Of Noble Birth (10 page)

Alexandra made no move
until she thought Nathaniel was asleep. “Boar... ogre,” she
muttered to herself. “I hope your father catches you and hangs you
from the tallest tree.”

He didn’t
respond.

She pulled and twisted on
the rope, but the knot proved tight and well made. She only managed
to jerk the bed a few inches from the wall.

“Hold still,” Nathaniel
snapped, rolling onto his back and covering his eyes with his
arm.

Alexandra glared at him.
“There will come a time, when I will even the score.”

“Plan your revenge
tomorrow,” he told her. “Get some sleep. You might need
it.”

With a sigh of defeat,
Alexandra waited as long as she could before relieving herself.
Then she eyed the screen dubiously, wondering how to return the pot
to where it belonged. She certainly had no desire to sleep with
it.

Suddenly a wicked thought
made her lips curl into a smile. Grabbing the enamel pot around the
base, she prepared to launch it right on top of Nathaniel, smelly
contents and all, when a cutting voice gave her pause.

“You can’t imagine the
terror of what I will do to you if you don’t put that thing down
immediately.”

So he was awake.
Alexandra’s smile withered. He didn’t move to stop her, didn’t so
much as remove his arm from across his eyes, but she got the
feeling he was almost daring her to incur his full
wrath.

She clung to the pot for a
long time, so sorely tempted that she had a difficult time letting
wisdom overtake desire. When she finally set it down, she did so
carefully, to ensure it wouldn’t splash on her, then pushed it as
far under the bed as she could. If she made Nathaniel too angry,
she’d start a fight she could only lose. And she didn’t want to
incite his imagination as to the possibilities of what a strong man
could do to a captive woman. He was a scoundrel if ever she’d met
one. But he was right about one thing. Tomorrow was another day,
and she’d do her best to make it as miserable for him as
possible.

Nathaniel feigned sleep
until Anne finally nodded off. He couldn’t rest while she sat on
the floor without so much as a blanket. That he admired her despite
himself enraged him. She was certainly unlike the women of her
class, most of whom were priggish and without an enlightened
thought in their heads.

Anne was quick-witted,
courageous, and demonstrative. Nathaniel glanced with chagrin at
his bandaged hand. Not many women he knew, or men for that matter,
would have risked what she did to attract the attention of that
brougham. It was a smart move. She knew he couldn’t harm her if he
wanted to trade her for Richard. She had taken a calculated risk,
and Nathaniel considered himself lucky that it hadn’t panned out
for her.

He frowned, glancing down
at the foot of the bed where Anne’s head kept nodding off its perch
upon her knees. She was indeed a brave girl. Every victory he
obtained at her expense was hard-won. Perhaps he could be a little
easier on her.

Nathaniel untied the rope
around the post, cursing himself for being a softhearted fool.
Using his good
arm for strength and his
stump for balance, he gently lifted Anne and laid her on the other
side of the bed. She stirred but didn’t come fully awake. Then he
fastened the rope to the post above her head and covered her with
blankets.

Lying back down, Nathaniel
moved carefully so he wouldn’t wake her. It had been a long day. He
watched his captive curl into a ball, giving the appearance of
almost childlike innocence, and felt a flicker of desire at the
sight of her more feminine curves.

Shocked by his body’s
effrontery, he quickly diverted his thoughts. Anne was his sister.
Beyond that, she had been raised with everything he had been
denied—the money, the power, the family. He should hate
her.

And he did, Nathaniel told
himself. It was just that any woman so fair of face and form would
make his pulse quicken. But when he fell asleep he dreamed of long
blond hair spilling down onto his naked chest. And the woman above
him was Anne.

He woke suddenly,
disgusted that his subconscious would betray him with such
incestuous fantasy. It had been too long since he had enjoyed the
company of the fairer sex, he decided. Planning to remedy that as
soon as he could and thereby put a quick end to the madness of his
mind, he shifted in the bed to ease a cramped muscle and felt
Anne’s womanly softness pressed to his backside. She had migrated
the full length of the rope toward him, instinctively searching for
the warmth his body radiated.

Nathaniel swallowed hard
as the flicker of desire he had experienced earlier flared again,
fanned by his dream and the wonderful feel of her. Anne had no idea
where she was, he knew, and he smiled to think of how she might
react if she were to awaken at this moment.

No doubt she’d try to hit
him again. He touched his cheek where she had slapped him earlier
and decided he was glad her hands were tied.

Anne murmured something
unintelligible, then snuggled more closely against him. He decided
not to disturb her. Though he dared not allow himself to touch the
flesh that molded so comfortably to his side, the light scent of
perfume that clung to her clothes was a treat in itself.

* * *

Alexandra woke by degrees.
Sun filtered into the room through a large gap in the draperies,
which had been drawn across the window. For a moment she imagined
herself in her own bed. She burrowed deeper into the quilts,
luxuriating in their warmth, until something, or rather someone,
moved. Then the events of the previous day came back to her in a
flood of remembering. Nathaniel! What was he up to now?

Her eyelids flew open, but
she couldn’t see him. He was behind her, his chest to her back, his
legs curving beneath her buttocks. The last thing she recalled was
the cold, hard floor. How did she come to be in his bed?

Lying very still,
Alexandra listened as Nathaniel’s slow, regular breathing tickled
the hair above her ear. His body was relaxed, formed comfortably to
her own. She was certain he was asleep. But he was more like a
black panther than a man. Sleek, well muscled, always wary, he
could pounce anytime. She’d have to be very careful.

