About the Author

CAROLE MORTIMER was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978 and has now written over one hundred and eighty books for Mills & Boon. Carole has six sons, Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, ‘I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.’

Tall, Dark & Notorious
The Duke’s Cinderella Bride
The Rake’s Wicked Proposal
Carole Mortimer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Duke’s Cinderella Bride

Chapter One

1816, St Claire House, London

‘I have no immediate plans to marry, Hawk. Least of all some chit barely out of the schoolroom that you have deigned to pick out for for me!’

Hawk St Claire, the tenth Duke of Stourbridge, viewed his youngest brother’s angrily flushed face across the width of the leather-topped desk that dominated the library in the St Claire townhouse, his mouth twisting slightly as he noted the glitter of rebellion in Sebastian’s dark brown gaze. ‘I was merely suggesting that it is past time you thought of taking a wife.’

Lord Sebastian St Claire felt the flush deepen in his cheeks under the steely gaze of his eldest brother. But this awareness of Hawk’s displeasure in no way lessened his own determination not to be coerced into a marriage he neither sought nor wanted.

Although it was a little difficult to maintain that stand, Sebastian acknowledged inwardly, in the face of his brother’s piercingly intense gaze. A chilling gaze from eyes the colour of gold and ringed by a much darker brown, and one that had been known to almost reduce the Duke’s valet to tears on occasion, and to cause lesser peers of the realm to quake in their highly polished boots when Hawk took his place in the House.

‘Do not take that insufferably condescending tone with me, Hawk, because it won’t wash!’ Sebastian threw himself into the carved chair, facing his brother across the desk. ‘Or is it only that you have decided to turn your attentions to me because Arabella failed to secure a suitable match during her first Season?’ he added slyly, knowing that his eighteen-year-old sibling had stubbornly resisted accepting any of the marriage proposals she had received in the last few months.

He was also completely aware that Hawk had hated his role as occasional escort for their younger sister. It had resulted in the marriage-minded debutantes and their ambitious mamas seeing the unusual occurrence of the Duke of Stourbridge’s presence at balls and parties as an open invitation to pursue him!

Until, that was, Hawk had made it known, in his chillingly high-handed manner, that none of those young women met the exacting standards he set for his future Duchess!

Hawk’s mouth tightened. ‘We were not discussing a match for Arabella.’

‘Then perhaps we should have been. Or possibly Lucian?’ Sebastian mentioned their brother. ‘Although it really should be you, Hawk,’ he continued tauntingly. ‘After all, you are the Duke, and of the four of us surely the one most in need of an heir?’

At one and thirty, and over six feet tall, his brother Hawk had powerful shoulders and an athletic body that was the pride and joy of his tailor. Today he wore a black jacket which fit snugly across wide shoulders, a pale grey waistcoat and paler grey breeches above highly polished Hessians. His thick dark hair, streaked with gold, was styled with casual elegance, and beneath a wide, intelligent brow were intense golden eyes, the straight slash of a nose between high cheekbones, and a thin, uncompromising mouth above a square jaw. All spoke of his arrogant and determined character.

Even without his title, Hawk was undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with. As the powerful Duke of Stourbridge he was formidable.

Hawk looked completely bored by this particular argument. ‘I believe I have made it more than plain these last months that I have yet to meet any woman who is up to the arduous task of becoming the Duchess of Stourbridge. Besides,’ he continued, as Sebastian would have argued further, ‘I already have two obvious heirs in my younger brothers. Although, going on your more recent behaviour, I would not be happy to see either you or Lucian becoming the next Duke of Stourbridge.’ He gave Sebastian a silencing glower.

A glance Sebastian totally ignored. ‘If either Lucian or I were to become the next Duke of Stourbridge, you can depend on it that you would not be around to see it, Hawk!’

‘Very amusing, Sebastian.’The Duke’s dismissal was absolute. ‘But following the…events of last month, I realise I have been somewhat remiss in not settling your own and Lucian’s future.’

‘Last month? What did Lucian and I do last month that was so different from—? Ah.’ The light finally dawned. ‘Can you possibly be referring to the delectable and recently widowed Countess of Morefield?’ he challenged unabashedly.

‘A gentleman does not discuss a lady by name, Sebastian.’ Hawk eyed his brother disapprovingly. ‘But now that you have brought the incident to my attention…’ he steepled slender fingers ‘…I could indeed be referring to your reprehensible behaviour concerning a certain lady of our mutual acquaintance.’ His voice was icy.

Sebastian grinned unapologetically. ‘I can assure you that no one, least of all the Countess, took our interest seriously.’

Hawk looked down the long length of his nose. ‘Nevertheless, the lady’s name was bandied about at several clubs—my own included. Many of your friends were making wagers, I believe, on which one of you would be the first to oust the Earl of Whitney from the Coun—from the lady’s bedchamber.’

Sebastian looked unrepentant. ‘Only because they were all aware that we were both totally in ignorance of the other’s interest in the lady. Of course, if you had cared to confide in either of us that you intended taking up residence in that particular bedchamber, then Lucian and I would simply have backed off and left you and Whitney to decide the outcome!’ He eyed Hawk challengingly.

Hawk’s wince was pained. ‘Sebastian, I have already had occasion to warn you of the…indelicacy of your conversation!’

‘So all this talk of the parson’s mousetrap is because Lucian and I inadvertently stepped on your toes last month?’ Sebastian could barely restrain his humour. ‘Or possibly it was another part of your anatomy we intruded upon? Although I do believe,’ he continued, as Hawk looked in danger of delivering another of his icy setdowns, ‘that you have also now tired of the lady’s…charms…?’

The slight flaring of the Duke’s nostrils was the only outward sign of his increasing displeasure with the trend of the conversation. ‘After the attention you and Lucian brought to that unfortunate lady I deemed it necessary to withdraw my attentions so as not to add further speculation to the impending scandal.’

‘If you were not so damned secretive about your mistresses the whole incident could have been avoided.’ Sebastian shrugged dismissively. ‘But I do assure you, Hawk, I am not about to marry just to appease your outraged sensibilities!’

‘You are being utterly ridiculous, Sebastian—’

‘No, Hawk.’ Sebastian’s humour faded. ‘I believe if you were to give this subject more thought, you would realise that you are the one who is being ridiculous in trying to choose my wife for me.’

‘On the contrary, Sebastian. It is my belief that I am only acting in your best interests. In fact, I have already accepted an invitation on our behalf from Sir Barnaby and Lady Sulby.’

‘I take it they are the parents of my intended bride?’

Hawk’s mouth tightened. ‘Olivia Sulby is the daughter of Sir Barnaby and Lady Sulby, yes.’

Sebastian gave a derisive shake of his head as he stood up. ‘I am afraid that whatever invitation you have accepted on my behalf you will just have to unaccept.’ He moved to the library door.

‘What are you doing?’The Duke frowned at him darkly.

‘Leaving.’ Sebastian gave him a pitying look. ‘But before I go I have a proposition of my own to set before you, Hawk…’ He paused in the open doorway.

‘A proposition…?’ Hawk found himself so deeply disturbed by his brother’s stubbornness that—unusually—he could barely hold his temper in check.

Sebastian nodded. ‘Once you are married—happily so, of course—I promise I will give serious consideration to the parson’s mousetrap for myself!’ His step was jaunty as he closed the library door softly behind him.

Hawk sat back heavily in his chair as he contemplated the closed door for several long seconds before reaching for the decanter of brandy that stood on his desktop and pouring a large measure.

Damn.

Damn, damn, damn.

He made a point of never attending house parties in the country once the Season had ended and the House had dispersed for the summer. He had only committed himself to spending a week in Norfolk with the Sulbys for the sole purpose of introducing Sebastian to the young woman he had hoped would become his brother’s future bride.

His own acquaintance was with Sir Barnaby Sulby—the two of them having dined together at their club several times. There had been no opportunity for Hawk to meet the other gentleman’s wife and daughter during the Season, the Sulby family not having received an invitation to the three balls at which Hawk had been Arabella’s escort, but Hawk knew from his enquiries that on her father’s death Olivia Sulby would inherit Markham Park and its surrounding thousand acres of farmland. As the younger brother of a duke such a match could be considered perfect for Sebastian.

Except Sebastian had now told Hawk—all too succinctly!—that he had no intention of even considering taking a wife until Hawk had done so himself. Leaving Hawk committed to spending a week in Norfolk—a county of flat fenland so totally unlike his own beloved Gloucestershire.

It had all the appeal of a walk to the gallows!

‘There you are, Jane. Do stop your dawdling on the stairs, girl.’ Lady Gwendoline Sulby, a faded beauty in her mid-forties, glared her impatience as the object of her attention came to a halt neither up nor down the wide staircase. ‘No, do not come down. Proceed back up to my bedroom and collect my shawl for me before our guests start to arrive. The silk one with the yellow rosebuds. I do believe the weather might be changing, Sulby.’ She turned worriedly to her portly husband as he stood beside her in the spacious hallway in anticipation of the arrival of their guests.

Jane knew that Sir Barnaby was twenty years older than his wife, and he was looking most uncomfortable in his high-necked shirt and tightly tied necktie. His yellow waistcoat stretched almost impossibly across his rounded stomach, and his brown jacket and cream breeches were doing little to hide that strain.

Poor Sir Barnaby, Jane mused as she turned obediently back up the stairs to collect the requested shawl. She knew her guardian would so much rather have been out on the estate somewhere with his manager, wearing comfortable old clothes, than standing in the draughty hallway of Markham Park, awaiting the first dozen or so house guests who would shortly arrive for the start of a week’s entertainments and gentile frivolity.

‘Bring down my white parasol, too, Jane.’ Olivia frowned up at her, a young replica of her mother’s earlier beauty, with her fashionably rounded figure, big blue eyes, and golden ringlets arranged enticingly about the dewy beauty of her face.

‘Do not shout in that unladylike manner, Olivia.’ Lady Gwendoline looked scandalised by her daughter’s behaviour. ‘Whatever would the Duke think if he were to hear you?’ She gave an agitated wave of her fan.

‘But you shouted, Mama.’ Olivia pouted her displeasure at the rebuke.

‘I am the mistress of this house. I am allowed to shout.’

Jane smiled slightly as she continued on her way back up the stairs, knowing that the illogical bickering between mother and daughter was likely to continue for several more minutes. The arguments had been constant and sometimes heated during the last week as the household prepared for the arrival of the Sulbys’ house guests, and most of them had the phrases ‘the Duke’ or ‘His Grace’ in their content.

For the Duke of Stourbridge was to be the Sulby’s guest of honour this week—as every member of the overworked household had been constantly made aware, as they cleaned and scrubbed and polished Markham Park in preparation for ‘His Grace, the Duke’s’ arrival.

Not that Jane expected to be included in any of the planned entertainments, or even to meet the illustrious Duke in person. She was only a poor relation. Jane Smith. A distant relation that the Sulbys had taken pity on and charitably offered a home to for the last twelve of her two and twenty years.

Markham Park had seemed rather grand and alien to Jane when Sir Barnaby and Lady Gwendoline had first brought her here, her childhood having been spent in a tiny south coast vicarage, being lovingly cared for by her widowed father and Bessie, his elderly but motherly housekeeper.

But Jane had consoled herself with the fact that at least Markham Park was within walking distance of the sea—allowing her, during the brief times she was able to escape the seemingly ever-watchful gaze of Lady Sulby, to go down to the rugged shoreline and enjoy its wild, untamed beauty.

Jane had quickly discovered that she liked Norfolk winters the best—when the sea would seem to rage and fight against the very restrictions of nature as an inner part of her longed to fight against the ever-increasing social strictures that were placed upon her. For, after she had shared the nursery and schoolroom with Olivia, until she reached the age of sixteen, she had stopped being treated as Olivia’s equal and had become more maid and companion to the spoilt and pampered daughter of the house.

Jane paused as she passed the cheval mirror in Lady Sulby’s bedroom, studying her reflection critically and knowing as she did so that she was everything that was not fashionable. She was tall, for one thing, with long legs and a slender willowy figure. She wished she could say that her hair was an interesting auburn, but instead it was a bright, gleaming red. And, although her complexion was creamy, she did have that unattractive sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her tiny nose. Plus, her eyes were green.

None of this was complemented in the least by the gowns Lady Sulby had made up for her. They were always of a pastel shade that did nothing for Jane’s vibrant colouring. Her present one, of the palest pink, was so totally unflattering with the red of her hair.

Of course it was very doubtful that Jane would ever meet anyone who would want to marry her. Unless the local vicar took pity on her and made an offer. And as he was a middle-aged widower, with four unruly young children all under the age of eight, Jane did so hope that he would not.

She gave a weary sigh as she collected the requested silk shawl from Lady Sulby’s dressing table, noticing as she did so that Lady Sulby’s jewellery box had not been returned to its proper place in the top drawer.

But Jane’s attention was diverted from the jewellery box as she heard the sound of a carriage outside, travelling down the yew-lined gravel driveway to Markham Park.

The Duke and his brother Lord Sebastian St Claire at last? Or one of the Sulbys’ other guests?

Curiosity impelled Jane to move quickly to the window to look outside. A huge, magnificent black carriage, pulled by four of the most beautiful black horses Jane had ever seen, was being driven down the driveway by a black-liveried groom. Two other servants dressed in black perched upon the back, and a ducal crest was visible on the door.

It was indeed the Duke, then.

He did seem to like black, didn’t he? Jane mused, even as she gave in to further temptation and gently moved the brocade curtain to one side, the better to be able to see the Duke himself when he stepped down from the carriage.

A groom had hopped nimbly down from the back to hold the door open for him, and for some inexplicable reason Jane’s heart seemed to have increased in tempo. In fact it was beating quite erratically, she noted frowningly. Just in anticipation of the sight of a Duke? Was her life really so dull?

She gave a rueful smile as she acknowledged that it would indeed be exciting to at last see the much-talked of Duke of Stourbridge.

Her breath caught in the slenderness of her throat as first a booted foot descended onto the lowered step, quickly followed by the ducking of a head as the Duke of Stourbridge stepped completely out of the carriage and then down onto the gravel driveway, straightening to take his hat from the waiting servant before lifting his haughty head to take in his surroundings.

Goodness, he was tall, was Jane’s first breathless realisation. Quickly followed by the acknowledgement that, with hair the colour of mahogany shot through with streaks of gold, and those powerfully wide shoulders and athletically moulded body, he was also the most handsome man she had ever set eyes on. His features were severe, of course, as befitted a duke who looked to be in his thirtieth year at least, but there was such hard male beauty in that austerity that just to look at him took Jane’s breath away.

In fact she did not seem able to stop looking at him.

There was intelligence as well as arrogance in that wide brow, though the precise colour of his eyes was something of a mystery as he viewed his surroundings with unmistakable disdain, looking down his nose at the scene before him. The sculptured mouth had narrowed, and dark brows were rising in haughty surprise as he turned to see his hostess hurriedly descending the steps towards him, rather than waiting inside Markham Park for him to be formally announced.

‘Your Grace!’ Lady Sulby swept him a low curtsey and received a haughtily measured inclination of that arrogant head in return. ‘Such an honour,’ she fluttered. ‘I—But where is your brother, Lord St Claire, Your Grace?’ Lady Sulby’s voice had sharpened to an unbecoming shrill as she realised there was no one else inside the Duke’s carriage.

Jane could not discern the Duke’s reply—could only hear the deep rumble of his voice as he obviously made his hostess some sort of explanation for his solitary state.

Oh, dear. Everything did not appear to be going to plan. Lady Sulby’s plan, that was. And an already thwarted Lady Sulby was not to be displeased further by the delay of the delivery of the shawl she had requested Jane to bring to her almost ten minutes ago.

Jane moved quickly down the hallway to Olivia’s room to collect the parasol before hurrying to the wide staircase with the required items, aware of the rumble of voices below as Sir Barnaby engaged his guest in conversation.

Lady Sulby had previously expressed high hopes of Olivia making a favourable impression on the Duke’s youngest brother, Lord Sebastian St Claire, and now that the young lord had failed to arrive Lady Sulby would no doubt be in one of the spiteful moods that usually had the servants running downstairs to the sanctuary of the kitchen at the first opportunity. Jane knew she wouldn’t be allowed the same privilege until after she had helped Olivia change into her dress for dinner and styled her hair.

When the family were at home Jane was usually allowed to dine with them in the evenings, but Lady Sulby had informed her only that morning that once their guests had arrived she would be expected to take her meals downstairs with the other servants.

Which would not be any hardship at all, when Jane considered the few dresses she had in her wardrobe. None of them was in the least suitable for dining with a duke, she acknowledged ruefully as she hurried to the staircase. And if she could deliver the shawl and parasol while the Duke still engaged the attention of his host and hostess, then she would perhaps manage to avoid the rebuke Lady Sulby was otherwise sure to make concerning her tardiness.

Jane could never afterwards explain how it happened. Why it happened. She was only aware that the staircase was no longer firm beneath her slippered feet, and that instead of hurrying down the staircase she instead found herself tumbling forwards.

Or at least she would have tumbled if a pair of strong hands hadn’t reached out and grasped her upper arms to halt her.

She found herself instead falling forward into a hard, immovable object. A man’s chest, Jane quickly realised, as she found her nose buried in the delicate folds of an impeccably tied, pristinely white necktie, her senses at once assailed by the smell of cologne and clean male flesh, both mingling with the faint smell of a cigar.

The Duke of Stourbridge’s clean, male chest. The Duke of Stourbridge’s perfectly tied cravat too, Jane discovered seconds later, as she struggled to right herself and looked up into that aristocratically austere face and discovered that his eyes—those eyes whose colour she had been unable to discern earlier, as she had looked down at him from the window of Lady Sulby’s bedroom—were of the strangest, most intense shade of gold. Not brown, not hazel, but pure, piercing gold, rimmed with a much darker brown that somehow gave him the appearance of a large bird of prey. The mesmerising appearance of a large, dangerous bird of prey…

Hawk’s mouth tightened at the unexpectedness of this physical assault. Having spent the last two days confined to his carriage, the comfort of which had nevertheless not been enough to prevent him from being rocked and bumped about on the sadly uneven roads, he wished only to be shown to his rooms and provided with hot water for a bath before he had to present himself downstairs, in order that he might be introduced to his fellow guests before they dined.

The hostelries at which he had dined along the way, and the inn he had had perforce to stop at the previous night, had been far beneath his usual exacting standard. And minutes ago his hostess, until then a woman totally unknown to him, had shown such want of breeding as to almost accost him as he alighted from his carriage.

Hawk had reflected long and hard as to the advisability of coming to Markham Park at all during the two days preceding his departure from London, as well as during the long, interminable hours it had taken to arrive here, and this latest incident of having one of the Sulby household servants actually throw herself into his arms only served to prove how correct had been his misgivings.

‘I am so sorry, Your Grace.’ The maid’s voice was slightly breathless, her expression stricken as she glanced warily down into the hallway, where Sir Barnaby and Lady Sulby could still be seen and heard engaged in conversation with Lord and Lady Tillton. The other couple had arrived with their son Simon just as Hawk was being taken up to view his suite of rooms by the footman, who had now fallen discreetly back from this unexpected exchange.

Hawk’s gaze narrowed and his mouth tightened as he detected a look of apprehension in the shadowed green eyes the maid turned back to him. He certainly wasn’t accustomed to having anyone, least of all a servant, accost him in this way, but he realised now that the girl must have tripped—that as he had ascended the stairs he had merely been standing in the way of her tumbling unchecked to the hallway below. Certainly there was no need for her to look quite so apprehensive on his account.

Although that glance down at Sir Barnaby and Lady Sulby seemed to imply that it was not his own displeasure this young girl feared…

Hawk’s mouth thinned even more at the realisation. He had always found Sir Barnaby to be a pleasant, even jovial companion on the few occasions they had dined together, so he could only assume that it was from Lady Sulby that the maid feared retribution for her ill-timed actions.

