The Brazen Bride

One

December 10, 1822

One o’clock in the morning

On the deck of the Heloise Leger , the English Channel

Hell hath no greater fury than the cataclysmic storms that raked the English Channel in winter.

With elemental tempest raging about him, Major Logan Monteith leapt back from the slashing blade of a Black Cobra cult assassin. Raising his saber to counter the second assassin’s strike, using his dirk, clutched in his left fist, to fend off the first attacker’s probing knife, Logan suspected he’d be learning about the afterlife all too soon.

Winds howled; waves crashed. Water sluiced across the deck in a hissing spate.

The night was blacker than Hades, the driving rain a blurring veil. Falling back a step, Logan swiped water from his eyes.

As one, the assassins surged, beating him back toward the prow. Blades met, steel ringing on steel, sparks flaring, pinpricks of brightness in the engulfing dark. Abruptly, the deck canted-all three combatants desperately fought for balance.

The ship, a Portuguese merchantman bound for Portsmouth, was in trouble. Logan had been forced to join its crew five days before, when, on reaching Lisbon, he’d discovered the town crawling with cultists. Battered by pounding waves, buffetted and tossed on the storm-wracked sea, as the deck leveled, the ship wallowed and swung, no longer held into the wind. Whether the rudder had broken or the captain had abandoned the wheel, Logan couldn’t tell. He couldn’t spare the time to squint through the rain-drenched dark at the bridge.

Instinct and experience kept his eyes locked on the men facing him. There’d been a third, but Logan had accounted for him in the first rush. The body was gone, claimed by the ravening waves.

Saber swinging, Logan struck, but immediately was forced to block and counter, then retreat yet another step into the narrowing prow. Further confining his movements, reducing his options. Didn’t matter; two against one in the icy, pelting rain, with his grips on his dirk and his saber cramping, leather-soled boots slipping and sliding-the assassins were barefoot, giving them even that advantage-he couldn’t effectively go on the offensive.

He wasn’t going to survive.

As he met and deflected another vicious blow, he acknowledged that, yet even as he did his innate stubbornness rose. He’d been a cavalry officer for more than a decade, fought in wars over half the globe, been through hell more than once, and survived.

He’d faced assassins before, and lived.

Miracles happened.

He told himself that even as, teeth gritted, he angled his saber up to block a slash at his head-and his feet went from under him, pitching him back against the railing.

The wooden scroll-holder strapped to his back slammed into his spine.

From the corner of his eye, he saw white teeth flash in a dark face-a feral grin as the second assassin swung and slashed. Logan hissed as the blade sliced down his left side, cutting through coat and shirt into muscle, grazing bone, before angling across his stomach to disembowel him. Instinct had him flattening against the railing; the blade cut, but not deep enough.

Not that that would save him.

Lightning cracked, a jagged tear of brilliant white splitting the black sky. In the instant’s illumination, Logan saw the two assassins, dark eyes fanatically gleaming, triumph in their faces, gather themselves to spring and bring him down.

He was bleeding, badly.

He saw Death, felt it-tasted ashes as icy fingers pierced his body, reaching for his soul.

He dragged in a last gasp, braced himself. Given his mission, given his occupation for the last several years, Saint Peter ought at least consider letting him into Heaven.

A long-forgotten prayer formed on his lips.

The assassins sprang.

Crack!!

Impact-sudden, sharp, catastrophic-flung him and the assassins overboard. The plunge into turbulent depths, into the churning fury of the sea, separated them.

Tumbling in the icy dark, instinct took hold; righting himself, Logan struck upward. His dirk was still in his left fist; he’d released his saber, but it was tied to his belt by its lanyard-he felt the reassuring tap of the hilt against his leg.

He was a strong swimmer. The assassins almost certainly weren’t-it would be a wonder if they could swim at all. Dismissing them-he had more pressing concerns-he broke the surface and hauled in a huge breath. He shook his head, then peered through the water weighing down his lashes.

The storm was at its height, the seas mountainous. He couldn’t see beyond the next towering wave, while with elemental rage the wind whipped and strafed, shrieking worse than a thousand banshees.

The ship had been in open water in the middle of the Channel when the storm had hit, but he had no idea how far the tempest had tossed them, nor any clear idea of direction. No idea if land was close, or…

He’d been losing blood when he’d hit the water. How long he would last in the cauldron of icy waves, how soon his already depleted strength would fail-

His hand struck something-wood, a plank. No, even better, a section of planking. Desperate, Logan grabbed it, grimly hung on as the next wave tried to slap him away, then, gritting his teeth, he hauled himself up and onto the makeshift raft.

The cold had numbed his flesh, yet the cut down his side sent burning pain lancing through his entire body.

For a long moment, he lay prone on the planks, gasping, then, gathering his ebbing strength, steeling himself, he inched and edged further onto the planks until he could lock his right hand over the ragged front edge. His feet still dangled in the water, but his body was supported to his knees; it was the best he could do.

The waves surged. His raft pitched, but rode the swell.

Beneath the lashing roar of the storm, waves crashed. Cheek to the wet wood, he listened, concentrating, and confirmed that the waves were smashing against something nearby.

