Games of Pleasure (13 page)

Pain fought with the anger in her heart. “Now that His Lordship knows the true nature of his fantasy, he should not have come at all.”

He reached into his pocket. Ribbons trailed from his fingers in long glimmers of silver. Miracle stared in silence at the white satin slipper as he held it out to her.

“This is all I have left of our previous encounter,” he said. “Your carriage had already shriveled into a pumpkin, your horses were twitching their little mouse noses behind the wainscot, your silk gown was shredding into rags, while you fled headlong back to the ashes. Yet, true to form, you left me one slipper. How the devil did you expect me to react?”

The depth of his rage and anguish threatened to drown her. “I'm not Cinderella. I'm a harlot. Once you knew the truth, I thought you'd forget about me.”

He crushed the slipper in his fist. “For God's sake! You think you can present a man with such an experience, enigmatic and unexpected, and expect him to simply ignore it?”

“Yes. I thought so. What can a duke's son want with a woman like me, except to buy another night in my bed? Unfortunately, I'm no longer selling.”

He tossed the slipper onto the bed and stalked back to the window. “So you break another promise!”

“Not
another
. I kept the first one: I left you a note.”

His back seemed rigid, frozen in starlight. “I remember.”

Long shudders raked up her spine. “I expected you to be disgusted,” she said. “I expected you to curse me.”

“Even though I'm the only witness you have that whatever you did—or believe that you did—it was done in self-defense?”

She jerked upright. “You cannot know that.”

“Before you were left to die in that boat, you'd been beaten.” Power and frustration built in his voice, like water behind a dam. “I—and only I—can testify to that in court.”

Her angry sense of the ludicrous forced her to laugh, though her heart felt like breaking. “Lord Ryderbourne would stand up before the King's Bench to tell the world about the night he spent at the Merry Monarch with a notorious harlot? How many bruises did he count in the throes of his passion? In which interesting locations did he spot all those charming contusions? The innkeeper and the maids would certainly make splendid witnesses. It would be the richest scandal London's enjoyed in years—”

“You have no idea of the power that my family holds in society.”

“Yes, I have!” She stalked up to him. “It's a position that would allow you to make an even bigger fool of yourself than you already have, and your family would never allow it. Poor, besotted Lord Ryderbourne—tricked into taking the whore's part! His Lordship wishes to tell the court in every detail all the naughty little things that they did together that night? Explain why he's prepared to drag his noble name through the mud? You think there's any court in the land that would let me walk away free after that? One word from your father, and the judge would know exactly what to do.”

He seized her by both arms. “How do you even know what you did? No one is missing. I talked to Hanley—”

“Lord Hanley? Why? Where?”

“In London. At his club. It wasn't hard to learn the name of your latest protector.”

“So now the nasty earl is wondering why Lord Ryderbourne is so interested in his missing mistress? Did Lord Hanley follow you here?”

“Follow me?”

Miracle stared up into his eyes. “Yes! Back and forth up the turnpike after that honest fellow who bought my horse and saddle? To the White Swan, where so many witnesses saw me take my one risk?”

His hands crushed. “Why the devil would Hanley come after me?”

“To find me, of course. To bring me to justice. He was at the White Swan. I saw him there, though he didn't see me.”

“Hanley seemed both unharmed and disinterested when I last saw him in London. You're certain he was at the White Swan?”

She wrenched free. “You think I wouldn't recognize my own lover?”

His face blanched. He dropped his hands and turned away. “That was a foolish question. I'm sorry. But why do you think he followed me there?”

“Lord Hanley is very interested in my fate, but of course he's not harmed. He wasn't the victim. He was the witness.”

“Of what?”

“Does it matter?” Miracle laughed, not caring if the memory of that night was poisoning her laughter with bitterness. “I felt obliged to express my opinion to a friend of his. When words seemed insufficient, I used a knife. You may say it was in self-defense, if you like. But whatever her reasons, a whore's attack on a gentleman is enough to stretch her neck. You cannot save me in the courts, my lord. Your theories and your passion would never stand against Lord Hanley's account.”

