Читать книгу Regency Society Collection Part 2 - Хелен Диксон, Ann Lethbridge, Хелен Диксон - Страница 45

Angelina’s distress on coming face to face with the gypsies had lessened a little when she entered the house, but the threat they posed to her peace of mind was not forgotten.

Hoping to reach her room without encountering anyone, she was disappointed to find Jenkins waiting for her in the hall. When he saw her his body froze and he seemed to lose control of his expression as his gaze swept over her attire. His thick eyebrows rose up his forehead, and Angelina was sure she saw a little smile tug at the corners to the stern line of his mouth. But apart from this he was too respectful to show any other reaction. When he spoke, his voice was perfectly calm and controlled.

‘Lord Montgomery has asked to see you the minute you return from your ride, Miss Hamilton.’

Angelina’s stomach plummeted to the bottom of her boots with dismay. ‘I’ll go up and change first. I can’t possibly face Lord Montgomery looking like a ragamuffin.’

At that moment a door across the hall was flung open and Alex materialised. ‘Angelina.’

Her head shot round. ‘Yes.’

‘A word, if you please.’

Angelina bristled, not caring for the tone of his voice. ‘And if I don’t please?’

‘Then I shall say what I have to say right here.’

‘But—I was just—’

‘I’m waiting.’

Angelina could see that Alex was furious. The glacial look in his silver eyes and the stern set of his features sent shivers down her spine. There was certainly nothing soft or lover-like in his tone, as there had been when she had left him in his rooms earlier. On a sigh she frowned. Casting a weary glance at Jenkins, she saw sympathy in his eyes.

‘Oh, dear, Jenkins,’ she breathed softly, ‘I think I’m for it.’

‘Chin up, Miss Hamilton, and you’ll be all right,’ he murmured, with his back to his ill-tempered master and with all the skill of a ventriloquist, for Angelina was certain his lips never moved.

She doubted the conviction of Jenkins’s words as she turned and walked across the hall. There was not a single trace of reason in Alex’s expression, only an undeniable aura of restrained fury gathering pace inside him, waiting to be unleashed on her.

He stood at the door to the sitting room like a soldier on sentry duty, waiting for her to pass—which she did, tilting her chin in a haughty manner.

Just through the doorway Angelina stopped. The ominous thud of the door behind her was too much for her lacerated nerves. Turning to face him, she was vaguely aware of two people seated at the opposite end of the long room, but she and Alex might as well have been alone—in fact, they should be, and she was angry that he had not chosen to chastise her in private. Her blood froze at the anger burning in his eyes. He had savaged her emotions once already today and it would seem he was about to do it again, but instead of seducing her into submission, she strongly suspected that this time he was about to go to the other extreme.

With her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her breeches, in a state of grinding tension, for what seemed an eternity she stood perfectly still, glaring at him mutinously, watching as his mercurial mood took a turn for the worst. As his eyes raked over her they opened wide, his sleek black eyebrows climbing higher and higher. Slowly he began walking round her, and she could only surmise that he was contemplating her shapeless flannel shirt and deerskin trousers. She thought to escape and her eyes shot to the door. He saw her intention.

‘Don’t try it,’ he said, his silken voice almost turning Angelina’s blood to ice as he continued to walk round her.

Alex kept his mercurial gaze levelled on her, a nerve jerking at the side of his rigid jaw. Undaunted, she lifted her chin with a small but stubborn toss of her head. It was a gesture of open defiance. Stopping in front of her, he moved closer, the silver eyes boring down into hers. When he could finally bring himself to speak his voice was ice cold.

‘I have hired scullery maids better garbed than you. I do not know the meaning of this, Angelina, but you have a propensity to wilfully defy me at every turn. How dare you take a horse out of my stable without my permission and without the animal being approved by me first? Nor you did not take just any horse, but Forest Shadow, the most dangerous horse in my stable.’

‘Were you worried about my welfare?’

‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ he growled, demolishing the sudden flickering of hope he saw in her eyes. ‘Forest Shadow is also my most valuable horse.’ This was not entirely true. Forest Shadow was his most prized horse, but he’d been worried as hell about her on that powerful beast. However, he would not give her the satisfaction of telling her so.

‘You need not have worried,’ she said, with infuriating calm and no hint of an apology for taking the horse without his permission. ‘I took good care of him. I do ride extremely well, you know.’

‘So my uncle went to great pains to point out before he went to Cornwall,’ Alex mocked. ‘I have no doubt that he did not exaggerate about the excellence of your prowess. But until I have seen your exceptional skills for myself, the stables are out of bounds. Is that clear?’ he seethed, his blistering gaze sliding over her face.

Angelina’s reply was to glower at him.

‘And another thing I want you to remember, I consider stallions to be unsuitable mounts for females to ride.’

