Rexanne Becnel (15 page)

“Damnation!” he exclaimed as he struggled for his breath. But he did not give her a chance to object or even to catch a ragged breath of her own before he captured her lips once more. This time his kiss was ferocious, almost savage. He plundered her mouth recklessly, demanding that she respond.

And without hesitation, Joanna did respond. With every fiber of her feminine being she answered the age-old call of the virile man to his mate.

He lifted her high so that her feet left the floor, then slid his hand down one of her thighs, raising her knee until her leg curved around his hips. This time when his hand slid back to her derriere, his entire palm could press against that most private place between her legs.

Joanna gasped and pulled slightly back, dazed by the myriad emotions that beset her. She was dizzy and panting, unable to think. Then he tilted her back over his arm and moved his seductive lips down to her chin and neck, sliding his tongue in hot wet circles to the hollow of her throat, and even farther, over her collarbone and down to the upper swells of her breasts.

Unthinkingly she arched for more, consumed by the new feelings that bombarded her.

“Ah, woman. How you make me burn,” he murmured the hot words against her breast. Then, as if it took a supreme exercise of will, he lifted his head and stared at her heavy-lidded eyes.

“I knew it would be thus,” he whispered between ragged breaths. He released her raised leg and let her slide down against the hard length of his body until her feet touched the floor.

Still overcome by a riot of emotions, Joanna did not at once sense his withdrawal. Her hands clung to his neck and their thighs remained pressed intimately together. He kissed her lightly—regretfully—on the lips and reached up to disengage her hands. Then his avid gaze ran over her face, and he raised her hands to his mouth to press a hot kiss to each of her sensitive palms.

“There is more than even this, my sweet little nun.” His voice came low and husky as his mouth moved to the soft flesh of her third finger and bit lightly at it. “But you must have a ring here before you taste that final pleasure.”

Joanna froze in horror at his words. In a sickening rush she realized just how wantonly she had behaved. Was she mad?

She jerked back from him, nearly tripping on the forgotten blanket in her haste to retreat. Her hair flew in long ringlets about her shoulders and her arms wrapped protectively around her as she stumbled back. A vein throbbed wildly in her temple as her eyes darted about in desperation. But there was no place in the small cruck cottage where she could avoid his piercing gaze.

“You cannot hide from the truth, Joanna. No amount of denial will change the facts.”

“You are a devil!” she cried. “The serpent come to unholy light!”

He laughed at that, but it was neither joyful nor triumphant. Then he turned his back on her and faced the fire. “Perhaps I am the devil—your personal devil, come to tempt you with the ways of the flesh.” He halted and took a slow breath. “It may be, however, that I have been sent to guide you away from a life you are ill-suited to.”

Joanna was too distraught to respond to his words. She was a sinner. A slave to her own dark passions. A creature no better than a dog in the streets. The undeniable fact of her depravity overwhelmed her. She glanced toward the man—the devil—who’d brought her to such a pass, but that only increased her guilt. For despite the fact that he stood before the hearth scantily clad, with flames that appeared to lick around his feet like the very fires of hell, she nonetheless drank in the sight. It was not hell she thought of as his wide shoulders gleamed in the golden light, but heaven. It was then she feared she was completely lost.

She whirled away from the sight of him, then scrambled toward the farthest corner of the chamber. There she huddled, crouching down with her arms around her knees, as a rabbit might seek to hide from a hungry fox. Only Joanna feared she had no hope of ever eluding the particular fox who had hunted her down, for he seemed driven to best her. He was strong and crafty, and possessed of no moral qualms whatsoever.

She had God on her side—or at least she’d
had
Him on her side. But this man … This man had the devil with him. For the first time in her young life she feared that the devil might be the stronger.

As if agreeing with her, the fire in the hearth hissed and popped, spitting and leaping wildly as some of the wind-driven rain worked its way down the chimney. Rylan squatted on his heels and used a length of oak heart-wood to prod the logs and stifle the flames, so that only slow-smoldering embers remained. The room dimmed somewhat as he worked, but he was no less clearly silhouetted by the fire’s glow.

