by Anne Stuart
The first feather-light caress was a revelation. Fingers skimmed across her back, gently, shaping her body beneath the thin lawn nightdress. She braced herself, waiting for the assault, waiting for him to rip her clothes from her, climb on top, and try to thrust himself into her unwilling body.
But nothing happened. Just his hands caressing her, patiently, slowly, almost delicately, moving up the center of her back, lifting her hair.
And then his mouth touched the nape of her neck, and a shiver of reaction ran through her entire body, one he must have felt. He’d never kissed her before. The cool, damp touch of his mouth against her vulnerable neck was another revelation, one she hated. She didn’t want to learn to like what he did to her. She didn’t want pleasure with the pain.
She was having no choice in the matter. There was no pain this night, no degradation. Even as she lay in the bed, her face thrust into the pillow, she couldn’t fight her reaction to the deftness of his hands as they slid beneath the nightdress, touching her skin. Even his hands felt different, larger, stronger, callused whereas they’d always been soft and almost feminine. She braced herself, waiting for him to climb on top of her, to hurt her, but he made no move to do so. He simply kept touching her, caressing her. Arousing her.
And then the pressure of his hands was undeniable. He tugged at her shoulders, and she turned, keeping her eyes tightly shut, unwilling to see the triumph in his small, pale eyes.
The touch of his lips against her eyelids was a benediction. He kissed each one, and her eyelashes fluttered against his mouth, helplessly. He kissed her temples, her cheekbones, her ear. And then, for the very first time, he kissed her mouth.
First just a gentle brush of his lips against her tightly compressed ones, a soft wooing that coaxed her into relaxing. Then came the first touch of his tongue, something she knew she should resist. Something she couldn’t resist.
She opened her mouth beneath the gentle, insistent pressure and let him kiss her, let his tongue touch hers as his hands pushed her hair back from her face, smoothing it.
He’d never kissed her before, yet she knew his mouth, his taste. In the candlelit darkness she opened her eyes, and the man leaning over her had dark hair, and silver eyes, and a wicked smile. “You knew it was me,” he whispered.
And she couldn’t deny it. Any more than she could deny her response to him. She lifted her arms, sliding them around his neck, and pulled him back down to her, on top of her, his large, strong body covering hers more completely than Mark-David’s ever could.
He lay in the cradle of her thighs, against the bunched-up nightdress. She shifted beneath him, restless, yearning for something, and when he touched her she cried out as a small, hot convulsion shook her.
The sound of her own voice woke her, shockingly. She was alone in the darkness, lying on her bed, covered with a light film of sweat. There was no one at the window; the door was still locked. It had been a dream. A wicked, treacherous dream.
She’d dressed swiftly, her hands still shaking with remembered response. In the end, even her own dreams had betrayed her. She needed to run, far and fast.
She had few regrets, she told herself as she stole down the pathway to the sea, her new clothes wrapped in a kerchief. She was sorry she wouldn’t have a chance to say good-bye to Dulcie and Hannigan. Dulcie had been one more in the line of women who wanted to mother her, wanted to feed her, and she’d appreciated every one of them. And there was something about Hannigan she trusted. She understood his priorities—the Romneys and their secrets came first. But her instincts told her that he’d have a care for her as well, and she longed to be able to let someone else watch over her.
She wouldn’t have a chance to see Valerian either. He made her laugh. He was the brother she’d never had, and the sister as well, she thought with a wry smile. She would never know what had made him embark on his masquerade, so much more difficult than her own. She could only hope he had more success than she had.
She wouldn’t miss Phelan. Not for a minute. Never did she want to feel his silver eyes drifting over her, watching her, measuring her, seeing past her defenses to the part she kept hidden from everyone. Never did she want to feel the touch of his hands on her body. The touch of his mouth against hers.
