N ights were hard, for when the world was dark, his brooding thoughts churned with visions of the strange things he had glimpsed beyond the threshold of death's door, and gnawing uneasiness for the blood he had spilled in his past career.

Whether he was bound for heaven or h.e.l.l, nothing was clear yet beyond his certainty that, surely, he had slipped through Death's bony fingers for a reason. There must be something more that he was meant to do-but whatever it was, he only hoped in the long, dark stretch before dawn, that it would be enough to repay his debt for all the killing.

He had been a soldier before he had come here to this lonely place. A soldier all his life. A very good one.

He was not at all sure what he was now, but somehow, the morning light always managed to restore his peace of mind.

A new day was no trifling thing to take for granted. Not when you knew that, by all rights, you should be dead.

Major Gabriel Knight stepped out onto the flagstone stoop of the old farmhouse and tasted the chilly, fresh morning air with a slow and cautious inhalation.

It felt so good to be able to breathe again without pain.

He tilted his head back, savoring the sunlight on his face. The new day brought the trace of a hard-won smile to his lips as he stretched his arms up over his head and loosened his shoulders, still a bit sore from yesterday's grueling efforts at regaining his full strength.

Dropping his arms to his sides again, he rested his hands on his waist and surveyed the picturesque scene of rustic tranquility before him.

It was so beautiful here. So peaceful.

Born and bred in British India, he had only arrived in England a couple of months ago and was slowly getting used to this tame, tidy country with its hawthorn fences and patchwork fields. Too much safety felt so odd. But it was undeniably lovely. Wisps of fog still hung in the green dips between the rolling hills, and past the ancient stone church, he spotted his white horse knee-deep in late season wildflowers, grazing in a dewy field.

His lazy smile widening, Gabriel shook his head. That horse was going to get fat.

Leaving the stoop where the faded black slab had eroded into a dip from centuries of footsteps pa.s.sing over that one spot, he strode out to carry on with his morning duties.

They were very different from what they once had been, but he had left that life behind, had put away the lethal tools of his trade and all the bloodied symbols of his grand warrior pride.

His martial glory no longer signified.

He had been so driven then, as if he'd been striving for some sort of terrible G.o.dhood. But now he knew all too well he was only a man. A man whose eyes had been opened.

If a part of him sensed that fate still had more in store for the warrior in him, he shied away from that whisper of intuition. He had been given a second chance at life and did not intend to waste it. Few mortals got the chance to see what lay beyond the grave, but Gabriel had glimpsed enough to grasp that a wise man savored the simplest pleasures of everyday life-while it lasted.

Committed to doing just that, first, he pumped water from the well, mesmerized as he watched its bright crystal flow streaming from the spigot. Things he would have taken for granted in the past sometimes astounded him now with their beauty. Water. G.o.d knew, he had led his men across enough Indian deserts to know that water was life.

As he pumped the handle, he noted that he felt no further strain in his solar plexus. He was almost healed, almost back to the state of his former power. The question was, how would he use it this time? No answers, still. Be patient, he told himself for the thousandth time. His answers would come.

Next he rationed out grain for his horse, inhaling the pungent smell of the sweet feed. Carrying it out to the paddock, a mere shake of the bucket was enough to bring Thunder trotting over with a hungry whicker. Gabriel set the bucket down before his kingly steed, then he noticed the deer had been at the salt lick again.

Well, the horse didn't mind sharing that. With a hearty pat on the neck, he left his trusty mount greedily crunching his grain and made his next stop at the chicken coop. While the clucking hens rioted over the handfuls of seeds he threw down, he collected a few of the eggs, so smooth to the touch. He brought them inside to Mrs. Moss, his gray-haired, ill-tempered housekeeper, who was bustling about the kitchen, just as she did every morning.

"Have you got the milk yet, sir?"

"I'm going for it now," he replied, taking the pail with him. No doubt the woman thought him very odd, a gentleman-tenant who did his own ch.o.r.es rather than bringing a horde of servants with him. Army life made a man supremely self-sufficient, but more than that, Gabriel had just wanted-needed-to be alone.

He strode back outside and found the farm's pair of docile cows in the meadow under the ma.s.sive oak tree. When he had milked them, he brought the pail back inside, but before handing it over to Mrs. Moss, he poured some of its creamy contents into a bowl. The old woman frowned in disapproval, but Gabriel ignored her and carried the milk outside to feed the kittens.

Their mother had been killed by a fox, so he had moved the tiny orphans into the hayloft to save them from a similar fate. He'd have liked to bring them into the house, but Mrs. Moss forbade it. She said they'd get the carpets full of fleas.

As he walked into the silent, musty barn, Gabriel mused on how his old chums from the regiment would have laughed to see "the Iron Major" playing nursemaid to a troop of rowdy kittens. But no matter, he thought as he climbed the ladder, balancing the bowl of milk in one hand. He could laugh at himself more easily now, too.