He remained at his task far longer than was necessary, as if he were immersed in the fire—or else lost in thought. Then he took a breath, squared his shoulders, and stood up. As Joanna watched in increasing fear, he turned his attention once more to her.

Though she was settled in her corner, sitting on her bare feet with her hair pulled protectively before her chest and arms, she nonetheless felt the full force of his midnight-dark stare. She might as well have been naked beneath that too-perceptive gaze, she thought as a shiver ran through her. No doubt he now thought her completely in his power as well, judging by the arrogant expression on his face.

“You need not hide in that corner,” he began. “Truth to be told, we have much to do before this storm abates.”

“Much to do?” Joanna’s heart leaped in her throat and a hundred dreadful possibilities suddenly clamored in her head.

“Yes, much to do. However, you have already shown yourself to be a fast learner. I have no doubt you shall grasp the remainder of your duties equally well.”

“Equally well?” she echoed him once more, still not understanding his odd choice of words.

“You must learn your duties as a wife, Joanna. You’ve already shown yourself to be most adept—most passionate. I am confident your husband shall be well pleased with you in that regard. It now remains only for you to learn to wait upon him and cater to his needs.”

Joanna listened in round-eyed horror to his words. She had proven herself most adept—Her husband would be well pleased—A wave of white-hot anger rushed over her. That and the undeniably bitter taste of disappointment. The anger she could deal with; it was an honest emotion and no more than the wretched Sir Rylan deserved. But the disappointment … Where did that come from?

Unfortunately Joanna recognized precisely where it came from. He’d kissed her and tempted her, and made her want that forbidden communion of the flesh. But he’d done it not out of a similar desire for her. No, he was far too self-serving and cruel to succumb to so human a failing as that. He’d done it only to make his point. He’d made her desire him just as her husband would do.

“Come prepare the meal,” he was saying. “Serve me, but be pleasant about it, Joanna, as a wife should always be to her husband. I’ll not countenance your ill temper.”

“My ill temper is something you will have to accustom yourself to,
my lord.
And you are
not
my husband!”

His answer was to reach down, grab her arms, and abruptly yank her to her feet. “Do not push me, woman, for there is little that stands between you and the full brunt of my anger.”

As terrified as she was of him, Joanna refused to acquiesce to his threats. “I shall be wife to no man of yours,” she retorted as she struggled futilely against his grip.

“Christ and bedamned! Can’t you see that you have already lost this ridiculous battle of yours? I need but pull you against me to prove you wrong. Is that it, Joanna? Are you trying to goad me into kissing you again—and more? For we both know it will take but the touch of our lips—the stroke of our tongues—to still your struggles and silence your arguments. Is that what you want of me?”

“No!” The cry tore from her, filled with an anguish that went to her soul. “No,” she repeated in a trembling tone, as a mortifying flood of scarlet stained her cheeks and neck.

He let her go at once and stepped back, almost as if he were relieved by her sudden capitulation. They were still far too close for Joanna’s comfort, however, she had her back to the corner and was trapped there by his imposing form. Consumed with fear, trembling with embarrassment, she could not meet his probing gaze. She stared instead at his chest but that too was unsettling, for the dark pattern of his swirling chest hair caused her stomach to tighten with a queer feeling.

She saw his chest fill as he took a slow, unsteady breath. Then he stepped aside and gestured toward the fire and the pot of soup.

“Serve the meal,” he muttered in a tightly held voice. “And pray let us eat in peace.”

J
OANNA COULD NOT ENJOY
a single bite of her meal. She was far too upset by Sir Rylan Kempe’s hateful words to give even a thought to the savory broth and vegetables she now picked at.

Yet coupled with her justifiable fury at him, she felt another even more mystifying emotion. His words had been hateful, yes. But to her absolute dismay, they had been undeniably true. He
could
have stilled her struggles with just his kiss. Like a demon he exercised his unholy power on her, and she—frail sinner that she was—could not overcome it.

