At Your Pleasure (33 page)

Force did not always serve a man.

To refuse to let go guaranteed nothing.

He knew this lesson best of all. Why, even God had slipped away from him while he’d still clutched his rosary. Had David Colville succeeded in killing him that day long ago, he would have died a believer, faith scenting the blood that spilled over Hodderby’s flagstones. But instead he had risen again, empty of it—though not by choice, and not with knowledge, at first, of this new emptiness in him.

The emptiness had not concerned him until he had met her again. He had felt it as a strength, not a lack. He could let go of anything.

But now he had her, his view of himself had changed. When he compassed his life now, it seemed a series of empty chambers, full of the echoes of fading footsteps and doors closing to him.

He pictured her in the fading light, the curve of her cheek, the deceptive fragility of her narrow shoulders, the softness of her lips that he had tried to bruise with his mouth that day in the apple grove. He pictured her, who stood in the next room, behind a closed door, and tried to remind himself of his lessons.

The tightest grip failed to hold the most important things. There was no use in giving chase.

But never before had he wished so fiercely to do so.

18

N
ora flew upright, her heart in her throat.

The bed curtains stood open. Moonlight showed the indentation on the mattress where Adrian had lain beside her. They had reached Hodderby very late, taking to bed shortly after supper.

Where had he gone?

Her heart began to slow. What a nightmare she’d been having! She could not recall the details, only she had been in the wood, one among faceless dozens, lacking noses and mouths, unable to cry out as armed men encircled them.

Her brother’s men. Yes—the same group that had come to remove the weaponry. They had raised their swords, and blood had leached through the snow—

Shuddering, she pulled the coverlet higher, then touched her face, feeling for the reassurance of lips, nose, and eyes. What a peculiar visitation. The prick of terror still felt fresh, but she remembered, too, an overwhelming
feeling of anger and humiliation. In her dream, she had been as furious with herself as with her murderers.

It was not the first night this week that her sleep had been plagued so violently. Were Adrian here, she would have turned into his arms.

When alone with him, she never heard her brother’s voice accusing her. No one else seemed to exist. And she wanted for nothing else, either.

She knuckled her eyes hard enough to call up sparks. What cause for fantastic nightmares when her life offered its own doomed riddle? She was in love with a man duty-bound to destroy what family remained to her. She’d spent foolish hours embroidering daydreams of a tranquil life with him, but whence tranquillity in the future that must come? If her beloved husband had his way, her beloved brother would be lost.

She reached out to touch his pillow. He had forgotten nothing of his original purpose here. Else why would he have slipped out in silence, not waking her? He walked the estates with his men, in wait of her brother. And how could she blame him for it? At Beddleston, he had told her he was helpless to change his course. If he did not recover David, his enemies would exploit his failure—

A great boom shattered the silence.

She bolted upright. The building shook.

No.

The gunpowder.

Another explosion rocked the room. She leapt to her feet as the stones in the walls groaned.

Dear God, dear God, I pray you, no
. As she scrambled
for clothing, the litany repeated through her mind. She had known, hadn’t she, that David’s plans would come to no good? But she had done nothing, nothing but worry, when all this time it had been sitting below, a disaster in wait of the smallest opportunity—

Another blast rent the air. She caught hold of her dressing table, gripping it with all her might, waiting for the shudder to subside. How many souls under this roof? Thirty people of her own, and Adrian’s men—

Where was Adrian? Had he been injured?

“Dear God, I pray you . . .” She ripped off her dressing robe and snatched petticoats and stays from the hook on the wall. With rough jerks she laced herself, heedless of comfort, tripping on the hem of her gown as she wrestled it onto her body.

The floor still trembled, a gentle but continuous quaking that might, she prayed, only be the work of her own shaking limbs, her fingers fumbling over the ties of her bodice. Muffled shouts now filtered through the walls. She tied the last of her fastenings just as the door flew open.

Sword in hand, Adrian took one comprehensive look around the room. “Are you well?”

“Yes!” She stepped toward him and he checked her with a hard, strange look, one he might have given a stranger, nothing intimate in it.

“Alone?” he asked.

She stared at him. “Yes, what else?”

Turning, he gestured with a jerk of his chin for the man at his elbow to step past him into the room. “Keep her
close,” he said. Looking back to her, he added, “Have you aught to tell me?”

“To—tell you?” She shook her head, confused.

He nodded once and turned to leave, sparing another word for his man: “Should it come to that, take her to the inner yard. I’ll find you there.”

All at once she realized where his thoughts had led him. “I know whence that came. It wasn’t David!”

Both men wheeled toward her. “Where?” Adrian demanded.

“Beneath the old hall! In the barrels—” She hesitated for one cowardly moment, appalled by what she must admit, the danger and stupidity of it. “Only the top held wine. In the compartments beneath, hidden, there was gunpowder.”

His man, the dark, bear-like Braddock, made a choked noise, as easily contempt as surprise.

Adrian’s eyes narrowed. But when he spoke, there was no anger in his voice, only a deadly calm. “It would take a match. Can you say who lit it?”

“Nobody knew it was there—and if they did, nobody would incite it—not to Hodderby’s peril—”

“Yet you knew of it,” Adrian’s man muttered.

The truth of his remark did not lessen its sting. Flushing, she kept her eyes on her husband—who abruptly appeared to lose interest in her. “Mind her,” he bit out to Braddock, then turned on his heel.

The door slammed shut.

For the briefest second she remained staring at the door, dazed by his coldness, sick at her role in this turn.

