Chapter 9 #2
At the top, the corridor pulsed with creaks and breathy moans, the perfume so cloying she had to stifle a cough. One door stood ajar.
Inside, a man lounged naked on a velvet chaise while two women fed him strawberries. One laughed as she licked the juice from his chest.
“Keep moving.” Mr Hawke didn’t break stride.
Daphne meant to. But a woman looked up, and for a breathless moment, she could have sworn it was Mrs Foster, her father’s paramour.
No. It couldn’t be.
Not unless she’d found a new lover in a week.
Mr Hawke drew a key from his coat and swiftly unlocked the door marked Nefertiti’s Palace, ushering her inside with the efficiency of a man eager to shut the world out.
“The lady in that room—” she began, stopping short when Mr Hawke locked the door behind them. “Good heavens.”
It wasn’t being alone with him in a bedchamber that had her heart thundering like a racehorse at the gate. Or that robbed her of all sensible thought. Some women might sell their souls to be this close to him.
The room was a decadent echo of a pharaoh’s tomb. Gold and lapis-blue columns framed the bed. Hieroglyphs covered the walls. The air held the tang of myrrh and spiced wood.
It was a room made for seduction.
Everything in it whispered yes.
“Hellfire.” He set the plate on the nightstand and dragged a hand through his hair. “You know how to punish a man, Miss Harland.”
This was her punishment as much as his.
The attraction was inconvenient.
“We’ve kissed, Mr Hawke. You should call me Daphne.”
“I prefer to remind myself you’re chaste.”
“Because you already broke one rule?”
“Because I don’t intend to break another.”
She chuckled to herself as she set her plate on the side table by the hearth. Since when had she become an irresistible temptress? One capable of bringing this man to his knees.
“Mrs Flavell clearly thought you needed convincing.” She lifted the sheer gold nightgown draped over the dressing screen and held it against her. “This would hardly keep out an autumn chill.”
Mr Hawke didn’t look at her at first. He stared into the fire like a man reciting commandments to himself. When his gaze slid her way, the flecks in his green eyes glowed like embers.
“That woman is an expert in torture. Shall I strip off my shirt so you can lash me with your allure, Miss Harland?”
“No need. I’ll sleep in my clothes tonight.”
“You can’t.” He cursed. “That dress goes back to the modiste in the morning. There’s already dirt on the hem. Your shift will suffice.” He threw the cutlery onto the bed and scanned the room. “I’ll sleep on the floor. Or that chaise.”
She felt a flutter of relief, and a strange pang of regret.
“We’re adults, Mr Hawke. I’m not going to ravish you if that’s your fear. I’m not the one who craves intimacy.”
That was a lie.
Desire coiled in her belly. She could school her thoughts, but not the flush of her skin, nor the pulse that thrummed in her throat, nor the ache she dared not name.
“Intimacy is the last thing I crave.” He adjusted himself with a subtle shift of his stance. “Sometimes a man has no control over his body’s … responses.”
“Thank you for being honest.” She draped the nightgown over the screen, smoothing her hand over the silk. “You’re right. No more garden trysts. You may rule your world, but you could never give me what I need.” She had to remember that. She prayed she remembered that.
He swallowed as though his throat were dry. “And what is it you need, aside from someone to save you from the noose?”
She could have deflected. Offered a clever remark. But the truth pressed hard against her ribs. “A home. A family. Love. The enduring kind. I’d like to be someone’s everything, and would rather wander the world alone than settle for anything less.”
He exhaled slowly, the moment stretching.
He knew he fell short.
A sharp knock punctuated the silence.
“That will be the wine. And our clothes.”
He moved to the door, and she took a moment to breathe.
How was she here?
In a den of vice, with this man. A daughter too numb to grieve her father, yet could kiss a scoundrel in a moonlit garden. A runaway hunted by the law.
Her life was nothing but a fantasy.
An idyllic cottage in Scotland that might not exist. Another at Shadowmere that shouldn’t feel like home, but it did. A suitor who kissed as though she were the air he needed to breathe. In truth, he was merely satisfying an itch.
“What the hell do you want?” Mr Hawke snapped, dragging her from her reverie. “Perhaps you have a death wish, madam.”
