My Pleasure (4 page)

She fascinated him. So cool. So calm and quiet and yet…How many times had he seen the volcanic flash in her blue eyes and wondered what had given birth to that passionate heat? Or perhaps only his imagination provided the secret fire beneath her icy façade. The enigma had kept his interest alive and growing ever more intent.

Though he had warded her for years, he had rarely allowed himself close enough to hear her voice. And now he’d actually spoken with her. And kissed her. And the fire he had so often wondered about had proved to be real.

Too real.

He watched her as she threaded her way through the throng, the abrupt turn of her head revealing her quick scrutiny of the crowd. The rose in her hand bobbed as she turned, stopped, and started again.

“Who sent you that rose, lass?” he murmured. “Who could draw you out of that witch’s tower to a dark forest like this?”

She’d said she’d come here for an “adventure.” Had she? His gaze hardened.

Of all the people he might have expected to see on the infamous Lovers Walk, she would have been the last. Certainly not dressed as a boy. Definitely not alone. She should have been safely locked in whatever garret room Lady Tilpot kept for dependents of indeterminate social standing, not sauntering heedlessly into a pack of drunk youngsters hell-bent on proving their manhood.

He was glad he’d been there, having earlier completed a transaction that had put into his pocket five hundred pounds toward his entry fee in the International Dueling Tournament—the means of securing a future far less uncertain than his current one, which relied solely on teaching overindulged peers his skills with a sword. As he’d been leaving, he’d chanced upon the young Turks and, seeing an opportunity to gather a few more high-paying clients to his salle, set about piquing their interest. Then…her.

She turned, her smooth brow furrowing, and he melted back into the dark press of trees. The wind whispered like a ravished lover, and the babble of merrymakers seemed overly excited. Of course his presence in such a place hadn’t surprised her—he’d strove to achieve a certain notoriety in the last years—but his kiss had.

Had anything ever tasted more provocative? Had his body ever quickened so immediately, so overwhelmingly? And all for a kiss that did nothing to appease the hunger it inspired. It left him rampant and wanting.

She had felt it, too. He had known the moment the inferno burning him up from the inside had set fire to her own desire.

So why did he reject the notion that she wanted an adventure? After all, she was five and twenty years old. Why should he find objectionable the idea of her seeking the means of placating the same tormenting urges that raked his body? Because that was not the Helena Nash he had spent hours guarding and studying and learning with an intimacy few lovers knew.

Yet he conceded there was much he did not know. For instance, while he had expected her to be mature and composed, he had not anticipated laughter. He had not anticipated she would trade sallies with him, challenge him and tease him, that she would abandon the diffidence that women in her situation practiced, women who made their way by guarding their tongues and their thoughts.

He did not know Helena Nash nearly as well as he’d assumed he must after years of watching her, and that notion intrigued as well as unsettled him.

Ahead, Helena slowed and finally stopped, looking once more around her. She had not found whoever had sent her that rose. That rose. He shrugged off the niggling sense of unease its presence caused. The significance roses held for him, he knew all too well, was quite different from that which they inspired in most romantics’ hearts.

Helena headed out the nearest gate.

He exited a dozen yards behind her and slipped between two hacks as she approached the head of the line of waiting carriages. The driver scrambled down out of his seat and assisted her into the vehicle before climbing back up top. Waiting to see if anyone joined her, Ramsey pulled off the domino and tossed it to a young street sweeper leaning on his broom who would sell it the next masquerade evening for twice what he made for one night’s work. Whomever Helena had intended to meet, and for whatever reasons, had disappointed her. The man must be a great bloody fool.

The hack lurched out into the traffic as Ram watched it go. “You’re a long way from home, lass,” he murmured thoughtfully before turning and heading for the river bridge. “But then, aren’t we all?”

Manchester, England

October 1787

The stooped custodian led Ramsey Munro down the narrow, dimly lit corridor of the Manchester Poor House, ripe with the stench of urine and sweat, to the small chamber at the far end that served as a receiving room for the indigent boys. It was here he had been brought two weeks before, after the constable had found him howling beside his mother’s corpse, which was crushed beneath a crate that had plunged from a third-story warehouse block and tackle.

