The Duke (32 page)

And it all came back.

She cried out in a wave of irrational terror, tearing her face away from Robert’s kiss, immediately trying to get up, but of course, she could not. He was too heavy, and that made her panic more. She shoved against his shoulders, thrashing and whimpering for him to stop.

“
What
?” she heard him say, panting. “What is it, Bel?”

“Get off of me!” she screamed.

Immediately he obeyed, fear leaping into his eyes. “What’s wrong? Are you all right? Did I hurt you?”

She was already halfway to the door, pulling her dress up and crying.

“Bel! Wait!”

She kept going.

Catching up to her in the blink of an eye, he suddenly blocked her exit. “What the hell is wrong?” he demanded, hitching up his trousers.

“Get out of my way.”

“Get out of your way?” he cried. “But we—we were—”

“We’re finished now. Good night, Your Grace,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Who’s finished?” Looking flabbergasted, he dragged his hand through his hair in bewilderment. “What is this? Some kind of game?”

“Yes. It’s a game. That’s all you get. Now get. Out. Of my way, Robert. I mean it.” Her whole body was shaking.

“Not a chance.” He planted his hand against the door. “What are you doing to me?”

She swallowed hard, her gaze following the corded muscles of his arm, the sculpted brawn of his shoulder. She backed away from him a step.

“A game?” His voice was frighteningly soft, full of menace. “I finally let myself care for you and you think you can just toy with me?”

“I can do whatever I please,” she said stiffly, dying inside, but she couldn’t lower her walls now even if she had wanted to. “You don’t own my body.”

“Ohhh, I see,” he whispered. “You want more money out of me, don’t you? That’s what this is. You greedy little cutthroat whore.”

She let out a strangled cry and slapped him across the face as hard as she could.

He lifted his hand to his cheek and looked at her with hellish wrath in his eyes.

Trembling, she stared back at him, shocked and horrified that she had just struck him, but the damage was done. The cause was lost.

“I’ll never pay for what should not be for sale,” he ground out. “I’ll never be that desperate.”

With that, he walked out and slammed the door in her face.

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The balmy golden morning that followed did nothing to shake Hawk’s anger, hurt, and disbelief. He should have been waking in his mistress’s bed, but it was barely seven and he was already fully dressed in a gentlemanly brown riding coat, buff leather breeches, and impeccably blacked high boots.

Not a hair out of place, his cravat more starchy than ever, he stalked down the stairs, moving with cold, mechanical precision. He called for his stallion to be saddled and went for a short, reckless gallop in Green Park.

Serves you right, Hawkscliffe, drawled his smug better sense. I warned you of this but you had to have her, didn’t you? Fool. Falling for a demirep.

Reaching the far end of the park all too soon, his disgust wasn’t nearly spent. He scowled in lordly disdain at the gauche Victory decorations littering the formerly tranquil green spaces of the park, then urged his stallion across Hyde Park Corner onto Serpentine Road. The morning sun sparkled on the water to his left as he raced his stallion, pounding down the straightaway.

Hadn’t he known all too well she was obsessed with money? She was constantly poring over her financial treatises, stock charts, and reports from the ‘Change. Idiot that he was, he had thought this an endearing quality that bespoke her sharp intelligence. He had been too stupidly proud of her wit to consider the implications of her greed.

He couldn’t believe she had slapped him, though perhaps she’d had every right to. He shouldn’t have sunk to the level of calling her a whore, but he had been driven as far as he could go, inside her sweet body, moments away from climax, when he had been thrust off, pushed away as if his lovemaking disgusted her. He had never felt so used and rejected in his life, he thought bitterly, standing in the stirrups, riding low over the stallion’s back as he swept onto the curving Ring in a cloud of dust.

He had been nothing but good to her. Never in a million years would he pay money to make love to Belinda Hamilton or any woman. Damn it, he had thought they were beyond that.

Perhaps their falling out was for the best. She was a courtesan. If he were wise, he would be relieved at the opportunity to distance himself before he got in any more deeply over his head. True, it hurt for now, but in the long run, it was safer to let her pass out of his life. She had certainly made it clear last night that she did not return his feelings.

Realizing his horse was getting winded, he slowed the animal to a trot.

The sight of the graveled path next to the Long Water, where he had walked with her on that first day, made him miserable. If she didn’t want him, that was just bloody fine with him. He sensed there were things she wasn’t telling him about her past, but how could he help her when she refused to trust him? She could keep her secrets for all he cared.

One thing was clear: The time had come to confront Dolph Breckinridge and bring this matter to its swift and bloody close. The sooner Miss High-And-Mighty Hamilton was out of his house and out of his life, the better.

Somehow that thought made his mood even fouler.

He returned to Knight House at a comfortable canter, barely aware of the traffic. He gave his trusty horse a loud pat on its gleaming neck and marched up to the door, drawing off his riding gloves. He felt his stomach rumbling, but when he strode into the breakfast room precisely at the usual hour, there was no sign of any omelette forthcoming, nor toast, nor juice, not so much as a cup of tea. His staff had vanished.

He searched in astonishment, going all the way to the kitchens without seeing a sign of life. Finally he pushed open the back door and found Belinda’s two little street urchins playing in the flagstone delivery area with the dogs.

The dogs bounded over to him, but he shoved them off, irked with their bouncy, tail-wagging good cheer.

The two little boys shot bolt upright at his entrance, standing at attention like wooden soldiers.

“Where is everyone?” he demanded.

They looked at each other, then stared up at him, their eyes round.

“I’m waiting.”

“Boat ride,” the shorter one blurted out.

Hawk blinked in bafflement. “Pardon?”