The ship was, he thought, wallowing in the unrelieved blackness to his right. Breaking up. Sinking. Given how he and the assassins had been flung, the impact must have been midship. Whipping up his failing strength, he lifted his head, searched, saw debris but no bodies-no other survivors-but only he and the assassins had been so far forward in the prow.

Lightning cracked again, and showed him the ship’s bare masts silhouetted against the inky sky.

As the simultaneous clap of thunder faded, he heard a sucking, rushing sound. Recognizing the portent, he peered at the ship.

The listing, tipping, capsizing ship.

Out of the night, the main mast came swinging down…

He didn’t even have time to swear before the top of the mast thumped down across him and the world went black.

“Linnet! Linnet! Come quickly! Come see !”

Linnet Trevission looked up from the old flagstones of the path that ran from the stable to the kitchen door. She’d left the stable and was nearing the kichen garden; directly ahead, the solid bulk of her home, Mon Coeur, sat snug and serene, anchored within the protective embrace of stands of elm and fir bent and twisted into outlandish shapes by the incessant sea winds.

At present, however, in the aftermath of the storm that had raged for half the night, the winds were mild, coyly coquettish, the winter sun casting a honey glow over the house’s pale stone.

“Linnet! Linnet! ”

She smiled as Chester, one of her wards-a tow-headed scamp of just seven-came pelting around the side of the house, heading for the back door. “Chester! I’m here.”

The boy looked up, then veered onto the stable path.

“You have to come!” Skidding to a halt, he grabbed her hand and tugged. “There’s been a wreck!” His face alight, excitement and tension straining his voice, he looked up into her eyes. “There are bodies! And Will says one of the men is alive ! You have to come!”

Linnet’s smile fell from her face. “Yes, of course.” Swiping up her skirts-wishing she’d worn her breeches instead-she strode quickly toward the back door, inwardly reviewing the necessary tasks, tasks she’d dealt with often before.

On the southwest tip of Guernsey, dealing with shipwrecks was an inescapable part of life.

Chester trotted at her side, his hand gripping hers-too tightly, but then his father had been lost at sea three years ago. As they neared the kitchen door, it opened to reveal Linnet’s aunt, Muriel.

“Did I hear aright? A wreck?”

Linnet nodded. “Will sent Chester-there’s at least one survivor. I’ll go straightaway-can you find Edgar and the others? Tell them to bring the old gate, and the pack of bandages and splints.”

“Yes, of course. But where?”

Linnet looked at Chester. “Which cove?”

“West one.”

Grimacing, Linnet met Muriel’s eyes. Of course it would be that one-the rockiest and most dangerous. Especially for whoever had been washed up. “Broken bones, almost certainly.”

Nodding briskly, Muriel waved her off. “Go. I’ll have everything ready here when you get back.”

Linnet met Chester’s eyes. “Let’s race.”

Chester flashed a grin, let go of her hand, turned and ran back around the house.

Both hands now free, Linnet gathered her skirts and set out in pursuit; with her longer legs, she was soon on Chester’s heels. The path cut through the surrounding trees, then out across the rocky expanse that bordered the edge of the low cliffs.

“Hold up!” Linnet called as they rounded the southern headland of the long northwestern side of the island and the west cove opened up below them.

Chester halted at the top of the path-little more than a goat track-that led down to a strip of coarse sand. Beyond the sand lay rocks, exposed now that the tide was mostly out, a tumbled jumble of granite from fist-sized to small boulders that formed the floor of the cove. The cove wasn’t all that wide; two promontories of larger, jagged rocks enclosed it, marching out into the lashing gray waves.

Looking down, Linnet saw three bodies, two flung as if carelessly discarded on the rocks. Those two were dead-had to be, given the contortions of limbs, heads, and spines. The third she could only catch glimpses of; Will and Brandon-another two of her wards-were crouched over the man.

Aware of Chester’s pleading look, Linnet nodded. “All right-let’s go.”

He was off like a hare. Linnet kilted her skirts, then followed, leaping down the familiar path with an abandon almost Chester’s equal. As she descended, she scanned the cove again, noting the flotsam thrown up by the storm; to her educated eyes the evidence suggested that a good-sized merchantman had broken up on the razor-sharp rocks that lurked beneath the waves out to the northwest.

Reaching the sand, Chester bounded toward Will and Brandon. Suppressing the urge to follow, Linnet carefully made her way out onto the rocks and confirmed that the other two men were indeed dead, beyond her help. Two sailors, by the look of them, both swarthy. Spanish?

Leaving them where they lay, she picked her way through the rocks back onto the sand, then walked to where the third body lay close to the cliff.

His back to her, Will looked up and around as she neared, his fifteen-year-old face unusually sober. “He was on the planking, so we lifted it and carried him here.”

Halting, she dropped a hand on Will’s shoulder and answered the question he hadn’t asked. “It was safe to move him if he was already on the planks.”

Shifting her gaze from Will’s face, she got her first look at their survivor. He was lying on his stomach on the section of planking, a wet tangle of black hair screening his face.