‘I really am sorry, Your Grace.’The young girl moved to pick something up from the stairs that she seemed to have dropped when they collided. ‘I— Oh, I am so sorry, Your Grace!’ The girl gasped her dismay as she poked him in the stomach with the parasol she had just retrieved from the stair.

Hawk drew in a sharp breath at this second unexpected attack, and wondered incredulously if the last few minutes were going to be indicative of this week’s stay in what he had discovered on the drive here was indeed a flat, uninteresting fenland, with little to recommend it.

Including the delivery of letters. His own missive explaining that his brother Sebastian would be unable to attend after all had clearly not arrived, resulting in Hawk having to make Sebastian’s excuses verbally to his host and hostess.

In light of the ill-bred behaviour of Lady Sulby on his arrival, and the fact that Olivia Sulby, when introduced, had all the indications of being exactly the type of simpering miss Hawk found irritatingly exhausting, he could not help but frown as he wondered if perhaps Sebastian had been privy to some insight about the Sulby household that he had not.

Jane gave an inward groan as she saw the visible signs of the Duke’s displeasure, sure that such an illustrious person was completely unaccustomed to being physically accosted in this way.

Not only had she almost knocked him down the stairs, but now she had actually poked him in that flat, manly stomach with a parasol.

None of which Lady Sulby or Olivia seemed to have witnessed, thank goodness, as they still conversed with the Tilltons in the hallway below. But it could only be a matter of time before one or both of them looked up and became aware of the debacle taking place on the staircase above them.

Jane gave the patiently waiting footman a desperate look of pleading as he stood silent witness to the encounter—although she had to look hastily away again when she thought she detected a glint of laughter in John’s otherwise deadpan expression.

‘If you would come this way, Your Grace? I will show you to your rooms.’ John stepped sideways to allow the Duke to move around the obviously mortified Jane and so precede him up the wide staircase.

Some of Jane’s tension eased, and she gave John a grateful smile as the Duke did exactly that—only to once again find herself the focus of those all-seeing gold-coloured eyes as the Duke paused briefly and gave her one last narrow-eyed frowning glance.

Her smile faded, and she clutched the parasol and shawl to her bosom as she found herself held mesmerised by that penetrating gaze for several long, heart-stopping seconds. He took in her appearance from red hair to slippered feet, before those thin, chiselled lips tightened once more and the Duke turned to continue his gracefully elegant way up the stairs.

Jane breathed shakily as she found herself continuing to watch him, her breasts quickly rising and falling, her cheeks feeling uncomfortably hot, and her pulse racing as she stared at the broadness of the Duke’s shoulders in that perfectly tailored jacket, admired the slight curl in the darkness of his fashionably styled hair…

‘For goodness’ sake, Jane. I said my shawl embroidered with the pink roses, not the yellow.’ Lady Sulby finally seemed to have seen her on the staircase. ‘Really!’ She turned confidingly back to the Tilltons. ‘I declare the girl does not understand even the simplest of instructions.’

Jane knew, as she turned to go back up the stairs and saw Olivia’s expression of derision, that she had understood Lady Sulby’s instruction perfectly—that it was Lady Sulby who was being deliberately awkward. But it would serve no purpose to contradict Lady Sulby. Especially not in front of her guests.

The blush intensified in Jane’s cheeks as she reached the top of the stairs and saw that the Duke had once again paused on his way to his rooms, on the gallery overlooking the hallway this time. His top lip was now curled back in cold disdain as he stood witness to Lady Sulby’s waspish set down.

‘Your Grace.’ Jane gave a polite inclination of her head as she approached, and then hurried past him down the hallway, knowing that the blush on her cheeks would clash horribly with her red curls, and that the unattractive freckles on her nose would be rendered more visible by her high colour.

Not that it particularly mattered what the Duke of Stourbridge made of her. He was far, far above her precarious social station, and as such would have no further reason to even notice her existence.

If, that was, for the rest of his stay Jane desisted from falling down the staircase into his arms or attacking him with a parasol!

How could she have been so ungainly, so inelegant, so utterly without grace? Jane wondered as she sat down shakily on the side of Lady Sulby’s four-poster bed, dropping the shawl and parasol on the bedcover beside her as she put both her hands against her hot and flustered cheeks. the Duke, as had been obvious from that last disdainful glance in her direction, had obviously been wondering the very same thing.

Oh, this was dreadful. Too horrible for words. She just wanted to curl up in a ball of misery in the window-seat in her bedroom and not appear again until that beautiful black carriage, with its ducal crest and its illustrious guest inside, had rolled back down the driveway and disappeared to London, whence it came.

‘Whatever are you doing, Jane?’ A stunned Lady Sulby came to an abrupt halt in the doorway to her bedchamber, and a guilt-stricken Jane rose from her sitting position on the side of her silk-covered bed.

The older woman’s gaze moved critically about the room, a frown marring her brow as she saw the jewellery box on the dressing table. Jane had earlier intended returning it to the still open top drawer, but had totally forgotten to do in the excitement of the Duke’s arrival.

‘Have you been looking at my things?’ Lady Sulby’s demand was sharp as she swiftly crossed the room to lift the lid of the jewellery box and check its contents.

‘No, of course I have not.’Jane was incredulous at the accusation.

‘Are you sure?’ Lady Sulby glared.

‘Perfectly sure.’Jane nodded, stunned by her guardian’s suspicions. ‘Clara must have left the box out earlier.’

Lady Sulby gave her another searching glare before replacing the jewellery box in the drawer and closing it abruptly. ‘Where is my shawl, girl? And you have failed to bring Olivia’s parasol down to her,’ she added accusingly.

‘Which I need if I am to accompany Lady Tillton and Simon Tillton into the rose garden.’ Olivia smiled smugly as she stood in the open doorway.

Jane had not even noticed the younger girl until that moment, and avoided meeting Olivia’s triumphant gaze as she hurriedly handed her the parasol, her own thoughts still preoccupied with Lady Sulby’s earlier sharpness concerning the jewellery box.

Why would Lady Sulby even suspect her of doing such a thing? As far as Jane was aware the box contained only the few costly jewels owned by the Sulby family and several private papers, none of which was of the least interest to Jane.

‘It really is too bad of Lord St Claire not to have accompanied His Grace after all,’ Lady Sulby murmured distractedly once Olivia had departed for her walk in the garden. ‘Especially as it has caused me to rearrange all my dinner arrangements for this evening. Still, the influenza is the influenza. And I do believe that the Duke was rather taken with Olivia himself,’ she added with relish. ‘Now, would that not be an advantageous match?’

Jane was sure that she was not expected to make any reply to this statement—that Lady Sulby was merely thinking out loud while she plotted and planned inside her calculating head.

But Jane’s silence on the subject did not mean that she had no thoughts of her own on an imagined match between Olivia and the Duke of Stourbridge. Her main one being that it was ludicrous to even think that a man as haughtily arrogant as the Duke would ever be attracted to, let alone enticed into marriage with, the pretty but self-centred Olivia.

‘Why are you still standing there, Jane?’ Lady Sulby demanded waspishly as she finally seemed to notice her again. ‘Can you not see that my nerves are agitated? I shall probably have one of my headaches and be unable to attend my guests at all this evening!’

‘Would you like me to send for Clara?’ Jane offered lightly, knowing that Lady Sulby’s maid, a middle-aged woman who had accompanied Gwendoline Simmons from her father’s home in GreatYarmouth when she had married Sir Barnaby twenty-five years ago, was the only one who could capably deal with Lady Sulby when she was beset by ‘one of her headaches’.

A regular occurrence, as it happened, but usually relieved by a glass or two of Sir Barnaby’s best brandy. For medicinal purposes only, of course, Jane acknowledged with a rueful grimace.

‘I do not know what you can possibly find to smile about, Jane.’ Lady Sulby threw herself down onto the chaise, her hand raised dramatically to her brow as the sun shone in through the window. ‘You would be much better served returning to your room and changing for dinner. You know I cannot abide tardiness, Jane.’

Lady Sulby’s comment on Jane changing for dinner caused her to frown. ‘Did you not tell me earlier that I was to dine belowstairs this evening—?’

‘Have you not been listening to a word I said, girl?’ Lady Sulby’s voice had once again risen shrilly, and she glared across at Jane, not even her faded beauty visible in her displeasure. ‘The Duke has arrived without his brother, leaving me with only thirteen to sit down to dinner. A possibility I cannot even contemplate.’ She shuddered. ‘So you will have to join us. Which will make an imbalance of men to ladies. It will not do, of course, but it will have to suffice until our other guests arrive tomorrow.’

Jane’s own face had lost all colour as the full import of Lady Sulby’s complaints became clear. ‘You are saying, ma’am, that because Lord St Claire is indisposed you wish me to make up the numbers for dinner this evening?’

‘Yes, yes—of course I am saying that.’ The older woman glared at her frowningly. ‘Whatever is the matter with you, girl?’

Jane swallowed hard at the mere thought of finding herself seated at the same dinner table as the formidable Duke of Stourbridge, sure that after their disastrous meeting on the stairs earlier it was probably his fervent wish never to set eyes on her again!

As Lady Sulby had already remarked, it really would not do.

‘I am sure I do not have anything suitable to wear—’

‘Nonsense, girl.’ A flush coloured Lady Sulby’s plump and powdered cheeks as she bristled at this continued resistance to her new arrangements. ‘What of that yellow gown of mine that Clara altered to fit you? That will do perfectly well, I am sure,’ Lady Sulby announced imperiously.

Jane’s heart sank as she thought of the deep yellow gown that Lady Gwendoline had decided did not suit her after all, and which had been altered to fit Jane instead.

‘I really would not feel comfortable amongst your titled guests—’

‘I am not concerned with your comfort!’ Lady Sulby’s face became even more flushed as her agitatation rose. ‘You will do as you are told, Jane, and join us downstairs for dinner. Is that understood?’

‘Yes, Lady Sulby.’ Jane felt nauseous.

‘Good. Now, send Clara to me.’ Lady Sulby lowered herself down onto the cushions once again, her eyes closing. ‘And tell her I am in need of one of her physics,’ she added weakly, as Jane moved obediently to the door.

Jane waited until she was outside in the hallway before giving in to the despair she felt just at the thought of going down to dinner wearing that horrible yellow gown. Of the arrogantly disdainful but devastatingly handsome Duke of Stourbridge seeing her in that bilious yellow gown.

Chapter Two

‘Is this some new sort of party game? Or is it just that you are contemplating what singular delights you might have in store for me later this evening?’ Hawk mused derisively to the woman standing—hiding?—behind the potted plant at his side. ‘Perhaps you intend spilling a glass of wine over me during dinner? Or maybe hot tea later in the evening would be more to your liking? Yes, I am sure that hot tea would cause much more discomfort than a mere glass of wine. That potted plant really is an insufficient hiding place, you know,’ Hawk added, when his quarry made no response to any of his mocking barbs.

His humour had not been improved when he’d come downstairs to the drawing room some minutes ago, to meet and mingle with his fellow house guests before dinner. His bath water had been hot, but of insufficient quantity for his needs, and his valet, Dolton, was no happier with his present location than Hawk. In his agitation he had actually caused the Duke’s chin to bleed whilst shaving him, an event that had never happened before in all his long service.

But Hawk had found his darkly brooding mood lightening somewhat a few minutes later when, while in polite conversation with Lady Ambridge, an elderly if outspoken lady he was long acquainted with, he had spotted what appeared to be an almost ghostly yellow being flitting from behind one oversized plant pot to another. He had assumed it was in an effort not to be noticed, but it had actually achieved the opposite.

It was testament to how bored Hawk already was by the conversation of his fellow guests that he had actually excused himself from Lady Ambridge’s company to stroll across the room and stand beside the plant at that moment hiding the elusive creature.

A single glance behind the terracotta pot had shown her to be the earlier perpetrator of the painful bump in his chest followed by the even more painful dig in his stomach with a parasol. Hawk’s surprise that she was not a maid after all but was obviously a fellow guest was completely overshadowed by the strangeness of her behaviour since entering the drawing room.

He was also, Hawk realised with not a little surprise, more than curious to know the reason for it. ‘You may as well come out from behind there, you know,’ he advised, even as he continued to gaze disdainfully out at the room rather than at her, impeccable in his black evening clothes.

This time, at least, he did receive an agitated reply. ‘I really would rather not!’

Hawk felt compelled to point out the obvious. ‘You are only drawing attention to yourself by not doing so.’

‘I believe you are the one drawing attention to us both by talking to me!’ Her voice was sharp with indignation.

He probably was, Hawk acknowledged ruefully. The fact that he was the highest-ranking person in the room, and so obviously the biggest feather in Lady Gwendoline Sulby’s social cap, also meant that he was attracting many sidelong glances from his fellow guests while they pretended to be in conversation with each other.

As the Duke of Stourbridge, he was used to such attention, of course, and had learnt over the years to ignore it. Obviously his quarry did not have that social advantage.

‘Perhaps if you were to explain to me why it is you feel the need to hide behind a succession of inadequate potted plants…?’

‘Would you just go away and leave me alone? If you please, Your Grace,’ she added with guilty breathlessness, as she obviously remembered exactly who she was talking to, and in what way.

For some inexplicable reason Hawk had the sudden urge to laugh.

And, as he rarely found occasion to smile nowadays, let alone laugh with a woman, he noted it with surprise. Women, those most predatory of beasts, as he had found during the ten years since he had inherited the title of Duke following the death of both his parents in a carriage accident, were no laughing matter.

He sighed. ‘You really cannot hide away all evening, you know.’

‘I can try!’

‘Why would you want to?’ His curiosity was definitely piqued.

‘How can you possibly ask that?’

His brows rose. ‘Perhaps because it seems a reasonable question in the circumstances?’

‘The gown,’ she answered tragically. ‘Surely you have noticed the gown?’

Well, yes, it would be difficult not to notice such a violent yellow creation, when all the older ladies present were wearing pastels and Miss Olivia Sulby virginal white. The colour really was most unbecoming with the vivid red of this girl’s hair, but…

‘Please do go away, Your Grace!’

‘I am afraid I really cannot.’

‘Why not?’

Hawk, having no intention of admitting to an interest he himself found unprecedented, chanced another glance at her. That gown was most unattractive against the red of her hair and the current flush to her cheeks, and the matching yellow ribbon threaded through those vibrant locks only added to the jarring discord.

‘Did your modiste not tell you how ill yellow would suit your—er—particular colouring when you ordered the gown?’

‘It was not I who ordered the gown but Lady Sulby.’ She sounded irritated that he had not realised as much. ‘I am sure that any modiste worthy of that name would have the good sense never to dress any of her red-haired patrons in yellow, giving the poor woman the appearance of a huge piece of fruit. Unappetising fruit, at that!’

This time Hawk was totally unable to contain his short bark of laughter, causing the heads of those fellow guests closest to him to turn even more curious glances his way.

Jane, aware of the curious glances of the other Sulby guests, really did wish that the Duke would go away.

The gown, when she had put it on, had looked even worse than she had imagined it would, and the yellow ribbon Lady Sulby had provided to dress her hair only added to the calamity.

But Jane had known that Lady Sulby would only make her life more unbearable than usual if she did not go down to dinner as instructed, and so she really had had no choice but to don the hated gown and ribbon and enter the drawing room—before trying to make herself as inconspicuous as possible by moving from the shelter of one potted plant to another, hoping that when she actually sat down at the dinner table the gown would not be as visible.

But she hadn’t taken into account the unwanted curiosity and attention of the Duke of Stourbridge. And his laughter, at her expense, was doubly cruel in the circumstances.

‘You really should come out, you know,’ he drawled. ‘I am sure that there cannot now be a person present who has not taken note of my conversation with a very colourful potted plant!’

Jane’s mouth firmed as she accepted the truth of the Duke’s words, knowing he had been the focus of all eyes for the last five minutes or so as he apparently engaged in conversation—and laughter—with a huge pot of foliage. But it really was too bad of him to have drawn attention to her in this way when she had so wanted to just fade into the woodwork. Not an easy task, admittedly, when wearing this bilious-coloured gown, but she might just have succeeded until it was actually time to go in to dinner if not for the obvious attentions of the Duke of Stourbridge.

In the circumstances she had little choice but to acknowledge and comply with his advice, stepping out from behind the potted plant and then feeling indignant all over again as the Duke made no effort to hide the wince that appeared on his arrogantly handsome face as he slowly took in her appearance—from the yellow ribbon adorning her red hair to the lacy frill draping over her slippers.

‘Dear, dear, it is worse even than I thought.’ He grimaced.

‘You are being most unkind, Your Grace.’ Her cheeks had become even redder in her indignation.

He gave an arrogant inclination of his head. ‘I am afraid that I am.’

Jane’s eyes widened at the admission. ‘You do not even apologise for being so?’

‘What would be the point?’ He shrugged those powerful shoulders in the black, expertly tailored evening jacket that somehow emphasised the width of his shoulders and the lean power of his body. ‘I am afraid you also have me at something of a disadvantage…?’

Jane drew in an agitated breath. ‘On the contrary,Your Grace. I am sure that any disadvantage must be mine!’

Hawk’s gaze was drawn briefly to the swelling of creamy breasts against the low bodice of her gown—enticingly full breasts, considering her otherwise slender appearance—before his narrowed gaze returned to her face. Like her colouring and her figure, it was not fashionably pretty. But the deep green of her eyes, surrounded by thick, dark lashes, was nonetheless arresting. Her nose was small, and covered lightly with the freckles that might be expected with such vibrant colouring, and her mouth was perhaps a little too wide—although the lips were full and sensuous above a pointedly determined chin.

No, he acknowledged, she did not possess the sweetly blonde beauty that was currently fashionable—the same sweetly blonde beauty he found so unappealing in Olivia Sulby!—but this young lady’s colouring and bone structure were such that she would remain beautiful even in much older years.

All of which Hawk noted in a matter of seconds, which was surprising in itself.

Women, to the Duke of Stourbridge, had become merely a convenience—something to be enjoyed during the few hours of leisure that he allowed himself away from his ducal duties.

His alliance with the Countess of Morefield had been brief and physically unsatisfactory, and had only served to convince Hawk that the demands a mistress made on his time were invariably unworthy of the effort expended in acquiring that mistress.

Surprisingly, Hawk recognised that this young woman—for she was much younger than the women he usually took as mistress—if dressed and coiffured properly, could, in the right circumstances, be worthy of his attention.

Except that he still had no idea who or what she was. She was several years older than those ‘simpering misses’ of which Olivia Sulby was such a prime example. But, from the way Lady Sulby had spoken to her earlier, she did appear to be part of the Sulby household. Although in what capacity Hawk could not guess. Olivia Sulby, as he already knew, was an only child, so this interestingly forthright creature could not be Sir Barnaby’s daughter.

Perhaps Lady Sulby’s daughter from a previous marriage? His hostess had certainly spoken to her sharply enough for such a relationship to exist, although Hawk could see absolutely no resemblance between the plump, faded beauty of Lady Sulby and the strikingly beautiful redhead standing before him.

But if she was a young, unmarried lady of quality Hawk knew he could not take her as mistress—no matter what his unexpected interest. That he had even been thinking of doing so was reason enough for him to maintain a distance between them. And sooner rather than later.

Before he could effect a gracious withdrawal, a flustered and obviously disapproving Lady Sulby bustled over to join them. ‘I see you have met my husband’s ward, Jane Smith, Your Grace. Dear Jane came to us from a distant relative of Sir Barnaby’s. An impoverished parson of a country parish,’ she added dismissively, shooting a censorious glance at the object of her monologue, a hard glitter in her eyes. ‘You look very well in that gown, Jane.’

Hawk’s brows rose at the insincerity behind the compliment even as he shared a look of sceptisism with the young lady he now knew as Jane Smith. Jane Smith? The blandness of the name did not suit this vibrant young woman in the least.

