Affair of Honor

by Stephanie James

The answer to that one, she found, was easy. “Hello, Ryder. Have a seat. Craig has picked up a few interesting skills this past year. He mixes a terrific margarita. If he got that much out of Berkeley, there’s no telling what he’ll pick up on a freighter in the South Seas!” She laughed, sliding the hot pan of mushrooms quickly onto the top of the stove.

  “A margarita sounds great, Craig.” Ryder settled into one of the chairs in front of the hearth as Brenna carried in the plate of stuffed mushrooms. Craig headed for the kitchen with a grin and Brenna was left to face the second question in Ryder’s eyes alone. The answer to that one, however, was not so easy. He must have known that Craig had told his sister of Ryder’s decision to “take care of her.” The silver gaze was asking her point-blank if she had accepted that decision, too.

  “You have, I understand, been attempting to reassure my brother that I’ll be all right in his absence,” she began dryly, taking the bull by the horns as she sat down across from him.

  “He was worried about you,” Ryder said simply, reaching for one of the hors d’oeuvres. If he sensed the challenge in her words, he chose to ignore it. He bit into the mushroom. “These are great. Do you realize this is the first meal you’ve finally gotten around to preparing for me?”

  “Ryder, Craig seems to have a slight misconception about our relationship,” Brenna pursued firmly.

  “No, he doesn’t.” Ryder was glancing past her shoulder to where Craig was coming toward them with a pitcher of margaritas and three salt-rimmed glasses. He grinned appreciatively at the younger man. “I’m glad to see there are still benefits to be derived from a university education.”

  After that there really was no opportunity to confront Ryder again. Craig was leaving to return to Berkeley in the morning, and Brenna was suddenly anxious not to cause a scene. Somehow it had become very important that the three of them enjoy this evening together. The other crises in her life could wait.

  She let Craig and Ryder do most of the talking that evening, listening quietly as they discussed Craig’s new venture and Ryder told a few anecdotes about some of his own travels. Ryder did not, Brenna noticed, bring up any incidents such as the assault on the prison that had freed the Gardners’ son. For that she was grateful. Craig’s future promised to be adventuresome enough without actively encouraging him into any more dangerous directions.

  It wasn’t until Ryder finally rose to walk back to his own cabin that Brenna finally acknowledged the evening had aroused a new kind of wistfulness in her. The talk had been of adventure and travel and personal discovery. It left her with a strange feeling of restlessness.

  Ryder kissed her good night before he left, making no effort to conceal the extent of their relationship in front of Craig. She was the one who pulled back in confusion and embarrassment. But Craig only smiled, appearing satisfied with the situation as he chose to interpret it.

  ———

  In spite of all her fine resolutions and understanding, there were tears in Brenna’s eyes the next morning as she stood with Ryder’s arm around her waist, waving goodbye to Craig, who was backing his car out of the drive.

  “It’s not as if he’s going off to war,” Ryder teased sardonically as Craig’s car disappeared from sight. “And you’ll be seeing him again before he ships out on the freighter, anyway.”

  “I know.” Brenna dashed the dampness away from her eyes with a fierce brush of her hand. She stepped out of the circle of Ryder’s arm.

  “He’ll be all right, Brenna. He’s not an immature boy, he’s a man.”

  “I know.” Brenna started back toward her cabin, not looking at Ryder. The strange restlessness was eating at her. Her emotions seemed to be confusingly scrambled this morning. The traumatic events of the past week were taking their toll. She was aware that Ryder was pacing along beside her, frowning.

  “Are you angry at me for sanctioning his decision to go?” he finally demanded softly.

  Brenna said nothing. She wasn’t sure how she felt just then. She couldn’t define her emotions toward Ryder at that moment.

  “He would have gone anyway, you know. There was no one who could have stopped him.” She sensed Ryder’s laconic smile. “He’s got his sister’s will and determination, I’m afraid.”