He was large. Big. Not a giant, but in any company he would rank as impressive. Broad shoulders, long, heavy limbs. Running her gaze down his spine, she frowned at the bulge distorting his sodden coat. Bending, she reached out and touched it, felt the hardness, traced the odd shape.

“It’s a wooden cylinder in oilskins,” Will told her. “It’s slung in a leather holder with a loop around his belt. We think his arms must go through other loops to hold it in place.”

Linnet nodded. “Curious.” Had he been carrying the cylinder secretly? With it nestled between the muscles bracketing his spine, if he’d been upright, the fall of his coat would have concealed it.

Straightening, she ran her gaze down his legs, but saw no evidence of breaks or wounds. He was wearing breeches and a loose coat, the sort many sailors wore. His right arm was extended, the fingers of his large hand curled around the front edge of a plank. His other hand, however, lay level with his face, fingers locked in a death grip about the hilt of a dagger.

That seemed a trifle odd for a shipwreck.

Conscious of her pulse thudding-the run to the cliffs shouldn’t have made her heart beat so rapidly-she bent to look at the dagger. Not just a dagger, she realized-a dirk. The fine scrollwork on the blade was exquisite, the hilt larger than that of most knives, with a rounded stone set in the crosspiece. Reaching down, she pried long, hard, ice-cold fingers away from the hilt, then handed the dirk to Will. “Hold that for me.”

The man hadn’t stirred; not a single muscle had so much as tensed. Linnet drew back, aware of her instincts twitching, flickering in definite warning, yet for the life of her she couldn’t make sense of the message.

The stranger was all but dead-indeed, she wasn’t sure he wasn’t-so how could he be dangerous?

From his position kneeling on the other side of the planking, Brandon said, “He’s got a sword, too. On this side.”

Linnet circled the man, looked where Brandon pointed, then crouched and unhooked the lanyard that attached the weapon to the man’s belt. Drawing the blade carefully from under the man’s leg, she straightened, studied it. “It’s a saber-a cavalry sword.” She’d seen enough of them during the war, but the war was long over, the cavalry largely disbanded. Perhaps this man had been a trooper, and after the war had turned to sailing?

“We think he’s alive,” Brandon said, “but we can’t find any pulse, and he’s not breathing-well, not so you can tell.”

Leaving the saber with Brandon, Linnet returned to Will’s side. The man’s head lay turned that way.

“He must be alive because he’s bleeding,” Will said. “See?” He lifted the clothes along the man’s side, and a rent parted, exposing pale flesh and a long, nasty cut. A recent cut.

Crouching beside Will, Linnet looked, and recognized a sword slash. That explained the dirk and saber. While Will held the clothes, she leaned closer, examining the wound, following it up-to the side of the man’s breast. Thick muscle had been sliced through. Tracing the wound down, she sucked in a breath when she saw bone-a rib. But that was lower, where there wasn’t so much muscle between taut skin and rib cage.

“He’s bleeding,” Will insisted. “See there?”

Linnet had noted the pale pinkish liquid seeping from the cut. She nodded, not yet ready to explain that that might simply be seawater oozing back out of the wound, tinged with blood that had bled out before. Before the man had died.

Yet it was possible he still lived. The sea had all but frozen his flesh; any bleeding would be extremely slow, even were he alive.

Continuing to trace the wound, she discovered that it curved inward, angling down and across the man’s stomach. She couldn’t see further than the side of his waist, but a gut wound… if he had one, he was almost certainly dead, whether he’d already died or not.

Lying as he was, the pressure of his body combined with the effects of the icy sea might have held the wound closed, inhibited the usual bleeding.

She glanced at Brandon’s face, then at Will, alongside her. Chester was hovering at her shoulder. “I need to check the wound across his stomach. I need you to help me ease this side of him up-enough for me to look.”

The boys eagerly reached for the man’s left shoulder, his side. Settling on her knees, Linnet placed Brandon’s hands on the man’s shoulder, positioned Will’s hands beneath the left hip, set Chester ready to help support the shoulder Brandon would lift. “All together, then.” Linnet licked her lips, said a little prayer. She was too experienced in matters of life, death, and the sea to allow herself to become invested in a stranger’s survival; she told herself it was for the boys’ sake that she hoped this stranger lived. “Now.”

The boys heaved, pushed, propped. As soon as they had the man angled up and steady, Linnet ducked down, close to the heavy body, peered beneath to trace and follow the wound-then exhaled the breath she hadn’t realized she’d held. Easing back, she nodded. “Let him down.”

“Will he be all right?” Chester asked.

She couldn’t yet promise. “The wound is less deep over his stomach-no real danger. He was lucky.” A scenario was taking shape in her mind-a picture of how the man had received such a wound. It should have been a killing, or at least incapacitating, slash. He’d escaped death by less than an inch, just before his ship had wrecked.

“But he’s still not really breathing,” Brandon said.

And she still wasn’t sure if he was alive. Linnet checked for a pulse in the man’s wrist, then in his strong throat. There was none she could detect, nor any discernible rise and fall of his chest, but all that could be due to being close to frozen. There was no help for it; shuffling nearer, with one hand she brushed back the fall of black hair hiding his face, bent close, focused-and stopped breathing.