‘Miss Smith.’ He bowed formally. ‘Might I be permitted to escort Sir Barnaby’s ward in to dinner, Lady Sulby?’ he offered, as the dinner bell sounded.

As hostess, Lady Sulby naturally would have expected this privilege to be her own, for some inexplicable reason—despite his earlier decision to distance himself from Jane Smith—Hawk now felt a need to thwart his hostess.

Maybe because she had—deliberately?—drawn attention to the gown that was making Jane so unhappy. Or maybe because of the way she had spoken so condescendingly of Jane’s impoverished father. Whatever the reason, Hawk found himself unwilling to suffer Lady Sulby’s singularly ingratiating attentions even for the short time it would take to escort her to the dining room.

Although the stricken look on Jane Smith’s face as she became the open focus of the angrily hard glitter of Lady Sulby’s gaze told him that it had perhaps been unwise on his part to show such a preference.

A realisation that was immediately confirmed by Jane Smith. ‘Really, Your Grace, you must not.’

Hawk gave her a hard, searching glance, noting the slight pallor to her cheeks and the look almost of desperation now in those deep green eyes. Jane Smith, unlike almost every other woman of Hawk’s acquaintance, most definitely did not want the Duke of Stourbridge to single her out for such attention. In fact, those green eyes were silently pleading with him not to do so.

‘In that case…Lady Sulby?’ He held out his arm, the polite smile on his lips not reaching the icy hardness of his eyes.

His hostess seemed almost to have to drag her attention away from Jane Smith before turning an ingratiating smile in his general direction. ‘Certainly, Your Grace.’ She placed her possessively grasping hand on his arm before sweeping regally through the room ahead of her other guests.

Jane stood back and watched them, her heart beating erratically in her chest, having easily recognised the look of promised retribution in Lady Sulby’s gaze before she had turned and graciously accepted the Duke’s arm.

Why had the Duke offered to escort Jane in to dinner? He of all people had to know that as the Sulbys’ principal titled guest, etiquette demanded that he escort Lady Sulby. To do anything else would cause something of a sensation.

But, oh, how Jane wished she could have accepted. How—despite the cruelty of his laughter at her expense—she would have loved to be the one who was swept regally from the room on the arm of the aristocratic Duke of Stourbridge. He was so haughtily attractive, so powerfully immediate, that Jane had no doubt those austere and yet mesmerising features would appear in her dreams later tonight.

‘What do you mean by making such a spectacle of yourself, Jane?’ Olivia had appeared at her side, her fan raised so that her acerbic tone and disdainful expression could not to be observed by the other guests as they prepared to follow Lady Sulby and the Duke through to the dining room. ‘Mama is going to be absolutely furious with you for deliberately attracting the Duke’s attention in that way.’

Jane gasped at the unfairness of the accusation. ‘But I did nothing to—’

‘Do not lie, Jane. We all saw you making a fool of yourself by openly flirting with the man in that shameless way.’ Olivia glared, the tightness of her mouth giving her a look very much like her mother’s at that moment. ‘Mama is going to be very angry if your behaviour has caused the Duke any embarassment,’ she told Jane warningly. ‘That gown looks absolutely horrid on you, by the way,’she added cuttingly, before walking away to smilingly take the arm of the waiting Anthony Ambridge, the elegible grandson of Lady Ambridge.

Dinner was, as Jane could have predicted, an absolutely miserable time for her. Lord Tillton sat to the left of her, and constantly tried to put his hand on her thigh until she put a stop to it by digging her nails into his wrist, and a deaf and elderly woman sat the to her right, talking in a monologue that thankfully required no response on Jane’s part—because she was sure she would not have heard her even if she had attempted a reply.

To make matters worse, the Duke, on Lady Sulby’s right, with Olivia seated next to him—two blonde sentinels guarding a much valued prize—proceeded to ignore Jane completely and so succeeded in increasing her misery.

By the time Lady Sulby signalled for the ladies to retire and leave the men to their brandy Jane’s head was pounding. She longed for nothing more than to escape to her room, where she might at last take the pins from her hair before bathing her heated brow and hopefully alleviating the painful throbbing at her temples. After Olivia’s earlier comments it would merely be postponing the inevitable confrontation with Lady Sulby, of course, but Jane hoped that even a short delay might be advantageous.

‘I think you are being very wise, Jane.’ Lady Sulby, talking to Lady Tillton in the drawing room, paused and gave a terse inclination of her head when Jane asked to be excused because of a headache. ‘In fact, I think it would be beneficial to everyone if you were to keep to your room until we can be sure that you are not the carrier of anything infectious.’

Jane’s face whitened at the deliberate insult—did it promise retribution?—before turning to lift the hem of her gown and almost run from the room.

‘That you are not the carrier of anything infectious.’

Lady Sulby could not have told Jane any more clearly that she considered Jane’s very presence to be a dangerous source of infection to her guests—but no doubt especially where the Duke of Stourbridge was concerned!

Hawk was sure he had never spent an evening of such boredom in his entire life, knowing after only two minutes in the company of Lady Sulby and the vacuously self-centred Olivia that the older lady was everything he disliked, in that she was a gossipy small-minded, social-climbing woman, with not a kind word to say for anyone or anything, and that in twenty years or so—if not sooner!—her daughter would be exactly like her.

But the dinner fare, unlike the company he had been forced to endure, had been surprisingly excellent, with each course seeming to outdo the last, to such a degree that Hawk had wondered if, before taking his leave at the end of the week, he might not be able to persuade the Sulbys’ cook into joining one of his own households.

And of course there had been that strangely memorable incident with Jane Smith earlier. Although, with hindsight, Hawk had decided that even there he had been unwise—that the eligible Duke of Stourbridge should not have engaged a young unmarried lady to whom he had not even been formally introduced at the time in conversation of any kind. The fact that she was, despite Lady Gwendoline’s obvious sharpness to her, Sir Barnaby’s ward, meant that no doubt she had ambitions of her own concerning advantageous marriage.

His wariness had been confirmed when he had observed her from between narrowed lids for several minutes at the start of dinner. She had proceded to flirt outrageously with James Tillton—a man Hawk knew to keep two mistresses already, in different areas of London—constantly turning in his direction whilst completely ignoring the poor woman seated at her other side, as she’d gallantly attempted to engage her in conversation.

‘What do you think, Stourbridge?’

He turned his attention to the other gentlemen seated around the table, partaking of the surprisingly excellent brandy. ‘I agree with you entirely, Ambridge.’ He answered the elderly gentleman—he believed was the matter of horseflesh—before moving languidly to his feet, carrying his glass of brandy with him. ‘If you will excuse me, gentlemen? I believe I will partake of some of this brisk Norfolk air our hostess was in such raptures about earlier.’ He strolled across the room to open one of the French doors before stepping outside onto the moonlit terrace, relieved to step out of the room and away from the banality of the conversation.

How was he possibly to stand another six days of this? Hawk asked himself wearily. Perhaps he could arrange for Sebastian to have a ‘relapse’, and so excuse himself on the pretext of brotherly concern? Such a course presented the problem of arranging to have a letter delivered to himself, of course, but surely that was preferable to the prospect of dying of boredom before the week was out?

Although there really was something to be said for the bracing Norfolk air, he discovered, as he drew in a deep breath and felt his head immediately begin to clear. Perhaps he would consider an estate in Norfolk, after all. Just not this one.

Having now met and spent time in the company of Olivia Sulby, his marital plans regarding that young lady and his brother Sebastian were definitely cancelled. For one thing he loved his youngest brother far too much to inflict that simpering chit on Sebastian and the rest of the St Claire family, let alone her social-climbing mother. It really—

Hawk’s attention had been caught, and held, by a movement to the left of the moon-dappled garden—a slight deviation in the shadows beside the tall hedge that told him he was no longer alone in his enjoyment of the bracing air. He had been joined by a fox, perhaps. Or maybe a badger.

But, no, the moving shadow was too tall to be either of those nocturnal animals. The intruder into his solitude was definitely of the two-legged variety, and it moved purposefully along the hedge towards the gate that Dolton, a dedicated city-dweller, had shudderingly informed his employer earlier led down to a beach and the open sea.

It was a man, then. Or perhaps a woman. On her way to some romantic tryst, maybe? Or could it be something slightly more serious, such as smuggling? Hawk believed that it was still as rife here in Norfolk as it was reputed to be in Cornwall.

While actively fulfilling his role as a justice of the peace in Gloucestershire, Hawk did not consider it any of his business—but his attention sharpened as the breeze gusted strongly, lifting the dark shielding cloak that encompassed the prowler and revealing something much lighter in colour worn beneath.

Such as a gown of vivid yellow…?

Could that possibly be Jane Smith moving stealthily away from the house in the direction of the beach? And, if so, for what purpose?

Hawk told himself again that it was none of his business what Jane Smith did. She was the unmarried ward of Sir Barnaby, and Hawk would be well advised to keep well away from her for the remainder of his visit here, or risk finding himself manoeuvred into the parson’s mousetrap—a fate he had no intention of succumbing to until he had seen all of his siblings happily settled, and certainly not with the impoverished ward of a minor peer. When the time came Hawk fully intended marrying a woman of suitable breeding—one who would quietly and efficiently provide the heirs necessary for the Duke of Stourbridge but would make no other demands upon his time or his emotions.

To deliberately seek out Jane Smith, a young woman who had already caused him to act completely out of character earlier this evening, would be decidedly unwise. He would be better served by rejoining the other gentlemen and forgetting even the existence of Jane Smith.

But the impulse—madness?—which had afflicted him earlier, when his curiosity had first been piqued enough to engage Jane Smith in conversation, did not seem to have dissipated, and rather than rejoining the gentlemen inside the house Hawk instead found himself placing his brandy glass down on the balustrade and moving down the steps into the garden, with the sole intention of following to see exactly where Jane Smith was going alone so late at night.

And why.

Chapter Three

‘Are your tears because your lover has failed to arrive for your tryst, or because as yet there is no lover?’

Jane stiffened as she easily recognised the Duke of Stourbridge’s deep, slightly bored voice coming from above and behind her as she sat among the dunes. Her chin was resting on her drawn-up knees, the hood of her cloak having fallen back to reveal the wildness of her hair, now free of the confines of its pins, as she stared out at the wildly beating waves upon the shore, tears falling unchecked down her cheeks.

She pulled her cloak more firmly about her before answering him. ‘The reason for my tears is not your concern, Your Grace.’

‘And if I choose to make it my concern?’

‘Then I wish you would not. In fact, I would prefer it if you left me.’ She was too miserable at that moment to even attempt to be polite. Even—especially?—to the exalted Duke of Stourbridge. Though polite was not a word she would have used to describe any of their encounters to date!

‘You are ordering me to leave, Jane? Again?’ he mocked lightly.

Jane was dimly aware of his having now moved to stand beside her in the shelter of the dune, probably ruining his evening slippers in the process. But she did not care. She was too unhappy, too desperately low, to consider the Duke’s discomfort at that moment. After all, she had made no invitation for him to join her here.

‘I am, Your Grace.’ She nodded tersely.

‘I am afraid that will not be possible, Jane.’ He gave a sigh as, completely careless of his expensively tailored clothing, he lowered his considerable length to sit down on the dune at her side. ‘It would be most ungentlemanly of me, having discovered a lady in such distress, to simply walk away and leave her here, where anyone might come along and, discovering that she is alone, attempt to take advantage of the situation.’

Jane glanced at him frowningly in the darkness. ‘Even if she has asked you to do so? Even if she is not a lady?’ She turned her face away so that he wouldn’t see the anger that was quickly replacing her tears.

‘Is this about the gown, Jane?’ Impatience edged his voice now, and he continued with disdain. ‘Because if it is then you only have to look at Lady Sulby, to engage her in a moment’s conversation, to know that a fine gown does not make a lady.’

Jane made a choked sound, caught somewhere between a sob and a laugh. ‘That remark is certainly not that of a gentleman, Your Grace!’

The Duke gave another sigh. ‘I am finding it increasingly difficult to behave like a gentleman since arriving here in Norfolk.’

Jane gave him another sideways glance. The moonlight was throwing into stark relief the sharp edges of his aristocratic profile, his high cheekbones, his strong and determined jaw.

He was dressed meticulously in black again this evening, with a high-collared white shirt and his cravat tied neatly at his throat, a pale grey satin waistcoat beneath his jacket. But the force of the wind had ruffled the dark thickness of his hair into disarray, giving him a somewhat piratical appearance and, strangely, making him appear less like the haughty and unapproachable Duke of Stourbridge who had arrived at Markham Park earlier this afternoon.

But she must not forget that was exactly who he was, Jane reminded herself firmly, and that no matter how disconsolate she might feel, however much he might appear in sympathy with her plight at this moment, at the end of his week’s stay he would leave to return to his privileged life in London—while she would still be here under the tyrannical rule of Lady Sulby.

Just the thought of that was enough to cause the now angry tears to fall anew.

‘Come now, Jane.’ The Duke turned to her. ‘Whatever is wrong? It really cannot be so bad—’

‘And how can you possibly know that, Your Grace?’ Misery and, yes, a certain despair gave her the courage to lift her head and glare at him. ‘You are not the one who has been made to feel unwanted and less than you know yourself to be!’

Hawk stared at her. The moonlight chose that moment to come out from behind a cloud, clearly illuminating the tangled wildness of her hair, the deep sparkling green of her eyes, and the full sensuality of those pouting lips.

Dear God, he wanted to kiss those lips!

He did not just want to kiss them, he wanted to devour them!

Such an uncontrolled longing shocked Hawk intensely, as he had not felt it once since assuming the title of the Duke of Stourbridge ten years ago, all of his actions and words since that time had been measured and well thought out as he thoroughly considered and weighed any possible repercussions.

But at this moment Hawk found he could not think of anything else but kissing the lush ripeness of Jane Smith’s inviting lips, of crushing the slenderness of her body to his, under his, as his mouth plundered hers and his hands became entangled in the thick fire of her unconfined hair before he explored the creamy swell of her full breasts, that slender waist and curvaceously welcoming thighs. Hawk realised with even more shocking clarity that, to him, Jane Smith was neither unwanted nor less than she knew herself to be. In fact, he could not remember ever wanting any woman as hotly, as immediately, as he now wanted the inadequately named Jane Smith!

Instead of acting on that impulse, and shocked at the intensity of his sudden desire to taste and hold Jane Smith, he moved abruptly to his feet and stepped away from her. ‘I will leave you to your solitude, then, Jane.’

‘I hope I have not offended you, Your Grace…?’ She grimaced as she too rose to her feet, her cloak falling back further to reveal that she did indeed still wear the detested yellow gown. The gusting wind moulded its thin material to that slender waist, and the long, shapely length of her legs.

‘I am not in the least offended.’ Hawk stood rigidly, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw as he kept his gaze averted from the temptation she represented to his normally rigid control. ‘I am merely acknowledging my intrusion—’

‘I did not—’

‘Do not come any closer, Jane!’ Hawk found himself warning her from between clenched teeth as she reached out a hand towards him, the heat in his body, the throbbing of his loins, telling him just how dangerous this situation had become.

Had he been so long without the warm comfort of a woman—that brief, physically unsatisfying liaison with the Countess of Morefield excluded—that he was in danger of forcing his attentions upon a vulnerable and unprotected young girl? Was this what years of restraint and enforced solitude as Duke of Stourbridge had brought him to? If so, it was intolerable, and Hawk made a vow to see to the tiresome business of taking a mistress as soon as he returned to London.

Jane had come to a stricken halt as she heeded the Duke’s warning, staring up at him in the darkness. Did he too think that because she was only the orphaned daughter of an impoverished country parson she was unworthy of his notice? That she was beneath even the politeness of the high and mighty Duke of Stourbridge?

‘Go then,Your Grace.’She faced him proudly, her head back defiantly. ‘And I will endeavour to ensure that you are not bothered any further by my unwelcome presence for the remainder of your stay at Markham Park!’

‘Jane, you misunderstand me—’

‘I do not think so, Your Grace.’

‘Jane, you will cease “Your Gracing” me in that contemptuous tone.’

‘I most certainly will not!’ She was beyond reason, beyond caution, wanting only to hurt as she was being hurt.

‘Jane, you are playing with fire,’ the Duke warned harshly, his hands now clenched at his sides.

‘Fire, Your Grace?’ Jane echoed tauntingly. She was tired, so very tired. For the last twelve years she’d always been meek and submissive, never being allowed to have a mind or will of her own. ‘What would you know of fire? You, who are cold and haughty and look down your disdainful nose at everyone. What are you doing, Your Grace?’ She gasped incredulously as the Duke moved to grasp her arms and began to pull her forcefully towards him.

‘Hawk, Jane.’ His face was only inches away from hers now, his breath warm against her cheek, those haughty features hard and predatory in the moonlight. ‘My name is Hawk,’ he explained harshly.

She looked up at him questioningly.

Hawk?

The Duke of Stourbridge had been named for a bird of prey?

A dangerous bird of prey. Jane dazedly recalled her assessment of him earlier today even as she stared up at him in shocked fascination.

‘A fanciful notion of my mother’s.’ His tone was grim as he held Jane easily against the hard strength of his body.

Jane didn’t care at that moment how he had come by his unusual name. She was only concerned with the fact that the Duke of Stourbridge—the haughty and arrogantly aloof Duke of Stourbridge—was holding her tightly in his arms as he moulded the softness of her curves against his much harder ones and his gaze became fixated on her mouth.

In fact, everything about the high and mighty Duke of Stourbridge gave every indication that he was about to kiss her!

It was unthinkable.

Unimaginable…

And yet Jane found she could imagine it. Could already feel the hardness of those perfectly moulded lips on hers as his mouth plundered and claimed. Possessed. For surely any woman the Duke of Stourbridge chose to kiss would know the full force of the ardour he was normally at such pains to hide from his fellow beings, but which Jane could now see so clearly in the fierce glitter of his eyes? Just as clearly she could feel the tense hardness of his body as it pressed intimately against her own…

‘You should not have come here alone, Jane.’ The Duke’s gaze, that fiercely golden gaze, moved searchingly, hungrily, over the pallor of her face. ‘You should not, Jane!’ He began to lower his head towards hers.

Jane was held in motionless fascination for several long seconds as her lips parted instinctively to receive his.

A kiss.

One kiss.

Her first ever kiss.

Surely it was not too much to ask? To take for her own? After twelve long years of being denied the touch, the warmth, of another human being?

But a deeper, more knowledgeable instinct told her that Hawk St Claire, the powerful and forceful Duke of Stourbridge, would not stop at one kiss. His years and experience would demand he take more, much more. He was a man who would take and take again, while giving nothing of himself in return.

‘No!’ She turned her head away to avoid his kiss and at the same time pushed against his restraint, fighting to escape the steely band of his arms, but only succeeding in pressing herself more intimately against him. ‘No!’ Again she protested, fearing the desire that she could clearly see still held him in its grip. ‘You must not! Please, Hawk, you must not…!’

Her pleas pierced the fierce desire that raged through Hawk’s body, causing him to pause, to blink dazedly as he stared down at her in stunned disbelief.

This woman—this girl—was the ward of his host. The unmarried ward of his host.

He released her abruptly to step back, jaw tight, eyes gleaming a glittering, inflexible gold. ‘You should not have come here alone, Jane,’ he repeated harshly.

Her throat moved convulsively in the moonlight. ‘No, I should not. But I had not expected anyone to follow me—’

‘No, Jane?’ Hawk’s voice was hard, inflexible. ‘Are you sure that your present indignation is not due to the fact that it was the wrong man who responded to your invitation?’

She looked bewildered by his accusation. ‘The wrong man? I do not understand—’

‘Was it not James Tillton who was supposed to attend you here tonight rather than myself?’ Hawk had realised belatedly, as he remembered the flirtation he had witnessed during dinner, that this must be the case—that Jane’s dismay when he had joined her here had really been due to the fact that her lover—James Tillton?—had not arrived for their arranged tryst.

