The Duke (16 page)

Her businesslike intensity as she signed her name to the documents made him smile to himself, then she stared at the deposit slip as though she half expected the numbers to vanish in a puff of smoke. Finally she tucked the little billfold of blank drafts reverently into her reticule.

She has known poverty, he thought, and something fierce and hot rose in him. He had to turn away from her, lest he catch her up hard in his arms. The result of his insight in the bank clerk’s office was that he spent an utterly foolish sum for her horses and equipage at Tattersall’s, their next destination.

Only the finest would do. Recalling the nasty stares she’d been dealt on Rotten Row the previous day, he was determined to give her the best, for style was its own reproof to insolence. That much he had learned from his scandalous mother.

As they wandered the aisles and various barns, Belinda accrued an entourage made up of Hawk’s various acquaintances, for the famed, stylish auction grounds were a favorite male gathering place, usually devoid of wives and too much propriety.

Hawk wasn’t sure if he was irritated or amused to be the protector of such a sought-after beauty. He was rather daunted by the realization that perhaps he wanted her attention all to himself, but she was too polite to ignore the odd assortment of amiable fellows trailing in her wake—a few sporting old squires and retired cavalrymen, a handful of horse-mad young bucks, even one of the minute-sized jockeys joined their company, giving Belinda shrewd opinions on the best horses for her carriage.

Hawk kept her close to him. Any onlooker would have thought she genuinely was his mistress and had him wrapped around her finger, but in fact it was she who protested the cost of the fine pair of high-stepping blacks and the elegant little
vis-à-vis
he selected for her. It looked like his coach in miniature, which she had said she adored.

“Robert, it is too dear,” she protested softly, pulling him aside.

“Don’t you like it?”

“Like it? It’s the most elegant thing I’ve ever seen, but—”

He flicked a gesture at the agent and the equipage was hers.

Ah, Hawkscliffe, now you’re showing off, he chided himself, smiling at the ground, hands in pockets, while she petted her new horses with childlike joy.

She looked dazed as he escorted her back to his town coach. When they were under way, he glanced over, pleased with himself, and found her studying him. He lifted a brow in question.

“If you are trying to make me feel overly indebted to you, you are doing a good job.”

“Nonsense, I am merely carrying out the terms of our agreement. Don’t you trust me?”

“At the very least, you must let me buy
you
something, then. A present.”

“You want to buy me a present?” he asked in astonishment.

She nodded emphatically. It was an absurd, if sweet, impulse, but something in her eyes told him he’d better not refuse. He didn’t want to hurt her pride.

“All right,” he said guardedly, then agreed to let her buy him a few ounces of his favorite Congue snuff from Fribourg & Treyer.

Why it was so terribly important to her, he could scarcely comprehend. He congratulated himself privately when he managed to make her laugh by daring her to try a pinch. After all, even Queen Charlotte was a great aficionado of snuff and many grand dames of the ton considered it a respectable habit for ladies as well as men.

They loitered in the famous tobacconists’ shop, both of them laughing a bit too loudly as he demonstrated the elegant hand movements which would assure that the vice was carried out fashionably. Following his instructions carefully, she tried, amid laughter, to copy him. Upon inhaling a pinch of it from between her fingertips, she began sneezing violently, her eyes watering.

“Vile! Vile!” she gasped out. “Blech!”

He cast a bland, apologetic look at the shopkeepers and handed her his silk monogrammed handkerchief. She continued to sneeze herself nearly senseless. When she had quite recovered, they left the shop in a spirit of jolly camaraderie. Hawk felt as though he had shed ten years of straitlaced self-repression.

Arm in arm they marched down Pall Mall, audacious allies in the face of the disapproving stares. Rounding the corner at Haymarket, they nearly collided with a trio of red-coated young officers. They apologized and he murmured an irritated, “Pardon,” when suddenly he noticed Bel staring at the soldier in the middle.

Her face was turning ashen.

All swaggering soldierly charm, the handsome young officer had a tousle of wavy brown hair and a dumbstruck look on his face. “Bel?”

“Mick,” she said faintly.

The young man’s roguish face lit up with joy.

“Bel!
There’s my girl!” With a whoop of pleasure that resounded down the busy street, he grabbed her around the waist and whirled her in a circle. “I can’t believe it’s you! What in the world are you doing in Town? This is the lass I told you about,” he cried to his friends.

“Put me down!” she wrenched out in anguish, backing up against Hawk the moment the young man released her.

Hawk didn’t say a word, merely put his hand out and steadied her by the small of her back. Aware of the heated surge of jealousy that pulsed through him, he fixed an impaling gaze on the army fellow and bent his head to her ear. “Darling, shall I send for the coach?” he murmured— loudly enough for the other man to hear.

Mick—as she had called him—looked at Hawk in bafflement and the start of anger. He opened his mouth as if to tell Hawk to get away from her, then snapped it shut again when Belinda glanced up at him with her eyes full of silent gratitude and said, “Yes, Your Grace, please do.”

Hawk gave her a bolstering nod then turned to give the quiet order to his footman. The coach was waiting for them just down the way. He glanced uncertainly at Belinda, then decided she probably wanted a moment of privacy with her friend—if this fellow was her friend. It was not easy to walk the few paces away, but one had to be a gentleman, after all.

“ ‘Your Grace’?” he heard Mick echo angrily. “Who the hell is that?”

Hands in pockets, Hawk glanced over darkly and saw understanding dawn in the young officer’s stare. His boyish face turned pale as his gaze traveled over her fine, showy gown.

“What’s happened, Bel?” he asked, panicking.

Hawk saw Belinda lift her chin, looking once more like a marble Aphrodite, beautiful and impervious. “Where’ve you been, Mick?”

