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stiffened. He jerked his gaze to her face and clenched his jaw while he waited for her decision. “Well?” he demanded, not bothering to hide his irritation.
    Their eyes met and held in a silent duel, but finally she gave him a grudging nod. “I’ll take a footman.”
    Lucien let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Despite her compliance, he sensed she wanted to tell him to go to the devil. His mouth twisted. Hell, she was too late. He was already there.
    “Come.” He gestured for her to precede him down the path and made a clicking sound to urge Oberon to walk on behind him.
    They picked their way down the debris-strewn path, an uneasy silence between them. Lucien’s thoughts drifted to Francesca.
    His search for Hawk was taking longer than he’d envisaged. Each whisper from the village of St. Clare made hope surge, but the man was proving wily and managed to slip through his fingers. The man remained one step ahead all the time. Lucien let out a frustrated sigh.
    Without warning, the woman stopped in the middle of the track and turned to face him. “Why don’t you like me? What have I done to deserve such dislike? You didn’t even come to my room last night.”
    Lucien felt his mouth drop. He picked it up so rapidly his teeth clicked together. He was her husband. How dare she question him? Only one other woman had ever pushed him this way…
    He reined in his temper and waited for the tight sensation in his chest to dissipate.
    “I know you don’t like me. You can hardly deny it.”
    Lucien snorted. If she thought marriages took place for anything other than necessity, she was a fool. “Like” was not an essential ingredient where marriage was concerned. The woman glared at him again. And the way her hands fisted, he was sure her fingernails were digging painfully into her flesh.
    “You didn’t let me finish,” she snapped, her eyes turning the same deep, unfathomable blue they had earlier. “Can’t we try to be friends?”
    A cynical laugh escaped before Lucien could censor his reaction.
    He had loved before.
    And lost.
    But that didn’t mean he owed his new wife an explanation. “As you wish.” He offered a curt bow. As much as he desired her gone, he couldn’t avoid the woman. It would be best for everyone if they at least appeared civil during their interactions.
    “It can’t be that dangerous down in the cove,” the woman said without warning. “Someone else is down there.”
    Lucien jolted to full attention. He scanned the seashore to no avail. “Where?”
    “To the right of the big boulder, the one jutting out into the sea.”
    He caught a blur of movement before the figure disappeared from sight. Odd. The villagers didn’t usually visit this cove. Lucien presumed it was because of the smugglers, but the lack of visitors could be rooted in superstition. Charles had spoken of a shipwreck not far from the castle during the last century. He’d mentioned tales of ghouls guarding a mystery treasure. Lucien scoffed at the romantic notion. It was more likely a story put about by smugglers to ensure privacy. This made the man’s presence suspicious, and he needed to question him for a possible lead in his investigation.
    The information he’d turned up on Hawk was pitifully sparse. One of the whispers that particularly interested him connected the mysterious Hawk with the smugglers. Lucien had questioned a young shepherd, and the boy had blurted out that the smugglers had a new leader, a mystery man who wore a mask and spoke with the voice of the devil.
    Charles had also mentioned an old hermit who lived in a cave farther down the coast. The man’s only living son had died in a confrontation with excise men and he’d retreated to suffer his grief alone. Lucien intended to question him about the mystery man who’d taken over the smuggler gang. Someone must know where the new leader had come from and his real identity. Gossip was inevitable in a village of this size. The