Rake Beyond Redemption. Anne O'Brien

could she have dared to say that? Surely so forward, so presumptuous a female would put any well-bred man to flight. Or at least earn herself a damning put-down. Marie-Claude saw how the muscles in Zan’s jaw tightened under some rigidly applied control. How austere he looked, how frighteningly stern. How could she have displayed her feelings so obviously? Suddenly swamped by doubt, Marie-Claude turned her face away. ‘How immodest I seem to have become. How brazen you must think me…’ Her words crumbled to dust as she felt her face flame once more, this time with embarrassment.

      ‘No, never that,’ Zan replied softly, his tone at odds with the taut desire in his loins. Her self-conscious bewilderment arrowed straight to Zan’s heart. Circling her wrists, he placed her palms together, enfolding them within his own hands where they seemed, inexplicably, to belong. ‘And not brazen at all. If you are immodest, then I seem to have lost all sense of honour as a gentleman. Do you…?’

       Do you believe that a man can love a woman from the very first moment he sets his eyes on her? Can a man feel indivisibly bound to a woman he has never met before?

      His dark brows snapped together. Well, he could hardly ask her that, could he? Only at the risk of her fleeing the room, no doubt shrieking accusations of seduction and debauchery. Had he in truth lost all sense of reality? Disgusted at his inexplicable lack of finesse, Zan controlled the urge to drag her against him, cover that lovely mouth with his. How had his response to this woman suddenly become so inexplicably complicated? Instead he fell back on brisk practicalities.

      ‘I expect you’re exhausted after your ordeal. Do you feel sufficiently recovered to go home?’

      ‘Oh…yes.’ Marie-Claude was perplexed. She could not read this man at all. One moment he looked at her as if he would snatch her up, the next he rejected her as if he found her distasteful. Obviously he regretted that first astonishing admission. Disappointment settled to fill the space around her heart, and she took her lead from him. ‘Of course. I’m quite restored. It’s no distance—an easy walk from here. If you will release my hands…’

      Zan saw it, the light quenched from her eyes, her mouth settling in a solemn line, the corners tightly tucked in as if she would express no more confidences. That was not what he had intended at all. He experienced a protective urge to sweep her up and make her laugh. Make her admit again that she had been waiting for him to step into her life. But perhaps this was not the time or the place.

      ‘I’ll take you home,’ he determined, yet kept possession of her hands. ‘And I’ll come tomorrow to ask if you’re fully recovered. If you will allow it.’

      ‘Yes. I would like that.’

      When her face lit again in a smile, it ignited a flame in his heart. Without thought, without questioning his motives other than it was what he wished to do more than anything on earth, he bent his head and took her lips with his. Soft, inviting, at first the merest whisper of a caress. And the sweetness of her took him aback, flooding through his veins, awakening every male instinct. In reply his mouth changed from gentle invitation to dominant demand.

      Marie-Claude knew she should resist, remonstrate—what was she doing?—but could not. The slide of that hard mouth over her lips, with such unexpected delicacy, stirred shivers over her skin. When the pressure deepened, when she felt the forceful sweep of his tongue over her lips, she did not hesitate but, her will shattered, she let them part against his shocking insistence. Her heart fluttered like a trapped bird.

      Whilst Zan’s blood raged. His body responded, his need hard against her as he held her fast. Whatever lay in wait for him in the uncertainties of his future, she was his. His mouth ravaged, his tongue tasted, seduced then plunged as her lips failed to withstand his assault. She was his, now, always. No one would stop him…

      When he felt her sigh softly against his mouth he raised his head, drawn back into reality. His smile was a little twisted, but his hands still gripped firm.

      ‘I suppose I must now listen to you condemn me for my ungallant conduct.’

      But her eyes were glorious, sparkling with life. Her reply, her reaction, startled him.

      ‘I liked it.’ A twist of her hand to free it from his and she lifted it to touch his cheek with her fingertips. ‘I should not, I dare say, but I did. My sister would say that no good can come of it. Do you suppose I shall regret it? I doubt it. Unless you are planning to seduce me, to steal my heart and break it.’

      So she would flirt with him.

      ‘You think I would seduce you?’ An audacious lift of a brow. ‘Do you think I am a libertine?’

      ‘I don’t know.’

      ‘A rake?’

      ‘I don’t know that either.’

      ‘If I was either, you should not be here alone in this room with me. Will you take the risk?’

      ‘I must.’ Marie-Claude smiled. ‘I seem to have lost my will-power along with my wits.’

      Zan inhaled sharply. ‘Many hereabouts would say you’d be foolish to trust me.’

      ‘You’ve given me no reason not to trust you. I would have been regretful if you hadn’t kissed me. Does that make me too forward again? I’m afraid it does.’

      ‘It makes you a delight. It makes you all I’ve ever dreamt of in a woman—’ What was he saying? Zan closed his mouth like a trap on any more revelations before the control of his thoughts and words broke entirely. ‘Where are you staying? I presume you are visiting. Where do I take you home?’

      ‘There’s really no need.’

      ‘I wish it.’ Once again he pressed his lips to hers, all his senses overpowered by her instant response when she slid her hands around his neck, lacing her fingers in his hair to draw him closer. He groaned softly against her mouth. ‘I don’t want to let you go, but I must. Tell me where…’

      ‘Not far. Take me to Lydyard’s Pride.’

       The Pride!

      It was like the echoing clang, discordant and ill fated, of a death knell. The name was like an arctic blast to chill the heat in his blood to ice. Or perhaps it was a searing fire from the depths of hell to blast and destroy the flame of his desire.

      Zan encircled Marie-Claude’s wrists and pulled her hands slowly from around his neck, trying to ignore the skittering of her pulse. Why did it feel as if a bottomless black void had appeared before his feet? And equally in his chest where his heart had been?

      Whilst Marie-Claude could only marvel at the effect of her words. This man who had kissed her with passion was now regarding her from a distance of his own making, with some species of stark horror.

      What had she said?

      ‘Lydyard’s Pride?’ Zan heard his voice, bleak as the cliffs in a winter’s gale, dreading the reply.

      ‘Yes. The house on the cliff…’

      ‘I know where Lydyard’s Pride is. What’s your name—your full name?’

      ‘I’m Marie-Claude Hallaston. I was Marie-Claude de la Roche before my marriage.’

       Hallaston. Marriage.

      Why hadn’t he discovered this pertinent piece of information in the first place? It had never crossed his mind. His lips curled in cynical acknowledgement of this unexpected turn of the cards. So the gift from the hand of fate had all been a mischievous charade after all. Well, he had been taught a short hard lesson, had he not? It was as if he had been offered his heart’s desire only to have it snatched away in some malicious game. Zan took a step back, his brows meeting in a black bar.

      ‘Zan…?’

      He took another step. When he could think, memory struck to fill in the gaps.

      ‘Ah, yes. Of course. I should have known, I suppose. You’re the widow of