The Dangerous Mr. Ryder

Distantly a dog was barking, the bored yap of a lonely animal, not the aggression of a threatened one. The yard below was silent. He dredged into his mind and came up with the sound of a closing door outside. It must be about three o’clock—who was abroad at this time? He had chosen this inn, a hunters’ favourite off the main road, for its isolation.

He eased out of the bed, pulling on his breeches before taking four silent strides to the window. He unlatched the shutter, pushed it back and stood looking down until his eyes adjusted to what dim light there was. Minutes passed, then he saw a familiar figure come out of the shadow of the stable opposite and walk across the yard. In the centre the man stopped and looked up, directly into his eyes, although he could not have seen Jack.

He eased the window wide and leaned out. ‘What’s the matter?’ He pitched the whisper to reach Henry and no further.

‘Nothing,’ the groom hissed. ‘I was restless.’

Jack raised a hand in acknowledgement and silently closed the window again. Henry was lying, of course, he had probably been prowling about every half-hour or so throughout the night. He never seemed to need much sleep—the result, he claimed, of becoming accustomed to very little when he was a prisoner of war.

The man drifted out of sight as soundlessly as he had appeared. Jack turned to go back to bed and found himself face to face with a white spectre. ‘What the hell!’

It was Eva, of course. How she had got out of bed and across the room without him hearing her was a worry—was he losing his sharpness of hearing, the instinct that warned him of danger? But, of course, Eva was not a danger. Not, at least, in the sense that she was likely to knife him in the back.

‘It is me,’ she whispered. ‘What’s wrong? Is it Antoine’s men?’

‘No, nothing’s wrong. I was simply checking. Henry is on guard below,’ he said reassuringly. ‘Go back to bed.’

‘Very well.’ Eva started to turn, stumbled, put out her hand for balance and hit it sharply against his naked ribs. The gasp of pain as her nails grazed across his bruises was out before he could choke it back. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing. You scratched me slightly and made me jump, that’s all.’ She stood, looking up at him as though she could read his face in the near darkness. Her own was a pure oval of white, only the shadow of her eyes discernible.

‘I do not believe you,’ she said after a moment, and spun round towards the bedside table, the movement sending a faint rumour of warm skin and gardenia wafting, achingly, to his nostrils. ‘Stay there.’ There was a scrape and a flame flared up. She touched it to the candle and carried it over to where he stood. ‘Mon Dieu! Your ribs, your chest! Turn around.’

‘It is nothing, just bruises from the rope.’ Jack tried to urge her back to the bed, but she stood her ground. Eva should have looked ludicrous in his oversized shirt, her slim legs and slender feet emerging from beneath the hem, but she looked tousled and delecta

ble and the fact she was wearing something of his was oddly arousing. No, extremely arousing.

‘What rope? And turn around, I am not going to hurt you, you foolish man.’ She seemed to have no conception that he might not obey her.

The implication that he was frightened had him turning before he could catch himself. Then he froze as a cool palm touched lightly on the diagonal welt across his back. ‘You didn’t think I climbed down the castle wall to your window like a lizard, did you?’ It was suddenly difficult to control his breathing.

‘Rational speculation about how you appeared in my room was the last thing on my mind,’ Eva said drily. ‘You could have flown there on a broomstick for all I knew.’ She made a soft sound of distress as she moved the candle to see the full extent of the damage. Jack stood watching their shadows slide across the bedchamber wall and fought the urge to turn and take her in his arms. Her feminine concern, the gentleness of her touch, almost banished the constant awareness of who she was. But the Grand Duchess was all too aware of it; Jack reminded himself grimly of the fact, and turned round.

It did not help that the suddenness of his movement gave her no time to move her hand and they ended up almost chest to chest, her right arm wrapped around his naked ribcage, her left hand holding the candlestick out to the side in an effort not to scorch either of them. Oddly, the intimacy did not appear to be concerning her.

Eva tutted again, moving away to put the candle down safely. ‘I don’t suppose you have anything useful like medical supplies along with all those clean shirts, have you?’ He was breathing like a virgin on her wedding night now and Eva was perfectly composed. For God’s sake, man, get a grip.

‘Of course.’ Offering up a quick prayer of thanks that he had stopped to put on his breeches, Jack lifted one of his valises on to the bed and opened it. ‘There. Not that I need anything.’

‘I will be the judge of that.’ Eva began to lift things out of the case. ‘What on earth are these?’

‘Probes for removing bullets.’

‘Urgh.’ She opened her fingers fastidiously and dropped the instrument on to the bed. ‘I hope Henry knows what to do with them, or that you stay well out of the line of fire, because I am certainly not using them. Here, witch hazel, that is just the thing. And some lint.’ She shook the bottle and pulled out the stopper, releasing the strange astringently aromatic smell into the room. ‘Sit on the corner of the bed, please.’

The liquid was cold on his sleep-warm skin and Jack could feel the goose bumps forming as she dabbed her way up his back and across his shoulder along the lines left by the rope. He found himself wondering with a sense of detachment if she was going to deal with his chest with such aplomb. It seemed she would. For some reason a woman who baulked at sharing his bedchamber could cope quite easily with his half-naked body provided there was an injury to deal with.

Eva moved round, tipping the bottle on to the lint again to re-dampen it. She paused to survey the darkening bruise, then caught his eye. ‘What is it?’ Damn the woman, can she read minds? His ability to keep a straight, unreadable, face was one of his most valuable professional assets. So he had believed.

‘I was wondering why you do not appear to find this embarrassing,’ he answered frankly. ‘We are both half-dressed and in a bedchamber, and earlier that appeared to be a major obstacle to a good night’s sleep.’

She looked down her nose, suddenly every inch the Grand Duchess, despite her makeshift nightshirt and bare feet. ‘You are injured; that is something that must be dealt with, whatever the situation. On the other hand, finding myself constrained to share a bed with a strange man was something I would hope to avoid if at all possible.’

‘So modest behaviour depends on circumstance? Ouch!’

‘Sorry.’ She peered close to see why he had jumped, then carried on dabbing. Her breath fanned warmly over his collarbone, playing havoc with his pulse rate. ‘Of course it depends. If I was in my bath and the place was burning down, I would not expect you to wait politely outside the door until I got dressed before breaking in to rescue me.’

Jack fought with himself, biting the inside of his cheek in an effort not to laugh, then he caught Eva’s eye and watched while she imagined the scene she had just described. Her lips twitched, the corners of her eyes crinkled and she burst out laughing. He had never seen her laugh before; he hadn’t known whether she had a sense of humour. The only smiles he had seen were polite social expressions, but this was another woman. One hand pressed to her lips, she hurried to put the bottle down safely, then collapsed on the bed in a paroxysm of giggles.