Of Noble Birth by Brenda Novak Page B

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.