“So I can get them to help me!”
He released her, crossing his arms over his chest as he spoke to her next.
“They’re not going to help you.”
“They will when they know what’s really happening. That you’ve abducted me, half—half—raped me! They’ll save me from you?—”
“They’re not going to help you, and they’re not going to save you from me, even if you are Lady Douglas. Especially if you are Lady Douglas.”
She inhaled deeply, her spine suddenly very straight and stiff. “Why not, damn you?” she demanded. “Why won’t they help me?”
He caught her upper arms, pulling her back close to him, and his eyes glittered now with both amusement and fury.
“Because, my lovely little gold digger, Andrew Douglas is not dead. I am Lord Andrew Douglas. Your dearly beloved husband.”
“You’re a liar! Lord Douglas is dead. And you can’t be Lord anyone! You’re an—an?—”
“Indian?” he suggested.
“Yes! A savage, painted Indian!”
“That I am. But I do assure you, I am also Lord Douglas.”
She stared into his eyes.
Green eyes.
Oh, God, yes. They were familiar.
“Damn you, know it! I am Lord Douglas!”
Green eyes. Eyes very similar to a pair she had seen before. Set into an older face.
Green eyes.
They faded to black.
CHAPTER 3
Who the hell was she?
Staring at her, Andrew Douglas, called Hawk by both his Sioux kin and white friends, shook his head. She’d put up a hell of a fight—until his last words had struck home with her.
Then she’d passed out cold. Good thing. Now she lay against the bear-fur cover on the bed, a creature of ethereal—and, thank God, silent—beauty.
Deadly beauty, so it seemed, he thought bitterly. He still didn’t understand the particulars, but it seemed apparent that his father had met this woman. She had coerced a marriage and had assumed she was marrying his father.
What had gone on?
And what truth could he ever really know? His father was dead.
She was going to tell him. Exactly what had happened to her.
It was difficult to keep his hands off her. He longed to shake her until he got the truth out of her.
But he managed to keep his distance and tried very hard to be analytical—something he had gotten fairly good at over the years, being a man split between two vastly different cultures.His years at West Point hadn’t hurt the development of his analytical abilities either.
So again. Who in God’s name was she? Where had she come from?
