Games of Pleasure (48 page)

Writhing like an eel, she rammed her bare heel into his face. He grunted, but hung on, his fingers biting into bone.

It was a blind, bitter rage. All the hurt. All the pain. Childhood years of hard labor and fear. The dread of hunger and desperation and poverty that had led her to accept carte blanche from him, even when her instincts screamed a warning.

With the same grim determination that she had once shown Willcott, she kicked out again. Hanley swore and released her.

Wriggling back across the cold stone, she tried again to grab the pistol. Hanley lurched to his feet. Her fingers closed on the gun. As he started toward her again, she took aim and fired.

He cried out, then fell like a tree.

Miracle dropped the pistol and stumbled back to the door that led to the spiral stair. The oak was at least two inches thick and heavily banded with iron. She set her hand on the latch to wrench it open, then let go with a gasp. The handle was hot.

She glanced back at Hanley. Handsome, broken, his fair hair glimmering, he lay like a corpse.

Now that she was free of his direct attack, she was afraid enough to weep. Smoke leaked from the keyhole. The rooms below must be roaringly alight by now. The staircase was probably on fire. As far as she knew, there was no other way down.

Yet life still blazed its demands. Whether in the end she lived or died, she would strive for life with every ounce of her being. Miracle glanced up and whispered a quick prayer—blasphemously offered not to God, but to her husband's love. She would tear the clouds from the heavens, if that would prevent Ryder having to find her dead body.

Thunder boomed directly overhead. A bolt of lightning sizzled into a field on the other side of the River Wyld. Every stone leaped into sharp relief. A gutter ran down the wall of the turret. She reached up to dip her fingers into a bend in the lead. Water still lay there from the last rain.

With frantic fingers she tore the ripped sleeve from her nightgown and sopped it into the fluid. She splashed more water over her nightgown until she was soaked. With the wet sleeve wrapped over her nose and mouth, she set her hand on the door latch.

The oak planks roared as if they held back lions.

She began to turn the handle, her face damp with rainwater and tears.
My dear Ryder, give me the strength to live for you!

“Miracle! For God's sake! Don't!”

She whirled about. His hair wild about his face, Ryder hauled himself up over the battlements. He had stripped down to shirt and trousers, and he carried a coil of rope slung over one shoulder.

“Unless you want to die, don't open that door!” he said. “The whole bloody tower beneath us is on fire.”

Miracle smiled at him with the smile that she might reserve for angels, and fainted.

 

 

AN ocean lashed into her face. She was adrift in a dinghy with no oars. She had just killed a man. She deserved to die.

She looked up into the pure green gaze of Sir Galahad. Lightning blazed from cloud to cloud. A downpour beat from the darkness, soaking his shirt and face and hair. He was holding her tight to his chest and striding with her toward the battlements.

“I love you,” she said. “Is it raining?”

Ryder nodded, his hair plastered to his forehead. “You fainted. The rain will help save the rest of Wyldshay, but this roof is threatening collapse.”

“You climbed all the way up the wall from the river?”

“Yes, but we must get down right away. Can you stand?”

She glanced at Hanley, still lying where she had shot him. She shivered.

“So I've killed another man?”

“No.” Ryder set her on her feet and busied himself tying knots in the rope. “No. Anyway, you never killed the first one.”

Lightning cracked again. Miracle leaned both hands on the wet stone and looked out. Rain swept in sheets across the fields to thrash into the castle, dumping torrents onto their heads. The stables still burned, but the frenzied flare had softened to a dull, bruised glow, hissing beneath the storm.

“I don't understand.” She still felt a little giddy. “Willcott?”

“I can't explain now, but Willcott's alive. As for Hanley, he's not dead. You shot him in the leg. He fainted from pain and pure bile, probably. You didn't kill anyone, Miracle.”

“No,” another voice said. “But I did.”

Ryder thrust Miracle behind him and spun about. He seemed carved from wet stone.

With one hand pressed to his thigh, Hanley had pushed himself up to sit propped against the wall. “Willcott's body will be found in an alley in London. No one will associate it with me.”

“So you killed him?” Ryder tied loops of knotted rope about Miracle's body. “Once you knew that Guy and I had seen the papers, what difference did Willcott make any longer?”

The downpour streamed. Hanley's head seemed to be plated in silver, as if he wore armor.

“It's what I should have done to start with, when Willcott first hinted that he knew secrets that could ruin me. Yet he said there were more copies, that if anything happened to him, they'd be made public.”

“Though you still took the gamble on the yacht?”

“Once he admitted that he'd hidden the only copies in England amongst Miracle's things, the risk seemed worth it. Who'd go to France to look for the rest?”

Hanley grimaced and lifted his palm from his leg. His fingers were sticky with blood.

Ryder picked up Miracle's torn sleeve and tossed it to the other man. “If you want to get off this roof alive, you'd better bind that.”

“No!” Hanley said, striking out with his free hand. “Leave me be! I'm damned if I'll let you see me ruined.”

“For God's sake! I can't leave you up here to die.”

“Why the hell not?” Hanley laughed. “I've rather burned my bridges, as well as your home.”

“Bind the wound!” Ryder tied the other end of the rope about a merlon. “As soon as I've seen my wife safely down off this roof, I'll lower you next.”

“So you really intend to remain married to that whore? You'll besmirch your entire family and contaminate the purity of your blood by attempting to ennoble a creature from the gutter? Then you'll hold
me
up to ridicule?”

“Manners, not birth, maketh man,” Ryder said. “Why do you assume that I'll blackmail you as Willcott did? The sin, if there was one, was your father's, not yours.”

