Games of Pleasure

by Julia Ross

  So the Fates laughed as they spun their webs and decreed nothing but more trouble! Miracle would far rather have been rescued—if she had been destined to be rescued at all—by a grizzled old fisherman with a comfortable wife.

  Fortunately, since they had never moved in the same circles, Lord Ryderbourne was unlikely to recognize her.

  The keel scraped on shingle. The horse stopped, fetlock deep in surf, and shook itself like a dog. The duke’s son tugged on his salt-ruined boot and sprang from the boat. His feet splashed as he waded to the horse and rubbed its black neck. The gelding blew through its nostrils and shook itself again. The duke’s son untied the rope from his mount’s tail, then strode away over the shingle to retrieve clothes he must have abandoned there earlier.

  The horse waited, watching him.

  He returned to hold out a heavy cloak. He had shrugged into his jacket and donned his hat. He seemed impervious to the chill rain.

  “Who did this to you, ma’am?”

  Miracle ignored the cloak and stared at the ocean. Whitecaps reared ever higher beneath lowering gray clouds. In spite of that odd moment of incipient hilarity, her heart felt numb, as if she were desperate. Goose bumps rose on her arms.

  “No one did anything, my lord. There was an accident.”

  “You’ve been beaten.” His voice resonated: rich and deep, with a piercing intelligence. “You’ve been robbed of your clothes and cast adrift. By whom?”

  She shook her head and shivered again, worried that she might do something hideously inappropriate, that she might laugh out loud or break into bawdy singing.

  He threw the cloak in a belling sweep to land about her shoulders, then held out one hand.

  “Never mind. I’ll get you to shelter.” His mouth was set in the imperious lines of habitual command. “Come! You will die of cold.”

  Miracle clutched the front of his cloak in both hands. “If I only had oars, I would row right back out there.”

  His eyes darkened, like the glass-clear shadow in the trough of a wave. “You planned to take your own life?”

  “Oh, not deliberately.” She suppressed the mounting impulse to laugh. “However it might appear, I’m not so melodramatic.”

  “Neither am I. What’s your name?”

  There was insistence in it. He would not leave her alone. He would feel obliged to be gallant. There was not much she could do about it. So in defiance of fate, Miracle met his gaze and told him her third lie.

  Her first falsehood had been to cling deliberately to a few more moments of blissful oblivion when she had regained consciousness in the boat, looking up at him through slitted lashes before she had been forced to acknowledge him at all.

  Her second lie had been to deny that she’d been thrashed.

  The third was the name that now spilled without thought from her tongue, though it was not one she had ever used before.

  “Miss Elaine Sanders, my lord.”

  “Then, come, Miss Sanders!”

  He reached into the boat and picked her up in both arms to cradle her snugly against his chest.

  As if the sea had already defeated her, Miracle surrendered. Further struggle seemed absurd.

  She gazed up at his face as he carried her toward his horse. His mouth was beautiful, like a carving, yet the grim lines seared her heart. He ought to laugh, not frown like a gargoyle. Of course, he did not know whom he held so completely at his mercy. Would he drop her right away, if he knew? Or would he demand one fast, sensual exchange, then leave her with a guinea? Intoxication bubbled madly in her heart, like champagne poisoned with wormwood.

  “I had it wrong,” she said. “Sir Lancelot.”

  Lord Ryderbourne stopped. His heart beat strongly beneath her ear. “What?”

  “It was Lancelot, not Galahad, who rescued the woman from the water.”

  He stood silently holding her, while the rain thickened. The retreating waves sucked on the shingle with the grinding sound of a troll at dinner. The boat bobbed away.

  “Elaine,” he said at last. “She was also an Elaine. But that water was magically boiling in a tub, not the frigid ocean. The rescue was Sir Lancelot’s first miracle—”

  “—and his last, because it cost him his virginity and thus his mystic strength.”

  “I’m not a virgin,” he said with precision.

