Pale Moon Rider (33 page)

“It … was nothing. A clumsy mistake in the dark.”

The backs of his fingers brushed lightly along her jaw and ended beneath her chin, angling it toward him again, his touch not quite as gentle as it had been. “You have not yet mentioned Roth’s reaction to all of this.”

“He was angry, naturally, that you escaped.”

Tyrone rolled his thumb carefully over the bruise. “How angry?”

When she did not immediately answer he drew a slow breath and his jaw hardened. “It seems I may just have to kill him after all.”

“Get well first, m’sieur. Then worry about who you may or may not wish to kill.”

His hand dropped down onto his chest and although she could see he was fighting hard to keep his eyes open, the laudanum was starting to take effect.

“I am sorry, Renée. Truly sorry for all the trouble I have caused and sorry for waving my guns and frightening you the way I did. Sorry for … doubting you. Most of all, I am sorry for keeping you here when I’m sure you would rather be anywhere else.”

His words were beginning to slur and on impulse, she leaned over and kissed him gently on the lips. “You are indeed a good deal of trouble, m’sieur, and I do wish I were anywhere else but here. But perhaps not entirely for the reasons you think,” she added softly.

“Can’t think,” he murmured. “Can’t see you either …”

“Because your eyes are closed.”

“Ah. That’s okay, then.”

The tightness around his mouth went slack and his entire body began to sag, as if everything of substance was draining out of him. His breathing slowed, became shallow and measured, easy in sleep.

Renée studied him a moment, and experienced a further moment of panic, for she wanted nothing more at that moment than for him to be able to sit up straight and strong and take charge again. She wanted him to tell her everything was going to be all right. Most of all, to her abject dismay, she wanted to crawl into the bed beside him and feel his heat surrounding her. She
had
felt warm in his arms, warmer than she had believed it possible to feel again. At the time, she had blamed it on the wild, careless madness of the moment—on the utter improbability of their paths ever crossing again or of her ever having to look him in the eye and acknowledge how badly she longed to share his sense of reckless passion.

She lowered her lashes and stared at her hands. They were still trembling and had been since he had first wakened and twined his fingers through hers. It was not going to be so easy to forget him, she feared—and not at all easy to walk away the next time, knowing she would never see him again.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I
t rained all the next day. Torrents of it fell, washing out roads, bridges, turnpikes. Thunder and lightning came in sporadic bursts, accompanied by winds that bent trees in half and rattled furiously against the window-panes.
Dudley
did not make an appearance until the following afternoon, and then only to report that although the rain had stopped, the banks of the canal were flooded and it was impossible to maneuver a cart to the entrance of the tunnel. Renée had not reacted at all when she heard this. She had begun to resign herself to expect the worst, and when she heard it, at least she was saved having to weather another disappointment.

To his credit, Tyrone was genuinely angry at the further delay. He had behaved like a model patient throughout the first day, drinking as much broth as he could hold, taking bread and a few pieces of meat in an effort to rebuild his strength. He insisted on taking short circuits around the tower room, refusing by sheer dint of will to admit he was too weak to do so. When evening came, Renée found him sitting at the edge of the bed, his face drenched in sweat, his body shaking like that of a newborn foal. Antoine confided that the captain had insisted on climbing up and down the tower stairs, not once but four times!

By the end of the second day, Antoine had carried up the chessboard, had stolen a plate of cold meat and cheese from the pantry, and provided Tyrone with shaving gear, soap, even an oiled cloth that he might clean and reload his pistols. Renée’s temper, so carefully held in check until then, had flared when she found him showing Antoine how to hold and aim one of the snaphaunces. She had chased her brother from the room and stood glowering at the captain, who had the fine sense to put the guns out of sight.

Just looking at him, brawny and handsome, with his unruly mane of black hair and crooked, careless smile, she should have guessed Antoine would be struck with a wide-eyed sense of awe. Here was the epitome of danger and adventure in the flesh. Tyrone Hart thumbed his nose at everything from social conventions to the laws of the land and to a young, bruised soul who had known only fear of authority, just being in the same company as the legendary Captain Starlight would have been enough to strip him of his sensibilities.

“You must not encourage him so, m’sieur. He told me you were recounting stories about your various exploits this morning.”

“I was only trying to pass the time,” he protested.

“Such time could have been put to better use resting,” she countered. “Look at you, m’sieur. You try to do too much too soon. The water drips off your hair! V
raiment!
I vow if you invite your fever to return, the only one who will be listening to your stories is the tower ghost!”

To this point, Tyrone had been sitting with his head bowed and his arms bracing him upright at the side of the bed. At the sound of the threat, he tipped his head upward and gazed sheepishly through the shaggy mane of his hair.

“Be kind to me, mam’selle. I spent the latter part of the afternoon with your Mr. Finn. If his eyes were daggers I would have a thousand stab
marks in my body and be mutilated beyond recognition. I gather he knows we were together in your room the other night?”

All the stiffness in Renée’s spine deserted her in a rush. “Yes,” she admitted quietly, “he knows.”

“He does not hide his feelings very well, does he? He made it quite clear I was thoroughly unworthy to touch so much as the hem of your skirt.”

“Finn has been very … protective since
maman
and
papa
were killed.”

“And so he should be. Your bloodlines alone should have been enough to curdle mine for even daring to look, never mind touch.”

The pinkness in her cheeks indicated he had touched a nerve and he sighed through an apology. “If I swear to do nothing further to corrupt the moral fiber of your brother or test the patience of your valet, will you stay and talk with me for a while?”

