At Your Pleasure (8 page)

The moment the remark left her she recognized it as a mistake—a strange thing to reply to his insult.

His expression altered, becoming thoughtful. He studied her a long moment in which her face grew hot and she finally glanced away.

“Have men used you so roughly?” he asked. “Did I use you so roughly, Nora?”

She ground her teeth, her skin crawling. Why had she said such a thing? Did she wish him to
comfort
her? To assure her that he
had
listened, in those long ago days when they had spoken so freely together?

Worse yet, to know he was pondering her words, that he had given them enough thought to produce his own interpretation—this knowledge made her shudder from a strange mixture of humiliation and . . .

Pleasure.
Could
it be pleasure? God above, was she so desperate that she should be gratified for a moment of his neutral consideration?

She forced herself to speak—stiffly, hoarsely. “I will not be treated with disrespect by you. I will not allow you to—”

To treat me as you might any other woman.

Her eyes closed. There was the truth of it. When he had kissed her in years past, it had been with love. But now he turned so quickly from anger to kisses because these were simply the ways in which men handled a woman—
any
woman. Love had nothing to do with it.

Why,
why
did that wound her? What profit had she or any woman ever gained by a man’s love? Disgrace or marriage: these were the only outcomes. Neither had suited her.

Her silence discontented him. He made some noise of disgust and turned away to attend to his mount. She watched him with a misery that did not abate. His body was fashioned beautifully, tall and strong, with long legs muscled from sport. Men were not the only creatures governed by base appetites. He had reminded her so today.

If only his body had belonged to some other man—one who did not remind her, so strongly and so painfully, of all the dreams for herself that had not come true. Then she might have pondered disgrace with him. Her body could no longer betray her. Only her soul would be jeopardized by the pleasures of his embrace.

The prospect made her mouth go dry, and her misery pitch higher.

Not he. Never again.

He pivoted back and ran a disinterested glance down her body. “My mistake,” he said, as if his survey of her had convinced him of it. “I offer you my apologies, madam. It will not happen again.”

The fresh pain that lanced through her made her realize that she had been hoping for a different answer—a denial of the words she’d not even spoken aloud.

Those women in London were nothing to me,
she had wanted him to say.
You were different, Nora. You were special.

God, what a fool she was!

“Will you ride, or will you walk?” he asked.

She shook her head. “It makes no difference,” she said dully.

Adrian held the gelding to a walk as they exited the grove. Emerging from the dappled light into the blaze of the midday sun, he felt as though he were coming awake. The feeling was akin to a drinker’s regret after a night spent too deep in his cups. His head ached, and he raged at his own stupidity.

Nora—
Lady Towe—
rode pillion behind him, her shoulder nudging his spine with each stride. Her thigh pressed against his lower back, full and soft beneath her skirts.

A violent feeling leapt through him: loathing for her and for himself. There was something ridiculous and abominably comic about the bodily appetites. That this stubborn, prideful termagant could be his weakness—that her temper might spur him to passion—when he had forgotten a dozen clever-tongued beauties the morning after bedding them: was this a recipe for self-respect?

She had rejected him time and again. How many lessons would it take to educate him?

The horse loosed a snort and shook its head in protest. He relaxed his grip on the reins, fully in accord with his mount’s opinion of him.

When his majesty had put this task to him, he’d agreed at once. He knew the danger of failure, but not accepting held a greater risk.
One wonders that he scruples to hunt Jacobites,
his enemies would have whispered.
Perhaps he still harbors an affinity for popish causes.

Since his childhood he had watched his family be harassed and punished for their faith. He had been forced abroad by laws that denied English Catholics an education, and in his years of absence, a younger brother and sister had come into the world and died as strangers to him. He had missed years of his family’s lives. For a time, after his return, he had managed to accept this. Trusting to the goodness of the world like all innocent fools, he had hoped for contentment.

But then Nora’s family had done him a favor. They had shown him the cost of his naïveté. They had taught him very neatly how a Catholic, no matter his station, might be abused and discounted with no fear for repercussions.

His own father, who had seemed like a giant to him as a boy, had counseled him to flee like a mouse in the night.
You fool,
he had spat.
Think you we can afford such enemies? Know you nothing of the world? Our safety lies in keeping unto ourselves!

Adrian’s mind had changed then. He would not spend his life skulking for fear. He would not place his head in the yoke and meekly labor on, content to be abused and ignored as a popish idolater.

He would pursue power instead. He would amass enough of it to ensure that nobody ever again thought it safe to spit on the Ferrers.

The first step had been to conform to the High Church. He had waited until his father’s death to do it. His brother had reviled the decision; his mother had given him up for damned. He had held fast against tears and threats, with no moment of doubt, and he had profited by it greatly. Before her death, the queen had promised to see him made Captain of the Gentleman Pensioners—a position of no mean power, last held by the dukes of Beaufort and St. Albans.

Her death had foreclosed that future. But he was not dissuaded. Having gambled with his soul, he would not rest until he realized his ambition—and the matter of David Colville could be as helpful in that regard as dangerous. Bringing new shame upon the Colvilles would cement the friendships of those in Parliament who had brought about Lord Hexton’s downfall earlier this year. And then there was the simple fact that the Colvilles’ land adjoined his own. Any disturbance of their making would provoke and trouble his own people sorely.

What reason to scruple, then? This task recommended itself in all aspects. Even had Adrian foreseen that
she
would be here, it would have made no difference to him. He had achieved indifference to her in London. Why not here, too?

But here was where he had loved her.

Here was where she came alive.

Encountering her in the woods, Adrian had seen beneath the mask that London life had forced upon her. Flushed, breathless, her black hair coming loose of its pinnings, she had stepped from behind the tree and his breath had gone.