“Around—Bel, who is he?”

“He is the duke of Hawkscliffe, my protector. Good day, Captain Braden,” she said coolly.

Hawk pivoted and stalked back to her side, thinking there might be trouble, but Mick only stood there looking flabbergasted. No fight seemed to be forthcoming. Having heard Hawk’s name, Mick’s two companions contrived to peer into a nearby shop window, making themselves scarce.

Just then the town coach rolled to a halt beside them amid a jingle of harness. The groom jumped down to open the door for them. Hawk offered her his hand to assist her inside. She laid her hand atop his, but she would not look at him.

“Bel, wait—” Mick took a step after her but Hawk blocked his path, staring him down in calm warning, his expression steel.

When the lad backed off, looking too bewildered to protest, Hawk stepped up into the coach, took his seat beside her and in a moment they were under way.

Belinda stared out the window, seemingly blind to the world passing by. Her face was an expressionless mask and he knew that she was locked within herself—and that he was locked out. He sat uncomfortably beside her, unsure of what he ought to do.

When they arrived at Knight House she got out quickly, mumbled an excuse, and fled to her room. His shoulders slumped as he watched her pound up the curved staircase.

Should he give her privacy until she had composed herself? he wondered.

Protecting her from overzealous admirers was one matter, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to get involved to the point of giving her a shoulder to cry on. He was frankly unaccustomed to emotional displays, yet it seemed damned cold-blooded to pretend nothing was wrong. Perhaps he should check on her—merely from courtesy. He had no wish to be rude.

Somehow it was an exercise in courage as he climbed the steps and walked silently down the hallway to her door. He listened at it and winced to hear the sound of soft crying. He frowned; he scowled; he fought with himself; and then finally, certain it was a bad idea, he knocked.

“Belinda?”

He waited, but there was no response. Frowning with concern, he turned the knob and pushed the door open about a foot, peering in.

She was lying balled up on the bed, her long blond hair flowing over her shoulders. She didn’t tell him to come in; then again, she didn’t tell him to go away. Torn, he decided that chivalry demanded he offer help. He walked into the room and closed the door gently.

He went and sat on the edge of the bed. Her back was to him. Hesitantly, he touched her silken hair. “Poor sweet,” he whispered. “There, now. It can’t be so bad.”

Her soft crying continued.

He petted her shoulder. “Do you want to tell me who that was?” he asked in the gentlest tone he possessed.

For a long moment she was silent.

“The boy I was to marry.”

Hawk felt the pain in her quiet answer like a physical blow. He closed his eyes and shook his head as she started crying again.

“Everybody gets their heart broken sometime, love. You’re young. You’ll heal.” He leaned back against the headboard then smoothed her hair behind her ear. Her sobs quieted a little as he continued to stroke her hair, his touch slow and tender. “You’ll love again when the right one comes along.”

“I will never love anyone,” she said in a low, desolate voice, keeping her back to him.

“How can you know?” he murmured, aware that her youthful vow of sorrow echoed his own thoughts after Lucy’s death.

“Because when a courtesan falls in love she is destroyed.”

She turned onto her back and gazed up at him, tears clumped on her long dun lashes. He had never seen her look more beautiful.

Quivering with feeling, he could barely find his voice. “Belinda, your heart is too sweet to throw away.”

“Everybody fails me, Robert,” she whispered, staring at him—a young girl without hope, without dreams.

“I won’t,” he said without a second’s hesitation—to his own vast astonishment.

In the silence that followed, he held her stare, wondering if he had just inexplicably promised more than he wanted to give.

But he realized that his lovely young cynic didn’t believe him anyway, though her faint smile expressed gratitude for his good intentions. She sighed, closed her eyes, and nestled her face against his thigh. “You are a kind man.”

Tenderly he reached down and caught her tear on his ringer, brushing it away, his voice oddly gruff. “And you, Miss Hamilton, are too good for that thoughtless soldier boy.”

He watched her fine lips curve in a wisp of a smile, but she kept her eyes closed.

“Robert?” she whispered barely audibly.

“Yes?”

“If I told you there was something—very important to me,” she said haltingly, “something I need to do—would you help me?”

“What is it?”

She opened her eyes. There were shadows in them the color of night. “I have to visit my father in the Fleet, but I’m afraid to go there alone. Will you come with me? Will you take me there tomorrow?”

“Well, certainly. That’s no trouble.”

“It’s not?” she asked, seeming to hold her breath.

“We can go whenever you like.”

He heard her slow exhale of relief. She grasped his hand, threading her fingers through his.

They were silent for a moment, merely being together. He stroked her hair with his other hand, marveling at its softness.

“Robert,” she whispered more urgently this time.

He smiled faintly. “Yes, Belinda?”

She held very still with her hair fanned out over the mattress. She closed her eyes. “I think ... that I want you to kiss me.”

“You do?”

“Softly.” She opened her eyes slowly and gazed at him.

He stared at her. Without a word, he leaned down and brushed her lips in a light, caressing kiss. He barely moved, cradling her head in his hands.

She let out a yielding sigh like silk.

They remained like that for a moment, an eon, a year, until, somehow, he dragged himself back, his senses reeling.

“Is that better?” he whispered, quite thrown off his equilibrium.

“Yes,” she breathed. Her eyes swept open, long lashed and dreamy. “Thank you, Robert.”

He could only stare at her for a moment, drinking in her beauty, then he smiled at the foolishness of it all and chucked her softly under the chin. “I know how to cheer you up. What do you say to an evening at Vauxhall?”

A small, innocent smile broke over her face. She let out a giggle and rolled away from him.

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