Tall, Dark & Notorious: The Duke's Cinderella Bride

But once the tears had ceased Jane had remembered her vow to leave here today. And that there was someone else leaving Markham Park this morning who, if asked, might take her with him.

The Duke of Stourbridge.

Except this morning he did not look anything like the Duke of Stourbridge, with his hair still damp and dishevelled after bathing, and only a towel draped about those powerful thighs!

‘You wish me to take you with me when I leave…?’ He spoke softly, incredulously, those sharply etched features revealing nothing of his inner thoughts at her request.

Jane nodded. ‘If you would not mind, Your Grace.’

If he would not mind!

This girl burst into his bedchamber, unannounced and with complete disregard for his privacy, and then proceeded to ask if she could accompany him when he left here today!

With what purpose in mind?

Yes, Hawk accepted that he had behaved with reckless impulsiveness the previous evening, when he had taken Jane into his arms and attempted to kiss her. But that really did not give her the right to think he might possibly want to pursue a relationship with her. Certainly not to assume he would want to take her with him when he left today!

His mouth twisted derisively. ‘Jane, can you be under the delusion that I wish to make you my mistress?’

‘No, of course not!’ She recoiled at the suggestion, her face paling, her eyes turning a deep, appealing green.

They had an appeal that, even in his wariness over her exact intentions, Hawk found he was not immune to. Irritatingly.

He lifted the towel from his shoulders to absently dry his hair. ‘Then what do you want from me, Jane?’

She blinked. ‘Merely to ride in your carriage with you when you leave here today. I have a small amount of money saved, if you require payment—’

‘No, I do not require payment, Jane! Not of any kind.’ Ice edged his voice. ‘Because you will not be coming with me.’ He threw the towel impatiently down on a chair before donning his robe after all, a dark scowl creasing his brow. ‘How old are you, Jane?’ he demanded as he tied the belt tightly about his waist.

She looked dazed by the question. ‘How—? I am two and twenty, Your Grace.’

‘Indeed?’ Hawk nodded abruptly. ‘Old enough by far to know that you do not burst unannounced into a gentleman’s bedchamber and then, finding him in a state of undress, proceed to ask him to take you away with him!’

Put like that, perhaps his assumption that she wished to become his mistress was understandable, Jane acknowledged ruefully. If completely wrong. She simply wanted to leave here as quietly and as speedily as possible.

She grimaced. ‘I do not wish you to take me away with you, Your Grace. I merely wish to share your coach with you when you leave.’ She also wished she’d had the forethought to wait until he had invited her to enter before bursting into his bedchamber in this way. She would certainly have saved them both embarrassment if she had done so.

Although the Duke didn’t exactly look embarrassed as he began to pace the room restlessly. Even dressed only in the black silk robe, he was still possessed of that supreme self-confidence that seemed such a natural part of him it surely had to be inborn.

Deservedly so, Jane acknowledged as she found herself remembering the lean strength of his body. Muscles rippled in those long legs even now as he walked, and the defined muscles in the chest she had viewed earlier were something she dared any woman to resist. And especially a woman who had already found herself dreaming about him quite shamelessly the night before.

Jane felt her nipples swell and harden against the softness of her drab-muslin gown, her breasts rising and falling beneath the bodice. She suddenly found it difficult to breathe, and that strange warmth was back between her thighs.

She did not believe the accusations Lady Sulby had made about her’s mother wantonness. Those letters she had read seemed to confirm that her mother had loved only one man: her married lover, Jane’s natural father. But as Jane looked at the Duke of Stourbridge—at Hawk—she could not help wondering if she might not herself be a wanton. She had dreamt of this man last night. Hot, erotic dreams. And she was so physically aware of him now that she once again felt an unaccustomed ache low in her stomach.

‘You have no idea what you are asking, Jane!’

She raised her eyes to meet the Duke’s glittering golden gaze as he glared at her. ‘I assure you I would try not to be any trouble—’

Hawk interrupted with a humourless laugh. ‘Believe me, Jane, you do not have to try!’ He could not spend hours, days, confined in his coach with a woman he had already physically responded to so uncharacteristically.

Damn it, he might respond in that way again, once alone in his coach with her, and take her on one of the seats!

