More frequently now, after the dinner parties and balls and assemblies were over, Quinn and Noelle would climb the stairs to their bedroom together. Whenever it happened, Noelle's heart would thump frantically. Was this going to be the night Quinn would try to open the door that separated them?

It became more and more difficult to repress the memory of the time in Yorkshire when he had made love to her. As if reading her thoughts, Quinn would stalk her with scowling eyes, but he made no attempt to touch her. They snapped at each other over trifles. Noelle was sharp with the servants. Quinn got into a fight at the faro table. Things could not go on as they were much longer.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Ever since the gentlemen had finished their cigars and brandy and joined the ladies in the drawing room, Hugo Meade, the Marquis of Blystone, had been pressing his thigh hard against hers. Noelle barely noticed. Not even Quinn's grim scowl from across the room could penetrate her good humor. Just when she thought she could not bear living another day with him, everything had changed.

It happened so unexpectedly. Tonight, on the way to their third dinner party of the week, Quinn had abruptly announced he was going to leave London in two days to assume permanent control of the Cape Crosse shipyard. Noelle, he declared, would stay here. He had set up a generous bank account for her so she could purchase her own residence and maintain her current style of living. Although there could be no divorce, they would no longer be together.

Noelle's heart sang. She was finally to be free of him!

The marquis's pressure on her thigh had become so relentless that Noelle was recalled to the present. With a shock, she realized he had been murmuring endearments to her.

"… adoration for you. All evening your beauty has sparkled like the finest wine waiting to be sampled by a true connoisseur."

"Really, Lord Blystone, you should not say such things." The arm of the sofa pushed up against her other thigh as she tried vainly to move away from him.

"Don't pretend with me," he pursued. "I know you return my passion. We must arrange to be alone so I can show you how much I love you."

Before she could snatch them away, he had caught up her fingers and brought them to his lips.

"Get your hands off my wife, before I break them."

The marquis dropped her hand as if it were a viper. Noelle had no idea how long Quinn had been standing behind them listening, but from the menace in his voice, it had been long enough.

"I hate to interrupt such a tender moment, Hugo, but I'm taking my wife home now, and if you so much as look at her again, I'll kill you." He grabbed Noelle's arm and none too gently pulled her up. With everyone watching them, he propelled her toward the doorway as if she were a disobedient child. Through stiff lips, Noelle thanked her hostess, all the while trying to hide her humiliation.

She kept her silence throughout the short carriage ride home. The unshed words struggled to be released, but she held them back, waiting for the moment when there would be no coachman to overhear her. Quinn did not even glance in her direction. Finally they stood alone in the dimly lit foyer at Northridge Square. As Quinn shut the front door Noelle unbridled her fury.

"How dare you humiliate me like that!"

"Don't push me tonight," he scowled blackly. "If you're smart, you'll just get out of my sight."

"I'll get out of your sight, all right, as soon as I tell you what I think of your manners!"

"I'm warning you, Highness…"

"And I'm warning you! You're a selfish, egotistical, arrogant bastard!"

"And you're a cheap little man-teasing bitch!"

Noelle swung at him then. She drew back her fist and smashed it full force into his jaw. Quinn should have seen it coming. Under other circumstances, he would have. But the unaccustomed jealousy that had been eating away at him all evening like a maggot had dulled his reflexes, and so he caught the full force of her blow.

Noelle sucked in her breath as she realized the folly of what she had done. Dear God, he would kill her! Catching her skirts up above her calves, she flew up the stairs, propelled by her fear.

There was a pounding. She did not know if it was her own heart or his footsteps behind her. Her mind raced. A key? Was there a key in the bedroom lock? She reached the top step, the hallway; her body sensed his presence behind her and, with a desperate lunge, she threw herself toward the door. It seemed a miracle when the knob turned in her hand. She shot inside and pushed against it. The latch caught. She reached for the key, began to turn it…

The door crashed in on her with such force that she was knocked from her feet. The floor underneath her shook as the heavy oak slammed shut. Lying in a pool of spilled satin on the dark rug, she heard the key turn in the lock. There was a whimper-pitiful, like a child's. With a curious detachment, she wondered who was in the room with them, and then realized the sound had come from her own throat.

Quinn loomed over her, one hand balled into a fist at his side.

"You're going to pay for that in the only way you understand."

