Suzanne Robinson (22 page)

Sensing Morgan’s withdrawal, the viscount sent him from Moorefield Garde to be fostered by Christian de Rivers. It was Christian who had told him just how unfair Father had been to Derry. Christian had revealed how Derry, more interested in books than in fighting, had forced himself to forsake the pursuits he loved for the bloodthirsty occupations
his father respected. All in search of the love of a man whose heart was as small as his wit.

At first Morgan hadn’t believed him, but now he knew the truth. He owed Christian de Rivers an unpayable debt. With Christian’s rough tutelage and viperish affection, he grew to manhood. He learned courtly dances, how to kill a man with a stiletto, how to kiss a lady’s hand—and more—and how to cross London by rooftop. This last skill might prove useful, for he was leaving Highcliffe at once.

His disastrous encounters at Much Cutwell had yielded valuable knowledge. Jean-Paul awaited an assassin with the location of a meeting between Christian de Rivers and William Cecil. The assassin had been expected at any moment. He had to return to Much Cutwell and find the man.

He wanted to kill the murderer here rather than risk chasing him by ship and by land in England. And he still had to rid himself of Jean-Paul. The priest was far too dangerous to be allowed to live. He’d almost succeeded in his plots against the queen several times. Sooner or later he might accomplish one of them.

Enough useless musing. He needed to convince Pen to let him go—Pen.

“Oh, no.”

Morgan winced as he remembered the last three weeks with her. Tristan had fallen in love with Pen, a woman who ultimately had no faith in him. Morgan clawed the paneling beside the window embrasure as thoughts of Pen brought back memories of what he’d become on this island. Lost, vulnerable, exposed.

He felt as if he’d been stripped naked and whipped before a jeering crowd. By the bloody cross, he never wanted to feel that way again, never wanted to be that
helpless. His loss of memory had peeled all his protective layers away to leave him raw and bleeding. Morgan cringed as he understood how near to madness and dissolution he’d come. Only Pen had stood between him and death.

But that had been Tristan, not Morgan. Tristan had been in love with Pen, but he wasn’t Tristan. Tristan had been lost and alone. He was neither.

Morgan paced around the Painted Chamber, past masterpiece after masterpiece, assuring himself of his strength and how unlike Tristan he really was. He needed no faithless woman to protect him. God, he’d survived duels with five men and been in more skirmishes in his service under Christian de Rivers … No, he wasn’t vulnerable at all. He didn’t need Penelope Fairfax.

And since he’d discovered the truth about himself, he’d sworn to atone for his great sins by serving his queen and country. By risking his life to protect others, he might achieve some kind of salvation. But he couldn’t do that on Penance Isle.

Nor could he remain in this backwater, even without the need to atone. For he craved the activity and splendor of court life, not for the power or the riches, but for the unfailing attentions of the women. At court he basked in a sunlight of female admiration that soothed old hurts.

These hurts lodged in his soul in the form of memories of a lady of great beauty, with a waterfall of ebony hair and quick, agitated movements who had died too soon, before he could capture her attention. And when he was quite young, he had needed that attention so desperately.

But she’d been too busy to do more than pat his head and mutter, “Run away, son.”

No woman ever told him to go away now. Female attentions fed a part of him that had starved as a child. If he had to forgo them, he felt a gradual emptying of his being, and he had to return and fill himself up with the affections of women. Mayhap the emptiness left by both his father and mother was limitless, for no one of his women had ever been able to fill him up.

If he tied himself to Pen, he risked feeling like a starved cat in a cage with a mountain of fish just out of reach. What would a man like that do to Pen? And anyway, if she ever found out about what he’d done to his own brother, she would hate him.

No, he didn’t need Pen. Not at all. He didn’t need a woman who had no faith in him, who believed he could be that monster Jean-Paul. She’d abandoned him, and he owed her nothing.

The vulnerable and desperate Tristan needed her, not Morgan. Sighing, trying to ignore the feeling that his heart had become a spiked mace bashing against the walls of his chest, Morgan plopped himself down on the cot that served as his bed and waited for his jailer to return.

