Swearing under her breath, Jerusa bent her arms back and tried again. If she could only ease her thumb beneath the cord she might be able to work the knot free that way. If only—
“Let me help you,” said the Frenchman softly behind her, and she gasped as she felt his hand on her shoulder to hold her still.
“I can do it myself,” she said quickly, her face hot with humiliation as she tried to edge away. “Please, only a minute more and I’ll be ready.”
“I’ve watched you struggle, chérie, and I know you cannot. You’re trussed up tighter than a stewing hen for the kettle.”
She gasped again as she felt the edge of his knife slide beneath the lacings, the blade moving carefully up the length of her back as he snapped each crossing of the taut cord.
“My mistake, mademoiselle, and you have my apologies,” he said with mock chivalry. “I should never have expected a lady to be forced to dress without her maid.”
“I don’t have a maid,” she said stiffly, grateful that her back was still toward him so he couldn’t see her confusion. He was right, she wouldn’t have been able to free herself without his help, but for him to volunteer to do so like this was an intimacy she didn’t want to grant. “My mother does, but I don’t. I don’t need one.”
With the strain of the lacing gone, the silk bodice slipped forward off her shoulders, and she raised her hands quickly to hold it over her breasts.
“You don’t need these stays, either.” With a gentleness that took her breath away, he ran his fingertips from the nape of her bare neck, over the sheer linen of her shift and down the length of her silk grosgrain stays to her waist. “I’ll warrant your waist is narrow enough without them, ma chère. I’ll cut them away, too, if you wish.”
“No!” Wild-eyed, she spun around to face him, clutching the bodice to her breasts. Her stays were her whalebone armor, her last protection against him. “That is, I thank you for your assistance, but no lady would wish to be—to be free.”
His smile was dark and suggestive enough to make her face hot. “No lady would be here in an empty barn with me, either.”
A score of tart rebuttals died on her lips as she searched his face. His blue eyes were almost black, half-closed as he met her gaze, the twist of his lips at once wry and very, very charming.
She’d spent all her life in the company of handsome men, and she’d believed there were few things left they could do to surprise or unsettle her. So why, then, did a single smile and an illicit caress from this one leave her feeling as breathless and blushing as this? He had kidnapped her and threatened to kill her, but this other, bewildering side of him and her own strange response frightened her most of all.
She swallowed, struggling to regain her composure. “As you say, no lady would be alone here with you or any other man. But you brought me here against my will and choice, and that changes everything.”
“Does it, ma petite?” He reached out to brush away a single lock of hair that had fallen across her forehead.
Still clutching the bodice, Jerusa couldn’t shove away his hand as she wanted. Instead she jerked backward and, to her horror, into the rough deals of the barn wall. He didn’t move closer. He didn’t have to, not so long as that same teasing, infernal smile played upon his lips to agitate her more than any other man she’d ever met. Dear Almighty, how had she let herself be cornered like this?
“You said I was safe with you,” she said raggedly. “You said you wouldn’t force me.”
“Tell me, Jerusa,” he said, his voice scarce more than a coaxing whisper. “Am I forcing you now?”
“I don’t even know your name!”
“It’s Michel. Michel Géricault. It would please me if you’d say it.”
“I don’t see why I must do—”
“Say it, ma chérie. I wish to hear it on your lips.”
Unconsciously she moistened her lips with the pink tip of her tongue, and he thought of how much more than his name he wished to be there. Was she as aware as he was of the current of excitement running between them? Fear alone might have parted her lips and flushed her cheeks so temptingly, but he was willing to wager it was more than that.
Much more.
“Say it, Jerusa. Say my name.”
Her eyes widened and she took a breath that was almost a gasp. “Michael Jericho.”
“Nay, pretty Jerusa, say it not like an Englishwoman but a French one, instead.” What the devil was making him do this to her, anyway? Morbleu, why was he doing it to himself? “You can, you know, if you try.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. Father wished me to learn French, but I’ve no gift for it.”
“Merely the wrong teacher. Together we’ll do our best to discover your gift and make your papa proud. Now try again, Jerusa. Michel Géricault. Softly now, with none of your English brittleness.”
She swallowed again, and he watched the little convulsion along her white throat. “Michel Géricault.”
“Perfection, ma chérie!” He smiled indulgently, the way a satisfied tutor might. “Do you think your papa would know my name when he hears it from you?”
“Does my father know you?” she asked breathlessly, so obviously reaching for a hope that was bound to be disappointed. “Is that why you’ve done this? My brothers and their friends are forever playing elaborate tricks and pranks on one another. Are you doing something in that fashion to my father? I’ve never heard him speak of you, but then, I don’t know all his acquaintances, particularly since you’re not from Newport.”
Tricks and pranks! Morbleu, if it were only that simple!
“I doubt your father even knows I exist,” he said softly, turning away to let her finish dressing. “I wished to be sure, that is all. But he’ll learn my name soon enough, my dear Jerusa. Soon enough for us both.”
They rode for the rest of the night, keeping to roads that followed the coast and were often little better than glorified paths, the remnants of the trails of long-gone Indians. The land on either side was often wild, unplowed pasture used for grazing and little else, dotted with clumps of rocky boulders and gnarled scrub pines, bent low by the wind.
They saw no one, and no one saw them. Though the moon lit their way, Michel kept the pace slow to spare both the horses and Jerusa. She didn’t complain—in fact she’d spoken no more than a dozen words to him since they’d left the barn—but he noted with concern the way her shoulders sagged and her head drooped, and how too often she seemed to sway in the saddle from weariness. When they stopped to rest she was too tired to refuse his offer of help, and let him ease her to the ground without the protest he’d expected.
The first time he’d been wary, wondering if this was another ploy to throw him off his guard, but her exhaustion and despair were real enough. For all her spirit he had to remind himself that she was gently bred, and grieving, too, over what she’d lost. He also told himself he wasn’t being protective, only practical. He couldn’t afford to have her fall seriously ill while they traveled. Perhaps he would be pushing her too hard to try to make Seabrook by week’s end.
Yet as Jerusa rode the little mare behind Michel’s gelding, it was her heart that felt the most pain, not her body. Oh, her head still ached from the chloroform and every muscle in her back and her legs protested