“Nevertheless, I'm offering you my protection. I could take you to any of the duchy properties. I could keep you hidden—”

“And what a pretty accomplice to crime you would make! You're a duke's son, so they won't hang you, only gossip about you as you watch my last dance at Tyburn. Or would you squander your honor to challenge Lord Hanley to a duel and hope to dispatch him, so that he cannot bear witness against me? Or perhaps, once I'm found guilty of murder and condemned, you could become the court jester and petition the King for clemency? For whose sake? Mine or yours?”

He strode across the room, bouncing blows with one fist off the plaster wall. “Just tell me this: If I had seen what Hanley witnessed, would I have wanted to stop it?”

Miracle was surprised into the truth. “Oh, yes!” she said. “Very definitely!”

Starlight silvered his cheekbone, the skin smooth as satin, as he stared out at the night. “Then Hanley deserves to die for not doing it.”

Ice seemed to crack and splinter across her vision. “Oh, God! You
want
to fight a duel over me? Forget him! Forget me! You have a life of your own, full of obligations. Go back to it!”

His boots echoed on the floor. “Devil take it, Miracle, don't faint on me!”

He caught her as she swayed. For a moment she was too weary not to lean into his strength—not to listen to the steady beat of his heart, not to inhale his night-dark scent straight into her lungs—yet she forced herself to push him away. His hands fell to his sides as he stared down at her.

Miracle sat down on the bed and hardened her heart to tell him the one more lie that would send him away forever.

“I don't want to be with you. I never did. I made a trade, that's all. Anything else that you believe happened between us was only playacting on my part and foolishness on yours. Go home, Lord Ryderbourne! I don't want you.”

Silence flooded the shadows. Absolute quiet flowed over the rug on the floor, eddied up into myriad tiny crevices, filled the jug on the washstand. As if pain had been poured like liquid crystal into the air, the hush filled her ears until she heard only the unbearable beat of her own heart.

“No, of course, you would not want me,” he said at last. “I apologize if I assumed otherwise.” He bent to pick up the drover's hat and cloak. “So what the devil do you plan to do now?”

“Disappear, if only you'll let me.”

“How?”

“I shall walk to Derbyshire, where I have other resources, then leave the country.”

“Doing whatever it takes?”

“Yes. Whatever it takes. Unless you're prepared to call in the law right now and see me hanged, you cannot stop me.”

“I can,” he replied. “But I won't.”

Clouds had spread over the sky outside, blotting out the faint starlight. Miracle groped for the tinderbox on the bedside table and lit a candle. An illusion of warmth flickered over his face. His long shadow stretched out behind him. Her heart pounded heavily.

He strode back to the table and set down the hat. Coins clinked, sparkling in the candlelight as he spilled his purse onto the wooden surface. “Here's my gold. Though—as you so correctly surmised—you don't need to earn it. Buy a horse. Ride to Derbyshire like the Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon.”

“I don't want your money,” she said.

“For God's sake!” His gaze pierced as he looked up. “Rogues already stole your first mount. You were lucky not to be killed or raped into the bargain. You were desperate enough after that to be willing to prostitute yourself to any stranger, even when there was every chance that some of those travelers downstairs would have appropriated your favors for free—
share and share alike!
”

“Yet they didn't,” she said. “I know men. Didn't you notice?”

“Only too clearly.” He strode toward the door. “You played with those drovers' emotions as if they were your fools.”

“All men are my fools.”

“So take the money! If you need further help, send a message to Wyldshay. I assumed a responsibility for you when I dragged you from Brockton Bay. That's not your choice. It's mine.”

Shadows rushed as she stood up, as if flocks of vultures swooped about her ears. “How dare you hunt me down like this and try to bully me? I will not be obligated to you. I will not take your gifts, nor your money.”

