Perilous Pleasures

by Jenny Brown

  He took a deep, shuddering breath and whispered the magic word, “Codladh.”

  She felt herself go limp as she resigned herself to letting his magic do its work. As she waited, she heard his ragged breathing. It filled the silence that stretched out after he’d invoked the spell. She heard the soft rustle of his homespun shirt and the creak of the floor as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. In the distance, running like a silver thread through the heavy silence, she heard a coach rattle to a stop, its iron wheels clattering on the cobblestones. Harnesses jangled as new horses were brought in to replace the winded ones. It was only as she heard the passengers scattering from the coach, calling to one another as they embarked on the brief interval allotted them to eat, that it hit her. She was wide awake. The spell hadn’t worked. It hadn’t sent her back into the twilight sleep of trance.

  “Lord Ramsay,” she said in a small, scared voice. “I’m not sleeping.”

  “I know.” His tone was grave. “It’s just as I feared. I’ve lost your trust. Without it I can’t put you back under the spell.”

  She sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Perhaps if you used a different incantation?”

  “It isn’t the words that do the magic, but something else—something I’ve forfeited through the misuse of my powers.”

  “But I want you to enchant me. Isn’t that enough?”

  He peered at her intently, raising his eyes in an odd way. Then he shook his head. “It’s no use. I can’t undo the spell.” The note of defeat in his voice frightened her.

  “Does anyone else know how to undo it?”

  “Only the Dark Lord, but he’s dead.”

  He sank down beside her on the bench as if he could no longer find the strength to stand. She could hardly bear to have him so near. Every atom of her body seemed to resonate with his, bridging the few inches that separated them as if they were connected by an electrical fluid. She was helpless before the power of the magical bond that he had trapped her in.

  Her words burst out before she could control them. “If only I could put a spell on you!”

  “I fear to imagine the spell you would wish on me now.”

  “I wish only that you might feel for me what I feel for you.”

  “Only that? That I should love you, too?”

  “Only that. But what does it matter what I wish?” She refused to meet his eye, but stared down at the surface of the bench where long pale lines of heartwood shot through the darker grain. “Wishes accomplish nothing. When I was young I wished I might be wanted instead of always in the way. I wished that my father, the duke, might come to visit me and learn how I had struggled to make myself worthy of him. But he never did, not once. What I might wish has never mattered to anyone. Why should it matter to you?”

  “Because it does,” he said. “Because I vowed to give you happiness.”

  Why did he have to remind her of what he couldn’t do?

  “You’ve taken too many vows already,” she said harshly. “I wouldn’t have you feign love for me to fulfill another. Vow or no vow, you can’t make yourself love me if the love isn’t already there.”

  “How would I know if it’s there or not? I’ve no experience of such things.” He bit his lower lip. “I’ve been a celibate all this time, with no desire to experience love. All I know of love is what I shared with Charlotte.”

  “But she was your sister. That’s different.”

  “Is it? We were twins, she and I. We shared our mother’s womb.”

  Twins. That made his loss even more devastating, and her own plight that much more desperate. Whatever he might wish, he could never love her if her mother had killed his twin.

  “I loved Charlotte and my loving her caused her death.” His hands tightened into fists. “Had she not loved me so well, she might have stayed at home when I went to France and be living now. But I begged her to come join me, I missed her so. And she died there—like an animal.”

  He locked his hands together in his lap, where they twisted together like thick vines. “I gave her that love you wish me to give you—gave it in full measure, and it killed her. Think twice before you wish my love upon yourself.”

  He looked the way he had after the cottar’s child died. And he needed her as much as he had then. Taking a deep breath, Zoe reached over and gently untwined the fingers of his hand before taking it in her own. “I can’t help but desire your love, however dangerous it might be. You’ve given me no choice with your spell. It’s you who have the freedom to love or not.”

  “I know,” he said. “And that I must make such a choice will be my punishment.”

