Stormfire
Authors: Christine Monson
Tags: #Romance, #Romance: Regency, #Fiction, #Regency, #Romance - General, #General, #Fiction - Romance
ICE AND FIRE
"Now. Catherine. Strike now, or yield."
She thrust the knife forward, but at the last moment looked into eyes that reflected the storm. This strange, brooding man had become part of her. Frighteningly, he needed her now, though she had denied him in rage and pride as he had her.
As the knife clattered to the deck, a fleck of crimson over the Irishman's heart smeared against her breast as he swept her into his arms and crushed his mouth down upon her cold lips, kissing her as if the tempest raging about them were centered in his soul. Passion rose in fiery waves, pouring over the edge of the world, a descent into the inferno, bodies locked in a fusion of molten desire . . .
STORMFIRE is an original publication of Avon Books. This work has never before appeared in book form. This work is a novel. Any similarity to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.
AVON BOOKS
A division of
The Hearst Corporation
1790 Broadway
New York, New York 10019
Copyright e 1984 by Christine Monson Published by arrangement with the author Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 84-90894
ISBN: 0-380-87668-X
All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U. S. Copyright Law. For information address the Denise Marcil Literary Agency, 316 West 82nd Street, New York, New York 10024
First Avon Printing, June, 1984
AVON TRADEMARK REG.
U. S.
PAT. OFF. AND
IN
OTHER
COUNTRIES,
MARCA REGISTRADA, HECHO
EN U. S.
A.
Printed in the U. S. A.
CLS 10
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my beloved wingmate, Jon, and fledgling, Jenni.
Special thanks to Claudia Wall, Sergei Timachea, and Anne Lorcy.
Tap, tap, tap. Alice shifted her unaccustomed weapon and her considerable weight at the same time. Tap, tap, tap, the nursemaid's broad foot briskly connected with the floor. She glowered at the angelically serene young creature who had her head stuffed under satin
point d'esprit
pillows. No angel, little Catherine!
Catherine was a minx. Small-boned, with a coltish grace and an unruly riot of black hair so fine it seemed to snap blue, Catherine usually resembled a disreputable urchin because of her indifference to dress. Her remarkable eyes, almond-shaped, heavily lashed, were an iridescent blue as restless in shade as opals. They had never been the eyes of a child, unless the child were fey Oberon's own.
Alice had hoped this past year in Bath would see Catherine develop into a fashionable young lady, but when Catherine arrived home for the Christmas holidays, she seemed little different from the hoyden who had mingled unselfconsciously with children of servants. It had not been unusual at Windemere to see fledgling cooks and dukes haul on the same rope in Tug o' War while a muddied Catherine yelled encouragement and dragged with the best of them. Alice's face turned wistful.
Catherine, daughter of John Enderly, viscount of Windemere, and countess in her own right, had been sent to The Gentlewoman's Academy in Bath after her mother's death five years past. Letters about Catherine from that establishment were disapproving. In the opinion of the school directors, the countess had had her way too much and, thanks to her diplomat father, seen too much of the world for a girl not yet seventeen. The creature could be sly in four languages, but could not be caught being insolent in any of them. Her schoolmates invariably followed her lead, whether in reading discourses on female equality by that Italian woman, Gaetana Agnesi, or sneaking out in male attire to unsuitable entertainments. The viscount had merely been amused, but Alice, aware of the difficulties of Catherine's adjustment to the school, pitied her.
Catherine's posterior languorously shifted position, and her old nursemaid's sympathy evaporated as she scowled at that offending bit of anatomy. Alice might be unlettered, but she knew what spelled "come hither." She should have foreseen trouble a week ago on Christmas Eve when she told Catherine of the Parisian wardrobe the viscount had purchased for her. She might have known Catherine would deduce the new wardrobe carried a whiff of suitors along with innocent lavender. A witchy look had flickered through Catherine's extraordinary eyes, and to Alice's dismay, she chose to wear the most daring of the new dresses to greet guests for Christmas dinner. The crimson sari silk with iridescent flaming colors had enveloped her young body like sorcery, and Alice was now certain the trouble it brewed that night had boiled over. Just thinking of it made her temper seethe. Her foot, ceasing its impatient taps on the floor, came down with a peremptory crack.
The pillows exploded and Catherine shot up from the debris of silk. She blinked groggily, startled to see Alice in her mobcap standing guard over the bed with a rapier clenched in one fist. "What on earth . . . Alice, what are you doing? Have you lost your mind?"
The older woman harrumphed, "Buck naked, I see. Where's your nightdress?"
Catherine's eyes cleared, then took on a cat's studied indifference. "In the chiffonier," she answered coolly. Alice was a love, but also a tyrant. Besides, she had an idea where this discussion was about to lead. "Since when do you concern yourself with what I wear to bed?"
"Since that cheeky buck with a gleam in his eye and a French accent comes saunterin' out of yer bedroom at an owl's hour and shoves this sword into my hand. He says, says he, 'Don't let any more like me come through here.' And off he goes whistlin' like a banty rooster that's been at the whole henhouse." Alice's large hands welded to her hips and her eyes glittered. "Now, you tell me, missy, what went on in here last night!"
Catherine eyed her for a long moment, wondering if she should admit how far awry her week-long attempt to appear more intriguing than a marriageable, manageable heap of bank notes had gone. The cockerel in question was Colonel Raoul Louis d'Amauri, formerly baron d'Amauri, of the Grand Armee. The handsome Frenchman was the most appealing of the bachelor houseguests, possibly because his teasing brown eyes instantly saw through her masquerade. Despite his blue and scarlet dress uniform, he looked little older than herself.