‘Lord Tillton?’ Jane gasped at his accusation. ‘I detest Lord Tillton! He behaved most disgracefully towards me during dinner—to such a degree that in the end I had to pierce his wrist with my fingernails in order to stop his pawing of me beneath the table. Besides which, he is a married man!’ she added frowningly.

Hawk’s mouth twisted scathingly. ‘Summer house parties like this one are notorious for the night-time assignations of people who are indeed married—but not to each other.’

‘Indeed, Your Grace?’ Her voice was icily cold. ‘And which female guest’s bed have you chosen to grace with your own illustrious presence tonight?’

Even now, in her pride and anger, Hawk could appreciate how beautiful, how tempting the inaptly named Miss Jane Smith truly was. Admittedly, her years spent under the guardianship of the forceful Lady Sulby seemed to have cowed the more spirited parts of her nature, but they were still there nonetheless—in the way that Jane challenged him, in the way that she never flinched from contradicting him. Two things that rarely, if ever, happened to the Duke of Stourbridge.

Jane Smith was unusual in that she did not seem to see him as just a duke. She saw past his title to the man beneath, and it was to that man that she spoke during her moments of rebellion. It was to that man that her beauty appealed. To such a degree that Hawk had briefly forgotten all the caution that had served him so well these last ten years.

It would not—it must not!—happen again.

‘I have no interest in bedding any of the ladies now residing at Markham Park,’ he said disdainfully, knowing by the way Jane stiffened that she had heard his intended rejection of her own charms in that carefully worded dismissal. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I believe I will make my excuses to the Sulbys before retiring to my bedchamber for the night.’ He bowed abruptly before turning to leave.

‘Not without first making me an apology,Your Grace!’

Hawk turned slowly back to her, his narrowed gaze taking in the taut lines of her body and the challenge in her defiantly raised chin.

‘For almost kissing you…?’

She gave him a contemptuous glare. ‘For wrongly accusing me of encouraging Lord Tillton!’

Was it possible Hawk had mistaken the events he had witnessed earlier at the dinner table? Had Jane not been encouraging Tillton after all, but rather, as she claimed, fighting off the other man’s unwanted attentions? Attention towards a young woman about whom it was obvious her guardians did not care, let alone offer protection to?

‘If I was mistaken—’

‘You were!’

‘If I was mistaken then I apologise.’ Hawk nodded abruptly. ‘But in future I would advise you not to come here alone. You might find yourself in much graver danger another time than you have this evening.’

‘Until now these dunes have always been my place of refuge!’

Until Hawk had intruded.

Until he had held her in his arms and attempted to kiss her.

But that was a temptation she had not demanded apology for…

She was magnificent. Hawk could acknowledge that even with his inner determination not to initiate any further intimacy between them. Her unconfined hair blew in the wind, a thick curtain of flame, her eyes were wide and challenging, and those perfectly pouting lips were set defiantly.

All of those things told Hawk that she would be a formidable lover. that this woman was more than capable of matching the depths of his own passion, which he was always at such pains to hide from others and which Jane, instinctively, was able to touch and ignite.

Jane Smith, he decided determinedly, was a definite danger to the icy reserve of the Duke of Stourbridge.

Jane Smith was even more of a danger to the inner man that was still, at heart, the sensual Hawk St Claire.

‘They obviously no longer offer such refuge,’ he pointed out coldly, unpityingly. ‘I will bid you goodnight, Miss Smith.’ He turned away, and this time he did not look back, did not hesitate as he strode purposefully back to Markham Park.

Jane watched him go—a tall, forbidding shape that finally disappeared into the darkness—knowing that it wasn’t only the refuge of the dunes that the Duke of Stourbridge had invaded this evening. When he had touched her, when he had looked in danger of kissing her, he had awakened a hunger deep inside her, a desire she had never known before, which had caused her breasts to swell and harden, and which had ignited a fiery warmth between her thighs that had made her want to forget all caution as she met and matched the passion she had been sure would be in his kiss. At that moment Jane knew she had wanted to lie down with him amongst the sand dunes, to strip away every vestige of the haughty coldness of the Duke of Stourbridge even as they stripped away their clothing, to explore, to kiss, to caress—

There Jane’s heated thoughts came to an abrupt halt. Because she had no idea what came after the kissing and caressing!

She did remember Lady Sulby’s cautions to Olivia at the start of her Season concerning her behaviour with the more roguish members of the ton—the main one being, ‘A lady may take as many lovers as she wishes after she is married, but not a single one before she has the wedding ring upon her finger.’

Did Jane’s wanton longings concerning the Duke of Stourbridge mean that she was not, after all, the lady she had always thought herself to be…?

‘You sent for me, Lady Sulby?’ Jane stood obediently in front of the other woman the following morning as Lady Sulby sat at the table in her private parlour, reading through the correspondence strewn across the table in front of her.

The blue gaze was ice-cold as Lady Sulby swept her a disparaging glance before answering. ‘You are completely recovered this morning from your headache, Jane?’

Her tone and demeanour were surprisingly mild. Instantly increasing Jane’s wariness. She had been expecting further retribution for what Olivia had warned her Lady Sulby perceived as Jane’s ‘flirtatious behaviour’ with the Duke of Stourbridge the evening before. The mildness of the older woman’s tone now did not in the least deceive her into dropping her guard.

‘I am quite recovered, thank you, Lady Sulby.’

The older woman gave a gracious inclination of her head. ‘You slept well?’

‘Fitfully.’As expected, Jane had found her dreams full of images—not of the Duke of Stourbridge, but of the man who had held her in his arms and ordered her to call him Hawk. Those images had been so erotically arousing that she had awoken suddenly in the darkness, gasping, her body shaking, her nipples hard and aching to the touch, and an unaccustomed dampness between her thighs.

‘Indeed?’ Lady Sulby sat back in her chair, the once beautiful face hard and unyielding as she looked at Jane from between narrowed lids. ‘Could that possibly be because you failed to sleep alone…?’

Jane gasped at the accusation even as she felt the colour drain from her cheeks. Surely Lady Sulby had not misunderstood Jane’s response to Lord Tillton’s advances towards her the evening before in the same way the Duke had?

Or could Lady Sulby possibly be referring to the Duke himself…?

Coming so soon after the memory of Jane’s erotic dreams about him, the thought made her cheeks now suffuse with colour.

‘Do not trouble yourself to answer, Jane,’ Lady Sulby snapped, before Jane had recovered sufficiently to refute the accusation. ‘It will serve no purpose for me to hear any of the sordid details—’

Jane’s shocked gasp interrupted her. ‘But there are no sordid details—’

‘I said I did not wish to hear!’ The older woman looked at her with unguarded dislike. ‘It is enough that, despite all our efforts, all the guidance and care that Sulby and I have so generously given you these last twelve years, you have still grown into a woman exactly like your wantonly disgraceful mother!’

Every drop of blood seemed to drain from Jane’s head and she felt herself sway dizzily. ‘My—my mother…?’

Lady Sulby’s top lip curled back disgustedly. ‘Your mother, Jane. A woman much like yourself. That is, completely lacking in morals and—’

‘How dare you?’ Jane had known when the maid had informed her that Lady Sulby wished to see her that she was about to bear the brunt of that lady’s displeasure, but she had been in no way prepared for the vitriol of this attack on her mother and herself. ‘My mother was good and kind—’

‘And who told you that, Jane?’ The other woman eyed her with scorn. ‘That fool of a parson who married her?’ She shook her head contemptuously. ‘Joseph Smith—like every other red-blooded man, it seems!—never could see any fault in his beautiful Janette. But I knew. I always knew that she was nothing but a shameless wanton.’ Her eyes glittered fanatically. ‘And in the end was I not proved correct about her immoral character?’ Lady Sulby surged to her feet, her face twisted and ugly in her fury.

Jane staggered back from the attack, all the time shaking her head in denial of the dreadful things Lady Sulby was saying about the woman who had died shortly after giving birth to her. ‘My mother was sweet and beautiful—’

‘Your mother was a harlot! A temptress and a whore!’

‘No…!’ Jane recoiled as if from a physical blow.

‘Oh yes.’ Lady Gwendoline glared at her contemptuously. ‘And you are exactly like her, Jane. I warned Sulby when he insisted we take you into our household. I told him what would happen—that you would only disgrace us as Janette disgraced us. And last night I was proved correct in my misgivings.’

‘But I did nothing last night of which I am ashamed!’ Jane attempted to defend herself, totally stunned at the things Lady Sulby was saying to her, and shocked to the core by the raw hatred she could clearly see in the other woman’s face.

‘Janette was not ashamed, either.’ Lady Sulby shook with rage, that wild glitter in her eyes intensifying. ‘She did not even apologise for being three months with child when she married her gullible parson!’

Jane really felt as if she were going to faint dead away at this last accusation. Her mother had been with child when she had married her father? With Jane herself?

But that did not make her mother a harlot or a whore. It only meant that, like many couples before them, her parents had precipitated their marriage vows. Jane was far from the first child to be born only six months after the wedding…

She shook her head. ‘The only person that should concern is me, and I—’

‘You would think that.’Lady Sulby glared at her. ‘You who are just like her. With never a thought for the disgrace you bring on this family with your wanton actions.’

‘But I have done nothing—’

‘You have most certainly done something!’ Lady Sulby’s hands were clenched at her sides. ‘The Duke’s valet has informed Brown, the butler, that they are leaving this morning, and—’

‘The Duke is leaving…?’ Jane repeated hollowly, surprised at how much this knowledge managed to distress her when the rest of her world appeared to be falling apart—when she already felt as if she were in the middle of a nightmare without end.

‘Do not pretend innocence with me, Jane Smith,’ Lady Sulby told her sneeringly. ‘We all witnessed the way in which you deliberately set out to attract the Duke yesterday evening—to tempt him to your bed, no doubt with the intention of trapping him into marriage. But if that was your hope then his hasty departure this morning must tell you that it was a wasted effort. The Duke is not a man to be trapped into anything—least of all marriage to a wanton chit like you. Oh, you are a wicked, hateful girl, Jane Smith!’ Lady Sulby’s voice rose hysterically. ‘A veritable viper in our midst! But I see from your rebellious expression that it bothers you not at all that you have totally ruined any chance of Olivia becoming the Duchess of Stourbridge!’

Jane very much doubted, after the Duke’s comments yesterday evening concerning Lady Sulby, that there had ever been the remotest possibility of Olivia finding herself married to the Duke, and was sure that any hope that Olivia would do so had only ever been Lady Sulby’s own misguided fantasy after Lord Sebastian St Claire had failed to arrive.

‘I want you out of this house today, Jane,’ Lady Sulby told her shrilly. ‘Today—do you hear?’

‘I have every intention of going.’ After this conversation, and the things Lady Sulby had said about her mother, Jane knew that she could not stay here a day, an hour, a moment longer than absolutely necessary.

‘And do not imagine you can come crawling back here if, like your mother, you find yourself with child!’ Lady Sulby scorned. ‘There is no convenient parson here for you to marry, Jane. No besotted fool you can beguile into marrying you in order to give your bastard a name!’

Jane became very still, all the pain she had felt at the unfairness of Lady Sulby’s accusations concerning the Duke fading, all emotion leaving her as she stared at the other woman as if down a long grey tunnel.

Lady Sulby’s eyes narrowed with spite as she saw the shocked disbelief Jane was too stunned to even attempt to hide. ‘You did not know?’ She trilled her triumph at having shaken Jane’s composure at last. ‘Even after she died giving birth to you Joseph Smith could not bear to sully the memory of his beloved Janette by telling you he was not your real father!’

‘He was my father!’ Jane’s hands had clenched at her sides. ‘He was…’ Tears of anger blurred her vision at the terrible things this dreadful woman was saying about her mother and father.

She had never known her mother, but her father had been everything that was gentle and kind. Jane did not believe he could have been that way with her if he had not been her real father.

Could he…?

‘He most certainly was not.’The older woman looked at her with triumphant pity. ‘Your mother seduced your real father, a rich and titled gentleman, into her bed, hoping that he would become so besotted with her he would discard the woman who was already his wife. Something he refused to do even when Janette found herself with child!’

‘I do not believe you!’ Jane shook her head in desperate denial. ‘You are simply trying to hurt me—’

‘And am I hurting you, Jane? I hope that I am,’ Lady Sulby crowed triumphantly. ‘You look very like Janette, you know. She had that same wild beauty. That same untameable spirit.’

And suddenly Jane saw with sickening clarity that Lady Sulby had spent these last twelve years trying to break that spirit in Janette’s daughter. She had belittled the physical likeness she perceived to Janette by dressing Jane in gowns that did absolutely nothing to complement her. Lady Sulby hated Jane as fiercely as she had hated her mother before her…

‘Janette was spoilt and wilful,’ Jane’s nemesis continued coldly. ‘She had the ability to twist any man around her little finger in order to persuade him into doing her bidding. But she made a terrible mistake in judgement in her choice of lover,’ Lady Sulby sneered. ‘A mistake immediately brought home to her when he did not hesitate to dismiss her from his life when she told him of the child she was expecting. You, Jane.’

‘You are lying!’ Jane repeated forcefully. ‘I have no idea why, not what Janette was to you, but I do know that you are lying!’

‘Am I?’ Lady Sulby eyed her derisively even as she reached out a hand to her desk and plucked up one of the sheets of paper lying there. ‘Perhaps you should read this, Jane?’ She held up the page temptingly. ‘Then you will see exactly who and what your mother really was!’

‘What is that?’ Jane eyed the letter warily. Who could be writing to Lady Sulby now, twenty-two years after Janette’s death?

‘A letter written twenty-three years ago by Janette to her lover. Never sent, of course. How could she send it when her lover was already married?’ Lady Sulby sniffed disgustedly.

‘How do you come to have her letter?’Jane shook her head dazedly.

Lady Sulby gave a taunting laugh. ‘Think back to twelve years ago, Jane. Surely you remember that I came with Sulby when he came to collect you after Joseph Smith died…? Of course you remember,’ she scorned, as Jane flinched at the memory. ‘Just as I remember going through Janette’s things and finding letters she had written to her lover but never sent. Vile, disgusting letters—’

‘There was more than one letter?’ Jane felt numb, disorientated.

‘There are four of them.’ Lady Sulby snorted. ‘And in each one Janette talks to her lover of the child they have created together in sin—’

‘Give that to me!’ Jane snapped warningly, snatching the letter from Lady Sulby’s pudgy hand to hold it fiercely against her breast. ‘You had no right to read my mother’s letters. No right! Where are the others?’ She moved to the desk, sifting agitatedly through the papers there, easily finding the other three letters written in the same hand as the one she already held. Letters which Lady Sulby had obviously been reading when Jane came into the room. ‘Does Sir Barnaby know about these letters…?’

‘Of course he does not.’ Lady Sulby sniffed scornfully. ‘I have kept them hidden from him these last twelve years. Why do you think I was so concerned when I saw you with my jewellery box yesterday?’

Because the letters had been hidden there!

‘How dare you?’ Jane turned fiercely on the other woman, cheeks flushed, her eyes glittering deeply green. ‘You are not fit to even touch my mother’s things, let alone read her private letters!’

Lady Sulby recoiled from that fiery anger, her hand held protectively against her swelling breasts. ‘Stay away from me, you wicked, wicked girl.’

‘I have no intention of coming anywhere near you.’ Jane faced the older woman unflinchingly. ‘I would not want to soil my hands by so much as touching you. I have tried so hard to like you but never could. Only Sir Barnaby has ever been kind to me here. Now I can only feel pity for him, kind and loving man that he is, in having such a vicious and vindictive woman as his wife.’

‘Get away from me, you horrible girl!’

‘Oh, I am going—never fear.’ Jane’s head was up as she walked to the door, her spine proudly straight. ‘Let me assure you that I shall leave here as soon as I have packed the few things that truly belong to me.’ Including her mother’s letters!

Jane knew, as she hurried down the hallway to her tiny bedroom at the back of the house, that she was glad—relieved!—to at last have reason to leave Markham Park.

No matter what the future held for her—where she went, what she had to do in order to survive—Jane knew it could never be as awful as the years she had spent at Markham Park under the knowing and cruel hatred of Lady Sulby.

Chapter Four

Hawk luxuriated in the heat of his bath, relaxing back in water that today was pleasurably hot and shoulderdeep—compliments of the fastidious Dolton, he felt sure.

Hawk had risen early and dressed before going down to the stables to mount the horse he had instructed Dolton to have saddled for him, surprisingly enjoying the ride across the sandy beach, his mood lightening as the salty breeze whipped through his hair and drove the cobwebs from his brain.

He had even allowed himself, briefly, to think of Jane Smith. The early-morning light had helped to put their encounter late the previous evening into perspective, thus making a nonsense of it—and of the sudden desire Hawk had felt for her. He had been bored—extremely so—and not a little irritated, and Jane, with her curvaceous body and sharp tongue, had presented a diversion from that boredom and irritation. Not necessarily a welcome one, he had acknowledged with a frown, but a diversion nonetheless.

Hawk’s mood had been further lightened when he had returned from his ride to Markham Park and read the letter that had been delivered in his absence. It was only a weekly missive forwarded from his man of business in London, Andrew Windham, but the Sulbys could not know that. Without knowing the contents of the letter they had readily accepted Hawk’s explanation that they necessitated he leave immediately.

Or at least as soon as he had bathed, Hawk acknowledged with a satisfied sigh as he sat forward to pick up the jug beside the bath and tip its hot contents over his hair, before washing it, musing as he did so on the fact that he would be away from Markham Park within the hour. The arrival of Andrew’s letter—a letter Hawk had so wanted to arrange himself—could not have been more fortuitous.

He could be at Mulberry Hall by tomorrow. Back in Gloucestershire. In control of his surroundings and the people who inhabited them.

And safely removed from that brief lapse of control he had known last night with Jane Smith…

Hawk banned Jane Smith and her bewitching green eyes firmly from his thoughts as he stepped out of the bath to wrap a towel about his waist and use another to dry his hair. He would ring for Dolton so that he might help him dress and shave before being on his way. He would not even delay his own departure until Dolton had packed his belongings into the second coach, preferring to be away from here, from the Sulbys—from the temptation of Jane Smith?—as soon as was possible.

It was not cowardice on his part but self-defence that made him so determined not to see or speak to Jane Smith again before he left. Desire was something one felt for a mistress, not a young, unmarried woman—in this particular case the orphaned daughter of an impoverished country parson, who would surely have marriage rather than bedding in mind.

A bedding was definitely what he was in need of, Hawk mused as he strolled through to his bedroom. A good, satisfying tumble in bed with a woman of experience who would expect nothing from him in return but a few expensive baubles. Yes, that would dispel any lingering thoughts of Jane Smith firmly from—

He turned incredulously in the direction of the bedchamber door as, after the briefest of knocks, it was flung open. The subject of his thoughts came hurtling through the doorway, her face flushed, her eyes overbright, and that glorious red hair dishevelled, with wisps trailing loosely against her cheeks and down her creamy throat.

‘Oh!’ Jane Smith came to an abrupt halt, the colour deepening in her cheeks as she obviously took in Hawk’s state of undress.

His first instinct was to pick up and quickly don the robe that lay waiting on a bedroom chair. His second instinct was to ask why should he? He was in the privacy of his bedchamber—a privacy Jane had rudely intruded upon—so why should he concern himself with her obvious embarrassment at his semi-nakedness?

He raised one disdainful brow. ‘I trust you have good reason for interrupting my ablutions in this abrupt manner?’

Jane stared at him. Did she have good reason? She couldn’t think—had no idea why she was even here. And Hawk—most definitely not the Duke of Stourbridge!—was standing there looking so—so—

His shoulders had appeared wide and powerful in those superbly tailored jackets, but the naked flesh was so much more immediate. His arms were muscled, a dark smattering of hair grew on his tanned chest, and down below the towel wrapped about his tapered waist…

Her startled gaze returned to his face, and just as instantly became aware of the disarray of his recently washed hair as it curled, as yet ungroomed, across his brow, taking away much of his austerity and giving him a youthfully rakish appearance.

