Games of Pleasure (17 page)

Scarlet and cobalt rained from her hands to scatter over his lap.

He squinted up at her, silhouetted against the bright sky. She was more than lovely. Even damaged, even bruised, she shone as if she were nothing but gold at the core, pure and upright and clean as a knife blade, as if her very bones had been stolen from the angels.

“Which thoughts?” he asked. “At this moment my mind is filled only with uncertainties.”

The remaining flower stems dangled from one hand. Sunlight framed her fingers in gilt. “I thought that was the main reason you came.”

He laughed. “I suppose it was. Yet such uncertainty is a bit more uncomfortable than I'd imagined.”

Miracle crouched down, crushing scarlet and sapphire against her skirt. She tipped her head to one side as she smiled at him. “Adventure is meant to be uncomfortable, Ryder. Didn't your brother tell you that?”

He plucked the wilting poppies and cornflowers from her grasp. “Of course mountains and deserts are uncomfortable. I wasn't referring to that.”

“Yet if Lord Jonathan told you about rocks and sand—”

“—and snow—”

“—and snow, that was only half of the story. The challenge of adventure isn't physical discomfort. Anyone can put up with that. The challenge of adventure is change. And change is always uncomfortable, if not downright terrifying, even when it's been chosen with both eyes open.”

He gazed into the black core of a poppy, the stamens thick with pollen. “Is this pounding in my blood caused by terror, then? Or is it just that poppies are known to bring headaches and thunderstorms?”

She wrinkled her nose at him and stood up. “I've no idea, though the bulge in your trousers is caused by something else entirely. You know, we really ought to make love again, just to disabuse you of your romantic absurdity.”

“No,” he said, grinning up at her. “The romantic absurdity is more fun.”

Miracle glanced up at the sky. The remaining wisps of cloud were burning away in a suspiciously bright bowl of blue.

“Well, if you want a challenge, I think my poppies may bring headaches and thunderstorms quite soon.” She leaned down to take the flowers from his fingers. “In case you've forgotten, my lord, my neck is forfeit if I'm caught, and the world seems very precious to me right now. I'd rather my last image in this life wasn't of jeering crowds and obscene comments.”

“Then you want to die old and alone in your bed?”

She thrust a wilting poppy into her hair. “Not necessarily alone, but definitely a good deal older than I am right now.”

“Then let's get the horses,” he said. “We can talk as we ride.”

Her skirts rustled as she walked away toward the door. His pulse still unsteady, his mouth dry with longing, Ryder watched her go, then sprang up and strode after her.

The heavy planks groaned as she dragged the door open just enough to slip inside.

“Good Lord!” she said. “What's this?”

He peered over her shoulder at the two horses now standing quietly nose to tail. “What? I see nothing wrong.”

Miracle pointed and spun back to face him. “
That
is your mount?”

“Yes. Why not?” He stepped past her to take his bridle from the hook on the wall where he had hung it the previous evening. “Beauty's an excellent mare. I had her sent up from Wyldshay.” He strode toward his horse. “Are you jealous?”

“
Jealous?
You left your black gelding behind, then brought that dazzling chestnut mare, instead?”

He slipped on the bridle. “Why not?”

Miracle slumped back against the door and gestured her exasperation with both hands. “Because if Beauty lifts her head, she shouts quality. If she flares those sensitive nostrils, coins clink and ring. One dainty step of her delicate feet, and her noble breeding calls out as loudly as if the town crier rang a bell in the market square. We're supposed to be slipping unnoticed along the packhorse trails, my lord, not advertising our progress to the world.”

He rubbed the mare's nose. “I don't agree.”

“You don't agree to what?”

“I don't agree that we should travel only as you planned, or that Beauty will make any difference. Anyway, I may need her.”

“With her stunning silver stockings and flaming red mane that anyone would instantly recognize anywhere?” Miracle sat down on a large stone by the barn door and tipped back her head. “Heaven save me from the romantic idiocy of duke's sons! I thought you might be a holy fool. Now I know for certain.”

“You think if we travel as peasants, we'll succeed any better? I cannot agree to become that vulnerable to chance, and I'm damned if I'm going to either walk all the way to Derbyshire, or ride some short-pasterned pony that'll rattle my teeth out.”

“You didn't have to come.”

“No, but since I have, I might as well ride a decent horse.”

“I suppose it was a vain hope that a duke's son could simply blend into the armies of unemployed wretches that trudge the countryside looking for work?”

“It's absurd and unnecessary. There are places where the drovers' roads blend with the turnpikes. No one is really looking for us, and if they are, we should concentrate on making better time.”

“Lord Hanley is looking for us,” she said.

“Why should I believe that, when you won't even tell me why he cares?”

She closed her eyes. “Very well. We can argue about this later. In the meantime, the excellent Beauty is the only mount that you have, so by all means saddle her and let's go.”

“I'm so glad you see reason,” he said. “Allow me to saddle Jim for you, also. He may look fat and lazy, but he has some decent enough breeding of his own.”

“Unlike me,” she said.

He glanced around from buckling the girth. His gaze pierced. “I don't know that.”

“Ah, but I do.”

He raised a brow, then handed her Beauty's reins to hold while he went back to fetch Jim. “Are you sure?”

Miracle plucked out the drooping poppy and tossed it aside. “Did you think me an orphan who never knew her real ancestry? The long-lost last scion of a noble house, perhaps? Or the natural daughter of a local aristocrat, accidentally misplaced at birth, but soon to be reunited with her loving father, who'll shower her with wealth and social acceptability?”

