Linda Needham (8 page)

“Where did it come from?”

“From?”

“Was the message to your husband posted from London? Portsmouth? Where?”

So Hawkesly
was
expecting a message from someone. “Hmmmm…I’m not sure. But I believe it was a private message, not sent through the royal post. And I don’t recall any markings on the outside to indicate its origins.” Not that she had even set eyes on the thing yet. Kate slipped her legs over the log and stood up with the fallen beech between them. “But now that you mention it, I think I’ll just run back to Hawkesly Hall and open the message myself. Just in case—”

“No!” He’d not only stepped over the log, but he’d caught her upper arm. “You won’t!”

“I know it’s not entirely honest—”

“It’s thoroughly dishonest, madam!”

“But, after all, he is my husband. My helpmate. Maybe this will tell me how soon he’ll be home.”

“Why do you need to know right now?” His face had grown stormy and dark. “Are you planning a happy surprise to welcome him?”

With a brick to the forehead. “Hardly.”

“You don’t sound very pleased at the prospect.”

“I’m feeling quite the opposite.” A little truth wouldn’t hurt him.

“Bloody hell, you haven’t seen him in nearly two years!”

“Exactly the problem.” Though the blighter could only have known how long her husband had been gone if he were the culprit. “Reuniting with my husband is a moment that I’ve been dreading for all that time.”

“Dreading?” The man looked incensed, dropped his creel on the log.

“As I would dread a visit from the very devil.”

“Why is that?” His frown deepened. “Have you done something that he’ll not approve of?”

“You mean besides wearing these britches and turning his abandoned hunting lodge into a sportsman paradise and loaning his clothes to a perfect stranger and…”

“And…?”

And so many other things she could never tell him, things that he’d discover for himself soon enough.

“And so you see, I need to know his plans before he arrives, because…well, I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

Kate touched his damp sleeve at his elbow, dallied with the folds in the linen, playing the defenseless damsel as she whispered, “Of him.”

He grunted. “You’re afraid of your husband?”

Kate sighed deeply. “Dear Colonel Huddleswell, I’m terrified of him.”

“You’re terrified of a man you knew for all of ten minutes?” He’d slipped there in his facts as well. She’d
never mentioned the brevity of their wedding day to anyone, ever. The shame of it had burned her cheeks for months afterward.

Kate shook her head and leaned seductively against his arm, slipping her hand through his, causing the man to sputter. “Ten minutes was more than enough to know the kind of man he is. I know his reputation. Hard-tempered and cruel.”

Hawkesly’s mouth worked as though trying to form an answer. His breathing deepened to a near growl as she leaned more completely against him, her breasts moving lightly against his chest. “Where did you hear that, madam?”

“It’s true.” And it felt so wonderful to be seducing him against his will, nearly as wonderful as the thrill of her nipples playing against the wool of his waistcoat. “Will you stay with me?”

“Stay?”

“Please, Colonel.” She held tightly to his spellbound gaze, savoring the rodlike hardness at the front of his trousers, the heat of him. Like dancing in the moonlight, in the middle of the day. Too bad that it couldn’t last.

“Madam, do you know what you’re doing?” She’d obviously scandalized him.

His perfect, put-away-in-a-box bride.

“Promise that you’ll stay beside me when my husband comes. To protect me.”

His face had gone fuming red, his eyes on fire as he took hold of her forearms and stood her away. “I bloody well will not!”

“I know we’ve only just met, but I feel like I know you very well.” She grabbed hold of his shirtfront and pulled him down to her, till they were sharing every breath. “Better than I know my own husband. Isn’t that amazing?”

Then she kissed him, pressed her mouth against her husband’s, just to startle him, to put him firmly in his place, expecting coolness, but finding a kind of heat she’d never felt before.

Searing and slick, tasting like the creek, the sun when she nibbled. Quick became languid, rhythmic. She kissed him until her knees sagged, until he was kissing her back.

Until he was breathing like a stallion and growling like a bear.

Until she knew she had to stop. She pulled well away from him, her raging bull, who looked anything but fully in control.

She clasped her hands together over her heart and said in her most seductive voice, “Remember, Colonel, I’m counting on you.”

