by Lynn Kerstan
And yet, with this man, with him—
She reeled in her wits and baited another hook. “Very well. I accept the unlikelihood of an annulment. So how about a divorce?”
His laugh this time was genuine. “What other woman, I wonder, would ask that question before consenting to be wed?” The fire caught then, licking over the log, crackling as it consumed the dry bark. He rose and turned to look at her. “You may have a divorce upon request, Miss Holcombe. But only when I am persuaded you can never be indicted for the murder.”
“Oh.” She found it unaccountably insulting, how little he minded being quit of her. “A divorce would be a terrible scandal, you know.”
“We Keyneses thrive on scandal. But if I am to file for dissolution of the marriage, you will first require to be convicted of adultery. That means proof that will stand up in court, so when you are ready to stray, my dear, remember to arrange for witnesses.”
“You are surely jesting.”
“No, indeed. I’m not certain if the spectators must observe you in flagrante delicto, or if seeing you arrive and depart will suffice, but you can consult a solicitor about all the messy details. Just don’t count on me to play any part in your scheming. Should I catch you with a lover, in or out of delicto, I’d put a knife in his back.”
He was mocking her now. Raking up her anger, the way he’d raked up the coals of the dying fire in the hearth. It was almost as if, in the process of tightening his grip on her, he was at the same time making himself so intolerable that she would cut free and run.
Was that really what he wanted?
Was that what she wanted?
She’d no idea what she was to him, or what—if anything—she wanted to be. She knew only that it was her turn now, and that she had conditions of her own to put on the table.
“Are you willing to settle for a marriage in name only?” she said. “And do I need to explain what I mean by that?”
“I’m not sure.” He had taken up a poker and was half turned to the fire when she spoke. He paused, not looking at her. “I assume you mean I am not to touch you. That there will be no consummation of the marriage. Is that right?”
“Yes. Exactly that.”
After a moment, he completed the motion he’d begun and started punching at the fire. “Your demand is not unexpected. Nor can I blame you for it.”
Her breath caught. Nor can I blame you. What did he mean by that? Could he possibly—?
“I accept your terms unconditionally, Miss Holcombe. Add to them at will.”
And how was it, she wondered, amazed, that in the very act of surrendering, he seized control of her yet again?
“I do not understand you!” She found herself in the middle of the room, her hands still fixed behind her back, her fingers tightly wrapped around the hilt of his knife. “You are throwing away your every chance of a true wife, of children, of building a future for your family. Don’t you realize this? Don’t you care?”
“About those things, not at all. I have never considered the future, Miss Holcombe. Only the task immediately to hand.” He turned to face her, his legs slightly apart, his silhouette limned by the fire. “At one time, I sought funds to complete my studies. Then funds for passage to India, and to develop the skills I was going to require. Then the funds to buy for myself a mercenary force. Next, one after the other, I dealt with each mission as it arose. I planned and prepared the raid or the robbery or the ambush. I executed it. And if I survived, which as you see, I invariably did, I devised another scheme and began again. Reachable targets. Short-term goals.”
He balanced the poker on the palms of his hand like a votive offering. “Only one long-term purpose absorbed me, had done since I was a child, and that was the destruction and death of my brother. To my chagrin, it was achieved without me. And now I have no purpose, my dear, except to keep you from going to the gibbet. You may be sure I will achieve it.”
She had, by this time, no doubt of his determination or his abilities. But why her? Why would he trouble himself with her? “It is not in the nature of human beings,” she said, “to act without at least a degree of self-interest. And because I bid fair to bring you nothing but trouble for your efforts on my behalf, I cannot help but be suspicious of your motives and your intentions. Once I am legally in your power, I cannot prevent you from doing as you like with me.”
“More or less true,” he conceded. “I could exile you to a remote and unpleasant place. Beat you if I’d a mind to. Spend your money, if you had any. Take you to my bed. Take you anywhere I wished, for that matter, and in any fashion, as often as it pleased me. Do you think I will do any of these things?”
She could only gaze at him, stunned to silence.
He let go one end of the poker. It struck the flagstone hearth with a sharp sound.
She jumped. Recovered quickly, but not soon enough.
He gave a harsh laugh. “You are quite right to fear me, Miss Holcombe. You would be a fool to trust me. A greater fool still to marry me and put yourself in my hands.”
“You were close to having me there,” she said. “Why of a sudden try to frighten me away?”
“Try? You’ve been frightened from the first moment you saw me. Frightened of what I want, and let us both be perfectly clear about what that is. I want you naked and under me and open to me.” His expression hardened. “Don’t be shocked. Every man who sees you wants the same thing. Even your Archangel, although he’d tell you so in euphemisms while neatly folding his silk underdrawers.”
With all her strength, she held her ground. “You haven’t answered my question.”
He was leaning his weight on the poker as if it were a walking stick. “You already know the answer. You know what could happen, what I could do to you. What I want, profoundly want, to do with you. You fear me. But you are still here. Why is that, do you suppose?”
