in loose curls almost to her waist, that silky chemise barely covering the fullness of her breasts and the alluring curve of her thighs before she pulled her gown over that nakedness. But Hawk was very aware of it as his body once more ached, throbbed with the return of his desire, leaving him in no doubt that he would find little rest tonight in the loneliness of his ducal bed.
It had been this way since he had first met Jane, he acknowledged ruefully. At Markham Park she had been a constant source of disruption, as he had been at first irritated by her and then amused by her. She had become more than an irritation on his journey to Mulberry Hall, and even the work that had kept him so busy about the estate the last few days had not been enough to dispel thoughts of Jane once he retired to his suite for the night. The added memory of their time together in the stables was enough to totally chase away any idea of rest.
But tonight, with the taste and feel of Jane still upon his lips and hands, he knew that he would find sleep impossible!
‘As is your wish, Jane,’ he bit out tersely. ‘But that has been the usual way of things in our acquaintance to date, has it not?’ he added hardly.
Did he really believe that? Jane wondered frowningly. Did he really believe that, given a choice, she would leave his side ever again?
She loved this man. Loved him as Hawk St Claire. Loved the Duke of Stourbridge.
And there lay the real problem.
As Hawk St Claire there might have been some hope, albeit a slim one, of him one day returning her love. But as the Duke of Stourbridge—a man destined to marry well in order to provide the ducal heir, to take as his wife a woman of a status and breeding suitable to be the mother of that heir—there was absolutely no hope of Jane, a woman who did not even know who her real father was, being able to measure up to his exacting standard.
She forced a deliberately mocking smile. ‘As you say.’ She gave a derisive nod. ‘Please do not let me delay you a moment longer from returning to your sister’s guests.’
His eyes glittered dangerously. ‘You will not dismiss me in that contemptuous tone, Jane!’
Jane’s soft laugh was deliberately taunting. ‘I am so sorry, Your Grace.’ She made him an exaggerated curtsey. ‘Please forgive me, Your Grace.’ She eyed him tauntingly as she straightened. ‘For one very brief moment I actually believed you when you said you did not believe I was subservient to you!’
Hawk wanted to shake her. Wanted to put her over his knee and spank her.
But more than either of those things he wanted to take her in his arms once again and make love to her! Completely this time. Wanted to bury himself deep inside her silken sheath before losing himself in the inferno of her inner heat.
But as he dared not trust himself to do either of those first two things, knowing either would immediately lead to the third, he took the only other course open to him—he turned sharply on his heel and strode forcefully, determinedly, away from her and from the privacy the summerhouse offered to his real needs and desires.
Jane waited only long enough to ensure that the Duke had really gone before falling down onto the chaise in a devastation of grief-stricken tears so heated they seemed to burn as they cascaded unchecked down her cheeks, knowing she had alienated Hawk for ever with the wantonness of her behaviour.
Chapter Twelve
‘Come in, Jane, and close the door behind you.’
Jane had been sitting alone in the parlour eating a late breakfast, Arabella being still upstairs in her rooms, following the dinner party the previous evening, when one of the maids had come to inform her that the Duke wished to see her at once in the library. Jane had lingered—delayed—at the breakfast table long enough to finish her cup of tea as she contemplated the reason for Hawk wanting to speak to her again so soon after they had parted so angrily the evening before.
Perhaps to tell her she would have to leave his household?
Immediately?
If so it was the same conclusion Jane herself had come to during her long hours of sleeplessness.
The tone of his voice now—undoubtedly the Duke of Stourbridge’s voice, cold and imperious—was more than enough to compel her into stepping softly into the library and carefully closing the door behind her before once more turning to face him.
The tall, imposing, imperious man who stood so broodingly silhouetted in front of the window—dark clothing expertly tailored, hair brushed neatly back from that arrogant brow, hands linked behind his rigidly straight back—bore very little resemblance to the piratical lover of the previous evening, with his clothes in disarray and the darkness of his hair curling onto his broy.
As she, Jane hoped, bore no resemblance to the tumble-haired, half-naked woman he had aroused to such unimagined pleasure!
She quirked one auburn brow as those gold-coloured eyes continued to look at her so chillingly. ‘I have entered, sir, and I have also closed the door behind me…’
Hawk drew in a sharp breath at her barely concealed derision. ‘I warn you, Jane, do not even attempt to annoy me this morning!’
Her eyes widened with beguiling innocence. ‘By doing as you bade me to do…?’
Hawk’s mouth thinned at Jane’s display of innocent subservience, very aware that she was the least subservient woman he knew! ‘This is not a time for humour, Jane,’ he assured her harshly.
‘No?’ Her brows rose even higher before she walked gracefully across the room to sit in one of the armchairs that flanked the empty fireplace, smoothing her gown neatly into place and folding her hands demurely on her knees before lifting her head to look at him. ‘Then what is it a time for, Your Grace?’
Hawk’s hands clenched behind his back in a supreme effort to prevent himself from marching across the room and lifting Jane to her feet before shaking her unmercifully.
As he had known it would be, his night had been a disturbed rather than a restful one, as images of Jane, with her loosely curling red hair reaching to her slender waist, her breasts bared and pert, her thighs parted invitingly, had tortured and tormented him until morning light.
At which time he had finally given up all hope of sleeping and instead dressed before going down to the stables to saddle his stallion Gabriel and riding across the surrounding hillside for several hours. The brisk morning air had cleared his senses—if not his mind—of those tantalising memories of Jane in her half-naked abandon.
Not so now, as he looked at her sitting there so primly, her disapproving expression much like his old nanny’s had been when she’d wished to rebuke him for some childish misdemeanour. On Jane a totally ineffective expression—because memories of her sensual beauty the previous evening crowded his already tormented mind.
His mouth thinned, nostrils flaring, as he refused to let those memories deter him from the reason he had summoned her here this morning. ‘I have decided that it is time—past time—for us to discuss exactly why it was you decided to leave the home of your guardian so abruptly.’
Jane was so stunned by the Duke’s topic of conversation that for a moment she could think of no reply. She had thought—believed—he had asked her to come here so they might talk about the events of the previous evening. Had prepared herself for that as she had lingered in the breakfast parlour drinking her cup of tea—had even thought of several replies she might make on the subject.
She could not think of a single response to the question he had just asked her! Instead she answered with a question of her own. ‘Why, Your Grace…?’
‘Why.’ He nodded abruptly, his golden gaze totally unreadable as he looked down the long length of his nose at her.
Jane frowned. ‘But you know why, Your Grace.’
‘No, Jane, I do not,’ he rasped harshly. ‘As I recall, your only explanation at the time