An Unforgettable Rogue (2 page)

Chapter two

Hawk saw a smile curve his wife’s pale lips and he bundled her close as he regarded the two silent men by the open door of his carriage—Chesterfield, vigilant, scowling, the Vicar, a study in apprehension.

Hawk nodded. “I’ll just take her to bed, shall I?”

The Vicar’s lips thinned. Chesterfield growled and made to charge, but the Vicar stopped his forward surge. “You do not even know her,” her discarded bridegroom accused over the struggling Vicar’s shoulder.

Hawk’s heart beat at a frantic pace, for something in the accusation stung deep. He raised a speaking brow. “Not know her? I assure you that no man knows Alexandra better than I do.” After today, he no longer believed it, but he would not give her erstwhile suitor the satisfaction of hearing as much.

Someone shut the carriage door, severing Chesterfield from sight, but rather than the exultation Hawk would have expected, he experienced a flash of sympathy for the man. He, too, was about to lose Alex, though not quite so soon.

“She does not want you,” the malcontent shouted, negating Hawk’s compassion. “She wants me.”

Upon the blade-sharp echo of that sobering thrust, Hawk’s carriage began to rattle and dip, shiver and clatter, as it crept across the cobbled terrace before Holy Trinity Church.

When, at length, the vehicle pulled safely into London’s Sloane Square traffic, exultation filled Hawk, euphoria, followed by a shot of blind panic.

Yes, he had gotten Alexandra safe away, but Chesterfield’s parting volley, echoing in Hawk’s brain like a death knell, made him question every decision he had made since his father’s death.

Until today, he thought he could not fail Alex any worse than he already had, but suppose he was wrong? Suppose he had just broken her heart by stopping her from marrying the man she loved?

Could
she love Chesterfield? It hardly seemed possible, given their dissimilarities. Then again, she might have changed, as he certainly did.

He
had all but died and risen from the dead. Dying changed a man. War changed him the more. There were his scars, to begin with; how would Alexandra feel, once she saw the likes of them in the light of day?

She might take one look and run screaming into Chesterfield’s arms.

He and Alex had certainly switched places, and in more than looks, Hawk feared, for with his return, he might now become the thorn in her side.

And what would he do with her, now that he had her? Not that he did not know precisely what he wished to do. He was not so broken that he did not want to be her husband in every way, though desire and action were two entirely different matters. As were desire and duty.

Or trust and honor.

Hawk slipped a wisp of his wife’s rich nutmeg hair behind her ear and examined her in the fading rays of afternoon light filtering through the uncurtained carriage window.

During her growing up years, none of Alexandra Huntington’s features had seemed to match. Her eyes were too big and too bright for her small pale face. Her eyebrows, like unmatched wings, appeared drawn by an angry hand, brows one wanted to trace with a fingertip. Hawk did so now, amazed to see how much better they fit, nearly two years and one war, later.

Her mouth was still too wide, her lips too full, her nose elegant but tip-tilted. Yet the amalgamate had become all of a piece, falling into symmetrical and harmonious placement, of a sudden, making of his ill-favored hoyden, a beauty, striking, too remarkable not to be kissed.

Like the beast his scars proclaimed him, Hawk wanted to awaken the slumbering princess in just that way, or lay siege to her tower fortress. Or was beauty storming his beastly rogue’s lair, even in sleep?

Difficult to tell which tale fit. Hawk knew only that in this marriage he had created from whole cloth, he must take care not to play the jackal and claim her for himself.

Rogue wolf, after all, was the role for which he had been born and bred. But Alexandra’s role, and which of them would maintain the sturdier fortress, remained to be seen.

He already knew that there would be no happily ever after for them.

Still, to Hawk’s surprise, something akin to anticipation began to take root deep within him. He looked forward to every minute he would spend in Alexandra’s life, for however short the duration.

His decision to give her an annulment and set her free had been difficult. But not consummating their marriage might be easier than he expected, given his physical condition, and her penchant for staid, lumbering bridegrooms.

