Games of Pleasure (40 page)

 

 

VOICES were giving orders. Miracle woke with a start. Her pulse jolted into a pounding panic, but she was still in Ryder's coach.

The sun hung low in the sky. The bustle betrayed only that the horses were being changed yet again, or perhaps that they had stopped for a meal. For most of the long journey she had barely surfaced from her troubled dreams.

She had no idea where York and John Coachman were taking her, but they had not gone southwest toward Liverpool. Instead they had passed north through Carlisle and over the Esk River. They must be well into Scotland by now. Perhaps Ryder planned to send her all the way to Leith, before she found passage out of Britain?

York flung open the door. “We've arrived, ma'am. This is Mossholm, near Annan.”

Miracle brushed both hands over her hair. “Annan? Then we're traveling west along the Solway Firth, not north any longer?”

“Yes, ma'am. Lord Ayre is far from home, but Lord Ryderbourne sent word ahead. We're to stop here for the night.”

Miracle climbed down from the carriage. She stood in a courtyard, flanked by stables and outbuildings, but dominated by a towering castle. Light from the setting sun sparkled in a multitude of tiny leaded windows and reflected from dozens of conical turrets. Mossholm seemed encrusted with rubies, as if it had stolen the light from Antares.

Struck by the strange fancy of it, she laughed. “So Lord Ayre lives in a castle from a fairy tale? Is he another enchanter?”

York gave her a puzzled glance. “I believe His Lordship is mortal enough, ma'am. Lord Ayre is an old friend of Lord Ryderbourne's. You'll be safe here.”

She was welcomed inside by the housekeeper, who bobbed a respectful curtsy as if the guest really were a lady. After an excellent meal in the wood-paneled dining room, Miracle was shown up to a guest chamber. The house seemed warm and well loved, but she asked no searching questions about her absent host, who had allowed Ryder the use of his home at a moment's notice. Though it was, of course, only another example of the extraordinary reach of a duke's eldest son.

Would nobody, ever, deny a St. George anything?

Fear intruded, like a flickering shadow. Perhaps he was not coming, after all. She would not blame him if he had simply gone back to London. No lover had ever stayed before. Why should Lord Ryderbourne—who could have any woman he wanted—be any different?

A summer squall blew in that night to whip about the turrets and moan down the stairs. Miracle lay awake for a long time, wryly aware that she had slept away half the previous day. She felt oddly suspended. It had been such a strange journey from the apprentice house to this Scottish castle. Did she regret any of it?

Only Hanley.

As for her Sir Galahad, it might almost be worth facing the gallows to have had these last weeks in his company. Miracle turned over and buried her face in the pillow. Drifting on the edge of sleep she almost thought she could feel him, warm and strong, in the bed next to her. Her lips shaped his kisses. Her mouth sighed with longing. Her heart knew deep, lovely tremors as her body remembered his. Perhaps Mossholm really was enchanted, after all?

A shutter banged. Startled fully awake, she stared at the dark windows, while yearning surged, hot and sweet, for a lover she might never see again.

When she next opened her eyes, it was to sunshine and a blue sky morning. After breakfast she climbed up into one of the turrets, where she could look out over Scotland. Water glimmered. The road east, back along the Solway Firth, twisted away toward England like a discarded piece of trimming.

Something was moving.

She watched the black speck as it came closer. A carriage rolled west toward Mossholm: a curricle drawn by two horses. Still several miles away as yet, a lone horseman thundered after it.

A quick stab of fear made her heart freeze for a moment. Miracle leaned both hands on the sill, watching the carriage and the horseman, as if they were portents of death.

As the curricle reached the last stretch, where Mossholm's drive-way split from the main road, the rider drew level and leaned down to speak to the driver of the curricle. His saddle horse spun about, its mane and tail streaming in the wind like spume off a wave.

The horseman lifted his hat and turned to ride on. His dark hair whipped in the breeze.

Miracle sped down the stairs. She stopped herself at the last minute, before she raced out into the courtyard like a child. But when the footman opened the door and Ryder strode into the hall, she was standing at the foot of the main stairs, waiting for him, with her pulse pounding its aching desire in her veins.

“I wasn't sure you would really come, after all,” she said with a wry smile. “However, I'm now as rested and refreshed as poppies after rain, and ready to travel on to Leith.”

Ryder halted in his tracks. His eyes were very dark, as if the gale still tossed there. “You doubted that I would come?” He tossed his hat to a footman. “But I gave you my word!”

Suddenly afraid, she wrapped her fingers around the newel post for support. “Did Lord Ayre arrive with you?”

“Ayre? No. He'll get here later.”

She felt awkward, as if the mill child had taken hold of her tongue. “I was watching from one of the turrets. You stopped to speak with someone in a curricle.”

“George Melman. I asked him to come. He's driven half the night to get here.”

“Why?” she asked. “He's found Lord Hanley's missing papers?”

Ryder walked up to her. The storm clouds still threatened thunder, but he bent his head to kiss her lightly on the mouth. She controlled her surge of longing and returned his kiss just as lightly, as if they were simply friends.

“No. Nothing like that,” he said. “He's going to marry us.”

“DON'T JOKE ABOUT SUCH THINGS,” SHE SAID. “WHY DID MR. Melman really come?”

Ryder choked down the torrent of desire that flooded his bones. He burned to explore her mouth, deeply, thoroughly, but he took her by the elbow, instead, and ushered her into a withdrawing room.

