The Return of the Prodigal

Rian noticed a bird hopping across the grass, a large green bug snapped tight in its beak. Birds ate without arms. Ah, but could they cut their meat? Birds didn’t need to cut their meat, did they? Perhaps he should consider changing his diet? Would a diet of beetles make life easier? But not tastier, surely. Chicken legs. Yes, those he could eat with one hand. Thank God for chicken legs. But not the legs of other birds. Most bird legs had no meat. Still, there were pigeons, and squabs, and…

“Rian! You aren’t listening to me! I’m telling you that it is time for you to go.”

He continued to watch the bird for a few moments, fascinated by it, and only blinked himself back to attention with a great effort of will. “Yes, yes. Time for me to go. I heard you, Lisette. I’ll go.”

And then he turned from her, to walk back to the manor house. He climbed the servant stairs to the room assigned to him and lay down on the bed, staring up at the canopy above his head.

What had he and Lisette been talking about? He closed his eyes, eager to drift into sleep and be away from the headache. Whatever it was, she’d talk to him again. She nagged like an old woman. He smiled as he let go, let himself fall into slumber. And she had a body like a miracle….

LISETTE WALKED INTO the large study and flounced over to her favorite chair, plopping down into it and swinging one leg up and over the arm, letting it dangle in the air. “I talk and I talk, and only now and then, he listens. The man is exhausting.”

“Yes, and I can understand why. I’ve just been informed that you go to the man’s bed. You didn’t offer that small tidbit of information, Lisette, when I returned from Paris last night.”

Her heart nervously skipped a beat, but she only rolled her eyes, lifted her leg back off the arm of the chair and sat forward, her elbows on her knees. “And I’m sure I know just who informed you. What would you have had me do? Read verses from the Bible? Sing to him? Show him an inch of ankle? It takes a brick to his head to get the man to pay attention as it is. The only time he really listens is when we are in bed. I know how important this is to you, to both of us, to learn more about him. I did what I had to do in order to gain his trust.”

“I think we can safely rule out the verses from the Bible, I agree. But I left here a month ago, pleased with your progress, only asking you to try harder to ingratiate yourself into his confidence. Oddly, I do not recall telling you to bed him.”

How could she explain what had happened? How sad Rian Becket had been. So lost and alone. How she had longed to comfort him, had put her arms around him. The rest? Ah, it had happened. It continued to happen. She had no excuse, except perhaps her own loneliness. She felt no shame. She had done what she had done.

She would not apologize.

“You did not say so precisely, no. As you just said again, I was to get close to him, gain his confidence. How do you think you get close to a man? He is not a woman, to be brought posies and pretty poems. Men have needs. A woman does not live in this world for long without learning that.”

She sat back in the chair, still feigning a confidence she didn’t feel. “So I did what I had to do. But he wanders, his mind travels too much. He is still too removed from the world, at times too happy, and at others tiresomely maudlin. I cannot work miracles. I cannot even cajole him into writing a letter to his family. All these potions. We need to weaken the doses.”

“You question my judgment?”

“Ah, and look who else is here.” Lisette shot a fierce glance toward a darkened corner of the room, her anger rising quick and hot. “You blend so well with the dark, don’t you? From now on, I must insist that you announce your presence. I want to know to whom I am speaking.”

“Arrogant little brat. Perhaps I should have left you with the nuns,” the first speaker muttered, chuckling. “Better yet, I can see now that you should have been born a man.”

“I can do anything a man can do,” Lisette said, bristling, and then turned back to the woman in the corner. “And I’m able to do anything a woman can do. I need no potions, no spells, no dark magick. He understands now, at last. He’ll leave with me. He promised. He may forget until tomorrow, but I will remind him again, until I get through his thick skull and those vile potions you have me feeding him.”

“Don’t laugh at my potions.”

“I don’t laugh at them. I get angry with them. But I will admit he’s finally growing stronger, the fever abated at last. We’ll be on the way to his home within the week, I promise it.”

“And into danger. Better to keep him here, make him strong enough to question at length without killing him until we have our answers. I do not like this plan. She fights me now,” the female in the corner said, sounding grave, close to frightened. “She’s aware of me, I can feel it. She’ll fight you, too. Protecting her chick, you could be damaged.”

