Suzanne Robinson (26 page)

“Even when you thought me a spy, you wanted me. Did you not, Gratiana?”

Flushing, she ignored his barb. “How could I have known? I beg you to understand that I was deceived.”

The smile vanished, and he lay back, breaking their gaze. His jaw clenched, and he closed his eyes.

Pen settled in her chair again, not daring to speak. He didn’t want her there, not only because he was furious with her, but because he didn’t want her to see him fighting the pain. Dear God, he’d looked at her with almost the same ruthless disgust he reserved for the priest.

“Go away, Pen.”

She started, for he’d opened his eyes again and was raking her with that intimidating black gaze only made more frightening by the blaze of fever. When she didn’t move, his hand shot out from the covers and snatched her wrist. He yanked her from the chair and hauled her close so that she felt the heat from his body. Dear God, how could she be aroused when she was scared? His lips were so close to hers when he spoke, his jaw set.

“I said, go away.”

Pen felt her heart skitter and thud, but she hung on to her valor. Placing her hand flat against his bare chest, well away from his wound, she pressed hard. He swore, released her hand, and dropped back onto the bed. Gasping, he continued to hurl epithets at her.

Pen straightened the covers once again, then prudently moved her chair beyond his reach and sat down. “You’ll never get well enough to avenge yourself on me if you don’t rest.”

Her answer was a torrent of curses that faded quickly. Tristan glared at her, but his eyelids drooped. His mouth clamped into a thin line, and he finally turned on his side away from her. The sheets fell away as he moved, and he kicked at them, leaving one long leg bare. Pen swallowed and contemplated drawing the covers over him, if only to spare herself the sight of flesh she couldn’t touch. She didn’t want him to grow cold. But she didn’t move.

If she touched him again, he might fight her. And if they fought, he would put his body against hers. She already longed for him, and he knew it. He had taunted her with it, and from what she’d seen of Morgan St. John, he was capable of using her longing to torment her, of using his body and his allure as a weapon to gain the vengeance he so clearly wanted.

No, she must wait, wait and hope that as his body healed, his wrath would fade. If instead his anger grew, she didn’t want to think about what he would do to her once he recovered.

TO MAKE HIPPOCRAS

T
o make hippocras, take a pottle of wine, two ounces of good cinnamon, half an ounce of ginger, nine cloves, and six pepper corns, and a nutmeg, and bruise them and put them into the wine with some rosemary flowers, and so let them steep all night, and then put in sugar a pound at least; and when it is well settled, let it run through a woollen bag made for that purpose; thus if your wine be claret, the hippocras will be red; if white, then of that color also.

Morgan woke with a clear head for the first time since he’d been wounded. He lay on his stomach with his arm flung out across a lump beside him in the bed. Raising his head, he recognized Pen’s frail jawline and swore to himself.

No blessed loss of memory saved him from recalling his folly of the past few days. He’d given in to weakness and tolerated her presence. It was the fault of the fever.

Pain and the heat within his body had robbed him of anger so that he craved the touch of her cool hands above all else. He’d become vulnerable again, exposed. But now the fever was gone, and he was left in bed with a woman who had tried to kill him and nearly precipitated a tragedy for England. Even if he could have forgiven his own betrayal, he couldn’t forgive what she’d almost cost the queen.

After he’d escaped, he’d chased after the Danseur to the cliffs near the castle. He saw her wade out into the surf to greet men rowing a boat to shore. As he expected, the boat then met a ship, which sailed immediately. He wasted no time in retrieving his bag of coins. He’d found the supply ship and roused its master. The man had been furious at having his slumber disturbed, until he realized that Morgan came bearing
gold. After he’d caught sight of the coins, he’d almost drooled while giving orders to set sail.

Sailing in the wake of the Danseur, he reached England hours behind her. He drove himself near to exhaustion once he reached land, and had been close to catching up with her when those men ambushed him in that ravine in the forest. If he hadn’t been so furious, he would have admired the woman for setting her mercenaries on him. He’d escaped, to her misfortune, but now he knew that the delay had allowed Pen and Jean-Paul to catch up with him.

He’d reached Beaumaris only to find it all but deserted. Evidently Rochefort had opened the house only to provide a meeting place for his friends. As Morgan had approached the house, he saw Cecil and Christian passing through the distant entry gate and riding down a long avenue toward Beaumaris. At the same time, Danseur was slipping around the back. The visitors were still too far away to warn. Tristan had been forced into a race to stop Danseur before she found a hiding place and her victims arrived unsuspecting.

He followed her into the house only to see her disappear while he had to duck inside a pantry upon the appearance of the cook. By the time he came out, Danseur was nowhere in sight. He was forced to waste precious minutes searching for her. His luck changed when he noticed that the door to the tower stair stood slightly ajar. Then he realized that instead of taking aim from some front-facing chamber where she might be interrupted, Danseur had gone to the roof.

He raced up the stairs in desperate haste. He’d had no idea Pen had followed him, until she appeared on top of the tower with him. He remembered her shouting at him, and how astonished he’d been to see her. But he couldn’t afford to listen to her. When she threatened
him, he’d made a choice. He’d gambled that her love would stop her from hurting him. He’d lost.

She’d betrayed him. Trusting someone dear to him had always resulted in betrayal. Morgan winced at the small spiked thought that lanced through his heart—people he loved betrayed him because he deserved nothing better. Quickly he stepped on that thought, swept it off the edge of his awareness and down a bottomless crevice. But the pain stayed with him, deep and unbearable, and so, to save himself from destruction, he acted.

