“Have you arranged my return to the Queen’s House so efficiently?”
“Don’t sound disgruntled. I may not be omnipotent, but I can at least be efficient.”
The pounding hooves grew louder, and then his men were there, ranking on either side, horses steaming in the night air.
“I’m inclined to believe the omnipotence,” she said. “How did you come to rescue me in time, and with armed guards?”
He said something to the nearest man, and soon he and another were riding ahead, scouting as if this was the wilderness rather than a quiet London street.
“I took five minutes to gather them,” he said flatly. “It could have been five minutes too long.”
“No, you were right! Madness to ride off alone.”
“And I am definitely not mad, yes?”
Damn him and his mood, and the fact that even with moonlight she couldn’t really read his features.
“You said you were supposed to arrive later?” she asked. Too late, she thought, shuddering at the malicious planning that lay behind this. Who hated her enough for this?
D’Eon? She would never have imagined it.
“One of the men who captured you was in my pay,” he said. “He had no notice, or he would have warned me. It was what he was there for. As it was, he had to go through with it.”
“The Englishman. The one who didn’t want me hurt.”
His head turned. “You were hurt?”
She wished she’d held her tongue, but she said, “De Couriac. He hit me.”
He made no comment, but continued, “It was sheer luck that Stringle was given the job of telling me where to find you.” Sheer luck, it was clear, was intolerable. He hadn’t changed. He was still stuck in bleak perfection. “He was to get the message to me at midnight. Instead, of course, he found me immediately.”
At that moment, a nearby clock began to strike midnight, with others near and far picking it up. Diana shuddered at the thought of being in Lord Randolph’s hands until now.
Then she realized that if she’d not screamed, if Lord Randolph had not gagged her and enjoyed watching her struggle for breath, Bey would have been far too late. Dear heaven, but it would have destroyed him.
“You hired this Stringle,” she offered. “Your watchfulness did save me after all.”
“There was too much luck involved, and even with luck, we were almost too late. And I wasted that five minutes.”
She didn’t know what to say, for now she realized how he felt. It was offensive that his sanity had been preserved by chance. Delayed shock and the night air set her shivering, despite his coat.
They were into fashionable streets now, but it was Sunday and quiet, though one coach did rattle past, a pale face peering out nervously at them.
What did that traveler think of the strange group? What would they think if they knew who it was?
Midnight, she thought. “Will de Couriac be there now, do you think?”
“I hope so. I left two men in addition to the one watching Somerton. They’re to take him alive if possible.”
The chill was setting in, and she suddenly desperately wanted to be home. Though she didn’t know where home was. “You didn’t tell me how you were getting me back into the Queen’s House with no one the wiser.”
He glanced across at her. “A wave of my sorcerer’s wand… In fact, we’re going to Malloren House.”
“Why?”
“Because of the difficulties of returning you to the Queen’s House.”
“But… Clara won’t have raised the alarm.”
“Will she not?” He sighed. She heard it. “I can’t let you out of my sight, Diana. Not yet.”
She inhaled in surprise, and then again to savor it, like perfume. Some of the chill in her melted to warmth. He was in a strange state, but this might also be the first step to capitulation. To a chance for them.
When he said nothing more, she asked, “What will we tell the king?”
“The truth, of course, but that’s for later.”
They were entering a wider street lined with grand houses. They must be close to Marlborough Square.
“What was the plan?” she asked. “Is the Chevalier D’Eon truly involved in such a sordid affair?”
He turned to look at her. “That, I intend to find out.”
Fear stole her breath. “Don’t fight him.”
“Don’t give me orders. Unless, that is, you reciprocate, and let me order your every step for my comfort.”
“Damn you.”
He turned to look forward again. “Hell and I are old familiars.”
That didn’t sound like capitulation.
“Won’t taking me to Malloren House make it difficult for us to stay unwed?” she asked, hearing a touch of bitterness she could not suppress.
“Portia’s there. She and Bryght turned up not long ago, pushed to racing back south by Elf’s instincts.”
“Instincts about tonight? That’s impossible.”
“Instincts about you and me.” He glanced at her. “She warned me off at Arradale.”
“Damn her.”
“You want the whole Malloren family consigned to hell?”
“At times, yes.”
“She was right. I should never have let you close when I knew I could not give you all you deserve.” Voice cold as moonlight, he added, “It’s true, is it not, that now you will have no other?”
“When we first met, I was determined to have no one at all. Wanting no other is progress of sorts. What of you? Have you made any progress?”
“Three steps closer to hell,” he said, and turned into a lane. The lane must run behind Marlborough Square. Weariness sank over her. How could she fight him if fighting pushed him closer to hell?
Soon they were in a mews, and grooms hurried out. “All’s well, milord?” asked the one taking Bey’s horse. He didn’t seem surprised to see his master in shirtsleeves, or Diana riding beside him in Bey’s coat.
