The Black Rose Read online

  "Brave words, Miss Leighton, but I believe I shall not leave just yet." His eyes flickered over the vein that throbbed at her neck. "Were you so ably seconded you would not clutch that foil so desperately. Yes, once already you have escaped me, but no more. This time you will not be so lucky."

  "Luck, my lord, had nothing to do with it!" He had a cut near his left eye, Tess noticed vaguely. Good. She only wished his opponent had been more thorough. "The truth is that you were outwitted. By a mere female. But I can see you will never admit the fact."

  "You showed a certain resourcefulness in your escape, my dear. I will grant you that much. But what I most particularly recall is the remarkable sight of your naked white thighs flashing down Watchbell Street." His lips curled in a sneer. "I suppose that half the male population of Rye shared my enjoyment in the sight."

  Tess smothered a gasp. "You arrogant, black-hearted —"

  "Your intemperate tongue, too, has not changed. Wherever you spent the last weeks, it was not in tame company. Nor, I think, in Oxford," he added silkily.

  Tess tasted the acrid bite of fear, knowing Jack would appear on the slope at any second. She must find some way to distract this damnable interloper!

  Without taking time to consider exactly what she was doing, Tess hurled one of the epees up to the mounted Ravenhurst. "Fight me then, and we shall see who is entitled to arrogance and who is not. Know that you do not come onto Fairleigh lands unchallenged!"

  Strong fingers caught the hilt of chased silver, curving to test the rapier's weight and balance. "I could think of better contests between us, Tess."

  "I seriously doubt that."

  "Can you doubt it? Even now?" he countered, his voice deep and gravelly.

  Something about that harsh voice made Tess shiver and think of distant rumbling thunder. Of storm-swept seas. Of dark passion spent and rekindled, again and again.

  She shook her head sharply, her gray-green eyes flashing. "Are you a coward beneath that stiff military demeanor, my lord? Were all those tales of bravery simply so much nonsense? Or are your heroics only at sea?" she taunted, desperate to draw his eyes away from the expanse of open lawn above them.

  Ravenhurst's mouth set in a rigid line. "That was most unwise of you, my dear."

  "Brave words, my lord. Do you care to suit actions to speech?"

  Hard eyes the color of midnight narrowed upon Tess's face, then slipped lower, studying the sharp rise and fall of her chest. "And if I win? What prize to me?"

  "The privilege to walk on Fairleigh land unmolested."

  "An interesting choice of phrase." Dane leaned back in the saddle, a mocking smile upon his lips. "But not good enough, I'm afraid."

  "Then you may name your prize," Tess countered quickly. "It matters little, since you have not a snowball's chance in Hell of winning it." Dear God, he must accept her challenge!

  Ravenhurst's eyes darkened as he considered her words. "Very well," he said at last, slipping down from his horse and looping the reins over a stunted hawthorn tree.

  Immediately Tess's foil rose. "En garde." The words were barely out of her mouth before she was driving him back across the grassy slope and around toward a gravel-strewn terrace at the far side of the priory, out of sight of the place where Jack would emerge from the coppice. Her movements were fluid and swift, metal crashing upon metal as he met her lightning strokes.

  "You fence well, my dear, even hampered by skirts. Your wrists are light, you eyesight remarkably keen. I can only wonder," he said shortly, between parries, "what other — abilities, shall we say? — you hide."

  "You might be surprised, my lord."

  "Oh, I doubt that. And you forget the very first rule of warfare," he said shortly, as she backed him toward a narrow curving stairway, which rose to the roof. "Never underestimate your enemy."

  Without warning he sidestepped and then lunged in a lightning maneuver. Tess barely managed to twist aside as his foil drove forward over hers.

  "Very clever, my lord. But I have yet a few tricks in store." Even as she spoke, Tess disengaged, spun about, and flew up the steps to the parapet, her kid half-boots crunching on the loose gravel.

  Ravenhurst followed relentlessly, driving her to the top of the steps and across toward the roof's far wall. Their swords ringing, he pressed her back. All too soon Tess felt her strength begin to wane.

  Still he drove her, showing not the slightest sign of strain. He was, Tess saw, both a brilliant strategist and a strong and fearless adversary.

