Free Midnight Flame by Lynette Vinet Page A

own words startled her, and sanity returned.
    Rain pounded upon the roof of the vehicle. Lightning illuminated the passing countryside, allowing Laurel to see the wind-whipped trees that swayed on each side before blackness enveloped them.
    Would she never reach the town? Inwardly she cursed Tony Duvalier for luring her to his Mardi Gras dance, for choosing her revealing costume, and then using it against her. His motive still bewildered her, and she cursed herself all the more for her own stupidity in believing she even possessed a fatal charm. She laughed aloud at her own folly. Fatal charm, indeed. Her charms had fueled Tony’s ardor to such a degree that he would have made love to her on the lawn if the fire hadn’t started—and she would have let him. Thank the fates for the bolt of lightning that struck the barn. She couldn’t imagine anything worse than becoming another one of Duvalier’s easy conquests. And Laurel had no doubt that she would have been one.
    Wild winds and pounding rain besieged the coach, rocking it unsteadily. Laurel held tightly to the edge of her seat, encased in utter darkness, except for the faint flicker of the outside carriage lanterns that sputtered and then were extinguished completely. Still the horses raced onward.
    The coach wheels rolled slickly along Grand Prairie Road toward town. From far off she heard what she assumed to be a peal of thunder, but shortly she realized it was the steady beat of a horse’s hoofs behind the coach.
    “Halt!”
    A man’s voice penetrated the darkness. The coach jerked to a sudden and jolting stop.
    Giving a small cry, Laurel nearly slipped from her seat. She braced herself against the door, and in the brief instant when a flash of lightning emblazoned the night sky, she saw him, attired all in black with an equally dark hood over his head, on an ebony stallion. Both were silhouetted against the suddenly incandescent night. Above the din of the rain she heard him shout to the driver not to move, to remain seated. The pulse in Laurel’s throat throbbed an irregular beat, and she could barely swallow. Did this man intend to rob them? She vaguely remembered the hotel clerk informing her that at Mardi Gras time ruffians sometimes traveled the roads. Just her luck, she thought through a haze of fear and dread, to be caught in such a situation. And all because of Tony Duvalier, the arrogant bastard. One more reason to hate him.
    Should she run or put up a fight? The man had turned his horse toward the coach. For a brief instant she froze, poised on the brink of indecision. Before she had time to react, the door was abruptly thrown open. A long, black-clad arm reached into the interior and plucked her from the coach as if she were a rose in a garden.
    Her fear prevented her from screaming. In fact she seemed to have no voice at all as the man positioned her in front of him on his horse and coiled his arms, ropelike, around her waist. Tony’s driver sat immobile, his face obliterated in the darkness. When she felt the man behind her spur the stallion, she knew she had to do something to stop him.
    “Let me go!” she cried and attempted to break free, to somehow throw herself from the horse and run anywhere, anywhere away from this man who held her so tightly against him, so close against his powerful chest that she could feel the beating of his heart against her back. But his hold wouldn’t be loosened, and her entreaty had no effect upon him.
    After flailing against him, she realized her struggles were for nothing. There was no way she could escape from him, and she doubted he was even listening to her pleas for release. She had to keep all her strength and wits about her. However, seconds later, when he veered onto a side road that seemed to appear from nowhere and rushed headlong into a densely forested area, she wondered if she would ever find her way out of this even if he did release her unharmed.
    Through the rain-sodden night they rode. Rivulets