"I am the prince of Gobbledegook," he said with a bow, "come to save you from the evil king, my dear princess." His eyes glittered.
Madeline stared at him. How had he known the game she played so often here as a girl? "You might have been killed," she said.
"Yes, I might have been." Slowly, he walked around the stone circle. "But one must do what one must to save endangered princesses."
Reluctantly, Madeline smiled.
"Ah, there it is!"
"What?"
He stopped a foot from her, too close, really, but Madeline didn’t move away. Her heart beat hard. "Your smile, Madeline. You have such mischief in your smile."
"Must you ever be on the prowl?" she asked in exasperation. "I’d not mind your company nearly so much if it weren’t plain you only speak to a woman in order to bed her."
Lucien laughed. "Is that so? Do I thus speak to your stepmother? Or Lady Heath?"
"I assume you never count any woman outside your realm." Madeline turned away from him to lean her elbows on the wall. "It is rather tiresome. However, I somehow have a tendency to like you in spite of it."
"Do you now?" He, too, leaned on the wall, and Madeline didn’t dare look at him. He kept his distance, but she felt his heat and presence brushing her, bumping her as distinctly as if he were pressed against her. "Then if I am your friend, I have a better chance of bedding you, am I correct?"
She gave an exaggerated sigh and shook her head. "You’ll not bed me at all, no matter what technique you pull from your arsenal, Lord Esher. My heart belongs to the marquess."
"Oh, good." He settled on the wall. "I admit that gives some relief. It’s a burden to bed every woman one meets, but what is a rake to do?"
Madeline laughed at the twinkle in his eye and shook her head. "I hereby grant you leave to consider me a lost cause, and therefore a friend only."
"Graciously granted." The aerial view seemed to strike him again. "This is magnificent. Who lived in the castle?"
"I’m sure there are records, but I don’t know. The first earl of Whitethorn was given the land by Queen Elizabeth, in return for some service he performed, and the castle was already in ruins by then."
Meditatively, he gazed at it. "Odd that entire generations lived and ate here, danced and dreamed and"—he shot a glance at her—"made love here. And now they’re lost to all of time."
"Like Pompeii," she said quietly. "You never did say what bothered you about it."
"The same things you mentioned. The suddenness, the completeness. It seems unfair that all at once, all their lives were gone. So fast, so utterly without hope of escape." His voice deepened. "Why does God, if he is truly in his heaven, allow such things to befall people?"
Pierced, she looked at him, and saw anew the haggardness at his jaw, the carelessness of his dress. In her mind’s eye she saw his wild walk along the wall, as if he dared death to snatch him. "Perhaps it is too large an answer for our small minds to grasp," she suggested.
Shaking his head, his eyes trained on the treetops, he said, "It never bothered you, this castle?"
"Oh. yes, it did." She rubbed a hand along the wall, moving dust and grit. "It brought on the melancholia deeply when I was about twelve or fourteen. I’d come here and think of my mother and weep." She smiled, quickly, remembering. "Young girls are often melodramatic. If there had been no castle, I’d have wept over something else."
"Do you remember your mother?"
"Not at all. There is a painting of her on the wall in the library. She’s beautiful and delicate, and it’s plain she would not have lasted long whether I was born or not."
"She died in childbirth?"
"Yes. And they thought I would die, too, but I did not. I believe that is why my father married Juliette so quickly after—it was quite the scandal, but he had need of a woman to raise his daughter."
"Scandal," he said mildly. "My father scandalized his set with a marriage, as well. Married a Russian noblewoman twenty years his junior."
"Juliette was not even a foreign noblewoman, but a dressmaker’s daughter."
"So I have heard." He turned toward her. "She has been good to you, though."
Madeline nodded. "Yes."
A bank of clouds suddenly obscured the sun, and Madeline looked up in surprise to see a storm was moving in. "Heavens!" she said. "We’d best get back."
"Yes." He straightened and turned away from her.
"Where are you going?" Madeline asked. "The stairs are this way."