Then her better wits asserted themselves. She spun and dashed toward the window, where by leaning out she might win a view of the old wing, which curved around from the main body of the house.

Braddock caught her by the elbow. “Stay away from the glass.”

She tore free of him, who was nobody to command her—but he caught her again, his grip more punishing now. Suspicion rode openly on his face when he dragged her backward.

“My brother would not do this!” She jerked ineffectually against his hold. “It was an accident—and if it were my brother, he would not target me!”

“Glass may shatter should your powder blow again. I will look myself.”

He released her and threw open the sash.

The smell of burnt powder was like a blow, removing all doubt of causes. As she covered her nose with her hand, Braddock cursed and swung back to her. “Flames,” he said—and once again, the world roared and shook.

Goaded by Braddock, Nora flew down the narrow, spiraling stairway that led most directly to the inner yard. As she descended, she found herself silently reciting David’s reasoning, the logic he had spelled for her when she had objected to storing gunpowder so close. Stone did not burn; stone would save them. The damage would not be great or irreversible. Fire could feed on tapestries, it could
travel through wooden tables and trestles; but so long as the explosions had ceased, the fire could be stopped before it reached the main body of the manor.

And the explosions were a blessing in this single regard: nobody had slept through them. Nobody lay slumbering as flames rolled toward him.

The door at the bottom of the stairway stood open, revealing a night sky stained by flames, the color of old blood, of apocalypse and portents. She stepped into smoke-scented air. Two stablehands led blindfolded horses toward the main yard; a scullery maid and a footman rushed by with buckets of sand.

For its disuse, the old wing had not been equipped for fire, and the minutes it took to carry equipment toward the flames would require every hand available. She turned to enlist Braddock to this end—and found him slumping silently into the dirt.

Her brother stood over him.

“Come!” He grabbed her wrist and pulled her along the wall. She stumbled and he dragged her onward through the shadows.

“Wait! We must—”

“Come!”

Around the corner they went, into open moonlight. The perfume of crushed basil and rosemary infected the burnt air. There, in the kitchen garden, he drew up and gripped her by the shoulders. Only then did she realize she was swaying.

“Are you all right?” he asked urgently.

David looked sallow and near to gaunt, and his dark
hair stood up in corkscrew tangles. The smile he tried for her look more like a grimace. She clutched his upper arms, unable to speak. He was
here
.

He pulled her into a fierce, swift embrace. Tears pricked her eyes. He clasped her to the point of pain.

“I have horses,” he said in her ear. His voice was scraped raw, as though he’d been screaming. “In the wood. Can you run?”

Her senses seemed to expand, swelling out through her skin as the strange numbness evaporated. The night was full of sounds, distant screams and cries. “Hodderby is burning!”

“There was no other way. How else could I have reached you? Cosmo told me of what that whoreson has done—”

She jerked back from him. “
You
set this fire?”

“We have no time for this!” The light of the half-moon shone coldly on his face; his eyes were black hollows as he loomed over her. “I could not leave you here to suffer that scum—”

The sliding of steel interrupted his words. But it did not come from him.

They both froze. He lifted his face; what he saw over her shoulder made him smile savagely. He thrust her behind him so suddenly that she tripped and went to her knees amidst the herbs.

“Very well,” he said coldly. “This is fitting.”

Adrian stood ten paces away. He wore no smile. There was nothing in his face, and that was more frightening by far.

“No,” she whispered. She clawed to her feet, grabbing David’s arm when he reached for his sword. “No! David—Adrian, turn away! David, fly! Go, go to the wood!”

A sharp laugh broke from her brother, a scornful reply.

Adrian spoke slowly and distinctly. “He had that chance already. But he troubled you. You will remember that, Nora.”

“By God,” David snarled, “I will make you regret that address. I will cut out your entrails and feed them to the swine.”

The slightest, most chilling smile tipped her husband’s mouth. “By all means,” he said. “Proceed.”

David brandished his sword and lunged.

She had seen duels before. Who had not? She had seen men ape combat in the dusty yard, or in salons for sport, or in streets from drunken rage.

But this lacked even the flourishes of a drunken brawl. As David sprang, his blade gleaming in the moonlight, Adrian made no move to meet him. His face calm, his blade lifted, he waited. And the oddity of his non-reply gave her brother brief pause—she saw it in how he hesitated.

“Farther,” Adrian said, the softest goad.

With a growling noise David advanced. She cried out as their swords met, the clang of steel coming once, then again in rapid successions. Each clash made her wince; it drove her eyes shut; she opened them again, dreading blood, but neither man made his mark. As David danced retreat, Adrian lunged, but this was not a duel, no: there
was nothing artful in his movement, in their intent focus as they circled each other.

These solid, heavy blows were primitive, a contest of muscle and rage.

David lashed out with a kick toward Adrian’s chest. A scream escaped her.

Adrian sidestepped the kick and pivoted, his sliding steps bringing David into her line of view. Her brother’s brief wondering glance gave her a start: he was wondering at her cry, at why his moment of advantage had prompted it.

Comprehension broke over her. She knew how to stop this. She knew how to prevent a death.

“I wish to stay!” she screamed. “David, leave him be—Adrian, please—I will not go with him—only leave him be—”

Neither man heeded her. David swung with brutal force, using his sword like a battle-axe to knock Adrian’s aside. But Adrian recovered instantly: he had the advantage of French training, spinning and crouching in a manner not taught by English instructors.

Horror felt thick and black as mud. She would see one of them dead.

It would be David.

She would fall on his body and weep but there would be no heart left in her to break by then.