Dominic flinched. “I can always count on you to wield the knife. This time you’re quite right, of course. I’ve seen to it that she has no good name left to blacken more. And that’s all the more reason not to rob her of anything else.”

She studied him. “You are saying you haven’t bedded her yet. I find that very strange. It is clear you have a great hunger for her, and you are white.”

“Not all white men take everything they hunger for.”

“My father did.” Silver smiled bitterly. “And I think you intended to take Elspeth also, did you not?”

“Yes.”

“Then do not tell me white men do not take what they want.” She paused. “But there is something you should know. Elspeth is now my friend. I will not let you bed her unless she desires it also.” Her smile was a mere baring of even white teeth. “Go to see her. The memory of my little knife and my threat to plunge it into your back will make certain you rob her of nothing more than a few moments of her day.”

Dominic experienced a niggling resentment, mixed with relief and amusement. He had brought Silver here to act as a guardian for Elspeth, but he had never thought she would be guarded from himself. Yet who in Hell’s Bluff was a greater danger to her? he wondered grimly. “All right, you little cougar cub, I’ll see her.” He turned and began climbing the stairs. “Just keep your knife out of my hide until you see it’s needed.”

The moment he saw Elspeth standing by the window looking down at the street below, he knew he would have to keep the memory of Silver’s little knife in the forefront of his mind. She was dressed in a prim dark blue flannel robe that completely enveloped her tiny figure. The garment was utilitarian and uninspiring and should not have evoked anything but boredom in any observer. Yet all he could think was how light and silky her hair appeared against the dark material, and that the very shaplessness of the garment reminded him of the delicacy of the curves it concealed.

She turned as he walked through the doorway and for a moment the faintest color touched her cheeks. She was wearing those damn spectacles again, he noticed. It was the first time she had put them on since he had removed them that night at the cabin; she wore them now, he was sure, as a mask to hide behind. Judkins, he thought with a swift flare of anger. The bastard had upset her and the glasses were a first line of defense.

She smiled tentatively. “Thank you for coming; I felt I had to see you.”

He closed the door behind him and then immediately wished he had left it open. The air of intimacy in the small room was suddenly overpowering. He cleared his throat. “Should you be out of bed?”

“Oh, yes, I get up a little while each day now. I’m much stronger. Soon I’ll be entirely well.” She moistened her lower lip with her tongue and he watched her in helpless fascination, feeling the familiar swelling in his loins. That little pink tongue had been one of the objects of his imaginings on the long ride to Hell’s Bluff. Now he could almost feel its warm moistness on his body.

“That’s what I wanted to discuss with you,” she continued a little breathlessly. “There’s really no reason for me to stay here any longer. It’s costing me far too much money and I’d be just as happy to return to the cabin.” She moistened her lips again. “Far happier really. I’m sure the fresh air will be much healthier for me than- What are you looking at?” She touched her cheek with uncertain fingertips. “Do I have a smudge on my face?”

With an effort he pulled his gaze away. Lord, he had to get out of here. “No, I was just thinking how much better you were looking than the last time I saw you.” He tried to focus his thoughts on what she was saying. “The money doesn’t matter. I can make enough at the Nugget to pay for our expenses. We’ll stay here until you’re well.”

Her eyes widened in distress. “But I really think-”

“Then don’t think,” he interrupted with sudden harshness. “Look, Judkins won’t trouble you anymore. I know I broke my promise, but you can rely on me to see that no one else will bother you again until you’re ready to leave.”

“Silver told you.” Elspeth frowned. “She wasn’t supposed to. What do you mean, he won’t trouble me? You haven’t-”

“Killed him?” Dominic asked. “No, and it won’t come to that. Threats work as well as violence with some men.” He smiled bitterly. “In spite of what you may have heard, I consider it very serious indeed to take a life.”

“But I have no right to stay here. Mr. Judkins owns the hotel, and he’s quite correct in saying he decides who stays here.”

“And just where do you suggest I take you? Rina’s? That would really put a proper icing on the cake.”

“No, I told you, the cabin will do just fine.”

His gaze swung back to her face. “We’d be too alone there,” he said bluntly. “There would come a time when Silver would go for a walk or a ride, when there would be no threat of her little knife, when I’d forget how you looked when you were lying at the bottom of that gorge.”

