Читать книгу His Lady's Ransom - Merline Lovelace, Merline Lovelace - Страница 8

Chapter Two

Madeline’s low, merry laugh rippled through the crowd of courtiers surrounding her.

“Nay, Sir Percy,” she told the grizzled knight who hovered at her shoulder, “you may not have my garter. Imagine what people would think if you were to wear such an intimate item in the tourney.”

“They would think what is my fondest desire, lady.”

“Oh, so?” she said teasingly. “And just moments ago I heard you say you desired above all else to win a certain war-horse, if you could but unseat its owner. ‘Tis the trouble with you fearsome knights. You know not whether you want first your horse or your lady.”

The courtiers around her burst into laughter as the older knight began a gallant repartee, trying to convince her that she owned his heart. Madeline turned aside his flowery phrases with practiced ease, enjoying the lively give-and-take. Her eyes sparkled as Sir Percy effusively professed his devotion. When the older knight paused at last, William edged him aside with more boyish eagerness than polished address.

“Lady, may I take you in to supper?”

“Nay, Sir William, I am promised.” Madeline hid a smile at his crestfallen face. “But I’ll save a dance for you later. The rondeau, perhaps? ‘Twill do my image no end of good to be partnered by the handsomest young knight at the king’s court.”

Will nodded eagerly and bent over her hand, his bright curls shining against the crimson of her sleeve. Madeline’s gaze softened at his reverent salute. In truth, he was a comely lad, with a friendly, open disposition to match his well-proportioned frame. That he’d already made a name for himself on the tourney field and in several battles didn’t detract from the air of youthful exuberance that she found so refreshing.

“Will you at least allow me to bring my brother to meet you before the boards are laid?” he asked, retaining her hand until she slipped it from his grasp.

“What, has he arrived at last? The earl of Margill? The same glorious knight and fearless warrior I’ve heard so much about these last weeks?”

“Don’t tell him I described him thus,” Will begged, grinning down at her. “In his presence, I refer to him as the biggest churl in Christendom! Give me leave, and I’ll deliver him to your side this instant.”

Madeline nodded her assent, curious to meet the man whose sayings and accomplishments peppered William’s conversation with unconscious frequency. In the weeks since the youth had drifted into her circle—nay, blundered into her circle, for with those huge feet, the lad would never drift—she’d heard much of this esteemed older brother. She had a vague memory of meeting him once, long ago, when she’d wed her first lord. She’d been too young and too nervous to remember much of the crowd of knights and ladies who attended the festivities. But if she could not recall Ian de Burgh in any detail, there were many women here at Kenilworth who could. Since her return to court, Madeline had heard more than one lady sighing over the earl’s beguiling blue eyes and lazy smile. From their tittering, giggling comments about his person, Madeline had formed a mental image of a peacock on the strut.

At length Will elbowed his way back into the circle surrounding her. Madeline looked up, and her gaze locked with a pair of midnight blue eyes, startling in a face so tanned by sun and wind. A shock of sheer awareness darted down her spine.

This was no puffed-up courtier, impressed by the power and authority of his huge estates.

This was a man in his prime, a knight honed to a muscled leanness by vigorous activity, and tougher by far than his tawny-haired, chiseled handsomeness would suggest.

Madeline swallowed. Having twice been wed, she was yet a stranger to the feeling that suddenly coursed through her at the sight of this tall, broad-shouldered man.

“I would present my brother, Lord Ian,” Will said eagerly. “He’s professed himself most anxious to meet you.”

“Indeed, my lady, after hearing Will’s flowing verses, I could scarce wait to meet the object of his poetry.”

Recovering her poise, Madeline threw the youth a look of mock dismay. “Oh, no, Sir William! You’ve not subjected your brother to those verses!”

“Indeed he has,” de Burgh drawled. “All of them. Several times over.”

To her surprise, Madeline felt a flush rising above the square cut bodice of her gown. By the holy Virgin, she hadn’t blushed in years. But for some reason the thought of the earl reading those outrageous descriptions of her face and form disconcerted her.