“Because you have given me no choice.” A stream of cold sweat streaked down her back. “Because for my father’s sake, I must stay alive to care for him. And I can do that only by marrying you.”
“Oh, no. You won’t slip away from your responsibility by putting it all on me. I admit to deceiving you, but only a little. Your choices are not so dark as they first appeared. Say, for instance, you tell me to go to the devil. To turn myself in and put my head on the block. What I didn’t explain is how nicely everyone will profit from my not-unwilling demise. I’ve made generous provisions, thanks to your counsel, for Norah and her brats. And the provisions I’ve made for you are nearly as bountiful, although I’m not quite so independently wealthy as Jermyn was.”
“You have willed your own money to me?”
“I had to do something with it. Even with the funds put aside for Hari and David, you’ll have a considerable fortune to go along with the property that rightfully belongs to your family. Independence can be yours. A chaste bed as well, until some lucky man lures you into his. I cannot provide health to your father, but all else I have to give is yours on a say-so.”
His smile sent a chill through her. “Isn’t that good news? You needn’t marry me after all, Miss Holcombe. You are not called to be a martyr.”
And there it was. All she had to do in exchange for what he’d offered her was send him to his death. And he didn’t mind dying. She accepted his word on that, because she had shared his readiness to do the same. But at the time, she’d had very little reason to live.
Did he feel the same, this powerful, beautiful, tormented man? She couldn’t bear to think of it.
What had been, before this moment, impossible choices, now seemed to her irresistible temptations. Fear and longing tumbled inside her. She could not have everything. But he had offered her more than she had dared to hope for, and she need only select what she most deeply desired.
Not without risk, though. Not without paying a terrible pric
e.
Apples in Paradise. Serpents twisting around her ankles, slithering around her thighs. I want you under me, open to me.
His death, in exchange for her freedom. Or his life, in exchange for her surrender.
She looked up at him, seeking an answer in his haunted eyes.
Chapter 24
She had a knife.
Not one of her sleek daggers, Michael could tell in spite of the poor light. He’d caught the flash of the blade when her hands, tucked behind her back for all this time, finally dropped to her sides. Now the knife was half concealed by her skirts, but he’d no doubt that in an instant, she could drive it at a target—some portion of his anatomy—with supreme accuracy. She would have trained herself to use her weapons, as he had done.
He wondered, not for the first time, if she really had killed his brother.
Her eyes, fixed on his, were cold, merciless as a feral cat’s. God but she fascinated him.
More than that. Enthralled him.
Would probably be the death of him.
She would be worth it, though. She was worth the voyage to England, in spite of his failure to kill Jermyn. Worth all he’d done to earn the money he would provide her. In his better moods, there was nothing he would not do for her, and that included keeping his hands off her.
But his better moods were infrequent, and his noble impulses rarely lasted longer than the time it took them to flash through his imagination. He was a Keynes. In him, the dark blood ran true.
He could protect her from every enemy but himself. When he reverted to the savage he was, Miranda Holcombe would be entirely on her own.
The delay, as they studied each other and considered their next moves, had restored her confidence. Like a character from a Greek tragedy, she stood proud and defiant, the knife of an avenger in her hand.
He directed the tip of his poker toward it. “Do you intend using that on me?”
“I’d planned on returning it to you,” she said.
That got his attention. “One of mine, then?”
“It appears to be. I took it from the hem of a curtain in your brother’s house.”
Bloody damn hell. She had been there. And that meant—
For some reason, he’d kept assuming she hadn’t done it. He’d thought she was protecting Corinna. “If you had a decent weapon, why use that absurd dagger on him?”
“Because this is difficult to conceal.” She raised the knife and sighted a throw. “Not a saucer this time, Your Grace. Will you duck?”
“Send it at me and find out.”
After a moment, she gave a throaty laugh and lowered the knife. “There’s no use me assuming a posture, is there? You’ve too much practice. Men are trained to it from birth.”
“And women to compliance, but you don’t appear to have taken the lesson.” If not for the stakes, which escalated with every thrust and parry, he might have enjoyed himself. “Does Varden think you are guilty?”
The change of subject sent her off balance, but not for long. “I don’t know. What does it matter what he thinks?”
“He was the one took you off to Bow Street. I’m trying to figure how he fits into all of this.”
A feminine shrug. “I was preparing to go there anyway, so I suppose he fits in by saving me the price of a hackney. And lurking about during the interrogation. And arranging for my visit to the Tower.”
“Rather like a jumped-up servant.” Michael heard the rasp of jealousy in his voice. He needed to come to the point before he lost the will to do it. “There is another option for you, Miss Holcombe. One we have not discussed, because it is not in my power to give it you. But I think it may be possible to arrange, and if I can do so without letting you slip the net, I will try.”
