Perilous Pleasures (8 page)

She shrugged her shoulders. “It seems like an error to think you'd become more powerful by turning away from love.”

“It isn't love I turn away from, but lust.”

“Of course,” she said coolly, raising one fine, dark eyebrow. “Still, I shall take some comfort in the thought that plain as I am, I can at least inspire lust. It's better than nothing.”

But it wasn't just lust she inspired in him. He remembered how he'd felt as she'd caressed him. She'd taught him what else a touch could carry besides lust and made him, for the first time he could remember, long to end his solitude. She was right. His chastity wasn't just about denying the needs of the body. He'd denied other, more subtle needs, and, damn her, she'd made him feel them, too.

Pulling herself erect she raised her chin, and, proud as a duchess, said, “You needn't fear, Lord Ramsay. I won't threaten your precious virginity again.”

He sputtered. “I'm hardly a virgin. I'd become a man before I put myself under the Dark Lord's tutelage.”

“Whatever the case, it's of no importance to me. Your sanctity is safe.”

She turned away, though before her face was out of view, Adam could have sworn he saw a wicked smile flit across her features.

T
hey stopped at noon to change horses at a coaching inn situated in a small village that stood at a lonely crossroads on the moor. It was a poor place with a tumbledown air. Still, Zoe was grateful for the chance to get out of the cramped chaise and stretch her legs. Her ankle, though still swollen, was not as painful as it had been when she had awakened, which encouraged her to believe that Ramsay was correct that she hadn't broken the bone. But the wound in her thigh was still throbbing.

She hadn't had a chance yet to examine how it had been dressed. So after a post boy lent her his shoulder to help her hobble into the inn, she called a maid over and had her lead her to a private chamber where Zoe could attend to her needs. A few moments later the maid brought her a basin and some rough cloths, telling her to ring the bell by the door if she needed further assistance.

Drawing up her skirts and shift, Zoe examined the rough bandage that was wrapped around her upper thigh. It appeared to have been made from some old checkered material, torn and none too clean. Carefully, she unwrapped it to reveal an ugly clotted mess where the large splinter from the rotted gate had torn into her flesh. She dabbed at the ridged scab gingerly with a rag the maid had brought her, wiping away the worst of the dirt.

When she was done, the wound looked better, though it was still quite ugly. The redness that surrounded it made her uneasy. She'd tended enough wounds among the girls at the school to know it wasn't healing as fast as she might wish. Still, Lord Ramsay was a trained physician and he must have examined it when he'd tended to her after the accident. Since he'd expressed no fears that it might turn septic, she must trust that it was on the mend, though for now the nagging pain was quite unpleasant.

She certainly wasn't about to trouble Lord Ramsay with it, not after their latest discussion. She could only imagine his reaction if she were to test his chastity further by demanding he examine her naked thigh.

She'd just decided to ask the maid for a bit of whiskey with which to cleanse her wound further when she heard a sharp cry coming from outside. She dropped her skirt and turned toward the window where she saw a woman dressed in the hooded red cloak of a cottar's wife running toward the inn, wailing and stumbling in her haste.

“Ashford's bull. It's gored our Neddy. My sister's boy!” The woman's hair had fallen out of her cap and her eyes were maddened with fear. “He was a-teasing it in the pasture—heaving rocks at it—and it got loose.”

As Zoe hobbled toward the inn's front door she almost collided with Ramsay, who'd sped from his chamber at the woman's cry. He muscled through the crowd that was assembling around the woman on the muddy street, calling out, “How badly is he hurt?”

At first his question elicited only a flood of tears. With a look of annoyance, he strode over to the cottar's wife and commanded, “Save your tears for later. What kind of shape is he in?”

The woman regarded him with a look of fear, but his imperious tone had had the effect he'd intended. Between sobs she gasped out that the bull had gored the child in the belly.

“Is he alive?”

The woman nodded, “Aye, they took him to his mother's cottage. But he's in such agony. His guts is all torn out.” A flood of tears drowned out the rest of what she had to say.

