Nobody's Angel (10 page)

"Stop this!" She hissed the command into the hollow of his shoulder, where her face had come to rest. "Do you hear me? Stop right now and we'll forget all about this! You'll not be punished, I give you my word."

If he even heard her, the combined threat and promise moved him not at all. He kissed her averted cheek, the corner of her eye, her temple. His body was poised over hers, still pushing her down into the mattress but with his weight shifted slightly to the side so that she could breathe. His imprisoning thigh, bare where her father's too small nightshirt had ridden up, rubbed up and down over her own. Susannah realized to her horror that she could feel the heat and texture of it so well because her own thighs were bare, too. Either the motion of his leg or the fall and her subsequent wriggling or some combination of the two had caused her nightdress to be pushed up almost to her waist.

The thought of screaming, which had been anathema to her only moments before—how shaming to be found in such a position by her family!—occurred to her again, but she was loath to do so. Besides the embarrassment of it, there was the very real danger to her sisters and her father when Connelly was confronted. With a sinking feeling, Susannah realized that all five Redmons together were no match for the man that she herself had brought down upon them. Unless her father thought to snatch up the fowling piece from where it was kept beside the kitchen door before he responded to her cries—which of course he would not do. Her father would never have such a practical thought as that.

If she did not find some way of stopping Connelly quickly, she would soon know more about carnal love than she had ever thought to learn. She would be raped and ruined, through no one's fault but her own. The thought galvanized her.

"Connelly, you must let me go! If you don't, they'll hang you for this!"

Her threat seemed to move him not at all. He kissed the corner of her mouth in a most loverlike fashion by way of reply. It occurred to Susannah then that, thanks to the effects of the laudanum that she herself had given him, perhaps he was not really awake at all, only roused to some semi-somnolent state by her presence in his bed. Perhaps he was in the midst of an erotic dream and was acting it out on her person!

"Connelly! Wake up!"

The only answer was his mouth sliding along her cheek to nibble the tip of her chin. Despairing, she bucked against him, trying to throw him off—she had about as much chance of that as a lamb trying to rid itself of a wolf who had it by the neck, she thought—and in response he shifted slightly. Susannah thought her resistance might finally be getting through to him—until she felt his knee slide between her thighs.

For an instant, no more, she registered the hard strength of the thigh that parted her legs, the roughness of the hairs on it abrading her delicate flesh, the heat of his skin, with a stab of excitement as shocking as anything he was doing to her. Fright and outrage and the strong moral sense that had been drummed into her from childhood banished the heated flicker almost at once. But there was no ridding herself of his encroaching knee. It was wedged between hers, and the whole length of his thigh descended behind it, working at opening her legs further. Her strength was no proof against his, and inexorably he got what he wanted. For a moment, as her legs were pried apart only to close desperately around the thigh that denied them as they sought to close again, she felt the solid strength of his limb pressing hard against the most secret place at the juncture of her thighs. The sensation was as startling and physical as the jar of being thrown from a horse.

His thigh pressed harder against her, and her mouth went dry.

Whether she was shamed at being discovered in such a fix or not, whether she endangered her family or not, this had to end. Susannah opened her mouth to scream. Before so much as a squeak could emerge, Connelly covered her lips with his own. Susannah gagged, nearly choking as he thrust his tongue deep into her mouth. His weight was on her again, his arms around her, his head bent to hers as he ruthlessly plundered her mouth. He tasted of chicken broth, and his mouth was hot and wet and greedy as he sucked at her lips and tongue, then nipped at what he captured with his teeth. His thigh moved up and down between hers, pressing against the place that, no matter how hard she fought to keep it from happening, was rapidly becoming the center of her consciousness. She squirmed to escape the shameful friction, but that only made matters worse. Gasping, she abruptly ceased her struggles as an undulating wave of white heat radiated down her legs and up her spine.