He was startlingly, heartbreakingly, breathtakingly beautiful. His face, all clean, angular lines and sculpted planes, embodied the very essence of masculine beauty-there was not a soft note anywhere. Combined with the muscled hardness of his body, that face promised virility, passion, and direct, unadorned, unadulterated sin.

Such a face did not belong to a man given to sweetness, but to action, command, and demand.

Chiseled lips, firm and fine, sent a seductive shiver down her spine. The line of his jaw made her fingertips throb. He had winged black brows, a wide forehead, and lashes so black and thick and long she was instantly jealous.

She’d frozen.

The boys shifted uneasily, watching, waiting for her verdict.

As usual her instincts had been right. This man was-would be-dangerous. To her peace of mind, if nothing else.

Men like this-who looked like he did, who had bodies like his-led women into sin.

And into stupidity.

Dragging in a breath, she forced her eyes to stop drinking him in, forced her mind to stop mentally swooning. She hesitated, needing to get nearer-and too rattled to lightly risk it.

Maintaining her current, already too-close distance, she held her fingers beneath his nose. And felt nothing.

Turning her hand, she held the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist close, but could detect not the smallest waft of air.

Lips thinning, mentally muttering an imprecation against fallen angels, she leaned down, close, in-angled her cheek so that it was a whisker away from his lips…

And felt the merest brush of air, a breath, an exhalation.

She eased back, straightening on her knees, and stared at the man’s face. Then she turned to the wound in his side, checked again. And yes, that was blood, not just seepage. “He’s alive.”

Chester whooped. The other two grinned.

She didn’t. Getting back to her feet, she looked down at trouble. “We need to get him up to the house.”

“Oof! He’s so damned heavy!” Easing the stranger’s shoulders down-resisting the urge to just drop him-Linnet settled him against her pillows. Of course, he had to have her bed; it was the only one in the house long enough, big enough, and, very likely, strong enough to be sure of supporting him.

Stepping back, she planted her hands on her hips and all but glared at him, unconscious though he was.

Muriel tucked the covers in on the bed’s other side. “Now to thaw him out. I’ll send the children up with the hot bricks.”

Linnet nodded, her gaze locked on the comatose figure in her bed. She heard Muriel go out, the door shutting behind her. Folding her arms, Linnet swapped her glare for a scowl as she battled to wrench her mind and her senses from their preoccupation with the body in her bed-with the idea of all that muscle, naked, washed, dried, and with his wound stitched, salved, and well-bound, denting her mattress.

She’d seen more naked men, of all descriptions, than she could count-inevitable given a childhood spent largely on her father’s ship. It certainly wasn’t any degree of novelty, nor attack of missish sensibility, that had left her nerves fluttering, jittery, her breathing tight and shallow, her stomach feeling peculiarly hollow. She would have said, and been certain of it, that seeing another naked male would barely register-would have no effect on her, make no real impression.

Instead… there was a naked fallen angel in her bed, and her pulse was still hammering.

Of course, after Edgar, John, and the other men had arrived on the beach and carried the stranger up to the house, to her bedroom, then heaved him onto her bed, she’d had to help Muriel tend him. Had to help her aunt peel off his clothes, uncovering all that solid, muscled flesh. Had to help bathe and dry him, then stitch and bind his wound. It was hardly surprising if she still felt hot after all that exertion.

She hoped her aunt put the uncharacteristic flush in her cheeks down to that.

Between them, she and Muriel had stitched and bandaged thoroughly. As he thawed and his blood started to flow normally, he’d bleed as usual; his immersion in icy water had been an advantage in that respect. They hadn’t been able to put a nightshirt on him; not even one of her father’s would fit, and the difficulty in manhandling the stranger’s heavy arms and body… Muriel had fetched extra blankets instead.

“Here’s the bricks.” Will pushed the door open with his shoulder and came in, bearing two flannel-wrapped bricks that had been heated on the kitchen hearth.

The others-Brandon, at thirteen nearly as tall as Will, Jennifer, twelve, Gillyflower, eight, and Chester-followed Will in, each carrying at least one brick.

Lifting the down-filled quilt, Linnet took each brick and nestled it on the sheet covering the stranger’s body, working her way around so that eventually he lay cradled in a heated horseshoe that ran from his chest down and around his very large feet. Once the last brick had been set in place, she tucked the quilt in.

Stepping back, she looked down at their patient. “That’s the best we can do. Now we wait.”

The children stayed for a little while, but when the man showed no hint of stirring, they drifted out. Linnet remained.

Restless, wary, strangely on her guard, she had no idea what it was about the man that kept her pacing the floor, her eyes, almost always, trained on his fallen angel face while inwardly, silently, she willed him to live.

Every now and then, she would pause beside the bed and lay a hand across his brow.

It remained icy cold.

Deathly cold.

Despite all they’d done, it was entirely possible he would never wake, much less recover.

Why, in this instance, a stranger’s life mattered so much she couldn’t fathom, but she wanted him to live. Actively and continually willed him to live.

