Counterfeit Lady (James River Trilogy 1)

“I worked myself free when they were gone. I wanted to get out and make sure he was safe. As I looked out the window—” Her body contracted violently, and he wrapped her closer to him.

“What was outside the window?”

She jerked away from him, pushing at him. “My grandfather was there. He was there, smiling at me.”

Clay stared in puzzlement.

“Don’t you understand? I was in the attic. They’d cut his head off and stuck it on a pike. They’d carried it high over their heads like a trophy. The lightning flashed, and I saw him!”

“Oh, God,” Clay moaned, and he pulled her back to him even though she fought him. As she began to cry, he held her, rocked her, caressed her hair.

“They killed the miller, too,” she said after a while. “The miller’s wife said I had to get away, that she could protect me no longer. She sewed three emeralds into my dress and put me on a ship to England. The emeralds and my locket were all that was left of my childhood.”

“And then you stayed with Bianca and were kidnapped by me.”

She sniffed. “You make it sound as if all my life were bad. I had a very happy childhood. I lived on a great estate, and I had hundreds of cousins for playmates.”

He was glad to see she was recovering. He hoped that talking of the tragedy would have some lasting effect. “And how many hearts did you steal? Were they all in love with you?”

“None of them were. One cousin kissed me but I didn’t like it. I wouldn’t let any of them kiss me again. You’

re the only one—” She stopped and smiled, then ran her finger along his lips. He kissed it, and she held the finger up to look at it. “Stupid, stupid Nicole,” she whispered.

“Why do you call yourself stupid?”

“The whole story is quite comical, really. One day, I’m riding in the park. The next, I wake up on a ship bound for America. Then I’m forced to marry a man who says I’m a thief.” She didn’t seem to feel Clay wince. “It would all make an excellent play. Beautiful heroine Bianca is engaged to handsome hero Clayton. But their plans are disrupted by the villainous Nicole. The audience would hang on to their seats until the end of the play, when the course of true love runs straight and Bianca and Clay are reunited.”

“And what of Nicole?”

“Ah! A judge gives her some papers that say she never existed, that the time she spent with the hero never was.”

“Isn’t that what Nicole wants?” he asked quietly.

She held the finger Clay had kissed to her lips. “Poor, ignorant Nicole has fallen in love with the hero. Isn’t that funny? He’s never even looked at her in their ten-minute marriage, but she’s in love with him. Do you know that he said she was an admirable woman? The poor, dumb thing is standing there, begging, wanting him to offer her passion, and he talks of all the things she can do, rather like buying a mare.”

“Nicole—” he began.

She giggled and stretched in his arms. “Did you know that I’m twenty years old? Half my cousins were married by the time they were eighteen. But I was always different. They said I was cold and unfeeling, that no man would ever want me.”

“They were wrong. The minute you’re free of me, you’ll have a hundred men asking you to marry them.”

“You’re anxious to get rid of me, aren’t you? You’d rather have your dreams of Bianca than have me, wouldn’t you? I am stupid. Sexless, motherly, virginal Nicole, in love with a man who doesn’t even know she’s alive.”

She looked up at him. Somewhere there was a sober part of her brain that was listening to what she’d said to him. He was smiling at her. Laughing! Tears came to her eyes again. “Let me go! Leave me alone! Tomorrow you can laugh at me, but not now!” She struggled to get off his lap.

He held her tightly. “I’m not laughing at you. It’s just what you said about being sexless.” He ran his finger across her upper lip. “You really don’t know, do you? I can almost understand why your cousins shied away from you. There’s an intensity about you that’s almost frightening.”

“Please, let me go,” she whispered.

“How can any woman as beautiful as you not be sure of her beauty?” She started to speak, but he put his fingers over her lips. “Listen to me. That first night on the ship, when I kissed you—” He smiled in memory. “No woman’s ever kissed me like that. You asked nothing in return, only to give. Later, when I saw you terrified of the dogs, I think I would have walked through boiling oil to get to you. Don’t you understand, can’t you see how your presence affects me? You say I’ve never even looked at you. The truth is I’ve never stopped. Everyone on the plantation is laughing at the weak excuses I make to come to the house every day.”

“I didn’t know you even knew I was here. Do you really think I’m pretty? I mean, my mouth, and to me a beautiful woman is blonde and blue-eyed.”

He bent and kissed her, lingeringly, caressingly. He ran his lips along hers, then his tongue and his teeth. He touched the tip of his tongue to each corner of her mouth, then fiercely took her lower lip between his teeth, tasting the firm ripeness of it. “Does that answer your question? Several nights I’ve had to sleep in the fields in order to get some rest. With you in the next room, I’ve never been able to sleep more than a few hours.”

“Maybe you should have come to my room,” she said huskily. “I don’t think I would have turned you away.”

“That’s good,” he said as he kissed her ear, then her neck, “because I’m going to make love to you tonight even if it’s a matter of rape.”