Games of Pleasure (16 page)

“Fortunately, his front shoes are quite distinctive. My own mount has joined him downstairs. Beauty isn't too proud to graze from the cobblestones.” He held out a leather-covered flask and a small package. “Are you hungry?”

She grinned. “You asked me that once before with apparently disastrous consequences.”

He crouched down to face her. Sunlight burnished the tiny crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “I don't claim that our appetites have changed, only require that we not act on them again so precipitately.”

“So we're both doomed to remain forever hungry and thirsty, like Tantalus?” She met his ocean-green gaze as she took the food. “Though, of course, appetite is a secret, private, and personal attribute. So go ahead, my lord, and tell me what lies you will.” A wash of color stained his cheekbones, maddeningly vulnerable, maddeningly attractive. He stood up abruptly and moved away.

“I don't need to lie,” he said. “You already know the truth. However, I see no need for either of us to voice it.”

“Then why did you really come after me? I felt so sure you would not.”

He leaned both fists on the windowsill, his back tense. “But I gave you my word!”

“Yet there are so many reasons why you should have gone home, instead.”

He seemed grave suddenly, as grave and solemn and as lovely as Paris, when he foolishly gave the apple to the Goddess of Love, and thus slighted both Wisdom and Power.

“Among all the other reasons,” he said at last, “is this: I have a younger brother, Lord Jonathan Devoran St. George. Jack has adventured all over the world, sometimes following chimera, sometimes acting the knight errant in tasks that might shake the very foundations of our world.”

Miracle swallowed watered wine and nibbled at the bread and cheese, hungry for something else entirely. “I don't know that I see the connection. Do you envy him that?”

“Envy? No.” He leaned one shoulder against the frame to gaze at the bright morning outside. “I love my brother with such a deep, strong, absolute faith, it leaves no room for pettiness. Yet Jack left England again recently to return to India, taking his new bride with him.” He thrust away from the window and paced back across the loft. “Everything I said yesterday is still true, but it's partly because of Jack that I can't simply go home.”

“I don't understand.”

“To begin with, Jack would always drop everything to follow the wildest, least expected answer to a problem, whatever promised to expand his view of the world.”

“He's a younger son. He doesn't have your responsibilities.”

“No, but for the first time in my wretched life, that's what I'm going to do, too. I told you that I wanted to walk out of my life for a few weeks, but I
need
to do it—to better understand my brother, perhaps to better understand myself.”

“So to gain this mysterious new understanding, you'll go gallivanting up the spine of England with a whore who's wanted for murder?”

He seized the ladder and slid it over the edge of the loft. The feet hit the stone floor below with a thud. Hooves clattered as the horses startled and jumped away.

“
Was
it murder, Miracle?”

“I don't know what else you'd call it.” She looked down at the wine flask, the contents delicately flavored, a perfect match for the cheese. “I stuck a knife into a man's chest. He was Lord Hanley's dearest friend, one Philip Willcott.”

“Why?”

“For all the obvious reasons. I didn't like him. He didn't like me. It was ugly and sordid and there's no use at all in talking about it.”

“You don't regret it?”

She made a face at him, though her heart thundered and her palms felt clammy and cold. “I only regret that I didn't stab Lord Hanley, too, when I had the chance.”

“Why?”

“You don't need to know.”

“Yes, I do.” Every inch his father's son, Ryder stood squarely by the top of the ladder, his arms folded. His eyes burned with green fire. “Before we leave this loft, you will be pleased to tell me everything that took place before you were set adrift in that dinghy.”

“No.” She stood up to gather her few possessions. “I shall not be pleased to do any such thing. Perhaps you've forgotten that I'm not your minion to do as you bid. Whatever I've done—even if I'd killed a hundred men—I'm still a free agent, at this moment, at least.”

Everything about his stance was intimidating, probably more than he intended, his mouth set, his jaw hard. “He abused you?”

“What difference does it make?” She lifted her chin and walked close enough to inhale his scent: man and night and whispers of clean linen, far more heady than the wine. “Now, if you'll kindly stand aside, my lord, I need to go outside.”

“I shan't stand aside until you tell me what happened.”

“No.” Taking a deep breath, Miracle stepped forward as if to brush past him.

One booted foot kicked back at the top rung, sending the ladder flying. The horses careened into a gallop as it fell to the floor below and shattered.

“We shall not leave this loft,” he said, “until you tell me the truth.”

She laughed defiantly up at him. “You would blackmail me with the pressure from my own bladder?”

Deeper color flooded his cheekbones. “If that's what it takes.”

“Unless you wish to embarrass us both beyond repair, my lord, you should know that I can't wait that long.”

“Very well.” His boots resounded as he strode to the window. “Of course. But then you will tell me?”

“I don't see that it's any of your business. However, I need to go outside and now there's no ladder.”

“I'm aware of that.” A tall silhouette against the brilliance of daylight, he seemed rigid, inflexible, but he tipped his head back and laughed, as if suddenly amused at himself. “However, its loss isn't an insolvable problem, just an uncomfortable one.”

“Ah,” she said. “The walls of the Fortune Tower? You now intend to carry me down from that window?”

“It seems that I must.” He turned to grin at her. “You will understand—after what I said—that I face that prospect with a certain reluctance?”

She walked up to him. “If you hadn't been so precipitate, my lord, you wouldn't now be forced to touch me.”

Heat flared as if a fire had been lit beneath his skin. “But I long to touch you, though I didn't intend it. I didn't expect the ladder to break.”

“In your world nothing gets old or worn out, does it? Nothing breaks, and if—by some mad audacity—something has the nerve to crack or splinter, some invisible elf repairs or replaces it instantly.”

“I'm not quite so removed from daily reality, Miracle.”