  Perdition! Did the man never check his pace to draw a breath? Tess could feel beads of sweat break out on her brow, but she could not slow down to brush them away. Her wrist and forearm began to throb, but she refused to relent.

  Suddenly the viscount lunged again, engaging her foil with a loud crash, only to twist his arm deftly and send the gleaming length of metal flying high in the air. Stunned, Tess watched the silver blade twist end over end, flashing in the molten sunlight. Instinctively, she lunged for her lost weapon ...

  And fell into empty space, as without warning a section of the decaying wall gave way and she found herself plunging toward the ground thirty feet below.

  A hard hand shot out, seizing her wrist with a strength that seemed to drag her shoulder from its socket. Strong fingers dug into her palm, hauling her up what was left of the wall. Gasping, Tess kicked wildly, trying to find a toehold but meeting only smooth, weathered stone at her feet.

  Through a haze of pain she felt his other hand grasp her forearm and slowly begin to maneuver her across the gaping hole where once the parapet had stood.

  "Steady," Ravenhurst ordered, his voice taut. "Try to move to your right. There's a ledge no more than six inches from your right foot."

  Gritting her teeth, Tess pressed sideways until she felt her toe nudge an outcropping slab. Her rib was burning with pain but she ignored everything except that narrow ridge of rock. Grim-faced, the viscount moved with her, maneuvering her into position closer to the ledge. Then at last her foot eased onto the slab.

  A moment later Ravenhurst hauled her onto the roof, where she collapsed coughing onto the loose stones at the rim of the ruined wall.

  Ravenhurst's face was white with anger as he bent over her. "You little fool!" he roared. "You might have been killed!"

  Barely recovered from her fear, Tess flinched before the force of his fury, only to feel her own spark in turn. "And what business would it have been of yours if I had?"

  Roughly the viscount grabbed her forearms and hauled her against his chest, anger flaring in the tense set of his face. "You are every inch my bloody business, woman! There are too many things left unfinished between us for me to let you jump to your death. Or is the chance of winning worth any price to you?"

  "I would have won!" Tess countered. "Any moment I would have routed you!"

  "You never give up, do you?" her captor growled. "You remind me of myself, unfortunately — of the headstrong and damnably arrogant fool I was, when I was a great deal younger. When victory still meant something to me."

  "You f-flatter yourself in seeing any resemblance between us!" Tess sputtered. Suddenly her protests died away as she saw the viscount's dark intent. One hand tightened in the small of her back, drawing her close while the other forced her face up to meet his gaze. But before he could do more, Tess's hand cracked furiously across his face.

  Ravenhurst's eyes went cold and unreadable, studying her with savage intensity. Straining wildly, Tess jerked free and wiggled backward across the gravel until she felt the wall bite into her back. "Stay away from me!" she warned. "I'll not fall into your filthy hands ever again."

  His lips tightened. "The drug was not of my doing, Tess, something you would realize if you gave the matter any thought. As for leaving you alone — that's the very last thing I mean to do, little hellcat." Slowly Ravenhurst stood up, his long body throwing her face into shadow. His boots crunched over the loose pebbles, coming closer, ever closer.

  Tess shrank b
ack against the wall, realizing there was no way to escape him. Her hands began to tremble, and she raised her chin in mute defiance.

  Without a word Ravenhurst dropped to one knee beside her, burying his long fingers deep in her auburn hair. Inexorably his grip tightened, forcing her head back while his eyes devoured her face — flashing eyes, crimson cheeks, and moist, trembling lips. In vain she tried to jerk her head free, but his grip was unyielding. Every movement of her pinioned head burned like tiny knives plunged into her scalp.

  "I'll make you sorry for this!" she blazed, as his hands found her wrists and forced them back against the rough wall. Tossing her head from side to side, she struggled to escape his cruel grip as he slid closer and closer.

  Suddenly there was no more room between them, no haven from the searing heat of his big body.

  His mouth ground down across her sputtering lips, cutting off her defiant words, her air, and finally, her reason.

  Wildly Tess fought as he deepened the kiss and plunged his tongue between her lips to test the barrier of her teeth.

