He was so astonished that he let go of her arm.
He stared at her tiny, booted foot. “Good gad, did you actually think you could hurt me withthat?” He laughed. “Are you mad, Jess?”
“You great drunken jackass!” she cried. “How dare you?” She tore off her bonnet and whacked him in the chest with it.
“I didnotgive you leave to use my Christian name.” She whacked him again. “And I amnota ha’pennyworth of a chit, you thickheaded ox!” Whack, whack, whack.
Dain gazed down in profound puzzlement. He saw a flimsy wisp of a female attempting, apparently, to do him an injury with a bit of millinery.
She seemed to be in a perfect fury. While tickling his chest with her ridiculous hat, she was ranting about some party and somebody’s picture and Mrs. Beaumont and how he had spoiled everything and he would be very sorry, because she no longer gave a damn about Bertie, who was no use on earth to anybody, and she was going straight back to England and open a shop and auction the icon herself and get ten thousand for it, and she hoped Dain choked on it.
Dain was not certain what he was supposed to choke on, except perhaps laughter, because he was certain he’d never seen anything so vastly amusing in all his life as Miss Jessica Trent in a temper fit.
Her cheeks were pink, her eyes flashed silver sparks, and her sleek black hair was tumbling about her shoulders.
It was very black, the same pure jet as his own. But different. His was thick and coarse and curly. Hers was a rippling veil of silk.
A few tresses shaken loose from their pins dangled teasingly against her bodice.
And that was when he became distracted.
Her apple green pelisse fastened all the way to her white throat. It was fastened very snugly, outlining the curve of her breasts.
Measured against, say, Denise’s generous endowments, Miss Trent’s were negligible. In proportion to a slim, fine-boned frame and a whisper of a waist, however, the feminine curves abruptly became more than ample.
Lord Dain’s fingers began to itch, and a snake of heat stirred and writhed in the pit of his belly.
The tickling bonnet became an irritation. He grabbed it and crushed it in his hand and threw it down. “That’s enough,” he said. “You’re beginning to bother me.”
“Bother you?” she cried. “Bother? I’ll bother you, you conceited clodpole.” Then she drew back, made a fist, and struck him square in the solar plexus.
It was a good, solid blow, and had she directed it at a man less formidably built, that man would have staggered.
Dain scarcely felt it. The lazy raindrops plopping on his head had about as much physical impact.
But he saw her wince as she jerked her hand away, and realized she’d hurt herself, and that made him want to howl. He grabbed her hand, then hastily dropped it, terrified he’d crush it by accident.
“Damn and blast and confound you to hell!” he roared. “Why won’t you leave me in peace, you plague and pestilence of a female!”
A stray mongrel, sniffing at the lamppost, yelped and scurried away.
Miss Trent did not even blink. She only stood gazing with a sulkily obstinate expression at the place she’d hit, as though she were waiting for something.
He didn’t know what it was. All he knew—and he didn’t know how he knew, but it was a certainty as ineluctable as the storm swelling and roaring toward them—was that she hadn’t got it yet and she would not go away until she did.
“What the devil do you want?” he shouted. “What in blazes is the matter with you?”
She didn’t answer.
The desultory plops of rain were building to a steady patter upon thetrottoir. Droplets glistened on her hair and shimmered on her pink-washed cheeks. One drop skittered along the side of her nose and down to the corner of her mouth.
“Damnation,” he said.
And then he didn’t care what he crushed or broke. He reached out and wrapped his monster hands about her waist and lifted her straight up until her wet, sulky face was even with his own.
And in the same heartbeat, before she could scream, he clamped his hard, dissolute mouth over hers.
The heavens opened up then, loosing a torrent.
