Midnight Angel (Stokehurst #1)(50)

Luke watched the two of them coldly. “I can. And I will.”

“You don't owe anything to Tasia, or to us,” she said in a muffled voice.

“I've had too much taken from me.” An odd blue-white glitter came into his eyes. “Now that I finally have a chance at some happiness, I'll be damned if I let some bloodthirsty Russian bastard meddle with it.”

Charles wore the same look of bewilderment as his wife. “Happiness,” he echoed. “What are you saying? That you have some sort of personal feeling for the girl? A few days ago you were dangling her before your guests like a bit of live bait on a hook—” He stopped at Luke's darkly sullen look, and continued in a more diplomatic tone. “It's no great surprise that you're attracted to her. She's a beautiful girl. But please, you must try to put her interests above your own. She's vulnerable and frightened.”

“And you think it's in her best interest to let her fend for herself?” Luke sneered. “No friends, no family, no one to help her—for God's sake, am I the only one who's thinking clearly?”

Alicia pulled away from her husband. “She's better off on her own than putting herself at the mercy of someone who will take advantage of her.”

Charles stared in dismay, lifting his hands as if he yearned to clamp them over her mouth. “Darling, you know Luke is not that kind of man. I'm sure he has the best intentions.”

“Does he?” Alicia gave Luke a challenging stare. “What exactly are your intentions?”

Luke responded with his old sardonic smile. “That's between me and your cousin. I'd like to work out some sort of arrangement that will suit her. If she and I can't come to an agreement, she'll leave. At this point you don't have much say in the matter, do you?”

“I don't know you at all anymore,” Alicia snapped. “I thought Tasia would be safe with you, because you were the man least likely to cause trouble. You've never interfered in peoples' lives before. I wish to heaven you hadn't started now! What has happened to you?”

Luke kept his mouth shut, retreating behind a wall of cold pride. He was amazed that they didn't understand, that they couldn't see. When he had sat holding Tasia's hand and listening to the misery she had gone through, his emotions had filled the room. He loved her. He was terrified that she would vanish and leave him just as she had left everything else in her life. He couldn't allow that, for her sake and certainly for his own. He wanted to take action, but there was so much that needed to be explained and understood. If only he could think clearly, unfettered by the pangs of need and love that made everything so difficult to sort out.

The Ashbournes were staring at him, Alicia with displeasure, Charles with the perception of an old, familiar friend. Charles was no fool. Taking his wife firmly in tow, he gave Luke a half-amused, half-understanding glance. “It will be all right,” Charles said quietly, although it wasn't clear to whom he was speaking. “Everyone will do what they must, and things will settle into place.”

“That's what you always say,” Alicia complained.

Charles smiled complacently. “And I'm always right, aren't I? Come, darling…we're of no use to either of them now.”

From her window Tasia had watched the Ashbournes' carriage leave. After hanging up her gray dress and brushing it with mechanical precision, she started to pack. She arranged her belongings in neat piles. The light from a single candle flame sent deep shadows stretching across the room. All light from the village below was extinguished. Even the moon and stars were covered with a murky haze.

Although she was dressed only in her thin shift, her skin was moist with perspiration. A breeze from the window chilled her for a moment, and she rubbed her palms over the goosebumps on her upper arms. She was trying not to think, or feel. She didn't want anything to break through the layer of ice that surrounded her.

It was over, this brief foray into the life of Lucas Stokehurst, and she was glad to end it. Things had become complicated. She could never afford to lean on someone else. She had only herself. She wondered how she should leave, how to tell Emma goodbye, without having to face Stokehurst again. He would make it impossible. It wouldn't matter if he were kind or cruel. Either way would hurt too much to bear.

Quiet footsteps—a man's footsteps—approached her door. Tasia turned, her arms still crossed over her chest, her eyes dilating into pools of blackness. No…go away, her mind cried, but her lips moved in a silent spasm. The door opened and closed with a click of the latch.

Stokehurst was in the room with her, his gaze lingering on her bare legs and arms and the exposed length of her neck. It was clear what he had come for. He wore a dressing robe opened far enough to show the clean line of his collarbone and the curved edge of muscle. His skin gleamed like freshly cast bronze. With one glance Tasia saw that he wasn't wearing the hook, that there was a mixture of love and desire on his face. He didn't say a word, nor did he intend to.

A frantic sound rose from her throat, but there was nothing she could say that he didn't already know. The awareness of all her fears and needs was there in his gaze, and still he came closer, his shoulders blocking out the candleglow, his body all darkness and heat as he took her against him.

Tasia hesitated and then threw her arms around him, holding on with all her strength. She was rigid in his embrace, breathing, waiting, her heart pounding brutally fast. His aroused body pressed close, sheltering her as if they stood together in a raging storm. He bent to cover her trembling lips with his own. It was not the way a man should kiss a virgin, no gentleness, no allowance made for innocence. He searched deeply with aggressive surges of his tongue. Closing his hand over her shift, he bunched the thin fabric in his palm and pulled it to her waist.