To Beguile a Beast (Legend of the Four Soldiers #3)(68)

He tapped softly at the door, half expecting her not to answer—she was very mad at him, after all—but the door cracked almost at once. He pushed it open, entered the little room, and shut and locked it behind him. She had moved across the room after letting him in and now stood at a tiny gabled window, her back to him, in her shift with a shawl thrown over her shoulders.

“You didn’t eat any of your dinner,” he said.

One elegant shoulder rose in a shrug.

“It’s a long journey to London,” he said gently, “and you’ll need to keep your strength up. Come eat.”

“Maybe we’ll catch up to Lister before London.”

He looked at that slim, brave back, and the tiredness that he’d been holding in check all day nearly overwhelmed him. “He’s got a head start. It’s not likely.”

She sighed then and turned, and for a moment he thought he saw tears sparkling in her eyes. But then she ducked her head and came toward him, and he could no longer see her eyes. She took the plate of food from him but then didn’t seem to know what to do with it.

“Sit here,” he said, indicating a small chair before the fire.

She sat. “I’m not hungry.” She sounded like a small child.

He squatted before her and began cutting her meat. “The mutton is quite good. Have a bite.” He proffered a piece on the tines of the fork.

She met his eyes as she accepted the bit of food from him. Her eyes were wet, harebells that’d fallen in a stream.

“We’ll get them back,” he said softly. He stabbed another piece of meat for her. “I’ll find Lister and the children, and we’ll get them back, safe and sound. I promise.”

She nodded, and he carefully, tenderly, fed her almost all of the plate of food before she protested that she could eat no more. Then she climbed into the single bed, and he stripped to his breeches and snuffed the candles. When he got into bed, she lay facing away from him, still and lonely. He stared at the dark ceiling and listened to her breathing, aware that he was hard and pounding with want. They lay thus for a half hour or more until her breathing roughened, and he realized that she was weeping once more. Then he turned to her without a word and pulled her stiff body into his arms. She shuddered against him, her sobs still muffled, and he simply wrapped his arms around her. After a bit, her body slowly lost its rigidity. She softened and relaxed and cried no more.

But he still lay awake, hard and wanting.

Chapter Fourteen

Princess Sympathy took the ring and put it on her thumb. Instantly, the iron bars of her cage turned to water and splashed to the ground. As her cage disappeared, so did the cage that held the swallows. They burst into the air, circling in joy. Truth Teller gave the princess his worn cloak, for she had no other apparel, and led her to where the horse was hidden. But when she saw that there was only one horse, she stopped.

“Where is your mount?” she cried.

“I had only money for one,” Truth Teller replied as he lifted her to the saddle.

The princess leaned down and touched his face. “Then you must lie when the sorcerer returns. Tell him a witch has taken me. He will do you a great harm if he thinks you have helped me!”

Truth Teller merely smiled and slapped the horse’s flank, sending the beast galloping down the mountain. . . .

—from TRUTH TELLER

A week later, Helen placed her hand in Alistair’s and stepped down from a carriage drawn up in front of the Duke of Lister’s London residence. She looked up at the tall, classical building and shivered. She’d seen it before, of course, but she’d never tried to enter it.

“He won’t see us,” she said to Alistair, not for the first time.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

He held out his arm to her, and she placed her fingertips on his sleeve, amazed at how accustomed she’d become to this in the last week.

“It’s a waste of time,” she muttered in a feeble attempt to quell her clamoring nerves.

“If I thought that Lister would merely hand over the children, then, yes, it would be a waste of time,” he murmured as they mounted the front steps. “But that is not my sole aim today.”

She stared up at him. His hair was neatly clubbed back, and he wore a black tricorne and reddish-brown coat. Both were newer than any other article of clothing she’d seen him in before, and she had to admit he looked rather nice—an imposing gentleman.

She blinked and focused her thoughts. “Then what is your aim?”

“To learn my adversary,” he replied, and let the knocker fall loudly. “Now hush.”

From within the house, footsteps approached and then the door was opened. The butler who stood within was obviously a superior servant, but his eyes rounded when he saw Alistair’s face. Helen bit back a sharp exclamation. Why did people have to stare so rudely when they saw Alistair? They acted like he was an animal or an inanimate object—a monkey in a cage or a bizarre machine—and gaped as if he had no feelings.

Alistair, meanwhile, simply ignored the man’s rudeness and asked for the duke. The butler recovered himself, inquired after their names, and showed them into a small sitting room before leaving to ascertain if the duke was available.

Helen sat on an ornate gold and black settee and carefully arranged her skirts. She felt wildly out of place here in the house where Lister lived with his legitimate family. The room was done in golds and white and black. On one wall was a portrait of a boy, and she wondered if it was a relation of the duke, a son perhaps. He had three sons by his wife, she knew. Quickly she looked away from the small portrait, feeling shame that she’d once slept with a married man.