The Black Angel (The St Ives)

by Barbara Samuel

  "Perhaps there need not be another time, then."

  "Aye, that'd be a lucky thing." He fastened his breeches, heat burning his cheeks and boiling his blood. "No wonder your lover left you."

  Her voice was weary enough that it shamed him. "Please do not speak of that."

  He hesitated, wishing to take the words back. It was not his way to be cruel, but he could not recall when he'd ever been so thoroughly humiliated. Perhaps it was best they leave it as it was. "Good night, wife," he said, and left her.

  * * *

  Alone in the chamber, Adriana curled under the blankets into a small, tight ball, her knees drawn up to her chest. She did not cry. Her shame was too deep for that.

  But she could not avoid the waves of memory. The Black Angel standing beside her on the steps to the bed, his naked chest gleaming in candlelight, his hair loose on his shoulders. The feel of his hands on her, gentle and strong. The sensation of his mouth on her breast—

  She closed her eyes and covered her eyes. She would not think of it, would forget all of it.

  But it was not as simple as that. Over and over she pushed the images away, replaced them with visions of the fields at midmorning, when fog still lingered in wisps in the deepest furrows. Or her dogs, running full tilt across the lawn.

  Or Martinique. Lush and green and warm. Where she had been free. Where laughter had seemed the natural response to life, and music flowed from lips and hands and from the very trees.

  It was Martinique that lured her, at last, into sleep. When she started awake, it was dawn, and she did not know what had awakened her. Lying still for a moment, she listened.

  Horses. Coming fast.

  Tossing the coverlet away, she rushed across the room, stubbing her toe in her haste to climb up to the embrasure. She flung open the heavy draperies. Below, on the road over which her husband had ridden, came two horses with mud-splattered bellies, and on their backs rode two men.

  For a long, breathless moment she stared, unable to believe the evidence of her eyes. A blond man, hair fallen loose from its queue to spread in a glitter over his shoulders, rode a black horse, his woolen cape billowing out behind him. The other man, his hair a tumble of black curls, rode a bay.

  A catch tightened her throat—joy and despair. Only one day late. Only one.

  Then joy overtook all else, and Adriana flung open the casement, unmindful of the rain. Leaning out, she cried, "Julian! Gabriel!"

  The dark man rose up in his stirrups and lifted one arm, his face breaking into a smile. "Riana!" He whooped madly.

  She turned and scrambled down from the steps, leaving the window open in her haste. From the floor, she retrieved a wrapper and stuck her arms in it as she rushed out into the passageway, banging hard on the doors of her sisters' chambers as she went.

  "Get up! Wake up!" she cried, and flung open one door after another. Her sisters sat up, poked heads between the curtains of their beds, blinking and tousled. "Get up!"

  Phoebe said, "What is it, Adriana?"

  She pointed, words deserting her for a moment. "Our brothers are home."

  Chapter 3

  Adriana raced for the steps without waiting to see if her sisters followed, tumbling down the stairs in her bare feet, nearly flying down one set, then the next, and then the landing above the top floor. "Julian!" she cried as he came through the door.

  She scrambled the rest of the way, and by the time she hit the ground floor, her brothers were rushing to meet her. Adriana, without thought, flung herself toward them, a sob breaking free at last as their strong, fierce, dear arms captured her, one fist against her ear.

  "I thought you were dead," she cried, and buried her face tighter into one shoulder, then the other, smelling wet wool and the oil Gabriel used in his hair and the heat of their hard journey. Their hands grasped her, pulled her tight, and she wept in purest, deepest gratitude while they kissed her hair and held her close. A hundred memories, a thousand, rushed through her. "I missed you both so much!"

  At last she pulled back, her heart pinched, to be sure it was not some dream or trick that her imagination played.

  But there was Julian, a lock of blond hair falling free to brush his high-planed face, sunburned and more weathered than it had been. She touched his cheek and stubble itched her fingers, but in all, he looked well. Older, stronger. More powerful. Tears streamed down her face. "I missed you," she whispered.