It had only been a cruel twist of fate that she’d dreamed it. Or perhaps not so cruel after all. Perhaps, long years in the future, there might be a man whose touch wouldn’t sicken her. Who might give her babies and tenderness, unlikely as that possibility seemed.
She intended to follow the shoreline away from Hampton Regis, heading west toward Plymouth. She could get lost in the bustle of a larger city, hide until she decided how she could best make her escape. She no longer had her earbobs as security, and she hadn’t dared search the house for anything of value. Phelan Romney knew her far too well to leave anything around that would aid her escape.
There was a thick mist just rising off the sea, and she paused for a moment, planning to strip off her shoes and walk barefoot through the surf, when she realized she wasn’t alone on the beach.
She held herself still, motionless, peering into the gathering light. She saw the pile of clothes on a rock near the incoming tide. And then she saw the man in the sea.
She’d never had any doubt as to who it would be. One man at Sutter’s Head loved the sea, one man would wake up at dawn and swim in it. Phelan Romney.
She should turn and creep back the way she had come, before he saw her standing on the deserted shore. She should run, fast and furious, away from him, away from Hampton Regis and Sutter’s Head and temptation that she couldn’t even begin to understand. Instead, she stood there, motionless, staring out at him.
He was incredibly graceful, diving through the white-foamed surf like a seal, sleek and powerful and elegant, at home in the sea as no human should be. Juliette found herself remembering the tales told by her old Scottish nanny, about magical creatures that were half of the sea, half of the land. Mermaids and Mermen, silkies and the like. On this mist-shrouded morning she could almost believe in such fairy tales.
And then she realized with utter horror that he was emerging from the sea. Walking straight out, coming toward her, seemingly unaware of her presence. For a moment she couldn’t move, staring at him in unabashed wonder.
He was wearing absolutely nothing at all. He was very different from her husband, very different from the children she’d seen playing naked in the native bazaars. He was beautiful, there was no other word for it, and she never thought she’d find a man’s body to be so. She stared, shocked and disturbed, until she realized she had no time to escape. All she could do was hide.
There was an outcropping of rocks and trees nearby. She dove behind them, curling up into a ball, holding her breath, praying to a heretofore-unsympathetic God that he hadn’t seen her.
She waited. The sound of the surf covered any other noise he might have made, and she could only hope he’d gone back to the house, leaving her time to escape. When the suspense became unbearable, she uncurled herself and lifted her head. Only to stare straight into Phelan Romney’s mesmerizing silver-gray eyes.
He’d put on his breeches, a small comfort, but his chest was bare and glistening with seawater, and his black hair sparkled in the early morning sunlight. He squatted down beside her, and it should have made him less threatening. Instead, she felt more vulnerable than ever.
“Running away, fair Juliette?” he asked in a deceptively lazy voice.
She wasn’t fooled. She also wasn’t prepared to lie, knowing full well it wouldn’t do her any good. If she ran now, he would catch her. She could only hope to reason with him. “It seemed the wisest course,” she said. “You know too much about me. I imagine you’ve already sent word to Lemur …”
“Now why should you imagine any such thing?”
“You stole my earrings. You traced me to Lemur. You must know there’s a reward for information about me.”
He shrugged, the gesture drawing her attentio
n to his shoulders. They were very nice shoulders, broad, well muscled without being overdeveloped. She wondered what his skin would feel like. Soft, like Mark-David’s? Or hard?
“There are a great many things of more interest than money,” he said.
“I wouldn’t be providing them.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, my girl. I’m not palpitating with uncontrollable lust for you.”
She flushed. “All right,” she said. “You don’t want my body, and you don’t want the money you could get by turning me over to Lemur. What do you want from me?”
He sat back on his heels, considering the question. She tried to keep her attention on his face, but his eyes were too disturbing. More disturbing than his body, even. She tried to stare at the sand around them, but she kept getting distracted.
