“Is Mr. Quick’s sister here with him?” Rath asked.
Hawk let Rath’s question hang between them unanswered. He heard chatter from the other tables, billiard balls smacking together in the other room, and the rasp ofdrinks hitting wood. Rath had always been too damned perceptive. “Yes,” Hawk finally said.
“She’s on your mind.” Rath’s dark-brown gaze stayed on Hawk’s. “Not the contracts.”
Knowing he had few secrets from his friends, and knowing they would keep picking at him until they were sure they had the right answers, he took another sip of his brandy and said, “She turned me down when I asked her to marry me.”
“The devil she did!” Rath’s chair legs hit the floor with a thud. “No wonder your mind’s not on the cards.”
“Did she really tell you no?” Griffin asked.
“What I want to know is did you really ask her to marry you?”
“Yes,” Hawk said emphatically.
“What did you do to her?”
Hawk frowned at Griffin’s last question. “What do you mean?”
Griffin pushed the deck aside and leaned forward. “Did you do something to her brother she didn’t like? Did you pursue her too heavily? Remember, she contemplated going into a convent rather than marry Denningcourt.”
Hawk blew out an exasperated sigh. “She never wanted to enter a convent. That was just a rumor. I might as well tell you as I will find no peace from you until I do. When she refused to marry Lord Denningcourt, her uncle forced her to take a vow never to marry. She plans to honor that vow, and I haven’t been able to persuade her differently.”
Both Rath and Griffin looked at him as if he’d lost all his senses. And maybe he had. If he couldn’t understand Loretta’s reasoning for holding fast to her oath, he certainly couldn’t explain it to them.
“If she won’t cooperate, perhaps you could abduct her in the middle of the night and rush off to Scotland withher. Swear to her you won’t bring her back to civilization until she marries you.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it,” Hawk mumbled. “She’s stubborn. It wouldn’t work.”
“You could compromise her?” Rath offered.
Hawk grimaced. “That is not an option either.”
“I didn’t think it was,” Rath said seriously.
“What’s this about anyway?” Griffin asked, leaning back in his chair. “It’s not uncommon for people to break vows. It’s done all the time.”
Rath placed his hands on the table in front of him in a frustrated gesture. “Every morning that I wake with a pounding head I vow I’ll never dip that far into the brandy bottle again.” He picked up his glass. “But I always do.”
“So do I and everyone else I know, but not Loretta. She took her vow seriously and refuses to let go of it.”
“Don’t take offense, my friend,” Griffin said, “but maybe she doesn’t fancy you and this is—”
“No,” Hawk said, a little rougher than he intended. “I know it’s not that.”
Both Rath and Griffin were silent for a few moments. Griffin let his thumb flutter the cards again before saying, “So you’re telling us she takes this as seriously as one would wedding vows, or a priest or monk who takes his vows of celibacy in the church?”
“Yes,” Hawk answered, thinking again that she’d always noted that she swore her oath in the church. Then a prickle of an idea struck him. He thought on it deeper. Suddenly it was clear to him what needed to be done. “Thank you, my friends.” He laughed, reached over and clapped each of them on their shoulders.
They looked at him, baffled by his sudden good humor.
Hawk raked his coins from the table into the palm of his hand and then dropped them into his pocket. “I shouldhave talked to the two of you long ago. I now know exactly what I need to do.”
It was obviously too late in the evening now to pay a call at the earl’s house but tomorrow would find him there.
Chapter 24
A gentleman should always know when a lady desires his attentions.