  As if she really were a madwoman, her gathering hilarity spilled into open laughter. Yet Lord Ryderbourne held her securely in his embrace, until Miracle finally choked down a mysterious rush of tears. Quivering like a fish on a line, suddenly drained of all emotion, she snuggled blindly into the warm cloak.

  Lord Ryderbourne strode forward again.

  “I might suppose, based on the nature of this conversation, that you’re not a blushing maiden yourself. Yet I believe you’re in shock, Miss Sanders. It’s clear that you’ve been battered by a human fist, in spite of your protestations to the contrary. Death, if I had not intervened, was the inevitable outcome of your abandonment in that boat. I trust you’re at least glad to be alive?”

  Alive! Yes, she had come face-to-face with death. Yet against all odds she was alive! Was that sufficient cause for hysteria? Or was it simply a reaction to the disaster of having been rescued by this particular man?

  “Since it’s the only life that I have, I must thank you, Lord Ryderbourne, for your rescue. Now, if you would kindly set me down here on this beach, I can make my own way from here.”

  “No.” He tossed her up onto the saddle, then swung up behind her. “You’re more hurt than you know. You’re coming with me.”

  “You’re abducting me?”

  “You’re without clothes, without money, wet through, and half frozen. You have no shoes. I’m continuing to rescue you. From yourself, if need be.”

  He gathered reins and the gelding pranced forward, then bounded up the muddy path and onto the cliff road at the top. Lord Ryderbourne turned the horse to canter straight into the oncoming night. A goose girl sheltering under a tree stared at them as they flew past. A handful of sheep scattered. The sea turned sullen as the rain began to pelt down in earnest.

  In twenty minutes the horse clattered down the cobbled street of a village, where a handful of thatched stone houses tumbled haphazardly toward a beach. Fishing boats were drawn up on the foreshore. Nets stretched on poles planted in the shingle.

  They rode into the yard of the single inn. The Merry Monarch seemed grand enough, yet neglect hung over the rain-soaked yard and empty stalls. Paint peeled. Only one person came out to greet their arrival, a groom in a shabby coat.

  “A room.” Lord Ryderbourne vaulted to the cobbles. “A room, a hot bath, a meal. Take particularly good care of the gelding.”

  The groom tugged at his forelock. “My lord!”

  Ryderbourne spun a coin into the man’s open palm, then turned to hold up both arms. Since there was no other immediate choice, Miracle slipped into them, put her arms about his neck, and laid her head on his shoulder. Rain poured in a stream from the brim of his hat, but he turned so that his body sheltered her from the worst of the weather.

  The groom took the horse’s reins.

  “A bran mash,” the duke’s son said. “An especially thorough rubdown.”

  “Very good, my lord!”

  Miracle stared at the gelding as the man led it away. The magnificently muscled rump. The coat groomed to a coal-jet shine, in spite of its recent bath in saltwater. An animal obviously worth a fortune.

  “You would trust that minikin with your horse?” she asked.

  “Absolutely,” Lord Ryderbourne replied. “Until the landslide swept away the road, this place handled all the coach traffic passing along the coast. Though it’s cut off to through traffic now, Jenkins still knows how to take care of a horse.”

  “So no one comes here now but locals?”

  She knew at once that her voice had betrayed her. He glanced down at her and smiled. A lovely, almost amused smile that said he was infinitely capable of la
ughter, infinitely quick-witted—not cold, not arrogant, at all.

  “You wish for quiet, Miss Sanders?” he asked. “You want privacy? You need a place where no one will discover you? You’ll find them all here.”

  “And you can guarantee all of that,” she said, “because you are Lord Ryderbourne, heir to the glorious St. Georges. They say you might slay dragons with one raised eyebrow—”

  “Do they?”

  She tilted her head against his shoulder and stared up at the sodden sky as he carried her toward the inn doorway.

  “They also say that you’ve been known to send ladies into either decline or climax—depending on the lady—with one haughty glance.”

  The good humor fled his face. “So which kind of lady are you?”

  Miracle wrapped her arms more tightly about his neck. “Which kind of lady would you like me to be?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  RYDER KICKED OPEN THE DOOR TO A BEDROOM AND CARRIED his captive inside, two maids scurrying at their heels. The room felt chill, unused.