Minutes ago it had seemed vitally important that Jane speak to the Duke before he left. Now she could not even remember what she had wanted to speak to him about!

That dark brow rose even higher. ‘Jane?’

She swallowed, frowning as she tried to remember.

‘I wish you to take me with you when you leave today, Your Grace!’ The words tumbled from Jane unchecked as she finally remembered her purpose for being here.

She had gone back to her bedroom after leaving Lady Sulby in order to read her mother’s letters. Not ‘disgusting and sinful’ letters at all, but those of a woman pouring out her heart to her lover as she told him of the child she carried—the child they had created in love—assuring him that she loved their child as she still loved him. Whoever he was. Because all four of the letters had begun simply, ‘My dearest love’, and ended with, ‘Ever yours, Janette’.

Jane had sat and cried after reading them. For Janette. For Joseph Smith, whom her mother had obviously felt a deep affection for but had never loved in the way she had her married lover. For the real father Jane had never known…

But once the tears had ceased Jane had remembered her vow to leave here today. And that there was someone else leaving Markham Park this morning who, if asked, might take her with him.

The Duke of Stourbridge.

Except this morning he did not look anything like the Duke of Stourbridge, with his hair still damp and dishevelled after bathing, and only a towel draped about those powerful thighs!

‘You wish me to take you with me when I leave…?’ He spoke softly, incredulously, those sharply etched features revealing nothing of his inner thoughts at her request.

Jane nodded. ‘If you would not mind, Your Grace.’

If he would not mind!

This girl burst into his bedchamber, unannounced and with complete disregard for his privacy, and then proceeded to ask if she could accompany him when he left here today!

With what purpose in mind?

Yes, Hawk accepted that he had behaved with reckless impulsiveness the previous evening, when he had taken Jane into his arms and attempted to kiss her. But that really did not give her the right to think he might possibly want to pursue a relationship with her. Certainly not to assume he would want to take her with him when he left today!

His mouth twisted derisively. ‘Jane, can you be under the delusion that I wish to make you my mistress?’

‘No, of course not!’ She recoiled at the suggestion, her face paling, her eyes turning a deep, appealing green.

They had an appeal that, even in his wariness over her exact intentions, Hawk found he was not immune to. Irritatingly.

He lifted the towel from his shoulders to absently dry his hair. ‘Then what do you want from me, Jane?’

She blinked. ‘Merely to ride in your carriage with you when you leave here today. I have a small amount of money saved, if you require payment—’

‘No, I do not require payment, Jane! Not of any kind.’ Ice edged his voice. ‘Because you will not be coming with me.’ He threw the towel impatiently down on a chair before donning his robe after all, a dark scowl creasing his brow. ‘How old are you, Jane?’ he demanded as he tied the belt tightly about his waist.

She looked dazed by the question. ‘How—? I am two and twenty, Your Grace.’

‘Indeed?’ Hawk nodded abruptly. ‘Old enough by far to know that you do not burst unannounced into a gentleman’s bedchamber and then, finding him in a state of undress, proceed to ask him to take you away with him!’

Put like that, perhaps his assumption that she wished to become his mistress was understandable, Jane acknowledged ruefully. If completely wrong. She simply wanted to leave here as quietly and as speedily as possible.

She grimaced. ‘I do not wish you to take me away with you, Your Grace. I merely wish to share your coach with you when you leave.’ She also wished she’d had the forethought to wait until he had invited her to enter before bursting into his bedchamber in this way. She would certainly have saved them both embarrassment if she had done so.

Although the Duke didn’t exactly look embarrassed as he began to pace the room restlessly. Even dressed only in the black silk robe, he was still possessed of that supreme self-confidence that seemed such a natural part of him it surely had to be inborn.

Deservedly so, Jane acknowledged as she found herself remembering the lean strength of his body. Muscles rippled in those long legs even now as he walked, and the defined muscles in the chest she had viewed earlier were something she dared any woman to resist. And especially a woman who had already found herself dreaming about him quite shamelessly the night before.

Jane felt her nipples swell and harden against the softness of her drab-muslin gown, her breasts rising and falling beneath the bodice. She suddenly found it difficult to breathe, and that strange warmth was back between her thighs.

She did not believe the accusations Lady Sulby had made about her’s mother wantonness. Those letters she had read seemed to confirm that her mother had loved only one man: her married lover, Jane’s natural father. But as Jane looked at the Duke of Stourbridge—at Hawk—she could not help wondering if she might not herself be a wanton. She had dreamt of this man last night. Hot, erotic dreams. And she was so physically aware of him now that she once again felt an unaccustomed ache low in her stomach.

‘You have no idea what you are asking, Jane!’

She raised her eyes to meet the Duke’s glittering golden gaze as he glared at her. ‘I assure you I would try not to be any trouble—’

Hawk interrupted with a humourless laugh. ‘Believe me, Jane, you do not have to try!’ He could not spend hours, days, confined in his coach with a woman he had already physically responded to so uncharacteristically.

Damn it, he might respond in that way again, once alone in his coach with her, and take her on one of the seats!

‘Why the urgency, Jane? What has happened since yesterday evening to make you so determined to leave here?’

She turned away so that he could no longer read the emotions in her eyes. ‘I have decided I can no longer reside under the same roof as Lady Sulby. That is all.’

No, damn it. It was not all. What had that witch done to Jane to create the desperation he sensed in her? What could Lady Gwendoline possibly have said or done to Jane this morning to precipitate her immediate flight from Markham Park?

It was none of his business, Hawk reminded himself sternly. He did not like Lady Sulby, and had found her to be a pretentious and spiteful woman, but she was nevertheless the wife of Jane’s legal guardian, and as such Hawk knew he had no right to interfere.

No matter how disturbed he was by the haunted look he had perceived in Jane’s eyes a few minutes ago. Even if the thought of leaving her here to the continued coldness of Lady Sulby brought the bile rising to the back of his throat.

If Jane left her guardian’s home with the Duke of Stourbridge—a single gentleman—then without a doubt the Duke of Stourbridge would be forced into marrying her.

Something Hawk did not intend to happen!

He turned away from the renewed appeal in those expressive green eyes. ‘No, Jane. I am afraid it will not be possible for you to travel in my coach with me today. Whatever disagreement you have had with Lady Sulby, you must face it and deal with it. Running away from your problems solves nothing.’ Hawk knew that what he was advising was the correct and only course in the circumstances, but inwardly he could not help but feel appalled as he listened to his own pomposity.

What other choice did he have? None that he could see.

But he could have wished that Jane did not look at him so disappointed before she turned her head away and her slender shoulders slumped defeatedly.

He drew in a sharp breath. ‘Perhaps if you were to tell me exactly what has occurred to cause this distress—’

‘Thank you, no, Your Grace.’ Her shoulders were tensed proudly now. ‘It only remains for me to wish you a safe journey.’ She walked towards the door.

‘Jane!’

‘Goodbye, Your Grace.’ The quiet dignity of her voice cut through him like a knife.

Hawk crossed the room in long, forceful strides to press his hand against the closed door. ‘Jane, surely you must see how unsuitable it would be for you to travel anywhere alone with me?’

‘I understand completely, Your Grace—’

‘Jane, I have warned you about “Your Gracing” me in that dismissive way!’ Hawk reached out to grasp her shoulders with both hands. ‘I can see that you are upset, Jane.’ His voice gentled. ‘But can you not see it is an upset that will quickly pass? Lady Sulby does not mean to be cruel, I am sure—’

‘You know nothing of the sort!’ The defeated air had completely left Jane as she glared up at the Duke, her hands clenching at her sides. ‘She is a bitter, hateful woman, full of viciousness for those she considers beneath her. I do not believe you would treat even one of your dogs in the cruel way that she has dealt with me!’

She wrenched out of the Duke’s restraining grasp before turning to leave, aware of his golden gaze following her frowningly as she let herself out of the his apartments to hurry back down the hallway to her own room.

The Duke might have refused her passage in his coach, but that made little difference to her decision to leave. In fact, she refused to remain here for even another day!

If she could only get to London she could then take a public coach to Somerset—could find Bessie, her father’s old housekeeper, who she believed now resided with her married son in a village only two miles from where they had all used to live.

Bessie had known both her mother and her father before Jane was born. And household servants, as Jane well knew from her position as neither a family member nor quite a servant in the Sulby household, often knew more about their employers than those employers might have wished.

Bessie would perhaps know more about Janette’s lover than Lady Sulby, in her vindictive prying into Janette’s personal letters, had ever been able to learn.

Once Jane’s tears had stopped after she had read her mother’s achingly emotional letters—letters that had never been sent to her married lover—she had come to a decision. Her real father might never have wanted her, might have callously cast off his lover once he knew she carried his child, but that did not mean that child could not now come back to claim him.

As a married man, it might not be comfortable for him to suddenly be presented with a daughter of two and twenty—but how much care had he given for Janette’s comfort when he had denied both her and their unborn child?

None, as far as Jane could see.

Yes, the Duke might have refused to allow Jane to accompany him when he left later this morning. But her resolve was now such that Jane knew she would walk to London if she had to!

‘More wine, Your Grace?’ The serving girl at the inn in which Hawk had decided to spend the night hovered expectantly beside the table, holding up a jug of wine.

Hawk nodded distractedly, having touched little of the food that had been served to him along with the wine in this private dining room. Not because there was anything wrong with the food, but because wine alone served him better in his darkly brooding mood.

He had left Markham Park shortly after that unsatisfactory conversation with Jane, any relief he had expected to feel at his release from the Sulbys’ oppressive company—Lady Sulby especially—completely overshadowed by that last haunted look in Jane’s eyes as she had turned away from him. As the distance between the ducal coach and Markham Park had increased Hawk had found those inner shadows deepening. Until now, ten hours later, he was beset with such feelings of guilt at leaving Jane to her fate that he could think of little else.

But to have brought Jane away with him would have compromised her as well as himself. Totally.

Perhaps that was what she had wanted?

Somehow he did not think so. Her despair this morning had been too intense, too overwhelming to be anything but genuine in her desire to get as far away from Lady Sulby’s viciousness as was possible.

That he was partly to blame for that viciousness Hawk did not doubt, having been totally aware of his hostess’s fury the evening before, when he’d singled Jane out for his attentions. And that lady’s ambitions concerning her daughter and himself had become apparent during the long, tortuous dinner, when he’d had Lady Sulby seated on one side of him and the fair Olivia on the other.

As if that had ever been even a remote possibility!

But Hawk was haunted by the accusations he had himself hurled at Jane the previous evening, concerning her behaviour at dinner with Lord Tillton. Accusations he now knew to be unfounded.

Having failed to see James Tillton again before retiring yesterday evening, Hawk had deliberately sought him out this morning, when taking leave of his fellow guests, and had noted grimly the half-crescent indentations in the older man’s wrist. Indentations very like the piercing of neatly trimmed fingernails. Jane’s neatly trimmed fingernails.

There had also been nothing of the siren about Jane when she had appeared so suddenly in Hawk’s bedchamber that morning—none of the beguiling seductress using her persuasive skills in order to entice him into taking her away with him. There had been only the paleness of her cheeks and that haunting look of desperation in her eyes.

Damn it, there was nothing he could have done!

And yet that he had done nothing at all did not sit well with Hawk, either…

‘Can I get you anything else, Your Grace…?’

He looked up at the frowning serving girl, realising by the uncertainty of her expression that she had taken his scowl of frustration as a personal comment on the inn’s fare.

‘No.’ He sighed, nodding as she offered to remove his almost untouched plate of food from the table. ‘Except perhaps another jug of wine. Also…’ He halted her at the door. ‘Send my manservant to me here as soon as he arrives, will you?’

Much to Hawk’s added displeasure, his own departure from Markham Hall had been so precipitate that Dolton had not yet arrived at the inn with the second coach conveying Hawk’s clothes.

What was keeping the man? He might have news of Jane—might be able to report that when he’d left she had been smiling and happy…

No, he would not. Hawk instantly rebuked himself heavily. Any more than Dolton would be able to tell him that Lady Sulby had suddenly become a lady of grace and beauty! By even hoping Dolton would be able to tell him of anything pleasant left behind at Markham Park. Hawk was merely trying to appease his own conscience, for abandoning Jane in the way that he had after she had asked for his help.

What would Jane do now? Would she still go ahead with her decision to leave the only home she had known for the last twelve years? If so, where would she go? And to whom?

‘Your Grace?’

Hawk had been so deep in thought that he had totally missed Dolton’s arrival. He smiled at the sight of a friendly face before Dolton’s look of surprise made him realise that he was not usually so familiar with his valet. ‘Dolton.’ He sobered. ‘I trust you had an uneventful journey?’

‘Er—not exactly, Your Grace.’ The other man frowned uncomfortably. He was a small, slender man of middle years, his blond hair slightly thinning, his eyes a watery blue. Eyes that at this moment seemed to be evading his employer’s.

‘No?’ Hawk arched surprised brows. His question had been a politeness only. He expected that any problems Dolton might have encountered along the way would have been dealt with without the necessity of informing his employer of them.

Dolton still avoided meeting Hawk’s piercingly questioning gaze. ‘No, Your Grace. I—perhaps we could discuss this upstairs in your room,Your Grace?’he added awkwardly, as the serving girl bustled back into the parlour with the second jug of wine Hawk had requested.

Hawk’s brows rose even higher at the strangeness of Dolton’s behaviour. ‘As you can see, I have not yet finished dining.’

‘No, Your Grace.’ Dolton chewed on his bottom lip. ‘It’s just that I really would like to talk to you in private. If you please, Your Grace?’ He shrugged uncomfortably.

‘Leave us, please.’ Hawk dismissed the serving girl as she still hovered, probably with the intention of seeing to Dolton’s dinner requirements. ‘Now,’ he turned musingly to the other man once they were alone, ‘kindly tell me what has thrown you into such confusion, Dolton?’

His manservant drew in a deep breath before grimacing. ‘I would much rather show you, Your Grace.’

‘What can possibly have happened to disturb you so, Dolton?’

Hawk shook his head bemusedly as he stood up. ‘Have you discovered a stain on one of my jackets you cannot remove? Or perhaps a scuff on one of my best boots?’ It had been known for Dolton to be thrown into a paroxysm over just such an occurrence.

‘Nothing so simple, I am afraid, Your Grace.’ Dolton shook his head mournfully before opening the door for the Duke to precede him out of the room.

‘A wheel has fallen off the coach, perhaps?’ Hawk continued to dryly ridicule the man as he ascended the narrow stairway that led to the bedchambers above.

This inn was no better than the one Hawk had stayed at on his journey to Markham Park, but he had consoled himself with the realisation that at least this time he was on his way to his own home, rather than facing the unpleasant prospect of a week spent amongst virtual strangers.

‘No, Your Grace.’ His valet sighed as he mounted the stairs behind him.

‘For God’s sake, man—will you stop shilly-shallying and tell me what all this is about—?’

Hawk had opened the door to the bedroom allocated to him but came to an abrupt halt in the doorway to stare uncomprehendingly at the bonneted and cloaked figure that stood so demurely in the centre of the sparsely furnished room.

Jane Smith raised her lashes to look at him with green eyes that were far from demure.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ Hawk breathed chillingly, unable to remember when he had last felt so angry. If ever.

‘I only left the coach unattended for a minute or so, Your Grace. When I went to collect the picnic lunch the cook had prepared for our journey.’ Dolton launched into defensive speech as he stepped around the Duke to enter the room, his expression imploring as he looked up at his employer. ‘She must have slipped inside the coach while I was in the house. As you know, Your Grace, I always travel outside, with Taylor, so we were unaware of Miss Smith’s presence inside the coach until an hour ago, when it became rather cold and I had the coach stopped so that I could get my cloak. I discovered Miss Smith hiding amongst your trunks,Your Grace,’he concluded unhappily.

Hawk did indeed know of Dolton’s preference for sitting up with the coachman. His valet suffered from motion sickness if confined inside the coach for any length of time.

None of which altered the fact that Jane Smith should not be here.

At the inn.

Once again in his bedchamber.

‘You seem to be making a habit of this, Miss Smith.’ His tone was icy.

‘So I do, Your Grace.’ She met his gaze unflinchingly.

Hawk drew in a sharply angry breath as he easily recognised her challenging look of defiance. ‘I should have you beaten and taken back to Markham Place immediately!’

Jane’s chin rose. ‘I invite you to try, Your Grace.’

His mouth thinned. ‘I was not intending to apply the beating myself, Jane.’ He gave his valet a steely glare from beneath ominously lowered brows.

Jane tried, and failed, to suppress her laughter as she saw the look of obvious dismay on Mr Dolton’s face at the thought of his employer ordering him to beat her.

‘It really is too cruel to tease Mr Dolton in that way, Your Grace.’ She shook her head, the heavy weight of Lady Sulby’s hatred having lifted as each mile passed, taking her farther away from Markham Park. In fact, apart from the obvious precariousness of her future, Jane was feeling more light-hearted than she had done for some years.

‘And what makes you think I was teasing?’The Duke raised haughty brows.

‘The fact that I am perhaps two inches taller than Mr Dolton—and possibly stronger, too?’ The laughter still gleamed challengingly in her eyes as she easily met the Duke’s forbidding gaze.

Not that she did not sympathise with the frustrated anger he must be feeling. Having left Markham Park, he must have assumed he had seen the last of her.

The glittering gold gaze swept over her from head to foot before the Duke turned to spear his still-quaking valet with it. ‘Miss Smith will not be staying,’ he said ominously.

‘Miss Smith most certainly will be staying.’ As if to prove the point, Jane reached up and untied her bonnet, before removing it completely and placing it on a chair, then turned her attention to her cloak. ‘Perhaps not in this exact room,’ she allowed, with a mocking inclination of her head. ‘But I am sure that the innkeeper will have another room in which I might spend the night.’ Her cloak joined the bonnet on the bedside chair.

‘And then what?’ The Duke glared at her stonily. ‘Is it your intention to walk the rest of the way to your destination?’

‘If necessary, yes.’ Jane perched herself daringly on the edge of the four-poster bed to look up at him with cool deliberation.

His mouth tightened. ‘You are without doubt the most irresponsible, stubborn—’

‘I think you may excuse yourself from the Duke’s displeasure now, Mr Dolton.’ Jane turned to smile warmly at the nervously hovering man.

It had perhaps been unfair of her to involve the Duke’s valet in her escape from Markham Park and the Sulby family, but the opportunity to slip inside the unattended coach this morning had been too tempting to resist. And the fact that Mr Dolton had then elected to sit up with the driver meant she had managed to remain undetected for hours. Far too many hours for the valet—or the Duke—to consider returning her to Markham Park tonight.

Neither did Jane intend being bullied into returning there tomorrow by the obviously infuriated Duke of Stourbridge.

‘Yes, you may leave us, Dolton.’ The Duke coldly echoed her instruction. ‘For now,’ he added gratingly.

‘Please go down and have some dinner, Mr Dolton.’ Jane gave the valet another encouraging smile. ‘I shall join you shortly.’ It had been a long day—a day without any food or water—and Jane felt very much in need of both. But not, of course, until she had finished her conversation with the Duke of Stourbridge.

‘I do not believe I gave you leave to issue instructions to members of my staff.’

Jane turned her attention back to the Duke now that Mr Dolton had left the room and closed the door softly behind him. ‘You were simply tormenting the poor man—’

‘Miss Smith!’

She quirked auburn brows. ‘Your Grace?’

Hawk found that his anger had not abated in the least since he had walked into the room and seen her standing there so unexpectedly. In fact, he would have dearly loved to pull her to her feet and give her a good shaking.

Except that he did not trust himself to touch Jane at this moment. He had no idea, if he did, whether he would shake her or kiss her!

