Chapter Fourteen
For the second day in a row, Hawk had presented them to an innkeeper as husband and wife. If anyone discovered this subterfuge, Lizzie would never get past the scandal. And he would be forced to ask her to marry him.
That thought did not bring the panic it would have only a few weeks before. Either the fresh air of the country had affected his mind, or being wedded to Lizzie was not an unpleasant idea.
Duty to his title demanded he take a wife at some point and fill his nursery, but he’d decided after he buried his sister that he would marry someone for whom he felt only mild affection and respect. No great love for him. It hurt too much when someone you loved died. It occurred to him that Lizzie would not be a wife he could easily label “affection only.”
So far, they’d been lucky, and hadn’t encountered anyone who would carry tales back to London. Although that was a serious problem, right now he needed to find a physician to look at Lizzie. He was a bit concerned. She’d been quite pale and seemed to be in a great deal of pain.
He lingered in the private dining room, nursing a glass of brandy as he waited for the village physician to arrive. Hawk had never suffered from headaches, but several people of his acquaintance had a penchant for miserable ones. Unfortunately, from what he’d just witnessed, Lizzie fell into that category.
“My lord, the physician has arrived, and I sent him upstairs to your wife.” The innkeeper wiped his hands on a cloth as he entered the room. “Did your lordship wish tea, or a meal, perhaps?”
“I will take a luncheon once the physician has left.” Hawk was torn between going upstairs with the physician or not. He didn’t want to invade Lizzie’s privacy, but he was also concerned for her health. Remembering her recent fall, he decided to venture upstairs to at least make sure the physician knew of that event.
The door stood open, and the physician leaned over Lizzie in the bed, chatting with her. Someone had helped her out of her clothes and dressed her in nightclothes. The window drapes had been drawn, and a lone candle burned on the small table next to her bed.
He looked up as Hawk entered. “Oh, good afternoon, my lord. I was just asking your wife about her health. She says she has a rather nasty headache.”
“Did her ladyship tell you about the toss she took from her horse a few days ago?”
“No.” The physician studied Lizzie. “Did you suffer an injury, my lady?”
“Yes. She was knocked unconscious and was treated with bed rest.” Hawk ignored the narrowing of Lizzie’s eyes at him answering for her. He shrugged. No matter. While she was under his protection, he would act on her behalf. He would not fail someone in his care again.
“I see.” The physician picked up her hand and placed his fingertips to her inner wrist. He waited for about a minute, then dropped her hand. “Did you have these headaches before your fall?”
“Yes. Not to this extent, however.”
The physician looked at Hawk. “I suggest your wife submit to bloodletting.”
“No!” Both Hawk and Lizzie answered at the same time.
The physician stepped back from the bed, his body stiff. “That is my professional opinion, my lord.”
Lizzie closed her eyes and turned her head away from the man.
“What else do you offer in the way of treatment?” Hawk was glad Lizzie agreed with him about the bloodletting. The procedure was certainly helpful in some instances, but he’d never seen the benefit of that method for headaches.
“The only other advice I can offer is rest in the dark, laudanum, and a lavender-scented cool cloth for the head. In most instances, with this type of headache, it’s merely a matter of time passing.”
Hawk stepped to the door to encourage the physician to leave. “Thank you for coming, sir.”
If he’d been surprised at being so summarily dismissed, the physician did not show it. He nodded at Hawk as he walked past him. “Do you have laudanum, my lord?”
“I do.” Lizzie’s soft-spoken words were barely heard.
Once the physician was on his way, Hawk approached the bed. “Where is your laudanum, Lizzie?”
“In my small satchel. But I prefer not to take it just yet. Can you have the innkeeper’s wife send up some tea and a cool cloth? I also have lavender with me.”
“It sounds like you suffer these headaches regularly.”
Lizzie sighed. “Only since my father disappeared.”
Hawk fumbled through her satchel and placed the bottle of laudanum and a smaller bottle of lavender on a table next to the candle. “I will return shortly.”
After instructing the innkeeper to have tea and a cold cloth sent up, he returned to find Lizzie asleep. She looked so young and so peaceful. He hadn’t realized how tense she appeared when awake. No doubt she was concerned about having to face an inquisition at the Home Office.
He pulled up a chair and sat alongside her bed, thinking about the situation thus far. It would take quite a bit of persuasion to convince him that Lizzie had anything to do with her father’s betrayal. After his work with the Foreign Office, he’d learned how to read people. Despite her deception with Wycliff, there was nothing devious about Lizzie.
Leaning back in the chair, he crossed his arms and studied her. He tried very hard not to concentrate on the rise and fall of her full breasts as she breathed in and out.
Instead he turned his thoughts to the matter at hand. If the saddle girth had been purposely cut—and there was every reason to believe it had been—then Lizzie was in danger. Someone didn’t want her to talk to the Home Secretary. Someone who thought Lizzie either knew something or possessed damaging information that could reveal the person who had worked with Loverly to betray the Crown.