Cautiously inching away,
Alexandra wondered again how she came to be in that cozy spot. She
had never been so close to a man. Willy had kept her closeted away,
toiling in the house or garret. The pleasures typically associated
with intimacy remained a complete mystery, but the feelings she’d
experienced in those first moments of wakefulness had spoken
volumes. She had felt more content, more complete, than ever
before. In a way, that revelation frightened her almost as much as
Nathaniel did. If all men were like her stepfather, they weren’t to
be trusted.

At the edge of the bed,
Alexandra let her feet slide silently to the floor. A backward
glance confirmed that Nathaniel’s sooty lashes still rested on his
cheeks. His chest, broad and golden, continued to rise and fall
gently. He didn’t so much as stir.

She let her breath out and
began, once again, to work the rope that bound her hands. She had
to escape. Nothing she said convinced him or any of the others that
she wasn’t who they thought she was.

Her wrists were chafed and
bleeding by the time Alexandra managed to loosen the tarry bands
enough to reach the knot with her fingers. Still, she was making
little progress. The rope was too well tied.

Frustration threatened to
bring her temper to a boil. Drawing in a deep breath, Alexandra
tried to calm herself. She needed to think. There had to be some
quicker way to escape. Nathaniel wouldn’t sleep forever.

Glancing around the room,
Alexandra’s gaze lighted on the dagger he had thrown away from her
the night before. If only she could reach it. She crept forward,
straining as the rope became taut, but it was no use. The knife
remained several feet beyond her farthest reach.

Damn Nathaniel. Damn the
bloody luck that landed her in his hands on the very day she
planned to escape from Willy. Would she never be free? She’d been
Willy’s slave, his whipping post, his convenient victim. But
something inside her had received its full measure, and regardless
of the consequences, she could take no more abuse.

Flouncing back onto the
bed, Alexandra used her feet to deliver the blows she wished her
fists could land.

“You!” she accused,
venting her rage at last, “I hate you!”

Nathaniel yelped in
surprise. Coming instantly awake, he tried to ward Alexandra off,
barely managing to save himself from a hard fall to the
ground.

“So this is my reward for
sharing my bed?” he asked in astonishment.

“Am I supposed to be
grateful to you? When I shouldn’t be here in the first
place?”

She launched a heel into
his muscular inner thigh, and Nathaniel sprang to his feet. He was
wearing only his trousers, and his stomach looked flat and hard,
nothing like Willy’s rounded paunch, though Alexandra tried not to
notice. Determined to land a powerful blow, she aimed for his
groin, but Nathaniel whirled away, making her miss him
completely.

He caught her foot with
his hand, tripping her, and together they tumbled back onto the
bed.

Alexandra winced in pain
as he landed on top of her, then she tried to twist away from his
grasp by rolling to her right. But Nathaniel had ahold of her
dress. She gasped in surprise when she heard the fabric
rip.

Nathaniel froze, and she
went limp. His gaze dipped to the top of her décolletage, which now
revealed a bounty of soft, rounded breasts bulging above her
corset.

His mouth quirked into a
grin. “As much as I feel rewarded for this little tussle, might I
suggest that propriety would be better served by a more ladylike
demeanor? I might be your half brother, but I’m no
eunuch.”

“Let me go,” Alexandra
pleaded, frightened by his look of open admiration. The blue of his
eyes had deepened to inky black, and he was brazen enough not to
look away.

Again, Alexandra felt
grateful that Nathaniel believed her to be his sister, for it might
be the only thing to keep her safe from him. At the moment, even
that seemed a thin thread on which to hang her
well-being.

“Let me go,” she repeated.
“I’ve never done anything to you. I don’t even know
you.”

His smile disappeared.
“This isn’t between you and me.”

“Then let me
go.”

“I can’t.”

Alexandra recognized
determination in the set of his jaw, the rigid line of his
shoulders. Nathaniel was a much more formidable foe than Willy ever
was, and would not be easy to outwit. He was strong, and cunning,
with a fierceness that frightened her. Something told Alexandra
that nothing would sway him from his purpose.

“Let me up,” she said,
feeling all too vulnerable. She wanted to cover what the tear
revealed, stop his unwanted appraisal.

Nathaniel rolled off her
slowly, as though he anticipated another sharp heel to a
potentially vulnerable part of his anatomy.

Alexandra worked her way
to the side of the bed, where she stood and turned away.

“Look what you’re doing to
yourself,” Nathaniel said in a softer tone. “Come here.”

Her hair had come loose
from its pins and tumbled down her back in disarray. Tucking what
she could behind her ear, she glanced back over her shoulder to see
blood from her wounded wrists, red on the sheets. “No.”

“Come here, you little
fool,” he insisted. “I’m going to untie you. Though you haven’t
earned your freedom, you’re not smart enough to quit straining
against the rope.”

A sharp knock and
Trenton’s voice through the panel turned Nathaniel’s attention to
the door. He strode across the floor, and when he unbolted the
lock, Trenton nearly fell inside.

“There’s a man searching
the docks for you,” he explained, wiping the sweat from his brow
with his sleeve. Then he caught sight of Alexandra’s disheveled
appearance and the bed.

“Oh hell, Nathaniel. How
could you? She’s your sister. The duke will never let something
like this go unpunished.” He began to pace the floor. “I should
have stayed with you last night. I knew you wanted revenge, but I
never dreamed you’d take it this way.”