A Reckless Desire (20 page)

And Rivers wasn't even looking at her. Instead he stood at the open door to the garden, gazing out at the night sky with his hands clasped behind his back. He was dressed for evening, too, and the moonlight glinted on the silver threads in his embroidered front and cuffs of his dark silk coat, just as it gilded on his golden hair, and reminded her once again how glad she was that he didn't powder it, or wear a wig. His long shadow stretched out behind him, away from the door and across the flowered carpet. She'd often before seen him lost in his thoughts like this, but not when he was supposed to be waiting to welcome her.

Panic and disappointment rose within her. Had she completely misjudged his intentions for this evening? Was he planning not to make love to her as she'd imagined, but to send her packing and bid her farewell, with the clothes purchased today no more than a lavish parting gift? She swallowed hard, wondering what she was to say and do under such circumstances, and how she would ever live with the disappointment.

But then he turned, and the way his face lit with pleasure when he saw her swept aside all her doubts, all her fears. She sank gracefully into a curtsey, her skirts crushing around her in a soft, silken pillow, and smiled up at him. It was a curtsey meant for the stage, not for Court—according to Rivers, smiling up at His Majesty would have been considered a terrible impropriety—but now she found, and charmed, her audience.

“My God, Lucia, but you're beautiful,” Rivers said. He stepped forward and bent to raise her up, taking her by both her hands and keeping them. Without breaking his gaze from hers, he lifted one of her hands to his lips and kissed her open palm, and then the other.

“It's entirely the gown that you bought for me,” she said, breathless from what he'd said and the touch of his lips on her palms and everything else about being here alone with him. “You're dazzled by the scarlet silk.”

“I'm dazzled by the woman inside the silk,” he said, more solemnly than she'd expected. “You are more dazzling than the stars and the moon in the sky.”

She was thankful for the half-light that would hide how she blushed. She still was not accustomed to compliments from him, nor to the great rush of pleasure that she felt when he gave them. Compliments were not idle, empty things with him, the way they were with most men, who saw them only as a means toward a kiss or other favor. To Rivers a compliment was purest truth, or not said aloud, and to hear him speak such things of her was glorious indeed.

“Such fancies, Rivers,” she said shyly, betraying her blush even if he couldn't see it. “The stars
and
the moon?”

“Every one of them,” he said. “Come, and I'll show you.”

Still holding her hands, he began to lead her from the room. He meant to take her upstairs already, to his bed, without supper or any other preliminary. There could be no other explanation. Though she'd thought she was eager for that, she hung back, suddenly uneasy, or perhaps only disappointed. She'd thought Rivers would be different from other men, and take his time to win her. She'd thought he would woo her, enchant her, seduce her in every sense of the word.

“I—I thought we were to dine,” she said hesitantly, unable to say what she was thinking. “That is why I am dressed like this, yes?”

He frowned, confused. “Of course we shall dine,” he said. “I would never deprive you of a meal, Lucia.”

Under any other circumstances, his literal answer would have made her laugh, but not now.

“But when you said you'd show me the stars…” she began, faltering.

“When I said it, that was exactly what I intended,” he said firmly. “This morning you accused me of relying too much upon knowledge gleaned from books, and not enough from life itself. I wish to prove you wrong, Lucia. No, that's not right. Rather, I wish to
show
you, so you may judge for yourself. Trust me. That is all I ask. Trust me, and see.”

How could she not trust him after that?

She took a deep breath, her smile wobbly with emotion.

“Then show me, Rivers,” she said. “Show me.”

The stars and the moon.

It had sounded foolish the instant Rivers had spoken the words, and yet he could think of no other words that would have done the job any better. Lucia
was
more beautiful than all the heavens combined, and he'd every intention of showing her, too.

He'd left detailed orders for how everything should be arranged while they were away this afternoon in Newbury, and as soon as Lucia had gone off to dress, he'd gone racing upstairs to make sure those orders had been followed exactly as he'd intended. For the most part, they had, but he still had not been able to refrain from making a few adjustments, final changes here and there, to be certain that everything was perfect for her.

There was, of course, a certain risk involved in bringing Lucia up to his rooftop retreat. He'd never trusted any of his family with the secret of its existence, and the only other outsider who'd visited it—uninvited—had been the terrified milliner's apprentice, and with hysterical results, too. But he'd come to know Lucia well enough to feel certain she wouldn't behave as that wretched young woman had done, and besides, there was no lightning predicted for tonight's weather. Instead there was only a slip of a new moon in a midnight-blue sky, plus more stars than the eye could count, all of which he intended to offer to her.