His devilish smile flashed. "Back the way I came."
Impulsively, she caught his arm. "Please do not. I do not think I can bear to watch again."
"So do not watch."
"Please," she repeated.
His smile deepened. "It seems we must bargain again."
"No," she said, taking her hand from his arm and stepping backward. She rubbed her fingers against her side, trying to remove the impression of his flesh below the fabric of his shirt. "I am finished with bargains."
"All right, then. Back down the wall I go."
Madeline let him walk away, and gripped her hands together. He paused at the edge of the wall, as if to give her one more chance, and she simply stared at him.
But then he leaped to the top of the tower wall and her heart stuck hard in her throat and she was moving before she knew she would, rushing toward him. "Lucien, no! Please don’t do it again, I can’t bear it!"
He turned, so quickly he nearly overbalanced. For a long, agonizing second, he hung between earth and sky, wavering over a vast drop to a painful and horrible death. Then, like a cat, he found his balance and jumped nimbly to the stone ledge within the tower. A blazingly satisfied smile touched his mouth, and even reached his eyes. "You’ll bargain with a rake, then?"
"Depending upon what he asks."
"Oh, it is a small, small price I ask, Madeline—I may call you Madeline, may I not, since you have used my Christian name?"
She blushed but held her ground.
He stepped close, so close his body nearly touched hers. Only a small outstretched hand could have fit between them. Madeline had to tip her head backward to look at his face. "What I wish, Madeline," he said slowly, touching her neck where the mark was, letting her know he’d seen it, "is one kiss, of my choosing, redeemable whenever I wish it."
"I—
"One kiss, Madeline, that’s all, I swear it."
She stared at him, sensing some trick. But the narcotic spell of his nearness enveloped her suddenly and she could not quite catch her breath. Her eyes seemed to focus, all without her help, upon his mouth—firm for so dissolute a man, perfectly cut, and as she knew, capable of giving great pleasure. "Just one kiss?" she asked.
"Yes." He moved his finger down her throat in a slow line. "One kiss. And you needn’t give it to me now."
"You mustn’t redeem it in front of other people."
He smiled, and his hand slipped from her neck, over her shoulder, along her arm, perilously close to her breast. "Is that your only requirement, that no one must see me take it?"
Madeline roused herself to think for a moment— should she require anything else? "Yes, that’s all. It must be done privately."
"Very well," he said, "I will not walk the wall in return for a kiss from you at a time of my choosing, and in private."
"Yes."
"Shall we go down the stairs, then?"
A whistle again broke the quiet day. Madeline looked down and saw Anna, Juliette, and Jonathan grouped at the foot of the wall, staring up at them. Juliette did not look pleased.
"Let’s get down the stairs," Madeline said abruptly. "It’s going to storm."
"Yes," he said lazily, "I believe it will."
* * *
Late that night, after all had retired, Juliette dismissed the maid who had helped her undress and tended her clothes. Alone, she stripped away her undergarments until she stood nude in the cool room. Rain fell outside the windows, pattering and clean. Juliette washed caref
ully and applied scent to her elbows, knees, breasts, and ears. A little rubbed along her upper lip, a dab on her thighs and in her navel.
She donned an elegant blue dressing gown, trimmed with lace, and patted her hair, which was perfectly arranged from the evening. She stepped back from the mirror to admire herself. Oh, yes— he’d not resist this easily.
Into the silent corridor she crept, her bare feet making no noise. She passed Madeline’s door, and Anna’s, and the spare guest room now standing empty and silent in the midnight light.
At Jonathan’s room, she paused, aching, wondering if he still waited for her—and if he did, what he wore. Anything? In her mind’s eye, she saw his sleek, beautiful body washed in moonlight. A wave of longing so wild it took her breath swept through her, For a long, fiercely painful moment, she wavered. If she did not go to him tonight, it might well be over between them. If he learned what she was doing instead, it would be over.