Miracle stood beside the cold fireplace as Ryder strode away across the oak floor. Whatever the confused passion of his feelings, he would not use touch to persuade her.

“Sit down, please, Miracle. I'm not joking.”

Ranked around the walls, a row of stags' heads, remote and majestic, gazed down from black glass eyes. Chairs and a chaise longue were arranged around a fine Turkish rug in front of the grate. At the far end of the room, a pianoforte stood near a deeply recessed window. Apart from the piano, Ayre had touched nothing at Mossholm since he had inherited it.

Miracle sat down on a delicate gilt chair and folded her hands. The movement was lovely, pure and simple and graceful. Her eyes seemed fathomless, that deep, rich chocolate, but a faint blush of angry pink brushed over her cheekbones.

“Then what the devil did you mean?” she asked.

He swallowed hard. If she tried to defy him, he would beat down her resistance, whatever it took.

“There's only one circumstance that can possibly demonstrate conclusively to Hanley that I care enough about your fate to remain silent forever.”

“About a secret that you don't really know.”

“Yes, but Hanley thinks that I do. He already hates me, and he has good reason to believe that the antipathy is mutual. He fears that I'd do anything to damage him and damn the consequences. He'd never believe that I'd keep faith for the sake of a mistress.” He took a deep breath and spun to face her again. “However, he knows with absolute conviction that I'll keep silent forever for the sake of a wife.”

The color deepened in her cheeks. “Are you mad?”

“I've never been more sane in my life.”

“You cannot possibly marry me!”

He strode forward, even though it meant that he towered over her. “I can and I will.”

She leaped up, her eyes blazing. “Have you gone finally, irrevocably lunatic? You cannot force me to wed you.”

Something snapped in his chest, as if a leather belt had been stretched to the limit around his heart and finally given way.

“Devil take it, Miracle! I knew you'd try to defy me in this. But give it one second's consideration! If you don't marry me now, I won't be able to save you. You'll hang!”

She walked away with an oddly icy calm. It infuriated him. “You can help secure my passage out of the country, instead. Surely that's not beyond your powers?”

His fists clenched. Ryder forced himself to sit down.

“If we don't marry right away, Hanley will know I was bluffing. His revenge will be instant. You'd be arrested as soon as you tried to leave this house. Then you'd tell them the truth about Willcott, and be hanged.”

Miracle stopped beside the piano, her back rigid. “Lord Hanley knows that I'm here with you right now?”

Ryder buried his forehead in both palms, his fingers clenched in his hair. “Hanley refused to accept that I could possibly be in earnest, until I gave him the exact time and place, and promised that the marriage would take place before impeccable witnesses.”

As if her knees had simply folded, she collapsed onto the piano stool. “Lord Ayre?”

“We shall marry in Mossholm's chapel this morning. Ayre and his mother, the dowager countess, will be our witnesses. I cannot ask either of them to lie about this. Hanley is bound to have agents watching the place.”

“I can be smuggled out past them.”

Ryder jerked up his head. “Damn you, Miracle! I won't take that risk.”

“So this is why you had me brought to Scotland?” She spun about on the stool and flung open the lid. The piano rang softly, like a muffled bell.

“Scottish law allows us to marry without banns. If you want to live much past tomorrow, we'd better make that a reality.”

Her fingers struck the keys. Three chords echoed, one after another, with absolute assurance, to be followed by an angry storm of notes, as if lightning raged from the hammers. He stared at her, struck to the heart by her passion and power.

“I learned to play when I was eleven.” Her voice rang as the chords crashed and boomed. “Sir Benjamin Trotter hired a music master for me, so that I might become a proper lady. I've not let that education go to waste. However, I didn't plan to be a duchess.”

Ryder leaped to his feet and strode to the window. “Even if Hanley learns later that we have no more idea of his secret than of the dark side of the moon, as long as you're my wife he can't touch you.”

“And for that faint assurance, you'd transform a temporary ruse into reality? We'll exchange vows to love and cherish for all eternity? Even if it means that a whore is to become a St. George?”

“Why the devil not?” His blood raged in a host of uncomfortable emotions. He knew that she was right. He also knew that he wanted this very badly and would do almost anything to get it. “It'll be no harder to play the duchess than it was to play Ophelia.”

She stopped playing in mid-movement. Silence resonated, then she buried her face in both hands and began to laugh with a terrible hilarity.

“What the hell are you saying?”

Her fingers strayed over the keys, offering a soft lament. “That I'm a mill girl. That I'm a courtesan. Not even you can make my past disappear. I cannot become your wife. I'm a bird of paradise, a bit of muslin, a whore, a strumpet, a moll, a—”

“It doesn't matter!”

She glanced across at him, her eyes blazing. “God, it does matter and for a host of reasons! Let's begin with the most obvious: Your family would never forgive you. Society would never forgive you. You would never forgive yourself.”

“That's rather up to me, isn't it?”

“No,” she said with appalling calm. “It's not only up to you. It's my life, too.”

Cold sweat trickled down his spine. Everything she had said was true. He knew it. He had faced it. He had made his pact with Hanley anyway. If she would not agree, then he must play the trump card.

“Not unless you prefer the gallows,” he said. “Because that's the only choice you have left, Miracle: marriage or death. It's too late now for anything else.”

“Then what a pretty bargain you made with our enemy!” Her fingers picked out a slow dirge in some haunting minor key. “So Sir Galahad will marry his paramour. He'll defy thunder and headaches for a misalliance that boasts to the world that he's truly besotted. May I have poppies for my bridal wreath?”