At Your Pleasure by Meredith Duran Page B

wasn’t as though such wickedness would cast his immortal soul into peril: he had lost anychance at heaven long ago. No matter God’s churchly affinity, Adrian did not imagine that He approved of apostates.
    He reined up in the courtyard and turned to help her down. But she had already slipped off the saddle. As she walked away, she did not look back.
    Alone in her closet, the locks turned, Nora smoothed out the letter with shaking hands. The message was brief, written by someone who had no idea that her house now hosted the king’s men: tomorrow, under cover of darkness, a party would arrive to collect the arms and weaponry David had amassed.
    She had waited weeks for such news. The stores of gunpowder hidden amongst the wine were an ever-living threat to the safety of all beneath this roof. But what cursed timing! If only chance had brought them three days earlier . . .
    She fed the note to the fire. It curled and blackened, filling the air with a peculiar, sweet scent that made her sick to her stomach.
    She had no idea who would compose this party designing to appear. David had kept her ignorant of the names of his conspirators. But unless they retrieved her letter—and sometimes it took days for them to do so—they would enter unprepared for the welcome awaiting them. Blood would spill. They would die, and Rivenham and his friends would not require further evidence of her brother’s guilt: if caught, David would go straight to the block.
    Or David’s men would prevail. Then Rivenham and his men would be the ones to die.
    She sat heavily into a chair.
    It should make no matter if Rivenham was killed.
    But—yes, of course it should. She put her fist to her lips, pressing hard. If Rivenham died, news of his death would reach London eventually. That would bring more trouble. She had every reason to care about that .
    She shut her eyes.
    Adrian .
    The flesh was weak, but it was not dumb. It had its own animal intelligence. In her husband’s bed her body had felt like dead clay, but it had come back to life this morning in the apple grove.
    How had she forgotten such pleasure? It invigorated the senses and enlarged the lungs. Riding through the meadow, the air had tasted richer and the brush of his worsted jacket against her bare wrist had riveted her whole awareness. Even her silent, inward turmoil had felt bittersweet to her.
    She lifted her head to look into the fire. I could seduce him, she thought. Putting aside her own considerations, she could win him to David’s side—or, failing that, she could distract him from his aim.
    She pushed to her feet and grabbed the fire irons, stirring the flames to ensure not a scrap of writing had survived. To lie with him . . .
    The very thought weakened her knees.
    She stared at her hand clenched so tightly around the irons. Once it had been white and unblemished. Nowher knuckles were red, her cuticles ragged, and the veins on her hand stood out prominently. She was no longer a girl. Yet her flaw remained the same.
    She had always been a wanton for him.
    Nothing, not her father’s rage or Adrian’s abandonment or her husband’s blame, had been able to transform her.
    She cast down the irons, making an angry clatter against the stone. Why lie to herself? If bedding him benefited David, then it would be an accidental profit—and not one on which she could depend. Rivenham had not come here for her: he had made that clear enough.
    O vanity! How it had once stung her. He had not abandoned his faith for her, though it had been the first objection her father had lodged against him when Nora had been forced to confess all. But he had abandoned it for his own gain. He had traded religions to please new friends.
    What could she expect from such a man as that? Such a man as would abandon his church would be able to take a woman to bed at night, then rise at dawn to run her brother through.
    Who could mourn such a man if he came to a bad end? Better he fail than others who fought for