Some Enchanted Evening (18 page)

Shock rippled through her, "Sisters?"

"You said you had sisters."

"No, I didn't."
She didn't. She hadn't
.

"You said.
All of us girls
." He took his hand out of the water and dabbed it dry with a towel. "You're from Beaumontagne."

Fear lit a swift flame in her gut. "You don't know that!"

"I do now."

He had tricked her. He'd tricked her.

Now he knew the name of her country and he could sell her to the villains who wished her dead. He'd discovered another threat he could hold over her head.

She didn't hesitate when she jabbed the first hole in his skin.

He barely flinched. "So I'm right. The first day I saw you ... I wondered. The English don't know much about your little country, but when I was on the Peninsula, we soldiers noted that there was a look about women from Beaumontagne, a freshness about them."

She could scarcely speak for fear. "Due to my creams."

"And you, of course, are a princess of Beaumontagne." His tone mocked her. "With sisters who live . . . where?"

He didn't know about Amy. Clarice took a strong breath. Amy was safe. "My sisters are none of your concern."

She risked another glance at Hepburn. And this man wouldn't betray her. Not by accident anyway, and if she did as he told her, she hoped to come out relatively unscathed.

Of course, as far as she was concerned, he could travel the road to Hades and beyond. He was a rude, crude, beastly male who deserved nothing from her.

Yet he'd saved MacGee's life. Clarice knew he wouldn't get help if she didn't give it to him, so she would render him aid whether he wished it or not.

Stretching the edges of his skin together, she pulled them tight with the thread. As she tied off each stitch, she demanded, "How did you know I was from Beaumontagne?"

"You said Blaize was half Arabian and half Beaumontagne. Not very many people know there's a tiny country called Beaumontagne, much less that they breed horses there."

"How do
you
know about Beaumontagne? And the horses?" Her fingers trembled. "How do you
know
these things?"

Prudently he caught her hand and held it. "I went to war on the Peninsula. I traveled all over Spain and Portugal. I went into the Pyrenees and, among other places, I visited Andorra and I visited Beaumontagne."

She dug her fingernails into his flesh. "Then you know about the revolution."

A pang of homesickness struck at the heart of her. The newspapers report so little. "Tell me — is the country still in turmoil? Or is Queen Claudia firmly in control?"

"I don't know."

She wanted to shake him until he gave her information. "What do you mean, you don't know? You were
there"

"Riding in, riding out, in the dark of night." He eased his hand from hers. "Drinking in inns, listening for news of Napoleon's army."

She had waited for years to be called back to Beaumontagne. She had listened for tidbits of news. She had longed to go to the embassy in London and ask questions, but she didn't dare. Godfrey had said neither Clarice nor Amy was safe from assassins, and while she was willing to take a chance with her own life, she dared not expose Amy to imprisonment and possible death. Now disappointment tasted bitter on her tongue, and she lashed at Hepburn with the most ridiculous accusation she could imagine. "What were you, some kind of spy?"

"No."

No
. Of course not. English noblemen were not spies. They considered such secretive work beneath them. They would rather dress in fancy uniforms, ride fine horses, and slash helpless foot soldiers with their swords.

Then, in a flat tone Hepburn confessed,

"I was shoddier than a spy. I was lower than a spy. The conscripts in the army performed more respectable missions than I did."

She stared at him in astonishment. Heat rolled off him in waves. His tousled hair stood up in clumps. And while she didn't doubt him, she didn't understand. "You're a man of consequence. How is such a thing possible?"

He laughed, a dry, coughing laugh. "Someone had to do the dirty work, and I got very good at it."

"What kind of dirty work?"

"The kind that stains a man's soul." He indicated the half-stitched wound on his arm. "You should have been a surgeon in the army. I've never had such neat sewing done on me before."

"How many wounds have you had?"

"A few."

A few. Of course. When a man fought with the kind of disregard to pain Hepburn showed, he would be injured.

She resumed her work and reflected on him. How swiftly he put conclusions together. How cleverly he had first tried to seduce her into doing his will, then, when that didn't work, to blackmail her. Now he manipulated her into confessing her background. She wanted to stab the needle in him just for fun — except she suspected he wouldn't feel the pain. But she knew her duty — she had to treat his wounds. Her dedication wasn't personal. She would do as much for a dog who'd been hit by a wagon.

She finished the stitching. Opening one of her jars, she dabbed her prized salve on him.

He watched, his eyes shadowed by his lashes. "What's that?"

She didn't like the way he asked, as if he suspected her of poisoning him, and she snapped, "A healing unguent. It'll keep away the infection."

"Why don't you sell that in your demonstration?"

"It's impossible to get here." She finished and wrapped his arm in a long strip of cotton. "This is my last jar." With precious little left.

"You shouldn't be wasting it on me," he rumbled.

"But Grandmamma instructed us to place others' welfare before our own, and I can't discard her teachings — no matter how much I'd like to." And while it was true, Clarice would have liked to do no more for Hepburn than necessary, she couldn't bear to imagine him developing a fever and falling into unconsciousness. She shuddered to imagine this man who fought like a berserker, and lived on the thin edge of desperation, still and cold in death. And if that death occurred because she had failed to do all in her power to heal him. . . .

"Mustn't disobey Grandmamma," he jibed.

Ingrate. Cad
. His mockery incensed her.

Taking his other hand from the water, she examined the bruised knuckles. Pressing the joints one by one, she watched to see if he winced. But he remained blank-faced. So be it. If he'd broken a bone, he'd have to suffer. After smearing her salve on the scrapes, she wrapped the worst of the sores in soft white cotton. "There. I leave you to go to your bed."