  Brenna bit her lip and still said nothing. She was filled now with a tension that threatened to force an outlet for itself. It angered her because she could not deal with the emotion until she understood it, and it seemed totally incomprehensible.

  “Are you upset because I told Craig not to worry about you? That I would take care of you?”

  Brenna shrugged, unable to speak. She needed time to herself, she thought. Time to come to terms with this strange, uncoiling tension. She started to push open me door to her cabin and behind her Ryder finally lost his patience.

  “Damn it, Brenna! Talk to me! Don’t just walk away from this!”

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she gasped furiously as he clamped a large hand on her shoulder and whirled her around to face him.

  “I’m trying to figure out what’s gotten into you. I thought you’d come to grips with Craig’s decision to leave!” He clamped the other hand on her shoulder and held her in front of him with a grip of iron. The brackets at the edges of his mouth were tight with impatience and the silver eyes were narrowed with it.

  “I have come to grips with it!” she flung back, the tension in her crashing toward the surface. “No, I’m not upset with you for sanctioning his decision, either. What else could I have expected from you? You’re two of a kind, you and Craig. It was perfectly natural that you’d understand him immediately!”

  “Then you must be angry about the way I told him not to worry about you!” He punctuated his words by giving her a small shake.

  “Maybe,” she hissed, trying unsuccessfully to free herself from his hold. “Maybe I am a little upset about the way you handled that! You certainly didn’t have any right to imply the sort of relationship you did!”

  “The hell I didn’t,” he ground out far too gently. “Brenna, you’re my woman now and I’ll take care of you. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Nothing is as simple as that!” she blazed, the gold of her eyes flaming as she faced him.

  “Is that issue the real problem this morning?” He searched her face coolly. “You want a knockdown, drag-out fight over the matter of my claim on you?”

  “No, damn it! I don’t want a battle over it. That would be admitting your ‘claim’ exists in the first place!”

  “It does.”

  “It can’t exist unless I accept it!” she stormed. “But believe it or not, that’s not the reason I’m upset this morning!”

  “So tell me the reason,” he ordered softly, implacably.

  “It’s none of your business!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he drawled quietly. “Of course it’s my business. Everything about you is my business. Talk, woman. What’s driving you this morning? Why are you tense and nervous and spoiling for a fight?”

  “You don’t think I’ve had enough cause for an emotional outburst of some magnitude?” she snapped furiously. “It’s been a rough summer so far and my vacation’s hardly begun!”

  “You’ve had cause, but you were handling things fairly well. What happened this morning?”

  “I don’t know,” she almost wailed. “It’s too hard to explain and I really don’t want to talk about it. Not with anyone!”

  “You’re going to talk about it with me.”

  “This may be a little tough for you to comprehend, Ryder Sterne, but you do not have the right to dictate to me like that!”

  “Brenna, so help me, if you don’t stop raving and tell me what the hell is wrong, I’m going to lose my temper,” he stated flatly.

  “Is that supposed to throw me into abject terror?”

  “It might,” he murmured. It struck her that the louder she got the quieter he was getting. It was alarming.

  “That’s a poor thre
at, Ryder. We all know you don’t lose your temper. You’re cool and calm and professional under fire, remember?”

  “You really are looking for some method of venting your frustration, aren’t you? You’re even trying to provoke me so you’ll have some reason to lash back. That’s a dangerous game, lady. Much safer just to talk out the situation, believe me.”

  “I thought you favored the use of violence as a means of settling problems!”

  “Only under certain circumstances,” he drawled. “I don’t think this is one of those circumstances. Yet. Now talk, Brenna.”

  “I can’t even explain it to myself, let alone someone else,” she whispered tersely. “Let me go, Ryder. I need to think.”

  There was a pause but he didn’t release her. For a few seconds he stared down into her simmering gaze and then he asked very coolly. “Are you by any chance jealous?”

