Games of Pleasure (35 page)

He glanced down at his boots. “I hope that was some comfort, at least?”

“When she died, I was told she'd become an angel.” She reined in the memory and forced herself to sound matter of fact. “I learned later that I'd seen a famous comet, instead. I also learned that the correct name for the Wain is Ursa Majoris, the Great Bear. Truth is far more comforting than fiction.”

As if he understood that she wanted neither sympathy, nor platitudes, he continued to gaze idly at the floor. “How is that?”

“My mother's spirit is everywhere, I think, always available to my heart, not pinned like a dead butterfly among the stars, and certainly not attached to a heavenly body that visits only once in a lifetime.” She stretched, then tossed aside the throw. “I've already slept half the day. I thought you were sleeping, too?”

He looked up. “For a few hours.”

Miracle leaned forward and smiled teasingly as she met his gaze. “But the games we have afoot are far too interesting to justify wallowing about in bed?”

“Too much so, at least, to justify wallowing about there alone.”

She bit back laughter, along with a headily painful recognition of his acuteness—that he had accepted her escape into flirtation, that he had not pressed her about her mother, nor her childhood.

“The maid also told me that you were three sheets to the wind when you collapsed between the sheets, so I doubt you'd have been much use either way.”

He grinned with real mirth. “Which maid was that? I'll have her hide.”

“No, she relayed your instructions very faithfully and is in obvious awe of your prowess.”

“Then she may stay, of course. Anyway, I suspect the girl in question is the daughter of one of my nursemaids. Thus her position here is secure, even for a lifetime of impertinence.”

Miracle glanced about. “Was this your nursery?”

“Yes, for some of the time. I was born in this house. Unfortunately, I lacked the grace to wait until my mother could return to the appropriately grand ducal bed at Wyldshay.”

“Was she disappointed?”

He stood up. “To have a son? And give birth for the first time here at Wrendale? No, it was exactly what she planned.”

“Planned?”

“The duchess plans everything. No child of hers would dare to be the wrong sex, or arrive at an inconvenient time.”

“Then why did she want you to be born here, rather than at Wyldshay?”

He strolled over to another door, opened it, and gazed into the next room. “I believe she thought the clean air of the Peaks would help me to grow into a strapping lad.”

“Which it did.” Miracle walked up to join him. He was looking into a night nursery with a cradle and three beds.

“One for the wet nurse,” Ryder said. “The others for her assistants. Three women to wait on one tiny infant.”

“You slept in that cradle?”

He laughed. “I don't know how much I slept. They say that I bawled inconsolably for weeks after I was born. Apparently, the wet nurse's milk disagreed with me. It turned out that she had a penchant for gin.”

Miracle walked ahead of him into the small room and gazed down into the cradle. The satin coverlet was embroidered with the arms of St. George.

“I've never understood why a mother would hire another woman to feed her own child,” she said. “Was the duchess that vain?”

“No. I don't think so. Not in that way. But it was Her Grace's duty to produce another baby as quickly as possible, and they say nursing slows a second conception.”

“Working people feed their own babies all the time and still manage to have plenty of children.”

“So they do. Did you ever want babies, Miracle?”

Her heart contracted in pain, almost as if he had struck her. Since her back was turned, he could not see that she had to blink back a hot rush of tears.

“No, of course not! Anyway, I'm barren.”

“Barren? Are you sure?”

She walked away, deliberately filling her voice with scorn. “I miscarried a child when I was fifteen. The doctor said then that I would never conceive again. You don't think that nine years without the embarrassment of a pregnancy has proved him right?”

“I'm very sorry, Miracle.”

“Don't be! It's been a very useful attribute in my profession.” Something bumped into her thigh. Miracle looked down. “Good Lord! What's this?”

“My baby carriage.”

She sat down with a thump on one of the beds and stared at it. “Who the devil would put an infant into such a monstrosity?”

“My family. It's a priceless heirloom.”

Miracle ran one hand over the shafts, where a goat or a large dog could be harnessed to pull it. Deeply cushioned red velvet lined the seat, but two gilt-and-green dragons reared menacingly over the hood, fangs bared. Their lashing tails curled around each side. Bizarrely realistic flames ran from the dragons' mouths to meet them.

Any infant placed inside would see only green glass eyes, ferocious metal scales, and an illusion of fire.

“No wonder you cried! Whether your milk contained gin or not, this is enough to destroy any baby's sleep.”

“Nonsense! The first son and heir always rides about in the dragon baby carriage. It builds character.”

Miracle glanced up at him, not sure whether he was teasing or not. “You would use it for your own sons?”

He glowered down at the dragons. “Probably not.”

“Though you must have a son to inherit the dukedom one day.”

“I can't exactly guarantee it, though Jack would never speak to me again, if I saddled him with the title. He's having too much fun gallivanting about the world with Anne.”

He opened another door and beckoned to her to follow him. A wasp buzzed frantically in one of the hallway windows. Miracle took off her shoe and quickly swatted it. Ryder glanced back and lifted a brow.

She met his bemused gaze and laughed at him. “You'd have opened the sash to let it out, instead?”

“Not at all! I'd have left its fate to the maids.”

“Who'd have swatted it, before it could hide in a duster and sting someone. Wasps can sting over and over again. Unlike honey bees—or half-ravished courtesans—they don't die when they defend themselves.”

“You won't die,” he said.

“Even Lord Ryderbourne is not above the law. Once I've recovered my money from Dillard, only a ship can save me from the gallows.”