“But you will!” The cloak swirled as he turned back from the door. “Though, if you insist, you can earn it!”

His boots pounded as he flung aside the cloak to stride up and seize her by both arms. His eyes raged, without tenderness, without caring, as he pulled her against his tall body. Miracle snarled up at him and laughed.

His mouth ground down onto hers in genuine fury. His tongue plunged without mercy, as if trying to force her to reject him. Anguish and loss scorched from his lips.

An answering rage at all of her hurts fired as if canisters of grapeshot exploded behind her eyes. She wrestled with tongue and teeth and lips, biting, crushing, until pure carnal lust roared its mean triumph. Kissing, kissing, hot and moist, like a demon. His erection reared against her belly, heavy and demanding. Heat flooded her groin.

Yet he pulled away, his eyes like pits, and opened his hands. The flush of desire still glossed over his cheekbones, but he dropped his head to stare down at his clenched fingers.

“I must beg your pardon,” he said. “I've never done such a thing in my life. I didn't mean—”

Miracle stopped his words with one finger. Hot tears scalded down her face—as if she were being purified in a crucible, leaving nothing but a core of pure gold. His scorching desire and agony plummeted into her soul. Without making any conscious decision she reached up and kissed him again, allowing her lips to open under his as a flower opens, welcoming and tender, allowing him full measure and returning it.

He succumbed in a heartbeat. She knew it in her mouth, in her bones, in her ache of regret at the inevitable anguish of it. His kiss eased and caressed, like a seductive whisper rippling over her lips. With ever more delicate flicks of her tongue, she deepened her surrender, until the pain in her heart melted like crystallized honey liquefying in the sun.

Lord Ryderbourne was the loveliest man she had ever met. He would not hurt her, even if she deserved it. He could not easily abandon her, even if she drove him away. She could not fight him with her body. Neither, obviously, could he fight her. The bed waited behind them. Yet he was far too ready for self-sacrifice, and she had suffered men's obsessions before.

Gently, gently, she broke the kiss, then touched his swollen lips again with one fingertip.

He took a deep breath, the power of the deep-night ocean shining in his eyes.

“I promise that I will never again trade either gold or anything else for your professional favors,” he said. “I did not come here intending to importune you or seduce you, and certainly not to force my attentions—That's not the bargain I would strike.”

“I never thought for a minute that it was.”

The candle guttered. He strode to the table and began to gather the coins into neat little piles.

“I will not be like all the others,” he said.

Miracle walked away to the window. A soft rain pattered on the glass. Outside was nothing but darkness and damp.

She set her palm against the cold glass. “You were different, Lord Ryderbourne. You
are
different, though it changes nothing.”

“If that's true,” he replied, “it changes everything.”

“Because we were such perfect lovers for one strange night out of time?”

“If you like. I certainly think that should allow you to call me Ryder, at least.”

“As your friends do?”

“Yes, why not?”

She digested this in silence for a moment, before she turned back to face him. “At least you understand now why I cannot take your money?”

“You cannot travel to Derbyshire alone and penniless.”

“Yes, I can.” Miracle forced gaiety into her voice. “After all, I've been alone and penniless before.”

“You imply quite correctly that that's something I can hardly imagine.” A wry self-derision crept into his voice. “But what the hell's the point in tearing out a man's heart if you won't even accept his protection?”

She could not bear it, though she owed him her life. “Whatever we shared,” she said gently, “it wasn't love.”

“Ah! Very probably not. What the devil do either of us know of love?”

“Not much, perhaps, which is why—though we may seem to have a talent for invoking the splendid ache of lust—we shan't complete the bargain that we made downstairs, and why you are now going to go home.”

His heels rapped as he paced the room, from the bed to the shabby dresser and back. He would realize in a few minutes that she was right. With regret, perhaps, with a soft grief at the ways of the world, but he would know that there was nothing more he could offer her—and then he would leave.