Lady Hawk's Folly (25 page)

“We are at that, young man. You’ll be in your own bed within the hour,” Hawk replied with a smile.

“Oh, I’m not sleepy in the least,” the boy said, sitting up a little straighter in his seat. “I am hungry, however. I have missed Bracegirdle’s ginger biscuits. Perfect doesn’t know the way of them, so she could not tell Cook, and Cook never did get them right.”

Mollie assured him that if the biscuits were not served as a remove for the second course, she herself would request them for the morrow, and the boy leaned back in his seat again, contented. The carriage clattered across the main causeway and in at the main gate, where the party was met with cheers from servants congregated in the courtyard as well as unadulterated delirium from the shaggy little dog. It was clear to everyone from Mandy’s attitude that she had been laboring under a conviction that her entire family had abandoned her forever.

Both Bracegirdles were there to welcome them, and Mrs. Bracegirdle was quick to assure Lord Harry that he needn’t wait until the morrow for his ginger biscuits. Indeed, dinner was ready for them the moment they chose to sit down at the table, for she had had men on the lookout for the carriages these last two hours and more. And when did they expect the first arrivals for the house party, if it pleased the master to inform her?

Hawk gave the stout dame a firm hug. “I’ve not the slightest doubt,” he said teasingly, “that if his highness were to pass through that door just behind us, you would be perfectly prepared to greet him.”

“Well, and so I should hope,” she retorted, her fond gaze belying the sharp tone, “but you never said precisely when we should expect everyone, and we shall do better, Master Gavin, if we have proper warning, and so you should know, sir.”

“I gave you warning,” he reminded her. “As to when everyone will arrive, since his fete is Wednesday, I daresay the Regent will be here on Thursday, but the de Lievens and Lord Bathurst will arrive the day before. The others will be arriving as they choose and leaving again in the same fashion.”

Mollie smiled to herself as she watched her housekeeper accept Hawk’s casual confidence in her ability to cope with such a disorganized party. Truly, Mrs. Bracegirdle seemed to have the same sort of faith that Lady Bridget had in a gentleman’s sense of right. Mollie herself had always made it a point to make her orders clear and reasonable, but she knew the old marquess had not been the least inclined to do likewise. She had an odd notion just now that Mrs. Bracegirdle preferred the gentleman’s way of managing, and she realized that their casual attitude was by way of being a compliment to the housekeeper’s ability to cope with the most awesome problems.

Dinner was a comfortable meal, made more so by realization of the fact that it would most likely be their last opportunity to dine
en famille
for some time. Afterward they adjourned to the shabby rear hall, where a cheerful fire awaited them, watched over by the little dog. Conversation, both at the table and afterward in the hall, focused primarily upon the forthcoming house party, for Lady Bridget had a number of questions to ask and observations to make, and Harry, who had been reassured by his eldest brother as to the certainty of his welcome in Brighton, wished to know how long he must wait before they would be rid of all their guests and able to proceed to that famous resort.

“I was mad as fire when Mollie wouldn’t let me go with her to Margate, you know,” he confided to the room at large, “but Brighton will be something like, so I don’t mind it so much now.”

Mollie glanced quickly at her husband, wondering how the boy’s casual reference would affect him, and found to her own discomfort that Hawk was regarding her searchingly. She remembered then that at least one member of the house party was going to prove difficult for her to cope with, since Prince Nicolai would undoubtedly come along with Monsieur de Lieven. She had said nothing before, and she did not choose to mention it now, but she knew she could not let much more time pass by before bringing her worries to Hawk’s attention. Even as she looked away, she realized the conversation had been brought back from Brighton to the subject nearer to everyone’s thinking. Ramsay was choosing his words with care.

“I say, Hawk, what if there’s a problem? Should we not discuss the possibilities a bit more?”

“Perhaps tomorrow,” his brother replied easily. “I doubt there is anything to fear, you know. I thought we had gone over that ground already.”

“Well, we have,” Ramsay said slowly, piquing Mollie’s curiosity even more, “but I daresay it wouldn’t come amiss to discuss it again. I’m new to this business, you know.”

