Free Underground Captive by Elisabeth-Cristine Analise Page B

you when my father will return, but you are welcome to wait."
                       " Merci beaucoup , mademoiselle ," Jared said, smiling.  "Ye have been a gracious hostess, but I won't take anymore of yer time.  Au revoir , Nicollette."  He turned King George as rider and horse flew like the wind toward River Road.
                       Nicollette watched him ride away, admiring the skill with which he handled the palomino.  Watching until he was out of sight, she decided the next time she saw him she would ask him to help her find Ricard.
    5
                      "I'd like a scotch, Angus," Jared grumbled in greeting, walking into his house by the ramparts where he'd lived for the past five years.
                       "Aye, master," the tall, dignified servant answered, closing the entrance door as Jared made his way to the drawing room.
    He sat, fuming, as angry with Nicollette for being a Duplantier as he
    was with himself for wanting to bed a Duplantier.  Who the hell was she to awaken any desires in him?
    Yet, the temper she displayed, especially from his kiss, amused him.
    'Twas pure luck that she'd used the palm of her hand on him instead of the riding crop.  The slashes on Williams's face would take a while to heal and the scars might never fade.
                       Well, the bastard deserved a reminder of what he'd tried to do to Nicki.
    'Twas pure luck for the overseer that Nicki had subdued him before Jared got to him.  The extent of the girl's moxy first startled then amused him as he had rode upon the scene.
                       Seeing Nicki fight Williams had made anger rip through Jared.  Aye, the worthless sonofabitch was indeed lucky to have escaped Jared's wrath.
                       His thoughts leapt to the kiss he and Nicki had shared.  When he'd kissed Nicki, he'd had an impulse to bury his face against her breasts.  Instead, he'd looked into her amethyst eyes and at that moment he'd been unable to summon any resentment toward her for being a Duplantier.  He'd liked the way the girl--his enemy through no fault of hers--made him feel.  At that moment, he'd been conscious of only one thing--his want to have her quivering beneath him in pleasure.
                       Bloody damn hell!  'Twould be best to stay as far away from Nicki as possible.  She was even more beautiful now than when he first saw her on the boat.  How would she look if he continued to see her?
    'Twas simple, the answer--more unearthly beautiful each time.
                       He couldn't forget Nicollette's flawless complexion and her pouty lips, made for kissing.  He remembered the swell of her proud, high breasts and the slender curves of her hips that flared out from her tiny waist.  Would she be as passionate in bed as she seemed to be with everything else?  His body responded to thoughts of Nicki and he groaned.
                       Damn, he didn't need this blasted distraction, nor did he want it.
                       Nicollette Duplantier represented everything he was opposed to. 
    Everything that he tried to undo when he donned his black garb to relieve surrounding plantations of their "burden" of excess slaves.  Of all their slaves.
    She was an outsider to his world.  She was an amethyst-eyed, Creole
    vixen, who thought nothing of the wrongs of holding another human being in bondage.  She and her family stood for everything he hated by continuing their way of life at any cost.  Even murder.
                       But more sickening than that was the fact that she was a Duplantier.  Certain that Nicollette's brother murdered his wife, he was just as certain that Nicollette was a spoiled brat, who expected the world to bow at her feet.
                       Yet, he couldn't forget the sight of her beautiful