She appeared less eager to hear it than he had expected. But she said nothing, so he marched ahead, barefoot on hot coals. “Varden would marry you, I think, even if persuaded of your guilt. And as his wife, you would have the same protection I am able to offer you.”
“Not counting extortion and intimidation of the judges.”
“Not counting that,” he agreed with a reluctant smile. “What I accomplish by threat and deceit, he achieves with an impeccable reputation and a blinding patina of virtue. Archangels don’t marry murderesses, everyone will assume. If he vouches for your innocence, he will be believed.”
“But what if he was not sure of my innocence? Would he lie on my behalf?”
“For the privilege of lying on your body, most men would sell out their honor and a good deal more besides. But we’ll only know if you put him to the test. I advise you to do it. You’ll not find in England a more suitable suitor, and he’ll treat you far better than I ever would. Varden will defer to your will, grant all of your wishes, nurture you like a rare orchid. You will never have cause to fear him. So what do you say? Shall I propose to him that he propose to you?”
Head tilted, she regarded him suspiciously “If you wish me to accept Varden, then why dance me through the alternatives? Especially the horrible ones, like hauling my poor father from place to place one step ahead of the authorities?”
“Because it would occur to you. Because all the choices I presented would occur to you.”
“Sending you to the gallows in my place would not. Marrying you would not! Nor would marrying Lord Varden, for that matter.”
“They would have done, when it was too late. At the time we began this dance, you were blind to anything but absolution and self-destruction. You required options. A puzzle to solve. Temptations. A glimmer, perhaps, of hope. I wish I could give you more than that. Varden is your best chance, and you should take it.”
There. He’d done what he hadn’t thought he could do. Varden was always her first choice, and he’d withheld it until the last possible moment because he knew she’d leap for it, and he didn’t want her to. He wanted her to choose him, which no sane female would do if Varden were on offer. And now he was, and Michael Idiot Keynes had put him there. Because that was Miranda’s nearest chance for a happy life, which was the only thing he valued more than the chance to spend a little of his own benighted life in her company.
Well, so much for that. One of these days, perhaps in the next century, he’d be proud of himself for handing her over to a decent man.
“Before I scurry off to Lord Varden,” she said, “will you explain one thing? When first you suggested a marriage of convenience, you promised I could set the conditions. I thought, briefly, we had come to terms. Then you . . . you turned on me, and led me to believe I could not trust you to keep your promises.”
“That’s right.”
“What is right?” Her eyes blazed with indignation. “Which is it? Can I trust you, or can I not?”
“I mean everything I say to you, Miss Holcombe. Unless I am lying. Or unless a minute or two has passed, at which time I may not mean it any longer.” He set the poker gently on the low table in front of him and stood bare-handed before her, bare-handed and very still. “If Hari were here, he’d tell you a peaceable Buddha story that sounded meaningful until you tried to figure it out. My stories, what few I know, are straightforward, and I’ll tell you one that answers your question. To the degree there is an answer.”
“We’ve had enough quibbling, don’t you think? The story, please. The straightforward one.”
“Very well. It is a fable, really, and begins with a fire that drove a camel and a serpent to the bank of a wide river. ‘Carry me across,’ begged the serpent, ‘for if you do not, I will surely die.’
“The camel shook his head. ‘Every creature that has let you come near was made sorry for it. How can I know you will not slay me as you have done all the others?’”
“The fire was so close that it singed the camel’s coat and the serpent’s scales. ‘Do me this service,’ said the serpent, �
��and I swear I will not harm you.’ So the camel, being of a generous and trusting nature, took the serpent on his back and plunged into the river.”
“When they were at its deepest point, where the current was so fierce that only the strongest of camels could forge its way through, the serpent coiled around the camel and sank its fangs into his neck.”
“‘But why?’ gasped the camel as the venom surged through his veins and weakened him so that he could not swim. ‘Now I will die, but so will you. Why did you do this?’”
“‘Because it is my nature, foolish camel. Did you not understand that I am a snake?’”
Silence. Snake snake snake echoed in his ears. Her lucent gaze held him transfixed. The India sun burned into him, the dust of Sher Ka Danda scratched at his eyes. The scent of tigress roused his manhood.
“I take your meaning,” she finally said, moving to the low table and placing his knife beside the poker. Then, after a hesitation and a deep breath, she slowly peeled the gloves from her hands, one by one. They were laid on the table as well, and she stepped closer to him, closer still, and lifted her arms. Her hands, inches from him and at the level of his chest, were smooth and white as milk.
“You should have changed your story,” she said, “and made the camel a duck with feet webbed like my hands are webbed. The deformity runs in the Holcombe family. All the fingers of my cousin’s hands were joined together. He once had a surgeon separate two of them, but the wounds became inflamed and were long in closing. I have not been brave enough to try it for myself.”
From the nature of her three-fingered gloves with the large middle sheath, he already knew what to expect. The third and fourth fingers were perfectly shaped, as was every portion of each small hand, except they were fixed together as if by glue. “Is there pain or discomfort?”