St. Raven (19 page)

How can you promise me that, you fool? I can feel the pain coming as surely as if I faced the surgeon’s knife.

“I have enjoyed your company as much as anyone’s I remember. Don’t ask me to be cold.”

It took courage, but she went straight to the heart of the problem. “As long as we admit, now, that there can never be anything but friendship between us.”

When he hesitated, her foolish heart trembled, but then he asked, “What constitutes friendship?”

“You should know that.”

“I’m wondering if it will preclude this.” He drew her into his arms.

Cressida could have resisted. She knew that, knew that he was giving her all the chance in the world to stop him. This would soon end, however. The surgeon’s knife would bite. She couldn’t resist just a little of what her heart and body longed for.

Still as a statue in the full moon’s light the highwayman watched the road, controlling his mount without effort and without bit. His clothing was dark as the shadows, his face concealed behind a mask and a delicate beard and mustache of the style of Charles I. He would be invisible if not for the splash of a sweeping white plume on his broad Cavalier hat.

Jean-Marie Bourreau prayed for a rich carriage—the richer, the better. He was pleased to be free from jail, but his pride stung. Who had impersonated him? Who had dared to take his creation, Le Corbeau, and use it for his own advantage?

Jean-Marie and his men had returned cautiously to the cottage. They had found the ramshackle place untouched, except that he thought perhaps the bedding in the concealed room had been changed. His impersonator had slept in his bed? He would have his eyes, his innards, his genitals! He’d found his chests as he’d left them, however, including his costume.

Perhaps the impostor had made his own version, as the Drury Lane theater had when they’d included him in that play,
A Daring Lady
. He had become something of a hero to the foolish English. During his days in jail fashionable women had flocked to visit Le Corbeau. Some had bribed his jailers to let them spend time with him, intimate time.

It had not been so unpleasant. Now he was free, he must take back his identity. He was Le Corbeau. He!

Ah. Wheels approached. He saw his target. A light traveling chaise with two horses and only one man on the box. Excellent. Poorly guarded but promising wealth. He surged out onto the road. “Stand and deliver!”

The coachman drew the horses to a plunging halt. “Bloody hell, I thought you were in jail!”

“A mistake, as you see,
monsieur
. Do not make ze trouble.”

He looked inside the coach and smiled. The traveler was a beautiful woman, alone. That and her painted face suggested that she was not the epitome of virtue, but then, neither was he. A courtesan rather than a whore, he suspected, to be traveling in such a carriage.

“
Madame
, I require a toll for the use of zis road.”

“You’re the king, then, are you, since this is the King’s Highway?” His ear was not good with English accents, but he thought she spoke quite well.

“Perhaps. After all, your king, he is mad.”

“And yours,” she pointed out, “is dead.”

“Alas, no,
madame
. Ours is now very, very fat.”

She smiled, and then she laughed, a glorious full laugh, showing excellent teeth. The new king of France had spent his exile stuffing himself and was known as Louis le Gros.

“Then you are certainly not he.” She frankly appraised him. “What sort of toll did you have in mind,
Monsieur Le Corbeaut‘

Jean-Marie almost growled, and he was in danger of becoming uncomfortable in the saddle. “Alas,
madame
, a hasty one. Zis crow must fly or he might dance in the air.”

“And yet I am worthy of a great deal more than haste.”

He knew what she was suggesting. Would it put his head in a noose? Life, he believed, was risk, but a long life demanded some common sense.

“Perhaps,
madame
, one day we could explore zese’t‘ings with a great lack of haste.”

“Indeed, sir, perhaps we could…”

“For now, alas, I must ask you to leave ze coach so I can assess ze toll of your… er… wealth.”

Her expression chilled, and she thrust open the door to step down. His brows rose at the full sight of her. Her well-rounded body was revealed by a formfitting dress with many slits in the skirt. Plump thighs, round calves, slender ankles, trim waist. His mouth watered. The bodice of the gown was cut below her magnificent breasts, which were covered only by veiling.

He sighed again, making sure she heard it. “Your wealth, I see, is in your natural assets,
madame
. No jewels?”