“My uncle is expected to arrive in the morning. I must—”

“Just a little while. The atmosphere in here is a tad too reminiscent of a former gaol cell for comfort.”

“So you
have
been in gaol before?”

“Once, in
Aberdeen
. It was a wretched experience I have vowed never to repeat. There, you see?” His mouth curved up at the corner. “If you stay and talk a while, you will discover all manner of things about me that I can tell you are bristling to know.”

“I hardly think I am bristling, m’sieur.”

“Not even mildly curious?”

She sighed with no small amount of exasperation. “Will you promise to lie down and rest?”

“Happily, mam’selle. If I could but have your steadying hand a moment—?”

She approached the side of the bed and he smiled again at the wariness written all over her face. “You and your Mr. Finn have more in common than you think,” he mused. “I should like to sit in the shadows sometimes and watch your face while a room full of pretentiously silly geese debate the shattering impropriety of serving a course of sweetbreads before fish.”

She assisted him to lie back down and fussed a moment straightening the blankets.

“Will you take more broth?”

He glanced at the tin pot propped over the brazier and grimaced. “No. Thank you. I have had enough broth today to launch a fleet of ships.”

“Do you require—?”

“No.
I mean, no thank you. I made good use of my freedom while I was up.” A dark, thick lock of hair had fallen over his brow and in a gesture that was almost: boyish, he swept it aside and scowled. “Please … bring the chair closer. You keep moving it back into the shadows and I cannot see your face.”

The irony of the complaint was not lost on either of them and Renée almost smiled. “What need do you have to see my face, m’sieur? Surely you must be tired of it by now.”

“I would have to be dead to admit to that,” he answered. “And besides, it is your eyes I like to look at. They have this incomparable ability to call me a fool and rogue and a wastrel, yet always with such underlying tenderness, I am not without hope for redemption. Come. I promise no flamboyant displays of—of
virilité.
Not that you would have to worry anyway. Sad to say, I doubt I could rouse enough energy at the moment to impress a gnat.”

Renée dragged the chair a scant few inches closer to the bed and sat on the edge, her back straight as a post, her hands folded primly in her lap.

“Trés formidable”
he murmured. “The same gnat would find more encouragement in a convent.”

“I am not here to encourage you, m’sieur.”

“No. And you do your job very well.” He sighed and pressed his head back into the pillows. He closed his eyes, carefully regulating his breathing to compensate for the persistent throbs of pain in his side, and when he raised his lashes again, Renée had left the chair and was wringing water out of a fresh square of linen. He watched her while she bathed his face, noting how her eyes were determined not to make contact with his, how the blush ebbed and flowed in her cheeks when the cloth touched his neck, then the top of his chest. Finn had provided him with a nightshirt, large and shapeless, but the laces had come undone during his repeated forays around the room and gaped open to the top of the bandages. The water was cool and her touch so soothing he almost wished he had a fever again so he could rid himself of the shirt and lie there guiltlessly naked.

For that matter, he wished they were both naked, with the candlelight gilding her hair and the blush warming her entire body.

She straightened and he cleared his throat. “You said your uncle is arriving tomorrow?”

“Corporal Marlborough brought a note from Fairleigh earlier today. M’sieur Vincent is anxious to make preparations for the—the wedding.”

He heard the catch in her voice when she said her fiancé’s name. He compared it to the way she had said his, on long, shivering breaths while her body had arched up beneath him and her hands had clawed into his thighs, urging him deeper into the silky heat.

He closed his eyes, resolved to honor his promise of just a few moments ago; an impossible feat if he had to stare at the luscious pink bow of her mouth much longer. Impertinence had always been one of his first lines of defense, and he fell back on it now.

“Have you not asked yourself why Edgar Vincent is willing to go to such lengths to marry you? And please, I mean no offense, for I am sure there are scores of men who would gladly marry you on a wink, most of them, if not as wealthy, certainly far more respectable than Vincent.”

“Perhaps it is that respectability he craves.”

“I thought so, too, at first,” he admitted.

“But then you thought there must be other heiresses, other daughters of English noblemen who could give him more respectability than a French
émigré?”

He smiled at the faint edge of bitterness in her voice. “Never put words in my mouth, mam’selle. Especially if they are the wrong ones.”

“Are you saying there are no English heiresses who would be of more value to him?”

“English heiresses are as rife as apples in September. It is purely a question of suitability. Would your father have let you marry a fishmonger?”

“If I loved him, yes.”

Her answer—obviously not the one he expected— came so quickly and so honestly, Tyrone was taken aback. But only for a moment. “He must have been a very unique member of the aristocracy. The only way an Englishman would allow such a travesty of social mongrel-ism would be if the fishmonger was as rich as Croesus and the peer was so deep in debt his toes were touching hell.”

“My uncle is in debt?”

“His estates are all heavily mortgaged. He has embezzled funds from the trusts and entailments to pay off his gaming debts, which are in turn, so steep they have fostered a separate wagering pool as to who, among his many creditors, will cut his losses and slit the old bastard’s throat in a dark alley one night.”

This was news to Renée, who had been given no indication her uncle was anything but miserly.

“But I have no money, no dowry. Would a man like Vincent not expect such a thing?”

“You underestimate the value of those good bloodlines, mam’selle. It is entirely possible the dowry has gone the other way in order for your fiancé to infuse a little noble blood into the veins of his heirs. As I said, that was what I assumed—before I discovered you had a brother lurking in the background.”

Renée sank back into the chair. “And now?”