An Unforgettable Rogue by Annette Blair Read Free Book Online Page A

heart. “Go back to bed, Lexy. You will take a chill. Did you bring nothing warmer for sleeping?”
    Lexy . No one else had ever called her that. Hawk’s tone had gone from gruff to teasing and she dared to regard him. “I understood,” she said. “That a bride wore less … rather than more, to sleep during the honey-month, though I have no first-hand knowledge, you understand.”
    “A pity, that,” he said, as if he meant it. “Did Chesterfield realize he was taking a virgin widow to wife?”
    Alex bristled and felt cornered once again, as if a misstatement now might carry a price she could not fathom. “We thought you dead for more than a year, Bryce. What makes you so certain that I remain untouched?”
    Hawk’s jaw set; the fire in his eyes leapt, and under her hand, the pulse at his wrist trebled. “Are you saying—” He shook his head. “I dreamed….” After a long moment of expectation, he nodded and said nothing more.
    Alex rose and went to open his portmanteau , regarding its contents, rather than her husband, as she answered. “I am saying, in all fairness to me, that what I did after you died is not your concern—especially given the length of time between the event and your return.” She extracted a fresh shirt and went to offer her hand. “Come, sleep in the bed. You cannot stay here. The covers are soaked.”
    “No, I am fine,” Hawk said, but he rose anyway, a measure of his nightmare-muddled senses, Alex thought, as he allowed her to lead him, much as he had led her earlier, into the bedroom. By her guess, the time must be going on two in the morning.
    With the only light in the bedchamber coming from a candle left to drown in its own wax, and a scuttle’s worth of glowing embers, she sat Bryce on the edge of the bed and went for his shirt studs.
    Stud by stud, Alex divested her husband of his damp shirt and replaced it with the dry one, though, neither of them sought to replace the studs.
    Somehow they communicated without words that he would retain his trousers, though Alex ascertained, with a sweep of her hand along one tensely-muscled thigh, that they were not as damp as his shirt had been. Then he allowed her to tuck him into the bed, and after she went around to climb in on the opposite side, he even accepted her warmth beside him.
    “Cold are you?” he asked, after a silence, more in derision than question. “I warned you.”
    “Umhmm.” Alex sought his hand, clenched tight at his side and cupped the hard fist, despite his resistance, taking a good deal of satisfaction in stroking his knuckles with her thumb.
    He sighed, then, either in relaxation or resignation, Alex could not be certain which, as she kissed his temple.
    “Be still and let a man sleep,” he said.
    Before long, Alex heard the soft rumble of his deepened breathing and she reveled in the beauty of the moment.
    Somewhere near dawn, during that sweet drifting time between sleep and wakefulness, Alex thought she felt a hand in her hair, someone’s breath upon her brow, a butterfly-soft kiss, but before she could ascertain whether it was a dream or not, her husband left the bed.
    Pleased to believe she had not been dreaming, Alex slipped back into the waiting arms of Morpheus.
    Hawk woke her hours later, close to noon, gruff and impersonal once more. They departed Stephens Hotel before breaking their fast, with his promise that they would stop soon.
    Alex surmised that his sullen, somber mood must have to do with his nightmare.

CHAPTER SIX

    After traveling for nearly an hour, in the throes of a need to drive himself beyond endurance, Hawk ordered a stop at the Old Welsh Harp Inn, along the Broadway in West Hendon. Alex needed to stretch her legs and refresh herself, and Myerson needed as badly to water the horses.
    Hawk realized that this was not a war game he was playing, that slogging on would not catch the enemy unaware. Neither would it drive them beyond the enemy’s reach, for in weak moments, Hawk very