She suddenly wondered if all of his body was as brown as his face. And fought the flare of heat the thought engendered.

"You may turn around."

He sat at the table with the blanket wrapped like a toga about his body. The stark gray gaze snared hers as he held out a wet bundle of clothing.

Quickly averting her eyesthe naked brown arm and shoulder sticking out of the gray blanket were indeed as brown as was his faceAbigail accepted the sodden mass of clothes.

They smelled of rain and damp wool and something indefinable. Spice. Or musk. Something strictly male.

Bending down, she grabbed the mud-caked boots.

Only to have a cat's-eye view of a pair of long, narrow feet. He had shapely, muscular ankles.

They were brown, too. And liberally sprinkled with fine dark hair.

Abigail had never before seen so much mannaked.

Cheeks burning, she straightened.

The gray eyes were waiting for hers.

"In the future, draw your curtains, Miss Abigail. Few men can resist a free peep show. And bolt your door. Some men might take more than you are willing to offer."

For a second Abigail thought she would burst with rage at the insinuation that she might welcome such attentions. Humiliation immediately followed, at the thought that perhaps unconsciously she had. Hostility was born, that the intruder should guess at her secret desires that were not at all ladylike.

"Colonel Coally, I have been at this cottage for an entire week and the only man I have encountered who was unable to resist a 'peep' is yourself. Furthermore, how dare you castigate me for not bolting my door when it is you, sir, who are the intruder"

The violence of her feelings erupted in a shatter of glass.

Pivoting, she stared in astonishment at the tree branch retreating through the window closest to the bed. Wind and rain tunneled into the jagged hole it left behind.

The candle flickered and flamed, creating a wild jig of shadow and light.

"Stay where you are!" The colonel's command was pistol sharp. "The floor is covered with broken glass. We need something to bar the windowthe cupboard will do. Hand me my boots, then douse the light."

Abigail gritted her teeth. The colonel had issued one too many orders.

Turning, she took deliberate aim and dropped the heavy, mud-caked boots.

Brown toes curled back in the nick of time.

"Do you move cupboards best in the dark, Colonel Coally?" she asked politely.

"Not at all, Miss Abigail." The gray eyes staring up at her were narrowed. "I thought only to spare your blushes."

He stood up and dropped the blanket.

Abigail dropped the sodden mass of clothes that was the only thing between them and dove for the candle.

The cottage plunged into swirling darkness. At the same time, something brushed against her hip.

She instinctively put out her handand grabbed naked flesh.

Hot, hard, naked flesh. It was shaped rather like a thick pump handle, half-cocked, with skin as smooth as silk. Underneath it was a throbbing vein

She jerked her hand back. "Colonel Coallyyou surprised me."

"Miss Abigail." The voice in the dark was colder than the wind shrilling through the broken window. "If you insist upon grabbing what you cannot see, you will someday suffer from more than surprise. Edge your way over to the bed and stay there. I don't want to have to worry about surprising you again."

Abigail stood her ground. "Nonsense, Colonel Coally. This is my cottage. I am quite capable of assisting you."

"Let me put it another way, Miss Abigail. I am not so much worried about surprising you as I am of being surprised myself. Use your wits, lady: You have no shoes on. I have no desire to minister to both a broken windowand bleeding feet."

Speechless with fury, Abigail stared up into the blackness.

Surely he could not have thought that she had grabbed him on purpose. It washe who had brushed against her!

And then, how dare he comment about her witsor her person! A gentlemandid not mention a lady's feet.

"Very well, Colonel Coally."

She stalked to the bed, skirting wide the area in front of the broken window.

The mattress sagged beneath her weight. Planting her bare feet firmly together on the cool plank floor, she wondered where the colonel planned to spend the night. Then she wondered what it would be like to sleep with a man. Naked. With his warm flesh curved around hers.

The grate of wood on wood interrupted thoughts that she had no business thinking. The colonel was pushing the cupboard across the floor, steadily, heavily. The gale whistling through the cottage abated to a dull moan.

"There. That should hold it."

