The Seducer by Madeline Hunter Page A

through him when a woman cried that the knife had cut Diane’s arm. While other men cleared a path and shouted for the coach, he lifted her in his arms.
    In the light of the coach lamp he saw that the cut was not bleeding badly and was only a scratch. The trembling body that he carried, however, said that she was hardly unscathed otherwise.
    He got her into the carriage, stripped off his cape, and tucked it around her.
    “Who . . . why . . .”
    “A madman, perhaps angry with the English. He probably thought me one from the cut of my clothes.”
    She pulled the cape closer. “I am so cold suddenly.”
    He lifted her onto his lap so she would know she was safe. So
he
would know she was safe.
    She took deep breaths to calm herself. “I feel so stupid. I was not badly hurt, but I cannot . . . I feel as though death just brushed against me. . . . It is foolish to be this unsettled, but . . .”
    Death
had
just brushed against her. The thought of how closely, chilled him. He could feel the realization of that sink into her as well, frightening her more.
    Her cheek was barely an inch from his face. He brushed his lips against it. “Your reaction is not foolish. It is normal. But you are safe now. We are in the carriage, going home, and he is gone.”
    She nestled closer and he embraced her more tightly. Slowly, like a lowering veil, her shaking subsided.
    He inhaled the scent of violet water and grew too aware of the feel of her body. His concern and relief became colored with other reactions. Their mutual awareness of his embrace filled the carriage, making the silence inaudibly crackle.
    He pressed a kiss on her silky hair, to reassure her. For an instant she went very still. Then her head turned up to him. He could not see her expression in the dark, but he had no trouble imagining its cautious confusion.
    If not for the danger they had just faced, he might have resisted. If fate had not put her in his arms, he would have heeded the voice of reason chanting the hundred reasons why it was a disastrous mistake.
    Instead, he took the step that would complicate everything, and perhaps undo plans laid a lifetime ago.
    He kissed her.
             
    She should have guessed the kind of kiss it would be. Even before his lips touched hers she should have known it would not be one of comfort. The mood in the air and the tightening of his arms warned her. So did the little infinity that spread to surround them while he looked at her.
    He would have stopped if she had turned away. She did not doubt that. But his embrace felt so safe and the kiss did too. Startling, but sweet and gentle at first.
    Not for long.
    It changed in ways she could not ignore. The warm press grew insistent, then demanding. She permitted it because she did not know how to refuse. A new, awed part of her did not want to.
    Her reaction, the thrilling excitement and deep inner flush, explained so much. Everything. Why being alone with him unnerved her. The reason his dark gaze made her flustered. The power behind his magnetic presence. The kiss was a little fulfillment of a nameless expectation that she had been experiencing with him for weeks.
    It mesmerized her. The intimacy felt so wonderful. It awoke parts of her body and heart she had not known could feel this alive. It was the most astonishing, transforming thing that had ever happened to her.
    He didn’t stop. The one kiss became many, each one burning into her, startling her again. On her lips and her face and her neck. A series of pleasurable shocks left her senses jumbled in a chaos of amazement.
    The little infinity just grew and grew until what was happening became a dream taking place in the eternal darkness of a silent carriage. Nothing entered her mind except the wonder of it.
    His teeth edged her ear, sending alluring chills through her body. His embrace wandered down her side, pressing through the thick cloth of his cape. “Are you still afraid?”
    “No . . . yes . . . a little . .