Free Irresistible by Karen Robards Page A

up at her. Her face was just inches away. With the wet, matted snarls of her hair springing out around her delicate features like a lion's mane and her eyes gleaming a feral gold in the lamplight, she looked like some untamed creature at bay. A supremely beautiful creature. Even as their gazes met, he could not help but acknowledge that. She regarded him warily but with a shade less actual fear than she had shown before. Then she essayed a little smile.
    "I want the letters you stole from Lord Archer, to begin with," he said, in a tone made utterly grim by her smile. "It would make it easier on both of us if you would just hand them over and be done."
    Her eyes widened into big pools of utter innocence. Her lips parted and rounded. The faux bewilderment was well done, very well done indeed. His mouth twisted as he took in every nuance of her expression. She was an actress of no little talent, without a doubt. Too bad she hadn't chosen to take to the boards rather than betray her country.
    "I don't know what you're talking about."
    Her artlessness grated on him, for which he was thankful. It would be far easier to do what he had to do if he could see her as the kind of conscienceless, conniving witch she undoubtedly was instead of the ravishing young girl she appeared to be.
    "Of course you don't."
    Standing, he returned his knife to his waistband and looked her over sardonically. She was still giving him the big-eyed treatment when he reached down and curled a hand around her elbow, hauling her without ceremony to her feet.
    Even soaking wet, she weighed surprisingly little. So little that using his strength against her bothered his conscience. Actually, it made him feel like the biggest brute alive. Manhandling helpless women was not normally his style.
    She, of course, was not a helpless woman. He had to keep reminding himself of that. As he struggled mentally to replace the image of her his senses gave him with what she was in truth, she hung awkwardly in his grasp, stumbling a little as she got her feet beneath her.
    "If you choose to make this difficult for yourself, then so be it." His voice was pure steel. "You will oblige me by disrobing."
    A search of each garment must needs be made in case she had sewn the letters into a secret pocket in her petticoats or chemise. They were not in her bodice, he was willing to swear.
    "What?"
    Looking utterly taken aback, she tried to pull away then, but he held her fast. As her eyes fixed on his face they were wide with what gave every appearance of being genuine alarm. Again he gave her points for acting, although given her profession and the fact that she had already offered herself to him, she was perhaps overdoing the role of shocked innocent a bit.
    "You heard me." He was deliberately brutal. "Take off your clothes."

 
    Chapter 7
    "Hugh. Please. You must listen: There's been a mistake."
    Claire knew she sounded desperate, which was reasonable, because she was. Her breathing came quick and shallow, and her heart pounded as she fought to keep calm, to think, to plan. Her exhaustion was forgotten. This harsh-faced man whose hand bit into her arm had a grim air about him now that frightened her anew. The decency she had thought— hoped?— she'd detected in him earlier had vanished. His eyes— they were gray, she saw now, the cold opaque gray of lead— were as wintry as the day just past. She realized that if he chose to force her to do anything, anything at all, she would be hard put to successfully resist. She was already well acquainted with his strength, and he was, in addition, far bigger than she. The top of her head fell inches short of his chin, and with his broad shoulders and wide chest he dwarfed her far smaller frame. And when he had so nonchalantly stripped off his clothes right in front of her widening eyes, she had been provided with more evidence than she had cared to see of his whipcord muscularity.
    Words were her strength, practically her only strength, and