Adam cocked his head. For a moment, he imagined that he'd heard a woman's laughter, low-pitched and melodious. He listened, but there was nothing but the soft hiss of the dying embers in the grate.
He was about to replenish his empty glass when it came again. There could be no mistake, the laughter was definitely feminine, and coming from one of the bedchambers.
Adam set down his glass. Without haste, he rose to his feet. Two strides took him to the door. With the press of one hand, he slowly pushed it open.
The girl in the tub had her profile to him. Like a waterfall of liquid fire, her gold-red hair cascaded over her shoulders and breasts. She was gurgling with laughter.
Adam recognized her at once. In the weeks before he had removed to Angers to await Duhet's arrival, from an upstairs window in a safe house hard by the cathedral, he'd watched her come and go. Something about the girl had intrigued him.
She was more beautiful than was good for her, a truth she seemed to grasp. She'd done her best to conceal her loveliness beneath a nondescript disguise. Much good it had done her. It had amused him to note that every man and boy over the age of thirteen summers, like himself, trailed her with ravenous eyes. A few of the bolder ones approached her, attempting to get up a flirtation. She repelled every overture with a cool, distancing stare. For the most part, her ploy was successful, but there were always gentlemen who would not take no for an answer. It was then that the girl betrayed her temper. With eyes flashing fire, and head and shoulders thrown back, she flayed them with her tongue. And the men, more fools they, let her get away with it, slinking away with their tails between their legs.
Beneath the haughty facade, the girl was a spitfire, a veritable tigress. To Adam, she was the ultimate challenge to his masculinity, arousing the hunter in him.
He might have forgotten her very existence, if she had not betrayed another side of her character. The boy was evidently her brother, or a close relative, though there was nothing in their resemblance to suggest such a thing. Her manner with the boy, the way she smiled at him, the way she clung to him, and scolded him and laughed with him, touched Adam in a way he would not have believed possible. He looked more closely at the boy. Did he know how fortunate he was to have someone lavish him with such affection? He thought of his own boyhood, and Adam envied him.
The boy said something to the girl and he stalked off in a sulk. Adam felt like going after him to administer a thrashing. The girl was close to tears.
"Ah, tigress, don't cry! Don't cry!" He'd said the words out loud.
As if she'd heard him, she felt in her reticule and withdrew a lace-edged handkerchief. She blew her nose, squared her shoulders, and proceeded purposefully on her way.
"Good girl," he'd said, and smiled, touched by her hard-won control, knowing intuitively that she carried burdens too heavy for one slip of a girl. He'd wished, quite seriously, that he was in a position to shoulder some of those burdens. But he dared not show his face in the streets of Rouen, not until Philippe was safely locked away.
If Adam was intrigued with the girl before, by this time, he was fascinated. Who was she? What was her relationship to the boy? Why did she try to conceal her beauty behind a dowd's disguise? Such a girl did not belong in a backwater like Rouen. It was inevitable that she must belong to some powerful man. Who was her husband and where was he? And what, if anything, would he, Adam Dillon, do about this shadowy figure should he ever meet him face-to- face? The question was a serious one, and Adam did not care for the farfetched solutions which came to his mind. That he would go after the girl once his hands were free was no longer debatable.
The questions had teemed inside his head. And now he had his answer. It was evident that the woman was the property of his half-brother, Philippe. Millot had never as much as hinted that Philippe had taken a mistress. There were women, yes, but no one of any significance. That this woman would be significant to the man who possessed her, Adam never doubted.
His eyes swept over her beautiful body, and the cynical twist to his mouth became more pronounced. He felt, in some strange way, that she had betrayed him.
Claire was absorbed in hunting for the bar of rose- scented soap which seemed to have developed a mind of its own. It kept slipping away from her hand. Her fingers closed around it, and she held it aloft with a crow of triumph.
"Good evening."
At the quiet salutation, Claire froze. She closed her eyes, then opened them wide. It was some time before she could regulate her breathing.
As Duhet came further into the room, she was not aware that she counted each soft footfall under her breath. Before he halted, facing her, she had forced herself to a tenuous calm.
Slowly, her head lifted, her eyes fastened on him, absorbing the finely etched features, the well-shaped mouth, the thick pelt of dark hair tied back with a ribbon. But it was the promise in those glittering green eyes which made her shiver. "It's you," she breathed hoarsely. "It's you."
He was studying her silently. Where his eyes touched, her skin grew cold. Her hands clenched around the rim of the tub. "Oh God, it's you," she repeated.
The words scarcely registered on Adam's brain. He was staring at the woman as if he were seeing a vision. He had known, intimately, many beautiful women, he was thinking. Never, never, had any woman had such a profound effect on him. If it had been only her beauty, only the pull on his senses, he would have discounted it, but this girl's attraction went deeper than anything he had ever known.
Without conscious thought, he captured her hands and drew her from the bath. The scent of roses filled his nostrils. With any other woman, he would have openly appraised her naked loveliness. Her eyes held his and he could not seem to look away.
"It's all right," he soothed, and the words surprised him. Slowly, inexorably, he pulled her into his arms.