He was startled into laughter. “Who are you, then?”

“Ah, that's asking for too many secrets at once.” She stood up. “But I probably know as much about my lineage as you know about yours.”

“I doubt it.” He set her saddle on Jim's back. “The St. Georges trace an unbroken line of descent all the way back to the Norman Conquest.”

“And my family boasted pure Saxon blood long before yours even thought about wading onto the English beaches to steal a land they didn't own.”

“The Saxon's were fair-haired,” he said. “Whereas you're as dark—”

“—as sin?”

He led Jim up to her. She climbed onto the stone and shredded the last of her poppies to rain their shining petals onto his boots.

“I think the thunder promised by these petals will very soon become a reality,” she said. “This isn't a game, my lord, not for me.”

“Because you're in genuine fear for your life? Don't be! Though I wish you would tell me exactly why the descendant of all those upright British yeomen decided to incur the wrath of the Earl of Hanley by murdering his friend.”

“You would force me to do so?”

“No. I would prefer you to tell me of your own free will, simply because you've decided without reservations that you can trust me.”

Miracle swung onto her saddle. “Then perhaps I will tell you, my lord, once you've explained exactly why carrying me down that wall like a sack of grain brought back such disturbing memories.”

EVESHAM FORBES FROBISHER, THE FIFTH EARL OF HANLEY, drummed his fingertips on the sill as he stared down from the window. Streams of horses and carriages were still coming and going from the yard of the White Swan. A boy raked away dung, but the smell of ammonia was almost overwhelming.

He turned to face the man who stood, cap in hand, on the carpet in the center of the inn's fanciest bedchamber, and raised a brow.

“Miss Heather was definitely here,” the man said. “Half a dozen of us scoured up and down the turnpike without learning anything more. The apothecary, Pence, bought the horse, but he knows nothing.”

Hanley's gaze snapped back to the window. “Ryderbourne said the same.”

“Ryderbourne—?”

“The Duke of Blackdown's eldest son, Lord Ryderbourne. I knew the man when he was still puling like an infant.”

“My lord?”

“Never mind.” The earl spun about to glower at his servant. “So the woman vanished and Ryderbourne left?”

The man stared blankly at a spot just past his master's left ear. “Several witnesses saw him leave, my lord. He was heard to mention that he was going home to Wyldshay.”

Hanley tapped the servant under the chin with the brass head of his cane. “Then I believe I shall pay a visit to the Duchess of Blackdown. I've a fancy for ancient castles afloat in their rivers and for seeing duke's sons in their native habitat—if, by any chance, he is there, after all. Meanwhile, you will discover where they've really gone.”

“
They
, my lord?”

“God! Do I employ idiots? The woman and—very possibly—her noble companion! You're short and dark with a nose like a rat, Mr. Lorrimer, as are most of your associates and half of the travelers on this turnpike. Your new quarry is more than six feet tall with the unmistakable manner of a St. George, and the woman's a raving beauty. You will find them. You will follow them. You will ascertain where they're going. Without being seen or suspected. You will send that information back to me.”

Mr. Lorrimer gripped his hands together behind his back. “Very good, my lord.”

“Very good indeed for you, Mr. Lorrimer. For when you find them, you may collect twice the purse that I originally promised.” The earl smiled. “You may also get to witness a hanging.”

 

 

THE way ahead was marked with the imprint of innumerable hooves. Skylarks and meadow pipits showered song from a blazing blue sky. Yet clouds massed on the horizon, as if an invisible giant piled whipped cream into fantastic mounds, then stained them with ink.

They had trotted away fast from the barn, passing through woods until they climbed back up here onto the open hills. For the first time they were able to ride side by side. As if by unspoken consent, the horses dropped to a walk.

Miracle glanced at her companion. Ryder sat easily on his mare, looking straight ahead. Dark hair danced fretfully on his forehead, casting shadows. A faint sheen marked his skin, drawing her attention to the perfect sculpting of cheekbone and jaw.

She had known so many men, yet this man moved her in a way that she could not quite understand, something far deeper than her visceral reaction to that masculine beauty.
The romantic absurdity is more fun?

“Why were you called Miracle?” he asked.

“My mother feared I would die. When I refused to do so, and instead kicked lustily in my basket, she thought I'd been born under a lucky star.”

“You were a frail baby?”

“My brother, Dillard, says I bawled like a calf right from the start. But he's eight years older than I am.”

“You have other siblings, also?”

“Five others were buried: stillborn, miscarried, found cold in their cradles.”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “That must have been terrible for your mother.”

“She died when I was three, so I don't really remember her.”

“And were you born under a lucky star?”

“Of course! Otherwise, I certainly wouldn't be alive now and riding with a duke's son beneath this hot blue heaven.”

“Which is scorching my back like the fires of Hades.” He pointed with his whip. “I see succor in the form of a pool of clear water. In that little valley just below us. It beckons.”

“Like the Sirens?”

“Exactly!” He winked at her. “It most definitely sings out its mystical, silent songs of longing—”

“—tempting travelers into dangerous detours?” she finished with a deliberately exaggerated flourish.

Mirth still flickered in his eyes. “I'm in the habit of bathing every day.”

“So am I, but I'll forgo a bath to save my neck. Desperate men wish to string me from the nearest tree, yet you suggest we succumb to the habits of luxury?”