He had spent hours tormenting himself with thoughts of having left Jane to the untender mercies of Lady Sulby, only to find that she was no longer at Markham Park after all, but cosily ensconced in his second-best coach as it travelled along some distance behind his own.

His gaze narrowed as he saw her smile. ‘I suppose you are congratulating yourself on managing to defy my instructions so effectively?’

Jane was not sure that ‘congratulating’ herself exactly described it, but she was feeling rather pleased with herself for having so successfully removed herself from Markham Park.

‘I am not sure that your instructions came into my thinking when I climbed inside your coach this morning—’

‘I am certain they did not!’ He glared coldly.

‘However,’ Jane continued undaunted, ‘I cannot deny I am pleased to be away from the Sulby household.’

The Duke’s mouth thinned. ‘You do realise that your disappearance, and the coincidence of my own departure this morning, will be noticed? That Sir Barnaby will send someone after you?’

She thought of Lady Sulby’s deliberate viciousness this morning—of the fact that she had ordered Jane to leave. ‘Somehow I do not think so, Your Grace.’ She gave a firm shake of her head.

‘Jane, do you not see how reckless your behaviour is?’ The Duke crossed the bedroom to stand beside her, looking directly into her face. ‘You are a young woman alone—an unmarried woman. If anyone should find you at this inn with me—’

‘Do not concern yourself, Your Grace.’ Jane stood up abruptly to move away, slightly disconcerted by his close proximity. ‘If it became necessary I am sure that Mr Dolton could be persuaded into claiming me as a relative.’

He scowled. ‘Just how long did you and Dolton spend together inside the coach?’

Jane turned to look at him, suspecting yet another accusation of flirtation but instead finding only grudging humour lurking in the depths of those mesmerising gold eyes.

Some of the tension left her shoulders. ‘Only an hour or so. But I believe he likes me well enough to claim me as his niece if anyone should ask.’

‘I am sure that he does.’ Hawk straightened, finding his temper somewhat abated. He was under no illusion whatsoever that Dolton would voice his protest most strongly if his employer should attempt to cast Jane out into the night.

As the Duke of Stourbridge, he knew that he should demand that Jane return to her guardians immediately—that not to insist on that was madness on his part. But he could not deny that Jane’s desperation earlier today to escape those guardians, and his own refusal to help her, had been haunting him all day. Too much so for him to now demand that she return to them.

Instead he sighed wearily. ‘Are you hungry, Jane?’

‘Ravenous!’ she acknowledged ruefully.

‘Very well, Jane.’ He gave a terse inclination of his head. ‘We will have dinner—’

‘Oh, thank you, Your Grace.’ She stood up to cross the room and clasp both his hands in hers. She looked up at him with glowing green eyes. ‘Thank you. Thank you!’ She punctuated her words with kisses placed upon his hands, finally laying her cheek against one of them with warm gratitude.

Hawk had stiffened at her first touch, needing all of his will-power at that moment not to snatch his hands from the soft feel of her skin against his as she pressed his hand to her cheek. It was such a creamy softness. A sensual softness.

His thumb seemed to move of its own volition in order to stroke that silky warmth, and Hawk hesitated only slightly before he allowed his thumb to touch the rosy pout of her lips. Lips that parted slightly at his touch. The warmth of her breath against his skin was a caress in itself as she looked up at him with those trusting green eyes.

What Hawk would do next hung finely in the balance. His gaze remained on those softly parted lips, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw as he fought the need he felt to taste those lips. To taste all of her. From her creamy brow to her dainty feet. He was sure that at this moment, being her reluctant saviour, Jane would deny him nothing.

But if he were to take advantage of her gratitude what would that make him? Beneath contempt—and in his own eyes no better than the people she was so desperately trying to escape!

‘Stop it, Jane!’ His voice was harsh as he pulled his hands from hers, turning sharply away from the hurt that now shadowed those expressive green eyes. ‘I suggest that you wait here while I go in search of Dolton and instruct him to arrange overnight accomodation for my ward—’

‘Your ward, Your Grace…?’ Jane echoed faintly, sure that she could not have heard him correctly.

His mouth thinned disapprovingly. ‘I can think of no other explanation for the presence of a young and single lady, travelling alone in the company of the Duke of Stourbridge. I am sure that Dolton, with his new penchant for subterfuge, will have no trouble at all in thinking of an excuse for your lack of maid,’ he continued dryly. ‘Perhaps he could invent an unexpected illness that has prevented her immediately accompanying us to Gloucestershire?’

‘Gloucestershire?’ Jane said dazed, suddenly very still. ‘But I thought—You are not returning to London, Your Grace?’ she prompted sharply.

‘No, Jane, I am not,’ he confirmed mockingly. ‘Mulberry Hall, principle seat of the Duke of Stourbridge, is in Gloucestershire. My plan had always been to go there for the rest of the summer. As I have no intention of allowing you to travel anywhere unchaperoned, you will obviously have to accompany me there.’

Jane stared at the Duke disbelievingly, too shocked at that moment to argue.

She had believed the Duke of Stourbridge to be returning to London from where she would be able to buy passage on a public coach to Somerset. And to the warm, comforting bosom of Bessie.

Instead, it seemed Jane now found herself forced to accompany the Duke—a man who had already induced the most erotic longings inside her—to his estate in Gloucestershire…

Chapter Five

‘You are very quiet this morning, Your Grace.’

There was no response to Jane’s soft observation except the sound of grinding teeth. The Duke’s teeth.

It was a sound she had heard several times during the two hours they had shared the ducal coach as it travelled to the Duke’s family seat in Gloucestershire. It was rather irritating coming from a man who normally displayed such an air of control and good breeding. Perhaps it was a habit he was unaware of…?

The silence that had beset him since the two of them had parted the previous evening, following a shared dinner downstairs in the inn’s parlour, was also unsettling.

They had disagreed throughout most of the meal, of course, as Jane had continued to protest vehemently at the Duke’s assertion that she would accompany him to Gloucestershire. The Duke had remained equally adamant, especially in view of her refusal to share her future plans with him, that he would not even consider leaving her at a coaching inn along the way, so that she might make her own way to London.

Jane had thought the awkwardness between them at least partially resolved when she had been forced to back down in the face of the only alternative the Duke would consider to his own plans, which Jane liked the sound of even less than accompanying him to his estate in Gloucestershire—that of being returned to Markham Park and her guardians forthwith!

Admittedly, their goodnights to each other had been a little frosty, but Jane had felt slightly mollified when she’d found that, along with a second bedchamber for the Duke’s ‘ward’, Mr Dolton had also engaged the services of the daughter of the innkeeper to act as Jane’s temporary maid, and a steaming hot bath had been there for her enjoyment.

After a good night’s rest, Jane had risen from her bed this morning, determined to make the best of her situation. After all, although the Duke was completely unaware of it, Gloucestershire was in fact much closer to her real destination of Somerset than London…

Mary, the innkeeper’s daughter, had returned to Jane’s room shortly after she had completed her ablutions, carrying a breakfast tray. So Jane had no occasion to see or speak to the Duke again before joining him inside the ducal coach to resume their journey.

As expected, the coach was as magnificent inside as out, with seats upholstered in such a way as to afford them the maximum comfort. Even the sun had come out mid-morning to cheer her. In fact, it would have been a very pleasant journey indeed if not for the noticeable silence of the Duke.

And the grinding of his teeth, of course…!

Now Jane risked a glance at the Duke from beneath her lashes, at once seeing the reason for those grinding teeth: his jaw was clenched so tightly the bones there looked in danger of actually snapping beneath the pressure.

She had tried several times to engage him in conversation these last two hours. She had remarked on the weather as she removed her cloak, and her increasing nervousness at his continued silence had caused her to explain that the green gown she wore today—a particular favourite of hers—had been a birthday gift from Sir Barnaby the previous year. On both occasions she had received only a scowl and a grunt in reply, and she had not felt brave enough since to attempt further conversation.

She sat forward slightly now. ‘Have I done something to disturb you this morning, Your Grace?’

‘Have I not told you—repeatedly—to stop “Your Gracing” me with every other word?’ He glared darkly.

Jane blinked at the fierceness of his expression. ‘I do not know what else to call you, Your—sir…’ she amended hastily, as he breathed so heavily down his nose it sounded almost like an unbecoming snort.

‘Have I not invited you to call me Hawk?’ His scowl darkened.

‘You have,’ Jane confirmed softly, her cheeks feeling slightly warm as she remembered the occasion on which he had done so. ‘But while that may do when we are alone, it will hardly suffice when we are in the company of others.’

‘It cannot have escaped your notice, Jane, that we are not at this moment in the company of others!’ he bit out tautly.

He was being boorish, Hawk knew. But he could not seem to stop himself. As he had already surmised the previous day, when Jane had first asked to accompany him and he had refused, travelling alone with her in the confines of his coach was pure torture!

For one thing she looked so damned happy this morning. Totally unlike the cowed creature he had met for the first time two days ago on the stairs at Markham Park. Was it really only two days since this young woman had literally launched herself into his presence? It seemed much longer! Her eyes shone with excitement today, her cheeks were flushed, and her lips seemed to be curved into a constant smile of contentment.

To Hawk’s way of thinking Jane had no right to look so happy when she had thrown his own normally peaceful existence into such disarray!

Her earlier remark about the weather being warm had been accompanied by the removal of her travelling cloak. A move that had revealed she wore a pale green gown beneath that lent her skin a creamy hue while at the same time intensifying the colour of the fiery red curls piled upon her head. Her explanation that the gown had been a gift from Sir Barnaby had at least restored Hawk’s faith in his own judgement of the older man; it seemed that Sir Barnaby’s only lapse in good taste had occurred twenty-five years ago, when it had come to the choosing of his wife!

But as Jane sat opposite Hawk, looking so relaxed and beautiful, it was impossible for him not to notice that the gown also revealed the bare expanse of her breasts. That creamy swell moved enticingly every time his coach ran over a rut in the road, causing Hawk to shift uncomfortably in his seat as his body hardened in awareness.

Hawk knew that his tailor in London took great delight in fitting his clothes precisely to the muscled width of his shoulders, his tapered waist and powerful thighs—but at this particular moment Hawk could have wished that the man had allowed him a little more room for manoeuvre in the cut of his breeches!

Jane, still an innocent despite her claim of being two and twenty, remained completely oblivious as to the reason for his discomfort.

Hawk scowled anew. ‘You dare to rebuke me for my silence, Jane?’

The colour warmed Jane’s cheeks as she guessed the reason for his accusation. The Duke had tried repeatedly during dinner yesterday evening to encourage Jane to tell him of her reasons for leaving Markham Park so abruptly had been, and of exactly what she intended doing once she reached London. It had been encouragement Jane had very firmly resisted.

For how could she possibly tell the Duke of Stourbridge—a man who no doubt knew each and every one of his antecedents, reaching back several centuries at least—that her only reason for going to London had been to find further transport to Somerset, all with the intention of discovering who her real father might be?

Jane simply could not tell him that. Not only would the Duke question the wisdom of even associating with one such as her, but it would also be disloyal to the mother Jane had never known, who had married a man she did not love in order to give her daughter a name.

And so, much to the Duke’s obvious chagrin, Jane had remained stubbornly silent concerning her reasons for travelling to London.

It was a silence that obviously still displeased him.

‘I did not rebuke you,Your Grace.’Jane chose to ignore his impatient snort. ‘I merely remarked upon the fact that you seem unusually uncommunicative this morning.’

‘Unlike some people, Jane, I do not feel the need to spend my every waking moment prattling on about innocuous or—even worse—irrelevant subjects.’

She drew in a sharp breath at his deliberately insulting tone. ‘In that case, Your Grace, I will allow you to return to your solitude.’ She turned away from him to stare sightlessly out of the window beside her, blinking back unexpected tears as she did so.

Was she wrong not to confide in him?

If he had been just Hawk St Claire, the man Jane had talked to amongst the sand dunes two evenings ago, perhaps she might have felt able to talk to him about such a personal matter. But it was impossible to forget he was also the Duke of Stourbridge, a rich and powerful peer of the realm, a man Jane simply could not tell of her mother’s relationship with a married man which had resulted in her own birth.

No matter how much it displeased the Duke, she simply could not!

Hawk’s heart clenched in his chest as he saw Jane blink back the tears obviously caused by his impatient anger.

Since the death of his mother ten years ago the only female to have been a constant in his life had been his young sister, Arabella. As a child, Arabella had been engagingly charming, but during the last few months spent at her first London Season she had shown herself to be as wilfully determined to have her own way as her two older brothers, causing Lady Hammond, their amenable aunt and Arabella’s patroness, to pronounce her completely unmanageable. Which meant that Arabella was currently unchaperoned, his aunt having taken to her bed in her London home to recover from the rigours of chaperoning a young girl through the Season.

Jane, as Hawk knew from the fact that she was here in his coach with him at all, could be equally stubborn when the occasion warranted. She just went about achieving her objective without his sibling’s penchant for confrontation. No doubt her years of being subjugated at every turn by the sharp-tongued Lady Sulby were responsible for her more restrained defiance. At best she had been treated as a poor relation in the Sulby household. At worst—as Hawk had disapprovingly witnessed for himself on the day he’d arrived at Markham Park—as little more than a servant.

He sighed heavily. ‘I believe I owe you an apology, Jane.’

She turned to give him a surprised look, those suppressed tears giving an extra sheen of brightness to the green of her eyes. ‘An apology, Your Grace?’

He chose to ignore her formal address this time. ‘My mood is—churlish.’ He nodded. ‘But I really should not take out my bad temper on you.’

Jane gave him a rueful smile. ‘Not even if I am the reason for that bad temper?’

‘But you are not. At least, not completely,’ he allowed derisively, as he saw a teasing look of sceptisism enter her eyes. ‘You do not have any siblings of your own, do you, Jane?’

‘I do not, Your Grace,’ she confirmed huskily.

What had he said to make Jane suddenly lower her lashes and clench her hands so tightly together in her lap? He had talked only of siblings, something Jane obviously did not have, and yet curiously the mention had caused her previous air of contentment to fade.

Much as Hawk found it irksome that Jane stubbornly refused to discuss with him her last interview with Lady Sulby, he also found himself most unhappy at being the one to cause her further distress.

He shook his head. ‘Jane, you have no idea how lucky you are to be an only child.’ He watched intently this time for Jane’s reaction—if any—to his remark.

But in the few seconds during which Hawk had noted and questioned her earlier response Jane had somehow drawn upon hidden reserves, and her expression was one of cool interest now. ‘Lucky, Your Grace?’

He grimaced. ‘I have two younger brothers and an even younger sister—all of whom, it seems, are trying to age me before my time!’

Jane smiled at the image his words projected. ‘In what way, Your Grace?’

‘In every way!’ He gave an impatient grimace.

At that moment he had such a look of a man weighed down by his family responsibilities—an expression so at odds with the arrogantly imperious Duke of Stourbridge—that Jane could not help smiling. ‘Tell me about them,’ she invited softly.

He sat back on the seat. ‘Lucian is eight and twenty, and morose and unapproachable since he resigned his commission in the army following Bonaparte’s defeat. Sebastian is six and twenty. He enjoys nothing more than involving himself in every scandal you could think of and some I would rather you could not.’ He grimaced with distaste. ‘As for Arabella…! My sister is eight and ten in years, and recently attended her first London Season.’

There was such a wealth of feeling in his last statement that Jane had no doubt that Lady Arabella’s first Season had not been the success the Duke had hoped it would be.

‘She is still very young, Your Grace. There will be plenty more opportuny, I am sure, to receive the required marriage proposal.’ Jane attempted to placate him, sure that, as the sister of the Duke of Stourbridge, LadyArabella St Claire must be a very eligible young lady indeed.

The Duke’s mouth twisted ruefully. ‘You misunderstand me, Jane,’ he drawled. ‘My sister has received numerous offers of marriage in the past few months—she has steadfastly refused to accept any of them!’ he added hardly.

The fact that the Duke had allowed his sister to do so was very telling indeed, and indicated an indulgence for his younger siblings that had not been apparent in his initial comment about them.

Jane shrugged. ‘Perhaps Lady Arabella felt unable to love any of those men—’

‘Love, Jane?’ he interrupted scornfully. ‘What does love have to do with marriage?’

‘Oh, but—’ Jane broke off her exclamation to bite her bottom lip as she recalled that even her own mother had not married for love but to give her unborn child a name.

Was that really all marriage amounted to? Merely a necessary requirement for the sake of having children, made out of duty rather than love?

Was that what the Duke of Stourbridge would require in his own marriage? A woman to bear him legitimate children, necessary heirs to the dukedom, while he no doubt supported a mistress in town and continued to live his life as he chose?

Was that what all men of the ton required in marriage?

If so, then Jane was glad she had no part of it.

She had already spent too much of her two and twenty years knowing what it was like to be unloved to ever contemplate deliberately committing the rest of her life to such an emotionless state. Better to remain an old maid than to be merely suffered in a loveless marriage.

Besides, who would ever want to marry her now anyway? The daughter of a single woman abandoned in her pregnancy by her married lover!

‘Jane…?’

She had allowed her guard to drop, her thoughts to wander, Jane realized as she looked across at the Duke with a guilty start. And the illustrious Duke of Stourbridge was too astute a man, those strange gold-coloured eyes of his too all-seeing to allow such a lapse to pass unnoticed.

He did look so handsome this morning, in a jacket of royal blue, his shirt a snowy white, his waistcoat of pale blue satin and cream breeches worn above highly polished Hessians. But it really would not do, when Jane had just reasoned for herself how small were her own marriage prospects, for her to notice how strikingly handsome the Duke of Stourbridge looked today!

Jane forced a dismissive smile to her lips before answering him. ‘Your brothers and sister do not sound so bad, Your Grace.’

He grimaced. ‘That is because you do not know them.’

Hawk, although unaware of the reason for it, had been completely aware of the shadows that had briefly claimed Jane’s expressive green eyes. That she was hiding something more from him than a disagreement with Lady Sulby he did not doubt. That Jane intended to keep hiding it from him was also not in doubt; he knew, even on such a brief acquaintance, that Jane was possessed of a stubborn need for privacy that almost, but not quite, matched his own.

He eyed her speculatively. ‘But you will. At least you will have occasion to meet Arabella,’ he added with a frown, not sure that he at all liked the prospect of Jane being introduced to the handsomely brooding Lucian or the mischievous Sebastian.

Despite what Sebastian might have assumed to the contrary during their conversation the previous week, Hawk was in fact very fond of his younger brothers. But he also knew their natures much better than they would perhaps have wished. And the thought of either of those handsome scoundrels taking a fancy to the innocently beautiful Jane was not a comfortable one.

She gave a puzzled frown at his comment. ‘How so, Your Grace…?’

Hawk was still scowling at the thought of Jane becoming the object of either of his brothers’ romantic interest. ‘Now that the Season has ended for the summer my sister Arabella has returned to Mulberry Hall, of course.’

Jane’s eyes widened. Lady Arabella St Claire would be in residence at Mulberry Hall when they arrived? Was already there eagerly awaiting her eldest brother’s arrival?

Well…no. From the little Hawk had said of his strong-minded young sister, Jane did not think the other girl would be waiting in the hallway of Mulberry Hall eager-eyed and breathless in anticipation of the Duke’s arrival!

But eager-eyed or not, Lady Arabella would be at Mulberry Hall when the Duke arrived there with Jane at his side. How did he intend to explain the presence of Jane, a young lady completely unknown to Lady Arabella, who had obviously accompanied the Duke completely unchaperoned on the long coach journey to his Gloucestershire home?

‘Of course,’ Jane acknowledged quietly, her lashes lowered onto creamy cheeks. ‘I…’ She paused to moisten suddenly dry lips. ‘What explanation do you intend giving Lady Arabella for my presence, Your Grace?’ She looked across at him anxiously. ‘After all, she will know that I am not your ward.’

He quirked dark brows. ‘Why not simply tell her the truth, Jane? That you begged to be allowed to come away with me.’