Hanley stared at him. “You really think I'll let you give me my life?”

“If you want it. As for Willcott's death, I've no proof against you, and you know it. That's entirely up to your conscience. The man's no bloody loss to the world.”

“But everything I have was entailed with the title. If the truth comes out that I'm a bastard, I'll be a laughingstock.”

Ryder looped rope around another merlon, where he could brace it. “For all I know, Willcott made up the whole sorry tale and had forgeries made in France. There was enough chaos after the Revolution to make that possible.”

Hanley tied the sleeve about his leg. “But you've always hated me.”

“No,” Ryder said. “I did once, but I forgave it all a long time ago. The only thing I can't forgive is how you tried to use Miracle. For that, once your leg is healed, you'll be pleased to give me satisfaction.”

“And why not first see me drummed from the Lords?”

“You have a wife and children, sir. If anybody's innocent in this whole bloody mess, it's your little son.”

“When you spread the word, they'll all be beggared.”

Ryder lifted Miracle onto the battlements, kissed her quickly, and made ready to lower her from the tower.

“Devil take it! Haven't you grasped yet that I'll keep silent for their sake? So will Miracle and Guy Devoran. You've no cousin who's being cheated of his inheritance. Nothing's to be gained by ruining you, sir!”

Hanley staggered to his feet. “Do you think that I wish to live beholden to you, waiting every day to be denounced? What the hell do I have left to live for?”

“Not much, I admit,” Ryder said. “Because once you're healed enough, I still intend to kill you.”

“So you would offer me a gentleman's death on the dueling field? Then let me take a gentleman's death here and now.” Hanley nodded at the gun left lying where Miracle had dropped it. “There's still one ball left in that pistol.”

Miracle gasped as her husband kicked the pistol within Hanley's reach. The blood-soaked fingers reached out and grasped it. As Hanley raised the pistol, Ryder lowered her over the wall.

She spun out into space, lost in the lashing darkness, but a shot rang out, the sound oddly muffled by the rain as she spiraled down toward the black river.

Hands reached up to catch her. Guy was waiting in a small boat at the foot of the tower. He untied the rope from her body and flung his cloak around her shoulders, before pulling her down onto the seat beside him.

“Ryder!” she said, clutching Guy's arm. “He's up there with Hanley. He gave Hanley the pistol. I heard a shot.”

Guy hugged her to his side and stared up into the roaring darkness. “Ryder's the best man I've ever known,” he said. “Have faith, Miracle!”

The end of the rope snaked back up the wall. Miracle sat wrapped in Guy's embrace with her blood frozen in her veins.

“I can't bear it,” she whispered. “I could never go on without him. I don't deserve him, but surely God can't take him away from me this soon?”

“It's all right,” Guy said. “Ryder loves you. He won't die for nothing.”

Lightning flashed again. A man was dropping hand over hand down the wall with the aid of the rope.

Flames burst from the top of the Whitchurch Tower with a sudden roar. The upper half of the rope whipped away into space. The man hanging from the lower end plummeted like a falling stone into the river.

Spray splashed. The boat rocked. Guy thrust off with the oars. Frantic with fear, Miracle scanned the black water for several long moments, before a dark head surfaced and shook spray like flung diamonds.

Wet sleeves flashed white as the man's arms cleaved the water. In a couple of strokes he swam up to the boat. His strong hands grabbed the gunnel.

“Hanley said he'd rather die,” Ryder said. His face looked ravaged. “So I gave him the pistol and he shot himself.”

“I DO HOPE,” THE DUCHESS SAID AS SHE EXAMINED THE RUINS of the Whitchurch Tower, “that all this was worth it?”

Ryder glanced up at the blackened stone walls, the soaked remains of burned beams and plaster, and hugged Miracle to his side.

“To keep Miracle alive? What the devil do you think, Your Grace?”

“I think Hanley made some most injudicious choices. The duke is furious. I have, however, put it about that the earl perished heroically trying to assist with the fire.”

“Instead of starting it?” Guy asked. “He set the blaze in the stables first, knowing that the hay and all those dry wooden partitions would go up like fireworks. Thank God the grooms knew how to get the horses out.”

“Yes,” the duchess said. She turned and led them back into what had been Ryder's bedroom. Parts of the floor were missing. All the contents had been destroyed by either smoke or water, or both. “I understand the staff also made heroic efforts with those newfangled pumps of yours, Ryderbourne?”

Ryder nodded. “Yes, the servants were splendid.”

“Exactly as you had trained them to be. If they had not kept their wits about them, the fire would have spread to the rest of the castle.” The duchess stared up at the peeling wall near what had been her son's bed. “However, I regret the loss of that painting. I was fond of it.”

“But why make Hanley into a hero?” Guy persisted.

“He leaves a widow and several young children,” the duchess said. “No one—not even Blackdown—need know anything more, except those of us in this room. I want no further scandal attached to Miracle's name. It is difficult enough to continue with the wedding arrangements as it is.”

“How many high sticklers have threatened to turn up their noses?” Ryder asked.

The duchess stalked out into the fresh air of a courtyard. “I can only say that I have done my best. Only time will tell whether curiosity will win out over prejudice. However, we must make plans to go forward. Fortunately, other than your rooms and the stables, the rest of Wyldshay is relatively untouched. Though I am most annoyed about the St. George tapestry that Duncan hauled out of the Great Hall. Along with several undistinguished portraits of your ancestors, for which I can hardly pretend grief, the tapestry escaped the fire, only to be half-ruined by the rain.”