“Even so.” And he grinned.
Portia growled. The wretch waslaughingat her. “Get off me.” She made each word clear.
“Not until I claim my forfeit.”
“Forfeit?” Portia felt the first touch of real fear. She had been alarmed to hear breaking glass. She had been almost horrified at first sight of the dark creature coming down the corridor toward her. But in some way while bandying words with this man she had not been truly afraid.
Now she realized she was at his mercy. She was not missish by nature, and in her salad days had been a tomboy, but she had never before been unprotected in a strange man’s power.
“Forfeit,” he said, and the gentleness did not reassure her scurrying heart at all. She found herself staring at his earring—a discreet but expensive-looking jeweled stud. Only the wildest wastrels wore such outrageous ornaments, and only a wealthy one could afford that jewel.
She was in the power of a wealthy, dissolute rake.
He smiled, and it was a devil’s smile. “I always claim a forfeit from women who try to kill me.”
Portia started to fight in earnest, but her hands were tangled in her three woolen shawls. By the time she’d dragged them free he was ready to capture her wrists.
“Do you ever stop fighting?”
“Would it help?” She twisted against his grip, but it immediately tightened. “You’re hurting me!”
“Then stop fighting me.”
“I’ll cry.”
“Can you really do it on demand? I’d be interested to see that.”
Portia hissed with exasperation, but her fear was ebbing like the tides. For some reason she simply could not be truly afraid of this man. It was most peculiar.
She became aware that his weight over her—mostly carried by his arms—was almost comforting, and that she was warm when before she’d been chilled. Faint scents came to her, too. Lavender, she thought, from his linen, and a perfume such as men wore, but a subtle one. Not the heavy sort used to cloak dirt and disease…
“Can you not force even one tear?” he teased, and Portia snapped her wits back into order. She tested his grip again, but he immediately tightened it just enough to control.
“You don’t think I havereasonto cry?” she spat.
“I don’t think you’re a weeper, my Amazon, unless you see it as a weapon.” And he kissed her.
In all her twenty-five years, Portia had never been kissed like this. Not with a man’s hard body pinning her to the floor and his hands confining her for the assault of his mouth.
But it was a tender assault.
Braced as she was for something much worse, the tenderness almost trapped her. She remembered in time that he was her enemy, and held herself still and unresponsive beneath him.
He drew back, and she heard humor as he said, “What a range of weapons you have, my warrior maid. If I give you the victory in this, will you allow me to collect the document? It can be no concern of yours.”
“No.”
He laughed and rocked back onto his feet, then helped her up. While she was still finding her balance and gathering her tangled shawls, he sidestepped her and ran lightly up the stairs.
“Stop!”
Portia raced after him, shedding shawls, her shoes clattering on the bare wooden treads. He moved swiftly as if he knew the house, and headed straight for the back bedroom.
That showed he didn’t know the house at all. That room was empty, stripped of every item of furniture. Perhaps he had the wrong house after all.
She fell into the room after him and grabbed his cloak. “There see. There is nothing here.”
He simply unfastened the cloak and went forward, leaving her with a mass of heavy wool in her hands. She dropped it and plunged after him. He was headed for the fireplace and she ran around him and spread herself in front of it, gasping, “Not another step!”