‘Why the urgency, Jane? What has happened since yesterday evening to make you so determined to leave here?’

She turned away so that he could no longer read the emotions in her eyes. ‘I have decided I can no longer reside under the same roof as Lady Sulby. That is all.’

No, damn it. It was not all. What had that witch done to Jane to create the desperation he sensed in her? What could Lady Gwendoline possibly have said or done to Jane this morning to precipitate her immediate flight from Markham Park?

It was none of his business, Hawk reminded himself sternly. He did not like Lady Sulby, and had found her to be a pretentious and spiteful woman, but she was nevertheless the wife of Jane’s legal guardian, and as such Hawk knew he had no right to interfere.

No matter how disturbed he was by the haunted look he had perceived in Jane’s eyes a few minutes ago. Even if the thought of leaving her here to the continued coldness of Lady Sulby brought the bile rising to the back of his throat.

If Jane left her guardian’s home with the Duke of Stourbridge—a single gentleman—then without a doubt the Duke of Stourbridge would be forced into marrying her.

Something Hawk did not intend to happen!

He turned away from the renewed appeal in those expressive green eyes. ‘No, Jane. I am afraid it will not be possible for you to travel in my coach with me today. Whatever disagreement you have had with Lady Sulby, you must face it and deal with it. Running away from your problems solves nothing.’ Hawk knew that what he was advising was the correct and only course in the circumstances, but inwardly he could not help but feel appalled as he listened to his own pomposity.

What other choice did he have? None that he could see.

But he could have wished that Jane did not look at him so disappointed before she turned her head away and her slender shoulders slumped defeatedly.

He drew in a sharp breath. ‘Perhaps if you were to tell me exactly what has occurred to cause this distress—’

‘Thank you, no, Your Grace.’ Her shoulders were tensed proudly now. ‘It only remains for me to wish you a safe journey.’ She walked towards the door.

‘Jane!’

‘Goodbye, Your Grace.’ The quiet dignity of her voice cut through him like a knife.

Hawk crossed the room in long, forceful strides to press his hand against the closed door. ‘Jane, surely you must see how unsuitable it would be for you to travel anywhere alone with me?’

‘I understand completely, Your Grace—’

‘Jane, I have warned you about “Your Gracing” me in that dismissive way!’ Hawk reached out to grasp her shoulders with both hands. ‘I can see that you are upset, Jane.’ His voice gentled. ‘But can you not see it is an upset that will quickly pass? Lady Sulby does not mean to be cruel, I am sure—’

‘You know nothing of the sort!’ The defeated air had completely left Jane as she glared up at the Duke, her hands clenching at her sides. ‘She is a bitter, hateful woman, full of viciousness for those she considers beneath her. I do not believe you would treat even one of your dogs in the cruel way that she has dealt with me!’

She wrenched out of the Duke’s restraining grasp before turning to leave, aware of his golden gaze following her frowningly as she let herself out of the his apartments to hurry back down the hallway to her own room.

The Duke might have refused her passage in his coach, but that made little difference to her decision to leave. In fact, she refused to remain here for even another day!

If she could only get to London she could then take a public coach to Somerset—could find Bessie, her father’s old housekeeper, who she believed now resided with her married son in a village only two miles from where they had all used to live.

Bessie had known both her mother and her father before Jane was born. And household servants, as Jane well knew from her position as neither a family member nor quite a servant in the Sulby household, often knew more about their employers than those employers might have wished.

Bessie would perhaps know more about Janette’s lover than Lady Sulby, in her vindictive prying into Janette’s personal letters, had ever been able to learn.

Once Jane’s tears had stopped after she had read her mother’s achingly emotional letters—letters that had never been sent to her married lover—she had come to a decision. Her real father might never have wanted her, might have callously cast off his lover once he knew she carried his child, but that did not mean that child could not now come back to claim him.

As a married man, it might not be comfortable for him to suddenly be presented with a daughter of two and twenty—but how much care had he given for Janette’s comfort when he had denied both her and their unborn child?

None, as far as Jane could see.

Yes, the Duke might have refused to allow Jane to accompany him when he left later this morning. But her resolve was now such that Jane knew she would walk to London if she had to!

