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  “Thank you, Robbie,” she called over the slam of the door. She moved to the window in order to watch him ride away. The snow was falling thickly now, coming down in a slanted veil. Horse and rider dove back into the white-dappled trees, vanishing from sight.

  Outside, the whistling wind released a howl. Marguerite tried not to shiver at the prospect of spending the night alone in a strange cottage. She was quite accustomed to spending her nights alone in one room or another. How should this time matter?

  Rubbing her arms, she moved to the fire and added several more logs for good measure. Standing, she eyed the bed. It looked comfortable with its thick, colorful afghan and several plump pillows.

  Removing the extra quilt folded at the foot of the bed, she wrapped it around herself and sank down onto the plush armchair before the fire. Staring into the rising flames, she twisted around until she found a comfortable position, settling in to wait … and trying not to think about Ash and his reaction when he learned she had eluded him twice now.

  He wouldn’t find her this time. It would be as though she had disappeared, not a trace of her life left. Nothing but the echo of her broken promise to marry him. Nothing of her left at all.

  Nothing of her left at all.

  She shivered and regretted that precise thought. That’s what this was all about after all. Making certain she remained, that she continued to exist. Even if it was to secure a passionless existence for herself.

  With a grimace, she bent down and unlaced her boots, kicking her feet free to bring her knees to her chest. Wrapping the blanket around her, she hugged herself close and sank even deeper into the overstuffed chair, silently congratulating herself.

  If she hadn’t acted when she had, she’d be married by now. Ash Courtland’s wife. A man cut from the same cloth as her father. Someone who grew up in the stews and earned a living exploiting the weaknesses of others. Even if Ash did bring her body to life with a single touch, a single dark-eyed look, she should feel nothing but triumph, relief …

  And yet for some reason, she felt only a deep, numbing cold.

  Chapter 14

  MMarguerite woke with a sense of bewilderment, chilled and huddled uncomfortably, a quilt clutched to her chin. Disoriented, she shook her head, blinking the sleep from her eyes. She moved carefully, testing her stiff and aching muscles, regretting falling asleep in a chair.

  For a moment, glancing around, she wondered how her rooms at Mrs. Dobbs’s had changed so greatly. Then she remembered.

  The howling wind outside brought it all back. With a moan, she dragged a hand over her face, wincing at the rawness of her chapped cheeks. Dropping her head back in the chair, she sighed heartily, her gaze settling on the window.

  Dusk had come and gone. It must have stopped snowing. An inky black pressed on the panes of glass and made her feel adrift, as if she floated lost in a night sea. She glanced around the hunting lodge, staring at the walls with their strange, clawing shadows. The fire burned low, casting a dim red glow that seemed demonic. What had looked quaint before now struck her as ominous.

  Squeezing the quilt even tighter about her, she rose to add more wood to the fire. That done, she poked it several times until sparks danced.

  A horse’s whinny broke over the keening wind. She stilled, straining her ears for any other sound. The jingle of a harness soon followed. She set the poker back in place and turned, her heart light.

  Robbie had managed to get away, after all. She didn’t care for the impropriety of it, she was simply glad he would save her from a night alone in this eerily still place that sent her imagination darkly awhirl.

  She moved eagerly for the door, jerking to a stop as it burst open.

  She cringed within the embrace of her quilt, a single hand lifting to her mouth—as though a scream might burst forth. Of course, it didn’t. Only a breathy croak escaped as she stared at the man looming in the threshold.

  Ash stood there, more furious than she’d ever seen him. The small scar beneath his eye stood out starkly, a jagged white crescent on his swarthy skin.

  “Surprised?” he growled, nostrils flaring. His dark gold hair gleamed wet with snow, tousled wildly about his head.

  She edged back several steps, shaking her head, gaping like a fish.

  Beneath her astonishment and fear, another emotion lurked, humming just beneath her skin at the sight of the man she never thought to see again.

  Ash moved into the room like an invading storm. Behind him, Robbie hovered, his eyes bright and fearful.

