He cursed himself for resorting to such a dark weapon against her when he saw the darting of raw terror in the depths of her eyes.
"I think I am quite safe from their attentions. I'm not the type to stir men to passion."
"Some men would call you beautiful." What the blazes roughened the words in Adam's throat? Why was he suddenly staring into the creamy oval of her face, aware of the rose-silk gloss of that prayerful mouth, the lush curl of her lashes, the shadowy hollow of her throat, where he knew the most feminine of scents clung to tantalize a man.
For a heartbeat, just a heartbeat, he saw a question as old as Eve shimmering in her gaze. One it seemed even a vicar's daughter couldn't resist asking.
Do you think I am... beautiful?
Did he?
The query echoed back. He'd skewer his own hide before he explored that minefield. It was all he could do not to shove her away and scrub the feel of her off his hands. But he'd been schooled from the time he'd been a raw recruit to press his advantage. And at the moment, he definitely had the advantage. One little nudge, and the vicar's daughter would tumble into his hands.
But what could he do to push her over that edge? How could he entice her to fall?
Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips, and Adam's gaze fixed on the curves of her mouth, tempting as if it were spangled with sugar. He sensed her pulse quickening, her breath catching.
This was a language he understood. In that instant, he knew what card he needed to play to gain her surrender.
A rush surged through him, the sensation that gripped him in the heartbeat before he plunged into battle. As if gripped by a sudden impulse he couldn't control, Adam drove his fingers into her curls and lowered his mouth to hers.
It was all part of the battle between them. That was the only reason he felt this fierce urge. He wanted to kiss the bejesus out of her, drive the starch from her spine, the stiffness from her knees, until she melted against him, unable to fight his will. He wanted to play her with the exquisite skill of a master violinist with a familiar instrument, leaving her throbbing and humming and trembling with the chords he'd strummed in the very heart of her woman's core. And he knew how. Hell's bells, Sabrehawk was an able swordsman upon the dueling field and in the bedchamber as well.
Yet never, in scores of years of carnal delight had he ever tasted anything so sweet.
Warm, so warm, her mouth yielded under his, and he captured her stunned gasp in his mouth. Of its own volition, his tongue stole into the honeyed cavern beyond, tasting her with practiced fervor.
Her hands flattened against his chest, then curled into the fabric of his midnight-blue frockcoat like kitten paws as he sent her equilibrium winging off its axis just as he'd expected. What he hadn't expected was that his own thick-muscled legs, hardened from hours of bracing themselves against the onslaught of sword and dagger, would suddenly feel unsteady.
Blast and damn! This wasn't in the battle plan! Adam grasped Juliet by her upper arms, and broke the kiss, his breath rasping in his chest, his gaze burning, hot with accusation on her face.
She staggered back a step. Her fingers pressed against her lips, her eyes so wide he was dead certain he'd just given the vicar's daughter one hell of a first kiss. "Wh—why did you... do that?" she demanded, breathless.
Because I was insane. Because it seemed like the thing todo at the time. Because I made the first mistake I warn my students against when tutoring them in swordsmanship—I vastly underestimated my opponent.
But there was no way he would admit such a thing to this terminal do-gooder with her trembling lips and such incredibly sweet confusion clinging to her lashes.
"Now do you see how much danger you're in?" Adam growled in self-defense. "If I was moved to kiss you, who knows what the men in that mob might be plotting. How many times have they watched you, swooping out into the night like some guardian angel? Untouchable. Innocent. Defying them. Villains cut of that cloth don't tolerate a woman's defiance. They'll use any weapon at their disposal to teach her her place."
He was suddenly aware of Juliet's intent gaze on his face, something disturbing washing over those celestial features. The kiss-blush had been driven back by an intellect surprisingly keen in such an angelic face. Her expression left Adam feeling as exposed as the time a rival officer had ordered his aide de camp to purloin Sabrehawk's breeches the morning of a duel. Adam had stalked to the rendezvous point with nothing but a bedsheet knotted about his waist.
"Is that what you were doing when you kissed me?" she charged, her fingertips touching her lips. "Teaching me a lesson?"
