Untouched (3 page)

enough.” Then in a harder voice, because she was his enemy, however lovely and vulnerable she seemed, “You couldn’t

fight me off now, even if you wanted to.”

A startled cobalt glance darted up to his face. He kept his expression implacable as he turned toward the sideboard to pour

her a brandy.

ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

He returned to the couch and extended the small crystal glass. She barely had strength to lift her head. She was shivering

and he could hear each ragged breath she took.

“Sweet Jesus,” he muttered and leaned forward to support her as she drank.

She flashed him a disapproving look under her lowered dark brows but refrained from censuring him. She took a sip and

started to choke.

He swore again and pulled her up against him so she could catch her breath. How his uncle would preen if he were here.

Matthew had sworn he’d never lay a finger on any woman Lord John found. Yet he coddled and cosseted this conniving

baggage as if she were an ailing princess. It had taken the wench only minutes to wheedle her way into his arms.

He had to admire her cleverness, if nothing else.

Oh, be honest, he derided himself. So far, you admire everything about her apart from the fact that she’s on Lord John’s

side and not yours.

“Drink, damn you,” he growled, snatching the glass which she was about to drop and pressing it to her bloodless lips.

“After an invitation like that, how can I refuse?” she replied breathlessly, then took a few small sips. “Could I have some

water, do you think?”

He almost smiled as he added sheer bravado to the growing list of things he admired about her. “Whatever madam

desires. I exist but to serve.”

Her drawn features didn’t lighten. He had a sudden burning need to see her smile. Savagely, he stifled the urge.

What did he care if a whore chose to smile? He had enough trouble when she was on the brink of collapse. He returned

the brandy glass to the sideboard and filled another glass from the pitcher of water.

“Thank you,” she said with that odd politeness.

He stood and surveyed her as she drank. One of her protectors must have had pretensions to gentility. Or perhaps she was

the wayward daughter of a good family. She spoke with the smooth cadences of the wealthy classes and he couldn’t fault

her courtesy.

She leaned back against the sofa. The temptation was raw to take her in his arms again. To comfort and support only, he

told himself desperately. Although as he’d held her, he hadn’t missed the supple indent of her waist or the winsome arch

of her hip or the firm roundness of her bosom. And her damned evocative scent lingered, luring him closer and closer.

He gazed down at her with a mixture of helpless wonder and furious denial. He wanted to curse and insult her. He wanted

to rage and rant and tear the room up like the madman he was supposed to be.

Instead, he found himself asking, “Are you hungry?”

She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply as if the air itself offered sustenance. The rise and fall of her chest only made him

more aware of the beautiful shape of her breasts. They weren’t large but on a woman of her extreme slenderness, they

ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

seemed miraculously voluptuous. His fingers curled at his sides as if he already tested the weight and shape of her.

“Madam, when did you last eat?” he asked more insistently.

She roused from her uneasy doze. “I had some bread and cheese at breakfast yesterday,” she said dully.

“I’ll get you something,” he said, more relieved than he wanted to admit at having a valid excuse to escape her presence.

That shaming relief was graphic demonstration of how dangerous she was.

He was a man of unfailing will. Will was all that kept him alive. But half an hour in her company threatened to turn him

into her creature. And she hadn’t even started to work her seductive wiles. She’d been too sick.

God help him when she regained her health. She’d have him on his knees in five minutes flat.

No, damn her, she wouldn’t win.

He’d fought his uncle all these years and not given up. No mere scrap of a girl would vanquish him.

Still, only when he went through to the kitchen did he manage an unconstrained breath. His first unconstrained breath

since he’d discovered her.

“It’s more bread and cheese. There wasn’t much else in the larder.” He angled the laden tray through the door.

The girl didn’t answer. He supposed she was asleep. She’d looked weary to the point of exhaustion. Quietly, he came

round the end of the sofa.

He wasted his consideration. The sofa was empty.

He set the tray on the dresser with a thud. So the strumpet had run off. The estate was impossible to escape. He could

vouch for that after years of trying to break free.

Clearly, she’d decided no amount of money compensated for sharing her bed with a lunatic.

He couldn’t blame her. The assignment had probably sounded promising when his uncle outlined it. He knew how

persuasive his guardian could be when he concentrated that magnetic personality on someone he wanted to charm or

manipulate. Charm and manipulate, Matthew thought with a bleak laugh. The two were the same to John Lansdowne.

Well, let her try to run. She’d tire soon enough and come back. Even if she didn’t, it was nothing to him. He’d intended to

rid himself of her intrusive presence. He should be glad he’d achieved his goal so easily.

Glad? He should be bloody well chanting hallelujahs.

She’d flee to Monks and Filey and they’d take her back to where they’d found her. This distasteful farce would end.

Except Monks and Filey had gone to a deal of trouble to fetch the trollop. They wouldn’t be pleased to discover she’d

ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

changed her mind. When they weren’t pleased, they were inventive in expressing their disappointment. He carried scars

from occasions when their inventiveness had exceeded even its usual bounds.

The girl would be at their mercy.

The girl was here to spy on him.

He bent to pick up his book. She’d involved herself in his uncle’s schemes. She deserved whatever happened to her.

But as he sat and found his place on the page, his mind focused not on the Latin treatise but on large dark blue eyes that

silently begged for his help.

He should abandon her to her fate but she’d be frighteningly defenseless against his uncle’s thugs.

“Christ,” he grated out, slamming the book shut.

He had a sudden piercing memory of her disapproval for his uncouth language.

