Lord of Ice (13 page)

“I shall turn you over my knee if you don’t start showing some respect for your elders, my girl.”

She laughed at him with a look in her eyes that suggested she just might enjoy that. Holding his gaze, she took a slow, lingering sip of her wine. He stared at her like a starved man, half blinded by the memory of her in that skimpy lavender gown, the paper-thin muslin giving him brief, tantalizing glimpses of her luscious curves. God, he wanted to lay her down and kiss her entire body from head to toe, consume every inch of her until she writhed with pleasure.

The timely arrival of the waiters with the meal dispersed the tension that charged the air around their table. A feast was set before them of beef steaks, pigeon pie, muffin pudding, and an assortment of vegetables.

When the staff had withdrawn, Miranda offered up grace before the meal. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, reciting the short prayer. As Damien gazed at her, somehow her nearness routed any lingering thoughts he might have had about the barmaid. It had been an unworthy impulse, after all. He knew that perfectly well. But as Miranda swept her green eyes open again and murmured, “Amen,” he concealed his change of mind about the tryst.

She did not need to know she had that kind of power over him.

After dinner, they returned to their respective rooms and said a cordial good night in the hallway, though it was only seven. Damien claimed he was tired. She did not refute him, but she knew the real reason he was retiring so early. He could barely wait to get that harlot from the pub into his bed, Miranda thought, brooding on it as she slid under the covers of the sleigh bed, alone.

Exhausted from having gotten no rest the previous night, she slept soundly, but the urgency of her mission woke her two hours later. Better fed than she was rested, she dragged herself out of the warm, cozy bed at nine o’clock, knowing it was time to make her escape.

After last night’s run-in with the outlaws from Mud City, she was not looking forward to the journey in the dark, in the cold, without Damien’s protection. She had no choice. She still had her three shillings’ pay from the Pavilion, and now that she had ridden on the mighty Zeus, she felt brave enough to try to manage one of the docile hack horses from the livery stable. A horse’s slowest, safest gait would still be faster than her own two feet, but she realized that her guardian’s fame might hamper her escape. The whole staff of Ye Olde Red Cow was groveling to the war hero and had noted her presence by his side. If she tried to hire a horse, the grooms would probably insist on detaining her until he could be consulted. It wouldn’t work.

Well, it seemed her acting skills would be called upon yet again today, she thought as she fixed her hair before the chipped mirror on the stand. Hastily donning her cloak, pulling the leather strap of her satchel up over her shoulder, she opened the door a crack and peered into the hallway. Finding it empty, she sneaked out of her room.

She tiptoed past Damien’s door and glided silently down the hallway to the stairs. Putting on her most demure expression, she made her way back to the dining room, pausing to steal a peek into the pub. She breathed a sigh of relief to see that Damien was not there, then furrowed her brow to see the blond barmaid darting among the men with her tray.

Were they through with their act of lust, or had the tramp not yet gone up to his room? she wondered, then shrugged off the question. It did not signify. She had said her good-byes to Damien Knight.

When she glanced into the dining room, she found it almost empty. Her gaze homed in at once on her marks—a pair of pimple-faced university lads about seventeen years old, accompanied by a slightly older fellow with the bearing of an upper servant. Their tutor, she guessed. She had not seen them earlier.

Perfect, she thought. She ventured to hope that the two young lads were later arrivals and would not realize she was under the protection of the hotel’s famous guest this night. If she played her hand skillfully, they could provide her with transportation back to Yardley within two hours.

Mentally riffling through her repertoire of melodramas for a plot that would suit her purposes, the tale of
The Wayward Heiress
came to mind. Ah, yes, she thought with a wily smile skimming her lips, that one was lovely. Mr. Chipping had almost given her the role of Laura, the heroine, but at the last minute had relegated her to second lady. She had played Katherine, the heroine’s cousin.

Summoning a grief-stricken air, which was not difficult when she thought of Uncle Jason, she walked with dirgelike steps into the dining room and went to sit at a small table by the fireplace, conspicuously dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief. The boys gazed at her when she walked in, as boys were wont to do.

The waiter came over to her, looking surprised to see her again. She asked for a cup of tea and biscuits and pretended not to notice the stares of the two lads. She could hear their tutor scolding them in hushed tones to quit gawking at her, but when she glanced at them out of the corner of her eye, he was staring at her, too. She turned her face toward the fireplace as though to hide a piteous sob.

This proved more than the first lad could take. In an instant, the young Oxford gentleman was standing by her table, all alarmed youthful chivalry.

“Excuse me. Miss?”

Miranda knew as much basic etiquette as any young lady. It was not permissible to accept the address of any young man to whom she had not been properly introduced. He had done exactly what she wanted, but she slanted him a wary, affronted look.

“Forgive me,” he said with a blush. “We could not help noticing that you seem to be in some sort of distress, and we were just wondering—” His voice cracked, screeching upward an octave.

Miranda hid her wince.

“That is,” he tried again, “is there anything the three of us can do to help?”

She gave her lashes a shy flutter and offered the boy a tremulous smile.

It worked. The shorter boy and the sobersides tutor were there in a trice, surrounding her with their gallantries.

“Poor, dear lady—”

“What seems to be the trouble?”

