Annabel crept forward, staring at them.

Mary Anne turned to face him. "You know I had no choice but to help you, but dear Lord, I wish you would give up these mad escapades of yours-before you wind up in prison or dead!" Tears filled her eyes.

He tilted up her chin. "No one is going to die. What happened to Harry was an accident. A terrible mistake."

"That will not bring him back, now will it?" She used the corner of her apron to dab her eyes. "Annabel Boothe. Oh, God. Why didn't you throw her out somewhere in Manhattan? The countryside must be swarming with federal agents by now!"

He shrugged. "Poor judgment on my part, in that I agree." He turned and looked directly at Annabel. "Enjoying yourself yet again?"

Annabel flushed. "I was not eavesdropping. I was thirsty."

He made an expression of disbelief.

"Please, do come in," Mary Anne said, pulling out a kitchen chair. She looked worried. "You must be exhausted and frightened, too. I am so sorry you had to get caught up in this, my dear."

Annabel did not want to like her, but her sympathy and concern were clearly genuine. "Actually," Annabel said, walking into the brightly lit room, "I am neither tired nor frightened. But I am dirty. Could I bathe and change clothes? These are Louie's things and I am afraid they do have an odor."

Braxton stared.

Annabel avoided his gaze. She smiled at their hostess. "If it would not be an inconvenience."

There was only one guest room and it had been given to Annabel. It was on the second floor, across the hall from the master bedroom. Louie and Braxton were sleeping in the parlor, or so they claimed. Annabel wondered if Braxton was downstairs where she had left him and his henchman after supper, or across the hall with the too kind Mrs. Winston.

She sat on the edge of the narrow bed, clad in a nightgown that belonged to Mary Anne. Her temples throbbed. She should be relieved that she remained alone in the bedroom, more so if Braxton were comforting the pretty widow. This was what she wanted. To be ruined in name only-not in fact.

But she knew she would not sleep all night long thinking about it-about them.

Annabel finally stood and walked over to her closed bedroom door in her bare feet. Her heart pounded. She pressed her ear against the wood and strained to hear. But there was not a sound in the house-as if everyone were truly asleep.

Very carefully, she began to open the door. It creaked loudly.

She froze, then tried again. The door groaned now as she opened it.

She was breathless, her pulse continuing to drum and deafen her. But her door was wide open. The hall was pitch-black; not a single light had been left on. The door across from her was closed. It was a shadowy shape. Annabel glanced toward the stairs, but could not make them out in the darkness.

Annabel took one step into the hall and winced as the wood beneath her feet squeaked. Grimacing, she hurried across the short distance separating her door from Mary Anne's, and finally she pressed her ear against it. Once again, silence greeted her. Of course, the way her heart was beating, it was terribly hard to hear anything else.

Wood groaned.

Annabel stiffened, wondering if she had imagined the sound, which came from the end of the hall. She stared into the shadows, but saw nothing. After a few seconds, she decided it had been her imagination, or old wood settling. She leaned against Mary Anne's door again, pressing her ear to the stained wood. Her efforts were rewarded by absolute silence.

And then an arm clamped around her waist from behind, a hand clapped over her mouth. Annabel would have screamed in fright, but the hand covering her mouth was so firm and uncompromising that she was prevented from making a sound. She was pulled from behind against a man's solid body. His grip upon her was as immovable as steel.

"Jesus, it's you," Braxton said in her ear. His hand left her mouth, sliding across her jaw to her neck and shoulder, and he did not release her for another moment.

And in that endless moment Annabel was overwhelmed by the warmth and strength of him, by his sheer masculinity.

He dropped his hands from her person.

Annabel turned. Her back pressed against Mary Anne's door as she faced him, and because he did not move, there was not an inch between their bodies. His thighs pressed hers. His chest flattened hers. She was a tall woman, and her eyes were level with his mouth.

It was an exceedingly attractive mouth.

And his teeth flashed white in the darkness. "Might I ask what you were doing?" he asked, but in a whisper.

"I could ask you the same thing," Annabel said, whispering as well. It was very hard to think-her body was acutely aware of him, and she did not know what to do with her hands, which remained balled up at her sides. "I thought you were the police, or a federal agent," she breathed.

His gaze appeared silver in the darkness of the night. It searched hers. "I thought the same of you." Suddenly, he stepped away from her, putting a safer distance between them. "Did anyone ever tell you, Miss Boothe, that curiosity killed the cat?"

She inhaled. She was trembling, her legs were weak. Air now caressed her where his warmth had a scant instant ago. She did not want him to leave and go back downstairs. There was no time to think. "I am not a cat. Curiosity has not killed me yet-I doubt it ever will."

He laughed softly. "You know," he said, and their gazes locked, "I like you. It is a shame that you are who you are. For you and I could have gotten on quite famously, I do think."

She stared. His voice had been low and sensual and intimate. "I like you, too, Braxton."

His smile disappeared.

Annabel wet her lips, images she knew she should not, must not, entertain dancing in her head. Of him leading her across the hall into her bedroom, of him removing her clothing, his large, capable, elegant hands smoothing over her skin.

"Go back to bed," he said harshly. "I will see you in the morning."

"Wait," she whispered, a desperate cry.

But he had not moved.

"Wait," she said again, as intensely. But she could not think of a single excuse to detain him, or a single way to seduce him.

He now wet his lips. "Do not offer," he said with anger, "what will turn out to be a vast mistake. For you certainly, and maybe for us both."

"I am not like other women," Annabel said hoarsely.

He stared.

She clenched her fists. "I don't ever want to marry. I only want to be free." He remained motionless.

"Free like the wind," she said, tears suddenly coming to her eyes. "Not shackled to an idiot like Harold, not shackled to anyone."

His jaw flexed. His brilliant eyes never left her face.

"But you would not understand. Because you are free, you are a man." She was bitter. She felt defeated. He would go. And in the morning, their paths would diverge, never to twine again.

"I understand," he finally said. "Better than you think."

Braxton bent and kissed each shoulder where the straps lay, then he slid them over her shoulders and pushed her gown down over her breasts, her hips, her thighs. It pooled in a puddle of cotton at her feet. His gaze was admiring.

He stroked the pads of two fingers down her neck and chest, over her nipples. Annabel bit back a cry of need and pleasure. He looked into her eyes, his expert hands skimming down her sides and abdomen.

"You are very, very beautiful, and far too much of a woman for most men."

She could not speak. He was touching her thighs. "But not… for you?"

His gaze jerked up to hers. "You are probably too much of a woman for myself as well," he said, as if he had just thought of it and as if he meant it. And then he pulled her close for another devastating, tongue-to-tongue kiss.

And when, a long time later, their lips parted, she gasped, "This is not fair."