Pale Moon Rider

by Marsha Canham

  “Please mam’selle,” he murmured, “do not stop on my account.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Renée’s lips parted around a small gasp as she snatched her hand away. “You are awake, m’sieur.”

  “And a more pleasant method of being roused, I could not imagine.”

  She opened her mouth, but closed it again on the next breath for there was certainly no excuse she could give— or any that he would believe—to explain why she had been running her fingers across his belly.

  For Tyrone’s part, it had taken every ounce of willpower he could muster to remain as still as he had as long as he had, although he doubted he could have borne one more soft stroke of her fingertips without giving rise to something that would have shocked her beyond the warm flush that was flooding her cheeks now.

  She was a welcome sight to his muddled senses, for it was a certainty she would not be in a gaol cell hovering over him like a guardian angel. She looked clean and cool in a simple white muslin gown. Her hair was loose, held back off her face by a narrow silk ribbon that was successful for the most part, save for the tiny spray of fine blond curls that clung to her temples. Having been inspected so closely himself, Tyrone had no qualms about doing likewise, retracing the soft line of her jaw, the smooth arch of her throat.

  His gaze came to rest on the enticing mole that rode high over her left breast, and it took a moment or two for him to realize she was speaking.

  “… said you should have died.”

  “Who said that?”

  “Finn and Maggie Smallwood were both of the opinion you should have bled to death on my bedroom floor.”

  “Maggie is here?”

  “Was, m’sieur. I sent her home, mmm, yesterday. Yes. It was yesterday. We agreed she was in too delicate of a condition to be sitting here in the cold tending a sick man.”

  “If it is not too ungracious of me to ask: where exactly is here?”

  “The ghost tower … or at least that is what Antoine calls it.”

  His eyes narrowed through a guarded frown. “So I haven’t been flung back through time? There are no fire-breathing dragons waiting outside the door to be slain?”

  Renée followed his glance up to the cobwebs. “It was the only place we could think of to hide you, m’sieur. And at least you have wakened, something I was beginning to believe would not happen.”

  His brows crushed together in a frown. “How long have I been here?”

  “You were shot three nights ago. Do you remember nothing at all?”

  “Nothing,” he said honestly. “Pain, maybe. Like someone was holding a torch to my side.”

  “Someone did,” she admitted with a hesitant smile. “Maggie feared the stitches alone would not stop the bleeding so she—she heated up a knife and …” Renée finished the explanation by gesturing lamely toward the brazier. “But she assured M’sieur Dudley, if you survived the fever, the wound would heal much faster.”

  “Robbie—?”

  “Finn fetched him as soon as we thought it was safe to do so. He stayed through the first day, hoping you might improve enough to withstand being carried down to the canal, but then you became feverish and—and he agreed he had no choice but to leave you here. Maggie sent him back for more medicines and herbs, and by then the storm was much worse. He said there were already several angry notes at your house summoning you to help with flooded roads.”

  “Christ—”

  “It was M’sieur Dudley’s intention to go in your place, and if someone asked where you were, he would tell them you were somewhere else tending to another emergency. Then, of course, he would go to the second place and tell them you were at a third.”

  Tyrone swore again and went to lift his hand but found the action cut short by the linen cords. “Are these absolutely necessary?”

  She flushed again. “You were very … active … m’sieur, in your fever. We were afraid you would hurt yourself further.”

  “And if I promise to behave?”

  “We can remove them, of course,” she said, setting her fingers nervously to the task.

  He watched her, his eyes intent upon the small dimple in her cheek caused by her efforts to concentrate on the strips of linen. It felt strange being told so much had happened when he could remember so little.

  “I think I recall waking once,” he said slowly. “I saw a face—yours, but not yours. Big blue eyes and short yellow curls, like a cherub.”

  “That was Antoine,” she told him with a smile. “He said you stared at him a moment then started shouting and cursing at the devil.”

  “I must have thought I had been sent to the wrong place. Everything else, however, seems to be a blur.”

  “You do not remember being shot?”

  “I remember thinking I’d had too much of Lord Wooleridge’s fine claret at dinner.”

  “You must have had a great deal of Lord Wooleridge’s claret,” she corrected as she circled the bed to untie his other wrist, “for you came here afterward, waving your guns, threatening to shoot me for betraying you.”

  He blinked once to help focus his thoughts. “I threatened to shoot you?”

  “Finn and I both. You thought—or assumed—we knew about Colonel Roth taking Finn’s place in the coach.”

  There was a tightness in her voice that suggested some lingering resentment and when the binding was loose enough, he twisted his hand and caught hers gently by the wrist. “Renée, if I said or did anything—”

  “You were very angry,” she murmured. “But of course, you were wounded.”

  She was staring at his hand but did nothing to attempt to pull free and seeing this, he slid his hand down until he was no longer holding her wrist, but had twined his fingers through hers. “Has no one ever told you wounded animals are at their most dangerous when they feel trapped—or betrayed.”

  Huge, solemn blue eyes met and held his for a long moment. “The circumstances are dangerous for all of us, m’sieur. We have been exceedingly lucky so far, but when the storm ends the servants will put aside their fear of the tower ghost and—”

  “Tower ghost?”