She swallowed, thinking of Madeline and Lord Esher on that castle tower this afternoon. Madeline was quite massively smitten. Lucien Harrow would have her in his bed in no time unless Juliette took pains to prevent it.
Purposefully, she moved down the hallway and stopped at Lord Esher’s door. She scratched the panels. There was no immediate answer, and she scratched again.
All at once, the door was flung open, and a very drunk Lucien Harrow glared at her. "What is it?" he said. Then he saw what Juliette intended, a long bare length of thigh, poking out from between the folds of her gown, and a generous section of unharnessed breast almost carelessly showing. A dark look flooded his eyes, an expression measuring and furious and calculating at once.
Dryly, he said, "What have we here?"
"Whatever you like." She smiled her best smile and smoothed the silk over her body suggestively. "Might I come in and share your port?"
He was shirtless, his hair loose, and Juliette didn’t wonder that Madeline was smitten. He wasn’t Jonathan of course, but he was beautiful nonetheless. And the darkness in him was exciting. Lazily, he leaned on the doorjamb, bottle in hand, and let his gaze rove over her. Juliette inclined her head, but a flush began on her neck; she could feel it creeping up her face, to her ears. Men did not consider her a bawdy in a whorehouse, but leaped upon her as if she were the choicest morsel at a feast. His slow reluctance shamed her deeply.
"It isn’t that I wouldn’t like to," he said at last, "but I value my friendship with Jonathan."
Just then, a door opened down the hallway, and Jonathan stepped into the dim corridor. Juliette bolted forward, shoving herself between Lucien and the doorway, scraping her arm rather viciously as she did so. She plastered her back against the inner wall and listened to see if she could tell where her love had gone. Silence echoed back.
"Where did he go?" Juliette whispered.
"Downstairs I believe," he said. "You’ve time to get back to your room, I’d guess, or into his—or even to the library."
He’d seemed very drunk a moment ago, but Juliette thought he saw a lot for one as inebriated as he seemed. She looked at him steadily. "Thank you for not giving me away."
He took a breath and lifted the bottle, carelessly gulping it before he answered. ’If things were different, Juliette, I’d like nothing better than to devour that beautiful body of yours." He pursed his lips. "But you only offer yourself as sacrifice to save your virgin child, and I find that rather unarousing."
The heat in her neck crept higher. "Am I so transparent? I thought myself a good deal better courtesan than that."
Lucien shook his head. "You needn’t worry about Madeline, Juliette. She is only a child, and although she is charming, I have no wish to bed a trembling virgin." He examined the bottle in his hand a moment. "I’d rather have Anna, I think. It would be a pleasant diversion after so many years."
Juliette, flooded with a sense of relief, moved forward and took his hands. "Thank you."
His eyes, dark pools in his haggard face, were unreadable. "Think nothing of it." He gave her a little shove. "Now go find Jonathan before I am tempted to take you myself."
With a brilliant smile, Juliette did just that. Grabbing her wrapper close, she ran for Jonathan’s room.
Chapter Eleven
In sweet music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart.
~ John Fletcher
For several days, the workmen hammered and sawed and made noises all the day. Madeline flung her attentions into repairing the damage to her garden, thankful in spite of herself for the help of the men hired by Lord Esher.
To her surprise, Lucien even gave help himself, seeming to take great delight in the tasks she assigned him. He worked harder than she would have expected, and came back to the house in the afternoons as covered with grime as Madeline or any of the workmen.
She could not help contemplating the motives of both Lord Esher and the marquess. One wished to marry her—and sent men to fix the windows of the house. The other wanted to seduce her—and sent men to mend her greenhouse, which, while not practical, was the heart of her life. At low moments, Madeline wished Charles had been the one to make the extravagant gesture.
Foolish. What point to repairing the greenhouse unless the house windows had been replaced first? Charles, even more kind in the long run, had provided the necessities, so that Madeline might use whatever other funds she could muster to fix the greenhouse and gardens. Lucien, on the other hand— Annoyed, she forced herself to stop allowing the squirrels to chase themselves in her brain. One man was practical, the other was pleasure seeking. Not such a difficult tangle.