Undaunted by their disparagement of his compositions, Will gave a cheerful grin. “My verses will improve with practice.”

“I hope so,” his brother interjected smoothly, “else the lady will not allow you to continue to pay homage at her skirts.”

Madeline’s eyes flashed up to meet the earl’s. Was she the only one who heard the soft warning in his words? Or sensed intimidation in the way his hand closed over her upper arm, to ease her away from the rest of the group?

Apparently so. When he suggested casually that he wished to further her acquaintance where there was less noise, Will nodded in acquiescence, and the rest of her circle stood aside. The conversation behind her picked up with barely a pause as Madeline found herself heading toward a nearby alcove.

She fought a ripple of annoyance at the way the man detached her from her friends with such effortless skill. She wasn’t used to being led away without being consulted as to her own wishes in the matter. She wasn’t used to being led at all. Tugging her arm from his firm hold, she turned to face Ian. Madeline allowed no trace of her irritation at his high-handed manners to show in her voice, or in the half smile she sent him.

“I gather you wish to speak with me privately because you’re concerned about your brother’s choice of an objet d’amour.”

His sun-bleached brows rose. She’d taken him aback, Madeline saw with some satisfaction. She suspected it wasn’t often that anyone did so.

“You believe in plain speaking, I see,” he commented after a moment.

“Yes, I do. It saves much time and misunderstanding. And spares me unsubtle warnings such as you issued just now.”

After a brief hesitation, he made a slight bow. “My pardon, Lady Madeline. I hadn’t realized I was being so clumsy in my address.”

He leaned back against the stone wall, his arms folded, and ran his eyes slowly over her face. At his appraising look, Madeline fought the flush that threatened to stain her bosom once again.

“’Tis one of the things I like most in your brother,” she said with faint challenge. “He is refreshingly open and honest.”

“Aye, he is that. And as yet untainted by the ways of the court.”

“You fear I will be the one to taint him?”

“This is plain speaking indeed,” the earl murmured, straightening.

“I’m neither stupid nor a timid maiden, my lord. I know well what is said of me. And I know, as well, that Will’s family is concerned for him. Or so I’ve been advised by half a dozen of the older tabbies at court,” she finished dryly.

To Madeline’s surprise, his blue eyes lightened with rueful laughter. For the first time, she witnessed the beguiling charm the other ladies of the courts had tittered about whenever Ian de Burgh’s name was mentioned.

“’Twould appear my lady mother is most industrious in her correspondence.”

Madeline’s own lips curved in instinctive response to the smile creasing his lean cheeks. “And you, my lord? Do you share your mother’s concerns?”

“I? I begin to share my brother’s interest.”

His soft, slow drawl raised ripples of pleasure all along Madeline’s nerves. When the man chose to be charming, he did so with a vengeance, she thought somewhat breathlessly. That particular combination of gleaming eyes and crooked grin was enough to make any woman’s breath catch in her throat. She ran her tongue across suddenly dry lips and sought for something to say.

“Your pardon, my lord, my lady.”

She turned to see one of the household pages standing just beyond the alcove. The golden lion, symbol of the house of Plantagenet, shone on the boy’s red tunic.

“They’re laying the boards and will soon begin to serve. Lord John sent me to escort you to your seat, my lady.”

“Aye, I’ll be with you shortly.”

Madeline turned back to finish her conversation with the earl. She had yet to assure him that he need not worry about Will. The boy’s adoration amused her, but she’d been in the world enough to know how to let down a young knight without shattering either his pride or his illusions.

The earl’s closed expression stopped the words in her mouth. No trace of either laughter or friendliness lingered in his eyes. Confused, Madeline stared up at his tanned face.

He bent at the waist in a bow so shallow it was more insult than salute. “Don’t let me keep you from a royal summons, madame.”