‘More wine, Your Grace?’ The serving girl at the inn in which Hawk had decided to spend the night hovered expectantly beside the table, holding up a jug of wine.

Hawk nodded distractedly, having touched little of the food that had been served to him along with the wine in this private dining room. Not because there was anything wrong with the food, but because wine alone served him better in his darkly brooding mood.

He had left Markham Park shortly after that unsatisfactory conversation with Jane, any relief he had expected to feel at his release from the Sulbys’ oppressive company—Lady Sulby especially—completely overshadowed by that last haunted look in Jane’s eyes as she had turned away from him. As the distance between the ducal coach and Markham Park had increased Hawk had found those inner shadows deepening. Until now, ten hours later, he was beset with such feelings of guilt at leaving Jane to her fate that he could think of little else.

But to have brought Jane away with him would have compromised her as well as himself. Totally.

Perhaps that was what she had wanted?

Somehow he did not think so. Her despair this morning had been too intense, too overwhelming to be anything but genuine in her desire to get as far away from Lady Sulby’s viciousness as was possible.

That he was partly to blame for that viciousness Hawk did not doubt, having been totally aware of his hostess’s fury the evening before, when he’d singled Jane out for his attentions. And that lady’s ambitions concerning her daughter and himself had become apparent during the long, tortuous dinner, when he’d had Lady Sulby seated on one side of him and the fair Olivia on the other.

As if that had ever been even a remote possibility!

But Hawk was haunted by the accusations he had himself hurled at Jane the previous evening, concerning her behaviour at dinner with Lord Tillton. Accusations he now knew to be unfounded.

Having failed to see James Tillton again before retiring yesterday evening, Hawk had deliberately sought him out this morning, when taking leave of his fellow guests, and had noted grimly the half-crescent indentations in the older man’s wrist. Indentations very like the piercing of neatly trimmed fingernails. Jane’s neatly trimmed fingernails.

There had also been nothing of the siren about Jane when she had appeared so suddenly in Hawk’s bedchamber that morning—none of the beguiling seductress using her persuasive skills in order to entice him into taking her away with him. There had been only the paleness of her cheeks and that haunting look of desperation in her eyes.

Damn it, there was nothing he could have done!

And yet that he had done nothing at all did not sit well with Hawk, either…

‘Can I get you anything else, Your Grace…?’

He looked up at the frowning serving girl, realising by the uncertainty of her expression that she had taken his scowl of frustration as a personal comment on the inn’s fare.

‘No.’ He sighed, nodding as she offered to remove his almost untouched plate of food from the table. ‘Except perhaps another jug of wine. Also…’ He halted her at the door. ‘Send my manservant to me here as soon as he arrives, will you?’

Much to Hawk’s added displeasure, his own departure from Markham Hall had been so precipitate that Dolton had not yet arrived at the inn with the second coach conveying Hawk’s clothes.

What was keeping the man? He might have news of Jane—might be able to report that when he’d left she had been smiling and happy…

No, he would not. Hawk instantly rebuked himself heavily. Any more than Dolton would be able to tell him that Lady Sulby had suddenly become a lady of grace and beauty! By even hoping Dolton would be able to tell him of anything pleasant left behind at Markham Park. Hawk was merely trying to appease his own conscience, for abandoning Jane in the way that he had after she had asked for his help.

What would Jane do now? Would she still go ahead with her decision to leave the only home she had known for the last twelve years? If so, where would she go? And to whom?

‘Your Grace?’

Hawk had been so deep in thought that he had totally missed Dolton’s arrival. He smiled at the sight of a friendly face before Dolton’s look of surprise made him realise that he was not usually so familiar with his valet. ‘Dolton.’ He sobered. ‘I trust you had an uneventful journey?’

‘Er—not exactly, Your Grace.’ The other man frowned uncomfortably. He was a small, slender man of middle years, his blond hair slightly thinning, his eyes a watery blue. Eyes that at this moment seemed to be evading his employer’s.

‘No?’ Hawk arched surprised brows. His question had been a politeness only. He expected that any problems Dolton might have encountered along the way would have been dealt with without the necessity of informing his employer of them.

