Linda Needham (13 page)

McHugh whipped around to Kate, scowling fiercely, and jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at Jared. “This true, m’lady? He’s Lord Hawkesly?”

“He is absolutely.” But McHugh was reacting just as the other staff members would when they learned the truth about the colonel. “But his identity is somewhat of a secret at the moment, so you mustn’t reveal anything to anyone else until I say it’s clear.”

“Auchhhh!” McHugh dropped his shoulders and shook his head in disgust. “You didn’t even think to tell me his lordship had returned.”

She felt Jared’s sizzling gaze on her, a warning or a question, she couldn’t determine. Not that she would ever reveal the shameful truth to anyone—that she hadn’t even recognized her own husband.

“Suffice it to say that the matter couldn’t be helped.”

“Ha!” McHugh glanced up at Jared and grunted. “A fine way to treat the folks who love ya so, my lady. Not even letting us know that your neglectful husband has come home.”

“McHugh, please—”

“Don’t be worrying yourself, my lady. I’ll get over it.” McHugh snorted, still assessing her husband with a
furious eye. “But he’ll take some getting used to, this one. Evening to you both.”

“Wait, please,” Kate said, stopping the man at the door.

He sighed as he turned back. “I’ll not say a thing to nobody, my lady.”

“I know that, McHugh. But you came in here to tell me something and you haven’t.”

“Ah, yes. Ya distracted me, my lady, with your…” He waggled a scandalized finger at Jared and then at her. “Well, you know very well what the pair of you was doin’ when I come in here.”

“You had a message for me?”

“Only that Mrs. Driscoll wanted you to know that supper was being served. Just trying to do her job.” McHugh grunted again, then left, but not before elbowing the door wide open.

“McHugh needs a good flogging. Insolent old codger.” Her husband crossed his arms over his broad chest; every bit the importuned king.

“A man who lost his entire family to the famine.” Kate grabbed a prize ribbon and a medallion off her desk. “You’ll treat him with respect; he’s been a rock to me.”

“Seems you’ve gathered yourself a whole quarry full of them. Enough to get on quite well without me.”

“Quite well. But now that you’ve come home you’ll have to learn to behave around here.” She poked the ribbon through the hasp of the medallion.

“
I’ll
have to behave?”

“And that’s just one of the rules I’ve decided to in
voke while you acclimate yourself to life in the country.”

Jared decided against even the slightest hint at the bellow of laughter that threatened. An ordinary wife wouldn’t dare such an affront.

But then again, he was beginning to believe that he hadn’t married an ordinary woman.

Which pleased him to the depth of his bedraggled, undeserving soul.

“R
ules?” Jared marveled at the extraordinary way her mind twisted and turned, at the way her slender fingers worked the ribbon so expertly without her paying attention to the task. “Such as what?”

“You’re on dry land now, Jared. The code of the high seas doesn’t apply.”

“I promise not to flog anyone.”

“And no
threats
of flogging either.” She threaded a pin clasp into the dangling ribbon. “Civilization relies on common rules and laws. And so must you and I if we’re going to…”

“To what, Kate?” Not that he had any intention of abiding by her regime, but he’d learned long ago never to stop an opponent from delivering valuable information.

“To…to keep our promises to each other.”

“I promised to protect you with my life and I will.”

“I don’t need your protection. I need cooperation.”

Nevertheless, she was going to bask in his protection anyway. Daily. Hourly.

“Oh, you mean that other promise, my dear. So does this mean that you’ll allow me to bed you someday, as long as I follow your rules?”

“You know very well that’s not what I meant.” She dropped another beribboned medal on the desktop and picked up another set.

“But that’s what you said.”

“Is that the sum of your thoughts? Taking me to bed?”

“Yes.” The simplest of answers, entirely honest because she scrambled his mind with her fragrance.

“That’s very shortsighted of you, as far as our marriage is concerned.”

“I’m sorry, but to be specific, just now it’s your hair that’s distracting me.”

“My hair?” She touched the back of her head, threading her fingers through the wild gilded ends, shifting her shoulder, baring more of her neck, every inch the siren, though he doubted she understood the effect.

“Your long, lovely hair. I imagine it spilling out across your naked shoulders and our linen sheets, curling on my pillow, wound up in my fists.”

She opened her mouth in a perfect O. “Why are you going on like this?”

So she was capable of surprise.

“I thought you wanted to learn all about me.”

“I do. But this is not the kind of information I in
tended us to learn about each other. At least not right now.”

“But it’s the subject at hand. It’s what I’m thinking. Constantly.” He stayed rooted to the carpet, keeping her well out of his reach, for fear of taking her right to the floor. Tossing that damnable courting promise right out the window. “Though right now I’m beginning to think about that shirtwaist you’re wearing.”

“What about my shirtwaist?” She pressed her hand across the soft rise of her bosom, so perfectly defining her shapes and slopes and peaks, tightening the pressure in his groin.