She was gazing at him in bewilderment. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you’re about to find out.” He was walking toward her, his light eyes intent on her face. “Do you remember what I did to you before you fell that night?”

“Yes.” Her voice was only a level above a whisper.

He was so close now he could catch the faint floral scent that clung to her hair and see the delicate shadows in the hollows at her throat above the collar of the cotton nightgown: “I would do it again.”

“You would ravish me?”

“Oh, dear Lord, I hope not.” He reached out to touch the rapid pulse throbbing just below her chin. He knew a wild excitement as he felt the leaping response beneath the pad of his fingertips. Such a little thing and yet he felt a whiplash of heat add dimension to his manhood. “But I most certainly would try to seduce you.” His fingers moved to touch the wire rim of her spectacles. “Why are you wearing these again?”

The pink in her cheeks deepened. “I told you I needed them.”

“Yes, I remember you said so.” His thumb moved to the sensitive spot just behind her ear and began to slowly rub it.

“I do need them. Besides, they can take nothing away from my looks.”

“By all means, wear the spectacles. I think I like the idea of being the only man who knows what’s behind them.”

Exasperation and pity fought for dominance within him. Why did she persist in thinking herself so plain that men didn’t want her? Her blindness to her beauty was not only idiotic, but dangerous. Yet it was a blindness he could now partially understand. The bits and pieces of her childhood she had revealed while she was feverish had drawn for him a very clear picture of her father. He held her to impossible standards while denigrating her completely; it was astonishing she had emerged with any confidence in herself as either an individual or a female.

“Your spectacles are like the veils those harem ladies wear.” He tugged gently on the lobe of her ear. “But you should remember that the primary pleasure of any barrier to a man is removing it.” The nail of his thumb pressed into her ear lobe with just enough pressure to tease without hurting. He could see the sudden leap of her pulse beneath the delicate blue veins at her temple. “I’m very fond of removing barriers.”

Elspeth had a fleeting, disjointed memory of her disrobing the night she had fallen into the gorge. She swallowed. “Are you trying to seduce me now?”

“You bet I am.”

“Why?”

“It’s the way of a man with a woman.”

She tilted her head and her eyes lit with the curiosity he now recognized as one of her more salient qualities. “Any woman?”

“No, not-” He broke off as he realized suddenly the denial sprang from a knowledge he had refused to admit even to himself. Now he comprehended the full extent of the sway she held over his emotions. He wanted no one but Elspeth. The realization sent a ripple of shock through him, quickly followed by defensive anger. He couldn’t have Elspeth. And, when she was gone, would he be able to want another woman? The witch was damn near emasculating him. This madness had to stop. His hand dropped from her ear and he said with deliberate coolness, “All cats are gray in the dark.”

She flinched as waves of shock and hurt swept over her. Then she lifted her chin proudly. “Thank you for explaining that to me. I think you’re right about staying here in Hell’s Bluff. I don’t believe I’m a person who would like being mistaken for someone else, even in the dark.” The flush tinging her cheeks had become scarlet. “And I certainly have no wish to be alone with you.”

He felt unreasonably irritated. “You’ve forgotten about Kantalan,” he drawled. “You were willing enough to do anything for me, with me, if I would take you to your precious Kantalan. Perhaps I was too hasty in refusing you; perhaps we could come to an… arrangement. Have you changed your mind?”

She was gazing at him with a look of utter confusion. “You have no intention of taking me to Kantalan. I think you’re trying to hurt me, to shame me. Why are you doing this?”

He was trying to hurt her. He was using her childhood dream to hit back at her for the rage and frustration he was experiencing at the discovery that had rocked him to his bootheels.

“Because I’m that kind of a man,” he said wearily as he turned toward the door. “I strike out and I’m not always careful about who gets in the way. Maybe you should try to remember that. It shouldn’t be hard to do since I seem to give you plenty of opportunity to refresh your memory.”

He strode quickly from the room and shut the door.

He stopped in the hall and closed his eyes. No, dammit, he wouldn’t have it! It wasn’t fair that he had developed this crazy obsession. Only now did he realize how odd it was he hadn’t gone to Rina’s in the last two weeks to soothe the fever Elspeth had ignited. He clenched his fists. He would not be dependent on Elspeth MacGregor. He would not need her as well as lust after her. She would soon be gone and he had his own life to live. He must cut these sensual ties before they became too strong to sever.