Secrets of the Night

by Jo Beverley

  Despite his light tone, something struck an alarm. “Do you?”

  A sudden stillness in his features echoed her, but then he shrugged. “Not as far as I know. Aren’t you going to help me jog my memory?”

  “Be serious!”

  “I am. Though serious isn’t quite the right word.” He touched himself. “Firm perhaps. Come back to bed.”

  His frank boldness was making her blush, but stirring fire inside as well. “I can’t.” There were a hundred reasons, but she seized the easiest. “It’s too risky.”

  “Ah. I suppose your reputation requires that you are not seen in my room very much. Later then?” He managed to make it plaintive, like a child begging for a treat, but there was nothing at all childish about the light in his eye.

  He was dangerous. She should get his clothes, lend him some money, then arrange for someone to drive him to Thirsk. She should.

  She tried to moisten her dry mouth and finally succeeded. “If you’re sure you can stay…”

  “I’m sure I should regain all my memories before leaving.” Despite his hand still resting lightly on his erection, he spoke seriously, and indeed, if there had been foul play, he was right. “So,” he asked. “When?”

  A laugh escaped, a half-exasperated one. How could sin be so carefree? “Not till the night. And even then—”

  “When darkness falls,” he interrupted firmly, shifting and arranging a swirl of sheet for decency.

  She put her hands on her hips. “Oh, so suddenly it’s for you to decide, is it?”

  “If I don’t, you’ll dither away our time together.”

  “This is wrong,” she said weakly, his very ease and confidence threatening her. Surely sin should be all spines and cold, hard edges.

  “That’s for you to decide. I’ll leave now if you want. Don’t worry about my safety. If I made an enemy who dumped me in the dales, I doubt he’s hovering to finish the job he assumed the rain and cold did for him.”

  So, it was her choice. She remembered with shock that once this had been her demand. Payment. A cold, hard bargain in the night. She tried to return to that place, that safe place, but soft warmth cradled her. “It probably is wrong,” she said, meeting his eyes, “but I don’t care.”

  He smiled again, a delighted smile that even seemed to chase away sin. “I’m pleased.” After that simple, stunning affirmation, he added, “But if you want much more excitement, my dearest lady, you’d better feed me.”

  Dropped back to everyday concerns, she grabbed her gown and hurried into it. “Of course. You must be famished. What?”

  “Anything sustaining. Come here and I’ll help you.”

  She was struggling to fasten her corset and the hooks down the back of her gown. She needed help, but was that all he would do?

  On trembling legs, she went to perch on the edge of the bed, back to him. She expected—half hoped for— attack, but instead just felt his fingers deftly attending to the clothes he had so recently loosened. He tightened her corset laces, and knotted them. Then he fastened the ten hooks up her back, brushing aside her hair at the nape to do the last two.

  “You’ve done this before.”

  “Of course.”

  No shame. No repentance. It should make her think of sin, but instead it made her think, almost tearfully, of marriage. Of the sort of marriage that perhaps some people had, where shattering lovemakmg could be followed by conversation and commonplace kindness.

  When he finished, she began to rise, but he cinched her waist with his hands.

  Ah. Attack.

  “I must go and find you that sustaining food,” she said, heart beginning to race. Moments ago she’d felt satiated. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

  “Gracious hostess. But there’s no need to serve me. I could come down to the kitchens.”

  “No!”

  “Why not?”

  “In a towel?”

  “I could wear the sheet as a toga.”

  “Don’t be silly.” She pulled against his hold, but he had her trapped.

  He put his lips against the side of her neck and whispered, “Why do you keep locking the door?”

  Her shoulders tensed despite that soft warmth. “You’re a stranger. You could do anything.”

  He laughed softly. “You haven’t seen everything I can do. Yet.” His tongue teased her, and his thumbs made tiny, unignorable circles on her back. “Sweet Lady Mystery, am I perhaps your prisoner?”

  She jumped. “No! I… I just don’t want you wandering the house.”

  “Really? Do you know what I think?”

  “What?” It escaped as a half-choked whisper.

