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“Oh for Christ’s sake! You couldn’t have hurt yourself falling back onto the sand.... Not that you don’t deserve much worse, you vicious little hellcat, all claws and teeth! I’ve begun to wonder why in hell I troubled to come out here and wait a good hour at least, just to make sure that you... And now what the devil ails you?”
“Ohhh! Oohhh!” As her initial feeling of shock was replaced by renewed fury, Alexa found herself incapable of coherent speech for some moments while her mind adjusted itself to what she had belatedly discovered. Not the Viscount Deering at all but him! The Spaniard—her saturnine, cynical bete noire, of all people! Why hadn’t she guessed right away?
And now, after his insultingly cavalier treatment of her, he had the supreme effrontery to pretend some concern for her, even to the extent of offering her his hand while he said condescendingly in that drawling accent of his that she detested:
“I’m sure you’ll find that there’s nothing wrong with you except for a few well-deserved bruises, you little vixen! Here...let’s find out if you can stand...”
Before she had the chance to
protest Alexa felt herself positively hauled to her feet in a manner that jarred her all over again, while Nicholas de la Guerra dared to add fuel to her fury by suggesting that instead of just standing there like a ninny she might as well brush some of the sand off her gown while she held her tongue and listened for a change.
A red mist of pure rage fogging the rational part of her mind, Alexa sprang at him again, fingers curved into talons as she clawed for his eyes—that hateful, mocking face she remembered all too well. And if he had not been as tall as he was or his instincts as sharp as they were, she might have found his eyes instead of merely gouging the side of his neck—and barely missing the jugular vein.
Nicholas’s reflexes had always been fast, and he had lived the kind of life where survival depended upon finely tuned nerves and senses; but if he had not also developed a certain measure of control over his purely reflexive reaction to any sudden attack, he might easily have killed her, as he had killed before. Fortunately for Alexa he had felt wary of the way she had stood looking at him through narrowed eyes soon after he had helped her back onto her feet. She had reminded him of a mountain cat that settles back onto its haunches just before it leaps for the throat, and it was just as well that even while he spoke to her with deliberate brusqueness he had continued to watch her carefully. How fast she had moved! Fast, and out to kill! Bracing himself just in time, he had managed to seize one of her wrists even while he felt her nails tear at his neck.
The little...! Angry now, he gave the slim wrist he held a sharp twist that made her cry out with pain, and caught her other wrist when she tried to claw at him again.
“You...you! Let me go! I’d like to kill you! I...”
“I’m sure you would indeed, you goddamned hellcat!”
With a painful swiftness that forced a cry of protest from her, he pinioned both of her wrists behind her back, holding her helpless and almost spitting with frustration before him while he continued between his teeth, feeling the warm ooze of blood crawling down the side of his neck to soak into his torn shirt: “And now that I finally have you quietened down for the moment, are you going to hear me out? Or will you force me into snapping the bones in your wrists in order to keep you still? You may be certain that I would have no compunction about doing so if you push me to it!”
“I don’t care. I don’t care, do you hear?” So furious and frustrated that she could hardly bring the words out, Alexa’s voice sounded choked and almost hoarse. “I will never... You can kill me if you wish, but I will not submit to your...your brutality! And I won’t listen to you...I won’t let you force me into...into...”
“Dammit, you hysterical little bitch! Do you think I need to take my women by force? Or that a stolen kiss is a natural prelude to rape? I do not know if your other experiences have led you to believe so, but in this instance I think you flatter yourself, Miss Howard!”
Her response to his sarcastic comment—first astonishing him and then enraging him—was to scream. Fortunately, because she was overwrought with rage, it was not loud enough to carry too far; but he had an unpleasant impression that she was gathering up all her strength and her energy for another, piercing shriek which might well arouse the inhabitants of every house in the vicinity and their servants as well.