Dolton still avoided meeting Hawk’s piercingly questioning gaze. ‘No, Your Grace. I—perhaps we could discuss this upstairs in your room,Your Grace?’he added awkwardly, as the serving girl bustled back into the parlour with the second jug of wine Hawk had requested.

Hawk’s brows rose even higher at the strangeness of Dolton’s behaviour. ‘As you can see, I have not yet finished dining.’

‘No, Your Grace.’ Dolton chewed on his bottom lip. ‘It’s just that I really would like to talk to you in private. If you please, Your Grace?’ He shrugged uncomfortably.

‘Leave us, please.’ Hawk dismissed the serving girl as she still hovered, probably with the intention of seeing to Dolton’s dinner requirements. ‘Now,’ he turned musingly to the other man once they were alone, ‘kindly tell me what has thrown you into such confusion, Dolton?’

His manservant drew in a deep breath before grimacing. ‘I would much rather show you, Your Grace.’

‘What can possibly have happened to disturb you so, Dolton?’

Hawk shook his head bemusedly as he stood up. ‘Have you discovered a stain on one of my jackets you cannot remove? Or perhaps a scuff on one of my best boots?’ It had been known for Dolton to be thrown into a paroxysm over just such an occurrence.

‘Nothing so simple, I am afraid, Your Grace.’ Dolton shook his head mournfully before opening the door for the Duke to precede him out of the room.

‘A wheel has fallen off the coach, perhaps?’ Hawk continued to dryly ridicule the man as he ascended the narrow stairway that led to the bedchambers above.

This inn was no better than the one Hawk had stayed at on his journey to Markham Park, but he had consoled himself with the realisation that at least this time he was on his way to his own home, rather than facing the unpleasant prospect of a week spent amongst virtual strangers.

‘No, Your Grace.’ His valet sighed as he mounted the stairs behind him.

‘For God’s sake, man—will you stop shilly-shallying and tell me what all this is about—?’

Hawk had opened the door to the bedroom allocated to him but came to an abrupt halt in the doorway to stare uncomprehendingly at the bonneted and cloaked figure that stood so demurely in the centre of the sparsely furnished room.

Jane Smith raised her lashes to look at him with green eyes that were far from demure.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ Hawk breathed chillingly, unable to remember when he had last felt so angry. If ever.

‘I only left the coach unattended for a minute or so, Your Grace. When I went to collect the picnic lunch the cook had prepared for our journey.’ Dolton launched into defensive speech as he stepped around the Duke to enter the room, his expression imploring as he looked up at his employer. ‘She must have slipped inside the coach while I was in the house. As you know, Your Grace, I always travel outside, with Taylor, so we were unaware of Miss Smith’s presence inside the coach until an hour ago, when it became rather cold and I had the coach stopped so that I could get my cloak. I discovered Miss Smith hiding amongst your trunks,Your Grace,’he concluded unhappily.

Hawk did indeed know of Dolton’s preference for sitting up with the coachman. His valet suffered from motion sickness if confined inside the coach for any length of time.

None of which altered the fact that Jane Smith should not be here.

At the inn.

Once again in his bedchamber.

‘You seem to be making a habit of this, Miss Smith.’ His tone was icy.

‘So I do, Your Grace.’ She met his gaze unflinchingly.

Hawk drew in a sharply angry breath as he easily recognised her challenging look of defiance. ‘I should have you beaten and taken back to Markham Place immediately!’

Jane’s chin rose. ‘I invite you to try, Your Grace.’

His mouth thinned. ‘I was not intending to apply the beating myself, Jane.’ He gave his valet a steely glare from beneath ominously lowered brows.

Jane tried, and failed, to suppress her laughter as she saw the look of obvious dismay on Mr Dolton’s face at the thought of his employer ordering him to beat her.

‘It really is too cruel to tease Mr Dolton in that way, Your Grace.’ She shook her head, the heavy weight of Lady Sulby’s hatred having lifted as each mile passed, taking her farther away from Markham Park. In fact, apart from the obvious precariousness of her future, Jane was feeling more light-hearted than she had done for some years.

‘And what makes you think I was teasing?’The Duke raised haughty brows.

‘The fact that I am perhaps two inches taller than Mr Dolton—and possibly stronger, too?’ The laughter still gleamed challengingly in her eyes as she easily met the Duke’s forbidding gaze.

