Succumb to Me (2 page)

“Excuse me,” she mumbled, curiosity prompting
her to peer up into his down turned face as he towered above
her.

She found herself gazing into a familiar pair
of dark eyes, filled with mocking amusement. Shocked recognition
made the breath freeze in her lungs. Her mind screamed the warning
to run, but she found her legs had turned to jelly and could not
obey.

Winter jerked from his grasp as though
scorched by a heated iron.

He smiled darkly, his black cape and thick,
midnight hair fluttering around him as a gust of wind swept between
them. Surrounded by movement and immediacy, he seemed to retain a
sense of stillness as he watched her, almost anticipatory of what
she would do next. As though he wished she would run so that he
could pursue her.

It was
him
. The man who’d haunted her conscience and her
dreams with guilt for a year after she’d first known him. A man she
had completely forgotten in the ensuing tragedy she’d suffered with
her father’s death. Or at least, she’d told herself she’d forgotten
him.

His name whispered in her mind like a curse
and a caress.

Logan Cordell.

This man ... she’d wished never to see him
again. His very name filled her with a deep shame at what she’d
allowed to happen. It had been years since she’d seen him, not
since she’d been a green girl on her first season. She’d been no
more than eighteen at the time, and it seemed a lifetime ago.
Despite the passage of time, however, she saw that every sensuous
nuance of his face and form were the same.

She blinked away the memories, studying him
now and realized that she had been wrong. He had changed over the
years. His eyes no longer laughed, they mocked. The laugh lines
around his mouth that she had once found so intriguing crinkled now
in derisive amusement. The charming rogue had vanished. In his
place was a man who had hardened, and she wondered with horror if
she’d been the cause.

But he wasn’t supposed to be here. He was
supposed to be in England, settling his estranged father’s affairs
... and living out his life there to the end of his days.

His presence here confirmed just how dire her
situation was. She knew immediately who had commissioned the nude
portrait—understood the irony of the painting’s theme. It could be
the only reason why he would come to Giovanni’s residence.

A sickening certainty engulfed her, bringing
with it raging emotions she could scarcely recognize as belonging
to herself. With an effort, she controlled the urge to yield to
them just as she’d always done—and always would.

“We meet again, Miss Stevens.” His voice
rolled over her like black velvet, vibrating with intensity,
seductive and warm as it had ever been in her memories. He took her
hand where it hung limply by her side and pressed his lips to the
back of it, the heat of his breath warming her hand through the
silken lace glove. She could almost feel the soft texture of his
mouth and the rough shadow of whiskers through her thin gloves,
little barrier to the sensual assault he bore against her mind.

Every impulse urged her to snatch her hand
away, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a response.
He’d merely unsettled her, no more. She felt nothing for him now
but an intense need to see him strung up by his thumbs. She had not
been dubbed an ice princess by him without good cause. “Good day to
you, Mr. Cordell,” she said with practiced calm as she withdrew her
hand from his.

“What brings you to our mutual friend, Mr.
Giovanni?” he asked, all innocence.

As if he didn’t know. Her temple pounded
again, the headache coming back in full force with the struggle to
maintain her facade.

He watched her with dark eyes, a half smile
teasing the corner of his lips, as though he knew she’d discovered
his mischief and thought to gain a rise out of her on the spot.

What she wanted to do was slap his smug face
clean off. Her palm itched with pure need, but she remembered
another time and place when she’d given in to her impulses. Had she
retained better control then, she would not be in this situation
now. Far better to rage inside than give in to her dangerous urges.
“I was merely settling some private affairs,” she said through a
forced smile, her face feeling as though it would crack under the
strain.

“I’m sure.” His voice held the allure of
intimate knowledge—a secret shared between them.

If she were not a lady ... she
would
slap him. She was already
beginning to feel sorry she hadn’t. Instead, she said, “I had not
heard you patronized Mr. Giovanni, nor that you had returned to
town.”

“My
interests
would no doubt surprise you.” He paused
and raked a hand through his unfashionably long hair curling in the
wind. “As it happens, not all men of my profession are
boorish oafs
. I consider myself a
patron of the arts.”

Winter thought she was going to be sick at
the reminder. “If you’ll excuse me, I must be going.” She turned to
go, but he blocked her escape with a hand on her upper arm—as if he
had a right to touch her as he willed, that some permission had
been granted him. She pulled loose from his hand and regarded him
coldly.

“Do you require an escort? It has been
long since I was in the city, but I am certain unmarried women
of
genteel
breeding do not
wander its streets alone.”

She recognized sarcasm when she heard it.
Dare he suggest her actions at fault, when his own were so odious?
“Thank you, no. I’ve arranged for someone to come.”

“Very well then. Perhaps you will allow me to
call on you some time.”

Her lips tightened.
“
Friends
are always welcome
visitors,” she said snidely, hoping he was not too dense to
perceive the obvious. He had never been a friend and was certainly
not one now.

He bowed and left her as a coach pulled up on
the street.

The skin on her neck prickled, and she could
swear he watched her as she entered the coach to leave, but she did
not look back to confirm her suspicions. She had no intention of
giving him the satisfaction of knowing how much he unsettled
her.

* * * *

From the window of Giovanni’s studio, Logan
watched Winter’s carriage as it disappeared from sight, his mood
pensive.

“My Lord, you are not pleased with the
painting?” Worry tinged Giovanni’s voice.