The chit had courage but courage wouldn’t save her from his jailers. Knowing he was a fool, but unable to stop himself,

Matthew surged to his feet and went in search of his unlikely harlot.

Grace buckled over at the waist and struggled for breath. Late afternoon sun shone warm on her bare head while bitter

hopelessness sapped her determination. Since her husband Josiah’s illness, despair had become a familiar visitor. But

never before had despair dug its icy fingers so deep into her craven soul.

She’d hardly believed her luck when her unsettling companion had left her alone. Fear had lent a spurious strength when

she’d leapt from the sofa and run. Since that euphoric moment, she’d searched doggedly for a way out.

There was no way out.

The decorative but hostile marquess took no risk in letting her go. The boundary wall stretched before her as it had

stretched since she’d reached it. High, white, and polished to a slippery smoothness that offered no handholds. Even so,

she’d tried several times to deny the evidence of her eyes and scale it. Now the harsh truth battered at her that someone

worked extremely hard to keep the young man a prisoner.

And she was as trapped as he.

The walls enclosed a small estate, mostly woodland, although she’d noticed well-tended gardens and orchards close to

the house. In other circumstances, she’d find her surroundings appealing, even beautiful. In this nightmare of compulsion

and dread, the burgeoning spring growth encroached and threatened.

The sheer efficiency of these walls was most terrifying of all. This prison indicated wealth, endless resources, cleverness,

determination. It indicated someone formidable enough to take an innocent woman captive and ruthless enough never to

release her.

ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

This place was impregnable. She’d passed only one gate, chained and barred, constructed of solid oak. Near the gate

there was an untidy huddle of buildings, barns, stables, yards, a cottage.

Her jailers had been sitting on a bench against the cottage wall, passing an earthenware jug between them. The purposeful

intensity of their drinking had been obvious even from where she crouched in the bushes a hundred yards away. Their

laughter held a lewd note that made her shudder. Although she couldn’t hear what they said, she knew they gloated over

what they imagined the marquess did to her.

She didn’t fool herself they were inebriated enough to let her slip past. Living in a poor farming community, she’d met

men of their ilk, although she’d never encountered quite their level of viciousness. Pigs like her abductors didn’t become

insensible with spirits, they became mean.

She’d taken a deep breath in a futile attempt to quell her rioting stomach. Then she’d crept away to continue her search.

Now she was back where she’d started. No closer to escape than when she’d fled the beautiful madman with his cold

voice and hungry eyes.

The wretched realization battered at her that she could die within these walls and nobody would know. Her aching belly

cramped with another surge of panic. She was lightheaded with hunger and thirst, and her stomach still heaved with

nausea. Under her now-buttoned collar, sweat prickled uncomfortably at her neck.

Dear heavens, she was weary to her very soul. She slumped to the dusty ground. Even if her unsteady legs carried her

further, there was nowhere to go.

“Think, Grace, think,” she whispered, seeking courage in the sound of her own voice.

The words faded to nothing. Trembling with exhaustion and fear, she bent her head to stave off tears. Her eyes were still

scratchy from the crying she’d done over Josiah and the loss of the farm. Tears had done no good then. They’d do no good

now.

She desperately needed food. Even if her stomach revolted at the mere idea. Perhaps after dark, she could sneak closer to

the house and steal from the gardens.

Was it likely she’d remain free to wander the park? Her captors would flush her from the greenery like beaters flushed

pheasants for the hunters’ guns.

She smothered a bitter laugh. Josiah Paget’s penniless widow had thought she’d measured disaster. She hadn’t known

what trouble was then.

“Pleasing to see you haven’t abandoned your sense of humor,” a deep, subtly mocking voice said.

She raised her head and met the lost, compelling eyes of the man who had held her while she vomited. He stood before

her with rangy ease. A wolfhound sidled close to him. One elegant hand lowered and negligently stroked the dog’s shaggy

head.

“No!” she gasped, scrambling to her feet. Logic told her she lacked the strength to evade him. Her galloping heart

insisted she try.

ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“Wolfram,” he said quietly. The huge hound bounded forward to bring her to bay against the oak behind her. “There’s no

point running. You must know that by now.”

Over the animal’s rough back, she glowered at the picturesque monster who tormented her. “If it delays your assault on

me, that’s point enough,” she said in a voice that shook no matter how she fought to steady it.

The accusation was meant to sting. But the honey mosaic gaze didn’t waver. “If the client isn’t to your taste, I can only

apologize. Although I wouldn’t have thought a whore could be too fussy about who she opens her legs to.” Acid contempt

laced his words.

She drew herself up to full height. This time, her voice was firm and edged with outrage. “I am no whore. Those swine

you employ brought me here against my will. Any man with a shred of honor would do his utmost to restore me to my

family.”

“But I am not a man of honor.” His mobile mouth curled in the already familiar sardonic smile. “I am just a poor helpless

lunatic.”

He stepped forward with a loose-limbed ease that Grace couldn’t help noticing and rested his hand on the dog’s neck. The

movement brought him dauntingly close. She edged away until the dog’s soft growl forced her to freeze.

Her brief defiance evaporated. “Please let me go,” she said brokenly.

His brows drew together in irritation. “I pray you, madam, cease this charade,” he snapped, his long fingers tightening in

the dog’s brindle coat. “My uncle, Lord John Lansdowne, paid you to come here and ply your trade. It was clever to

invent this fanciful tale of abduction. But the widow’s weeds, the panic, the pleading, even the induced sickness, none gull

me into believing your story. I am wise to your trickery.”

“You’re mad,” she breathed, as the nightmare closed around her in a blinding fog.