Games of Pleasure (39 page)

Now that the moment had arrived, his decision filled him with a visceral, wild excitement. After this day—whatever the consequences, and they would no doubt be terrible—there would be no going back.

“Hanley!” he exclaimed. “What a pleasant surprise! We're making a habit of running into each other in obscure hostelries.”

The earl spun about as if, flayed, he was raw to the touch. “Good God! Ryderbourne! Still merry as a cricket? Thanks to the ministrations of a certain lady, no doubt?” His eyes narrowed, but tension worked at a muscle in his temple. “We've already ascertained that she's with you. Pray, don't attempt to deny it!”

“Of course, but let's not be indiscreet.” Ryder turned to the magistrate. “Delighted to see you again, Braughton! I trust we may welcome you and Lady Braughton to Wyldshay soon? Or to Wrendale, if that's more convenient? The duchess is burning to share all the latest gossip, as soon as she and the duke come north.”

Braughton smiled with obvious discomfort. “My wife would be honored, Ryderbourne! Most kind!”

“Not at all! However, Hanley and I have a little private matter to discuss—very much to his interest, as it happens—and I've already led him a merry enough dance across England. You'll forgive us, I'm sure?”

The older man bowed. “Any affair between gentlemen is best settled privately, of course. Yet Lord Hanley implied that I might need to take some action here in my official capacity as magistrate.”

“About my chestnut mare, no doubt?” Ryder turned back to Hanley as if having to explain something to a child. “After stealing one of my best saddle horses, some ruffian has been using her for highway robbery. Damn his eyes! He even used her to lift my own watch.”

“I remember the mare.” Hanley took a pinch of snuff, though loathing flickered in his eyes. “The same damned thug took my watch, as well. If it were in my power to bring it about, I'd see the man hanged.”

“Me, too,” Ryder said. “The most insolent fellow imaginable! But you have a habit of losing things, Hanley, whereas I have a habit of finding them.”

The earl's snuffbox snapped closed. “What the devil do you mean, sir?”

“Simply that your most important recent loss has been found. Happy news, I trust?”

Hanley's lips pulled back as if he faced a ghoul. He fumbled clumsily with the snuffbox.

“Nothing here to concern you, after all, Braughton,” he mumbled. “Seems I brought you from home on a wild-goose chase. I apologize.”

Lord Braughton glanced back at Ryder. “You've recovered Lord Hanley's missing timepiece, sir?”

“No, alas, I found something quite different. However, Hanley was kind enough to put out a search for my mare. I must thank him.”

“Then while you gentlemen exchange news, I'd best return home. Send a description of the stolen horse to me, as well, Ryderbourne. I'll put some of my lads onto it right away.”

The magistrate bowed, turned on his heel, and left.

“Are you quite well?” Ryder asked Hanley. “You appear to have swallowed rat poison.”

“Damn you to hell, sir!”

“Why? Because a certain lady is in possession of something that you might find embarrassing?”

Hanley swallowed hard. “Then she does have it! The bloody whore! Where is she?”

“Safe.”

“Safe?” The earl laughed with leering bravado. “I already know that you've left her holed up in a private parlor with one of your grooms. Careless of you, Ryderbourne, unless you prefer to share your women with all and sundry! There's not a man jack among my servants who'd not sample a whore's wares, if given the chance.”

“No doubt. However, there's no whore in the case this time,” Ryder said. “As for the other matter at hand, shall we discuss it in more privacy? Over a glass of wine, perhaps? Your agitation is attracting some attention, which you might find unwelcome in the circumstances.”

His eyes hollow, the earl glanced about. “If you expose me publicly now, I swear I will kill you.”

“Perhaps. But then, you have control over something that I want, as well. We dislike each other, but neither pleasantries nor insults are necessary. I have a very simple proposition to make.”

Ryder led the way to a private table in a corner and ordered wine. Hanley had regained control of himself, but a tinge of green still lurked at the turn of his nostrils.

