Pale Moon Rider

by Marsha Canham

  “They went to all that trouble just to force you to cooperate?”

  “I do not understand it either, m’sieur, for I have no doubt there are a thousand women who would gladly ride the roads at night hoping to make your acquaintance.”

  He was mildly surprised but obviously not amused by her sarcasm, for when she tried to turn her head, his left hand was suddenly there, cupping her chin, holding her firmly in place. At the same time, his right arm circled her waist, drawing her back against his body. It was, Renée realized at once, the perfect position for snapping her neck should the occasion warrant it. And although she stood tense and trembling in his ominous embrace, she did not attempt to resist the intimacy nor did she provoke him into tightening it.

  “Two thousand pounds is a lot of money,” he said slowly.

  “Fifty thousand is a good deal more. If I were only doing it to collect the reward, m’sieur, I would have screamed the first night you came into my room and Roth’s soldiers would have come at the run.”

  “Yes,” he murmured, “do tell me more about the guards.”

  “There are usually two on duty at any given time. One watches the front entrance, one patrols the stables and courtyard.” She glanced again at the securely bolted window latch. “How did you get in here, m’sieur? Finn has been extra diligent at locking the windows at night.”

  “I am a thief, remember. I make my living going where I am not wanted, taking things that are supposedly placed under heavy guard.” His hand shifted down from her chin, fitting itself more snugly to the curve of her throat. “Locks only make the challenge more interesting.”

  Renée suffered a small wave of lightheadedness. His voice was a soft snarl in her ear, his body was a heated wall behind her, his arm an immovable band of muscle and sinew around her waist. His gloved fingers were fitted firmly enough around her neck that he was surely able to feel her pulse racing along her throat, and try as she might, she was not able to take anything but rapid, shallow breaths.

  “Have you any other little secrets you are keeping from me? Any more brothers? A lover, perhaps?”

  “Antoine is my only brother. And …” Renée swallowed against the pressure of his hand, “my former fiancé died in Paris. He was executed the same day as my father.”

  “An aristo, naturally?”

  She bristled instinctively at the note of condescension in his voice. “He was the son of one of the most powerful and noble houses of France, m’sieur, but he was also kind and gentle, compassionate and honorable, if such things are important to you.”

  “They are not, mam’selle. Kindness and gentleness will get you killed in this business just as surely as compassion and honor, and right now, the only thing that is important to me is determining whether or not I should trust you.”

  “Vraiment. And if you hold these qualities in such contempt, how am I to determine if I can trust you?”

  “I should think my position is a little more precarious than yours. If I get caught, I hang. If you get caught, you will likely spend a night or two in Roth’s bed by way of punishment, but at least you will be able to get up and walk away when he is finished with you.”

  “I would rather die,” she declared tersely, “than have him touch me. I would rather take my own life than submit, willingly or otherwise, to either Colonel Roth or Edgar Vincent.”

  His fingers remained curved around her throat another full minute while he likely tried to determine if her outrage was genuine or staged for his benefit. When he finally relented, the dragging motion he used to take his hand away was almost a caress. “Why don’t we find out together, mam’selle, exactly what risks we are willing to take and just how much we can trust one another.”

  She turned her head slightly, waiting.

  “Does your door have a lock?”

  There was the smallest hesitation. “Yes.”

  “Then lock it. And bring me the key.”

  He withdrew his arm from around her waist and the immediate absence of warmth from his body sent a shiver across Renée’s skin, another through her limbs.

  For several moments she continued to stand and stare at the two dark reflections of their silhouettes in the window. The fire threw just enough light to define the angles of the tricorn, the breadth of his shoulders, the standing upper collar. By contrast, she was a head shorter and her outline was blurred by the tumbled waves of her hair, some of which were still clinging to the wool nubs on his greatcoat as she turned.

  She did not look up at his face. She walked past him and went to the door, knowing he had turned as well and his eyes were following her every step. If she did as he commanded and locked herself inside the room with him, it would take several minutes for Finn—or anyone for that matter—to break the door down and come to her aid. On the other hand, if she ran screaming into the hallway he would be out the window and vanished into the night before Finn or any of the guards below could catch him.