His cold tone sent a spear of regret through her so swift and sharp she had to bite back a small gasp. So he, like all the others, disparaged her friendship with John. This knight, whose reputation with women was common knowledge, dared scorn her.

Madeline knew well the rumors that flitted through the court about her, skittering here and there through the castle halls like old rushes stirred by the drafts that swept the winding corridors. ‘Twas widely believed that the king’s son took her to mistress. If John led her in the dance, heads would bow and whispers pass from mouth to mouth. If she danced with another knight, knowing eyes would flash the message that she sought another husband to wear the cuckold’s horns while she dallied with the king’s son. After all, she’d held the man enthralled since childhood and through two marriages.

Normally Madeline dismissed the whispers with the ease of long practice. The look in de Burgh’s eyes, however, pricked at her pride.

Lifting her chin, she nodded coolly. “Aye, I must not keep the prince waiting.”

Allowing none of her inner turmoil to show in her face, Madeline followed the page through the throng filling Kenilworth’s vast hall and took her seat at the high table beside the man who was youngest son to King Henry and Queen Eleanor.

Her usual place was lower, well below the salt, with the other maidens and widows in warship to the crown. But with the king not yet arrived and Richard Lion-heart otherwise disposed, John had ordered the seating this night to suit his own preferences. Madeline bit back a sigh as she caught the sly glances thrown her way from those seated at the lower tables. By elevating her well above her station, John had once again fueled the rumors about them. ‘Twould do no good to protest, however. It never did. Spoiled, darkly handsome, and indulged by his father from earliest infancy, the young lord was rarely denied his wishes.

“Why don’t you eat?” he asked when she took a meager helping from the dish of eels stewed in honey and wild onions that a perspiring page presented. “You’ll never attract another husband if you don’t fatten up and fill out your gowns more. You were ever flat as a sword blade, Maddy.”

Her gaze flew up to meet his dancing black eyes. “Aye, and you were ever ready to tell me so, my lord. You’ll never know how much I feared my first wedding and bedding because of your slighting comments about my shape when we were children.”

“Ha! That doting old fool who wed you cared not about your shape. He was as beguiled as they all are by your green eyes and ripe lips.”

The lips under discussion lost their ripeness. Slowly Madeline set down her two-tined fork—a recent introduction to the court—and turned to give the man beside her a level look.

“I’ve valued your friendship since I first came to your mother’s household these many years ago. But I’ll not allow you to speak so of the man who wed me. He was good, and kind, and treated me most gently.”

“He was also so old his knees rattled when he walked.” John held up a hand. “Nay, nay, do not glower at me. He was good and kind, if so you say.”

He waited until she had given a stiff nod and picked up her fork once more, then grinned wickedly.

“But I’ll warrant you enjoyed your second wedding and bedding far more.”

“Jack-a-napes,” Madeline sputtered, using the nickname she’d called him by privately since they were four years old. “Do not start on that again!”

He leaned forward, his shoulder brushing hers. “Come, Maddy. Your second lord may have had wool for brains, but he was rumored to have the accoutrements of an ox. Were the pleasures of the marriage bed all that they’re rumored to be?”

“You’ll find out when you consummate your marriage to the Lady Isabel,” Madeline replied lightly. “As if you didn’t already know!”

At the mention of his betrothed, John’s eyes lost their dark light. He drew back and lifted his wine goblet to his lips.

Madeline stabbed at a slithery eel and cursed herself under her breath for her slip. As the youngest of the king’s eight children, John had no hereditary duchies to claim as his own, and much resented his landless state. To rectify this situation, King Henry had debated endlessly whether to strip his other sons of some of their lands to give John a heritage. He’d also betrothed him as a young boy to Isabel of Gloucester, Strong-bow’s great heiress, a cold, supercilious girl. Despite the fact that Isabel’s holdings constituted as yet his only estates, or mayhap because of it, John secretly despised the dark-haired heiress. He was careful not to show his dislike, but Madeline knew of his disdain for his betrothed, as she knew most of his innermost thoughts.

