The Perils of Pleasure

by Julie Anne Long

  Someone whose handwriting had never evolved careless or defining characteristics, someone who seldom had cause to write, in other words, had labeled the tin: SAINT-JOHN’S-WORT. Croker’s wife, most likely. They were a nefarious pair, and might very well be serving meat pies made out of cats (that rumor never would die), yet there was something comfortingly homely about the tin of Saint-John’s-wort salve. Madeleine imagined there was one in nearly every building in England, from Whitehall to Newgate.

  She turned around to face Colin, who was watching her.

  “We need to see to your ankles, Mr. Eversea. Because I won’t have your gait slowing us down.”

  Colin Eversea’s eyes went wide; his body went utterly still. And at first it was gratifying to startle him, to throw him off balance the way he’d thrown her off balance, to make a point: I’m observant, too, Mr. Eversea. And then some emotion twitched across his face—shock? shame?—before he went carefully expressionless.

  He stood for a moment like that, very still, his eyes looking inward. And then without saying a word, he sat down hard on the chair and abruptly began working off one long boot.

  Futilely, as it turned out. Nearly a minute went by, but the boot and man remained inseparable. Colin Eversea cast one enigmatic glance up at Madeleine then, and continued to tug.

  Which is when some reflex born of impatience and old memories made Madeleine drop to her knees, put her hands on either side of his boot and give a tug.

  Whereupon they both froze for a moment.

  And then Madeleine slowly tipped her head back and met a pair of glinting green eyes with a challengingly raised brow, but she said nothing.

  And then slowly, slowly, Colin Eversea straightened his leg for her. Madeleine almost smiled then; he called to mind nothing so much as someone extending a hand for a suspicious, irritable dog to sniff. She tugged hard—she knew the fit of Hobby boots and how to get one off—and it soon came away into her hands. She set it aside. Colin presented the other boot by extending his other long leg. In silence, they repeated the process, Madeleine expertly tugging until the boot released its hold.

  And once the boots were off, she lined them up to admire a mission accomplished: two boots side by side, erect and elegant as a pair of footmen.

  Madeleine did glance up at Colin Eversea then. His eyes were fixed on a great black pot hanging on the wall across from him; his jaw was set, and a surprising faint flush sat high on his cheekbones. She didn’t think exertion had caused it. Was it shame that he should need assistance, or that she should recognize, witness, his vulnerability? He was doubtless a proud man. Perhaps he was struggling with the reminder that he’d actually been shackled.

  Colin Eversea’s insouciance in prison had been legendary; if one believed the broadsheets, he flung bon mots the way a benevolent king flung coins to peasants. And the English did love a criminal with panache.

  For the first time, Madeleine began to wonder what the panache had cost him.

  I know it’s not a lark, he’d said.

  She waited, not wanting to prompt him. Colin inhaled, then sighed out a breath and swiftly, the motion almost defiant, rolled his trouser legs up, first one, then the other, to each knee. He paused then, resting his hands flat on his thighs, as if gathering his nerve.

  And then he drew in another long breath and bent to ease the stockings, first one, then the other, slowly, carefully, down.

  A strange finger of sensation dragged Madeleine’s spine softly in tandem with the slow revelation of those calves, setting the fine hairs on the back of her neck on end.

  Too late she realized Colin Eversea had the upper hand after all.

  She stared, and heat washed the backs of her arms, her throat, her cheeks. They were just legs, for God’s sake. All men had them, unless war or a hunting accident took one off. These particular legs featured long ankles, which merged into the bulge of hard calves, which were covered all over with crisp copper hair. An old ragged-edged scar sat high on one shin; there was a story behind it, no doubt. Men typically came equipped with scars and stories. She frowned slightly down at those decidedly rugged-looking, very handsome calves, a silent reproof to her senses for reminding her that she was a woman, after all. Because that shortness of breath, that heat in her cheeks, wasn’t entirely about the partially bare man. Something about the awkward, homely intimacy of the circumstance, about…tending…to someone…about knowing he had a scar below his knee…came with a bittersweet twist between her ribs.

