At Your Pleasure

  For a dumb second, she stared at the pistol. Her fingers had gone numb around the butt. Her elbows and shoulders burned from the strain of holding it aloft.

  She loosened her grip, then quickly flexed and chafed her hands, forcing the blood back into them. As feeling began to return, she made herself meet Rivenham’s eyes.

  They were closed.

  Braced as she was for hatred, the sight struck her as a shocking relief. She exhaled as she studied him, the fatigue etched on his face, the surprising delicacy of the golden lashes that lay against his high cheekbones, the long, lean line of his legs stretched out before him.

  Perhaps her heart had been as numb as her fingers, for blood now seemed to flood back into it as well, causing her chest to prickle and expand.

  No doubt she would regret this as heartily as the Frenchman had predicted. But she could not have lived with herself had they killed this man.

  She reached for him, intending to pat down his body to find the source of his bleeding. But at the brush of her fingers against his shoulder, his eyes opened, and she froze.

  His steady regard revealed nothing. His very impassivity seemed ominous. She took a nervous breath. “You are wounded,” she said. “Where?”

  He bowed his head, his unbound hair falling forward to obscure his face.

  Of course, the gag prevented him from replying. She rose onto her knees, wrestling with the fabric where it was knotted behind his skull. Then she remembered the small knife on her chatelaine’s key ring. One slice and it was done.

  He spat the rag from his mouth. She tensed in preparation for curses or a threat.

  In silence, he lifted his hands where they were tied behind him.

  A strange laugh born of nerves bubbled in her throat. “Where are you hurt?”

  “Free my hands,” he said hoarsely.

  Such was his natural authority that she moved to obey him before realizing that caution demanded otherwise. Hesitating, she sat back on her haunches. Her palms had not been sweaty around the hilt of the gun, but now they were damp. “Would that be wise?” she asked.

  Their eyes met. His jaw hardened.

  “You fear that I will strike you?” he asked. “Do you reckon I have cause for it now?”

  That was not the reply she had hoped for. “There is never cause to strike a woman.”

  “So lofty your ideals,” he said flatly. “After a woman has held a gun on a man while delivering him to his enemies—even then, you opine that the man should scruple to use his fists?”

  The cold mockery in his voice made her chest tighten. “After she has saved the man’s life, yes, he should scruple.”

  Grim humor flitted over his mouth. “Indeed, it’s a situation meriting some confusion, I agree. No, Nora, I will not strike you. Cut me free.”

  She did not trust the casual way he used her Christian name. “Nor misuse me in any way,” she said. “Promise it.”

  His fledgling smile twisted into something blacker. “What do you imagine I will do? Ravish you in the larder? I begin to wonder why you saved me.”

  She had no good explanation for it herself. Quickly, she rose and cut free the binding. Before he could speak again, she said, “Where are you hurt?”

  “A nick,” he said tersely. “No cause for concern.”

  She felt for the wet spot on his arm. Her hand came away covered in blood.

  Swallowing, she used the erstwhile gag for a makeshift bandage, wrapping it as tightly as she dared around the thick muscle of his upper arm. Then she sat back. “Only another few hours,” she said unsteadily. He felt so warm to the touch. The sensation lingered on her palm, which she unobtrusively wiped on her skirts. “Will it keep until then? There is no water here to cleanse it—”

  “You should have let them kill me.”

  “There is gratitude!”

  His sigh bespoke impatience. “Gratitude has no place in it. I speak of strategy—and survival. There is no room for gratitude in the game you now play.”

  She stared at him. “I play no game! I was—I kept you alive to keep the peace in my brother’s absence. That’s all!”

  “Oh? And I suppose my men were lulled to sleep by your pacific lullabies, and poison had nothing to do with it.”

  “Not poison,” she said. “They will recover by mid-morning.”

  “Ah. Medicine, then? The shadows beneath their eyes gave you cause for wholesome concern?”

  She huffed out a breath. “There is no need for cheek. I don’t dispute that I drugged them.”

  He nodded once. “And so you are courting treason. Whether you do it gladly or reluctantly makes no difference.”

  He looked paler than she liked. She wondered if he was lying about his injury. She wondered why she should care. “We can argue this later. After—”

  “You drugged the king’s men so others could have free reign of your household.” His voice was hard. “Why were they here? What did they recover?”

  She looked away. Her lamp spilled a shivering pool of light across the rude wooden floorboards, illuminating a stack of waxed wheels of cheese. Beyond that small puddle, the darkness gathered thickly.

  “Weapons,” he said. “Or bullion? Tell me.”

  “Why should I tell you?” She looked back to him. “Why should I tell you anything? What are you to me, sir?”

  “Why, your greatest concern.” His eyes held hers intently, as though he looked for something in them. “Were it otherwise, you would not have stopped them from slitting my throat.”

  A flush heated her. “Do not flatter yourself I did it from tender emotion!”

  The corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile.

  “And mayhap I do regret it!”

  “Too late. You are well in it, sweetling. To wish or claim otherwise will not spare you.”

