Defiant Impostor (35 page)

"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.

She shuddered, recalling Dominick's strange statement
to her about Corliss on the night of her ball . . . something about slaves
knowing their place and that they must be treated with a firm hand. Dear God,
if she had married Dominick, she would have subjected all the innocent people
under her care to the horrors Adam had described, and herself to endless
unhappiness.

No doubt Dominick had had every intention of selling
Briarwood to pay his debts. What then of her sworn promise to Camille? In one
fell swoop she would have lost everything. No wonder Adam had claimed she would
have made the biggest mistake of her life!

She really should thank him, Susanna thought as her
stays fell from her body and Adam turned her to face him again. She should
thank him for saving her from such a man—

No, he had used her! she reminded herself, looking into
his striking brown eyes, which were so filled with desire. He had wanted her
only for his revenge, and now, obviously, to satisfy his lust. Damn him, he had
lied to her, saying he loved her just to sway her to his purpose!

Yet how could she blame him? a far stronger inner voice
asked as he lifted her thin chemise above her head and cast it to the floor.
She had hated her father for his cruel abuses, but his beatings had left no
permanent scars on her body. His abuse hadn't maimed her for life. She suffered
from nightmares, but she could always hope that in time, her bad dreams would
fade. Not so the marks that Adam bore. They would be a part of him forever.

She had harshly judged this man for seeking vengeance
against another who had not only brutally mistreated him but also been
responsible for the horrifying deaths of his parents. Wouldn't she have done
exactly the same thing if she had been in his place? She knew she would.

"Woman, you are so beautiful," Adam said
softly, gathering her close to kiss her bare shoulders, her throat.
"Perfection."

Susanna's eyes dimmed as he knelt in front of her to
kiss her breasts, and she tossed back her head so her tears would not spill
down upon him.

How much she wanted to tell him that she found him
equally beautiful, despite his ravaged flesh. That he was as whole and perfect
in her eyes as no other man had ever been to her.

But she kept silent, remembering with blistering pain
how he had said he didn't love her. He only desired her and wanted her to play
his docile, obedient wife. Nothing more.

Yet that couldn't be all there would ever be between
them! Susanna thought desperately as Adam rose and swept her into his arms,
then laid her on the bed.

Regardless of the countless lies and deceptions that
had brought them together, they were husband and wife now. They would be
sharing the rest of their lives. Was she willing to settle for this constant
warring and mistrust when there might be a slim chance that they could have
much more? She used to think that love wasn't important, that she could be
happy without it, but now she wanted Adam to love her!

As he moved away, Susanna watched, awestruck, as he
stripped off the last of his clothes, baring his hard, swollen arousal to her
gaze. She felt such a rush of excitement that it shook her with its intensity.

Desire was a start, wasn't it? It could lead to love.
Maybe after he attained his vengeance against Dominick, Adam might find it
within himself to forgive her for misleading him when she had mistakenly
believed it was the right thing to do. Maybe then there might be room in his
heart for something more than hate, anger, and all-consuming bitterness. She
could hope

"No tears, no pity," Adam whispered huskily,
lying down beside her and blanketing her with his warm, powerful body. He
kissed her eyelids, her damp cheeks, then found her mouth, his lips so
wondrously demanding that all thoughts fled save one. As she wrapped her arms
around him, her hands touching for the first time the roughened, raised scars
on his back, she returned his kiss with all the passion she possessed.

Yes, she could hope . . .

Chapter 20

"I believe that concludes our business, Mr.
Thornton," said Benjamin Carter matter-of-factly, closing the large ledger
in front of him. The stout Yorktown merchant leaned back in his chair and laced
his short, stubby fingers over his stomach. "Mr. Spencer's debts are paid
in full as far as this shipping firm is concerned."

"And you will relay a letter of our transaction to
your London office?" Adam queried, grimly satisfied that the moment of his
revenge had drawn that much closer.

"Yes, indeed. One of our ships is sailing this
afternoon and that letter will be upon it. My superior will be most delighted
with this sudden turn of events. We've been concerned about Mr. Spencer's
reluctance to offer any payment against the sums we've advanced him over the
years. You've done an overwhelmingly gracious thing in covering his
liabilities. Quite commendable." The older man cleared his throat, his
double chin jiggling above his frothy white jabot. "Might I ask what has
spurred such generosity?"

Adam rose from his chair, telling this merchant what he
had already informed a dozen or so others, none of whom were aware that he was
making the rounds to every tobacco-shipping firm with which Dominick had ever
conducted business.

"It has come to my attention that he is having
some monetary difficulty and since my recent marriage has given me substantial
means, I decided to make him a small gesture of assistance. It's the least I
could do after everything he did for me while I worked at Raven's Point."

"You're much too modest, young man. Five hundred
pounds is no small gesture—"