His lips found hers and sank into their softness. She did not respond, but she did not resist him either. Adam pulled back and studied her wide-eyed expression. There was feminine wariness in her eyes. Every instinct told him that she was coming to him reluctantly.
He wasn't a complete scoundrel. Her reluctance should have mattered to him. It didn't. Something primitive, something savage and totally masculine seemed to have entered his bloodstream. His skin was fever hot, his breathing was difficult. He seemed to have lost his grip on reality. Philippe Duhet was forgotten, as was the elaborate charade that had brought him into Rouen. The only thing that Adam was conscious of was the woman in his arms and the driving compulsion which urged him to prove to her that she belonged to him.
He kissed her again, and this time her lips softened beneath the fierce pressure of his. It was all the encouragement he needed.
"It's all right," he repeated, soothing away the panic that flashed in her eyes. He swept her up in his arms and carried her to the bed.
Chapter Four
Adam felt as though he had been hit by a bolt of lightning. If he were not struck so dumb, he was thinking, he would have laughed out loud. He had discovered something about himself that both staggered and amused him. He had discovered that Adam Dillon, cynic, dilettante, connoisseur of fine women, was as green as grass. Where women were concerned, it seemed that he was as gullible as the next man. He did laugh, but muted, so as not to waken the sleeping girl by his side.
Virgins. How had he ever imagined he had taken a virgin to his bed? He'd had his first virginhis first and last virgin, he amendedand now he knew the difference. Shuddering, he resolved that he never wished to repeat the experience.
She'd been so small, so tight. As soon as he'd pressed into her, he'd felt the delicate barrier protecting her innocence from his masculine invasion. For a moment, a very fleeting moment, he'd almost had second thoughts, had almost heeded the incipient stirrings of his tardy conscience. But the lust to possess this particular woman and no other was driving him relentlessly. He was her first lover. The knowledge acted like a spur to the ardor he was barely holding in check. He could not help himself
. He'd tried to gentle her with words, to no effect. And though her nails flayed him without mercy, slowly, surely, he had penetrated till he was deeply embedded in her body.
To his knowledge, it was the first time he had failed to bring pleasure to his bed partner. He was a skillful, careful lover. He'd never hurt a woman in his life. But this experience was profoundly different, as he had known it would be. It was as though he wished to impress his stamp of ownership upon the woman. She was his. He would prove it to her.
He had never considered relations with a female in such terms. It was laughable, only he wasn't laughing. Where this woman was concerned, he felt barely civilized. If she ever belonged to him and betrayed him, he knew that he would not be able to contain his violence.
The girl stirred restlessly, and Adam turned into her. He smoothed one swatch of satin-soft hair across his throat. The faint fragrance of roses clung to her skin. He'd already tasted the brandy on her lips and had wondered at it, but idly. There were things of far more significance on his mind.
She was, without doubt, the most beautiful woman he had ever set eyes on. No man could fail to be affected. Everything about her, from her glorious flame red hair to her shapely feminine contours, tempted a man to handle her possessively.
Yet, it wasn't her beauty that pulled at him so ceaselessly. Adam had known many beautiful women. He could take them or leave them. This girl's appeal was different. There was something here, something he could not name, that drew him inexorably.
He rolled to his side, away from the girl. She was just a woman, he told himself. Her appeal was all to his senses, nothing more. No woman had ever held Adam Dillon in thrall. No woman ever would.
There came to him a fragment of conversation with a former mistress whose name he'd long since forgottena possessive woman whose incessant jealousies had bored him to tears. Their liaison had been stormy and mercifully brief. Her parting shot came back to him.
"One day," she'd flung at him, "one day the glove will be on the other hand. Some woman is going to wrap Adam Dillon around her little finger. I hope I'm there to see it!"
The day when Adam Dillon would make a fool of himself over a woman would arrive when hell froze over. Desire was a fickle mistress, here today, gone on the morrow. He had only to sate himself with the girl, and her hold on him would be broken. Even as the words registered in his brain, he knew that they were a lie. He cursed derisively, and he damned himself for a fool. It had been a mistake to take this woman, perhaps the biggest mistake of his life. He'd broken one of his own cardinal rules. At the moment of climax, he'd spilled his seed into her. But in that moment, rules had been the furthest thing from his mind.
Mother Nature, he thought, was cunning. She played a waiting game. He was overconfident. For years he'd kept one step ahead of that devious old dame. He'd never lost his head over any woman. He'd never spilled his seed inside a woman's bodyuntil this woman had fallen in his way. Even now, the girl might have conceived his child.
Again he swore, but this time more luridly. God, he could hardly credit itthat he, Adam Dillon, having deftly evaded the coils of worldly, experienced women in a long life of dissipation, should be caught finally in a trap as old as time! It was galling, all the more so because he knew that the girl at his side would be less thrilled with the notion that she might be pregnant than even he was! He knew a score of women who would give everything they possessed to be in her place. A child would hold him as nothing else could. Why the hell did it have to happen with her?
lì the girl was pregnant, he would marry her, whatever her sentiments on the subject. By and large, in his dealings with women, Adam Dillon was a rogue. But there was one thing he had long since resolved. He would never father a bastard child.
