Affair of Honor (3 page)

“Did you really think I was a cat burglar when I first came through that window?”

His mouth curved upward but his dark voice was very serious. “The thought definitely went through my mind. I don’t normally greet ladies with a bow and arrow. Why are you smiling?”

“No reason,” she assured him hastily, stepping over the threshold and swiveling to close the door. “No reason at all. Good night, Ryder.”

He nodded once and moved off as softly as the moonlight itself.

Brenna hesitated a moment longer in the doorway, the faint smile he had questioned fading slowly. How could she possibly have explained the curious flicker of amused excitement she had felt at the thought of a man like Ryder actually mistaking her, of all people, for a cat burglar?

She was an academician, a student and teacher of philosophy. Not a woman of dangerous action! Slowly she closed the door and stood gazing unseeingly at the cozy interior of her summer home.

And furthermore, Ryder Sterne had been wrong when he proclaimed that her career provided some protection from the realities of life. Brenna’s hands tightened on the doorknob before she made herself release it and walk slowly across the worn, flower-patterned rug in front of the fireplace. There was no protection, no escape from the decision that had been forced upon her this week.

Nor, she thought with a return of disappointment and anger, could she look for help from the one man who should have stood by her. Damon Fielding had made his position clear when he’d stopped by her apartment this morning to “reason” with her.

His advice had been thoroughly practical, thoroughly rational, and thoroughly shocking when one considered that it came from a full professor of philosophy and ethics. He had urged her to accept the situation as it was, not to fight back. Her career, after all, was at stake.

Certainly, he agreed, the action of the department head in publishing Brenna’s research and analysis as his own was unethical, but that sort of thing happened all the time in the academic world. She must remember that Paul Humphrey was on the verge of retirement. She must also keep in mind the fact that Damon Fielding was widely thought to be the next in line to assume the mantle of head of the Department of Philosophy. If she would just keep quiet and not make any waves, the aging Dr. Humphrey would soon be out of the picture.

Wasn’t it worth ignoring the injustice for the sake of her future career? Besides, Damon had pointed out with a practical logic that probably would have appealed to someone like Ryder, she couldn’t hope to win in any open confrontation with Dr. Humphrey. She was only an assistant professor, too far down on the rung of the academic ladder to tackle the respected head of the department.

But all Damon’s arguments had succeeded in doing was to put a very large question in Brenna’s heretofore career-oriented mind. Did she truly want to continue in a profession that taught such concepts as the pursuit of truth and ethical analysis yet practiced the same kind of pragmatic politics found in the far less self-righteous world inhabited by people like Ryder Sterne?

It was a decision she had to make in the next few weeks.

S
he might be at a turning point in her career and therefore in her life, Brenna told herself firmly the next morning, but she must not forget her responsibility to Craig. Her younger brother was also rapidly reaching some inner turning point. She could sense it, even though he did his best to appear content with his college studies. Just one more year, Brenna thought hopefully. One more year and he’ll graduate. Then he can take some time to explore the various directions open to him. Just so he gets that degree!

It was going to be a decisive summer in more ways than one.

Brenna showered in the early morning chill of the cabin. Then she slipped into the jeans she had worn last night and dug out a white cotton pirate shirt from one of the suitcases. The full sleeves gathered into French cuffs, and the classic, slit-front collar made for a casually dashing look that appealed to her on that particular morning.

Standing in front of the mirror in her loft bedroom, she brushed her chocolate-colored hair straight back from her forehead and twisted it into a loose configuration at the back of her head. The severe style emphasized the slant of the amber eyes that stared back at her with such seriousness this morning. What was she going to do?

Wandering into the kitchen, she located a copper-bottomed teakettle and set it on the stove. A short rummage in the small sack of groceries she’d brought along produced the packet of tea. Brenna was reaching for one of the pottery mugs in a cupboard near the sink when she glanced out the window and saw Ryder.

The uneasy shock she had experienced at their first meeting returned in diluted form. This morning he presented no overt threat, but there was something about this man that suggested a poised menace to her senses. The peculiar sensation had not disappeared overnight.

