn for their respectability to net you a rich bride.”

The library door opened. “Oh, I am sorry. I did not know you had a guest.” Alex made to back out, and Hawk was grateful.

“No, wait,” Baxter said. “Present me, cousin, to this luscious wench.”

Alex stiffened.

Hawk set his goblet firmly down, lest he pour it over his cousin’s bumble head. “Alex, allow me to present my scapegrace cousin, Baxter Wakefield. Baxter, my wife, Alexandra, the woman you tossed out when you inherited.”

Baxter grinned and took her hand. “If only I had known, we might have come to a … satisfactory arrangement.”

Hawk stepped forward.

Alex scowled and retrieved her hand. “Your grace.”

“What?” Baxter said with a laugh. “‘Twas not me who got the title. That’s all Hawk’s and welcome to it. Much good it’ll do either of you without the blunt to make it sparkle.”

Alex looked from Hawk to his cousin and back. “Hawksworth?”

Already Hawk wanted to flatten his cousin, and he hated when Alex used his full title. It could only mean he was in trouble.

Baxter laughed at the obvious awkwardness of the moment and made his whistling way to the door. “Invite me to dinner,” he said, “and I will leave you to settle your differences in peace.”

“Not to dinner,” Hawk said. “Other plans. But to the Winkley ball tomorrow evening. You will accompany us?”

Baxter bowed. “My pleasure.”

When the door clicked behind him, Alexandra rounded on Hawk. “What was that about?”

“It was better than having to eat with him.”

She stamped her foot, a measure of her frustration, for she never had done, even as a child. “What did he mean by saying that you got the title?”

“Father played me dirty, Alex. The title has always been mine, but Baxter got the money, the houses, everything else.”

“How long have you known?”

Hawk picked up his brandy and stepped toward a shelf of gold-leafed books, as if he might examine them at length, but he took a sip of his drink, instead, and when he finished, he turned to her. “Since we arrived in town. The day Gideon and I went to do
whatever it is that gentlemen do of an afternoon
, we saw the solicitor.”

“And you did not tell me?”

“Fitzwilliams is looking into ways to break the will. I did not say anything because I had hoped I would not have to give you the bad news about our poverty.” Half-truths again. How he hated the need for them. Damn his father.

“Poverty is nothing new to me.”

Hawk stepped up to her and grazed her cheek. “I have proved to be a sorry provider, have I not?”

“No, it is not that. It is simply—” She sighed. “I thought husbands and wives were supposed to share the good and the bad. Instead, you and I seem to do nothing but keep secrets.”

“What? Are you keeping secrets from me as well?”

Alex examined his face, his eyes. “Keeping secrets, plural?
As well
, meaning: in the same way that you are keeping them from me? Do you have more?”

“I asked you first.”

“You asked me nothing.”

“How does your back feel?”

“There is a good question. Why?” Alex reached for his cravat. “Did you find the oil?”

“I did.”

She nodded as if everything was settled, and it was, in a way. They had silently agreed to hold their secrets, or at least the discussion of them, for the nonce, while they compromised to play this dangerous teasing game they both seemed to enjoy.

Perhaps it was a start, Hawk thought, his body tightening in anticipation of her sweet, sweet torture, as he followed her up the stairs.

* * *

Claudia and Baxter became great friends, in the same way that Beatrix and the twins were friends. They joked and laughed and shared secrets. Hawksworth relaxed his panicked guard, for they
were
cousins, however distant, and they acted like brother and sister.

When Claude had no escort, Baxter accompanied her wherever she needed one, always under Hawk’s or Alexandra’s or the Duchess’s watchful eyes, of course.

Baxter had either turned over a new leaf, Hawk surmised, or he was on his best behavior. Or he truly did seek the approval of his relatives, for he had not so much as committed a social blunder or gambled a single farthing since returning to the bosom of his family.

To Claudia, Baxter confessed his want of a wife, after much prompting by her, extracting her promise to keep his secret. He also confessed his want of an introduction to a certain Miss Phyllida Middlemarch, who just happened to be Claude’s new bosom bow.

“Did you know that Phyllida is the heiress to the vast Middlemarch fortune?” Claude asked.

“Really? No, I did not. Forget the introduction, then. I am sure that I am not good enough for her.”

“Nonsense. You are a prize catch.”

Baxter bowed. “I am humbled that you should think so.”

In her turn, Claudia confessed her wish to make Judson Broderick, Viscount Chesterfield, so jealous that he would lay himself at her feet and beg her to marry him.

“Perhaps,” Baxter said. “We could help each other.”

The following day, Claude wrote a letter to Chesterfield, in St. Albans, which she handed to Baxter for his approval. “
My Dear Chesterfield
,” Baxter read aloud.
“You must not worry about me any longer, neither must you imagine that I will importune you further with my silly childhood infatuation.”

“Oh, not silly,” Baxter said. “Call it naïve. He will be charmed by the notion and less likely offended.”

“Lord, you are a sly one,” Claudia said, pulling a fresh sheet of stationery her way for a new draft.

Baxter grinned. “Thank you.” He continued reading. “
London, it turns out, is great fun without you, as my cousin, Baxter Wakefield, has returned to the family fold and escorts me everywhere I wish to go. He is not only my escort, but my confidant and friend, perhaps even my knight in shining armor. He will play a key roll in my choice of husband, make no mistake, which role I had originally offered you, if you will remember. Consider yourself crossed-off my list of matrimonial prospects, and thank you for refusing
.”