  He kissed her head, a smile at last breaking that graveness, and she turned to Gabriel, older than Julian by three years. Morning dew caught in the black curls of his hair, giving him a halo—a halo belied by the mischievous glitter in his pale green eyes. From his pocket he took a bouquet of barely mashed wild-flowers, plucked by the side of the road, and bowed as he presented them. "I did not forget," he said, for it had ever been Gabriel who remembered her love of flowers.

  She laughed, but finally saw the hollows that made his angular face gaunt, the darkness below his eyes. She put a hand to his face. "Gabriel, are you ill?"

  He shook his head, and Julian urgently took Adriana's elbow. "Are we in time? Did you marry?"

  But before she could answer, shrieks and cries came from above, and the prodigal sons stepped forward to greet the other girls.

  * * *

  Tynan heard the flurry of cries and footsteps from the drawing room, where he'd taken his foul mood the night before, intending to drown his frustration in several bottles of port. To his disgust, port did not seem to be the answer. He finally gave it up and wished for tea, but did not want to rouse some weary servant after so long a day of work. He contented himself instead with the fire and remnants of the feast he found in the kitchen.

  By morning he'd wound his way around his masculine embarrassment—he'd not ever left a woman displeased!—to the practicalities of the situation. The bond had been sealed, and his grim, cold wife wanted nothing more to do with him once he put a babe in her belly. So be it.

  He had been dozing in the big chair when he heard the shouts, and then horses, then the tumbling of feet on the floors overhead. New guests, he supposed, without much interest, but stood up nonetheless. He'd greet them as lord of this manor, set the tone now.

  But at the threshold he halted, his gaze snared by the vision flying down the steps. A wealth of thick hair tumbled over a body barely hidden by lawn nightrail and thin wrapper she'd scarcely managed to tie. Her bare feet were slim and white, and he'd glimpsed the slender ankles by candlelight the night before.

  His wife.

  Gone was the colorless woman bound up in black bombazine. Her skin glowed peach and white. Her eyes burned in her face. Her mouth was red and full. Had he been blind the day before?

  Stunned, he blinked. Once, twice. Stared as she flew, graceful as a butterfly, into the waiting embrace of the two men at the door. They gathered her close and enfolded her in a fierce embrace, their faces hard and moved at once, and Tynan saw the rare, deep, unbreakable bond between the three. One blond head, one dark, and the tall, finely shaped woman between them.

  He had one instant to absorb that these were her brothers, the exiles, come home too late to save her, before the other sisters appeared, one after the other, and a chaos of shouts and cries and greetings and hugs and kisses erupted. The slim black woman Tynan had seen the night before also appeared. Exotically attired in some bright fabric, she burst from the servant doors and piled herself into the mix, crying out in a mix of French and English and some language Tynan did not recognize.

  Adriana stepped back, letting the woman in, and Tynan saw her wiping away the happy tears on her face, saw her cover her mouth in joyous disbelief.

  And he realized that he'd not been at all blind the day before. Her features were clear and even, but not particularly remarkable, and her hair was very pale. Black had sucked all the color from her, and the stiff fabric had made her appear plump.

  But now that hair hung loose, thick and very long, and the palest shade of saffron, a color so delicate it made him thin
k of ethereal, fleeting things—the gauzy trails of spiders, the first soft rush of morning. In contrast, her unbound breasts swayed in earthy heaviness beneath the thin fabric, and her cheeks were flushed with the happiness of her brothers' return. Tynan, looking at her, felt an unwelcome stab of desire.

  At last she seemed to sense his presence, and turned like a startled hare into the flame of his gaze. He raked her, head to toe, and lifted an eyebrow. Her narrow chin lifted, though he saw a flush spread upward from her neck. But instead of the arrogant toss of her head, the haughty disdain he expected, she stepped forward. "Come, my lord, and meet my brother, the Earl."

  Sharp irony burned in those eyes. The irony that both had lost—Adriana her freedom, Tynan his hope of controlling an English estate. Coldly, he met her gaze, and leaned close. "A pity we consummated the marriage, is it not?" he said in her ear.

