Chapter Thirty
“What do you mean you don’t know where Lady Hawkins is? She is under orders not to leave the house without me.” Hawk glowered at the unruffled butler.
“My lord, as I stated, Lady Hawkins requested the carriage be brought around. Neither the coach, the driver, nor her ladyship have returned. I was unaware that Lady Hawkins was ‘under orders.’” Despite his usual demeanor, the man still made his opinion known, and it was obvious Lizzie had a champion in the butler.
“How long ago did she leave?”
“About an hour past, my lord.”
Hawk stormed down the corridor to the library. It was bad enough his head and stomach still suffered the effects of his overindulgence the night before, but now his wife was missing. A flash of panic hit him. Where was she? Did the person who wanted her dead abduct her? Of course not, man, the butler said she left in Cam’s carriage. There is no need to panic.
Yes, there was.
He walked to the brandy container and turned away, his stomach churning. Tea and food didn’t appeal, either. He should be doing something but didn’t know what. Had she gone shopping? With someone out there trying to kill her, she had better not have gone shopping.
After another hour pacing the floor and imagining all sorts of danger, the front door opened, and Lizzie’s voice floated to him as she spoke with the butler.
A sense of relief flooded him, quickly replaced by annoyance. She sounded so happy, as if nothing had happened. He stood, facing the library door, his arms folded over his chest. Lizzie pushed the door open and smiled. “There you are.”
“Yes. Here I am. And where were you?”
She immediately stiffened, her smile vanishing. “I beg your pardon?”
He moved forward until his toes touched hers. “You are not supposed to leave the house without me. Do you not remember the threat to your life? The clandestine trips back and forth between here and my townhouse to avoid danger?”
Lizzie untied her bonnet and tossed the garment on the sofa. “Of course I remember, but I took the coach, a driver, and two footmen.”
“Were any of them carrying weapons?”
“I have no idea. Do they normally do so?”
“I don’t know, but given the circumstances, if I were traveling all around Town I would certainly ask.”
“I did not travel all around the town.”
“Aha! That leads me to my next question. Where did you go?”
All the air left her lungs, and she wandered around the room, dragging her fingertips along the furniture. “I went to…the Home Office.”
He walked up to her. “What did you say? You mumbled the last part. Where did you go?” He couldn’t believe his ears. He refused to acknowledge she would be so careless as to go to the Home Office. “Well?”
“I went to the Home Office.” Her face flushed a bright red, but she raised her chin and stared him in the eyes.
Dear God, he had heard her correctly. “Am I to understand, Lady Hawkins, that after all our subterfuge to protect you from the Home Office, all the disguises, skirting the dark recesses of the buildings at night—you blatantly drove up to the building, waltzed into the front door, and visited with the Home Secretary?”
“Yes.”
He desperately wished she had denied it, since he did not know where to begin. “Why?” That struck him as the best—and perhaps the only—question.
“Can we sit? And perhaps send for tea?”
Without answering, he moved to the bell pull and ordered tea. Unable to sit, he paced the floor, waiting for the blasted tea. Lizzie settled on the sofa and studied her hands. Thankfully, the tea service arrived quickly, and Lizzie poured. Once she took a sip, she placed the cup down and looked him in the eye. “I told the Home Secretary that I will do what he asked of me. He will spread the word that Lord Loverly’s daughter has incriminating papers she is about to hand over. Lord Sidmouth will set everything up with Scotland Yard and will contact me with the time and place of the meeting.”
His heart thundered in his chest, a combination of fear and anger. “Did you not remember I have forbidden it?”
“You can’t do that.”
“Wrong, my countess. I am your husband, and I can do that. I can even send you off to the country to any one of my various estates to pass the time growing flowers or painting landscapes.” He choked on the last words, terrified. He did not want to let her out of his life.
“But you won’t do that.” She hesitated, her eyes filling with tears. “I would grow to hate you.” Her whispered words could have been shouted for the effect they had on him.
He sucked in a breath as his world grew dark. Had she plunged a knife into his heart it would not have hurt more. “Don’t you understand? I can’t do this, Lizzie. I cannot have you putting yourself in danger. I need—hell, I must—protect you.”
She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “And I must do this. I am living under the shame of what my father did. I have found a small way to do something right. This I must do. You need to understand that.”
Despite his still sour stomach, he stood and walked to the sideboard and poured a brandy. “I never told you about my sister, Monica, and that I am responsible for her death.”
“No, you have never mentioned her.”
He stared off into the distance, remembering what he’d spent a year trying desperately to forget. “Two years ago, I arranged a marriage for my sister, Monica, to Baron Sheffield. She had spent four years on the marriage mart and no one had appealed to her. When Sheffield approached me, my mother, terrified that Monica would end up a spinster, encouraged her to marry him.