And then she bolted from him into the wooded pathway, found her mare and rode hard toward the hall. She planned to beat him there, to hold off the moment of reckoning for as long as she could.

Jared stood rooted to the ground, his brain sodden and slow, his groin on fire with unslaked lust for her, his juices roaring through his veins.

“She kissed me,” he heard himself say, dazzled, slack-jawed and staring after her, gazing toward the shadowy opening in the forest.

He was thrilled, burning, anticipating bliss in abundance with his bride, and yet…

Something was wrong here.

Not that she had kissed him, but that—

“Bloody hell!” His innocent little bride had just kissed another man!

A
nd that bloody kiss of hers wasn’t just a peck of appreciation.

Or a simple
thank you for your kindness, Colonel Huddleswell.

Or
blessings on your rainbow trout.

No, that kind of kiss needed a private chamber and golden firelight and softly scented silk.

And the sanctity of a marriage bed….

“Damnation!” Seething with a green-tinted jealousy that was becoming far too familiar, Jared climbed the rest of the way to the road, but the woman was gone.

Vanished again without a trace, though he could still feel the imprint of her breasts against his chest, the arching shape of her mouth!

Doubtless off to plant another rousing kiss on another unsuspecting guest.

The hell she would! Jared stalked the mile to the lodge at full steam, and dropped his creel and his catch on the recording table in front of Magnus. She must be here somewhere, his flighty, faithless wife flirting with everyone, trailing a school of sportsmen in her wake.

“Damn fine rainbow you landed, Huddleswell! Congratulations, old man!”

“Thank you, Gilmott. Now if you’ll excuse—”

Breame joined them, followed by Fitchett. “What did you catch him on, Colonel?”

Hell, another bloody fishing inquisition. But he’d learned one thing about anglers—they prized secrecy. “Now that would be telling, gentlemen.”

“A green bumble?” Gilmott clicked his tongue and raised his bristly brows.

“Wooly worm? Midge pupa?”

“A family secret, Fitchett,” Jared said, scanning over the tops of their heads for any sign of his wife.

The taste of her mouth was still on his lips, the warmth of her breath, her palm against his chest, playing with the buttons on his waistcoat.

“Now, if you’re needing a partner tomorrow morning, Huddleswell—”

“I won’t be, Breame.” Jared left the forecourt and strode through the lodge and up to his room for a change into dry clothes. He struggled with the steamy wool and the wet linen and the stubborn buttons until he was sweltering hot, every move trapping him more tightly inside his clothes.

Blast the woman for her treachery! He’d expected obedience and patience and above all, faithfulness in a wife. Instead he’d wed himself to just the opposite.

She kissed me!
And it burned him still.

A half hour later he was descending the stairs, fully charged with confronting his wife.

Magnus would know where she was. He got halfway through the forecourt when he was stopped by a young man who was offering him an envelope. “This is for you, sir.”

Jared took it and glanced down at the familiar seal.

One so nearly like his own, in a hand he knew well. And on the front:

In Ross’s hand.

“Where did you get this?”

“Just now, up at the hall. Lady Hawkesly said for me to tell you that it belongs to you, sir.”

“To me?”

For him, Hawkesly. Not Colonel Huddleswell. Which could only mean—

Damnation! So the brazen woman had known who he was all along! She’d been playing him, reeling him in slowly like one of her precious fish.

“Where’s her ladyship now?”

“At the hall, sir. Leastwise, she was when I left ’bout a quarter hour ago.”

“Thank you, boy.”

Minutes later Jared was in the saddle, the tick of outrage magnifying in his brain, the inconceivable realization that he’d been duped. Betrayed by an utterly
shameless slip of a woman who’d had too much idle time on her hands for too long.

A danger to herself and to him, to everyone and everything around her.

That was about to change.

He was soon galloping down the treed slope and over the stone bridge that emptied into the long drive up. Hawkesly Hall popped into view a portion at a time, its high, honey-gold limestone fence wall and the steep gable of the east wing beyond that.

The angular vista brought him up short, stopped him in his tracks.

Hawkesly Hall. The seat of his success, his titles and achievements.

And yet familiar to him only in its angles and color and size. Whenever he’d thought of the place that he called home, it was from this vantage point. Off-center and always from outside the stately standards of the massive stone gateposts and the intricate iron gate standing between him and the hall.

