Midnight's Wild Passion

He prowled to the sideboard. The sun hadn’t risen but early morning light flooding through the casement windows meant she saw him with complete clarity. His form vibrated tension and, much as she didn’t want to admit it, wounded feelings.

With a sharp gesture that indicated anger, he splashed brandy into a glass and downed it in one gulp. Then he leaned over the sideboard, resting his weight upon hands he flattened on the mahogany top. He lowered his head between his shoulders as though considering uncongenial matters.

Trembling with turbulent emotion, she stared at his taut back. Hungrily her eyes traced the strong shoulders, the tight buttocks, the long, powerful legs.

Antonia blinked away tears. She’d had a night of ecstasy such as few women were privileged to enjoy. That was her ration of pleasure. She’d known that when she accepted Nicholas’s invitation. It was greedy to want more.

Greedy and dangerous.

Nicholas wasn’t for her, although at moments during the night she’d felt so close to him, it was like meeting the other half of her soul. The feeling merely resulted from sensual bliss, she told herself, although her aching heart refused to believe it.

Her aching heart was no guide. Her aching heart demanded she accept that ludicrous, impractical proposal. Her aching heart insisted Nicholas was genuine when he said he wanted to marry her.

What if he was?

Almost with relief, she turned to the cynical voice.

He’s incapable of fidelity. He’ll be bored within a month. Even if he drags you before a parson, there’s no fairy-tale ending here.

She’d gain nothing from staying, apart from heartache. She’d stored up plenty of tha

t already. She must rise, dress, depart.

Awkwardly, wrapping the sheet around her, she slid from the bed. Her clothes lay scattered across the floor, witness to her abandon. She cast Nicholas a quick glance over her shoulder but he remained unmoving at the sideboard. He was furious and she hated it. This wasn’t how she wanted to conclude the most glorious night of her life.

She’d been mistaken about him in so many ways, not least assuming he’d be perfectly willing for her to leave once he got what he wanted. Surely a night’s pleasure counted as exactly what he wanted. Not just pleasure, but her complete surrender.

A haze formed in front of her eyes. She blinked. She would not cry. If only because Lord Ranelaw had left too many women in tears after a night of rapture. She refused to count as one more.

“What are you doing?” he asked grimly without turning.

She bit back the sob that betrayed her distress. Her pride was all she had left. It had kept her going through the disastrous elopement, it had shielded her from unwelcome masculine attentions on her journey from Italy, it had sustained her through ten miserable years since. Pride would rescue her now.

“Getting dressed.” She struggled for composure. She’d spent years hiding her real self. Surely the skill hadn’t deserted her in the space of a night.

He turned and glared, his black eyes like ice. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

She shivered under that frigid glower and stilled, her shift dangling from one hand, while the other clutched the sheet with shaking desperation. “I told you, I have to go.”

She wished to heaven she didn’t sound so uncertain. So damned young. He stripped her back to the naïve girl. Except the pain of Johnny’s betrayal didn’t compare to what she suffered now at the thought of never seeing Nicholas again. That and the knowledge they parted in rancor.

He swept a scornful hand in her direction. “I know what you look like.”

She flushed and tugged the sheet tighter. “I know,” she mumbled, feeling a fool.

He strode toward her, tall, strong and vibrating with anger. He didn’t seem to care that he wore not a scrap of covering. “Then you don’t need this.”

With one savage movement, he wrenched the sheet away, leaving her bare. “Nicholas, don’t,” she gasped, automatically pressing her shift to her torso.

“For God’s sake . . .” He ran one hand through his already disheveled hair and wheeled toward the window.

She hated when he turned away. She hated that she was so poor-spirited. He didn’t force her to act the ninnyhammer. No, the idiocy was all her doing.

It required every scrap of will to straighten and glare at him, although she couldn’t bring herself to drop the shift. “I know you’re angry.”

“Terrifically perceptive, madam,” he sniped back, facing her.

He stared at her with implacable dislike. Except now she looked more closely, she realized that under the anger, he was also upset, at least as upset as she was. A flush darkened his slanted cheekbones and that telltale muscle flickered in his cheek.