Vixen by Jane Feather Page A

brat!” Furious now, he bent, caught her around the waist, and lifted her into the air. Two things happened very quickly. The feel of her skin beneath the thin cambric of her nightgown, the fragranceof her hair, the burning imprint of her body in his hands, set his head spinning in a way that brandy never did, and as he struggled to control his reeling senses, Dante rose, snarling in a flurry of fur and straw, and sank his teeth into Hugo’s calf.
    Hugo yelled, kicking backward as Chloe slipped from his slackened grasp to the floor.
    “Drop.”
    Chloe’s quiet one-word command had an immediate effect. Dante released his grip, but his snarls continued as he watched Hugo with bared teeth.
    “Goddammit!” Hugo swore, bending to examine his bleeding leg.
    “Oh, dear, I didn’t think he would bite you.” Chloe knelt down. “I knew he would protect me but …” She bent over the wound. “It’s deep.”
    “I know it’s deep! Protect you from what, may I ask?”
    Sitting back on her heels, she looked up at him and said simply, “From you forcing me to do something I didn’t want to do.”
    “If you think for one minute that I am going to be intimidated by that damn mongrel in my dealings with you, Miss Gresham, you had better think again,” he stated, glaring down at her.
    It seemed sensible to back away from further confrontation at this point. Rubbing in her guardian’s present disadvantage wouldn’t be tactful. “I can’t imagine your being intimidated by anything,” she said truthfully, standing up. “We’d better go to the kitchen and I’ll dress the wound. It probably should be cauterized.” She picked up the lantern. “Can you walk? Shall I find you a stick?”
    “I can walk,” he said curtly, hobbling to the stable door.
    Dante bounded ahead of them across the courtyard, up the stairs to the open door, where he paused expectantly,waiting for his companions, whose progress was considerably slower. His tail wagged furiously and one would be hard pressed to recognize the ferocious animal of a few minutes earlier.
    Chloe put a small hand under Hugo’s elbow as he limped up the steps. It was an absurd gesture, given their relative sizes. “I can manage without support,” Hugo snapped, hiding his inner amusement.
    Dante lifted one paw, placing it on Chloe’s knee as they reached him. Hugo paused, but before he could say anything, Chloe whispered,
“Please.
I promise he won’t be a nuisance. He doesn’t have fleas or anything, and he’s very housebroken.”
    Hugo looked defeat squarely in the face. He had no affinity whatsoever with domestic animals. Their hair made him sneeze, and he disliked the smell of them even when they were clean. But his diminutive ward had roundly outmaneuvered him. “He can come in tonight,” he said with a resigned sigh. “But I don’t want him under my feet in the daytime.”
    “Oh, thank you.” Standing on tiptoe, she kissed his cheek, her eyes shining in the moonlight.
    Hugo struggled with his reeling senses again. “Don’t assume any precedents,” he said gruffly. “You may have won this round, but I don’t take kindly to having my hand forced.”
    “Oh, I won’t,” she said earnestly. “Anyway, there isn’t anything else at the moment that we’re at odds about, is there?” On which blithe statement she marched ahead of him into the kitchen.
    He followed more slowly and stood leaning against the doorjamb for a minute. She had set the lantern on the table and was poking the embers of the fire. Her body in the thin shift was clearly outlined against the light, and the entrancing curve of her hips as she bent to her task took his breath away. A flame spurted and shestraightened, turning to face him. Her breasts peaked softly against the material, the nipples a darker smudge.
    “There’s enough fire, I think, to heat a knife to cauterize. … Is something the matter?” Her eyes widened anxiously as she saw his expression.
    He ran his hands through