The warden stopped outside the door and eyed Ramsey pityingly. “Better to go with this mon what come fer ye and flee later, on the road. Away from the city. Yer too pretty by half to last long in here. I’m surprised ye’ve lasted this long, but then, being put in the cell fer two days out of every three for fighting don’t leave much opportunity for the other lads to do mischief on ye, do it?”

Ramsey didn’t bother answering. His mouth, both lips split from his latest battle, still hurt, and he felt weak and light-headed. The worst part of being put in the cell wasn’t the total isolation but being forced to subsist on the mealworm-riddled bread and water that provided the only nourishment during his incarceration. Still, the custodian’s advice was good. It would only be a matter of time before a few of the larger boys joined forces to overtake him.

The custodian eyed him once again and shrugged, pulling open the door and pushing him through. He blinked in the sudden light. He’d been in the isolation cell for two days this time, and it was kept purposefully dark.

“My heavens, child, what have they done to you?” The voice was Scottish, thick with a Highland burr. The unexpected accent nearly brought tears to Ramsey’s eyes. But he was nine years old, not a child, and the last time he had cried had been at his mother’s side, and he could think of no reason that he would be brought to tears again. He was done, he thought fiercely, with tears.

“Nothing, sir,” he managed to mumble through his swollen lips, squinting up at the tall figure dressed in a monk’s robes. The man stood a little above medium height but was so thin he appeared taller. His thick hair had the sheen of pewter, and time had carved lines on either side of a wide mouth and hawk-like nose. But his eyes were gentle and clear, and Ramsey had the distinct impression that those eyes missed little of what was worth seeing.

“I am Father Tarkin, the abbot of St. Bride’s, and I have come to take you there. To take you home.”

The word brought a sudden rush of longing, but Ram quelled it. “I have no home, sir. Certainly I have never been to a place called St. Bride’s. You mistake me for another.”

“I do not mistake you. You are Cora Munro’s son.”

At the sound of his mother’s name, Ramsey’s interest sharpened. “How do you know my mother?”

“Her family was once one of the greatest of the highland clans, and she a chieftain’s great-granddaughter. And I am a Highlander second only to being a priest. Of course I knew her. Eyes like mountain lakes and pride that only a warrior’s seed could produce. I came here, to England, as soon as I received her letter. I am only sorry I came too late to take you both out of here, and sorry too that once I learned of her death it took me this long to find you.”

Ramsey stared at him, amazed at what he was hearing. Uncertainly he raked his hand over his scalp and was reminded again of his present straits by the short nap of hair left after the poorhouse barber had finished shaving his head.

“My mother sent for you to come for us?” he asked incredulously. He had known she was growing daily more desperate, but…

“She sent word that she was in difficulty and asked whether I knew of someone in this city that could give her aid. I came of my own volition. And now I would like to take you back to St. Bride’s.”

“Why?”

The abbot smiled for the first time, and his eyes lit. “How like a Munro to ask what is on the menu despite the fact that he is starving. Suffice to say that there is an old Jesuit dictum that says, ‘Give Me the Child Until He Is Seven and I Will Show You the Man.’ I know you are older than that, but I still hold out great hopes for your future. Now, will you come with me?”

“What will I do at your abbey?” Ram asked, knowing he appeared churlish but unable to bend the spine he knew he’d inherited from his father.

“Work at acquiring the knowledge and skills we will teach you. There are other boys at St. Bride’s. Anywhere from a dozen to twenty at a given time, and they all work very hard. I don’t suppose that has ever been required of you, being the grandson of an English marquis—even if not a legitimate one.”

Ramsey felt his cheeks grow warm. The abbot’s comment hit directly on target. Until his father’s death in a duel defending Ramsey’s mother’s honor, they had lived a life of splendor. Though not legally wed in the eyes of England, in every important way his parents had been married, and when Ramsey’s father had come into an immense jointure on his maternal side, he had bought a great house in Scotland and provided his family with every luxury and advantage money could buy.

