Games of Pleasure (32 page)

“I'm taking a holiday from myself,” he said at last.

The sow shuffled back into her shed. Piglets began squealing. Guy pushed away from the wall and began to pace.

Ryder folded his arms and watched the younger man: the vigorous, charismatic only son of his mother's sister, who had died long ago when Guy was small. “And you may indeed assume,” he added, “that my thunderous expression when we shook hands was because of Miracle.”

His cousin stopped dead. “In which case, you're displaying an admirable self-control.”

“Perhaps, but you've no idea how very murderous I feel!”

Guy laughed. “I wasn't sure how to broach it, but I trust you'll allow me to be equally blunt? You saw her kiss me and didn't like it?”

“Your life was hanging by a thread. You're lovers?”

“
Were,
not are. For a short while. A very long time ago.”

It was a relief, though a small one. “And Jack, as well, I assume?”

“I've no idea! She's never tattled to me about her relationships with other men.”

He did not want to have to articulate it, but the thought burned. “Yet it's not unlikely, is it? You and my brother ran together often enough. Jack must have met her, in which case I can only assume the obvious.”

“It's possible, of course,” Guy said. “Though Jack never intimated any such thing. Does it matter?”

“No, of course not.” Ryder choked down his inchoate emotions. “She's never tried to hide what she is.”

“And Hanley knows that you're with her now, I assume? Yet it seems very odd that he would care.”

Ryder glanced back toward the barn. Miracle was standing in the open door, her dark hair massed in waves about her face. His heart contracted with a desperate longing: for the world to be different, for her to be different, for her.

“I don't think the earl gives a damn about Miracle,” he said. “Something else is afoot. If you'll take us to Wrendale—assuming Miracle has no objections to including you—I'll fill you in as we go.”

 

 

GUY and Ryder stalked back to the carriage like two rival tigers, forced to follow the same track through the dark and only too eager to bound away on their separate paths as soon as dawn broke.

Miracle swallowed a painful dismay.

When would she learn to be less free with her promises? If she had not given Ryder her word, she could have stayed with the Fabers for one more day's journey north, then fled straight to her brother's.

Though Ryder had immediately controlled his reaction when he found her kissing Guy, Miracle knew what it felt like to be hurt by a lover. She had always tried, heart and soul, not to inflict any such wounds of her own in return, but this time she had failed. She did not expect him to understand why she had done it. And unless Guy decided to explain, she could not in honor do so herself.

Perhaps it didn't matter. She had taken lovers for many years. No man could accept her company without tolerating that.

The men separated. Guy walked up to his coachman and gave orders. Tall and commanding, Ryder strode on toward the barn. If he was still angry, it was carefully banked beneath a clear, cold control.

“Guy will take us to Wrendale,” he said. “You'll be safe there.”

“From Hanley, or from you and Mr. Devoran?”

He gave her a sharp look. “Do you need protection from either of us?”

“Guy's an important part of my past,” she said. “I owe him a debt of gratitude, but there's nothing else between us now. I will tell you no more than that, but you don't need to feel threatened.”

“Every man I meet may have been your lover at one time, even my own cousin. I accept it. It doesn't matter.”

Yet it did. She knew that it did, that the knowledge burned and festered deep in his soul. Lord Ryderbourne might think he was in love, but he would never really give his heart to a fallen woman.

“I trust Guy as I would trust any old friend,” she said. “That's all.”

“And I trust his integrity as I trust my own. So I think we should include him in our little feud with Hanley. You agree?”

“You want to tell your cousin what's happened so far? Why?”

“Let's just say it might be wise to have an insurance policy. Jack's in India. If something happens to me, it would be up to Guy to bring down the wrath of the St. Georges on Hanley's miserable head.”

Darker and more lightly built than Ryder, Guy joined them, a ghost in the dark. “You think the earl would really try to damage you?”

“I think he is desperate. You'll see why when we explain.”

Guy opened the carriage door, handed Miracle inside, and climbed in after her. “My sword arm is at your disposal, ma'am, my lord.”

“Then I agree,” Miracle said. “A conspiracy of three!”

“I think I'm beginning to feel sorry,” Ryder said dryly as he swung up after them, “for Hanley.”

The carriage rattled away into the night. Miracle sat beside Ryder and listened to his dispassionate explanation. Blinded by her distress over Willcott, she had not allowed herself to think it all through before, but now goose bumps rose on her skin.

“So what are we left with?” Guy asked at last. “Setting aside Willcott's death for the moment, the salient point would seem to be that the earl is searching for something.”

“Exactly. Let's take it point by point. Hanley's not the type to indulge in the wanton destruction of another man's property, yet— even though they were leased from the duchy—he wrecked Miracle's rooms in London. After what happened on the yacht, it makes no sense to assume that he was simply jealous. So he was indeed looking for something. He then directly accused her of stealing from him when they were alone in his carriage. Obviously, he thinks that Miracle has something of his in her possession, and this missing item is far more important to him than Willcott's untimely demise.”

“So what the hell was Willcott's role? That entire episode stinks to high heaven.”

“The words that come to mind are blackmail, extortion, fear,” Ryder said. “Hanley is afraid of something.”

“Of something that Willcott either knew or possessed,” Guy replied.

“Yet now that Willcott's dead, the earl is even more terrified, not less.”

Guy turned to Miracle. “Did Hanley ever hint that he might be afraid of something?”

“No,” she said. “He never seemed to be a very emotional man.”