Adam sputtered a denial, but heat stole into his cheeks. Might as well have flown scarlet banners of guilt and chagrin and outright anger at being bested by such a slip of a girl.
She drew herself up with icy dignity. "Mr. Sabrehawk, there is nothing more loathsome than a man who preys on those more innocent than he is."
"It was a kiss! Just a kiss! I hardly stole your virtue!"
"No. But you stole something precious to me. My good opinion of the man who aided my father in his last hours. You see, I'd colored you quite a hero. Not the kind you would favor—racing about battlefields blazing in glory. But one who stopped at the side of the road, seeking no glory for himself, seeking only to ease a stranger's suffering."
"Well, that's what I did, didn't I?" Adam blustered. "I stopped. I sure as hell didn't get any glory. And I chased halfway across the world after you because of a promise that infernal old man wrenched out of me. I—" Nothing like flinging away one's advantage by losing one's temper. Adam brought himself up grimly, folding his arms across his massive chest. "Listen to me, lady. I'm no hero. But right now I'm all you've got."
"You're wrong. I have Angel's Fall, and Elise and Millicent and a dozen other ladies here safe tonight instead of in the clutches of men who would use their power against them. I have my faith that something good will come of my work here. I know that I am doing the right thing, even though it's not the easiest course. Despite what you think, I don't need your help. I have angels fighting on my side."
"I didn't notice any of them swooping down to bang Percival in the head with their harps when that mob was about to tear your hair ribbons off!"
"Go back to wherever you came from, Mr. Sabrehawk. I promise you, if my father had had any idea what sort of man you were, he never would have sent you to find me."
"Next time he coerces blood vows out of unsuspecting strangers, perhaps he should demand references. Unfortunately, this time there's not a damn thing either one of us can do about it. I gave him my word I'd see you safe, and I will, even if it kills me."
She stalked to the door, flinging it open. A half-dozen eavesdropping women scattered, rubbing reddening bumps on their curious little noses. Adam stormed after her, the tramp of masculine boot heels echoing down the hall.
"You're not getting rid of me, lady."
"We'll see about that," she said, charging down the stairs, hurtling through a sitting room where Fletcher Raeburn was ensconced on a wing-chair, ladies clustered in the far corner of the room, whispering as if the Minotaur had been dumped into their midst.
"Sabrehawk?" Fletcher piped up, red as a brick from his neck to his hairline as he struggled to his feet.
But Juliet didn't even flicker so much as an eyelash. She merely stormed into the cozy kitchen.
"I hope you enjoy sleeping on the cobblestones, Mr. Sabrehawk."
"The—what the devil?"
She flung open the door at the rear of the kitchen. "You insist you're staying put here. I've told you, no men sleep in Angel's Fall. I'd hardly make an exception for a man bearing the shameful label of Prince of Sin, now would I?" She leveled him the quelling glare governesses had been terrorizing schoolboys with for a hundred years.
Adam gaped at her, aghast. The woman was flinging him out of her house? If he hadn't been so furious he would have roared with laughter at the absurdity. Juliet Grafton-Moore, every Angel in her house, and the d
ray horses in every barn on the street couldn't budge Adam Slade unless he damn well wanted to be budged.
But the woman's back was up enough after the disaster of that kiss. One more blunder of that sort and he would have to nail her in a barrel to get her away from here. Considering how that tactic had backfired with young Fletcher, he dared not take the risk. The thought of Juliet Grafton-Moore emerging from the barrel professing undying devotion was enough to traumatize Sabrehawk for life. No, there had to be another way.
At that instant Fletcher stumbled through the door, the youth looking glaze-eyed as a schoolboy who'd got himself sick on a surfeit of bonbons amidst so many women.
"What about Fletcher?" Adam demanded, taking one last shot at female soft-heartedness. "You've seen how devoted he is. You know he won't leave me. Are you going to make him sleep on the stones as well?"
"Of course. But I'm certain he'll be much more comfortable."
"Why is that?" Adam demanded, aware of every old wound, every dull ache in a body that had once been tough as oak.
She smiled at him with grim satisfaction. "I'm going to give him a blanket."
Adam gave a gruff bark of laughter and stepped out into the night, Fletcher following in his wake.
