Perilous Pleasures (3 page)

Reluctantly, she closed it, after closely examining its mechanism to be sure she understood how it worked. When she was done, she handed it back to Mrs. Endicott, who put a long silver chain through its bail. Then she draped it around Zoe's neck as if it were a pendant, adjusting the chain so that the small knife was hidden snugly between her breasts.

“Should you find yourself in danger, the knife should be enough to protect you. But for now, we must give your guardian the benefit of the doubt. Truly, I find it hard to credit that he intends to dishonor you. You aren't at all the sort of girl who attracts men with depraved lusts. And even if your guardian's tastes did run to the debauching of young girls, well, I can't imagine that the laird would have paid your school fees all these years only to dispose of you in such a way. Our fees are quite high, and young girls may be had so cheaply—”

“So I must trust I'll be safe because I'm too ugly to tempt a rake?”

“That
is
putting it strongly, but you were always a practical girl, so I will speak plainly. One doesn't often hear of men buying young girls whose strongest appeal lies in their good sense.”

The corner of Mrs. Endicott's lips turned up in a troubled smile. “Though I must hope you've misinterpreted the conversation between your mother and this man. One hears of such things, of course, but with a girl like you, it seems so unlikely.”

Zoe turned away, not wishing to let her teacher see the emotions that must be clearly displayed on her scarred face with its eagle's beak and the heavy brows that were all that her father, the duke, had bequeathed her.

No one would step in to help her. She would have to go to Scotland with Lord Ramsay and hope that this man they called the Dark Lord had not, in fact, bought her to use for some unsavory purpose.

If he had, she could depend on no one to save her but herself. But it had always been that way. Her hand flew to the knife nestled now between her small bosoms. As alone as she might be, Lord Ramsay wouldn't get the best of her.

I
t took little time to pack up the belongings that had made Zoe's little cubicle a home: a few books, her summer gown, an old bonnet, some maps she had received as a prize for excellence in the study of geography, and a rather bedraggled collection of ribbons. She packed them carefully into her trunk, pausing only when she came to the old doll, much the worse for wear, that had been given to her years before by old MacMinn, her mother's coachman. She thought of leaving it behind, for it would take up valuable space in her box, but decided against it. It was one of the very few presents she'd ever received.

After she'd filled the last bit of empty space in her trunk with her favorite books, there was no further excuse for delay. Reluctantly, she made her way back downstairs to the parlor, where she found Lord Ramsay glowering, his eyes burning holes in the carpet. On seeing her, he leapt up at once and gave the porter instructions to deposit her trunk in the hired post chaise. Then, with no further conversation, he stood up and led her out toward the equipage.

Though the afternoon was warm, she felt a chill as Ramsay opened the carriage door and reached out one gloved hand to assist her up the step. She thought of making a break for freedom, but his grip on her hand was surprisingly strong, giving her no choice but to seat herself on the cracked leather upholstery of the hired post chaise, noting as she did so how his surprisingly broad shoulders blocked the doorway she'd just clambered through.

Only after she had smoothed out her brown serge skirts and settled back against the worn squabs did he take his place beside her. As he did, the energy that radiated out from him seemed to fill the compartment, like the subtle scent of some unfamiliar spice.

She half expected him to say something gloating, now that he had her completely in his power, but he showed no interest in conversation. Instead, he reached into the pocket of his many-caped greatcoat and extracted a small volume, which he began to read with the appearance of intense concentration.

Absorbed in his book, he looked strikingly different from the elegant aristocrat who had stolen her from her home. Indeed, had she not witnessed that unforgettable scene in her mother's withdrawing room, in which he had made his character so frighteningly plain, she would have guessed that the man beside her was an unworldly scholar on his way back to university.