He had a very flat stomach, lean and muscled. And he had hair on his body; she’d glimpsed it before. Dark hair swirled across his chest, trailing down his stomach. It was probably course and scratchy to the touch, she told herself. There was an old scar across his chest, white against the tan. A jagged one that must have come from a knife. She jerked her gaze away.
“What do I want from you?” he mused. “I’m not quite sure. Distraction, perhaps. Your secrets. Even your bad temper.”
“I thought you knew my secrets,” she said.
“How naive of you. Don’t assume anything. I know Mark-David Lemur is looking for you, and I know you’re his wife. Beyond that, it’s a mystery. And I’ve been bored recently.”
“I would have thought your own mystery would be entertaining enough.”
“The little cat still has claws, does she? One’s own mysteries are uninteresting if one fails to discover the answers. Whereas you’re a relatively simple matter. All I have to do is touch you, and you panic, and tell my anything I want to know.” His hand reached out and brushed the hair from her face, and she leapt back, startled.
“You said you didn’t want my body,” she reminded him, fighting the panic.
His cool smile failed to reassure her. “I never said any such thing. I said I wasn’t burdened by uncontrollable lust for you. I’m a man with a very great deal of self-control. Something you would have noticed if you were a little wiser in the ways of the world.”
“I’m experienced enough,” she said sharply.
No expression of sympathy marked his face. “I imagine you consider yourself to be. Marriage to a man like Lemur can’t have been a pleasant experience.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Why else would you have run off?” he countered.
“Perhaps he cheated on me. Set up a mistress? Ignored me?” she suggested.
“In that case, you wouldn’t be running away, obviously terrified by the touch of a man. You would have simply taken a lover yourself, to pay him back.”
“Is that what people do in English society?” she asked.
“It tends to simplify matters.”
“I don’t like it here,” she said flatly, no longer guarding her tongue. Indeed, there didn’t seem to be any point to it. Phelan Romney saw through her lies. “It’s a country full of trickery and deceit.”
“It’s your country.”
“Not anymore,” she said firmly. “I’m not sure where I belong, but it’s not here.”
He stared at her for a long, contemplative moment, and she wished she had even a tiny portion of his success at reading minds. “I imagine you’ll find your answers,” he said. “If you stop running away.”
She didn’t move. Her desire to run was stronger than ever, her desire to stay even more overwhelming. She’d told herself she was running from the reappearance of Mark-David Lemur. Told herself she was running back to Egypt, to the exotic lands where she’d felt at home.
But in truth, what had concerned her most was to run from this man who was kneeling too close to her. The man who was watching her with such an intent expression.
“Let me go,” she said suddenly, not bothering to disguise the plea in her voice. “Give me back my earrings and let me leave. You’ll never see me again, I promise. Sooner or later Mark-David would find me here, and you wouldn’t like that. He can be an extremely unpleasant man to cross.”
“So can I.”
“Please,” she begged.
“It would be the wisest thing to do,” he said in a contemplative voice. “After all, our own situation is complicated enough. It was quixotic in the extreme for me to bring you back, rescue you from Pinworth, but then, as I said, I was bored. If I had any sense at all, I’d do as you ask. Even advance you a bit of money to ensure you made a safe getaway from this island you hate so much.”
She could feel the treacherous hope rising within her heart. “Would you?” she asked in a hushed voice.
He put out his hands, cupping her face, threading his long fingers through her hair, and his eyes were gleaming. “I should,” he murmured. “Convince me.”
His mouth was cold and wet against hers, and tasted of the sea. She couldn’t withdraw—his hands were holding her face still—and she couldn’t, wouldn’t, struggle. She knelt in the sand, her fists clenched in her lap, and let him kiss her. She told herself she could withstand anything, if only he let her leave.
She was wrong. She could withstand brute force, she could withstand arrogance. She could not withstand the coaxing gentleness of his lips as they nudged hers apart, or the faintly shocking intrusion of his tongue in her mouth.
