in the nightly dreams she had of this man.
She gasped, falling back weakly against the straw, as Hawk’s lips, mouth and tongue continued to minister to her aching breast and his fingers began to stroke against her. Her head moved restlessly from side to side as she felt the pressure building inside her, her legs parting in heady expectation as the heat between her thighs became hot and urgent.
‘I told him that, no, I hadn’t seen the Duke out and about at all this morning. How about you, Tom? Have you seen him anywhere on the estate?’
Reality, like the icy shock of a bucket of cold water, penetrated Hawk’s desire-befuddled brain the moment he heard the voice of his head groom talking of ‘the Duke’. He raised his head sharply. The look of dazed shock on Jane’s face as she stared up at him told him that she was also aware they were no longer alone.
Hawk’s gaze darkened as he stared down at her—as he acknowledged the rumpled dishevelment of her gown, its skirt pushed up almost to her thighs, its bodice unbuttoned. Her chemise was clinging damply to her breasts, their nipples still hard and aroused from the ministrations of his lips, tongue and hands.
He gave a low groan of self-disgust as he fell back onto the straw beside her to stare up at the wooden ceiling above.
Dear God! Seconds ago, before this timely interruption, he knew his intention had been to make love to Jane fully. To take her here in the stables as if she were some willing serving wench, enjoying a tumble with her wealthy patron. As if he were some untried youth unable to keep his arousal in his breeches.
Forget his employees questioning his state of mind—Hawk now questioned it himself!
‘Hawk—’
‘Silence, Jane!’ he hissed fiercely, even as he moved to place his fingers against her lips. His head tilted as he listened intently and waited to see if his head groom and Tom, one of the grooms Hawk had brought with him from London, would venture farther into the stables in their search for him.
‘Nah. We’d see ’im if he was in ’ere,’Tom dismissed. ‘Better go an’ tell Mr Jenkins that we don’t know where ’e is neither.’
The sound of their boots retreating could clearly be heard before the stable door closed noisily behind them.
Hawk’s breath left him in a shaky sigh of relief as he heard their departure. But nevertheless he continued to keep his hand gently over Jane’s lips for several more seconds, just in case either Jack or Tom should change their minds and decide to give the stables a more thorough search for him.
At the same time he was aware that his precaution was not being taken entirely so that Jane should not do or say anything that would reveal their whereabouts. No, the fierce accusation in those green eyes as she stared up at him from behind that restraining hand was enough to warn Hawk that when Jane did next speak it was likely to blister his eardrums!
Deservedly so.
Damn it—not only was Jane a young lady without experience of physical intimacy, but the reason she was here at Mulberry Park at all was in order that he might protect her from such unwanted attentions.
He slowly removed his hand before standing up and moving as far away from her as was possible in the confines of the stall. ‘This was a mistake, Jane. A regrettable mistake.’ He ran an agitated hand through the dark thickness of his hair. ‘I should not—’
‘No, you most certainly should not!’ Jane acknowledged breathlessly as she scrambled hastily to her feet, her gaping gown clutched in front of her.
She stared across at him for several seconds before turning suddenly on her heel and running from the stables.
And him…
Chapter Eight
‘You look wonderful, Jane!’ Arabella’s face was flushed with excitement two evenings later, as she looked with pleasure at Jane’s transformed appearance in the new gown she was to wear for the dinner party this evening.
To Jane’s heartfelt relief she had not seen much of the Duke of Stourbridge in the days that had followed that embarrassing incident in the stables, his time having been occupied with estate business.
Everything about that time together was an embarassment to Jane. The wantonness of her response. The evidence of that response when she had seen that she had actually ripped off one of the buttons on the Duke’s fine linen shirt in her desperation to touch his flesh. Even worse had been the moment when she had looked down and seen her own state of undress, and realised just how intimately she had allowed the Duke to touch her.
Jane had been so stricken by that realisation, so mortified by what she had encouraged to happen between them, that at that moment she had only been capable of gathering together her dishevelled clothing before fleeing the stables as if the devil himself pursued her.
Not the Duke. He was not the devil who pursued her. It was the evidence of her own wanton behaviour that did that.
That the Duke was just as shocked by what had occurred between them had become equally apparent when he had avoided even taking his meals with the ladies of the house over the next two days.
Jane had caught the occasional glimpse of him from her bedroom window as he walked the parkland with seemingly tireless energy, checking the livestock, or the crops in the ploughed fields with his estate manager, with little apparent concern for the state of his clothes and boots. Or for Dolton’s tearful state when he saw them. This was an occurrence Jane had had occasion to witness for herself one evening, when Dolton had trailed unhappily from the Duke’s apartments with dirt-spattered clothes and boots in his hands.
Fortunately Lady Arabella, realising from the Duke’s lengthy absences from the house that Jane was no more in his confidence than she was herself, had first grudgingly and then more readily begun to spend time in Jane’s company. The only negative aspect of this was that Jane, filled with a new urgency to escape Markham Park, now had very little opportunity in which to find a way to further her travel arrangements to Somerset.
It had occurred to her to wonder at one point whether Lady Arabella was deliberately preventing her from having time alone in which to achieve that goal—possibly at her brother’s instigation, following the suspicions he had voiced concerning Jane’s visits to his stables. But as Arabella’s demeanour became distinctly frosty whenever the Duke’s name was so much as mentioned, Jane decided that was not the case.
Arabella had, however, thrown herself wholeheartedly upon her brother’s instruction that Jane would need a new gown for the dinner party—resulting in the two women having taken a carriage ride into the nearest town, and then making a second journey on the following morning so that the gown might be fitted and have last-minute alterations made.
Obviously there were some advantages to being the sister of a Duke. Her gown had been made to fit perfectly in just twenty-four hours!
‘Did I not tell you that the pale cream silk with the slightly paler lace would be perfect on you?’ Arabella prompted now with satisfaction.
Yes, Arabella had assured her of that. And as Jane’s experience of choosing material and style for a new gown was non-existent, she had been only too happy to allow the other woman to take charge.
One glance in the mirror showed Jane that
