When the Duchess Said Yes (22 page)

Hawke jerked upright, shielding Lizzie. He knew that voice, drunk or sober: Sir Richard Avant, baronet. While they’d ostensibly been at school, he and Avant had shared enough misdeeds and mischief to entertain a whole regiment, and he’d never forget that braying voice.

But not here, not now. And definitely not directed at Lizzie.

He could just make out the wherry with a gentleman beside the waterman, straining to keep pace with them. The barge was already leaving the other vessel behind, the distance between them growing with every second. As it was, he could scarcely see their shadow any longer. He could have ignored Avant entirely and pretended he hadn’t heard him. Likely Avant was so drunk that he’d forget he’d seen Hawke, let alone Lizzie.

And yet because it was Lizzie—and because Hawke had been drinking, too, as well as having been unceremoniously interrupted from the most enjoyable seduction of his life—he could not keep quiet.

“Shut your mouth, Avant, you drunken whoreson,” he roared across the water. “The lady’s not one of your posed wenches, but my goddess, mind? My goddess!”

Avant did not reply, at least not that Hawke could hear. But from another boat came a loud huzzah of approval,
and someone else applauded. Satisfied, even vindicated, he turned back to Lizzie.

She wasn’t leaning against the mermaid any longer, and after a split second’s concern, he found her, huddled on the deck. With his coat draped over her shoulders like a tent, she sat with her arms wrapped around her bent knees and her skirts pulled tightly over them, her face hidden by the damp tangle of her hair. She had also pulled her bodice back in place, which, though regrettable, was probably for the best.

At once remorse swept through him, and he quickly crouched down before her.

“Lizzie,” he said softly, smoothing her hair from her forehead. “Are you well?”

Swiftly she looked up. “Of course I am well. I only wished to not be in your way, that was all. Do you know that man?”

“I regret to admit that I do,” he said contritely. “Or I did.”

“That low, despicable rogue,” she said with a fury he hadn’t expected. “That vile, disgusting
worm
! He is no gentleman, that is certain.”

“No,” Hawke agreed, resolving never to give her any reason to call him names. “He’s only a baronet. He’d no right to address me so familiarly, not without my leave.”

“But what he said of
me
, Hawke!” she said. “I will never forgive him. That is, I will never meet him to be able to forgive him. Is he gone now? Did he flee like the liverish coward he must be?”

“Gone,” Hawke said. “Lizzie, I’m sorry that—”

“No!” she said fiercely, throwing her arms around his shoulders. “You have nothing to apologize for, Hawke, nothing! You told him exactly what needed to be said, the filthy rascal, and—and—no one has ever, ever defended me like that!”

She kissed him again, most enthusiastically, leaving
him no choice but to kiss her in return. He’d never been a hero to a woman like this before. He didn’t think he’d done anything particularly heroic, considering that no dragons had been slain or maidens rescued. All he’d done was shout insults across the water. But he discovered he liked it—being heroic in Lizzie’s eyes, that is, not hurling insults—and he liked even more how it seemed to fan her passions all over again. In fact, from the way she was kissing him, he was guessing she wouldn’t mind if he shifted her onto one of the benches and took her here, now, in the barge and under the moonlight, her spread thighs pale against those plump red cushions and—

Damnation, what was he thinking? Here he’d planned this as a romantic little cruise on the Thames to put her at ease, and yet once again his careful planning had been torn to shreds and tossed aside by Lizzie and his own raging cock, surely the most willful pairing in creation.

How the devil was he supposed to woo her like a lady, the way he’d promised, when there was nothing ladylike about her response? How could he possibly conduct a measured, refined seduction when she insisted on plunging on ahead and being so charmingly, wickedly irresistible?

It was just as well they were nearly to the house.

The old brick-and-stone water gate at the end of the garden loomed before them, with servants with lanterns waiting with boat hooks to help draw the barge alongside the landing. He sensed that Lizzie was ready to leap ashore ahead of him—he’d only to recall how she’d raced down the aisle earlier today—and he kept a firm grip on her arm. The last thing he wished was to have to chase her through the garden in the dark.

But to his surprise, she paused on the landing to gaze up at the mossy coat of arms carved into the keystone of the water gate’s arch.

