Defiant Impostor

by Miriam Minger

  “How … how will you do that?” Susanna asked numbly. Her mind spun as she recalled the spartan interior of Dominick’s house, the worn furniture, his plain clothes, the meal which had been less than sumptuous … and even the many times during their brief courtship when he had disappeared into some planter’s game room to play cards …

  “You will see in time,” Adam replied tersely, his hands falling to her waist. “Actually, I believe I should thank you for your cunning deception. It was worth a fortune just to see Dominick’s face today when he realized he had lost the one thing that could have saved him from rotting in debtors’ prison … and to a man he once forced to lick the field dust from his shoes.”

  “Blackguard! You’re as despicable as he!” Susanna cried, his words shocking her out of her silence. “To think you would so callously use an innocent young woman to suit your own selfish ends! I’m almost glad Camille isn’t here to suffer at your hands.”

  “Leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, doesn’t it?” he mocked her. “It’s not pleasant to discover that you’re valued less as a human being than for what benefit you can bring to someone else. But let’s not talk of innocence,” he added scornfully, his fingers straying to the ribbon tie at her waist, “as if it’s something a former waiting-maid with your passion and beauty might still possess.”

  Chapter 19

  “What … what are you doing?” Susanna sputtered in panicked disbelief. She tried to twist away from him even as he tugged sharply on the tie and wrenched open the front of her gown, revealing her lace-trimmed stays and hoop-petticoat.

  “Surely you can see, my love,” Adam said, shoving from his mind the horrible memories he had aroused and, along with them, any regret over his brutal haste with her. Fueled by raw anger and overcome with desire, he could not stop himself. “I’m undressing you.”

  “No!”

  She pushed against him so suddenly that he almost lost his balance. Grabbing for the chair behind him, he released his hold on her. As he righted himself, cursing under his breath, she dashed to the table near the balcony doors where Prue and her maids had left their supper, and took refuge behind it.

  “And since you’ve seen fit to give me your list of dos and don’ts, I have one for you,” she blurted with furious indignation, clutching her gown together. “Don’t you ever call me ‘my love’ again! You don’t love me—”

  “You’re right, I don’t,” Adam lied, certain that he saw a flicker of pain cross her lovely features as he slowly advanced upon her, then shrugging off the idea as impossible. “But I’ve desired you since the first moment I saw you, and I believe you want me, too.”

  “You’re wrong!” she cried. “I detest you—”

  “You lie,” he said, facing her across the table now. He didn’t want to dwell on how deeply her words had pierced his heart. He only wanted to feel again the lush wonder of her body pressed against him. “You can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy the kisses we’ve shared, the times I’ve held you in my arms, or the night when you let me caress your beautiful body.”

  “I didn’t! I loathed every moment we spent alone together. I just let you think I liked everything you did to me. You’re an easy one to deceive, Adam Thornton.”

  He shook his head, his senses flooded with the warmed scent of her jasmine perfume. “Such things you cannot fake. I know when a woman’s desire is as strong as my own, and no woman I’ve ever held has a spirit as wanton as yours. Now stop playing the trembling virgin and take my hand. Remember, we’re husband and wife now. I have complete rights to your body, just as I have complete charge over your wealth.”

  Susanna jumped as a sharp crack of thunder rumbled outside, harbinger of an approaching storm that heightened the tension between them.

  She couldn’t believe this was happening despite how Adam hated her! He had just said so, proving to her at last that he had sought to mislead her as surely as she had misled him.

  She didn’t want to admit how deeply his words had hurt her, nor would she ever give him the satisfaction of knowing she had actually believed herself in love with him. To think she must spend the rest of her life with this cruel, heartless man! And did he truly think that because she had been a waiting-maid she was no longer a virgin? He must!

  “I—I’ve already given you what you wanted, Adam,” she stammered, the lustful way his eyes were raking over her filling her with dread. “Briarwood. The Cary fortune. You can have mistresses if you want, a dozen or more if that’s what it takes to satisfy you. I don’t care, but just leave me alone. You seem to have forgotten that half of this miserable charade depends upon me. I swear if you touch me I’ll go to the county constable and tell him the truth!”

