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

He scowled. ‘Just how long did you and Dolton spend together inside the coach?’

Jane turned to look at him, suspecting yet another accusation of flirtation but instead finding only grudging humour lurking in the depths of those mesmerising gold eyes.

Some of the tension left her shoulders. ‘Only an hour or so. But I believe he likes me well enough to claim me as his niece if anyone should ask.’

‘I am sure that he does.’ Hawk straightened, finding his temper somewhat abated. He was under no illusion whatsoever that Dolton would voice his protest most strongly if his employer should attempt to cast Jane out into the night.

As the Duke of Stourbridge, he knew that he should demand that Jane return to her guardians immediately—that not to insist on that was madness on his part. But he could not deny that Jane’s desperation earlier today to escape those guardians, and his own refusal to help her, had been haunting him all day. Too much so for him to now demand that she return to them.

Instead he sighed wearily. ‘Are you hungry, Jane?’

‘Ravenous!’ she acknowledged ruefully.

‘Very well, Jane.’ He gave a terse inclination of his head. ‘We will have dinner—’

‘Oh, thank you, Your Grace.’ She stood up to cross the room and clasp both his hands in hers. She looked up at him with glowing green eyes. ‘Thank you. Thank you!’ She punctuated her words with kisses placed upon his hands, finally laying her cheek against one of them with warm gratitude.

Hawk had stiffened at her first touch, needing all of his will-power at that moment not to snatch his hands from the soft feel of her skin against his as she pressed his hand to her cheek. It was such a creamy softness. A sensual softness.

His thumb seemed to move of its own volition in order to stroke that silky warmth, and Hawk hesitated only slightly before he allowed his thumb to touch the rosy pout of her lips. Lips that parted slightly at his touch. The warmth of her breath against his skin was a caress in itself as she looked up at him with those trusting green eyes.

What Hawk would do next hung finely in the balance. His gaze remained on those softly parted lips, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw as he fought the need he felt to taste those lips. To taste all of her. From her creamy brow to her dainty feet. He was sure that at this moment, being her reluctant saviour, Jane would deny him nothing.

But if he were to take advantage of her gratitude what would that make him? Beneath contempt—and in his own eyes no better than the people she was so desperately trying to escape!

‘Stop it, Jane!’ His voice was harsh as he pulled his hands from hers, turning sharply away from the hurt that now shadowed those expressive green eyes. ‘I suggest that you wait here while I go in search of Dolton and instruct him to arrange overnight accomodation for my ward—’

‘Your ward, Your Grace…?’ Jane echoed faintly, sure that she could not have heard him correctly.

His mouth thinned disapprovingly. ‘I can think of no other explanation for the presence of a young and single lady, travelling alone in the company of the Duke of Stourbridge. I am sure that Dolton, with his new penchant for subterfuge, will have no trouble at all in thinking of an excuse for your lack of maid,’ he continued dryly. ‘Perhaps he could invent an unexpected illness that has prevented her immediately accompanying us to Gloucestershire?’

‘Gloucestershire?’ Jane said dazed, suddenly very still. ‘But I thought—You are not returning to London, Your Grace?’ she prompted sharply.

‘No, Jane, I am not,’ he confirmed mockingly. ‘Mulberry Hall, principle seat of the Duke of Stourbridge, is in Gloucestershire. My plan had always been to go there for the rest of the summer. As I have no intention of allowing you to travel anywhere unchaperoned, you will obviously have to accompany me there.’

Jane stared at the Duke disbelievingly, too shocked at that moment to argue.

She had believed the Duke of Stourbridge to be returning to London from where she would be able to buy passage on a public coach to Somerset. And to the warm, comforting bosom of Bessie.

Instead, it seemed Jane now found herself forced to accompany the Duke—a man who had already induced the most erotic longings inside her—to his estate in Gloucestershire…

Chapter Five

‘You are very quiet this morning, Your Grace.’

There was no response to Jane’s soft observation except the sound of grinding teeth. The Duke’s teeth.

It was a sound she had heard several times during the two hours they had shared the ducal coach as it travelled to the Duke’s family seat in Gloucestershire. It was rather irritating coming from a man who normally displayed such an air of control and good breeding. Perhaps it was a habit he was unaware of…?