Daphne stepped closer to the door, meeting the woman’s harried gaze. “Mrs Foster?” So she had recognised her. “Can we help you? Weren’t you attending to the gentleman across the hall?”
Her father’s paramour had thrown a wool cloak over her harem costume, clutching it tight to her generous chest. The kohl lining her eyes was smudged, black streaking her cheeks. Her greying blonde hair was a hopeless tangle. Strawberry juice stained her chin.
Mrs Foster made to step over the threshold, but Mr Hawke blocked her way. “If you’ve something to say to Miss Harland, say it to me.”
The woman peered over his broad shoulder. “Your poor aunt thinks you’re dead,” she whispered, trying to push past him, but he had no intention of moving. “She believes the man who harmed Jacob hurt you too. She’s been out day and night searching. Even hired a retired runner from Bow Street.”
Daphne doubted her aunt cared in any true, maternal way. Not after pushing the match with Mr Irving. She was likely hunting her down now, ready to drag her to the altar and collect her ten thousand pounds.
“I left a note.” A note saying she couldn’t marry Mr Irving. She had a gift for endurance. Just not enough to suffer that slobbering fool.
Mrs Foster crouched slightly as she tried to peer around Mr Hawke’s frame. “She never mentioned a note. Only that something dreadful must have happened to you as well.” Her wary gaze shifted to Mr Hawke. “It seems she has every reason to fear the worst.”
Mr Hawke gave a mirthless chuckle as he looked down at the woman. “Typical. Save her, and I’m the villain. Try to sell her off, and you’re mourned like a saint.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
Not when he was prepared to pay the Moseley brothers an extortionate sum. And she had the odd suspicion he’d thump Mr Irving if their paths crossed.
“Save her?” Mrs Foster’s unladylike snort rang through the corridor. “You’ve dragged her to a pariah’s pit. Her dear papa is dead, killed by you no—”
“I have an alibi. A handful of witnesses who can vouch for my whereabouts.” He reached for the doorknob. “Good night, madam. Enjoy your strawberries.”
Mrs Foster sprang upright and shoved at the door, forcing herself between the frame and jamb. “Please, let me take you home, Miss Harland. We’ll leave together. Lord Ainsley will protect us. We can—”
“Ainsley?” Mr Hawke gave a dry laugh. “Fetch him. Let’s see if he plays the intrepid hero once he sees the mark.”
Daphne intervened. She stepped to his side, her fingers brushing his arm to gently move it aside.
“Mr Hawke is my protector now.” It sounded absurd, like she’d soon be feeding him grapes while he lounged in a milk bath. “My father has been dead a week, Mrs Foster, and I can only assume you’re here for the same reason.”
Mrs Foster had the decency to blush. “What else was I to do but seek assistance? Your father left me in a terrible predicament. He hasn’t paid the lease on my townhouse in months.”
Daphne looked at her, suspicion rising.
What if Mrs Foster saw this as a chance to abandon her strawberry dessert and seize something sweeter? To deliver Daphne to Mr Irving and claim the bounty herself?
“I’m sure Lord Ainsley will cover any arrears.” Daphne slid her hand around Mr Hawke’s solid arm. Heavens. Since when did granite radiate heat? “Just as my benefactor will protect me.”
His green eyes warmed as they found hers. “Always.”
She stared, transfixed.
And, dare she admit, a little confused.
“Good night, Mrs Foster.” He straightened to an intimidating height. “Don’t interfere in my business again.”
He closed the door, forcing Mrs Foster out, but not before she cried, “I shall find a way to rescue you, my dear. You may count on it.”
The echo of it lingered, as did the silence that followed.
He turned to her, the click of the latch sealing her fate. “It seems I’ll have to fortify my defences if I want to keep you, Miss Harland.”
Her breath caught. Not from fear, but from the look in his eyes. Like she was a treasure unearthed by accident. One he had no business coveting, but could no longer ignore.
“I belong to no man, Mr Hawke.” Her voice came steadier than she felt. What must it be like to belong to him? “The truest measure of a woman’s affection is that she stays when she’s free to leave.”
He inhaled too sharply.
Something shifted in the room.
