Games of Pleasure (43 page)

Dressed in nothing but shift, stockings, and corset, she fell back against the pillows, her soul shattered with delight.

He drew back only to tug his shirt off over his head. Grinning like a fool, he wrenched away his trousers and underwear, then stripped off his stockings. Gloriously naked he fell onto the bed beside her.

Her mouth, her thighs, her entire being welcomed him as he rolled over her and started kissing her again. Long, trailing kisses along her jaw and down her neck. Exquisite little nibbles in the sensitive hollows of her throat.

Longing consumed her. She wanted to touch him back, drive him even wilder with her own caresses. Yet he held her hands pinned to the bed with both of his, and used only his mouth to pleasure her.

She was fired with helpless ardor. Her skin glowed beneath his lips. Her nipples swelled erect beneath his tongue. The fire raged, all consuming, when he laid her as open as if his mouth plundered the heart of an iris. She cried out, writhing as the scorching intensity almost consumed consciousness.

When he slid inside her at last, she was lost, already burned away to pure gold. Her body convulsed in exquisite pleasure, lost, lost. Yet at each thrust he demanded still more. More openness. More vulnerability. As if at each long, lovely stroke, he delved ever more intimately into the depths of her soul.

She quivered like a violin string, the wrenching tremors thrilling as if she had become nothing but responsiveness.

As light flooded her mind, she found the beauty of his back and the strong thrust of his buttocks, so he must have released her hands. She didn't know when.

Her mouth found his, tongues touching and caressing in blissful rapture, so he must be kissing her again. She didn't know.

Miracle knew only this white-hot, passionate surrender to the only man she had ever let herself love totally and completely, though it broke her heart.

 

 

SHE woke wrapped in his arms. A candle flickered beside the bed. The rest of the room lay in darkness. She sat up. Ryder propped his dark head on one bent elbow and smiled up at her.

“I slept?” she asked.

“About eight hours. It's well past midnight. Are you hungry?”

“You've asked me that before—”

“And I trust I've satisfactorily fulfilled your appetites, Lady Ryderbourne?”

“Only you will ever do so,” she said. “Yet the world will destroy us.”

“Not if my mother decides otherwise.”

Miracle bent her head and kissed him quickly, before she slipped from the bed and grabbed a dressing gown.

He had taken possession of her as soon as she had arrived, as if to obliterate the memory of the other men who had shared her bed. It wasn't necessary. She loved him. Only him. Only he had ever moved her so deeply. Only he stripped her of all artifice and left her nothing but blissful absolution.

But women like her did not marry duke's sons. Society was not made that way.

“Not even a duchess can remake what I am,” she said. “You should have hidden me in a bower, as Henry the Second kept his Fair Rosamund—until his secret mistress was poisoned by Queen Eleanor, of course.”

He smiled back, though not with real joy. “For God's sake, I'm not a king. I'm not even the duke yet. The Earl of Berkeley married a butcher's daughter, and the world survived. As soon as it's light, we'll go down to Wyldshay. My mother wants to meet you.”

“Does she? I very much doubt it. Did you threaten her with fire and brimstone, and make her afraid that she'll lose you? As soon as the chance presents itself, she'll see me to the devil.”

“Perhaps,” he said.

“I've had a long coach journey in which to think about this,” she said. “I must ask this, Ryder: Is there anything really between us but passion? We've known each other for such a short time.”

“Long enough to know the truth.”

“The truth is that I made love to Hanley in that bed. You cannot negate that, however much you think that you love me. The knowledge will eat away at your heart. You'll get tired of me—”

Ardor burned in his eyes, as if she were a single fascinating flame. “No.”

“But when—”

A loud banging echoed. Ryder spun naked from the bed, lithe and lean in the candlelight. He was so beautifully made: all muscle, his belly taut, his buttocks lovely. The racket clanged again. Ryder pulled on his trousers and strode from the bedroom, barefoot and naked from the waist up.

Miracle followed him out through the drawing room and into the front hall.

Her hair tied in curling rags, Izzy had crept up from her bed off the kitchen, but now she stood staring at the door with enormous eyes, doing nothing.

The knocker hammered again. Ryder flung open the door.

Rain sheeted along the pavement and across the cobbled street, beating over the roofs of the houses.

A gentleman in a long cloak swayed on the step. Water dripped from his chin and ran in dark rivulets over his shoulders.

“Good God!” Ryder said. “Dartford? You're foxed, sir!”

“Very,” Dartford said. “Drunk as a lord! Mush see you!”

Ryder stepped back. “You'd better come in and have some coffee.”

“Only sober when I'm gambling. Can't afford to drink then. Have a message for you, Ryderbourne. Owe it to Miracle.”

Miracle clutched her robe to her throat with both hands as Lord Dartford stepped inside. Ryder glanced at her as she met Dartford's wild, wet smile with one of her own.

“Please get dressed, Izzy. Bring hot coffee to the drawing room.”

Izzy curtsied, then ducked away back to the kitchen.

Dartford tore off his hat and shook out the water. He stepped up to Miracle and bowed unsteadily.

“Don't want coffee,” he said. “Came to warn you. Hanley says you're guilty of murder. Going to see you arrested before dawn.”

“IT CAN MEAN ONLY ONE THING.” SHADOWS LEAPED ON THE bedroom walls as Ryder shrugged into his clothes. His voice was intense, filled with determination. “Hanley's found the bloody papers, so he knows I was bluffing. And since he's confident enough to threaten you, he must be certain that I cannot have seen them and have no idea of their contents.”

Dread turned in her stomach, but Miracle was determined not to let him see it. She sat down on the edge of the bed to pull on her half boots.