He led her up the main staircase, past the first floor, and then up the smaller, twisting stairs that led to the roof. He noticed how her trepidation eased when they passed by his bedchamber, which chagrined him. Did she really believe he'd ravish her with such boorish haste?

Not that he didn't want to, of course. From the moment she'd appeared in that red dress, he'd been thinking of nothing else, even as he'd asked her to trust him. How the devil was he supposed to trust himself when she looked as fiery as the silk itself, her small, delectable figure barely contained by her tightly laced stays and her breasts thrust upward into his face without her usual kerchief for modesty's sake? Really, as a man, how was he to contend with that—except in the most obvious way?

It was taking all his effort to keep his gaze on her face. Later, he told himself sternly, later, after he'd proved to her—and to himself—that he deserved that trust, and her with it.

He paused at the top of the twisting stairs, his hand on the latch of the arched door. He prayed he was doing the right thing by bringing her here, and he hoped she didn't think he was a madman, the kind of eccentric that belonged in Bedlam.

“Go on, Rivers,” she urged, her eyes wide with curiosity. “You cannot stop here. You've made such a great, precious secret of this that I'm guessing all kinds of things lie on the other side of that door. Perhaps you keep a menagerie, with wild beasts like the tiger that devoured poor Mr. Willow, or—”

“There's no tiger,” he said quickly. “I can promise you that.”

She smiled up at him in a way that squeezed his heart. “I didn't really believe there was.”

“I've never brought anyone else here, Lucia, not even my brothers,” he said. “You'll be the first.”

Her smile softened, for she recognized the significance of that. If he'd come to know her over these last weeks, then she'd done the same with him, knowing now how important his brothers were to him.

“Then I'm honored, Rivers,” she said, “whatever it may be that you've squirreled away behind this door.”

He felt like an ass for dragging this out so long, and instead of making things any more ridiculous, he threw open the door and stepped aside to let her pass first.

She pulled her skirts to one side and slipped through the narrow doorway, and stopped still, pressing her palms over her mouth in wonder.

It was exactly the response he'd hoped to have from her. He'd been coming here for years, even before the Lodge had been his, yet he still felt that same sense of wonder and awe each time he stepped through the door.

They were standing on the flat roof of the Lodge, far above the rest of the county. The house stood on a slight rise, and with no trees immediately around it, the unimpeded view was sweeping and vast. By day, he could see most of the county from here, and to the west, when the sun was setting, the golden marble of Breconridge Hall, his family's grand country house, gleamed like a polished trophy in the far distance. On a clear night, as it was now, the sky was limitless, an overarching canopy of deep blue velvet scattered with stars.

But as breathtaking as the view was, that wasn't all that made the Lodge's roof so special to him. Over the years, Rivers had transformed the roof into his most private space, and when the weather permitted, it served as an outdoor room. There was a large telescope that he used to study the sky, plus a sextant and a compass for more calculations, and baskets filled with books and journals in which he recorded his observations.

A canvas canopy was slung between the towering square chimneys, shielding the Spartan space that was made more comfortable with a bright Turkish carpet, a desk, an oversized armchair, and a folding camp-bed with another small bed beneath it for Spot (who had, for this night, been banished below into Rooke's keeping). Everything, in fact, had been made along the lines of a military officer's kit, and could be quickly taken down and packed away by the servants into the heavy, weatherproof chests that remained on the roof year-round.

But on this summer evening, the outdoor room had been dressed for entertaining. Beneath the shelter of the canopy, a small dining table had been brought upstairs and was elegantly set with fine linens and gold-edged French porcelain. Red and white roses from the garden were arranged in a crystal bowl, flanked by small lanterns that protected the candles within from the breeze. Two chairs were set beside each other at the table, each cushioned with bright silken pillows, while more pillows were strewn across the bed, giving the space the exotic feel of a sultan's tent.

“Oh, Rivers, this is—this is
perfect,
” she said, gazing around with unabashed pleasure as she walked slowly across the roof to the stone parapets. “I feel like a most fortunate bird with a perch on the tallest of trees.”

He laughed, both from relief and delight in her reaction. “It rather is like that,” he said. “This is my favorite place on earth, and I suppose in the heavens, too.”

“We
are
in the heavens,” she said, resting her hands on the carved stone rail. “From here I can see the rose garden, and your mother's wildflowers, and in the distance is the lake. All the times we've walked below, and I never once knew any of this was here.”

