The Makeshift Marriage by Sandra Heath Read Free Book Online

speak. Her hand crept to her throat to finger the black velvet ribbon.
    He smiled coolly and walked into the room without permission, closing the door behind him. “Good morning, my dear Miss Milbanke.”
    “Please leave,” she whispered, backing away from him. All the terror returned, and not even the brightness of the spring morning could dispel it now.
    “Leave? But that would avail me of nothing.”
    “Avail you?”
    He nodded, still smiling as he came closer to her. She was aware only of the intensity burning in his eyes. “I ask you again to leave!” she cried.
    “How very beautiful you are, even when you are afraid,” he murmured, reaching out a gloved hand to touch her pale cheek. “You have eluded me, Miss Milbanke, and your beauty almost led me astray from my main purpose. But now it is done, in a few minutes it will all be over and my purpose completed —well, almost completed.”
    She stared at him.
    “Even had you been as ugly as sin itself, Miss Milbanke, I should still have come here now. Fortune, however, has smiled upon me and made you so very beautiful that my task will be sweetly accomplished. Oh, how sweetly.”
    “Please go,” she said, her voice barely audible, “Please… . ”
    He reached out to her and she stumbled back against a small table as she tried to elude him. She wanted to scream, but as before in the piazza, her voice lost all strength. Please let Nicholas come soon! Please!
    Moving with unexpected swiftness, the baron caught her wrist, his smile not wavering as he drew her into his arms. He was so very strong that she stood no chance. Pressing her body against his, he forced her face up and kissed her hard on the lips. It was a kiss that seemed to last a lifetime, during which the mute helplessness and revulsion swam over her again and again in sickening waves. Her mind screamed for help to come, but her voice was struck dumb, her strength drained so that she could not even struggle against her assailant.
    Vaguely, almost from beyond consciousness, she heard someone knocking at the door. It must be Nicholas! It must be! Please God…. With a supreme effort she summoned her poor strength to thrust herself away from the baron, and at last found voice enough to scream.
    The door opened immediately and Nicholas came in, his eyes hardening with anger as he saw the scene. Instinctively he held out a hand to her and she ran to him, clinging to his fingers and almost sobbing with relief.
    “I thought he was you,” she cried, “I let him in.”
    The door remained open and Nicholas coldly inclined his head toward it. “I think your presence is displeasing to Miss Milbanke, sir,” he said.
    The baron smiled, not at all perturbed by the situation, indeed he seemed to be rather enjoying it. “Yours is the presence which is displeasing, my dear Sir Nicholas.”
    Two Austrian officers stood outside the door, their attention caught by what was happening, “Baron, I demand that you leave,” said Nicholas.
    “But you heard what Miss Milbanke told you,” said the baron reasonably, “She let me in. Do not let her protestations of innocence fool you, Grenville. She invited me in knowing full well what would ensue. She has played games with me since first she arrived, enticing me and playing the coquette. It was all leading to but one purpose, which as a man of the world you must know as well as I do. You have interrupted a tender consummation, sir, and it is I who must ask you to leave.”
    Laura stared at him. How very convincing he was, how very plausible!
    The baron smiled again. “Keep your well-bred nose out of my affairs, Grenville, and you may take that as a timely warning, a warning to which you would be advised to pay good heed.”
    Laura knew suddenly that he was doing it all purposely; he was deliberately trying to provoke Nicholas into a duel. But why? Why? Her fingers tightened over Nicholas’s. “Be careful,” she said urgently. “Just let it pass, I beg of