Alexa had, in fact, opened her mouth to do exactly as he had feared she might when Nicholas said in a deliberately cutting voice, “If you think to provoke me into kissing you again in order to silence you, I’m afraid it will not work this time, you conniving baggage!”
He noticed with a feeling of satisfaction he managed to keep well hidden that his ruse had worked, for instead of a scream he heard a gasp of sheer outrage before she sputtered: “Con.. .conniving did you dare to say? To...to insinuate that I deliberately provoked you into...ohh! But you are...”
Pressing home the slight advantage he had gained, Nicholas drawled: “The trouble is, my girl, that I’m not Charles, and not as easily taken in by outward appearances and fluttering eyelashes. You see, I’ve met your kind before—full of teasing tricks meant to lead a man on before you dance back, just out of reach. Until, I suppose, you get exactly what you set out to get.”
The contempt in his voice made Alexa’s own voice rise, and she could not prevent it from shaking as she repeated almost unbelievingly: “Teasing tricks? My...my kind? Do you dare mean to imply that I attempted to entice Lord Charles here in order to...to...”
“You took the fullest advantage of his obvious infatuation with you when you suggested this romantic starlit rendezvous in a very private place, did you not? And then, I suppose that once you had tempted him into kissing you, poor Charles would find, as I did, a veritable virago on his hands. Insulted beyond measure, fiercely guarding your so-called virtue. A scene. An unpleasant scandal... But what did you hope to get from it? Money to hush it up? You didn’t set your hopes as high as marriage, I hope for your sake, for he’d never go so far as to think of marrying you, of course—infatuation or not! Or were you prepared to settle for a slightly lesser position?”
Chapter 12
.For a long time after he had uttered those cold, contemptuous words in a tone that was worse than a slap across her face, Alexa thought she could hear them echoing and re-echoing in her head like the hollow reverberation of bells in a bell tower.
“What did you hope to get from him? Money? He would never dream of marrying you, of course. Were you prepared to settle for a slightly lesser position?”
No—no! But Lord Charles had not come. He had sent his cynical, cruelly overbearing cousin in his place to...to make it clear to her that... Dear God, so that was what they thought of her! He had called her a “conniving baggage” before he’d said the rest. Twisting everything around to make it sound warped and ugly; to make her seem ugly and somehow soul-stained.
“Let me go.”
She had remained almost startlingly silent and still in his grasp, with her face in the starlight looking like a pale mask with holes for eyes. So silent that Nicholas could not help feeling what was almost a stab of compunction for having gone quite as far as he had in his indictment of her. Damn her for staring up at him that way, as if he had been the one to draw real blood!
“I asked you to let go of me, Senor de la Guerra.” Her voice was no more than a whisper, as it had been when she had first spoken a moment ago, and Nicholas frowned down at her suspiciously, exasperated at himself for feeling almost guilty and at her for making him feel that way. Damn her, she was as volatile and hard to grasp as quicksilver!
Making his voice deliberately rough, he said: “Let you go? Why? So that you can go for my eyes again when you think you have me off guard? Those sharp nails of yours are dangerous weapons and deserve to be clipped.”
“If I could be sure that I’d succeed in blinding you then I would try!” Alexa snapped with a renewed show of spirit, throwing her head up defiantly before she sucked in her breath and said in a voice that shook with frustration, “But...but since you have managed to prove all too clearly to me that I am no match for your...for...” And then, to her utter horror, and as if to add to her humiliation, Alexa felt it happen. Like the fit of blind fury that had seized her earlier, closing her mind to all reason, she felt herself and her will overtaken and almost drowned by the sudden storm of weeping that seemed to bubble up from somewhere deep within her with such force that she was powerless to control it.
She wept as wildly and as loudly as an angry child; her mouth open as she tried to scream out her incoherent accusations between large, gulping sobs that shook her whole body. Tears streamed in floods from her eyes and even her nose; Nicholas, staring down at her with shocked fascination, had never seen anything like it.
