“How terrible to be separated from your wife.” If only he would stop staring at her. Had he been jilted? Of course, his mercurial mood veered drastically. Why was his behavior so disquieting? The hairs rose on the back of her neck.
“No,” he answered her. “Never separated.”
She fumbled with the salt cellar. He was a tempest, best viewed from afar.
“My eyes fall on her beauty as we speak. Fate is a strange bedfellow. Is it not?”
Claire stirred. Perspiration beaded down her sides.
“Surely that eventful eve in Newgate can spark a memory,” he laughed.
Her voice suffocated as a pair of piercing green eyes locked onto hers...cold, probing, speculative eyes.Knowingeyes. “Never−”
“Certainly, a felon whose life was to be cut short by the hangman’s, lucked out on the King’s greed, cheating fate and our dear friend, Mr. Goad.”
“This cannot be−” Overwhelming disbelief paralyzed her brain.
“In the flesh, Madame. Your earthly husband.” He laughed.
Claire could hear her blood exploding wildly in her ears, trying to adjust to the fact that the mysterious stranger in front of her was the same man she had married months before. In the waning silence, the dilemma hung over her like a shroud, indecision raged at her, and tears she refused to shed, ached in her eyes. Yet he knew specific information.
“But you are a slave−”
“I expected you to remind me of that fact, but is it not a conundrum for you?”
She twisted her fingers together. “What do you want?” She stood to leave, to flee the very room, to get anywhere as long as it was far away from him. Quick and agile as a panther, he blocked her escape. She stared into his chest. Her voice broke with fear. “Pray, let me go.”
“Och, now...” He paused. “We have a matter to discuss.”
She attempted to dart around him. When that failed she pushed against him, meeting a rock solid wall of muscle and flesh that didn’t budge in the least. “No−no. It cannot be true,” she railed against him, half sobbing, half screeching.
He grabbed her shoulders and gave her a rough shake to quiet her hysteria, her hair loosened from its pins, tumbling down her back. “By God, you will listen.”
Her hand burned where it touched the soft furring of hair upon his chest. She snatched it back. Claire stared with disbelieving shock into scathing green eyes and stilled her movements.
“That’s better now.”
How could she have forgotten that voice? His whole being was in that voice. Claire summoned a show of faint bravado and lifted her chin. “I’m not afraid of you.”
White even teeth flashed against tanned skin as he laughed at her. At once, he reminded her of a swarthy pirate, lacking cutlass and pistols.
“What do you want from me? I have little money−”
“Money is not what I want.”
Claire rose to slap him. Her hand caught in a vise-like grip. “I could scream. I could scream until my uncle and this whole plantation comes down on you. Then you’ll be hanged. I’ll be glad to see you thrown as fodder to the crows.”
“Will you?” he mocked. “And what will become of your reputation then? Married to a slave, a rebel?”
“Damn you.” Pricked by his scorn, she stood reckless and sneered. “What do you want?”
“Not rape or plunder of your lush body. A tumble in the hay is far from what I require, Madame Blackmon.” He flaunted her name.
Then what did he want? She trembled inside.She knew.
He raised a brow as if reading her mind. He raked his eyes up and down her. She crossed her arms in front of her as if naked before that stare.
“In Newgate, you walked into my wretched world. I counted the stones ‘til I was half-mad thinking of you. Every detail, every memory of you remained scorched on my mind. I survived a vast and terrible voyage, but still I did not forget. Then destiny threw me ashore with my tortured dreams all within reach, yet so far away.” He fingered a loosened tress, letting it trail through his fingers.
