The Hawk and the Dove (3 page)

At last Hawkhurst stepped ashore to wend his way to the mansion. When men shouted his name, he answered
them by their names. He blew kisses to the women who were waving at him wildly and tossed handfuls of coins to the boys who ran after him, imitating his bold gait as he regained his “land legs.”

The women sighed after him, but excitement lingered within each bosom, for arrived home with the Sea God were a hundred of his sailors—husbands, lovers, unattached bachelors all starving for the company of a generous woman to warm their beds this night and the nights yet to come. Hawkhurst men were special—all seasoned veterans, utterly without fear, for their commander was a genius at seamanship and a master of deceit. He concentrated on richly laden Spanish treasure ships and stalked them with an unholy fervor. Hawkhurst men received a share of the prizes they took and always had well-lined pockets.

Every servant Devonport House possessed managed to be on hand for Hawkhurst’s arrival and assure him of their warmest welcome home. His beautiful mother, Georgiana, had been watching for him from the highest window in the house and rushed down the spiral staircase to be engulfed in his great arms. She was a dark-haired beauty, her eyes the deep, deep blue of a summer’s sky. Always very feminine, she was elegantly fashionable in the extreme.

“My darling Shane,” she said, “I’m so glad to have you home.” She was the only one who called him Shane. He signed his documents only S. Hawkhurst, and since his father’s name was Sebastian, most people assumed that they shared their Christian name. Mother and son had such a deep bond, he was instantly aware that she was upset.

“What’s amiss?” he asked, keeping a steady, protective arm about her.

“Your father’s been gravely ill, Shane.” She hastened to reassure him. “He is improved … a little … but” —she hesitated in order to steady her voice—“he has a paralysis all down one side of his body.”

“Will he recover? What does the physician say?” he demanded.

“He holds out little hope. I even sent to London for a physician, but he attributed your father’s affliction to a stroke, and said another one such as that will kill him.”

“I’ll go to him,” he said quickly. He was halfway up the stairs when she called softly, “He’s not to be excited, but already he’s at fever pitch knowing you are returned. You are not to argue with him, and no strong spirits!”

“Hawk, my boy! God’s bones, I hate for you to see me so diminished.”

Shane Hawkhurst was shocked at his father’s appearance. He had always been so strong, only showing softness where Georgiana was concerned. The voice was badly slurred from a mouth drawn down at one side. Only his father’s eyes were as bright as they had always been.

“So, you plucked another prize from the Spanish fleet. Ha!”

He sensed that his father did not wish to speak of himself and his illness. He would give him time to grapple with the words and the decisions that would have to be shared between them for the Hawkhurst dynasty to be passed smoothly from the elder to the younger while there was still time.

“What cargo?” asked Sebastian.

Shane grinned. “Silver the Spanish were sending home from Peru and Mexico.”

“God’s cock!” The old man was astounded. “Elizabeth will knight you for this.”

Shane’s eyebrow slanted quizzically. “I might let her have a quarter of it …
might,
” he emphasized. “Bess is too damned greedy; too tightfisted with her honors. I still don’t have official letters of marque to sail for England, but, by God, I’ll wring them from her this time, even if I have to bed her!”

The treason joked about in this room would go no farther, but still Sebastian warned him. “Have a care. Her network of spies may have already informed her you have taken a prize.”

Young Hawkhurst grinned. He never ignored danger, he simply enjoyed it. “Aye, I have no doubt of it, but I have enough cargo in the caves beneath the cliffs and stored elsewhere to fill the prize with Spanish leather, wine, and artifacts. I may even be generous enough to donate the galleon to our fleet instead of keeping it for myself.”

The older man had tired visibly and a deep frown of concern appeared on his brow as he worried how deeply this son of his was involved in dangerous plots of which he knew nothing. He didn’t want to know—the shock would likely have killed him long ago, he thought ironically.

Hawk saw his father’s agitation. “I’ll let you get some rest,” he said, rising to leave.

His father raised his hand to stay him a moment. “Tomorrow we will talk at length of more serious matters; tomorrow before young Matthew returns from London.”

Now a worried frown marred Hawk’s handsome features.