Besides, though he would not have admitted it for the world, the kittens were far better company than Mrs. Moss and all her grumbling. Indeed, his only complaint about life at his rented farmhouse was that, sometimes, after these many weeks of self-imposed isolation, now and then, the loneliness grew dismal, especially with winter coming on.

His brother's house was only a couple hours' ride if he desired conversation, and London was only another hour beyond that, but Gabriel could not think of anyone he really wanted to be with. He had tried a few weeks ago to find amus.e.m.e.nt in London, but even in a crowded ballroom full of beautiful women, agreeable chaps, and all of his excellent family, he had gone through the motions, feeling more alone than ever.

So, once more, he had retreated to his rustic sanctuary. Maybe the soul took longer to heal than the body.

When he reached the top of the ladder and climbed up into the hayloft, two of his furry charges came scampering toward him, already mewling piteously for the milk, but Gabriel frowned. The orange one was missing.

Hm. He hoped the kitten hadn't got caught somewhere or hurt itself. "Kitty? Where are you?" he murmured, pacing slowly through the hayloft in search of the orange tabby.

Rounding the haystack, Gabriel suddenly stopped in his tracks. His jaw dropped as he discovered the orange kitten-snuggled up fast asleep on the shoulder of an equally sleeping girl. Gabriel forgot to breathe as he stared at her.

He had no idea what the blazes she was doing here, but her beauty sent a wave of amazement washing over him.

Smoother, rounder than the eggs, her curves entranced his eyes, her fresh skin creamier than the new-made milk he'd brought. Her sleeping innocence was sweeter than the water from the well. He wanted to wake her, to touch her, to taste her-but for a very long moment, Gabriel couldn't stop staring.

Who was she?

The girl had made a little nest for herself in the hay, a rough woolen cloak wrapped around her for a blanket. Her skirts had ridden up over one knee, exposing a stretch of shapely calf.

Gabriel crouched down slowly as he studied her, transfixed.

She was humbly dressed, a simple country girl, perhaps, but she had an exotic look, with her thick, wild tangle of dark curls. Now noting the soft tan undertones in her complexion, he wondered if she was of Gypsy blood, for she certainly wasn't the typical English rose.

She had very black eyebrows and equally black, luxurious lashes, a p.r.o.nounced nose, sharp cheekbones, her jawline delicate yet crisply defined. Her big, pouty lips were slightly parted as she slept.

He swallowed hard, tamping down a surge of long-forgotten desire, but as his fascinated stare traveled over her, it slowly dawned on him why she had come.

Ah, d.a.m.n that scoundrelly brother of his.

The old farm was too remote for this girl to have wandered in by accident. No, his blasted brother Derek must have sent her, devil take him.

Gabriel still remembered Derek's roguish threat some time ago. "I shall hire some gorgeous wench with no morals to come and take care of you." By which he meant, of course, a girl to slake his carnal drives. "I am a kind and thoughtful brother, am I not?"

d.a.m.ned cruel is more like it, he thought with a mild scowl, irked by this oh-so-delectable temptation.

For G.o.d's sake, he wasn't a saint.

Of course, he knew Derek meant well. It was no mystery that his whole family was worried about him, his younger brother most of all.

Not just a brother but his closest friend and fellow officer from the regiment back in India, Derek was a worldly man of st.u.r.dy common sense and did not understand Gabriel's spiritual experiment in this place.

But as he gazed at the girl that Derek had chosen for the job of servicing him, Gabriel could say one thing for his brother: That devil certainly knew his taste in women.

This lovely wench could have him eating out of her hand if he wasn't careful.

Well, she was going to have to leave, he thought with stoic resolve, because for a man bent on redemption, she might prove more temptation than his starved male senses could endure.

He shuddered, then tamped down his l.u.s.t with stringent self-discipline. Concluding that the time had come to wake her and send her on her way, he cleared his throat a bit, politely.

"Miss? Ahem, Miss. Er, good morning?" Gingerly, he poked her dainty shoulder with one finger, trying to wake her. "I beg your pardon-" he started to say as her eyes flicked open, still unfocused with sleep.

But the second she saw him, she let out a gasp and suddenly pulled a knife on him out of nowhere.

His eyes flared. His battle-honed senses reacted to the weapon automatically. He grasped her wrist in the blink of an eye.

She flailed with a curse in some foreign tongue and a scuffle ensued.

"Let-go of me!" she shouted after a moment.

"Drop your weapon!" he roared, at which point she actually tried to cut him!

The next thing he knew, Gabriel was on top of her, holding her pinned flat on her back in the hay, his hands clamping her wrists to the floor, restraining the wild chit.

"Hold still!"

