My Pleasure (30 page)

He held his hand palm up, a gesture begging her indulgence. “I went to some effort, Miss Nash, to protect a lady’s name. I can hardly reveal to you what I was willing to cut eight men to keep secret.”

Her gaze was calm, assessing. “I respect you for that, Mr. Munro. But the same code of honor that prohibits you from revealing the lady’s name or the gentlemen involved, keeps me from revealing a situation involving persons to whom I swore my aid and my silence.”

“Touché,” he murmured. “But—”

A knock interrupted whatever he’d been about to say, and Gaspard entered, a pair of small trousers and a shirt draped over his arm. Wordlessly he set them on the table.

“I shall wait without,” Ram said. “Call me when you have dressed.”

It didn’t take Helena long to shed her dress and don the trousers, having had plenty of practice with male attire these last two months. She left the white shirt open at the throat, pushing the sleeves up her forearms and stuffing the tails beneath her waistband. Then she picked up her sword and lunged.

Ah! This was ever so much better. She grinned.

“Mr. Munro!” she called.

He entered the room and crossed his arms over his chest, his gaze sweeping up and down her length, from the slippers to her delighted expression. “Feeling quite the thing, are you?” he asked dryly.

“I feel liberated, Mr. Munro. I should have been wearing young men’s clothing from the first. I feel certain I will be much more competent with the freedom of movement these garments allow me.”

“Really? Then you intend to go about in public from now on dressed in men’s clothing?”

She flushed. “No, no, of course not.” He had come too close to her secret, and she suddenly wondered if seeing her in these clothes would put him in mind of another young lady in men’s clothing. She glanced at him. He was watching her with hooded eyes, dark and still angry, but without any dawning recognition.

“Shall we?” she asked.

Over the next two hours he made her practice the single offensive ploy over and over and over again. He made her lunge so deeply and so many times that her thigh muscles screamed in protest. Again and again, he had her lunge and tip sideways, catching her weight by slamming her hand into the floorboards until her palm was bruised. Time after time, he barked at her to thrust her sword up, stretching out as she did so, so that her ribs burned and her arm shook with her effort to hold the miserable few pounds of steel over her head.

And then he made her do it again.

She would not be dissuaded. She would not be discouraged.

But finally, as he picked up his sword and started to speak, she had had enough. Before he had finished a word, she’d dropped, the motion so ingrained now that her body fell into alignment, surging out and up, striking his shirt. With immense satisfaction, she heard material rip. She’d scored a point on Ramsey Munro! With a sound of glee she leapt to her feet, her face flushed with victory, her eyes brilliant with success.

Ramsey looked down. She must have caught a seam with the tip guard, and the result had rent it all the way up his side and into the sleeve. The fabric flapped loose, exposing part of the muscular chest beneath.

He looked up. “I rather liked this shirt.”

“I hit you!” she said excitedly. “I caught you off guard!”

“You did,” he admitted.

“So, you see? You needn’t worry about me, Mr. Munro,” she said, success making her giddy. “Having mastered this truly marvelous ploy, I shall be safe and—”

She didn’t even see him move. One minute she was happily babbling about her new skills, and the next he’d caught her up in his arms, his lips curled back in a snarl. His arms were hurtfully tight, and he was propelling her, stumbling, backward, and she was twisting desperately in his arms, frightened.

“Ah!” Her back hit the wall, the breath leaving her lungs in a gasp.

“You are not safe!” he said in a low, furious voice. “DeMarc has gone to ground. No one has seen him in over a week, and you do not know where he is.

“I’m a fool to have given you the tools, illusionary as they are, to make you think you are in any way prepared to defend yourself with a sword. But you, you are a far bigger fool if you think this little trick has rendered you sacrosanct.”

“Let me go,” she said, her own anger rising to meet his unfair accusations, his patent scorn. How dare he handle her like this? How dare he hurt her? And which hurt more, his steely grip or his biting contempt?

She pushed at him, trying to break free. “Don’t you dare—”

He shoved her back, spreading her arms wide, holding her wrists tight against the wall and pinning her body with his. “If someone comes after you, they won’t play by rules. They won’t wait for you to essay a few practice swipes before you begin.”

