Iron Lace (23 page)

"Merciful heavens! How humiliating! To be dragged off like
that with no regard for my feelings or wishes in the matter! You're so
arrogant! Maurice and I would have done very well without you. I wish
that you'd stop your constant meddling in my life!"

"Perhaps the trouble is I haven't meddled enough," he
flared back at her. "What you really need is for me to turn you over my
knee and give you that spanking I warned might be forthcoming."

She paled and eyed him apprehensively. "You…
you wouldn't dare!" she exclaimed, taking a step backward, as though
fearful he might indeed carry out his threat.

"Don't count on it," he warned, "for I'm at the limit of
my patience with you right now. You've done some foolish things these
past few months, but you've surpassed even yourself tonight. Do you see
where your folly has led you—or rather, both of
us!—this time? By all that's holy! When are you going to grow
up?"

"If being my guardian really disturbs you so much, why
didn't you just let me go off with Maurice? Wouldn't that have been the
best way to solve everything?"

"Best for me, perhaps," he agreed with an exasperated
sigh, "but not for you. Unfortunately I'm your guardian, and I couldn't
in all conscience let you go running off with someone like Foucher on
just a whim."

"Why do you say whim? If I'd decided I loved and wanted to
marry him—"

"Bah! You don't love that popinjay!"

Monique drew herself up indignantly. "And how do you know
I don't? What do you know about me and my feelings?"

"If I thought you really loved him, I wouldn't have tried
to stop you. But you're just a child. You have no idea whatsoever what
love is all about."

"That's not true," she replied angrily. "The trouble with
you is you can't see I'm a grown woman with a woman's feelings."

"Ah, so you think you're all grown up, do you? You want to
behave like a woman, is that it?"

A flash of lightning brought a startled neigh from the
horse nearby, and as the thunder roared its reply Monique caught a
strange expression in her guardian's dark eyes—one she had
never seen before. Once again his nearness disturbed her, and even
though the darkness had immediately descended on them again, she
lowered her eyes before that penetrating gaze she could still feel
fixed on her, though she could no longer see him. How was it that, even
in anger, she continued to feel those same emotions he always roused in
her stirring again? She resented that strange hold her guardian seemed
to have over her.

"Has it ever occurred to you that one of the main reasons
for my running away might have been to escape from you?" she suddenly
lashed out at him, tears of vexation mingling with the rain on her face.

"
Qué barbaridad
! Do you hate me so
much that you'd marry someone you don't love just to get away from me?"

"Yes, yes, that's it! I hate you! Why didn't you just stay
at the ball with that Ducole woman and go on dancing with her the rest
of the night?"

"That's probably what I should have done," he agreed, "for
all the thanks I've gotten."

"I never asked you to come after me. I despise you and I
despise that horrid painted woman you make love to… I
despise you both!"

Miguel tried to make out the features of that little round
blob staring up at him with such smoldering intensity in the darkness.
Suddenly incredulity swept over him.

"Don't tell me you're jealous—jealous of me and
Azema?"

"I hate you!" she repeated lamely, not knowing how else to
answer him. The hot tears coursing down her cheeks stung even more than
the raindrops that the ever-increasing wind was hurling against her
face.

He caught her by the shoulders and bent toward her. "You
foolish child! You dear foolish child! So you really are jealous!
Monica, Monica…" He drew her close and pressed the length of
his body longingly against hers, murmuring her name again and again as
his mouth sought her out eagerly in the darkness.

A fresh gust of wind lashed them together, whipping her
wildly flapping skirts and cloak around them until they were entangled,
bound together, their bodies molding instinctively one to the other,
their lips pressing together long and hard through the misty veil of
rain.

Monique swayed and reeled unsteadily against him, the
sound of her pulse pounding louder in her ears than the storm raging
around her. Her body was singing with the wind and swelling with the
joy of the new sensations sweeping over her. She was savoring the taste
of him at last! There was no need to open her eyes and see his face.
She knew it was Miguel. Her whole being told her it was him!

Maurice had occasionally succeeded in robbing a peck or
two from her on the sly, and Roget had boldly taken her mouth into his
and given her a lusty kiss. But this… this was something
entirely different. Miguel's lips were pressing slowly, sensuously,
against hers until she sensed instinctively that he wanted her to open
them. Now his tongue was racing past her parted lips into the hidden
recess beyond.

She had never been so aware of her body before. It seemed
to be awakening, flexing itself, swelling with expectancy. Like a leaf
borne on the crest of the wind, she felt as though she were being swept
along with the wave of emotions surging through her being, overwhelming
her, carrying her she knew not where. The circle of his arms had
suddenly become her universe… the long lean hardness of his
body her only reality. She knew now she had never really been kissed
before… not really. This was her first kiss—her
first wondrous kiss of love!

Miguel could feel her rain-soaked body trembling in his
arms… swaying… readily yielding herself to him.
Every fiber of his being ached to go on… to pour out at last
all his pent-up longing for her… to show her how foolish she
was to be jealous of Azema or any other woman. He bent to savor the
sweetness of those fleshy little lips again, but even as he did, he
knew how it would end if he kissed her that second time.

The conflicting emotions churning within him racked his
being, even as the roaring wind without continued to pound mercilessly
against the boards of the gallery and stairs above them.

Quickly, while he still had that last faint glimmer of
reason to temper him, he tore himself away from the soft throbbing
wonder of her and turned partially away, grateful now for the darkness
that hid how those brief moments of intimacy had shaken him.