The silence that had beset him since the two of them had parted the previous evening, following a shared dinner downstairs in the inn’s parlour, was also unsettling.

They had disagreed throughout most of the meal, of course, as Jane had continued to protest vehemently at the Duke’s assertion that she would accompany him to Gloucestershire. The Duke had remained equally adamant, especially in view of her refusal to share her future plans with him, that he would not even consider leaving her at a coaching inn along the way, so that she might make her own way to London.

Jane had thought the awkwardness between them at least partially resolved when she had been forced to back down in the face of the only alternative the Duke would consider to his own plans, which Jane liked the sound of even less than accompanying him to his estate in Gloucestershire—that of being returned to Markham Park and her guardians forthwith!

Admittedly, their goodnights to each other had been a little frosty, but Jane had felt slightly mollified when she’d found that, along with a second bedchamber for the Duke’s ‘ward’, Mr Dolton had also engaged the services of the daughter of the innkeeper to act as Jane’s temporary maid, and a steaming hot bath had been there for her enjoyment.

After a good night’s rest, Jane had risen from her bed this morning, determined to make the best of her situation. After all, although the Duke was completely unaware of it, Gloucestershire was in fact much closer to her real destination of Somerset than London…

Mary, the innkeeper’s daughter, had returned to Jane’s room shortly after she had completed her ablutions, carrying a breakfast tray. So Jane had no occasion to see or speak to the Duke again before joining him inside the ducal coach to resume their journey.

As expected, the coach was as magnificent inside as out, with seats upholstered in such a way as to afford them the maximum comfort. Even the sun had come out mid-morning to cheer her. In fact, it would have been a very pleasant journey indeed if not for the noticeable silence of the Duke.

And the grinding of his teeth, of course…!

Now Jane risked a glance at the Duke from beneath her lashes, at once seeing the reason for those grinding teeth: his jaw was clenched so tightly the bones there looked in danger of actually snapping beneath the pressure.

She had tried several times to engage him in conversation these last two hours. She had remarked on the weather as she removed her cloak, and her increasing nervousness at his continued silence had caused her to explain that the green gown she wore today—a particular favourite of hers—had been a birthday gift from Sir Barnaby the previous year. On both occasions she had received only a scowl and a grunt in reply, and she had not felt brave enough since to attempt further conversation.

She sat forward slightly now. ‘Have I done something to disturb you this morning, Your Grace?’

‘Have I not told you—repeatedly—to stop “Your Gracing” me with every other word?’ He glared darkly.

Jane blinked at the fierceness of his expression. ‘I do not know what else to call you, Your—sir…’ she amended hastily, as he breathed so heavily down his nose it sounded almost like an unbecoming snort.

‘Have I not invited you to call me Hawk?’ His scowl darkened.

‘You have,’ Jane confirmed softly, her cheeks feeling slightly warm as she remembered the occasion on which he had done so. ‘But while that may do when we are alone, it will hardly suffice when we are in the company of others.’

‘It cannot have escaped your notice, Jane, that we are not at this moment in the company of others!’ he bit out tautly.

He was being boorish, Hawk knew. But he could not seem to stop himself. As he had already surmised the previous day, when Jane had first asked to accompany him and he had refused, travelling alone with her in the confines of his coach was pure torture!

For one thing she looked so damned happy this morning. Totally unlike the cowed creature he had met for the first time two days ago on the stairs at Markham Park. Was it really only two days since this young woman had literally launched herself into his presence? It seemed much longer! Her eyes shone with excitement today, her cheeks were flushed, and her lips seemed to be curved into a constant smile of contentment.

To Hawk’s way of thinking Jane had no right to look so happy when she had thrown his own normally peaceful existence into such disarray!

Her earlier remark about the weather being warm had been accompanied by the removal of her travelling cloak. A move that had revealed she wore a pale green gown beneath that lent her skin a creamy hue while at the same time intensifying the colour of the fiery red curls piled upon her head. Her explanation that the gown had been a gift from Sir Barnaby had at least restored Hawk’s faith in his own judgement of the older man; it seemed that Sir Barnaby’s only lapse in good taste had occurred twenty-five years ago, when it had come to the choosing of his wife!