To have a fallen angel fall into her life only to die before she even learned the color of his eyes was simply unacceptable. Fallen angels did not fall from the sky-or get washed up in her cove-every day; she’d never laid eyes on a man like him, awake or comatose, in all her twenty-six years, and she wanted, yearned, to learn more.

A dangerous want, perhaps, but when had she ever shied away from danger?

The afternoon waned, but brought no change in her patient. As evening closed in, she sighed. The children came up with another set of warmed bricks. She helped them switch the hot bricks for the cool, then, with the children clattering down the stairs, eager for their dinner, she drew the curtains over the window, checked the man one more time, and headed for the door.

Her gaze fell on the objects she’d left on the tallboy by the door. She paused, glanced back at the figure so still in her bed, then picked up the three items-the only things other than his clothes he’d been carrying.

The dirk-a fine piece, far finer than one would expect a sailor to own.

The saber-definitely a cavalryman’s sword, well used and lovingly honed.

She’d get the boys to polish both blades. The saber’s scabbard might yet be salvageable.

The third object, the wooden cylinder, was the most curious. As Will had guessed, the man had been carrying it wrapped in oilskins in a leather sling; with him unable to shrug the sling off, they’d had to cut the shoulder straps to remove it. The wood was foreign; she thought it was rosewood. The brass fittings that held the wooden strips together, and locked one end closed, smacked of somewhere far away, some alien shore.

Gathering all three items, Linnet glanced back at her bed, at the dark head on her pillows, silent and still, then she turned, went out of the door, and closed it quietly behind her.

Logan woke to a dark room.

To a soft bed, and the scent of woman.

That he recognized instantly. All the rest, however…

Where the devil was he?

Very carefully, he opened his eyes and looked around. His head hurt-throbbed, ached. So badly he could barely squint through the pain. Doing so, he located a hearth across the room, the fire within it a pile of glowing coals.

Where in all hell was he?

He tried to think, but couldn’t. The pain intensified when he tried, when he frowned. Shifting fractionally, he realized there was no bandage about his head, but there was one-a large and long one-winding about his torso.

So he’d been wounded.

How? Where? Why?

The questions lined up in his brain, but no answers came.

Then he heard voices-from a distance, through walls and doors, but his hearing seemed as acute as usual…

Children. The voices belonged to children. Youthful, too high-pitched to be anything but.

He couldn’t recall anything about children.

Disturbed, uncertain, he moved his arms, then his legs. All his limbs were functioning, under his control. It was only his head that ached so fiercely. Gingerly, pushing aside lumps he recognized as wrapped bricks, he eased to the side of the bed.

Some primal memory kept insisting there were enemies about, even though he couldn’t remember anything specific. Had he been captured? Was he in some enemy camp?

Very carefully, he pulled himself up in the bed, then swung his legs over the side and sat up. The room swam sickeningly, but then steadied.

Encouraged, he stood.

The blood rushed from his head.

He collapsed.

Hit the floor with a hideous thump , almost cried out-might have cried out-when his head hit the floorboards. He groaned, then, hearing footsteps pounding up some stairs, he slowly tried to push himself up.

The door swung open.

Propped on one elbow, he turned his head and looked, knowing he was too weak and helpless to defend himself, but it wasn’t any enemy who came charging in.

It was an angel with red-gold hair, bright and fiery as a flame, who scanned the room, saw him, then came racing to his side.

Perhaps he’d died and gone to Heaven?

“You dolt ! What the devil are you doing trying to get up? You’re wounded , you imbecile!”

Not an angel, then. Not Heaven, either. She continued to berate him, increasingly irate as she checked his bandages, then small hands, surprisingly strong, gripped his arm and she braced to haul him up-an impossibility, he knew-but then two strapping lads who had followed her in came around his other side. The not-an-angel snapped orders, and one lad ducked under his other arm, the second coming to help her as on a count of three they hoisted him up-

It hurt .

Everywhere.

He groaned as they turned him and, surprisingly gently, angled him back onto the bed, setting him down on his left side, then rolling him carefully onto his back.

The not-an-angel fussed, drawing down the tangled covers, removing bricks, then lifting and shaking. Logan watched her lips form words-a string of increasingly pointed epithets; as the worst of the violent pain receded, he felt himself smiling.

She saw, glared, then flicked the covers over him. He continued to smile, probably foolishly; he was still in so much pain that he couldn’t really tell. But he had noticed one thing-he was naked. Stripped-to-the-skin, not-a-stitch-except-his-bandage naked-and his not-an-angel hadn’t turned a hair.

And although most of his body had wilted, one part hadn’t-and she had to have noticed; she couldn’t have missed it as she’d looked down when she’d steered him to the bed, then laid him down, stretched him out.

Which surely meant he and she were lovers. What else could it mean?

He couldn’t remember her, not even her name-couldn’t remember sinking his hands in all that rich, warm hair, pressing his mouth to her sinful lips… lips he could imagine doing wicked things… none of which he could remember, but then he couldn’t remember anything through the crushing pain.

An older lady came in, spoke, and frowned at him. She came to the bed as his lover tried to shift him further into the center of the wide mattress. Thinking he should help, he rolled to his right-

Pain erupted. His world turned black.

