As You Desire (10 page)

B
lake Ravenscroft opened the door to his suite, ushering his cousin in ahead of him. The evening had proven what Blake had suspected; Harry had embraced this alien society utterly. It didn’t matter. Blake was here for one reason: to convince Harry to sign the papers that could save Darkmoor Manor from ruin.

“Have a seat, Harry. There’s a matter I’d like to discuss with you.”

“Of course,” Harry said, sauntering into the room. Blake studied his manner. Harry’s self-confidence, at one time no more than an assumed veneer, was now real. Yet, by Harry’s own admission, he was little more than a grave robber.

The appellation repelled Blake. Harry had finally found a new way to put a blight on the family name. From his birth to the scandal that had resulted in his expulsion from Oxford, he’d been an embarrassment to the family. And now grave-robbing.

Blake forced his knotted fists to relax. Only the piquant and individualistic charm of Miss Carlisle had saved the evening from being utterly onerous.

“She’s a remarkably lovely young woman,” he mused. “Imagine anyone knowing twelve languages.”

Harry did not pretend to misunderstand. “Stay away from Desdemona, Blake. You’re simply not up to her. She’d destroy you.”

“Destroy me?” Blake asked in genuine amusement. “Well, there’s a turn. Miss Carlisle is little more than a girl. Men are generally accounted the
destroyer
, not the
destroyee.”

“Not this time.”

“That sounds possessive, Harry,” Blake said, shock awakening with recognition. Harry wanted Desdemona Carlisle. “Is there something between you and Miss Carlisle?” The idea of his flawed cousin and the bright, gifted young woman offended every sensibility. Blake did not bother to keep his distaste from his tone.

“No.” Blake detected a degree of torment in the way Harry made the denial. But more than that, sincerity. At least Harry realized that she was not for his likes.

There had always been something nearly noble in Harry’s willingness to endure pain. Blake reluctantly replayed that cursed scene from their shared youth, the scene that had hounded him for years: Harry facing his enemies with just such a look of resigned yet eager expectation. As if there were joy in being able to confront at least these enemies—even
knowing they, through sheer numbers, must win.

A wave of pity welled up in Blake and with it the attendant guilty disgust he’d always had for the man who stood before him, his head cocked as if he could read Blake’s mind. Harry was remembering that episode, too. Everything about the mocking regard with which he was watching him declared it so.

If Blake wanted Harry’s cooperation, he could begin by gaining his respect, and that purpose would be best served by making a clean breast of the past. “I shouldn’t have run.”

“Run?” Harry echoed, looking baffled.

“From the lads at Eton.”

“What?” Harry’s eyes narrowed.

Good God, Blake thought in stupefaction. Harry had
forgotten
. Forgotten the incident that had haunted Blake for nearly two decades.

How could any
normal
person have forgotten that harsh episode behind the headmaster’s house?

“That first day at Eton,” he said tersely, “when the lads first found out about your … problem, that you had no right to be there, that you couldn’t possibly compete with them—”

“—scholastically,” Harry interjected in a seemingly bland voice.

“Scholastically,” Blake allowed impatiently. “Remember how they tormented you? How one day they cornered you?”

“Oh. That. Yes,” Harry said. His brilliant eyes
held no more than mild interest, and yet Blake was suddenly certain that Harry had
not
forgotten.

“I should have stayed and helped you fight them. I didn’t. I ran. It was cowardly of me.”

Harry shrugged and sprawled down in a chair near the windows. “So? You didn’t want to get the bloody hell beaten out of you. Can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same.”

“No,” Blake said. “You wouldn’t have run. You know it and I know it. And I wouldn’t have run away either except …” He lifted his chin. Bravely. “A part of me wanted you to be thrashed.”

Harry gave only a light sigh in response.

Blake drew himself up, facing him squarely. “I thought you deserved it,” he said defiantly, “for bringing the taint of abnormality to our family name. That’s really why I ran away.”

For a few seconds, Harry gazed at him, his face unreadable. And then he dropped his head against the back of the chair, staring up at the ceiling. “Oh, bloody hell,” he finally muttered in a tired voice, “you were a boy, Blake. You were ten years old.”

“And you were eight. I’m your cousin. I should have stood by you. No matter what my private inclination, I should have been better than that. It had to be said.”

“Did it?” Harry lifted his head. “Don’t ever consider converting to Catholicism, Blake. You’d wear out the knees of untold trousers seeking absolution.”

Blake jerked, stung by the coldness of Harry’s tone more than his words.

“I certainly hope your little admission has comforted you,” Harry continued calmly. “Can’t say it’s done a whole hell of a lot for me. Sorry to inform you, old man, but I am no priest. And I don’t really give a damn for your confession.”

The blood leached from Blake’s face. He’d thought to give Harry a chance to feel superior—morally superior, if nothing else—and had assumed Harry would leap at the opportunity. It had been a hard confession to make, but no harder than the self-knowledge of his own mean-spiritedness that had plagued him through the years.

And now Harry had flung his apology back in his teeth.

Anger rode down what shame still burned in Blake’s cheeks. “Always were so damnably flip. Isn’t anything important to you?”

“Nothing,” Harry shot back, surging forward, his hands gripping the armrests. For an instant, a lightning strike of ferocity lit his eyes, but then he settled back in his chair … and yawned.

Outside a pack of dogs set up a fierce and noisome howling. Blake paced behind Harry’s chair toward the open window, his mind racing.

What bitter irony that this cavalier … 
defective
, without principles or loyalties, with no thought of anything beyond his own survival, was to inherit Blake’s home, Darkmoor Manor. How could he persuade Harry—Harry, who did not
care
—to sign the mortgage papers that Darkmoor Manor’s future depended on? And persuade him he must. The bank
had been absolutely clear on this: They would give a loan only to the designated heir.