  His touch was smoke and fire — his mouth all angry, demanding male. She could feel the rippling play of his forearms at her back, the taut strength of his thighs locked against her hips. She shuddered, feeling the heat of his body lick her skin through her dress.

  Everything about him was hard and hungry.

  And infinitely dangerous.

  A choked cry broke from her lips. "Stop it. You're — you're mad!"

  Dimly, her blood on fire, her heart thundering madly, Tess heard him groan far back in his throat.

  "Yes, mad — mad for the taste of you! I ought to take you here and now," he growled against her mouth, his lips nipping and kneading and stroking her fiercely. "I saved your life, woman. You owe me something for that!"

  "I owe you nothing, sea slime! Let me go!"

  His eyes narrowed. "You feel it, don't you, Tess Leighton?" he growled. "Every bit of the same fire that I feel."

  Tess's only answer was to twist her head from side to side, struggling vainly to find some part of his anatomy to sink her teeth into.

  "Yes, I see the glaze of passion in your eyes, the wild beat of your pulse. This flame burns you as keenly as it does me." Capturing her wrists in one hand, Ravenhurst cupped her flushed cheeks; slowly his thumbs traced her full lips, wet and swollen from his kisses. "All woman — hot and hungry. For me. For the pleasure only I can give you. Why won't you admit it?" he demanded hoarsely.

  Tess struggled desperately, but she felt him everywhere, hip to thigh, breast to breast, her frantic squirming only driving their bodies closer together. And then she gasped, feeling the rigid, heated length of his sex brand her thighs like searing steel.

  Ravenhurst's eyes flashed darkly from their lapis depths, narrowing as he watched color stain Tess's cheeks. "You give me an ache, woman, an ache that knows only one release — and that is to be quenched in your sweet fire."

  Slowly, hypnotically, he lowered the calloused pad of his thumb, rubbing her swollen, sensitized lips. Somehow Tess couldn't control the shiver that knifed through her at his rhythmic strokes.

  Immediately his eyes flamed, missing nothing of her response.

  Sobbing, Tess closed her eyes, fighting his keen scrutiny, fighting the erotic image of their bodies joined, as they had been that night not so long past.

  Impossible! her mind screamed. He was ruthless enemy and heartless betrayer.

  Even as she focused on that thought, her traitorous heart began to slam against her ribs. Her pulse surged, wild and hot, through her veins.

  "That you'll never have!" she cried, fury and terror warring with the gnawing rise of desire. Along with that came a terrible, harrowing guilt that she could betray Andre so. " 'Tis only my hatred you'll ever feel, blackguard! A hatred like the Channel wind, so cold it sears."

  "Liar," the viscount whispered harshly.

  Her breath coming fast and jerky, she fought to put a distance between them, anything to clear her head. At the same time her eyes moved of their own accord, fixed on those hard lips only inches from hers.

  A vein beat at her temple.

  Her mouth went suddenly dry. Unconsciously her tongue crept out to moisten her bottom lip.

  Immediately Dane's fingers tightened, biting into her slender wrists. "I'll have all your fire and more, Tess," he growled. "And the pleasure will be yours as much as mine!"

  "Never! 'Twould be taken by force, coward, and no other way." But all along she knew it was a lie. Dear God, how could she have any feeling left for this man?

  Ravenhurst's eyes darkened. "I'm a sailor long at sea, my dear. You taunt me at your peril."

  "Taunt you? My only wish is to be free of you!"

  Grim-faced, her captor stared down at Tess's moist, swollen lips. "Then stop moving against me, or I do not vouch for the consequences. 'Tis been far too long since I've lain with a woman," he added bluntly, his voice harsh with desire. As if to prove his point his thighs tightened, driving against her hips.

  The shock of that intimate contact made Tess gasp and flinch back as if burned.

  Sweet Heaven, he was like dry tinder, waiting to be kindled by the tiniest spark! Right now, she realized, her body was blazing with a thousand hungry fires, any one of which could send them both up in smoke.

  But it would be the wages of anger and revenge, not the stunning intimacy and total belonging that she had known with her Frenchman.

  The realization was like frigid water dashed into her face.

