My Pleasure (9 page)

“If you were to view what I would propose as a test, sir,” she said sweetly, “then I fear you have already failed.”

He grinned. “Bold words, but then bold words are easily spoken from behind the safety of a mask.”

Everything about him bespoke his unassailable sophistication. Yet she’d glimpsed a bit of the nature of the man who owned that perfect alignment of flesh and bone. She had some knowledge of the masks that beauty makes. “You speak from experience.”

“How so?” He lifted his hand, inviting an explanation. “You are the one hiding. I am, as you see, without a mask.”

“Are you?” she asked.

He burst out laughing. “How delightfully unanticipated you are, lass. I swear, if your wrist and footwork could keep pace with that facile mind, you would make one hell of a fencer.”

“Perhaps I’ll come by your salle some day for a lesson,” she suggested, preening a little. “Teach the lads a thing or two about verbal fencing.”

His eyes flashed. “I can promise you, should you appear in my salle dressed in your current attire, the play would be much more physical than verbal.”

She’d forgotten she wore boy’s clothing: breeches and linen shirt, white silk cravat and velvet jacket, a soft, antique hat covering her hair. He smiled, one side of his beautifully shaped mouth beginning a slow, carnal climb a second before the other side followed. It was a ravishing, lopsided smile, and her heart beat faster even as the heat rose in her throat. “Surely your students are not such ruffians,” she protested.

“It wasn’t my students I was speaking about.” He pushed off of the railing and stepped in front of her, blocking her way past him.

Now, the heat exploded fully in her cheeks. She sidled back and he let her go, and she had the lowering idea that he was laughing at her. She did not want Ramsey Munro laughing at her.

“As diverting as the conversation has been, I had best be going, but first…” She reached up to unbutton the top of her ruby-colored velvet jacket and had the pleasure of seeing his dark brows flicker up in surprise. Touché! “But first I owe you a hundred pounds.”

“Pardon me?”

Though she hadn’t expected to see him again, she had prepared for the eventuality. Turning aside, she loosed the ties at the throat of her linen blouse. She could feel his gaze as she reached beneath the soft material and plucked a thin sheath of folded notes from her cleavage. She turned back, holding it out in front of her.

“You don’t really expect me to take your money?” he asked, more in amusement than offense.

“Yes. Why would you not?” she returned.

“Why not?” He regarded her with an unfathomable expression. “Well, because despite any number of strenuous and fair objections, I still like to maintain the illusion, if only to myself, that I am a gentleman.”

“Pshaw. You cheerfully forfeited your money in order to protect my identity. I am therefore in your debt. Let me repay what you lost.” She pushed the currency against the hard wall of his chest. He didn’t even glance down.

“Honesty compels me to say that I don’t recall being all that cheerful about the situation. I think you underestimated the danger you were in, lass.”

The soft caress of the Scottish-flavored endearment swept through her, stirring her senses. “Perhaps you are right.”

Once more, a black brow climbed in query.

“After all,” she answered, “I have remained here with you. And seeing as to your reputation, Mr. Munro, that hardly seems advisable, does it? Tell me”—she tilted her head—“should I be afraid?”

He closed what little distance remained between them, looming above her. Once more she backed up, but this time he followed her retreat until the rail pressed against her hip. He bent down, his beautiful Lucifer’s face so close she could smell the faint tang of brandy on his breath. “Now
that
,” he murmured, “is a question I’ve been asking myself.”

Her breath caught, and her fist, still pressing bank notes against his chest, dropped. Suddenly, the deepening twilight surrounding them felt warmer and more intimate, and his dark beauty seemed dangerous. Perhaps even lethal—

“No.”

“No?” she echoed faintly, fear and pleasure swirling within her in an unholy mixture.

“No, you have no reason to be afraid,” he said. He frowned, backed away. “After all, you know something of me, while I know nothing about you. Clearly, you have the advantage.”

He was right, and she wanted it to stay that way. She did not want him to know who she was—Helena Nash: mute, pretty mannequin, companion to society’s most malicious matron. She didn’t want him to know, because he would never have stood for such treatment.

But she had.

“That,” she said, “remains to be seen.”

“You are most perceptive, darlin’.”

