Read Online An Unforgettable Rogue by Annette Blair - Free Book Online

how much his family loved her, without including himself in the declaration. He cleared his throat. “For all my dastardly ancestors’ rule-breaking, I doubt any of them ever found themselves in the incongruous position of trying to wrest, or should I say, rescue, what little was left of their fortunes and estates from the greedy hands of their improvident, globe-trotting heirs. Nor did any of them ever have to stop their wives from marrying another.”
    Alex knew Bryce was probing for the details of her alliance with Chesterfield, again, but if he thought she would reveal them, he had another think coming.
    Even now, he regarded her in such a way as to invite her to take up his verbal gauntlet, but she firmed her spine and her resolve, and remained adamantly silent.
    “Tell me,” he said, giving up. “How is your Aunt Hildegarde? She was always my biggest fan. Did she mourn me for long?”
    “Aunt Hildy did not mourn you at all.”
    Hawk’s arrested shock at her response made Alex chuckle. “She did not mourn you, because she refused to believe that you had been killed. We tried to tell her, but doing so was like speaking to a stone, so we gave up.
    “On the rare occasions she still asks for you, we tell her that you are on a hunting trip, or taking care of business in London. I thought that, perhaps, my marrying Judson and moving everyone to his house might bring her around, but none of that matters now, does it?”
    Hawk looked away, unable to tell how Alex really felt about the turn of events. But they were nearing the Lodge and the thought of seeing his family, and of them seeing him, knotted his stomach and slicked his palms. The arrogant rogue of Devil’s Dyke, as frightened as a schoolboy who forgot his lessons.
    The carriage climbed Gorhambury Hill—along the River Ver—towards Devil’s Dyke and the house where Alex grew up. With the placement of their family homes, fate had merged their lives at so early an age, Hawk could not remember his life without Alex in it.
    Hawks Ridge, the home of his birth, temporarily his heir’s, sat at the opposite summit overlooking Devil’s Dyke, which formed the valley between. Hawk gazed westward to catch sight of his estate, but nearly a mile separated the houses, and he had forgotten that, other than in the dead of winter, the very woodland they had romped in grew too lush to allow for even a glimpse from the hill.
    Besides, night had long since fallen, and the looming Lodge claimed his full attention. A few windows shone with light but the rest remained dark. And though a half-moon shone, he could not tell whether the house was still as much a leaking, tumbling pile as he remembered, or worse.
    “Should I go in alone, first, and break the news?” Alex asked, as the carriage came to a stop before a set of weather-beaten granite steps. “I would not want your Uncle Gifford to have a seizure.”
    “You think my scars will come as that bad a shock to him?” Hawk asked. Apoplexy was very near what he expected the first time people who knew him caught sight of him.
    Alexandra regarded him as if he were daft. “Of course not. But I think the ghost of his dearly beloved nephew walking through the door, more than a year after his death, might do the trick.”
    Hawk felt himself flush.
    “I perceive that your scars are a great deal more of a difficulty for you,” Alex said. “Than for the people who must look upon you.”
    “Therein rests the crux of the problem. They must look upon me, but they would not, if they could help it.”
    Alexandra sighed and shook her head, as if she might argue the point, but the carriage door was thrown open and Claudia and Beatrix scrambled inside, out of the rain.
    Even as the interior grew bright with the light from their lantern, they began tossing rice in the air. “Hurrah for the bride and groom. Hurrah, hurr—”
    Sound stopped as if severed by a blade.
    Hawk braced himself, even as he consumed the blessed sight of them, Bea