“I am returning from a wild entertainment not worthy of jewels.”

He ran his eyes up and down her again, which was no hardship, but showed her words true. Little could be concealed beneath that gown. He often took a kiss from ladies in lieu of trinkets, but a kiss from a whore hardly seemed payment. He glanced inside the coach. On the seat lay a pale statuette. He looked back at her and saw a sudden tension. Ah, so…

“I will take zat.”

“It’s a paltry thing.”

“I will be ze judge.”

She glared, then reached in, picked the thing up, and held it up for him to see. “It’s a trinket. An Indian statue awarded to me as a
prize
.”

It was about eight inches high, intricately carved, and almost certainly of ivory.

“I’m sure you deserved the prize,
madame
, but I have my pride, and it would be worth something if sold. Surrender it to me.”

Her eyes flashed anger, heightening his interest. Why did this thing mean so much to her, and how could he use that for greater profit?

“I thought you only took half a person’s assets, Crow.”

“We can hardly cut it in two.” He moved the horse forward and plucked it from her hands. “Perhaps,
madame
, I will let you buy it back.”

She was not as good as she should be at hiding her emotions. She was furious, then calculating, then hopeful.

“For zat,” Jean-Marie pointed out, “I will need your name.”

“Miranda Coop.” She spoke with the arrogance of a duchess. “You will find that my address is well known. Return that within the week, sir, or I will see you hang!”

She climbed back into her carriage.

Jean-Marie held the door so she could not close it. “I wonder where zis so lively party is taking place…”

Her eyes met his with a spark of understanding amusement. “Stokeley Manor, over an hour from here. And yes, most of the revelers are now quite drunk.”

It would seem that the lady bore no goodwill toward the people there. He inclined his head, shut the door, and gave the coachman freedom to go. As it rattled off, Alain and Yves came up beside him.

“You’re not thinking of taking up that invitation, are you?” asked Yves. “She’ll wrap you up and present you to the hangman.”

“Will she?” Jean-Marie smiled at the statue, which was most interesting. “Do you think this pose is possible?”

“I think it’s possible we’ll be caught if we linger here. And if you’re not going to sell that, we’re risking death for nothing.”

Jean-Marie laughed. “You have a mercenary heart, but now I have an enterprise in mind that might satisfy it. Come! The Crow flies north.”

Cressida played her mouth against Tris’s, astonished by how long a couple could simply kiss. Though
simply
was perhaps not the precise word. She was on his lap now, and every bouncing movement of the coach shifted silk against silk and shape against shape.

His hand was under the back of her jacket again, moving rough-hot against her skin, creating the most delicious feelings. She wished she knew how to do the same to him, but she was too uncertain to ask or try.

She had her arms around him, however, and the freedom of his mouth. How strange that was. Such an intimate place, a mouth, and yet their joining had lasted so long that his had become a part of hers, dissolving all barriers between them.

The coach jolted her against him again, and she felt him tense. He was hard. Hot prickling desire ran over her, but she broke the kiss. “We must stop.”

“Must we?” Heavy lids shielded dark, smiling eyes, and his lips looked more sensuous than ever. More tempting. More delicious…

She hated to try to put words to this mystery. “I can’t let you ruin me, Tris. It would be disastrous. For both of us—”

He captured a length of her hair and wound it around his finger. “I’d marry you if you conceived.”

If that wasn’t temptation, what was? To have him always, and a child of his!

Wielding the surgeon’s knife herself, she said, “I’m sorry. I… like you, Tris, but I could never be a duchess. Perhaps we can be friends, at a distance. Perhaps we could write…”

“Write,” he echoed.

“Or not.” She grasped her hair and tugged it free of his distracting play. “We are like travelers who meet in a strange land and become companions there simply because they are so far from home. Once back in their own land, they have no connection.”

“We just discovered a very powerful connection.”

“Kissing isn’t everything.”

His lips twitched. “True.”

“In terms of connection.”

“Very true.”

“Stop it! We have nothing else in common.”

“Don’t we?”

