Bertrice Small - Captivated

Blindly, instinctively, she scooped up the forbidden journal she had been reading. Beside her, frenzied fingers rifled through the earlier installment of erotic literature, whipped it through the air. Behind her, china clicked and clattered in the cupboard. And before her

A dark silhouette, darker than the storm outside, filled the space where the cottage door should be. Where it had been but a moment before.

Abigail's heart slammed against her ribs as she made the mental transition from the fictional Laura who was being initiated into the pleasures of sex to the flesh-and-blood spinster that was herself.

Another explosion resounded through the one-room cottage the door slamming shut. Barring the buffeting wind and the drumming rain. Barring what light the night provided.

Barring Abigail inside the cottage with an intruder.

An intruder who, judging by the height and breadth of the silhouette that had filled the doorway, could only be a man.

A very large man.

Lingering desire pulsed through her bodyand dawning horror.

She was all alone and she had forgotten to bolt the door.

Abigail surged to her feetnaked feet, defenseless feet, where had she put her shoes? "Who are you?"

Her voice was loudtoo loud in the sudden quiet. Certainly it did not belong to the placid spinster everyone took her to be.

No more than it belonged to the wanton woman she had been but a moment before.

Hair rose on the back of her neck as she strained to see through the black abyss that was all that separated her and certain theft or death. "What do you want?"

Droplets of water pelted her in the faceas if some great animal shook itself dry.

"What do you think I want?" The low, masculine growl came from the vicinity of the door. "Lady, in case you haven't noticed, there's a storm outside. I want shelter."

Abigail's breath escaped in surprise at the blistering censure in the intruder's voice. His accent proclaimed that he was no local boy, but an educated man.

"I am fully aware that there is a storm outside, Mr…"

"Coally. Robert. Colonel," the disembodied voice curtly supplied.

White dots pricked the blackness in front of Abigail's eyes. "I am fully aware that there is a storm outside, Colonel Coally, but you can not possibly stay here. There is a"warmth flooded her cheeks at mentioning the unmentionable"a little house out back. You will find shelter there."

"Lady, I am soaked; I am cold; I am hungry. I am not going to spend a night in a privy. Light that candle before one of us does ourselves an injury."

The order was abrupt, imperious and rude. As if Abigail was a soldiera rather dim-witted soldier at thatderelict in her duties.

A tide of shock washed over her; it was followed by rage.

She forgot that the colonel was an intruder. She forgot that gently bred ladies such as herself fainted in the face of danger and submitted to the voice of masculine authority. She forgot everything but the fact that she was not going to take orders, here, in this seaside cottage that she had rented far away from the dictates of society so that she could enjoy one precious month of freedom before she gave up everything, and how dare

A dull clunk of boots on wood ripped through Abigail's fury the colonel was bridging the darkness that separated them. The clunk was interspersed by a dragging sound, as if he limpedor staggered.

Military men were notorious for their drinking habits.

Abigail hastily stepped back.

Only to collide with the chair she had just vacated. It skidded across the floor.

"Please stay where you are while I light the candle." Her voice in the darkness was just as sharp as the colonel's. "Are you injured?"

A grunt was her answer. And a flare of light.

Abigail stared at the intruder alias colonelfrom across the scarred wooden table instead of from across the room where he should be.

Her first thought was of how dark was his skinas dark as the gentlemen of her acquaintance were fair.

Her second thought was how ridiculously long his eyelashes were. They created jagged shadows on his cheeks as he concentrated on touching the head of the match to the wick of the candle.

Then he was entirely visible, illuminated in a widening circle of light.

Droplets of water trickled down off pitch-black hair. His face was lean, shaved clean of the sideburns or mustache that fashion dictated. The hand holding the match was as brown as his face. His fingers were long, strong, with square, blunt tips.

Far, far too large to fit inside a woman other than one at a time, surely, was her third and totally incongruous thought.

Shaking his hand to extinguish the match, the colonel abruptly straightened.

Unwittingly, Abigail's gaze followed his movements.

Standing five feet nine inches tall, there were few men Abigail did not top, but she had to tilt her head back to look at this man. Eyes the color of pewter locked with hers.

The one-room cottage shrank to the size of a closet.

She had never seen such stark eyes. There was nothing soft about them. And yet they were beautiful in their uncompromising masculinity.

The dark lashes flickered; she could feel the touch of the cold gray gaze on her lips, her throat, her breasts

Breasts, she suddenly remembered, that were confined by neither corset nor chemise.

Her fingers involuntarily clenchedabout damp, curling paper.

A hurried glance downward confirmed her suspicion.

The colonel wasn't staring at her breasts; he was staring at ThePearl, A Journal of Facetiae and VoluptuousReading, NO. 12 June 1880. Which she clutched to her chest with the cover outward.

She whipped the journal behind her back.

Simultaneously, the colonel pivoted toward the iron bed against the right wall.

The covers were turned back in ready invitation.

Alarm leapt up her spine. "What are you doing?"

He bypassed the bed and limped to the smaller of the three trunks that sat at the foot of it.

Scalding blood filled Abigail's face. Just as quickly it drained.

For the first time in her life she thought she would faint.

She darted after the colonel. "Now, you wait just one minute"

Too late. He thrust open the trunk.

To reveal a jumbled collection of leather and paper. Books with unmistakable titles: Adventures of a Bedstead; The Story of a Dildoe; Tales of Twilight, or the Amorous Adventures of a company of Ladies before Marriage. And more copies of ThePearl.

No one had ever seen her collection of erotica.

Anger that this man, this colonel had barged into her private retreat and discovered her secret vice overrode fear and shame.

"I asked you a question, sirrah, and I expect to be answered! What are you doing?"

The colonel stared at the contents of the trunk for a long moment before he lifted his gaze to hers.

For a second there flared inside the gray eyes something that caused Abigail's nipples to harden. Then the eyes became cold and flat, like his voice. "I am looking for a towel. And a blanket."

"Well, you will not find them there." Abigail threw the journal inside the trunk and slammed shut the lid. She glared up at him, daring him to comment on the literature that no lady was supposed to know about, let alone possess. "There is a towel by the pump in the corner near the stove. Why do you want a blanket?"

She must have been mistaken at the brief flare of heat in those eyes. They were as hard as the pewter they took their color from. "My clothes are soaked, Mrs.?"

"Miss." Abigail hesitated. She was not about to give this autocratic colonel her last name lest he know someone in society who was acquainted with her family. "Miss Abigail."