Almost since the day she’d come into the king’s wardship, a lonely little four-year-old, John had been her friend and companion. Madeline could recall as if it were yesterday the rainy April morning he’d released her, white-faced and stiff with fright, from the dark privy a mischievous playmate had locked her in hours before. On that day, he’d become her instant hero.

Madeline often wondered at the unlikely friendship that had sprung from that inauspicious meeting. Although the son of the most powerful king in Christendom, John had always alternated between flashing smiles and dark melancholy. Madeline, by contrast, was the orphan of a minor baron and found easy release for her ready laughter. Yet, whenever the young lord could steal away from his tutors and Madeline from her duties to Queen Eleanor, the two children would explore the gardens or the stables, tearing hose and skirts in their adventures. Over the years, the friendship between the prince and maid had grown haphazardly, in fits and starts, but grown it had.

Not even Madeline’s two marriages, as brief and as fruitless as they’d been, had lessened the bond. Her first lord, a kind, chivalrous old knight who professed himself delighted with his child bride, had taken her into his household when she was twelve. Spoiled and petted and shamelessly indulged, Madeline had gone willingly to his bed to consummate their marriage two years later. When he died within a twelvemonth, the king had taken the young widow into wardship once again.

King Henry himself had chosen Madeline’s second husband, a brawny but slow-witted young knight who’d all but fallen over his feet in his desire for the lady. The knight had gladly paid the exorbitant bride price into the royal coffers, reverently and most satisfactorily bedded his wife—at least in his mind—then promptly lost his life in a mad charge across a battlefield.

Now she was once more the king’s ward. At John’s request, she’d been brought back to reside within the royal household, while castellans managed her estates and rendered their revenues to the crown. Madeline didn’t mind. ‘Twas the only home she’d ever known, after all, and John the only constant in the shifting world in which she’d come to womanhood. This time, her friend had promised her, she would not have to leave until she so chose. This time he’d used his influence with his father, who’d agreed Madeline would have a say in the choice of her next lord.

Her next husband would not be quite as old as her first, Madeline had already decided, nor as foolhardy as her second. She wanted a man strong enough to hold her lands and mature enough to manage them wisely, yet young enough to laugh with. Someone to stoke the fires of passion that flickered within her but had, as yet, not been fanned to flames.

Unbidden, Madeline’s gaze drifted down the boards and met that of Ian de Burgh. At the look in his blue eyes, she stiffened. Suddenly the sweetmeat she had just bitten into tasted like ashes in her mouth.

She’d hoped, nay dreamed, for a husband such as Lord Ian. One whose body made her breath catch and whose eyes bespoke intelligence and wit. But the scorn that now curled his mouth made a mockery of her dreams. Better by far to take one of those who dangled after her, Madeline decided with a sigh, than to waste her wishes on a man who clearly believed the court’s gossip. Swearing a silent vow to avoid the earl in the future, Madeline gave her attention to the prince.

As the days passed, Ian felt both his ire and his unwilling fascination with Lady Madeline grow in equal measures. The lady was like a moth, he decided, light and frivolous, fluttering from one man to the next. With the king’s arrival, Kenilworth Castle was filled to overflowing, yet Ian had only to walk past a crowded salon to hear her merry laughter. He couldn’t stroll into the great hall of an evening without seeing a knot of courtiers clustered about a slender form and knowing she was holding court.

She was discreet enough not to flaunt her relationship with the king’s son in his father’s presence, but she flirted with every other male in the castle, it seemed.

Every male except him.

Ian shrugged, telling himself that he cared naught about the lady’s cold stare when he’d chanced upon her in the corridor yestereve, but in truth he was no more used to being snubbed than he was to having his brother ignore his subtle tugs on the reins.

Despite his efforts to detach Will from the lady’s circle, the lad was well and truly smitten. He’d join Ian in the hunt with great good humor, and participate vigorously in the games leading up to the great tourney that was to begin in a few days. But, like an iron filing drawn to a lodestone, Will would find his way to the lady’s side as soon as he could.

