The Devil and Miss Jones. Kate Walker
His cruelty had driven her out of the house in a desperate need to escape—first from the wedding that had turned into her idea of a personal sort of hell and now, possibly from this man—this stranger…
Did he even plan to help her?
All at once the rush of warmth and delight that had sizzled through her when she had first seen him ebbed away fast, leaving behind a sort of bruised, painful feeling. Still clutching the jacket around her, pulling it tighter than ever as a sort of protection against the way she was feeling, at the same time she knew a longing to tear it off and throw it from her as if accepting it had led her into reckless danger. Unable to think straight, she took a couple of hasty steps backwards, almost missing her footing on a rough patch of grass and turning her ankle sharply so that she cried out in shock and pain.
‘Hey…’
The man’s hands, big, strong, encased in black leather gloves, came out to catch her, pulling her upright when she almost fell. Supporting her easily, he shook his head.
‘No—do not look at me like that.’
It was there again, that hint of something foreign—exotic—in his words. This time she was sure that it was not her hearing that was deceiving her, but very definitely the sound of some accent that was nothing like the local flat-vowelled burr. It was unexpected, somehow shockingly appealing.
‘I have no intention of hurting you, I swear… Look—’
His free hand unfastened his helmet swiftly. As he pulled it off he shook his head sharply, freeing the rather long jet black hair that was now exposed. The wind howled round them, blowing it against his face so that as he turned back to her he had to toss it out of his eyes.
And what eyes! Martha didn’t know what she had been expecting. She could see so little of him, with his long body, those powerful hands, all encased in black leather and denim, his face hidden under the silver helmet. But from the hint of skin she could just see—golden, olive-toned skin that was not the pallid white of an Englishman at the tag end of winter—and the trace of accent she realised that she had anticipated something dark, deep brown or maybe a polished jet. Instead she found herself looking into a pair of mossy green eyes, glinting with the light of a many-faceted jewel stone that made them deep and dark while at the same time shot through with an almost golden hue. They gleamed above high, slanting cheekbones, fringed with impossibly long, lush black lashes that should have looked effeminate on a man but that somehow, in this strongly carved, stunning face just looked amazing—and incredibly, gorgeously sexy.
But he also looked dangerous. Big and dark and powerful. Those impossibly long, lush eyelashes should have softened his face, but instead they somehow contrasted so sharply with the high, carved cheekbones, the square, forceful jaw and uncompromising mouth that the impression they left was one of concealment, hiding the beauty of those stunning green eyes behind their dark fringe, and turning it into something secret, inscrutable—disturbing.
Just who was this man who had come to her rescue—knight in shining armour or the devil himself?
‘Believe me, I have no intention of hurting you.’
He repeated the words with an added edge for emphasis and while they relieved her tension, that double edge to them had exactly the opposite effect. That accent didn’t help either. It was too foreign, too exotic, to belong in any sort of world where she lived.
‘How do I know that?’
He sighed, tossed back an overlong strand of hair that the wind had blown against his face. As she watched that sensual mouth twitch in something that might have been amusement—or an acknowledgement of her right to indignation—she felt a twisting bite of response that had nothing to do with unease and everything to do with a purely female reaction to a glorious specimen of manhood.
The problem was that it was not usually the way she felt about the opposite sex. The way she had ever felt about any man… even Gavin. That was one of the things that had made her face the fact that she was deluding herself about her proposed marriage.
‘I can give you my word.’
‘And what exactly will that mean to me?’
Once awoken, her sense of self-preservation had coming rushing back in double force. If she hadn’t learned anything about the way that since her life had changed, everyone would react so differently towards her, then surely the devastating scene she had witnessed back at the Hall would finally—finally have taught her that she needed to take so much more care with relationships from now on.
But surprisingly, the memory of the sight that had met her eyes as she had walked into Cindy’s room was having the strangest effect on her. Just when it should have made her stop and think, should have pushed her to have second and then very probably third thoughts about what she was doing, instead it seemed to have exactly the opposite effect. When she should have thought extra carefully and played things cautiously, sensibly, in the way that she had lived most of her life up to now, she suddenly felt that what she actually wanted was to break free, be less constrained. Sensible was very definitely not what she wanted to be.
Her life had been turned on its head. It had been blasted apart and there was no way she was ever going to be able to put the pieces back together again. At least not in a way that rebuilt the picture as it had been before. She had tried the safe, the careful—the damn sensible—and look where it had got her. Out here on an exposed moor, wearing a bridal dress for a wedding that had never meant a single thing that she had believed in. A future that had been a mistake from the start.
‘What good is your word to me when I don’t know who you are? Or anything about you.’
The look he shot her gleamed with challenge, a touch of dark humour flaring gold in those amazing eyes, reminding her that the truth was that she was in no real position to argue.
‘You know that I am probably your only chance of getting to where you need to be—or back to wherever you came from.’
His cool gaze swept along the deserted road, the rain soaked hills surrounding them.
‘Do you see a couple of hundred other cars—other bikes—queuing up to come to your rescue?’ he drawled sardonically. ‘To take you wherever you want to go?’
‘There’ll be someone else along…’
Even as she flung the words at him she knew that she was risking making a big mistake; cutting off her nose to spite her very cold and miserable face. His sceptical sidelong glance questioned her sanity in that statement just at the same moment as her own thoughts demanded to know if she was losing her mind.
‘Fine,’ he said, the single word curt and harsh. ‘Have it your own way.’
He turned away from her, towards his bike, putting a couple of strides between them, the silver helmet swinging from its strap at his side. The gesture was so obviously meant to show that he was calling her bluff that the sparks of irritation it ignited held her silent even as she knew she was risking possibly her last chance of rescue. She could challenge him too, and she would even if her stretched nerves screamed at her that this was crazy, that she was risking being abandoned again. But he couldn’t do that—could he?
But it seemed that he could as his long legs and powerful stride took him further from her, leaving her with only a view of his strong, straight back, those wide shoulders encased in tautly stretched white cotton, the black hair blowing wildly in the wind.
Indecision tore at her, making her feel raw and uneasy. Surely if he actually meant to do her harm then he wouldn’t just walk away like this? If only she had brought her mobile phone with her—but she’d left that on the dressing table in her bedroom at the Hall, forgetting to put it into her handbag at the last minute.
‘Wait…’ she tried, low and uncertain, but the wind whipped away the sound of her voice, scattering it across the deserted hillside.
He had only got a few metres away from her and yet already she felt shockingly lost and alone. The leather