“Those are the Hawkesworth arms, aren’t they?” she asked. “And now they’re mine as much as yours?”

“They are,” he said, though somehow he’d nearly forgotten that she was his wife and the Duchess of Hawkesworth. “Or they will be in the morning.”

“In the morning,” she repeated, glancing slyly up at him. “Faith, I’d never thought we’d have to wait until then.”

That was all the encouragement he needed. Swiftly he hurried her through the garden, a footman with a lantern trotting before them. In his haste, he didn’t bother with going around to the grand door at the front of the house, but chose the library door instead because it was closer. He shooed away the footman with the lantern because he wanted to kiss Lizzie again without her becoming self-conscious about an audience.

But of course there were no candles lit in the library, not at this hour, making him feel like a thief in his own house. He stumbled over a table in the darkened library and swore, and Lizzie laughed, which made her easy to find in the dark, and easier still to kiss again. His only thought now was to get her to his bed—his soft, comfortable, familiar bed, where he was equally at home in the dark or not—but when she climbed the stairs ahead of him, he’d such a splendid hint of the shape of her bottom through her skirts that he had to stop on the landing to kiss her again, and fondle that bottom as well.

“My bedchamber,” he said in between the kisses. “It’s closer.”

“I’ll have to send for my maid to help me undress,” she said breathlessly as he half carried her up the last few steps and down the hall. “I can’t—”

“I’ll undress you,” he said, and shoved open the last door, the door to his bedchamber.

His bedchamber
.

Lizzie had never seen a gentleman’s bedchamber before. Having a childhood with neither a father nor brothers as examples, she had vaguely imagined a gentleman’s rooms as some kind of male lair, full of dark, forbidden male secrets and mysteries. Instead Hawke’s bedchamber looked much like any other in a large house, though it was literally very dark and old-fashioned, with heavy paneling, carved to resemble draped cloth, that was nearly black. The bed seemed enormous, with carved posts as thick as tree trunks and an overhanging canopy, and when she thought of how soon she’d be lying in it with him, she flushed and looked swiftly away. There were more pictures than in ordinary rooms, not only hanging on the walls but also propped along the mantelpiece and on top of tables; knowing Hawke, that was entirely to be expected.

What she hadn’t expected, though, was to find his Italian manservant, Giacomo, standing patiently beside the fireplace. He looked as if he’d been there all day, waiting. Perhaps he had.

“Your Grace,” he murmured, bowing as soon as they entered. “Your Grace.
Le mie congratulazioni più rispettoso
.”

It took Lizzie a moment to realize that Giacomo wasn’t simply being redundant and that the second “Your Grace” had been for her. The rest she couldn’t begin to decipher.

“What did he say, Hawke?” she whispered, hanging behind him. She’d encountered Giacomo only once before, but that time as well she’d been bedraggled. Charlotte’s warning about making a good impression as a mistress to her new staff was ringing soundly in her conscience, and when she glimpsed her reflection in the looking glass over the mantelpiece—her unbound hair matted and tangled, her kerchief missing, her once lovely blue silk gown now ruined from the river spray and the
dirt from the garden—she realized how completely she’d failed.

“He wished us most respectful congratulations, that is all,” Hawke said. “Thank you, Giacomo, but I’ve no need of you tonight. You may go.”

Giacomo nodded, but added an eloquent gesture of dismay. “Shall I send for the maid of Her Grace, sir?”

“No,” Hawke said. “Liz—ah, Her Grace wants nothing more, nor do I, except for you to leave us. Now.”

Giacomo bowed again and backed from the room, closing the door with practiced silence.

Lizzie groaned. “Oh, Hawke, I’ve made such a wretched, horrid beginning with your servants! What Giacomo must think of me—”

“He shouldn’t be thinking of you at all,” Hawke said, unbuttoning the long row of buttons on his waistcoat. He was undressing as casually as if they’d been wed for years, not hours, tossing the embroidered waistcoat carelessly across a nearby table as he sat in a high-backed armchair to unbuckle his shoes. “Though because Giacomo is a man and an Italian man at that, he is likely beguiled by you already. As am I.”

“But you are my husband,” Lizzie protested.

“And your lover,” he said. “Mind, I must be that first.”

