Guarded Heart by Jennifer Blake

Author:Jennifer Blake [Blake, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA
Published: 2008-12-12T23:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

Gavin half expected to see Ariadne at the dueling ground in spite of what he’d said the night before; he did not put it past her to find some way of flouting public opinion and common sense by attending. A number of closed carriages sat off to one side, apparently the conveyances of spectators, but no females were in view. That she was not there might be owed to Maurelle’s good sense or else fatigue due to her late-night excursion. It was just as well, either way. It gave him no pleasure to think the lady might rejoice in seeing him injured.

God, but what had been in his mind when he kissed her? The answer was very little, if the truth were known. He had thought, in his ignorance of her mettle, that Ariadne might have sent Novgorodcev to goad him into this ill-considered duel. It was only as she faced him with her plea to avoid it that he realized she was outraged because the Russian seemed likely to steal the honor she craved, that of dispatching him herself.

His reaction to her presence, so unwary, so unprotected there at his atelier, had been predictable but no less stupid for all that. Now the scent and taste of her was embedded in his mind. It was a dangerous distraction.

He had come so close to taking her in blind, searing passion and a welter of crushed velvet and wrinkled skirts, like some street walker. Was it the conscious testing of her resolve which moved him, as he had thought, or sheer blind concupiscence? He wished he knew, wished as well that he could be certain he would have released her short of rutting consummation if she had not made that small sound of distress.

He could not be at all sure.

More than that, the mind-cracking effort it had taken to force himself away from her still sang in his blood like some ancient war chant. With luck, it might give him the edge necessary to face death while mounted on an animal whose most certain instinct was to avoid it. His one consolation was that Novgorodcev’s horse, a big gray gelding with a white blaze, was unlikely to be better trained. Duels such as this one were not so common as to fill the stables of New Orleans with steeds trained to stand while someone tried to hack off their ears.

It was Caid who had supplied Gavin’s mount from the selection he and his wife, Lisette, kept for their private use. The black stallion was a mixture of stock horse, plains pony and Arabian from the look of him, bred for stamina and speed, and trained to knee commands. Gavin had put him through his paces the afternoon before and thought he would do.

The dawn was gray and dripping, an introduction to yet another wet day. It made for uncertain conditions here under the oaks that splattered the ground with heavy droplets every time the wind stirred the branches overhead. How much

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