As he had tonight.

Thoroughly disgusted, Ian watched his brother lead the lady through a stately dance, his bright head clearly visible above the rest of the crowd. Clad in a richly embroidered robe of shimmering blue silk, Lady Madeline looked slender and graceful next to Will’s towering bulk.

Forcing himself to remain casual, Ian intercepted Will after the dance ended and steered his brother to a quiet corner. A passing page provided them both with wine, which Will downed in long, thirsty gulps.

“I tell you, Ian, this dancing is a warm business,” he confided, wiping the sweat from his brow with one arm.

“More like ‘tis all the layers of finery you’ve adorned yourself with,” Ian responded with a grin.

The brothers exchanged good-natured insults for a few moments, before Ian led the conversation to the issue that concerned him. “You should not be quite so particular in your attentions to the Lady Madeline,” he suggested casually.

Will’s smile slipped a bit, and a hesitant expression crept into his eyes. “Why not?”

“’Twill give her the idea that you wish more than just a pleasant dalliance.”

The lad’s face took on a closed expression, as though he weighed matters in his mind that he could not, or would not, share.

Ian felt a stab of hurt. Never before had Will been the least reluctant to discuss his amatory adventures or seek his older brother’s counsel on such matters. Swallowing his anger at the woman who had caused this sudden caution in his open, trusting brother, Ian shrugged. “She’s a widow, after all, on the look for a new husband. You shouldn’t monopolize her time, nor distract her from her task.”

“Is it so improbable that Lady Madeline might want me as a husband?” Will asked slowly.

Ian threw him a sharp glance. “You are betrothed.”

“Aye.” Will gnawed on his lower lip for a long, hesitant moment. “But the last time I was in the north, Alicia seemed to find little joy in the prospect of marriage with me. Mayhap she would be better matched with someone else.”

Ian’s brows soared in surprise. “Are you saying she wants release from the betrothal? Our lady mother mentioned nothing of this when I was home.”

Will shook his head, clearly miserable. “Nay, Ian. Alicia would not ask for release. She’s such a mouse, she would not have the courage. But…but neither does she invite my kisses.”

Ian wavered between exasperation and amusement. Will’s next words, however, erased all inclination to laugh.

“Lady Madeline doesn’t shrink away and call me a heavy-handed brute when I take her arm.”

“Nay, I’ll wager she does not,” Ian drawled. “She’s more used to men by a goodly measure than is Alicia.”

A frown settled between Will’s brows at this description of his ladylove. Satisfied that he’d planted at least a seed of doubt, Ian turned the subject. He’d heard enough to know that Will would not disgrace himself by forswearing his vows, though the lad longed for this Madeline de Courcey with all the urgency of a young man in the throes of his first love.

There was only one solution, Ian concluded, and that was to convince the woman herself to call a halt before the boy’s heart took a serious blow. Or before he earned the enmity of the king’s son with his pursuit of the lady. Sending Will off with the suggestion that he find himself a flagon of ale or a willing wench, or both, Ian decided that ‘twas time he and the Lady Madeline finished their discussion of some days before.

With the skill of the hunter cutting his prey from the herd, Ian separated the lady from the women she walked with in the castle gardens the next afternoon. Holding her hand longer than was either polite or necessary, he gave the other ladies a slow grin and the unmistakable hint that he desired private speech with Lady Madeline. Despite Madeline’s raised brows and stiff rejoinder that ‘twas too cold and damp for conversation, the other women fluttered off, casting more than one arch glance over a cloaked shoulder. As soon as they had disappeared around a bend of the intricate evergreen hedges that made Kenilworth’s gardens famous, Madeline snatched back her hand.

“I much mislike this tendency you have to separate me from my companions, my lord. Do not do so again.”