  Either way, it would be over. Roth would know his trap had been discovered and there would be no further meetings tomorrow or any other night. He could hardly hold her to blame for an armed highwayman breaking into her room and terrifying her half to death.

  She reached for the brass latch. It was cool to the touch as she fitted her hand around it, so was the key as she grasped it between her thumb and forefinger and gave it two slow, complete turns. She drew it out of the slot and closed her fingers around it, waiting for her knees to stop shaking before she turned and pressed her back briefly against the carved wood to lend her support. He had not moved. He stood where she had left him by the window, his eyes glittering faintly where the firelight reached beneath the brim of his tricorn. Was he surprised? She could not tell. Was he satisfied? She could not determine that either. Was that the test? She did not think so.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  When Renée was halfway back to the window Tyrone held up his hand to stop her. He was not exactly certain if this was a test of her willpower or his, but he needed a moment just to think. He had not been able to do much of that when she was in his arms. Her hair had smelled like flowers—roses—and felt like silk against his cheek. It was spilling around her shoulders now like a silvery halo, burnished russet by the glow of the fire. Without the belt gathering the folds of her gown at her waist, the muslin hung straight from the edge of her bodice to the floor and there, too, the firelight was playing havoc with his powers of concentration, teasing its way through the sheer fabric to reveal the shapely contours beneath. It did not require a vigorous strain on his powers of recall to remember how she looked in just a skimpy, water-dampened chemise, how long and slender her legs were, how trim her waist, how soft and round and firm her breasts. Roses aside, the scent of her skin alone was as subtle as the drift of exotic spices that warned a sailor of a tropical island just below the horizon, and it had the same effect on the way his blood altered its course through his veins.

  “Perhaps it is simply too dangerous to do this thing, m’sieur,” she whispered. “Perhaps it was a foolish idea and—and I do not think I could bear it if …”

  Tyrone moved a measured step closer to her, closer to the glow of the fire. “If … what?”

  Renée watched, dumbfounded, as he casually peeled off his gloves then reached up and removed his tricorn. With seemingly familiar ease, he tossed both onto the seat of the chair and advanced another step toward her.

  “What is it you could not bear, mam’selle?” He asked again, unfastening the top three buttons on his greatcoat. Loosened, the tension fell out of the standing collar and it began to fold back around his shoulders as the remaining buttons were worked free. The fire was bright enough to reveal wide, deep-set eyes and boldly slanted eyebrows. His hair was thick and fell from a central parting over his collar, laying dark as ink against his cheeks and throat. His nose was straight and forthright, his jaw square, and his chin somewhat blunted with the hint of a cleft, or a scar, marking the midpoint.

  It was, as she had guessed, a handso
me face. Devastatingly more so than she had imagined it would be. There was also a careless nobility about his features, as if he was well aware of the effect it would have on most people to know this common thief was not so common after all.

  He shrugged the greatcoat off his shoulders and draped it over the foot of the bed before he moved another step closer to her.

  The coat had added breadth to his form, but not so much so that he was reduced to a spindled weakling when he took it off. There were a good many muscles beneath the fashionable cut of his jacket giving bulk to his chest and arms, tapering down to a trim, lean waist and legs that needed no false padding to convey strength and power. His boots were tall, made of soft leather with a folded cuff below the knee; his neck was bare and his shirt open at the throat revealing the faintest hint of dark hairs curling over the top of his breastbone. That he wore no neck stock or cravat came as no surprise, for the whiteness would have shone like a beacon against the unrelieved darkness of the rest of his clothing. What did surprise her was the richness of each garment. The skin tight breeches were fine merino wool, his jacket exquisitely tailored broadcloth, his waistcoat black silk brocade embroidered with gold thread.

  When he was close enough, he tucked a finger under her chin and tipped it upward, forcing her to meet his gaze. His eyes were paler than she had expected, of no distinguishable color in the uncertain light, but she felt more danger staring into them than she had into the twin barrels of his pistols. The glow that came from their depths rivaled that of the fire and was far more unnerving than any phantom starlight.