  She didn’t dare look up at Colin Eversea, for she knew her fair skin told the story of her confusion. She was close enough to him to see the faint blue of a vein winding up through that forest of hair on his leg, and she focused on that instead. But then Madeleine found herself imagining its route up his calf to perhaps the inside of his thigh, which would no doubt be hard-muscled from spending half his life on horseback but perhaps silky inside, the hair worn away from riding horse—

  She jerked her head down toward his ankles.

  And riveted, her stomach slowly turned to ice.

  Shackle-width rings of raw, hairless pink skin circled each. Unattended, his ankles would be infected and oozing within days, and he would be ill indeed. Of course, Colin Eversea would have been strangled to death by rope long before his ankles made him ill, so no one would have needed to give a thought to what was going on beneath the shackles. But if he managed to survive the quest they’d embarked upon, he would likely forever bear a reminder of his days as a prisoner: two shackle-sized bands of hairless skin. Perhaps even scars.

  Madeleine pulled the top from the tin of Saint-John’s-wort. Said nothing. She kept the transaction pragmatic, to spare him any more shame, to keep her own conflicting emotions at bay, but her hand trembled a little. She tightened her fingers over the lid to steady it.

  “Your cravat,” she said tonelessly.

  “My crav—Oh.” His tone matched hers.

  He reached across the table and fished out the limp snowy square of silk from his bundle, spread it open and neatly, with his teeth and fingers, tore two strips. War, he’d said. So he knew a bit about the making of bandages.

  He handed them down to her, like two white flags of surrender.

  Madeleine saw dents in the salve where other fingers had dipped into it. She helped herself to a generous scoop, took a deep breath, and laid her fingers gently against one of his raw ankles and stroked, very lightly, over the wound.

  Colin Eversea remained utterly still; his taut muscle betrayed his tension. She could only just hear his breathing, deeper, a little unsteady. His skin was hot beneath her fingertips. It was unsettling how very…alive he felt. She’d nearly forgotten the pleasure of the textures of men: how large they were, in general, with those hard muscles and big strong bones beneath surprisingly soft skin, and all that crisp, abundant hair. They took up so much space. Particularly this one.

  But here, where she laid cool salve over Colin Eversea’s raw skin and began to paint over the wound, there was no hair at all. Madeleine breathed in, breathed out, focused on the job at hand, and listened to Colin’s breathing. Given that she was kneeling at his feet in a pose suggestive of another intimate attention entirely, his silence surprised her. It struck her as the sort of observation he would find difficult to resist.

  She glanced up then, and was surprised to find his eyes closed. The flush still on his cheeks. His fingers gripping his knees. Somehow she didn’t think it was just about pain.

  It struck her hard then that it had probably been quite some time—longer than he was accustomed to, anyway—since a woman had touched or tended to him. She wondered whether he, like she, was entertaining vivid, awkward, conflicting thoughts. Perhaps he imagined another woman entirely was laying her hands upon him.

  Or perhaps simply, like she was, accustoming himself to the wonder of feeling skin against skin again.

  Madeleine looked down swiftly again. God only knew she didn’t want to wonder about Colin Eversea. She seized the bandage like
a lifeline, wrapped it around his ankle softly, tied off the ends securely as though applying a tourniquet to the unruly run of her own thoughts.

  She swept up more salve on her fingers, turned her attention to his other ankle.

  “You’ve done this before.” He sounded subdued. Quietly amused.

  Madeleine looked up to find his expression open and easy, the flush gone from his cheeks. Whatever shame or anger had held him in its grip had eased from him, or somehow he’d managed to push it away.

  “Something very like it, once or twice,” she admitted lightly.

  “Croker called you Mrs. Greenway.”

  “So he did.” She’d let irony creep back into her voice. Don’t cross this line, the tone said.

  She hoped.

  “Is there a Mr. Greenway?”

  So much for hope.

  She answered with silence. Interestingly, Colin Eversea didn’t ask the question again.

  “I didn’t kill anyone,” he said suddenly. Quietly. As though he thought this was the reason she refused to speak to him.