Logan did not turn, continuing to stare out
the window. “On the contrary, I could not be more pleased with the
results,” he said pensively. He rubbed a thumb along his whisker
roughened chin absently, his thoughts upon the subject of the
painting and their late skirmish.

The painting, as exquisite and revealing as
it was, could never compare to Winter. It depicted the beauty of
her face and figure, but it portrayed no more than a pretty shell.
It could not capture her life’s essence—so palpable he could feel
it when she was near.

And yet, he had not lied. He was most pleased
with the results, for he had seen in her eyes that she knew the
hunter had come for her and she had found herself trapped in his
snare.

The painting would be equal torment to them
both—for he found it only served to heighten his hunger to possess
her, to see her naked and wanting, writhing with passion beneath
him. It spurred his impatience to break through that chill exterior
she had cultivated so carefully to find the vibrant woman she hid
beneath the surface.

She was just as he’d remembered, just as
forbidden, just as tempting to touch.

Every memory of her, every secret longing
he’d buried deep inside over the years pushed back into his
consciousness, to be relived with painful intensity. He should not
have come back. His father had been right in that at least, but,
despite the years and miles that separated them, he’d found he
could not forget her. And finally he had known that he would have
no peace unless he sought her out, and finished what they’d
begun.

She had tormented him in her innocence, still
did.

The smell of her hair drove him to
distraction; her regal poise and cool stare; the seductive
huskiness of her voice, tinged with the lure of the South.... He’d
spent countless waking nights imagining what he would do when he
met her again, what he would do when she was within his
grasp....

It was madness to have come, insanity to have
set his plot in motion. Or, if not, then he would surely be driven
to madness before he accomplished his goal, and he hadn’t yet
tasted her hidden delights. Her disdain, the sharp intelligence she
possessed that cut to the quick might well be the death of him, for
it had led him to this lunacy.

And yet he had no reservations regarding the
course he had chosen for himself. He knew a wildcat lay just
beneath her prim, icy surface, waiting for him to free her from her
self-imposed prison. That promise drew him to her as surely as
dying man to water.

The question was, would he come out
unscathed, as he always had?

It seemed unlikely, and yet that in itself
was a part of the challenge, to have his revenge and come out
unscathed, as he had not before. But he also knew that Winter was a
woman of hidden passion, that could draw him in and slay him with
his own sword. A man could spend a lifetime trying to unlock her
secrets. He relished the challenge of facing a foe his equal, when
winning would be such sweet reward....

* * * *

Winter was nearly home when she realized she
had done nothing more during the entire return trip than stare
blankly into space while the images of her meeting with Logan
Cordell replayed itself over and over in her mind. Each time it
did, she thought of something far more clever that she could have
said to set him back on his heels. By the time she became aware of
her surroundings once more, she’d had him groveling at her feet,
begging her forgiveness and offering up the painting, which she had
promptly ripped to shreds—and still withheld her forgiveness.

Reality set in at last. She had been
blindsided and she had done little more than stare at him with the
frightened eyes of a rabbit caught in a snare, stammer and shake
with fear. She seethed with anger, but fear reared its ugly face
once more, undermining her righteous anger, which should have given
her strength.

Winter could only wonder when Logan Cordell
would strike again. She could scarcely bear thinking on it, for
each time she did it heightened her anxieties to the point that
panic set in, but she knew she would have to try to prepare for any
eventuality. Perhaps nothing would come of it after all, she
thought hopefully, and she was worrying herself needlessly.

The lie did nothing to ease her fears.
As foolhardy as she knew it must be to act hastily, she was fairly
certain that her nerves could not withstand the wiser course, to
wait and see. She must think of something. She couldn’t help
feeling that her situation could only worsen if she did nothing.
But what
could
she
do?

On reaching home, she was greeted by her
mother before she’d gotten fully inside and removed her cloak.

Excited and breathless, her mother clasped
her hands agitatedly. “Winter, you will not believe the news I have
heard this day! Come, sit in the parlor with me. I must tell you at
once.”

Winter couldn’t imagine what her mother could
have heard to discompose her so. They never had visitors. Whatever
friends they’d had before had disappeared in direct proportion with
the money the debt collectors had accumulated from her father’s
accounts after his death.

Naturally enough, her first thought was that
her mother had somehow heard about the painting, and she thought
for several moments that she might faint. Fortunately her sense of
guilt and fear had not totally deprived her of her wits and she
realized that her mother actually seemed excited by her news, not
hysterical.

She was able to regain a measure of composure
as she hung her cloak up by the door before following her mother.
They entered the small room they referred to as the parlor and
settled themselves near the iron brazier, the glowing coals
banishing the unseasonable chill they had never grown accustomed to
even though they’d lived here for the past eleven years. At times,
she sorely missed Savannah’s warmth.

“Do you remember that gentleman from a few
years back who wished to call on you—Mr. Cordell?” Mrs. Abigail
Stevens asked excitedly of her daughter.

Winter nodded, unable to speak. Had he
already set the next step of his plan to ruin them in motion? Had
her mother discovered what her only daughter had been about?

“Your father thought him an unworthy suitor
and you gave him the cut-direct, as any obedient daughter would
have. I confess, he did not seem low bred to me, as your father
accused. I worried that we would suffer repercussions from your
father’s actions, but naught came of it, and I never gave it
another thought.” She paused for effect, and Winter gritted her
teeth in suspense, maintaining her ladylike facade of cool interest
with a supreme effort. “As it happens, and I hate to admit this,
but your father was wrong in his thinking.”