  A tiny smile twisted on Ravenhurst's lips. "Since I've lain with a woman of your raw sensuality, that is. A woman who has the face of an angel and the body of a Whitechapel whore."

  "Beast!" she cried. "I'll no more be the object of your cruel sport."

  "But why all this outrage? You are, my dear, by your own account well accustomed to the amorous attentions of men. Let us be frank then. I want you — and I mean to have you." His eyes scoured her face, dark and inscrutable. "Quite obviously you feel the same, though you work hard to deny it."

  Tess struggled helplessly, sputtering incomprehensible invective. "I — I feel nothing for you — nothing except contempt!"

  His eyes only mocked her. "So it's back to this fiction of the ice maiden, is it?"

  " 'Tis no fiction, you bastard. Just the firmest fact!"

  Ravenhurst made a clucking sound. "Such language, my dear. You will never find a husband that way. But why don't we put the matter to the test?" His fingers tightened, stretching her arms until they were anchored to the stone wall behind her head. Slowly, inexorably, he fitted his hard body against hers until she was trapped between inflexible stone and implacable muscle.

  A queer, choking noise tore from her throat. "S-stop!"

  "Perhaps, my dear, if you first tell me where you really were. For you were in Oxford just as surely as I was" — Ravenhurst's eyes darkened for a moment — "on the moon."

  He knew! Tess thought wildly, studying the hard line of his jaw. Somehow he knew! "What makes you believe I — I was not in Oxford, you arrogant scoundrel?"

  "Well done, my dear, played with just the right touch of indignation. But every flicker of your eye, every leap of your pulse proclaims your guilty secret." His fingers tightened. "With a man, of course. But did he make your skin burn as I can? Did you flame at his touch the way you do beneath me?"

  "I'll tell you nothing, cur!"

  "Did he tire of your silken body so soon? Or did you, perhaps, tire of his attentions? Which was it, Tess?"

  "What I have done, you bastard — what I do — is none of your business! You lost any right to interfere in my life five years ago, when you stormed away without accepting any explanation for what you saw — for what you thought you saw — in that gate house!"

  "I saw you in bed with another man, Tess," Ravenhurst rasped, his words clipped, as if dragged from the very depths of his soul. "With his hands on your naked skin, the marks of his teeth across your breasts. You were barely seventeen y
ears old, yet I saw you writhe with the passion of the most hardened harlot. By God, what was I supposed to think?"

  "You were supposed to think that you loved me — with all your soul, beyond even life itself. Or was that promise, too, a lie, my lord?"

  "At the time I believed it to be true. But I had no idea then how gravely my feelings would be put to the test." His voice dropped. I'm listening now, Tess. Tell me what happened that night."

  A wild sob rose in Tess's throat, threatening to choke her. Vague images and clawing shapes twisted around her. "I — I can't remember! He — he must have drugged me, don't you see?" She shuddered, feeling once again the press of hurting fingers, the swift, searing pain at her thighs. "Oh, why can't you just leave me alone?" she sobbed. "Why must you come back now and dredge up the whole sordid business all over again?"

  Ravenhurst's eyes were opaque, unreadable. "Because, my dear Tess, I have discovered that once a man has you in his blood, he can never be free of you again. And because I have dreamed of nothing else but this moment for five long and bitter years." His voice was low and hoarse, as if the admission cost him a great deal.

  Suddenly, through the chaos of her thoughts, Tess noticed the slim blade of a foil glistening at the base of the wall, where Dane had dropped it when she fell.

  Immediately she averted her eyes, afraid he would notice the hope that must be glinting there. Fixing her gaze over his shoulder, she stared out over the sweep of lawn toward the sea.

  She stiffened, her breath catching audibly.

  "What is it?" Ravenhurst demanded, scowling.

  "There — there in the cove! 'Tis the French brig, dropping anchor in broad daylight."

  "The devil it is!" Dane growled, releasing her to whirl about sharply.

  Breathless, Tess lunged, triumph singing through her veins. She had it!

  The next moment the sharp point of her foil nudged the viscount's chin.

  "You treacherous little —"

  "I'd advise you to choose your words carefully, my lord. My wrist is remarkably tired, and I would hate to lose my grip, accidentally marring those handsome features."