“Let me go, damn you,” she gasped, raising her crop.
She was incandescent with fury. Nobody who saw her would ever again consider Miss Smith mousy. She looked like a queen decreeing a fractious subject’s execution.
Ranelaw laughed, excitement fizzing in his veins like champagne. He’d never before felt this extravagant hunger to push a woman to her limits, to take her until she screamed.
“Don’t hit me, Antonia.”
“Why?” she snarled. “Because I might hurt you?”
He snickered. She had such an inflated opinion of her ability to withstand him. It was one of the things he found delightful about confounding her. How delicious when she finally lay under him, panting with unconditional surrender.
“No, because this time I bloody well will tell anyone who asks exactly where I got my bruises.”
Her eyes flashed azure with temper. Yet again, he marveled at their beauty, usuall
y concealed behind her spectacles. Large, clear, and slightly slanted. Thick lashes darker than her pale hair. He noticed with a stab of unwelcome remorse that the lashes were matted with drying tears.
However upset she might be, the gaze she leveled on him held no softness. Only anger and something that in a less complex woman he’d read as desire.
“I’m willing to take the risk,” she sniped.
“I’m not.” He snatched the riding crop from her gloved hands. “You’re a violent wench, aren’t you?”
There was an enchanting flush of pink high on her cheeks. How could he ever have considered this woman plain? Even under her disguise, he should have recognized her splendor. As he stared in admiration, something about her coloring struck him as familiar. The fleeting thought drifted away before he could catch it.
“Only when goaded.” She tried to jerk her horse free but he kept a firm hold. All she achieved was a restive sidle from her mount.
“Such passion, Antonia.” With a deliberately dismissive gesture, he dropped the crop to the ground. “It makes a man hunger to seize you in his arms. You’d go up like fire.”
The light dimmed in her ice blue eyes and her mouth flattened with what he recognized as shame. Sour anger stirred in Ranelaw’s gut. Someone somewhere had taught her to loathe the thrilling woman she was.
Her gaze flickered away from him. “Please let me go,” she said in a dull voice.
He’d set out to cow her, to gain the upper hand. Now that he couldn’t mistake the slump of her shoulders, he realized he wanted her spirit, not her dejected submission. He wanted her fighting.
Who the hell was he trying to gull? He wanted her any way he could get her. Every minute with her honed his craving.
He wasn’t by nature a gentle man, but he knew how to feign gentleness to get what he wanted. He released his grip on her reins and lowered his voice to the coaxing tone that never failed to lure a woman to ruin. “The morning’s too fine to quarrel. Walk with me, Antonia.”
She stiffened and sent him a nervous glance. “I need to get back.”
“Nonsense. It’s still early.”
She tilted her chin with familiar defiance, but to his regret, the shadow of shame remained. “If I stay, will you promise to leave Cassie alone?”
Brave little bird. She thought to bargain with the devil. When surely she knew the devil couldn’t be trusted.
“Today.”
“For the rest of the visit.”
“For such a concession, you’ll have to surrender your virtue.”
He waited for her to bite back, but instead her lips twitched. “No.”
“Worth a try.”
“I’m sure.” With every second, she looked more like the strong woman he knew. He felt an uncharacteristic impulse to plant his fist into the face of the man who had undermined her confidence.