“I’m sure you’re very kind. I do not know what else to do!” She summoned a few choice tears. “I received word that my old nurse is on her deathbed. I must see her. I love her dearly. She has no one else. I must go to her, but my parents refused me permission. I confess, I—I’ve run away so I might reach her in time to say good-bye!”

“Dear me, miss, it was not wise to flee your parents,” the tutor said, frowning. He was only about twenty-three or twenty-four himself.

“Why did they refuse to let you go?” the second boy asked, wide-eyed.

Miranda sniffled. “They would not allow me to leave because this very night they have arranged for a meeting between myself and the odious, old . . . colonel they are forcing me to marry!”

The two lads gasped with naive indignation, but their tutor eyed her skeptically.

“They would force you to marry him against your will?” the first boy exclaimed.

“No wonder you ran off!” the second chimed in.

They stared dazedly at her as she dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “I know, I know. But all that matters now is my poor old nurse. Somehow I must get to Yardley village before it is too late,” she said with her best melodramatic flair. She put her cup of tea aside and started to rise to her feet. “If you good gentlemen will excuse me, I must press on.”

“Let us call your carriage for you!” said the first.

“I have no carriage.”

“Your horse—” offered the second.

“I have no horse. I could not risk taking one of my father’s mounts, lest I be discovered.”

The two boys exchanged a businesslike glance. “Right,” they said, then looked at her. “If you will permit us, Miss, we will conduct you swiftly and safely to Yardley village.”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly impose upon your generosity,” she started, but remarkably, the two trusting lads soon managed to persuade her.

Damien saw a field of corpses.

The guns had gone silent. Peasants crept stealthily out of the nooks and crannies of the dusty Spanish town and stole out onto the surrounding battlefields. Ravens waited on nearby branches, cawing hungrily. The peasants picked their way among the bodies, robbing the dead of whatever valuables they could find, stripping them even of their clothes. In the floating fog of dawn, they left the slain, oppressors and liberators alike, naked and bereft of their dignity.

He saw soldiers at work piling their fallen comrades into mass graves on one side of the field; he heard someone calling his name. It was Lucien.

His brother was searching for him through the sea of bodies, but Damien found himself unable to move, unable to call out to his twin or to anyone. He gradually realized that he was badly wounded, pinned beneath a mound of corpses. The angel who had come to carry him up to heaven sat nearby perched on a wagon wheel, her chin resting on her fist, wings folded demurely. She had luxurious sable tresses and spring-green eyes that seemed to peer into the very soul of him. She just sat there watching him.

Help me,
he tried to beg her, but he could not speak. She seemed to be waiting for something, some signal from him that he could not give because he was paralyzed, half dead.

Then he felt one of the peasants plucking at his clothes, come to rob his body. Horror welled up, choking him. He could not move to defend himself, as though his very limbs had frozen. He tried to scream, but he was mute.
Get your hands off me, I’m not dead. I’m still here. I’m still alive, damn it!

He awoke suddenly and sat up, covered in a cold sweat. His breathing was ragged, deafening in the silence of the pitch-dark room.

For a moment, he did not know where he was.

Slowly, his head cleared and the vicious past scuttled back under the bed like a monster in a child’s obsession, releasing him from its jaws for now.

He swung his legs off the bed and sat up and reached toward the bedside table to light a candle. His hands shook slightly; he fumbled with the tinderbox. The fire in the hearth had gone out, and the room was freezing.

Failing on his first attempt to catch a spark, he gave up and slowly put the tinderbox back on the table, his gaze heavy with the futility of it all.
You bastard, Jason. You’re the lucky one,
he thought.

He rubbed his face with both hands for a moment, then rose restlessly and put his waistcoat back on but did not button it, nor did he bother with his cravat. He was otherwise still dressed, for it had been too early to retire for the night. He glanced at his fob watch: half-past nine.

Miranda.

The thought of her dragged him back firmly into the land of the living. He decided to check on her, in no humor to be left to his own grim company. With nightmare images still haunting his brain, he thought to order tea and a light repast, then to check on Zeus. He left his room and went across the hallway to see if she wanted something to eat or needed anything, but when he knocked softly on her door, he got no answer.

Must be sleeping,
he thought. He started to walk away, leaving her to her slumber, when a faint tickle of intuition, or premonition, made him pause—that same sixth sense that had made him look back last night just in time to spy her attackers materializing out of the darkness. Narrowing his eyes suspiciously, he walked back to her door and knocked again a bit more loudly.

“Miranda?”

Still, no reply.

He pounded on the door. “Are you in there?” God, what if something was wrong? “Miranda, answer me!” His sense of danger fully alerted now, he grasped the knob and thrust open the door. His eyes widened. The room was dark, the bed scarcely rumpled.

She was gone.

With a curse under his breath, he spun around and without thinking twice, grabbed his sword from his room, knowing her penchant for getting herself into trouble. A moment later, he was running down the stairs, dashing across the hotel lobby, heedless of the guests and servants who stared at him in shock as he passed. He threw open the front door with a bang and plunged out into the darkness, his chest heaving, his heart pounding wildly.

The light snow that had begun falling struck his face as his stare homed in on the sleek curricle in the graveled yard. It was not yet in motion, but nearly so, the groom making a final check of the harness. There, on the driver’s seat, nestled between two beardless youths, was his ward.

Damien’s nostrils flared in fury as he realized she had ditched him again. He marched toward the carriage in wrath.