He stood at the edge of the clearing near his cabin, aiming a bow and arrow at a target that had been tacked to a tree. The morning sunlight gleamed on the tawny hair and clearly outlined the lean, smoothly coordinated masculine figure. A quiver of arrows was buckled to his hip and a leather arm guard protected his wrist beneath the rolled-up sleeve of the yellow shirt he was wearing with his black denim jeans.

The bold stance and the harshly carved features suggested a man who knew and understood the rough side of life. In fact, Brenna decided wryly as she poured the boiling water into her mug, he looked as if he could have doubled for one of his own fictional heroes. All he lacked was the sexy blonde clinging to his biceps!

She looked up from pouring the tea water in time to see him loose the nocked arrow. It came as no surprise when the shaft thudded forcefully into the center of the target. In a smooth motion Ryder removed another arrow from the quiver, nocked it, and drew the bowstring. It found a place on the target very close to the first.

As if sensing her eyes upon him, Ryder glanced toward the kitchen window before reaching for a third arrow. Through the glass their eyes met, and then without a pause he started toward Brenna’s cabin.

Reminding herself of her manners and the way she had behaved the previous night, Brenna met him at the door with a cup of tea.

“Thanks,” he murmured, accepting it gratefully as he set down the bow and quiver on her kitchen table.

“Not as good as your brandy, perhaps, but drinkable.” She smiled.

“I was wondering if you’d brought some food along for yourself. I was going to ask if you needed to cadge a meal off me this morning.” He stood looking down at her, silver-gray eyes roving her scrubbed features.

“We philosophers are not so far removed from the plane of reality as to forget things like food!” She chuckled as he dropped into a straight-backed chair at the table and sipped his tea with appreciation.

“You don’t look like a teacher of philosophy this morning,” he said in a soft purr of a voice that brought Brenna’s senses alert. “But, then, you didn’t look like one last night, either.”

“Appearances can be deceptive. One of the first rules of good philosophy,” she informed him with a determined lightness.

“One of the first rules of any intelligent approach to life,” he countered seriously. “Would you like to go out with me tomorrow night?”

Startled by the abrupt question following so quickly on the heels of a totally unrelated subject, Brenna stared at him, her lips slightly parted in surprise.

“To the Gardners’. They own these cabins, remember? They have a place of their own a few miles from here. I’m invited for dinner and I thought you might like to come along. I’m sure they would be pleased to meet you in person.”

“Oh, Well, I see. That’s very thoughtful of you, but—”

“Good.” He nodded once. “We’ll leave around six thirty.”

“Mr. Sterne…Ryder,” she amended quickly, her brow furled in irritation, “I was not accepting the invitation. I was thanking you for it and was about to decline, in fact. I have a great deal to do here and—”

“And you’ve got all summer to do it.” Ryder grinned at her. It was the first time she’d witnessed that particular expression. She’d seen his rather serious smiles a few times, but this was an outright, thoroughly wicked masculine grin. It was captivating. “Besides, you owe me. I’m calling in the tab.”

“I owe you! That’s ridiculous. What for?”

“For the fright you gave me last night, naturally.”

It took a second for Brenna to catch her breath. For some strange reason she wanted to stare and go on staring at the slashing grin. “You didn’t look particularly frightened, as I recall!” she finally managed coolly.

The grin disappeared, changing back into one of the sardonic smiles. “A man learns to deal with it.”

“Fear?”

“Ummm.” He took a long swallow of his tea. Then he gave her a straight look. “And I wasn’t the only one handling it fairly well last night.”

“If that’s some sort of macho compliment you’re handing down condescendingly to the little lady, forget it!” Brenna wasn’t quite sure why she was reacting so fiercely.

“There’s nothing condescending about it,” he told her very quietly. “Courage is an admirable trait in anyone.” He held up a hand to ward off her rejoinder. “Wait, I’ll rephrase that. Courage is something
I
admire in anyone, male or female. There, I’m not generalizing, I’m speaking only for myself. Okay?”

