St. Raven Read Online Free Page B

lip—a thumb, she thought, and tossed her head to escape it. He overwhelmed her, his big body pinning her, pinning her hands between them, as his hands confined her head and his lips pressed to hers.
    She heard her own stifled sob and prayed he’d take it for protest not terror.
    “I’ve never forced a woman,” he whispered against her lips, “and I won’t start with you. But can’t I persuade you? It would be delightful for both of us, and you know, you must know, how a man’s blood heats after action and danger.”
    “No! I mean,
don’t!
Lord Crofton hired me. I consider myself his at the moment.”
    “Honor among sinners?” He was laughing at her. “Come on, my pretty. He’d do the same if our situations were reversed.”
    He moved. His weight lifted off her. For a moment she hoped, but then his knee pressed down between her legs, parting them. Pressed up!…
    “Stop.
Please
!”
    He stopped, but he did not free her. She lay there, breathless, pinned, pressed…
    “Who are you?” he asked again, and at last she understood.
    He didn’t believe her. For whatever reason, he didn’t believe she was a courtesan, and he was prepared to force the truth from her. He wouldn’t stop until she gave in.
    Bitterly, she accepted the inevitable. She was on his territory in matters physical and metaphysical. In this, he was the victor. What name, though? Not her own.
    The first name to pop into her mind was that of the curate’s wife in Matlock. “Jane Wemworthy.”
    “Whore?” he demanded.
    Breath came now, a deep breath of anger. “No.”
    Then he was gone. Gone from her body, gone from the bed.
    She fought when he grabbed her hands, but then she felt cool metal again. A moment later her hands were free. She reached up to shove the horrible blindfold from her face, almost taking her turban with it until pins caught her hair. She worked the cloth over it, sitting up, searching the room for information, for anything that might help her.
    She was in a modest bedroom lit by a branch of three candles. Ivory wallpaper, mahogany armoire and washing stand, rust-brown curtains and bed-hangings.
    And the man standing at the end of the four-poster bed was the gloriously handsome Duke of St. Raven. She felt as if her eyes were expanding with shock, and tried desperately not to show that she had recognized him.
    How could she not?
    Everyone knew St. Raven. He was the elusive star of society, the glorious prize. He’d inherited the dukedom from his uncle last year just after Waterloo and promptly fled the country. Cressida didn’t know if he’d fled or taken the new opportunity to travel, but people had spoken of it in that way. He had, after all, instantly become the prime quarry in the marriage hunt.
    A young, handsome, unmarried duke.
    When he’d returned a few months ago and begun to attend society events, the steam of frenetic fervor had been enough to drive an engine. Cressida couldn’t count the number of times she’d been in the ladies’ room at a ball or soiree and heard young women gasping about
seeing
! him,
speaking
! to him, and sometimes even
dancing
! with him.
    Most ladies held no hopes of becoming his duchess, but a few were contenders. Diana Rolleston-Stowe, toast and duke’s granddaughter, had burned with ambition. The beautiful Phoebe Swinamer had assumed an almost proprietary air toward him. Cressida looked at the man before her and wondered how Miss Swinamer dared.
    He was tall, but that wasn’t what made him so formidable. Nor was his rank. In a simple shirt, open at the neck, and black leather breeches, St. Raven filled the room. He took up more space than his size explained. And he was as handsome close to as from a distance.
    Though big and strong, he possessed a fine-boned elegance, along with the drama of dark hair and deep blue eyes. As she’d noticed before, his lips suggested things a lady should not even think about.
    “You recognize me.” It was not a question.
    Too late, too late,