  Not again.

  “I don’t care, Mr. Eversea.” She finished spreading the salve, methodically, as if simply spreading it over the entire angry wound could make it vanish. It must have hurt a good deal as he walked, nearly as much as a burn. Yet he never flinched. If she hadn’t noticed his gait, he probably wouldn’t have said a thing about it until he was good and ill.

  Men.

  “You truly don’t care?” His voice had acquired a hard, inquisitorial tone. Funny, that. As though the crime was not the murder, but her not caring.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Some peculiar indefinable pressure was building up in her chest.

  “But you do care,” he persisted.

  Madeleine sat back on her heels, hands up to ward off questions. “Mr. Eversea…”

  Of course she cared. She just didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want Colin Eversea to matter. And she didn’t want him to think she thought he mattered, because a man like Colin Eversea would make use of that. She wanted him to remain an assignment; she wanted him to be…finite. She was finished with memories of England.

  But in front of her now was a man who desperately needed someone to hear him.

  She would curse the moment of weakness later, but out the words came; she felt them almost physically, as though they were pulled from her like beads on a string:

  “Tell me what happened.”

  He paused. She knew it was an honorable pause. He was giving her a chance to retract her request.

  She tied off the final bandage and sat back on her heels, closed the tin, and waited.

  “All right,” he began quietly. “I’ll you where it really began, Mrs. Greenway. With Louisa. Louisa Porter…Louisa is the woman I intend to marry, as you’ll recall. I’ve known this ever since I can remember, and I knew when I was nine years old that Louisa and I were meant for each other. And a few weeks ago, Louisa told me her father was unlikely to approve of our match, as I…as you so astutely noticed, Mrs. Greenway, am not the Eversea son with money. I do have rather a gift for spending it, however.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Madeleine said.

  The corner of Colin Eversea’s mouth twitched a little at that. “Well…Louisa and I…we quarreled. Odd, really, because we never quarrel. And it was silly, really. I suppose it was my fault. I was angry; my pride was hurt. I’ve never formally proposed to her, you see, but I suppose I never really thought she would consider marrying anyone besides me. But it was urgent that she should marry soon. It seemed very necessary to make my point at the time, however,” he said ironically, “and I departed Pennyroyal Green immediately for London, riding at breakneck speed.”

  “I’ve read that’s your only speed.”

  “Ah, so you have read a good deal about me, Mrs. Greenway?”

  “It was diverting. Better than horrid novels.”

  “Diverting!” he looked pleased with her description. “Ah, very good word for what I am. Anyhow, I was drinking—a good deal—right in this inn. I go here, you see. The lads see it as a lark. Horace Peele—” he glanced down at her for confirmation.

  “Horace Peele? The man with the three-legged dog?”

  “Yes!” Colin pounced on this almost indignantly. This was proof that everyone knew Horace. “Horace was present. He’d lit a pipe, I recall. A foul thing, the tobacco in it really a horrific blend. I bought him a round. I like Horace. He laughs all the time. Makes one feel tremendously witty. We gave the dog—his name is Snap—a sip right off the top of the tankard, because that’s how deep in our cups we were by that time. And…Roland Tarbell was of course present.”

  “Of course,” Madeleine echoed dryly. Roland Tarbell would have had to be present to be murdered.

  “Roland Tarbell is related to the Redmond family of Pennyroyal Green on Mrs. Redmond’s side of the family. And far be it for me to speak ill of the dead, but a thoroughly unpleasant individual, even for that esteemed family. My family has a certain amount of…shall we say, history…with the Redmond family. It all began with stealing a cow, or so they say.”

  “I heard it was a pig.”

  This startled a short laugh from him. “It was something with hooves, no doubt. But it’s ancient, and oh…it runs deep, the enmity. And Roland…he said something…disparaging…about my sister Olivia.”

  Colin said this with a certain cold detachment. Interesting, she thought. The slight to his sister still rankled, despite the man’s death.

