He heard the scream.
Startled, he stopped in his tracks and scanned the milky darkness, trying to assess the direction from which the sound had emerged. He saw nothing. He had almost decided he’d imagined the cry, when he heard it again.
“Help!”
It was definitely real. The voice belonged to a woman, one who was obviously in distress.
Scowling, he cast a brief glance at the manor, contemplating his choices. He had waited this long. A few more minutes wouldn’t matter.
That decided, he made his way through the fog.
Ariana brushed a damp auburn strand from her forehead, feeling the heavy tresses tumble free of their restraining pins to settle in a limp, disheveled mass on her back.
No one had responded to her call. That meant she was even farther away than she’d realized. Well, she couldn’t just sit here forever, praying to be rescued. Perhaps if she managed to pull herself upright she could put all her weight on her uninjured foot and hop—but in what direction? She hadn’t an inkling of her whereabouts. And she couldn’t remain standing long enough to discover them. The throbbing in her ankle was intensifying, as was the swelling.
She bit her lip in frustration. Futile though it might be, she tried once again. “Help!”
Holding her breath, she waited. Silence. Surely she couldn’t be the only one who had ventured from the party to stroll the grounds. But apparently she was. She dropped her head wearily.
A twig snapped, and Ariana’s head came up in a flash. “Help! Please help me!” she cried out, flooded with relief when the soft but distinct plod of footsteps reached her ears.
“Keep talking,” a deep, resonant voice instructed. “I’ll follow the sound.”
“I’m inside the maze,” Ariana called, desperately wishing the mist would lift. She had no idea who her rescuer was; his voice was unfamiliar but disturbingly close. Uneasily, she wondered why he was walking alone in this particularly isolated section of the estate. On the heels of that thought came the reality of its absurdity: She, who had gone in avid pursuit of an elusive owl and was now hopelessly lost in a forest of trees, was concerned about a stranger’s motives for strolling the Covington grounds?
“Can you hear me?” the stranger called, closer this time.
“Yes!” Ariana sat up straighten “Yes, I can hear you!”
A moment later the hedges parted and a towering figure emerged. “And now?” a deep-timbered baritone boomed into the night.
Ariana swallowed. “I can hear you. I can also see you. I’m sitting about ten paces to the left of where you stand.”
The dark silhouette paused, then moved toward her with long, pantherlike strides. He stopped, so close to her that the powerful muscles of his thighs were practically touching her face. Involuntarily, she shifted, the movement causing a shaft of pain to shoot through her ankle. She grimaced, fear mingling with physical anguish as, abruptly, she became aware of how precarious her situation was. She was alone, injured, unable to protect herself, in a secluded, private maze with a massive and forbidding stranger. What in God’s name had she gotten herself into this time?
Hindered by the fog, Ariana was unable to see anything above the solid columns of her rescuer’s thighs. Nonetheless, she could feel the intimidating force of his scrutiny. Instinctively, she tucked her skirts around her, wishing he would identify himself or declare his intentions. She felt totally vulnerable, defenseless. And bewildered. Surely he had stared long enough. Why didn’t he say something?
“Thank you for answering my plea,” she managed in a deceptively calm voice.
The thigh muscles rippled, then flexed, and the next thing Ariana knew she was gazing into burning cobalt eyes and the hardest, most starkly handsome face she had ever seen.
“Are you hurt?”
Mutely, she nodded.
“What happened?”
Ariana licked her lips nervously. Squatting so close beside her, his expression and tone rock-hard, her rescuer seemed more formidable than ever.
“I saw the most breathtaking owl,” she began. “He had white feathers as pure as snowflakes and moved as gracefully as a Thoroughbred.” Warming to her subject, Ariana’s eyes sparkled with exhilaration. “Then he called out to me. Naturally, I had no choice but to follow. He led me into this maze. I became lost. I fell. My ankle …” Abruptly she stopped, realizing she’d been rambling. Staring up through the veiled layers of night, she studied the man’s unreadable features.
For a long moment he was silent, his eyes boring into her. “Don’t you know how unsafe it is for a beautiful woman to go for a midnight stroll, alone, on so expansive an estate as this?” he questioned at last. “Why, the mist could swallow up so ethereal a creature as you. … And never set you free.”
Ariana felt gooseflesh break out on her arms.
He said nothing more, but his brazen stare consumed her from head to toe, as if memorizing every inch of her. Then, without warning, he reached for the hem of her gown, tugging it upward.
Ariana froze, recoiling automatically, crying out at the resulting pain she caused herself.