Frances gulped. She looked down at her hands, stared over at a bridle, at the harness beside it. “Five thousand pounds,” she said to the floor.
He cursed, quite fluently. He calmed and then sneered onward. “I suppose you feel that the racing stock and the stud are also your blessed responsibility?”
She flushed a bit at that. “Well, not exactly, but, my ... Philip, I—”
“Would you kindly make up your mind, Frances? Is it to be ‘Philip’ or ‘Hawk’?”
“Since I wish devoutly for you to take yourself off, I think I shall select ‘Hawk’!” She immediately regretted her insult, for his face hardened with fury.
She rushed into speech. “I couldn’t just stand by and watch everything continue to rot!”
Hawk stroked his hand over his jaw. He was well in control again. “Marcus informed you that I was considering selling off everything. You knew, it was all in that letter of yours.”
“Yes, but I couldn’t ... that is, I didn’t think you really meant—”
“How the devil would you know what I meant or didn’t meant ... mean?”
She stared stonily at the toes of her stout walking shoes.
“You have taken much onto yourself, Frances.”
“Someone had to,” she said, still unable to meet his gaze.
“Then you now take it upon yourself to inform Belvis that his services are no longer necessary.”
Frances swallowed. “I have already spent the five thousand pounds.”
“On what? New uniforms for the horses? New troughs for their endless eating? What, may I ask, do you—a a woman—know about anything?”
She bounded to her feet and shook her fist at him. “I know much more than you do! And I care, unlike you, who only wish to waste your time and your inheritance on your damned pleasures in London!”
“Back to my mistress again, are we?”
“Back, yes—that is where I wish you to be!”
His eyes fell to her heaving breasts and she saw his eyes falling. She backed away. To her misfortune, she stumbled over a saddle that was in the process of being repaired. She tumbled over it, onto her back, her skirts flying up.
“Frances,” Hawk began, rushing toward her. He stopped, seeing she was quite all right, and said in a leering voice, “How lovely. Do you wish to seduce me here, of all places? Can you not wait until this evening?”
Frances slapped her skirts down as if they were bees to bite her. She came up to her knees, then to her feet. The unmended saddle was between them. She had to try a different tack, she knew. She drew on almost nonexistent patience and said, “Please, Ha ... Philip, it means a lot to me. I know we can bring Desborough back to its respected position. If you are not interested in it, please let me continue. I can make money, I know it. Your father knows it, he trusts me. He ... Please, please don’t sell out.”
&n
bsp; “You make money? I beg to differ with you, Frances. To date all you’ve done is spend it, waste it.”
“I have not! It is to be considered an investment. As for the household expenses, I had to do something!”
“Do you know that it is my sister and her betrothed, Lord Chalmers, who have offered to buy?”
“No, I didn’t know. What does that possibly have to do with anything?”
Hawk didn’t know, but he didn’t say so. He continued rubbing his thumb along his jaw. To Frances’ surprise, he asked, “What do you know about horses?”
She brightened and her eyes grew intense with ill-suppressed excitement. “I grew up with horses. I have ... well, I seem to have an affinity, a natural ability to sense if anything is wrong with them. I also know how to care for them when they are ill. I am not stupid, Hawk.”
He said nothing to that. So, he thought, he was to be Hawk again. Did she hope he would fly off if she kept calling him that?
“How have you spent the five thousand pounds?”