Linnet winced at the gasp that exploded from the stranger’s lips-saw his body go lax, boneless, and knew he was unconscious again.

“Damn! I didn’t get a chance to ask who he was.” Leaning against the side of the mattress, she peered into his face. “But what caused that?”

Muriel, too, was frowning. “Did you check for head wounds?”

“There weren’t any… well, not to see.” Linnet knelt beside him and reached for his head. “But his hair is so thick, perhaps…” Infinitely gently, she took his skull between her hands. Fingers spread, she searched, felt… “Oh, my God! There’s a huge contusion.” Drawing back her hand, she studied her fingertips. “Blood, so the skin’s broken.”

The observation led to another round of careful tending, of warm water in basins, towels, salves, and eventually stacks of bandages as between them she and Muriel cleansed, then dried, padded and bandaged the wound. “Looks like he was hit over the head with a spar.”

In order to properly pad the area so that, once bandaged, their patient would be able to turn on the pillows without excruciating pain, they had to get Edgar and John to come and hold him upright, taking extra care not to dislodge the bandages around his chest and abdomen.

Examining the wound, Edgar opined, “Hard head, he must have, to have survived that.”

John nodded. “Lucky beggar all around, what with that slash and the shipwreck and storm. Charmed life, you might say.”

Linnet thanked them and let them go back to their dinners. Muriel, too; after closing the door behind her aunt, Linnet turned back into the room. Folding her arms, gripping her elbows, she halted by the bed and stared down at her patient.

He’d been a fighting man-in one or other of the services at one time was her guess. He had numerous scars-small and old, most of them-scattered over his body. A charmed life? Not in the literal sense. But she really, really wanted to know who he was.

Given her position in this corner of the world, she needed to know who he was.

Retreating to the armchair by the window, she sat and watched him for a while. When he showed no signs of stirring, let alone waking and doing something stupid like trying to get up, she rose and went downstairs. To finish her dinner and organize another round of hot bricks.

Three hours later, Linnet stood once more by her bed, arms folded, and frowned at her comatose fallen angel. By the dim light thrown by the lamp she’d left on the small table nearby, she studied his face and struggled to tamp down her concern.

His color wasn’t bad, but his face was tanned, so that might be misleading. His breathing, however, was deep and even, and his pulse, when she’d checked it mere minutes ago, had been steady and strong.

Yet he showed no signs of waking.

After his ill-advised excursion, he’d lapsed back into unconsciousness, if anything deeper than before. Bad enough, but what was truly worrying was his still chilled flesh. Even the spots that should by now have warmed remained icy cold.

At least she now knew his eyes were dark blue. So dark she’d originally thought they were black, but then he’d looked directly into her eyes and she’d seen the blue flames in the darkness.

So he was a fallen angel with black hair and midnight eyes-and despite the four changes of hot bricks they’d applied, he was still too damned cold for her comfort. Too unresponsive, too close to death. And she couldn’t shake the absolute conviction that it was, somehow, vitally important that he lived. That, somehow, it was up to her to ensure he did.

It was ridiculous, but it felt as if this were some God-sent test. She rescued people all the time-it was what she did, a part of her role. So could she rescue a fallen angel?

She paced, scowled, and paced some more while about her the house, her house, her home, slid into comfortable slumber. Edgar and John both helped about the manor house; after dinner, after the usual sitting and chatting in the parlor-tonight mostly speculating about the wreck and their survivor-the pair had retired to the cottage they shared with Vincent, the head stableman, and Bright, the gardener. Mrs. Pennyweather, the cook, and Molly and Prue, the two maids-of-all-work, would by now be snug in their beds in the staff quarters on the ground floor.

Muriel and Buttons-Miss Lillian Buttons, the children’s governess-had rooms on the first floor, in the opposite wing to Linnet’s large bedchamber. The children had rooms in the extensive attic, on either side of the playroom and schoolroom.

As the manor house of the estate encompassing the southwestern tip of Guernsey, Mon Coeur was a small community in its own right, with Linnet, Miss Trevission, its unquestioned leader. Indeed, she was more a liege lord, a hereditary ruler; that was certainly how her people saw her.

Perhaps noblesse oblige, that sense of responsibility for those in her care, was what so drove her to ensure the stranger lived.

Halting by the bed, Linnet looked down at his face. Willed his lashes to flutter, willed him to open his eyes and look at her again. She wanted to see his lips curve again; they had before, in a wholly seductive way, but she suspected he’d been delirious at the time.

Of course, he just lay there. Placing a hand on his brow, then sliding it down to the curve of his throat, she confirmed he was still far too cold. He was literally comatose, and nothing they’d yet done had succeeded in warming him sufficiently.

Drawing back her hand, she huffed out a breath. She’d intended to sleep on the daybed before the windows, but… her bed, the manor’s master’s bed, was wide-designed for a couple where the man was large. Of course, if she was going to warm him up, she’d need to sleep close, rather than apart.

Swinging away, she crossed to her chest and hunted out her thickest flannel nightgown. One eye on the bed, she stripped out of her warm gown, her woollen shift and fine chemise, then pulled the nightgown over her head.