Not that she did not sympathise with the frustrated anger he must be feeling. Having left Markham Park, he must have assumed he had seen the last of her.

The glittering gold gaze swept over her from head to foot before the Duke turned to spear his still-quaking valet with it. ‘Miss Smith will not be staying,’ he said ominously.

‘Miss Smith most certainly will be staying.’ As if to prove the point, Jane reached up and untied her bonnet, before removing it completely and placing it on a chair, then turned her attention to her cloak. ‘Perhaps not in this exact room,’ she allowed, with a mocking inclination of her head. ‘But I am sure that the innkeeper will have another room in which I might spend the night.’ Her cloak joined the bonnet on the bedside chair.

‘And then what?’ The Duke glared at her stonily. ‘Is it your intention to walk the rest of the way to your destination?’

‘If necessary, yes.’ Jane perched herself daringly on the edge of the four-poster bed to look up at him with cool deliberation.

His mouth tightened. ‘You are without doubt the most irresponsible, stubborn—’

‘I think you may excuse yourself from the Duke’s displeasure now, Mr Dolton.’ Jane turned to smile warmly at the nervously hovering man.

It had perhaps been unfair of her to involve the Duke’s valet in her escape from Markham Park and the Sulby family, but the opportunity to slip inside the unattended coach this morning had been too tempting to resist. And the fact that Mr Dolton had then elected to sit up with the driver meant she had managed to remain undetected for hours. Far too many hours for the valet—or the Duke—to consider returning her to Markham Park tonight.

Neither did Jane intend being bullied into returning there tomorrow by the obviously infuriated Duke of Stourbridge.

‘Yes, you may leave us, Dolton.’ The Duke coldly echoed her instruction. ‘For now,’ he added gratingly.

‘Please go down and have some dinner, Mr Dolton.’ Jane gave the valet another encouraging smile. ‘I shall join you shortly.’ It had been a long day—a day without any food or water—and Jane felt very much in need of both. But not, of course, until she had finished her conversation with the Duke of Stourbridge.

‘I do not believe I gave you leave to issue instructions to members of my staff.’

Jane turned her attention back to the Duke now that Mr Dolton had left the room and closed the door softly behind him. ‘You were simply tormenting the poor man—’

‘Miss Smith!’

She quirked auburn brows. ‘Your Grace?’

Hawk found that his anger had not abated in the least since he had walked into the room and seen her standing there so unexpectedly. In fact, he would have dearly loved to pull her to her feet and give her a good shaking.

Except that he did not trust himself to touch Jane at this moment. He had no idea, if he did, whether he would shake her or kiss her!

He had spent hours tormenting himself with thoughts of having left Jane to the untender mercies of Lady Sulby, only to find that she was no longer at Markham Park after all, but cosily ensconced in his second-best coach as it travelled along some distance behind his own.

His gaze narrowed as he saw her smile. ‘I suppose you are congratulating yourself on managing to defy my instructions so effectively?’

Jane was not sure that ‘congratulating’ herself exactly described it, but she was feeling rather pleased with herself for having so successfully removed herself from Markham Park.

‘I am not sure that your instructions came into my thinking when I climbed inside your coach this morning—’

‘I am certain they did not!’ He glared coldly.

‘However,’ Jane continued undaunted, ‘I cannot deny I am pleased to be away from the Sulby household.’

The Duke’s mouth thinned. ‘You do realise that your disappearance, and the coincidence of my own departure this morning, will be noticed? That Sir Barnaby will send someone after you?’

She thought of Lady Sulby’s deliberate viciousness this morning—of the fact that she had ordered Jane to leave. ‘Somehow I do not think so, Your Grace.’ She gave a firm shake of her head.

‘Jane, do you not see how reckless your behaviour is?’ The Duke crossed the bedroom to stand beside her, looking directly into her face. ‘You are a young woman alone—an unmarried woman. If anyone should find you at this inn with me—’

‘Do not concern yourself, Your Grace.’ Jane stood up abruptly to move away, slightly disconcerted by his close proximity. ‘If it became necessary I am sure that Mr Dolton could be persuaded into claiming me as a relative.’