Chapter 8
The day after Helena’s strange encounter with Lord Hawke passed uneventfully, one hour following after the next in a busy blur of lessons with the boys until the frosty afternoon gave way to a quiet, peaceful evening.
But the wee hours of the following morning, those dark, still hours before the sun ventured over the horizon, well…they were another matter entirely.
Helena waited until the mantel clock chimed four times before she tossed back the coverlet and rose from her bed.
It was dreadfully early, and Hestia and Poseidon had once again kept her awake for hours the night before with their antics, but she wasn’t plagued with grogginess and bleary eyes this morning.
No, this time, she was wide awake.
She crept across the room, dropped into the window seat and folded her legs underneath her, knowing what she’d see before she glanced into the grounds below.
That is, whom she’d see, despite the early hour.
Lord Hawke didn’t seem to have the least idea how to behave like a proper dissipated earl.
Perhaps when he was in London he spent every hour of his day like every other nobleman—that is, with sleeping, dressing and debauchery, but since he’d arrived at Hawke’s Run, he’d been astonishingly productive of a morning.
He didn’t appear at once, but the clock hadn’t yet chimed the quarter hour before he was striding across the stable yard dressed only in his shirtsleeves and breeches, with a coat thrown over his shoulders, his dark hair mussed and bits of hay stuck to his boots.
She pressed closer to the window, so close the tip of her nose touched the cold glass, and braced her hand on the window sill, her breath held as the tall, broad shape approached the stable doors.
He had something in his arms today. She couldn’t make out what it was from here, but it looked heavy—far too heavy to be merely a handful of treats—but it was certainly another offering to Hecate.
A velvet cushion, perhaps, or silk hanging for the sides of her pen? She pressed a hand to her mouth to smother a snort, but really, it wasn’t as far-fetched as it seemed.
It had been the cream, the first time. She’d caught him out at that easily enough because he’d left the dish behind, but he’d grown cagier since that first morning, and she’d been obliged to paw about in the hay to find the remains of the morning’s treats.
Yesterday, it had been bits of salmon cutlet, though she might never have figured it out if Hecate, who was nothing if not discriminating hadn’t left the capers behind.
The day before she’d found traces of what looked suspiciously like the pigeon pie they’d eaten for dinner the previous night.
She’d even found a shriveled French bean, buried under the hay in a corner of the pen.
Cook would have a fit if she ever found out about that. She was a bit sensitive about her French beans.
But it wasn’t just the treats. Each time she ventured into the stables after he’d gone, she found fresh hay spread over the floor of Hecate’s pen, with Hecate enthroned upon it, purring loudly like a satisfied princess.
For a gentleman who claimed to despise cats, Lord Hawke was awfully solicitous of Hecate’s comfort.
Strange doings, indeed.
She waited until Lord Hawke vanished into the stables, then flopped back down on the window seat.
The maddening part was, as soon as daylight dawned, he was as aloof as he’d ever been, every inch the arrogant earl.
If she hadn’t seen him herself, she never would have believed the demanding Earl of Hawke was the same man who was feeding bits of his dinner to a pregnant cat.
It was as if he were two different people.
It didn’t matter how much she poked and prodded, Lord Hawke wouldn’t confess a single word about his early morning visits to the stables.
She’d brought him his tea for three afternoons in a row now, just so she might have a private moment to tease him into revealing himself, but no amount of hinting and wheedling would open the man’s stubborn lips.
She’d all but begged him to join her and the boys for another animal husbandry lesson, and even brought Hecate’s chart to his study in hopes of catching him out.
In short, she’d given him every opportunity she could think of to admit he wasn’t the hard-hearted, cat-loathing man he pretended to be, all to no avail.
Why would he want to hide such a thing? It didn’t make sense, dash it.
Things that didn’t make sense irked her, and especially so in his case. No sooner did she make up her mind he was the most wretched man alive than she’d catch a glimpse of humanity under that snarling exterior.
Well, she’d had enough of it.
This morning would mark the final day of Lord Hawke’s sneaking about. Today, she was going to confront him with the evidence of his own kindness. Let him try and deny it when she presented him with a handful of soggy bits of last night’s pork a la Boisseau.
