Tall, Dark... Collection

The summerhouse was situated in a copse of trees at the far end of the spacious gardens that surrounded Mulberry Hall, well away from the main house, and was the place that he and his siblings had disappeared to as children, when they had wanted to escape the restraining company of adults.

As he and Jane had now escaped the restraining company of other adults…

A move, he now realised, not without its own dangers.

‘Did it not excite you earlier, Jane, to have two men challenging each other to a duel over you?’ he prompted huskily.

She arched auburn brows. ‘Over me, Your Grace?’ Hawk frowned darkly. ‘Who else, Jane?’

She gave a derisive shake of her head. ‘Perhaps some other lady of your mutual acquaintance? This Countess, for example?’

Hawk’s eyes widened at the directness of her attack. Although he should perhaps have expected nothing less from a young woman who was never less than forthright.

She gave a knowing smile. ‘Ah, I note by your scowling silence that my surmise is possibly the correct one. The Countess was your mistress as well as the Earl’s?’

Hawk stiffened. ‘I do not believe this to be a suitable subject for discussion between us, Jane—’

‘Why?’ Her eyes were curiously wide. ‘Or is it that the Countess is a married lady?’

He frowned darkly. ‘She is widowed.’

Jane frowned her puzzlement. ‘The Earl has informed me he is also widowed. And you are a single gentleman.’ She shrugged. ‘I do not see where the problem lies…?’

Hawk looked at her in exasperation. ‘The problem lies, Jane, with the fact that a single young lady such as yourself does not discuss a man’s mistress—ex-mistress!—with him.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it simply is not done, Jane!’

She gave a derisive smile. ‘Perhaps in the polite company that you keep, Your Grace, for which the Earl voices such contempt.’ She nodded. ‘But, young as I was, for lack of anyone else in whom to confide my father occasionally discussed such matters with me when it involved one of his parishioners.’

‘I am not one of your father’s parishioners, Jane!’ Hawk muttered irritably.

Inwardly, he was wishing that he had never met the Countess of Morefield—let alone so briefly and, as it had transpired, so unsatisfactorily shared her bed!

He had no doubt that it was because of that brief dalliance that Whitney was behaving so provokingly this evening, in monopolising the company of both Jane and Arabella. The other man had made it obvious at the time that he had taken exception to Hawk’s interest in the Countess, which had resulted in her changing from sharing her bed with an Earl to a Duke.

‘No, you are not,’ Jane acknowledged ruefully, staring into the flames of the fire as she wondered what her father would have made of a man such as Hawk St Claire, the forceful Duke of Stourbridge.

Her father—her adopted father—had not been a man of the world, but a simple country parson. Nevertheless, in the boundaries of his parish there had existed avarice, jealousy, incest, adultery and even murder. Perhaps not, as the Duke had said, subjects for a young girl’s ears, but in the absence of a wife to share his worries Jane’s father had sometimes talked to her about such matters.

‘What manner of man was your father, Jane?’

She looked up sharply at the softly spoken query. ‘He was a good man,’ she stated defensively. ‘A good, kind and loving man.’

The Duke’s mouth twisted derisively. ‘All things I am sure you believe me not to be!’

‘Untrue, Your Grace!’ Jane gasped.

He looked grim. ‘Was it a kind man who refused to let you continue on your journey as you wished and instead brought you here, Jane? Was it a kind or loving man who only days ago took advantage of your lack of a protector?’ He shook his head self-disgustedly. ‘In the six days of our acquaintance, Jane, it seems to me I have shown you I am not any of the things you so admired in your father!’

They were two very different men, yes. But these last three days, as Jane had watched the Duke work so tirelessly about his estate, he had shown himself to be just as good a master to the people who lived on his estate as her father had been minister to his parishioners.

Besides, her feelings towards the Duke—the wild, soaring love she felt just looking into that aristocratically handsome face—bore absolutely no resemblance to the sweet, uncomplicated love she’d had for her adopted father!

