Gasping, Anna bobbed up and down like a cork in water behind the first chair’s twin, keeping its solidness between herself and the enraged man who snatched at her, hissing curses as she successfully eluded his grasp. Her eyes, which felt as if they were starting from her head with terror, never left his fury-contorted face. Her palms were sweating with fear, making the leather chair back slippery beneath them as she danced around the chair. Her heart was pounding so loudly that she could scarcely hear over it. Though she tried time and again to scream, her throat obstinately refused to emit anything louder than a squeak.
Shutting her mouth, Anna gave up all thought of summoning help. Her only hope of salvation lay in keeping herself out of the thug’s reach, and that feat, if it were to be even faintly possible, would require every ounce of concentration she possessed.
They were playing an almost ridiculous game of cat and mouse around the chair. Panting, her heart pounding, Anna feinted this way and that as he grabbed at her. Fleet of foot as she had always been, she dared not try a run to the door. He would almost certainly catch her if she abandoned the protection of the chair.
“Come here, damn you!”
To Anna’s horror, he ended the contest by picking up the chair and flinging it aside. Anna had neither the time nor the inclination to marvel at the strength thus revealed. The chair skittered across the floor, crashing into the desk and sending books and various other paraphernalia flying. Anna picked up her skirts and ran.
Instantly he was behind her. She felt rather than saw him, a dark, terrifying presence breathing fire down her neck as she darted toward the half-open door.
“Ah!” It was a sound of satisfaction. He grabbed for her. She twirled desperately to one side, hoping to dodge behind a small table, but his hand caught in the swirling folds of her nightdress and twisted so that she could not escape. The sound of ripping cloth was almost buried under the rasp of her terrified breathing as he reeled her, struggling, in.
“Please don’t hurt me!” She panted, wild-eyed, as she slewed around to bat futilely at the hands that dragged her toward him.
“Keep still, then,” he growled, yanking her against his wide chest, his arms clamping hers to her sides. “Do you hear me? Keep still!”
Anna was almost beyond listening. The sheer strength of him terrified her. The top of her head barely cleared his shoulder. He dwarfed her in every way. The material of his coat, into which her face was pressed, was abrasive against her skin. She felt as if she were being suffocated; her nose and mouth were crushed against his chest. The layers of his clothing acted like a pillow to impede the flow of air through her flaring nostrils and gasping mouth. The arms holding her against him were iron hard. They were clamped around her rib cage, further impeding her breathing. The heat his body gave off was overpowering; Anna’s head whirled, and for a moment she feared she might faint. His left hand rested dangerously close beneath her right breast. It occurred to her suddenly that murder was not all she had to fear. The specter of rape reared its ugly head and had the perverse effect of clearing her mind.
“Let me go!” The words were muffled by his coat, but the stiffening of her spine and her renewed struggles were unmistakable.
“Keep still, damn it!” This he muttered in a harsh tone in her ear as she kicked and writhed in his hold like a small trapped animal, to no avail. Her slippered feet made bruising contact with his shin. He didn’t even appear to notice. It was Anna who winced. His calves were as unyielding as tree trunks, and hurt her toes. Her elbows found his sides as she twisted and squirmed, and at last she had the satisfaction of hearing him grunt. Then he shifted his grip on her so that his fingers brushed the underside of her breast. With only the thin cloth of her nightdress separating her unconfined bosom from his touch, she could feel the shape and heat of his hand nestling under the soft mound.
The sensation was galvanizing. With every ounce of her strength, Anna fought to win free. She succeeded in executing a half-turn in his arms before he recovered enough to once again hold her fast. Cursing, he shifted his grip so that his hand covered her breast completely! She could feel it, hard and hot and unwelcome, burning into her flesh through her nightdress. Her nipple hardened against the crushing heat of his palm.
“Take your hand off me!” she cried, and when he made no move to obey, she went mad, fighting like a wild thing in her effort to escape his touch. He was very still suddenly, but his hold remained unbreakable. The hand that was not crushing her breast moved to cover her mouth, pressing so hard that it forced her lips apart; she could taste the salt of his skin.
“Be quiet!”