Her patient hadn’t stirred, hadn’t cracked an eyelid.

Quickly letting down her hair, she slid her splayed fingers through the mass, shaking the long tresses loose. Lifting her woollen robe from its hook on the side of her armoire, she donned and belted it-another layer of armor against any attack, however feeble, on her modesty.

Approaching the bed, she inwardly scoffed. No matter who he proved to be, she’d been managing men all her life; she harbored no doubt whatsoever that she could and would manage him. Just like the others, he would learn. She ordered, they obeyed. That was, and always would be, the way of her world.

Lifting the covers, she checked the bricks and, as she’d suspected, found them already cooled. She removed them, stacked them by the door, then returned to the bed.

Calmly lifting the covers, she slid into the familiar softness, to the left of her fallen angel. Laying her hands along his bandaged side, she gently pushed, persevered until he rolled over on his undamaged right side. Quickly shifting nearer, she spooned around him, using her body to prop his in that position.

Reaching over and under him, she wrapped her arms about as much of him as she could. Then, because his back was there and convenient, she laid her cheek against the smooth, cool skin. She doubted she would sleep, but she closed her eyes.

She woke to a sensation of floating. Her wits were slow, reluctant to surface from the pleasurable sea in which they were submerged. A curious warmth suffused her, tempting her to simply relax and let the tide of tactile sensation sweep her on…

It took many long minutes before her mind assembled enough coherency to sound any alarm, and even then some part of her questioned, unable to believe, unable to perceive any danger-not in this.

Not in the long, rolling swells of pleasure that something, some being, sent smoothly sliding through her.

But then a hard palm and long, hard fingers closed about her bare breast-and she came awake on a shocked gasp of sensual delight.

Wits reeling, waltzing to a tune she had never before encountered, she had to open her eyes to orient herself. To convince herself that yes, somehow their positions had changed, that both she and her fallen angel had turned, and now he was spooned about her, his chest to her back.

His hands on her body.

His erection nudging between her thighs.

She knew perfectly well she should leap from the bed-now, right now, before his wandering hand and the pleasure his touch wrought laid seige to her wits again.

But… his hand, his fingers, stroked and caressed, played and teased, and she closed her eyes on a sigh.

Damn-he knew what he was doing. Knew better than any other man she’d ever met how to do this. She bit her lip on a moan as his questing hand shifted and closed again, then settled to pay homage to her other breast.

He was clearly experienced, and she was no wilting virgin, no paragon of missish modesty, yet…

She couldn’t allow this.

She’d be disgusted with herself in the morning if she did. Not least because, as she well knew, letting her fallen angel have her so easily, without even having exchanged one word, would give him too much power over her.

Or at least lead him to think he had power over her, and that would lead to unnecessary battles. She was queen in this realm, and such things happened at her command-only at her command.

Accepting she would have to end this now, she sighed, opened her eyes, and took stock-which only resulted in sending a wholly unfamiliar shiver down her spine.

Her robe was undone, the halves spread wide. Her nightgown was rucked up, above her breasts in the front, to the middle of her back behind her, which was why she could feel…

She had to end this now , but she was too wise to try to wriggle away, even leap away. Either move left it up to him to let her go. And he might not. Not readily. He might try to make her plead.

Used to playing power games, chess of a sort, with men, she mentally girded her loins-dragged her senses in and shackled them-then stretched her arms up over her head, sinuously straightening her long body and turning within his hold to face him.

It didn’t go as she’d planned.

Instead of finding him smiling at her in lazy masculine triumph, ready to accept her surrender, she barely had time to register that his eyes were shut, his expression still blank-that even if she’d woken, he had not-before one hard hand slid into her unbound hair, palming her skull, and his bandaged head shifted and his lips closed on hers.

Ravenously.

Greedily.

As if he were a man starved and she all his succor.

Heat hit her in a crashing wave, passion and hunger and want and need all churning in that burning kiss. An instant conflagration erupted between them. She felt like she was melting, muscles taut yet turning passive, fluid and giving, emptiness-a hollow ache-burgeoning at her core, yearning to be filled.

Primal. Urgent. Demanding.

He was all that-and he made her feel the same.

Her hands skimmed his shoulders. Even as she battled to regain her mental feet, she registered the warmth spreading beneath his still cool skin.

If nothing else, the exchange was heating him up.

If he’d been awake, her turning would have made him pause long enough for her to douse his flame. Instead, his unconscious, his dream-mind, had read that sinuous slide to face him as encouragement and agreement. As surrender.

By the time she’d realized that, he’d laid claim to her mouth and every one of her senses with a primitive passion that curled her toes.

He plundered, his tongue mating with hers, and her body came alive as it never had before. Yet he was… dreaming?

Even as she wrestled with that conclusion-tried to think what it meant, what she should do-he tore his lips from hers, ducked his head, and set his mouth to her breasts.

Took a furled nipple into his mouth and suckled.

Hard.

Her body bowed; she fought to stifle a scream-the first of pure pleasure she’d ever uttered. He pushed her onto her back and loomed over her in the dark. She gripped his shoulders, gasps tangling in her throat as, head bowed, he continued to feast, to lave and suckle her breasts.