A rattling, lonely distance he’d never felt before now. Because Hawkesly Hall had never really been a home to him. He knew very little about it—hadn’t stayed there more than three months total in the four years he’d owned it.

A stranger in his own home.

Perhaps it was time to give country house parties and balls. Here, where life was cool and serene.

Or would be once he’d regained control.

Jared gave his horse a quick heel and cantered decisively through his front gate, only to come to a gravel-
strewing halt at the edge of the circular lawn.

Or what had been a lawn the last time he’d been here. Now it looked more like a broad meadow, tall grass and daisies. Complete with three goats grazing in the center alongside a half-dozen sheep!

“Grady, dooooon’t!” The wailing screech came from behind him, advancing, becoming a long peel of laughter.

And then a golden-haired little girl ran past him, laughing, followed by a blond lad, lanky and familiar, and then that same huge, black hound, loping and barking.

“It’s my apple, Grady!”

“But I’m the apple monster, Mera, and I’m after you! Grrrrr!”

The same children.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha! Eeeeeek!” The trio went running off around the corner of the house, the boy growling, lumbering after the little girl.

Had the woman no sense at all, inviting all the wild children from the countryside to run like rabbits all over his estate? Where the devil had they all come from? Where were their parents? More precisely, why did they seem so much at home here?

“Whatever game you’ve been playing, my dear Lady Hawkesly, it going to end right now. Whether you like it or not.”

And he had no doubt that she would not.

He dropped from the horse as he reached the front steps and was just tying the reins to the hitch ring when the laurel hedge that skirted the foundation of the hall began thrashing violently.

“This way!” Which precipitated a stream of noisy children pouring out of the hedge.

The one in the lead saw Jared and stopped. “Look, Dori! It’s the man from the river!”

“Hello, sir!”

They suddenly mobbed around him as though he were a dancing bear at an exhibition.

“Did your fish win, sir?”

Jared felt a tug on his coat sleeve. “It should win, sir! It was the biggest fish I ever seen.”

“Are you going to eat it all yourself?”

The eldest girl took the boy’s hand, frowning hard. “Healy Connett, you know very well that Lady Kate will make the man share.”

Jared caught the girl’s eye, his only hope to wedge in a word between all the shouting and shoving. “Where’s Lady Hawkesly?”

He got a deeper frown from the girl. “She won’t like you coming here, sir. Guests aren’t allowed at the hall. They’re supposed to stay at the lodge.”

“She’ll allow me, young lady.” The girl cringed and bit at her lip and he was instantly sorry for his gruffness. “Please tell me where I can find her.”

“I’m here, my lord.”

“She’s there!” The little girl who was missing her two front teeth grinned up at him and pointed to the top of the wide stairs and his heart took off like a rocket.

Kate was standing above him on the porch landing, framed between the two white columns like some painted goddess. She’d changed out of her britches into a soft yellow, spriggy dress and an apron, and was now surrounded by the swarm of children.

“He’s come to see us, Lady Hawkesly, the man who caught that big old fish!”

“Yes, I recognize him, Justin.”

“I warned him that you don’t allow guests on this side of the wall.”

“I think we’ll have to make an exception in this case, Glenna.”

“But he looks dangerous, Lady Hawkesly.”

“It’s all right, Glenna, I’ll handle the matter from here on.” The woman drew herself up in a square-shouldered challenge. “Please take all the little ones to the kitchen to help the Miss Darbys peel all those apples.”

Who the bloody hell were the Miss Darbys?

“Boys, you’ll go on with Jacob and gather firewood—lots of it. Winter will be here in no time. Go on, now, please.”

His wife’s gaze never left his as the mob of children broke into separate swarms and sped away with their leaders, leaving the entrance suddenly quiet but for the birds and the winnowing breeze and the thunking of his heart.

She stood still and staring, her feet planted firmly, her chin high, as though the porch and its tall, palladian arched roof had been a hard-fought hillfort that she planned to defend to the death.

“Welcome home, my lord.” As frosty a welcome, as cynical, as they come.

“And a bloody fine welcome you’ve made it, wife.” Filled to the brink with righteous anger, Jared started up the stairs, steadily closing the distance between them. “You should have confessed immediately that
you knew who I was. You should have said.”