And Harry didn’t even know he was that heir. Yet.

Blake slammed the window shut, muffling out the sound of the grim, nightly serenade.

“Why doesn’t someone just shoot the poor beasts, put them out of their misery?” he muttered.

“They’ve tried,” Harry said. “There are always others there to fill the void.”

“If that’s supposed to be some sort of—”

“Take it easy, Blake, old man. It isn’t supposed to be anything. You’ve always acted as if you were personally accountable for every twist of fate. Made you a monotonously morose childhood companion.”

“Not all of us could spend our youth risking life and limb for a few moments of excitement.”

“Well”—Harry smiled, but nothing of humor reached his cold, bright eyes—“what: else did I have to do?”

“I’m sorry, Harry.”

“Don’t be.” He leaned back, tipping the chair on its back legs and balancing there, the picture of relaxed insouciance. “Don’t ever be sorry on my account. I’m doing fine. As you can see.”

“Yes. I can.”

It was true. Harry had made a fortune in Egypt. The means were suspect, but the results could not be denied. As Darkmoor Manor’s owner, Harry would be able to make the repairs and restorations that Blake, through all his efforts, had not. On the other
hand, Harry may well let the place rot and tumble into the sea. Out of spite or revenge.

Blake clamped his jaw against the pain of such an image. Whether their grandfather ever reinstated Blake as his heir or not, right now Darkmoor Manor was in danger of falling into ruin. And only Harry could prevent it.

“How’s your family?” Harry asked. He sounded tired.

Blake occupied himself with opening a bottle of wine, carefully gauging his response. “My mother,” he said shortly, “lives in London, complaining about her lack of means. My sisters are with her, doing their best to emulate her sterling example.”

“What? In London? I’m amazed your grandfather let them go. You must have hired on new servants to act as his whipping boys.”

“He’s your grandfather, too.”

Harry grinned. “Not to hear Grandmother tell it. She always swore my mother was the product of a passionate, fleeting encounter.”

“She only said that to infuriate Grandfather.”

“Succeeded, didn’t she?” Harry actually chuckled. “Old sot never could bring himself to publicly renounce my mother for a bastard. Couldn’t have society laughing at him, could he?”

“It must have been hard on your mother. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry again, Blake? You’re in danger of being redundant. And once more, for no reason. Grandmother’s announcement regarding my mother’s sire
was, I suspect, a stroke of maternal genius. It got them both kicked out of Darkmoor Manor.”

Blake frowned. “She moved straight off to Cambridge, didn’t she?”

“Where else would a bluestocking like Grandmother have gone with a young daughter?” Harry asked. “All the scholars and dons indulged and cosseted them. Including my father. No, don’t waste your pity there, Blake. We’re a nauseatingly happy little clan. If you pity anyone, pity your father and yourself. You had to grow up in that great rubble heap under the rule of an old man as miserable and cold as the rocks of his lair.”

Blake wheeled around angrily. “Darkmoor Manor is not a lair. It’s the family manse. It has been the property of the Ravenscrofts for three hundred years.”

“About two hundred and ninety years too long, I’d guess.”

“Do you hate it so much?”

“Hate?” Harry asked, clearly surprised. “One doesn’t hate a pile of rocks, Blake. I save my stronger sentiments for the living.”

“It’s my home.” Blake’s voice rang out sharply. “Haven’t you ever wanted a real home, Harry? Not just a warehouse filled with merchandise, like that place you live in here. I mean a place among your own kind, a place you can bequeath your heirs?”

Harry was silent a moment. “Being leg-shackled to a house isn’t important to me.”

“Apparently not. But even you must understand the importance a home has to others.”

“Even
I?”
He seemed to consider the question. Then he shrugged. “No. Not really. Is there some reason I should?” A slight air of puzzlement crept into his expression.

I should tell him now, thought Blake. I should tell him that Grandfather has cut me out of the will, that he has been named heir to Darkmoor Manor, and that as such only he can sign the mortgage papers that will save my birthright. Aye, he thought frantically, and then I should tell him that as soon as he’s signed those papers, I will do everything in my power to change Grandfather’s mind and regain my inheritance, leaving him once more a man without a country or a home.

He stared at Harry’s clever, sun-bronzed face, caught the animal shrewdness in his brilliant eyes and he could not do it. He needed time. He knew nothing about Harry beyond the fact of his defectiveness, the bizarre hole in what appeared to be normal intelligence.

Harry had always been an enigma. As a child, he’d had an inexplicable ability to find humor when he, above all others, had had no reason to laugh. It was a quality that had ultimately overshadowed his handicap, gaining him a few loyal friends at Eton. And then there’d been Harry’s fierce determination to achieve goals he could never conceivably reach. Blake had found it offensive and pathetic; others had applauded it.

But if Harry had been a mystery to Blake as a boy, the last decade had made him even more so. He didn’t know what the last ten years in this primitive
land had rendered Harry capable of. Blake needed a few more days to try to gauge what Harry would do. A few more days before he told Harry that everything he valued in the world lay within Harry’s power to save … or destroy.

“No,” he finally said, handing Harry his glass of wine. “There is no reason at all.”

T
he mantel clock struck six
A.M.
as Desdemona looked up from the account book. In order to balance the household finances, the numbers in the right column of the ledger needed to outweigh the figures in the left. It was a close contest, but this month the income column lost. How was she ever to find enough money to repay her grandfather’s outstanding debts in London when she couldn’t even come up with the fourteen pounds necessary to make this month’s ends meet?

Something would have to be done. But then, there was always
something
that could be done. And she was the one who invariably did it. She bent over a sheet of paper and began writing.