but he was, after all, still a stranger to her, and a Roundhead at that. The hounds had got to their feet and taken up what had every appearance of a protective stance on either side of him. No reasonable explanation could be found for their acceptance of this stranger, at least none of which Jane was aware.
‘You are a stranger here, sir,’ she said calmly, having no intention of reminding him that they had already met for at that time, despite having helped him, they had still been enemies and she wondered how he would react to her if she did.
He bowed and answered in a deep, rich voice, ‘Colonel Francis Russell at your service.’ He straightened to his full height and studied her closely, because, apart from recognising her as the young woman he had seen riding her horse earlier, there was also something vaguely familiar about her and he couldn’t think what. He was moderately sure they had never met before, and yet … No, surely he would not forget a face as lovely as this. Her beauty fed his gaze and created in his being a sweet, hungering ache that could neither be easily put aside nor sated with anything less than what he desired. It was the natural desire a man felt for a woman, a desire Francis had not felt in a long time.
Jane knew instinctively that he was just as aware of her as she was of him, and she bent her head so that he should not see her confusion or the anger in her eyes.
‘Kindly explain why it is that you should be holding a pistol in such a way as it could do much harm,’ he said.
She lifted her eyes, not realising until now that she was still holding the weapon. He was studying her closely and she was aware of the tension in herself. ‘I am Jane Lucas, daughter of the late Sir John Lucas.’
‘And the pistol?’ He indicated the gun in her hand.
The amazing eyes were still focused on her as he waited for an answer. She drew a breath. ‘I picked it up when I was upstairs.’
‘And were you going to use it on me?’
She lifted her chin as her eyes caught him running a surreptitious eye over her appearance, the expression on his face condemning as it settled on the naked flesh at her throat. ‘No, I was not, Colonel Russell. I was merely going to place it out of harm’s way.’
‘Harm being?’
‘How would I know that, since I have only just now returned home?’
‘Home?’
‘Bilborough Hall, of course.’
Francis gave her a long, slow look, a twist of humour around his beautifully moulded lips. He had been aware of who she was from the moment he had set eyes on her. He recognised her from some of the Lucas family paintings he had seen on his arrival at Bilborough Hall, painted when she had been a girl. Her dark beauty had startled him. There had been a plumpness to her features, and in her eyes the artist had captured an over-boisterous girl. With the passing of the years she was much changed. At thirty years of age, he had known many beautiful women, selecting those of fire and passion, and yet he’d had no desire to form a long-standing relationship with any one of them. He had not expected to find the girl in the painting to have blossomed into such an exotic creature.
No man could remain unmoved by this young woman’s beauty. With hair as black as ebony and as sleek as silk, high cheek bones and slanting eyes as dark as two shining blackberries, a figure to rival Venus and full, ripe lips that betrayed her sensuality, she was all temptation—a bewitching, exotic creature. Her neck was long and there was a certain grace in her movements that reminded him of a swan. He was conscious of the musical resonance of her voice when she spoke, and when he lowered his eyes he saw tiny beads of perspiration in the V of her dress, open at the throat, and the thrust of her high, firm breasts straining against the fabric.
The smile building about his mouth creased the clear hardness of his jaw and to Jane, it made him appear in that moment the most handsome man in the world. The flame in his gaze kindled brighter, burning her with its intensity. Then, suddenly, his direct, masculine assurance disconcerted her. She was vividly conscious of how close he was to her. She felt an unfamiliar heat flushing her cheeks that she had never experienced before.
Instantly she felt resentful towards him, threatened in some way. The glow in her face now faded. He had made too much of an impact on her, this Roundhead, and she was afraid that if he looked at her much longer he would read what was in her mind with those, clever, brilliant blue eyes of his. She straightened her back, raising her chin in an effort to break the spell he wove about her with his eyes.
Hearing his companions’ horses clattering out of the courtyard, she said, ‘If I have offended you in any way by greeting you with a pistol in my hand, it was not intentional. I ask your pardon. I should hate you to leave Bilborough Hall thinking I am lacking in manners.’
A well-defined eyebrow jutted sharply upwards. ‘Leave? Why should you think I am leaving? I am not going anywhere.’
‘But—your friends. I think they are leaving.’
‘So they are. Without me.’
‘But—forgive me if I appear somewhat foolish, but if they are leaving, why are you not going with them? Excuse me for being blunt, Colonel, but I find the mere thought of entertaining the enemy in this house offensive.’
‘Enemy?’ A soft, amused chuckle issued forth from Francis. ‘I am not your enemy, Mistress Lucas. Far from it. War seems to get the best of everybody, but the war is over and the country is trying to pull itself together.’
‘Not while that odious man Oliver Cromwell is in charge. I must ask you to be plain, sir, and explain to me why I should find a Roundhead in my home treating it as if it were his own. Or do you prefer prevarication to plain speaking?’
‘No,’ Francis said slowly. ‘I always make a point of speaking plainly.’
‘Then why have you not left with your friends? Where will you stay?’
‘Right here. In this house.’
‘Oh, no, I think not,’ Jane said, a boulder settling where her heart had been, disquiet dwelling where just a short while before there had been happiness and joy.
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘Why should I go anywhere when this is my home? The house and estate belong to me now. I purchased it fair and square.’
Jane stared at him in instinctive fear. ‘But—how can it? You lie.’
‘I do not.’
For a long moment she did not move. She was shocked, and as she sank on to the edge of the settle, clutching its arm, an onlooker might have supposed she had died. Surely it could not be true. She had heard of such happenings, of course, of properties belonging to Royalists being sequestered, but for it to happen to her—to have Bilborough taken from her! She was too shocked to weep and this man’s careless indifference to her plight brought her to her feet, and the ill-judged words sprang to her tongue almost without conscious thought.
‘How dare you! How dare you be so callous, so thoughtless at what your purchase of Bilborough would do to me, the owner of this house.’
‘Not any longer,’ he replied bluntly. ‘Forgive me, Mistress Lucas, but I did not know you—not that it would have made any difference.’
To Jane his reply was insultingly flippant and she felt the bite of his mockery. She had been so oppressed living in Jacob Atkins’s house these past four years that her temper had been subdued. But now, for the time being, those fears began to fade, for she had greater problems at hand. Tired of being at the mercy of Jacob Atkins for so long, she had not escaped his tyranny to find herself at the mercy of another, and she would do whatever it took to claim back what was rightfully hers. As she rose and confronted the Roundhead once more, she felt a deep and abiding anger.
Francis saw the young woman’s face turn white and the slender fingers clench on the riding whip they held, and knew a fraction of a second before she raised her hand what she would do and raised his own to avoid