  “And settle a noose around your lovely white neck when I counter your truth with mine? I don’t think so.” As he began to stalk her around the table, he threw off his coat, his waistcoat, and then began to work at the buttons on his sweat-dampened shirt until it hung open, his magnificent chest bared to her gaze. “Come to bed, wife.”

  “No,” Susanna whispered, tripping on the hem of her gown as she tried to maintain a distance between them. She quickly kicked off her shoes so they would not hinder her. “I’ll scream if you so much as touch me—”

  “Only in pleasure,” he countered, his darkening expression suggesting that he was growing more than a little impatient. “Only in pleasure.”

  With a suddenness that made her gasp, he shoved the table against the wall so that she could no longer circle it.

  “You have nowhere to run, Camille. The door is bolted. You couldn’t manage to open it before I caught you anyway, and I’ll throw aside any other chair or table you choose to hide behind. Is an hour or two of sensual delight worth the fuss you are making? It is inevitable that I will have you.”

  As Susanna’s gaze darted around the room, she realized with a terrible sinking feeling that there truly was no escape.

  “No, please, you don’t want to do this. I know you don’t want me …” She backed up, bumping into the wall with an awful start as he moved toward her, stripping off his shirt and casting it to the floor. Then he stood a mere inch or two from her, so broad and powerful that he blocked out all else behind him, white flashes of lightning reflecting in his eyes.

  Her nostrils flared at his musky male scent, arousing in her a heady excitement she could not suppress, and when he took her hand, she felt the strength of his mounting desire course through her fingers.

  “You know nothing,” he whispered huskily, his intense gaze holding hers. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted any woman.”

  As he braced a powerfully muscled arm against the wall, his chest barely brushing her breasts, she unwittingly lifted her face to his at the same moment that his warm lips captured hers. If she hadn’t been pushed to the wall, she would have collapsed, such was the jolt of passion his kiss ignited within her.

  He ravaged her mouth, plundering its soft depths with his tongue, and she answered him in kind, unable to help herself. Hearing his groans sent shivers of desire through her. In some distant part of her mind she was aware that he was swiftly undressing her, her gown sliding off her shoulders, her hoop-petticoat, untied from behind, tumbling with a crisp swoosh around her feet. Then she heard the ripping of fabric as he tore her linen drawers from her lower body.

  Startled, she opened her eyes at the same moment he grasped her bare bottom and lifted her to him, forcing her stocking-clad legs around his lean hips.

  “Adam?” she murmured in surprise against his mouth, but he deepened the kiss, and she forgot everything until she felt his hand slide between their bodies and his warm, insistent fingers circle and tease that sensitive, tingling place at the apex of her thighs.

  Gasping with pleasure, she began to tremble as he expertly plied her softness, her hips moving against him in an increasingly urgent rhythm over which she had no control. She wound her arms around his neck and held on to him for dear life, remembering the ecstasy she had felt beneath h
is touch the other night … and wondering with a ravenous hunger if she would feel such sweet rapture again.

  “I knew you wanted me,” Adam said thickly, kissing her throat as he pressed her to the wall. “You’re so hot, woman, so wet …”

  Unable to wait any longer to possess her, his body ablaze with need, he fumbled at the flap on his breeches and released his hard, engorged shaft into his hand. Guiding it to the moist, slick center of her, he cupped her firm buttocks with both hands and, capturing her lips again, he plunged himself deeply into her.

  Her sharp, muffled cry of pain was not the first thing that told him she was a virgin, for he knew it with swift self-disgust when he unexpectedly felt her maiden barrier give way. Yet he could not stop what he had begun. As her body closed around him like a tight, burning vise, he groaned in pleasure, lifting his mouth from hers to whisper, “Shhh, love, the hurt will pass. I promise.”

