The Master's Mistress. Carole Mortimer

her book distractedly under her arm, Elizabeth moved stealthily across the bedroom to the door, opening it quietly to step out into the hallway, and pausing long enough to pick up the heavy brass ornament that stood on a table in the wide corridor. She made her way softly to the top of the stairs on the first floor so that she could look down into the huge reception hall. An eerie glow told her that someone had put a light on somewhere downstairs since she had gone up to bed half an hour or so ago.

      Sullivan House was a three-storey mansion, originally built a couple of centuries ago for the head of some now defunct titled family, and several doors led off the marble-pillared reception hall. All of those doors remained firmly closed, with no visible light showing beneath them, not even a flashlight.

      Elizabeth leant further over the polished oak banister, able to see now that the light was coming from the back of the house. The kitchen, most probably. Although what a burglar would find of value to steal in there, she had no idea; the only things that weren’t integral parts of the kitchen were a microwave and an electric mixer. But there was also a set of sharp knives on top of one of the work surfaces, Elizabeth remembered in alarm. Any one of which could do serious damage to a person who dared to disturb the burglar!

      Get a grip, Elizabeth, she instructed herself sternly, and she straightened her shoulders determinedly. There was no way she could cower and hide and hope that the burglar would just quickly take what he wanted and then go away. Whether she liked it or not—and she didn’t!—Elizabeth had to confront the man and hope that her presence here would be enough to scare him off.

      If it didn’t…

      She wasn’t going to think about what would happen if the situation backfired on her. She was an independent woman of twenty-eight. A university lecturer who had lived and worked in London for the last ten years. She seriously doubted a Cornish burglar would be half as dangerous as some of the strange people she was forced to share the tube with on a daily basis!

      Had the wooden staircase always creaked like this? Elizabeth wondered in alarm as she began to descend it. She hadn’t noticed it before, but she did now, as every step she took seemed to make the stairs groan in an alarming way that might alert the burglar to her presence before she was ready to confront him!

      ‘Damn and double damn!’

      The curse came from inside the kitchen even as Elizabeth crept stealthily down the hallway and saw the door was slightly ajar, allowing her to look into the kitchen through the narrow crack between the hinges of the door. She pressed herself urgently back against the wall as a dark-clothed figure moved across the brightly lit room.

      Of course the man was wearing dark clothing; didn’t all burglars?

      Elizabeth drew in a deep breath, the shaking fingers of her left hand tightening about the brass ornament even as she reached out with her right hand to push the kitchen door inwards. She stepped inside the room, her blue gaze intent as she quickly scanned the kitchen, looking for the location of the intruder.

      ‘Who the hell are you?’

      Elizabeth was so shocked to hear the harsh but melodic voice coming from behind her that as she turned the brass ornament slipped from between her fingers.

      ‘Ow!’

      Straight onto the burglar’s foot, she realised, as the man turned his back on her to bend down and grasp the top of his boot, where the heavy ornament had obviously landed, with painful results, before dropping to the tiled floor and rolling well out of Elizabeth’s reach.

      She looked around for another weapon to defend herself with, and very quickly realised that the burglar stood between her and that block of sharp knives.

      The book she had been reading! Elizabeth had forgotten it was still tucked under her arm, but she grabbed it now and proceeded to hit the man repeatedly over the head with it.

      ‘What the—!’ The man straightened and turned, before reaching out to grasp both of Elizabeth’s wrists and hold her hands up and away from him, well out of hitting distance. ‘Will you stop attacking me, woman?’ he growled.

      Elizabeth became very still, eyes wide as she stared up at him.

      It was the man from the book she had been reading!

      The same narrowed and glittering black eyes. The same shoulder-length, silky dark hair. The same harshly sculptured face; prominent cheekbones, a hard slash of a nose, chiselled lips set in a grim line, and a square, determined jaw. The same very tall and lithely muscled body, completely dressed in black…

      The same predator?

      For the first time in her life Elizabeth fainted…

      

      ‘Well, that was certainly different!’ Rogan drawled derisively, as the woman he had picked up in his arms and then carried to the sitting-room sofa finally began to stir and regain consciousness.

      She was a tiny woman, probably aged in her late twenties, and a whole foot shorter than him at only a couple of inches over five feet. She had short, auburn spiky-styled hair, a creamy, heart-shaped face; delicate cheekbones, a short, straight nose, a full bow of a mouth, and a small pointed chin that could be raised determinedly if she felt so inclined. As it had been earlier, when she’d attacked him—first with a brass ornament and then with a book, of all things!

      Her eyes, as they opened, were a deep sky-blue, and surrounded by the thickest, darkest lashes Rogan had ever seen, he discovered as she sat up abruptly on the sofa to look across at him with the apprehension of a startled deer.

      ‘Why are you still here?’ she breathed warily.

      ‘Why am I still here?’ he repeated incredulously.

      The woman moistened dry lips. ‘You had plenty of time to get away when I—when I…’

      ‘Swooned?’ Rogan suggested mockingly.

      ‘Fainted!’A dark frown appeared between those blue eyes. ‘A perfectly normal reaction to being attacked by a burglar!’

      Yes, that chin could definitely be very determined when this woman wished it to be! The bristling stance of that slender body beneath her slightly over-large cotton pyjamas also attested to her indignation.

      Rogan had never particularly cared for the idea of women wearing pyjamas, preferring the woman in his bed to wear either nothing at all or something feminine in silk. Except this woman somehow managed to wear unflattering blue cotton pyjamas and still look sexy!

      Maybe it was the way the material only hinted at the curves beneath? Or could it be that the pale blue material made her eyes look bigger and bluer? Whatever it was, his little attacker was one very sexy package.

      So what she was doing at Sullivan House?

      His mouth tightened slightly. ‘Perfectly natural,’ he acknowledged. ‘Except for two things. Firstly,’ he bit out harshly as she raised questioning brows, ‘I’m not a burglar. Secondly,’ he continued, when she would have interrupted him, ‘you were the one doing the attacking. As evidenced by my bruised foot and battered head!’

      Elizabeth felt the warm colour in her cheeks. She had attacked him. Firstly by dropping the ornament on his foot, and then by hitting him with the book.

      The same book that now lay open across one muscled, denim-clad thigh! As if he had been reading it while waiting for Elizabeth to regain consciousness. Oh, good grief…!

      Her chin rose defensively. ‘I very much doubt that the police will be too interested in my efforts to defend myself considering that you’re the one who broke in!’

      ‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ the man taunted. ‘I’ve seen several cases in the English newspapers recently where the burglar was given compensation for being attacked by the owner of the house he had just broken into.’

      Elizabeth had seen the same newspaper reports—and she questioned the sanity of the legal system!

      ‘There’s