The Dangerous Mr. Ryder

‘No, of course not, love was not part of the expectation,’ she said readily. She had just confessed her deepest fear—to tell the tale of her marriage was easy in comparison. ‘I was dazzled, seduced and over-awed. I was seventeen years old, remember! Just imagine—a grand duke.’

‘A catch, indeed,’ Jack agreed. There was something in his voice that made her suddenly very aware of where she was and that Jack’s body was responding to holding her so closely

‘I…Mr Ryder, Jack, please let me go.’ She struggled off his lap, suddenly gauche and awkward, knowing the colour flaming in her cheeks. ‘Thank you. I appreciate your…concern.’

She settled in the far corner, fussing with her skirts and pushing at her hair in a feminine flurry of activity. ‘You say you have the dream quite often?’ Jack said slowly.

‘Yes.’ She nodded, keeping her head bent, apparently intent on a mark on her sleeve.

‘Very well. You must remember, the next time, that when the lid begins to move, it is me opening it. I will have come to rescue you. There will be nothing unpleasant for you to see, and I will take you safely up those winding stairs, up into the daylight. Do you understand, Eva? Remind yourself of that before you go to sleep.’

‘You? But why should you rescue me in my dream?’ No one has ever rescued me before.’ He had her full attention now. She fixed her eyes on his face as she worried over his meaning.

‘You did not have me as a bodyguard before,’ Jack said simply. ‘All you need to do is believe in me, and I will be there. Even in your dreams. Do you?’

‘Believe in you? Yes, Jack. I believe you. Even in my dreams.’

It was a fairy tale. Eva looked down at her clasped hands so that Jack would not see that her eyes were suddenly swimming with tears. Such foolish weakness! She was a rational, educated woman; of course he could not stride into her nightmare like a knight, errant to slay the ghosts and monsters. And yet, she believed him. Believed in him.

Only the year before she had found an enchanting book of fairy stories by some German brothers and had been engrossed. What was the name of the one about the sleeping princes? Ah, yes, ‘Briar Rose.’

And it was a dangerous fairy tale, for she wanted more than protection from her knight errant—she wanted his lovemaking, she wanted him to wake her from her long sleep.

Jack wanted her, too, she knew, if only at the most basic level of male response to the female. He could not hide his body’s response from a woman nestling in his lap. And that frightened her, for she realised that she had responded to it, been aroused by it, before her mind had recognised what was happening to them. She should have been alert to that danger, she had thought she was. Had she not resolved to maintain everything on a strictly imperso

nal level, as recently as this morning? That attack of panic had upset all her carefully constructed aloofness like a pile of child’s building blocks.

‘What are you thinking about?’ He was matter of fact again. It almost felt as though he was checking on her mental state in the same way as he would check on the condition of a horse, or test the temper of a blade he might rely upon.

‘Fairy stories,’ she said promptly, looking up, her eyes clear. Telling the truth was always easiest, and this seemed a safe and innocuous subject. Her early training came back—find a neutral topic of conversation that will set the other person at their ease. ‘I found a wonderful book of them last year.’

‘The Brothers Grimm? Yes, I enjoyed those.’ He grinned at her expression. ‘You are surprised I read such things?’

‘Perhaps you have nephews and nieces?’ she suggested.

‘No, none. And I do not think it is a book for children, do you? Far too much sex, far too much fear and violence.’

Flustered by how closely this was impinging on her fantasies, Eva said hastily, ‘Yes, of course, you are quite correct. It is not a book I would give to Freddie.’

‘I doubt he sits still long enough to read anything except his schoolbooks,’ Jack said.

‘Oh, of course. I forgot, you actually spoke to him.’ How could she have forgotten that? She had been fighting her fears about Freddie, fretting over how he was, and here was someone with news of him that was only weeks old. ‘Tell me how he looked.’

‘As well as any lively nine-year-old who has just had a severe stomach upset,’ Jack said. ‘A touch green round the gills, but so far recovered that he was able to enjoy describing exactly, and in minute and revolting detail, how his mushrooms had reappeared and what they had looked like.’

‘I am sorry.’ Eva chuckled. ‘Little wretch.’

‘He’s a boy. I was one once—I am not so old that I cannot remember the fascination of gory details.’

‘How tall is he?’ Eva asked wistfully. ‘Hoffmeister writes me pedantic reports on a regular basis. “HSH has attained some competence with his Latin translation, HSH has been outfitted with new footwear, HSH smuggled a kitten into his room. It has been removed.” But it doesn’t help me see Freddie.’

Jack stood up, braced himself against the lurching of the carriage with one hand on the luggage rack and held the other hand palm down against his body. ‘This high. Sturdy as a little pony now—but any moment he is going to start to grow and I think he will be tall. His hair is thick, like yours, and needs cutting. His eyes are hazel, his face he is still growing into. But I saw he was your son when I first set eyes on you.’

He sat down again and Eva felt the tension and fear of the past hour ebb away into relief and thoughts of Freddie. ‘Oh, thank you so much, I can just picture him now! He was such a baby when Louis insisted he went to England. The first thing I am going to do when I am settled there is to have his portrait painted.’

‘With his mother, of course?’

‘No,’ she said slowly, thinking it out. ‘Alone. His first official portrait. I will have engravings done from it and flood Maubourg with them. It is time people remembered who their Grand Duke is.’