He knew what it was to be a bastard, to be raised by people who never wanted him. No child of his would suffer the indignities, the agonies he had been made to suffer. If the girl was pregnant, he would accept the consequences.
Already, he wanted to take her again. The thought appalled him. He scowled into the darkness. Though the girl was willing, she had suffered his caresses in silence. At the last, when the pain of his possession had frightened her, she had fought him like a tigress. No sane man wished to take an unwilling woman to his bed. Then what the devil was the matter with him?
If he had any sense of self-preservation, he would get up and walk away from her. He knew almost nothing about the girl except that she was an innocent, she was here by choice, and that his half- brother had some claim to her. He couldn't begin to speculate on what was going on.
God, what a fiasco he had blundered into. He felt like an actor who had stumbled on stage without knowing his lines or which drama was in progress. Millot had much to answer for. It was his responsibility to supply the missing gaps. But Millot had gone off on some fool errand for a woman. Something must have happened to him. There could be no other explanation for his absence at such a critical time. And he, Adam, was hardly in a position to order out his guards to track down his errant clerk until he had more information.
If Millot didn't put in an appearance soon, he did not know what tack he was going to take with the girl. What was her relationship to Philippe? Whatever it might have been, he had changed it irrevocably. It was that thought which led to another. He might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.
He turned the softly sleeping girl into his arms. His mouth pressed gently against her throat, savoring the lingering scent of roses. He tasted the brandy on her lips and his blood began to heat.
"Chérie?" he murmured. "Chérie?"
His hands roamed over her naked form, tracing the soft swell of her breasts, the sleek waist and hips, the taut flat of her stomach. "Chérie?" he repeated, his voice thick with desire.
She came awake by degrees, then suddenly she was fighting him. "Ah, no! Commissioner! No! I beg of you."
His arms wrapped around her like bands of steel, easily subduing her resistance. Her strength was no match for his.
"I want you," he said, "and this time, I won't hurt you."
His mouth closed over hers, stifling her whimpers of protest, following her relentlessly as she tried to avert her head. When he positioned her beneath him, her struggles became more frantic.
"Be still," he gritted.
The girl could not know that it was passion that hardened his voice. Beneath him, she stilled. Her submission was not what Adam wanted. He wanted her to respond to him, he wanted her to writhe with the same need that drove him.
He stroked her softly, then more voluptuously as he felt desire rise in her. His mouth touched the peak of one breast, his breath heating the engorged crest before his tongue and lips sucked gently, then hard.
She jerked, and tried to pull away. He parried her movements. This time, he was determined to bring her to completion. Gradually, it dawned on him that the girl was fighting to remain passive in his arms. The passion was there, but she refused to give in to it.
Ruthlessly banking his own fires, he set himself to destroy her defenses. The contest became a battle of wills. There was never any doubt in Adam's mind who would carry off the victory. His experience, his skill, his patience, outmatched the girl's.
And then he felt itthe quivering, deep in her belly, and the erratic, agonized shortness of breath.
"Ah no!" she panted. "No! I won't. . . ah . . ."
"Yes," he said fiercely. "Let it happen. Chérie, give in to me."
She began to shudder to her first climax, Adam's control snapped. He sheathed himself in her moist woman's core. As his own violent release convulsed him, he smothered her face and mouth with kisses, exulting in the response he had won from her. At the last, she held nothing in reserve.
In the gentle wash of spent passion, Adam smiled. He'd never felt more complete in his life. The soft words of praise died on his lips when the girl tore herself out of his arms and curled away from him. Her piteous sobs scourged him like the flick of the lash. Adam's teeth clenched.
&nbs
p; The woman did not know when she was well off. If it had been Philippe who had taken her innocence, she would really have had something to cry about. Good God! He hadn't forced her! She was here of her own volition. Unlike Philippe, Adam Dillon had never forced a woman in his life.
There was something about his logic that didn't bear too close a scrutiny. He shifted restlessly. The girl's weeping continued unabated. For several minutes, he stewed in silence. Finally relenting, he dragged her into the protection of his powerful body. "It's all right," he soothed. "Chérie, it's all right. Everything will seem different in the morning." He wished that he knew her name.
Gradually, she quieted. Finally, she drifted into sleep. Adam lay wide-eyed. Before longhe groaned in disbeliefthe need for her was tearing his control to shreds. Where this woman was concerned, he seemed to have no willpower. He fought himself for as long as he was able.
"Chérie," he said urgently, shaking her awake. "Don't fight me. Please! Don't fight me." And then the seduction began all over again.
Adarn came awake instantly. The soft scratching at the door came again. Disentangling himself from the woman in his arms, he lit a candle and reached for a dark brocade dressing gown which was draped over a chair. He looked at the timepiece on the table beside the bed and saw that it was five o'clock.
He found Millot in the bookroom. One arm was in a sling and an ugly welt stood out redly across one cheekbone.
"Commissioner?" Millot rose from his chair and swayed unsteadily. Adam's first rush of relief at seeing the young man quickly subsided.
"Nicholas?" In two strides, he reached him. He pushed him into the chair. "For God's sake, sit down before you fall down."
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