  Adam cursed himself when he saw tears glistening in her wide, stricken eyes, failing utterly to convince himself that he had had every right to believe she had lain with other men before him. Yet now that he knew she had been a virgin, his sudden elation nearly matched that of his burning desire.

  She was completely his! She had belonged to no other! With superhuman effort, he slowed his thrusts, determined to give her as much pleasure in this, her first time, as he felt in finally claiming her.

  “Does it still hurt?” he asked, kissing her damp cheeks as he slowly embedded himself in her wondrous warmth and then just as slowly withdrew.

  To Susanna’s amazement, the stinging pain had already receded and was soon blotted from her memory by the incredibly pleasurable sensation of his body moving deep inside hers. She felt full of him, possessed by him, and she could not deny she liked it.

  She liked all of it, his strength and the way he held her, his strong fingers gripping her bottom, and the amazing heat radiating from that point where they were joined. She reveled in the muscular hardness of his chest pressed against her breasts, which she wished were freed from her stays and the underlying linen chemise. She wanted to feel the sleekness of his skin rubbing against hers, and she locked her feet behind him to draw him still closer.

  “No, it doesn’t hurt,” she murmured, parting her moistened lips for his kiss. “It doesn’t hurt at all.”

  As his tongue delved into her mouth, their panting breaths merging, he rammed himself into her with new urgency, moving ever faster and faster while she clung to him, moaning raggedly from deep in her throat. She could hear thunder rolling outside, see brilliant lightning flashes piercing her closed eyelids, but it was nothing to the wild tempest inside her. She felt buffeted and storm-tossed, the whirling maelstrom of passion encompassing every charged fiber of her being.

  “Tell me … how it feels,” Adam demanded, his body beginning to shake against hers. “Tell me!”

  “Good, Adam … so wonderful. Please, hold me closer, hold me … oh, Adam!”

  She stiffened in his arms, holding her breath as her entire body was rocked by rapturous sensations more intense than she had ever known before. She barely heard him groan aloud for her own cries of ecstasy, but she felt him suddenly shudder from his head to his toes, the powerful throbbing of his body within her only adding to her delirious delight.

  “Oh, God … Susanna.”

  Her name was spoken before Adam realized it, and in that bright, blinding moment, he didn’t care. Throwing his head back, he exulted in the sheer force of his pulsating release. The sensation of spurting his hot seed into her tightening sheath was a thousand times more heady and tumultuous than what had led up to it.

  For long, long moments he just stood there, clutching her fiercely against him, the aftershocks from their pleasure still shaking them both. Only a curtain of cool rain slashing in upon them from the opened balcony doors helped him regain his presence of mind, and he opened his eyes to discover that the downpour had begun in earnest.

  “Oh, it’s cold!” she squealed in surprise as he withdrew himself from her rain-spattered body and set her feet gently on the floor. While she snatched up her dampened gown and whirled it around her shoulders to cover herself, he adjusted his breeches and then quickly shut the doors, wrestling with them against the fierce, gusting wind. Finally he drew the bolt firmly into place.

  Chuckling to himself, his mood lighter than it had been all day, Adam turned to find Susanna staring at him, a horrified look on her face. His laughter died in his throat, his intuition immediately telling him what must have upset her.

  “Adam … your back. What happened?”

  “Something else I had hoped never to have to tell you,” he replied evenly, although once again his tone dripped with bitterness. He didn’t readily explain, but instead went to the table and poured himself a brimming glass of wine, then promptly drank it down. Helping himself to another, all the while he kept his back to her as if he wanted her to get a really good look.

  She swallowed painfully, wondering at his words and unable to tear her eyes away. She was appalled by the severity of his disfigurement, thinking that the vicious lashings she had received at her father’s hands might have been inflicted with a feather compared to what must have been used against Adam.

  Starting just below his shoulders, his back was crisscrossed with ugly pink scars, raised ridges of healed flesh which gave her the strong impression he had been severely beaten countless times. And now that he was stripped to the waist, she could plainly see that while much of his chest matched the bronzed hue of his face, his sides and back were pale, as if he never completely removed his shirt while working out-of-doors because he didn’t want anyone to know what had happened to him.