On the other hand, the course upon which he was determined might also be fraught with peril, for he could never tell Alex he was giving her up for her own good. If he did, she would fight him, rather than leave him, for she was in the habit of placing the welfare of others before her own. And he could not be so cruel as to pretend dislike, or worse, disinterest.

He could not dispirit so bright a flame.

A low, simmering flame, capable of flaring into blaze at any time, he remembered as he watched her sleep.

Unable to keep from stoking her fire and awakening her, Hawk touched his lips to hers in that age old, mythical rite. But Beauty turned the tale and awoke her astonished beast by deepening the kiss and bringing him to alert and rigid attention. A startling and extraordinary turn of events, in every respect, for Alex was exceeding eager, and he was sexually aroused for the first time since the battle of Waterloo.

Impatient to prove his prowess and taste her once more, Hawk parted her soft, sweet lips with his own, taking the kiss to a deeper, more intimate level, both testing himself and gauging his wife’s reaction.

Alex moaned. She sighed. She moved restlessly against him, enhancing his physical reaction. But rather than rejoice over his unexpected progress, Hawk worried about the
lessons
her blackguard of a bridegroom might have taught her.

He did not remember the imp kissing with such fervor before. Not that he had kissed her above twice, and then, in a brotherly fashion, except on the day of their wedding, when he had kissed her with promise, before saying goodbye.

How blind he had been, how foolish, kissing scores of others, when the flower of his youth could kiss like a dream.

Still, Hawk would give his fortune—if he were still in possession of it—to know the name of the man who had taught his wife this exquisite lesson.

To his delight, Alex sighed, then her lids fluttered, and her eyes, bright and soft as turquoise velvet, opened at last. For a moment, she appeared, for all the world, as if she were that princess of legend, waking from a years-long sleep … her eyes growing wider and wider as she regarded him.

As if seeking a touchstone to reality, she scanned the interior of the carriage with her gaze, the passing scenery, then his face, again, taking in and examining his every flaw.

Hawk watched a range of telling expressions flit across her amazingly unguarded features, though, not a one of them revealed her revulsion or disgust.

He supposed she must need to verify what might seem like a dream, but in the verification, her eyes awash with unshed tears, she appeared less certain as the silent seconds passed, but more curious.

Not fearful, nor pitying, but not best pleased either.

Then her frown deepened and her eyes turned to blue flames, and she lashed out and struck him square in the jaw. “Dead,” she shouted, her trembling voice a rusty rasp. “We thought you were dead. How dare you let us believe it.”

“Alexandra, Alex. Shh, calm down.”

“A year.” She smacked his shoulders. “A blasted year. No. Longer than that. How could you?” She slapped his arms as he tried to brace her. “Where the blazes have you been?”

When Alex kicked her dead husband’s shin, he winced. But when she smacked his thigh with a fist, all color left his face. Pain etched the harsh angularity of his firm jaw and ashen features, further whitening the new lines carved there. He had suffered—she recognized that now—and her wrath pricked her.

“You lived while we wept because you died.” Broken and elated by the shock of his return, Alex begged to understand. “Why did you not tell us?”

“I was not capable, not for some long time.”

“Because you were wounded?”

He nodded.

“Unable to speak?”

“For the most part, no.”

“You
could
speak?”

“When I was conscious.”

“You were unconscious for a year?” Her voice rose.

He winced.

“You lost your memory, then?”

Denial, again.

Alex wanted to strike him every time he refused an offered excuse. “
Someone
should have written to us.” She shoved his shoulder. “I am so….” Her sob took her by surprise, fast and wild and from the depths of her soul. She grasped his lapels to anchor herself in a careening world. And when that was not enough, she clutched him about the neck, afraid she would shatter, if he did not hold her together.

He held tight.

The storm did not last long. Alex was glad, for rage was exhausting. “I am furious with you,” she said after a calm moment.

“I know you are. It is no more than I expect.”

“And deserve.” She accepted his handkerchief.

Hawk nodded. “I do deserve it. Beat me, if you will, but mind my left leg … and my face.” There, he had said it, Hawk thought with relief. He brought his ugliness into the open.

At once solemn and assessing, Alex reached toward his battered and badly-mended face, stopped, and pulled her hand back, as if he might burst into flame … as if touching him repulsed her.