  She flushed even darker and Tyrone wondered that he had never noticed how many shades of pink a blush entailed. He stroked his thumb across the back of her hand and was fascinated to see an almost instantaneous, deeper rose warm the roundest part of her cheeks.

  “You were very loud in your fever,” she was saying. “And since there is already the rumor of a ghost haunting the old battlements, Finn went up to the roof in a white sheet and rattled chains.”

  “Stalwart Mr. Finn?”

  “He is not without a sense of humor, m’sieur.”

  A slow, sinfully handsome smile crept across his face, and Renée felt a corresponding tightness in her belly, warming her in a way that made her aware of subtle changes taking place elsewhere in her body. Her breasts grew exquisitely taut, chafing against the linen of her chemise on every breath. The gentle strokes of his thumb were causing tremors of sensation to coil through her limbs, between her thighs, and she was afraid to move in case she dissolved beside him.

  “It … was quite a dreadful sound,” she added haltingly. “It sent Jenny running belowstairs, where she has remained ever since. None of the other servants have dared to venture too far from their beds either, not even Mrs. Pigeon.”

  “I shall have to remember to compliment Mr. Finn on his ingenuity.”

  “It was Antoine’s idea, actually.” She curled her lower lip between her teeth and tried to casually extricate her hand. “I remember him playing a similar prank on our cousin when—when we were all younger.”

  “Does anyone else know I am here?”

  She looked up and frowned. “Neither Finn nor Antoine would betray your presence, m’sieur. And if you still believe I am doing this only to collect the reward—”

  Tyrone laced his fingers more possessively through hers. “No. No, I do not believe that at all. It’s just that your brother is young, he migh
t inadvertently say something—”

  “If he did, it would indeed be a miracle, m’sieur,” she whispered, “for he has said nothing for over a year.”

  He felt himself drawn into the haunting blue of her eyes and did not fight it through a long moment of silence. “Nothing at all?”

  “Rien” she breathed. “He … we both saw my mother beaten to death by the soldiers outside the gates of Temple Prison in Paris. She had just found out my father had been executed and …” She shook her head, unable to continue. “I’m sorry. I did not know.”

  “How could you, m’sieur? How could anyone know how terrible it was to see the men, the women, the children taken away in carts like animals, crying and holding each other, holding strangers for courage, knowing there was no hope, not even knowing what crime they had committed to deserve such a dreadful punishment.”

  This time, when she twisted her hand free, he did not try to stop her, and she walked around to the foot of the bed, embarrassed and bewildered as to why she would have shared such a private pain.

  “I am sorry, Renée. Roth never said anything and I thought the boy was simply shy—or overwhelmed—at the breakfast table the other day.”

  “He was not just overwhelmed, m’sieur, he was frightened half to death. For this reason as much as any other, you must see why you have to leave this place as soon as possible.”

  She could see the narrowing of his eyes as another memory was jolted free. “You said I’ve been here three days? What is the date?”

  “The ninth, m’sieur.”

  “The ninth? Christ! And you are supposed to be getting married on the fourteenth? Why in blazes are you still here?”

  The last binding around his ankle fell slack and she looked at him. “We did not have much choice, m’sieur. You could not be moved and we could not leave you here alone.”

  “Well by God if you will just help me find my clothes—”

  He started to push himself upright but the movement, along with any noble intentions, ended on an abruptly savage stab of pain. His right hand flew to cradle his ribs, an act that put him off balance and sent him arching back against the pillows with a second jolt. The stab in his side became a breathtaking flare of agony, one that stiffened his whole body and brought Renée rushing to his side.

  “You must not move yet, m’sieur! You are not strong enough.”

  Tyrone clenched his teeth against the sudden wave of nausea that rose in his throat and managed to gasp out a hoarse request for water.

  Renée reached quickly for the pitcher and poured a glassful, then supported him firmly under the neck while he gulped the contents. His hand closed over hers again while she held the glass and did not let go, not even when his head fell back against the pillows and some of the tension around his lips started to relax.

  “Take the bandages off,” he gasped.

  “What?”

  “Take the bandages off. I want to see how bad it is.”

  “I do not think—”

  His hand squeezed hers hard enough she feared the glass might break under the pressure. “Please.”

  “Bien” she whispered. “I will have to cut through the bindings and then rewrap them again.”

  He nodded and pushed her hand away. Renée fetched the scissors and cut through the strips that held the wadded poultice in place, then carefully lifted the lot away until the wound was laid bare. This time Tyrone braced himself before he raised his head and with Renée’s help was able to angle himself forward enough to see the extent of the damage. He was relieved to see it was not the deep and mangled twist of lacerated flesh he half expected to see, although it was certainly ugly enough to draw a curse from his throat. The hole in his flesh had been sewn closed with thick black thread, then the raw edges seared with the red-hot blade of the knife. The surrounding flesh was blue and purple, with splotches of yellow spreading out from his ribs.

  “It looks much better than it did three days ago,” she assured him. “And at least the bullet passed cleanly between two ribs. There were no pieces of bone or bullet to cut out.”