Baxter barked a laugh. “Nice touch that. It will lay in his belly like a summer apple, green and sour. And your vague wording is masterful.”

Claudia grinned.

“
Enjoy your country solitude
,” Baxter read Claude’s closing paragraph. “
By the time you hear from me again, my name might have changed. Wish me luck. Your friend, Claudia Jamieson
.”

A week later, Chesterfield appeared at the Wellbank affair, a fine specimen of a man in a black tailed frock coat and snow white linen. Claudia hoped she was not drooling as she marked his approach.

“Miss Jamieson,” he bowed before her, even as she noted her uncle, not too far distant, and hoped that he would not clamp eyes on her companion any time soon.

Calling upon every inch of sophistication she could muster, Claudia offered Chesterfield her hand, which he raised to his lips, shivering her to her marrow.

“Dance with me,” he said, in his own arrogant way. “Now, or your uncle will have you over his knee, and me meeting him at dawn.”

Claudia looked up and saw Alex, Uncle Bryce in tow, heading their way, so she stopped playing coy and took Chesterfield’s arm to accompany him onto the dance floor for the set forming.

“Just in time,” she said as she and Chesterfield clasped hands and turned to begin the dance. “Uncle Bryce is fuming. I can see the smoke from here. Oh, Lord, he and Alex are joining the set. He will hurt his leg.”

“
He
is fine. What did
you
mean by saying you were considering Baxter’s suit?”

“Why? Do you not think us a good match?” Claudia laughed at the appalled look on Chesterfield’s face as the dance separated them and they went off in opposite directions.

As Alex passed, she suggested that Claude leave Chesterfield to the older ladies. Her uncle simply leaned over to growl in her ear.

Claudia giggled.

As she awaited her turn to be accompanied down the strolling length of the dance line, Claudia gave her resistant suitor her undivided attention. “What I actually meant was that you need no longer worry about me, as Baxter has taken it upon himself to escort me wherever I would like to go.”

“What makes you think I was worried about you?”

“You spoke to my uncle and gave me away.”

“He should know better than to allow—” Chesterfield danced off on someone else’s arm, his eyes smoldering as, of necessity, he turned away.

“I like Baxter,” Claudia said when she passed Chesterfield.

When her uncle passed, she growled back. “I like Chesterfield.”

“You cannot possibly care for the swine,” Chesterfield said less than a beat later.

Claudia laughed and danced off with a soldier of the Royal Horse Guards, a handsome rake in a blue tunic.

“About Baxter,” Chesterfield snapped when they were partnered again.

“He makes me laugh and has taken me to shops and museums and introduced me to his friends, as I am introducing him to mine.”

“You do not want to meet the kind of
friend
that blackguard will introduce you to. And the parents of
your
friends will certainly not appreciate the kind of—”

“How else am I to find a proper husband?”

“There is nothing proper about Baxter Wakefield. What can your uncle be thinking?”

“He is thinking to marry me off and be shed of me.”

Chesterfield laughed aloud, catching the attention, and the admiring glances, of scores of women. “Do not pretend that giving you a season was Hawksworth’s idea. He would likely rather keep you chained to the schoolroom, as would I, if you were my—”

“If I were your what?” Claudia examined the look upon Chesterfield’s face with a great deal of hope. He appeared … arrested … uncomfortable, and very warm. “Why did you stop speaking?”

“Pay attention to the steps; you will trip me up.”

“When are you going back to St. Albans?”

“Tonight. Sooner.”

“The Duchess is giving a ball in my honor the day after Christmas. We are hoping to announce my betrothal that night.”

Chesterfield missed a step. “To whom?”

“I do not yet know. If I send you an invitation, will you come?”

“Probably not.”

“Will we see you at the Sefton ball this Saturday, then?”

“Certainly not.”

Alex approached Chesterfield as he returned a glowering Claudia to the Duchess of Basingstoke’s side.

“Stay away from her, Judson,” Alex said, after Claude was carted off by a group of young people. “You are too old for her.”

“I am not too old for you, and look where that got me. Dance with me.” Before Alex could protest, she was waltzed onto the floor with the man she had nearly married. “Believe me when I tell you that I am not old.”

“You are right, thirty is not old, but it is nearly double Claudia’s age. Claude will not be eighteen for three more weeks. She is too young for you.”

“Do you suppose I might corrupt her in ways that Baxter will not?”

“Keep your voice down. We are on the dance floor, for heaven’s sake.”

“Then let us get off the dance floor, by all means.” He waltzed her out the door and onto the terrace, but once he had her there, he simply tightened his hold and waltzed her closer and faster.

Alex pulled from his arms and stepped back to catch her breath.

“Let us have this out once and for all,” Chesterfield snapped. “I was good enough to marry you, if I would buy your way out of poverty, but not good enough to marry your niece? Is that not a double standard, Alex? I am disappointed, for I expected better of you.”

Alex held her hand to her hard-beating heart. “You are a good man, Judson. I know you are, but her uncle does not yet realize it. Besides, you are only giving the child your attention to annoy Hawksworth. I am more your age than Claudia.”

“And well I know it, but I thought we had already concluded that anything between us was impossible.”

“It
was
. It is,” she said, looking away. “I should never have said yes.”

“There is something you should know, Alex.”

She looked sharply up. “What?”

“I am not pining for you. I simply do not want to see her hurt.”