“So what would you have me do?” she demanded furiously. “Ask you to follow after me for the rest of my life?”

“Yes.” He looked down into her face, his blue eyes blazing. “Yes.” He pulled her out a few inches and thumped her back into the wall again, as if to drive some sense into her. “Yes.” Once more he pulled her out and she winced, waiting for the coming impact.

He cursed, low, hard, and vehement, and then his angry mouth was on hers. She tried to twist away and then, and then it was too late, the fire that lay banked burst into flame, and she moaned, arching into his hard body, her mouth seeking his.

With a curse, he tore his mouth from hers, snatching himself away from where she stood, shoulders to the wall, her breast rising and falling rapidly in agitation beneath the thin linen. Small and defenseless, hurt and angry.

He’d done that.

“Marry me.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

“Marry me. Let me protect you. Let me—”

She laughed, the sound broken and high-pitched. “ ‘Do you have any idea the extent I would go to fulfill my pledge to your family?’ ” she echoed back his words. “Well, yes. I guess I do. Now.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He half turned from her, raking the black hair back from his face with both hands.

“Isn’t it?” she demanded, quivering. “What
do
you mean, then? That on the basis of two weeks you have grown to love me with such ardent and honest devotion that you could not imagine life without me? Or is it that you feel that you have now so completely compromised me that your new status as a gentleman insists you act honorably?” She threw out the words bitterly. “Well, I commend you, milord. You are the first in a long line to feel so compelled.”

He could not answer. He could not tell her of the years he’d spent watching over her, of his initial attraction to her valiant composure, of his growing desire for her, of his appreciation of her courage and intelligence and wit. Or finally, the knowledge that, wherever he went, however long he lived, he would never know her like again, he would never feel love like this again.

She would never believe him if he told her he loved her. So he sought some other means to win her.

“Marry me because it is sensible, Helena.” He looked up as if seeking inspiration. “Marry me because I will be a marquis and you would make a fine marchioness. Marry me because I will never bore you. Marry me because our children would be surpassingly gorgeous. Marry me so that you can become the finest female swordswoman in the world. Marry me because I want you. Just marry me, Helena. I most ardently beseech you.”

She stared at him until he realized that her lovely blue eyes were awash in tears. He hadn’t meant to make her cry. He reached out and with the back of his index finger traced the curve of her cheek.

“I swear I will spend my life endeavoring to make sure you do not regret it.”

“Ramsey, I cannot—”

“Please. Do not refuse me yet,” he said soberly. “Promise me that you will at least consider it. Think on it a few days at least.”

Her gaze fell. “It will not change anything.”

“Please.”

She moved back, harassed by desire and sorrow and guilt. “I will think,” she murmured, and fled.

PHRASE:

a set of related actions and reactions in a fencing bout

SHE LOVED RAMSEY. The knowledge pierced her with an impact no steel could have ever rivaled.

She loved his wit and his hauteur, his irony and his nobility. Everything about him she admired. Every moment with him, either as “Corie” or as “Miss Nash,” had been the most vital, gratifying moments of her life.

But, of course, she could not marry him.

Why had she told him she would consider his offer when she already knew any union between them would reap nothing but heartache? He had only newly been made heir to a great fortune. He did not even realize yet the matrimonial prospects open to him. But Helena, who had lived her life on the fringes of Society, knew very well the opportunities that awaited him. He could align himself with a great house, with power both political and monetary.

No. She would be doing them both a disservice if she told him yes. Aye, she could be making a brilliant match, but how long before she ceased to amuse him? Before he wanted the company of a more conventional, and less possessive, woman? Then he would take a mistress. She did not think she could stand that.

Despite all the ladies and gentlemen she knew who lived under just such circumstances, she knew she could never listen to the carriage drive away knowing he was going to another woman and then smile at him over coffee the next morning.

No. She’d kill him.

No, that was not clarity of thought. That was emotion. She took a deep breath. Yes, Ramsey Munro wanted her. But he wanted “Corie,” too. And the woman at the bacchanal. And how many others before and since?