Jean-Paul sat across a small table from his long-awaited guest. A single candelabrum sat between them as they dined. The candle flames flickered in a draft that wended its way from behind an arras. He lifted his goblet and saluted the one called
Danseur
, the dancer. Few knew what Danseur looked like. To his knowledge, only two or three of these lived.

“Bien,”
Jean-Paul said. “So you understand. You have the map to this country manor where Cecil will lodge.
You are the cook’s cousin from London come to help out with preparations for this important guest who is to arrive within a week.”

“
Oui
.”

“And you understand that Christian de Rivers must die first. His death is as important as Cecil’s.”

He got no reply this time other than an annoyed glance.

Jean-Paul shifted uneasily in his chair.
“Maintenant
, I have a small task for you to accomplish before you leave.”

Golden brows lifted. Pink nails traced a design on a silver plate as silence grew around them.

“This is unexpected. I detest the unexpected.”

“The
Anglais
, Morgan St. John, is lodged at Highcliffe Castle. He must be killed, for he knows about you.”

“How does he know?”

Jean-Paul lounged back in his chair to cover his agitation. For all Danseur’s golden appearance, there was a certain reptilian quality to that gaze that disturbed, that caused one’s senses to sharpen with alarm.

“Morgan is a spy,” Jean-Paul said. “His business is to ferret out secrets. For your own protection, you must kill him.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“Ill fortune has plagued my dealings with Lord Morgan.
Naturellement
, I will pay the usual fee.”

He met a contemplative gaze that scoured its way into his brain and retrieved the truth.

“A mistake,
monseigneur
. I dislike mistakes more than I do the unexpected. You would do well to remember this.”

“Don’t threaten me,” Jean-Paul snapped. “I’ll pull your spine out through your throat and then make a meat pie out of you.”

“Then mayhap we’re more alike than I thought,
monseigneur
.”

Pen stepped into the Painted Chamber bearing a tray of food and drink. Erbut shut the door behind her, but she hardly heard it lock. Tristan, or Morgan, had lit all the candles in the wall sconces so that the room glowed. The paintings that had sky in them reflected various shades of blue from azure to sapphire.

Opposite her, in the window embrasure, her prisoner lay on his back with his arms bent to pillow his head. He’d changed clothes and wore black again. One leg stretched out so that his booted foot was propped against the embrasure wall.

He hadn’t moved when she came in, yet Pen grew more uneasy as the moments passed and she continued to study his body. All she could hear was his even breathing. He hadn’t spoken, but she sensed a change. The quiet lengthened.

Then he stirred. He didn’t open his eyes. Instead, he stretched. Slowly, as if his muscles were made of cool honey, he unbent his arms, arched his back, and thrust his boot up the wall. She watched the knot of muscles above his knee surge. Then the sinews along his thigh began to work, and her gaze followed the river of motion up his leg to his groin. It skipped to his face, and she found him staring at her in amusement.

A chill rippled up her back. He was looking at her strangely, as if he knew her breasts were stinging. He’d never made her feel the awkward virgin before. Pen jutted out her chin at him. And he laughed at her quietly, as though he’d expected her to behave as she had.

Without warning he rose from the embrasure, moving
like sea foam over a beach, and Pen’s agitation turned to alarm. Somehow he was different. He even moved differently.

She’d never known Tristan to be quite so blatant. This man deliberately set out to entice. Or was it her own fantasy? He hadn’t said a word, and yet as he approached he exuded sexual menace. Walking toward her, he seemed to fan the flames of excitement each time his legs parted for another step.

To her relief, he took the tray from her and set it on the cot. But then he came back to her, took her hand, and bent over it. She felt no kiss, only his warm breath. He straightened, cocked his head to the side, and gave another soft laugh that displayed the roughness in his voice.

“ ‘Alas, how oft in dreams I see/ Those eyes that were my food.…’ Sooth, don’t be afraid, Mistress Fairfax.”

Pen opened her mouth, but words seemed beyond her. Even his voice had changed. Where before it reminded her of the summer sea breeze, it now took on the quality of a distant yet relentless storm. And he was quoting poetry at her as if they were in some palace garden. In addition, he walked about the Painted Chamber as if he were accustomed to being surrounded by the beauty of great art, by polished oak fit for the withdrawing chamber of a king.