Ian stared down at her flushed face. Whether it was the cold February wind that had put the pink in her cheeks or his own determined tactics, he neither knew nor cared. But the sight of her creamy, rose-tinted skin and huge, flashing eyes framed by a blue wool hood lined with sable made Ian suck in a quick breath. Irritated that she would cause such a reaction in him, he folded his arms across his chest.

“And I much mislike seeing my brother make a fool of himself over one such as you, my lady. You will cease your attentions to him.”

Her breath puffed out in a little cloud of white vapor. “One such as I?”

“Come, you told me yourself that you preferred plain speaking.”

To his surprise, a gleam of wry laughter appeared in her expressive eyes. “’Tis one thing for me to speak plainly about myself, my lord. ‘Tis another thing altogether for you to do so.”

Despite himself, Ian felt an answering grin tug at his lips. “I see. ‘Tis well I know the rules before I play the game.”

“The game?”

“Aye. ‘Tis what you do, is it not? You draw men in with your laughter and your merry eyes, and play with them. You’re most skilled at it.”

She drew back and surveyed him thoughtfully. “I’d thank you for the compliment sir, if I thought it one.”

“Oh, it is, most assuredly.”

Ian brushed a knuckle down the alabaster coldness of her cheek. She jerked her head back, startled and a little breathless. Her fingers curled under her chin.

“I would be drawn by those eyes myself,” he murmured, “were I not reluctant to poach in my brother’s preserves.”

Madeline stared up at him, confused by the conflicting emotions he generated within her breast. With every double-edged word he spoke, he seemed to be offering her insult. But the lambent gleam in his dark blue eyes, and the way his hand now cupped her chin in a warm, hard hold, fanned a tiny flame within her. When it came to playing the game, Madeline decided, this man was more skilled by far than she.

“My lord…” she began, embarrassed at the breathless quality of her voice.

“Aye?”

His murmured response sent a tingle of awareness shimmering down her spine. Or mayhap it was the feel of his callused fingers on her skin. Or the scent that drifted to her on the cold, crisp air of leather and dry wood and male.

“You need not worry about William.”

“Need I not?”

Madeline’s hood slid off her hair as she tilted her head back to look up into the face above her. The winter sun painted his high cheeks and square, blunt jaw. It was a strong face, Madeline decided, echoing the character of its owner.

“Nay, you need not,” she replied lightly. “I will ensure he takes no hurt. As you said, I’m much skilled at this game.”

The hold on her chin tightened suddenly. Madeline blinked in surprise as his eyes took on the silvery sheen of old slate.

“You mistake Will’s character, lady. Unlike your husbands, my brother is neither old nor thick-skulled.”

“What are you speaking of?” she gasped.

“I won’t allow Will to break his betrothal and marry you,” he replied with knife-edged bluntness. “However well you play this game of yours, you’ll not put cuckold’s horns on my brother while you dally with the king’s son.”

Madeline jerked her chin out of his hold, stunned by his attack. “How—how dare you speak to me so!”

“I dare because Will is my responsibility.”

“You take your responsibilities too heavily,” she said, gathering her skirts. “William is a man, fully grown and knighted. ‘Tis time you let him think for himself.”

She whirled, intending to stalk out of the garden, but a hard hand grasped her arm and whipped her around.

“I tell you now, he’ll not break his betrothal. Will has more honor than you appear to credit him with. He’s…infatuated with you, ‘tis all.”

“If infatuation is all it is, you need not worry,” Madeline snapped, tugging furiously at his hold.

“Cut the strings you keep him dangling by, or I’ll cut them myself, in a manner you’ll like not.”

Incensed, Madeline swung back to face him. “You may take your threats and your insults straight to the reddest, hottest flames of hell, my lord, and yourself with them.”

His jaw clenching, he caught both of her arms in an iron, unbreakable hold. “Let the lad be, lady.”