“Ask your mother if she can tear herself from your company to spare an old man a few of her precious smiles.” His grin was a grimace. “I worship the woman, what can I do?”

The east wing of Devonport House was Shane’s private domain. It had its own outside entrances back and front so that his men and servants need never enter the main house. He repaired there now where a bath awaited him and two fresh sets of garments were laid out. The first were riding clothes, so that he could exercise Neptune over the familiar countryside that they both loved; the second were more formal clothes suited to a drawing room, for this first night at home he would join his mother for dinner.

The baron as usual had seen to all his needs efficiently, smoothly, and silently. Neptune was restive, as if he sensed he would soon be stretching heavily muscled legs across the soft turf of the Devon fields. Hawk patted his neck and soothed him with his deep voice as he saddled him and led him from the stables. “Tomorrow I’ll put you to one of the mares,” he promised.

His own spirit soared as he let the stallion have his head. Truth to tell, they’d both been confined too long and needed to unleash their pent-up energy and vitality on an unsuspecting countryside. Horse and man seemed to follow a predestined path that took them over seven miles of meadows and rose-dotted hedgerows, finally arriving at a quaint stone inn where they had enjoyed pleasant sojourns for years past.

The pretty barmaid squealed her delight when she saw
him, and the corners of her mouth went up in a smile that she couldn’t have concealed if she’d wanted to. “Welcome home, m’lord.” She curtsied deeply, then hurried to draw him a tankard of strong Devon cider. His bronzed arm slipped about her in a familiar hug though her name eluded his usually perfect recollection. Her Devon burr delighted him. She was a buxom country wench who had never been pampered a day in her life, yet she possessed all the feminine instincts of a London courtesan. She leaned low across the table to display her luscious titties and rubbed the velvet sleeve of his riding coat with roughened fingers. “Ye ben’t in ’urry to take yer leave, m’lord?” she asked breathlessly.

He laughed and shook his head and watched her dimple with delight. He was easily the handsomest man she’d ever laid eyes on and she could never believe her own good fortune that occasionally he rode over to sport with her. She caught her breath now as her imagination had flown ahead of her to when they would be upstairs in the feather bed and she would experience the deep pleasure of seeing his magnificent body stretched out in all its naked perfection. Already she had a deep ache in her belly. She reached for his empty tankard and said saucily, “I’ll jus’ fill ye up again, an’ then ye can return the favor upstairs.”

He laughed aloud as her name popped into his mind. “It will be my pleasure, Polly.”

Her eyes were big and serious for a moment as she said fervently, “Nobody fills me like ye do, m’lord.”

He chased her up the stairs, tickling her ankles and letting his hands go up her skirts as she ran before him. He knew he was in for an hour’s good fun as they would laugh and tumble about the feather bed. Ah, there was
nothing to match the uncomplicated enthusiasm of a sweet country wench.

The dining salon at Devonport House never ceased to amaze him. The ceiling was hung with a gilt-filigreed chandelier holding a hundred candles. The rosewood table and chairs had delicately curved legs and tapestry cushions done in apricot and pale lemon. The sideboards were filled with Venetian crystal and heavy silver; the walls with tasteful paintings. Georgiana’s fine hand was evident in every detail, and it was as elegant as the London house, even though it was in one of the wildest parts of the country.

Shane complimented his mother upon the superb dishes she had had set before him this night.

“I brought the chef back with us from Hawkhurst Manor. We’d spent the winter there because it was a comfortable forty miles from London.” She closed her eyes momentarily to still her quickened pulses that Hawkhurst Manor evoked still, after all the years. Shane saw the emotion wash over her and knew of whom she thought, but kept silent. She was in control again and finished her tale. “Your father went twice to the royal court, then had many business meetings at Hawkhurst. I don’t know what happened in the last weeks there, but we came home abruptly and no sooner did we arrive than he was stricken down. My heart aches to see his great physical deterioration.”

“I admit I was shocked by his appearance, and his strength is all but gone,” he said gravely. “Yet his mind is still keen.”

“Thank God for that, at least,” she said fervently.

“I have much business in London. If I sail up there at
the end of the week, will you be able to manage him on your own, do you think?”