“Yes, thank you, Bibb.” Bey slid off and helped Diana down. She half expected him to move away from her once she was on the ground, but he put an arm around her as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Gratefully, she moved close to his warmth, and to hope that would not be suppressed.
Was she to return to court? Suddenly, all those days locked in unnatural restraints, constantly observed, apart from him, became intolerable. Come what may, she would not return.
Why should she and Bey let themselves be tormented this way anyway? For what?
For duty, and honor, and responsibility…
She sighed, and slid an arm around him, feeling spine, and muscles, and strength. Duty, honor, and responsibility could not be shrugged off like a garment that had become uncomfortable. They ruled still. Ruled both of them.
Perhaps he heard the sigh. His arm tightened as he took a lantern and led her down a path toward the back of the house. She half expected servants up and waiting as in the stables, but he used a key to open a small side door, and inside, though a candle waited, the house lay silent.
If Portia was chaperon, she wasn’t present to perform her duties. The one flickering flame created an intimacy in the dark, even when they went through a door into the glory of the owner’s side of the house.
Her heart began to speed and she shivered in a different way. Up till now, safety had been enough. His presence had been enough. Now, however, his strong, warm body against her stirred other needs.
True needs. She needed him to wipe away everything that had happened. To promise it would never happen again.
She’d have to fight him, though, to get what she longed for, and she wasn’t sure she could do that anymore.
Would it be another step toward hell?
She let him lead her upstairs and into a room, a grand bedroom where he lit two branches of candles. Thick carpet and rich rose-pink hangings. He moved away, and to her shame, she clung. It could cause scandal and make matters cruelly worse, but suddenly
she couldn’t bear the thought of being alone.
“It’s all right,” he said, gently untangling her fingers from his shirt, and sitting her on the big bed. “Wait there. I’ll be back in a moment.”
She began to shake. Fighting a weakness and dependence she despised she shed his coat, but a prick startled her. It was his pin, still holding together the cut edges of her bodice.
Abruptly, she hurried to the washstand, pulling out the pin.
Water in the jug.
Lukewarm, but that didn’t matter.
She splashed it into the bowl, lathered the cloth, and washed her breasts. Washed them over and over, trying to scrub away even the memory of Lord Randolph’s hands there. His eyes on her—
Suddenly aware, she turned, clutching her bodice back together, and found Bey watching her.
He came over, a white garment in his hand. He worked it over her head so it covered her, arms and all, with soft cotton fresh with the scent of washing and blowing in the wind.
She relaxed her grip on the bodice. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why—”
“Hush.” He turned her, and beneath the cloth, undid the fastenings down the back of her gown. He stepped away then, and she stripped it off herself. Did he think she didn’t want him to touch her?
With an inward shudder, she realized that in a way, he was right. Her skin felt all awry, and she didn’t know what she wanted.
“Do you want a bath?” he said.
In a way she did, but she didn’t want servants. She didn’t want to be looked at yet.
“No.” She untied her petticoat and let it fall. Then she shed the last soiled and ruined layer, the shift, and put her hands into the sleeves rolling up the cuffs.
Only then did she turn to him.
“Better?” he asked, standing a surely precisely judged distance from her.
It was one of his shirts, and it hung to her knees protectively. “I’m being silly, I know—”
“No. Except in saying that. Allow yourself to be weak, Diana.”
I wish you would.
Aloud, she said, “I can’t. I mustn’t be weak. That gives him a victory of sorts. That washing was a victory for him. A bath would be a victory for him. If I act like that, I’m admitting he dirtied me. That he changed me in ways that will linger.” She raised her chin. “I’m braver and stronger than that.”
“Ironhand. But you leave me adrift. What can I do for you?”
“Bey, don’t! Don’t ask me to be weak for you.”
He closed his eyes for a moment. “Do I need people to be weak?” he asked, as if truly adrift. “I didn’t think so.”
His distress burned away hers. He was deeply shaken, far more deeply than she’d guessed. He needed to care for her as much as he’d needed to kill Somerton, but it was something else he would sacrifice for her if she needed it.
Oh God, she felt as if she held crystal in her hands, impossibly thin and fragile crystal that could be shattered by the slightest thing.
Wise or not, she stepped forward and took his hands. “Take me to bed, Bey. I need you to hold me.”
After a moment, he swept her into his arms and carried her to the bed.
He couldn’t know, even he could not know, that Lord Randolph had carried her to that awful bed, but it was like the beginning of a perfect realignment. “I do need this,” she whispered.
“You shall have everything you need,” he promised. “And no more.”
At the bed he paused, holding her to him for a heart-stopping moment, then he laid her down carefully as if she were the fragile crystal, and filled to the brim with water.
“What do you need now?” he asked.
And she suddenly knew, though she wasn’t sure she should ask. “I want you to tie me to the bed.”
“What?”
His shocked pallor made her say, “No. That’s silly. I don’t need—”
“You want to reenact it? Why?”