The mantel clock had just chimed the five o’clock hour when Lord Hawke emerged from the stables, made his way back across the yard and disappeared into the castle.
It would be ages yet before the boys rose from their beds.
That left her plenty of time to sneak into the stables, paw about in the hay until she found what he’d brought Hecate, and then present him with the proof.
She abandoned her place in the window seat, hurried into her clothes and tiptoed down the dark staircase, pausing when she reached the bottom, but there was no sign of Lord Hawke, and his study door was closed.
So, she hurried downstairs to the kitchen, let herself out the back door, and ran down the pathway to the stables.
Goodness, it was cold! She clapped her hands together to warm them, frosty clouds drifting from her lips and her boots slipping over the icy ground as she made her way to the stable door and slipped inside, pausing for a moment to listen.
Yes, there it was, the low, rhythmic buzz that had become so familiar of late.
It was Hecate, and she was purring. Loudly.
“What’s he brought you this time, you smug little thing?” She knelt in front of the pen, and stoked a careful hand over the silky orange fur. “You’re certainly pleased about something.”
Whatever Lord Hawke had left this time was well-hidden, however, and Hecate wasn’t telling his secrets. She scrambled about, pushing the hay this way and that, but either Lord Hawke had failed Hecate this morning, or the dratted cat had already devoured all the evidence.
What now, then? Dash it, there was nothing else for it but to wait until tomorrow, and try again. How excessively tiresome! But she couldn’t find what wasn’t there—
Wait, what was that? A corner of something dark was sticking out from under Hecate’s right paw. Keeping an eye on the cat, she slid her hand underneath the furry body, and her fingertips landed on a thick, soft flannel.
There was something else, as well, something hard and warm, like…
No, it couldn’t be! How would he ever even think of it?
But it was. She lifted up the edge of the flannel, and there they were, arranged in a circle, the thick flannel over them to protect Hecate from their rough surface.
Bricks. He’d laid warmed bricks down on the stable floor, then covered them with the flannel blanket. And there was Hecate, lounging in the middle of this heated nest for all the world as if she were luxuriating in a warm bath!
She fell back onto her heels, shaking her head. Warmed bricks, of all things. She’d gone to great pains to see to it that Hecate was comfortable during her lying-in, but it had never even occurred to her to supply the cat with warmed bricks.
How in the world, then, had it ever occurred to Lord Hawke? And once it had, what had possessed him to see it through? It was no small effort to warm half a dozen bricks and then drag them from the castle all the way to the stables.
But here was the proof that he’d done just that, right here in front of her.
Not more than a week ago, she would have sworn he wasn’t at all the sort to trouble himself much about another’s creature’s comfort, whether human or feline.
She would have described him as a cross, curmudgeonly sort of man, a spoiled London rake, and a father of two lovely boys he didn’t seem to care a whit about.
But with every day that passed, she saw how wrong she was, and how arrogant to imagine she could know him from a single week’s acquaintance. What did she really know about Lord Hawke, when it came down to it?
Not much, even now, but one thing was certain. A man who truly didn’t care about his sons wouldn’t dream of going to such lengths to spoil the pet they adored.
“Enjoy your bath, Hecate.” She gave the sleek ginger fur another stroke, snatched up one of the warm bricks—quite a tangible piece of evidence, that—then gathered up her skirts, struggled to her feet and slipped from the stables back across the stable yard, up the kitchen staircase and down the corridor to Lord Hawke’s study.
The door was still closed. She pressed her ear to it, but there was nothing but silence from the other side. She raised her hand, but paused before her knuckles struck the wood.
Was it wise to question Lord Hawke? Or was she making a mistake, interfering in his private business? Really, it was nothing to do with her if he wanted to stuff Hecate full of salmon cutlets.
But of course, this wasn’t truly about Hecate.
No, it was about the boys. Surely, they were her business?
For all his sneaking about and spoiling Hecate, nothing had changed between Ryan and Etienne and their father.
Lord Hawke had kept well away from his sons this past week.
She hadn’t devoted much study to the impulses of the human mind, but it didn’t take an expert in psychology to see Hecate was merely a proxy for Ryan and Etienne—that Lord Hawke was lavishing all the care and affection he didn’t dare lavish on his sons on the cat.