‘Why—you conceited, pig-headed beast,’ she gasped. ‘I am just as capable of riding stallions as any man.’

‘Be that as it may, but not at Arlington. Now, you will go to your room and remove those outrageous clothes and appear dressed in normal attire. I will see you before me in precisely ten minutes. Is that understood?’

Angelina glowered at him with stubborn, unyielding pride, her chin pert, her hands balled into tight fists by her sides, sorely tempted to tell him to go to hell. ‘Who do you think you are? I will wear what I please and do what I please.’

With his hands fixed firmly on his hips, Alex thrust his face close to hers, his eyes glittering with a fire that burned her raw and his eyebrows drawn close, giving him an air of fiendish intensity. ‘I know who I am, Angelina. What bothers me is who you are. While you live in this house—my house—and until my uncle returns from Cornwall, you are under my care. You will do well to remember that and the sooner you accept it the better it will be for us all. You will be accountable to me for your actions. Is that understood?’

Angelina didn’t even recoil from the blazing violence as she took the full force of his volcanic rage. Fury rose up like flames licking inside her, her face as uncompromisingly challenging as his. ‘You can go to hell, Alex Montgomery, and the sooner the better. I own no man my superior—and least of all you. Ever since I left Ohio I have never been accountable to anyone for my actions. I do not intend to start now.’

‘Yes, you will. Someone should have taught you some sense and beat that wilful pride out of you years ago,’ he said, anger pouring through his veins like acid, his fury making him carelessly cruel. ‘I am not daunted by your defiance.’

‘You wouldn’t be daunted by a pit of rattlesnakes,’ she spat. In her fury Angelina forgot the man and woman watching them with astonishment and a good deal of interest from across the room.

Nathan and Verity found it hard to believe that Alex, a man so self-assured and masterful when in the presence of some of the most powerful men in England, had been stripped of his composure and was being baited with such boldness by an eighteen-year-old girl. They were taken aback by the quite unexpected heated altercation between these two. They were such a combustible combination, and it was evident that Angelina, who looked magnificent, glorious and indestructible as she faced the master of Arlington despite the shabbiness of her garb, had a will every bit as strong and stubborn as Alex’s own.

‘Go to your room,’ Alex gritted. ‘I will not have you behaving in this disgraceful manner in front of my friends and relatives.’

‘Friends!’ she scoffed, breathing hard. ‘You don’t have friends—you have subjects who bow and scrape at your feet. Tell me, does everyone always march to your orders?’

‘Always.’

‘Not me, Alex Montgomery,’ Angelina flung back. ‘I shall match you stride for stride and be damned to your orders.’

‘You little baggage. If you continue to flout my authority and do anything else to inconvenience my staff or myself while you live in my house, I will personally make your life a living hell. Is that understood?’

‘Why—what will you do? Beat me?’ she scoffed.

‘Out of respect for your sex, I will curb my temptation to resort to physical violence. But if you brazenly defy me one more time, do not depend on my ability to exercise similar restraint. More of this and you will find yourself on your knees begging my forgiveness. You are outrageous, outspoken, as obstinate as a thousand mules and your manners are deplorable—and look at you. You don’t even look like a female and you certainly don’t act like one. You will make a laughing stock of us all if you continue in this disgraceful manner. It is unacceptable. If you think you can go traipsing around my estate dressed like a gypsy, then you would do well to think again. I know females younger than you who are married—but who in God’s name would marry you looking as you do, like a savage?’

Mentally adding his words to the list of insults thrown at her by him over the past weeks, like a cat Angelina slowly moved towards him, a feral gleam lighting up her eyes as she faced him in blinding anger, so close that she could feel his hot breath on her face.

‘How easily that word trips off your tongue, my lord,’ she seethed, each word clearly enunciated, ‘and how ready you are to insult me. How do you know what a savage looks like? Have you ever seen one—a true savage, an uncivilised being marked by brutality and deprivation—in this privileged, cocooned world of genteel drawing rooms you inhabit? I do all manner of unladylike things you disapprove of, don’t I? And if being outspoken, outrageous and unfeminine makes me a savage in your eyes then you are right. I am a savage.’

There was something close to murder in Alex’s blazing eyes. As she turned from him, pushed beyond reason he reached out and grasped her shoulder, his fingers biting into her like knives. Like lightning and acting purely on instinct, Angelina flung her head round like an enraged lioness and violently thrust his hand away, accidentally catching his flesh with her nail. The unexpected action stunned Alex into momentary inaction, then he regained his senses and quickly took a step back.

‘You witch,’ he said in a savage snarl, white faced with fury, all his former admiration for her beauty, her strength of mind and courage instantly demolished as spots of bright red blood began to seep out of the small puncture mark on his skin. ‘If you were a man, I’d run you through for that.’

