Just like that first night.
Despite her growing desire to explain that incident as an aberration, to justify it and ignore the greater implications, she knew she could not. That night had been no fluke, nor was tonight. It was the sleeping man in the carriage, vulnerable and momentarily at peace, who had been the aberration.
She pressed her ear to the door, listening for any sound from him. But there was none. Slowly her heart’s pace began to relent. Slowly her panic eased, to be replaced by a truth she did not want to acknowledge: for all his charm, for all his dangerous appeal, there was something tragic about Neville Hawke. He bore some scar on his soul so deep it seemed unable to heal. Sleep did not lend him reprieve, nor did whisky. Most certainly she could not heal it by succumbing to his sensual appeal.
He was not the right man for her, she acknowledged, nor for any other sensible woman. She’d known that instinctively, though she’d begun to forget. But she would not forget it again.
In the silence of the night, broken only by the dripping of rainwater from the eaves above the window, Olivia crawled woodenly into bed. She lay as before, with the bed linens pulled up to her chin, staring up at the blank ceiling. But it was not the same. She was not the same. Her body was different, touched as it had never been touched before. Touched in a way she was likely never to forget. Her thoughts were different too. Darker. Gloomier. And over all hung the ugly truth she must accept once and for all. Neville Hawke had managed somehow, despite all her efforts, to worm his way into her affections.
But she must break the hold he had taken on her foolish emotions. She must break it now before he ended up breaking her heart.
Neville awoke with a pounding head and a mouth that tasted like stall scrapings. The room was bright. Too bright. He did not dare open his eyes. But his ears, they functioned well enough for him to know he was not home at Woodford Court. Where was he?
Somewhere outside a man called out. A horse whinnied and the wheels of a carriage clattered noisily across cobblestone paving. He laid one hand across his eyes, then winced. His head felt ready to split open. Slowly he flexed his neck, gingerly tilting his head from side to side. He was not at home, for this was not his bed. Where in hell was he?
Then he remembered, and he let out a groan. An inn outside the town of Prudhoe in Northumbria. Another day’s journey to Woodford Court—with Olivia Byrde and her entourage to escort to Byrde Manor.
He sat up, clenching his teeth against a violent wave of nausea. He’d been doing so well of late. What idiocy had pushed him to drink to the point of passing out last night? More importantly, however, had he done anything he should know about? Anything stupid or cruel or destructive?
With an effort he swung his legs around. He was still dressed, boots and all. What had happened?
He sat on the edge of the bed a long while, gathering his strength and gathering his thoughts. He’d been so tired last night, too tired to fight sleep away until dawn arrived. So he’d sought relief in drink, enough drink to deaden his mind and keep the nightmares at bay.
But it hadn’t worked.
He shuddered as a vague memory crept through the cracks in his mind. Bart dozing in the taproom; everyone else departed. He’d been alone, him and a bottle of strong Scotch whisky. Then the others had arrived. Men dead four years now. Enemies attacking; friends dying, their last breath a scream of agony. He shuddered now at the horror of it all. It had been pitch-dark and blood-red, and he’d been afraid and in pain and fighting for his life. Again.
His stomach knotted and he lurched to his feet. Grabbing for a bowl, he retched up the contents of his stomach. He emptied his guts through a stream of tears until he was empty. Completely empty.
Only then, with his head sagging low between his shoulders, did he wipe his eyes and take a long steadying breath—several long steadying breaths. He had to get up, to get moving.
To find out what damage, if any, he’d wrought to either people or furnishings. After that he had to climb onto a horse and ride the last fifty miles to Woodford Court. At the moment, he wasn’t sure he could do it.
Then he thought of Olivia who’d so reluctantly shared her carriage with him yesterday, of her wariness around him and her cautious interest. She would wonder again at his absence this morning. He knew her well enough now to know she had not been appeased by his vague replies to her inquiries about his nocturnal habits.