“Me, damaged?” Lisette laughed without humor, careful not to respond to this notion of killing Rian Becket. “And wouldn’t that make you happy, hmm? Then it would be the two of you again, without me here to draw on his fine affections. How do I know you won’t try to work your mischief on me, too, old woman? As it is now, I eat nothing that doesn’t come from a common pot. I trust you as I’d trust a snake at my bosom.”

“How you at times delight me, ma petit,” the man said, chuckling once more. “Now, no more fighting like cats in a sack, most especially over me, flattered as I assure you I am. If she feels the woman, Lisette, if I can at last bring myself to believe her in this, then we truly are near our goal. The plan remains a good one. Why chance the boy dying as he is questioned, if he can simply lead us to his home? Once you are inside, trusted, it will be a simple matter to find out if he’s one of them, if the man I seek is finally to be mine. Lisette? You have memorized the agreed-upon route to the Channel?”

Lisette closed her eyes, seeing the map she’d studied nightly for more than three weeks. “We walk from here to Valenciennes. I use the gold I have stolen from you to hire a plain coach at the stables at the end of Avenue Villais. From Valenciennes we push quickly to Petit Rume. Still we go west, to Armentières, ending at this place called Dunkirk, where we hire a boat from a man we see sitting, his back to the wall, at a table in a dockside tavern called Le Chat Rouillé. How do I forget that? The Rusty Cat. The man wears a red scarf around his neck, and will tell us his name is Marcel. From there, we go where Becket commands. I know what I am to do, you have no worries about me. It is your hirelings who must follow without being seen.”

The man’s voice turned silky, which was never a good thing. “I have chosen the men carefully for their long loyalty. If I don’t question your methods, it would please me immeasurably if you do not in turn question my judgment. They will watch over you, and you’ll be safe as houses, as they say. Of course, there is another saying—closing the barn door after the horse has escaped. This could all be for nothing, you know, your virginity gone for nothing. Meddlesome strangers to be dealt with, or only scraps left of my old enemy, when I long for the main meal.”

“That would hurt you, yes? You want it to be otherwise. After so many years, to finally see justice done.”

“Justice, Lisette? Ah, an interesting word,” the man said as the woman in the corner mumbled something beneath her breath. “Vengeance belongs to the Lord, we are told, and justice meted out by His hand.”

“And you believe in God?” Lisette asked, settling into her chair. She relished these discussions.

“I believe in an eye for an eye, ma petit. And then perhaps also an arm for that eye, and both legs, and at last the very heart, dripping in my hand. What was done to me, to you? No mere weak thing like justice can ever be enough.”

Lisette bit her bottom lip between her teeth, nodded her agreement. “But as you said, she may not be right about your old enemy. Rian Becket could lead us no further than to those who played havoc with your English business.”

“My business. Ah, such a lovely word for what I have done. I am no saint, ma petit, and have admitted as much to you, to my shame. I did what I did for that damned failed Corsican, but I also became wealthy in the process, so that I fear sainthood is beyond my reach. But, yes, whoever they are, they must be punished for making my life even temporarily inconvenient, especially now, when I once again plan my return to England. But if there’s more? If they are also the ones, if he is still with them—?”

“Then the heart, dripping in your hand,” Lisette said, wishing she herself didn’t feel so likewise bloodthirsty. Clearly the nuns had failed badly with her…or she had badly failed the nuns. “And Becket? What happens to Rian Becket?”

“As best we can tell, Becket is the one who cost me a large portion of my business. Remember, we got the name from one of my former associate’s associates. What do you think happens to him, ma petit? A pat on the head and a wish for a long and pleasant life?”

“No, I don’t think that. I also think he would be dead now, like the others, I’m sure, if I hadn’t been here. Thanks to those vile potions.”

“But we might have had all our answers. A child, allowed such sway. The tail, wagging the dog. It is a shame to you, my master.”

Lisette looked toward the corner. “You say that from a distance. Would you care to come out of the shadows and say it to my face? To his face?”