‘If I were a man, I’d have done the same to you the instant we met. Don’t you ever touch me again,’ she hissed through her teeth, standing with her legs braced and her fists clenched by her sides. Transfigured with fury, rigid with accumulated pride and rebelliousness, she dominated the situation as much as he. Her eyes were shining assertively, alive with the hidden mysteries of a rare jewel, her breasts rising and falling with suppressed fury as she struggled with the furious sensation burning through her veins. ‘I killed the last man who dared do that. Is it not enough that you insult and degrade me without laying your hands on me? Keep them to yourself and perhaps we’ll get on better.’

‘That won’t be difficult.’

‘You are a loathsome, overbearing, despicable monster, Alex Montgomery—’

‘I think I have the picture,’ he drawled.

‘Good. Then I needn’t go on—but how I wish I’d never come here. I wish I’d never come to England and met you. I want to be free of you. I didn’t want any of this. I didn’t ask for it. It was thrust on me against my will.’ She breathed as if she couldn’t inhale enough air. ‘Don’t you understand that I hate you?’

Alex looked at the proud beauty that was glaring at him like an enraged angel of retribution and realized that she was on the brink of tears. He felt a twinge of conscience, which he quickly thrust away. ‘I know you do,’ he said coldly. ‘And you will hate me a good deal more before I’m through. Now go to your room. I said ten minutes. It’s now eight. Go and change—and if you disobey me, by God I shall come and remove those infernal breeches myself and render a certain part of your anatomy incapable of sitting down for a week. Is that clear?’

Angelina glared at him, her vow to murder this illustrious nobleman renewing itself in her mind. She would like to rend his heart to pieces. She would like to do so much damage to this mocking, sardonic man that it would prove irreparable. She would like to see him on his knees begging her for her favours, to grovel, and then she would spurn him. Turning from him, she walked away.

Alex watched the door close behind her, standing perfectly still, unable to believe the tempestuous, brave young woman who had stood and faced his wrath. His anger gave way to a reluctant admiration at her magnificent show of courage in admitting that she had once killed a man. He was stunned and deeply troubled by her confession, which, in her fury, she hadn’t seemed to realise she had made. Remembering her stormy eyes shining with unshed tears, he felt a consuming, unquenchable need to know more about her past—but for the present he was determined not to let what he considered to be a childish act of defiance pass.

With Nathan and Verity sitting quietly in the background, Alex’s fury had been reduced to a dangerous calm as he watched the door. He sat and waited, his jaw hardened with resolve, mentally crossing off the minutes and the seconds as Angelina’s time ran out, his fingers tapping on the arm of the chair in a clear indication of his impatience. When her eight minutes were up he rose.

‘Damned wench,’ he muttered. He reached for the doorknob at the same moment that it swung open and Angelina swept in, dressed in her daffodil yellow gown. Tipping her head, she met his eyes with a smile of pure innocence—unchastened and unrepentant.

‘Dear me, Alex. You do look vexed. You should be careful. It really is not good for anyone to get so worked up.’ She smiled demurely and walked past him, with no trace of her previous anger or the mental exhaustion that had engulfed her when she had entered her room following his severe chastisement. She had seriously considered defying him and not returning to the sitting room, but the overriding fear that she would have to deal with his wrath once more put paid to such meanderings of the mind. She knew that Alex Montgomery was a force to be reckoned with, and that when he had told her he would come to her room and remove her clothes himself it had been no idle threat. But she had loathed him with each discarded garment for making her do it.

‘Aren’t you going to introduce me to your guests?’ she asked, trying to crush the apprehension that was stirring restlessly inside her on being introduced to the tall, fair-haired gentleman and Aunt Patience’s daughter.

Alex was rendered speechless. How was it he’d started out as the conqueror and ended up feeling like the vanquished? Neither threat nor punishment would oblige Angelina Hamilton to bow to a higher authority. At that moment he wanted to stride across the room, take hold of that impudent madam, and shake her. His eyes met Nathan’s in a ‘now do you understand’ way. Nathan was visibly and infuriatingly amused.

Eager to be introduced to the tantalising young American girl who had turned his friend’s world upside down and inside out in the matter of just a few short weeks, Nathan came towards her. As he reached for her hand, his handsome, boyish face broke into a brilliant, reassuring smile and his blue eyes twinkled with delight.

‘Your servant, Miss Hamilton,’ he said, bending over and pressing a gallant kiss on the back of her hand. ‘And may I say I am truly delighted to meet you at last—having heard all about you from Alex,’ he said meaningfully, casting his friend a mocking, lopsided grin.