  Thumbs playing gently, shiveringly, he said, “I think I’m your love-slave. Captured on the wild moors to serve your wanton pleasure.”

  The resonance with her own thoughts, with reality, shocked Rosamunde into really trying to pull away.

  He kept her close, an arm tight around her waist. “Call it indentured servitude, then. Is not that the truth? I owe you a debt, and you require payment in service.”

  “But you’ve—”

  “Paid part of it. I bind myself to your service.” He turned her, lowering her breathless to the bed. “Until dawn tomorrow, I am yours. Command me, mistress. What do you want in the secret hours of the night?”

  “Nothing!”

  “Liar,” he whispered, shifting more heavily onto her.

  She sucked in air. “I want to go and find you food.”

  “Parts of you look very tasty.”

  “Nourishing food!”

  “Mistress commands that I don’t lose my strength?”

  “No, I—”

  “Mistress thinks I am too thin?”

  Half laughing, Rosamunde pushed at his chest. “Stop it! You’re being ridiculous. You said you were hungry.”

  “I will starve if it be your will.”

  His warm eyes met hers, urging her to join in the game. Could men and women play games?

  “Do you wish me to starve?” he asked.

  She tried to wriggle sideways. “No, of course not.”

  He stopped her. “I am grateful for your mercy, mistress. So, when I have my strength back, what will you want of me?”

  “Nothing.” It was still a lie.

  He knew it. A sparkle in his eyes said that, but he lowered his lids and managed to look downcast. “Alas. I have failed to give pleasure. Bring back the razor, mistress, and I will put an end to my miserable existence.”

  “Never. From now on, you grow a beard.”

  “Then it will have to be hanging. I will hang myself with the sheets.”

  “Then I will take away all the sheets.”

  Shining eyes met hers. “Ah-ha! You do want me naked!”

  “No!” Laughing, Rosamunde tried again to squirm free of his body and his nonsense. “As your mistress, I command you to live. There!” It was only as she triumphantly exclaimed this, that she realized he’d lured her into his games.

  She stared up at him, seeing that this, too, was part of his payment, his generous payment. How long had it been since she’d enjoyed such a lighthearted, playful moment?

  Falling happily into the spirit of it, she wriggled out from under him and off the bed, and victorious, he let her go. “I know what you are, sir!” she declared. “You’re a traveling mountebank, and your friends at Thirsk are your theater company!”

  “Alas,” he said, sitting up again, hand on heart—or more devastatingly, on his gorgeous muscled chest. “I am a mere amateur. In acting, that it.”

  “And in lovemaking, sirrah, I suppose you are a professional!”

  He laughed aloud. “No, mistress mine. In that, too, I am an amateur. But not mere.”

  An amateur. One who did things for love, not money.

  He didn’t mean it that way, but it broke the spell. There was no question of love here. It was for payment, payment for his life. And she was not here for amusement, to be carried back to childish ways, but for a desperately
needed child. What’s more, she must never trust such a smooth-tongued rascal. Oh, he was good-natured and charming, but he was undoubtedly a rascal. He could be a highwayman, or a dissolute gamester, or the sort of man who slipped from place to place, breaking hearts and escaping creditors.

  “What food do you want?” she asked, ruthlessly dragging matters back to the prosaic. She sidled around to find her shoes and put them on.

  He placed his hands together and bowed over them. “Whatever my mistress desires.”

  She deliberately listed the food she liked least. “Pease pudding? Eel? Tongue?”

  He peeped up mischievously. “Tongue. I like tongue.”

  Rosamunde blushed down to her toes. Oh, why could he do this to her?

  “However,” he continued, “I will pass on the eels. Oh, and speaking of ‘eels—not the local delicacy made of cow’s feet, I beg you.”

  “Cow heels,” she said, struggling not to let him make her laugh again. “Pickled trotters, then. How would that be?”

  “I confess, I have never met a foot I wished to eat.” Then his eyes flashed merrily. “Nibble, now…”

  Rosamunde’s blushing toes—recognizing that they were being spoken about—curled. “Oh, don’t!”

