Carole Mortimer - Tall, Dark & Notorious

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.