The Alvares Bride

She had gone into the bathroom. He’d heard the click of the lock and for one insane moment, he’d thought of kicking down the door, carrying her back to bed and showing her that she could not use a man and then discard him as if he were trash…

Rafe’s mouth thinned.

The boy he’d once been might have done such a thing. The man he’d become would not. Instead, he’d dressed in the dark, gone to his room in the silent, sleeping house…

The horse snorted and danced beneath him. Rafe patted the proudly arched neck. Carin Brewster was not simply a distant memory, she was an unpleasant one.

Then, why couldn’t he get her out of his head?

His vision blurred as he remembered that night, how someone had laughed and pointed to Carin, when he’d asked where she was; how he’d stood on the deck of a Texas mansion, watching her make a fool of herself while people smirked, and wondered if he ought to be a gentleman and do something about it or just let the scene play out…

Hell. He wasn’t a gentleman. He never would be.

But Jonas Baron was his host and Nick al Rashid was his friend, which made Nick’s wife his friend, too, and the woman making a fool of herself was Amanda al Rashid’s sister…

Without any more thought than that, Rafe strode towards Carin, scooped her into his arms and carried her down the steps and towards the garden. People saw it happen; they laughed and cheered but nobody tried to stop him—nobody except the wildcat in his arms, who was kicking and cursing and beating at his shoulders with her fists.

That Nick’s wife and her mother would even imagine he’d be interested in the kicking, cursing woman he was carrying deep into the garden, seemed impossible.

Carin Brewster was the very antithesis of the sort of woman he’d someday search out and marry because, yes, he supposed he would marry, eventually. A man needed heirs so that all he’d sweated and struggled to build would not be lost, but the woman he’d choose to be his wife would be compliant and faithful. She would want to devote herself to him and to the children she would bear him.

That was the whole reason for marriage, wasn’t it?

“Are you crazy?” Carin shrieked, as he carried her further from the house. “Put me down!”

No wonder the woman’s family was having such difficulty marrying her off. She was beautiful, yes. She was also sharp-tongued, evil-tempered and self-centered. Rafe could hardly wait to get rid of her.

“You idiot!” She pounded her fists against his chest. “You—you moron! Do you have any idea who I am?”

“Yes,” Rafe said coldly, “I know precisely who you are.”

“You can’t just grab a woman and carry her off like this!”

“Ah,” he said calmly, jerking his head back just in time to avoid a wildly thrown punch, “if only you’d mentioned that sooner, senhora. I wouldn’t have done it.”

“You—you—you…”

She called him a name that implied he was related to the scatological habits of canines. He laughed. That only made her more furious. She flailed out with her fists again; this time, her knuckles dusted his jaw.

Deus.

There was a saying in this country about being careful not to catch a tiger by the tail without having a plan for letting it go.

What was he going to do with Carin Brewster?

“You just wait! Oh, you just wait until I get back to the house. I’ll have you thrown off this property so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

“I am—how do you say? I am shaking in my boots.”

“Quaking. And you’d damn well better be.” Carin pounded his chest again. “For the last time, put me down!”

“If I do, will you go to your room, ask the housekeeper to bring you a pot of black coffee and drink every drop?”

“Why should I?”

“Because you are drunk.”

“I am no such thing.”

“You are drunk,” Rafe said firmly, “and you were making a spectacle of yourself.”

“If you were correct…if you were correct, it would be my business, not yours. You had no right to interfere.”

“I interfered on behalf of your family, and on behalf of the poor young man you were threatening.”

“That’s pathetic. Do you really expect me to believe that?”

“Actually, I did it for your sister, who thinks a great deal of you.”

“You don’t know a thing about what my sister thinks.”

“On the contrary, senhora. I know that she has false illusions about you, or she would not have assumed I might find you appealing.”

“Yeah, well, she has the same illusions about you, you—you South American Neanderthal. And if you’re really thinking about my family, start concentrating on how they’ll react when I tell them what you did.”