But as Jane sat opposite Hawk, looking so relaxed and beautiful, it was impossible for him not to notice that the gown also revealed the bare expanse of her breasts. That creamy swell moved enticingly every time his coach ran over a rut in the road, causing Hawk to shift uncomfortably in his seat as his body hardened in awareness.

Hawk knew that his tailor in London took great delight in fitting his clothes precisely to the muscled width of his shoulders, his tapered waist and powerful thighs—but at this particular moment Hawk could have wished that the man had allowed him a little more room for manoeuvre in the cut of his breeches!

Jane, still an innocent despite her claim of being two and twenty, remained completely oblivious as to the reason for his discomfort.

Hawk scowled anew. ‘You dare to rebuke me for my silence, Jane?’

The colour warmed Jane’s cheeks as she guessed the reason for his accusation. The Duke had tried repeatedly during dinner yesterday evening to encourage Jane to tell him of her reasons for leaving Markham Park so abruptly had been, and of exactly what she intended doing once she reached London. It had been encouragement Jane had very firmly resisted.

For how could she possibly tell the Duke of Stourbridge—a man who no doubt knew each and every one of his antecedents, reaching back several centuries at least—that her only reason for going to London had been to find further transport to Somerset, all with the intention of discovering who her real father might be?

Jane simply could not tell him that. Not only would the Duke question the wisdom of even associating with one such as her, but it would also be disloyal to the mother Jane had never known, who had married a man she did not love in order to give her daughter a name.

And so, much to the Duke’s obvious chagrin, Jane had remained stubbornly silent concerning her reasons for travelling to London.

It was a silence that obviously still displeased him.

‘I did not rebuke you,Your Grace.’Jane chose to ignore his impatient snort. ‘I merely remarked upon the fact that you seem unusually uncommunicative this morning.’

‘Unlike some people, Jane, I do not feel the need to spend my every waking moment prattling on about innocuous or—even worse—irrelevant subjects.’

She drew in a sharp breath at his deliberately insulting tone. ‘In that case, Your Grace, I will allow you to return to your solitude.’ She turned away from him to stare sightlessly out of the window beside her, blinking back unexpected tears as she did so.

Was she wrong not to confide in him?

If he had been just Hawk St Claire, the man Jane had talked to amongst the sand dunes two evenings ago, perhaps she might have felt able to talk to him about such a personal matter. But it was impossible to forget he was also the Duke of Stourbridge, a rich and powerful peer of the realm, a man Jane simply could not tell of her mother’s relationship with a married man which had resulted in her own birth.

No matter how much it displeased the Duke, she simply could not!

Hawk’s heart clenched in his chest as he saw Jane blink back the tears obviously caused by his impatient anger.

Since the death of his mother ten years ago the only female to have been a constant in his life had been his young sister, Arabella. As a child, Arabella had been engagingly charming, but during the last few months spent at her first London Season she had shown herself to be as wilfully determined to have her own way as her two older brothers, causing Lady Hammond, their amenable aunt and Arabella’s patroness, to pronounce her completely unmanageable. Which meant that Arabella was currently unchaperoned, his aunt having taken to her bed in her London home to recover from the rigours of chaperoning a young girl through the Season.

Jane, as Hawk knew from the fact that she was here in his coach with him at all, could be equally stubborn when the occasion warranted. She just went about achieving her objective without his sibling’s penchant for confrontation. No doubt her years of being subjugated at every turn by the sharp-tongued Lady Sulby were responsible for her more restrained defiance. At best she had been treated as a poor relation in the Sulby household. At worst—as Hawk had disapprovingly witnessed for himself on the day he’d arrived at Markham Park—as little more than a servant.

He sighed heavily. ‘I believe I owe you an apology, Jane.’

She turned to give him a surprised look, those suppressed tears giving an extra sheen of brightness to the green of her eyes. ‘An apology, Your Grace?’

He chose to ignore her formal address this time. ‘My mood is—churlish.’ He nodded. ‘But I really should not take out my bad temper on you.’

Jane gave him a rueful smile. ‘Not even if I am the reason for that bad temper?’

