many others have there been?” she raged. “How many other mail-order brides before me? Did they run off, or have you got them all locked up down there in your—”
Her tirade ended in a startled gasp as he caught her shoulders, jerked her against his chest and wrapped her tightly in his arms.
“What do you think you’re doing?” She fought like a wet cat, squirming and twisting in protest. Malachi could feel her small, shivering body through his clothes. He tightened his none too gentle embrace.
“I’m trying to keep you warm. Hold still, damn it!”
“I will not! This is outrageous!” she hissed, craning her neck to glare up at him. “Let me go this instant!”
Malachi did not loosen his grip on her. “Listen to me for a change,” he ordered. “You’ve taken a bad chill. If we don’t get you warmed up fast, you’re going to be down with double pneumonia, and the last thing I need is a sick, whining female on my hands. Is that clear?”
“Clear?” She gave a disdainful little snort that could have meant either yes or no. “What a question! After the way you’ve treated me, I’d rather snuggle up to Beelzebub over there!”
Malachi swallowed the temptation to let her try exactly that. She was so cold it frightened him, and her teeth were chattering like Spanish castanets.
He dredged the well of his patience, his arms tightening around her as he spoke. “I wouldn’t recommend that. Beelzebub is covered with mud, and even when he’s dry he has a disposition like a snapping turtle’s. So unless you want to catch your death, Anna, I’m afraid I’m your last and only resort.”
Even then she resisted, triggering a burr of annoyance that rankled Malachi beyond the point of self-control. “If you’re worried about your precious so-called virtue, believe me, you’ve nothing to fear,” he snapped. “I’m so damned cold and tired myself that I couldn’t take advantage of you even if I wanted to!”
Anna had gone rigid in his arms. He could feel the rage pulsing through her body, the ragged intake of breath as she groped for a retort that would hurt him as much as he had just hurt her. “What was it I called you earlier?” she asked in a raw-edged whisper.
“As I recall, you called me a cold-blooded, self-righteous prig,” Malachi said.
“So I did.” Anna’s eyes glinted like an angry bobcat’s. “Well, I was wrong, and I would like to apologize.”
“Apologize?” Malachi raised his guard.
“Yes.” She spoke in brittle phrases, not quite veiling the sentiment that if she’d had a knife she would have cheerfully buried it to the hilt in his gut. “I fear that I was guilty of gross understatement. If the truth be told, Mr. Stone, you are the most sanctimonious, high-handed, hypocritical bast—”
“Shut up, Anna.” He jerked his arms tight, crushing her against him so abruptly that the breath whooshed out of her lungs. Her throat made incoherent little grunts of anger as she wriggled and squirmed against his vise-like grasp. Malachi felt the sudden gush of heat in the depths of his own body, and for the space of a breath he wrestled with the idea of silencing her full, plum-ripe mouth with his own. A sharp kick against his shinbone jarred him back to reality. This woman had every reason to hate him. Married or not, he had no business kissing her.
Steeling himself, he kept his hold on her. “I’m well aware of who and what I am,” he said, spitting out the words syllable by syllable, “and right now all I’m trying to do is keep you from freezing.”
For an instant longer he felt her straining in his arms. Then she muttered something under her breath and sagged wearily against his chest. It was a victory of sorts, but as he held her Malachi realized he had no idea what he’d won.
The dark hollow beneath the rock had grown disturbingly quiet. He could hear the steady drizzle of rain pouring off the edge of the outcrop and the low gurgle of the mule’s gut as the animal shifted in the shadows. He could hear the wind soughing down the canyon and feel, where his hand cradled Anna’s ribs, the low, rapid beating of her heart, like the tick of a tiny watch against his palm.
She had ceased all effort to move or speak. Her stillness only heightened Malachi’s awareness of his aching groin. He had told her, none too gently, that she had nothing to fear from him. Too late, he realized how wrong he had been. Anna had as much to fear from him as from any man, and the fact that she was his legal wife only made matters worse.
Had she told him the truth about her reason for coming here, he wondered, or was she lying to him just as she’d admitted lying to Stuart? Only a fool would trust such a creature, and life had long since kicked all the foolishness out of him. So why was he suddenly overcome by the urge to keep her safe, to protect her and fight off her fears? His emotions were making no sense, least of all to himself.
He leaned back against the rock, her wet hair drizzling down the front of his shirt. She smelled of rain and lilacs and sweet, clean woman. The subtle aroma swam in Malachi’s senses, fueling the blaze that her voluptuous little body had ignited in his vitals. He bit back a groan as she stirred against him. Lord, didn’t she know she was tormenting his body and soul? Hellfire, of course she did. Anna was the kind of woman who would know exactly how to trigger a man’s desire. She was probably playing with him, laughing inside as she drove him to a slow frenzy.
And, heaven help him, he didn’t want her to stop.
“Who are you really, Anna?” His voice came out thick and muzzy, as if he had just been roused from sleep. “Where did you come from and what the blazes are you doing here?”
“Does it matter?” Her voice carried an edge of weariness. “Would you believe me even if I told you?”
Malachi sighed, knowing he needed the distraction of talk. “Maybe not. But I could use a good story.”
She hesitated, then laughed huskily, low in her throat. “In that case, I’m the missing heir to the throne of Montenegro. My father the king—a good sort, but desperate for aid against the Turks—was forced to pledge my hand to the evil and repulsive Prince of Transylvania. On the eve of the wedding, I stole the crown jewels and fled westward with a band of roving gypsies. The prince’s agents are everywhere, and if they catch me, I’ll be forced to wed their warty master. The next day, after a hellish wedding night, my bleeding head will be impaled on a pole outside the palace gates.” Anna had spoken so rapidly that when she paused for breath, the sharp inhalation pressed her ripe, lovely bosom into Malachi’s chest. “There, are you satisfied?” she asked.
Malachi groaned.
“You told me you wanted a story.”
“I’d have preferred the truth.”
“I told you the truth earlier. See where it got me.” Her voice rasped with exhaustion. She sagged in his arms for the space of a heartbeat, then seemed to rally. “What about you? What black secrets lie behind that great, stony face of yours?”
Malachi shifted his back against the lumpy rock. “What did my cousin tell you?”
“That you were a widower…and an upright, God-fearing man. Are you?”
Malachi laughed roughly. “A widower? Yes. The rest is a matter of opinion.”
“Could you shed some light on that?” Her small, square-jawed face tilted upward in the dim light and, once more, Malachi was seized by the insane urge to kiss her—kiss her brutally, as she deserved for the lies that had brought her to his world. He imagined arching her against him, his free hand ravishing every luscious curve and hollow of her body, then cupping her buttocks to grind her softness against his burning arousal until she whimpered with need. He imagined flinging her to the ground and taking her right here, in the cold, muddy darkness, under the legs of the mule. What the hell, in her line of work, she’d likely done that and more. He could even offer to pay—
“Malachi?”
Her voice, and the sudden