At Your Pleasure (15 page)

But she had no strength to revile it, either. Slowly, so as not to dislodge his mouth, she set her forehead to his shoulder. The darkness there was softer.

His lips slipped up to her temple. “Don’t cry,” he said, barely more than a breath. “As you said: what is done is done.”

She drew a shaking breath. “It is not done.” Else, why did the feeling of his lips call out her soul? He was
a brute, a hell-bound villain, but his kiss . . . It felt like nothing so much as a benediction.

He misunderstood her words. “Simply answer my questions and it will be done.” His voice was low now, his breath warm on her ear as she leaned against him, her forehead on his shoulder. “Then you will sleep as long as you like.”

She took a deep breath. He did not smell like brimstone but like a man, flesh and blood. His shoulder was solid, strapped with muscle. A woman might depend on it for support.

He had not always been a villain.

He had come back for her.

The revelation grew stranger the longer she dwelled on it. This cold man had risked everything for her, once.
This
man, whom every woman in London admired; she had seen how they fawned on him. Men feared him, if they were wise. She should fear him. She had feared him minutes ago.

His palm settled between her shoulder blades, a warm and steady pressure, as though to hold her in place. But then his fingertips trailed down her spine, patient and slow, reaching the small of her back, returning again. They hesitated, then repeated their journey.

They opened on her waist and grasped her lightly, as though she were precious.

“Make me speak.” The words slipped from her in a whisper. If only he could make her. “I will not betray him otherwise.” And if she did not betray him . . . she must lift her head and move away, for this man could not be hers.

He made some adjustment that brought their torsos together, then put her face into the cradle where his throat met his shoulder. His head bowed, and she felt the soft brush of his hair over her cheek. “Even though he betrays you? To put you in this position showed no love or care for you. No man who loved you would risk you so.”

There were different kinds of love, then. The one on which David depended was forged of duty and blood. He counted on her as he might count on his own limbs to perform his bidding. “He needs me.” She herself had needed David in the past, and he had not failed her then.

“Think, for once, of yourself.”

She could feel the vibrations of his voice through his flesh. She closed her eyes, and—ah, dear God, he did not shake her. It felt blissful to lie against him. The darkness behind her lids swirled in dizzying circles.

Perhaps they were always meant to meet in darkness. Mayhap it was only daylight, and the world’s watching eyes, that conspired against them.

His arms closed around her—he was lifting her, pulling her into his lap. This felt now like a dream, and she submitted peacefully as his hand around her ankles lifted her feet onto his long thighs. He sat cross-legged, cradling her as though he still loved her.

Sanity still lurked somewhere within. It kicked hard against her complacence. She could not trust him.

“You mean to kill my brother.” She must remind herself of this, cling to
this
truth rather than to him.

“No,” he said.

How simple the denial. She might have accepted it
and let him hold her like this until he tired of it. But she had promises to keep. She had a duty. “You will take him to London,” she said into the hot skin of his throat. “Can you guarantee his safety there?”

His answer did not come immediately. “I mean to prevent a war, Nora.”

“Noble,” she said. “But not if the cost is David’s life.”

His grip tightened on her back. “Know you how many lives would be spared by averting this war your brother foments? My own people—so many of them lured by false promises and predictions—they are in no danger from their government; but if they believe they are to be killed for their religion, why shouldn’t they take up arms? And then the lies spread by your brother and his allies
will
lead them to their deaths, as surely as though those lies had been the truth.”

She did not know . . . She could barely think . . . She could not parse for herself the truth of what he said. It was true that David was counting on Adrian’s tenants to aid in the cause . . . So many of them were Catholic; why should they not wish to fight for a Catholic king? But to call these lies . . . They were not lies . . .

She forced herself to open her eyes, to pull away a little so she could look into Adrian’s face. How beautiful he was, his sharp features shadowed in the light of the lamp behind them. Her hand rose of its own accord to smooth his brow, the hollow of his cheek. Stubble abraded her fingertips. His beard had not been so thick when he was young. His shoulders had not been so broad. He felt like a man now, grown, strong.

