“When Steve Morgan arrives to rescue you—he will be surrounded by Rurales. Then he will watch while I strip you of your garments and give you to them. There are only a dozen, but they are very eager to taste your charms, chica. These Rurales once rode with Juan Cortina, who was called an outlaw and persecuted by gringo Texans like your husband. They will be quite happy to avenge Cortina.”

The fever made her shudder. Luna watched her with a faint smile, his eyes narrowing at her reaction.

“It is warm in here, is it not, chica? I can see you are too hot. Would you like to take off your camisa? It is just us, and I have already seen your beautiful body. No, do not protest, I will help you, eh?”

Ginny resisted, but it was a futile effort; Luna easily combated her attempts to kick him. She was at his mercy as he undressed her, leaving her in only the thin silk shift she had been wearing the night of the ball. Asleep on the settee, clad only in her dressing gown, she had been awakened by Luna sometime in the middle of the night. He had given her no time to dress, to do no more than snatch up a garment from the back of a chair before he had dragged her from the house. In the murky light, the shift had been all she saw.

Luna was laughing, his dark eyes filled with a kind of grim satisfaction as he perused her.

“You are so lovely, little Ginette, so very lovely. I am almost sorry I must do this to you, but it is necessary. I wonder what it might have been like if I had met you first, before even the lovely Francesca? But I shall never know, shall I. No! And it would never be enough to have you now, for you will never truly be mine. A curious thing, but I find I am not content with just your body. I must have the woman’s heart as well, must have her love and loyalty or it means nothing to me.”

“What—” She licked dry lips, her chest heaving as she panted for air to fill her lungs. “What are you going to do to Steve?”

“Kill him. But only after he had watched you share your lovely body with the Rurales, of course. And perhaps even me, though that is not necessary. I made certain he knows that I have already tasted your charms. What a charade that was, parading you before all of Mexico City, rubbing Steve Morgan’s nose in the fact that you were mine, just as he flaunted his affair with Francesca before me.”