“If it comes to that, I'll take you to the port myself.”

“Then you agree that I must go straight to my brother as soon as it gets dark?”

“A curricle will be waiting. In the meantime, may I ask you to honor my cousin and myself with your presence at dinner?”

“A formal meal in the grand dining room?” She laughed up at him. “Forgive my speaking in a cliché, but I have absolutely nothing to wear.”

“Then ask that meddlesome maid to help you. I give you both permission to raid the house. I'm sure you'll find something suitable in one of the dressers.”

“Your mother and sisters leave some of their clothes here? There's not a female in your family who'd ever forgive you, if you allowed a woman like me to wear one of their evening gowns.”

“But I won't forgive you, if you don't,” he said. “So which is it to be?”

SHE WAS LOVELY. EVEN MORE LOVELY NOW THAN SHE HAD been at sixteen. Guy watched the lift of her lashes as she looked up at his cousin. The alluring turn of her neck. The soft swell of white flesh above her low blue silk neckline. Her lips promised sinful enticements. Poised on the stem of her wineglass, even her fingers were enthralling.

And Ryder—for all the cool grace of his manner—was obviously enthralled.

Guy sipped at his wine, only half listening to their conversation. For the first time in years, memories haunted him: those early days in London, when he and Miracle had burned away the last innocence of youth in a conflagration of passion. The occasional encounters after that, before Miracle had announced that she must stay faithful to her protectors, and that she and Guy could only be friends.

An intense, viscerally exciting flirtation was natural to her, of course. Even now, when she and Ryder were exchanging only dry facts, her sensuality glowed in every gesture, every glance. Ryder burned as if she had lit a fire in the depths of his heart.

Didn't they know that they were both tumbling headlong into heartbreak?

Guy set his glass on the table. He wanted, very badly, not to have to witness this. Yet he would do anything in his power to help or protect her, and something in her eyes also spoke of pain and remorse and longing—something far deeper than the delicate regret she had once shown him.

“No, Dillard's been very successful,” Miracle said in answer to a query from Ryder. “He moved the family from the rooms over his shop several years ago. They're living in a grand new mansion in one of the best streets in Manchester. He's described every detail in his letters.”

“Then if we leave as soon as it gets dark, we'll arrive at your brother's shortly after dawn.”

“With Lord Hanley still hot on our heels?”

“Without doubt,” Ryder said dryly. “But we'll get there first.”

It was a simple enough exchange, yet the air almost crackled between them. Why the devil didn't Ryder just sweep her into his arms and carry her off to bed?

Miracle stood up. Her smile encompassed both men, but the real passion in it was only for Ryder. “Then I'll leave you gentlemen to your brandy, while I go and prepare for another journey.”

In a sweet rustle of silk, she left the room.

Guy dropped his head into both hands. Ryder pushed away from the table and stalked across to the fireplace.

“Are you still in love with her?” he asked.

“God!” Guy's head jerked up. “Is it that transparent?”

“No more so than with me, I'm sure. Miracle tends to do that to men.”

“Then yes and no.” Guy refilled his glass. “I've no desire to revisit that much pain. There's no going back, in spite of those adolescent declarations of undying love. I can offer her nothing now except friendship and she wants nothing else.”

“Yet no man can ever look at her and not want—what we both want,” Ryder said. “It's a bloody disaster.”

“Why?”

Ryder stared up at a portrait of the third earl in his strict Puritan garb. “Nothing can change the facts: Every possible future for a courtesan and a duke's eldest son contains the inevitable destruction of love.”

“You want love?”

With the fluid power of any natural athlete, Ryder spun about to face him. “I hope I know better than to waste my life wanting something I can't have, but let's at least save her from Hanley.”

“I'll help in any way that I can.”

“Thank you.”

“For her sake,” Guy said with a wry smile. “At the moment, I feel rather like strangling you, but what do you want me to do?”

“Wait here for a day to engage Hanley's spies in useless speculation, then go back to London to resume your normal life—on the surface, at least.”

“While you recover whatever she sent to her brother?”

Ryder nodded. “And perhaps while we're gone, you could find out everything there is to know about this Philip Willcott?”

Guy stood up and offered Ryder his hand. His cousin shook it.

“Hanley doesn't stand a bloody chance,” Guy said. “It does almost make one feel sorry for the man.”

“No, it doesn't,” Ryder said.

 

 

THEY slipped out of the house into a black world. It wasn't raining yet, but thick banks of clouds hung over the hills to block out the stars. Ryder led Miracle away from Wrendale in absolute silence. Entering the woods was like plunging into an inkwell. For mile after mile she was suspended in damp darkness, his grip on her hand her only compass. Every once in a while he would tug her to his side, so she could avoid puddles of water or the slap of wet leaves in her face.

The curricle was waiting in a lane. Miracle barely made out the dark shapes, but a harness jingled and a hoof clopped once as the horses shifted. Ryder handed her up, then exchanged a few whispered words with the groom. The curricle dipped beneath his weight. Ryder swung into the driver's seat. Hoofs and wheels muffled by the muddy road, they drove off in an eerie quiet, as if a dream carriage carried them straight into the heart of the night.

Dawn arrived as they dropped down out of the hills and into the tidy valley of the Dean River. Not far now to the cotton mill and the apprentice house, where Miracle had spent half her childhood. Somewhere beyond those trees, machines clanked and hammered as the small children tending them slowly went deaf. Whatever happened now, she would never,
never
work like that again!