‘I’m sure you have—and nothing pleasant, I’ll wager,’ Angelina quipped brightly without looking at Alex. She liked Nathan Beresford at once, and for the life of her she could not understand how such a charming and amiable man could possibly be the friend of her antagonist. ‘But please—you must call me Angelina. Everyone does.’

‘Thank you—and you must call me Nathan—and this is Verity, my wife,’ he said, taking Verity’s hand and drawing her forward. ‘No doubt her dear mama, Lady Fortesque, has told you all about her and how she keeps us all on the straight and narrow,’ he said on a teasing note, casting his wife a fond look.

Angelina looked at him obliquely. Aware that Alex was hovering behind her like a dark threatening thunder cloud, her smile did not falter. ‘An unenviable task, if I may say,’ she replied softly, leaving no one in any doubt that she was referring to Alex.

She looked at the slender young woman dressed in a fashionable high-waisted gown of emerald green and smiled, wishing she had paid more attention to her own appearance instead of dragging on the first dress her hands had come into contact with. Verity was a pretty brunette, with a delicately arched nose and winged brows over friendly blue eyes. Her hair was gathered in glossy curls about her ears, a braided coil sitting prettily at her crown.

‘I’m so glad to meet you at last, Angelina,’ Verity said, her tone warm with obvious sincerity. ‘I must welcome you to the family. Mama has been singing your praises for the past hour—telling me how patient and considerate you’ve been to her during her illness. I really must thank you. I had no idea she was so ill, otherwise I would have come to Arlington sooner.’

‘She has been quite poorly, but as you will have seen for yourself she is a good deal better and hopes to grace us with her presence at dinner this evening.’

‘I must offer you my deep apologies, Angelina. Alex should not have subjected you to that rude display of ill temper earlier,’ Verity said, throwing her cousin a glance of severe displeasure. ‘He can be so overbearing at times.’

‘My sentiments exactly,’ Angelina agreed, feeling a fresh surge of anger against Alex for chastising her in front of these two, which he must have known would humiliate her. Her confrontation with Alex had been so distressing and unsettling to her peace of mind however, she remained silent, wanting to put the unpleasant incident behind her.

Alex had no intention of letting her off the hook lightly. He moved to take a dominant, indolent stance by the fireplace, one arm braced on the mantelpiece. His jaw was set hard, his eyes intense as he slanted a look at Angelina.

‘By taking Forest Shadow out of the stables without my permission, what else did you expect from me? To ask if you’d had a pleasant ride?’ he asked, the ghost of an ironic smile suddenly touching his mouth as his manner began to soften towards her at last. ‘I am a reasonable man, Angelina, and I am perfectly willing to allow you as much freedom as you wish, but that does not mean for you to act brazenly and irresponsibly—and taking the Shadow was an exceedingly irresponsible act on your part.’

‘Pay no attention to my ill-tempered cousin,’ Verity said, casting Alex a slightly imperious though smiling look in an attempt to ward off further argument. ‘I must express my admiration for your courage. You have my profound sympathy for what you must have endured—having to put up with him at Arlington all alone whilst Mama has been indisposed. It cannot have been easy for you.’

‘No—but I’ve found myself in far worse situations than trying to keep on the right side of an irate lord.’

Verity laughed, a pleasant, warm sound, which went a long way to relieving the tension in the quiet room. ‘Come and sit by me and we will have a quiet gossip together without being overheard by these tiresome men. I’m sure they’ll have plenty to converse about without us. I want to hear all about America. There is a breath of adventure and excitement about it I find fascinating. We hear such varied and colourful tales that I would simply adore to go there myself.’

‘You would?’ Nathan remarked, somewhat astonished. ‘First I’ve heard of it.’

‘That’s because you can see no further than Europe and what’s happening in France, my love,’ his wife said with sudden playfulness, which was so much a part of her charming nature. ‘My husband’s interest in politics exceeds everything else, Angelina. Whenever France and that upstart Napoleon are mentioned, he immediately becomes embroiled in a serious debate. I’m afraid that the Duke of Wellington and the progress of the war in the Peninsula eclipses all else.’

‘As it does in all who are politically minded,’ Nathan stated.

With a deep sigh Verity gave Angelina a long suffering ‘now do you see what I mean’ look. ‘My dear husband eats, sleeps and breathes politics. You really should consider being a Member of Parliament, Nathan, and then you could air your views openly in the House of Commons—where, hopefully, you would wear yourself out in debate and be happy to come home to me. We could then converse on more agreeable matters that interest us both.’

Taking Angelina’s hand, Verity moved away from them and drew her down beside her on a sofa. ‘I’m so glad we’re going to be friends, Angelina.’

‘So am I. When I returned to Boston from Ohio I had so much to do and so many responsibilities. I had no true female friends.’