Inching his hand from beneath the covers, he took a corner of one sheet and touched it to Pen’s nose. She wriggled it, but slept on. He tickled her again, and this time she rubbed her nose, sighed, and opened her eyes. As she did so, he withdrew and pretended to sleep.

He felt her bend over him. He remained still and breathed with the even pace of sleep. Then he felt her slide from the bed. Hearing her walk to the door, he slightly raised one eyelid to peer at her from beneath his lashes.

The door opened to reveal Christian de Rivers. Pen put her finger to her lips and whispered.

“He sleeps still. I thank God his fever finally broke.”

“I told you it would. Wound fever is a common happenstance. Run along to your chamber, sucket. I’ll watch him while you dress and eat. I’ve left off asking you to rest. Mayhap you will now that he’s better.”

Pen left, and Christian came into the chamber, all bright and vigorous in his movements. He walked over to the bed, drew a chair close to it, and sat. He swung booted feet up and onto the mattress, jarring Morgan’s legs.

“You may open your eyes, raven. She’s gone.”

Morgan turned over and kicked at Christian’s legs. “Jesu. What manner of care is this for a wounded man?”

“The kind you deserve. I can see by your color that you fare well, and you’ve the look of a cock trapped by a wolf.”

“Am I to have no compassion from you for all my trials?”

“Spare me your sacrificial postures,” Christian said as he lay back in the chair and gazed at Morgan. “Mistress Fairfax hopes that you’ve forgiven her. She doesn’t know you as I do.”

Morgan glared at Christian, who continued.

“You’re going to take aim with that poison-tipped arrow of a tongue of yours and wound her more fatally than she ever wounded you.”

“You know naught of it. And if I’ve a poisonous tongue, it was you who gave it to me.”

“And I did my work too well. I know your character, you loathsome colt. Why can you not listen to me? I’ve told you that in running away from her you condemn yourself.”

“What know you of running and women? You’ve been married to Nora for years and years.”

“And when I first met her, I made the mistake of not believing in her.” Christian’s gaze dropped away and fastened on another corner of the room. “I made a mistake that near cost me her love.”

“Love?” Morgan suddenly became restless and began slapping at his covers and straightening them. “What has love to do with Penelope Fairfax? I told you what happened. How I was before, that was a phantasm brought on by my lack of memory. If I wish the company of women, there is Lady Ann in London and Maria at my country house.”

Christian swept his feet off the bed and yanked the covers out of Morgan’s grasp. “Now, you listen to me, my raven, for you’re about to make a perilous bungle. I’ve watched you with Mistress Fairfax.”

“And remember that I’ve seen you with your Lady Ann and your Maria as well. Neither of them ever made you furious. Marry, no woman has ever made you more than slightly vexed. I watched you when she left, raven. I saw your eyes when you dared to open them.”

Morgan sat up in the bed, glaring at him. “I don’t love—”

Christian cursed, planted a knee beside Morgan, and shoved him back into the pillows. He gripped Morgan’s good shoulder and hissed.

“Shall I tell you what I saw, how you feel about her in truth? Like this: ‘Godlike the man who/ sits at her side, who/ watches and catches that laughter/ which (softly) tears me/ to tatters: nothing is/ left of me, each time I see her,… tongue numbed; arms, legs/ melting, on fire.…’ ”

Morgan knocked Christian’s hand aside and met his mentor’s taunting gaze with a glare. Christian disturbed him by answering his glare with a chuckle. He dropped back into his chair.

“God’s beard, raven, you remind me of how I screeched and clawed and railed against my fate when I met Nora.”

“The comparison is false. Pen never listens to me. She refuses to use good sense.”

“The priest slipped through our grasp again,” Christian said.

Blinking at this sudden change of subject, Morgan said, “I don’t marvel at it, for where Pen interferes, you may be sure of disaster.”

“Her majesty is busy trying to avoid war with Scotland.”

“If you hadn’t given succor to her half brother when he rebelled, the Queen of Scots would have no pretext.”

“I’d rather give succor to her bastard Protestant brother than to the legitimate witch who plots her majesty’s death. The key, my dear fury, is not to overbalance in favor of either.”

“And Cecil’s death would have overbalanced …”

They regarded each other silently.

“Then you see how Mistress Fairfax nearly caused a war as well as my death with her infernal hindrance,” said Morgan.

“That was not my point,” Christian replied. “Mistress Fairfax is unschooled in the machinations of papists, especially those like Jean-Paul.”

“Then she should have kept out of it,” Morgan snapped.

He heard the door creak and glanced up to find Pen looking at him over a tray full of food. She gave him a sorrowful look and stood on the threshold as though uncertain whether to enter. Morgan fixed a scowl upon her, leaning forward, and felt something tug at his shoulder. The covers had dropped down to his waist, and for the first time since waking he looked at his wound.

A bandage wrapped around his chest and shoulder, holding a poultice of some sort in place. He touched it. As he inhaled, he caught a whiff of such tartness that his eyes watered.

“Jesu, what is this?”

Pen hesitated, then came forward with a determined smile and set the tray on a chest at the foot of the bed. “It’s a poultice of mandrake root and other healing
herbs. Your wound began to corrupt, so I spoke with Wheedle.”