"Of course," Charles said. "Take good care of her." He walked to the head of the table.
Jonathan helped Madeline settle. He sat to her left, so he could watch Juliette while he spoke to Madeline. The ploy was so transparent Madeline smiled. She glanced toward her stepmother.
Juliette’s eyes blazed. Madeline was taken aback. It was quite unlike her stepmother to care about any particular lover too much.
"She looks ready to tear you to pieces," Madeline commented lightly, setting her napkin in her lap.
He shrugged.
Madeline noticed that his high cheekbones were flushed with emotion. His unpowdered blond hair was caught back from his face, and for the first time, she really looked at him. His was a very sensual face, and younger than she’d realized. He glanced down the table again, and his green eyes showed a sullen blaze much like Juliette’s. Madeline shook her head. If both of them wished to be together, then why all the bother? Both were well past the age of consent.
"It isn’t terribly flattering to be an object of service," she said, dipping her spoon into clear soup.
"I’m sorry." He looked up, rather startled.
"I lost a dinner partner who admires me so you might make my stepmother jealous. Where is the reward in that for me?" She smiled to show it was not meant too deeply.
His expression eased. "I can say without vanity that most girls your age would choose my company over your marquess."
"I’m not most girls."
"No. You aren’t, are you?" Casually, he looked past her, then back. "It’s Lucien who tantalizes you, isn’t it?"
That strange, sharp feeling went through her again. "Don’t be ridiculous. What earthly good is a rake of his sort?"
"Look at him."
Madeline turned her head. Lucien ignored his food and leaned back in his chair, his elbows braced against the arm rests, his fingers steepled in front of him. Dark amusement glittered in his eyes, curled his full lips. He looked like nothing so much as a cat in certain pursuit. When he caught Madeline’s eye, he winked.
Next to her, Jonathan chuckled. "He has no interest in Juliette, you know."
"No?"
"He wants you only."
Madeline bent over her plate. "I’d rather talk of something else," she said.
"Very well. Name your topic."
Just then, a broad slash of lightning burst with a blinding sizzle across the sky, followed instantly by a crack of thunder that sent dishes clattering and the overhead chandelier swaying on its chain.
"Strike me blind!" Madeline swore, jumping to her feet. A torrential rain began to pour from the sky.
Dinner forgotten, the guests left the table to crowd around the windows, exclaiming to each other over the power of nature. Madeline went with them, pressing her face as close as she could into the pane. Within moments, huge raindrops filled the small terrace beyond with water. Rain slammed against the doors. Wind tore leaves and small branches from the trees, and Madeline glimpsed small shreds of red and pink and orange borne away—flower petals torn from tender plants.
In the press of people, Madeline did not at first notice the heat along her arm and spine. Not until she scented a particular and distinctive smell did she realize she was hip to hip with Lucien. She shifted to break contact, and he did not follow but stood so close behind her she could feel the brush of his breath over her bare shoulder blade.
"Magnificent, isn’t it?" he said.
Annoyed, she tilted her head to look at him. "Must you stand so close?"
He lifted a finger to his lips. His eyes held a bright, glittering look. "Listen," he said, with an odd note in his cello-rich voice. A kind of reverence. "Do you hear the music?"
She frowned, all too aware of his hand on her shoulder, just as it had been on Juliette’s, his bare fingers on her skin. Hot and uncomfortable. She squirmed a little, but his light grip tightened.
"Listen," he said again.
The word was so insistent that Madeline inclined her head and opened her ears to the sounds all around them. "Rain, wind, the rising and falling of voices," she said aloud.
"Closer," he said, almost whispering. "How many notes there are in the rain!"
Madeline looked at him. He closed his eyes, and there was on his face an almost transcendent look of joy. She wanted to hear what he heard and she closed her eyes, too. Many notes in the rain? She listened. Yes. The heavy splat of fat drops hitting the stone balustrade, the higher, sweeter tinkle of it striking the glass, and the hollow splash of it on the empty brass planters on the steps. "I hear it!" she exclaimed.