“Until Exeter, where everything changed.” Ryder stretched out his legs and stared at his boots. His profile gleamed dimly in the dark carriage, but his entire being shimmered with an aura of power. “What happened to your things, Miracle? Your jewelry and clothes. The possessions you'd taken to Exeter with you. Was everything left on the yacht?”

Her heart began to thump as she followed his thinking. “No, not all of it.”

Guy gave her an encouraging smile, his teeth white in the dark carriage. He was—he had always been—a lovely man. “Ah! So something was left behind in Exeter?”

“Not exactly,” she said. “I'd honestly forgotten about this until now. I wanted to block all of it from my mind. But when I decided to leave Lord Hanley, I managed to send a few things to Dillard.”

Ryder's eyes seemed to reflect starlight. “Did the earl know that?”

“No, I'm sure that he didn't. It was that last morning. It was all rather desperate. Lord Hanley wouldn't let me out of his sight. But I couldn't afford to lose my jewelry, and there were some other things that I valued. I doubted that I'd be able to smuggle anything off the yacht when we reached Lyme Regis. So I bundled some items haphazardly into a little bag and hid it beneath my cloak. I thought I might get the chance to give it to the innkeeper to post for me.”

“And did you?”

“No, that was impossible. Lord Hanley clung to my elbow the entire time, and—as I told you before—I was afraid to make a scene.”

“So how did you manage it?”

“When we'd first arrived in Exeter, I'd fallen into conversation purely by chance with another man who was staying at the inn. I saw him again in the lobby as we were leaving.”

Guy sat upright, as alert as a hunting dog. “Who was that?”

“His name was Melman, George Melman. In the few seconds while Lord Hanley's attention was distracted by the arrival of our carriage, I managed to slip the bag to Mr. Melman. I was damned if I was going to leave it behind or take it onto the yacht, so when I saw the opportunity to outwit Lord Hanley, I took it.”

“You gave your valuables to a total stranger?”

“He was a Derbyshire man.”

Guy leaned back and laughed. “And Derbyshire men are always honest?”

“It seemed worth the risk. He's also a minister. I'd already written my brother's direction on a slip of paper for the innkeeper, so instead I gave it to Mr. Melman with the bag. I couldn't say anything, but I tried to signal what I wanted with my eyes. He understood right away and nodded his promise to deliver it for me.”

“This exchange was entirely without words?”

“Yes, but I knew I could trust him.”

Ryder smiled, not in mirth, but with a kind of bitter recognition. “What exactly was in the bag?”

“I don't know. Most of my jewelry, a little money. A couple of books that were precious to me. One of my fans, I think. I don't really remember. It was all very hastily done. I had only a few seconds, while Lord Hanley used the chamber pot.”

“Yet you sent something to your brother that Hanley wants.” Ryder glanced out the window. “In which case, I doubt if he gives a damn about Willcott's death. In fact, I'm prepared to wager that he was thrilled to find the man killed.”

“Which explains why he's raised no public hue and cry against Miracle,” Guy added. “And why he's so desperate to find her.”

Miracle shivered. Why should Lord Hanley think she had stolen something from him? It was absurd. She had rescued only a handful of personal possessions to thrust into her little bundle. Hanley hadn't even known that she'd done it. Yet the thought of the earl tearing apart her London rooms—even her clothes and books, even the bed they had shared—sent cold ripples down her spine.

She remembered with horror his face in the carriage.
I threw all of your trash into the sea. After all, your valuables weren't there any longer
.

“Does Hanley know that you have a brother?” Ryder asked.

Miracle glanced up at him, but his expression was lost in the darkness. “No. No one does. No one except you and Guy.”

“Then we have a little time,” Ryder said, “before the ax falls.”

EVEN THOUGH IT WAS SUMMER AND ALMOST MORNING, RYDER ordered the fire lit. After their journey across the Peaks in the unheated carriage, he was chilled to the bone. He downed a welcoming draft of hot coffee laced with brandy, then leaned back in his chair to stare down through slitted lids at the coals in the grate.

Wrendale, with its elegant rooms and landscaped grounds, belonged to the duchy, of course. Ryder was lord and master of all he surveyed. It was a surprisingly empty feeling.

Miracle, her face ashen with fatigue, had been taken up to one of the bedrooms by a startled maid. Though his blood yearned for her, though the memory of their passion obsessed him, he felt a very real discomfort about sharing her bed with Guy in the house.

His cousin stood at the hearth. He set his empty cup down on the silver tray next to the coffeepot.

“What do you want me to do?” Guy asked. “Waylay Hanley with tales of mayhem in the hills, while you and Miracle escape unnoticed to the Antipodes?”

“Unlike you and Jack, I can never escape unnoticed,” Ryder said. “It's one of the perks of my position.”

“I never thought of it quite that way before,” Guy replied with a wry smile. “I suppose one of the advantages of having no such exalted position myself is that I get to waste my time pretty much as I please.”

Ryder poured himself a second cup. “And, for Miracle's sake, you're offering to put that freedom at my disposal now?”

“If you think I can help. I assume you have a plan?”

Now was not the time to think about Miracle, softly dreaming upstairs. The problem at hand needed cold, hard, analytical assessment, not the heated imaginings of a man blinded by lust.

“Part of one, at least. Whatever we do afterward, we'd better recover her missing treasure first and we don't have much time. Hanley's bound to find out about this brother, Dillard Heather. The man's a shoemaker. He'd be no match for an earl.”