"If you think you're going to drive me off this way, you're sadly mistaken. I've slept like a babe in far worse places than a lady's garden," Sabrehawk taunted. Then his brow furrowed as he noticed Juliet's lashes drift to half-mast, those lips he'd kissed murmuring something unintelligible.
He hoped like hell she was swearing under her breath.
"What are you doing?" he growled, scowling.
"Praying," she said, flashing him a heavenly smile.
"For the redemption of my sin-scarred soul?" Adam sneered.
"No. For a lovely cold rain."
Adam sputtered an answer, but it was too late. Juliet Grafton-Moore shut the door in his face just as the first fat raindrops began to fall.
Chapter 4
From the time she was a babe, Juliet had been taught to eschew violence. But as she watched Adam Slade tramp about the confines of her garden, she could barely resist the impulse to knock his head against the stone wall. She threw the bolt across the back door, releasing a general outcry from the assembled ladies.
"Juliet, how can you treat him so shabbily?" Millicent Hampton asked. "I know he's a man, but he saved you from disaster! Heaven knows what would have become of all of us if he hadn't come to your rescue."
"And God alone knows what will happen the next time that mob comes calling," Violet St. Amour warned. "I know Mother Cavendish. She's venomous as an asp when she's crossed. And that hero of yours made her turn tail and run."
"He's not my anything," Juliet bristled, the thought of any part of Adam Slade belonging to her hideously daunting. "Certainly no champion! He's an overbearing, pigheaded, interfering barbarian!"
"You'd best pray he is!" Isabelle du Ville tossed her dark curls, casting a vaguely scornful look down her catlike nose. "He made Mother Cavendish lose face before that hellish coven of villains she led against you. It's a slight that vindictive old hag will never forget, I assure you."
In the three weeks since Isabelle arrived at Angel's Fall, Juliet had often felt that the fading beauty was mocking her behind her back. It had stung more than a little. But as those worldly-wise eyes met hers, Juliet couldn't quell the icy chill that ran down her spine. Mother Cavendish's thirst for vengeance was legend on the streets of London, and she had an army of minions awaiting her command. Kindred spirits who delighted in cruelty, and other, more reluctant allies, men and women she could twist to her will with the most horrible kind of blackmail.
Papa's sermons had been full of gentle warnings not to let hate take root in your heart, because it would spread, like vile weeds, crowding out forgiveness and compassion and love. The most villainous sinner had once been an innocent babe, the only difference that fate had shaped them with harsh hands. "The most evil of all creatures grow afraid when darkness comes," he had said. "If one should ever reach out in their fear, my hand will be there to hold."
The sentiment had seemed so beautiful, glowing in her father's ageless eyes. Never had she suspected the effort it must have cost him to cling to that belief. Until now.
Hate was a hard kernel in her heart. She could feel it chafing there, and it wore Mother Cavendish's face.
"I think it was wondrous kind that Sabrehawk came to Juliet's rescue," Millicent insisted. "He could have merely walked away."
"I wish he had!" Juliet burst out. "He is exactly the kind of man I detest. One who tyrannizes over women, as if they'd no will of their own." One with kisses so hot and fiery they'd made her very knees melt.
"It's only right that we should be grateful for what he's done," Elise said. What he'd done? Juliet thought. They couldn't begin to guess.
"Enough!" Heat spilled into Juliet's cheeks, and she raised a hand to her lips, feeling as if Adam Slade had branded whisker burns into the soft skin for everyone to see.
"All this blather is for nothing," she said, trying to ignore the keen-eyed stare of Isabelle du Ville. "Mother Cavendish will not budge me. And Adam Slade might stomp around Angel's Fall for a few days, attempting to drag me away, but when he sees how resolved I am, he'll grow tired of the game and storm back to wherever he came from. Men are notoriously short of patience."
"What do you know of men?" the Frenchwoman asked with a smirk. "You are innocent as a little nun. You know nothing! Nothing of a man the likes of this one. He is... magnifique. It would be as impossible for a real woman to resist him as it is for the sea to stop crashing against the shore."
"I had no trouble resisting him," Juliet blustered, then realized she had exposed more than she intended. Isabelle's feline lips quirked in the smile that had enslaved two dukes and a prince.