Hawk rejected anguish, and an overwhelming need to crush her in his embrace once more, and donned his old devil-may-care mask. “What, Alexandra? Am I not still a handsome rogue? Does my countenance not please you?”

She frowned and reached again, hesitated again. And after too long a time to be borne, she extended her hand the entire distance between them, to finger a coil of the overlong hair lapping at his shoulders, unadulterated amazement overtaking her.

Hawk braced himself against the grateful quiver that her touch, even on his hair, engendered. “It’s beastly,” he said. “I know. Uncivilized, like me. If you find it in your heart to forgive me, can you tame me, do you think?” Would she even care to?

“I may never forgive you.”

“I guessed as much, but I am the eternal optimist.”

“You are the eternal charmer, but you will not charm your way back into my good graces.”

“I applaud your perception and your determination.”

Alex shrugged and fingered his overlong hair. “You remind me of a cat,” she said. “A night-stalking lion, jungle-bred and ravenous, but I am your huntress.”

“Odd, you remind me less of a cat’s doom than its plaything.”

“A mouse?” she said with more than a trace of indignance, her defense at the ready, if he did not miss his guess.

“Catnip,” he corrected.

“Oh.” Her turquoise eyes widened, making her appear even more beautiful, coy, flirtatious, yet naïve, unmistakably in need of a good loving, God help him.

The notion brought his body to hard attention once more. Rejoicing inwardly over the reaction, Hawk settled his delectable wife more intimately against him to enhance and savor the torture, her breasts no more than a stroke and a kiss away.

She moved a lock of his hair from his eyes, her warm breath bathing the scars on his face like a blessing, and Hawk caught her familiar, violet scent with a new rush of expectation.

As he sat stunned and entranced, she smoothed his beard, which shrouded the worst of his scars, and all but cupped his face.

In that instant, Hawk ached to turn his head and set his lips to her palm, knowing full well that if he did so, a slap might be his for the taking. Her very touch unmanned him, made him want to rush dangerously forward.

Such a mad turnabout—the wicked-as-sin Duke of Hawksworth, moonstruck, over the girl he once treated like a pesky pup.

But the paradox was not new. Alexandra, herself, the memory of her, laughing, teasing, driving him daft, had kept him going, kept him fighting for his life during those endless, pain-wracked months after Waterloo.

And all that time, a world and a war away, a lifetime away, when he still expected to die of his wounds, he was becoming enthralled with his own wife.

“I like it,” she said—of his beard, he presumed, for she was stroking it—but he was too taken with her touch to focus on anything else. “It makes you look a danger,” she said, catching his attention, as she fingered his scar.

“I am a danger; make no mistake—jungle-bred and rapacious, as you say. And well you should remember and keep a safe distance.”

But before he could garner her promise, Hawk was forced to close his eyes, as he entered hell, or heaven, for she had begun to trace the red, uneven welt with a gentle touch, from beside his eye, along its raised and puckered surface, down his cheek and into the depths of his beard, where it disappeared near his chin.

At the wonder of her touch, remorse rose in him, chiding him and ordering him to make amends. He could not keep her—he must not—for she merited better than a battered hulk for husband, a man who would walk away with no glance back. An undeserving fool who knew not what he had, but sought instead what he could never have—his father’s approval.

Why did he not appreciate the people who cared about him, until he all but lost them? His nieces, Beatrix and Claudia, his Uncle Giff, Alex’s Aunt Hildy, and Alexandra, herself.

They
were his family, though all of them, especially Alex, might have done better to remember him as he was, rather than see what he had become. A beast. Ugly. Disfigured.

“For your sake,” Alex said. “I am sorry your scars forced you to join the flawed human race, but you are still the Bryceson I hero-worshipped.” With a fingertip, she soothed the hideous knot of discolored flesh nearest his brow. “Does it pain you—other than when you are rightfully beaten for your thoughtlessness?”

Hawk opened his eyes and feasted upon her, struck anew by her beauty, but more by her words. He had not felt like
Bryceson
for a long, long time … neither had he felt anything near human.