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CHAPTER 24
in her depression, adrienne considered not eating. she wondered if they had cigarettes in 1513, reconsidered, and decided to eat instead.
Until she found the Scotch.
About time, she mused as she sat in his study and propped her feet on his desk. She poured a healthy dollop of the whisky into a cut-crystal tumbler and took a burning swallow. "Och," she said to the desk thoughtfully, "but they do brew a fine blend, doona they?"
She spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in his sacred haven, hiding from the strange smithy's advances, Lydia's abiding concern, and her own heartache. She read his books as she watched the misty rain that started while she drained the tumbler of Scotch. He had fine taste in books, she thought. She could fall in love with a man who liked to read.
Later, when she rummaged through his desk, she told herself she had every right because she was his wife, after all. Letters to friends, from friends, to his mother while he'd been away sat neatly ribboned in a box.
Adrienne picked through the drawers, finding miniatures of the Hawk's sister and brother. She discovered boyhood treasures that warmed her heart: a leather ball with often-repaired stitching, cunningly carved statues of animals, rocks and trinkets.
By her second glass of Scotch she was liking him entirely too much. Enough Scotch, Adrienne, and it's long past time to eat something.
On unsteady legs she'd made her way to the Greathall.
* * * * *
"Wife." The voice held no warmth.
Adrienne flinched and gasped. She spun around and found herself face-to-face with the Hawk. But he'd gone to Uster, hadn't he? Apparently not. Her heart soared. She was ready to try, but something in his gaze unnerved her and she hadn't the foggiest notion why. She narrowed her eyes and peered at him intently. "You look downright cantankerous," she said. She emitted a squeak of fear when he lunged for her. "Wh-what are you doing, Hawk?"
His hands closed about her wrists with steely possession as he used his powerful body to force her back against the cool stone of the corridor.
"Hawk, what—"
"Silence, lass."
Wide-eyed, she stared into his face, searching for some clue that would explain the icy hostility in his eyes.
He forced his muscular leg between her thighs, cruelly pushing them apart. "You've been drinking, lass."
His breath was warm on her face, she could smell the potent stench of alcohol. "So? So have you! And I thought you were in Uster!"
His beautiful lips contorted in a bitter smile. "Aye, I'm quite aware that you thought I was in Uster, wife." His brogue rasped thickly, betraying the extent of his rage.
"Well, I don't see why you're so angry with me! You're the one who's had nine million mistresses, and you're the one who left without saying goodbye, and you're the one who wouldn't—"
"What's good for the gander is not necessarily good for the goose," he snarled. He twined his hand in her hair and yanked her back sharply, baring the pale arch of her throat. "Neither in spirit consumption nor in lovers, wife."
"What?" He wasn't making any sense, talking about farm animals when she was trying to have a reasonably sober conversation with him. She gasped when he bit her gently at the base of her neck where her pulse pounded erratically. If she couldn't handle this man sober, she certainly couldn't handle him tipsy.
With excruciating leisure, he traced his tongue down her neck and across the upper curves of her breasts. Her mouth went dry and an entire flock of twittering birds took wing in her belly.
"You wanton," he breathed against her flawless skin.
Adrienne moaned softly, partly in pain from his words and partly in pleasure from his touch.
"Faithless, cruel beauty, what did I do to deserve this?"
"What did I do—"
"No!" he thundered. "No words. I will suffer no honeyed lies from that sweet snake's lair you call a mouth. Aye, lass, you have the most cruel of poisons. Better I had let the dart take you, or the arrow. I was a fool to suffer one moment of pain on your account."
I'm dreaming again? she wondered. But she knew she wasn't because never in a dream had she been so aware of every inch of her own body, her traitorous body that begged to get closer to this angry man who dripped sex appeal, even in his fury.
"Tell me what he has to give you that I don't have! Tell me what you hunger for in that man. And after I've shown you every inch of what I have to give you, then you can tell me if you still think he has more than I."
"The smithy?" she asked incredulously.
He ignored her question completely. "I should have done this long ago. You are my wife. You will share my bed. You will bear my children. And most assuredly, by the time I'm done with you, you will never say that word again. I told you the Hawk's rules once. Now I'm reminding you for the last time. Smithy and Adam are two words that you will never say to me. If you do, I will punish you so innovatively and cruelly that you'll wish you'd never been born."