By Grace Possessed by Jennifer Blake Page A

picked up her skirts, preparing to leave him. It was to be a fine, indignant exit with the trainlike hem of her gown frothing in her wake.
    She was snatched up short as he wrapped hard fingers about her upper arm and whirled her against the nearest wall. Her head thudded against the stone, so hard that lightning flashed behind her eyes. Trilborn came upagainst her before she could move, slamming his body into hers, flattening her so she could barely draw breath, grinding against her from chest to thighs. He caught her wrists, squeezing until they creaked as he jerked them above her head. Holding them on either side of her headdress, he tried to claim her mouth.
    She twisted, whipped her head aside, ducking away from his wet, seeking lips. “Let me go,” she cried, shuddering in revulsion.
    “Are you sure that’s what you want?” he demanded with harsh satisfaction in his voice. “Are you?”
    She could feel the ridge of hardness he pressed against her, with only fine hose fabric between it and her abdomen. Shifting her weight, she tried to bring her knee up. He turned so she grazed his thigh, then he slid his leg between hers, bending his knee to rub against her. Catching both wrists in one hand, he reached for her breast, squeezing, kneading it in paroxysms, pinching the nipple through the cloth.
    Cate heaved with rage and disgust. So wrenching was the experience that she snapped her head forward and sank her teeth into his neck.
    He cursed, jerking away. For a single instant, she could breathe, was close to freedom.
    Trilborn put a hand to his neck, brought it away again to stare at the blood on his fingers. He curled them into a fist while the disbelief in his face turned to fury. Drawing back his arm, he struck her, putting so much force behind it that she spun away from him, falling in a tangle of skirts. Her elbow and hip struck the floor with such jarring agony it brought tears to her eyes.
    Behind her, Trilborn gave a guttural cry. Cate expected him to be upon her in an instant. She heaved up, struggling to her knees.
    Through the blue gauze shimmer of her veil, which had fallen over her face, she saw two figures rolling over the carpets that stretched down the very center of the corridor. It was Ross and Trilborn, locked in vicious combat loud with oaths, grunts and the smack of flesh against flesh.
    Abruptly, there was a flash of steel. Trilborn broke free then and staggered to his feet with a red-stained blade in his hand. He slewed around, his face wild as he looked at Cate. He’d lost his hat, his straw-colored hair hung in his face, his nose dripped blood and a purple-red splotch marred his neck.
    Ross sprang up with his dirk grasped in a hard fist. Trilborn, pale and sweating, backed away. He swung around and plunged into a run. His thumping footsteps faded as he fled through an end door.
    Cate flung her veil behind her shoulders as Ross came toward her. He was white around the mouth and none too steady on his feet, she saw, and his hand was clamped to his side. Still, he reached his free hand down to her, pulling her up when she took it.
    “Are you all right?” he asked, his gaze on her cheekbone, which throbbed with every beat of her heart.
    “Never mind me. What of you?”
    He didn’t bother to lower his gaze to where blood seeped between his fingers, made no answer at all to what she’d asked. Releasing her hand, he trailed a gentlefingertip over the curve of her cheek. “I should have killed him while I had the chance.”
    “Instead, he nearly killed you.”
    “My fault. Like the greenest chucklehead, I was nay thinking. I expected the devil’s spawn to send footpads after me in some dark alley, but didn’t credit him with the nerve to draw knife himself, and inside the palace walls.”
    Dunbar’s Scots burr, always present to some degree, had thickened under duress. He must be more injured than he wanted her to know. “I am grateful you were near, all the same. But something must be done