Suddenly a hand weighted down the top of her head, slid down to her ear, her cheek. The fingers were cool, slightly damp from the rain. They rasped against the softness of her skin, against her breast

Fire shot through her body. "What do you think"

Her hand that reached up to push his away was clasped in a firm grasp.

A hard, calloused grasp.

He forcibly curled her fingers arounddog-eared paper.

"This was lying on top of the cupboard."

So that was where the wind had whipped the other journal.

She held her spine ramrod straight. "Thank you, Colonel Coally."

He released her hand. "My pleasure, Miss Abigail."

Heat dispersed the cold of the darknesshis body was mere inches away from her face.

She wondered if he had donned the blanket again. A particularly intriguing scene fromThe Pearl flashed before her eyes.

If she leaned forward, would she kiss wool or

"Are you all right?" he asked abruptly.

"Perfectly, thank you." She jerked her head back, wondering if she was losing her mind. "And you?"

The end of the mattress dipped. "I'm an old warhorsemoving a cupboard is hardly dangerous work."

Abigail rolled up the damp journal. The colonel was far from decrepitas he must very well know. There was not a single strand of gray in his hair. "Fishing, Colonel Coally?"

"Merely stating a truth." She jumped at the shock of a heavy thuda boot dropping onto the floor. Another thud followed. Then the entire bed shook. She sensed rather than saw him scoot across the mattress to sit with his back against the wall. "I am thirty-five years old. The last twenty-two years have been spent in the Army. What are you doing out here all by yourself?"

Abigail refused to be cheated of her anger. "What areyou doing here, Colonel Coally?"

There was a brief silence. "Convalescing."

She craned her head back in the direction where she knew he was sitting. All she could see was darkness. "There is another cottage near here?"

"No. Not nearby."

Straightening, she listened to the tempest outside the cabin for long seconds. "Twenty-two years ago you would have been thirteen, Colonel Coally. The age of consent for a no combative position is fifteen."

"You are correct, Miss Abigail." The voice in the darkness was dismissive. "I lied."

Lied? Twenty-two years ago or now?

"What are you convalescing for?"

Again that silence, followed by a reluctant, "A bullet wound."

She remembered his limp. And the sight of a well-shaped muscular ankle sprinkled with fine black hair. "In the left leg."

"Yes."

Abigail followed the war movement through the newspapers. "By a Boer?"

"Yes."

The seaside cottage was miles away from the nearest thoroughfare. She had deliberately chosen it for its isolation. "That still does not explain why you arehere, Colonel Coally."

The silence was longer this time. She concentrated on the cool damp of the journal rolled in her hands and not the throbbing warmth that came from the end of the bed where his legs stretched out.

"My horse threw me. I walked for a while, but there was no shelter to be found. Then I saw your light… and here I am."

"But why were you out in the storm?"

"Why do you read erotic literature?"

Abigail prepared to defend her choice of reading materialit was educational; it was amusing;it was none of his business. She surprised herself by baldly stating, "Because it is the only way a woman can learn about sex."

A current of electricity passed through the darkness, as if lightning had struck nearby.

"I could be mistaken, of course," the colonel's voice was gravelly, "but I believe there exists another method that a woman may discharge her curiosity."

"I never met a man who I was interested in 'discharging' my curiosity with, Colonel Coally," she said repressively.

Outside the cottage, the force of the storm rose. The wind howled around the cupboard. Waves pounded on the beach below. Thunder roared in the skies above.

It occurred to Abigail that a very real danger existed. The windcould take the thatch roof off. Wavescould swell up out of the ocean and swallow the tiny cottage. Lightningcould

"I wanted a woman."

The unexpected words jarred Abigail back to reality. "I beg your pardon?"

"You wanted to know what I was doing out here in the storm. I rode out, hoping to find a village. Or a tavern. And a willing woman."

The confession was abrupt.

Colonel Coally begrudged the need that had driven him out into the night. As Abigail begrudged the conventions that did not allow a lady the same privilege.

She should have felt shock at the admission no gentleman made to a lady; instead, she felt the lingering remnants of rancor evaporate. It was replaced by a strange sense of camaraderie.

This man had seen her trunk filled with erotica and he had not judged her. It was the height of hypocrisy to judge him now, when he obviously had his own needs.