She shook her head. ‘I do not think of you in that way, Your Grace.’

Hawk looked down at her searchingly. ‘Then how do you think of me, Jane…?’

That pink tongue ran once more over the softness of her parted lips. ‘I—I see you as a man. A strong, arrogant, forceful man who expects—demands—to be obeyed without question.’

Hawk smiled ruefully at her description. ‘You do not obey me, Jane.’

She gave the ghost of a smile. ‘Perhaps that is why you are here with me rather than with the Countess…?’

Hawk found his breath catching in his throat. That was exactly the reason he was here with Jane rather than any other woman. Jane challenged him. Thwarted him. Disobeyed him. Aroused him.

As he gazed into the beauty of Jane’s face, as he looked at her softly parted lips and into the unfathomable depths of her eyes, as he felt the fierce desire that ripped through him, he knew that it had been a mistake to follow her here. That being alone here with Jane like this, desiring her as he did, was the last thing he should have allowed to happen.

‘Jane…’ He was not aware of having made a step towards her, or of her making one towards him, but knew that he—that she—must have done so. His arms moved about her and he drew her fiercely against him as his mouth claimed hers.

She was all softness and the sweet perfume that was uniquely Jane, her lips parting willingly beneath his as Hawk deepened the kiss, feeling his desire raging hotly out of control as her slender fingers threaded into his hair and her ample breasts and slender hips curved invitingly against his own chest and thighs.

Hawk had never known such fierce desire. The need to possess. To own. His thighs pulsed with that need, and the hardness of his arousal moved restlessly against her as he strained to draw Jane even closer.

There were too many clothes between them. Too many layers of fabric between Jane’s body and his own. Between the feel, the sensation, of her silken nakedness pressed against his.

Hawk groaned low in his throat as her own actions seemed to echo his need, her hands trailing down his throat to splay against his chest as her fingers dealt deftly, quickly, with the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt before she touched his burning flesh and those fingers became entangled in the silky hair beneath.

Her touch was too much. Jane was too much. Hawk deepened the kiss hungrily, devouringly, drinking in her sweetness as his tongue plunged hotly, ravenously, into the heat of her mouth.

Seeking. Capturing. Claiming her for his own.

For Jane was his.

His.

She belonged to this man, Jane acknowledged feverishly, clinging to his shoulders. Hawk was continuing to kiss her even as he swung her up into his arms to carry her across to a chaise, laying her gently down upon it before quickly joining her there, the hard length of his body pressing her down amongst the cushions as his lips and tongue continued to plunder her own.

At that moment Jane cared for nothing else—needed nothing else but Hawk’s lips and hands upon her. She arched her back as he reached to release the fastening of her gown and slide it down the length of her body. She was wearing only her stockings and chemise now, and closed her eyes in ecstasy as she felt the caress of his tongue across her silk-covered breast before he suckled her deep inside his mouth, drawing on her greedily, hungrily, even as his tongue continued that wild caress across the hardened tip.

But she wanted—needed—to touch him too, and slid the jacket from his shoulders, the waistcoat quickly following, then his shirt, until Jane knew the sheer pleasure of touching his naked flesh. Her fingers were caressing as they glided over the hardness of his muscled chest, tangling in the silky hair that covered him, before she touched him, Her nails scraping accidentally against one of the hardened nubs that nestled there.

His sharply indrawn breath was enough to tell Jane that the caress gave Hawk pleasure too, making her bolder still as she touched him deliberately now, and felt him quiver, shudder in uncontrollable response.

Before Hawk, she had never caressed a man’s naked body before, but now, as she began to experiment with what gave Hawk pleasure, Jane felt a sense of her own power over the flesh that hardened and quivered at her slightest touch.

Hawk fell back with a gasp as he felt Jane’s hands upon him, his groan one of aching longing as he lay on his back and felt the lap of her tongue against him. Her hands were running the length of his chest now, his muscles quivering, tensing at her slightest touch. A touch that was all the more arousing because of her lack of experience or artifice.