Locking his eyes with hers, he raised his hands to his lapels and slowly pulled off his evening coat, flicking it over the chair next to him without changing his position. Then he began unfastening his waistcoat, slipping the jet studs one by one into the palm of his hand. There was no waste in his movements. Each action was deliberate, unhurried, and filled with purposeful menace. He pulled at the knot of his white neckcloth.

"For weeks now I've kept my distance from you. I've paid your bills and let you go on your way. Lately I've been asking myself why. And you know, Highness, I couldn't come up with a good answer."

Noelle watched with deadly fascination as his shirt slowly parted, revealing the powerfully muscled chest she remembered so well. It was only when his hands dropped to the waistband of his trousers that she overcame her paralysis. With a cry she leaped to her feet and dashed toward the door, but like a whip his arm snapped out and coiled around her.

"Oh, no, you don't! Not till I'm through with you."

He yanked off her cloak and then picked her up and unceremoniously tossed her onto the bed. She gave a yelp of pain as her elbow slammed into the mahogany dragon's head, but Quinn ignored her cry. Throwing himself down beside her, he gripped her slim shoulders and flipped her over onto her stomach, then planted his knee in the small of her back.

"With what this dress probably cost me, I'll be damned if I'll rip it off!" Only when he had unfastened each hook did he pull the satin gown from her struggling form. His patience wore thin, however, when it came to her petticoats, and they were soon in a torn heap on the floor.

She lay on her back before him, only a thin white chemise covering her flesh. In the struggle to remove her clothing, her hair had come undone and now it streamed about her, iced by the winter moonlight pouring in through the window.

For a moment Quinn stared down at her. There was something different about the way she looked. It nagged at him. And then, in an instant, he saw what it was. The beautiful eyes that blazed up at him were full of fury and loathing, but they held no terror. She hated him, that was certain, but she seemed no longer to fear him.

With the fascination of a scientist testing a hypothesis, he reached down and cupped her breast through the thin material of the chemise. She spat out an angry oath and kicked at him furiously. He chuckled. And then his amusement died in a groan of pain as one of her blows landed on his tender jaw.

With a growl he fell on her, using the pressure of his muscular body to still her struggles, slamming his mouth to hers in a kiss that was more an assault than a caress, grinding his hard lips, wanting to hurt. She fought against him, clawing at his back with her nails, arching her body in a futile attempt to push him off. He felt her first tremors of panic and, unaccountably, his anger fell away. Losing their desire to injure, his lips began ministering to her bruised mouth. There was a subtle change in her responses. Although the heels of her hands still dug into his shoulders, trying to push him away, her slowly parting lips delivered a different message.

He kissed her temples, her ears, enjoyed the slim pillar of her throat. When he brought himself back to her mouth, his tongue no longer had to invade, it was welcomed. Now her body moved under him with a different rhythm. His erotic senses told him his hands could move further without meeting resistance, that her breasts yearned to be stroked until the tender tips ached and strained for more.

Her response brought his own desire to a frenzy, but he held himself in check, stroking her arms and throat before he slipped down the straps of her chemise, kissing the line of her collarbone and shoulders before claiming her breasts. Even as they both lay naked in a bath of moonlight, he listened to her body, taking his cues from her response. When his kiss voyaged below the line of her waist to her stomach, and he sensed the subtle overture of fear, he replaced his mouth with his hand and smiled to himself as her muscles once again relaxed.

Then everything changed. He felt the subtle pressure of her hands on his shoulders, signaling that she no longer wanted him over her. Cautiously he shifted his weight so that he was lying on his side, facing her. For a moment she was still, and then her soft hand reached toward him and he finally understood. She wanted access to his body.

His breath was ragged in his throat as her fingers began their first tentative exploration of the muscles of his shoulders and chest. Although her movements were cautious and inexperienced, he could not remember when a woman's touch had excited him more. With a barely audible moan, he rolled onto his back. Her fingers touched the hair on his chest and then found a nipple, hard and flat, so different from her own. He shuddered, and her hand jerked away. Willing himself to lie still, he waited for her. Hesitantly she returned to test her power. His breath quickened as her cascading hair teased his bare flesh. Her hand made its way to his stomach, traveled across its flat plane, and descended unsurely. He felt her tremble, and then her fingers touched the very pulse of him. With a wince, she drew back her hand from his size, and the fear he had vanquished with his patient caresses once more took her prisoner.