Dangerous to Hold (27 page)

She stood there like a porcelain figurine, her face set and white, her eyes blank as she gazed at him. He felt his fingers curling into fists, felt the sizzling heat of betrayal rise in him. It would take very little to smash her into a thousand pieces.

At last he understood his confusion when he’d tried to separate Catherine and Catalina in his mind. There
was no confusion now. Only Catalina could have ridden Tristrams’s horse the way this woman had ridden it tonight. And it was only when she’d walked into her chamber that everything had come together in his mind with blinding clarity.

She had made a fool of him every step of the way, first in Spain as Catalina, then later, in England, with his own connivance, when he’d persuaded her to play the part of his wife. And that’s what galled him. It had all been done with his own connivance.

When he took a step toward her, the numbness in her brain cleared. “Marcus, listen to me,” she cried out, involuntarily retreating a step. “You must see now that
El Grande
and Catalina pose no threat to you. All these weeks we’ve been together, if I’d really wanted to, I could have murdered you a dozen times over.”

“You damn near murdered me tonight.”

“I fired over your head, to warn you off.”

“Where were you going tonight? What were you doing? Where is
El Grande?
Who are you and what do you want with me?”

He had backed her into a corner. Instinct made her hold up her head and return his stare. She said quickly, “I really am Catherine Courtnay. In Spain, I was a British spy. Catalina was only a role I played.
El Grande
pretended to be my brother.”

He registered no shock at her words. When he took another step toward her, she cried out, “If you’d only give me a chance to explain!”

“You can begin by telling me where your accomplice is.”

“He’s not here. He’s with the brothers at Marston Abbey.”

“
El Grande
is a priest?” he asked incredulously.

“He was a priest once, before the French invaded Spain. Now he’s a lay brother with the monks.”

“Then who were you meeting tonight?”

“No one. I was restless. I went down to the stables and found the Andalusian tethered to a post. I couldn’t resist taking him out for a ride. That’s all it was, Marcus.”

He breathed deeply, “I’m not sure I believe you, but you’d better begin at the beginning and explain to me what the hell is going on. Go on. Begin from the beginning. I want to hear exactly how you became involved in this.”

All her senses were alive to her danger. He knew that she was Catalina and he knew about
El Grande
, and that’s all he knew. She wasn’t going to exacerbate matters by bringing Major Carruthers’s name into it. She wasn’t going to tell him that she was working for British Intelligence.

“Someone murdered all those English soldiers,” she said. “
El Grande
and I thought you might be trying to throw suspicion on us. When you asked me to play the part of Catalina, we thought it would give us a chance to discover what you were up to.”

Her explanations were disjointed, going back and forth in time with little regard for sequence. Marcus interrupted frequently, and in a matter of minutes, he had grasped the gist of her story. It was obviously going to be a long night, for as they spoke, he added several lumps of coal to the embers in the grate.

“Why in hell’s name wasn’t I told the truth?” he demanded at one point.

She swallowed hard. “We had only your word that you were attacked in London. You were a suspect. We couldn’t tell you the truth.”

His eyes flared. After a long silence, he said, “Let’s forget that for the moment. Let’s return to Spain. Why did you force me to marry you? Why did you pretend I’d tried to ravish you?”

He was towering over her, thirteen stones of solid masculine bone and sinew. She lifted her chin. “I overheard two of the English soldiers talking about you. That’s when I learned you were not the simple captain you pretended to be, but the Earl of Wrotham. It suggested to me that you were trifling with my affections.” She certainly wasn’t going to tell him about Amy.

A boiling sea of rage erupted in a roar. “Don’t lie to me! You weren’t the person you were pretending to be either. It was more than that. You heard I was an earl and
you made up your mind to have my wealth and title for yourself.”