“Why should I do so?” she retorted, stung by the flat coldness in a voice that had sent a shiver of delight through her only moments before. She wanted to hurt this man, as he’d hurt her. Humble him. Cause him to sweat under his fur-lined surcoat. If this…this dolt wanted to think she sought to ensnare his precious brother, then she’d not disabuse him of his folly.

Without giving him time to reply, she rushed on. “The boy’s besotted, any fool can see that. And he has lands and incomes greater by far than my previous lords,” she ended on a sneer.

He tightened his grip, drawing her up, until her toes just touched the stone walk and her head tilted back. A muscle twitched at one side of his jaw.

Madeline watched it, fascinated and a little frightened. She swallowed, thinking that mayhap she’d been a little too precipitate. Wetting her lips, she drew in a deep breath.

“My lord…” she began.

“Will’s estates and income are under my control.” He ground out the words. “If ‘tis moneys you want, you play with the wrong brother.” He drew her against him, banding her body to his with an arm around her waist.

“My lord!”

“Why not try your games with me, Lady Madeline?” he taunted softly. “Let’s see how skilled you really are.”

She splayed her hands against his chest, pushing against the hold that held her locked to him in such intimate embrace. “I thought you did not hunt in your brother’s preserves!”

“That was when I believed Will the hunter. I see now he’s the quarry, instead.”

Madeline arched backward, and realized immediately her mistake. Her hips pressed hard into his. Through the thick layers separating them, she could feel the unyielding strength of his thighs, the flat planes of his belly. And something else. Something that grew harder with every effort she made to twist free.

She was the king’s ward, Madeline thought incredulously. She could claim royal protection. Yet this arrogant knight appeared to care naught. He would take her here, on the bare, windswept ground, did she let him!

“You’d best beware,” she warned, breathing hard. “’Tis also royal ground you poach upon.”

She’d meant to remind him that she was under the king’s protection, but she saw at once he’d mistaken her meaning. Disgust flared in his eyes, the same disgust she’d seen when he looked upon her at the high table, seated beside John. Before she could make clear her meaning, or even decide if she wanted to, he tangled a fist in the silk anchored over her braided hair and angled her face up to his.

“Well, at least we know the game is plentiful,” he told her grimly, then bent and took her lips with his.

It was a kiss intended to convey more insult than passion, and it did. His lips were hard and unyielding, taking rather than giving. They branded her. Seared her. Humiliated her as no spoken insult could have. Never in her brief years of marriage had Madeline felt so used or so dominated by a man.

He shifted, widening his stance. Madeline gave a muffled squeak of dismay as she felt herself bent backward over his arm.

Her distress penetrated the fury ringing in Ian’s ears. Christ’s bones, he hadn’t meant to savage the woman, only to show her whom it was she had pitted herself against.

Not unskilled himself in the games played between men and women, Ian brought her up against him and savored the unexpected pleasure that shot through him at the feel of her body arching into his. He gentled his kiss, and his lips molded hers, tasting instead of torturing, teasing instead of taking.

She gave a soft, breathless moan, and her fingers loosed their clawing hold on his arms.

Ian lifted his head, his nostrils flaring in fierce male satisfaction at the sound of her surrender. His conscience screamed ‘twas Will’s love he held in his arms, but when she stared up at him, her huge eyes dazed, he could not have loosed her had his life depended on it.

Madeline drew in a shaky breath, trying to gather her disordered senses. Anger coursed through her, so fast and hot she shivered with the force of it. And stunned astonishment that the earl would use her like some kitchen wench. And desire. Hot, shameful desire.

Her lips throbbed from the force of his, and when he lowered his head to kiss her once again, Madeline knew she had to win free of him.

Abandoning all pretensions to courtly sophistication or dignity, she did what she’d done once before, when she and John were but six and he wrestled her to the ground in an argument over a frog they’d found.

She bit her tormentor. Hard.

The earl jerked back with a startled oath.

Madeline twisted out of his arms. Had it been a sword, the glare she gave him would have sliced off his manhood. Picking up her skirts, she stalked out of the garden.