“
I
should have said?” Her eyes flashed blue-green beneath an arching brow, the only movement she made in her defense. “How, Hawkesly? I hadn’t the slightest suspicion who you were when you barged into Badger’s Run, demanding a room.”

“Like bloody hell, you didn’t.”

“If it hadn’t been for the engraving on the front of your watch, you’d still be leading me down your merry path.”

“What do you mean, my watch?” He stopped on the step just below the landing, suddenly, clearly, remembering the change that had come over her at the stream, the shove she gave him and the passion and then the kiss.

“The bloody Hawkesly crest, sir. It’s everywhere in the hall; on the hearth and the doorway arches, on the stationery. The ship and the rampant lion and those swords. Not only emblazoned on every buckle and coat button in your wardrobe, but on the buttons that Colonel Huddleswell was wearing when he arrived. I just hadn’t made the connection until today.”

Indeed. His cover detected by one tiny detail that he’d completely overlooked. The crest. An error like that in the field could get a man killed.

Hell, the woman had distracted him to the point of danger right from the start.

“Hardly an excuse, wife.”

“And what is your excuse for your unforgiveable behavior? You were purposely misleading me. Not letting on that you were my husband. Why? I can’t imagine what your reasons were.”

“My reasons were sound.” At least they had seemed to be at the time. He took the last step up onto the landing, though keeping his distance while he tried to decipher her plot. “Not only were you doing a land-office business in my hunting lodge, but you acted as though I were a stranger! In my own home.”

She looked at him through narrowed lashes and said slowly, “You
are
a stranger to me, Hawkesly. How in blazes was I to recognize you?”

“Because, as I recall, you were standing right next to me when we were married.”

“And you looked like a bloody pirate at the time, with a pirate’s beard and wild hair, a cutlass as long as your leg—”

“I looked like a pirate?” Damnation, he was beginning to sense a flaw in his logic, a hasty accusation. Perhaps she truly hadn’t recognized him.

“And that was nearly two years ago, thousands of miles from home, and in a shameful hurry, with me still in mourning for my father, and only after you had dragged me from his ship onto the deck of yours.”

Wildly exaggerated. “I didn’t drag you anywhere.”

“You married me without notice, without giving me a voice in the matter.”

“Entirely your father’s doing.”

“My father would never have given me to you against my will.”

“He left me no choice, woman. We were partners in his cargo and in his ships. He owed me.”

“My father owed you a
wife
?”

“It was a business matter between the two of us.”

“Ha!” She leveled a finger up at him, spoke between her teeth. “You wanted Trafford Shipping, plain and simply.”

He wanted
her
. He might not have known it at the time, but he did now. He wanted the crimson heat of her anger and the rise and fall of her chest. The ice-blue fire of her eyes. “There was nothing simple about the transaction.”

“I know the shipping business, Hawkesly. I lived it all my life. The company was mine when Father died. You and I could have easily struck some sort of bargain with his ships and the cargo. You had no right to force me to marry you just to secure your profits.”

Jared had finally gotten near enough to his prickly wife to cup her soft chin and tilt her crystalline blue gaze to his; he intended to get past her into the house, try as she might to trip him up with her wrangling. “I didn’t force you into marriage with me.”

She gave an unladylike snort and raised her brows sharply as she took a long step backward. “As I recall, your marriage proposal was exactly, ‘Stand here and keep quiet, woman, or you’ll know the reason why.’”

Jared opened his mouth to rebut the woman’s memory, but her claim rang true with his own memories of the day. He hadn’t any choice at the time but to take control of her assets. Her father had died with a hold full of treasures stolen from the tomb of an ancient Egyptian king. The foolish man had been duped by thieves into shipping the politically dangerous contraband. The ship’s manifest was in Jared’s own name and the authorities were about to board. There were three
ships at stake and a small fortune. Not to mention a long stay in a hellhole of a prison.

“I was in a hurry, madam.”

She laughed from deep inside her chest, a rare and rich sound. “You were as arrogant then as you are now.”

“Which signifies nothing.” Best to firmly lay down the law. “You are my wife and that’s the end of it.”

A larger laugh, longer and deeper. “The end of this mockery of a marriage.”