"Get off me, you devil! I order you to release me, this instant!" she yelled at him, trying to thrash her way free, to no avail.

"Oh, you order me, do you?" he countered mildly. He was breathing hard, not entirely from exertion, and yet her fiery command took him aback. As a warrior from whom countless men had fled in battle, he was rather amused by her brash readiness to try to gut him.

"I'm warning you-let me go!"

"Why, so you can try to stab me again?" he taunted in a softer tone, trying to ignore the sweetness of her luscious curves squirming beneath him.

She paused in her fight, staring up at him with big, brown eyes full of fire, and as her soft, lush chest heaved against his, it took all his steely will to remember his new ascetic creed.

Sophia swallowed hard, panting with some wild reaction more full-blooded than simple fright as she gazed up into his eyes. Deep blue eyes of piercing cobalt intensity.

The only time she had seen that brilliant shade of blue before was in the waters around her homeland. The half-forgotten memory gave her a pang. Meanwhile, the events of the previous night all came flooding back. For a moment there, she hadn't been sure where she was or why.

But now, of course, she recognized her captor as the stranger she had seen last night lighting candles in the ruined church. At least she hadn't been found by the masked men who had attacked her carriage. Under the circ.u.mstances, she supposed it could have been worse.

"Care to tell me what you're doing in my barn?" he asked in a low, cultured murmur.

"Sleeping-obviously," she retorted.

"Trespa.s.sing."

"No! I haven't done anything wrong!"

"Attempted murder?"

Well, he had a point there.

"You startled me," she conceded with regal hauteur, chagrined by her powerless position.

"Obviously," he drawled back at her.

"Humph," she answered, quite unused to being treated this way, but on the other hand, "startled" was an understatement.

He had terrified her, waking her from a deep sleep that way, and she had reacted accordingly. At least now, finally waking up, she had a clearer sense of her situation. "Would you mind getting off of me, please?" she asked through gritted teeth.

His lifted his eyebrows politely. "Are you ready to put down your knife?"

Sophia wasn't sure, but she knew when she was being mocked. "There is no need to be rude."

"Sorry, I haven't had my coffee yet, and it's been awhile since anyone's tried to kill me."

"If I had wanted you dead, you would be dead!" she informed him fiercely.

He let out a low, charming laugh, as though she had said something clever.

Sophia narrowed her eyes at him, then looked away in simmering mutiny, refusing to acknowledge the fact that up close, her captor was sinfully handsome. Especially when he laughed.

"Now, young lady, hear me well. You had better drop your weapon," he advised her, taking a no-nonsense tone. "There is no need to resort to violence, all right? I am not going to hurt you. But if you try to stab me again, I may dangle you off the hayloft by your feet till you behave."

Her gaze flew to his again as she gasped. "You wouldn't dare!"

"Meow." The tiny orange kitten chose that moment to intervene, mewling at the man and rubbing its sides back and forth affectionately against his big shoulder.

He glanced wryly at the baby cat, as though he realized with some chagrin that its adoration of him did not make him look exactly scary. But maybe he did not want her to be scared of him, after all, for he began having a conversation with the kitten. "No, I brought you your milk," he chided, as if he could understand its pitiful cries. "What else do you want? It's your own fault you missed breakfast. You were hiding here with her. Not that I blame you, understand."

Sophia pressed her lips together, determined not to smile, but when the man turned from the kitten and looked at her again, he knew perfectly well that he had charmed her. That cobalt sparkle in his eyes beguiled her; she turned her face away to hide the twitching of her lips.

"These cats," he murmured softly. She could feel his gaze traveling down the curve of her neck. "They bully me so."

She swallowed hard, striving to ignore the silken warmth of his breath against her neck and the curious sensations that his big, muscled body roused atop her. The feelings were not entirely unpleasant.

"Why don't you find these kittens new homes if they are such a bother?" she suggested tartly, still refusing to look at him.

"But they were born here. I am only a gentleman-tenant."

Gentleman? The word got her attention as it signaled his honorable intent. Slowly, cautiously, Sophia met his curious gaze from the corner of her eye.

"I will free you if you promise not to kill me," he offered in a sardonic murmur. "I give you my word as a gentleman that you will not be harmed."

What choice did she have?

Sophia said nothing, but gave him a hard look, then uncurled her fingers and let her knife plunk down onto the floorboards in a gesture of good faith.

"Ah," her handsome captor said in a husky tone of approval. "How novel. A woman of sense."

With extreme caution, Gabriel loosened his grip around her delicate wrist by degrees. Freeing her knifehand was easy, however, compared to the self-restraint it took to ease his weight up off her warm, slim, nubile, young body. Every male atom of his being cried out to lower his head instead and claim her lovely mouth.

Of course, that might have got him stabbed. Even a harlot wanted a man to wait until he was invited.