“We never met in ceremony, did we?” he said. “No matter. I am Morgan St. John, brother of Viscount Moorefield.”

She said nothing, but he appeared undisturbed. He was glancing over her face with interest. Then he burst out with a chuckle, causing her to start.

“Beshrew me,” he said, “but Tristan has marvelous improved upon my light tastes. He found himself a
maid of more virtue than beauty, and yet you’re a pleasing chuck, Mistress Fairfax. You’re no fair Helen to launch ships like some I’ve danced with, but that’s just as well for your sake.”

He touched her chin with the tips of his fingers. Pen gasped and slapped his hand away.

“What foul masque are you playing at now?”

She glared at him, but he only smiled at her and plucked a small loaf of manchet bread from the tray. Tearing it, he took a bite.

“Are you offended?” he asked between bites. “Marry, if you knew me, you would be pleased not to be included among so many kissing and heaving cherries. I remember one, she was a Douglas, I think. She had such ripe lips and thighs like soft … but she wanted to use a whip on me. I tried to oblige, but I found the amusement lacking.”

By now Pen was shaking with outrage. “Dissemble no more! This pretense disgusts me.”

“Ah, dear Pen, so guileless and unaware, like unto Persephone.”

He smiled at her, dropped the bread on the tray, and scooped up a goblet of ale. Where before his movements had been graceful, now they also contained that sureness and swiftness of a man accustomed to command. Turning from her, he went to lean with his back against the wall beside the window. He studied her, and she grew uncomfortable under his stare.

“I had hoped that you told the truth when you said you loved me not.”

“I did.”

He shook his head and gazed at her with compassion as he sipped his ale. “I’m afeared for you, mistress. Don’t think that I’m ungrateful to you. You saved my life and gave comfort while I went a little mad.
Sooth, I thank God and you for my recovery, and wish I could remain longer to make you understand how much I regret leading you to believe there was more than thankfulness in my heart. But you do understand that I was injured.”

Tears stung her eyes. “This is another trick, and may damnation take you for using it.”

She watched his gaze stray to the tray and back to her. He sighed, then dropped into the embrasure and hooked an arm around a bent leg.

“This is a wicked tangle, chuck, and one of which I’m heartily sorry to have been the cause.”

“Stop it.”

“Matters of grave import call for my attention. I cannot spare you for fear of risking lives.” He regarded her solemnly. “I beg you to remember this in times to come—I hold you in great affection. For your love of me, remember this.”

“You make no sense. Whether I love you or not, and I do not, can have naught to do with your foul designs upon the peace of England.”

Making no answer, he cast down his gaze as though in grave deliberation, then he lifted his head and smiled at her. It was a smile of tousled bed sheets and spice wine, of laughter behind a haystack, of assignations in deserted alcoves. And it was so unlike Tristan that Pen took an unthinking step back, away from the sensual knowledge it signified. Her confusion was so great that she didn’t respond when he suddenly appeared at her side.

“Come, chuck. There’s no need for this pretense.”

Wrinkling her brow, she tried to summon her composure, but he was too near, and he was talking so softly in that lion’s purr of a voice.

“There is no shame in honest desire.”

He laid his hand on her arm, a gesture that should not have aroused heat in her most private parts. He leaned down, lifted a long corkscrew curl, and kissed it. Disbelief arrested any movement she might have made as he began to whisper to her.

“You are the one who is dissembling. I, sweet mistress, tell you the truth. ‘How fair and how pleasant art thou, ? love, for delights! / This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.’ ”

Pen whirled away from him as, at last, she comprehended his words. He followed her, and she retreated.

“A pox on your lush and lusty speech, sirrah. I’ll have none of it or you.”

“Fie, chuck,” he said as he pursued her, “not long since, you made me feel the hunted stag.”

“No doubt through your own contriving. Our encounters happened only because of some foul enchantment of yours.”

He stopped in mid-stride and glared at her. Pen glanced around the chamber to locate the door. She scurried toward it, knocked, and turned to confront offended male pride.

He planted his hands on his hips. “Admit the truth. You wanted me.”