His hand tightened over her mouth, hurting her. Hit by a sudden inspiration, Anna clamped her teeth down over the fleshy part of his hand with a viciousness of which she would never have thought herself capable.
“Arghh!”
Yelping, he dropped her, shaking his hand. Anna scrambled away. She got a fleeting look at his face as she flew toward the door. If ever murder was written on a man’s countenance it was written at that moment on his.
Then he was after her, his gypsy-dark face made even darker by furious blood.
Panting, terror-stricken, Anna burst through the door into the hall. It was as dark as a cave, the only light coming from the flickering of a candle set high into a sconce at the far end. The family bedrooms were on the floor above; she had only to gain the end of the hall, leap up the stairs, and help would be at hand. At this point even Graham was preferable to the madman behind her.
It was cold in the hall, too, and in her slippers and nightdress that fact ordinarily would have struck Anna at once. But she was too terrified even to register the cold. He was coming after her.… She ran, only to hear him running as light and fast as a panther behind her. The race was hopeless, she knew from the start. When his hand tangled in her flowing hair and he stopped her with a yank that brought agonized tears to her eyes, it was almost, in a strange, terrifying way, a relief.
As he dragged her backwards she recovered the full use of her vocal cords at last and let loose with a shrill cry. Immediately his hand clamped over her mouth, cutting the scream off practically at birth. Her heart pounded. Would it be enough?
“You—little—bitch.” He sounded grimly furious as, hand still clamped over her mouth, he swung her off her feet and into his arms. “I ought to throttle you for that. Damn it to bloody hell and back. Now what am I to do with you?”
Crushed against his chest, feet dangling uselessly high above the floor, Anna realized that the answer to that was, anything he wanted. Her eyes were huge with fright above that stifling hand as they met his. The scowl he bent on her was terrifying. Those glittering black eyes held out no hope of mercy. For a moment Anna was in imminent fear for her life. Her limbs trembled like a blancmange. Then his eyes raked over her as she lay, small and helpless, in his arms. Miraculously some of the black rage seemed to drain from his face. When he met her wide-eyed gaze once more, he was, she realized thankfully, more resigned than angry.
“Are you always this much trouble, Green Eyes?” he murmured. “Christ, what a coil! Well, never mind. You’ll just have to come with me, I suppose. At least you’re not the child I first thought you. We might even have some fun.”
Then he was striding along the hall toward the stairs that Anna had striven for so frantically, smiling down at her as he went. It was an evil smile, full of mockery and foul intentions. Dear Lord, she was helpless as a babe in the face of his strength.
Where she would have gone up, he descended, seeming to know just what turns to take to reach the front hall. It was a vast room, freshly bedecked with Christmas garlands in honor of the coming festivities, freezing now that the fires were banked for the night and snow lay thick upon the ground outside. Arched passages opened from it in four different directions. Clearly, to have reached this chamber from the library without once taking a wrong turn, he had at some time had occasion to become acquainted with the house.
Who was he? Anna wondered again, her eyes searching that dark face. There was nothing about him that seemed remotely familiar, yet he knew the house. Was he a servant who’d been turned off? Or …
Her brain emptied of every rational thought as he stopped walking to stand frowning thoughtfully down at her.
“Make one more sound and I’ll knock you unconscious, I swear,” he told her. From the grimness of his tone, Anna took him at his word.
She was obediently silent as he set her on her feet before him. She could feel the iciness of the flagstone floor through the thin soles of her slippers. The room’s stone walls added to the chill, and Anna shivered. With her shawl long gone and her night rail torn so that it bared one milky shoulder almost to the point of indecency, she was next door to naked. His eyes moved over her, lingering briefly on her breasts. An expression that she feared to decipher flickered in his eyes. Anna shrank back, only to be caught and held by one hard hand on her arm.
“Please …” she said, her voice quavering, scarcely above a whisper, only to be silenced by a single hard look.
