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“What is this, my boy?”
Hawk turned a chagrined face to his father.
“What the devil is going on in there? Don’t tell me you were idiot enough to introduce your mistress to your wife?”
“They nearly killed me,” said Hawk, rubbing his hand over his belly.
The marquess gaped at him. “They?”
“Attacked by two furies. Brought to my knees. Made to grovel. Unmanned.”
“I think that about covers it,” said Frances, giggling in the open doorway, Amalie beside her.
“Oh my God,” said the marquess. “Excuse me, my boy, but I am not fool enough to get involved in this!”
“Coward!” Hawk shouted after his departing sire.
“Well, my lord,” Frances said, “Amalie and I are now ready to discuss matters. If you swear to keep your mouth shut, unless spoken to, we will allow you to join us.”
Brutality and then a tea party, Hawk thought in some disgust some minutes later when the three of them were seated in a most civilized manner, teacups in their laps.
Amalie said, “I couldn’t just leave for France, not knowing what that awful man would do.”
“You are very brave, Amalie,” Frances said. She tried desperately not to picture Hawk making love to this exquisite piece of womanhood.
Amalie merely shrugged. “All is well now,” she said. She beamed at Hawk and Frances. “As our magnificent French playwright Corneille said, ‘And the combat ceased for want of combatants.’ You are now satisfied with this man, my lady?”
Frances gave her husband a very drawing look. “I shall keep him in good form, Amalie, I promise.”
“A brute for a wife,” Hawk remarked.
“The logic of the hear
t is absurd,” Amalie said, and raised her teacup in a toast.
And good-bye to my bluestocking mistress, Hawk thought.
“Julie de Lespinasse said that, didn’t she?” Frances asked, her eyes sparkling.
“Yes,” Amalie said, bestowing another pleased smile on her.
“My governess, Adelaide, was much taken with her,” said Frances.
The rest of my life with a bluestocking wife, Hawk thought, and lowered his head, rumbling laughter erupting from his throat.
The two women looked at the Earl of Rothermere, then at each other. Amalie shook her head. “I wonder if the strain has been too much for him.”
“If it is strain he suffers,” said Frances, “it is most certainly a very lordly strain.”
EPILOGUE
A loose end is never tidy.
—EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY PROVERB
“Finally, my boy, finally! I knew you could do it if you truly set your mind to it!” The marquess beamed at his strutting son and vigorously shook his hand.
“What?” Frances protested loudly. “Your boy did little enough, my lord. I did everything!”