They held a conference, whispering to one another.

“Where is Cook?” Hawk demanded. “Where is my breakfast?”

“Cook and her helpers went on a boat ride, sir.”

“But—how can that be?”

“Miss Bel gave them a day off.”

“Oh, did she? Ha!” he exclaimed with a short bark of outraged laughter.

One of the dogs whined and crouched down at his feet. The littler boy ducked behind the taller one.

Hawk growled and pivoted, marching back inside. If Miss Bel saw fit to give his servants the day off, then Miss Bel could rouse her lovely arse out of bed and cook him breakfast. He ignored the two children sneaking along behind him, spying on him. He plowed up the stairs and stomped down the hallway, where he banged on the door of her apartment.

“Get up, you lazy wench,” he muttered under his breath. “Miss Hamilton! I demand you open this door! Don’t pretend you don’t hear me,” he said sarcastically into the crack of the door.

“She ain’t in there, gov.”

He whirled and found the two boys standing a few feet away. The littler one was sucking his thumb. Hawk scowled at the child.

“Aren’t you a bit old for that? Where is Miss Hamilton?”

“She’s gone.”

“What do you mean, ‘gone’?” Panic flashed through him. He tried the doorknob and it opened. He stepped into her bedroom and saw the boy was right. He checked in her dressing room and looked out the window, as if she might be hiding in the curtains.

He whirled back to them. “Where did she go?”

“Church.”

“And well she might!” he declared indignantly, but the relief that flooded through him made his knees go weak.

With a frown, he inspected the children. “Did she make
you
any breakfast?”

They shook their heads.

Hawk pursed his mouth. She must have been in quite a state to have forgotten about her urchins. He sighed in vexation and walked toward them, taking charge. “Well, come on, then. We men will figure this out. How difficult can it be?”

Marching resolutely to the kitchen, the duke of Hawkscliffe took off his morning coat, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and proceeded to burn half a dozen eggs while his two young accomplices looked on in trepidation.

“Cook usually puts butter on the pan first,” said Tommy after a long, judicious moment of staring at the blackened cinders that were to have been their omelettes.

Hawk threw down the spatula. “Now you tell me.”

“I forgot.”

“Give that to the dogs.”

Andrew wrinkled his nose. “They ain’t gonna eat it.”

In the end Hawk discovered the leftovers from last night’s dinner party in the cold cellar. He and the boys feasted on slices of cold roasted turkey with a crumbly wedge of lemon torte on the side.

He was due to appear at Coldfell’s villa in South Kensington shortly, so he left the children in William’s charge with the certainty that Bel would be home in time to feed them their noon meal. Himself, he would eat at White’s, thank you, because he no longer wanted to see her. What was there to say?

Before leaving to call on Coldfell, he marched into the library. Willing away memories of his mistress on her knees, he went to his desk and scratched out a terse note to Dolph Breckinridge:

I am now prepared to make our exchange. Eleven tomorrow night at the White Swan Inn on New Row by Bedford Street. Come alone.

H

He franked the note to Dolph, then grimly took to his horse again and set out for his promised meeting with the earl of Coldfell. He supposed that in Coldfell’s view, he had some explaining to do. He was not looking forward to it, but at least now he could assure the earl that he was about to bring this matter to a close.

Just as he exited the wrought-iron gates of Knight House, whom should he meet on horseback but the annoyingly cheerful young idealist, Clive Griffon, come to plague him again. A boyishly handsome youth of one-and-twenty, Griffon had high color in his smooth cheeks and a tangle of guinea gold curls.

“Your Grace, well met! I was just coming to call on you.”

“Ah, lucky day,” Hawk grumbled. The lad always looked so enthused about life.

“Beautiful weather, isn’t it?” he asked brightly as he turned his leggy white thoroughbred and began riding alongside Hawk.

“It’ll rain soon enough.”

Griffon laughed, then took it upon himself to escort him all the way to Coldfell’s villa in the cultured, semi rural gentility of South Kensington. The green and shady expanses had become a fashionable locale of quiet dignity for those who disliked the noise and the crowds, or who found the crescents and terrace houses too confining. Here were modest mansions, discreetly placed amid the trees, each surrounded by a few acres of grounds, and all within easy reach of Parliament.

Griffon prated all the way down Brompton Road. Hawk listened to the lad’s idealistic enthusiasms today for the sole reason that it was better than thinking about Belinda.

“What do you say on the issue of women, Griffon?” he blurted out, cutting off the boy’s speech against the corn laws.

“Women?” the lad exclaimed as they crossed Gloucester.

“Yes, women, Mr. Griffon. Females. The bloody
unfair
sex.”

“Forgive me, Your Grace, I fail to see what women have to do with any of this. Were we not discussing the state of the nation’s coffers?”

“My point exactly! That’s all women care about—getting into our pockets.”

“Right,” he said hesitantly, casting him a strange look.

Hawk’s attitude toward the boy softened from that point: all ill-used men needed to band together in this world of sly beautiful women.

“Look here, Griffon,” he said sternly as they trotted their horses past George Canning’s impressive new manor, “I’m going to give you a chance to state your case to Lord Coldfell. If he likes what you have to say, the seat is yours. Agreed?”

“Your Grace!” the lad said in awe, his eyes widening. “Yes, sir!" Then he began to gush with thanks at the opportunity to bring his views before the powerful earl.

“Humph,” Hawk snorted, then nodded toward Griffon’s horse. “That’s a fine bit o‘ blood you’ve got under you.”

Griffon grinned and gave the white horse’s neck a hearty slap. “He’s descended from Eclipse, I don’t mind telling you. Want to see what he can do?”