DD-Michaels-END.rtf (29 page)

Why, she had already all but asked Ethan to seduce her. She'd given him all the signs that she would be receptive to his every advance. And she
had
been receptive, even the instigator.

She was shameless.

Because you want him,
a voice inside her head told her, taunted her.
He stands before you. Your dangerous man. This isn't a game
,
this isn't silly practice with a callow youth. This is real. This is your equal. Together, you either rule your world, or you completely destroy it. But you can never deny it. And you can't turn away....

Morgan spoke to that voice as much as she did to Ethan when she said, "We started down this path the day we met, Ethan. Walk it or run it, we'll end at the same place. That's our only choice."

"
There are always choices, Morgan," Ethan told her, becoming more worried for her by the moment.

"No," she said quietly. "Not this time. We have to see where the path ends."

"I hope I already know where it ends. With you and me together. On your terms, on my terms, with the blessing
s
of your family and church, or damned by everyone. That doesn't matter. It should
,
I suppose, but it doesn't."

Morgan touched his cheek with the back of her hand, that hand only trembling slightly as she ran it down his jawline and throat. "I didn't eat breakfast, Ethan. I'm very hungry." She s
l
id her index finger up and over his chin, tugged down his bottom lip, slipped her finger between his teeth. "Are you hungry?"

Ethan knew not to push at her; she was too fragile at the moment. He'd follow where she led, move only at the pace she set. For now.

He nipped at the sensitive tip of her finger, then took hold of her hand and placed a kiss in her palm as they looked deeply into each other's eyes.

"You already know the answer to that question, imp. But it's time we satisfied another hunger with some tea and scones, and then be on our way. As for anything else, we can leave that discussion for later."

Within the hour, the small train had left Dartford behind them
,
Ethan and Morgan riding out ahead of his coach, followed by his traveling coach, then the Becket coach carrying Saul, Jacob and a nervous Louise, and then three Aylesford grooms whose main job, it would seem, was to chew the dust raised by the three coaches. If a band of highwaymen were to appear, it was doubtful the outriders would even see their approach.

The sunlight, the fresh air, just being on Berengaria's back had done wonders for Morgan, who had been happy to leave her melancholy behind her, unaccustomed as she was to lugging it around with her like rocks in a sack.

"When can we give them a run?" she asked Ethan when the crush of traffic that had seemed to decide to collect in Dartford and its outskirts at last gave way to the occasional coach or farm wagon.

"Not on the roadway," Ethan told her, pleased to see her smile, and the hint of mischief back in her eyes. "Another mile, and there's a fine field surrounded by a narrow dirt path. Until then, may I suggest we simply ride at a sedate pace and enjoy the scener
y
...
and each other."

"At one and the same time? Is that possible?" Morgan asked him, thrilled when he laughed. "Oh, very well. Would you like me to sing for you?"

"You sing?"

"Not well, no. Do you?"

"I do. Extraordinarily well, as a matter of fact."

"Really? I'll have to tell Eleanor. I'm sure she'd be more than happy to accompany you on the new piano Papa had shipped to Becket Hall last year from... well, from somewhere. Do you play?"

"Only with you. Hopefully." Ethan smiled at her, pretending not to understand that Miss Eleanor Becket's piano, if it had been "shipped here" in the past few years, had a very good chance of having reached England's shores on a smuggler's craft.

"I don't play, either," Morgan said without regret. "But I shoot very well. And I can fence."

"Fence. With real weapons? Who would be insane enough to teach you a skill like that?"

"Jacko, my father's very good friend. You'll meet him at Becket Hall. Steel your hand for a crushing before you offer it to him. Jacko likes to believe he's still the strongest man at Becket Hall and in the village."

"But
he's not?"

"
That would be difficult to say, as no one ever seems eager to test him. I imagine he's looking forward to meeting you."

"You're enjoying yourself at my expense, aren't you, imp? Very well. Jacko, you said. I'll remember the name. Is there anyone else I should be..
.
aware of?"

Morgan's smile faded. "Odette. You probably should be aware of her, even if you never see her, as she doesn't mingle much with the family. We go to her, not the other way around."

"Ah, a mysterious lady. I believe you may have mentioned her name at one time. Tell me more."

Morgan wished she'd never begun this conversation, but Ethan was going to be at Becket Hall. He had to know about Odette; it seemed only fair. But that didn't mean he had to know about the island, about anything else. Even though she longed to tell him. Oh, how she longed to tell him, tell him everything.

Just as Jacob had said she would do.
It's a
female's nature....

"More about Odette?" Morgan murmured. "She's been with us forever, I think."

“So she's a nurse, a nanny?"

That
made
her laugh. "Odette? No, and
I wouldn't let her hear you say that, were I you. She's a priestess. A very powerful priestess. Have
you
ever heard of voodoo?"

Ethan was
be
g
innin
g to realize just how little he actually knew about Morgan, about all the Beckets. "I have, as a matter of fact. There was a voodoo priest who set himself up in Piccadilly a few years ago, as I recall. Gentlemen of the ton were flocking to him as he promised he could make the
m
—
w
ell, never mind that. He was eventually thrown into prison for, shall we say, nonperformance. Does your priestess promise miracles?"

