My Pleasure (21 page)

More laughter. Beside Helena, Mrs. Winebarger fought back a smile.

It was all nonsense, of course, meant to make DeMarc look ridiculous. For if Munro was as riveted on the match as he claimed DeMarc ought to be, he would hardly be contemplating things as absurd as dancing bears or making provocative comments about DeMarc’s lack of focus. No. Ram Munro knew to a degree where every person in the room stood.

Except for her and Mrs. Winebarger. He had not looked up since they had entered, and they were half hidden by the other spectators.

“That being the case,” Ram went on, “how can I be held accountable for ungentlemanly comments I make in front of ladies I do not note?”

“Well you know there are ladies present, Munro. As you are most well known to several of their number. I would say further on the matter, but then I am in truth that which you only pretend to be.”

A lazy smile turned Ram’s lips. “Too brown, Viscount. I have never pretended to be a prig.”

DeMarc’s jaw clenched. He attacked, pressing forward, his footwork assured and deft. With a grin, Ramsey parried, deflecting the blade just before it hit his padded chest.

“So predictable, DeMarc.” His tone had lost its superficial politesse. “You have excellent skills, a very good instinctive reading of your opponent, but you allow your emotions to set your strategy.

His sword cut over DeMarc’s testing blade, passing through his guard, and flirted within inches of the viscount’s shoulder, only to be enjoined and parried, “In a duel there is only room for two people. Nothing else must matter.”

“Pris de fer!” shouted the elderly gentleman, annoyed and disgusted. Once more, Ram affected not to notice.

He engaged DeMarc’s sword, was parried, and immediately engaged again. Their blades held, each man exerting equal force pushing against the other’s sword. The muscles in Ram’s forearm corded. “Not your wife, your brother, your father, or your child.”

In an effort to regain the control that was slipping from him, DeMarc turned to present a smaller target. Helena could visualize DeMarc’s plan: He need only push Ram’s sword, and by extension his arm, sideways across his chest, and, for a short, vital instant, an area beneath Ram’s outstretched arm would be exposed. DeMarc would then disengage his sword and strike through to the vulnerable target.

Others saw it, too. Around her little gasps burst from a number of ladies’ lips just as Ram abruptly released the countering force. DeMarc’s sword, without the expected resistance, drove too quickly and too far, leaving his own chest unprotected.

It was brilliant. “Bravo!” she called out spontaneously.

Ram’s eyes, which had been locked on the action, darted up at the sound of her voice, and in that telling instant he lost sight of his target. DeMarc, trying to drag his sword back in time to parry the strike he must have known was coming, instead drove forward, his tip plunging into the padding above Ram’s heart.

“Point! Halt!” the referee shouted.

The duelists stepped back from one another, DeMarc openly triumphant, Ram openly distracted. His gaze flickered across the crowd. He couldn’t have recognized her voice. She had always been careful to keep her voice low and disguised. But in the alley in Cheapside…had she remembered then?

“So, Munro, what was that you were saying about my never having beaten you?”

Graciously, Ram inclined his head. “Well done, Viscount.”

“Bah!” A sound of disgust drew the duelists’ attention, and Helena looked around to see the marquis disappear out the door. When she looked back it was to find DeMarc staring at her, his face tight and his body rigid. Ram was quitting the floor, pausing beside the one-eyed attendant to exchange a few words before exiting the salle.

“Does anyone wish to challenge Viscount DeMarc?” the attendant called out. At once, two young men appeared on the edge of the cleared space, vying for the right to take on the man who’d bested Ramsey Munro. There was no way DeMarc could demur without looking as though he feared his win had been a fluke.

Helena merged with the crowd. She waited a moment or two while the duelists took their marks and then slipped into the corridor where the attendant had taken up a position by the door.

“Sir. Would you please take this to Mr. Munro at once?” she said, handing him a folded note requesting an immediate audience.

The one-eyed man looked at her dubiously and took the proffered letter, bidding her to wait. She paced along the bare corridor impatiently. What would she do if he said no? He couldn’t. She reached into her reticule and pressed the tiny yellow silk rose she’d cut from one of Flora’s gowns. The attendant reappeared.

“Ma’am. If you would follow me?” He led her to a room at the top of a flight of stairs and ushered her in to what was to all appearances a sort of masculine sitting room, though woefully lacking in amenities.