"Of course, my sweet. But you have not a woman's blood in your veins, only milk and honey and prayers. Oui, the only burning inside you is the desire to reform your fallen sisters. But how can you ask others to avoid the nectar of wine unless you have tasted it? How can you appreciate the suffering it takes to sacrifice a man's touch forever?"
"Isabelle, after what the gentlemen of your acquaintance have put you through, how can you have any regrets—"
"My dear little innocent, there may be pain in affairs with the gentlemen, but I assure you, there can also be pleasure, no matter how much dour-faced preachers would like to tell you otherwise."
It took all Juliet's stubborn will not to turn away from Isabelle, but the Frenchwoman's greatest joy since the duke had cast her out was shocking the vicar's daughter, and Juliet had resolved early not to give her the pleasure of seeing her discomfited.
God forbid that Isabelle ever get wind of the kiss that had transpired up in Juliet's chamber. What delight Isabelle would take in the kiss that had introduced Juliet to just how intoxicating a man's mouth could be, and how dangerous.
Juliet's spine stiffened at the image of Isabelle bending close as Adam Slade whispered of the incident into her shell-like ear, the two of them laughing at the saintly little nun's fall from grace.
"Juliet, you look positively wretched." It was Elise, her trembling hand curving over Juliet's arm. "And Isabelle is teasing you terribly. But I know you're afraid of Mother Cavendish. It may be true that no one before has escaped her wrath, once she pointed that finger of doom. But now that Sabrehawk has become your champion—"
"For pity's sake! All of you are driving me mad!" Juliet's temper snapped. "I intend to go up to bed, and I'd advise the rest of you do the same! And just so there is no question, Sabrehawk is not to be allowed inside this house on pain of death, do you understand me?"
Isabelle let out the trilling laugh that had made a duke her slave. "You think a man like that will spend the night standing about in the rain like some green lad, ma petite innocent?"
"He's probably halfway to The Fighting Cock already." Millicent sighed.
"Juliet, he just rescued us
from that mob—" Violet insisted, tossing her curls. "How can we abandon him in the rain?"
Juliet cast a glare about, saw mutinous glimmers in a dozen sets of eyes.
"That door remains locked even if the house is afire," Juliet snapped, praying she'd put down the rebellion as she turned and stalked up the stairs. But in the little time since Adam Slade had charged into her life, she'd begun to feel hopelessly outnumbered. Like other brilliant strategists, he was building his forces from inside the fortress he had under siege, buying the ladies loyalties with his heroic deeds. With her luck he'd be storming the ramparts before breakfast.
No. She was being absurd. Doubtless Isabelle was right. Slade had stomped off, consigning her to the devil. There was a good chance he might return. If he did, she would merely send him packing as she had tonight. She would put an end to this nonsense, and then things could get back to normal.
Normal. A strained laugh escaped her lips. Rows of shattered windows, ugly mobs, anonymous threats that turned every shadow darker, every creak in the night more sinister. She gritted her teeth, shoving back that subtle cloud of dread, focusing instead on the nefarious Adam Slade. He was a foe she could battle face to face. One not woven of mists and possibilities.
Inside her own room, Juliet slammed the door with a thud loud enough to rattle the prisms on the crystal candlestick in the hallway below.
She expected to leave the madness behind, bar her door against it, and find the haven, the sanctuary that had always awaited her in this quiet chamber. But the room had been changed forever. The pale rose-colored walls seemed to have shrunk. The furnishings, dwarfed by Adam Slade's presence, suddenly appeared to be fragile as a doll's.
It seemed as if he'd burned himself into the room's memory—the worn rose-flowered carpet was shadowed where he had stood, as if he'd branded his image in the fibers. The scent of him clung to the dust motes illuminated by candlelight—foreign, masculine, musky, not the metallic tang of ink-smears or the musty odor of books, but rather, horses and sweat and leather, along with the wild tang of Slade's very own, gathered on his numerous adventures. Spices from the far east, dark scents from Italy, a subtle layering of lavish elegance from France, all sharpened by the man himself, like the weapon he had wielded against the mob.
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