Once more the memory of her parents came to her: her mother’s tears and weak defense, her father’s anger and ultimate domination. She’d heard enough from the various women at St. Theresa’s—many of them reformed prostitutes—to know what the word
rape
meant. She’d always found an odd solace in hating her father for raping her mother, for she knew it was that which had forced her mother to take her own life. But now Joanna was completely confused. Rape meant the woman was repulsed by what was happening to her, or so she’d always believed. But Joanna had not hated what Rylan did to her—at least not while he was doing it.

But then, perhaps she had not understood before and had simplified it too much. Perhaps what the man did was steal the woman’s will from her, and only later when she was herself again was she sickened by what had occurred between them.

Yet even that line of reasoning had its flaws, for Joanna did not precisely feel sickened by his amorous attentions. Horrified, yes. And ashamed. But not exactly sickened and, unfortunately, not repulsed either.

She sent a baleful glare toward the man who had her so unsettled, but Rylan was unaffected. He sat across from her at the little table, filling himself with soup while she sat there, unable to force even one more bite. How she would enjoy tossing her bowl of soup in his spiteful face.

As if he read her very thoughts, Rylan glanced up and caught her staring.

“The soup is excellent, Joanna. I’m sure you shall easily take Oxwich’s kitchens in hand.” He paused as if awaiting some response then, when she only remained defiantly mute, continued. “I know as well that you will be able to oversee the sewing rooms, for St. Theresa’s prides itself on its stitching. But tell me, how is your spinning? And also your weaving?”

At her determined silence he grinned and pushed back his empty wooden bowl. “Come now, milady. This reticence does you no credit, for we both know I can coax an answer from you.” His eyes went from her narrowed glare to her pursed lips. Then for emphasis, he slid the side of one of his fingers back and forth along his lower lip.

“You devil!” she cried, forgetting that she meant to ignore his taunts. She stood up, knocking her three-legged stool backward as she did so.

“Devil I may well be. However, I would nevertheless have your answer. Are you adept at spinning and weaving?”

As he watched her with no attempt whatsoever to hide the amusement on his face, Joanna fought hard to hold her emotions in check. She lifted her chin a notch and gave him her most haughty glare. She was not aware that her erect posture thrust her breasts forward against the thin linen of her kirtle and past the protection of her long curling hair. In the dimly lit cottage she appeared at once both innocent and seductive, angelic and yet tempting as well. His face lost its smug expression at the sight of her, but she thought it due only to her scathing words.

“If I thought my answer would dissuade you from your foul plans for me, I’d take pains to respond in a fashion most likely to displease you. However, since I doubt you care at all what housewifely skills I possess—indeed, you would force me into this marriage were I a drooling idiot with no skills whatsoever!—I see no need to answer you at all.”

She swept away from the table with her nose in the air and her back as rigid as a pike staff. But inside she was shaking. He could force an answer from her if he decided to. He’d forced her to serve the meal, then to eat across the table from him as if they were sitting down to the most civil and proper of meals, without any animosity between them. While he’d eaten she’d had a brief reprieve from his hateful taunts. But now that he was replete, he was clearly ready to begin once more. Tense with impotent anger, she waited for his response to her reckless words, ready for anything.

But once again Rylan surprised her. Instead of bounding up in a fury, he let her stalk away, then forced her to wait for him to react. It was that wait that unnerved her even more. When he finally rose from the table, she jerked about in alarm, her affected poise totally destroyed.

“You’re quite right, of course. I didn’t think. Any one of your women may be assigned to oversee the spinning and the weaving. No doubt you could even dispense with your duties to preside over the kitchens and the serving room
if
your husband has other reasons to be pleased with you.”

His hand strayed to his stomach and absently scratched the area just above the sheet that hung so low on his hips. “It is your responsibilities to your husband—for his personal comforts and pleasures—that are of primary importance.” He grinned at her expression of consternation. “Since our time here shall be so short, ’tis best we deal with those responsibilities first.”

Joanna’s heart plummeted as he eyed her with ill-disguised glee. She was in for it now, she realized. He would show her no mercy at all, and should she oppose him, he would most certainly kiss her into compliance.