A pair of high-backed chairs upholstered in fading blue damask faced each other in front of the fireplace, while a lovely old walnut desk sat in the pool of light coming through a bank of narrow, undraped windows. A bookcase stood on one side of a door on the far wall, and a simple glass case displayed a trio of ornately wrought swords on the other side. And that was all. No carpet, no drapery, no pictures on the wall.

“Mr. Munro will join you directly.” Without waiting for a reply, he left, shutting the door behind him. The sudden vacuum caused the door on the far wall to pop open a few inches, and with some embarrassment Helena realized that it led to Ram Munro’s private chambers and that she was looking obliquely into a mirror hung above a washstand. But then Ramsey’s reflection appeared in the mirror, and she forgot all matters of circumspection.

She jerked back a step, fearful that he might see her. But when nothing happened, she leaned forward, craning her neck to see if…yes. Oh, yes.

He stood in front of the mirror, naked to the waist, his dark head of curls glistening with the water he must have just splashed over his face and neck. Moisture beaded on the fine mat of dark hair covering his chest and trickled down the sharpcut vales and contours of a finely toned, muscular torso. She swallowed as he straightened further, and she saw again the rose shape emblazoned high on the sloping plane of his pectoral muscle. It looked to her like a scar, pearlized and angry.

Then, as she stood transfixed, breathing rapidly between parted lips, his head fell forward and he gripped the edges of the washstand, the muscles of his forearms and biceps bulging as if he were trying to bury his fingers in the hard marble surface.

With a sudden jerk, his head snapped up, and he met his own gaze in the mirror. For a long moment he studied his reflection. She could not say what he saw there, in the privacy of the moment his face shed its usual sardonic mien and he looked…young. Both apprehensive and expectant. And…awed. Yes. Awed.

It must have been his defeat in the fight that made him look so. She could find no other explanation. Yet he did not look unhappy. Not at all.

Then, with an unreadable quirk of his lips he pushed away from the washstand, snatching up a towel from some unseen rack, and roughly began drying himself off as he disappeared from view.

She pulled back, her pulse racing. This was a mistake. A terrible mistake. How could she be with him and not long to be in his arms, feeling those clever, wicked lips on her? He would know. He would realize she was “Corie,” the woman who’d responded so passionately to—

A door clicked behind her. She spun around, her hand moving to her throat to catch at the heartbeat stuttering there. He stood motionless in clean, white shirtsleeves and dark, pressed trousers, his damp, dark hair curling over a fresh collar, his shirt cuffs rolled up over lean, muscular forearms.

His gaze was grave. No spark of carnal interest. No leap of stunned recognition. Of course not. A dozen ladies might have been in his arms since that night.

“Helena,” he said with a quiet, bemused sort of gravity. Was there welcome in those syllables? No. Impossible. He was simply testing his memory, asking which sister she might be. That was all. She struggled to remember her reasons for being here—and found them.

“Mr. Munro.” Thank God, at least she needn’t feign an accent anymore, but could speak naturally in her native Yorkish tones. “It is kind of you to remember me, particularly as our one meeting was so brief and years ago, and even kinder for you to agree to see me in such a remarkable manner.”

She could have sworn his chin jerked up a fraction, as if he’d taken a blow. He stood quite still. Long enough for her to note the luxury of black lashes, the marble sheen of a newly shaved jaw, the way the light refracted the blue of his irises. Then he was coming across the room, his manner exquisite, his smile formal with just the right degree of familiarity.

“Of course I remember you, Miss Nash,” he said. “Pray, to what do I owe this pleasure?”

Taking a small breath, she stretched out her hand. Automatically, he reached out with his own. She dropped the yellow silk bud in his upturned palm.

“I want you to teach me swordplay.”

BIND:

an action in which the opponent’s blade is forced in a diagonally opposite line

RAM DIDN’T LAUGH OUT LOUD, a reaction Helena had half expected. His hand closed about the small silk rose as he motioned for her to have a seat. While she settled herself in one of the chairs, he rang for a servant, and after giving the one-eyed man directions, returned.

“Gaspard will bring us tea.” He seated himself opposite her, his long legs stretched out nonchalantly, his gaze hooded. “How fares your family, Miss Nash?”