He cut her short. “Has someone called the surgeon?”

The woman's expression grew desperate. “T'aint no surgeon to be found here. Only old Landis, what sees to the cattle. And he's off to the market today. Oh, the poor boy!” Her voice rose in a wail.

“I've some skill at surgery,” Ramsay said. “Take me to him.”

The woman examined his greatcoat and well-made boots with suspicion. Clearly he bore no resemblance to any medical man of her acquaintance, “We can pay but a shilling,” she whispered. “We bain't not rich folk. But if you can save my sister's boy—”

“I need no payment.” He released her shoulder. Brusquely he said, “Wait here while I fetch my things.” He turned back toward the inn.

Brushing past Zoe, who stood transfixed at the doorway, he said, “It sounds like a severe injury.” He pinned her with his steely gaze. “I've no choice but to leave you alone while I see to the child. Remain here. Don't run from me again.”

“And if I do?”

He sighed. “The boy may be dying while we stand here squabbling.” His long ascetic face had gone pale, making the eyes seem brighter. Then, before she could react, he leaned over and brushed her forehead with his lips, resting them against her skin lightly and letting them linger.

The skin burned where he'd touched her. Was he truly a wizard? The touch of his lips, even so chaste a touch as this, seemed to have torn away her ability to defy him. He needn't worry that she might run away, when his kiss made her long for him to enfold her in his arms, though she knew that it was his devotion to his calling that shone in his face, not any love for her.

She fell back from him with a soft gasp. “I'll wait for you here,” she murmured. “I hope you can save him.”

“I hope so, too.” His eyes met hers for another moment and filled her again with that mixture of joy and anguish that only he could provoke. Then he whipped around to rejoin the boy's aunt, who stood wringing her hands in the middle of the street. Her last view as he vanished around a corner was of him striding alongside the cottar's wife, his long legs taking one step for every two of hers.

I
t was late that afternoon when he came back. Zoe was seated by the window watching for him, when she saw him walking back toward the inn, alone. One look told her that it had not gone well. He walked slowly with his broad shoulders slumped. His hands were covered with dirt almost to the wrist, and the cuffs of his homespun shirt were streaked and stained with the same substance.

She stood to greet him, but he brushed past her without a word, stopping only to hail a waiter and command him to bring a basin of water. When it arrived, he began scrubbing his hands, over and over again, for a good ten minutes, until she began to wonder if he would ever stop. It was only when she saw the water in the basin turn a darkish red that she realized what was on his hands. Blood. The boy's blood.

“Were you able to help him?”

“No.” His tone was bleak. “He's dead. I didn't have the power to heal him. He was eleven. His mother's only son.”

His eyes met hers just long enough for the look in them to tear at her heart.

They were interrupted by the hostler. “Goody Mosely wishes a word with you, Your Lordship.”

“Goody Mosely?”

“The boy's mother.”

“Send her away. She can have no further need of me.”

But before the hostler could bar her, the woman pushed past him and ran to Lord Ramsay. She looked much like her sister, save for the look of dull despair in her reddened eyes. When she neared him, she held out a shilling piece toward him as if offering food to a wild animal.

“Keep it,” he snapped. “I didn't earn it.” He turned to escape the woman but at the last moment he stopped and after digging into his pocket pulled out his own purse. He fumbled with it and pulled out a fistful of sovereigns. “Here,” he said gruffly. “To pay for his funeral.”

The woman examined the gold pieces, looking stunned, and then scrutinized his face as if searching for signs of madness. Finding none, she stuffed them into her pocket and fled.

His curtness to the grieving woman shocked Zoe. Must the Dark Lord's heir be a stranger to all human emotion? And yet, gruff though he'd been, he'd also been so generous.

When he'd dried his hands, Ramsay tore off his filthy shirt, and donned one a servant had brought him. Then, without another word, he strode out of the inn.