Verity saw a strange brooding look darken the brilliant eyes. ‘Then we shall rectify that as soon as you return to London,’ she said gently. ‘We shall go shopping together and drive daily through the park—and there will be parties to attend and the theatre. We shall have such fun together. Although I must warn you that London in winter can be a cold and dreary place, so I shall steal you from Uncle Henry. You must come to Hanover Square and stay with us.’

‘I would like that.’

‘I was truly sorry to hear of your mother’s recent death, Angelina. Pray accept my deepest sympathies.’

‘Thank you. Uncle Henry has been very kind to me. I am so looking forward to seeing Mowbray Park. While I’m there I hope to persuade Uncle Henry to take me to Kent so that I might see where my mother lived.’

Verity merely smiled and nodded, taken aback by what she said, wondering if Uncle Henry and Alex knew what she intended. Like everyone else, Verity was aware that Angelina’s maternal grandmother was still alive. She had no idea why Uncle Henry wanted it kept from his young ward, and her natural curiosity had been roused, but, not being the sort of man to indulge in subterfuge without good reason, she would respect his wishes and remain silent on the matter.

Angelina was unaware when Alex left the room and returned after just a few minutes’ absence. She would have been surprised and angry to learn that he had gone directly to her room, startling a bemused Pauline, who watched in rigid, terrified silence as he strode into the dressing room and snatched Angelina’s discarded trousers and shirt off the floor where she had left them in a heap. Alex thrust the garments into her arms.

‘Drinkwater, the gardener, is burning some rubbish in the kitchen gardens. Take them and burn them before your mistress returns,’ he ordered.

When he returned, Angelina caught the smug, self-satisfied look he threw her way but thought nothing of it just then. It would be some time before she missed her breeches and shirt, and when she did they would have ceased to matter.

Sleep, chased by a thousand images, eluded Angelina. Dark shadows darted eerily into the corners of the room, transforming them into secret places hiding a hundred ghosts. Scrambling out of bed, she went to the window. Suddenly a brilliant cobalt blue streak of lightning flashed in a sudden spurt of brilliance across the sky, quickly followed by a rolling rumble of thunder. Rain began lashing at the glass panes and the wind rose to a fierce pitch, bending and twisting the trees in the garden so that they resembled grotesque, tortured beings, their huge shadows moving on the ground like furtive, creeping—what? Indians? Gypsies?

They were like the fairytale monsters of her childhood that had waited somewhere beyond the bed in the dark. Something terrifying pierced the raw centre of her soul, tearing open old wounds and clawing at her with savage, dirty fingers. Quickly she ran back to bed and buried her head beneath the covers, telling herself not to be silly and forcing herself to concentrate on sleep, willing the past to go away. But it refused. It whispered in the air about her, creeping closer still. A branch was beating on the window like the rhythmic beat of a drum, growing stronger and stronger as the wind increased in strength.

Eventually she fell into a fitful sleep invaded by hideous memories and her nightmare returned for the first time since she had left Boston. Cold and shivering, suddenly she was fifteen again and her terrors engulfed her—cold and implacable, real. A mist swirled around her, cloying, choking. The figure of the Shawnee materialised out of the shadows, out of the dark, and she was screaming and struggling with this creature who had killed her father and injured her mother, who was now trying to kill her. She was clawing at the face, watching bright red blood spurt from where her fingernails had raked his skin. She had to kill him—but where was the knife? Oh, dear God. Where was the knife? She must find the knife.

After sharing a few late-hour brandies in front of the fire with Nathan when the ladies had retired, Alex bade him goodnight. Walking past Angelina’s room, he paused, straining his ears, hearing faint sounds coming from within. Believing the noise he’d heard to be the night storm, he was about to move on, but the sound came again. Someone was crying, whimpering, he was certain of it. Remembering how pale and anxious Angelina had been before going to bed, he became concerned. Unable to quell his curiosity or stem the need to comfort her, he went inside.

Closing the door behind him, he stood for a moment as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Angelina’s broken crying and muttering came from the bed. Wondering what could have happened to bring her to such wretchedness, he went to her, thankful when the moon chose that moment to appear from behind the clouds and to wash the bed in its silver glow. Looking down at her, the state of the tumbled bedclothes told him she had been thrashing about for some time. Perspiration glistened on her forehead and she was flinging her head from side to side, her fingers clawing at the covers and hitting out at some imaginary object.

‘Angelina,’ Alex murmured in alarm, about to reach out and gather the distressed girl in his arms. But he stopped when suddenly her eyes snapped open and she stared in abject terror at the dark figure bending over her, a figure looming larger that life.

With a strangled cry, like lightning she scrambled out from beneath the covers and huddled at the head of the bed like a terrified animal, clutching her nightdress about her knees, visibly trembling. Her eyes, black and enormous, burned with the fever of unspeakable agony.