“And foolish?” she softly wondered aloud.

But he’d heard her. A wicked smile curved his perfect lips. “In your own words, my dear, that remains to be seen.”

She could not remember ever feeling so richly, vibrantly here, as if her whole being was concentrated in this moment. She was acutely aware of every aspect of her surroundings: the warm air blowing ripe and moist from the Thames, the gravel beneath her slippers’ thin leather soles, the whir and rustle of the trees’ leaves above her, and the soft murmur of distant voices.

“Please take the money. A woman has a code of honor, too.” She held out the paper bank notes.

He studied her face intently for a long moment and then reached out. Before she could react, he’d clasped her upper arms lightly and turned her around, facing her toward the brightly lit end of the path. “I think it is time for you to go home.”

She didn’t want to go. She would have to go back to Lady Tilpot’s, to being a silent and decorative doormat. “I think I will stay a bit longer.”

“No. I do not think that is a good idea.”

“Are you warning or threatening me?” she asked, meeting his eyes.

Munro laughed. “Oh, my darlin’ lass, if I was a threat to you, I would hardly need to apprise you of that fact. You would already know it.”

Of course he was right. He could simply take from her what he wanted, and she had no doubt that he could do so without any effort at all. Everything about him was tempered and strong, elegant but deadly. Like his rapier, Ramsey Munro was a handsome means of destruction. Yet there was no denying his attraction. He was entirely unique in her acquaintanceship, a razor’s edge separating the suave gentleman and the lawless Scot. Which was he really?

“You know what I think?” His fallen-angel mouth curled in a sweet smile. Dusk caressed the angles and planes of his face with warm shadows. Moonlight gleamed in the blue-black softness of his curls and glowed in the deep patina of the gold rose pinned at his neck. “I think you
are
a lady. A lady who has never walked these paths, or those like them, before. An intelligent lady, a little too mature for recklessness, a little too young for caution.”

It wasn’t at all what she’d expected. It was so much worse. He’d read the very heart of her. How could he have known?

“And I find I cannot leave you to your own devices, at the mercy of whatever or whomever else might find you.”

She waited.

“So,” he continued lightly, “I have a suggestion that might satisfy both you and this unexpected impulse toward chivalry in myself.” His voice was summer-night warm. “I will take your hundred pounds if you let me be your escort for this night.”

She stared at him, fascinated and tempted. His hand rose, as if he were about to touch her cheek, but then he let it drop. He let his voice caress her instead.

“Come, lass,” he said. “Let me show you things you have never seen. Take you places you have never gone. The gardens are but the gateway to a world you cannot imagine.”

No words, no promises could have been more seductive. Nearly four years of quiet endurance stretched behind her, untold hours of crushing boredom, of being obliged to hear the same dreary conversations, the same dull topics approved for virgin ears. She wanted more. She wanted the exhilaration that came of watching a man, this man, react to her words rather than her face. She wanted to see the world through another’s eyes. To begin to live, when for so many years it had seemed to her she had simply slumbered.

As if on cue, laughter mingled with music flushed from far down the lane, the siren call of unchecked merriment. She would like to be part of that gaiety, to be caught up in the noise and crush of heated bodies, swept into a current of jubilant humanity.

“Yes,” she whispered before realizing she spoke.

His eyes on her face, Ramsey Munro wrapped his long fingers around the hand still holding the paper currency and lifted it to his mouth, pressing a kiss against her knuckles. Heat speared through her, weakening her knees as he returned her trembling hand to her side, the money gone. She looked into his eyes and knew. He understood exactly her reaction to him: It was the same as any other woman’s.

Well, he might recognize her reaction, but he was doomed for disappointment if he thought she would succumb to it. She could not be one of his past lovers “littering London.” But oh! How very much she wanted him to be hers.

“Before we begin, I need to make one thing perfectly clear, Mr. Munro.”

He inclined his head inquiringly.

“You are not to touch me, handle my person, kiss my hand, or in any way importune me.”

He conspired to look shocked. “But I would never importune you.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do?” He grinned with unabashed wickedness.

“Yes.”