His chestnut hair fell past his chin. It wasn't pulled back into the queue as she would have expected but hung almost to his shoulders, falling in gentle waves that reminded her of the look of a long dead medieval saint chiseled into the stone pillar of some ancient village church. He had unfastened his greatcoat upon entering the chaise. Beneath it, instead of the cravat and waistcoat she would have expected to see, he wore only a loose shirt of rough linen, open at the throat, where it revealed a tuft of reddish gold hair that glistened rather startlingly in the diffused light of the chaise compartment.

She pulled her eyes away from him and forced herself to peer through the window at the carts and wagons that were heading out of the city as their owners returned from the day's markets. But her thoughts kept returning to her companion. He was a startlingly handsome man. His face might have been called beautiful had he been a woman, but there was nothing unmanly about his beauty, just something sensuous and haunting, as if he had a dash of elfin blood mixed with the ichor of his aristocratic ancestors.

When he raised his hand to turn a page, the sleeve of the homespun shirt fell back and for a moment she thought what she saw was a trick of the compartment's dim light. She blinked her eyes to clear away the disturbing vision, but when she opened them again, it was still there. On the flesh of his forearm, the head of a serpent was picked out in delicate lines of blue. Its body entwined with that of another of its kind, rising along his arm, to where both vanished beneath the edge of his rough linen sleeve.

It was startling. Disturbing. She pulled her eyes away, wishing she hadn't seen it.

What could he possibly want with her?

The fear she'd confessed to Mrs. Endicott—that he'd kidnapped her for some carnal purpose—seemed far-fetched. The man across from her was far too attractive—and far too magnetic—to need to stoop to such a stratagem to get a woman.

But before she could pursue the thought further, Lord Ramsay interrupted her reverie. “I assume you haven't eaten.” His voice was curiously melodic. “There's a hamper beneath the seat. Take what you like.” He returned to his book, giving her not a second glance.

It had been a long time since she'd eaten, so despite her anxiety, she helped herself to a chicken sandwich, but her companion ignored the food as if he had no need to satisfy any earthly hunger. When she was done, she replaced the hamper beneath the seat. When she brushed against Lord Ramsay's leg by accident, he flinched and shrank away from her.

She turned her attention back to the scene passing outside the window. While she had been eating, they'd left London behind. Now they appeared to be heading north on the Great North road, the fabled route leading to Gretna Green, which was the chosen route of the scoundrels bent on abduction who were so often the villains of the novels beloved by the girls at school.

How very fitting! After all, she
had
been abducted.Unbidden, the image swam up in her mind of Lord Ramsay, transformed into just such a villain, throwing himself at her feet while making the kind of fervid declaration of love such villains were prone to. The vision was so ludicrous that, to her horror, she felt a giggle rising within her, and though she clamped her lips shut, she was powerless to suppress it.

Her captor looked up. “I see nothing humorous in our situation.” His tone was quelling. “What made you laugh?”

She thought of telling him a falsehood, but given how little respect he had already shown her, she doubted she could sink any lower in his estimation by telling him the truth.

“It was the road we are taking. The Great North Road features so heavily in the romances my school friends and I used to read to each other, late at night, when Mrs. Endicott thought us safely asleep. It amused me to find myself abducted by a nobleman, locked in a closed carriage, and headed for Gretna Green, just like the heroine of a novel from the Minerva Press. But of course, in such novels, the heroines are always great heiresses. One doesn't expect to find oneself abducted when one is the ugly, portionless daughter of a courtesan.”

“Is that how you see yourself?” The faintest shadow of amusement quirked his full lower lip into a half smile.

“I know what I am,” she replied. “I've always been recommended for my sense. And since you've given me no choice about going with you, why should you begrudge me what pleasure I might take from imagining the envy my situation would arouse in Miss Ecclesford, who is to have ten thousand pounds and is betrothed to a wall-eyed banker.
She'd
ask nothing more out of life than to be kidnapped by a handsome young nobleman like yourself.”

Lord Ramsay peered intently at her, as if seeing her for the first time. “You haven't been kidnapped. I'm merely taking you to your guardian. I'd thought Mrs. Endicott had explained the situation to you.”