With an effort he raised his head and stared through gritty eyes at his simple surroundings. A sound roof over his head, a decent mattress, and enough to eat. That should be sufficient for any man.
And a woman for warmth and comfort.
He blinked as he considered that last. He had all those things, save for the woman. Did he dare try that? Did he dare woo Olivia Byrde for more than the fallow fields in her valley? Did he dare hope that she might revitalize the fallow fields of his soul?
He sucked in a long breath, sour with old drink and new vomit. He was a disgusting excuse for a man. A coward and a drunk. But the world hailed him as a hero and he had a way with horses. If he could just maintain the façade a little longer. If he could just make sure she never saw him as he’d been last night—as he was now. If he could just hold on long enough to woo her and win her, maybe he could find a way out of this pit of despair that was his life.
He thrust a hand through his hair. He did not deserve a woman like her. He was a selfish bastard to deceive her, to work so hard to seduce her. In the end she would grow to hate him. But he wanted her anyway. He needed her. And if nothing else good came of their union, he would at least improve the lot of the two hundred souls at Woodford and in the nearby town of Kelso who depended on him for their survival.
It was mid-afternoon, a gray afternoon threatening weather as vile as the previous day’s, before Lord Hawke caught up with
their carriage. By that time Olivia had steeled herself for the unpleasant task of facing him again.
Though a part of her wished to expose his coarse behavior to public condemnation, another part of her—the practical part of her—hesitated. In exposing his behavior she risked being tarred by the same brush. What was she doing in the hallway of a public inn, clad only in her nightclothes? Why had she not revealed his scandalous behavior at once? Why had she not informed her mother of his too forward manner from the beginning?
No, Olivia knew she dared not condemn him publicly now. Unfortunately, he was her neighbor, and that meant she must maintain some level of civility toward him. But nothing more, she vowed, not after last night.
It had taken but an innocent-sounding inquiry to the pinch-faced morning maid to uncover the rest of last night’s sordid details. Lord Hawke had smashed a fine bottle of Scotch, shattered a tray of the landlord’s glasses, and broken two chairs and a side table. He’d swung at the landlord and nearly struck his own man. He’d been mad with the drink, the woman had whispered, rolling her eyes and shuddering. Mad with the drink.
All day long Olivia had mulled those words over. As they’d neared the border with Scotland, she’d hardly noticed the low stone remnants of Hadrian’s wall marching across the landscape, separating the north country from the south. Likewise she’d been blind to the beauty of the Cheviot Hills the carriage had started to climb. Everything she saw was colored by her dark and dismal thoughts of Neville Hawke. He’d been mad with drink last night, destructive with it. That he drank to assuage the pain of some private torture she did not doubt. But knowing that changed nothing. He had frightened her last night and more so this morning when she’d learned the full extent of his destructive rage. She should count it a blessing that she hadn’t fallen further under his spell than this.
Now as the thunder of hoofbeats came up beside the carriage, as Sarah’s eyes lit up with the excitement of seeing him again, Olivia braced herself to remain cool and aloof, and immune
from whatever charming façade he adopted today.
“You’re late!” Sarah exclaimed, ignoring Mrs. McCaffery’s disapproving frown. Her hands gripped the window edge and the wind whipped her curls around her eager face. “Why are you so late?”
“Better late than never,” he said, tipping his hat to the exuberant child. When he peered inside the open window, however, Olivia refused to meet his gaze. He had the gall to approach her after last night? Instead she stared at the fine leather saddle he rode, and the smoothly bunching muscles of his horse’s sleek flank. Still, she saw enough of him to know he’d slept poorly. He was clean and well groomed for a man who’d been stinking drunk last night, then ridden thirty miles already today. His posture was erect and he sat his animal as easily as most men sat upon their dinner chairs. Somehow it only increased her ire.
But for all that, his eyes looked tired and his face weary.
