“With well-feigned impatience, he asked, “Don’t you recognize a man who’s urgently trying to impress his woman with his good deeds?”“No, is that what you’re doing?”“Most definitely.” He did kiss her, but only a swift brush of his lips, a tease that made her want for more. “Although I suspect it has lost its impact since I had to point it out.”

“And you’re prickly enough about being young.”She was amusing him. “More than ever, I feel as if I’ve robbed the cradle.”But she knew how to puncture his mirth. “You are very old,” she agreed demurely.He pushed her backward onto the grass.She laughed and fought him. Within minutes he had her arms trapped over her head, and he kissed her while the world whirled around them. “I win!” he said against her lips.“Only because you used brute force.”“It’s better than drugs in a glass of wine,” he retorted.“You would think so, since you hold the brute force.”He grinned down at her. “But I did win.”“Yes, yes, you won.” She dismissed his boasting as if it were of no consequence. “Are you ever going to forget that stupid manacle?”“No, I think I’ll be bringing it up at inconvenient moments for the rest of our lives.”At his ill-thought-out words, they both froze, their eyes wide with shock. The rest of their lives?Their gazes shifted away from each other.”

“We're lucky." He slipped his hand around her waist and splayed it in the small of her back. "Most couples have only one first kiss. We'll have two.”

“With great care, Amy opened the cellar door.With ladylike demeanor, she descended the stairs. And as her reward, she had the satisfaction of catching His Mighty Lordship sitting on the cot, his knee crooked sideways and his ankle pulled toward him, cursing at the manacle.“I got it out of your own castle,” she said.Northcliff jumped like a lad caught at a mischief. “My . . . castle?” At once he realized what she meant. “Here on the island, you mean. The old ancestral pile.”“Yes.” She strolled farther into the room. “I went down into the dungeons, crawled around in among the spider webs and the skeleton of your family’s enemies—”“Oh, come on.” He straightened his leg. “There aren’t any skeletons.”“No,” she admitted.“We had them removed years ago.”For one instant, she was shocked. So his family had been ruthless murderers! Then she realized he was smirking. The big, pompous jackass was making a jest of her labors. “If I could have found manacles that were in good shape I’d have locked both your legs to the wall.”“Why stop there? Why not my hands, too?” He moved his leg to make the chain clink loudly. “Think of your satisfaction at the image of my starving, naked body chained to the cold stone—”“Starving?” She cast a knowledgeable eye at the empty breakfast tray, then allowed her lips to curve into a sarcastic smile.“You’d love a look at my naked body, though, wouldn’t you?” He fixed his gaze on her, and for one second she thought she saw a lick of golden flame in his light brown eyes. “Isn’t that what this is all about?”“I beg your pardon.” She took a few steps closer to him—although she remained well out of range of his long arms. What are you talking about?”“I spurned you, didn’t I?”What? What What was he going on about?“You’re a girl from my past, an insignificant debutante I ignored at some cotillion or another. I didn’t dance with you.” He stretched out on the cot, the epitome of idle relaxation. “Or I did, but I didn’t talk to you. Or I forgot to offer you a lemonade, or—”“I don’t believe you.” She tottered to the rocking chair and sank down. “Are you saying you think this whole kidnapping was done because you, the almighty marquees of Northcliff, treated me like a wallflower?”“It seems unlikely I treated you as a wallflower. I have better taste than that.” He cast a critical glance up and down her workaday gown, then focused on her face. “You’re not in the common way, you must know that. With the proper gown and your hair swirled up in that style you women favor—” He twirled his fingers about his head—“you would be handsome. Perhaps even lovely.”She gripped the arms of the chair. Even his compliments sounded like insults! “We’ve never before met, my lord.”As if she had not spoken, he continued, “but I don’t remember you, so I must have ignored you and hurt your feelings—”“Damn!” Exploding out of the chair, she paced behind it, gripping the back hard enough to break the wood. His arrogance was amazing. Invulnerable! “Haven’t you heard a single word I’ve said to you? Are you so conceited you can’t conceive of a woman who isn’t interested in you as a suitor?”“It’s not conceit when it’s the truth.” He sounded quite convinced.”

“Let her go or I’ll shoot you.”“I’ve never met a woman who’d have the guts to shoot a man,” he sneered. All the women he knew were too kind. Too gentle.“I have the guts,” the girl said. “Better yet, I want to shoot you.”That shook him. The words, and the tone, a kind of flat, plain aversion the like of which he’d never met in all of his privileged life. What had he ever done to deserve this girl’s contempt? And why did he even care? “Which part of me will you shoot?” he mocked. “All that’s showing is my head—and you can’t be that good with a gun.”“I am,” the girl said. “On the count of three, I’ll shoot. One . . .”“You’d take the chance of hurting Miss Victorine?” he asked.“I won’t hurt her. Two . . .”“Amy, please, let him go!” Miss Victorine begged. “He was such a sweet boy.”“Three.” Amy’s eyes narrowed. Her finger began to squeeze the trigger.And he released Miss Victorine, spinning her away from him and into a cabinet.She landed with a thud and fell. The pistol roared.He dived to the floor.A shot whistled past the place where his head had been.“Damn, that was close. Good thing you surrendered, my lord!”“Don’t swear, dear, it’s not ladylike.”

“I can’t take this kind of suspense. Decide now.” He untied the ropes around her wrists. “Walk out the door. In a year you’ll be free of any entanglements with me. Or stay and be my wife. My real wife. Make your choice.”She looked down at the loosened ropes still wrapped around her, then up at him.He wore an expression of fierce indifference, but she knew better. This proud man, this noble marquees, had made up his mind he wished to marry her without knowing who she was or what she’d done. She would guess the decision was his first impetuous gesture since the day his mother had disappeared.Amy couldn’t fool herself. For him to go so contrary to his own nature, he must feel an overwhelming emotion for her.”

“I won’t walk through the wedding arch with you,” she said.“The arch is traditionally used by grooms with reluctant brides, for the arch is tall enough for a man with his woman on his shoulder.”As they reached the door, he bent and put his shoulder in her stomach. As if she were a sack of potatoes, he swung her up and over. Amy shrieked and gave his back a good hard thump.He dropped her down until her rear sat uppermost on his shoulder and her head dangled almost to his trousers, and kept walking. “Miss Victorine!” she shouted.“I’ll come as fast as I can, dears!” Miss Victorine called from the doorway. “Shame on you for appealing to an old lady for rescue.”