“Yes,” he said, his voice deep and smooth as honey. “I can see you, all of you, at least from the waist down, most clearly.”
She looked up at the shafts of sunlight filtering down through the overhanging branches and leaves. Then he was over her, and she saw only him.
He came into her and at the same moment slid his tongue into her mouth.
“Frances,” he breathed, her name almost a blurred sigh.
And she responded, wildly.
26
An oyster may be crossed in love.
—RICHARD SHBRIDAN
Frances’ face was flushed, her heart pounding. She ran Hawk aground, thankfully alone, in the estate room.
He smiled upon seeing her, and quickly rose. “Hello, my dear. What do—?”
“Hawk,” she gasped, quickly closing the door behind her. “I found them together!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Beatrice and Edmund! I wished to speak to your sister, and entered her room, after I’d knocked, of course! They were in her bed, together!”
“Ah,” said Hawk, grinning at her.
“They aren’t wed! It was most mortifying. He was all over her, Hawk!”
“Did they observe your interest?”
“No, I slipped out before they saw me.”
“They are to be married, Frances,” her husband said mildly, sitting back to enjoy himself.
“Well,” she said, puffing herself up to a bantam’s stance, “you certainly weren’t in my bedroom before we were married!”
That brought visions of the ghastly dowd. “God, no,” he said, then grinned wickedly. “Actually, I was in a lovely widow’s bed in Glasgow before we were married.”
Frances stared at him, certain that she hadn’t heard him aright. “What did you say?”
“Her name was Georgina, as I recall. Most lovely.”
“You insensible block! You ... you miserable ...”
“Bastard? Bounder? Come, Frances, certainly you haven’t lost your tongue? ... So you have, huh? Well, silence in a woman is occasionally quite becoming. If you will take the trouble to remember the facts, Frances, you will recall that not only were we not married but also we both loathed each other.”
“I still loathe you!”
“No you don’t,” he said, drawling out his words to a most improbable length. “You adore me, you desire me until the point of exhaustion, and as I recall last night—and that after lovemaking in the forest!—you rendered me limp as a—”
“I more than loathe you, I detest you!”
Hawk skirted his desk, his eyes darkening, even as the smile remained fixed on his lips. “Would you like me to prove your adoration, my dear?”
“No,” she said, backing up against the closed door.
<