  “Robbie …” she began.

  “He can’t help you.” Ash flicked the boy an angry glance. “Not if he knows what’s good for him.”

  “Apologies,” Robbie called, shaking his head. “Cook saw me leave with you. I tried—”

  “You may go now, boy.” Ash did not even look at him as he said this, instead fixing his frigid gaze on her.

  Robbie hovered uncertainly, looking back and forth between Ash’s imposing figure and Marguerite.

  She searched the boy’s gaze, desperate to reach him, evoke the sense of protection she had stirred in him earlier. This was her last chance. She knew it with a deep conviction as she gazed at the intractable set of Ash’s jaw. She would not escape again. He would not let it happen. Nor could she rouse the will to resist him yet again.

  Ash continued, clearly sensing Robbie still behind him, “Or you can stay and I can knock your teeth in.” Robbie’s face blanched. “You’re in over your head. She’s safe with me, whether she realizes it or not. She’ll not come to harm.”

  Harm? Marguerite didn’t know whether to laugh or weep. She shook her head fiercely at Robbie, trying to convey that she was anything but safe in the company of Ash Courtland. Without knowing it, the man was the bringer of death.

  Robbie gave a single nod. His gaze connected with hers again, regretful, apologetic, but nonetheless defeated. Without another word, he turned and disappeared, swallowed up by the dark night. Ash shut the door, facing her grimly.

  She edged back another step, putting herself behind the oversized chair where she had stolen a nap. Cold acceptance slipped over her, firming her jaw. Marrying him might be inevitable, but not the rest. Not dying. She hadn’t given up on life simply because he’d won this night.

  He advanced and stopped, the chair a much needed buffer between them. He began shedding his jacket, his vest, dropping them one by one into the chair.

  Her pulse spiked with the fall of each discarded item. “What are you doing?”

  “What I should have done last night.”

  She moistened her lips, inclined not to ask for an explanation. Swallowing her fear, she braved the question anyway. “And what is that?”

  Whipping his cravat free, his lip curled back from his teeth wickedly, revealing a flash of white. “You don’t know? Come, you’re a clever girl, even if you can’t seem to make up your mind about whether or not you wish to marry me.”

  “It’s complicated,” she hedged.

  “You continue to get the best of me,” he said as if she hadn’t spoken. “A matter most annoying … especially when you risk your neck in the process.”

  “I was never in any danger,” she quickly denied.

  “No?” He thumbed behind. “And what if that boy had gotten it into his head to collect a little recompense for assisting you?”

  “Robbie wouldn’t—”

  “You permitted him to take you to this isolated lodge where he could have committed all manner of depravity on your person.” His faced burned an angry red now, his dark eyes frightening. “Things you have no sense of, but I do. I’ve seen women after such miseries …” His gaze raked her. “You’re small, Marguerite. You would have had no hope of fighting him off.”

  She squared her shoulders in an attempt to look taller. “I don’t see the point in discussing what could have happened when nothing untoward did.”

  “I see the point in discussing why you continually expose yourself to danger.” Ash grabbed
her wrist and hauled her around the chair, angled his face so close she could study the glinting black of his eyes, see that there was almost no difference between the dark of his pupils and irises. “Have you no thought to your person? No care for your life?”

  His words hit her hard, struck deeply to a raw wound. “Yes,” she hissed, thrusting out her chin.

  “I do! Which is why I seek to avoid marrying you.”

  He pulled back, still keeping a hold on her wrist. “You think me a danger?”

  “Marriage to you will most decidedly place me at peril.” She nodded fiercely. “Yes.” It was as much as she dared to explain.

  His eyes glowed an impossible black. “I agreed to release you. I hold no knife to your throat.”

  She laughed then, a wild, broken sound.

  His dark gaze scoured her face. “Are you daft? Is that it? Wanting me one moment, running away the next—”

  “I don’t want you!” A lie, of course. She ached with want for him. “I’m sure you possess many admirers in St. Giles … a score of them are doubtlessly in your employ. Do not count me among those females.”