  “Tell me,” he murmured. “What is it you do not think you could bear?”

  “I …” Her lips remained parted, but the word hung in the air as a faint sound for a moment before she could force more to take shape. “I do not think I could bear the thought of you being hung for something I had persuaded you to do.”

  “You do not even know me.”

  “But I would be responsible for betraying you, m’sieur, and I do not think I could live with that.”

  “You were prepared to live with it two days ago. What happened between then and now to change your mind?”

  “Nothing happened, m’sieur.”

  “Nothing?”

  She watched the play of firelight in his eyes and suffered another prickling rush of sensations through her body. How could she explain? When he had just been a faceless, shapeless name bandied about in a parlor, he had been just that: a stranger, a shadow, a phantom. Exactly when he had turned into a flesh and blood man, she could not say for certain. On the hillside? In her room afterward? Or just now, when he had stood behind her at the window and held her in his arms and not every part of her had been anxious for him to let go? Whenever it had happened, he was real to her now, and if he did this thing, if he was caught … or killed … she would be no better than the good citizens of Paris who testified against their neighbors for an extra crust of bread.

  “Nothing happened,” she repeated in a whisper. “I just feel … perhaps it is too dangerous.”

  He sighed and his fingers, which were still lightly propped beneath her chin, brushed thoughtfully down the curve of her throat. “Life is dangerous, ma petite”

  “But Roth—”

  His eyes, which had been following the path his fingers had taken, snapped up again. “Roth is moins que rien,” he insisted. “Less than nothing.”

  “Nevertheless, he wishes to make himself something by capturing you, m’sieur, for he has vowed to watch you hang.”

  He continued to stare at her for a long, throbbing moment and when he finally relented, the slow smile that spread across his face almost caused her knees to buckle. “I assure you, mam’selle, I am a grown man capable of making my own choices and decisions and would no more consider you to be responsible for any of my actions than I would wholly accept the blame for yours, regardless if those actions led to the gallows”—he bowed his head and replaced his roving fingertips with the press of his lips— “or to the bed.”

  Renée was shocked to utter stillness. His words shivered down her spine leaving her flesh tight and tingling in their wake. The skin across her breasts seemed to shrink and pull itself into taut little peaks, while the spot on her shoulder where his lips were working their mischief became warm and loose, almost buttery—as if the flesh would slide away from the bones. Her heart began to beat like a wild thing, her legs felt weak, her belly watery. A soft gasp marked the shudder of sheer erotic pleasure as his lips and tongue began to plunder a determined path from the curve of her neck to the edge of the muslin sleeve.

  “Capitaine—”

  His fingers ignored her airless protest and eased aside the muslin to bare the round, satiny ball of her shoulder. His lips descended again, exploring the exposed flesh with a thoroughness that left her dangerously bereft of will or reason.

  “Capitaine, please,” she whispered. “You must not do this.”

  “By this” he inquired with a frown, “do you mean this”—he kissed her shoulder and retraced the path he had taken from the tender crook of her neck- “or do you mean this?” He threaded his hands into her hair and held her while his mouth moved boldly to claim hers.

  The memory of his first kiss caused her to stiffen briefly, but there was none of the anger or violence he had demonstrated before, none of the defiance or the need to master and control. He covered her lips with teasing gentleness, and if there was any challenge in them now, it was the challenge to deny the bright wash of pleasure that came on every languid swirl of his tongue.

  She made a small sound in her throat, but he only pushed his fingers deeper into her hair and held her closer. His tongue coaxed her lips apart and traced their sleek, soft contours, but he ventured no farther than her guarded gasps allowed. When he lifted his head, she was more confused than ever, more bewildered over his restraint than she would have been had he flung her over his arm and kissed her like a ravening madman.

  “As I said,” he murmured, “life is full of dangers. It should be lived to the fullest while we have the chance because it could all be taken away from us tomorrow.”