“Yes, you are,” she said. “Yet now I'm becoming quite desperate to get down from this loft. I'm happy to accept whatever means present themselves, even those that you face with such dismayed self-derision. So how shall we do it? You'll need both hands free in order to climb. Do you wish to sling me over one shoulder, or shall I cling to your back like a monkey?”

His eyes were as green as glass. “Whichever you prefer.”

“Then the monkey method will probably inconvenience my person a little less, considering my present bodily needs.”

“I'm sorry,” he said.

“For kicking away our ladder? Don't be!” She moved closer and slid both arms about his neck. “We've launched into an adventure, you and I, my lord. Why not include a little derring-do? I'll do my best not to choke you, while you endeavor not to drop both of us into a pile of broken bones. Shall we go?”

He didn't know if he could bear it. Her fingers strayed; her palms lay serenely on the hot flesh of his neck. Wisps of straw still decorated her hair, as if promising gilt opulence and harvests of plenty. She was laughing up at him, her eyes pools of darkness and wicked mirth, her skin as cool and perfect and inviting as a pan of thick cream in the dairy.

He wanted to kiss her, ravish those red lips, delve deeper into her wicked, knowledgeable passions. Yet it seemed imperative that he refrain, as if she were Calypso tempting him to seven years' forgetfulness.

“You must get behind me,” he said.

“Like Satan?”

He laughed openly then. “Like the witch that you are. But even without your enchantments, I won't let us fall.”

“My dear Ryder, I didn't think for a minute that you would.”

One fingertip trailed fire along his jaw as she slipped around him. His pulse beat hard, filling him with more wild, self-deprecating amusement.
Men aren't beasts?
Circe's enchantment had turned men into swine. For the first time in his life, he thought he understood why.

She slipped both arms over his shoulders and wrapped them tightly about his chest, then jumped onto his back, embracing his waist with her thighs like a child playing pickaback.

The stone wall was rough and half-tumbled where the entire building had settled sideways, so it was an easy enough climb offering plenty of footholds, even with his burden. Easy, and foolish, and mad!

She clung tightly against his back—all delectable softness and heat and sweet scents—as he swung down hand over hand. Unnerving images swarmed into his mind. Hot images that aroused, followed by memories that disturbed and tormented. Ryder shook his head in a vain attempt to drive them away. Surely he could at least control his own thoughts?

As soon as they reached the ground, Miracle jumped down.

“Well done,” she murmured in his ear. “But now you're torturing yourself because you cannot remain indifferent when a female presses her breasts into your spine and wraps her naked thighs about your waist?”

Ryder pressed his forehead onto the cold stone wall between his spread hands, thinking he might yet dissolve into painful hilarity. “God, Miracle!”

“And you claim that men aren't beasts? What were you thinking about just then? I wager that—in spite of what you demand of me—you won't have the courage to tell me.”

He choked back his misplaced mirth and stared down at the crushed weeds. “You really want to know what flashed into my mind?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“It was just a memory—nothing to do with you.”

Her fingers strayed over his shoulder, firing importunate need, forcing him to spin around to break the contact. The bruises marked her face with yellow stains and indigo shadows. Yet she seemed ever more lovely to him, as if she were lit from within with a white light.

“Though you insist that I tell you all the facts about my shabby past,” she said, stepping back and grinning up at him. “Surely I can demand at least one insight into yours?”

“It's not the same thing.”

“Yes, it is.”

“If you insist that we exchange truths,” he said, “you'll learn things that I've never told a living soul. But I thought you were desperate—”

“For the bushes? I am. Though I wonder what the duchess would think if she could see her elder son at this moment?”

“My mother?” He was genuinely taken aback. “I don't know. Her Grace would probably raise one elegant brow and wonder at my lack of good manners.”

She winked. “Or perhaps she'd be amused at the sight of her virtuous elder son panting like a stag in rut for a woman he's sworn never to molest again?”

He was surprised into laughter. “Why the devil do you care what my mother thinks?”

“I just wondered where you learned your strange ideas, my lord. Would the duchess understand that Lord Ryderbourne thinks he may have unwittingly begun a sacred quest, without even knowing what hallowed object he seeks? Would she then agree that abstinence is necessary, lest the Grail slip away before Sir Galahad can grasp it?”

“Her Grace is a subtle and complex lady, but I doubt that she's ever given the intricacies of my conscience that much thought.”

“Ah, then perhaps that's why I think that I must taunt you: to see if your claims to nobler motives are just hypocrisy?”

Before he could reply, she picked up her skirts and ran for the edge of the nearest woods.

Laughter fled.
Just hypocrisy?
Ryder leaned back as if he might simply become part of the cold stone. Dumb, blank, rooted to the earth. He stood in silence for a few minutes, then with a sudden longing for solidity, he sank down to sit on the damp ground. With his legs extended and his back against the wall, he watched the sun break over the trees. The meadow flooded with brilliant light.

She was enchanting. He was enchanted. In spite of what he had told her, was there truly no good reason for him to be here, except that? She had killed a man named Philip Willcott. She was fleeing for her life. If he really cared about nothing but duty, he would turn her over to the nearest magistrate and walk away. Was he, like the enthralled travelers in
The Odyssey,
in danger of forgetting all of his other obligations?

He watched her through narrowed lashes as she returned, the sun bright on her hair, her skirts rimmed in gold. Her movements seemed carefree, wanton, as free as if this walk over the buttercup-spangled meadow were enough by itself to bring her untrammeled joy. Every now and then she bent to pluck a poppy or a cornflower from the tall grass that bordered the path. As if she had no past and no future, she seemed complete in the moment.

No past, no future: like that one night they had shared at the Merry Monarch?

“Here,” she said, walking gracefully up to him. “I've no pennies to spare, but I always pay my own way, so here are some petals for your thoughts.”