“I investigated the man’s background, and he had some gambling debts that her dowry would clear up. I spoke with him about that, but he said that part of his life was over, and he was ready to settle down and begin to fill his nursery. He also had a reputation for too much drink, but he also dismissed that with similar comments.
“They married, and late one night, during a severe thunderstorm, she arrived at my front door. She was crying and shaking and said the baron had been gambling and repeatedly drinking a great deal. She said she wanted to return home.
“Of course, like a fool, instead of listening to her, I spouted some banal words about all young wives have a difficult time adjusting to marriage. If only I’d spent more time investigating the man when he first approached me, or at least given his request more time to see if he actually did intend to mend his ways.” He turned to Lizzie and ran his fingers through his hair. “I was a rake, a bachelor. What did I know of marriage and acceptable husbands?”
He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “She and I had words, and she fled the house. A few days later she and the Baron apparently had a fight at an event they were attending, and he dragged her to their carriage, then dismissed the driver to take the reins himself. He was quite sodden at the time and crashed into a tree, causing the carriage to tumble down an embankment, killing them both.”
Lizzie’s hand flew to her mouth.
“It was my fault. I had not protected her the way I should have.”
“As tragic as your story is, Sheffield was to blame. You are not responsible for her death.”
He offered a grim laugh. “Oh, yes I was. As her brother, it was my duty to keep her from harm. I should have called the man out, or at least allowed her to stay the night she came to our home until I could investigate the matter.” He turned to her, knowing his anguish was clearly written on his face. “For God’s sake, Lizzie, I married you to keep you safe.”
Lizzie gasped and turned from him, hugging herself. “So, the truth comes out. I told you I did not want to be someone’s duty. Despite your declarations of love, it appears I am nothing more than your duty and responsibility, after all.”
Hawk clenched his fists by his side. “No, that’s not what I meant, it came out wrong.” He took in a deep breath. “But hear this, I will not renege my duty to you, Lizzie. I cannot allow you to be so reckless. You must choose—either me or your father’s memory.”
…
The next afternoon, Lizzie’s hand shook as she held the missive that had been forwarded from Hawk’s townhouse. This was the note she’d been waiting for. The meeting between her and the Home Secretary had been set up at an inn named The Rose and Thistle for six o’clock that evening. Why they weren’t meeting at the Home Office as Lord Sidmouth had indicated was a puzzle, but she assumed the Home Secretary knew what he was doing, and he did promise protection from Scotland Yard once she arrived.
She was still distressed about the conversation Hawk and she’d had about her assisting the Home Office. After his remark about marrying her to protect her, she’d transferred her meager belongings into another bedchamber in Cam’s house.
Hawk had watched her move her things and announced, in a clipped and cold voice, that if she continued to defy him, in the unlikely event she survived the ordeal, he would offer her whichever of his estates she wished to live on, with enough money to supply her all her needs.
She’d nodded, her heart breaking into pieces. Her needs were very simple. She didn’t need flowers, watercolors, a large estate, or all the money her husband wished to bestow upon her. What she wanted and needed was his strong arms holding her in the night. His deep laughter when she said something outrageous. The twinkle in his eye when he was having naughty thoughts.
Never would she have the children she’d hoped for. She touched her stomach. Unless she was already carrying Hawk’s child. Then what?
But most of all, she wanted his love. She thought she’d had it, but now it appeared it was all a lie. All she was to him was a duty, a way to assuage the guilt he felt at Monica’s death.
It didn’t matter, anyway. Either she did nothing to make amends to the Crown in her father’s name, or lose her husband, and any chance they might have had for happiness.
It had been unfair of him to offer that ultimatum, and she refused to spend the rest of her life with a husband who expected her to obey his every command, who wouldn’t even discuss things with her. She’d been making decisions for herself for two years and had rather enjoyed it. But this was so much more. Perhaps no one would know what she did to help the Crown capture another traitor. But she would, and it would ease her heart.
Should she approach Hawk with the details of the meeting? She toyed with the idea as she chewed the end of her pen. He’d made himself quite clear on the matter. If she defied him and went through with the meeting, she was to be shipped off to one of his estates, and the marriage that had held so much promise would be no longer.
There was no doubt in her mind about her love for Hawk. He was everything she ever wanted in a husband. Kind, considerate, loving, generous, with a good sense of humor. Yet, the one thing that she really needed him to support her in, he had backed away from. Indeed, had ordered her not to do it and admitted their marriage had only been for him to perform a “duty.”
She’d sympathized with her husband when he’d told her the story of his sister. It helped her to understand him better and appreciate where his overprotective nature came from. But she would not surrender her very freedom because of his experience.
After checking with the butler and learning that Hawk had left the house earlier with no indication as to where he was headed, she climbed the stairs to her bedchamber to prepare for her meeting. With a heavy heart, she entered the room and laid the note on her desk.