Provocative in Pearls by Hunter Madeline

Author:Hunter, Madeline
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Jove

Chapter Fourteen

Hawkeswell’s house on Hanover Square appeared less tired than Greenlay Park. Not the best address, Celia had written in a letter. Fashionable society had long ago moved on. That the Earls of Hawkeswell still lived there reflected their fading fortunes over the last few generations.

Certain chambers encouraged Verity to think that living here would be very pleasant anyway. The library might need redecorating the way his aunt Julia said, but Verity liked its jewel-toned upholstery and dark woods, and the fine, large windows that looked down on the square.

In contrast, the drawing room seemed cold, with its fastidious, fine-boned furniture and severely classical decor. She suspected that the drawing room had not been used often in recent years. She doubted Hawkeswell entertained much at home. If gentlemen friends called, he probably received them in that nice library, or up in his apartment.

“Here is the garden,” Hawkeswell said, opening one of many French doors in the long back gallery that also served as a ballroom. “Promise that you will not scold.”

She stepped onto a fine, deep terrace paved in what looked like rough marble. The garden stretched before her, broad and deep, all the way to a brick wall at the back that masked some buildings that she assumed were coach houses and necessities.

“Oh, dear.”

“The gardener is not the best, you mean.”

“He is incompetent. The yews are ruined, and all the shrubbery poorly pruned. He does not know the first thing about landscape, I fear.”

“I trust that you will correct him.”

She went down the steps and stood amid the disaster. “I am not sure that I can. This may be too much for me.”

“Get whatever help you require. Release this gardener and hire another. Hire three. I leave it in your hands.”

She surveyed the series of silly little flower beds that broke up the walkways. The entire property needed a new design.

They completed the tour, ending at her apartment. As with her rooms at Greenlay Park, these had been treated to new fabrics not so long ago. She wondered if Colleen and Aunt Julia had seen to it at both houses, and not Hawkeswell at all.

Yet it seemed to matter to him if she approved. He watched her finger the bed drapes and look out the window. He strolled behind her as she opened doors and drawers in the dressing room.

She spied a door on the far wall beyond the dressing table. “Another odd passageway?”

True to his word, he had used that passageway every night since the first time. She had begun waiting for him. Sometimes, while she waited, she saw him as she had that first night, walking toward her, naked and aroused, his eyes dark and his expression taut. She would sense her body stirring and her breasts getting sensitive in anticipation of what was coming.

“No passageway this time. The dressing rooms adjoin directly.” He opened the door to show his own, with its wardrobes and tables and some chairs. A manservant stopped hanging a coat and bowed. “This is Mr.

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