‘Get away,’ she hissed. ‘Don’t touch me.’

Alex could see she was in extreme distress, confused and disorientated. ‘Angelina—it’s me—Alex,’ he murmured gently, longing to reach out and take her in his arms and soothe her as he would a frightened child who was having a bad dream. But he could see her nerves were stretched tight, and that any sudden strain might cause them to break and fling her into a state of hysteria. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

Looking at him for a long moment, every nerve vibrating, his voice slowly penetrated the inner sanctum of her mind. ‘Alex?’ she whispered. ‘Oh, Alex.’ Quite suddenly her features crumpled. She closed her eyes and shuddered violently, clasping her arms tight around her chest and beginning to rock back and forth as if in some terrible grief.

‘Angelina—don’t. Please don’t.’ The painful, unfamiliar constriction in Alex’s chest made his hand tremble slightly as he reached out for her, but she jerked away, screwing her eyes tight shut, as if to blot out some intolerable sight, hitting out at him wildly, as though she imagined herself to be in the grip of an enemy.

‘Don’t. Please don’t touch me.’ Her voice was a hollow whisper. She began to cry silently, huge tears spilling over her lashes and coursing down her cheeks, her eyes begging him not to come near. ‘Don’t. Don’t,’ she repeated. ‘Please…’ She backed away against the head of the bed, unable to go any further.

It was an agony for Alex to watch her anguish, raised from the vast reservoir of despair threatening to drown her. He was unable to know how to deal with her. He couldn’t leave her like this, because if he did he felt he would be failing her. Nor could he go for help without raising eyebrows about what he was doing in her room at this hour of the night.

Lighting the taper beside her bed, he looked at her pathetic huddled figure illuminated by its glow, weeping silently, wretchedly, shrouded in a thick curtain of long silken hair. The forlorn droop of her head went straight to his heart. Caught totally unprepared by her fierce display of emotion, he felt reason and control swept away. Sitting on the edge of the bed, with aching tenderness he reached out and took firm hold of her, pulling her close and fastening his arms around her like a vice.

At first she resisted and struggled, lashing out at his restraining grip, but then she grew still and grimly endured his touch. Through the material of her nightdress Alex could feel the alert tension of all her body. Her tears had ceased and her breathing was rapid. The warmth of the room wrapped itself around them so that it seemed that they were alone in a world without substance or reality.

‘It’s all right, Angelina. I’m not going to hurt you,’ Alex breathed, his lips against her hair on the top of her head. ‘I don’t know what has frightened you and I am not going to leave you until you are all right. Try to relax.’

As if awakening from a deep trance, Angelina began to do just that. The storm of tears had ceased, and with its passing some of her tension had been washed away. Having dealt with tragedy and adversity for three years, she was too weak to fight Alex when he was being kind and understanding—and besides, he felt so warm and strong, his arms comforting and his voice soothing. His mere presence gave her a sense of security and safety. Alex was both surprised and touched when she nestled closer and turned her face into his chest. It was as if she wanted to hide herself in his embrace.

‘Tell me, Angelina,’ he said at length, ‘have you experienced anything like this before?’

She nodded.

‘And this nightmare you keep having, is it always the same one?’

‘Yes,’ she mumbled.

Releasing his hold, Alex turned her face up to his, stroking her hair from her damp face. ‘What happened to you in Ohio, Angelina?’ he asked, cradling her face in his hands and tracing her cheekbones with his thumbs. ‘What are you afraid of?’

Fresh tears collected in her eyes and spilled hot moisture over his fingers. He brushed them away gently, feeling her give a convulsive shudder. ‘Don’t. Please don’t,’ she whispered, feebly trying to push him away to evade his touch, but Alex was having none of that now he had succeeded in subduing her and drew her firmly against him, placing her head on his chest once more and stroking her hair.

‘Tell me about Ohio, Angelina,’ he asked again. ‘What happened to you there on the night the Indians came?’

White faced, she shuddered. ‘No. I will not tell you,’ she answered in a voice that was a raw whisper, her whole body rigid with anger in his arms—whether anger against himself for asking or her memories Alex didn’t know, but to his relief she made no attempt to remove herself. ‘Don’t ever ask me, because I won’t tell you. I try never to think about it.’

‘But you do, don’t you? And I can see that it pains you.’

‘Yes—yes, it pains me,’ she said in a torrent of anguished words, gulping on her sobs and pressing her face to his chest in an attempt to shut out the memory. Drawing a deep, quivering breath she tried to still her trembling limbs, trying to gain control of her rioting emotions. ‘Damn you for mentioning it. Damn you, Alex Montgomery. It was vile and ugly—and I don’t want to remember.’

