“You can attack my body and tickle me without brandy. There are other benefits as well to having a sober wife. Tomorrow morning I can frolic with you without worrying about your aching head.”
Frances drew a deep breath. She rose with all the dignity she could muster, turned, and faced her husband. “I will come with you,” she said. “But it will change nothing, my lord, nothing! I mean it!”
He smiled at her, a devilish, quite confident smile. “You won’t be weak with love for me tomorrow?”
“I shall be strong with natural dislike for you!”
She sailed out of the dining room. He called softly after her, “I shall be right along, my dear. I have no desire to search out another hiding place in this house. Please contrive to remember that.”
Frances was pacing her bedchamber, having dismissed an oddly smiling Agnes some minutes before. Her eyes kept to the adjoining door. He is a fiend, she said to herself. She was nearly incoherent with anxiety when the door finally opened and her husband strode confidently into her room.
“How lovely you are,” he said, pausing to look her over.
Despite herself, Frances thought he looked extremely lovely himself. His dressing gown was a deep blue, and she knew he was quite naked beneath it. She managed to quell her unacceptable delight, shot him a deadly look, and said coldly, “I trust you didn’t forget your cream?”
“So little faith you appear to have in me, Frances.”
Hawk realized that despite her show of bravado, she was anxious and likely somewhat afraid, both of him and of herself and her response to him. He moved to the large wing chair and sat down. He gave her a long look and said, “Come here, Frances. Let’s ... talk.”
He patted his thighs.
Frances took a step toward him. seemed to catch herself, and retreated two steps.
He patted his thighs again, his eyes never leaving her face.
“Oh, very well!”
She sat on his thighs, holding herself rigid as a board.
“My father is most fond of you,” he said.
“I am most fond of your father, the wicked old man. To think that he would write you such a letter!”
Hawk clasped his arms about her waist and drew her back against his chest. Slowly she eased and began to relax.
“Hawk?”
“Yes, my dear?”
“Does a man wish to do this every night?”
“At the very least. Actually, you are so delicious I believe I could easily be induced to love you repeatedly until I collapsed into an exhausted heap.”
“O
h.”
“All I require is a modicum of encouragement, Frances.”
“Before, you didn’t require anything at all.”
“True, and it was a duty, not a pleasure.”
His voice was smooth as Flying Davie’s silken neck. She felt him lifting her hair, felt his fingers lightly stroking the nape of her neck. He continued very quietly after a moment, “I am truly sorry for our first night together, and the other nights as well.”
“You mean,” she said, not wanting to give an inch, “that you got little pleasure when I was not ... responding to you.”
His hand raised from her waist and gently closed over her left breast. Frances gasped, and tried to pull away. “No, don’t, Frances. Lay your head against my shoulder. That’s right. Now, strive to have a bit of faith in your husband.”