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479 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
"I’m glad," she said softly. "I wouldn’t want you to be hurt."
“A lie is an affront to the soul, as well as an insult to the intelligence of the person to whom one lies.”
“What are you looking at?" Jordan demanded finally, watching her.
"A dragon." When he looked bewildered she lifted her arm and pointed to the sky in the southeast. "Right there—that cloud—what do you see when you look at it?"
"A fat cloud."
Alexandra rolled her eyes at him. "What else do you see?"
He was quiet for a moment studying the sky. "Five more fat clouds
and three thin ones.”
“It is my custom to have sherry in the drawing room at eight-thirty and supper at nine. In future, please join me here promptly at eight-thirty, Alexandra."
Fire ignited in Alexandra's eyes, but she managed to keep her voice
level. "You've already told me where I may sleep, where I may go, who must accompany me, and when I must eat. Would you care to instruct me as to when I may breathe?”
She was a gentle dreamer. He was a hard realist.
She was, in fact, such a dreamer that she actually believed “something wonderful” was going to happen – which wasn’t that surprising since she also believed wet dirt in the springtime smelled like perfume …
”Are you patronizing me?”
“I love you, he thought with each thrust of his body; I love you, his heart shouted with each thunderous beat; I love you, his soul cried out as Alexandra's spasms clenched him tightly. I love you. The words exploded in his being as he drove into her one last time and poured his life, his future, and all the disillusionment of his past into her tender keeping.”
“And when it was over, he held her in his arms, filled with a joy that was almost past bearing as he gazed at the white clouds floating in the powder blue sky. All of them had shapes and meaning to him now. All his life had shape and meaning to him now.”
“Alexandra was goodness and gentleness and trust. And love. She was flowers blooming on the hillsides and laughter floating through the halls.”
Jordan caught his breath at the unexpected glamour of the lad’s glowing smile and froze in amazement when he felt an odd, inner tingle from the boy’s touch. A boy’s touch. Brusquely shaking off the small hand, he wondered grimly if his boredom with life’s ordinary diversions was turning him into some sort of perverted dilettante. “You haven’t yet told me your name,” he said, his tone deliberately cool as he began exploring the boy’s lower ribcage, watching his small face for any sign of pain. Alexandra opened her mouth to give her name, but gave a shriek of outraged panic instead when he suddenly slid his hands onto her breasts. Jordan jerked his hands away as if they’d been scorched. “You’re a girl!”
“He destroyed your reputation by taking you to a public inn. He’s ruined any chance of your making a decent marriage. No other man will have you now. From this day forward, wherever you go in the village, scandal will follow you. For that he must pay, and dearly. When he returned to the inn last night, he gave the doctor his direction. We shall go after him and demand justice.”
“How extraordinary,” he mocked sarcastically. “And all this while, I’ve been harboring the delusion that all girls yearn to snare wealthy husbands.” “I am not like other girls.” “I sensed that from the moment I met you.”
***
“I’m what?” Jordan demanded, his attention abruptly diverted from her fascinating face. “In mythology, Pygmalion was—” “I’m familiar with the myth, I’m merely surprised that a female would be familiar with the classics.”
***
“I wish I were, but I fear I’m going to be very ordinary.” A slow, reluctant smile tugged at his sensual lips and he slowly shook his head. “There is nothing ‘ordinary’ about you, Alexandra,” Jordan replied. His decision to stay away from her, until she was a few years older and able to play the game of romance by his rules, was suddenly overpowered by a compelling need to feel those soft lips beneath his. Just one more time.
She was thin, but her breasts were surprisingly full, her waist tiny, and her legs long and shapely.
“Alexandra,” he said in an awful voice, “if you’re wondering how far you can push me, you’ve just reached your limit. In my present ‘unreasonable mood,’ nothing would give me greater satisfaction than to close this door and spend the next ten minutes making certain you can’t sit down for a week. Do you take my meaning?”
***
Anger raged through Jordan like wildfire as he contemplated the reason Alexandra had treated him with such wary hostility today: She was sorry he wasn’t dead. The artless, adoring child he had married was angry now because he was alive! The bewitching young girl he had wed had turned into a cold, calculating, beautiful . . . bitch.
***
She would either bend to his will, or he would break her to it, but either way she would learn to behave herself like a good and dutiful wife, he decided with cold resolve.
***
“Think carefully before you make the mistake of defying my orders. You’ll regret it, I promise you.”
***
He had never been tempted to strike a woman in his life, yet now he could think of nothing more satisfying than the impending prospect of walking into Alexandra’s bedchamber, jerking her over his lap, and paddling her until she could bear no more. It was, he decided, an eminently suitable punishment for what had been an eminently childish act of public defiance! And after that, he decided, he would toss her onto the bed and put her to the use God intended her for!
She cried out in surprised pain as Jordan wrapped his hand in her hair and viciously yanked her head back. His face only inches from hers, he bit out, “Of course you knew it was him, you murderous little bitch!” and with a cruel jerk of his wrist, he flung her sprawling onto the floor, her hip landing painfully on the gun in her hand.
The diamond was cut in the shape of a tear.
"Regarded as one of the most beloved writers of all time in popular fiction, Judith McNaught is the author of thirteen novels with more than 30 million copies in print"
“Reformed rakes often make the best husbands”![]()
“I love life, even when bad things happen to me. I can't stop loving it. Every season of the year comes with a promise that something wonderful is going to happen to me someday.”![]()