“First of all, I noticed that you don’t wear much of an undergarment. Nothing to keep you still…if you know what I mean.” Even now her breasts were buoyant, dancing, his imagination out of control as she took a dangerous step closer to him.

She gave a delicately shy little laugh. “Why ever would you notice a thing like that?”

“Which naturally makes me curious about how you would taste beyond those buttons.” Despite his better judgment, he caught a button, tugged lightly on it.

“Lord Hawkesly!” The woman blushed instantly, like the sun hitting the underside of a sunset cloud. “You’ll stop that kind of talk right now.”

“I’m just being honest. You asked me if all I thought about was taking you to bed, and I answered as clearly as I could.”

“I didn’t mean for you to give me a minute-by-minute explanation.”

“Too bad, because I still have the most delicious im
age in my head from this afternoon, the perfect shape of your legs.”

“You can stop trying to shock me, Jared; it won’t work. As I told that blighter Colonel Huddleswell only yesterday, I’ve been to places that you can’t possibly imagine. I’ve seen things.” Her eyes took on a sparkle, her voice thickened to honey. “Amazing, unforgettable things. So I understand completely.”

“I don’t think you do. In fact, you’d bloody well better not understand.” He didn’t like the fierceness of the blush he’d cultivated in her, a deep crimson that might not be entirely of his making.

“Oh, but I do.”

“All right then, what have you seen?” Doubtless nothing more than a young woman’s fertile imagination at work.

She closed her eyes and sighed, took a deep breath of something exotic. A memory? “Never mind.”

“I want to mind. I want to know.”

“At the proper time.”

“Which is when?”

“When I know you better. In the meantime, I think you’d best redirect your thoughts.”

“Impossible. I’ve no control over them.”

She paused and quirked her head, too interested. “Really?”

“Completely out of control. Ever since the moment you came down that stairway yesterday, and I realized that you were my wife. I couldn’t take my eyes off your mouth.”

“You couldn’t?”

“My only thought then was to kiss you.” He brushed her mouth with his.

“And now?” she breathed against his cheek.

“To kiss you, of course.”

“Oh, my.” She sighed, seemed to catch herself, then stuck out her arm like a battering ram against his chest. “But you have to stop this, Jared.”

“I can’t.”

“Then just don’t tell me about it.”

“So you’re actually allowing me these thoughts about you. Your mouth, your hands, your lack of undergarments. You just don’t want me tell you about them.”

“Exactly.” She sniffed at him, then snatched up another ribbon. “So that’s Rule Two; keep your thoughts to yourself.”

Feeling smug, Jared tempted fate and leaned against the desk, just inches from her furious industry.

“And what if I happen to slip and wonder aloud about the taste of your collarbone or your…earlobe.” He liked this teasing, the way she stood up to it, challenged him and tried to ignore him. He lifted the cascade of hair off her shoulders, wringing a stunning gasp out of her.

“Behave yourself.” She batted at his fingers and missed, then let out something that sounded very much like a giggle.

“Now that seems to be the trouble, Kate. I’m behaving like a normal husband who desires his wife.”

“You shouldn’t. Not yet.” Despite her denial and her half-hearted attempt to brush away his fingers, she let
him play along the downy soft ridges of her ear. “We’re not completely married yet.”

“Oh, yes we are. But I’ve agreed to court you, to confess my heart. And so you’re learning this about me, my attraction to you. I just thought you should know.”

“All right then, I’ll grant you this…oh, lovely, yes…this heady, wonderful feeling that you stir in me. Which makes me believe that we’ll fit together well in our marriage bed.”

“More than well.” God, his hands ached to hold her. All this brazen honesty between them was going to kill him if he let it go on, the raw nakedness of it clinging to his skin, cramping his groin. The shapely column of her neck as she tilted her head to his touch.

“So in the meantime, husband, we need to accept this attraction as a basic truth between us, and a pleasure to come. But I do need to know more about you than merely the taste of your mouth.”

“Jesus, woman.” He sucked in a sharp breath as a bolt of lightning shot through him, sending him off the desk and to the chest of file drawers.

Her blush had matured and her breathing slowed as she blew out her cheeks. “I suppose we can manage with but two rules between us, Jared.”

“And they are…?”

“Respect for what I’ve done here…”

For turning his life upside down.

For selling off his crops.

And his wine cellar.

For filling his houses with hordes of children and blustery old flyfishermen.

And his head with some kind of preposterous, illogical hope for…

He wasn’t sure what he was hoping for, or how to go about capturing it. Or that hope wasn’t a dangerous commodity to carry around unguarded.

But the blasted woman had managed in little more than a day to force him to look at things differently.

“Go on, Kate. The other rule between us.”

“Distance.”

“Distance?” He didn’t like the lifeless sound of that. Not at all. He couldn’t get enough of the scent of her, couldn’t give it up. “What sort of distance?”

She judged the span between them. “Well, I suppose two feet will do. One foot when necessary.”

He nearly laughed with relief, but thought better of it. “And if I agree to keep to your rules, how will I know that I’ve done enough courting?”