“Again the cats in the sack. We will probably have to deal with this animosity between you, some day. Not a pretty prospect. But not now. Lisette, ma petit, I still don’t care for the fact that you crawled into his bed. Was it pity that propelled you? The wounded soldier? Or curiosity? The girl from the nunnery, locked away for so many years? Or perhaps it’s that he has but one arm, and you feel you can best him if necessary? One but wonders.”

“One should wonder about himself, and not those who serve him the best they can,” Lisette said, getting to her feet, not wishing to prolong this particular conversation. Not when it included talk of Rian Becket’s death.

“If he hadn’t been so gravely wounded by those idiots sent to capture him. If you hadn’t been here when he arrived…”

“Then I would have no answers to your questions, would I? Not that I plan on answering any of them, in any event. It was my decision, the events cannot be changed, and there is nothing to be gained by further discussion.”

“And the boy. You feel nothing for him?”

Lisette looked straight into the man’s eyes, her blue gaze unwavering. And told him what she was sure he wanted to hear. “No. Nothing.”

“How fortunate for you, ma petit, as no matter how the game plays out in this small adventure, bearing fruit or not, Rian Becket dies.” He opened the small suede pouch he always carried with him and extracted a dark green leaf, pressed it between cheek and gum. “No one touches my daughter without my consent and lives.”

CHAPTER TWO

LISETTE LINGERED in the upstairs hallway until she heard the tall clock in the downstairs foyer strike out the hour of midnight, and then depressed the latch and entered Rian’s bedchamber. Was careful to lock the door behind her, remove the key.

He was waiting for her.

Candlelight flickered from the tall silver holders on the bureau, a half-dozen small tables. Firelight flickered in the fireplace grate.

The heavy draperies were drawn close together, obviously by a male hand, as some of the material on one window, that should have puddled on the floor, had been caught up against the back of a chair, and the second tall window still showed the white under-curtain at its center, allowing some of the light from the full moon to slice against the deep carpet.

But he had set the stage for her.

And now she would perform.

Her gaze traveled along the floor, and then climbed the foot of the ornately carved bed, slid upward to see the silk sheet he had dragged over his body as he lay propped against a half-dozen pillows, carefully keeping his abbreviated left arm hidden beneath that sheet.

Foolish man. When she could look at that face, that beautiful face, those sad, speaking eyes, and know she would soon be able to slide her fingers through the wonder of his thick hair, taste him, touch him, feel him—the arm was of no consequence.

“I didn’t think you were coming,” he said quietly, returning her look.

“I said I would. I don’t lie, Rian Becket.”

“I didn’t remember.”

“Do you remember this?” Lisette asked as she untied the satin ribbons at the throat of her dressing gown and then shrugged back her shoulders, sending the dressing gown sliding to the floor, revealing her sheer white night rail.

Rian sat up higher against the pillows, smiled. “Vaguely.”

“You try to be amusing? And this?” she continued, slowly walking toward him as her fingers worked the small front buttons of the gown. She stopped, smiled, eased one wide strap from her shoulder, then the other. She looked straight into his eyes, and allowed the night rail to join the dressing gown on the floor.

“Oh, yes. I believe I remember now. A white witch or an angel. I’m never quite sure.”

She joined him beneath the sheet, careful to approach the bed from the left, join him to his right. She would do nothing to remind him of his injury, what he seemed to consider his shame. “Does it matter which I am, Rian, witch or angel? As long as I am here, yes?”

Rian had already positioned his good arm so that she lay against it now, moved toward him obediently as he pulled her closer against his chest. “Strange how I can’t seem to care for anything, yet I dream of you, of touching you. In my dreams, I can feel the curve and weight of your breasts against my hands. Lightly rub my thumbs across your nipples, watch them tighten at that touch. Perfection. I hold you, and I taste your sweetness. First one, then the other. Like offerings on an altar, blasphemous as that is.”

Lisette stroked his strong chest, her palm sensitized by the sprinkle of soft hair. “You dream of having two hands again? Poor Rian. I never meant to torture you.”

“Sweet torture, Lisette,” he whispered, pressing his lips against her temple. “Pretty pictures in my mind.”

