Games of Pleasure (42 page)

“Is this marriage legal?” she asked with appalling calm.

“We were married at Mossholm. It's not only legal, but I have no intention of ever breaking it.”

Color burned over her exquisite cheekbones. The duchess clutched hard at her parasol.

“Hanley's mistress is a well-known flower of the demimonde. I have never, of course, met her, but I make it my business to know the society gossip. I believe she enjoys the unlikely name of Miracle Heather. A steady stream of trinkets would have secured her professional favors, along with all the protestations of love you could have wished. Yet you have
married
her?”

“Yes.”

“Does Lady Ayre have any idea what kind of creature she sponsored?”

“Ayre's probably told her by now. He's bringing them both to town.”

“The beautiful Lord Ayre? You'll be cuckolded before they reach London.”

“I will not.” His boots rang on the flagstones, echoing the pounding in his heart. “Though Miracle offered to do it—to give me grounds to divorce her, if I wished.”

His mother's lips curled. “The future Duke of Blackdown is a great catch for any lady, even a royal princess, were one available. Should her husband choose to keep a paramour in town, a wife with the proper breeding would accept it. Did that option not occur to you?”

“That's not the kind of marriage I want.”

“This creature is a great beauty, I assume?”

“Yes,” Ryder said. “Exquisite. But she's far more than that: honest, clever, wise—”

“And her skills as a lover are unmatched.” The duchess tossed aside the crushed silk and stood up. “No one cares whom you bed, sir. Everyone will care whom you have wed. I can only assume that you have lost your mind.”

“On the contrary, this is the sanest thing I've ever done.”

Small and perfect, the duchess stepped forward into the sunlight, where she blazed like a flame. “No court in England would agree.”

He stepped closer. “You would try to have me declared mentally incompetent in order to challenge this marriage?”

The duchess stood rigidly upright. The green eyes flashed. “If that is what it takes!”

“Before you say anything else that you'll live to regret, Your Grace, I would ask only that you meet her. As soon as Miracle arrives in London, I'll bring her here.”

Ryder strode to the gate and set his hand on the latch. A fist seemed to have closed in his chest.

“Miracle is my wife. If Your Grace does not welcome her here with the respect due the future duchess—If you so much as look at her askance, or make her uncomfortable in any way—If by the slightest action or omission you let her know that you despise her, or her humble origins—I will turn my back on Wyldshay. You won't see me again, until I return to claim the title. If you're still living when I become duke, you will—with all due respect—be shown the door. The choice is yours, Mother.”

Silk rustled. The duchess sat down. “She is already carrying your child?”

“No.” Ryder leaned his fist against the stone wall as rage and pain surged through his blood. “Miracle can never have children. She miscarried when she was very young. She's barren.”

“Then you break my heart and will shatter your own.”

“Why? It will only bring about your greatest wish: Jack will become Duke of Blackdown when I die. He won't welcome it, but it won't do him any harm.”

The duchess took a deep breath. She seemed truly stricken, but she would never allow herself to lose control. Jewels burned in the depths of her eyes. “Only a few months ago you offered your brother nothing but chastisement for his sins with Anne. It was intolerable to you that he would break with the moral norms of English society. Now you would marry your mistress and charge his life with entirely different expectations?”

“I was wrong to judge him. I didn't understand—I knew nothing of passion.”

“A passion that binds you so deeply now that you will even forgo having sons?”

Ryder pushed away from the gate and walked up to her. “Yes,” he said. “Though I always wanted children.”

She returned his scrutiny calmly, but a terrible vulnerability lurked in the tiny wrinkles at the corners of her mouth. “How can you think for one moment that I will support you in this calamity?”

“Because I'm asking you to do so. Because I'm your son. Because if you don't, you may never see me again. And, perhaps, because it's the only way you have left now to demonstrate that you care for me at all.”

She glanced away as if grief welled up from some deep, forgotten place. “You would blackmail me with my own love for you?”

