UNFORGETTABLE ROGUE (The Rogues Club, Book Two) by Blair Annette

Author:Blair, Annette [Blair, Annette]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Annette Blair
Published: 2012-01-05T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Days later, Hawk was still worrying Bea’s words like a pup with a bone. If he went ahead with his plan to set Alex free, what would losing her do to Beatrix, who had already endured the separate losses of her parents? Not to mention how she must have felt for losing him as well.

He recalled how she had wept for him when she had not quite recognized him. Now, here he was, back from the dead and planning to set Alex free, which amounted to the same thing as taking away her new mother. Poor Bea.

Poor Alex. She would never allow herself to be set free, if she thought Bea might suffer for it. So, how could he release her now, Chesterfield or no?

Hawk had detested Chesterfield for so long. For years, they had played some silent game, vying for the same stakes: women, money, and the respect of their peers. Hawk did not even know exactly when the game had begun or why.

He knew only that he had won, hands down, for the most part, until that fateful day at White’s, when Chesterfield and his father met by accident, apparently, and found themselves sharing a brandy and becoming fast friends. Later his father had said that Chesterfield was a good man, a man a father could be proud of.

The bitter taste of that pronouncement had lingered and festered inside Hawk, until the day his father contrived to offer him pride at the last, that fateful, consequential day.

After that, their old rivalry had been forgotten in the chaos of war and pain, until it flared anew, blazed, that day at the church, and worse since, until Hawk discovered that Chesterfield practically saved Bea’s life. Now he found himself trying to swallow an adjustment of his attitude toward his old nemesis.

To complicate matters, Chesterfield had come striding right up to him recently, there on Huntington property, while Hawk tried to help one of his seasoned tenants deliver a lamb, of all things. The lambing was not only Hawk’s first, but the delivery difficult at best, and out of season, so there was some worry that the lamb would be too weak and small to withstand a prolonged birth.

Chesterfield had ignored their struggle and ripped up at him. “Claudia is going to get herself into trouble visiting men at their homes, without a maid in tow, sending notes, inviting them to woodland trysts and unchaperoned walks,” the blighter shouted. “If you continue your lackadaisical guardianship in this way, Hawksworth, your niece will be ruined.”

“Do not presume—”

“It is one thing for her to be naturally-friendly and exuberant here in the country,” Chesterfield continued, ignoring Hawk’s attempt to respond, “but entirely another in town. If she continues to care naught for her reputation, she will run wild in London and find herself at the mercy of some blackguard who misunderstands her and accepts the wrong invitation, with no care to her safety or good name. I trust I have made my point,” Chesterfield said, even as he stormed off.

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