Prologue #3
The viscount wrenched her down hard against him. Emitting a breathless gasp, Andromena tried to scramble out of his intimate embrace, but he anchored her with an arm around her waist, dragging her down flush against the heavy, unyielding wall of his chest.
She stared into the dark, dangerous, enigmatic pools of dark that sucked her in and threatened her very soul…
Andromena would cut off her arm before confessing the little puffs of white she spurted between her trembling lips were on account of him.
Lord Kerr’s was the hardest, tallest body she had ever been near…
and from a family of seagoing relatives who brought seafaring non-relatives about, she knew quite a lot of hardest, tallest bodies.
This man was the hardest, biggest, and warmest—even through the multiple layers of their garments.
Unlike the bulky, thickly muscled frame of Meghan’s husband-to-be, Hartwell, this man was chiseled from rock, his muscles dense and knotted.
He flashed a dangerous smirk. “Care for a kiss, darling?”
“You’re accustomed to giving them out, I gather.”
“Aye, darling.” He softened his rakish truth by rubbing more warmth into her no longer chilled body.
“I prefer the kisses of men who aren’t so free with their affection.”
She would never be swayed by a scoundrel like Lord Kerr. She also knew if she told herself this, she might make it true.
The ease with which he shifted from a snarling beast to a charming Corinthian was clearly a survival mechanism—and no doubt the reason those women fell for him, as she found herself just as helpless.
She had the irrational urge to kick something or someone. She told herself this was only because no lady liked being lumped in with a crowd of ninnies who didn’t know him the way she did.
Kerr’s deep laugh rumbled through her.
Then, the scoundrel did the worst, most wonderful thing.
He held her more closely and rubbed warmth into her.
Each deep caress stole her breath. “How fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in love am I; And I will love thee still, my dear, Till all the seas gang dry. Till all the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt with the sun…”
Snow fell all around them, fluttering and dancing specks as the fairies floated about as Queen Elphame enchanted the forest and all creatures trapped here. And through layers and layers of fabric, her body registered his caress; sure, confident. Tender, but claiming.
Her pulse skipped too many beats to count.
“A-are you in the habit of quoting Burns, my lord?”
“Only when the situation merits it.”
Somehow, she managed to pick her head up, but her big curls continued to make a big tangled curtain over her vision. She couldn’t have blinked if she wanted. “And this is one of those times?”
Lord Kerr brought a gloved palm up and tenderly shoved those whipping strands back behind her ears. Even the winter storm bent the knee to him, as her heavy hair lay where he guided it.
“Come with me, Andromena.”
His warm breath ghosted along her neck.
“I…” want to.
But she could not. Why couldn’t she? Wait—should she even want to?
Then he brushed his lips against her racing pulse, and her eyes drifted shut.
“Is that a ‘yes’, darling?”
Darling. How beautiful that sounded. Her muscles melted and she burrowed more deeply into him. “Hmm?”
The deep, low rumble of his laughter set her belly a’flutter.
Feeling completely exposed, Andromena shrank against him.
The viscount thought her a Green Girl, and he wasn’t wrong.
She knew she should be offended enough to shove herself free of him.
But she was a woman awakened. A deep ache lived inside her—not pain, and not pleasure either…
and his was not the laugh of a man who mocked, but shared a secret.
Then she recalled he wanted to take her somewhere. “Where?”
Whose throaty voice was that? Surely not Andromena’s?
“You’ll just have to trust me,” he whispered, his warm breath grazing her ear like a brush of skin.
Andromena shivered.
She was wrong—she wasn’t so very clever after all. She was far from immune to the viscount’s burning gaze, or the confident touch of hands that clearly knew a lady’s curves. Completely undone, Andromena was suddenly seized by a fierce, wild urge to hurt all those nameless women from his past.
But even that uncomfortable emotion of jealousy had no power over Lord Kerr’s hold.
Her eyelashes fluttered. Her heart sped up, and she was certain she’d follow him anywhere. “I don’t even know your given name, Lord K—”
He tendered two syllables, hard and unlikely for a rogue, but perfect for a man in full possession of himself…and her. “Edgar.”
With the sleek agility of a primal cat in the wild, he brought them both to standing. He did not release her. He held her closer. “Will you come with me, Andromena?” His breath, hot with brandy and cheroot, brushed her skin with a raw, heavy heat.
“How…?” Can I? She was supposed to say. It was her sister’s wedding. But her mind was as tangled as her curls, and: “H-How could I not?” came from somewhere.
His pleased, husky laugh moved through her.
They were almost-strangers in one heartbeat; and in the next, nevermore. Beneath the whispering snow and rustle of branches, Edgar, Viscount Kerr, kissed her. It was a brief, gentle press of lips—their first. One heartbeat they were strangers; the next, they could never be unmade.
His kiss did not bow her, but it quietly called her in. As Edgar teased her with a promise of more, something did, however, shatter the dizzy spell he’d cast.
“Meghaaaan?”
A ravaged cry rang out from the distance, followed in rapid succession by another, just as far away.
Andromena and Edgar looked in the direction of those anguish-filled shouts.
“He took her.” Fleur’s cry filled the winter sky. “Culross! It is his men.”
He took her.
Culross.
His men…
Their breaths coming fast, she and the viscount looked at each other at the exact same time.
And time did an unusual thing: where it froze, reversed, and rolled forward, so Andromena saw it all play out as clear as a Shakespearean tragedy. Edgar, Viscount Kerr’s timely arrival. His initial annoyance. His lightning-like shift to seductive rogue. And Andromena all but swooning over him.
Oh, God.
What a fool.
Heart beating fast, Andromena unclasped her cloak and escaped from the material just as Edgar, Lord Kerr, grabbed for her.
She scrambled. He was taller, longer, faster, but he slipped.
As she bolted through the snow, putting more and more distance between them, she didn’t look back.
Afraid he’d be right there to snatch her. Even more, afraid to face his smug, traitorous face at having so easily deceived her.
And maybe that was why she didn’t raise the cry until she was far away from him. “Campbell!”
“Annnnnnnndy!”
Soon, her eldest brother was there and sweeping her into his arms, and asking dozens of times without allowing her to answer if she was all right, and naturally, she lied, because to admit to her family what a fool she’d been, she’d never be able to hold her head high.
Fortunately, she was a very good liar. “P-Perfectly f-fine.”
But this time, her assurances weren’t enough for her big brother or herself.
Campbell swept his cloak around her shoulders and then lifted her, carrying her back to the main road, shouting for his men.
While he walked, she huddled into the fur folds of her brother’s cloak.
Edgar, the enigmatic privateer she dreamt about in the dark hours of the night had broken her girlish heart.
What a gigantic fool she was—or had been.
“…Ah, but receive it you shall, Andromena. Forgive me, For my part, I may speak it to my shame, I have a truant been to chivalry…”
His truancy to chivalry made complete sense, now.
Andromena angled a look around her brother’s arm to the ridge the viscount had vanished from moments ago.
Great evil had been done this day.
That blackhearted bastard had feigned affection, stolen her first kiss from her, all with the intent of having her willingly go off with him. How he must be laughing at her even now?
And one thing was certain, Andromena would hate him forever.