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Annabel must have dozed off because she opened her eyes startled. Then she detected stirrings down in the inner bailey. In a lightning-like movement she reached her window. His stable hand was in the act of giving the reins of a magnificent black Arab stallion to the Duke. The man himself in black breeches, shirt and riding coat, a vision as he charged forward, his sleek dark-brown hair billowing around his fierce face.
Oh, yes! He still maintained his habit of riding at dawn. A man given to daily life, no doubt. What a splendid opportunity! She hurried to her door and had to hold herself not to sprint to his chambers, lest she drew attention from a servant.
Ever so noiseless, she snuck into his room and closed the door. Like a flash flood, his scent assailed her, earthen with a note of clove essence, just as she remembered. Inhaling to full lungs, her memories threatened to flush in. No, not now! She berated herself. Reveries interrupted, she came to her senses and she looked around. Massive wooden furniture, velvet drapes, an enormous bed in complete disarray, there only to awaken her fantasies!
His nightstand first. It showed drawers that offered possibilities. In the past, he used to ride two hours or more, meaning she had time. Rummaging through the nightstand, she found mostly personal objects, none of them relevant though touching these gave her a sense of invading his privacy. That felt wrong. So wrong!
Lowered to her hunches, the last drawer promi
sed little, she cogitated. She pulled it to find only one lonely object there. And she froze, staring at it agape and disconcerted. A hairpin. Her hairpin! One she put on her hair in their last picnic. Having headed home that day, she realised she dropped it, enthralled in his kisses. In a slow movement, her hand reached that juvenile article in awe, wondering why on earth he had kept it.
“I suppose you have a good explanation to be in my bedchambers, Lady Winchester.”
Startled, her heart jumped in alarmed poundings in the same moment she lost her balance and fell on her butt, her eyes flying to him. Leant beside the door he had closed without the least rustle, arms crossed over his broad chest, his gaze threated to make bullet holes on her. Her brain commanded her to stand up, but her bewilderment was such she could not move.
He did though. Prowled towards her, his gaze never wavering. Heat originated somewhere inside her to spread intense flush over her skin. Still, he neared. He stalled three paces from her, her head lifting to look at him. How the darn did he come in without her noticing it?
“I-“ Her voice trailed off, at a loss what to say. “I came to say good bye, my lord.” And then she tried for a cocky smile she feared looked more like a wince.
Looming over her, arms still crossed, his stance belonged more to a warrior that walked this castle in times forgotten. His murky eyes intent on her from up his long Latin nose kept her pinned where she lay defenceless.
“How considerate of you, my lady.” In no hurry at all, he unbuttoned the top button of his black riding coat. It gave, and he undid the second. She stared mesmerised as his equally black shirt disclosed. Unbuttoned, he threw the luxurious item on his bed as if it cost nothing. Now, she saw his tight breeches revealing rock-strong legs and his manly parts, very… manly from the angle on the carpet.
When his hand rested to his tie to unlace it, she sucked in a breath. Because, then, that piece ended wrinkled on the bed, the top of his muscular chest showing through the gape of the shirt.
He knelt on the carpet, as if he had all the time in the world, and let his weight fall on his hands, where he bracketed her. Eyes bulged, she receded on her back to avoid his proximity, with little effect. The sole distance between them was his stretched arms, his smell filled her nose with fresh air, earth and clove and man. He leaned so close to her, she saw the bristles on his square jaw.
“Perhaps now you would gift me with the truth.” The too silken request sounded more like a threat. His hair fell around his face, accentuating his savage stare.
Romulus had had a strong hunch as he rode through the outer bailey. He never neglected hunches. Ever! That was what made him come back. To find the woman he was trying all too hard to loath, with success bordering on shameful. And then she had been there. In his bedchamber, where he envisioned her during the night, spread on his wide bed, midnight hair around a face so terrible to look at for the beauty of it. Now, he lay there, with her only inches from him. Liquid brown irises plastered on him, full lips inviting him, curvaceous body tempting his sanity.
He was not going to survive.
“It is as I say. I came to bid you farewell.” A voice fit for a siren and that damned floral perfume that pursued him to war, haunted his lonely nights, killed him with longing. So woman!
The same who betrayed him in the worst possible way.
Something did not click right here. He could not put his finger on it. Her presence in his room in a moment of his absence intrigued him. If she had come in the night, oh, then he would have taken all he wanted, all he dreamed of. All she denied him. Without mercy. For him or for her.
His stare meshed with hers. He dived in those brown depths; soon he would drown. He heard her suck in a breath. His went ragged. Blood travelled down to squeeze his flesh against his breeches. Those full lips parted in unconscious allure.
Damn her to hell!
In one agile movement, he pulled himself up, taking her with him. She lifted her head to him, no sign of surprise on her perfect face anymore.
“You will stay in Blackthorne until you tell me what you are up to.” He commanded.
“You would not dare!” Her stance acquired a fiery hue.
He made his thin lips elongate in a ghost of a smug smile. “I just did.”
“You cannot keep me a prisoner here!” Her hands flew to her waist defiant.
Left eyebrow lifted in a sardonic expression he retorted. “Prisoner?” He breathed a derisive chuckle. “I am afraid your carriage is not yet repaired, my lady.”
“You are ludicrous!” Brown eyes narrowed to slits, lips pursed, bright red on her skin.
The woman was a powder keg!