At that, she moved. With the back of her hand she pushed against his chest and brushed by him. She opened the door of the great oak wardrobe, removed her warm cerise robe and slipped into it. When she turned to face him, her eyes shimmered with fire. “Let me tell you, Marcus Lytton, there isn’t enough money in Christendom to tempt me to marry you. When I learned that you were the Earl of Wrotham and had been trifling with me, I decided to pay you back in your own coin. I thought you would have our marriage annulled before the month was out. I never thought of your heirs. I wasn’t even sure that our marriage was legal. I didn’t discover how difficult it would be to get out of until I came back to England.”

When she made to move away from him, he grabbed her by the arms and wrenched her around. “You’re my wife,” he said. “All these months, you’ve kept me at bay by reminding me that I’m a married man. But, dammit, you are my wife. I could have had you any time I wanted.”

And that’s what rankled. While he had mooned over her, suffering all the torments of unsated desire, she had been secretly thumbing her nose at him. He had allowed her to set the rules between them, and all the time she had run rings around him.

“You ride as well as a trooper,” he said with enough inflection to make it a question. Before she could answer, he answered himself. “Hell, you damn well ride like the wind, as I saw with my own eyes tonight.”

His control was slipping, and that frightened her.

He exhaled a slow breath. “And you’re a crack shot.”

“I told you I knew how to use a pistol.”

He caught her chin in the cup of one hand and she winced. “You speak Spanish fluently.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“God, is there no end to your lies?”

He still wasn’t sure that he believed her, wasn’t sure what her game was. He writhed to think that twice in one lifetime, this woman had made him fall in love with her,
and he had no doubts now that he was in love with her, else why did her betrayal hurt so much? He had dreamed of this moment, fantasized about how he would take his revenge. Now there was a double betrayal to avenge.

His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her arms. “I warned you in Spain that one day there would be a final reckoning between us. You tricked me into marriage. Fine. You got what you wanted. Now it’s time to pay the piper.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that you are going to act like a wife.”

She strained against him, both hands splayed against his chest. “Don’t be ridiculous, Marcus. You’re not going to … to take me against my will. I can’t believe such a thing of you.”

That was something else that rankled. He’d been so bloody scrupulous, keeping his hands off her, when he’d known that he could have her any time he wanted.

“Against your will?” he gritted. “Madam, you’ve been ripe for the plucking since I first clapped eyes on you. It won’t be against your will.”

She gasped and jerked free of him. “You conceited clod! Do you know what your trouble is, Marcus?” As she retreated, he advanced, stalking her. “Your trouble is that women come too easily to you. There are a lot of women in this world who are impressed with a title and a fat purse.”

He bared his teeth in a ferocious grin. “I could not have put it better myself, and of all such women, you, my sweet, take the honors. But I’m not one to argue with the hand of fate. I’ve dreamed of this moment ever since the night you forced me to marry you, and now that it has arrived, I’m going to take my revenge.”

She had taken refuge behind one of the armless chairs, and her fingers were curled around the wooden backrest. “Marcus, stop this!” she commanded. To her great surprise, he stopped an arm’s length away. She inhaled a shallow breath. “Now,” she said, smiling a little, “why don’t we sit down and discuss this like two reasonable, civilized people?”

When he swept the chair aside, sending it crashing to
the floor, she flattened herself against the wall. Her breasts were rising and falling in her agitation. A pulse beat frantically at her throat. Her eyes were wide and unfaltering on his.

Looking at her now, he could hardly believe that he had allowed her to convince him she was not Catalina. That same charge of sexual tension sizzled between them. She aroused the same primitive feelings, the burning sense of possession. His woman. His wife. He’d never felt that for any other woman. God, if he couldn’t have her now, he would go insane.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered, “I won’t hurt you.”

He reached for her, and with a cry of rage, she sent her hand flying across his face. They both recoiled at the blow. He stared at her long and hard, then suddenly pivoting, he stalked to the door. It wasn’t what she expected him to do, and for a moment she watched as though she were turned to stone. When she realized he was leaving, that he wasn’t going to hurt her, she darted after him. He had his hand on the door when she slammed against it, preventing him from opening it. With her back pressed against the door, arms splayed wide, she faced him.