She knew they did, and feared he was about to list examples.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m too conventional for you, too proper. You’d soon lose patience with me. You are attracted to this,” she added, gesturing at her outrageous costume, “and I am not.”

“I’d be happy with you without it.” She pushed off his lap entirely, back to her own side of the seat. “See! Only you would say such a thing!”

His brows rose.

“You and your sort.” She put hands to her hot cheeks. “Why am I going on like this? You aren’t serious about marriage. You’re trying to seduce me. And you promised you wouldn’t!”

He leaned back in his corner. “No, I didn’t. I promised that you could trust me. That is still true. You weren’t reluctant to kiss me, Cressida, so don’t pretend you were.”

He seemed relaxed, amused, and seductive as Satan. “As for seduction, I still think it would be a good idea.”

“It would be disastrous!”

“Don’t be so hasty. You, my intrepid explorer, do not know what is around the next bend.”

“I sincerely hope it’s Nun’s Chase.”

“Where there are two convenient beds and many hours left of this adventurous night. Your voyage is not over until you are back in your parents’ home, Cressida. Don’t you think it would be a shame to miss the most exciting… scenery?”

Her skin shivered, and her muscles tensed. “That’s Satan talking.”

He laughed. “You think me possessed by the devil?”

“I think you
are
the devil.”

He was. He knew just how to play her. His mind was as skillful as his knowing hands and mouth.

That was why he wasn’t trying to touch her now, why he was leaning back in his corner, as far away from her as possible. He knew it made him more desirable, not less.

As if to prove it, he spoke. “I want to make love to you, Cressida, and I can do it without risking a child, without even breaching your virginity. I want it for my own selfish satisfaction and delight, but also for you. As you say, this voyage will soon be over. As your guide, it wounds me to let you leave my land without experiencing the best, especially when I have taken you to the seedy and downright disgusting stews. I offer you intense pleasure, Cressida, at very little risk.”

Her body clenched on itself in direct, hungry reaction to his words. She prayed he couldn’t tell.

Very little
, she made herself note.
Not no risk
.

It emphasized that he was being scrupulously honest, however, which was seductive in itself. She valued honesty, and if she were honest now, she’d admit that the past twenty-four hours, the time in his company, had been the most honest she could remember. Here in this outrageous situation, in this skimpy costume, she felt real for the first time in her life.

Was this what her father had felt in India? Was this why he’d not been able to return home, even to be with his wife and child?

But Arthur Mandeville had found a place in India. There was no place for his daughter in this wild land except with strumpets and their customers.

“I wish you would speak your obviously troubled thoughts,” he said.

“Then you would try to fight them.”

“Of course. I can see no rational objection other than fear of ruin.”

She laughed. “You think that nothing?”

He shrugged. “If your presence at Stokeley comes out, you are ruined. Nothing you do now will change that, and of course, if that happens, I will marry you.”

“And I will refuse!”

“I will not be distracted by a hypothesis. You have no rational choice, Cressida, but to return with me to Nun’s Chase for what remains of the night. What we do there, no one will ever know.”

“I will.”

“A platitude unworthy of you.”

That stung. “You make virtue sound vulgar!”

“Perhaps it is.”

“You
are
a devil.”

“Not until I die. And no,” he said, forestalling her, “do not try to save my immortal soul. I don’t feel it is in danger, but I am what I am, and I am the expert here. What you risk tonight—the only thing you risk—is that once you enjoy your body to the full, you might hunger for that pleasure too much. It might lead you into rashness.”

“You are very sure of your skills,” she snapped.

“Yes. But don’t forget, I know you a little by now. You are not cold or hard to please. Our lovemaking will be a continuation of what we have enjoyed together thus far, and that, you must admit, has been very promising indeed. What do you want, Cressida? What do you
want
?”

“We cannot always do what we want! Or at least, we lesser mortals cannot.”

He shook his head. “Once there were sumptuary laws, which regulated what people could wear according to their rank. Under those laws, it would be wicked for you to wear those purple trousers. Laws, and even sins, change, Cressida. There is no immutability about them. The only thing that matters in the present is to not get caught.”