  “Why punishment?”

  “Because you won’t be happy without my love, but if I give it to you, I’ll be betraying Charlotte. You live only because she died.”

  So there it was. He’d admitted at last the reason he could never ever love her.

  She must honor his honesty in facing it, and probe the rotting wound his words had revealed to her, as deftly as he had examined hers. The time had come to ask the question she’d never before had the courage to pose. “Tell me now,” she said. “What exactly did my mother do to Charlotte?”

  Her insides quivered at the risk she’d taken. But whatever she might have yearned for or he had vowed, they could not live together, married though they might be, unless they faced this ugly truth together and found some way to heal it. If they couldn’t, enchanted or not, she must leave him.

  His lips went white, he was pressing them together so hard. He cleared his throat, not once, but twice. Then speaking so quietly she could barely hear him, though he sat so near she could see the blood pulsing in the furred hollow at the base of his neck, he said, “Isabelle betrayed my sister to the Committee of Public Safety—the murderers who caused the Terror.”

  He paused, letting that sink in. Then he continued, “She did it to save her own life—and yours. She’d been accused of consorting with a marquis. A price had been put on her head. So she stole my sister’s identity papers and escaped the guillotine by pretending they were hers.”

  Zoe’s heart sank. Until this moment she’d hoped that perhaps there had been some misunderstanding. Thoughtless though her mother was, she was never intentionally cruel, and Zoe had not been able to picture her as a murderess.

  But at the height of the Terror her mother might have had no choice. She’d always explained that they’d made their escape from France thanks to the influence of a mysterious gentleman, one of the many who had been enamored of her. But that was the kind of story her mother would tell. Especially if the truth was more unsavory. And Lord Ramsay’s words made it all too likely that it was.

  For Zoe remembered those papers. They had saved their lives, and they had come, seemingly, out of nowhere.

  The memories came flooding back—how in the days before they’d left Paris, they’d been desperate, with her mother wailing that there was no way out and that they’d both soon die on the guillotine. Then everything had changed. Her mother had disappeared for several days, leaving her alone in their apartment with instructions to open the door to no one. When she’d come back, she seemed giddy with relief, but would say nothing except that she’d obtained the papers that would make it possible for them to leave France safely.

  Her mother had kept the precious documents in her bosom as they fled, guarding them as ferociously as if they had been diamonds. When they’d reached the port, an official had demanded them, and Zoe remembered the long, frightening moment when he’d scowled at one document, saying it couldn’t be Isabelle’s. He’d let his insolent gaze sweep up and down her mother’s lush form, reveling in the power he had over them. Then he’d announced that he must consult the regulations and had motioned her mother to follow him into a little cubicle behind his office. She’d done as he commanded, and after the door had snapped shut on both of them, Zoe had been left alone in the outer office, where she’d passed the time practicing the courage her eleven years had given her so many opportunities
to master.

  When, fifteen minutes later, the door to the little chamber had opened to disgorge her mother, the official’s cravat had been crooked, and his trousers had lost their crease, but he’d let them continue on their journey to safety, unmolested.

  “My mother did what it took to keep the two of us alive,” she said quietly. “I can’t make excuses for her. But even so, stealing is a far cry from murder. Why do you accuse her of that?”

  Ramsay took a deep breath before answering her. His hand grasped the edge of the bench they sat on and squeezed it tightly. “Your mother didn’t just steal my sister’s papers.”

  “What else did she do?”

  “She knew the Committee needed a victim, so to put them off her trail, before she fled she wrote a letter to the Committee, telling them that the young woman taking refuge at the laird’s estate was a noblewoman in hiding. As soon as they received it, they sent someone to arrest her. With her papers gone Charlotte had no way of disproving their accusation—and I—I who should have protected her—I wasn’t there to defend her. I was in Paris. I’d told the Dark Lord I’d gone to watch the demonstration of a new surgical technique, but it was a lie.