  So close, he smelled the lavender that had enticed him the night before, and a lingering trace of their heated joining. His wish to put his hands on her swelled. He discovered he even liked the haughtiness that now flared, and the fierce loyalty that burned in her eyes. "Indeed."

  They stood alone at the edge of the group. Tynan, acting purely on instinct, lifted a hand to the small of her back, sliding it down toward the voluptuous swell of buttocks. "A fine pair of brothers," he said. "But they cannot give what I can, wife."

  He had the satisfaction of seeing her color rise before she tossed that head and gave him a thorough once-over, her delicate nostrils flaring with distaste. "I expect there are a thousand rakes in London who give what you do."

  He blinked. Then, quite to his surprise, he laughed. "Not quite," he purred. "Not quite." He dropped his hand, freeing her.

  "Julian, Gabriel," she said, stepping forward. "I would like you to meet my husband, Tynan Spenser, Earl of Glencove." Adriana tossed her head. "Tynan, this is my brother, Julian St. Ives, Earl of Albury."

  The man turned cold eyes upon Tynan. In the arrogant tilt of his chin, Tynan saw a reflection of his wife's haughty armor. Albury's coloring, like Riana's, was very fair—that cool English beauty that so flattered women and often made a man look weak and pretty. It would be a mistake to judge Julian St. Ives so, however. There was steel in those gray eyes, a shrewd intelligence across the high brow, and character weathered into the jaw. He gave a curt nod. "How do you do."

  Not to be outdone, Tynan lifted a brow. "Quite well, thank you."

  "And this," Adriana said, gesturing, "is my eldest brother, Gabriel St. Ives."

  "Man about town," Gabriel added wryly, and unlike his brother, held out his hand in greeting.

  Tynan shook it, liking the faint irony of his comment and the directness of his measuring gaze. Gabriel was the taller of the pair, and owned the lean, ropy grace of a master swordsman. His hands were large and strong. Decisive.

  Phoebe intervened, finally, pushing her way to the middle of the throng. "You've all greeted them now, let the poor men come sit and eat. Girls, off with you. I'll send Mary to help you dress."

  Tynan stepped to one side. Adriana stood where she'd been, looking a bit stricken as she watched her brothers go. Then she caught Tynan's perusal and brushed by him, her thin gown swirling over the tips of his shoes. She pretended to ignore him, and Tynan chuckled to himself when she could not resist one last, piercing look in his direction as she began to mount the stairs.

  To see if he was watching.

  Oh ho, he thought, and gave her his most wicked smile, intrigued when she blushed and hurried up the stairs.

  * * *

  Phoebe, more sensibly attired than the other girls in a heavy cotton wrapper, her hair woven neatly into one long braid that hung down her back, ordered chocolate and tea, bread and butter and cheese to be brought to the dining room, sent the girls up to get dressed, tried to move Monique and failed.

  Tynan watched it all from his post by the hearth, arms crossed over his chest, a certain restlessness in his shoulders and knees. He didn't know what he was waiting for until Adriana came back into the room, simply dressed in a shepherdess's gown, her hair hidden by a cap. A thin scarf, tucked into the edges of her bodice, hid her breasts.

  She saw Tynan at once, but chose not to acknowledge him, going instead to stand between her brothers at the table, one hand on each of their shoulders as if to assure herself they were really here. Tynan found it rather touching, and was again intrigued by her need to ignore her husband. It was the sort of alert inattention that spoke volumes of her deep awareness of him. Perhaps things were not as grim as they'd seemed last night.

  Standing between her brothers, Adriana sighed, brushed at her skirts as if wiping something unpleasant from her hands. "Have you eaten?" she asked.

  "Phoebe has seen to it."

  "Good." Abruptly, she doubled her fist and pulled back, hitting Julian in the shoulder, hard enough to knock him sideways. Then she turned, lightning fast, and aimed for Gabriel, who took the cuff on his back. "Why the bloody hell did you let us think you died?" she cried.

  "Adriana!" Phoebe said, shocked.