She’d come to him that first time a virgin. Perhaps at least partially deliberately, definitely fearfully, not quite knowing what was about to happen, having heard only of the pain, the obligation. But that was the way to the marriage bed, as spoken of by the nuns.

Perhaps the trail to a bed of mortal sin was easier to travel? Or else Rian Becket was unlike other men. Kinder. More gentle. Careful of her, mindful of her nervousness, more eager to please than be pleased.

There had been pain, most assuredly, but it had been quickly soothed, and the pain had slowly grown into pleasure. Desires, unknown, had been awakened in her. Needs, hungers.

But she wouldn’t think of that now. She’d think of what he’d just said. His dream of her, of the two of them together.

His words had put a picture in her mind as well, and with the newfound freedom she felt each time she joined him in this bed, Lisette slid her hand across his chest, to grasp his shoulder, and then pulled herself across his body, her legs straddling him as she then pushed herself up, sitting astride him.

She shook her head, shaking back her hair. Lifted her arms and tucked that hair behind her ears, to get it out of her way. The better to see him, because he was truly beautiful. Almost too beautiful to be real.

Perhaps that was her salvation, to believe that none of this was really happening, none of this was really real. And, in dreams, anything was allowed, anything was possible.

“I have two hands, Rian,” she told him as she slowly ran those hands down the sides of her neck, slid them, fingers spread, down over her breasts, cupped her breasts in her palms.

“Oh, God,” Rian breathed beneath her. “Yes, Lisette. Now touch yourself. With your thumbs. Your nipples, Lisette. Stroke them. Yes. Ah…sweet. Feel it, Lisette? Do you feel it? Look at yourself. See what you’re doing. Like small, hard pebbles. Now squeeze, Lisette. Yes, like that, just like that. I can feel it, too. Phantoms of feeling…”

Lisette threw back her head, her eyes tightly closed, succumbing to the sensations that rippled through her. She began to move without thinking, her center aching with need as she pushed herself against his swollen manhood. Wishing him inside her. Needing. Needing…

And then her eyes opened wide, because Rian was touching her now, his long fingers parting her, finding her, igniting her. She spread her legs even wider, biting her bottom lip, as her movement had somehow exposed more to him than she knew existed, a secret place buried deep, but now a found treasure, one that Rian exploited relentlessly, giving her no time to think, even to breathe.

Only time to feel, to enjoy the dream.

“Don’t stop, Lisette,” he told her, his voice seeming to come to her from far away. “Touch yourself. Feel yourself as you blossom, as you flower. My pretty Lisette. My pretty flower. Yes, yes. I can feel your need. Don’t deny it, don’t deny me the pleasure as I watch you.”

“I…I can’t…I…”

“Then now, Lisette. Make it happen now.”

His fingers moved faster, and Lisette went very still. She lifted herself toward him, able to deny him nothing.

“Now, Lisette,” Rian whispered, his voice almost raw. “Go over. Go over…”

She cried out as the throbbing began, inside of her, outside of her. Clench and release. Clench and release. Again, and again, and again…

“Rian!” she shouted when she could take no more, collapsing onto him, sobbing into the crook of his neck. “Rian…”

He rolled her onto her back even as he guided himself to her, into her, and then held on to her with his good arm, melding their bodies together.

“Move, Lisette. Move with me…this time, take me with you.”

She felt his other arm come around her, something he had not allowed before tonight, felt the strength in his upper arm as he held her so tightly it became difficult to breathe.

In his mind, did he feel her flesh beneath his lost hand?

If there was a God, yes…

RIAN LAY ON HIS BACK, staring up at the canopy above his head, consciously trying to regulate his breathing.

She had been wild in his arms, and now she was quiet, collapsed against his side, her blond hair splayed out, a sweet-smelling lock tickling at his chin.

What would he do without her? It was only when she came to him, made love with him, that he could even pretend to be whole. Awake, aware.

If only they could stay here, like this, forever. He longed to be a simple man, with simple needs.

All his life had been a struggle. Well-cushioned, yes, but as with all of the Beckets, circumscribed by the past, a life spent always with one eye looking for the reappearance of that past. Always knowing theirs was an uncertain future.

He’d wanted excitement, adventure. He’d wanted to be away from the constraints of Becket Hall, from the people who all carried the shadow of the past with them.

