Her eyes flashed, dipping to the pork hechewed. “I’m sorry, I’m not a refined, polished, sophisticatedaristocrat. Hail the pitiful, Lord Rutland, caught in hissuperiority and trapped in his arrogance.” She stabbed a finger inhis chest. “What an ungrateful creature you are. I am the one thatsaved your miserable life. I’m the one who has taught you how tosurvive.”
He towered over her. She was the mostbeautiful, enraged angel of retribution, her chest rising andfalling with fury as she confronted him. Suddenly, she pivoted andran.
Nicholas raked his fingers through his hair.What an ass he’d been. He had deliberately picked a fight, takinghis anger out on her for being stuck on this God-forsaken patch ofearth. He called for her. No answer.
He threw a few punches into a tree, and thenlaughed aloud. That wasn’t the entire reason. Every night heresisted the urge to pull back her quilt and gaze at her slenderwhite body. Every night he’d suppressed the almost overpoweringdesire to take her in his arms and let go inside of her.
He pushed through the undergrowth.
At times, Nicholas could feel her watchinghim and he’d look up. She’d cast him a modest sidelong glance, amorsel to tempt him, to leave him panting like a hound of summer onthe scent of deer.
Blast it, where had she gone? She was athorn in his side. He crisscrossed the lagoon, river and cottage.Nowhere. Another part nagged him. Every time he got close, sheskittered away, made-up excuses. She was hiding something. Heslapped several palmetto branches away. With all the time theyspent together, why didn’t she trust him?
For the same reason, he hadn’t told herabout Lady Susannah Tomkins. Alexandra deserved the truth.
He made his way down to the shoreline. Whenshe didn’t answer his shouts, his apprehension gave way to alarm.Had she fallen? Was she hurt? Unable to answer? A nauseating wavehit his stomach.
Hopping over fallen trees, he pushed throughpalmettoes and thick undergrowth to get to the beach. Sweat poureddown his back. He stopped to catch his breath, wiped the moisturefrom his head and blinked. Footprints. Her footprints. He followedher trail up to a rocky cliff. Of course, her favorite place towatch the sea.
Soberly, Nicholas looked at Alexandra,sitting beneath a bright green sea grape tree. Sea lavenderrippling around her knees, the land sloped upward behind her. Thethong holding her braid had been torn, and her hair hung wild abouther shoulders and down her back. The sun, shining through theleaves, caught the gold in bits and pieces, exposing her as thesiren she really was.
“Will you come down?” he asked in a morepleasant tone.
“What for?”
He couldn’t think of a thing. A moment laterhe blurted, “I want you to go for a walk with me.”
“You will have to do better than that,” shesniffed.
“I want you to go for a walk with me,and…I’m sorry.”
“What’s the second part?”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s more than that. I’m not common. I’mtremendously exceptional.”
“You are exceptional. Now come down fromthere and go for a walk with me.”
She stared at his proffered hand and dammedif she didn’t look down her nose at him like a queen, acknowledgingan undesirable serf. “I’m a brute, Alexandra. I blamed you for mymisfortunes.”
“I know.”
The woman had uncanny discernment, alwaysdivining his moods.
“I find myself with no purpose here. So it’shard to shake off the intentions of my life at home where my day’sbrim with helping tenants, buying horses. The island makes my timefilled with not-doing. And then, there is the looming threat theisland will become my sepulcher.”
Alexandra dropped his hand and faced him.“Not doing? Since we have been incredibly busy with the purpose oftrying to survive a kidnapping, potential slavery, farming,hunting, fishing, hauling water, curing our food, and surviving theelements. Our lives have been chaotic. But sometimes chaos is thevery thing that deliberately shakes up our neatly ordered world toget us out of our neatly ordered ruts that keep us stuck.”
Nicholas blew out a breath. She had theability to lash him withcommonwisdom.
“Is it also the helplessness of not gettingoff the island and the vengeance you seek?”
She cut him a sharp look that dared him toargue with her. He gritted his teeth. “Yes. Now do you forgiveme?”
“I have similar emotions since I would doanything to avenge the wrongs done to me by my stepmother, and seekjustice for Molly’s death.” Alexandra picked up stones and pitchedthem into the sea. “You know I forgive you.”
His melancholy started to evaporate as hewatched a half-dozen sandpipers skitter up the beach, his foul moodof the morning fading like the darkness before the dawn.“Alexandra, what do you want?”