His attention was drawn to the open door as a young lad carried in a tray with tea things on it. Placed alongside the tea pot was a stack of clean cloths. Hawk stood and gestured to the small dresser. “Leave it there, if you will.”
After the youth had set the tray down and left the room, Hawk touched Lizzie’s shoulder. “Lizzie. Tea is here.”
Slowly she opened her eyes and offered him a smile that had his insides warming. He resisted the urge to run far, far away from Lizzie and the feelings he was beginning to have toward her.
Bloody hell.
…
Lizzie had been dreaming about the very man who sat next to her. She didn’t think the thumping of her heart was due to her headache. She was thinking she enjoyed the warmth radiating from the nearness of Hawk’s body and the scent of something spicy and male. She couldn’t help but smile at him as the candle behind her cast a soft glow over them both. “I would love a cup of tea.”
“Here, I will help you sit up and prepare the tea for you.”
He placed his hands under her arms and gently lifted her. She winced at the movement, and he stopped. “Did I hurt you?”
“I’m afraid any movement right now will hurt.”
His jaw tightened as he pulled her up the rest of the way, placing a pillow behind her back. “Is that comfortable? As comfortable as possible, given your headache?”
“Yes. It’s fine.”
He poured tea into one of the cups. “One sugar and a drop of cream, correct?”
“Yes. You are very attentive.”
“I try.” He grinned as he handed her the cup. “Do you care for some biscuits, or a small sandwich?”
“No. Just the tea right now. I’m still trying to settle my stomach. But please, you have some.”
Hawk fixed a cup of tea for himself. “I have been promised luncheon when I return downstairs.” He settled into the chair alongside her bed once more.
Lizzie took a sip of her tea, closed her eyes, and let out a soft sigh. The hot tea sliding down her throat rejuvenated her. A choking sound coming from Hawk had her eyes snapping open. He stared at her, his jaw slack, his cup halfway to his lips.
She licked a drop of tea from her lips. “What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.” Then he immediately stood and returned the cup to the dresser. “If you are all settled, I will head down for my meal.”
Before she could say a word, he was out the door, the door was closed, and she was left staring at it. The warmth from the tea had made her drowsy, so she carefully placed the teacup on the floor alongside the bed and shifted the pillow under her head. With a faint moan, she closed her eyes and was soon asleep.
Someone is in my room.
Lizzie opened her eyes. The room was dark, and the candle that had been burning steadily when she’d fallen asleep had been snuffed out. She could barely see her own hand, but the hairs had risen on the back of her neck.
For some reason her instincts told her it was not Hawk. She lay still, hardly breathing, praying that she had been mistaken and any sound she’d heard was a remnant from a dream.
Despite the darkness, she saw a movement. “Who’s there?”
The only sound in the room was her heavy breathing. Or did she hear someone else breathing as well? Should she get up and run for the door? How foolish would it be if she suddenly raced down the stairs into the common room in her nightclothes when someone in her room was all in her imagination?
“Hello?”
Again no response, no movement. She had almost convinced herself no one was there, and her headache must be causing her imagination to run wild, when there was a swift movement, and suddenly there was a pillow over her face.
Terror overwhelmed her. She tried moving her head to push the pillow away from her face, but whoever was trying to smother her held fast. Headache forgotten, she thrashed on the bed, kicking her feet.
She attempted to draw in a deep breath and sucked in the coverslip, panicking her further. Just as her vision started to dim, she kicked out once more and connected with something solid. A loud grunt was followed by the grip on the pillow loosening. Lizzie rolled over and made it to the other side of the bed. Once her feet landed on the floor, she screamed as loud as she could.
“You bitch!” From what she could see, her intruder was a rather large man who was bent over, cupping himself between his legs. Lizzie opened her mouth to scream again when the door to the bedchamber flew open. Hawk lunged for the man, grabbing him around the neck.
Lizzie stumbled to the window and pulled open the drapes. Sunlight poured into the room, highlighting the two men swinging at each other. Although the man who had tried to smother her was still unable to stand up straight.
Hawk landed a blow to the man’s jaw, and he collapsed to the floor, hitting his head on the edge of the bed, knocking himself out. Hawk raked back the hair hanging over his forehead and turned to her. “Are you well?” His breathing was so heavy, it was difficult to understand him.
“Yes. Yes, I am fine.”
“He didn’t…harm you in any way?”
Knowing he meant rape, she wrapped her arms around herself. “No. No, he tried to smother me.”
Hawk sat on the edge of the bed and motioned for her to join him. When she reached him, he pulled her onto his lap and buried his face in her neck. His heavy breathing continued for a few minutes as Lizzie realized her headache had come back in full force.
The man on the floor remained unconscious, and she hoped Hawk would deal with him soon. At least before he woke up.
Eventually, Hawk leaned back and looked her in the eye. “What the hell do you know, Lady Elizabeth?”