‘I can see that,’ he said softly. ‘But whatever happened to you, Angelina, you cannot go on carrying it around inside you like this. Have you never spoken of it to anyone?’

She shook her head fiercely.

‘Perhaps talking about it will finally exorcise it from your mind.’

‘It won’t. It won’t, I tell you.’ No, she thought, not after keeping it to herself for so long. It would be like sharing her soul. Pride and shame had prevented her from speaking openly—even to Will. But Alex! No. Never to Alex.

Not wishing to cause her further distress, Alex decided not to press her on the matter just then. ‘What was it that brought this on?’ he asked, gentling his voice. ‘Was it because I upset you earlier—or the storm?’

‘No,’ she mumbled through her sobs. ‘Neither. It was the gypsies.’

Alex frowned. ‘The gypsies?’

She nodded against him. ‘I saw them when I was riding. I came upon their encampment on the other side of the woods.’

Alex stiffened and held her away from him, forcing her to look at him. ‘Angelina, did they hurt you?’

She shook her head. ‘I thought they were going to attack me. Seeing them—they—they reminded me—’

‘Of the Shawnee,’ Alex finished for her, understanding how the swarthy-skinned gypsies, with their dark eyes and black hair, would resemble the red-skinned Indians of America. Silently he cursed the gypsies and his bailiff for failing to get rid of them as he had ordered him to do. First thing in the morning he would ride out to their encampment and order them to move on himself.

He pulled Angelina back into his embrace and, his strong arms tightened about her. With her face pressed into the curve of his shoulder she seemed so small, so utterly female, warm, fragile and vulnerable. His heart ached with the fear of what the Shawnee might have done to her. Not even in his mind could he bring himself to voice his suspicions, but they were there, thrusting through his brain like knives. He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t even think it. The thought of Angelina knowing a moment’s terror was too agonising for him to deal with.

Murmuring soothing words of comfort, he held her tightly, tenderly, as she wept, soaking his shirt front with her warm tears; racking sobs that shook her slender body with such violence that Alex was afraid they would tear her apart. They remained like that until her sobbing turned to quiet whimpering, and finally she grew silent and still.

‘Do you feel better now?’ he asked.

She raised her face to his, giving him a teary smile. ‘I’m sorry. It—it’s just that I didn’t think it would happen again after I left America.’

‘These things have a habit of recurring when you least expect them.’

Angelina felt the strength of his arms and the warmth of his masculine body. Slowly the fear began to recede, but she made no effort to free herself from that tight circle of arms—and Alex had no intention of letting her go while she was content to remain there. She could feel the hard muscles of his broad chest and smell his maleness and the spicy scent of his cologne. A tautness began in her breast, a delicious ache that was like a languorous, honeyed warmth.

As he sensed the change in her Alex’s arms slackened. His senses were invaded by the smell of her. It was the soft fragrance of her hair—the sweet scent of roses mingled with a musky female scent—that made his body burn. Curling his long masculine fingers round her chin, he tilted her face up to his. She was calmer now, her eyes large, black and soft, her eyelashes moist and glistening. Gently he brushed the remaining tears from her cheeks, his fingers infinitely gentle.

It seemed a lifetime passed as they gazed at each other. In that lifetime each lived through a range of deep, tender emotions new to them both, exquisite emotions that neither of them could put into words. As though in slow motion, unable to resist the temptation Angelina’s mouth offered, slowly Alex’s own moved inexorably closer. His gaze was gentle and compelling, when, in a sweet, mesmeric sensation, his mouth found hers. Angelina melted into him. The kiss was long and lingeringly slow.

Raising his head, Alex gazed down at her in wonder. Her magnificent eyes were naked and defenceless. ‘My God, Angel,’ he whispered, his voice hoarse, ‘you are so sweet. The next time you disobey me, instead of lashing you into submission with threats of physical punishment, in future I can see I shall have to change my tactics.’

‘Oh?’

‘All I have to do is kiss you into compliance.’

Angelina was full of remorse and regret for that unpleasant incident earlier. ‘I did behave badly, didn’t I?’ she whispered, her words filled with shame and a hundred other things Alex could not identify. ‘I’m so sorry I hit out at you, Alex.’ A knot of tenderness swelled in his chest as he watched her take his hand in both her own and press her trembling lips gently to the place where she had accidentally caught it with her nail. ‘I should not have scratched you—I didn’t mean to. It was unforgivable of me.’

Deeply touched, he smiled down at the incredibly desirable young woman who was setting his body on fire with her innocent gesture. Her beautiful profile was solemn. ‘You may feel free to scratch me whenever you wish, providing you kiss it better afterwards.’

‘It was wrong of me to take Forest Shadow without your permission. I know that now.’