Even asleep, he knew exactly how to make her body come quickly, rapidly, roaringly alive. Make it sing, make it burn.

She’d had three lovers-had “made love” precisely three times, once with each. Those experiences had convinced her that the activity was not for her, not something she was suited for.

As she was never going to marry, she’d seen no reason to learn more.

Now she faced a choice she hadn’t expected. Even as pleasure lanced through her again and her body arched beneath him, evocatively into him, she knew she could stop him, her fallen angel, but she’d have to wake him up to do it. Even wounded and weakened, he was too damned strong for her to simply push him back and soothe him deeper into sleep. Yet her reasons for not indulging with him didn’t apply if he remained asleep. If he didn’t know-wouldn’t recall when he awoke…

His lips drifted down, his hands firmed about her sides, and her body thrummed-enthrallingly alive, hungry and needy. His hands, hard and callused, sculpted, shaped her curves, slid down and around to cradle the globes of her bottom, long fingers kneading, stroking, caressing.

For the first time in her life, she felt… overwhelmed. Just a touch helpless. Not truly so-not frighteningly so-but the strength of him surrounded her, managed her, controlled her… as far as she allowed.

And then he moved over her, fully atop her, his hard, muscled thighs spreading hers wide so he could settle his hips between.

Her breath hitched. She had to decide now . The heavy length of his erection brushed her inner thigh, sensation and promise, evoking a flaring curiosity, splintering and fracturing her earlier resolution.

Would it be different with a fallen angel?

Every nerve, every inch of her, wanted to know.

But would he wake? Was it possible for him to reach the inevitable end without breaking free of Morpheus’s hold?

Finding out… what a risk! But all her life she’d thrived on challenge-on taking calculated risks and winning.

He lifted his head, body surging over hers, and locked his lips on hers.

Invaded her mouth, reclaimed, reconquered-and she raised her hands, closed them about his bandaged head and kissed him back.

Deliberately plunging into the heat, into the fray, seizing the moment, taking the risk.

She kissed him as ravenously as he’d kissed her-as she’d never kissed any other man. No man before had dared to devour her, nor invited her to devour him.

For heated, frantic moments they dueled, then he shifted, his spine flexed, all reined power, and she felt the marble-hard head of his erection part her folds. He pressed inexorably in, through the slickness of an instinctive welcome.

He hadn’t even touched her there, yet she was ready-ready, willing, and wantonly eager to feel the length of him, to experience the strength of him, the sheer power and weight of him as he forged steadily into her, then, at the last, thrust deep to her core.

Stretching her, filling her as she never had been before. She’d never felt so invaded, so utterly posssessed.

So complete.

Then he moved, deep, sure thrusts that rocked her beneath him… within seconds, she’d never felt so taken, never felt taken before at all, yet he unquestionably took, took all she would give, could scramble to give, and give she did-he gave her no choice.

Then somehow the scales tipped, and it was she who sank her fingertips into his buttocks, gripped and clung, urgent and demanding. And he who gave, unstintingly lavishing all his power, his passion, driving sensation into her, through her, building the glory higher, and yet higher-forcefully riding deep within her until she shattered.

Until the glory imploded and sensation fractured into glimmering shards and she broke apart on a muted scream.

Logan heard it, that inexpressibly evocative sound of female completion, and let his reins fall. Let the dream sweep him on into the familiar heat and fire, surrendering to the primitive driving urge, jettisoning all hope of lingering to further savor the heated clasp of his lover’s slick sheath, the ripples of her release barely fading as he drove harder and harder into her body-his dream lover who clearly knew him so well.

Who had let him ride her, then ridden him. Who had met his demands, and matched them, countered them.

Who had led him to this-the pinnacle of erotic dreams.

He sensed release nearing, felt it catch him, sweep up and over him. With one last thrust, he sank deep within her, and surrendered. Let it take him.

Rake him.

Until, at the last, he shuddered, and sleep thickened and closed about him again, and pulled him down into a deeper realm, one where satisfaction and content blended and soothed, cradling him in earthly bliss.

Linnet lay beneath her fallen angel, his dead weight an odd comfort as she struggled, battled, to regain the use of anything-wits or limbs. Even her senses seemed frazzled beyond recall, as if she’d drawn too close to some flame and they’d singed.

Oh. My. God was her first coherent thought, the only one she could manage for several long minutes. Finally, when she’d regained sufficient control of her limbs and sufficient mental acuity, she gently nudged, eased, prodded, and managed to stir him into shifting enough to let her slide from beneath him.

He slumped, heavy and boneless, beside her, but she no longer feared waking him up. If their recent exertions hadn’t, nothing would, not soon. And he hadn’t woken, of that she was sure. She’d seized the moment, taken the risk-and it had paid off.

Magnificently.

At last able to fill her lungs, she drew in a huge breath, let it out long and slow.

Staring up at the ceiling, she whispered, “Damn-that was good.”

Then she glanced sideways at the man-her fallen angel-lying facedown in the bed beside her. “I might have to rethink my policy on men.”