“My lover, then,” she said. “Either way, I should hope you
are
besotted with me.”

He’d pulled off his stockings and dropped them to the carpet, and now had turned to unbuckling his breeches at the knee. She couldn’t recall seeing a gentleman’s bare feet and calves before, large and bony and muscular and … hairy. She hadn’t known that gentlemen had hair on their legs, and it was oddly embarrassing and intimate and arousing at the same time.

Faith, if she felt like this about his
feet
, what would
happen when he uncovered other, less ordinary parts of his person?

“I told you I was,” he said, pulling his neckcloth free of his shirt. “You’re remarkably easy to become beguiled by. Or is that with? No matter. Can you truly not undress yourself?”

She blushed. “Of course I can.”

Quickly she began pulling out the pins that held the front of her gown to her stomacher. He was watching her, watching her closely. She knew it without looking back, and that knowledge made her fingers unsteady. From long habit without her own lady’s maid, she carefully stuck the pins back into the edge of the gown, ready for the next wearing. At once she realized what a frugal, housewifely thing this was to do, with none of the seductive carelessness of a duchess.

She didn’t dare look his way, afraid she’d see disappointment on his face.

But what could she do? All the confidence she’d felt on the river, when she’d pretended to be a mermaid, had vanished. She’d no idea of how to undress herself seductively for her husband, and so with a racing heart she simply did it as she always had, shrugging her arms free of the gown, unpinning her stomacher, then untying her petticoats and her hoops. She let it all drop to the floor in a puddle of cloth and cane around her feet, then stepped clear. She bent as gracefully as she could, meaning to gather everything up to later take to her own rooms.

“Stop,” he said, his voice gruff. “Leave it.”

Startled, she looked up. He was leaning forward in the chair as he watched her. He’d a half smile on his face, and his eyes were heavy-lidded, so intent on her body that she blushed again. She hadn’t much left to cover her: her stays, covered in apple-green silk brocade, her Holland linen shift, white stockings, garters, and shoes.

“Your legs are even more handsome than I remember from when you climbed that infernal wall,” he said, his gaze not leaving them. “What color are your garters?”

“Blue,” she said softly. “Blue silk, embroidered with forget-me-nots.”

“Forget-me-nots,” he repeated. “As if I’d ever forget anything about you, sweeting. Raise your shift and show them to me.”

It seemed an odd request. But then she remembered how she’d felt when he’d first pulled off his stockings; perhaps it would be the same for him to see her garters. She took the hem of her shift and lifted it slowly up above her knees so that he could see not only her garters but the pale skin of her thighs above them.

He didn’t blink, but he swallowed, swallowed hard: a sure sign that she’d had a powerful effect upon him. So she’d guessed right. He was intrigued, even fascinated, and she felt her earlier confidence returning.

“I should take off my shoes,” she said, almost apologetically. “I fear they’re ruined.”

“I’ll buy you more,” he said. “As many as you like.”

“Thank you,” she said, lowering her voice as if that were a confidence. “You are most … most generous.”

She perched on the edge of his armchair’s footstool, before him but just beyond his reach, crossing one leg at the knee to reach the buckle on her shoe. She took much longer than was really necessary, letting him see her garters again and a good deal more besides as she let each shoe drop to the floor with the same nonchalance that he’d shown with his own clothes.

This time while he watched her, he suddenly rubbed his fingers along the inside of his shirt’s collar, as if it had grown too tight. She smiled, thinking that perhaps this business of undressing for one’s husband was much easier than she’d imagined.

Much easier, and much, much more enjoyable. She
felt warm all over from his watching alone, almost as much as if he were caressing her.

“Now your stays,” he said, his voice rumbling low. “Take them off.”

She rose from the footstool, reaching around to the back of her stays. This wasn’t going to be as easy, or as graceful, either. Her stays laced down the back and had been pulled tight and knotted by Charlotte’s maid this morning. The stays were new, the most stylish pair she’d ever owned, and heavily boned in the French fashion to make the best of her figure. But because they were new, they were also still stiff and even more unyielding, and the more she fumbled with the back laces through her tangled hair, the more flushed and flustered she became.

“I told you I’d help you,” he said, standing.