Dangerous to Kiss by Elizabeth Thornton Page B

enormously. She turned her back on him so that he could not witness her shame. Tears pricked her eyes. This was the man who had pretended to be so nice in his notions that he was reluctant to travel in the coach with her. One day, God willing, she would see him dangle at the end of a rope.
    “Be quick about it,” he said, “or I shall strip you myself.”
    She dragged her gown over her head and then began on the tapes that held her petticoats in place. When she was down to her chemise and drawers, she halted. This had gone far enough.
    “The drawers, Deborah,” he said, “or I swear I shall take them off you.”
    He would do it too. The remnants of her resistance ebbed away. She was so weary that every movement felt weighted. Again, the blackness hovered and she blinked it away. Wordlessly, she undid the tapes of her drawers and removed them. She felt like a whipped cur when she stretched out on the pallet. Even the sight of his far from immaculate shirt had not the power to cheer her. She made to lie on her side, away from him, but her hip was so painful, she gave up the attempt. Stretched out on her back, she gazed unseeingly at the blackened ceiling.
    A quilt was thrown over her. She heard his movements as he padded around the room, but they hardly penetrated. Every cell in her body demanded a respite. Before long, her lashes fluttered, and she succumbed to the blackness.
    Using a taper to get a flame from the lantern, Gray lit the kindling that had been set in the grate. When he heard snuffling noises coming from Deborah’s pallet, he left the fireplace and moved quietly to her side. Sinking on one knee, he let his eyes roam over her. Her abundant auburn hair curled around her pale face in a mass of tangles. Small freckles dusted her nose and cheekbones; violet smudges made hollows of her eyes. With one finger, he caught a tear that hovered on the tip of one butchered eyelash. Her brows were drawn together in a frown. He had known that when he unmasked her, she would turn out to be a pretty girl, but this transformation was more than he had bargained for.
    Without thinking, he touched his tear-dewed finger to his lips, and the taste of her spread over his tongue, tantalizing him, filling him with a hunger to take more. Ruthlessly quelling his errant thoughts, he waited a momenttill the impulse had passed, then he deliberately pulled back the feather quilt which covered her.
    He did not expect her to waken, nor did she. The few drops of laudanum with which he had dosed her bowl of stew had finally taken effect. With an expert eye, he examined first one wrist, then the other. The marks from the bonds were raw, but not so severe that he felt they required doctoring. He was not so sure about the knocks she had taken in her fall from Jupiter. It had seemed to him that in the last little while she had been favoring her right foot, and when he had swatted her, he was sure he had felt her wince. She wouldn’t confide in him, of course. He was the monster who had abducted her. His hands were not quite steady when he raised her shift.
    Her body was perfectly made, lush and lean in all the right places. Scowling now, he concentrated on her injuries. When he gently touched the bruise on her left hip, she whimpered and flinched away. He got the same reaction when he touched her left shoulder. She made no sound when he examined her ribs. Satisfied that she was not hurt in any real sense, he covered her with the quilt, returned to the fire, and added a log to the blaze.
    Staring at the flames as they licked around the log, he went over in his mind the merits of the strategy he had decided to employ. He had to make her fear and hate him. He glanced at the sleeping girl. He had not expected such a hard core of resistance in her. Most women of her station would have been reduced to a quivering mass of jelly by this time. He admired her pluck, but at the same time, he regretted that she was making things so hard for herself. She