Games of Pleasure (47 page)

The Great Hall was empty.

 

 

THE carriage rocked dangerously as John Coachman drove the horses south through the night. Wishing only for yet more speed, Ryder told Guy everything that had happened since they had parted at Wrendale.

“So you really think Hanley will try to harm her?” Guy asked. “Yet surely she'll refuse to see him? Wyldshay is full of servants who'll sacrifice themselves before letting any harm come to a St. George.”

“Servants? God! However loyal, how the devil can servants be expected to stand up against an earl?”

“Hanley isn't an earl.”

“No one else knows that as yet, I imagine, except you and me and Willcott.”

Guy turned his head to gaze from the window. His skin still looked pale. “Why the hell do you hate each other?”

Ryder tipped his head back against the squabs. Revulsion and rage mingled hotly in his blood, driving his pulse into thunderous new rhythms as he recalled what had happened at Harrow. He had been barely more than a child in the hands of an older boy. Yet that boy had come into his title, and Lord Hanley had become, to all appearances, a perfect English gentleman.

He had buried all of those memories so deeply he had genuinely almost forgotten them. Until he had rescued a woman with bruises like accusations on her skin, and learned that she'd been Hanley's mistress.

“It doesn't matter,” he said. “It's all in the past.”

His face ghostly, Guy glanced back at his cousin. “I wish I could believe that.”

“Forget it! Did Willcott explain why he hid a copy of the papers in Izzy's Bible?”

“He'd come across evidence of the French marriage and he was blackmailing Hanley, as we surmised. Willcott knew that Hanley would ransack his rooms as soon as he had the chance, so he took his proof to Miracle's house. It wasn't hard, I imagine, to secrete it in the maid's room.”

“And as it turned out, that was a perfect hiding place—until Hanley thought it all through and guessed what Willcott had done.”

Guy rubbed a thumb and forefinger over his eyes. “But why the hell create the scene on the yacht?”

“That was probably genuine. Miracle can drive almost any man wild with desire, even when she'd rather not. So when Willcott offered to trade all the damning evidence for Miracle's favors and—no doubt—a very large sum of money, Hanley must have believed him.”

His cousin looked up. “But you think Hanley intended a double cross?”

Ryder nodded. “How could he trust Willcott to keep quiet forever, however much he paid him? So he'd promise the money, sacrifice Miracle, learn the location of the papers, then turn Willcott adrift in a boat without oars in a spot where the currents would carry it straight onto the rocks of the next headland.”

“Though Willcott must have already told Hanley that he'd hidden the papers amongst Miracle's possessions?”

“I imagine he told him on the yacht that night. It was the truth, after a fashion. He probably refused to explain exactly, till after he'd secured the money, but a half truth was necessary to win Hanley's confidence. However, Miracle put a little damper on everyone's plans when she put a knife into Willcott's shoulder. Now, get some sleep, Guy! There's nothing more we can do now, except pray.”

Guy pulled a rug up over his shoulders and slumped into a corner of the carriage. In a few moments, he was asleep.

Ryder sank his head into both hands and tried to bury his fear. He even tried to pray, for Miracle's safety, for her love. Yet another thought intruded, as he looked up to see Guy settle into the deep slumber of exhaustion: a generous man, his cousin, to knock himself out for a woman who had already pledged herself to another.

 

 

MIRACLE shrugged and gazed about the Great Hall. The room was dominated by images of St. George and the dragon. Perhaps the gentleman had lost his nerve, after all? Which meant that her visitor was almost certainly not Lord Dartford.

She turned to speak to the footman. “A gentleman came here asking for me, Duncan, but he didn't give his name?”

“That's right, my lady, but he's gone now.”

“Gone? You mean his coach already left?”

“Yes, my lady. A few minutes ago.”

“Can you describe the crest on the door?”

The footman shook his head, but he went to question someone from the stables. Miracle waited with a vague sense of unease.

Duncan's shoes resounded heavily on the floorboards as he came back. “The coach was damaged, my lady, but recently repaired. The head groom says it looked like a bullet had gone through the door panel. He made this little sketch of the crest.”

He held out a slip of paper.

There was no need, of course, to look at it.

 

 

THE carriage rolled on, its lamps carving a faint path through the darkness. Guy still slept. Ryder stared from the window at the shrouded countryside. Thick clouds hid the stars. Lightning crackled from one ominous mass of blackness to another, followed by long, low peals of thunder.

God! If only he could tear open the night to fly like a raven straight to Miracle's side!

There was no way to travel any faster than this. He forced himself to lean back and close his eyes.

“Aren't we almost there?” His cousin pushed down the rug and stretched. “Must be close to dawn?”

Ryder glanced at his watch. “Not according to this. Bloody timepiece must have stopped.”

He leaned forward to glance from the window, then he wrenched down the glass. Shock ripped into his gut.

An angry red bruise colored the sky to the south, as if the devil were smelting iron in the clouds. For several long minutes as the carriage rolled closer, Ryder stared in silence. At last he was able to distinguish the sharp agony of battlements silhouetted against the red glow. The spiked outline of roof turrets and flagpole. The dread bulk of the Fortune Tower.

Shock coalesced into terror, while incoherent prayers tumbled through his mind.

The base of the clouds above Wyldshay flamed like a furnace.

He slammed his fist into the side of the carriage, then tore both hands through his hair, as if he could wrench the torment out of his heart.

Guy grabbed him by the wrist. “It's no use, Ryder. There's nothing we can do till we get there. The horses can't possibly run any faster.”

Ryder forced himself to take several deep breaths, before his anguish completely blocked his throat.

“I know that,” he said. “But I left Miracle there alone. And the bloody bastard has set fire to Wyldshay!”

 

 

MIRACLE dreamed of him: warm, passionate, thoughtful, lovely. Lord Ryderbourne!