“You wouldn't,” he said, joining her. “Because of the lines of the roof and the parapets, no one on the ground can see any of this. It is completely open, yet completely enclosed as well.”

“So it is your own private aerie,” she marveled. “No wonder you have kept it your secret. If I'd created such a magic place, I wouldn't share it with anyone else, either.”

He'd told her earlier that she was beautiful, but that was nothing to how she looked now in the moonlight, with the warm summer breeze tossing the tiny loose wisps of hair against her forehead and along the nape of her neck. He knew that her formally arranged hair, tortured and pinned into place, was all the fashion, but it was the disarray that he found far more beguiling, how her heavy locks were already beginning to rebel and slip free of the pins.

It was the same with her gown. He much preferred it now with the red silk fluttering about her legs than when it had been static and flawless. He always thought of her as being constantly in motion, of darting here and there and twisting and turning with unconscious grace, and he supposed that was how he liked her dress to be as well.

She turned now to look over her shoulder at him, her expression expectant, and he realized he'd been staring at her too long instead of answering.

“I didn't create this place,” he said, somehow managing to recall the thread of their conversation. “The roof has always been open like this. Stag-hunting was the fashion when the Lodge was first built, back in the days of Queen Bess, and those who chose not to ride to the hunt could still watch its progress from here on the roof. Then later, when the huntsmen returned, there would be banquets and dancing held here as well. My father claims that that's the reason for the size of these stone parapets, to keep the guests who were deep in their cups from toppling from the roof.”

She peered over the rail as if imagining some luckless reveler lying broken on the ground below.

“Dancing and drinking and mad from hunting,” she mused. “At least one of them must have gone over the side. Have you ever had a ghost for company?”

“Not one, Lucia,” he said. “If a guest had died with such violence, then it would be remembered, even after a hundred and seventy years. It would have been an unforgettable tragedy.”

“I suppose so,” she admitted. “But it could have been purposefully forgotten, to hide a scandal. There
could
be a ghost here even now.”

Abruptly she drew herself up, holding her arms out as if beseeching some phantom specter as she began to quote from
Hamlet,
her voice ringing out over the railing and into the night.

“What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,

Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the majesty of buried Denmark

Did sometimes march? by Heaven I charge thee, speak!”

He laughed. Now that she knew the play so well, she often did this, hauling scraps of dialogue out of context to amuse him. It did, too, even as it impressed him to see just how far she'd come as an actress, and he thought again of the upcoming audition he'd arranged for her with McGraw. That first raw magic that he'd glimpsed on the street before his house still remained, but even these impromptu recitations—exaggerated for effect—showed how she'd learned to command both her lines and an audience, and he dared anyone to look away from her when she was speaking a part.

“Pray deliver me from the ghost of Hamlet's father,” he said, chuckling. This was one of the best parts of being with her, laughing together over some bit of shared foolishness. “That's not the company I wish to keep, any more than those are your lines to learn.”

“Well, no,” she said, laughing with him as she slipped back into herself. “You've told me that boys played women's roles in Master Shakespeare's time, but I don't believe it would work the other way around.”

He snorted, thinking how no matter how much of an actress she became, there would never be a way to mistake her for a male. “Nor do I believe that Horatio would ever present himself before the castle in red silk. Whatever would Prince Hamlet say?”

“But since Horatio is the only major character to survive the entire play, he can likely dress himself however he pleases.” Her laughter fading, she turned away from the rail, and rubbed her bare forearms below the flounces. “I'd no notion we'd be out-of-doors, or I would have brought a shawl with me.”

“Forgive me.” Swiftly he began to pull his arms free of his sleeves. To him the air was agreeably warm, but ladies did feel things differently, and he regretted not thinking of that before. “Here, take my coat.”

“No, no, that's not necessary,” she said, gliding away from him and his offered coat to the camp-bed. She shook out one of the light wool coverlets that was folded at the foot of the bed and wrapped it over her shoulders. “There now. Mrs. Currie would be horrified, but I'll be quite snug.”

He was sorry to see the red gown hidden, yet also relieved that the temptation it offered was now out of sight.

“I can send for Sally to fetch a proper shawl for you if you wish,” he said, following her across the roof. “They'll begin bringing up dinner anyway as soon as I ring for it.”

“I'm not hungry yet,” she said, perplexed as she looked down at the pillow-strewn bed. “I thought this was a settee, but it's—do you
sleep
here, Rivers?”