Lucien opened his eyes, and his fingers moved very slightly against her neck. "What else do you hear, Madeline?" He touched her earlobe with his index finger. "Listen."
There were dozens of sounds, some faint, like the clatter of a serving spoon against china as a footman stirred a dish. Some boomed, like the hard stomp of thunder. Skirts rustled, voices swirled, rain pattered and slapped and tinkled. "Wonderful," she said.
So intently was she listening that she heard the hail a split second before it hit the walkway beyond the windows. It came roaring in, tearing at the trees and gardens, coming toward the house— "Move away from the windows!" she cried. Two-and three-inch ice stones crashed through the windows, pelting guests with glass and freezing rain. Someone screamed. People scattered, knocking chairs over, screaming, heading for the opposite wall.
A pane of glass exploded in front of Madeline’s face, and the hailstone smacked her lip.
"Get out of the way!" Lucien cried. "Everyone away from the windows!" He grabbed Madeline none too gently and shoved her into a chair. The noise was outrageous, as if there were a thousand men atop the roof, running and shouting.
She tasted blood and touched her lip.
All at once, she remembered the greenhouse. With a little cry, she jumped up and ran out of the room. Someone called her name, but she paid no attention.
The guests and servants were huddled in a knot against the far wall of the dining room, so the halls were eerily silent but for the pelting, thundering rain and hail. Madeline ran, skidding madly in her satin slippers, and kicked them off to gain purchase on the marble floors of the passageways. She thought she heard someone call her again, but it was impossible to know through the roaring noise of the storm.
The greenhouse was at the far southwestern end of the house, through a series of connected rooms. She passed no one.
As she entered the main foyer, the hail seemed to slow a small bit, and she heard an odd, strangled noise. Thinking there was an animal caught somewhere, she glanced over her shoulder—
—and slammed into the wall in her surprise. Through the library doors, in the dark, dank room, were two people silhouetted against the stained glass. The noise came from one of them, the woman, who made it again as Madeline stared, literally transfixed by the sight. A wash of pale brown light from the Madonna’s gown in the stained glass spilled over the woman’s white, naked hip, in high contrast to the gold and plum skirts bunched around her waist. Her head was flung back, her bare legs gripping the man who moved between them in almost violent passion.
Juliette and Jonathan.
Choking in embarrassment, appalled and aroused, Madeline averted her eyes, trying to find breath enough to move. Feeling oddly dizzy, she put a hand against the wall, and finding it cool, pressed her cheek to it as well.
A cry rang out, helpless and ecstatic, and Madeline closed her eyes tighter yet. Still too dizzy to move, too affected, she most desperately wished to escape.
Then Lucien was beside her. She smelled him, and opened her eyes. In his eyes there glowed a sultry look she hadn’t seen before, and his nostrils flared. He took her hand and led her away from the library, pulling her by the wrist. Still a little stunned, Madeline allowed herself to be led. The hail slowed, and although it was replaced with more of the torrential rain, at least she could hear.
"Where were you going?" Lucien asked.
Madeline cursed a
nd lifted her skirts. "The greenhouse." She started to run once again. This time Lucien ran with her.
At the door, she paused and peeked through the window. "Oh, blast!" she cried, and yanked open the door. A burst of cool wet air hit her. It poured in from the broken panes. Hailstones littered the tables and gravel floor, melting into puddles where they rested after their destruction had been wrought. It was worse than she’d expected.
The most urgent problem was the ice on some of the plants—the delicate orchids and exotic ferns she grew for pleasure; the exotic vegetables she grew for experimentation. The cold air would send them into a traumatic shock. Unmindful of her attire, she stuck her feet into a pair of boots and hurried forward to scoop ice from the pots and brush the worst of the shattered glass from tender leaves.
Lucien watched her for a moment. "May I help you? Tell me what to do."
"It’ll ruin your clothes."