“Hold, now,” he said, his tone a warning, and before she knew what he was about he had untied the strings of his cloak and swung it from his shoulders to wrap around hers. She blinked at him, startled, as he pulled the velvet-collared wool that was still warm from his body close around her, then released his grip on her arm to tie the strings into a neat bow beneath her chin. The garment was large enough to wrap around twice, and its hem dragged on the floor by a good foot if not more, but the kindness of the gesture surprised her. Perhaps, then, he was not an entirely cruel man.… The thought gave her the courage to try once more.
“If you’ll let me go, I won’t tell anyone I saw you, I swear.”
“Now that I can’t do, Green Eyes. But at least I’ll not let you freeze. ’Tis cold out,” he said, then caught hold of her again. Anna expected to be swung off her feet once more, but instead his eyes seemed caught by something above them.
“ ’Tis too good a chance to miss,” he murmured almost as if in explanation. Even as Anna, uncomprehending, followed the path his eyes had taken to discover high overhead the candle-bedecked kissing ball already hung by the servants as part of the preparations for Christmas, his head was bending to hers.
Anna gasped as his mouth found her lips.
IV
H
is lips were scorching hot, faintly moist, hard. Anna stiffened, her spine going suddenly ramrod straight as they moved softly over her mouth. Her hands came up to push against his shoulders in instinctive, outraged denial, but she might just as well have pushed against one of the stone walls of Gordon Hall for all the effect it had on him.
“Shh, sweetheart. This won’t hurt a bit, I swear,” he murmured against her lips. Then he was pulling her to him, his hands sliding beneath the cloak to her back to mold the slight curves of her body to his. Anna gasped as one large hand slid up the length of her spine to cradle the back of her skull, imprisoning her head in the position he wished. To her horror his tongue took advantage of the moment to slide inside her mouth.
She tried to protest, but the only sound to emerge was a muffled squawk. She tried to pull away, but he held her in a grip of iron. She tried not to notice the turgid swelling that spoke of the swift rising of his desire pressing against her soft belly, or the rock solidness of the muscular chest against which she ineffectually shoved, or the taste of his mouth, which was some indefinable combination of brandy and cigars and man.
She tried not to feel the warming of her own blood as he took the kiss he wanted with bold impudence, laying claim to her mouth as no one, not even her husband, had ever done.
Paul had kissed her many times, but never had he stroked her tongue with his, drawn it into his mouth, sucked on it. Never had he ravished her lips with seductive little nibbles, rubbing his lips against hers until the sheer friction was enough to make her dizzy. Never had he claimed her mouth with such easy confidence, making her want more, making her want
him.
When he drew his mouth away to stare down at her for a hot, breathless moment, surprise and puzzlement widening his eyes, Anna was so disoriented that she barely knew where she was. Her hands clung to his shoulders for balance, and she no longer struggled to escape. It was almost as if she were drugged.
“Sweetheart, don’t you ever kiss back?” he murmured, his mouth twisting into a crooked half-smile that was almost as dazzling as his kiss. Anna, mesmerized, could not reply. She could only watch with huge, dazed eyes as his smile broadened, and then his head descended once more.
Her last thought, before he took her beyond the realm of consciousness again, was that his eyes were not black at all; they were a deep, velvety blue, as nearly black as a midnight sky.
Then he was kissing her again.
He drew her up on tiptoe, tilting her so that she had no choice but to cling to him, her nails digging into the hard strength of his shoulders, her head resting against the steely bulge of his upper arm. Her eyes closed, her mouth opened without the least thought of resistance as he slanted his lips over hers, his tongue seeking instant entrance. Her body quaked, quivered, as he plundered her mouth with leisurely mastery. She was no innocent miss, not after having been married and having borne a child, but never, ever had she felt anything like this.
Paul’s kisses had been comfortable, affectionate, because of course he had respected as well as loved her.
He would never had dreamed of using her, like a common wench, a hussy.
He would never have dreamed that the vicar’s gently bred daughter could respond so wantonly to such vulgar ill-usage. Anna would never have believed it herself.
What was wrong with her? Even as his hand slid down her spine to cup and caress her small bottom through the thin gown, Anna began to panic. Her bones were melting, her heart was pounding, her insides were about as solid as quince jelly. And all because this man—this criminal—had dared to force her to accept his kisses, his hands on her person.