“Why not?” Ryder sat down on the bench next to her. “After all, it's what you've done to all of your children, since the day we were born.”

“Touché!”
The duchess clasped his fingers, then looked up with another small laugh. “We are an overly complex family, my dear. But you are my firstborn son. Can you really doubt that I love you?”

“I've always doubted it, but it would seem that love is capable of infinite diversity. I beg that you won't force us to be parted over this, Your Grace. Miracle holds my heart in the palm of her hand. I refuse to live without her. If you force me to choose between my wife and my family, though it break my heart, I won't hesitate to choose my wife.”

She closed her eyes, as if she hid sudden tears. “They say we should be careful what we wish for. I have wished for your marriage. I have wished—believe it or not, as you will—for your happiness. I hoped you would find a wife you could love. Now you tell me that you have. Does she love you?”

“I don't know,” Ryder said.

“She has enjoyed many other lovers, of course.”

“More than you, no doubt, but probably fewer than Lady Oxford.”

The duchess laughed. “Yes, perhaps a former courtesan will prove more faithful to her marriage vows than many ladies of our own class. Yet you will always meet men who have known her, Ryder. For the rest of your life, every man who looks at your wife might be remembering her in his bed. You can tolerate that?”

“It's a risk I'm prepared to take—even if my own brother was among them.”

“It's possible. I don't know.”

“You haven't asked her?”

Ryder buried his head in both hands. “No, and I never shall. It doesn't matter. Anne has Jack's heart now. But if you give this marriage your backing, no man in England—not even my own brother—will ever dare to drop a hint that he even met Miracle before, let alone that he ever knew her.”

A little breeze sighed through the cherry leaves and agitated the trimmings on the duchess's dress. Once again she sat in silence, her hands folded in her lap. She appeared to be studying the flagstones.

“I need your support very desperately, Mother. Without it, I'd have no choice but to take Miracle abroad. Otherwise—whatever I tried to do to protect her—the jackals would tear her apart.”

She glanced up. “Am I not to be allowed at least a modicum of outrage first?”

“I was expecting it. Just as long as any wrath that's going to be experienced because of this impolitic gesture breaks on my head and not hers.”

“You are, of course, very deeply in love. No other lady will ever live up to the charms of this courtesan. Perhaps you are right. Yet I don't know whether even I can force society to accept her. Gossip will drag us down like an undertow.”

He took her fingers and briefly kissed the knuckles. “So a few old biddies will turn their backs, and the highest sticklers will refuse to receive her. Everyone else will follow your lead, especially if it's done with enough panache. You'll no doubt find it vastly amusing.”

She lifted her hand to gaze at her rings. Emeralds scattered the sunlight. “Blackdown would have to agree.”

“The duke will go along with your decision in this, as he has in almost everything else concerning your children, since the day you first presented him with me. No one else has your influence in society.”

“Very well,” she said, dropping her hand. “Bring your bride to Wyldshay! If she is everything that you say, I will indeed defy the world to save her. However, if she is what I fear, then I will use everything in my power to secure your divorce.”

“She won't fight you in that,” Ryder said. “The marriage was my idea, not hers. She's already offered to do anything necessary to free me. I have only to ask her.”

“Then she is a clever woman,” the duchess said. “But I have already guessed that. Now, if you are quite through with your revelations, sir, I suggest that you go back to your rooms and get some rest. It is obvious that you have not slept in days.”

Ryder stood and bowed. “Your Grace!”

“Oh, go!” the duchess snapped. “You are dead on your feet, and before I start planning what to do, pray allow me the courtesy of weeping about this in private.”

 

 

MIRACLE offered quiet thanks to Lady Ayre and her son. The countess waved good-bye as their carriage bowled away. Lord Ayre had been polite but distant for the entire journey. His mother had been generous, without being familiar. Yet all three of them had understood the potential that lay in the situation.

Whether Miracle was married or not, no man, ever, would not believe that of her.