"Not yet."

That deep, brooding tone cut no mustard with her, and she asked briskly, "Are you hurt somewhere I can't see? No? Then my work is done."

He extended his large hand to her. "Earlier today ... we made a deal. Your cooperation for Blaize. We never shook hands."

She stared at that hand, bloody and bandaged, steady as a rock, and belated caution curled in her gut. Did he never forget anything? Did he always insist that his partners, willing or not, seal their agreement with the ancient contract? Did he imagine she had some outdated sense of honor that would hold her to his demands as long as she shook his hand? "You hold Blaize in your stables. You already have my cooperation."

"Nevertheless, I'll have your hand on the deal."

Maybe that dark, brooding tone did work for her, for she fought the sudden rising of two different desires — one to flee, one to fight. She took deep breaths, still staring at the hand, then at him. He stared at his hand too, waiting, waiting. . . .

And, blast him, he was right. She did suffer with an outdated sense of honor. His blackmail would hold her only as long as he held Blaize. But the handshake would detain her until the charade was finished to his satisfaction.

To his satisfaction
. . .

Slowly she reached out her hand and put it in his. The shock of the contact ran up her arm, lifted the hair on her head, slithered down her spine.

His fingers curled around hers. For the first time since she'd begun her work, his gaze rose and met hers — and singed her with its heat.

She recognized this man. This was Hepburn without any of his masks. This was the warrior who had today fought for a dead woman and her wounded husband.

Now the battle still raged in him. And not only today's battle. The rage, the tumult of the war, still burned in his soul. Today's fight had stripped away the camouflage of tranquillity. He lived with pain, a pain that transformed itself into a fury of passion.

He wanted her.

Chapter Sixteen

Don't just aim high, reach oot and grab some happiness along the way.

— The Old Men of Freya Crags

Fear leaped in Clarice, the fear of a female who faces a strong, ruthless man. A man who people whispered was mad. A man whose eyes kindled and burned.

And with the fear came a rush of excitement. Hepburn wanted her beyond reason, beyond etiquette, beyond willpower. Her blood leaped to meet his desire. When he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close, her breath caught. Her breasts pressed against his chest, her loins against his loins. He stared down at her face, his lips slightly open, his white teeth gleaming, and all the long-forgotten fairy tales her nursemaid had told her about hungry wolves came back in a wild rush.

Her heart thundered. She pushed against his shoulders.

He was going to devour her.

His lips took hers in a savage kiss. His tongue thrust inside her mouth and tussled with hers, subduing her rebellion, wresting unwilling excitement from her.

He was mad. And the madness was contagious, for she ached with need. Her skin grew taut, her breasts tender. Her knees shook, and the place between her legs swelled with passion.

He took her breath as if it were his right and gave her his like a conqueror laying claim to a country — and she was that country.

Pleasure rushed through her veins, moving as swiftly as an obsession. She moaned into his mouth. He tore his lips from hers and kissed her cheeks, ran his teeth along her jaw, sucked at her neck and along her collarbone. It was as if he wanted to taste every inch of her, and every inch of her wanted him to seize the privilege.

He bent her over his arm, and in one smooth move slid her bodice down and freed one of her breasts from its confinement. Briefly she surfaced from this flood of ardor to realize that he was too knowledgeable, too experienced. He'd practiced his moves many times before, and that made her want to hit him.

Then he growled low in his throat, and she hoped no other woman had ever viewed that expression on his face. He was hungry. He was ravenous, and she stiffened with alarm.

He was going to hurt her.

But his mouth, when it wrapped around her nipple, was warm and soft as velvet. The friction of his textured tongue made her moan again, sharper, higher, and her fingers clutched in his hair. Gripping the dark strands, she held him in place as he sucked on her, and fireworks burst beneath her closed eyelids. She'd never felt like this in her life, never imagined a battle of sweet and violent emotion could rage in her veins.

Yet at the same time . . . she comprehended again why she shied away from Lord Hepburn. She had always suspected he could infect her with his madness — and she would be powerless to resist.

All these years ... all her discipline . . . washed away in a flood of foolishness.

Yet, as he worshipped her with his mouth, it felt right. For the first time since she'd arrived on Britain's shores, she felt at home.

When she was gasping for air, when the cruel world had vanished and only this man remained, he lifted his head.

The cool air against her damp nipple made it tighten unbearably. Dizzy and breathless, she sucked in air, looked up at him.

And he was smiling. Watching her, smiling, his teeth white in his swarthy face. His eyes . . . oh, God, they still had that crazed cast about them. Her hands trembled as she clutched at him, trying to balance herself on a wildly tilting earth.

Fruitless endeavor. His hands slid down to cup her bottom. He lifted her onto her toes, thrust his leg high between her legs. His thigh pressed against her feminine parts, pressed firmly, and he forced her to move, back and forth, back and forth.

Good sense pierced the heady fog of passion. "No!" She shoved at him as hard as she could, for if he didn't stop . . .

"No!" If he didn't stop, she would . . .

"No!" She didn't know what she would do, but she did know she would be out of control. That would be unacceptable. Embarrassing. Unbearable. "Stop!"

But he didn't listen. He didn't stop. He didn't even seem to hear her.

And the ache within her grew.

Her strength crumpled beneath the onslaught. Her knees sagged. The pressure intensified. Dark passion clawed at her, stripping away her pride, her very identity. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders, into the heated skin hidden beneath the thin layer of his shirt.