Jane gaped at him.

She had given little thought to what explanation the Duke would give his staff for her having accompanied him to his home. If she had thought of it at all, she had assumed that none of the staff employed on the Stourbridge estate would dare to question the Duke concerning his actions. But she doubted a young and headstrong sister would as readily accept Jane’s unaccompanied presence.

Ah—at last he seemed to have shaken Jane from the cool reserve she had assumed minutes ago, which had so irritated him, Hawk noted with satisfaction. Although it was highly insulting to realise, from the consternation he could now see in Jane’s expression, that she now wondered at his motive for allowing her to travel to Mulberry Hall with him. That she believed his young sister might make assumptions about that motive also!

Before inheriting the title of Duke of Stourbridge, Hawk had been as much of a rakehell as Sebastian now was—had for years enjoyed the same carousing and wenching with his own reckless friends. But the last ten years had necessarily seen a change in Hawk’s life. His nature had become outwardly coolly reserved, and, as Sebastian had complained only days ago, any relationships of an intimate nature kept discreetly hidden away from public scrutiny. That Jane could even suspect him of being thought to take a mistress to Mulberry Hall—to the St Claire family’s principal seat, the home where his sister was also in residence—was unacceptable. So unacceptable that Hawk could not repress his instinct to make Jane suffer a little for even entertaining such a suspicion.

‘Do not look so concerned, Jane,’ he taunted as he lounged back on the seat. ‘No one, not even my sister Arabella, would dare to question what position I intend you to occupy in my household.’

And what position was that? Jane wondered dazedly. Had she misunderstood the Duke the previous evening when he had been so insistent she would travel under his protection? Despite what he had said to the contrary, was he now saying he expected her to become his mistress as payment for that protection?

‘Come, Jane.’ He sat forward to take both her tightly clenched hands in one of his. ‘When we were together in the dunes two evenings ago you did not give the impression that you found my…attentions repulsive.’

In truth, Jane did not find anything about the Duke of Stourbridge repulsive. In fact, just having him touch her hands in this way had reawakened those feelings of longing that had so disturbed her that night amongst the sand dunes. An experience she had found herself dreaming of repeating ever since.

More than repeating!

This man—Hawk—had awakened longings inside her that she had not even known existed, and even now she could feel herself being drawn towards him, found herself held captive by the intensity of that golden gaze.

He should stop this right now, Hawk knew. Should release Jane’s hands, distance himself from her, before explaining exactly what role he intended her to take up at Mulberry Hall.

And yet as he gazed upon the temptation of her softly parted lips, felt the silkiness of her skin beneath his fingertips, he was aware of a desire to reach out and take her fully into his arms and taste her. The hard throb of his body echoed that need. It was a need that Hawk had firmly resisted two evenings ago, but which he now succumbed to as. His gaze hooded, he effortlessly pulled her across the small distance that separated them to settle her light weight comfortably on his knee as his arms moved about her and his mouth claimed hers.

Her lips felt as soft and silky beneath his as Hawk had imagined they would, and the smooth skin of her bare arms was like satin to his touch. He moved his hand to curve about her nape and pull her deeper into the kiss.

Fire blazed through him, deep and hot, his mouth hardening against hers before he parted her lips with his tongue and sought the moist heat within.

Her skin exuded the exotic perfume of flowers mixed with that of sexual arousal, telling Hawk that Jane was not averse to his attentions at all—that in fact she more than returned the desire that raged through him.

He groaned low in his throat, his lips devouring hers as he sipped and tasted the nectar to be found there. One of his hands caressed restlessly down the slender length of her spine before moving to curve possessively about a thrusting breast.

Jane felt drugged from Hawk’s kisses. Then, as if she had died and gone to heaven, she felt his hand cup her breast—one of those same breasts that seconds ago had seemed to swell and harden as he kissed her. Her breath caught in her throat as he touched the hardened tip, sending that now familiar heat spiralling between her thighs.

Jane had no idea what took place between a man and woman once they were in bed together—knew only from Lady Sulby’s advice to Olivia concerning any future marriage that it was something she would just have to lie back and suffer on the occasions her husband demanded it of her. But this—being in Hawk’s arms, having him kiss and touch her in this intimate way—did not feel like suffering. In fact, she felt weak with wanting!

Did that mean that Jane was really not destined for the marriage bed? Her mother’s letters to her lover had indicated that she had enjoyed their intimate relationship. Was Jane also one of those wanton women who actually enjoyed having a man make love to her?

No, it could not be!

Jane was not any of the things Lady Sulby had accused her of being. She was not!

Even as desire clouded Hawk’s mind, and the heated throb of his body made him ache to lie Jane on the seat and ravish her totally, he sensed—knew—the moment Jane was no longer a willing recipient of his attentions.

At the same time he also knew that if he were to uphold any authority as the Duke of Stourbridge, as well as being Jane’s proxy guardian, he must be the one to put an end to this. And in such a way that there would be no danger of it happening again.

His mouth had a deliberately cruel twist to it as he raised his head to look down at her, his gaze hard and mocking as she lay limply in his arms. ‘Do you see, Jane, how true was my warning of the danger you put yourself in when you chose to travel alone in a gentleman’s carriage with him?’ he taunted scornfully, even as he lifted her bodily and placed her back on the seat opposite his own.

Her face had become very pale, her eyes wide with shock. ‘You—you kissed me only in order to teach me a lesson, Your Grace?’

Hawk steeled himself not to show how the hurt in her eyes and the trembling of her slightly swollen lips affected him. ‘Partly,’ he confirmed coldly. ‘But I also wished you to know, no matter what you may have been thinking to the contrary—’ his tone hardened icily ‘—that the Duke of Stourbridge has no need to use blackmail in order to seduce comely wenches fresh from the country into his bed. I have no need to bother with such persuasion when such women obviously fall into my bed all too willingly!’ he added with scathing scorn.

Jane gasped at the accusation even as she knew that the Duke only spoke the truth. She was fresh from the country, and she had—momentarily—been all too willing a recipient of his lovemaking.

‘That is what you thought I was about, was it not, Jane?’

If anything his voice had become even icier. At that moment he looked every inch the arrogantly self-assured Duke of Stourbridge of their first meeting—his eyes narrowed with ominous intent, those sculptured lips thinned to cruel mockery.

That his accusations had some merit caused Jane to straighten proudly, and she met his gaze unflinchingly, already knowing the Duke well enough to realise that he showed nothing but contempt for people who lacked the courage to stand up to his dictatorial arrogance.

‘I was not about to succumb to your bed, Your Grace.’

‘All evidence to the contrary, Jane!’

Her brows rose coolly. ‘I am not a liar, Your Grace.’

The Duke gave a mocking shake of his head. ‘Did no one tell you that self-deception is a form of lying, Jane?’

At that moment Jane’s fingers itched to wipe the arrogant smile of satisfaction from the sneeringly curved lips that only minutes ago had so capably devoured her own!

‘I would not advise it, Jane.’ The Duke’s voice had softened warningly as he obviously observed that instinct in the clenching of Jane’s hand. ‘You have already presented enough of an inconvenience to my peaceful existence without adding striking me to your list of offences!’

She was breathing hard in her agitation. ‘Might I remind Your Grace that it was your decision, not mine, that I accompany you to Gloucestershire!’

‘So it was.’ He nodded dourly. ‘A decision I have already come to regret, I do assure you!’

Jane bristled indignantly. ‘The remedy to the inconvenience of my company can be easily found,Your Grace.’

His mouth tightened. ‘If you are once again suggesting that I allow you continue on to London alone—’

‘I am.’

‘Then I advise you to put such a thought completely from your mind, Jane,’ Hawk continued frostily over her interruption. ‘The only people left in London during the summer are rakehells and dissolutes who would find themselves totally bored if removed to the country. Such men,’ he added hardly, ‘would see you as nothing more than an innocent tasty morsel to be quickly devoured and as speedily discarded!’

Jane’s breasts quickly rose and fell. ‘Do you speak from experience, Your Grace?’ There was challenge in her tone.

Hawk eyed her with chilling derision. ‘If I did, Jane, then you can be assured you would not now be sitting across this carriage from me with your innocence still intact!’

‘You are arrogant, sir!’

‘I am honest, Jane,’ he came back tersely, having no doubt whatsoever that Jane would not last a day in London without some well-practised reprobate—his brothers Sebastian and Lucian, for example!—trying to seduce her into his bed.

Jane dearly wanted to deny the Duke’s accusations. But how could she do so when she was aware of the way she still inwardly trembled from the effect of his kisses and the feel of his caressing hands against her breasts…?

That arrogant mouth twisted knowingly. ‘Nothing to add to that particular argument, Jane?’ he taunted. ‘In that case,’ he continued grimly, ‘before we reach Mulberry Hall I would have your promise that you will not make any attempt to go to London until I am free to accompany you there.’

Her eyes widened incredulously. ‘It is your intention to accompany me to London, Your Grace?’

‘It is,’ he confirmed impatiently. ‘I have several estate matters that require my attention for the next few days, but after that I should be available to take you to London. In other words, Jane, I will not hear of you even thinking of continuing your journey alone!’

Jane frowned. Had the Duke guessed? Could she have somehow given away thoughts of that being her intent?

‘I will have your promise, Jane!’ The Duke reached out to firmly grasp her wrist between strong fingers, his narrowed gaze intent upon her face.

Jane’s thoughts raced. If she made such a promise then she would have to keep to it. Had she not just assured him that she was not a liar? But it had never been her intention to remain in London, and the Duke of Stourbridge, albeit unknowingly, was now bringing her within a carriage ride of her real destination…

Would it still be lying to make him such a promise when London had never been her ultimate goal?

Possibly.

But not actually.

Pure semantics, Jane knew. But the Duke was really leaving her little choice in the matter.

Because it was not her intention for the Duke of Stourbridge to accompany her anywhere!

Her business in Somerset, her need to talk to Bessie, was completely personal to herself and certainly not in need of any witnesses. Least of all the aloofly superior Duke of Stourbridge!

She gave a cool inclination of her head. ‘I give you my promise, Your Grace.’

His gaze narrowed. ‘What do you promise, Jane?’

She gave a humourless smile at his obvious suspicion concerning her easy acquiescence. ‘I promise that I will not attempt to travel to London until you are able to accompany me there.’

Hawk’s gaze narrowed as he looked across at her searchingly. There was something about Jane’s promise that did not quite ring true.

He just had no idea what it was.

Yet.

Chapter Six

‘Before introducing me to Lady Arabella as her new companion, you might have first taken the trouble to confide that fact to me, Your Grace!’

Hawk couldn’t help but wonder why he was surprised at the interruption as he looked across to where the door to his library had been thrown back on its hinges. Jane Smith entered and strode imperiously across the room to stand before the wide desk behind which he sat.

Hawk had believed, when he’d excused himself from the ladies’ company a short time ago, leaving the two of them to enjoy their afternoon tea together, that it would allow the two women time in which to become better acquainted with each other. And at the same time, now that the introductions were over, allow him the opportunity of escaping to the relative sanctuary of his library!

Its walls lined with leather-bound volumes, two comfortable armchairs placed on either side of the fireplace, along with a decanter of brandy within his easy reach, the room was normally beneficial in that it afforded him a few hours’ solitude when he might deal with estate business.

Obviously no one had told Jane Smith that the Duke was never to be disturbed when ensconced in the library. Or, as was more likely to be the case, Jane had been given that information but had chosen to ignore it!

‘Do you have nothing to say in your defence, Your Grace?’ she demanded accusingly now, the colour high in her cheeks.

Hawk had plenty of things he might like to say on that subject and several others—but he doubted that any of them were suitable for Jane’s delicate ears!

‘It might interest you to know, Jane—’ Hawk’s tone was deceptively mild as he sat back in his chair to look at her from beneath narrowed lids ‘—that you are the only person of my acquaintance who actually dares to speak to me in this disrespectful manner.’ His voice hardened glacially over the last few words.

‘Really, Your Grace?’ The increased flush to Jane’s cheeks indicated that she was not as unchastened as her tone would have Hawk believe. ‘You surprise me!’

‘Do I?’ Hawk rose languidly to his feet to move lightly around the desk, a hard smile of satisfaction curving his lips as Jane instinctively took two steps back. ‘I think that once again you are choosing to deceive yourself, Jane,’ he drawled mockingly.

Was she? Jane wondered, slightly breathlessly. Perhaps so. But she had found herself completely overwhelmed a short time ago, when the carriage had entered through imposing iron gates that had preceded a fifteen-minute carriage ride to where Mulberry Hall itself reposed. Deer and cattle had grazed undisturbed amongst rolling parkland as the carriage had proceeded on its leisurely way along a driveway edged with hundreds of yew trees, before reaching a wide courtyard that had revealed Mulberry Hall bathed in late-afternoon sunshine.

Jane had gazed up as if hypnotised at the Hall’s magnificence. As the Duke had helped her alight from the coach. The house was built of mellow sandstone, with seemingly a hundred windows on its frontage, and a wide balcony over huge oak doors.

One of those doors had opened wide the moment the Duke had put one of his highly polished boots upon the first stone step leading up to the entrance, an elderly butler greeting his employer with solicitous warmth as he enquired as to the comfort of his journey. Jane had continued to gaze wide-eyed at her surroundings, sure that the whole of Markham Park would have nestled snugly into the cavernous entry hall of Mulberry Hall!

The bedroom she had been allocated had been yet another pleasant surprise after the almost cupboard-like space she had occupied at Markham Park for the last twelve years, with its highly polished floor, sunnily bright yellow walls, a four-poster bed draped with the same gold-coloured damask that adorned the two windows which, she discovered, looked out over the rolling parkland.

Jane had been happily enchanted with her new surroundings when she had returned downstairs and a footman had shown her into the drawing room where the Duke and his sister were about to take tea.

Only to have the Duke spoil it all by making the announcement to his sister that, as Lady Hammond had been indisposed since their sojourn in London—whoever Lady Hammond was—Jane was now here to act as her new companion. A companion that the Lady Arabella, once the Duke had excused himself and left the two women alone, had immediately informed Jane she had absolutely no need of!

It had been obvious from the first that Lady Arabella and the Duke of Stourbridge were closely related. That lady was several inches taller than Jane, and the aristocratic features that were so hard and unyielding on the Duke were softened to a striking beauty in the much youngerArabella. Her eyes were a dark brown, and she had hair of gold shot through with streaks of deeper honey, where the Duke’s was dark with those golden streaks.

A single minute alone in Lady Arabella’s company had shown Jane that that young lady had also inherited her brother’s arrogantly imperious manner!

Jane’s mouth tightened as she recalled the awkwardness of their conversation. She addressed the Duke once more. ‘I am very sorry if you take offence at my tone, Your Grace—’

‘Oh, I do, Jane. I do,’ he assured her softly. ‘And must I point out—yet again—that we are not in the company of others…?’

He might point out that fact as often as the occasion arose, but since arriving at the Duke’s ancestral home, and seeing the deference with which his household staff treated him, Jane had become even more aware of the differences in their social stations.

In a very different way she was also aware of being alone with him now, here in the privacy of his study…Even more so since he had risen to his feet and moved to stand in front of the huge mahogany desk.

Because once he had stood up it had become obvious that the Duke had not expected to be interrupted. For he had removed the royal blue coat and waistcoat that Jane had so admired earlier, and loosened his neckcloth. Following so closely on that incident in the carriage, Jane found his less than impeccable appearance more than a little disturbing!

Hawk narrowed his gaze as he saw the flush that suddenly brightened Jane’s cheeks. ‘Is something troubling you, Jane…?’

‘Something other than your not informing me that I was to be your sister’s companion?’ Her tone was waspish.

Deliberately so, Hawk surmised knowingly, allowing a mocking smile to curve his lips as he crossed his arms over his chest. He had the satisfaction of seeing Jane quickly avert her gaze. ‘As I recall, Jane, our earlier conversation concerning what was to be your place here at Mulberry Hall was…interrupted…’

He was rewarded by a deepening of that blush. ‘That is all very well, Your Grace,’ Jane dismissed briskly. ‘But my purported role here is obviously as much of a surprise to Lady Arabella as it has been to me!’

Hawk’s smile immediately faded. ‘My sister has said something to upset you?’

Jane looked up frowningly as she heard the sharpness that had entered his tone, inwardly relieved that she could now see only the Duke of Stourbridge in the angular handsomeness of his face, rather than the more disturbing Hawk St Claire.

But as the Duke, she had come to realise, he expected his simplest instruction to be carried out without question…

Jane chose her next words carefully. ‘Lady Arabella is quite rightly displeased at having a person she is totally unacquainted with suddenly thrust upon her in this high-handed way—’

‘How displeased?’

Jane blinked at what she knew—from the cold glitter that had entered his eyes and the sudden hardness to the set of his jaw—to be the Duke’s deceptively mild tone. Both of which boded ill for someone. In this case Lady Arabella.

‘Come, Jane,’he encouraged in that softly disconcerting tone. ‘In what way exactly has my sister expressed her displeasure to you?’

Now that she was actually here in the Duke’s presence—in his disturbing presence!—Jane found herself loath to pursue the subject. In truth, she dearly wished that she had waited until her own temper had cooled before even broaching this subject with him.

But it was too late for such caution now. The Duke was waiting, compelling her to answer, those dark brows raised in deceptively lazy expectation.

Her chin rose challengingly. ‘I do not believe I said that Lady Arabella had given voice to her displeasure. It is merely that I believe—although Lady Arabella did not actually say so—that your sister sees me more in the role of—well, of spy for you,Your Grace,’she finished lamely.

Hawk drew himself up to his full considerable height and looked down his nose at her. ‘A spy, Jane?’ he repeated hardly. ‘And why would my sister suppose that I would want to set a spy on her? Unless—’ He broke off, his expression darkening as he glanced towards the open door. ‘Damn it, what has that girl been up to now?’

‘Your Grace…?’

Hawk glared, his hands clenching into fists at his sides before he turned sharply on his heel to move and stare sightlessly out of the window. ‘You will leave me now, Jane. Return to the drawing room and tell Lady Arabella that I wish to see her. Now. Immediately. Did you hear me, Jane?’ He turned to scowl at her darkly when he heard no movement to show she was about to do his bidding.

‘I—For what purpose, Your Grace?’

Hawk became very still as he looked at the pointed angle of Jane’s chin, at the stubborn set of her mouth and the challenging sparkle that now lit those deep green eyes as she steadily met his gaze.

He had doubted the wisdom of his visit to Norfolk even before his arrival there. The ill-bred behaviour of his hostess and her obvious matchmaking attempts between himself and her daughter had only confirmed those doubts, so hastening his desire to leave Markham Park at the earliest opportunity.

In the normal course of events that would have been the end of the matter, enabling Hawk to put the whole unpleasant experience behind him. Unfortunately the main irritation of his stay—and the main amusement, he inwardly admitted—was now standing before him!

With open challenge in her sparkling green gaze…

It really was a novel experience for him, Hawk acknowledged ruefully. He had become even more aware since his return to Mulberry Hall, where even his slightest need seemed to be fulfilled before he had expressed it, of how unusual it was for anyone to oppose him in the way Jane constantly did.

As a novel experience it had caused him amusement on several occasions, but it was surely not to be tolerated when it came to his dealings with his young sister!

He arched dark, arrogant brows. ‘The purpose of my summons is none of your concern, Jane.’

‘It is if it is something I have said that has instigated that summons!’ Jane refuted impatiently. ‘I cannot in all conscience—’ she gave a firm shake of her head ‘—give Lady Arabella such an instruction if, when she arrives, you intend to inflict some sort of unjustified rebuke or cruelty upon her—’ She broke off abruptly, alarmed by the way in which the Duke’s face had darkened ominously.

Her breath actually halted in her throat as he strode back to the dark and rested his clenched fists on its top, to lean so far forward that his face was now only inches from her own, his eyes glittering dangerously, nostrils flared, his mouth thinned to an uncompromising line.