Was this how men enticed women into carnal love? She'd wondered, of course, about how it might feel, she who had never had so much as a beau. Though Sarah Jane would never think to discuss something so improper with the older sister that she very nearly regarded as a mother, Susannah had once overheard her hesitantly confiding in Mandy a fear of what might await her in her marital bed. If this was what carnal love was like, then there was nothing to fear at all but much to look forward to when it was done within the sacred bonds of matrimony.

But this was not her marital bed, and Connelly was not her husband. The pleasures that were snaking over her body were sinful, and she would not permit herself to feel them. She would not!

His mouth freed hers and slid along the side of her cheek to her neck. Her hands were suddenly free too, as he shifted again, lifting his hips even as he moved his hands down her body, learning the shape of her. His fingers found and closed over her breasts, cupping the soft globes, teasing the nipples through her thin cotton nightdress. Susannah gritted her teeth against the sudden terrible urge just to surrender that weakened her. Ever since Sarah Jane's betrothal, she'd been coming to terms with the idea that she would likely go to her grave a maid. The knowledge should not have bothered her—but it did. The future that her sisters took for granted—marriage, children, a husband to teach them about carnal love—was not for her. Her duty was to her father and sisters. By the time they no longer needed her, she would be too old to make a full life of her own. Plain or not, practical or not, she wanted to learn the lessons of loving just as other women did. Here was her chance; she had only to lie very still and let him. . . .

Then his other knee wedged in beside the first. Before Susannah knew what was happening, her legs were spread wide.

"No!" Sheer, instinctive panic triumphed over every other consideration, and she lashed out, hitting him as hard as she could in the temple with her balled fist.

"What the hell!" To her combined surprise and relief, he fell back with a yelp. Susannah suddenly found herself free. She scrambled for the edge of the bed, only to be brought up just short of her goal by his hand catching and twisting the flying ends of her hair.

"Let me go! Let me go, do you hear?"

"Damn it, woman, what did you hit me for?" He actually sounded aggrieved. She glared at the dark shape of him, which was all she could see through the gloom, and was surprised to find that she was shaking. She, who never trembled at anything.

"What did I hit you for!"

Maybe he truly had no idea. If her theory was right, perhaps he was only now coming properly awake, with no notion of the shameful nature of what had transpired between them. She prayed God that it was so. How humiliating, if he should recall how he had mauled her. He had touched her in places she had never even touched herself and bared her to the waist and—and . . . If he remembered, she would never be able to look him in the face again. He was silent, giving her no clue as to his thoughts, but through the darkness she could feel his eyes on her. All at once his hold on her hair tightened. Susannah was suddenly, sickly afraid. Perhaps he meant to drag her beneath him again and finish what he had started. Perhaps he'd been awake the whole time and was bent on rape. Fear and fury combined to make her shake so much her teeth would have rattled had she not clamped them together.

She sensed as much as saw him sit up and felt a tug on her scalp as he leaned away from her. He tugged harder, and she was forced to lie on her side as he reached for something on the opposite side of the bed without releasing her. She heard the fumble of metal against metal, smelled the sudden acrid scent of a spark being struck, and then the bedside candle was lit. She realized he must earlier have seen the candle and where she kept the flint and steel. As the flame struggled into fitful life, his grip on her hair eased, and Susannah was able to sit up again. She scooted as far away from him as his grip on her hair would permit. Unable to get away or do anything else, she turned with an awful sense of fatalism to look at him.

Connelly's eyes were moving over her, taking in everything from the riotous tumble of tawny curls that spilled over his fist to pool on the mattress beside where she sat to the twisted-to-the-point-of-indecency nightdress. They rested momentarily on the swell of her breasts pressing against the thin cotton and widened even as her arms clamped over her chest to hide her bosom from his view. Undeterred, his gaze slid along the rest of her. Her legs were bare to the tops of her thighs, and he missed not an inch of their slender length all the way down to her small toes. Quickly Susannah pulled her legs beneath her and adjusted her nightdress to cover them. She was blushing so furiously that her skin felt as if it were on fire, and she knew he must see.