“Shane, my darling, I always have managed him one way or another.” She smiled sadly. “I haven’t always been the perfect wife, but I am very, very fond of him, you know.” She added wistfully, “Almost twenty-nine years … and I’m so afraid we won’t make it to thirty.”

He got up and poured each of them a brandy. He warmed the bowl of the snifter by cradling it in his palms, then sipped it slowly, savoring the magnificent French brandy pilfered from some ship long ago.

“I’ll take some of this to Bess when I go up to court next week. She doesn’t drink much herself, but she takes pride in serving the best.”

“The queen is ungrateful, I don’t know why you bother.” She tossed her head.

He nodded. “Shrewd and ungrateful, that’s Bess.”

“Mayhap that’s how all women should be. Mayhap that’s the way to have men at your feet.”

He smiled. There was never any love lost between Elizabeth and beautiful women. They could never comprehend the allure of an aging, vain woman, and really it was so simple—the greatest aphrodisiac in the world was power.

“Would you like me to stay with him tonight?” he offered, worried about the anxiety he saw written plain in her beautiful face.

“Nay, I’ll stay with him until he sleeps, then retire to my own chamber. I’ve left the door open between our two chambers all our married life. He knows if he needs me I’m there.” She smiled at him.

“Well, I hope you know if you need me … I’m there too,” he offered simply.

*   *   *

The master bedchamber in the east wing glowed with sandalwood-scented candles and the fragrant fumes of incense curled from a jade burner, as Shane Hawkhurst entered. Immediately, Lak Sung Li came forward to relieve him of his doublet and shirt. The first time he had heard her name it had sounded similar to “Larksong,” and so he called her because the name pleased his senses.

She bowed low, her straight black hair flowing forward like a silken waterfall. “Does my master wish to smoke?” she asked softly, indicating the hookah water pipe in the corner of the room.

He shook his head, declining, and said, “Why must you call me master, Larksong?”

“It is fitting,” she insisted in her low musical voice. “I will get the oil for your massage,” she said, and when he did not decline she bent low to a lacquered red-and-black cabinet and took from it a flask of perfumed oil and a thick towel. She removed the cushions from the long wooden window seat and spread out the towel, a ritual that had been observed many times before.

He stripped off the remainder of his clothes and stretched out naked upon the wooden bench. Larksong knelt beside him, poured the perfumed oil into her small cupped palm, and began the slow, smooth, rhythmic massaging she had learned while she was still a child. He felt the tension begin to leave his taut muscles and as he gave himself up to the sensual pleasure of her ministrations his mind went over all the people he must meet with in London. Some of these meetings concerned business. His solicitor was tracing who owned the land in Ireland he wanted to purchase. Some of these meetings combined business and pleasure—the queen along with certain
members of the court. Other meetings would be covert and he hoped he would have enough time to make all the necessary contacts before he had to return here, where he was soon going to be needed.

The pressure of Larksong’s small hands urged him to turn over onto his back so that she could attend to the muscles of his wide chest, his belly, and play her magic fingers about the area of his groin. She offered such a varied menu of erotic delights, yet her attitude was always one of meakness and passivity. In sensual matters she was expert, yet he was growing a little disappointed that he could get no great emotional response from her. She was meek, submissive, and polite, everything a woman should be, and yet … and yet … Gently he pushed her fingers away and stood up. He held out his hand to her and said simply, “Come, Larksong.”

Sebastian Hawkhurst looked pitifully frail, yet Hawk sensed that he was gathering all his strength to approach his son on a matter of grave importance.

When he told Hawk what he wanted of him, the younger man was both annoyed and amused, and refused to take his father’s request seriously. “Marry? I have no intention of doing any such thing.” He laughed heartily.

“Hawk, you are twenty-eight. You should have been settled years ago.” He was losing patience now and said angrily, “Marriage would be a steadying influence. God knows you need one! Before you come into the title, I want you to marry.”

“I’ll not do it,” said Hawk lightly. “You can’t force me to it.” He grinned to soften his words.

“I can and I will if I have to,” shouted Sebastian Hawkhurst.