  Angry color burned beneath the swarthy skin of his cheeks. “You are deluding yourself, denying what’s between us—”

  She shook her head, a single dark strand of hair catching in her mouth. “There is nothing,” she hissed, swiping the hair from her lips.

  “Nothing?” He dropped his hand from her wrist with a snort. “We are quite past the name-in-only marriage I proposed at the start of this journey. Shall I prove you a liar yet again and give us both what we want?”

  Panic quickened her breath. She stumbled away, maneuvering herself back around the chair, her fingers clutching tightly on its curved back, eyes widening as he pulled his shirt up over his head and let it puddle to the chair with the rest of his garments, leaving him standing before her bare-chested. Her mouth dried and watered invariably.

  He glanced around the cozy lodge, nodding. “Such privacy you’ve obtained for us.” He motioned to a hamper by the door. “I’ve even brought us a repast.” She had not noticed he carried it into the lodge, too fixated was she on his person. “It will tide us over until we return to the village in the morning.”

  “We’ll stay the night here?” she asked with incredulity. “Together?” Alone.

  “It’s fearsome cold, and late. I do not relish the idea of braving the outdoors again this eve. Not when I might stay warm here with you.”

  She swallowed at the decidedly lascivious look in his eyes and swung her head from side to side with denial. “You cannot mean—”

  “If I did what everyone ever told me, I would have long ago died on the streets.” His hand shot over the chair then and seized hold of her arm. “I’ll not start now. Even for the woman I am to marry.”

  She yelped as he dragged her to him. Sliding an arm beneath her knees, he lifted her high off her feet and carried her into the bedchamber.

  Against her will, her hand came to rest on his chest, palm down on the smooth expanse. Silken marble beneath her fingers. Her body automatically softened in his arms, settling into the easy rocking motion of being carried.

  “I’ve quite finished letting you lead me on a merry chase, Marguerite. You and I are going to happen.”

  His words sank in, terrifying and thrilling. She trembled in his arms and closed her eyes in a long, pained blink, hating the flash of excitement that made her belly drop and twist.

  The whisper-soft sound of his voice made her eyes drift open again. “What are you so afraid of?”

  He’d asked her this before. She stared at him bleakly, unable to answer with the truth. Everything. Afraid of dying without having really lived. Afraid she will not leave any mark on this world. That there will be nothing to say that Marguerite Laurent was ever here, that she had lived. Gazing up at him, she wondered how he would react to such words.

  When it became clear she would not answer, he lowered her down on the bed and proceeded to remove the last of his clothes, shamelessly and unabashedly revealing the muscled perfection of his body. Firelight danced over his taut flesh, licking every inch of his smooth skin, every scar, every hollow and curving muscle. Her palms tingled, imagining the texture, the feel of him.

  He stood before her gloriously naked. More beautiful than any statue she’d seen in a museum … and certainly more generously proportioned. Heat flooded her face as that particular part of his anatomy expanded before her eyes.

  Her breath fell sharply, eyes burning for lack of blinking. She couldn’t look away. Not if her life depended on it. A painful sob built in her throat at that ironic thought.

  Then a tempting voice rose within her, whispering darkly across her mind. You’re not married. This isn’t following the course Madame Foster had predicted.Accept him, take what he’s offering—what you want. What you’ve wanted all along.

  Moving forward, he stroked her upturned face, sliding the rough pads of his fingers down the curve of her cheek. His entire hand spanned half her face. Everything about him was large. Imposing. He could crush her with the smallest effort, and yet she didn’t fear that from him.

  Her eyes strayed to his manhood again, jutting forward so close now that she could reach out and touch it. And yet it didn’t frighten her. She wanted to touch it, him, with a fierceness that might have shamed her a fortnight past, but not now. Now she yearned. Now she craved his strength, his power working over her.