Even Sarah appeared to notice, for instead of broadly hinting her desire to ride, which desire she probably guessed Olivia would deny, she took quite the opposite tack. “Would you like to ride in the carriage with us? There’s room enough. Isn’t there, Livvie?”
Three sets of eyes turned her way, and it was all Olivia could do not to slouch down in her seat. Sarah, outspoken brat that she was, beamed at her with an utterly false smile of innocence. Mrs. McCaffery raised her brows and stared as if Olivia’s answer was of particular interest to her. As for Lord Hawke, Olivia did not even bother to look at him, for she knew what she’d see on his face: triumph.
He guided his mount to within arm’s reach of her window, and when she did not immediately speak up, he did. “If it is not inconvenient, I would happily accept your sister’s kind offer, Miss Byrde. Robin here would appreciate it tod,” he said, patting his horse’s damp neck. “For I have ridden him hard and fast this morning.”
She was trapped and he knew it. Olivia pinched her lips together. She should have confided in Mrs. Mac; she wouldn’t be in this dilemma if the proper housekeeper knew the liberties
Lord Hawke had taken with her. But Olivia hadn’t told her, and now she must respond. “Very well,” she muttered with less grace than she ought. The look she sent her much-too-forward sister, however, was clearly disapproving.
Sarah’s eyes widened at once, as if to say, “What have I done?” But she knew, the little brat.
Within a few moments the carriage stopped and Lord Hawke gave Robin into his trainer’s keeping. When he climbed into the spacious traveling coach it immediately grew smaller and more confining. That it was more than his physical size which caused Olivia’s sudden sense of overwhelming closeness only increased her annoyance. Botheration! but he was the epitome of a rake: handsome, charming, and too overwhelmingly virile for her maidenly sensibilities. And all the while a drunken lout.
She was an idiot to be so affected by him, for he was utterly wrong for her. And adding insult to injury, he had the gall to behave as if nothing whatsoever had occurred last night. How dare he!
He sat beside her, a good foot of empty seat between them, for she had crowded up against the window. Yet she could swear heat radiated directly from his body into hers. A blustery wind began to clear the skies and also kept the afternoon temperature down. Yet Olivia felt perilously close to perspiring.
For an hour they rode thus, Olivia railing silently at him while he and Mrs. McCaffery filled Sarah’s head with Scottish lore. Only when they paused on the crest of a hill and gazed down the long slope into the Borders of lowland Scotland, did she have a brief reprieve. She was as much Scottish as English, and so felt a tiny thrill as she gazed over her other homeland.
“These are pleasant rolling hills compared to the rocky crags of the Highlands,” Lord Hawke said to Sarah.
“Ach. My mother was a Highlander,” Mrs. McCaffery said. “It’s been an age since I’ve looked upon the snowy peaks of Ben Nevis and Ben Alder.”
“As the road angles east we shall begin to descend a bit,” he said. “The river Tweed runs through a lovely green valley
on its long trek to the North Sea.” He paused and shifted, and Olivia had the distinct impression he was peering at her. She kept her eyes determinedly focused beyond the window, but a bead of moisture began a tickling trickle down between her breasts.
“There are several boats at Woodford Court,” he went on. “If you are amenable, one day we can make an outing of it, head upstream to fish, then allow the river to deliver us back home in the afternoon.” He paused. “What do you say, Miss Byrde? Would you and your sister enjoy that?”
Olivia glanced at him, then away. “I would not dream of presuming on your time that way.”
“It would be my pleasure.”
Gritting her teeth, Olivia said the only thing she could think of to end this conversation. “Perhaps.” Spying Sarah’s curious look, she tried to arrange her own face into a pleasanter expression. “Perhaps.”
But inside she knew better. She would not be drawn into Neville Hawke’s sphere again, nor charmed by his appealing manner. She would keep her emotions firmly in check. For by day Neville Hawke seemed to be everything she could want in a man. But by night he was something else again, dark and dangerous, both to himself and anyone who came too near.
And soon it would again be night.