Nothing seemed to be changed in Blackdown Square, except the locks. Hanley had once possessed a key, of course. Ryder must have seen to it that the earl no longer had access to the house, before he had first left London to come after her.

Miracle was forced to knock to gain entry to her own house—no, Ryder's house.

She owed him everything. If he asked for it—even if it destroyed her—she would free him. Even if that meant the heartbreak of being found naked with another man. Even if that man was as casual about his admiration as Lord Ayre.

Izzy threw open the door and curtsied deeply, her face red with delight. “Oh, welcome home, Lady Ryderbourne!”

Miracle stared at the maid in amazement.

“Lord Ryderbourne's waiting for you, m'lady,” Izzy said. “His Lordship's already been here for two days, and he's had me clean the place from top to bottom, but he said I could take myself off as soon as Your Ladyship arrived. Is that all right?”

“Yes,” Miracle said, her pulse pounding. “Yes, of course.”

The girl bobbed another curtsy and disappeared.

Ryder was here!

An extraordinarily mundane conversation ran through her head—
You had a pleasant journey? Lady Ayre took good care of you? My friend, Lord Ayre, he saw to your needs?
—before it pitched into painful lunacy:
Am I free of my imprudent marriage? Did you learn all the splendors of yet another man's body? Am I already cuckolded?

Miracle took a deep breath and pulled off her hat before she walked into her sitting room. Ryder was standing by the window. Sunlight haloed his dark head. He turned to face her as she entered.

Her heart lurched like a spring hare. Desire for him shook her from head to foot, passing in hot waves through her blood, flooding her—mind, body, and soul—with longing. Stunned into a desperate silence, she dropped her reticule.

Ryder merely stood as if turned to stone, gazing at her with fire burning in the depths of his eyes.

Heat burned in her own heart as Miracle wrenched her gloves from shaking fingers. The soft kidskin fell to the carpet.

Passion flared in the sharp angle of his nostrils and the tension around his mouth. Never releasing her gaze, he wrenched away his cravat, then wrung his collar back from his neck with one hand.

Hectic flames licked over her belly and legs. A sweet heaviness scorched between her thighs. Shaking from head to foot, she unbuttoned her pelisse and dropped it from her shoulders.

Fighting for breath, he tore open buttons and shrugged out of his jacket.

Head high, pulse frenzied, her heart possessed, Miracle stepped out of her shoes.

Fire roared about him, as if he burned in his own light, like an angel. He ripped off his waistcoat, buttons rolling behind him as he strode across the carpet.

Consumed by frantic desire, she stepped forward to meet him.

He lifted her in his arms, bent his head, and kissed her.

Tears burned as she kissed back, meeting the hot velvet of his tongue, the sweet potency of his lips. His lean, hard strength pressed against her breasts and belly and thighs. Without a word, still kissing, he spun her across the room.

As they traveled he unfastened her dress, one button at a time, until it sagged from her shoulders. She clung to his lean waist, laughing and weeping. His lips burned over hers, ardent and open, yet dulcet as warmed honey.

A trail of garments followed them from the sitting room to the bedroom. He kicked off his shoes. Her dress fell away. Still kissing, Ryder unbuttoned his waistband and wrenched at the hem of his shirt with one hand.

Wrestling tongue to tongue, Miracle slid her hands beneath the fine linen. Her palms feasted on firm, naked flesh, the delectable muscling of his back and belly and chest.

She was as liquid and hot as the sun, burning with infinite fires, casting great streams of light into the cold universe. Ryder circled her, until they spun together in a dance of cosmic flame. Like twin stars. Like Lesath or Acrab in Scorpius, the slayer of Orion.

Ryder kicked the bedroom door closed behind them, then swept her to the bed. He lifted her onto the white sheets and buried his face against her neck. Scorching tremors rippled as he suckled the sweet spot at the base of her throat, then nipped at the lobe of her ear. His breath caressed like a dragon's.