Stronger Than Passion Read Online Free Page B

problem of him drop.
    Christina knew that she had been correct in championing Jim Malone’s apparent harmlessness to Maria Juana, who generally served as a barometer and an instigator of the current mood of most of her other servants. The household must on no account become disrupted by fear of an imminent American invasion. And, in truth, logic told her that Malone must be given the benefit of her doubt, as well, since there was no obvious evidence to connect him with the army at all.
    Yet why did she instinctively feel that he was a dangerous man? Why did the idea of him lying alone in her house both repel her and, to a certain extent, fascinate her, the way the nuns said that evil might sometimes do? Why had he angered her so?
    The anger, at least, was explainable. He had dared to kiss her! He had done something that no man, besides her dead husband, her father-in-law, and perhaps her own father when she was a small child, had ever presumed to do before. She felt, to some extent, violated.
    Perhaps Americans did have more relaxed and easy manners than she was accustomed to, she was willing to concede. Perhaps Malone considered a mere kiss no great act of intimacy, but a simple overture to friendship. How did she know what any American, particularly a low-bred one, thought, having met so few of them herself? Yet she was aware that even in England, casual acquaintances did not kiss one another on the mouth! And in Spain, where she was raised . . . such a thing was never, ever done! A lady would consider herself insulted, compromised . . .
    And somehow, she sensed Malone knew his kiss would shock her. He had wanted to shock her. Had he wanted anything more?
    Her own thoughts shamed her. She covered her hot face with her hands, staring out through her fingers at her eyes in the mirror - big and swollen-looking, more golden in the lamplight than green, partly shadowed by the long fall of waving chestnut hair. What was she considering? She asked her reflection. That a seriously wounded stranger might desire her? Or that he had merely wanted her to think so? Or . . . had Malone read something in her manner or her face to encourage him in pursuing such a course? Had her own recognition of her loneliness projected itself to him, so strongly that even in his illness he recognized in her some bizarre need?
    No, it could not be true! Her attitude during her visit had been perfectly correct, she reassured herself. Malone was simply a coarse and vulgar Yanqui, bold enough to take advantage of her being alone in the room with him, and of her own Christian concern for his welfare. He was truly a ruthless devil, as Maria Juana had said - and she must show him no more kindness than mere charity deserved.
    Besides . . . the thought evolved involuntarily, Malone could not possibly have divined any sinful needs in her, for the very simple reason that she had never had any - at least in regard to a real man. She had been a dutiful and obliging wife to Felipé, whenever he desired her to be, just as the nuns had instructed her . . . but she had never delighted in her duties, also as they taught. She was not given to lustful thoughts. Any odd yearnings she had ever had remained unspecific in nature. Therefore, Malone had kissed her for his own reasons, and not because of any unconscious signal from her.
    This decided, she withdrew her hands from her face and busied them amongst the papers on the surface of her dresser, embarrassed by her own preoccupation with Malone and his kiss. She would overlook them both and hold herself as aloof as possible from that man in her pantry. Thank God, Don Ignacio would come soon, and remove him from her house!
    She held aloft a letter from her old friend Luis Arredondo and read it, thinking all the while not of the words, but that Luis would never dream of any disrespect to her . . . no matter that he had playfully declared his regard for her in several missives. Luis was a gentleman! And then she realized in