Morgan's mind immediately flashed back to her mostly dim happy memories of the island, and
the more vivid if confused memories of what had happened that last day before, as she'd heard Courtland say, they'd all died and come to England. "There are no miracles, Ethan, you know that. But she's still very powerful in some things. Is this the field?" Ethan looked to his left, surprised to see how far they'd come.

He'd been involved in watching Morgan's face, and wondering how someone so young could seem to be hiding so many secrets. It wasn't that she was not honest; she seemed honest to a fault. It was that she told him things, yet left so many things unsaid. Very carefully unsaid.

What did he really know about her? That he wanted her? Was that enough?

"Yes, that's the field. If we keep to the perimeter, we can ride all the way around it without falling afoul of the owner."

"We wouldn't want to do that, would we?" Morgan said, settling herself more firmly on the sidesaddle. "It's a fairly narrow pathway."

"Yes, it is. Are you ready t
o
—?" He held Alejandro back as Morgan turned Berengaria's head and dug her heel into the mare's flank. "My friend
,
we males are destined always to follow, I fear. But we manage, don't we?"

The ride around the field was accomplished much too soon for Morgan's satisfaction, but when she returned to the roadway it was to see that the coaches still were not visible behind them.

"We could go around again, with you in the lead this time," she told Ethan, and then laughed, because he was wiping at the sleeves of his hacking jacket, trying to rid it of the dust kicked up by Berengaria's hooves. "U
m
... on second thought.

"I'm so happy to amuse you, imp," Ethan said, taking off h
a
s hat and beating it against his thigh, sending up clouds of light brown dust. "Don't laugh, Morgan. This could be bits of Alexander, you know."

She rode back to him, Berengaria dancing in place as she brushed at the back of his hacking jacket.
'
"To what base uses we may return,
Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexande
r
—'"

'
"—
t
ill he find it stopping a bunghole?
'
" Ethan finished along with her, then smiled in appreciation. "Not one
of Shakespeare's best known quips. My compliments, madam."

"A compliment wasn't exactly what I received when I asked Papa to define bunghole," she told him, smiling at the memory.

"No, I imagine not. How old were you at the time?"

"Nine or ten, I suppose. Why?"

"Because I don't know that many young ladies who quote Shakespeare, that's why. My compliments again, madam."

She turned Berengaria and they were once more moving along the main
road
at a companionable canter. "I'll accept your compliments and mention that your surprise is evident as well. Why shouldn't I be able to quote Shakespeare? There is an enormous library at Becket Hall, and more long dark winter nights than
you can imagine."

"So that you've read the complete works of Shakespeare? Amazing."

Morgan raised her chin, attempted to look at him down her nose, as if highly offended. "'As the old hermit of Prague, that never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to a niece of King Gorboduc, "That that is, is.
'
""

"I beg your pardon?"

"As well you should, my lord.
Twelfth Night.
Act Four, I believe. What is..
.
is."

"Ah, the woman is throwing down the gauntlet. Very well," Ethan said, more than happy to rise to her challenge. '"
Y
ond Cassius has a lean and hungry look....'" He bowed in his saddle, a sweep of his arm indicating that she should speak the next line.

Morgan grinned.
'
"He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.' From
Julius Caesar.
First act. But enough of the easy ones. Everyone knows Shakespeare."

"Everyone,
Morgan? By everyone, you must mean all of you Beckets. Certainly not the majority of my acquaintance. Most definitely not the ladies. So, imp, you shoot, you fence, you ride astride when not in town, and you quote Shakespeare. Is there anything you can't do? Because I begin to feel woefully inadequate in comparison."

"Ah, but you sing. You said so. Beautifully, I think you said. We'll have to make you sing for your supper."

"You wouldn't dare."

"No, I suppose not. Besides, I doubt you'd obey. You'd just pack up and leave, and I wouldn't like that."

Again, in the midst of banter, she had gone serious.

"Morgan, we've only known each other a few days, but I think I know you well enough to ask thi
s
—
w
hat's wrong? What happened between the time
I left you last nigh
t
—
r
ather thoroughly kissed, as I remember the thin
g
—
a
nd this morning? Because something did. You're as nervous, as my mother would say, as a long-tailed cat around a rocking chair. I promise you, I would never do anything you don't want me to do, all right?"

Morgan looked at the scenery without seeing it. "You mean tonight, at the inn." She nodded. "I know that
,
and we've already discussed it. I'm more than happy with our plans. But thank you."

Ethan heard himself say, "You're welcome," and immediately felt the fool.

They lapsed into silence, giving him time to think back over the events of the previous evening, compare them to Morgan's mercurial behavior today. She was trying, quite diligently, to appear as if nothing was wrong, that she was the same Morgan who had melted in
his arms.

Was it the prospect of leaving London? Of returning to Becket Hall?

He'd think she felt slighted by him for not telling her about the satchel, about the whole damn silly business he was honor-bound to perform once they got to Becket Hal
l
—
b
ut that couldn't be the problem. She'd accepted that he couldn't tell her more than she already knew.

Hadn't she?

Besides, she wasn't angry. If Morgan were angry, he felt sure, he'd
know exactly why, because she'd tell him.

This was different. If he had to put a single word to describing how he believed Morgan was acting today, that word would be
wounded.

"We'll be in Headco
r
n within the hour," he said when the silence became uncomfortable.