“Very well, then.” He placed one hand over his heart. “I swear I will not set hands on you unless you desire I do so. Even to help you into a carriage. But”—his eyes danced—“do you think you might see your way clear to taking my arm when we walk? For the sake of my vanity?”

She eyed him suspiciously.

“I would hate for it to be bandied about that Ram Munro trotted all night at the heels of a lovely young woman who could not even stand to touch his decently clad arm. It would be so very lowering.”

“All right,” she agreed. “But how do you know I am a lovely young lady? I may well be a harpy beneath this mask.”

His gaze took in her body in a long, slow visual drink, his eyes turning lambent with sexually charged awareness.

“Well, darlin’,” he said, his soft Scottish burr becoming more pronounced as his voice deepened, “your throat is as long and pale as a swan’s, and your lips, I know for a fact, are soft as silk velvet, and even behind your mask, the color of your eyes is enough to set the morning sky weeping with envy.

“And if that describes the aspect of a harpy,” he continued, taking her hand, “then I pray God you were sent to plague me.”

From behind the hedge, Forrester DeMarc forced himself to watch. He did not move, even when Ramsey Munro kissed the backs of Helena Nash’s fingers as he took the folded bills from her and tucked them in his waistcoat. He stayed motionless, though his skin felt scorched and his breathing whistled from the contracted corridors of his chest.

Helena. His Helena. His blonde angel, as delicate as a fairy princess, giving money to that creature, that panderer of flesh. His stomach roiled, and he fell back a step, closing his eyes to blot out the sight of them. But he could not blot out her image, her lips soft and full beneath the black silk mask, parted slightly, the flash of widening eyes, the shiver of excitement telegraphed across the space separating them.

And Munro! Like a wolf, he watched her. His hunger, his insatiable want, a palpable thing. It made DeMarc ill just thinking about Helena being the object of such lust. Well, he wasn’t going to tolerate it.

She was his.

Two months ago he’d walked into Lady Tilpot’s, bored and disinterested. He’d noted first her great beauty, as any man must: smooth, milky complexion; perfect patrician features; the polished flaxen hair; quiet blue eyes framed by honey-colored lashes. But the world was filled with great beauties, arrogant creatures sure of their power over the pitiful fools who flung themselves at their feet. Creatures like Sarah Sweet.

But that had been years ago, he reminded himself, and he’d been young and idealistic. He was no longer so naïve.

No, it had been Helena’s mouth that had alerted him that here was something different, something unique. It was pliant, soft, and quiet, hinting at a sweet helplessness that Sarah had never owned. At the same time, others commented on what had at once been blindingly apparent to him: Helena Nash was smitten with him.

She had not merely smiled at him. She had smiled because of him. He knew with absolute conviction that she, too, recognized the deep unity between them. From that moment on she had been his.

He’d needed only to crook his little finger to have her. But what to do? What to make of her? Because while she was far below him socially, she was not so far below him that he couldn’t take her as his mistress, as he had Sarah Sweet, without repercussions. So he had waited while he decided what to do about her.

And then this…betrayal.

He closed his eyes, the taste of bile coating his mouth.

He’d gone back to the Tilpot townhouse earlier this evening in search of a snuffbox he’d mislaid, only to find Reverend Tawster still trying to escape from Lady Tilpot. Together, he and the toady little vicar had left the townhouse. For some time afterward, the vicar had kept him on the front steps, enthusiastically extolling Helena Nash’s attributes—as if DeMarc did not already know them. But suddenly Tawster had frowned, peering past him.

“That isn’t…?” Reverend Tawster had shaken his head. “I am imagining things.”

“What is it, Vicar?” DeMarc had asked, turning to see what had captured the parson’s attention. He saw a slender boy in a cloak moving out of the alleyway behind the Tilpot townhouse. There was something familiar about the way he moved. “Who is that?”

“I don’t know, I thought I saw her face—”

“Her?”

The vicar had smiled apologetically. “That’s just it. Of course, it is not a woman. Why would a woman be dressed as a lad? Especially—”

“Especially what?”

The vicar’s gaze darted away from DeMarc’s. “I really must be going. I am already late for evening offices. I trust we will meet again soon. Goodbye!” And with that, he scurried away, his hands twining worriedly in their kidskin gloves.