When she dared glance up, Connelly was scowling at her as fiercely as if she had somehow wronged him. There was a red mark on his temple where she had clouted him. Her father's nightshirt strained across the daunting width of his shoulders and was twisted over his broad chest, and Susannah dared not look lower for fear of what she might see. His black hair was wildly tousled. His lips were clamped together, and his expression, coupled with his barbaric beard, made him look like a savage,

Just thinking of how her body had responded to the brute's touch made her want to cringe. She had to glance away. Was she really so desperate that any man would do?

"What the devil are you doing in bed with me?" It was an accusation if she had ever heard one. Her eyes snapped back to his face.

"What am I doing . . . ?" Her voice failed her. How was she to answer that? If he truly did not recall what he had done, then she had no wish to remind him of the embarrassing particulars. The shameful memory would be hers alone and thus not nearly so degrading. Though even if he had been wide awake, which was still quite possible, he could have no way of knowing how her body had quickened to his touch—could he? Of course he could not! The man was not telepathic, after all! Only she could know how fiercely her body had responded, and she would take her guilty secret to her grave.

"If you bought me thinking to use me as a stud, lady, you miscalculated. I bed whom I please, when I please. I don't perform on command."

"What?" Susannah's jaw dropped. As the shocking nature of the insult sank in, her fists clenched. The jumble of emotions that moments earlier had set her atremble now coalesced into one blinding burst of heat, and her temper soared to flashpoint so quickly that she felt as if the top of her head might explode.

"Why, you ungrateful, ignorant savage!" she hissed. "To think that I saved you from Hiram Greer! To think that I saved you from Georges Renard! To think that I was actually kind to you! You deserve to be whipped! You deserve to be hanged! You deserve to be cut up for hog slop with a dull knife! How dare you say such things to me! You—you churlish lout!"

As she paused for breath, his eyes ran over her again, and this time there was a flicker she could not quite decipher in the gray depths.

"I don't bed women out of gratitude."

Susannah's eyes flashed, and words so bad that she couldn't believe she knew them bubbled to her tongue. She bit them back, grabbing at the section of hair he held and yanking at it to free herself. Her efforts were futile. She only succeeded in hurting her scalp.

"Let me go! At once, do you hear?"

"Or . . . ?" He mocked her, his fingers twisting deeper into her hair.

"Or I'll sell you to Hiram Greer before sunset tomorrow! When I tell him what you—how you insulted me, he'll have you whipped to within an inch of your life!"

"And when I tell him—and everyone else who'll listen —just how you climbed into bed with me, and how hot you were to be ridden, you won't have a shred of reputation left. And don't think I won't shout the details to the world, because I will." His lips twisted into an evil smile as Susannah stared at him, aghast.

She had not climbed into his bed, of course. That was patently false, whether he believed it or not. But there was just enough truth in the rest of his accusation to make her quake inwardly. He could not know the longings his hands on her body had awakened—could he?

"I don't respond well to threats," he added as if by way of an explanation.

"Neither do I," she said through her teeth, and yanked at her hair again. This time, whether because his grip had loosened or because of the savageness of her jerk, she managed to tear her hair from his grasp. She leapt from the bed, putting several paces between it and her person for safety's sake. Her quilt was on the floor near the bed. She snatched it up, wrapped it around her shoulders, and felt marginally safer as she turned to face him.

Several long strands of her hair still clung to his hand, and as she watched he wrapped them around his fingers.

"A keepsake," he said, as if she had asked for an explanation, and leered at her.

Susannah's head threatened to explode again, but this time she managed to keep the lid on her temper.

"Just in case you seriously don't know how this—farce —began, let me set you straight. I was roused from my bed by a noise, and I came in here to check on you. When I touched you to ascertain whether or not you had a fever, you grabbed me and pulled me into bed with you. Then you—you . . . I had to fight to get free and finally had to resort to striking you to bring you to your senses."

There was the briefest of pauses. His eyes narrowed, as if he were mulling over her words.