  “Jealous! Jealous!” she ripped out, stunned. “Of what, for God’s sake! Are you hiding a model from one of your book covers somewhere nearby? Don’t be absurd, Ryder! Of course I’m not jealous.”

  “Not of another woman. Of Craig.”

  The simple explanation hit home with an impact that took Brenna’s breath. Her eyes went very wide with anguished denial and her body went rigid in his grasp. “Of Craig!” she repeated in a whisper.

  “Of the fact that he’s stepping out of the academic world and going off to indulge his natural streak of recklessness and taste for adventure. Do you see him having the courage to make the move and wish you had that courage, too?”

  “No! No, that’s not it at all! It can’t be!”

  “Why not? It makes sense to me, lady. There’s no denying the intellectual side of your nature. Indeed, you’ve honed that aspect of yourself very nicely, given it every opportunity to express itself. But there’s another side of you, isn’t there, Brenna? A side you’ve always treated with disdain and kept repressed because you’re afraid it will conflict with the lifestyle you admire most, the academic world.”

  Helplessly she looked up at him. It was the truth. She knew it and she didn’t want to face it. Fear was the emotion that roiled within her now.

  “That’s why you’re wary of me and my claim on you, isn’t it?” he pursued steadily as he worked the implications through in his mind. “Giving yourself to me is a risk because I represent another kind of life, something far different from the one you’ve been trained to admire. Well, it’s true, I’m not part of your college faculty world and I never will be, but you’ve already taken the risk, sweet lady. It’s too late to change your mind. Find the courage to face our relationship the same way you found the courage to face Craig’s decision and the way you’ll find the courage to handle the crisis in your career!”

  “Ryder, you don’t know what you’re saying!”

  “Yes, I do. It’s not a crisis in your career or with your brother’s future that you’re really facing this summer. You’re having to make a very fundamental decision about what you want out of life.”

  “I know what I want out of life!”

  “Yes,” he surprised her by agreeing, “I think you do know what you want. The question is, are you going to have the guts to acknowledge that fact? How long will it take you to accept that for you there must be something more in life than the climb up the academic ladder and relationships with men like Damon Fielding who don’t know what it means to want and need a woman the way I want and need you? Craig found the courage to strike out on his own and go after what he wants in life. How about you, Brenna? Will you find the same courage or will you scurry back to your ivory tower and force me to come drag you out of it?”

  Appalled, Brenna tried to reason with herself. She must not let him do this to her! She was a rational, intelligent human being who knew how to think her way through any situation. She would not let this man drive her to violence. But she was trembling with a combination of outrage and fear as she bit out, “If I decide to scurry home to my ivory tower, as you so graphically put it, I assure you there’s no way on earth you’ll be able to drag me back out! I make my own decisions in life and I will not let you control or manipulate me. Just because you’ve shared a bed with me on two occasions, don’t get the idea you have any rights over me! How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  “How many times do I have to take you to bed before you stop denying my rights?” he countered roughly.

  It was too much. The events of the preceding days took their toll with a vengeance. And Ryder became the unlucky focus of all the chaotic emotions surging through her in that moment.

  Brenna slapped him. Her hand moved in a wide, swinging arc that he probably could have avoided but didn’t. Instead he just stood there and let her fingers create a bright-red brand on the side of his face.

  The silence that followed seemed to extend even to the surrounding woods. In utter quiet Brenna stood staring at the man she had just struck, her mind numb with shock at her own behavior. Ryder didn’t move.

  “The thing about violence,” he finally cautioned in a very gentle voice, “is that you have to be prepared for the possibility that it will escalate.”

  She swallowed. “Is that a way of saying you’re going to get even?”

  “Do you think I would really hit you?” He appeared almost curious.

  Brenna closed her eyes in shame and self-disgust. “No. I deserve it but you won’t do it.” She took a couple of slow breaths, bringing herself back under control. When she opened her eyes, Ryder was already several feet away, walking back toward his cabin. She could only stand and watch as he moved off with that fog-silent step. He didn’t look back.