  “Seen enough?” he queried grimly, raising his second glass of wine to his lips as he turned to face her. He took a long draught, then added, “You can touch it if you’d like. You won’t hurt me. I can’t feel a thing on my back, haven’t been able to for years. I think that’s what saved me after the hundredth beating.”

  Shocked, Susanna said softly, “Hundredth?”

  “Yes, I quit counting after that. I was only eighteen then, so if you figure I was at Raven’s Point for six more years …” He shrugged, his voice very low. “I suppose I’m lucky to have any skin left there at all.”

  “Did Dominick do this to you?” she asked, hoping that he would say no, that it was Dominick’s overseers who had flayed him so mercilessly. But she sensed his answer before he uttered it. This must have been what Adam had meant when he said James Cary hadn’t had to accept just his word for his horrible accusations. No doubt the planter had taken one look at Adam’s back and come to his own grim conclusions about Dominick Spencer.

  “What do you think?” was Adam’s only reply. Draining his glass, he set it upon the table and reached down to pull off his boots. “You’ll see when I take off my breeches that the damage goes much lower, and then there’s this …”

  She started when a triangular chunk of wood with rounded edges tumbled from his right boot.

  “I use that to help keep my balance,” Adam explained, rolling off his sock. “Fills the shoe.”

  He paused for a moment to glance at Susanna, his set expression impossible to read.

  “I’m not telling you any of this or showing you why I limp to drum up pity. I just think we should discuss this now so you won’t have any more unpleasant surprises.” His gaze moved meaningfully to the bed, then back to her, falling to the golden thatch of woman’s hair that peeked through the edges of her gown. “Then we’ve got other things to do.”

  Gathering the gown more tightly around her body, Susanna flushed hotly at his hint of how they would spend the rest of the evening. Yet her flustered thoughts quickly turned to horror when Adam revealed his foot.

  She felt a little sick. Only his deeply nicked big toe remained. The rest of his toes, along with a large, slanting portion of the flesh which should have been below them, had been hacked off.

  “Oh, Adam …”

 
“It’s not a pretty sight, I admit. I probably would have died if they hadn’t stopped the bleeding with a torch—”

  “Why?” she blurted, her hand flying to her mouth.

  “Why?”

  “I was foolish enough to run away not long after my mother drowned herself. Dominick’s dogs found me, then he and his men caught up. They executed my punishment right on the spot. I guess I was lucky, or else Dominick was in a charitable mood. He’s been known to chop off the whole foot.”

  With sickening clarity, Susanna envisioned the grisly scene. Her stomach pitching, she dashed to the chamber pot in a corner not far from the bed. As she hunched over it, her body wracked by dry heaves, she was grateful she hadn’t yet had anything to eat.

  “I’m sorry,” Adam said behind her. “I shouldn’t have shown you outright, but explained it first.”

  “No, I’m fine,” she murmured, straightening to lean shakily against the wall. As he closed the distance between them, carrying two full glasses of wine, she noticed that his limp was far more pronounced now that he didn’t have the support of his boot. She accepted the wine with trembling fingers and drank deeply, almost gulping.

  “Better?”

  She lowered the half-empty glass and wiped her mouth and chin, where some wine had dribbled. “Yes, I think so. I’m sorry, Adam … I didn’t mean to—”

  “No apologies. I understand.”

  They stood there for a long moment, staring silently into each other’s eyes, then he took her glass. After setting it on the bedside table next to his own, he drew her with him to the bed, where he gently pushed her loosely draped gown from her shoulders. Susanna didn’t protest when he turned her around slowly and, after sweeping her long hair over one shoulder, began to unlace her stays. She stood there numbly as she thought of the man she might have married.

  How could she have been so completely fooled by such a diabolical monster? She had always prided herself on her good judgment of character, but in this instance, she had been totally, frighteningly wrong. It was just as Adam had said. Beneath that smooth, devastating charm and those impeccable manners lurked a ruthless, cold-blooded killer.