Lisbon Read Free

bedchamber, Charlotte told Rowan curtly that she had a headache. At which point he whirled her about to face him.
    “I still do not have my apology, Charlotte,” he said sternly.
    ‘Nor will you get one!” she flashed. “For none is due!”
    For a moment she thought he was going to strike her, but he did not. He stood there hunched over, glowering at her. Then, with a suddenness that astonished her, he seized her and fell with her to the bed, and while she struggled, he ripped every shred of clothing from her body.
    Panting and naked, she lay beneath him, surrounded by the ruins of her pale gold gown and the torn lace and cambric of her undergarments.
    “Rowan—” she protested, but his mouth crushed down on hers in a suffocating kiss that made speech impossible. She felt his long body move and shift above her own, felt his strong masculinity penetrate her like a spear—and wanted to weep.
    This is not the way it should be between a man and  woman, she thought, confused, this violent lovemaking without tenderness. As if in contempt, his body seemed to rasp against her own, making her cringe inwardly even as against her will the inexorable thrusting of his strong masculinity roused her to passions deep within. Torn by conflicting emotions, she felt her pliant femininity respond with a shudder to his tumultuous assault. This was lust, she told herself dully, and knew shame at her body’s betrayal even as her senses were lifted and swirled and plunged down into a mindless sea of shivering guilty pleasure. Guilty because she felt shattered by his harsh taking.
    Never call it love, she thought bitterly, trying to choke back the moans that rose unbidden in her throat. For there is no love between us. Only this animal passion that seems to flare up and devour us in its hot flame.
    And then the climax of her own passions overcame her, sending her hurtling over the brink, over the edge of the world, until she fell back exhausted, drained.
    Her cheeks were wet with tears when at last Rowan withdrew from her, rising on his arms and staring down into her sad face, cheeks glistening with tears in the candlelight.
    “Charlotte, Charlotte, why do you bait me so?” he demanded huskily. “Can you not see that it brings out the devil in me?”
    “I do not bait you,” she choked. “You take me as if you hate me!”
    “No, never that.” His dark head came down and he nuzzled with his lips the cleft between her breasts, let his mouth trail over their roundness, tested with his teeth the rosy nipples, felt them tremble. “I could never hate you, Charlotte.”
    Oh, but you do, she thought, although in her exhaustion she was now too wise to say it. You hate me for something that happened long ago and that neither of us can ever change. You love me and yet you hate me too, and that hatred washes over you in waves when 1 least expect it. .. .
    And yet last night he had been a tender lover, wooing her with his body as if it were a song of love.
    Hurt and confused, she turned her head away from him. “I am very tired, Rowan. ” She moved restively as his lips now found her stomach, moved across it. 1 am tired of your incomprehensible moods, your sudden angers. If it is going to be like this between us, I wish you had left me in England. She did not say any of this, of course—it would only bring on another explosion and recriminations and then perhaps her bruised body must endure another bout of frenzied lovemaking. “Very tired,” she murmured. “I want only to be allowed to go to sleep. ”
    He straightened up at her tone, all too aware that he had been rebuffed.
    “You are a coldhearted wench,” he said bitterly, flinging away from her.
    She heard him cross the room, banging the door to her bedchamber shut behind him. She waited tensely but he did not return. She relaxed as she heard from below a crash as the front door slammed behind him.
    Her husband, having had what he wanted from her,