shock of response.
‘No—wait!’
It was a command, sharp, autocratic, and she realised that he was unzipping the substantial leather jacket he wore with battered denim jeans and heavy black leather boots. Shrugging himself out of it, he moved closer.
‘Here…’
He slung it around her shoulders, letting it settle like a thick black cape over the exposed skin, the soaked silk of her bodice.
‘You’re frozen.’
‘U-understatement.’
It was all that Martha could manage and even then her voice shook on the words. She was beginning to feel as if she had lost contact with her mouth, her lips frozen stiff so that it was hard to speak. The shivers she had been fighting off suddenly returned in full force, driving her to tug the jacket tightly around her, huddling into it for comfort. It was still deliciously warm from his body and it smelled faintly of clean musky male skin, and some tangy cologne that unexpectedly made her heart skip a beat. The feeling of relief from the cold was overlaid with another, unexpected pulse of heat that had nothing to do with the jacket but was a stunning, unexpected sensual response.
‘Th-thank you.’
She wasn’t quite sure how she got the words out. The shock that ricocheted through her in that moment seemed to clear her head, bringing her up short. She had been so overjoyed to have help, to see some other human being out here in the wilds, to have someone actually stop to help, that she hadn’t stopped to think—about anything. But right now she realised that thinking was what she had to do—and fast.
She didn’t know this man from Adam. Had no idea who he was and why he had actually stopped. She was here in the middle of nowhere, alone, defenceless— she couldn’t even run if she wanted to with the narrow, sleek skirt of her dress clinging close around her legs and ankles. She had thought that it looked so elegant when she had first tried it on. She had even—wonder of wonders—felt almost beautiful when she had looked in the mirror of her room back in the Hall when she had got ready. Well, Gavin had taken that impression and crushed it beneath his heel just moments later.
Was it really just an hour or so before?
His cruelty had driven her out of the house in a desperate need to escape—first from the wedding that had turned into her idea of a personal sort of hell and now, possibly from this man—this stranger…
Did he even plan to help her?
All at once the rush of warmth and delight that had sizzled through her when she had first seen him ebbed away fast, leaving behind a sort of bruised, painful feeling. Still clutching the jacket around her, pulling it tighter than ever as a sort of protection against the way she was feeling, at the same time she knew a longing to tear it off and throw it from her as if accepting it had led her into reckless danger. Unable to think straight, she took a couple of hasty steps backwards, almost missing her footing on a rough patch of grass and turning her ankle sharply so that she cried out in shock and pain.
‘Hey…’
The man’s hands, big, strong, encased in black leather gloves, came out to catch her, pulling her upright when she almost fell. Supporting her easily, he shook his head.
‘No—do not look at me like that.’
It was there again, that hint of something foreign—exotic—in his words. This time she was sure that it was not her hearing that was deceiving her, but very definitely the sound of some accent that was nothing like the local flat-vowelled burr. It was unexpected, somehow shockingly appealing.
‘I have no intention of hurting you, I swear… Look—’
His free hand unfastened his helmet swiftly. As he pulled it off he shook his head sharply, freeing the rather long jet black hair that was now exposed. The wind howled round them, blowing it against his face so that as he turned back to her he had to toss it out of his eyes.
And what eyes! Martha didn’t know what she had been expecting. She could see so little of him, with his long body, those powerful hands, all encased in black leather and denim, his face hidden under the silver helmet. But from the hint of skin she could just see—golden, olive-toned skin that was not the pallid white of an Englishman at the tag end of winter—and the trace of accent she realised that she had anticipated something dark, deep brown or maybe a polished jet. Instead she found herself looking into a pair of mossy green eyes, glinting with the light of a many-faceted jewel stone that made them deep and dark while at the same time shot through with an almost golden hue. They gleamed above high, slanting cheekbones, fringed with impossibly long, lush black lashes that should have looked effeminate on a man but that somehow, in this strongly carved, stunning face just looked amazing—and incredibly, gorgeously sexy.
But he also looked dangerous. Big and dark and powerful. Those impossibly long, lush eyelashes should have softened his face, but instead they somehow contrasted so sharply with the high, carved cheekbones, the square, forceful jaw and uncompromising mouth that the impression they left was one of concealment, hiding the beauty of those stunning green eyes behind their dark fringe, and turning it into something secret, inscrutable—disturbing.
Just who was this man who had come to her rescue—knight in shining armour or the devil himself?
‘Believe me, I have no intention of hurting you.’
He repeated the words with an added edge for emphasis and while they relieved her tension, that double edge to them had exactly the opposite effect. That accent didn’t help either. It was too foreign, too exotic, to belong in any sort of world where she lived.
‘How do I know that?’
He sighed, tossed back an overlong strand of hair that the wind had blown against his face. As she watched that sensual mouth twitch in something that might have been amusement—or an acknowledgement of her right to indignation—she felt a twisting bite of response that had nothing to do with unease and everything to do with a purely female reaction to a glorious specimen of manhood.
The problem was that it was not usually the way she felt about the opposite sex. The way she had ever felt about any man… even Gavin. That was one of the things that had made her face the fact that she was deluding herself about her proposed marriage.
‘I can give you my word.’
‘And what exactly will that mean to me?’
Once awoken, her sense of self-preservation had coming rushing back in double force. If she hadn’t learned anything about the way that since her life had changed, everyone would react so differently towards her, then surely the devastating scene she had witnessed back at the Hall would finally—finally have taught her that she needed to take so much more care with relationships from now on.
But surprisingly, the memory of the sight that had met her eyes as she had walked into Cindy’s room was having the strangest effect on her. Just when it should have made her stop and think, should have pushed her to have second and then very probably third thoughts about what she was doing, instead it seemed to have exactly the opposite effect. When she should have thought extra carefully and played things cautiously, sensibly, in the way that she had lived most of her life up to now, she suddenly felt that what she actually wanted was to break free, be less constrained. Sensible was very definitely not what she wanted to be.
Her life had been turned on its