Still breathing heavily, he cursed himself for his
impulsiveness. The moment wasn't right and he knew it. The fact that
Monique had confessed a certain jealousy over Azema and responded with
surprising ardor to his kiss had momentarily set his head spinning with
wild hopes, but he realized he'd be foolish to act rashly because of
one impulsive kiss. Though her woman's body had responded to him and
her sweet tongue had leaped to his mouth as her breasts pushed eagerly
against his chest, she was still only a child inside. And where Monique
was concerned, he had to be certain, for he wanted all of
her—not just that lovely, exciting little body, but the sweet
passion of her all-consuming love.

He sensed her quickened breathing there in the darkness
and knew she was still aroused. He'd been a fool to kiss her like that!
His adorable, sensitive little ward was so vulnerable, so unaccustomed
to the responses of her ripening body! Like a moth attracted to the
flame of his passion, she was instinctively swaying toward him once
more. If she only knew how that gesture of hers to return to his arms
was setting him all the more on fire!

Quickly… desperately… he stepped
back from her, trying to stifle that burning desire gnawing at his
loins… a gnawing that would not leave him in peace, no
matter how much he tried to reason it away. Deliberately he reminded
himself that he ought to be concentrating on more pressing
problems… like getting them to safety.

"We're
going to have to make a run for it up the stairs to the
door," he told her by way of explanation for his reluctance to continue
any further intimacy with her at that moment. In a way, he was glad
that the urgency of their situation didn't leave him any choice in the
matter, for he doubted he would have had the strength to push her away
like that again.

Once they were inside the house, with a few more feet
between them, it might be easier to keep things under control. But
being alone like that with her in such close quarters…
feeling her so warm and inviting within his grasp… the best
of his resolutions would be for naught if he had to spend much more
time with her under those stairs!

"But the wind is still so strong, and the rain hasn't
stopped," Monique objected with a skeptical glance outside to where the
storm was still raging with frightening intensity. She was surprised
her guardian would suggest that they leave the relative safety of their
nook at such a moment. That niche under the stairs was so filled with
Miguel's presence now that it seemed warm and protective to her, far
removed from the realities of the world twisting in torment without.

"I know," he conceded, "but at least it's slackening a
little, so I think we ought to get up the stairs now while we can. We
may not get another chance."

"Couldn't we just stay and wait out the storm here?" There
seemed to be a slight note of longing in her voice, but perhaps it was
just his imagination.

"We're not really safe in this spot," he replied quickly,
as much to explain the facts to her as to remind himself that there
were also good practical reasons why he should resist the temptation to
remain there alone with her. The passionate moments they had just
shared still charged the atmosphere… the taste of her was
still in his mouth.

"This storm could go on for hours and get much worse," he
continued. "I don't want to frighten you, but if the wind picks up too
much, we could be sucked out of here on a strong current or even be
struck by lightning."

With the key to the main entrance ready in his front
pocket, he ordered her to wrap her cloak about her again and hold on
tightly to his arm.

"No matter what happens, don't let go," he cautioned her.
"And remember, if we should get separated, grab on to anything solid
you can find or try to crawl to the nearest shelter."

He led the horse even farther under the stairs where they
had been standing, and then, putting one arm firmly around her
well-cloaked shoulder and holding on tightly to her wrist with his
other hand, he led her out from under the staircase and quickly around
to the foot of the stairs. The force of the wind caught them by
surprise, and he tightened his grip on her, fearful that her slight
frame might be blown away from him if he were to let go even for an
instant.

Despite the combined weight of their two bodies clinging
together as one, the wind was so strong that it seemed to be an
invisible wall blocking their progress. With a startled cry, Monique
fell to her knees from the violent impact of that unseen force. It was
like a living, palpable thing, lashing out at her in the darkness.

The rain was increasing in volume again and coming down in
such torrents that she could no longer see the top of the stairs. She
couldn't even see the next step. All she could do was blindly cling to
Miguel's arm… his hand… his clothing…

He was kneeling beside her now. "Crawl!" he yelled in her
ear above the roar of the wind. "Keep crawling up and don't let go!"

She felt giant hands clutching at her, trying to tear her
away from him, and she cried out his name to the wind. He was only a
dark, barely visible shadow, devoid of form now, but she clung to him
desperately. Her only sense of reality was the weight of his arm on her
shoulders and the feel of his fingers digging into her wrist. They were
bruising her flesh, but she didn't care… it was her only
contact at that moment with something tangible in a world that had
suddenly turned to chaos.

Somewhere off in the direction of the levee road, a bolt
of lightning suddenly crackled across the dark heavens and left a
blazing tree in its wake. For a few moments it illumined the night in a
ruddy, hellish glow and then vanished as the downpour quenched its
flames and the blackness of the night closed over it.

The rain was coming down so heavily now that it seemed to
be pounding her mercilessly into the steps. She tried to lift her head
toward Miguel but gulped so much water she nearly choked. Miguel was
literally pulling her along with him now. Coughing and sputtering in a
frantic effort to breathe, she no longer seemed to have the strength to
resist the weight of the pounding rain and onrushing wind. Purgatory
must be like this, she thought. Or perhaps she was already in the
depths of hell, trying to climb out of the pit, but the demons were
pulling her down, lashing out at her, tormenting her…

Suddenly she realized she was on the gallery and Miguel
was pulling her to her feet. He held her for a moment pressed close to
the firmness of his body until he was certain she had regained her
balance. Then, still holding on tightly to her, he fumbled with the key
until he found the lock.

With a gush of wind, the massive oaken door suddenly flew
open and the dark hallway in the interior yawned before them like the
mouth of some hungry giant. She could feel herself being pushed by a
huge invisible hand into those waiting jaws. She tried to clutch at
Miguel or the doorjamb, to resist that mighty force, but it was too
late. With a startled cry, she was suddenly torn from Miguel's grasp
and sent hurtling headfirst into the inky blackness of the hallway.

The next thing she knew, she was lying wet and bruised on
the floor, weary and gasping for breath but welcoming the reality of
the solid cypress boards beneath her.