  The endearment flustered her. More sarcasm, no doubt. She looked down to her hands, twisting hard in the sullied fabric of her dark skirts. She felt exhausted and soiled, in need of scrubbing. “The servants will not be up for some hours yet. Better we pass them in silence.”

  “You know what I must do as soon as we are freed from this room.”

  “I know nothing of your intentions or what you must do—”

  “I have made them very plain to you.”

  “—and I care nothing for them, either!” She ceased to fuss with the fabric and lifted her head to glare. “If you mean to arrest me, I suppose I will regret having spared your life, but at least I will be able to hold up my head on Judgment Day, and that is a far greater concern.” Quickly, before he could reply, she added, “Besides, your death would have brought a new set of troubles onto our heads.”

  She expected a sharp retort—one she might have supplied herself: with the troubles already piled onto her, a new one would not have increased the load overmuch.

  But he held his tongue for a long moment before saying quietly, “I have caused you a great deal of trouble in this lifetime, no doubt.”

  Shock rippled through her. What a strange statement! Did he mean it as an apology, or a taunt? She could not read his expression; he sat leaning against a barrel of pickled fruit, one long leg outstretched, the other bent, his forearm draped casually across his knee.

  Surely his wound was not so grave. He looked too much at his ease to be in pain.

  A sharp ache moved through her. She supposed it was natural to care—not for the man he was now, but for the memory embodied in his flesh, for the boy she’d loved as a girl.

  And he was right: he had destroyed that girl as surely as though he’d married her to Towe himself. Nora could hardly recall her now. That girl had looked on the world as a gift and a promise. She had seen in it so many possibilities for sweetness. She had never turned to the looking glass to discover what others would make of her, or to judge what smile would best soothe them, what frown might provoke them to rage. In her reflection, she had seen only herself, her own judgments, her own hopes and grudges. It had not occurred to her that she was
only a possession waiting to be purchased.

  Marriage had taught her better. A woman was never her own.

  “How you look at me now,” he said softly. “I have seen such eyes in dark alleys, in the faces of men approaching with blades.”

  She felt dim surprise at being likened to midnight assassins. But surely he was right, and this burning in her heart was hatred.

  “You blame me,” he murmured.

  No words could have surprised her more. They caught like a hook in her chest. That he should admit to this knowledge . . . that he should sound surprised by the idea . . .

  “Yes.” The word slipped into the silence between them. It lingered like a wisp of smoke, staining the very air. Such stillness in the night—stillness all around, as though the entire universe had ceased and only the two of them remained, enclosed together in this small pool of light, guttering, soon to be swallowed by darkness.

  In this strange, hushed, intimate space, jagged thoughts suddenly found words. There was no one here for them to cut but the rightful victims.

  “I do blame you,” she said. “Whether that is just . . . I cannot say. But . . .” How much better it would have gone for her if she had never met him. Or if they had remained as they had been in childhood: distant neighbors, little better than rumors to each other. “Sometimes, I do think you ruined my life.”

  He did not react. He merely looked at her. “How biblical,” he finally said.

  The rage that washed through her then was bright and violent. “Joke if you like! It is no joke to me. You destroyed—everything.” Before she had met him, what had she cared for men? She had been wild and free, and nobody had taken note of her. But he had lured her into love, and with it the whole burdensome world of womanhood—and then abandoned her to another man’s keeping! And such a man—such a man as she would never have accepted had she had a choice in it. And she would have had a choice! Had it not been for this man in front of her, she would have been allowed to choose.

  “You lured me with false promises,” she said through her teeth. “Do you remember your pretty words? You said that one day we would dance before everyone, open and unashamed; that we would not care how loud the music was, or how many eyes were upon us; that you would be my husband, and the world would be ours. But the world was never so kind, and you never intended to marry me. You lied, and I was a fool to believe you!”

  “Do not berate yourself too bitterly,” he said softly.

  The smile that turned her mouth felt ugly and black. “True enough. I will reserve the blame for you.”

  “Your father and mine had a hand in it as well.”

  Scowling, she opened her mouth—then hesitated. What did he mean by that?

  He might have explained himself in the pause that opened. But he made no effort. He held himself motionless, still watching her, giving the impression of tranquil alertness, like a great cat poised at the mouse hole, his eyes fixed on her, ready to spring.

  She swallowed a bitter taste. If he wanted to explain, he could speak. She would not beg him for his reasons. She did not care for his excuses anyway! She knew full well what had happened; she needed no tales from him.

  “But I do blame myself,” she said. “For I was a fool for you. Even after they told me to forget you, my brother, my father—even then, I believed you would come. I thought you would find a way, no matter the cost! Was that not stupid? Was that not the height of girlish idiocy? To count on one such as you!”

  “No doubt,” he said.

  Like a slap, the words knocked the breath from her. It was a cruel, cruel reply.

  She twisted away from him, blinking back tears. She deserved his cruelty; it was a meet reward for the stupidity of having expected better from him. “I wish you to hell, Lord Rivenham.”

  “Doubtless, that will be my destination,” he said. “God has no love of fools, and I was no less one than you. I looked for the ways you spoke of. I waited for my cousins to fall asleep as I picked the lock on my chains. And, most foolish of all, I was certain that when I managed to return, you would be waiting—that you would have found the strength in you to refuse to consent to Towe for a week, a day, an hour longer.”

