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something stopped him from making the blow fatal. Or maybe he’d run them off the road, she’d been knocked unconscious by the accident, and he’d quickly and efficiently killed his rival. But why hadn’t he finished her? Did he still want her? Or just her money?
    He was stroking her, slowly, with erotic intent. His head dipped toward hers, blotting out the light. He was going to kiss her, she knew it. He had every right to kiss her—he was her husband.
    So why did it feel as if it were going to be her first kiss?
    She held herself very still, waiting for the touch of his mouth against hers, letting her eyes drift shut, aware of the danger, the draw of the man, and no longer caring if she was playing with fire.
    And then he pulled back, abruptly.
    “That’s enough questions for now, Molly,” he said in a bored drawl.
    “This marital togetherness wears thin pretty damned fast. Go away.”
    She opened her eyes and stared at him in confusion. He wanted her. She knew that, with a sudden sureness that left her curiously triumphant. He wanted her, but he was half afraid of her.
     
    It was a small consolation. He scared the hell out of her. She didn’t bother arguing with him. She simply rose, taking her mug of undrinkable black sludge.
    “Pleasant dreams,” she said sweetly.
    His response was a growled obscenity. The dog lifted his head, looking at the two of them questioningly before lure bering to his feet, preparing to follow her.
    “Beastie!” Patrick spoke sharply, and with an air of reluctance the dog returned to his side. Molly went slowly up the stairs, feeling oddly, doubly forsaken.
    SHE LAY AWAKE for hours, listening to the rain beat down on the slate roof. The queen-size bed with its voluptuous satin sheets was too soft, and before an hour of tossing and turning had passed her back began to ache. The clinging nightgown, so revealing and provocative for a nonexistent lover, was obviously made to be discarded early in the night. It made her itch.
    The room was stuffy and suffocating, and the heavy formal drapes kept out any trace of moonlight. She lay there and hated that room, hated it with a passion. If she was going to be a prisoner there she would have to change it, despite her husband’s likely objections. Surely he couldn’t approve of the lavish style of it.
    How had he managed to put up with it when he used to visit his wife?
    Or had she gone to his room?
    She stiffened uncontrollably. Slow, measured footsteps were mounting the stairs, and she could hear the clicking of the dog’s nails as he followed his master up to bed. She lay there, tense and unmoving, scarcely breathing, as she waited for him.
    She hadn’t imagined the look in his eyes earlier, the slow, sensual heat that he’d deliberately banked. He wanted her. And he seemed to be a man who took what he wanted.
    He stopped in the hall, and she could almost hear his breathing.
    After a moment he went into his own room and closed the door.
    She felt a stinging dampness in her eyes, and she wiped it away angrily. Molly Winters, who never cried, had wept three times in one day. She wasn’t going to keep giving in to some maudlin weakness, she told herself firmly. She was glad he hadn’t come to her room, that cool, angry stranger, she was absolutely delighted. As a matter of fact, the nurse had been right.
    She hated Patrick Winters with his cold heart and his cold blue eyes, hated him more than she had hated any person in her entire life. She knew that hurt and hatred—it was a familiar companion in the old stone house.
    PATRICK WASN’T QUITE SURE how he was going to stand this. He told himself there was no way he could hear her breathing through the thick old walls, no way he could smell the faint trace of perfume that clung to her hair.
    But he could. The scent, the sound, the feel of her followed him into his bedroom, teased him unmercifully.
    The last few weeks had been the first peace he’d known in more than a year. He hadn’t