Page 48 of A Stolen Heart

“My lord.” She gave him the barest of nods and started along the sidewalk away from him.

He was beside her in an instant, however, his hand locking around her wrist. “I have been waiting for you. You and I are going to have a little talk.”

“I think that you and I have already said more than enough to each other.” Sebastian said nothing, just pulled her toward his carriage. Alexandra tried to jerk her wrist away. “Are you planning to abduct me now?”

“No. I have no intention of keeping you.” Accurately judging the scowl that was gathering on Alexandra’s face, he added, “It’s no use kicking up a fuss. I don’t embarrass easily, and no one will challenge me.”

Given the look on his face, Alexandra suspected that was true. Since she had no real belief that he would harm her, she shrugged and climbed into his carriage. He followed, slamming the door after him, and the carriage rocked off.

Thorpe studied her for a moment, his eyes dark. Alexandra gazed at him, aware of a sense of anticipation at the storm that she was sure was about to break. There was, she realized with a start, something exhilarating about arguing with Lord Thorpe.

“How can you live with yourself?” he asked finally.

“Very easily, my lord.”

“How can you deceive that kind, fragile woman? Do you have any idea how sad she has been for more than twenty years over the death of her son and his family?”

“No. I can only guess,” Alexandra answered honestly. “I am very sorry for her.”

He made a noise of disgust. “I doubt you are capable of feeling anything for anyone but yourself.”

“Oh, no, that’s not true. I feel a great deal of dislike for you.”

His eyes flashed. “I still had some hope. Despite the fact that you hid your reasons for going to Exmoor House, despite the fact that you looked like the adventuress Ursula thinks you are, I had a faint, lingering hope that you would prove Ursula wrong. That you would stay away from the Countess, that you would not press your claim with her. I clung to the fact that you had told the Countess you could not be her granddaughter. This morning at my house, your indignation seemed real. But then you walked into that room today, and I knew that I had been a fool to even hope. It was just as Ursula predicted. You found something to make the Countess believe you, and you brought it to her with an air of innocence. ‘What does this mean, Countess?’ As if you didn’t know! As if you hadn’t intended to use it all along.”

“I didn’t know about it before today,” Alexandra protested. “Not, of course, that I expect you to believe the truth. You are far too interested in the story you have made up to even consider the facts.”

“There are no facts to consider.” He leaned across the carriage, his eyes burning into hers. “There is nothing but what you have concocted. You are a cheat, a swindler, and you have had nothing on your mind since you got here except to worm your way into the Countess’s confidence. You manufactured an excuse to see me. You flirted and—”

“Is it really the Countess you are so upset about my deceiving?” Alexandra asked astutely. “Or is what really galls you the fact that I supposedly deceived you?”

Thorpe’s eyes flared with anger, and his mouth tightened. Suddenly his hand lashed out and grabbed her arm, and he jerked her across the carriage and onto his lap. Alexandra half fell across him, her bonnet knocked off her head and dangling by its ribbons. His other arm fastened around her, and his lips came down to take hers. Alexandra put her hands against his chest and shoved, trying to wriggle out of his grasp, but it was of little use. He held her easily while his predatory mouth claimed hers. Alexandra was infuriated. It was just like a man, she thought, to try to settle an argument by asserting his physical dominance. She went rigid, knowing it was useless to struggle against him. She would make him sorry, she thought, though she was not sure how.

Surrounded by his scent, his warmth, his strength, she began to soften. His mouth was hot and urgent on hers, searing her, and despite her irritation, her stomach quivered, her loins loosening and blossoming with heat. She heard the rasp of his breath in his throat, felt his heart thudding against the wall of his chest, and heat began to rise within her. Letting out a sigh, she relaxed against him. Sebastian felt her surrender, the flush of heat through her body, and triumph flashed through him, mingling with desire and rage. His hold on her loosened, and his hand slid over the curves of her body, exploring her softness. He touched her breasts, feeling the pointing of her nipples through the cloth, and slipped over the plane of her stomach and onto the curve of her hip.

Alexandra leaned against his arm, stunned by the rush of desire through her at the touch of his hand. She could not think, only feel, as his hand moved ever downward. Her skirt and petticoats were rucked up almost to her knees, and his hand slid onto the calf of her leg, her flesh separated from him by only the sheer stocking. His fingers moved beneath the dress and petticoats, sliding up her leg.

The bold move startled Alexandra out of the haze of her desire. With a jolt, she realized what he was doing, the liberties she was allowing him to take without even a word of protest. It was no wonder he thought she was wicked, she told herself, given the brazen way she kept responding to him whenever he made advances no decent man would!

She jerked away, tumbling off his lap and onto the floor. For an instant they stared at each other. Thorpe realized, with a rush of shame, that he had forced a kiss—and more—upon her, a thing he could not remember ever before doing to a woman. He reached toward her inarticulately, apology and excuses tangling on his suddenly thick tongue.

Alexandra glared at him, scrambling away and flinging open the door to his carriage. He saw, with horror, that she meant to jump out of the moving vehicle, and he rapped frantically on the roof of the carriage. They slowed and stopped, and Alexandra was out of the door in an instant. He watched her hurry down the street, straightening her bonnet, and he was not sure which one of them he disliked more at the moment.

ALEXANDRA’S EMOTIONS WERE AS confused as Thorpe’s as she hurried along. She had walked for two blocks in the wrong direction before she realized it and turned to retrace her steps. No one, she thought, had ever managed to confuse her the way Lord Thorpe did. He had behaved perfectly despicably—so she could not understand how she could feel so warm and jangly inside just thinking about his kiss. Was she shallow? A creature ruled purely by physical needs? It had never seemed the case before. She had always been a practical person, the kind who thought before she acted, who made plans and had reasons for her actions.

Since she had met Lord Thorpe, she had become a stranger to herself. She was feeling things she had never felt, acting in ways she normally would not, pulled this way and that by her passions. Why, she was no longer even sure of her identity! Was she her mother’s daughter, her aunt’s niece, as she had always thought—or was she the granddaughter of a Countess?

As soon as Alexandra entered the house, she went upstairs to her mother’s room. She found her mother in a frenzy of anxiety, with Nancy trying vainly to calm her down. Nancy turned to her with some relief.

“Oh, miss, I’m glad you’re here. She’s all upset because something’s missing from that box.”

“I want it back!” Rhea cried. “They took it—I know they took it. They’re always wanting it.”

“No. I took it, Mother.” Alexandra held out the locket.

Rhea let out a cry and pounced on the necklace, grabbing it out of Alexandra’s hand. “You took it! You wicked, wicked girl!”

“Why don’t you want anyone to see that locket, Mother?” Alexandra asked, hardening herself to her mother’s obvious distress. “Why do you hide it?”