All she could give was honesty. “The worst thing was being helpless. Completely helpless. I’d rather have been fighting even if he hurt me, even if he hurt me badly. I want to relive that fear and conquer it. But I see it’s too much. I shouldn’t have asked.”
He sat on the bed and looked at her. “You’ll be the death of me,” he said, but a hint of humor, a touch of color, told her that perhaps this was all right. She’d given him something to do, something difficult, and that was what he needed.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Don’t run away,” he said dryly, and went into the next room.
She heard tearing sounds, and he returned with four strips of embroidered black velvet.
“What are they from?” she asked, wide-eyed, but she thought she recognized the exquisite black velvet coat he’d worn to the Queen’s House two nights before. Which he’d worn to the ball in Arradale an eon ago.
“If we are to do this,” he said, “let us do it with a degree of elegance.” As he tied one strip loosely around her right ankle, he said, “Will it spoil the experiment if I promise to stop whenever you ask me to?”
Diana had to think about that. “Yes, I think it would. It wouldn’t be at all frightening then.”
He tied the other end of the cloth to a bedpost. “I don’t want this to be frightening.”
“Nor do I, but it has to be.” With one leg tethered, her nerves flinched as if they held a memory of earlier terrors.
He tied the other ankle, face set and cool.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Bey,” she said helplessly. “You asked what you could do.”
“I think I had in mind a foot massage.” But a little lightness stirred as he looked at her. “It’s all right. I’m just nervous about what you might want me to do once you’re fixed in place.” He looked at the bed head. “I’ll have to tie your hands to the corner posts. There’s nowhere in the middle.”
She stretched her arms out. “I’m supposed to feel like the victim, not you.” But then she twisted to look up to where he was tying her right hand. “I’m forcing you, aren’t I? Isn’t that a bit like rape?”
“Don’t overdramatize this. However, I am not making love to you like this. That would be rape, and of me, not you.”
She followed him with her eyes and he walked around to tie her other hand. “I won’t. I wouldn’t. I just need to feel this, and deal with it.”
He tied the last knot and sat on the bed again. “What are you feeling?”
“Panic,” she said, looking up at the satin canopy, where before there’d been cobwebby beams. “It’s silly because I know you won’t hurt me, but it’s beating there like a drum.” She turned her eyes to him. “I’m even afraid that you’ll go away and leave me like this.”
“Diana, this is pointless. You aren’t fighting an unreasonable fear. You are helpless. If I was a villain, you’d be right to be afraid.”
“But not to show it. Would you show fear in this situation?”
“No,” he said and placed a hand on her abdomen.
She jerked, instinctively trying to reach down to control his hand. “Don’t.”
“I believe you set the rules,” he said, circling his hand there over the soft, fine cotton.
She wanted to cry stop. She knew that if she really demanded it, he would, but she worked instead at controlling panic, and at not showing fear.
He slid his hand up, between her breasts, to rest at the side of her throat. “Your pulse still races.”
“No one can control their pulse.”
“It is possible, but very hard. Control your breathing instead. That, anyone can do.”
He put his hand back on her abdomen. “Push my hand up and down with your breaths.”
She focused on that, and slowly the panic eased.
Her whole body relaxed into his hand, comfortingly warm and strong against her.
“I’m rather comfortable now,” she murmured, and still breathing against his hand she let her eyes drift shut so she could
sink into a peaceful warmth that was completely new to her.
Then his hand left her. She opened heavy eyes to see him cutting her velvet tethers. As she brought her arms down to her side, she explored a sense of wholeness and completion that was inextricably connected to him, to her feelings for him, and his for her.
It was if they created something between them which was impossible apart. If she’d fought before, it had been with half her heart. Now she felt invincible.
She had to be.
“That foot massage?” she murmured.
His eyes met hers, smiling slightly. “We are in harmony at last.”
He left, but returned with a small vial, and sat on the bed by her feet. He poured oil onto his hands, and the rich scent of sandalwood crept over her. She was floating even before he took one of her feet and began the magic.
No stockings this time, just his strong, skilled hands on her.
“It’s wonderful. It seems to relax my whole body.”
He smiled slightly, but didn’t speak.
“I want to be able to do this for you. Is it possible?” she asked, deliberately asking about more than the moment.
“My will is shattered,” he said, beginning on the other foot with a touch that told her that she could ask anything of him now and he was powerless to refuse.
It wasn’t right though. It was because of what had happened tonight. Because of her danger, and his failure to protect. Perhaps it was also because he had sacrificed the healing power of bloodshed.
For her.
She couldn’t accept an offering of guilt.
“That isn’t good enough,” she said.
“I know.”
She lay silent as he worked magic on her feet, wondering where they went from here. His lids guarded his eyes but she knew he was, as he had said, shattered. She could do anything with him now, demand anything.
The last thing he needed, however, was more guilt.
What she wanted was his acceptance of his right to love.
“It is possible,” she said, but she knew words weren’t enough, not for him. He was a man who had to be engaged mind, body, emotions, and soul. And the mind—the brilliant analytical mind—still held firm.
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