‘But you are not. At least, not completely,’ he allowed derisively, as he saw a teasing look of sceptisism enter her eyes. ‘You do not have any siblings of your own, do you, Jane?’

‘I do not, Your Grace,’ she confirmed huskily.

What had he said to make Jane suddenly lower her lashes and clench her hands so tightly together in her lap? He had talked only of siblings, something Jane obviously did not have, and yet curiously the mention had caused her previous air of contentment to fade.

Much as Hawk found it irksome that Jane stubbornly refused to discuss with him her last interview with Lady Sulby, he also found himself most unhappy at being the one to cause her further distress.

He shook his head. ‘Jane, you have no idea how lucky you are to be an only child.’ He watched intently this time for Jane’s reaction—if any—to his remark.

But in the few seconds during which Hawk had noted and questioned her earlier response Jane had somehow drawn upon hidden reserves, and her expression was one of cool interest now. ‘Lucky, Your Grace?’

He grimaced. ‘I have two younger brothers and an even younger sister—all of whom, it seems, are trying to age me before my time!’

Jane smiled at the image his words projected. ‘In what way, Your Grace?’

‘In every way!’ He gave an impatient grimace.

At that moment he had such a look of a man weighed down by his family responsibilities—an expression so at odds with the arrogantly imperious Duke of Stourbridge—that Jane could not help smiling. ‘Tell me about them,’ she invited softly.

He sat back on the seat. ‘Lucian is eight and twenty, and morose and unapproachable since he resigned his commission in the army following Bonaparte’s defeat. Sebastian is six and twenty. He enjoys nothing more than involving himself in every scandal you could think of and some I would rather you could not.’ He grimaced with distaste. ‘As for Arabella…! My sister is eight and ten in years, and recently attended her first London Season.’

There was such a wealth of feeling in his last statement that Jane had no doubt that Lady Arabella’s first Season had not been the success the Duke had hoped it would be.

‘She is still very young, Your Grace. There will be plenty more opportuny, I am sure, to receive the required marriage proposal.’ Jane attempted to placate him, sure that, as the sister of the Duke of Stourbridge, LadyArabella St Claire must be a very eligible young lady indeed.

The Duke’s mouth twisted ruefully. ‘You misunderstand me, Jane,’ he drawled. ‘My sister has received numerous offers of marriage in the past few months—she has steadfastly refused to accept any of them!’ he added hardly.

The fact that the Duke had allowed his sister to do so was very telling indeed, and indicated an indulgence for his younger siblings that had not been apparent in his initial comment about them.

Jane shrugged. ‘Perhaps Lady Arabella felt unable to love any of those men—’

‘Love, Jane?’ he interrupted scornfully. ‘What does love have to do with marriage?’

‘Oh, but—’ Jane broke off her exclamation to bite her bottom lip as she recalled that even her own mother had not married for love but to give her unborn child a name.

Was that really all marriage amounted to? Merely a necessary requirement for the sake of having children, made out of duty rather than love?

Was that what the Duke of Stourbridge would require in his own marriage? A woman to bear him legitimate children, necessary heirs to the dukedom, while he no doubt supported a mistress in town and continued to live his life as he chose?

Was that what all men of the ton required in marriage?

If so, then Jane was glad she had no part of it.

She had already spent too much of her two and twenty years knowing what it was like to be unloved to ever contemplate deliberately committing the rest of her life to such an emotionless state. Better to remain an old maid than to be merely suffered in a loveless marriage.

Besides, who would ever want to marry her now anyway? The daughter of a single woman abandoned in her pregnancy by her married lover!

‘Jane…?’

She had allowed her guard to drop, her thoughts to wander, Jane realized as she looked across at the Duke with a guilty start. And the illustrious Duke of Stourbridge was too astute a man, those strange gold-coloured eyes of his too all-seeing to allow such a lapse to pass unnoticed.

He did look so handsome this morning, in a jacket of royal blue, his shirt a snowy white, his waistcoat of pale blue satin and cream breeches worn above highly polished Hessians. But it really would not do, when Jane had just reasoned for herself how small were her own marriage prospects, for her to notice how strikingly handsome the Duke of Stourbridge looked today!

