Games of Pleasure (15 page)

“He was just passing through,” Miracle said. “Your trade is in no danger.”

“That was the consensus in the taproom this morning,” the innkeeper said. “That and a general desire for discretion when confronted with such a man, along with some little regret that you were already spoken for, as it were. Else he might not have been allowed to ride away from here quite so freely.”

Miracle untied the pony and led it to the mounting block against the wall. She stepped up into the saddle and arranged her skirts.

“You should forget it.”

“That was his suggestion, too. Gently made, mind you—and all the more dangerous for that!” The man looked up at her, eyes slitted against the first rays of the rising sun. “So you're to meet up with him again in Bristol? Not to worry, my lamb! The Drovers' Arms is blind, deaf, and dumb. No one will learn a word of that from me.”

Miracle gave the innkeeper the full force of her most dazzling smile.

“How very wise of you!” she said.

 

 

RYDER strolled into the breakfast parlor of the White Swan. He had luxuriated in a hot bath, a fresh shave, and clean linen. Yet the call to adventure sang hosannas in his blood. Why not do this? Why not travel north into nowhere? Wyldshay—with all of its beauty, with all of its obligations—would still be waiting for him when he returned.

The host hurried up to wait on His Lordship. Whatever Lord Ryderbourne might want, the White Swan would be honored to provide. There were strawberries. There was excellent roast pork.

Ryder ordered his meal and sat down facing the door. Miracle had been deeply asleep when he left her, her hair like a raven's wing on the pillow. Desire pulsed through his veins. Not only desire for sex—though that was real enough—but desire for the unknown, for the way ahead to take a fork where both paths led to mystery.

A few moments later, elegant, deadly, the Earl of Hanley stepped into the room. Genuine surprise seemed to flicker in his eyes for a moment, then he bowed, a barely adequate nod of the head.

“Ryderbourne? An unexpected pleasure!”

“Mine host recommends the roast pork,” Ryder said. He indicated the seat opposite. “Pray, join me, sir! You're known to be a connoisseur of sensual pleasures. Let me have your opinion of the cuisine. You're traveling to Bath? Or Bristol, perhaps?”

A servant pulled out the chair and the earl sat down. “Neither. I came to find you.”

“Really? I can't imagine why. Should I be alarmed?”

The older man leaned back. His ice-blue gaze offered nothing. “Miracle Heather. You've been searching for her.”

“Have I?”

“When we last met in London, I neglected certain obligations that one gentleman always has to another in such circumstances. If you will allow me, I would rectify that now.”

“You came so far out of town to do so?” Ryder signaled the waiter.

“Why not? After all, we knew each other as schoolboys.”

“Indeed. You would enjoy eggs with your pork?”

A small flicker of annoyance disturbed Hanley's gaze for a moment, like the dark shadow of unseen wings flitting over a blue sky.

“I came here to warn you, Ryderbourne: You're in deadlier peril than you can possibly imagine.”

“I'M IN DANGER?” RYDER ASKED, LIFTING BOTH BROWS. “OF what? You have me quaking in my boots.”

The earl's gaze swept him up and down, irritation plainly stamped in the set of his mouth. “I doubt that. Nevertheless, I recommend that you abandon this search.”

“I'm most flattered by your concern,” Ryder said. “She's a femme fatale, I take it?”

“Miracle Heather eats men like you for breakfast.”

“A delightful thought!” Ryder laughed. “Alas, to my chagrin, the lady has disappeared.”

The earl's knife cut savagely into his meat. “How do you know?”

“How do I know my own disappointment, sir? You've lost me.”

The angry quirk deepened. “How do you know that she's disappeared?”

“After you abandoned her in Dorset, a lady was seen riding alone through Blackdown lands. From what I learned of Miss Heather in London, that lady answered her description. She's a remarkable beauty, I understand, and she had acquired a rather distinctive mount. Your gift to her, perhaps?”

“No, but I have learned the same. Several farmers and field hands were able to describe her horse to my agents—”

“Your agents, sir? You've also been trying to track her down?”

“I have. Pray, go on!”

“She disposed of the horse. I spoke with its new owner—as you did, perhaps?”

The earl's gaze was intense enough to drill through steel. “One Pence, an apothecary. He was out when I called.”

“Alas, the trail ends there.” Ryder nonchalantly sipped coffee. “Though you may be able to winkle more from the man than I could. I spent yesterday riding up and down the turnpike, searching like a hound. The general opinion seems to be that she caught the stage to London, or that she's gone off to Bristol with a highwayman, or that she met an old sweetheart and went with him to Reading.”

“You have no opinion on the matter?”

Ryder set down the cup and curled his lip. “Though the strawberries were very tolerable, this coffee leaves a great deal to be desired. Don't you agree?”

Hanley leaned forward, his eyes almost black. “Miracle Heather?”

“Ah, yes! The delectable mistress you so carelessly lost. My own suspicion is that the lady came to a foul end and is buried in a ditch. You're welcome to follow any of those leads, sir, but I'm bored with the quest and I'm going home.”

The older man grimaced. “Home?”

“To Wyldshay. Tiresome, but necessary.”

Hanley's chair scraped as he abruptly stood up. “A wise decision, Ryderbourne!”

“Yet, alas, I'm afraid I've forgotten exactly what should so terrify me?”

The earl's nostrils flared as he turned toward the window. Carriages and horses moved outside. The racket of hoofbeats and the grinding of iron-shod wheels echoed into the room.

“It's nothing,” he said. “The issue is obviously moot.”