He’d only made the offer because she was a virtuous if impecunious gentlewoman, and he had made an oath to do anything in his power to protect her. He had said nothing of affection, let alone love. Oh, he wanted her. That was a factor, too. Because he could not honorably proposition a gentlewoman except through an offer of marriage. Had he not asked “Corie,” a woman he clearly considered an adventuress, to be his lover?

And she wanted that. She wanted to be Ram Munro’s lover.

But there was only one way she would allow herself that, one way she could spend months, perhaps even years, with him. A way that, when his attention waned and he no longer wanted her, she would not be condemned to a lifetime of witnessing his polite indifference, the gradual death of his desire.

She could become his mistress.

He was standing bare-chested in the stinking dungeon, the acrid scent of his own burning flesh filling his nostrils, a rushing sound filling his ears. His own blood, he supposed dazedly. Though he could barely stand, somehow he conspired to remain upright, his vision dimming with the welcome coming of oblivion.

“Pretty, don’t you think, monsieur?” the warden of the prison stepped back to admire the handiwork they had made of him, pointing at his chest. “Almost as pretty as you. Perhaps next week we should brand your cheek—but there’s the problem. We have tried it before, and always the brand goes straight through to the jaw. Then it is not so pretty. The ladies run in horror rather than swoon with appreciation.”

“Wouldn’t want to frighten the ladies,” he managed to gasp.

He hadn’t screamed. Or had he? It didn’t seem to make any difference now. Who was there to impress? But he hadn’t told them about the farmer who’d aided them or the ship’s captain who’d transported him or the young lieutenant at Malmaison who’d been their contact. That…now that was impressive.

“That is what I like about you, Munro. Your sophistication. Your refinement. It is such a pleasure to meet someone of your stamp here. The rest of these scum…Bah! But you!”

“My God, Gardien, are you propositioning me?” Ram asked, twisting his lips into the old, disparaging smile. The thousands of nerve endings exposed and then seared by the white-hot brand screeched, bringing tears to his eyes. He would start sobbing soon. He would hate for the warden to see him sob.

“Because, as flattered as I am, I must decline the honor. You see, there’s this chap below who’s been plying me with gruel, and I would hate to be thought to be taking the better—”

The blow caught him upside the head. His last coherent thought was one of gratitude.

Ram bolted upright in his bed, gasping for breath. The memory had taken him by the throat, as it always did, coming when he was most weak, most susceptible—in his dreams. He braced his arms at his sides, gulping in great lungfuls of air. And that is when he noticed it was pitch black, the only light a sliver of illumination coming from under the door leading to the hallway. Someone had closed the heavy velvet drapes covering the windows. Someone who was still here. Someone who stood very near—

He lashed out, catching hold of a slight form and tumbling it to the bed. He felt an instant of surprise as he straddled the figure beneath him, pinning her under him. Her. Helena.

Dressed, he realized, in breeches. Velvet by the feel of them. And her hair. Even in the darkness it would show pale, like a faerie nimbus. She must, he realized in a fog of confusion, be dressed in her boy’s garments.

“You said if I came you would welcome me as your lover.” Her voice was hoarse, stripped of her native accents. “You said nothing about being a wrestling partner.”

His lover? He sank back, slowly releasing her arms, striving to find the right tone, the right words, while he sorted his jumbled thoughts. “But my dear, that is exactly what a lover is.”

He felt her swallow. He felt a great deal, warmth seeping through her velvet coat, the hipbones jutting against his inner thighs, the slightness of her form…And, abruptly remembering that he wore nothing but a nightshirt, realized that she must feel a great deal, too.

He eased off of her. She didn’t move. She lay motionless on her back, a barely visible form against the sheets. He could hear her breathing, rapid and shallow. Afraid? Reconsidering the entire lover construct?

Then he felt her fingers fumble across his chest and move up to his throat. Deftly, she pulled the loose opening down across his chest and then, like a blind man learning a sculpture, her fingers traveled with mind-searing gentleness over the brand.