"I have more clothes than the king." He shucked his coat and waistcoat, and hung them with the aprons by the doorway. He took one of the long aprons and brought it to her. "You don’t want to soil that beautiful gown."
He tied it around her before she could move, and his touch on her sides, impersonal as it was, sent a rippling over her skin. Rain poured in through broken panes, splashing into the pools already forming under the tables and along the walkways.
"It’ll do no good now," Madeline said, brushing ineffectually at the water spots marking the sleeves and skirt. Her words were breathy.
"A pity," he said. Then he shrugged and took a handkerchief from his pocket. He held it by her face. "May I? You were cut by the glass. There’s blood on your face."
"Is there?" She brought her hands up. For the first time, she became aware of the stinging scratches and the annoying thickness of a swollen lip. She touched the latter with her tongue, probing the soreness experimentally.
"Now there’s a little mud, too," he said with a crooked smile.
"Oh. Please, then, wipe it away."
Wetting the cloth under a stream of rain pouring through a hole overhead, Lucien gently wiped at her cheeks, then her forehead. He stood close, but not obnoxiously so, and his body seemed peculiarly warm. A fine trembling stirred in her limbs. She reached behind her to brace herself on the table.
"Close your eyes," he said.
Madeline complied. He wiped gently at her eyelids, and again over her cheeks, then down to her chin. The curve of his knuckle, warm and dry, brushed her lower lip, back and forth as he lightly rubbed her jaw.
A flash of the scene in the library jolted through her mind—violence and sweat and desire—and the annoying heat pressed into her abdomen, aggravated by the light brush of Lucien’s crooked fingers on her lower lip.
Madeline opened her eyes.
He stared down intently into her face, his cat eyes gleaming a wild combination of colors—gray and blue and green mixed in the most alluring gradations. "Your face is extraordinary," he said quietly, and stroked her jaw. "The lines make me think of the flight of birds, sailing along in perfect grace." His fingers swept along a cheekbone, over her mouth, swooped down the line of her nose and again along her lip.
A shiver rocked her, and she could see Lucien felt it. For a moment, the long muscle in his jaw tightened, and his lids grew heavy over the gloriously jeweled eyes. "It aroused you, seeing your stepmother and Jonathan like that."
"No," she whispered. "It embarrassed me."
His thumb settled on her lower lip, precisely in the center, and Madeline ached to open her mouth and suck it in, to taste it. As if he sensed that urge, he took a step closer, putting their bodies in contact. His thumb didn’t move, just rested on her lip as if it belonged there. "I don’t think so."
Madeline’s breath caught and she made an urgent move to back away, but a table stopped her. Now he caught her face in both hands. His long fingers caressed the edges of her ears, and his palms were hard against her jaw, and there was a light in his eyes she couldn’t read. "There’s such passion in you, Madeline. Hidden, far away, deep so it can’t hurt you. I wish I could set it free."
She thought he was going to kiss her, and the thought made her tremble even more. She didn’t move away, only closed her eyes against the temptation of his beautiful face. There was a soft, moist sensation against her eyelids, first one and then the other, and she was abruptly free.
"You’ve got a couple of nasty cuts there. Don’t leave them too long."
Rattled, Madeline said only, "No, I won’t. Thank you." She looked around her, overwhelmed by the mess and the man, and breathless with both. A tiny pulsing quivered in her throat, and she felt dazed as she looked around her, trying desperately to give the room the attention it deserved. Almost half of the glass panes in the long room had been shattered, though most were contained at the north end.
"What shall I do to help?" he asked.
His words served to bring her practical nature to the fore. She smoothed the apron over her skirts. "Take the hailstones from the pots, first of all," she said as matter-of-factly as she was able. She illustrated by scooping out a now-soggy ball of ice that filled the cradle of her palm. "Most of these plants are delicate and won’t take to this cold, so they need to be moved to a more protected spot."
He went to work, easily and efficiently doing whatever she asked. From the corner of her eye, Madeline watched him, aware of a dangerous and disturbing truth: she would have let him kiss her. She had, in fact, been aching for his mouth, and for his hands on her body. If she were honest, she still wanted it. The thought terrified her.