He could see her hiding her smile behind her efficiency. But it was there and pleased him to his soul.

“You’ll know, Jared. You’ll know.”

With that spicy invitation, his bride picked up the ribbons with their attached medallions clanking together in her palm and left the office.

And blast it all, if he hadn’t just agreed to spending another night away from her, in separate beds.

Bloody hell, in separate rooms.

Not a wedding night in sight.

What was it that bloody smart-ass Drew had said? Something about the madness of believing that he could just waltz Kate into his bed without paying dearly for his neglect.

He was paying for it, all right, with fevered imagin
ings of her tight-fitting trousers, bones that ached from wanting her, not to mention a scraped knee, bruises, and a constellation of fishhook wounds.

But he had always prided himself on the unshakeable strength of his honor, had honed it on kings and princes, pirates and popes.

So how had it happened that a beautiful young woman whom he’d wed out of necessity had the power to turn his resolve into pudding?

Not that it mattered in the least. He was doomed to burn for her.

Because he didn’t have the slightest idea how to go about courting her.

He found her in the dining room a few minutes later, flushing slightly at the cheering applause from the sea of sportsmen as she took her place in front of them.

“A good day’s catch, gentlemen,” she said in her musical voice. “Records in nearly every category. Congratulations!”

As before, the crowd cheered and huzzahed themselves and toasted each other with Jared’s own wine. Though it all made more sense to him tonight.

She
made more sense to him. His entrepreneurial wife and her wild schemes.

Her confident declaration that she didn’t need him or his protection.

When it came to announcing the daily prize for rainbow trout, and he saw that she was puzzling out the fairness of awarding him the medal, Jared stepped into the room and waved at her.

“In truth, Lady Hawkesly, I must disqualify myself from the rainbow category.”

The crowd turned toward him and grumbled.

Kate’s eyes grew wide, twinkled at the corners. “Surely not, Colonel Huddleswell? Yours was the largest fish of the day!”

“Indeed, it was. But I didn’t actually catch the damn thing legally.”

“What?” Her question ricocheted around the tables.

“Do say?”

“I’ll be damned.” And other exclamations of disappointment and approval.

“Actually,” he said, “I didn’t reel him in as the rules require. One of those technicalities that I couldn’t help at the time and didn’t realize until just now.”

Jared watched her hide another smile. “If you’re certain, Colonel.”

“Absolutely, my dear Lady Hawkesly. Rules, as you know, are rules.”

She frowned at him, sparks lighting the corners of her eyes. “Civilization relies on them, Colonel. And so do tournaments. So I declare Mr. Gilmott the daily winner in the rainbow trout division.”

And so the evening went, Kate dashing from one incident to the next and Jared keeping a close eye on her.

Strictly in a courting effort to learn more about her. A mission he was beginning to enjoy.

Especially when she would catch his glance from across the room, or include him in her machinations whispered against his ear.

“How are you at the game of hazard, Colonel?”

Ross had always referred to him as a bloodthirsty shark. “Tolerable, Lady Hawkesly.”

“Excellent. Then would you mind joining the table
in the corner? Been a bit too much drinking there. If you could go settle them down, I’d be so very grateful.”

Gratitude would do for now. “I might ask how
you
are at the game of hazard. Strictly out of curiosity, of course.”

“We’ll play a hand sometime and you’ll find out for yourself.” She left him with a wink.

He watched her from the distance of the rowdy hazard table as she moved around the lounge, and heard her congratulating the daily winners and commiserating with the losers, listening to their raucous tales of the monsters that got away.

Dazzling them as easily as she dazzled him.

Fortunately, with the fish inclined to begin biting just before dawn, the evening ended suddenly and hours earlier than it would ever have in London.

Jared helped McHugh muscle the drunken Breame and Fitchett into their rooms, losing track of his wife for the first time all night.

A single wick had been left burning in a lamp on the bar. “Any sign of my wife, McHugh?”

“M’lady said to tell you she was off to her chamber.” McHugh cleared his throat. “Whatever that means to ya…m’lord.”

“It means that you’re too insolent by half, McHugh.” Though Jared couldn’t help but like the man.

“Just watchin’ out for my lady’s interests, my lord. Habit, I suppose. Nothing changed from last night, far as I’m concerned.”

“I wouldn’t expect it to. Lady Hawkesly thinks the world of you.”

McHugh’s chest rose. “Does she now?”

“And her word is good enough for me. Good night to you.” Jared left the man rubbing his knuckles across his jaw and started up the stairs toward his garret room.

So his bride had slipped off to bed without even a “good night, husband.”

That wouldn’t do. She’d offered him a foot’s distance from her and he was bloody well going to take it.

Weary to her bones and yet simmering with excitement, Kate shed her clothes, slipped into her nightgown, and then dove under the counterpane.

Married!

She was actually married to that amazing man she’d left prowling around downstairs. He’d been such a presence throughout the evening, it seemed as though she’d spent the entire night on his arm.