She felt the warmth of his exhalation. “You could not sit in Parliament,” she murmured. His bottom lip was full, the edge perfectly delineated, easy to trace with her thumb; it was so much softer than it looked. The deep hollow beneath it called up a strange tenderness within her. “You could not vote, nor go to London without a ticket of permission, when you kept your old faith. Those are not lies.”

“No.” His voice sounded ragged now. “They weren’t.”

She glanced to his eyes and found herself snared in an intense, unwavering look. “Then why . . .” She took a long breath, struggling to think clearly. A possibility occurred to her, wild, the stuff of dreams: imagine if she could win him to their side. Then he would no longer be her enemy. Then they could be friends, and he could hold her like this without causing her to feel like a traitor to her own blood . . . “Why should you do the German king’s bidding?”

His hand closed over her own, holding it to his cheek, his grip intent. “Because he will remain the king. Because your brother’s cause is no wiser than a drunkard’s midnight gamble. The war he plots will be short and bloody—and he will lose, along with every Catholic in this land, no matter whether they take up arms or no.”

“But James Stuart is our rightful king—a direct heir of Stuart blood. Surely you, of all people, cannot resent him for his religion!”

A low noise of scorn came from him. “What difference does it make to me who deserves the throne? I save my cares for matters that touch me directly. Think you
I abandoned my faith for some true revelation of God? No. I do what I must to protect me and mine. But your brother does not.” His hand tightened over hers, as hard as his words. “He is a boy in a man’s body,” he bit out, “who chooses to squander on foolish dreams not only himself but also those whom he owes his protection. I am cut of a different cloth, Nora. I deal in
reality
. This country will not stand for a Catholic ruler; it will destroy any who seek otherwise. But me and mine will not be among them.”

In the silence she could hear her own heartbeat. He did not look away from her, his regard fierce.

“You cast yourself as a man without morals,” she whispered.

“My morals are in service to my purpose. I will keep safe what is mine. Now
tell me what those men were after
.”

Some part of her felt the sting of his words, and recoiled at his return to interrogation. But the greater part of her attention reeled from a different cause: the ferocious conviction with which he spoke, and the strange, irresistible pull of his philosophy.

I will keep safe what is mine.

It spoke to the deepest part of her, that dark, tangled place that fretted incessantly over her own powerlessness; that craved so desperately to protect this place, and her brother, despite the fact that David’s own actions made these aims impossible.

Her eyes focused on the sight of his hand over hers, large, powerful. She felt the calluses where his palm pressed against her knuckles. He was a swordsman. He
had soldiered on the Continent for her majesty; he had played the diplomat between Queen Anne and George of Hanover. The strength in his body was but a reflection of the strength he exercised at court. He had loved her with this body that enfolded hers now. They tried to be strangers to each other, but they were not.

Once, long ago, he had come back for her. He had tried to protect her, for she had been his then.

“I was carrying your child,” she said.

His grip seized.

For several long heartbeats he stared at her; she looked back at him, astonished by her own words. Could such a secret, guarded for so long, held as carefully as a wicked splinter of sharp-edged glass, be tossed free so suddenly?

The next words came just as unbidden: “I did not betray you. I told them nothing of the babe, either.” She swallowed. “How could I? I was so ignorant—I did not recognize the signs. My tirewoman saw them. She realized I was with child. She spoke to my sister, God rest her soul, who went to my lord father. I never told your name, but they found the telescope you gave me . . .”

His grip was painful now. “The child . . .”

“Lost before my belly even embiggened. He forced . . .” She took a sharp breath. “Some posset. I don’t know what was in it. It made me . . . ill.”

“Your father,” he said.

“No. Lord Towe.”

“He
knew
?”