In that moment, she had seemed a girl again. And for a fleeting length of heartbeats, he had felt . . . alive. Vibrantly, ferociously aware.

Womanish
. She had called him womanish, and it blackly amused him to realize she was right. When he had come down from his horse, she had cringed in expectation of a blow. But striking her had never entered his mind.

Cold logic,
he reminded himself.

It faltered in her presence.

Her voice came at his ear. “I must see to the running of the household, Lord Rivenham. I cannot do so from my chambers.”

How coolly she spoke after kissing! It showed how his memories could not be trusted. He remembered soft sighs, soft lips, warm hands, laughter.

He also remembered how such interludes had ended: furtively and hastily, in fear of discovery.

He had always been only a diversion to her—a temptation and distraction from the men whose opinions mattered most, and from the role she was determined to play for them. That had been made clear enough, the day he had arrived at Hodderby to ask for her hand, and found her father and brother waiting, forewarned by her—and forearmed.

He still wondered if she had watched from a window above as David Colville had tried his hand at murder.

She spoke again. “I must—”

“One of my men will attend you in your duties,” he said. “But your days of roaming are over.”

That seemed to satisfy her, for she made no further protest. The only noises now came from the buzzing of bees and the wind whispering through the tall grasses through which they rode. A butterfly danced across their path. Above the pink sandstone face of Hodderby, the sky was so brightly blue that it seemed to ripple and shiver.

“I will consent to an escort,” she said at length—as though she had a choice in it. “But he must not interfere with my decisions regarding the management of the estate.”

A laugh slipped from him, no humor in it. “And have you thought on the cost to be exacted from your estate by the war your family is plotting?”

He felt her stiffen but she made no reply.

Her silence was its own form of rebellion. Another man
would
have struck her.

He was fit for this task, was he not? Or was he a great joke? Having abandoned his own faith, he found himself flummoxed by a woman of idiotic devotion. One might understand the appeal of such devotion—it might have proved very convenient and comfortable—if only it were to him.

But it had never been to him. She had let him walk into Hodderby with a marriage proposal, knowing that her family intended to see that he never left it alive.

Ah, well. He had loved and then detested her for the selfsame cause: the ferocity with which she did as she must for those whom she loved. Now he was going to have to break her of that trait. That was
his
duty. He should try to find pleasure in it. It wasn’t as though such wickedness would cast his immortal soul into peril: he had lost any
chance at heaven long ago. No matter God’s churchly affinity, Adrian did not imagine that He approved of apostates.

He reined up in the courtyard and turned to help her down. But she had already slipped off the saddle. As she walked away, she did not look back.

Alone in her closet, the locks turned, Nora smoothed out the letter with shaking hands. The message was brief, written by someone who had no idea that her house now hosted the king’s men: tomorrow, under cover of darkness, a party would arrive to collect the arms and weaponry David had amassed.

She had waited weeks for such news. The stores of gunpowder hidden amongst the wine were an ever-living threat to the safety of all beneath this roof. But what cursed timing! If only chance had brought them three days earlier . . .

She fed the note to the fire. It curled and blackened, filling the air with a peculiar, sweet scent that made her sick to her stomach.

She had no idea who would compose this party designing to appear. David had kept her ignorant of the names of his conspirators. But unless they retrieved her letter—and sometimes it took days for them to do so—they would enter unprepared for the welcome awaiting them. Blood would spill. They would die, and Rivenham and his friends would not require further evidence of her brother’s guilt: if caught, David would go straight to the block.

Or David’s men would prevail. Then Rivenham and his men would be the ones to die.

She sat heavily into a chair.

It should make no matter if Rivenham was killed.

But—yes, of course it should. She put her fist to her lips, pressing hard. If Rivenham died, news of his death would reach London eventually.
That
would bring more trouble. She had every reason to care about
that
.

She shut her eyes.

Adrian
.

The flesh was weak, but it was not dumb. It had its own animal intelligence. In her husband’s bed her body had felt like dead clay, but it had come back to life this morning in the apple grove.

How had she forgotten such pleasure? It invigorated the senses and enlarged the lungs. Riding through the meadow, the air had tasted richer and the brush of his worsted jacket against her bare wrist had riveted her whole awareness. Even her silent, inward turmoil had felt bittersweet to her.

She lifted her head to look into the fire.
I could seduce him,
she thought. Putting aside her own considerations, she could win him to David’s side—or, failing that, she could distract him from his aim.

She pushed to her feet and grabbed the fire irons, stirring the flames to ensure not a scrap of writing had survived. To lie with him . . .

The very thought weakened her knees.

She stared at her hand clenched so tightly around the irons. Once it had been white and unblemished. Now
her knuckles were red, her cuticles ragged, and the veins on her hand stood out prominently. She was no longer a girl. Yet her flaw remained the same.

She had always been a wanton for him.

Nothing, not her father’s rage or Adrian’s abandonment or her husband’s blame, had been able to transform her.

She cast down the irons, making an angry clatter against the stone. Why lie to herself? If bedding him benefited David, then it would be an accidental profit—and not one on which she could depend. Rivenham had not come here for her: he had made that clear enough.

O vanity! How it had once stung her. He had not abandoned his faith for her, though it had been the first objection her father had lodged against him when Nora had been forced to confess all. But he had abandoned it for his own gain. He had traded religions to please new friends.

What could she expect from such a man as that? Such a man as would abandon his church would be able to take a woman to bed at night, then rise at dawn to run her brother through.

Who could mourn such a man if he came to a bad end? Better
he
fail than others who fought for nobler ends, and for ideals loftier than mere material advancement.