“Nicholas and Jonas would surely agree a gag might be an excellent idea.” Rafe shifted her weight in his arms. She was slender and fine-boned but she wriggled and twisted like a snake. Holding on to her and ducking those flying fists wasn’t easy. He thought of tossing her over his shoulder, thought of all the alcohol he’d seen her consume, and decided against it. “As for your stepbrothers…” He looked down at her, his expression severe. “I have met them. And from what I know of Tyler, Gage, Travis and Slade, they would…”

Rafe came to a halt. There was a clearing just ahead. Teak benches ringed a subtly lighted reflecting pool into which a stone nymph emptied an endless stream of water from a copper ewer.

“They would what?” the warm, sweet-smelling, bad-tempered burden in his arms demanded.

“They would applaud me for what I am about to do.”

With that, he marched up to the pool and dumped her straight into it.

She landed on her bottom, legs splayed, up to her hips in water. Showered and sober, he thought with satisfaction, because the nymph was no longer emptying the ewer into the pool, she was emptying it over Carin Brewster’s head.

A hush fell over everything. Even the cascading water seemed to grow silent. Carin’s mouth opened; her lips formed a stunned, “Oh…”

And then she let out a blood-curdling shriek.

What a pity, to ruin such a lovely dress, Rafe thought dispassionately. What there was of it. Black silk, cut low enough to show the ripe curves of her breasts, high enough to show the long length of her legs. Wet, the silk clung lovingly to her body; he saw her nipples peak from the sudden chill of the water.

Beautiful, indeed, but that was all. She was nothing a man in his right mind would want…

Not for a lifetime, no. But she might prove interesting, for a night.

With heart-stopping swiftness, Rafe felt his body respond. It would be a challenge, getting past that hot temper, searching out ways to turn the fury in those dark eyes to passion. He could do it, though. He could tame her in bed, as he had tamed her here.

He imagined stripping off that black dress and the hint of black lace he could see beneath it, letting those long legs close around him as he cupped that lovely face in his hands and tasted that full, soft-looking mouth…

Deus. Was he crazy? Carin Brewster was beautiful but the Baron mansion was, as Jonas had promised, filled with beautiful women who were sweet-tempered, soft-spoken and sober, though he suspected Carin was sober enough, now. The combination of anger, adrenaline and cold water would have ended her alcoholic haze.

Yes, he thought, as he looked down at her, it had. Her shrieks had turned into moans; she was holding her hands to her temples as she tried to struggle to her feet.

Despite himself, he felt a stab of pity. He hesitated, then moved closer, bent down and held out his hand.

“Here,” he said, “take my hand.”

The woman looked at it as if it were a snake with its fangs bared. He supposed he could hardly blame her.

“Do you hear me, senhora? Take my hand and I’ll help you up.”

“I’d sooner stay here all night.”

“Are you determined to go on behaving like a spo

iled brat? Let me help you.”

“I’m perfectly capable of helping myself.”

She tried to prove it by scrambling to her feet but she slipped on the wet marble, made a wild grab at the air, and Rafe ended up with her in his arms again.

“Do not do that,” she said furiously. “Just put me—”

“—down,” he said. “Yes, most assuredly, that is what I intend to do.” He set her on her feet, peeled off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders. She tried to shrug it off but he lifted her hair free of the collar—the water had ruined the curls that had been swept up high on her head. He drew the lapels together and held the jacket closed.

“I don’t need your jacket. I don’t need anything from you.”

“You are cold.”

“I am wet,” Carin snapped, “and if you try very, very hard, you might just be able to figure out the reason.”

“You were drunk.”

“And?”

“And, now you are not.”

“Wonderful. Is that some special Brazilian method used to deal with hangovers? Didn’t you ever hear of black coffee?”

“I suggested coffee, but you declined it.”

“And so you d-d-decided to take th-things into your own hands.”