‘I have no idea, Jane—no idea at all,’ he repeated in an icily soft voice, ‘what I could possibly have done in our so far brief acquaintance to give you the belief, even the idea, that I might—what was it you called it exactly?—Ah, yes, that I might intend inflicting “unjustified rebuke or cruelty” upon my sister. They were your exact words, were they not—’

‘Stop it, Your Grace!’ Jane cried her agitation as he once again spoke to her in that deceptively mild tone.

Because there was nothing in the least mild about the Duke’s emotions at that moment. In fact, he appeared so full of suppressed fury that it might cause him to explode at any moment!

‘If you wish to shout at me, Your Grace, then I would much rather you did so and got it over with. But do not, for goodness’ sake, play with me like a cat tormenting a mouse—’ She broke off, frowning, as the Duke gave a hard bark of laughter. ‘Did I say something to amuse you, Your Grace?’ she prompted, slightly indignantly.

Hawk gave an incredulous shake of his head. Anyone less like a mouse than Jane Smith he could not imagine!

This young woman challenged him, reviled him, defied him—and yet still something stopped him from telling her to go to the devil, to absent herself from his company and never show her face to him ever again.

The proudness of her carriage, perhaps? The sharpness of her spirit? The creamy turn of her cheek? The unfathomable depths of those enticing green eyes? Or maybe the fullness of her lips? Those lips that could be curved with amusement one moment and then turned down with such disapproval the next…

As they had been twisted with disapproval constantly since entering Mulberry Park an hour ago!

‘Leave me, Jane,’ Hawk instructed wearily, as he straightened before resuming his seat behind the desk. ‘Just go now—before I cease to be amused by anything about you!’

Jane hesitated, continuing to look at him uncertainly even though she knew herself to be well and truly dismissed.

She had meant to soothe Lady Arabella’s obviously ruffled feathers by talking to the Duke about the wisdom of his announcement, but instead she seemed only to have succeeded in annoying the Duke even further.

‘Still here, Jane?’ His tone was bitingly dismissive as he looked up at her coldly.

Jane caught her bottom lip between her teeth and turned slowly to walk to the door, dearly wishing there was something she could do or say that might somehow soften a situation that she was aware was partly of her own making—although she was not naïve enough to believe that the self-possessed Lady Arabella would have kept her opinions on the subject of Jane’s presence in the house to herself the next time she saw her brother!

Nevertheless, Jane was conscious of the fact that she had been the first to broach the subject, so causing the Duke to be more angry with his sister than he might otherwise have been.

‘Your Grace…?’ She hesitated in the doorway, looking back at him. His head was bent, his hands at his temples, fingers threaded through the dark thickness of his hair.

He gave a weary sigh as he slowly looked up at her. ‘Yes, Jane?’

Her throat moved convulsively as she swallowed. ‘Perhaps—perhaps if you were to assure Lady Arabella that I will not be staying long…?’

His mouth firmed. ‘But we have no idea how long you will be staying, do we, Jane? I have your promise concerning your future travel arrangements, remember?’

Yes, the Duke had her promise, Jane acknowledged with a slow nod of her head, before leaving the room to close the door behind her much more quietly than she had opened it.

But the promise she had made him only applied in regard to her attempting to travel to London…

‘Please sit down, Arabella,’ Hawk invited, with an abrupt gesture towards the chair in front of his desk as his sister swept into the room some ten minutes later.

Long enough, Hawk guessed, to show him in what contempt she held his summons. An opinion supported by the fact that, instead of sitting in the chair he had indicated, his sister chose to make herself comfortable in one of the armchairs beside the empty fireplace.

What had he ever done, Hawk wondered impatiently as he stood up to join her, to deserve two such stubborn women in his life at the same time? One openly rebellious, the other less obviously so but nevertheless just as determined to go her own way?

Arabella regarded him with cool brown eyes as he sat in the chair opposite hers. ‘I cannot help but question your reasons for bringing Miss Smith here, Hawk.’

He had been expecting his sister’s attack—if not actually prepared for the subject of it!—having already taken warning at the rebellion darkening the beauty of Arabella’s eyes.

Arabella had grown so quickly from child to young woman, it seemed now to Hawk as he looked at her, that for once he was not quite sure how to proceed with the interview. He was certainly in no mood for cajolery, but to openly forbid a continuation of what he saw as Arabella’s wilfulness might only result in her doing something totally reckless.

He quirked dark brows as he decided to ignore—for the moment—the slight she had cast upon Jane’s character. And his own…‘You do not like Miss Smith?’

Arabella met his gaze unblinkingly. ‘I did not say that. I merely wondered as to the propriety—’

‘I advise you not to proceed any further along this line of conversation, Arabella!’ Hawk cut in with harsh warning. ‘Suffice to say that Jane’s presence here is one of complete innocence.’

Arabella’s eyes—those brown eyes that could look at a man and melt his very soul—yes, even those of her three elder brothers!—met his own with hardened scorn. ‘I am supposed to believe that Miss Smith is here for my amusement only?’

His mouth tightened. ‘Those are the facts, yes!’

‘They are…?’

The turn this conversation had taken was highly insulting to Jane—as well as echoing Jane’s own concerns of earlier—and yet even so a part of Hawk could not help but appreciate, even secretly admire, his young sister’s refusal to be cowed by him.

Although that admiration in no way deflected Hawk’s own determination not to be dictated to by a girl of only eight and ten. ‘I did not ask you here to talk about Jane Smith, Arabella,’ he said quietly.

‘I very much doubt that you asked at all!’ Arabella’s tone was sharply resentful. ‘Despite Miss Smith’s attempt to make it seem as if you did,’ she added tauntingly.

Hawk shook his head. ‘We will return to the subject of Jane later. For the moment I wish only to talk about you, Arabella. You have been on your own since your return to Mulberry Hall almost two weeks ago. I wonder how you have managed to fill your time during those two weeks?’

‘You forget that Lucian remained for several days after accompanying us here,’ Arabella dismissed. ‘Talking of Lucian—’

‘Which we were not,’ Hawk cut in hardly.

‘Then perhaps we should have been,’ his sister came back tartly. ‘Have you seen or spoken to Lucian recently…?’

Hawk frowned. ‘Not for several weeks, no. Why?’

Arabella sighed. ‘He seems—changed. Hardened. Even cynical.’

‘War does that to people, Arabella,’ Hawk dismissed impatiently. ‘I am sure that is only a temporary—aberration. We were talking of you, Arabella…’ he reminded her firmly.

Arabella met his gaze coolly for several long seconds before turning away with a dismissive shrug. ‘I have been forced to fall back upon reading and embroidery for my amusement.’

He nodded. ‘And I understand from Jenkins that you have also been out riding on the estate every day, have you not? Without your groom?’

‘What of it?’ Arabella challenged sharply.

She loved and admired all her older brothers. Loved Sebastian perhaps the most, as he was nearest to her in age. Lucian, more taciturn and private now following his years in the army, had always been her steadfast protector—the one who had always been there to pick her up if she should fall. But Hawk—so tall and broad-shouldered, always so busy about the St Claire estates and so toplofty when it came to his rare and infrequent appearances in Society—was the brother whose approval Arabella had always sought, the brother she most wanted to please.

And she knew that she had not pleased him during the weeks of her first Season…

But Hawk was the Duke of Stourbridge, a man looked up to and respected wherever he went, and Arabella was well aware that it was because of who her brother was, because of his title, that she had received at least half the marriage proposals that had been forthcoming during those weeks in London. The other suitors perhaps had genuinely believed themselves to be in love with her, but Arabella, determined to marry a man she admired and loved as much as her brothers, had felt unable to return the feelings of any of those men.

For the first time in her young life Arabella knew she had genuinely displeased her eldest brother. It was something that she had felt, still felt, dearly. But she had hoped to talk to Hawk once he returned to Mulberry Hall—to perhaps explain the reason for her refusals. And now, instead of being alone at Mulberry Hall with her eldest brother, Arabella found him accompanied by a single woman of quite breathtaking beauty!

Miss Jane Smith.

What was she, Arabella, supposed to make of such a strange occurrence? What was she supposed to make of Miss Jane Smith?

To Arabella’s way of thinking, Hawk had only added insult to injury by announcing that he had brought the other woman here to act as her companion!

Her brother raised a languid hand. ‘I am merely attempting to make conversation with you, Arabella—’ He broke off to look at her frowningly as she gave a hard laugh. ‘Have I said something to amuse you…?’

The hard glitter in his eyes told Arabella that he, at least, was not in the least amused!

She stood up impatiently. ‘I am sure that you recognise scorn when you hear it, Hawk. We are both aware that you never merely “make conversation”!’ She began to pace the hearth. ‘Whatever it is you wish to say to me, Hawk, please say it and stop prevaricating in this tortuous way!’

Hawk watched her from behind guarded lids, appreciating how much like their mother she looked at that moment, with the colour flaring in her cheeks and that sparkle in her eyes. The pale lemon-yellow gown she wore—not that garish yellow so unsuitable for Jane!—with its touches of cream lace, suited Arabella’s golden colouring perfectly, its becoming style proof once again, if he should need it, that Arabella was no longer a little girl to be cossetted and spoilt.

‘Very well, Arabella,’ he drawled hardly. ‘What I really want to know is did you arrange to meet anyone while you were out?’

‘Arrange to meet anyone?’ She frowned her puzzlement. ‘What—? Ah.’ A knowing smile curved her lips. ‘What you are really asking is if I happened to meet any single gentlemen whilst out alone and unchaperoned?’

Hawk pursed his lips consideringly. ‘It is a possibility that has occurred to me.’

‘Hawk, if you suspect me of having taken a lover then why do you not just say so?’

He could hear the slight trembling in his sister’s voice even as she issued the challenge, realising as he did so that he had pushed Arabella almost to the point of tears. He did not have to look far for the perpetrator of this new sensitivity within him to a woman’s emotions—Jane Smith had stormed his male defences in just this way too. More than once.

He sighed. ‘I am not making any such accusation, Arabella—’

‘Are you not?’

Hawk’s mouth firmed at her scornful tone. Damn it, he was the Duke of Stourbridge, with all the power and influence that went along with that title, and as such he would not suffer this lack of respect a moment longer!

‘No, Arabella, I am not,’ he bit out forcefully, standing up to look down at her censoriously. ‘However, I do forbid you to go out riding on your own again.’

‘You forbid me, Hawk?’ she echoed incredulously.

‘I forbid you,’ he repeated tersely. ‘In future, if you wish to go out riding without the protection of a groom, perhaps Miss Smith might accompany you—’

‘To the devil with your Miss Smith!’ Arabella stamped her slipper-clad foot in temper.

‘She is not my Miss Smith, Arabella,’ Hawk reproved frostily.

‘Well, she is certainly not mine—nor ever will be!’

Hawk drew in a deeply controlling breath before speaking again. ‘It is my wish that you will be kind to Miss Smith, Arabella—’

‘You may wish all you like, Hawk—but unfortunately wishes are not always granted, are they?’

Hawk frowned at the acerbic comment. His mouth tightened. ‘I advise you to put your own feelings aside in this matter, Arabella, and do all that you can to ensure Miss Smith is made to feel a welcome guest during her stay here with us.’

Arabella raised mocking brows. ‘I thought you said she was to be an employee…?’

Hawk eyed her coldly. ‘She is to be your companion, yes. But she is first and formost a guest of the Duke of Stourbridge!’

His sister looked as if she might have liked to say more on that subject—and had thought better of it when she saw the warning in his icily glittering gaze. ‘Very well, Hawk.’ She gave a cool inclination of her head. ‘Oh, I almost forgot…’ She paused in the doorway, much as Jane had done such a short time ago.

‘Yes?’ As then, Hawk did not think he was going to like what Arabella was about to say to him!

Arabella’s smile was almost triumphant. ‘I have arranged a small dinner party for three days hence, to be followed by dancing in the small ballroom.’

The ‘small’ ballroom would hold thirty people comfortably, at least…

Hawk grimaced. ‘How small is this dinner party to be, Arabella?’

Arabella’s smile widened. ‘About twenty-five people, I believe—no, twenty-seven now that you and Miss Smith have arrived.’ She turned to leave and then suddenly paused once again. ‘Oh…and Lady Pamela Croft sent word this morning that her brother has arrived for a visit. So that will make us twenty-eight.’

Hawk had stiffened at the mention of their nearest neighbour’s brother. ‘Can you possibly be referring to the Earl of Whitney?’

‘I believe Lady Pamela has only the one brother.’ Arabella nodded with a questioning raise of her brows.

Hawk knew that she had. And he also remembered that the last time he and the Earl of Whitney had had occasion to meet had been shortly after Hawk had usurped the other man’s place in the Countess of Morefield’s bedchamber! A fact both men, never the easiest of acquaintances, were both very much aware of.

Was Arabella, like Sebastian, and possibly Lucian too, also aware of it…? Her almost triumphant air seemed to imply that it was a distinct possibility!

‘There is just one more thing, Hawk—’

‘For God’s sake, Arabella,’ he cut in icily, ‘either leave or stay. But most certainly cease dithering about in the doorway in that unbecoming manner!’

‘I take it you are not interested, then, in the fact that while we were talking I chanced to see Miss Smith passing by the library window? Ah, perhaps you are interested, after all?’ his sister mused tauntingly as Hawk stood up abruptly to turn and look searchingly out of the window. ‘Perhaps, after all, it is I who should act as chaperon to Miss Smith…?’

Hawk shoulders stiffened as he exerted every effort of his considerable will over his own temper in order to prevent himself from responding to Arabella’s deliberately provocative taunt.

Knowing that he was responsible for leaving himself open to such comments in having brought Jane here at all in no way lessened the impatient anger he was feeling.

Why had Jane left the house?

Where could she have been going?

As far as he was aware, Jane was completely unfamiliar with her surroundings—so why would she have gone outside at all so soon after her arrival?

Chapter Seven

Jane arched mocking brows as she stared down the length of the dining table at her host. ‘Do I take it that your interview with Lady Arabella did not go well this afternoon, Your Grace?’ There had been no opportunity for Jane to speak to him since his conversation with his sister, although she had seen him in conversation with the butler earlier, when she’d returned from her walk outside.

Still, her observation concerning his sister was a fairly accurate one to have made, considering the two of them were seated alone at the table in what Jenkins had informed Jane was ‘the family dining room’. Lady Arabella, and the Duke’s aunt, Lady Hammond, had both sent down their apologies.

That Jane and the Duke were seated at either end of a table that could have seated twelve only added to the feeling of distance that had been stretching further and further between the two of them since their arrival at Mulberry Hall earlier today.

The Duke looked as immaculate as ever tonight, in black evening clothes and snowy white linen, but the impeccable formality of his dress only made Jane more aware of the inadequacy of the muslin gown she had worn on the day she’d left Markham Park, which was all she had to change into for dinner.

‘My conversation with Arabella, as you so rightly guess, Jane, did not go well,’ the Duke confirmed impatiently. ‘Were you ever such a contrary miss, Jane?’ he added with languid weariness.

Jane was very aware, even if the Duke was not, of the presence of the stiffly unreadable demeanour of Jenkins, as he quietly attended them by removing their empty fish plates from the table. She was also aware that this was definitely not one of those occasions when they were ‘not in the presence of others’—which meant that the Duke was being far too familiar with a woman he had supposedly engaged as companion to his young sister. Especially as that sister had not even had the good manners to join them!

‘Such behaviour would have been seen as self-indulgence, Your Grace,’ she answered him, somewhat distantly.

‘I suppose that it would,’ Hawk acknowledged ruefully, and he realised how ridiculous had been his question after the way in which Jane had been treated by her guardians. At the same time he could see, from Jane’s awkward glance in Jenkins’ direction, that she was not happy conducting this conversation in front of his butler.

‘That will be all, thank you, Jenkins.’ He dismissed the elderly man once the roast beef and vegetables had been served to them. ‘I will ring for you when we are in need of you again.’

If the butler saw anything unusual about this turn of events he did not show it by so much as a flicker of an eyebrow as he bowed formally before leaving the room.

Hawk sighed. ‘The unfortunate situation developing between Arabella and myself has shown me how little experience I have in dealing with the capriciousness of young ladies, Jane.’

‘You surprise me, Your Grace.’

Hawk could not fail to notice the mocking glint in her eyes. ‘Young ladies that are related to me, Jane!’

‘Of course, Your Grace.’ She nodded coolly. ‘But if that truly is the case, perhaps the answer might be to forget that Lady Arabella is related to you…?’

Hawk had far from forgotten Jane’s disappearance outside earlier this evening. Or the fact that she had returned to the house while he was in the process of questioning Jenkins as to whether or not he knew of her whereabouts—which he had not. No, Hawk certainly had not forgotten. He was simply awaiting the appropriate moment in which to introduce the subject…

He shook his head now. ‘I am not sure that I understand you, Jane. Arabella may not like me very much at this moment, but there is no doubting the fact that she is my sister!’

‘Assuredly not, Your Grace,’ Jane answered dryly.

He raised dark brows. ‘Now, why do I sense some sort of rebuke in that remark, Jane…?’

‘I have no idea, Your Grace,’ she came back innocently. ‘But from what I have observed of Lady Arabella I believe that at the age of eighteen she wishes to be treated as an adult rather than as a child. As a child in need of a companion, for instance…’

Hawk’s mouth tightened at the rebuke. ‘Arabella is still a child, Jane, and at the moment she is behaving like a spoilt, wilful one.’

‘Was it a child who received several marriage proposals only weeks ago? Was it for a child that you would have approved of her accepting one of those marriage proposals?’

‘You insult me if you think I would have been happy for her to accept a proposal of marriage just for the sake of it, Jane,’ Hawk defended coldly.

‘The nature of any marriage proposal and the suitability of the man involved are both irrelevant to this conversation, Your Grace,’ Jane reasoned softly. ‘What is pertinant is that you cannot expect Lady Arabella to receive proposals of marriage one day and be treated like a child again the next. Moreover, a child who is to be told what she may or may not do, and when she may do it.’

Hawk drew in a sharp breath as he bit back his icy retort. A part of him knew that he had invited Jane’s criticism by confiding in her in this way, and another part of him was surprised that he had done so…

In the years since he had assumed his role as head of the St Claire family, Hawk had expected his siblings to respect his wishes. That he did not appear to have achieved this as well as he might have wanted had been brought home to him not once but twice in recent weeks. First in Sebastian’s absolute refusal to contemplate the idea of any marriage—let alone one suggested by Hawk—and yet again today by Arabella’s stubbornness when it came to acceding to any of his demands.

He did not, however, appreciate having Jane, of all people, point out these failings to him! He looked down his nose at her. ‘I refuse to believe I have ever been guilty of such arrogance with any of my siblings, Jane.’

‘Really?’ She gave an acknowledging inclination of her head. ‘Then I must assume it is only where “nuisances who disrupt your peaceful existence” are concerned…?’

Hawk picked up his glass of claret and took a much-needed drink, his gaze narrowing as he looked down the length of the highly polished table at the woman who had disrupted his peaceful existence from the moment they had first met.

Jane was looking particularly lovely this evening. Her gleaming red hair was arranged in an abundance of ringlets upon her crown, with several enticing tendrils brushing her nape and brow, her creamy throat was once again bare of any adornment—possibly because Jane had no jewellery with which to adorn it?—and the simple cut of her gown succeeding only in emphasising the curvaceous perfection of her body.

A warmly seductive body that Hawk could not deny he was totally aware of. ‘I believe you malign me in saying I have ever told you what you may do, Jane.’ His voice was harsh.

Her mouth thinned. ‘Only what I may not do, sir!’

‘You are referring, I presume, to the fact that I refused to allow you to run off to London in a reckless manner?’

‘I am referring, Your Grace, to the fact that at two and twenty I am perfectly old enough to make my own decisions!’ Her eyes glittered warningly.

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