  She stared unseeing into the shadows, unwilling to speak until she felt certain of her voice. The breath she drew shuddered in her throat. “Foolishness, indeed—for I was, after all, only a girl. How highly you must have thought of me, to imagine I would manage to do what no woman can, when men have made her choice for her.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I thought of you very highly. So you see, we are equally fools, you and I.”

  How unfair he was! She dug her nails into her palms and told herself to be silent. Let dead things remain dead; let the past lie moldering.

  But now they had started down this road, it seemed she could not stop. The words spilled out of their own accord. “Did you imagine me a magician, then? You know how a girl is persuaded. Locked in my room, denied meat and drink—did you think I would manage to live on air for the three years it took you to return from the continent?”

  “Twenty days.”

  In the silence, the words seemed to echo. The repetitions did not draw clearer sense from them. Twenty days? “I don’t . . .”

  “It took me twenty days to find you again.”

  Twenty days . . .

  She began to quake. She would not let herself look at him. Suddenly it seemed the most dangerous thing in the world. Twenty days . . . That would have meant . . . It wasn’t possible.

  “I saw you seated by his side on the dais,” he said, his low voice like a river, smooth and cold, pushing and carrying her toward her doom. “Dressed in green, with orange blossoms in your hair. He spoke into your ear and you smiled. You spilled your cup in his lap. He did not mind it; he laughed and stroked your head, the very picture of the doting bridegroom.”

  Her insides turned to ice. A tap would shatter them. He had come back for her.

  No. No, he was lying. “Someone told you these things!”

  “Who among that crowd would have dared to speak to me?” His laughter rasped. “Your father and brother would have cut out their tongues for the offense.”

  She shook her head. He must be lying. If he wasn’t—if he had been there; if he had returned so soon—not hours after the wedding . . .

  She bit down hard on her fist. Grizel had drugged her that day as a kindness. She had drunk heavily to compound the effect. Hours had slipped by like a dream. She had never tried to remember it with any clarity. To imagine that he had been there—close enough to see her, close enough to fly to—while she had sat on the dais, slowly dying for lack of her heart . . .

  She could not bear to think that he had come back for her.

  She could not bear to look back to the past now, to think even for a moment that it might have turned out differently.

  That heartbroken girl was a stranger to her now. She would never suffer that way again.

  “It makes no difference,” she said. It made no difference whatsoever that he had come back for her. “It is all done now. All of it!”

  For a space of time he made no sound. The pounding of her heart was noise enough. She put her hand across her breast, pressing hard, digging her nails into the flesh bared by her neckline, focusing only on this pain, so simple, no riddle to it.

  And then he said, “Are you certain it is done?”

  A guttural noise broke from her. She did not understand it or herself. The lamp threw his shadow onto the wall, a rippling black monster.

  Are you certain it is done?

  She pinched out the flame.

  Blackness enveloped them. Her breath was coming faster, sharp and jagged in her throat. She felt on the edge of . . . something terrible. Something shattering. At any moment he would speak again and she would break apart.

  But he did not speak. The silence thickened. It hardened between them like a wall of stone.

  It could not stop the echo of his words.

  Are you cert
ain it is done?

  She pulled her knees to her chest and pressed her face into them. Soundlessly her tears fell while her fingertips remembered the flame, and smarted and burned.

  8

  Lord John wanted to beat the truth out of her. Adrian had foreseen as much: without a husband to protect her, with her father impeached and her brother an outlaw, she no longer counted as a lady who deserved respect and kind treatment in the face of provocation.

  And then, opium’s nasty effects did not work to sweeten the basic rottenness of the boy’s disposition.

  “An unwise strategy,” Adrian said, lounging comfortably as Lord John paced. Out the mullioned windows, the sky showed gray and sullen; when the wind shifted, rain spattered the glass.

  The boy wheeled. “But she—”

  “Will you wish,” Adrian said patiently, “to explain to his majesty how you abused a woman who made her courtesies to him at St. James’s?”

  “But she’s a poxy Jacobite! You were not here to see what she did. She lured me . . . she—she—”

  This sputtering was comical. “Bruised your pride,” Adrian said. “Not every woman swoons for a pretty pair of eyes.”

  Lord John dashed a hand over his brow. The bluish light lent his pale face the look of a corpse astonished from its grave. One might think he had never been required to master his temper. “Then what? Will you pretend it never happened? I suppose that would suit you! Otherwise you might have to explain why you absented your post!”

  Adrian lifted a brow. It was one thing to coddle this lad’s vanity out of a desire to spare himself the irritation of an extended argument. But he would not tolerate blunt challenges. “Go ahead,” he said, rising to look down on the other man. “Make your accusation plainly. I am glad to hear what’s in your brain.”

  Lord John came to a stop. “Accuse you—no.” His hand, dangling limp at his side, made a nervous twitch, as though to grip the hilt of a sword. “No, indeed not. You could not have known, of course—”

  “Better to avoid questions of what I can and cannot know,” Adrian said. “I do not believe you begin to compass my abilities.”