  “No? Your wish is my command, mistress. Until dawn tomorrow, I am yours. I will not touch you, top or toe, without your consent. And you, you are free…”

  “Free?” she breathed.

  “Free to do with me entirely as you wish.”

  Rosamunde saw that he meant it and immediately had a vision of licking his naked body. Every inch of it. After a breathless moment, she stepped forward, and saw a welcoming, interested light in his eyes.

  She was hovering on the brink, her mind filled with wicked longings of licking his naked body as he lay passive beneath her, she with all her clothes on, armored against him. Could she do to him what he’d done to her? Could she watch him dissolve?

  His brows rose as if she’d spoken her wicked dream and a wave of heat flooded her. It really wouldn’t be that terribly dangerous to spend a little more time up here with him, would it? Millie and Jessie wouldn’t—

  Then a sound broke through. Familiar, tinkling bells.

  “Oh no!” she gasped, shocked right back to icy reality.

  “What?” He surged from the bed, all fun discarded, immediately dangerous.

  “My mother!”

  He froze, then stared at her. “Your mother?”

  “The bells on her pony’s harness. Butterflies and billhooks, I should have known!”

  Racing to the window, she heard him echo, “ ‘Butterflies and billhooks’?”

  She peeped around the corner of the curtain in time to see her mother’s one-horse chair jingle down the lane toward the front of the house. “She has someone with her, too!” She whirled to him. “What am I to do?”

  He was almost helpless with laughter. “A mother. And a guilty daughter!”

  “How could she know?”

  He seized her shoulders. “Calm down, Lady Mystery. Perhaps she doesn’t. If she does, I’m merely your sick patient.” He looked her over quickly, even turning her to inspect the back, then pushed her toward the door. “Go. She won’t be able to guess what you’ve been up to.” But then he added, “Will she want to come up here?”

  Rosamunde, already with the knob in her hand, gave a little moan. “If she knows about you… she can’t.” But Rosamunde wondered if Mrs. Yockenthwait might have thought a mother excluded from the secrecy. “If she knows I have a sick man here, she won’t think I’ve cared for you properly.”

  “How little she knows you,” he said, with a toe-curling smile. “But if she’s going to come up, you need something to mask the smell.”

  Rosamunde paused, absorbing the fact that the room smelled of sex. “Mercy!”

  “Do you have any gin?”

  “This is no time to get drunk!” But then she saw what he was about. “No. Wait!”

  She ran into her own room, the one she and Diana had shared here since they were children, and pulled out a bottle of port. From a daring childhood pleasure, it had become a sweet tradition before bed.

  Daring. They hadn’t known the meaning!

  As she rushed back with it, the door knocker rapped.

  Still naked, he’d opened the window wide and had clearly stirred the potpourri in the dish on the mantel. She didn’t know if it would be enough. She thrust the bottle into his hands, trying desperately to think of something to suggest.

  He pushed her back out through the doorway. She ran down the stairs, then skidded to a halt at the bend and raced back up to lock the door. Her knees knocked and her heart thudded with all the panic she’d felt at twelve or so, involved in some terrible mischief, and about to be found out.

  Terrible mischief, indeed. This capped them all!

  What on earth would her mother say if she found out?

  Rosamunde plunged down the stairs and into the drawing room just before poor overworked Jessie trotted through the hall to answer the door. Sucking in huge breaths, she pulled off her mask and stuffed it in her pocket. A glance in the mirror showed the pressure marks it couldn’t help but leave. With a mutter, she pulled it out and put it on again.

  She had just sat down and opened a book, when the door opened.

  “Hello, Rosie,” said her dumpling mother, bright eyed and cheerful. “We heard you were stuck here with some mysterious half-dead stranger on your hands, so we had to pop over and see.”

  Chapter 7

  We? Oh no. Behind Mrs. Ellington was Rosamunde’s nosiest sister.

  Still, she leaped up with what she hoped was convincing surprise and pleasure. “Mama! Sukey!