  “See to the fire, Mary,” he said to one of the maids. “Alice, bring hot soup, or tea, or mulled wine: anything hot that you have in the kitchen.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Alice hurried away.

  While Mary busied herself at the grate, Ryder set his burden down on the rug, then strode to the bed to fling back the covers. The sheets felt damp.

  “As soon as you’ve finished with the fire, fetch clean, dry sheets,” he said to the maid. “And bring up a warming pan.”

  Mary curtsied and scurried from the room. Flames leaped up the chimney. Warmth began to permeate the cold spaces.

  Ryder felt supernaturally alive. His mystery stood like a sapling. Long wet hair snaked down over the sodden cloak. She met his gaze without blinking, a small, defiant quirk at one corner of her mouth.

  Beneath the ugly bruises, beauty streamed from her dark brow to the proud column of her throat. Allure gamboled in the sweep of black lashes and kissed at sensuous red lips. A perfection of creation that struck him to the heart, like a jewel suddenly discovered among seaweed. He had rescued a woman who was more than beautiful. Her very bones were as dazzling as a diamond. No man would ever see her without wanting her.

  The air almost sizzled as their eyes met. Yet it was not only her loveliness that made the blood run hot in his veins like spring sap; it was the splendid accident of having rescued her.

  Had a similar heady recognition of random fate driven his brother Jack to travel to the ends of the earth?

  His pulse rapid with new awareness, Ryder turned away as if to break an enchantment. He was used to facing problems with cool equanimity. He threw his hat into a corner, then shrugged out of his soaked jacket. As if similarly released, his captive walked up to the fire and crouched down to hold out her hands to its warmth. His cloak trailed out behind her like the train of a wedding gown.

  Ryder strode to the window. Which kind of lady would you like me to be?

  Unlike Jack, he had responsibilities far beyond this woman and this incident, even though excitement still thrummed in his veins. Hands crossed behind his back, he stared out at the rain and faced the more uncomfortable realities, before he turned back to face her.

  “I would prefer you to be an honest one,” he said. “My days are generally quite predictable. I’m not in the habit of saving young ladies from a watery grave. Perhaps it’s the common thing to be lied to in such irregular circumstances. I wouldn’t know.”

  Her head jerked up, her skin ghostly beneath the rose pattern of bruises, her eyes dark, like those of a deer fearing danger. “How have I lied?”

  “Elaine was certainly the name of the woman whom Sir Lancelot magically rescued from the boiling tub,” he said. “Yet I don’t believe that it’s yours. Your clothing—what remains of it—is costly, the finest quality. Your hands are smooth and unblemished, those of a lady. There are marks on your fingers where you’ve recently removed several rings. You’re not Miss Sanders. You’re married. Has your husband beaten you?”

  She gazed back at the fire, leaving him nothing but the elegant curve of her spine and the steam rising gently about her bent head.

  “I recognize my debt to you, my lord. I don’t agree that it gives you any right to question me.”

  “Why else would you be so afraid? No one but a husband could have such control over you.”

  “My situation is no concern of yours.”

  “I made it my concern when I dragged you from the ocean.” He stepped forward, driven by this intense new acuity. “Why hide the truth from me? I’m one of the few men in England who’s in a position to help you, whatever your problem.”

  “My only problem, my lord, is that I’m wet and cold and tired. You must be busy with affairs of your own. You should return to them.”

  “I cannot abandon you. You must see that.”

  “I may appreciate your noble impulses without agreeing that they’re necessary.” With clear defiance she stood and turned to look up at him. “If Elaine doesn’t please you, by all means choose some other name.”

  “Then you admit it’s not your own?”

  “Does it matter? We’re only chance-met strangers, after all. If I might ask for the loan of a few shillings, enough for some clothes and the hire of a horse, you need concern yourself with me no longer. That’s not beyond your means, surely? Once I’m safely away from here, I shall be happy to send you repayment.”

