“You!” she choked out.
Mocking amber eyes gazed back at her. “Aye, Shanna. ’Tis the good man, John Ruark, at your service. ’Twould seem you have gained a name, my love, while I have lost one.” He grinned confidently. “But then, ’tis not oft a man can cheat both the hangman and his wife.”
Some sanity returned to Shanna, but panic was heavily mixed with it.
“Let go!” she snapped and jerked the bridle. She would have fled, but Ruark’s weight held the stallion in place. Her voice broke with the fear she felt. “Let go!”
“Easy, my love.” The golden eyes glinted like hard metal. “We have a matter to discuss.”
“Nay!” She half screeched, half sobbed the word. She lifted the quirt in her hand as if to strike but found it snatched from her fingers and her wrist seized in a merciless grip.
“By God, madam,” he growled. “You will listen.”
His hands clamped tightly about her narrow waist, and she was seized from the saddle as if she were a child and was set on her feet before him. Frantically Shanna struggled, her small, gloved hands pushing against the dark, furred chest that seemed to fill her whole entire vision. He gave her a rough shake that threatened to snap her head off and did, indeed, send her wide-brimmed hat sailing off into the grass and the neat roll of gilded hair tumbling down her back in a torrent. Shanna stilled, staring helplessly into his scathing eyes.
“That’s better,” Ruark jeered and loosened his painful grip only slightly. “You are not so haughty when you fear.”
Shanna summoned a show of weak bravado and lifted her quivering chin. “Do you think I’m afraid of you?”
The white teeth flashed against his bronze skin as he laughed at her, and Shanna could only mark the resemblance he bore to a swarthy pirate. The pallor of the gaol had faded, and in its stead the brown skin gleamed with the healthy sweat of one who now enjoyed his freedom.
“Aye, my loving wife,” he mocked. “And perhaps you have cause. Hicks vowed me mad after you betrayed me, and well I was with a devil’s desire to have revenge upon my beauteous spouse.”
The color drained from Shanna’s cheeks as his words brought back the memory of what Pitney had said. With a choked sob she renewed her efforts to escape, then writhed in silent agony as his fingers clenched again in a cruel vise.
“Be still,” Ruark commanded, and Shanna had no choice. She was far from subdued, though she still trembled violently with fright.
“If you don’t turn me loose I’ll scream until they hang you! And for good this time! Damn it! I’ll bring this island down around your ears!”
“Will you, my dear?” he lightly taunted. “And what will your father say of your marriage then?”
Pricked by his scorn, she was reckless and sneered, “Then what do you intend? Rape?”
Ruark laughed caustically. “Do not fear, Shanna. I have no urge to tumble you among the weeds.”
She was bemused. What did he want? Could she buy him off?
As if he read her mind, Ruark set the question straight. “And I want none of your father’s wealth, so if you think to bribe me, your efforts are wasted.”
He raised a dark brow and considered her flushed cheeks and the soft trembling mouth. His gaze moved even lower and surveyed her heaving bosom, until Shanna wondered wildly if he could see through her riding habit. Beneath his steady regard, her breasts burned, and she could not control her rapid breathing. Feebly she crossed her arms before her as if naked beneath that stare. Ruark smiled evilly and gazed again into her eyes.
“In the gaol my mind was tortured by your beauty, and I could not forget even the smallest detail of you in my arms. That image was seared upon my memory as if you had branded me.”
He stared at her for a long time with a half-mad light in his eyes that made her doubt her own sanity at ever having sought him out. Then he smiled and became more gentle.
“I will yet find a way to reach among the thorns and pluck the rose,” he vowed.
His hand wandered up her back beneath the silken tresses and fingered them lightly. His smile broadened into a rakish grin, more like the Ruark she had known in the coach. It suddenly penetrated that he was not mad, but instead, was bent on revenge.
“ ’Tis not in my mind to let your secret out, Shanna, but I gave to the bargain all that you demanded. The only thing left wanting is your part of the agreement, and my dear, I shan’t rest ’til I see it done.”
Shanna’s mind flew aimlessly in ever-widening circles. “No bargain!” she cried, straining against him. “No bargain! You are not dead!”
“The bargain is met!” he snarled. “You have my name and all you desired. ’Tis no fault of mine that Hicks is greedy. But I seek the full cost of my barter, a whole night with you as my wife, alone, and with no one to snatch open the door to drag me out.” He leered down at her. “I think you might enjoy it as well.”
“Nay,” Shanna whispered, shamed by the memory of her own response. “The marriage was consummated. Be content with that.”
Ruark chuckled derisively. “If you’re not woman enough to know, my darling innocence, we had barely begun and ’twas not completed by any means. A full night, no less, Shanna. That is my end!”
It was best to humor him, she thought, at least until she was able to escape, and then Pitney . . .
Ruark’s eyes narrowed in warning. “Though your womanhood is sorely lacking, Shanna, I have bested the hangman to find you out. Should you set the hounds or that great oaf Pitney or your father after me, I shall escape them all. And I promise you I will come and claim my due. And now, my loving wife—”
His hands dropped away, and he reached for Attila’s bridle, bringing the horse around. Bending, he folded his hands for her to step, and Shanna, eager to be gone, did not hesitate. With a hand upon his sturdy shoulder she sprang upward, lifted by his boost, and settled upon the saddle. A gasp caught in her throat as his hand reached toward her and very boldly led her knee around the horn. Snatching the reins, Shanna jerked Attila around and set her heel to his side until the stallion fairly flew along the road. Ruark’s low, mocking laughter rang in her ears long after she had left his sight.
In front of the white sprawling mansion, Shanna pulled the steed to a halt and flung herself from its back, leaving a servant to chase it down the lane in order to catch it. Racing past Berta—who paused to gape in surprise—Shanna plunged up the curving stairway and slammed the door of her sitting room behind her. She locked it quickly against any intrusion and leaned against it, panting for breath.
“He’s alive!” she gasped. She threw her riding gloves down upon the tall secretary and stormed toward her bedchamber. She left her boots and riding habit in a careless heap upon the rich carpet. In the light chemise, she paced angrily.
“He’s alive!” she raged. “He’s alive!”
There was a dread, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, yet near her heart, pounding heavily beneath her breast, there bloomed an odd sense of elation, even freedom. Beneath her swirling thoughts, it occurred to her that she had felt bound by the death of a man for her own gain. A recurring dream of that sturdy neck twisted by a rope was cleansed from her mind, and a vision of a rotting corpse in a wooden box disappeared, never to be recalled.