Ramsey had been given fencing lessons, equestrian lessons, tutors in classics, and instruction in decorum. But with his father’s death it had all ended. His mother and he had been sent from the only home he had known like servants dismissed at their master’s death—with naught but a few personal possessions and nowhere to go.

“Do you think you are capable of hard physical labor as well as intellectual work?”

He held the abbot’s gaze. “Aye.”

The abbot smiled, apparently satisfied. “Good. Then we are agreed. You will come with me forthwith.”

“On one condition.”

The abbot, in the process of turning away, spun back in surprise. “You are dictating terms now?”

Ramsey could not tell if the monk was amused or angry, but there was a hint of steel in those soft, pale eyes. Ramsey gulped, nodding once, well aware of his hubris but not willing to yield. “I do not want anyone to know my…who my grandfather is or who my father was or my mother.”

The abbot’s brow furrowed and the silvery shelf of his brows dipped. “But why, my boy? You have a long and proud heritage on your mother’s side and a venerable one on your father’s.”

“The clans are dead and gone,” Ram said tightly. “As are my parents. My grandfather would not raise a hand to aid my mother when she petitioned him for help. I am nothing to him and he is nothing to me. I am Ramsey Munro, and that is all I will ever aspire to be. Promise me.”

The abbot studied him a long moment before nodding slowly. “All right, Ramsey Munro. It shall be as you wish.”

FOIBLE:

the outer third of the blade; the tip end, which is the weakest section

PHYSICAL DESIRE? Wasn’t that just another name for lust?

Though Helena arrived at the Tilpot townhouse after dark, she felt relatively safe from discovery. It was Lady Tilpot’s whist night, and her employer would be out well past midnight. Slowly, Helena climbed the three flights of backstairs that led to her room.

Her response to the night’s events was unseemly, but not incomprehensible. Even when she had been the privileged daughter of a well-to-do gentleman, she had been uneasy about the celebrity her looks had occasioned. Since her father’s death, she had had to be vigilant in guarding herself against improper advances that, as one accounted as beautiful as she was poor, had been a nigh daily occurrence before she’d found her current situation with Lady Tilpot.

It was only because Munro’s kiss, his attention, his virility had been so unexpected that she had been so affected. And she was wise enough to realize that the entire unanticipated episode had been flavored with forbidden pleasure. Yes, her current state was understandable. What wasn’t so understandable was why the memory of his kiss wasn’t fading. It was over! Done!

She reached the top of the stairs eager for solitude in which to sort things through. Unfortunately, Flora, yellow curls abob and hands wringing piteously, was waiting for her at the door to her chambers. With a feeling of resignation, Helena reached past the girl and opened the door, motioning her in. ’Twas probably just as well, anyway, not to dwell on the carnal details of the evening’s excursion. She already had enough here to fully occupy her attention.

“Did you see him?” Flora asked eagerly once inside.

“No. Mr. Goodwin never arrived,” Helena said, frowning slightly. After he’d sent the rose, something must have occurred that prevented him from meeting her. She tossed the wilted bloom atop the washstand and pulled off the boy’s cap. Her pale, flaxen hair, no longer confined, cascaded down her back.

“Oh.” A world of disappointment invested the short word. “Then he was detained and will be there next week.”

Helena stripped off her cravat and coat, shedding the antique outfit that had belonged to some Tilpot retainer in an earlier century, and returned it to the bottom of her chest of clothes. Then she pulled on her wool dressing robe, tied the belt tightly, and steeled herself for what needed to be said next.

“I am sorry, Flora,” she said without turning around, so she would not need to witness the effect of her words, “but I can no longer act as courier between you and Mr. Goodwin.”

One, one thousand, two, one thousand…Right on cue, she heard Flora crumple to the floor. With a sigh, she turned, regarding the young girl with as much exasperation as affection. At one time she would have thought Flora looked like a fragile little orchid lying there, her pale skirts gracefully mounding about her. But lately when Flora crumpled—a more and more frequent occurrence—Helena was put more in mind of a used handkerchief, damp and unprepossessing.