  Tyrone offered up a snorted hmphf and laid his head back on the pillows. “You will have to forgive me if I sound less than deliriously grateful, but the last time I was flat on my back and incapable of tending myself, I was a child and my mother was holding my head while I puked my toes into a bucket.”

  “Do you have to puke, m’sieur?”

  “No, dammit.” He waited a moment before adding, “But I do have to do something else.”

  She followed his gaze to the china thunderpot set in the corner. She retrieved it and removed the lid but when she would have lifted the edge of the blanket, his hand shot out yet again.

  “I do not think I am that helpless yet, mam’selle.”

  “You have been considerably more so these past few days,” she pointed out.

  It was Tyrone’s turn to flush and when he did, it was with all the heat and magnificence of a male in his prime forced to acknowledge a basic weakness. He glowed from the bottom of his throat to the verge of his hairline and his eyes, normally so pale a pewter gray as to be almost colorless, burned with flecks of blue chagrin.

  “Be that as it may, mam’selle,” he said tersely, “I was also oblivious.”

  She handed him the pot. “Shall I wait outside?”

  “Please,” he said through his teeth.

  Renée was halfway to the door when a thought struck her. “You have a mother, m’sieur?”

  “Had. She died when I was eight.” His head tilted on a wry angle. “You say that with such astonishment in your voice: did you think I was hatched from an egg?”

  “No, of course not. I was merely inquiring in case she lived close by. You might be more comfortable being cared for by someone you know, like a mother or a— a …”

  “Wife?” A frown supplemented the tilt. “I promise you, my status as an affirmed bachelor is well known throughout the parish.”

  “I think it would be safe to say, capitaine, that you are not exactly what you appear to be to everyone in the parish. For all that you caper and mince about like a marionette, you might well have a wife and ten children hidden away somewhere.”

  “I might,” he agreed with a belligerent scowl. “But I do not. Apart from my unchanging pleasure at being unfettered by hearth and home, a family would be somewhat more of a burden than a comfort to a man in my line of work. In fact, a commitment to anything or anyone who sought to rely on my being there every night to offer stability and succour would be rather selfish of me, would it not?”

  Renée pondered this as she waited outside the room, giving him more than what she considered ample time to complete his task. He must have thought it overly generous as well, for she heard him clear his throat loudly several times before she finally obliged him by returning.

  She replaced the lid on the pot and set it back in the corner, then went through the motions of straightening the blankets around his feet.

  “Surely you must have cared for someone at some time,” she said from behind the shield of her lashes.

  “Is that what you want to believe, mam’selle? That I am the result of some tragic affair gone awry? That instead of throwing myself off the nearest cliff in irreparable despondency over some lost love, I chose instead to avenge myself through a life of crime and dissolution?” He sighed and shook his head. “I am exceedingly sorry to have to disappoint you, Renée, but there was no woman involved in my fall from grace. There were no amorous tragedies in my past, no doomed love affairs to haunt me, no fists beating on the chest in despair, no injustices crying out for revenge.”

  “Then why do you do what you do, m’sieur? Why do you kill and steal and taunt men like Colonel Roth until they become obsessed with catching you?”

  “In the first place, I have only killed two men deliberately, and both were in the process of doing their best to kill me.” He watched her adjust the blanket for the tenth time and waited for her gaze to come to him. “Secondl
y, I do what I do … because I find it exciting. And because I am good at it. And, odd as it may sound, because it suits my bourgeois sense of humor to watch dolts like Bertrand Roth chase their tails in circles. What about you?”

  “Me?”

  “I should think marriage—not to a bastard like Vincent, of course—would solve a good many of your problems. Have you no wifely urges? No desire to have the security of a husband and protector? No pressing need to go to nest and produce a houseful of your own little goslings?”

  “I used to think that was what I wanted, yes.”

  “And now?”

  “Now?” Her voice softened and her eyes seemed to lose their focus. “Now I would just like to feel warm again. I would like to find a place where I belong, where Antoine could learn to laugh and Finn could let us take care of him for a change.” A distinctly moist shiver reminded her of where she was and whose pale eyes were watching every change in her expression. To cover her uneasiness, she took up a roll of clean bandaging. “We should replace the poultice; capitaine. Do you think you can sit up or shall I fetch Finn to lift you?”

  “I can sit up,” he said grimly and stretched out his right arm. “If you will help me.”

  With his arm slung around her shoulder and Renée supporting him, he was able to sit upright and to his credit, there was only relief in the hiss of air he let out between his teeth.

  “It gets easier every time,” he said, panting slightly into the crook of her neck.

  “You speak from experience, m’sieur?”

  A grunt was her only answer and, working as quickly as she could, she wound the roll of bandaging around his ribs to hold the poultice in place. He was leaning awkwardly against her and it was not easy to balance while her hands went round and round with the roll of linen. His face was pressed into the curve of her shoulder, and while she suspected he was, perhaps, just a little too dependent on her for support, there was not much she could do to lessen the intimacy.

  “Speaking purely as a cad and a rogue,” he murmured, “I have to say I thought you were exceptionally warm the other night. Any warmer, in fact, and I would have had to douse us both in cold water.”