Jane forced a dismissive smile to her lips before answering him. ‘Your brothers and sister do not sound so bad, Your Grace.’

He grimaced. ‘That is because you do not know them.’

Hawk, although unaware of the reason for it, had been completely aware of the shadows that had briefly claimed Jane’s expressive green eyes. That she was hiding something more from him than a disagreement with Lady Sulby he did not doubt. That Jane intended to keep hiding it from him was also not in doubt; he knew, even on such a brief acquaintance, that Jane was possessed of a stubborn need for privacy that almost, but not quite, matched his own.

He eyed her speculatively. ‘But you will. At least you will have occasion to meet Arabella,’ he added with a frown, not sure that he at all liked the prospect of Jane being introduced to the handsomely brooding Lucian or the mischievous Sebastian.

Despite what Sebastian might have assumed to the contrary during their conversation the previous week, Hawk was in fact very fond of his younger brothers. But he also knew their natures much better than they would perhaps have wished. And the thought of either of those handsome scoundrels taking a fancy to the innocently beautiful Jane was not a comfortable one.

She gave a puzzled frown at his comment. ‘How so, Your Grace…?’

Hawk was still scowling at the thought of Jane becoming the object of either of his brothers’ romantic interest. ‘Now that the Season has ended for the summer my sister Arabella has returned to Mulberry Hall, of course.’

Jane’s eyes widened. Lady Arabella St Claire would be in residence at Mulberry Hall when they arrived? Was already there eagerly awaiting her eldest brother’s arrival?

Well…no. From the little Hawk had said of his strong-minded young sister, Jane did not think the other girl would be waiting in the hallway of Mulberry Hall eager-eyed and breathless in anticipation of the Duke’s arrival!

But eager-eyed or not, Lady Arabella would be at Mulberry Hall when the Duke arrived there with Jane at his side. How did he intend to explain the presence of Jane, a young lady completely unknown to Lady Arabella, who had obviously accompanied the Duke completely unchaperoned on the long coach journey to his Gloucestershire home?

‘Of course,’ Jane acknowledged quietly, her lashes lowered onto creamy cheeks. ‘I…’ She paused to moisten suddenly dry lips. ‘What explanation do you intend giving Lady Arabella for my presence, Your Grace?’ She looked across at him anxiously. ‘After all, she will know that I am not your ward.’

He quirked dark brows. ‘Why not simply tell her the truth, Jane? That you begged to be allowed to come away with me.’

Jane gaped at him.

She had given little thought to what explanation the Duke would give his staff for her having accompanied him to his home. If she had thought of it at all, she had assumed that none of the staff employed on the Stourbridge estate would dare to question the Duke concerning his actions. But she doubted a young and headstrong sister would as readily accept Jane’s unaccompanied presence.

Ah—at last he seemed to have shaken Jane from the cool reserve she had assumed minutes ago, which had so irritated him, Hawk noted with satisfaction. Although it was highly insulting to realise, from the consternation he could now see in Jane’s expression, that she now wondered at his motive for allowing her to travel to Mulberry Hall with him. That she believed his young sister might make assumptions about that motive also!

Before inheriting the title of Duke of Stourbridge, Hawk had been as much of a rakehell as Sebastian now was—had for years enjoyed the same carousing and wenching with his own reckless friends. But the last ten years had necessarily seen a change in Hawk’s life. His nature had become outwardly coolly reserved, and, as Sebastian had complained only days ago, any relationships of an intimate nature kept discreetly hidden away from public scrutiny. That Jane could even suspect him of being thought to take a mistress to Mulberry Hall—to the St Claire family’s principal seat, the home where his sister was also in residence—was unacceptable. So unacceptable that Hawk could not repress his instinct to make Jane suffer a little for even entertaining such a suspicion.

‘Do not look so concerned, Jane,’ he taunted as he lounged back on the seat. ‘No one, not even my sister Arabella, would dare to question what position I intend you to occupy in my household.’

And what position was that? Jane wondered dazedly. Had she misunderstood the Duke the previous evening when he had been so insistent she would travel under his protection? Despite what he had said to the contrary, was he now saying he expected her to become his mistress as payment for that protection?