  It wasn’t long after she’d served herself a lonely dinner in front of the fire and was focusing on the prospect of going to bed without even being able to say good-night to Ryder that Brenna finally realized it was up to her to end the impasse. She was the one who had created it.

  Ryder hadn’t emerged from his cabin since he’d walked away after she’d lost her self-control. She could only presume that he’d spent the afternoon and evening beginning work on his book. He was probably the type who could do just that, she told herself unhappily. He was so damn self-controlled, he could probably put the incident with her out of his mind in disgust and go to work. She, on the other hand, couldn’t get past page one of the quarterly issue of the philosophy journal in her lap.

  Lifting her eyes from the open journal to the flames on the hearth, Brenna tried to rationalize her way out of what she knew, deep down, had to be done. Ryder had no real rights over her, she reminded herself, regardless of how he’d chosen to interpret her willingness to let him make love to her. It would probably be best to let the rift between them stand. It would serve to break off a relationship in which she was swiftly becoming far too involved. Only this morning she had found herself toying with the idea of falling in love with the man.

  No, it would be simpler to use the current unpleasantness as a way of easing herself out of a highly precarious situation. It was frightening to think how close she had been to admitting she was in love with a man who was all wrong for her.

  All wrong. It was crazy, ludicrous, and adolescent to allow one’s emotions to rule one’s head that far! Ryder was different, far different from any other man she had ever met. It stood to reason that there would be a certain attraction about him, didn’t it? But that didn’t mean a genuine, solid relationship could be built on that attraction. Sound relationships weren’t built on the basis of a man declaring himself in possession of a woman because she had been foolish enough to surrender herself to him!

  But even as she lectured herself, Brenna knew there was more to it than that. Unwillingly she recalled the hero of The Quicksilver Venture, a man hardened in the ways of the shadowy world in which he moved but still a man who lived by a code of honor and integrity; a man who could, in a strange way, be trusted. Not unlike Ryder.

  No, Brenna told herself firmly, she had no business getting involved with a man like Ryder Ste
rne. The Damon Fieldings of this world were the kind of men she should be cultivating. Damon understood her lifestyle, her ambitions, and her career. He held modern views on the subject of a relationship, and just because Craig hadn’t cared for the man, that didn’t mean Damon was wrong for her. Heaven knew Craig was a lot more likely to view the world the way Ryder viewed it! They were two of a kind in many ways.

  But Brenna Llewellyn was her own woman who had to make her own path and her own choices. It was all very well for Craig to choose a more adventuresome path in this world, but she, Brenna, had already chosen hers and it did not lead in the same direction. It did not lead toward men like Ryder Sterne.

  None of which, she realized grimly, changed the fundamental question before her now. She owed Ryder an apology. Even if the wiser course of action might be to let the situation stand, there was still a matter of simple honor and simple manners involved.

  She not only owed him an apology for the slap, she also owed him her thanks for the quiet way he had helped both her and Craig through the difficult time yesterday. His calm, reasonable attitude had been a source of reassurance for her, and clearly he’d had the same effect on her brother, who had been worrying about Brenna’s reaction to his announcement.

  Yes, she owed Ryder for that and for the slap. Her pride demanded that she take some step toward satisfying its demands. With a soft sigh Brenna got to her feet and located the rust-colored suede jacket she’d brought with her. It was going to be quite chilly outside this late at night.

  As she stepped outside her door Brenna saw at once that there was no light on in the cabin across the clearing. Had Ryder gone to bed early? She glanced down at her watch. It was later than she had realized. Perhaps this whole thing should wait until morning.

  But something drove her forward. This wasn’t going to keep until morning. It had to be done as soon as possible. Too much time had already passed. As she walked across the clearing Brenna reminded herself over and over that going to Ryder like this involved nothing more than an apology and her personal thanks for what he had done for her and Craig. It most definitely did not involve any admission on her part that she was accepting the claim he had placed on her!