A Stolen Heart

“You think that I would simply abandon you there?”

“Well, you did.”

“I was coming back. I wanted to see the Countess home, to make sure she was all right. I specifically told you to wait. If you had listened to me instead of charging off on your own, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“Oh!” Alexandra glared at him. “Now you are blaming me because some man decided to attack me?”

“I’m not blaming you. I am simply saying that it was foolish of you to walk home without an escort.”

“May I remind you that I am perfectly able to take care of myself. I don’t have to sit around kicking my heels, waiting for my escort to reappear and trundle me home like some piece of baggage.”

“Able to take care of yourself?” He raised a scornful brow. “It hardly appears that way.”

“What do you mean?” Alexandra clenched her hands, jutting her chin forward pugnaciously. “I did take care of myself. I kicked him and tore away from him and ran to the house. No one helped me but myself!”

“The point is that you wouldn’t even have been attacked if you had not been walking alone. He probably thought you were—”

“Were what?” Alexandra’s eyes flashed fire, and she set her hands on her hips.

“Easy prey,” Thorpe said, tight-lipped. “And, blast it, you were.”

“I think it’s time for you to leave,” Alexandra said coldly.

Thorpe started to speak, then stopped. “Yes. No doubt you are right. I will take my leave of you.” He turned and strode toward the door. He stopped as he reached it and turned. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow afternoon,” he said peremptorily. “I promised the Countess that I would bring you over then. She wants very much to meet you.” He gave her a nod and added, “Good night. Make sure all your doors are locked.”

Alexandra’s jaw dropped. How dare he tell her where she was going and what she was doing tomorrow afternoon? She whirled and took out some of her frustration by kicking a stool across the room.

“Ow!” She hurt her toe and hopped over to the sofa, holding it. “Blast that man!”

Lord Thorpe, she decided, was the most arrogant, aggravating, high-handed man she had ever had the misfortune to meet. First he left her at the party, telling her to wait there, as if she were a dog or a servant. Then he had the nerve to tell her that she should not have left the party without him, that she had not heard what she had, and that it was her fault someone had attacked her because she had walked home alone. And he had finished it all off by telling her that he was taking her to the Countess’s the next afternoon, as if she had nothing to say in the matter!

The awful thing, she had to admit to herself, was that despite all that, no matter his arrogance or his ordering her about, she was still all aquiver from those moments when they had kissed. His kisses had stirred her in ways she had never known before, and even now she felt hot and jittery—and if he walked in the door this instant, she would have to struggle to keep from running to him to kiss him again! How could a man infuriate her so much and at the same time make her want him so? Alexandra would not have thought it possible.

Her aunt bustled in. “Has he left?” Her eyes searched Alexandra’s face carefully.

“Yes. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know—as if you are searching for something.”

“No. It’s only…I’ve never seen you look at someone that way.”

“What way?”

“The way you looked at Mr. Thorpe.”

“Lord Thorpe.”

“Of course. Lord Thorpe.” Her aunt rolled her eyes. “These Englishmen and their infernal love of titles. As if that makes any difference to what the man is.” She paused. “Alexandra, do you…have feelings for this man?”