“Oh, yes.” Her laugh felt jagged in her throat. It sounded strange to her, too . . . fraught. This was old
news. It should not give her fresh pain. But she had learned recently how old news might set a person on her head. And to share this with him . . . after so many years of secrecy . . .

She must be mad; lack of sleep had sickened her brain. His eyes seemed to fill her vision, his gold-tipped lashes unnaturally distinct, his attention riveted to her in a way that shut out all the world. He had come back for her. For that one boon, for that act of courage, he deserved now to know everything. “My lord father said—he said I would not wed you; and then, when I refused to bend to him, he said you refused to wed me, that you had mocked his proposal, for I was not a Catholic, and had proved myself a jade and a slut, no fit wife in your eyes.”

“That is a
lie
.”

“I knew it,” she said. “Can you imagine I believed it? Never. I heard rumor of how they beat you in the courtyard, though nobody allowed me to see it. But then they said you had left the country—they produced your own brother to swear to it.” Her voice broke; she closed her eyes. “I was carrying your
child
, Adrian. They called me a disgrace. They starved me and the babe inside me. For the child’s sake, what was I to do?
You had left me.
Towe seemed my only choice.”

The memory of that time lived in her flesh. It overwhelmed her now, dark and suffocating, like the locks of her hair, fallen free of her pins, that snaked around her face and throat. She shoved them away, heedless of snarls, glad for the pain they caused as she ripped through them with her fingers.

But it was not enough. Her throat felt too tight. She needed air and liberty. She pulled free of Adrian’s grip and scrambled off his lap to the floor.

He made no move to stop her. He appeared frozen. Only his eyes followed her as she moved.

The stone floor was cold and smooth. She flattened her palm against it, grateful for the chill. The roiling in her stomach demanded shallow, careful breaths.

Say it. Tell it all.

She curled her fingers into a hard, aching fist and made herself look at him. His pulse beat visibly in his throat. Tendons stood out on the back of his broad hand where it braced against the floor to support his weight.

“I did not know,” she said. “That they had told all to Towe—or the agreement they had struck. I knew naught of it. In our bridal chamber, that first night, after he . . . had his way with me, he called for libations. I was already . . . not myself. Drunk, drugged, what have you. I took the posset he gave me.” Some vicious thing uncoiled in her and made her eyes sting. “It had good effect. I never conceived again.”

“God.” The word slipped from him softly. When he ran his hand over his mouth, it appeared to tremble. “My God, Leonora.”

“I do not think He concerns Himself overmuch with such matters. He saves His attentions for judging us in the hereafter. In this world, we must fend for ourselves.”

He blinked, as though blinded. “And you . . .” He took an audible breath, then exhaled slowly. “And you wish,” he said, “for me to spare your brother.”

She leaned forward. “Adrian, he was the
only one
to show me kindness.”
He
had slipped her bread and water. He had brought Grizel to tend to her in place of the tirewoman who had betrayed her so cruelly. He had braved their father’s wrath to offer her solace when no one else would.

He had blamed himself for bringing Adrian into the household in the first place.

“David was all I had,” she whispered. “The only one who helped me.”

Some complex struggle was working across Adrian’s face. “You should have told me.”

She sighed. “To what purpose? I was married when next we met. How would it have profited either of us?”

His bleak expression admitted that he could make no reply. Fate had trapped them both very neatly.

“Besides,” she said more gently, “my husband might have made trouble for you. Marriage to me enriched him greatly—by some six thousand pounds, I believe. But his pride could not have borne it if he thought you understood the arrangement he had struck with my father. He preferred you to believe him an ignorant gull than the willing husband of a slut.”

He leaned forward so suddenly that she shrank. “Do not wrong yourself so.”

“It is only a word,” she whispered. “Of all people, you know best if its meaning is meet in my regard.”

He seemed to have no answer to that. He searched her face as though desperately trying to place who she was.

She wondered if that had been her unconscious intention.
Their roles in this room had been so much clearer some minutes ago.

Perhaps it was safer to remain at this distance, and return to those roles.