“Am I to wake one morning and find the hearth cold, the cottage empty, the armoire bare?”
She held his gaze. “Perhaps.”
He didn’t step back, but she felt the steel return to his spine. He would seize control the only way he knew how.
“You have fifteen minutes to undress.” He moved to the door, fingers already on the lock. “To slip beneath those gold silk sheets and build a fortress with the pillows.”
“Where are you going?”
Several scenarios flashed through her mind. She pictured him striding through the crowd, women reaching for him, their hands on his chest and his jaw, drawn to him despite the danger.
She could stomach him fresh from a brawl but not the thought of his mouth on another woman’s skin.
“To fetch our clothes and the wine. Try not to miss me too much.”
The door shut with a click. The lock slid home.
He’d left her behind.
Locked in. And he’d taken the key.
The devil.
She might have stood rooted to the spot in a fit of rage, or plucked a pin from her coiffure to pick the lock. She could hammer on the door, call for Mrs Foster.
But in truth, she didn’t want rescuing. She wanted to return to her quaint cottage at Shadowmere and continue living her fabricated life.
An icy fear twisted around her heart.
What if she didn’t want to leave at the end of the month?
What if she accepted Lady Soanes’ gift, stood alone on the windswept banks of Loch Tay, and realised she’d left her soul in a ramshackle cottage in Kingston upon Thames?
There was no time to dwell on it now.
Getting into the gown had been hard enough. Getting out of it might prove impossible. The only alternative was letting Mr Hawke loose on the hooks, though she doubted she’d survive the strain.
With a contortionist’s grit, she managed.
The veal and minted potatoes offered ample incentive, as did her rumbling stomach. She’d eaten, combed her hair and climbed into bed before Mr Hawke returned.
He entered without looking at the bed. He noticed her empty plate and she could have sworn he smiled. It died the moment he saw the red gown draped over the dressing screen.
“Tell me you’re not wearing that scandalous nightgown?”
“No. Just my simple shift.”
“That may be worse.” He set the crystal glasses on the dressing table and uncorked the wine. “Claret?”
“No, thank you.”
Tension tightened the air between them. She felt like a virgin bride on her wedding night. Well, she was chaste. But he most definitely wasn’t groom material.
“Do you mind if I drink?”
“Of course not. Where are my clothes?”
His eyes found hers, lingered, then drifted to her loose dark hair tumbling over one shoulder. His jaw tightened; he muttered something under his breath and drank straight from the bottle.
She watched his tongue trace his lower lip.
Who knew she would envy a devilish drop of claret?
“Mrs Flavell is gathering a few things she thinks might be useful. Her maid will press your old dress. She insists it will all be sent up by dawn.”
“Probably a safeguard to prevent us from leaving.”
“Probably.” He took another long swig of wine, then shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the hook in the gilded armoire. “The damned thing reeks of opium.”
She’d seen him in an untucked shirt before, dishevelled and rakish.
But not like this. Not in his shirtsleeves, his waistcoat fitted snug to his frame, every button a threat to her composure.
The flicker of candlelight across crisp linen, the tension in his shoulders, the easy power in the way he moved—it all made her far too aware of him as a man.
Life had just become a little more complicated.
He crossed the room and took his plate from the nightstand.
“Your food will be cold,” she said, desperate to talk about anything but where he might sleep tonight.
“I don’t mind.” He sat at the dressing table and ate in silence.
She shifted, trying to get comfortable.
The silence stretched, thick with things unsaid.
“Can I ask you something?” she said when it all became too much.
He paused mid-bite. “Ask. I can’t promise I’ll answer.”
“If you could turn back the clock, knowing me as you do now, would you still have asked me to dance at the Templeton ball?”
He inhaled so deeply she thought he might not stop. Then he stood, took the long bolster, and laid it between them in the centre of the bed.
The cushion felt both merciful and cruel, a reminder that he was close enough to touch, and yet entirely out of reach.
He stretched out beside it, crossing his arms behind his head, eyes fixed on the hieroglyphics etched into the ceiling panels.
“Well?” she asked softly. “Would you?”
“Go to sleep, Miss Harland.” He turned his back to her, and the space between them grew colder by degrees. “Trust me. Neither of us want to hear the answer.”