  Her eyes were huge and round and dark, her lips were moist with the taste of him, and her body was so tightly strung she was not certain she could have moved had she wanted to.

  “Do you say this because you truly believe it, m’sieur,” she asked breathlessly, “or because you wish to take me to bed?”

  This time his smile was slow to form and somewhat startled at her candor, but entirely, heart-stoppingly genuine. “I am saying it because it is the rule I live by … and because I want very much to take you to bed.”

  Still wide-eyed, she watched him bow his head toward her, his mouth warm and indulgently patient as it moved over hers; each suckling caress was delivered with a tender invitation for her to respond, for her to part her lips and share the pleasure of the moment. And it would just be for the moment, she thought wildly. Letting him seduce her would be even more insane than hiring him to commit a robbery. It would be shocking and shameless. All other implausibilities aside, she was the daughter of a duc! The royal blood of France’s nobility flowed in her veins while he was just a thief. A man who lived without any thought to the future … who had no future. She had Antoine to think about. Antoine and Finn …

  Her hands clutched at the folds of his jacket and she fully intended to push him away, but somewhere between a caress and a corresponding whimper the perilously fine line between what was instinctively right and what was outrageously wrong seemed to become blurred. She did not want to think about what she should be doing, only what she wanted to do, here, now, with this man, these fleeting few moments they would have together.

  Her conscience lost whatever final chance it might have had to save her as she leaned fully into his heat and felt the thrill of desire burst like a flame deep down inside of her. The way her legs were shaking, they would not have supported her any longer on their own anyway, she reasoned, and since her hands were a
lready twisted into the loose folds of his shirt, it was a small matter to slide them upward and wrap them around his shoulders. She heard him acknowledge her capitulation with a low groan and felt his hands shift down and circle her waist, pulling her closer, almost lifting her against him while his tongue began to plunge boldly, deeply into her mouth.

  Here was the madness, she thought. Here, as she opened her mouth to him and greeted each sleek, silky thrust with a broken whimper of pleasure. Hot, bright sparks of hunger raced down her spine, and the weakness that had begun in her limbs spread upward to engulf her whole body. She tightened her arms around him, pressed her body closer to his, yielding to the promise of his embrace, and with an urgency unlike anything she had ever experienced before, she eagerly returned his kiss thrust for thrust. And when she felt his flesh rising swift and hard between them, it was as if she had known all along there would be something even more momentous to come, something as wild and reckless and dangerously unpredictable as the man himself.

  She had spoken the truth when she had told him she was no longer a virgin, but her first and only lover had been as innocent as she. Their couplings had been hasty and furtive, prompted more by patriotic desperation than any real sense of lust or desire. Jean-Louis de Blois had been young and handsome and as loyal to her father as to his own blood, and she had loved him for that. She would have been content to marry him, happy to live out her days surrounded by his warm, gentle passion.

  But this. This was nothing warm and gentle. It was hunger, raw and explosive, and if there was any manner of desperation fueling her responses, it was driven by a need to feel all that heat and power naked in her arms, naked inside her—to feel his strength and reckless courage and have something strong and totally fearless to cling to in the darkness.

  Her reaction was more than Tyrone had expected, and while he obliged her with all the gallantry and skill at his disposal, his own response was another matter entirely. He had already known her lips were lush and pliant, but he had not expected them to be so deliciously capable of matching his ardor. He had also known she would be willowy and soft in all the right places, but he had not anticipated his own casual flagrancy would surge into an instant and blood-pounding arousal the moment she pressed her sweet body against his. Moreover, he had only meant, initially, to teach her a lesson about playing dangerous games with dangerous men, but instead, he had heard himself confessing quite truthfully that he wanted her. At the first shy flicker of her tongue in his mouth, his body had hardened and all he could think of was plunging himself inside her, feeling her body tighten and shiver around him. And where there had previously been smug satisfaction over her capitulation, there was now a solid, throbbing urgency straining to reach her through the layers of their clothing—layers which seemed to be vanishing as quickly as his hands could remove them.