Games of Pleasure by Julia Ross

Author:Julia Ross
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

MR. FABER’S TRAVELING PLAYERS CAMPED IN AN OPEN FIELD on the edge of a village about five miles farther up the road. With practiced efficiency, the troupe set up tents and awnings. Ryder was offered a nook with part of the canvas castle for shelter. A snoring actor slept beside him. Though the players had already eaten, Mrs. Faber—otherwise known as Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother—had earlier found some bread and cheese and handed him a mug of ale. Ryder suffered the generous hospitality in a hurt rage.

For God’s sake! He was jealous? Of what? That Miracle was free with her favors? She was a member of the muslin company. She had never pretended anything else. She had been Hanley’s mistress, and perhaps Dartford’s and . . . God! The list was probably endless. Asterley? Lindsay Smith?

A knife slowly scored along the inside of his belly and carved a path of dull pain through his gut.

To resent it was insane, yet he was damned if he could sleep, knowing she was with the bright-eyed Sam.

As the camp settled into quietness, Ryder crawled unseen from the wagon and stalked away. Dark trees loomed, sheltering the inky eye of a small pond. With a similar blackness in his heart, he paced along the muddy bank.

He almost walked right into a wooden stile that blocked an opening in a hedge. His mouth full of bile, and the blade still gouging, he clenched his hands on the top rail and stared up at the remote brilliance of the night sky. Cloud veiled the horizon, but directly overhead a few stars glimmered brightly enough to penetrate the haze. The most brilliant must be Vega, heart of the Lyre.

Ryder stared blindly at its remote purity for a few moments, then closed his eyes. Was he simply putty in the hands of a ruthless temptress? For whatever high-minded reasons he kept concocting for this flit like a renegade across England, there was really only one: his fascination with a woman.

“I think I can just make out Altair,” Miracle said softly. “The star that marks the eye of Aquila, forever flying home along the Milky Way. And see, there in the wing, is a star that grows brighter and dimmer every week, as if it smiled and frowned at us in turn. I don’t know if it has a name of its own.”

He spun about, choked. She stood in the shadow of the hedge, her face a pale glimmer surrounded by a cloud of black hair, as lovely, as treacherous, as any dryad from myth.

“Damn you!” he said. “Damn you!”

“Ah,” she replied. “Condemned unheard, like Desdemona?”

“The wrong play. We’re acting out a farce, not a tragedy. But if I’m to be cast as the fool, may I not play a little, as well?”

“Only at the risk of getting burned.”

Rage flared painfully in his skull. “You’re the one pouring oil on the flames.”

“Am I? Then, by all means, let’s burn!”

She laughed in open defiance as she stepped into his arms, all softness and welcoming female curves.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.