  Sukey, six months pregnant, was already inspecting the markings on the bottom of one of the china ornaments. “Why are you wearing that mask, Rosie? It looks horrid.”

  With a shaky laugh, Rosamunde took it off. “Just being silly. I thought strangers were coming.”

  “Very silly,” said her mother, sitting down. “If they were strangers, you wouldn’t let them in, would you? Anyway, it’s time you accepted that your scars are not bad enough to curdle the milk.” But then she shrugged, for she’d said it before. “So, dear, tell us about this invalid. Mrs. Yockenthwait seems to think he’s a brigand.”

  “Like a highwayman?” Rosamunde queried lightly. “He wouldn’t get far in that trade when he was clearly tossed from his horse.”

  “Is that what happened?”

  Nervous Jessie bobbed a curtsy. “Would you like tea, milady?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Rosamunde said, hoping that might stop the inquisition. “Tea would be lovely.”

  As soon as Jessie left, however, her mother asked, “So, who or what is he, dear?”

  She had to lie again. “I have no idea. He has no tools or goods with him. Nothing at all, in fact, apart from the clothes on his back and a handkerchief. He either drank it all, or had his pockets emptied for him.”

  “Doesn’t he know who he is?” Sukey asked, turning from an inspection of a row of books. As well as being nosy, she was very shrewd and could winkle out a secret in a moment. Rosamunde prayed there was no evidence of her wicked morning, and that for once in her life she could hold to some untruths.

  “He was unconscious through the night,” she said in an uninterested manner, “and he seems confused still.”

  “Or likes the enjoyable bed he’s landed in,” Sukey pointed out.

  Rosamunde felt her face flame again, and smiled brightly to compensate.

  “Where have you put him, dear?” her mother asked as Jessie hurried back with a tray loaded with china, teapot, and cakes. Rosamunde welcomed the chance to leap up and help her.

  “In a bedroom upstairs.”

  “Rosie!” Sukey exclaimed. “You soft-hearted numbskull.”

  “I didn’t see why not. He’s not a vagrant.”

  “How do you know?”

  “His clothes are decent.”

  “Per
haps he stole them.”

  Rosamunde had never thought of that. “He speaks like a gentleman. And he doesn’t have a working man’s hands.”

  “Then he’s a wastrel.”

  Since Rosamunde basically agreed, she couldn’t think of a retort.

  “Stop bickering, girls,” their mother said. “I don’t suppose Diana will mind Rosie putting her charity case in a good bedroom—unless he has lice.”

  “Of course he hasn’t,” Rosamunde protested.

  “So, is this paragon of innocence up to receiving visitors?” Sukey asked, coming to sit near the tray. “What does he look like? Is he dashing and handsome?”

  “When puking?” Rosamunde asked.

  “Is he puking still?”

  “No, and he’s handsome enough.” Rosamunde doubted she’d get Sukey out of the house without a glimpse so there was no point in lying.

  “Balding?”

  “No.”

  “Squint?”

  Rosamunde stared at her sister. “No!”

  “Bad teeth?”

  Rosamunde almost snapped out another no, but caught herself. “I don’t think so.”

  “In that case,” said Sukey, licking cream from her fingers, “he’ll count as an angel in these parts.”

  “I don’t recollect any of those flaws in Harold,” Rosamunde pointed out, referring to her sister’s husband.

  Sukey took more tea. “But I always said I married an angel.”

  “So,” interrupted their mother, sipping, “when is your angel likely to take wing?”

  “Tomorrow, I hope. I want to be home.”

  “Of course you do, dear.” Her mother nodded, gray curls bobbing under her plain hat.

  Rosamunde felt suddenly defensive. “Digby isn’t expecting me. He won’t be worrying.”

  “Of course not, dear.”

  Rosamunde expected her mother to offer to send a message, and when she didn’t, she stiffened. She’d thought Mrs. Yockenthwait might have suspicions, but surely such notions would never cross her own mother’s mind! She was not one for looking at the underside of things.

  “So,” said Sukey, draining her teacup and rising briskly, “let us ascend to heaven to visit the angel.”