Yet buried doubts also stirred—as if she were being prodded by hobgoblins—making her toss restlessly in his bed. Thunder boomed through her dreams, threatening heartache.

Surely love would be enough?

Yet she woke to sudden fear, as if a goblin jeered at her:
How do you like your fool's paradise?

Thunder still rolled, but the sound had become a dull roar, like a waterfall. A faint crackling underlay the sound, as if the water fell onto dry sticks.

“I asked you,” the voice said again. “How do you like your fool's paradise?”

Miracle gulped down plain terror, then pushed her hair from her forehead with both hands and sat up. The clock marked only a few minutes past midnight, but a faint red glow was shining in at the window, and a man with an oil lamp was standing at the foot of her bed.

For one long moment she stared at him, while her heart rattled madly in her chest.

“He loves this place, doesn't he?” Lord Hanley asked. “He even thinks that he loves you. Too bad he's about to lose all of it.”

She swallowed hard. Smoke wafted in the open window. “There's a fire,” she said. “We may not have very much time to get out.”

Footsteps pounded in the corridor. Someone shouted, then rattled at the door.

“It's locked,” Hanley said, lifting the lamp higher. “And in case you hadn't noticed, I'm holding a pistol in my right hand. Both loaded barrels point at your heart. Get up!”

Miracle swallowed hard. Life beat fast in her veins. She did not want to die.

“In nothing but my nightgown? In front of a gentleman? Sir, you shock me!”

Lord Hanley stepped forward. Red glinted on his weapon. “Don't try to be clever, Miracle! Do as I say!”

“Well, of course! I would never argue with loaded pistols.” She clambered from the bed.
Buy time! Buy time!
“Yet I had planned to die on the scaffold. Ah well! It's been a short life, but a sweet one. I regret none of it, except you.”

He thrust the gun into her ribs. “Be quiet!”

Voices shouted her name from the hallway. She heard Jane and Duncan: Ryder's people, trying to save her. Something heavy thudded into the door. They were trying to break it down.

Lord Hanley threw the lamp. Glass exploded into flame, devouring oil as it spilled across the floor.

He clapped one hand over Miracle's mouth and marched her to another door hidden in the paneling. He slammed it open with a blow from his pistol butt and pushed her through ahead of him. A spiral stair coiled up inside the walls of the Whitchurch Tower.

Miracle stumbled up, the steps rough on her bare feet. At every third or fourth turn, an arrow-slit window looked out. She saw nothing but red.

Hanley thrust her out onto the roof walk behind the battlements and slammed another door closed behind them.

“I want you to watch as his home burns to the ground,” he said. “I'm only sorry that he's not here to see it, as well.”

A furious red glow was eating its way steadily up the walls of the Docent Tower. The stables were already ablaze. The Fortune Tower stood out like an angry black fist in stark contrast.

“How did you know that a stair led up here from Ryder's bedroom?” she asked.

“He told me. Many years ago. At Harrow.”

“When you first fell into disagreement? What on earth did he do to you?”

Hanley thrust her up against the battlements, cruelly twisting her arm. Stitches tore at the shoulder of her nightgown.

“It's more a matter of what I did to him. Shall I tell you?”

She forced herself to laugh, though fear beat at her. “If you like! It makes no difference to me. I really don't care to know any more about him.”

He released her and stepped back. His eyes were cold, his handsome face rigid.

Lord Hanley did not look mad. He looked like a man with a broken heart.

“You don't even love him, do you?” he asked.

“Love? Are you serious? He just fancies me in his bed, that's all!”

“You little bitch!” The pistol wavered as if he gripped it too hard. “Did you truly think you could get away with this? That a strumpet could marry into one of the first families of England? That a harlot could ever become a duchess? That after sharing all those nasty whore's tricks in my bed, you could really invite the rest of the peerage to a grand wedding here at Wyldshay?”

“Well, no,” she said. “I suppose not. But it was worth a try. After all, he has more money than you ever dreamed of.”

“Used to have.”

Hanley leaned his hips against the high wall behind him. Red reflections glowed on his face and in his silver-blond hair, but his eyes glittered like ice.

“Yes,” Miracle said, turning to gaze down at the flames. “I suppose Wyldshay will cost a little more to rebuild than the door panel on your coach.”

He stepped forward again to grasp her by the chin, then twisted her, so that her stomach pressed hard against the merlon.

“Yet perhaps he won't wish to, when he finds his wife's body. Not quite so pretty, after she was burned alive.”

“How very unoriginal!” she said. “If my corpse is to burn, how on earth will he know whether or not I was raped—or do you intend to do that afterward?”

He stood for a moment as if frozen, then—still holding her by the chin with her head pulled back—he thrust his other hand beneath the hem of her nightgown.

Far below, in the courtyards and gardens, a scurry of figures had organized itself into bucket chains, bringing water and flinging it at the tortured stone walls. Horses surged blindfolded from the stables. A procession of maids carried paintings and armloads of valuables across the arched bridge.

On the edge of the river men were working feverishly at some kind of pump. Another group dragged hoses. The roof of the stables fell in with a roar, but a spray was starting to play across the base of the Fortune Tower.

Even without its master, Wyldshay fought for survival.

As did Miracle Heather.

Hanley's hand, still holding the pistol, stroked unsteadily up her thighs, until her gown was rucked up over her bottom. His breath roared hot in her ear.

“One last time, then, Miracle, before we both die!”

“Did you forget,” she said through gritted teeth, “that I'm not a fine lady who'll lie back and squeal while you take your rotten pleasure?”

She locked her fists together and hammered her elbow into his groin. Hanley doubled over. The pistol skidded away across the stone pavement. Miracle dived after it, but he caught her by the ankle.