And yet, as she worked, her innate sensibility righted itself.
Today, the storm had stirred her up, then the carnal coupling of her stepmother and her lover, and the destruction of the greenhouse. She was bound to be more than usually emotional.
Yes, that was it. She’d simply avoid Lord Esher— better to think of him as Lord Esher than Lucien after all, until she was herself again.
Yes.
Chapter Seven
Kiss me a thousand times and
Give me a hundred kisses more
We’ll have no time to vex or grieve
But kiss and unkiss till we die.
~ Alexander Brome
With Lord Esher’s help, Madeline managed to move most of the delicate plants to a more protected location. She picked out shards of glass from many pots, swept messes from the tables and onto the floor. She might have gone on all evening, except it began to get exceedingly hard to see in the dark. At Lord Esher’s insistence she left and went to her room to change.
Her dress had been ruined, of course. A pity, especially since Juliette had just bought it for her, but there was no help for it. She changed into a serviceable wool and went back down to see how the rest of the guests had fared.
Dinner had been forgotten in all the excitement. The remains of the soup course littered the table. Madeline ordered it cleaned up, and asked for trays of bread, fruit, and cheese, wine and tea, to be taken to the salon. The cook pointed to the cold pheasant waiting to be served, and Madeline nodded. "Might as well get some use from it."
Servants were already working to sop up the rain on the dining room floor. A few panes of glass had been broken in the French doors along the long front wall, but compared to the greenhouse, the damage was minor. She checked the salon, but it was sheltered somewhat by the branches of an old, sturdy oak and had been spared. The musicians sat idly in one corner. She set them to playing.
In short, she performed all the tasks Juliette should have been addressing, had she not indulged in her passion in the library where anyone might have seen her. Neither Juliette nor Jonathan were anywhere to be seen. Nor Lucien, though he had been as soiled as Madeline, and she imagined he’d gone to change as she had.
Most of the guests were badly shaken by the violent storm, and the mood in the salon was subdued. Even so, a game of cards started in one corner, and though the musicians played desultorily, they did provide some background music.
Madeline found it all oppressive. When Charles did not reappear, she escaped to the music room.
She’d been working a long time to learn Handel’s passacaglia for violin. The wistful notes suited her mood this evening, and in the dim, moist gloaming, she began to play. She had no true skill, no great gift for music, but it gave her heart and hope. Like most girls she’d been trained to play the clavichord and to sing. On her own she had insisted upon violin, and though it challenged her almost beyond any ability she possessed, she loved it.
Tonight in the somber mood, the music seemed only to add some new weight to the restless emotion in her breast, making her feel thick and annoyed and—
With an irritable sigh, she put it aside.
"Oh, please don’t stop."
Madeline turned, startled by the voice that came from the gloom. The marquess sat on one of the striped silk sofas that lined the edges of the room. "I didn’t hear you come in," she said. "How long have you been there?"
"A little while," he said, standing. He crossed the room into the small pale light of the candles. "I came looking for you, and when I heard the music, I stopped in. You play very well."
She smiled. "I do not, but I thank you for your gallantry nonetheless." A pin loosened in her hair and she lifted a hand to pat it back in place. "Why were you looking for me?"
Charles caught his hands behind his back and looked away for a moment. She felt his sudden discomfort and it puzzled her. "Is something wrong?"
"No." His smile was apologetic. Taking her elbow, he gestured toward the gardens beyond the windows. "Will you walk with me a little while?"
"Of course. It would be a pleasure."
"Good."
The air outside was cool and sweetly scented. "I love this smell," Madeline commented, lifting her skirts with one hand, holding his crooked elbow with the other. Again she noticed the calm he exuded like the bouquet in a fine wine. It soothed some of the irritation she’d felt all night. As if ridding herself of pent-up emotions, she breathed deeply and exhaled on a sigh. "Much better," she said with a smile toward Charles. "I do enjoy your company."
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