Alex sighed, placing a kiss lightly on the soft curve of her cheek. ‘Yes, it was. I was almost driven out of my mind when I discovered you’d taken him. He is barely broke to the saddle and still a bit wild and hard to handle—even for me.’

Angelina’s heart jumped with elation. ‘So you were concerned about me?’

‘I told you. I was out of my mind with worry. That was why I was so angry.’

His expression was touching, his words so sincere, that Angelina forced down a lump forming in her throat. ‘I—I didn’t mean what I said.’

‘What didn’t you mean?’ he murmured, nibbling her ear.

‘When I said I hated you. I don’t.’

‘I know,’ he answered, gently drawing the curtain of hair from her face and draping it over her shoulder.

‘You do?’

His eyes fastened on her lips once more. ‘Your lips have just told me so.’

With her heart pounding turbulently Angelina saw his eyes translucent in the ghostly candlelight, his lean features starkly etched. ‘Oh?’

‘Another kiss I would have, Angel—to confirm what your lips first told me,’ he murmured.

She shook her head in feeble protest. The insistent pressure of his body, those feral eyes glittering with power and primeval hunger, washed away any measure of comfort she might have left. A strange, alien feeling fluttered within her breast and she was halted for a brief passage of time when she found her lips entrapped with his once more, and though they were soft and tender, they burned with a fire that scorched her. Closing her eyes, she yielded to it, melting against him.

Alex tasted the sweet, honeyed softness of her mouth, finding himself once more at the mercy of his emotions, when reason and intelligence were powerless. Savouring each intoxicating pleasure he gloried in her innocence, her purity, painfully aware of the trembling weakness in her scantily clad body pressed against his own.

Alex’s conscience, which he had assumed was long since dead, chose that moment to resurrect itself. Expelling a ragged breath and out of sheer self-preservation, he flung himself away, raking fingers of angry self-disgust through his hair as he fought to reassemble his senses and bring his desire under control. Devil take it, he cursed silently as he fought to tame his body’s fierce, frustrating urges, what the hell was happening to him? He was using Angelina as he would one of his sexually experienced mistresses. But she was not like them. She was uncompromised and untainted. Compared to them, she was a gullible child.

Kissed and caressed into almost unconscious sensibility, a moment passed before Angelina realised something was wrong, that there was an unexpected lull in their kiss. She opened her eyes in a daze of suspended yearning, newly awakened passion glowing in the velvety depths of her eyes. ‘Alex?’ she murmured, reaching out and lightly touching his bare forearm, feeling empty and unable to understand why he had stopped kissing her.

Turning his head, he looked at her, his gaze smouldering, his breathing ragged, the throbbing ache in his loins reminding him how much he wanted to make love to her, how close he had come to taking her. With her hair tumbling around her in a glorious silken mass, she lay like a beautiful, pagan goddess among the ruins of her bed. He stilled her fingers tracing up his arm. It was a provocative movement and she was too innocent and inexperienced to be aware of the devastating effect it was having on his already ravaged self-control. Riven with guilt, he raised her hand to his lips and pressed them to the soft centre of her palm.

‘We must stop now, Angel, before things go too far for us to draw back.’ His voice was tight. He was unable to believe this innocent temptress had surrendered in his arms, returning his passion with such intoxicating sweetness that had almost shattered his self-control. Unwittingly he had released the raw sensuousness he had known all along lurked beneath her veneer of prim respectability.

Alex wanted Angelina more than he’d wanted anything in his life…more than he could believe possible. The weeks of being around her, of self-denial and frustration, the tension and explosive emotions her nearness elicited by her stubborn refusal to be dominated, had been hell. Like a siren in Greek mythology whose singing was believed to lure sailors to destruction on the rocks, Angelina’s weeping had lured him into her room, and her vulnerability had finally broken all bounds of his restraint.

‘This shouldn’t have happened. It was a mistake. When my uncle left you in my charge I agreed to take care of you until he returns. I will not break that agreement by seducing you. Not only would I be failing in my duty to my uncle if I did that—but I would also despise myself. I should not be here alone with you,’ he said, getting off the bed.

Angelina drew the covers around her. ‘Thank you for coming, Alex,’ she whispered, reason beginning to return.

‘I heard you crying. I couldn’t walk by your room. Will you be all right?’ His face, like an ancient warrior prince, was set in determined lines.

She nodded, wanting to conceal how deeply she was affected by what had just happened between them. ‘Yes.’

He reached out and let his fingers lightly brush her cheek, then he turned. Her eyes followed him out of the room. Not until then did her mind come together from the far reaches of her senses where it had fled the instant Alex had taken her in his arms, and realise the full impact of what she had done. She, Angelina Hamilton, the woman who had been so sure in what she wanted, who had vowed never to yield to a man’s embrace, had almost brazenly given herself to the one man she had every reason to despise.