  Perhaps this was it. He was it. Her taste of life. The living that she sought if her time on earth was limited. How many women could say they made love to a man like him? That he craved her in turn? No matter what happened to her, she’d have that.

  Perhaps that would be enough.

  She’d make it enough. Make it count, make it last forever.

  Holding his gaze, she slid back on her elbows, her arms quivering with tension, scarcely able to support her weight.

  He stilled, angling his head and watching her for a long moment, as though he expected her to resume her arguments—or jump up and flee from the bed into the snow-buried wilderness.

  When it appeared he would make no further move, she lifted her hands to the front of her gown, signaling her decision. Her fingers fumbled before getting a grip on the brocade-covered buttons. She followed the trail of them to her waist, parting her bodice wide, baring her delicate chemise to his view.

  She stilled, expecting he would make a move now.

  “Finish,” he rasped, his voice a husky rumble.

  With a shaky nod, she resumed working at her skirts and petticoats, unfastening them and kicking them down her trembling legs. Her pantaloons followed. Her breath fell fast and hard. It took all of her will not to dive beneath the coverlet and hide from his eyes.

  Knees locked together, she bent her legs in front of her, shielding as much of herself as she could. The intensity of his gaze, the looming presence of him so near, so deliciously, shockingly naked, utterly destroyed her. Her legs trembled so badly, she could barely hold them up.

  His voice rumbled through the shadows. “Continue.”

  With a shuddering breath, she pulled the ribbon at the front of her chemise, wondering if he really intended for her to strip herself naked. Was that the normal course of intimacy? Would he not call a halt and invite her beneath the coverlet where they could then proceed with some vestige of modesty?

  She’d always thought couples did this sort of thing in the dark. That they went about lovemaking in a reticent fashion, sensitive to the other’s sensibilities.

  From his unflinching stare, she gathered Ash did not put a great deal of weight in attending to her sensibilities. Perhaps that was how it was done. When it came to this sort of business, she was vastly uninformed, after all. She knew there was pleasure to be had. Excitement. Why else would all manner of people pursue physical pleasure with such single-minded focus? Her mother had been a perfect slave to it. Even Fallon and Evie had succumbed. Marguerite would at least finally know. She would discover
carnal pleasure for herself.

  “If you mean to torment me with your leisurely actions, you have succeeded,” he growled, his voice a stroke on the still air. “I think it only fair to inform you that if you do not finish undressing in the next five seconds, I shall handle the matter of ridding you of your clothes myself.”

  Chapter 15

  Marguerite’s hands flew, stripping off the last of her garments with feverish speed. Only once naked, she wondered why she did not let him finish the chore. She might have enjoyed that.

  He chuckled and the low sound rippled over her bared flesh enticingly—and then his laughter died. He fell silent, his gaze crawling over every inch of her, missing nothing. No curve, no hollow, no flaw went unnoticed. His dark eyes seemed to liquefy within his intense stare.

  She folded her hands across her breasts in an attempt to shield herself from his hot-eyed perusal. She pressed her legs together, turning and angling them so that he could glimpse little of her womanhood.

  “Don’t hide from me,” he commanded in a quiet murmur, his dark eyes snapping with a need she couldn’t refuse.

  With a deep breath, she lowered her arms. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it. No half measures.

  He stared at her for an endless moment. She forgot to breathe altogether in that time, waiting anxiously as his gaze devoured her. All of her.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured.

  Heat flared over her face, spreading throughout her. She scooted back on the bed, maneuvering herself carefully so that her legs stayed firmly together. She wasn’t so bold as to endure his gaze there. She stopped at the head of the bed, realizing she had nowhere else to go.

  Ash smiled wickedly, knowingly, lowering to his knees on the bed.

  “You look like a scared virgin,” he teased.

  She smiled back at him, her lips wobbly on her face. Now wasn’t the time to tell him that was a fairly accurate assessment. Not if she wished to explain the true nature of her relationship with Roger. And that would lead to other uncomfortable admissions.