“Ah, well! Marry in haste and repent at leisure. I just hadn't planned to repent on the scaffold.”

“You won't have to, Miracle.” He wrung one hand over his hair. “For God's sake! You're my wife. You don't need to be brave any longer.”

She smiled at him, though her unsteady heartbeat threatened to engulf her.

Fingers scratched at the door. At Ryder's command, Izzy stepped in. Her hands plucked nervously at a hastily donned apron.

“Yes, Izzy?” Miracle asked.

“Lord Dartford fell asleep, m' lady, in the chair. Shall I bring the coffee in here?”

“If you please,” Miracle said. “And fetch us some hot toast with butter, as well.”

“Very good, m' lady!” The maid turned to leave.

“Wait!” Ryder said.

Izzy flushed and bobbed a curtsy. “Yes, m' lord?”

“Did someone visit this house, perhaps just before I arrived a few days ago?”

Miracle felt the blood drain from her face. With sudden insight, she followed Ryder's reasoning. Lord Hanley must have had very good reason to think that she'd had his papers to start with, or none of his behavior made sense.

“Sit down, Izzy, and answer Lord Ryderbourne. Did Lord Hanley come here again recently? Was he looking for something?”

Izzy plumped onto a chair, her eyes filled with doubt. “I never meant no harm, m' lady. But His Lordship said as how he'd have me taken for a thief if I didn't give him what he wanted. Though it was mine!”

“What was yours, Izzy?” Ryder asked.

The maid's mouth crumpled. “My Bible, m' lord. The one my mother gave me, though I never could read it too much. Too many long words and the print was too little.”

“You gave Lord Hanley your mother's Bible?”

Tears spilled as Izzy glanced up. “He came here the day before Your Lordship arrived. He said I must have something that was really his—a book or something like that. I told him I didn't have nothing, but he said that I must have and if I didn't let him have it, I would hang. He gave me three days to think about it, but I wasn't to tell nobody.” Her voice broke. “Though I only had the one book.”

“But you were afraid. So you gave him your Bible, hoping that would satisfy him? When was that?”

“Yesterday evening, m' lord. I was so glad to have thought of it. Lord Hanley had a man waiting at the corner. He said I was a good girl and he gave me a shilling.” She wiped her eyes on a corner of her apron. “Was that wrong? I never meant no harm!”

“It's all right, Izzy,” Miracle said. “Lord Hanley's angry with me, so he thought to annoy me by upsetting you. Now, go and dry your eyes, then fetch us the coffee and toast. You only did what you thought was right.”

The maid nodded and stumbled from the room.

Ryder's eyes shone with intelligence and ironic self-mockery. He ran his fingers through his already disordered hair and laughed.

“It's not funny!” Miracle snapped.

“Yes, it is! Though I'll get Izzy's Bible back for her, if I have to wring Hanley's damned neck.”

“I thought it was the wringing of my neck that was at issue. So Izzy had his papers here all along. Alas, it would appear that you married me for nothing.”

He spun about to face her, all laughter gone. “I married you because I want you for my wife. The only element of this farce for which I'll have a hard time forgiving myself is that I didn't guess about Izzy. After all, Hanley was so certain that Willcott had hidden something here that he ransacked the place. He only assumed you'd inadvertently taken the papers with you, when that failed.”

“Which allowed him to believe, for a moment at least, that we'd found them.”

“Alas, I must be a damned poor actor. He obviously suspected that I might be bluffing. Then he remembered Izzy.”

“Thus he came straight back to London, while you were at Wyldshay and I was still traveling with Lady Ayre, and the papers slipped out of this house under our very noses.”

Ryder tossed a few personal items into a bag. “But how the devil did Willcott get access to your maid's family Bible for long enough to hide something in it?”

“Does it matter?” Miracle asked. “Unless this is a double bluff, Hanley now has the papers and he's no longer afraid of you.”

“Then he should be.”

“Not enough! He intends to drag me from my bed—in spite of our Scottish wedding—and have me thrown into jail.”

He smiled as he pulled her to her feet. “Hanley can only risk that here in London, in the hopes that an accusation this soon would force me to repudiate our marriage and wash my hands of you.”

“That's an option,” she said.

He lifted her hand to kiss her wedding ring, his eyes ocean-green as he glanced up at her beneath his lashes. “Never!”

She closed her fingers around his. “Or perhaps his excess of elation will bring on an attack of apoplexy and solve the problem?”

“There is no problem. Everything will change once we reach Wyldshay. Hanley might think he can create a scandal right now for me personally. He'll never risk alienating the Duke and Duchess of Blackdown, once they've thrown their public support behind you. After all, he has no more proof of his accusations than we have of his secret.”

“And he's no fool, of course. But now my future depends on your mother?”

“Don't worry! She'll like you.”

She pulled his head down to hers with both hands, then pressed a brief smile against his lips. “Ah, you foolish man! Her Grace may like me. I may like her. But she'll no more accept this marriage than dye her hair pink. Fortunately, Wyldshay lies near the coast, doesn't it?”

“It won't come to that, Miracle. But if it did, I'd go with you.”

It was not true, of course. He might think it was true, but future dukes did not abandon their titles and lands for their mistresses. Not even when they had married them. If Ryder were forced to choose between his wife and his inheritance, Wyldshay would win.

“We should go,” she said. “It's already closer to dawn than is comfortable. I'd prefer to be gone by the time Lord Hanley gets here.”

“Thanks to Dartford, you will be.” Ryder picked up the bag and strode to the door. “He was one of them, wasn't he?”