“Mrs. Endicott assured me that you are descended from a noble but eccentric race, and that, given my lack of looks and the hefty amount my guardian had lavished on my education, you were unlikely to have snatched me from my mother to make me your whore.”

His eyebrows lifted, and again that half smile played at the corners of his lips. “One always wonders what women say to each other when they're out of the hearing of men, but, still, I find it difficult to believe your schoolmistress expressed herself like that. Did she really? ”

“Not exactly,” Zoe admitted. “Mrs. Endicott would never speak so crudely.”

“But you would?”

“Why not? Being what I am, I can't expect to be treated like a lady no matter how I comport myself. So I take what pleasure I may in the liberties allowed to a courtesan's daughter.”

For a moment she thought he would laugh at her wry joke, but then, as if he had forbidden himself humor, his lips tightened and he shrank away from her on the seat.

“I must thank you for reminding me of who you are,” he said grimly. He sat silent for a moment, his eyes brooding. Then he set aside his book and leaned closer to her with a look of determination on his face. “What if your Mrs. Endicott was wrong? What if I
did
take you from your harlot of a mother to use in that way?”

He was trying to frighten her. It was obvious. But if so, his threat was poorly chosen. She was a practical woman and knew herself to be too ugly to raise any such desire in a man like him. Had there been the slightest question of it, the way he shrank from her touch as they rode along in the carriage would have removed it.

“She
did
sell you,” he went on relentlessly. “When it was a matter of your mother's comfort and someone else's life, you know her well enough to know what choice she'd make.”

Zoe shivered. She did know. And the anger in his voice made her think, too late, that perhaps her lack of looks might not matter. Perhaps he might take pleasure in hurting her, simply out of hatred. If so, she mustn't let him see her fear. There was a chance he'd only threatened her with his lust because he'd thought it would terrify her. If she behaved as if lust were a matter of no concern, perhaps he'd see no point in punishing her with it.

With as much control over her voice as she could muster, she said lightly, “So then it's true—you
do
intend to take my maidenhead.” That flirting tone her mother used so well was hard to get right.

“I do
not
,” he said icily.

“Then why were you so curious about my virginity?”

“I have no curiosity about it at all, Miss Gervais. I seek only to fulfill the Dark Lord's wishes. His instructions were that I should bring you with me when I came to claim my inheritance—once I'd satisfied myself that you were still a virgin. Which I did.”

“So it's this Dark Lord of yours who cares about my virginity, not you?” She did her best to sound as if she held conversations about her maidenhead every day.

Ramsay's luminous gray eyes met hers again, and in them she saw again the surprise he had betrayed in response to her earlier frankness. But when he replied, his voice was grim. “My only concern is to see my dear Charlotte avenged. Your virginity or lack of it matters only to the Dark Lord. He has some use for it.”

Summoning up all her courage, she asked, “Who was Charlotte?”

“My sister.”

“And what did my mother do to her?”

“She sent her to her death.”

The look in his eye shut down any further inquiry. Changing the subject abruptly, Zoe asked, “And this man you call the Dark Lord”—the man whose name alone had been enough to terrify her usually fearless mother—“who is he?”

The way Lord Ramsay's hand unclenched told her he was as glad as she was that she'd changed the subject. “He's the laird of the Isle of Iskeny off the Galloway coast.”

“I've never heard of it before. Is it a large one?”

“No. It's quite small, and largely deserted. But it isn't the land from which the Dark Lord derives his power.”

“His wealth is from some other source? Surely not from trade?”

“Hardly. His title is so ancient there are no written records of when it was first created. All that's known is that there's always been a laird on Iskeny, even before the Romans came to Britain, and that the laird has always had the power.”

“What power?”

Ramsay focused his penetrating gray gaze on her. “The power of life and death.”

“Over his subjects?”

“Over anyone in whom the life force flows. The Dark Lord can read a man's fate in the stars and, if he chooses, he can alter that fate.