  “As I told you, once before, when I was young, my passions were very strong. I didn’t want to believe what the Dark Lord had told me, that I must take a vow of chastity. So I went to Paris to find myself a woman. I told myself I must learn more about the flesh before I could renounce it. I found a beautiful, seductive woman to teach me all a well-paid Parisian whore could about my accursed nature. There was a lot to learn. It was five long days until I’d finally had my fill of her and returned to Morlaix—where I found my sister dead.”

  Zoe felt a wave of sadness wash over her. No wonder he so feared unleashing those passions again. But his tale just made it that much clearer that he could never love her.

  She struggled to make some reply. But for a long time, none would come. At last she said, “Knowing all this, how could the Dark Lord have wanted you to wed me? How could he have asked such a thing of you?”

  “I don’t know and not knowing torments me. If I could ask him just one question, that would be what I’d ask. But he’s gone far beyond where he can hear me. And yet”—a trace of hope lit up his features—“I can ask the Ancient Ones to give me counsel. He taught me how.”

  He strode toward the center of the room and pulled his ancient bronze knife from its sheath. Grasping it by the copper green hilt so that the golden point curved downward, he held it before him. Then he stared at it in silence as the moments crept by, fixing his gaze on the glinting blade as if he expected it to give him an answer.

  At length, he let his arm drop to his side and turned back to her. “The Ancient Ones speak, but their message is confusing. Either our marriage is yet more of my penance or the Dark Lord knew some reason why I should forgive your mother which he didn’t have time to tell me.” He flung his knife onto the bench.

  She felt a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. How could she live with a man who believed their marriage was a punishment? But the anguish in his eyes begged her not to judge him too quickly. He was trying, and indeed, his next words reflected that.

  Speaking so slowly it was as if he’d pulled each word out of a wound in his own flesh, he asked, “If I could forgive your mother, would you still want your freedom?”

  She turned away, unwilling to let him see the answer that must be shining from her eyes. If only she had her mother’s ability to lie.

  “It is as I thought,” he said, and she remembered too late that he didn’t need to see her face to know what was in her mind. “You would stay, if I could forgive your mother. But how can I forgive her, without betraying Charlotte? She comes to me in dreams, and looks at me with such reproach because I haven’t avenged her. How can I love you, when you only lived to wed me because she died?”

  “It is impossible,” she agreed, facing him once more.

  “And yet, were it not, I could love you, Zoe.”

  His words shocked her. He mustn’t talk this way. His talk of love was more painful than his icy distancing, for it gave her hope that swept away all her defenses. But when she got up the courage to meet his eyes she knew he was telling the truth. His eyes glowed with it, despite the torment it cost him to admit it.

  “Give me time,” he said. “That’s all I ask of you.”

  “A year and a day?” She caught her breath.

  He nodded.

  The love that tore through her heart now made the pain of the virgin’s sickness seem like a mere scratch. She couldn’t resist the hope he held out, that with time he might come to love her. As impossible as she knew it to be, hope bound her to him more firmly than chains.

  It must be the power of the spell. But even now, as she felt the last of her resistance to him melt away, she wouldn’t let him know how thoroughly he had conquered her. Making her voice as light as she could, she said, “Then I’ll remain your bride. What other choice do I have? The spell can’t be undone, and I should be foolish to turn away from the honor you’ve thrust on me. A courtesan’s daughter is practical. So I will take what I can get.”

  “And I will give you all that I am capable of,” he said quietly. “Marriages have succeeded with far less.”

  Chapter 11

  She would remain his wife. He hadn’t expected it. He’d been prepared to give up everything to make up for the wrongful way he’d used the spell, even his chance to earn the Final Teaching. No power the Ancient Ones could give him would make up for ruining another woman’s life.

  But when he’d offered her her freedom, she hadn’t taken it.