“You intend to negotiate for her life?” he said, leaning forward. “Your silence for mine? Why should I believe you'd keep your half of any such bargain? Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn't bring charges against her right now for Philip Willcott's death?”

“If you do, I will ruin you.”

Ryder calmly poured wine and watched Hanley toss it back. Perhaps if he stayed as close to the truth as possible, his ruse might yet work, though the sheer enormity of this bluff almost took his breath away.

“How the devil did you find out?”

“Before you and she boarded your yacht in Exeter, Miracle sent a bag of trinkets to her brother for safekeeping. A preacher carried it north for her. Surely you found out about that?”

The earl glanced away, his eyes haggard. “Eventually. A maid at the inn saw her pass the bag to a stranger under my bloody nose, though it took a while for my fellows to get the story out of the girl.”

“But when they did, you guessed immediately what the bag must contain.”

Hanley's fingers clenched on the stem of his glass. “It wasn't in her rooms. Willcott hadn't left it on the yacht. Where else could it be? God! If I had learned earlier about that whore's treachery—”

“So unfortunate! Especially once you learned that the preacher had been to her brother's house, but that the man had already left again with most of the bag's contents intact. Who told you that? The street sweeper?”

“I broke his arm for him. Why the hell did the preacher keep it?”

Ryder forced himself not to lean across the table to choke the life out of his enemy. “It's a long story, and not one that concerns either of us. Fortunately, Melman turned out to be an honest man, happy to return another's lost possessions. So I found it first.”

Hanley's skin gleamed like damp limestone. “Then you've read it?”

“A little dishonorable for one gentleman to read another's secrets, but necessary in the circumstances, as I'm sure you'll agree.”

“And the item is now in safekeeping to be revealed publicly, no doubt, if you were to meet with any sudden misfortune?” Hanley stared down at his hands, heavily laden with rings, and grimaced. “I should have shot you when I had the chance.”

“You never did have the chance.”

“
Never?
But now you propose that if I swear not to bring charges against her for Willcott's murder, you'll
never
breathe a word about what you've learned?”

Ryder nodded. “She will do the same. Her life is adequate surety for our silence, I would think.”

Hanley poured himself more wine. The neck of the bottle rattled against his glass.

“While she's your mistress, perhaps. But once you've left her behind, your hatred for me will override all this gallantry to a harlot.” His lips twisted as he glanced up. “Or perhaps you've forgotten what happened at Harrow?”

“No. I've not forgotten.”

“And you've never forgiven it, either, have you? Any more than I have!”

“We were boys. It's of minor importance now.”

Hanley drained his wineglass. “While you're besotted with her body, perhaps. But you'll get tired of her. You'll abandon her for another harlot. You won't give a damn whether she lives or dies, and your
never
won't mean a damn thing. Then you'll have your revenge and expose me. Why shouldn't I see her hanged first?”

“Because of what I'm about to tell you.” Ryder took off his simple gold ring and spun it on the table. “The one event that will make you certain that, as long as I live, you'll be absolutely safe.”

Hanley almost knocked over the bottle. He grabbed and steadied it, his knuckles white on the neck. Then a smile slowly creased his cheeks, before he laughed aloud.

“Oh, God! Will wonders never cease? If you're really that much of a fool, Ryderbourne, I think we may have a bargain, after all.” He leaned forward, his eyes frosted with ice, and slapped his palm over the ring, then held it up to the light. “But I'll not give you more than twenty-four hours to do it.”

 

 

MIRACLE sewed up her damaged bag, even though her vision was so blurred that the stitches ran crooked. If she simply sat here and did nothing, she would go mad. Why hadn't she fled to the coast while she still had the chance? Why had she allowed herself to revel in the company of a duke's son, who had—in the end—nothing to lose?

York stood respectfully in the corner and stared off into the distance, but if she tried to leave the room, he would stop her. Ryder's servants had such absolute faith in him. Yet Lord Hanley was likely to burst in at any moment with the local magistrate, and she would be arrested.

