The gossip mill had churned out endless stories of Janet Comyn, a crazed spinster, imprisoned because she was incurably mad.
As Hawk trod the cobbled walkway to the entrance of Dalkeith, he laughed aloud at the false image he'd created in his mind of Mad Janet. He realized that James had obviously known no more about her than anyone else, because James never would have bound the Hawk to such a woman had he known what she was truly like. She was too beautiful, too fiery. James had intended Hawk to suffer, and the only way a man would suffer around this woman was if he couldn't get his hands on her, if he couldn't taste her kisses and enjoy her sensual promise.
Hawk had expected nothing like the shimmering, silken creature of passionate temperament he'd found at the forge. He'd sent Grimm on the last day to wed the lass by proxy, fully intending to ignore her when she arrived. He'd made it clear that no one was to welcome her. Life would go on at Dalkeith as if nothing had changed. He'd decided that if she was half as mad as the gossips claimed, she probably wouldn't even be able to understand that she was married. He'd concluded he could surely find some way to deal with her, even if it meant confining her somewhere, far from Dalkeith. James had ordered him to wed, he had said nothing about sharing living quarters.
Then, he'd laid eyes upon "Mad" Janet Comyn. Like an impassioned goddess she'd flayed him with her words, evidencing wit handfasted to unearthly beauty. No las he could recall had stirred in him the tight, clenching hunger he'd suffered when he'd caressed her with his eyes. While she'd been caressing that damned smithy with hers.
The gossips couldn't have been more wrong. Had the Hawk been left to choose a woman for himself, the qualities Janet possessed—independence, a quick mind, a luscious body, and a strong heart—were all qualities he would have sought.
Perhaps, Hawk mused, life might just take a turn for the better after all.
* * *
CHAPTER 7
adrienne knew she was dreaming. she was hopelessly in the same horrible nightmare she'd been having for months; the one in which she fled down dark, deserted New Orleans alleys trying to outrun death.
No matter how hard she tried to control the dream, she never made it to safety. Inevitably, Eberhard cornered her in the abandoned warehouse on Blue Magnolia Lane. Only one thing differed significantly from the reality Adrienne had lived through—in her nightmare she didn't make it to the gun in time.
She awoke shaking and pale, with little beads of sweat dappling her face.
And there was the Hawk; sitting on the end of her bed, silently watching her.
Adrienne stared wide-eyed at him. In her sleepy confusion the Hawk's darkly beautiful face seemed to bear traces of Eberhard's diabolic beauty, making her wonder what difference there was between the two men—if any. After a nightmare about one attractive deadly man, waking up to find another in such close proximity was just too much for her frazzled nerves. Although she still had virtually no memory of how she'd come to be in the sixteenth century, her other memories were regrettably intact. Adrienne de Simone remembered one thing with excruciating clarity—she did not trust and did not like beautiful men.
"You screamed," the Hawk informed her in his mellifluous voice.
Adrienne rolled her eyes. Could he do something besides purr every time he opened his perfect mouth? That voice could sweet-talk a blind nun out of her chastity. "Go away," she mumbled.
He smiled. "I came but to see that you weren't the victim of another murder attempt."
"I told you it wasn't me they were after." He sat carefully, seemingly caught in a mighty internal struggle. Her mind spun with unchecked remnants of her nightmare as a soft breeze wafted in the open window and kissed her skin. Ye gods, her skin! She plucked the silk sheet to her nearly bare breasts in a fit of pique. The dratted gown she'd found neatly placed on her bed—by someone who obviously had fewer inhibitions about clothing than she—scarcely qualified as sleepwear. The tiny sleeves had slipped down over her shoulders while the skirt of the gown had bunched up; yards of transparent fabric pooled in a filmy froth around her waist, barely covering her hips—and that only if she didn't move at all. Adrienne tugged firmly at the gown, trying to rearrange it without relinquishing her grip on the sheet.
Hawk groaned, and the husky sound made her every nerve dance on end. She forced herself to meet his heated gaze levelly.
"Janet, I know we didn't exactly start this marriage under the best of circumstances."
"Adrienne. And one could definitely say that."
"No, my name is Sidheach. My brother is Adrian. But most call me Hawk."
"I meant me. Call me Adrienne." At his questioning look she added, "My middle name is Adrienne, and it's the one I prefer." A simple, tiny lie. She couldn't hope to keep answering to Janet, she was bound to slip eventually.