Seven Nights In A Rogue's Bed. Anna Campbell
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your heart, Miss Forsythe.”
“Oh.” She wished desperately he wouldn’t keep stealing her capacity for speech. For pity’s sake, what was wrong with her? He couldn’t undermine twenty-four years of rectitude with a mere kiss on the hand.
His thumb rubbed casually over the back of her hand. Except nothing he did was casual. “Given what we’ll become to each other, surely we can dispense with formalities. My name is Jonas.”
“I suspect it’s to my advantage to preserve formalities.”
“And I’m convinced of the outcome whatever we call each other, bella.”
“Oh, very well,” she said irritably. She straightened and withdrew her hand, surprised he let her go. “You may call me Sidonie.”
Why not let her go? He had her exactly where he wanted. Within pouncing reach. “Excellent. The idea of whispering ‘Miss Forsythe’ into your ear as I slide inside you is just too arousing.”
She flushed at the graphic picture he painted. “You can’t say things like that.”
He smiled with an annoying edge of triumph and stepped nearer, towering above her. “So early in the game, and you cry forfeit, Sidonie.”
Temper came to her rescue. He might treat her ruin as an unimportant trifle, but she wasn’t nearly so easy with what occurred. “I suppose I’ll become accustomed to your vulgarity.”
His laugh curled around her resistance like ivy clinging to a crumbling stone tower. “I’m sure you will, at that.”
He strode toward the door and opened it with a flourish. “Shall we proceed to the dining room?” He surveyed her with unreadable eyes. “Then perhaps you and I can share a ride.”
She blushed furiously. “Mr. Merrick—”
His smile turned wicked. “Now who’s being vulgar? I need to check the property after the storm. I thought you might like some fresh air.”
She marched past into the hallway. Six days. Then she’d be free, never to see the wanton and irritating Jonas Merrick again.
Those six days promised torments to shame the devil.
When Sidonie rushed into the stableyard, Jonas was talking to a small, wizened man who held the reins of two high-bred horses, a cream Arab mare and a large bay gelding. Without interrupting his discussion, her nemesis sent her a faint smile. She’d taken longer changing than arranged but he betrayed no impatience. Yet again, she contemplated the contrast between the Merrick cousins. William loathed the smallest inconvenience and lashed out if anyone delayed or obstructed him.
The last lonely years, mainly spent running Barstowe Hall, hadn’t prepared her to defend herself from a dangerous roué. She supposed she must have had girlish dreams once of a fascinating man focusing his attention on her. She couldn’t remember them. Once she was old enough to understand the dynamic of the marital bond, her dreams had become more prosaic: an independent, useful life where decisions were hers and no man treated her as his property.
The groom dipped his head to acknowledge her and disappeared into the stables. Merrick studied her with a glint in his eye. Part sexual interest, part approval, part something she couldn’t altogether interpret. It was as though he asked a question and she said yes without knowing what she agreed to.
She shook off the disturbing sensation and lifted her chin. Her hands tightened on the elegant little crop.
“I see you found the riding habit,” he said neutrally.
“I see you’re prepared for all eventualities when ladies visit,” she responded with a tart edge. When she’d seen the stylish black habit laid across her bed—his bed, she supposed—she’d cringed. She told herself his liaisons were none of her business, but that niggle of resentment persisted.
A deepening of the faint lines around his eyes indicated amusement. “I’ve never brought a mistress here, if that worries you.”
“I’m not your mistress,” she snapped, annoyed that he immediately attributed her ill temper to jealousy.
“Yet.” He subjected her to a thorough inspection. “It fits.”
“It’s too tight. Mrs. Bevan had to shift the buttons. That’s why I’m late.”
“You’re more…generously endowed than your sister.”
She stared into his face and stupidly wondered whether he preferred a more slender woman. Compared to Roberta’s willowy proportions, she was a Valkyrie. “Roberta doesn’t ride,” she said, telling herself she didn’t care what this miscreant made of her appearance.
More hollow bravado. She was becoming quite expert in the art.
“I don’t know your sister well enough to be familiar with her amusements—apart from chasing the next hand of cards.”
“You judge her harshly.” She bit back the impulse to tell Merrick that her sister hadn’t always been the brittle, supercilious creature he knew. When they were children, Roberta’s affection had been Sidonie’s only refuge against their mother’s indifference and their father’s contempt.
He shrugged. “She was a means to an end.”
Sidonie’s lips tightened. “That puts me in my place.”
He skimmed the back of his gloved hand under her chin. “You’re in a different category altogether, bella.”
The caress—if such fleeting contact justified the name—lasted a mere second but she felt it to her toes. This absurd physical awareness heightened rather than ebbed with familiarity. “Yes, I’ve agreed not to fight you,” she said with a bitter edge.
“The day’s too fine to quarrel,” he said lightly. “Let me help you into the saddle. Kismet grows restless.”
When he grabbed her around the waist, she waited for his hands to linger, to stray, but he merely tossed her into the sidesaddle with breathtaking ease. The beautiful horse sidled then settled at a reassuring word from Jonas. He had a way with females, Sidonie thought with another spike of resentment. Strange to remember Roberta describing him as so hideously ugly that he gave her nightmares. She tried to imagine what Merrick would look like without scars, but they seemed as much part of him as that sensually knowing mouth.
He stepped close enough to catch Kismet’s bridle. “Still now while I adjust your stirrups.”
He brushed her black skirts aside. She waited in quivering expectation for him to touch her legs but his hands were sure as they tightened the leathers. Something about the sheer competence of those strong gloved hands made her stomach jump. From Kismet’s back, she had a fine view of his wild gypsy hair. It was pitch black and untidy and another indication that he insisted on the world taking him on his terms.
He shifted away and glanced up. “Are you cold?”
How she wished she could hide her reactions. “No.”
She waited for some comment about her trembling, but he merely turned to collect his beaver hat from the bench behind him. Smoothly he rose into the bay’s saddle and her heart slammed with admiration at his effortless strength.
Believe me, tesoro, I’ll touch you over and over again, in ways you haven’t even imagined a man can touch you.
She smothered the memory of Merrick’s daunting promise and frantically sought some neutral topic of conversation as they trotted away from the castle. Difficult when every time she looked at him, she remembered him kissing her, touching her skin.
“Why do you tease me in Italian? I would have thought you’d speak—” Then she recalled that the world accounted his mother little better than a whore. The subject of Consuela Alvarez was likely off limits.
He arched a satirical eyebrow as if guessing her quandary. “You imagine I speak fluent