Under oath she would tell the truth. She had killed a man. She deserved to die.

Yet there was a terrible irony in the idea of a whore losing her life, because she'd been fool enough to first lose her heart!

Miracle tried to flip open her fan with the elegant gesture she had perfected over the years. Ivory snapped as her fist suddenly clenched. Using both hands she spread the fan on the table. Adonis was ruined. She had just crushed him against the Goddess of Love, and the embrace had destroyed him.

She bit her lip and looked up. York was still gazing steadily at the wall, but she thought she saw fear in his eyes. She and the groom were cut from the same cloth, after all. For all of his fine manners, York had no doubt also been born in a cottage.

Men like Ryder snapped their fingers at sudden death, faced with bravado and dash on the dueling ground or the battlefield. Only people like Miracle and York lived with the threat of a slow strangling from the hangman's rope.

Could she find the courage to face the gallows alone? Would the thought of the cold, distant stars be enough to sustain her?

She was determined to face the inevitable with as much dignity as possible, but she did not want Ryder there. What if she broke down, begging and screaming in the language of a mill child who had once pleaded in vain not to be locked in a dark attic? Though perhaps he would send her a bottle of brandy or a tincture of opium to dull her senses, if she asked for it?

The door burst open. The fan fell to the floor as Miracle leaped to her feet, but it was Ryder, alone. He looked wild, like a falcon bating on its perch.

“See to the horses, York!” he said. “We're leaving right away.”

The servant bowed and hurried out.

“What happened?” Her heart hammered, choking. “Where's Lord Hanley?”

“Gone!” Ryder stooped to pick up the fan. His eyes veiled, he gazed at the spoiled painting for a moment.

“What are you concealing from me? You made some kind of a bargain with him? What did it cost you?”

He tossed the fan aside. He seemed feral, dangerous. “Nothing that I care about and far less than I'm gaining.”

“Then you threatened him? Oh, God! You told Lord Hanley that we'd found what he's searching for, didn't you?”

“I implied it rather heavily.” Ryder looked up and smiled, as if at some secret triumph. “Hanley certainly believes now that I could ruin him. I've no idea what his secret is, but he'll do anything—even let you go—rather than have it revealed to the world.”

Knees weak, she dropped back into the chair. “Then, since this is all based on bluff, you've bought us time, but no more.”

“Time is all we need.” He caught her hand and pulled her to her feet. “You're not going to die, Miracle. Does anything else matter?”

“You're taking me to a ship?”

“I'm taking you to a new future, but we must leave now, before Hanley changes his mind.”

She swallowed hard and pulled away. She was certain that Ryder was concealing some staggering secret. She was equally certain that he was not going to tell her. Yet she would not be arrested, after all? She felt giddy, as if he had poured champagne directly into her veins.

He escorted her out to the waiting carriage, but he did not climb in beside her.

York ran out with a gray saddle gelding. Ryder swung onto the horse and leaned down with a quizzical smile.

“There are some other things I must do right away. I'll meet up with you later.”

The coach horses pulled forward. Ryder spun his mount on its haunches and sped away. A shaft of sunlight blazed as blue-white as Rigel in the gelding's mane and tail.

If Miracle never saw him again, it was an image that would haunt her until the day that she died: her knight errant, as determined and powerful and terrible as thunder, riding away toward the hills, his pure heart—because of her—now sullied by duplicity.

Meanwhile, her future security was still built on sand. If Lord Hanley found his missing document and realized how he'd been tricked, nothing could save her. Ryder would grieve for a while and then he would forget her. One of those far more suitable young ladies would marry him and give him sons.

There was real comfort in the certainty of his eventual happiness.

Perhaps that—more than thoughts of the great, impersonal universe—would give her the strength, when it came to it, to face death with some serenity.

Yet Miracle had been mostly awake for several nights. In the end, from pure exhaustion, she slept.