  He felt almost incredulous that she should so cavalierly dismiss him. “You’re offering to reimburse me?”

  “Of course.” A wry note crept into her voice. “You won’t be hard to find. Everyone in England has heard of Wyldshay Castle, the magical fortress afloat in its lake.”

  “Nothing magical about it,” he said. “Simply a large and anachronistic pile of stone.”

  “Only the heir to infinite privilege could say that.”

  “And only a man of such privilege can promise to take care of any difficulty and mean it.”

  She stepped forward, clutching the cloak to her throat with both hands. “Then you will make me a small loan?”

  “No,” he said. “I will not.”

  Color drained from her face, as if she faced a sudden rush of panic. “Why not?”

  The door latch rattled.

  “Come!” Ryder said.

  His mystery walked away, cloak trailing, to sit on a chest at the side of the room.

  Mary and Alice entered, one with a pile of fresh sheets balanced on top of a warming pan, the other carrying a tray. Darting shy glances at Ryder, Alice set down the tray on a small table near the hearth, then went to help her companion make up the bed.

  “Will there be anything else, my lord?” Mary asked when they were done.

  “A tub and cans of hot water,” he said. “Bring toiletries, as well—everything a lady might need.”

  “The water’s heating now, my lord. Jenkins will bring up the tub.” The maids bobbed their heads and left.

  Ryder examined the tray. “Ah! Mulled wine! Our landlord has provided his best. The Merry Monarch kept excellent enough cellars, until the landslide plunged it into disaster.”

  Hugging the cloak, his mystery stared at him. “Why won’t you help me?”

  “I am helping you.”

  “I cannot be found here. I must leave!”

  “Not until you’ve rested and eaten.” He filled two glasses. “Have some wine! You’ll feel better.”

  She looked away as if exasperated. “They all know you here, don’t they?”

  “I’ve spent my entire life riding over this part of Dorset. Wyldshay dominates the countryside hereabouts like a mailed fist hammered down onto velvet.”

  “And that,” she said, standing to face him again, her eyes flashing, “is a splendidly apt description of my situation, also, don’t you think?”

  She was wet and hurt and bedraggled. She was magnificent. Ryder held out a glass, the wine warm and scented. She took it as a lady might take a po
sy from a child, with a gracious little nod of the head, then sat down in a chair near the fire. He leaned both hands on the rail of the opposite seat, the table with the tray at his elbow.

  “What’s so apt?” he asked.

  “The delights of being at the mercy of the heir to a dukedom,” she said. “The mailed fist keeps me pinned in this room. The velvet pretends an elaborate courtesy, as if no overwhelming force is involved, then accuses me of deceit. If you weren’t raised to all that entitlement, you would allow me to leave.”

  Droplets sparkled in her hair and among the folds of his draped cloak. Like a princess abducted by pirates, as if he saw her through glass, she glimmered with desire and dishevelment. His heart turned an odd little somersault. Had he seen her somewhere before, somewhere glittering and bright, with her hair swept up and diamonds at her throat?

  “No gentleman worth the name would allow you to leave without insisting on offering further help,” he said.

  “You obviously know very little about men, my lord.”

  “You’re afraid,” he insisted. “Why?”

  She shook her head and leaned toward the flames as she peeled away her ruined stockings. A naked foot curved. Blue shadows lurked in the hollow of her anklebone and in the tiny trace of veins beneath the white skin. His attention riveted on the erotic, haughty sweep of the arch.

  “You need to hide from your husband?”

  “I cannot remain here.”

  “I shall not let you leave—”

  “Oh, God!” She tossed her head up. “You’re still wallowing in a nicely superior sense of responsibility? You think you must be chivalrous and gentlemanly? Or you think I’m frantic enough to do myself an injury—is that it?”

  She pulled her bare feet back beneath the hem. Ryder swallowed hard. Yes, he was afraid for her, that she was more desperate than she knew. “It might be.”

  “Then rest assured, my lord, I’ve survived far worse than this. I promise you I will not take my own life without good cause.”