She could scarcely demand an explanation with Harry right there, but Mollie had been suffering from recurrent bouts of rampant curiosity ever since Hawk’s casual announcement that he meant to hold a house party. He had so far returned no satisfactory answer to any of her questions, and she decided there and then that before the night was out, she would have more information from him if she had to tie him to his bed and torture him to get it. The mental picture created by this thought brought a smile to her lips, but when she glanced at her husband, she found him watching her again. Flushing, she turned pointedly away to stare into the leaping flames in the great fireplace, and Mandy, mistaking her absent stare for a wish for attention, stretched languidly and wandered over to press a cold, wet nose into her hand. Mollie patted the little dog, then gathered her into her lap to stroke the silky fur. Perfectly satisfied to oblige her mistress in this fashion, Mandy curled into a ball in her lap and went to sleep.

Later, in Mollie’s bedchamber, while Mathilde du Bois brushed out her long tresses and plaited them, Mollie considered how best to go about discussing her worries about the house party with her husband. She knew there was some sort of intrigue afoot, and she doubted that he meant to take her into his confidence about the precise nature of that intrigue, but she hoped he would not be averse to discussing more personal matters. And perhaps from such a discussion, she might successfully manage to discover more than he meant for her to know.

Finally, Mathilde finished her tasks and departed, wishing her mistress a pleasant good night. Cathe, who had been conscientiously putting Mollie’s clothes away, moved now to bank the little fire in the grate before likewise departing. The room seemed cozy and warm, lit only by the branch of candles on the dressing table, now that the flames had ceased their dancing. It was odd, Mollie thought, how a room that ought to feel new and strange, considering that it had been her own for so short a time, could feel right and comfortable.

“Will there be anything more, m’lady?” Cathe asked, straightening.

“No, you may go to bed.”

“Good night, ma’am.”

Barely waiting for the door to close behind the serving girl, Mollie hurried to the door leading into the sitting room and pulled it open. Hawk stood there in his bright-red dressing gown, his hand poised to turn the latch.

Standing there as he did, with the gloom of the sitting room behind him, he looked larger and more solid than ever, and Mollie found the breath catching in her throat at the sight of him. Would she never, she wondered, be able to look upon this man in a casual way?

“I wondered whether you were ready for bed, sweetheart,” he said, smiling down at her.

“I’m sorry to have been so long, sir,” she replied, surprised for some odd reason to hear her voice sounding so matter-of-fact. “You must be weary, though. I was not certain you wanted me to come to you.”

“Don’t be daft, Mollie. Of course, I want you. Your place is with me, sweetheart, not alone in that bed yonder.” He took her hand as he spoke and drew her nearer, putting his arms around her and waiting patiently until she tilted her head up. Then, gently, he placed a kiss upon her lips. When he moved as though to draw her toward his own room, she reached up to hold his head where it was, urging him not to stop his kisses so soon. In answer, he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the other bedchamber.

W
ATCHING HAWK AS HE
draped his dressing gown across the back of a nearby chair and prepared to join her in the huge bed, Mollie remembered the days when she had first met him. His attentions had been flattering, but not so much more flattering than those of the other young men who had constantly surrounded her. Still, there had been something about him that set him apart from the others, something that fascinated her.

It was not so much that he was handsome and dashing, nor that he dressed with a careless air of unstudied grace and elegance. The fascination went deeper than that. Really, she thought now, watching as he strode naked to check the dying embers in the grate, the feeling she had had about him then had more to do with the way he made her feel about herself than with the way she had felt about him. She had liked herself more when she was with Hawk than when she was with other young men. He had made her feel less, somehow, as though she were playing some silly game or other.

She had even thought at one time that she might be more than a mere challenge to him. When her father had informed her that Hawk had actually come to him to ask permission to pay his addresses to her, she had thought he must feel some of the tenderer emotions toward her. That belief, however, had not survived their wedding night, when Hawk had gone rigid the moment she had cried out at his initial penetration. He had withdrawn from her as much in a mental sense then as he had physically. Though he had continued to treat her with his customary gentleness and consideration, things between them had not been easy after that, and he had leapt at the opportunity to join Wellington with much the same attitude that a drowning man might snatch at a straw.