She stared at him, startled. “Sir?”

“Your family. Your sisters. I heard of your mother’s death, of course, and beg you accept my belated condolences. Miss Charlotte, I believe, still resides with the Weltons?” Seeing her wide-eyed stare, he nodded. “As I thought. And, of course, I know of Mrs. Blackburn’s marriage to my old companion Kit.”

“You do?”

He smiled. “Of course. I was at the wedding.”

“You were? I didn’t see you.”

“I was attempting to be circumspect.” He cocked his head, smiling a little. “I saw you. You were very severe. Very concerned and trying terribly hard to accept your sister’s choice of groom.”

He was right. She had been worried. But she would have wagered much that no one would have been able to read that in her face or manner. Except…he had.

“Why were you trying to be circumspect?” she asked, amazed at her boldness.

His smile was unexpectedly charming. “I wasn’t sure I would be welcome.”

“Why is that?”

“A long and tedious story, Miss Nash. Suffice it to say Kit MacNeill and I had certain suspicions regarding each other that precluded me from standing up for him at his wedding.”

“Had?”

“We have since learned to trust each other again. It’s far too tiring to maintain a decent suspicion without proof.” She didn’t believe him. He was playing a role, hiding behind a mask of sophisticated ennui.

Her eyes narrowed. “Why have you gone to the trouble of keeping apprised of my family’s situation?”

He shrugged apologetically. “I made an oath. I am afraid I take that sort of thing ridiculously seriously,” he drawled, his blue eyes waiting and watchful. “But there it is. The last remnants of an education too steeped in mythology, I suspect. All those heroes with their pledges and labors and duties and decades-long quests.”

“I see.” He’d quite disconcerted her. Had he been keeping abreast of her own situation, too?

As if he read her mind, his smile grew vulpine. “And how is Lady Tilpot?”

“Fine,” Helena said a little breathlessly. He had been watching her. How far had his obligation extended? How much did he know?

“I am delighted to hear it. Now then, Miss Nash, perhaps you can tell me more about this desire of yours to learn swordplay.”

She pulled herself back to her present situation. “There is nothing to explain. As you said, you swore an oath to answer my needs as best as possible.”

“I did,” he replied in equally sedate tones.

“Well, I need to learn to protect myself.” She was proud of her self-containment. She met his gaze straightforwardly, using the old trick of looking through a man’s eyes rather than into them. No lowering of her lashes, no demure glance to break eye contact, no suggestion that the paid companion was in any manner being coy.

Except it was impossible to look through Ramsey Munro’s blue gaze.

“My dear Miss Nash. If you are in need of protection, I can provide that far more easily than I can teach you to wield a sword. Now, tell me, whom requires sticking?”

She flushed. “I do not require you to ‘stick’ anyone, sir. I would prefer greatly that no one is stuck at all. But, if the need to protect myself arises, I would like to be able to do so myself.”

“I see.” He stood up. “I think you had best go home, Miss Nash.”

She stared at him, her lips falling apart. “But you promised.”

“I am quite aware. But I promised to meet your needs, not your whims, and all that you have told me is that you have a whim to learn swordplay should some happen-stance arise that puts you in danger. To which there is a very simple answer. Stay out of dangerous places.”

“But I…I can’t,” she blurted out.

The handsome cast of his features hardened, his voluptuary’s mouth tightened.“Can’t? Why? Are you impelled to visit places other young ladies fear to go?” His tone held the rasp of derision. “I can hardly think so, ma’am. So, if you do frequent dangerous places, I can only conclude that you choose to put yourself in peril for whim’s sake.

“Do not look so cheated, Miss Nash. If you still feel the same way, oh, say a month hence, return to me. By then the tournament will have ended, and I will have the time to indulge you.” As she continued staring dumb-founded up at him, he turned his hand over and dropped the little rose into her lap. “Keep this until then.”

“How dare you?” Slowly, she climbed to her feet, her eyes locked with his, her voice shaking, the silk rose falling unseen to the floor. “How dare you patronize me?”

Nothing about her was composed or cool now. She burned with indignation. “Despite your information about me and my sisters’ circumstances, you know nothing about us, Mr. Munro. Nothing about
me
.