In spite of everything, she did find herself liking Lucien better for the fact that he was willing to come out to the garden, morning after morning, to work. His hands got as torn and scratched as Madeline’s own, and it would not be hard to mistake him from afar as a village farmhand. The fine cut of clothes gave him away up close, of course, but he worked as hard as anyone else. The men liked him as well, for he made jests all the day, his enormous charm drawing them in, his good-natured teasing easing their hard labor.
One morning Madeline commented, "I believe you really enjoy yourself out here. Lord Esher."
He grunted, struggling with a shovel in a stubborn bit of ground. "Yes, I think you’re right. Perhaps I’ve missed my calling."
"It isn’t too late. Surely you have estates to tend— perhaps you could use your newfound talent on them."
"There are no beautiful young ladies to seduce at my estates," he countered quickly, a devilish shine in his blue eye. For an instant, Madeline thought that at last he would claim the kiss he held in hock from her, that it would be over with and she could stop wondering when it would come.
Instead, he only put his attention back on the shovel and Madeline drifted away, feeling slightly vexed. She wanted the kiss done. She hated it hanging over her this way. When they were not working together in the garden, she went to great lengths to avoid him entirely.
A new party of guests had come in from London. Madeline finally realized Juliette’s genius at work once again. It was far less expensive to maintain this country estate and life, even with the entertaining, than it was to live in London and indulge the round of parties and dances and salons they would be expected to attend and present. By snagging the rather juicy prize of London’s most notorious rake in the body of Lucien Harrow, presently under a cloud of great speculation, Juliette had assured a fashionable flow of guests eager to be considered as bon ton as anyone else.
While she found the London set trying—their idle chatter boring, their simpering and flirting coy and unsettling—she was thankful that Lucien was so very popular with them, for it gave him less time to pursue her.
For pursue he did. Relentlessly, cheerfully. And Madeline, drawn to him for reasons she could not name, resisted by hiding herself away.
And for once, Madeline could look for no help from Juliette, for it was plain to all the woman had fallen in love. She and Jonathan were the buzz of th
e day. They did not leave each other’s side, there was a flushed and dewy glow to them, and they disappeared at regular intervals. It was almost embarrassing, Madeline thought, and she heard the mean, pointed comments about the disparity in their ages. Sooner or later, Jonathan would tire of his aging mistress and move along to more supple prey, they said, and fretted over what such an end to the thing would do to the countess.
It was not Madeline’s concern. She thought her stepmother was a good sight more resilient than the catty lords and ladies did, for one thing. And Juliette was known to do exactly as she pleased.
No, Madeline didn’t worry about Juliette. She worried about herself, and the omnipresent seductive presence of Lucien Harrow. She threw herself into her garden, and prayed Charles would finish his business and return to Whitethorn.
The sooner, the better.
For the most part, the weather cooperated with the workmen, but toward the end of a fortnight, a spell of rainy, windy weather set in. The workmen could not come in from the village; the guests could not go out and ride or walk, but were trapped in the rooms of the house trying to entertain themselves. Cards and books passed the long afternoons and evenings, with one or another often taking up instruments to play and sing. Juliette had a particularly strong voice, and entertained them with bawdy ballads and long, sorrowful folk songs.
The Thursday marking three weeks after the big hailstorm, Madeline was restless by noon. The drinking had gone late the night before, and few were about yet, nor would they be. Often the guests kept to their rooms almost till dinner, nursing hangovers and applying beauty treatments—perhaps even making love; Madeline didn’t know.
The only other person prowling about was Lucien. As unsettled as she felt, Madeline didn’t want to be anywhere close to him. He was as out of sorts as the rest, and she knew he almost never slept. He went from drinking late in the salon to pacing about in the maze and gardens, to working in the mornings with her. The lack of rest showed in his face a little, though it made him no less handsome—he looked even more dangerously beautiful, as if the frivolous had been whittled from his face.
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