Secrets to keep. Always, secrets to keep.

Had Fanny run home to those secrets they both hated? Had she taken the Earl of Brede with her after the battle? Had she seen what he, Rian, had seen growing between them—that the love Fanny believed she’d felt for her adoptive brother had been a pale thing when compared to the love of a man for a woman? Brede loved Fanny, that had been obvious, and Rian had been glad, hopeful that the earl would take her away from Becket Hall, keep her safe.

He wished Fanny well. He wished her happiness, and a quiet conscience.

If he returned to Becket Hall? What would she feel then? A responsibility to him?

Of course she would. She was Fanny, his sister of the heart, his twin of the heart, as they’d sometimes joked. She would feel responsible for him, insist on clinging to him, mothering him, protecting him…as if he were a child needing protection.

He couldn’t let that happen. Life moved on. Didn’t his adoptive father always say that? Whether we wished it or not, life always moved on. Rian needed Fanny to move on with her life, find her own happiness, and not feel obligated to her maimed brother.

And now there was Lisette.

Lisette, always eager to help, eager to please, yet never maudlin in her sympathy for him. Lisette, the only real thing in his comfortable world of fantasy. Lisette, who wished to leave this place, this mindless, beautiful Limbo. He couldn’t remember all that she’d said, but he remembered the fear, very real in her beautiful blue eyes. She wanted to be gone, she wanted him gone.

“Lisette?”

“Hmm? Don’t bother me, Rian Becket. I am floating here, and I rather like the sensation.”

Rian smiled. “A pity, for it’s time to come back to earth. This afternoon? You said something about the man who owns this grand house. My benefactor. Your benefactor as well. You’re really afraid of him?”

She pushed herself up onto one elbow. “I’m not afraid, Rian Becket. Your lost hand does not make you a cripple. But fear makes us all cripples. I won’t allow myself to fear anything or anyone.”

“Yes, well, thank you. That was quite profound, and you may consider me thoroughly chastened and ashamed. Now tell me again about this man, now that my mind feels clearer.” He kissed her cheek. “You do that to a person, you know. Wake me, feed my fantasies. But now to be serious. What is his name?”

“He is known as the Comte Beltrane. Neuveille Beltrane. He offered to make me his ward when my parents were killed, but I insisted upon limiting his largesse to becoming my employer. He—”

“Yes, unbelievable as it may seem, I remember all of that. But now you’re grown, and he’s looking at you in ways that displease you?”

Lisette pulled a face. “He looks at me like this…” she said, narrowing her eyes and then opening her mouth in a small smile, licking her upper lip. “Like a dog, eager for a fat loin chop to fall off the spit at his feet.”

Rian threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, surely he doesn’t look all that obvious, Lisette. Does he drool, as well?”

She shrugged, again that wordless but so meaningful Gallic shrug. “I find excuses to go back to my work. I don’t tarry long enough to see if he drools. And I won’t see him at all when he returns in a few days, because I won’t be here.” She snuggled back against him. “Will you miss me terribly, Rian Becket? They will send Voleta to tend you in my place. She is fat, and smells always of garlic. And she has this huge mole on her chin. With hair in it. Will you like that?”

He ignored her question for one of his own. “Where will you go, Lisette? Do you have any family left, either here or in England?”

Again a shrug. “My maman’s family disowned her for marrying a Englisher. To them I am English. I know nothing about my father’s family, but I will go to England, because France is no longer my home. Perhaps I will go to London and work in a fine shop, selling bonnets, yes? It will be better than here.”

Rian was quiet for some minutes, and feared that Lisette had fallen asleep before he asked her, “Would you be willing to help me get back to England?”

She remained still for the space of three of Rian’s heartbeats, and then sat up straight, pulling the sheet up over her breasts. “All Heaven and the saints be praised—the man does listen from time to time. You will leave? Break free of this hidey-hole you seem so willing to remain in forever?”

“I’m curious about your Comte, but yes, I think I’ve more than overstayed my welcome, whatever the reason behind that welcome. My father will forward our thanks, as well as remuneration for the man’s care of me. Your care of me, Lisette.”