  A tingle of anticipation ran up his spine at the thought. She would remain his wife. He need no longer be alone, no longer vowed to sacred isolation. What had been forbidden for so long would be permitted—more than that, it would be required. He must make their flesh one to fulfill the Dark Lord’s final command. He could barely suppress the joy that filled him when he thought of taking Zoe in his arms and merging himself with her as he had longed to do, so desperately, for so long.

  He was tempted to call for the landlord of the inn, to demand his most comfortable room, and order the finest food and drink to make a wedding banquet for his bride. As if she had picked up on his thoughts, Zoe asked, “Will we stay here tonight? And will you bed me?” The blood rushed to her face, giving it a glow.

  “Is that what you want?” He forced his voice to sound calm.

  Her blush deepened. “If I’m really to be your wife, it must be done.” But then her voice trailed off. “Though perhaps it would be better to wait. We’ve both of us already acted too rashly—that’s what got us into this predicament. Let’s not compound the damage. Once our marriage is consummated, it can’t be set aside.”

  Though he usually valued the way her calm practicality balanced his unworldliness, right now he could have done without it. He wanted her so much. But he mustn’t be so selfish. She was right. Matters between them were too delicate to be rushed. How could he have deluded himself she’d welcome him that way so soon, when he’d just barely convinced her not to leave him. To say nothing of the fact that she was still recovering from the wound in her leg. How could he have forgotten that?

  He released her hand and stood. “You’re right. There’s no rush. We have time.”

  “A year and a day,” she said with a shy smile.

  “And many more years after that, if the Ancient Ones will grant them.”

  Years. As he said the word, he imagined the joy of spending those years with this slim girl with the lustrous eyes. Warmth filled his heart at the thought of watching her go from girl to woman, and become the mother of his children. But at that thought, his veins filled with ice. He couldn’t ask that of her. Not yet. Not until he told her about the curse. It was best to wait. He’d already been selfish enough.

  He spoke as calmly as he could. “We won’t dally here, but travel to my home at Strathrimmon, the Ramsays’ ancestral seat. That,
too, was what the Dark Lord wished me to do.”

  Her eyes lost something of their liveliness. “Of course. You must do as he asked.”

  He wanted to tell her there was more to it than that, but they’d already spent too much time discussing things that could not be resolved by conversation, so he said nothing.

  She forced a bright smile. “How far is Strathrimmon?”

  “Only another day’s journey over those hills you can see in the distance from this window.”

  “I look forward to seeing it. I’ve never been to a grand estate.”

  “It’s ancient, but far from grand. Indeed, I hope it won’t disappoint you. I fear it’s been sadly neglected in my absence.”

  “No estate that is to be mine could ever disappoint me.” Her expression had become mischievous. “I never expected to ever own property—and if I did allow myself to dream of it, I contented myself with the thought of a small house in London with a tiny garden.”

  “Strathrimmon encompasses some five thousand acres, enough for a largish garden, I should think.”

  “Five thousand acres. How rich you are, Lord Ramsay!”

  “ ‘Lord Ramsay’?” He raised his eyebrows. “Now that we are wed, you must be less formal with me. My name is Adam and I’d be honored if you would so address me.”

  “Oh, I shall call you Adam, if that’s what you wish,” she said with a twinkle, “but only if you will call me Lady Ramsay. You’ve been far too familiar with me since the outset of our connection. Now that I am to be a baroness I shall be very much on my dignity.”

  He grinned. “It shall be as you wish, Lady Ramsay.”

  As the traveling chaise made its way into the grounds of Strathrimmon, Zoe wondered how the man who was the lord of such a beautiful place could have ever left it. How could he have wandered through the world for so long with a home like this to come back to?

  The Ramsay lands stretched out as far as she could see. Where the land was level, rows of stubble marked where fields of grain had been harvested the previous fall. Farther away, where the land rose in gently swelling hills, sheep fed on the greensward. Small cottages dotted the landscape, and in the distance, a tall tower rose.