“I wasn’t going to argue,” Brenna said slowly. “I, too, happen to admire courage in others.”

“Ah! A point of agreement, perhaps?” he teased.

“But I have the distinct impression,” she continued calmly, “that the sort of courage you would appreciate is somewhat different from that which I would applaud.”

“You think so?” he charged almost casually, watching her with interest.

She nodded thoughtfully. “For you courage would consist of a physical approach to danger. I tried to fight you last night and you find that commendable. From my point of view it was only desperation. I panicked and I reacted instinctively. It wasn’t courage as you term it. Real courage is the kind shown by men and women who refuse to back down from the conviction of their ideas simply because the majority doesn’t like those ideas. Or because someone in authority doesn’t approve of those ideas. A brave man is one like Socrates who allowed himself to be tried and sentenced to death for his philosophic teachings even though he probably could have escaped. He respected the concept of law too much to defy it. Or the English humanist philosopher Sir Thomas More who defied Henry the Eighth by refusing to go along with Parliament trying to make the king head of the Church.”

“More got himself executed, too, I take it?” Ryder inquired sardonically.

“Yes. He was found guilty of treason.” In a way Damon had tried to convince her it was almost treason to challenge the head of the philosophy department, she reflected.

“Well, I’m not going to say they weren’t men of courage and honor,” Ryder announced judiciously. “Although I’m not particularly into martyrdom myself. That still doesn’t make your bravery last night any less admirable. You knew you were outmatched from the start but you fought anyway. And went on defying me even after I’d pinned you down. That takes guts, lady.”

“Sounds more like stupidity to me,” she found herself retorting on a note of sudden laughter. “If I’d tried talking first, I might have got the whole misunderstanding straightened out before I found myself flat on my back being searched for concealed weapons! A clear instance of where reason should have prevailed.”

“Easy to say in retrospect,” Ryder noted. “At the time, though, you were forced to make a choice on a limited amount of evidence. There wasn’t really an opportunity to try reason first and violence second. Sometimes choices like that are forced on us and we do the best we can in the circumstances. Besides, we each learned something about the other. Something it might have taken longer to learn otherwise.”

Brenna cocked a disbelieving eyebrow. “What in the world did we learn?”

He must have caught the challenging note in her tone because a trace of the dashing grin flashed across his face. “You found out I don’t let rash little lady cat burglars climb through my window with impunity and that I don’t resort to rape.” He ignored the wave of red in her cheeks. “I, on the other hand, learned you don’t cower when the chips are down and that you feel good under my hands.”

“That I feel good!” Brenna repeated furiously, remembering the way his hands had stroked her body looking for weapons. The red in her cheeks darkened in anger and embarrassment. She had thought his touch almost impersonal at the time. Clearly he remembered the search procedure well! “It’s hardly gentlemanly of you to remind me of the way you held me down and went through my pockets! In fact, it wasn’t the thing to say at all if you’re actually trying to ask me out for a date tomorrow night!”

“I’m counting on your remembering that I don’t resort to rape.” He smiled blandly. “I proved myself unthreatening last night.”

“And that’s supposed to be a sufficient reason for me to accept your invitation?” she demanded, knowing she was half charmed and half incensed by his approach to the matter of getting a date.

“Don’t you want to meet your landlords?” he asked coaxingly.

“I don’t see that it’s necessary. I have strictly a business relationship with them.”

“They’re nice people. And as I said, you owe me.”

“You have such a persuasive technique,” she muttered dryly, knowing her sense of humor was going to get the better of her. Besides, she could certainly use the diversion of an evening out with a man who was totally different from Damon Fielding or anyone else on the philosophy faculty!

“Did you have anything better to do tomorrow night?”

“Not particularly,” she admitted. “Okay, I’ll go with you to meet the Gardners if you’re sure they won’t mind your turning up with a stranger in tow.”

He finished his tea and got to his feet, looking satisfied. “They won’t. I called Sue Gardner first thing this morning and told her I was bringing you along.”