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Pia walked beside Hawk in his impressive landscaped gardens.
Since arriving at Hawk’s family estate near Oxford two days ago, she and Hawk had gone fishing and riding on his estate, as promised. She’d also been busy working long distance and taking in the many, many rooms that comprised Silderly Park.
She’d tried not to be overwhelmed by the medieval manor house itself. On a previous trip to Britain, she had toured nearby Blenheim Palace, the Duke of Marlborough’s family seat. And she could say without a doubt that though Silderly Park didn’t carry the identifier in its name, it was no less a palace.
Pia glanced momentarily at the windowed stories of Silderly Park as she and Hawk strolled along and he pointed out various plantings to her. They were both dressed in jackets for the nippy but nevertheless unseasonably warm November weather.
Hawk’s principal residence had two wings, and its medieval core had been updated and added to over the centuries. The manor house boasted beautiful painted plaster ceilings, two rooms with magnificent oak paneling and a great hall that could seat 200 or 300 guests. The reception rooms displayed an impressive collection of eighteenth-and nineteenth-century artwork, from various artists, including Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Even though the income was no longer necessary to him, Hawk had kept Silderly Park open to the public, so that the formal reception rooms could be visited by tourists.
Still, Pia couldn’t help feeling as if she didn’t belong here. Unlike Belinda and Tamara, she hadn’t been born to wealth and social position. Maybe if she had, she would have recognized Hawk as more than a plain Mr. James Fielding on the first occasion she’d met him.
“The gardens were created in the late eighteenth century,” Hawk said, calling her back from her thoughts. “We use at least five or six different types of rose plantings in the section we’re in now.”
Pia clasped her hands together in front of her. “This would be a wonderful place to consult for roses to use in weddings. Every bride is looking for something different and unique.”
“If you’re interested, the gardener could tell you more,” Hawk said, sending her a sidelong look. “Or you could come back in the Spring.”
Pia felt a shiver of awareness chase down her spine. Was Hawk thinking their relationship would continue at least until Spring—well past Lucy’s wedding?
“Perhaps,” she forced herself to equivocate, careful not to look at him. “Spring is my busy season for weddings, as you can well imagine.”
“Of course, only if you can fit me into your schedule,” Hawk teased.
She chanced a glance at him. He looked every inch the lord of the manor in a tweed jacket and wool trousers.
“I’m becoming quite busy these days thanks to you, as you well know,” she returned lightly. “I received a call just before we left New York from another friend of yours seeking a wedding coordinator.”
Hawk smiled. “I’m hurrying them all to the altar for your sake.”
“I’m surprised that you didn’t spring for the ring and stage the proposal in this case.”
“If I could have, I would have,” he said with mock solemnity, “but my expertise lies in locating wedding veils and saving flower bouquets from canine bridal attendants.”
Pia laughed, even as she silently acknowledged all of Hawk’s help.
With the exception of Tamara’s, the weddings that she’d coordinated this past summer had been ones that she’d been contracted for before the Marquess of Easterbridge had crashed Belinda’s ill-fated ceremony. Sinc
e then, new business had come to her thanks mainly to Hawk.
She had a lot to thank him for, including arranging and paying for both their first-class tickets on a commercial flight from New York to London—though she knew in reality that had nothing to do with Lucy’s wedding.
She and Hawk came to a stop near some elaborately shaped hedges, and he turned to face her.
He reached out and caressed the line of her jaw, a smile touching his lips.
Pia’s senses awakened at his touch, even as time slowed and space narrowed, and her brain turned sluggish.
“D-don’t tell me,” Pia said, her voice slightly breathless, “that romantic assignations in the gardens are de rigueur.”
“If only it wasn’t November,” he murmured, his eyes crinkling. “Fortunately, there’s a bed nearby.”
Pia heated as Hawk ducked his head and touched his lips to hers.
She knew the bed to which he was referring. She’d slept in it last night.
Hawk’s bedchamber at Silderly Park was in an enormous suite, bigger than her apartment in New York. The suite was fronted by a sitting room, and the bedroom itself boasted a large four-poster bed, red-and-white wallpaper, and gold leaf detail on the molded ceiling.