  “And I was drunk,” Colin admitted flatly. “I would have called him out, stupid as that would have been. But he…” Colin lifted his head up, his eyes distant, and touched his hand absently to his jaw. “He hit me.” His voice was half wondering. “A hard one. And I had my fist right up to hit him back, and I could have knocked him flat—but God help me, I saw that knife, just in time—firelight caught it. He was dead mad, was Roland.”

  His voice was quiet now, reflective. “He came at me, Roland Tarbell did. I stepped aside, he slipped in a puddle of ale, and there’s really no more to the story than that. And as I said, far be it for me to speak ill of the dead, Mrs. Greenway, but the damned fool fell on his own knife trying to kill me.”

  There was a silence. He looked down at Madeleine, but she was absorbing the story, seeing it in her mind. She could say nothing.

  “I rolled him over, and sadly, he was quite dead. And he died mercifully quickly, I think. And anyone knows you’re not to take a knife out of a deep wound if you want that person to have a chance at living. So I was sober enough not to pull it out. But I did put my hand on it, and that’s of course what the Charlies saw when they saw me: my hand on the knife protruding from Roland Tarbell’s chest. But I swear to God, Mrs. Greenway…” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was weary and grim, the words threadbare from repetition, were shot through with quiet vehemence. “I didn’t put the knife there.”

  The heaviness of his words sank into Madeleine.

  She’d known Colin Eversea as a person for a day; she’d heard his voice and his laughter, seen emotion of all sorts move across his face; she’d seen how he responded to his circumstances, how carefully he dealt with people…and God help her, she could feel that night as though it was happening now, feel the horror, the unreality of it. She drew in a shuddering breath.

  His explanation was facile, but entirely plausible. And just as she’d feared, hearing the story in his voice was unutterably different from reading about it in the newspapers and broadsheets.

  When she didn’t seem inclined to speak, Colin Eversea continued.

  “Horace Peel and the dog saw the whole thing. Horace tried to tell the Charlies that very night—that I’d nothing to do with it, that it had been an accident, that I’d never do such a thing, that Roland Tarbell had done himself in. Horace had seen the whole thing. But Horace was gone by the time the trial began, and he hasn’t been seen since that night, unless you count the drunk who claims he saw Horace taken
away the night after the murder in a fiery, winged chariot. Which I’m sure you’ve heard all about. And all the other witnesses could say was that they saw me next to the body with my hand on the knife, and that there had been a fight, and the rest you’re rather familiar with.”

  Wryness had returned to his voice.

  They both jumped when the door rattled again.

  Realizing with some slight dismay that she’d been kneeling in front of Colin Eversea for several minutes, Madeleine stood so abruptly her head swam a little. She made for the door and slid the broom from its hooks. It opened slightly, with a creak.

  A hissing whisper came through it. “Remember, I want ye out afore dawn.”

  This reminder was followed by a bundle pushed through the space in the door. It dropped to the floor with a soft plop: the blankets. A few other smaller bundles were pushed in after it.

  “Godspeed,” Croker whispered more cheerily, and the door clicked shut.

  That was that.

  Madeleine slid the broom back through the hooks to bar the door and then gathered up the bundles, examining the horn of powder, the paper cone of paper-wrapped pistol balls—correct bore, too, as Croker owned a similar pocket pistol—the requested matches and flint, paper-wrapped meat pies, and three-quarters of a wheel of cheese. He’d added a skin of water. This amounted to extravagant hospitality from Croker.

  Silently, Madeleine immediately broke the meat pie roughly in half, making sure the larger half went to Colin, who didn’t protest, she noted with amusement. They both fell upon the food and ate in silence. She seemed to have less appetite than she might have before hearing his story.

  She was brushing crumbs away from the table into her cupped hand when Colin Eversea abruptly stood. She jerked her head up to see him lifting down sacks of flour and arranging them over the floor, patting them into a shape to form a mattress of sorts. And perhaps because she was too weary to keep her thoughts from straying from their usual orderly channels, she found herself lulled—mesmerized, if she was being truthful—by the way his shoulders moved beneath his shirt, and by the eloquence of the broad spread of his back narrowing to his waist, and how very right those long legs seemed in relation to the rest of him.