Chapter 13
Afaint rasping came from the door.
“My lady, it’s near ten. If you don’t rise, the general will flog us all,” the maid’s voice hissed through the wood. “And you know that my flesh is weak.”
Hawk’s eyes snapped open. Years of campaigning had honed him to wake at the scrape of a rat in the trenches—yet dawn had marched past him. A surge of alarm hit his chest. He had missed reveille in his own damn house.
He turned his head.
Celeste slept, lips parted, breath feathering against his chin.
Her feet were still nestled between his legs, and her hands held his shirt.
All in all, he was a prisoner of her slumber.
Light spilled over her cheek, gilding her skin until she seemed carved of sunlight—untouchable, fragile, and entirely too close.
He brushed a strand of hair from her face, and his chest ached—bloody ached. What happened to you, Little Tulle? Why the nightmares?
For one dangerous heartbeat, he forgot discipline. Forgot curfews, timetables, propriety. He savored her weight, drinking in the impossible peace of her sleep, as though the world outside did not exist.
A fresh volley of knocks rattled the door.
“Lady Cecilia!” Mrs. Archer’s shrill voice invaded the room. “Up with you this instant, or the general will finally tan your hide.”
The maid gasped. “I can see it now—his manly hands striking her tender flesh, the heat radiating like a furnace—Oh saints preserve us!”
Hawk glared at the door, thanking those saints for reminding him to lock the door last night.
What the devil was wrong with these women?
He had seen more sanity in a pack of rabid wolves.
Brushing his forehead, Hawk turned to his side.
Celeste was looking at him, eyes soft with sleep and something else. Damn him if it was not humor.
Yawning, she stretched like a lazy cat. “I overslept again. Oh, but you did it as well. I guess I’m safe from your manly hands,” she said, giggling.
Safe? That was because she didn’t know how his manly hands tingled to caress her lips until he brushed away the laughter and replaced it with a moan.
Cursing, Hawk flung back the covers and swung to the floor. Boots. Where the devil were his boots? He found one near the settee and shoved it on, but the other was presently being gnawed by the cursed poodle.
Hawk grabbed the other side and tugged, but the tiny beast refused to let go.
Gritting his teeth, Hawk was forced to engage in a most inglorious hand-to-hand combat.
Othello was nothing if not a worthy opponent, growling, shaking his head, and nearly displacing the ridiculous tulle bow atop his head.
Still, he kept his jaw clenched, leather clasped between its fangs, tail wagging as if this were the grandest battle of his life.
“The mighty general wrestles his foe. The beast snarls. Who will claim the leathered prize?” Celeste’s voice was amused, as if she were narrating a play.
He shot her a flat look, teeth gritted, muscles straining.
She shook her head. “I’m afraid the poor dear has a terrible fondness for shoes.”
“I have a fondness for brandy,” Hawk growled, “but I don’t bite the French over it.”
Finally, Hawk wrenched the boot free, straightened, and crossed to the window. After opening the shutters, he unhooked the drapery.
“You can’t mean to go down the window! You will hurt yourself,” Celeste whispered, sitting on the bed.
Hawk caught a glimpse of trim ankles, and desire shot through his overly rested body. He forced himself to look away.
“I have scaled the fifty-foot walls of Burgos,” Hawk muttered. “A dog and twelve feet of stone will not be my undoing.”
A furious knock came from the door. “Lady Cecilia, the general will come here, see if he won’t, and his tanning will leave marks!”
“I cannot breathe. The vision is too much!” There was a scuffle, a thud, then the maid’s voice, faint and tremulous: “His hand upon the coverlet, his gaze falling on my mistress in dishabille—oh Lord, strike me down before I swoon entirely!”
“Do you see what you’ve done now, Lady Cecilia? Prue is receiving a spirit here!” Mrs. Archer said.
Hawk groaned. His house had become a bedlam. There was no other explanation.
“I think I’d better see to my maid before she combusts in the corridor and sets it aflame. And it would all be your fault,” Celeste said.
Hawk stared at her. “Why in heaven would it be—”
Her gaze shifted to his legs as he straddled the window. A rush of heat flooded his neck up to his hairline.
“Don’t need to blush, General. You must know that women appreciate your well-developed… I mean—”
Hawk placed a finger over her lips to silence her. He could not find a suitable retort, and if she went on describing his thighs, he would not be responsible for his actions. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t move.
He’d had enough for one morning. For one life. After giving her a warning look, he started to cross to the other side. Celeste braced her hands against the windowsill.
Before he could command her back, she leaned in and brushed her lips against his cheek.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “For the night. I had never slept so soundly.”
He froze. His hand went to the spot, absurdly protective of the warmth lingering there, as though the slightest breeze might steal it away. Neither did he. But there was no voice he could ever admit it without revealing more than a bloody fairy godfather could.
She drew back, smiling in a way that made the room feel suddenly golden, and then tilted her head and, just like that, her gaze changed.
Some soldiers buried their emotions deep, Celeste carried hers in her eyes.
The emotion brimming there was strange, and new, and made his chest feel tighter and his grasp on the curtain slip.
“You cut quite a figure, climbing down a tower with nothing but a curtain and your dash to guide you along the perilous facade. Why, General, perhaps you have something of the romantic in you after all.”
Hawk could only manage a grunt. He swung himself onto the drapery with more force than necessary, boots scraping the wall. “Get ready for your morning classes, Celeste.”
She smiled. “I like that.”
“The morning classes are not for your pleasure. They are—”
“I don’t care about the morning classes. I like hearing you speak my name.”
His pulse thundered like cavalry across a plain, but he forced himself to push down.
As soon as he could no longer see her face, he cursed loud and blue.
Romantic indeed—the mighty Hawk who had never surrendered, clambering down like an overgrown schoolboy sneaking from a dormitory, boots scraping, fabric tearing with each graceless inch, flushed and bothered because of a peck on the cheek.
At last, he dropped to the ground, landing with a soldier’s thud. He brushed plaster dust from his sleeve and drew himself to his full height, grimly convinced he had salvaged a shred of dignity.
A throat was cleared behind him. Hawk turned to find Graves waiting.
“Sir,” Graves said, voice dry as gunpowder. “Has the house been invaded? For I believe rule forty-five explicitly forbids using windows as exits.”
Hawk froze, drapery still clutched in his fist.
But his recovery was swift, and he squared his shoulders. “I was inspecting the draperies, Graves, no need to sound the alarm.”
One of Graves’s brows lifted a precise degree.
Color rose along Hawk’s collar for the second time during a single morning. Good God, he had never blushed in his life, and he would not start now. “Soldier! Dismissed!”
“Yes, my lord. At once.” Graves’s gaze flicked to the mangled velvet trailing from Hawk’s grip. “Though—shall I log this under Household Damage Report, or Personal Training Exercise?”
Hawk growled, shoving past him.
“Log it under none of your bloody concern.”