Hawk came toward her through the shadows, and the bed moved with his weight as he slipped under the quilts and pulled her into the shelter of his arm.

“Shelter,” she mused, savoring the feeling.

“What’s that, sweetheart?” His breath stirred the wispy tendrils of hair at her temples as he murmured the question.

Mollie hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud, but she turned her head in the hollow of his shoulder and replied easily, “I was thinking about how comfortable we are now.”

“Aye, ’tis a good-enough bed,” he said drowsily.

She chuckled. “I meant with each other, Gavin.”

Hawk pushed himself up a little on the pillows, and his voice was a shade crisper. “Are we, Mollie?” His arm shifted a little beneath her shoulders, and his hand stroked her upper arm. “I had hoped so, but I was not sure.”

“Is that why you have invited Prince Nicolai to this house party of yours?” she asked softly. “To test me?”

With a sound perilously akin to a groan he shifted his position again, that he might look at her more directly. The dim glow from the fireplace was enough to define the searching expression in his eyes. “Is that what you think?” he demanded, low.

“I-I wondered,” she murmured. “You don’t like him, yet you invite him here with the others.”

“He comes with de Lieven,” Hawk said, as though that explained everything.

“Why?” Mollie asked. “Surely, Monsieur de Lieven does not always travel with his aides. And since you have insisted that our party is to be merely an entertaining interval for your guests, why should the prince come if you do not wish it?”

She had kept her tone carefully offhand, but he was not fooled. “I have little doubt of your intelligence, sweetheart, and I am well aware that you are already in possession of many facts that do not concern you. To tell you more might be to endanger your safety. Don’t press me for details I am not at liberty to divulge.”

“I daresay it is all to do with spying,” she said, sighing expressively. “I know Ramsay must have told you we saw Nicolai with d’Épier at the Argyle Rooms. Is his highness part of the investigation, or is he one of the spies?”

“That’s enough, Mollie.” His tone was harsh now. “Such questions are naught but foolishness and can do nothing except cause trouble. Don’t let me catch you airing those opinions where anyone else can hear you, or it will be the worse for you, my girl.”

A little daunted by his tone, she nevertheless asked, “Is Nicolai a spy, sir?”

His arm twitched under her as if he would give her a shake. “Dammit, Mollie, leave be.”

“But I want to know. Perhaps I can help.”

At that, he sat up in the bed and yanked her upright, his two hands braising her shoulders. “You are not to think of such a thing for a moment. Do you hear what I’m saying to you?” A firm shake emphasized his sternly spoken words. “Your task is to see that our guests are comfortable, nothing more. You are to talk to no one about these ridiculous suspicions of yours. Is that perfectly clear, madam?”

“Are they merely suspicions?” she asked evenly, adding more quickly when his grip on her shoulders tightened again, “I have a right to know, sir, if we are harboring spies and traitors beneath our roof.”

For a moment it seemed as if he would shake her again, but then his grip relaxed and he gave a little sigh of resignation. “I do not know why I profess to be astonished by your persistence in this matter. Lord knows, you have made it clear enough that you will never be a conformable wife.” He chuckled. “I confess, I have already come to the conclusion that I never wanted such a wife, so I cannot think why I make any effort to force you into that mold. Habit, I suppose. And just when I thought I was doing so well, too.”

“Sir?” Once again he was confusing her.

He grinned. “I let you make a figure of yourself riding Ramsay’s damn horse all the way from East Grinstead to Forest Row, did I not?” When Mollie replied with a gurgle of laughter, he pulled one of her curls, then spoke more seriously. “I do not know all the answers to your questions, sweetheart. I do know that to ask such questions of anyone else might prove dangerous for you.”

“Is Nicolai a spy?” she asked again.

“We don’t know. He is very smooth and so far has eluded any traps we have set. Moreover, I cannot be absolutely certain that my own prejudices have not influenced my judgment against him. We do know that someone with lofty connections has been providing information to the French. Nicolai’s connections are lofty enough, and it is quite possible that the spy is part of the Russian delegation. However, it is equally possible that the man we seek is among the Regent’s people or Lord Bathurst’s. The information that has gone missing has been available in all three places, but only at the highest levels.”