“Marcus, no. I’m sorry. All this time, I’ve misjudged you. Please don’t be angry with me.” Something else had occurred to her and it made her heart sing. Marcus wasn’t the person who had broken the lantern on the tower steps. He was angry, but he wouldn’t hurt her.

“Get away from that door,” he snarled, “or I won’t answer for the consequences.”

“You don’t mean that; I know you don’t mean that.”

With teeth clenched, he put his hands on her waist and lifted her out of the way. No sooner had he turned back to the door, when she slipped under his arm and barred his way again.

“Cat, I’m warning you.”

“Marcus, you don’t frighten me.”

“Well, I damn well ought to,” he roared.

She’d hurt him, she could see that she’d hurt him, and it was the last thing she had expected to do. He’d always seemed so sure of himself, so in command of every situation. How had she come to have such power? It
moved her, as nothing else could have moved her. She stopped thinking of herself and thought only of him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“I was only trying to frighten you a little. You deserved a lot worse than that. The slap was quite unnecessary. I’ve never forced myself on any woman. I’m not about to start with you.”

“I know, I know. We’re both overwrought. It’s been a horrible night, a horrible night.”

“Will you stop repeating yourself like a damn parrot and get away from that door?”

She started to laugh.

“Cat.”

“Oh, my love, my love.”

She fell into his arms and fastened her lips to his. Marcus, wide-eyed and disbelieving, tried to pry her loose, but he could not budge her. After a moment or two, he stopped trying.

She felt the change in him, and kissed him again, softly this time, provocatively, seducing him to yield to her.

“Cat,” he said shakily, pulling his mouth from hers.

“Mmm?”

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“You know.”

“This?”

Her fingers had undone the buttons of his shirt, and her hand slid inside the opened edges to caress bare flesh. “Don’t you like it?” she crooned. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long, long time.”

“That’s not the point … ah … ! Cat, would you mind if we did this on the bed?”

She led the way, clear-eyed, unprotesting, as eager for him as he was for her. Just knowing that she wanted him made his blood thunder in his ears.

Her lips were soft and full, and the taste of them was intoxicating. There was passion there, untutored, waiting for the right man to unlock it. But she had to choose this. There must be no regrets later.

“Cat, are you sure this is what you want? You’d better
make your mind up now, for in another moment or two, you won’t have a choice.”

She stretched languidly. She’d never felt so sure about anything in her life. She knew she wasn’t thinking rationally, couldn’t think rationally after the terrors she’d just been through. But there was something else at work in her. She was doing it for him.

“Marcus, stop talking and start showing me what I’ve been missing all these years. You’ve been trying to seduce me for weeks. Fine. Seduce me.”

He sounded shocked. “I haven’t been trying to seduce you.”

“Have it your own way. Just get on with it.”

He laughed and rolled with her on the bed. She lay Perfectly still as he began to disrobe her, looking up at him with darkening eyes. “Marcus,” she said, and there was a catch in her voice.

He divested her of her nightgown, then he methodically removed his own clothes.

He hadn’t counted on the effect her nakedness would have on him. Her breasts were perfect, the large crests like overripe berries. He touched a ringer to one nipple and swallowed as it came erect. He couldn’t resist setting his mouth to it. When she shifted beneath him, and spread her legs in artless appeal, he had to grit his teeth against the waves of lust that roared through him. Forcing his desire to recede to manageable proportions, he brushed his fingers through the auburn triangle between her thighs to penetrate, though not deeply, the entrance to her body. Catherine moaned and arched into the caress.

He pulled back to look at her. Her eyes were wide and luminous; her breathing was quick and shallow. Her fingers curled into the muscles of his shoulders.

He laughed softly, pleased with her response to him. “You were made for this,” he said. “No, don’t be shy. Look at me, Cat. I’m only a man.”

She came up on her knees, and allowed her gaze to travel over him. Where she was pale and soft, he was dark and hard. Powerful was the word that came to mind. His broad shoulders tapered to hard, muscular
thighs. His sex was long, thick, and jutted from a dark nest of coarse hair. She swallowed hard.