halfway to the house. If he was going to reveal even
He found the track a little way along, almost grassed over. Turning the horses onto it, he set them walking.
“Where…?” She was peering ahead, over the lawn to where a line of trees crossed their path.
“Just wait.”
Guiding the blacks through the trees, he drove them up to the summer house standing beyond the end of the elongated ornamental lake before the house.
Reining in, he stepped down. Playing out the reins, he tethered the pair so they could stand and graze. The curricle rocked as Pris clambered down; he glimpsed slender ankles amid a froth of skirts.
She walked to him, puzzlement in her face. “What did you say?”
He waved to the summer house. “Let’s go inside.”
She led the way, plainly familiar with the wide, open room tucked under the domed roof. Of painted white wood, the summerhouse was simply furnished with a wicker sofa and one matching armchair, both liberally padded, placed to look down the vista of the lake to the distant house.
Pris sat in one corner of the sofa. She was not just intrigued but captured, not just eager but urgent to hear what he’d meant. And what he intended-why he’d volunteered to speak of such a thing.
But she needed to see his face, so the safety of the armchair wasn’t an option. Outside, the moonlight cast a pearly sheen, but within the summer house, it was considerably dimmer. At her wave, he sat beside her. She studied his face; she could discern his features, but not the emotions in his eyes.
“I can’t believe you-the Keeper of the Breeding Register-were ever involved in anything illicit. At least not about racing.”
He met her gaze. After a moment, asked, “Can’t you?”
It was as if he’d deliberately let his glamor fall, completely and utterly, so that she was suddenly looking at the real man, without any protective screen at all. She looked, examined; gradually it came to her.
She blew out a breath. Curling her legs, she shifted so she could fix her gaze on his face. “All right. Perhaps I can imagine it. You were wild as a youth, and-”
“Not just wild. Reckless.” He paused, his eyes steady on hers; after a moment, he asked, “Isn’t that what it takes?”
She didn’t reply.
A pregnant moment ticked by, then he faced forward, settling his shoulders against the sofa’s back, stretching out his legs, crossing his ankles, sliding his hands into his trouser pockets. He looked across the smooth surface of the lake to the distant glimmer that was the house; his lips curved, not cynically but in self-deprecation.
“Wild, reckless, and game for any lark.” His tone suggested he viewed his younger self from a considerable distance, a separation in time and place. “Hedonistic, conceited, and selfish, and, naturally, immature. I had everything-name, money, every comfort. But I wanted more. No-I
He paused, gazing unseeing down the lake, then went on, his voice even but with darker currents rippling beneath. “They wanted me to act as a runner, organizing jockeys to hold back their mounts-a common enough scam in those days. I was just…cowardly enough to convince myself that falling in with their plan was my only choice.”
This time, his pause lasted longer, the emotions ran deeper; Pris could find no adequate words to break it, so she waited.
Eventually, he stirred and glanced briefly at her. “Flick stood by me. She got Demon to help, and together they pulled me free of it. They exposed the race-fixing racket and the gentleman behind it-and forced me to, gave me the opportunity to, grow up.”
“What happened to the cowardly streak?” When he glanced at her, she pointed out, “You wouldn’t have mentioned it if you weren’t sure you’d grown out of it.”
His teeth flashed in a brief, cynically acknowledging smile before he looked back at the lake. “The coward in me died the instant the blackguard behind the scheme pointed a pistol at Flick.” His gaze shifted over the silent water. A moment passed before he said, “It was strange-a moment when my life truly changed, when I suddenly saw what was important and what wasn’t. To have someone I loved suffer because of something I’d foolishly done…I couldn’t-absolutely and beyond question could not-face that.”
“What happened? Was she shot?”
He shook his head. “No.”
He said nothing more. She frowned, analyzing, then it came to her, like a premonition, only more certain. “You got shot instead.”
Without looking at her, he shrugged. “Only reasonable in the circumstances. I survived.”
A penance, a payment he didn’t want to discuss. She had a good idea why he’d told her what he had, and where he was steering their conversation-in a direction she didn’t want it to go. “The wild and reckless.”
She waited until he looked at her, met her eyes. “Being wild and reckless is part of your soul.” She knew that as well as she knew her own. “You can’t lose characteristics like that, so where are they now? What do you do to satisfy the craving for excitement and thrills?”
She was curious; his eyes traveled her face, and she suspected he understood. That he saw that that was a question to which she’d yet to find an answer herself.
The smile that curled the ends of his lips suggested a certain sympathy. “Back then, I wondered-feared-that I’d become addicted to gambling, but to my relief, I found that wasn’t so. I am”-he tilted his head her way in wry acknowledgment-“addicted, but to the rush of excitement, the thrill that comes with…success, I suppose. In winning, in succeeding, in beating the odds.” He glanced briefly at her. “Luckily, my addiction didn’t care in which endeavor I succeeded-it was the achievement that counted.”
“So which endeavors have you been succeeding in?” She opened her eyes wide. “I can’t imagine tending the Breeding Register for the Jockey Club qualifies.”
Dillon grinned. “Not on its best day. My position there is more a long-term interest, almost a hereditary one. No, through Demon and the rest of his family, the Cynsters, I became involved in investing.”
“Not the Funds, I take it?”
The dryness of her comment made him smile. “Having been educated by the best in the field, some of my wealth is of course deposited in the Funds, but you’re right-the excitement and thrills come from the rest. The ferreting out of new opportunities, the evaluating, the projections, the possibilities-it’s a wager of sorts, but on a much grander scale, with many more factors to take into account, but if you learn the right skills and use them well, the chances of success are immeasurably greater than in gaming-and the thrills and excitement commensurately more intense.”
She looked at the lake and sighed. “And therefore more satisfying.”
He eyed her profile. He wasn’t entirely certain why he’d told her so much, but the telling had only reinforced his sense of obligation. He owed so much to so many-to Flick most of all, but also to Demon and the Cynsters in general. When he’d been in trouble, they’d freely and openly given him the aid he’d needed to reclaim his life. Through them, he’d made friends, acquaintances, and connections that he valued immensely, that were fundamentally important to who he now was.
Others had given him a great deal when he’d been in need.
Now Pris Dalling, and whoever she was protecting, needed help; he couldn’t walk away, couldn’t not offer his aid in turn.
“I told you about my past so you’d understand that, if you or whoever you’re protecting has become embroiled in any illicit scheme and are finding it difficult to break free, then I, of all people, will understand.” He waited until she turned her head and faced him, he sensed reluctantly. “If they’re in trouble and need help, I’m prepared to give it, but in order to do so, you’ll have to tell me who they are and what’s going on.”
Holding his gaze, Pris found herself facing the crux of her problem. She knew in her heart Rus would never willingly have become embroiled in any illicit scheme, but why hadn’t he come forward and reported what ever it
