Ecstasy (Notorious 4)

Pushing himself away from the door, he moved toward her deliberately. He must be a sportsman to have developed such a lithe, muscular body, Raven reflected absently. And he emanated a raw vitality that buffeted her senses-

Willing away her disturbing awareness, Raven held her ground as he came to stand directly before her. “Must you be here when I am not dressed?”

“It is a bit late to worry about observing proper convention, considering last night. I saw every one of your charms when I was soothing your fever.”

“You call what you did ‘soothing’?”

“What I did was alleviate your suffering, Miss Kendr

ick. Believe me, you would have been much worse off had I not intervened.”

Raven set her teeth at the mocking gleam in his midnight eyes. She had never seen such a darkly, insolently beautiful male…except in her fantasies. To her dismay, she felt herself flushing again. “Did I…? Did we…?”

Somehow he understood her stumbling queries. “Yes, you did assault me. It was all I could do to keep you from ravishing me. But no, we did not enjoy sexual congress. You’re not entirely unscathed but nevertheless still a virgin.”

Under his slow, deliberate stare, her cheeks turned scarlet, and she had to look away.

“Not a very convincing performance, Miss Kendrick.”

The edge of contempt in his voice made her chin snap up again. “What do you mean?”

“Your pretense of the affronted victim isn’t at all persuasive. You might be virginal, but you are hardly an innocent. You can’t expect me to believe you’ve never lain with a man.”

Raven was hard-pressed to answer. She had never lain with a real man, of course. Yet doubtless the knowledge she’d gleaned from the journal had made her appear far more practiced than she actually was.

“What you believe,” she replied, humiliation making her sound breathless, “is of little consequence. I am not obliged to explain myself to you.”

She had to mentally brace herself against the impact of his hard gaze. Suddenly feeling a spell of dizziness, Raven turned and sank into the chair again, letting her head drop into her hands.

Amazingly enough, his tone bore a trace of compassion when he asked if she was all right.

“Oh yes, I am simply thriving,” she muttered with no little sarcasm. “I am regularly accustomed to being abducted and beaten and drugged!”

He stepped closer. With a finger under her chin, he turned her face up to his, his piercing, dark-eyed gaze assessing her intently.

“How could I possibly be all right after everything your brother did to me?” Raven demanded, her voice unsteady. “First he struck me with the butt of his pistol and rendered me senseless. Then he tied me up and forced me to drink some foul potion…” She held up her arms, revealing the livid bruises on her wrists. “He brutalized me.”

A grim frown scored Kell Lasseter’s mouth for an instant, but then he visibly repressed it. “I am sorry for what my brother did to you, Miss Kendrick. It was inexcusable. But you are not entirely blameless yourself. Not when you seduce gullible young bucks for sport.”

Raven’s gaze narrowed with her own frown. “That is a lie! I have never seduced anyone, most especially your brother. The worst I am guilty of is offering him friendship.”

“You spurned him because of his Irish blood and his lack of a title-because you considered him beneath your notice.”

“I rejected his suit, yes, but when he proposed marriage to me I was already betrothed.”

Kell Lasseter’s expression only hardened, his stare unwavering, relentless. “But you had him thrashed for daring to raise his eyes to you.”

“I certainly did not! Your brother became drunk one evening when I was at Vauxhall Gardens with friends. He accosted me and tore my gown and almost ravished me-”

“So you deny setting your groom upon him?”

“Yes, I deny it!” She shot him a fierce look. “My groom only intervened to protect me, for which I was eminently grateful. As it was, I barely escaped scandal.”

“But first you ordered Sean beaten half to death.”

“I tell you, that was not what happened. O’Malley struck him, true, but only to make your brother release me.”

“Your groom just happened to be strolling through Vauxhall with you, Miss Kendrick?” Lasseter drawled, his tone sardonic.