He'd left her alone—again. And this time he hadn't made her promise she would wait for him. Surely, it was time to make her escape. There was no reason to stay with him any longer. She'd be mad to wait meekly for his return. He was almost certain to blame her for his failure to save the boy. He'd already told her she'd weakened his magical powers by assaulting his chastity. When he came back, he would rage at her or devise some terrifying punishment.

But she couldn't abandon him now, fool that she was. She'd seen anguish in his eyes when he'd washed the boy's blood from his hands. He'd wanted to save that stranger's child so badly.

The world was very wrong to think she'd been granted good sense in the place of good looks. A sensible woman would have already left Lord Ramsay without a backward glance. But she couldn't find it in herself to do it.

She settled herself in a chair in the parlor to wait for him, but, as the minutes turned into hours, and he didn't return she began to worry. Had he changed his mind after all, and gone on alone with his journey, abandoning her here to keep himself safe from the assault of her dubious charms? But no, a quick check reassured her that their post chaise still stood in the courtyard.

So he must still be somewhere in the area, avoiding her as he dealt, alone, with his pain. But try though she might, she couldn't free herself from the feeling that she must find him, that some catastrophe threatened the two of them, which made it essential that she not abandon him. She sensed him out there, desperate and bereft—and calling to her for help.

It could only be wishful thinking. She must be the last person on earth he'd want now. And yet, like a sleepwalker, she saw herself get up and fetch her bonnet. Then, ignoring the pain in her thigh and her lame ankle, she set forth into the twilight to look for him.

I
t took a while to find him, but as she approached a tumbledown cottage a good half hour later, Zoe sensed Ramsay was nearby, though peer as she might through the fading light, she could see no trace of him. It was only as she came around a curve in the road by an old stone byre that she saw the flash of something golden glittering in the wan northern light. She hastened toward it. And then she saw him.

He was sitting by the byre, huddled into a ball, with his knees drawn up to his chest. He looked like a small boy, despite his height, and was holding his bronze knife before him, staring at it as if it alone could save him.

She'd never before seen him with any look on his face but anger or disdain, or, at best, a mild, distant amusement. But the man before her was not the man she'd known until now. The pain on his face was so strong that, without thinking, she walked over and gently put her arm around his shoulders, as she would have done had he been one of her pupils at school who'd just received some dreadful news from home.

He twisted out of her grasp, his face livid. “Don't touch me! Haven't you done enough damage to me already? I couldn't do anything for the boy but watch him die. His guts were spilling out and I couldn't even still his pain.”

“If it was like that, then no one could have saved him.”

He turned his tortured face to her. “The Dark Lord could. I saw with my own eyes how he breathed the life back into the body of a drowned child. And I might have saved this boy, too, if I hadn't betrayed what he taught me. But I squandered my strength, and when it was needed, I failed. I'm cursed, Zoe. I was a fool to think I could ever become like him.”

He looked as if he might give way to tears, and again she felt the irrational need to enfold him in her arms. But she made herself resist the impulse, knowing how much he feared her touch.

She took a step back. “Don't send me away. Truly, I only meant to comfort you.”

“I don't deserve comfort,” he said bitterly. “I know what I must do to justify my life, but I can't do it. There's no reason why I should keep on living.”

“Do you really think you're worthless because you couldn't save a dying boy?”

He nodded, his face a mask of misery.

“Then I, too, must be worthless.” she said softly. “For I've never saved anyone from dying and likely never will. Indeed, I've never done more than wash off a child's cut. Does that make me worthy of contempt?”

“It's different for you. You're a woman.”

“Why should that matter?”

“Because it isn't a woman's role to protect others. It's a woman's role to be protected.”

“If I'd looked to anyone for protection, I shouldn't have survived my childhood. You've seen how well
I've
been protected.”

That got to him. He looked up, his long russet hair framing his beautiful eyes.

“But of course,” she continued, “you've made it very clear you don't think of me as a woman.”

“I think of you as a woman all the time.” His upper lip quirked into a bitter half-smile. “But I mustn't let myself respond.” The bronze knife twisted in his hand. The golden metal seemed almost alive.