Mark-David had never kissed her like that. Mark-David had never kissed her at all, except for dutiful social pecks on the cheek when they had witnesses. And suddenly she wanted to be kissed, wanted to know what it was like. She wanted to kiss Phelan back.
Her tongue touched his, shyly. He groaned deep in his throat, and moved his body up against hers. His skin was cool in the morning air, still faintly damp from his swim, and the hair that swirled across his chest was soft, springy beneath Juliette’s long fingers as she slid her hands up against him, telling herself it was to push him away, knowing she couldn’t even fool herself.
He moved his head, and she expected him to pull back, but instead, he simply angled his head and kissed her again, his tongue thrusting gently, rhythmically, into her mouth, his hips pressed up against hers, his cool flesh turning warm beneath her clenching fingers. There was a soft, moaning sound, one of fear and incipient surrender, and she knew that sound came from her. And the thought terrified her.
She went rigid in panic, jerking herself out of his embrace before he could tighten it, scrambling back against the rock outcropping and staring at him. It was hard to breathe. He’d stolen her mind, her heart, the very breath from her body. She hunched back away from him and shivered.
He didn’t move after her. He simply knelt there in the sand, the breath coming deeply in his own chest as he watched her. She didn’t want to look at his chest, so her eyes cropped lower, to the hard ridge of flesh beneath the tight black breeches, and her panic increased.
“Change your mind, fair Juliette?” he murmured, not bothering to disguise the tension in his voice. “I thought you were well on your way to bargaining for your release.”
She met his ironic gaze. “What do you mean?”
His smile was mocking, unpleasant. “Simply that you strip off your boys’ clothes and earn your freedom, and an extra twenty bob besides. After all, it’s nothing that you haven’t given Lemur a dozen times over.”
She slapped him. Hard. Her hand crossed his face in a blow that shocked both of them with its force and unexpectedness. She stared at him, white with fear, waiting for him to use that tightly leashed strength to hit her back.
He didn’t. “It’s always possible,” he said in a casual voice, “that I deserved that. I would suggest, however, that you don’t try it again. My temper can be very uncertain.”
Juliette couldn’t move. Never in her life had she hit another creature in anger. She’d seen too much of the world’s cruelties to take out her frustrations on others, but no one
had ever aroused her fury as fully as this man. Her hand still hurt from the force of the blow.
“We’ll go back to the house now,” he said, rising to his feet, towering over her.
She glared up at him. “You never were going to let me go, were you?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Not yet, at least. I was merely interested in seeing what you were willing to barter for your freedom.”
“Would you have given it to me?”
“I can think of a great many things I would have been willing to give you,” he said, “but your freedom wasn’t among them. Stand up, Juliette. Unless you want me to carry you. I doubt you’d like that idea. I’m quite strong, but even such a light burden as you might prove to be too exhausting, and if we stopped to rest on the way back to the house …”
Juliette surged to her feet. “You’re worse than Lemur,” she snapped.
He was unmoved by the insult. “Am I? Since you have yet to inform me of the depths of his perfidy, I don’t know whether I’m insulted or not. Come along,” he said, starting up the winding path to the house.
She stared at his back, the graceful strength of him, and wished with all her might for a sharp knife to plunge into the tanned, strong flesh. She wondered if there was a chance in hell she could outrun him along the sand.
Not likely. She was a bit younger than he was, but his legs were longer, and he was barefoot, while she was encumbered by her ill-fitting shoes. He’d catch her, push her down on the sand, and her nightmare from the previous night would come true. If, indeed, she could truthfully call it a nightmare.
She tried one last appeal to his reason. “It would be far more prudent of you to send me away. Lemur will find me sooner or later, and he’s a dangerous man to cross.”
He turned to look at her. “I was never known for my prudence. I protect my own. As long as you’re here, I won’t allow him to hurt you.”
“I am not yours,” she said fiercely.
“Not yet, perhaps. But you will be.”