Ryder pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. “I thought the pork overrated, also. Didn't you?”

Hanley's upper lip bent—it was almost a snarl—as he shook hands briefly and stalked from the room.

 

 

THE hook-nosed face of the Duke of Wellington wavered as the sign creaked. A thin layer of vapor was shredding against the solid gray cloudbank above it. Miracle sat on the edge of a stone trough, holding her pony by the bridle while it sucked in water. Slimy drool dribbled back into the trough.

“Well, Jim,” she said to her mount. “It must be close to one o'clock. What do you think we should do now?”

The pony plunged its nose down and splashed. Miracle laughed, though an odd grief had settled around her heart.

No doubt it was for the best. No doubt he had thought more clearly about his mad pledge and gone home. She ought to be glad. She knew enough of men—and more than enough of the more privileged members of the peerage—to know that there was nothing he could offer a woman like her except heartbreak.

Yet she had promised to wait for him, though only till noon.

A regiment of geese marched past on tarred feet. Three strings of pack ponies—baskets laden with pottery, or iron work, or in one case with live poultry—trailed through the village.

The breeze died. The clouds stilled. The Iron Duke fell silent, glaring beneath painted eyebrows along the track that led south. Jim lifted his head and stared after a flock of sheep as they disappeared down the empty green way, followed by three drovers on fat ponies.

Miracle led Jim to the mounting block and pivoted into the saddle.

So men were, in the end, all the same. There must surely be some relief in the thought!

One trail ran off to the northwest through a stand of birch, the entrance thick with dung. She dodged to avoid a couple of overhanging branches, then broke free onto an open path worn deeply between high banks. Jim plodded on, snatching at convenient weeds. When the path climbed up at last into the Cotswold Hills, the clouds began to weep their cold rain.

That night she found a huge half-ruined barn, tucked into a sheltered spot at the edge of a meadow, where a fold of hills dropped down into a small dell. The roof had fallen in at one end, so grass grew through the cobbles in a thick mat. Miracle barred what was left of the door and turned her pony loose inside to graze. The remains of the hayloft at the opposite end of the building still seemed sound enough, so she climbed up and pulled the rickety ladder after her.

Wrapped in her cloak, she snuggled down into a pile of dry straw. He had taken back his own cloak and given her this new one. It smelled of nothing but damp wool.

Damn him! Damn all men!
He's not coming!

 

 

SOMETHING tickled her nose. Miracle brushed it away. It tickled again. She was instantly awake, her heart alive with hot trepidation. Nothing but straw, caught in the thick fabric beneath her cheek. She turned lazily and gazed up at the rafters. Dawn gleamed watery sunshine over the barn ceiling. Cobwebs glistened in a filigree of silver lace. Hooves clopped about downstairs. Otherwise the new day had arrived wrapped in a reassuring peace.

She sat up, then froze in place.

A long shadow flowed from the east end of the loft, cutting a dark path across the floorboards. A leather saddlebag lay crumpled against the wall nearby.

Panic cascaded through her gut, accompanied by wrenching recognition. Ryder sat perched on the windowsill, gazing out through the unglazed opening, one knee drawn up to his chin. His long cloak was wrapped about his body, cocooning him in isolation.

Miracle gulped down the panic. A searing awareness also thundered for her attention: the surge and exaltation of desire—for the strong curve of his spine, for his long, long legs, for his lovely hands, for his smile. She knew in her bones that he had watched her as she slept, sharing that need and that awareness, but that—like Galahad—he thought himself too perfect and too controlled to act on it.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked without looking around. A hint of humor colored his voice. Humor and perhaps an odd reluctance, as if he must force himself to find mirth in his own desperate choices.

“Too well, obviously.” Miracle propped her back against the trusses of straw stacked behind her. “How long have you been sitting there?”

“Most of the night.”

Ryder dropped from the windowsill to the floor and sat with his shoulders pressed against the wall and his arms folded over his chest. Shadows swallowed his face as morning poured in through the unobstructed opening, half-blinding her.

“How did you find me?” The ladder was still lying where she had left it. “And how did you climb up to this loft?”

He glanced up, ignoring her question, his profile ghostly against cobwebs and dust. “Why didn't you wait for me at the Duke of Wellington?”

“I asked my question first.”

“Then the answer is that you call to me like a Siren. The scent of wilderness and autumn that haunts your hair leaves a trail a man can follow like a bloodhound. I would slash my way through a brier hedge, I would scale a tower one hundred feet high—”

“You have the wrong fairy tale,” she interrupted.

His smile creased both cheeks as he looked back at her. “You certainly slept as if enchanted, so the Sleeping Beauty seemed more appropriate for our present circumstances.”

“Then you should have woken me with a kiss.”

“You haven't been asleep for long enough yet.” He retrieved the leather bag, then knelt to rifle through it.

“You weren't really tracing the scent of my hair,” she said.

“Wasn't I? Then believe, if you wish, that I followed your pony's tracks and climbed in by way of the window.”

Miracle hugged her arms about her shins and rested her chin on both knees. “But it must be at least twenty feet from the ground!”

He looked around and smiled. “I was raised in the labyrinth of Wyldshay. Jack and I scrambled up the outside wall of the Fortune Tower once, hanging onto the stone like lizards. The duchess had us caned.”

“I don't blame her.” Sunlight sparkled in her lashes, scattering his image into a dance of darkness, though blood-bay highlights gleamed in his hair. “And you knew the pony, of course. You bought him.”