without making that growling sound.” Humor lit her eyes as she surveyed him. “Is that a hint of a smile I see? That is progress indeed. But I would be astonished if you can actually laugh, you are such a grouch.”
He had to admit she amused him with her deliberate attempts to provoke him. He was a stranger to laughter and preferred to stay that way. Yet he found himself smiling back at her, damn her.
Skye looked annoyingly satisfied by her achievement. “I will return to the house now and leave you to your work. I was much too nervous to eat breakfast before I spoke to you, but now that I have braved the lion, so to speak, I realize I am famished.”
Her blue eyes were perfectly innocent, yet there was a glimmer of laughter there, blast her cheek. She was teasing him in order to coerce him out of his foul humor.
She was succeeding, too. When Hawk met her gaze, something shivered through him, part laughter, part physical desire.
Then her smile faltered and he knew she had felt that same powerful jolt of sexual need. Suddenly she looked shy again, and without another word, she turned her horse away.
Hawk watched her leave with a feeling strongly akin to relief.
Oh, yes, Lady Skye was enormously dangerous to him. In less than a day, she’d incited him to forsake his scruples and possibly ruined his carefully calculated future. And that was nothing compared to the myriad of emotions she roused in him so effortlessly. In the past day he’d been, in turn, suspicious, curious, irritated, protective, passionate, angry, appalled, exasperated, amused, at peace.… He couldn’t deny that with her he’d enjoyed a deep, dreamless, peaceful sleep for the first time in forever.
What shocked him, though, was how much he still wanted Skye. The desire to make love to her was still stinging his body, when his only burning desire should have been to serve and lead the Guardians.
His predicament would only grow worse with time, Hawk knew, for he couldn’t just throw her out, and she wouldn’t leave quietly. Her appearance of delicacy hid a spine of steel.
Yet she would have to give up eventually if he remained adamant. Moreover, he could ratchet up his efforts to drive her away, making it as uncomfortable as possible for her to stay.
Wholly aside from the risk of scandal, he didn’t want Lady Skye Wilde living in the same house as he. He wanted no warmth and comfort in his life, nothing womanly and soft that would remind him so painfully of what he had lost.
Deliberately Hawk turned the stallion away from the castle. He had meant to return to the stables, but it was wiser to keep away when Lady Skye could be lurking around any corner, ready to ambush him with her vexing, tenacious optimism and her vital, vibrant smile.
When the earl
remained away the entire day, Skye suspected he was purposely avoiding her, but when dusk fell, she grew worried. He would exhaust himself, riding for so long with no sustenance.
By nightfall, the daily housekeeper and maids had departed, leaving only Thomas Gilpin, the grizzled old man who acted as the castle caretaker. A longtime employee of the estate, Gilpin had been present when the earl’s family perished in the fire, but he was not forthcoming in answering Skye’s questions about the tragedy, in part, she suspected, because his memory seemed to be failing.
Even so, he was mindful of his master’s whereabouts. When Skye made to don her cloak, intending to search for the earl in the stables, Gilpin reported that his lordship was already in his study. Exasperated, Skye realized that Lord Hawkhurst had slipped into the house unobserved, even though she had been watching for him.
She found him there, lounging on a sofa, making steady inroads into his decanter of brandy.
“Good evening, my lord. I came to invite you to partake of supper. I thought you might be hungry.”
He barely glanced up at her. “You thought incorrectly.”
Skye wasn’t inclined to be dismissed so easily.