  Gabriel laughed, ducking another blow. "Ask Julian—'twas his doing. Ow! Stop that." He grabbed her wrist, but she wrenched free and hit Julian again. The blond brother, laughing, jumped up, captured her hands and wrapped them around her waist, hugging her from behind, his head against her hair.

  "Poor Riana!" he said in a mocking voice, rocking her back and forth. "Safe and comfortable here at Hartwood, mourning her dear lost brothers, while they fought the seas and pirates and slave traders."

  She halted, and Tynan saw the quick alarm. "Not slave traders! Not really?"

  Gabriel sobered. "Yes, really."

  Tynan simply watched them, his eyes narrowed as he absorbed the easy camaraderie between them. Here were deep bonds, invisible but powerful, and in the way of new grief, he suddenly ached for his own brother with a pain that nearly blinded him. Sorrow burned through him, stealing his breath, suffocating him with a fresh sense of loss.

  He made to turn away, but somehow Phoebe was beside him, her hand on his arm. "You should have seen them as children. Wild, and Riana often as not the ringleader."

  Bleakly, he stared at them, now grouped so Adriana could hear their exploits. "'Tis hard to believe she is the same woman who stood like a widow on those steps yesterday."

  Phoebe laughed. "Oh, just wait. My sister has a thousand faces."

  "Does she, now? And which is real?"

  "All of them."

  Grateful for the distraction from the threat of his grief, Tynan looked thoughtfully at his new wife. His gaze caught on the tender sweep of hair at her nape, the grace of a collarbone, the voluptuousness of her breasts, and he was assailed with a sensual memory of her fighting her own body last night, and losing with such violence. He thought of the tight-lipped ghost of yesterday, and the butterfly look of her flying down the steps to fling herself with such heartfelt love into her brothers' arms.

  A thousand faces.

  All his hopes now lay with this puzzling woman. He needed to win that loyalty she gave her brothers, needed the fierceness he glimpsed below the surface, needed that nearly bitter wit. And he thought, standing there with more heat in his veins that he would have claimed, that he knew exactly how to capture her.

  He turned to Phoebe. "Send her to me in the library when she is free."

  It was plain that Julian and Gabriel were exhausted, and once they'd eaten, Adriana insisted everyone leave them to go to their rooms and rest. There would be ample time to hear their adventures later. She walked with them to the foot of the stairs, somehow reluctant to part with them, even for a few hours.

  Julian took her hand. "Riana, forgive us. We heard too late, and came as quickly as we could. How long have you been married?"

  She let go of a soft, bitter laugh. "One day." She wanted to add that she'd felt them coming to her, but didn't. "But do not think on that. I am just so very glad to have you back again."

  Gabriel kissed her head, and she fel
t again his thinness as he leaned close. "Are you ill?" she asked, catching the front of his shirt to halt him so she could look at him closely in the bright light falling through the windows of the hall. The pale eyes were clear, and his color lacked the yellow tones it took on when he sickened, but he was extremely thin.

  From behind, Julian touched her shoulder, and she looked around in time to see a silent message pass between the pair. "We encountered some rather… difficult adventures," Julian said. "Unfortunately, Gabriel suffered a bit more than I, but he's hale as ever now."

  A ripple of unease touched her, and Riana frowned. "Do you swear?"

  Gabriel smiled. "I swear it."

  She forced herself to release them, step back. "Rest then, and I'll see you at supper."

  "Get word to Cassandra," Julian said.

  "Of course." She watched them climb the stairs, feeling an odd sense of loss. It surprised her. What in the world could she have lost? Her brothers were home, at long last.

  Then it struck her—these were men. The brothers who had left her had been youths—Julian not quite twenty, Gabriel only a little older. They'd still worn the dewy flesh of the untried, the slim figures of boys.

  No more. At twenty-five and twenty-eight, they were full-grown men with broad backs and thick stubble on their chins.

  Men who'd seen more than they wished of the world, evidently.

  Phoebe came out of the drawing room. "Riana, Lord Glencove asked me to send you to him in the library when you had a moment."

  Tynan. Adriana nodded. "Thank you." Might as well be done with it. Smoothing her skirts, tucking a wisp of loose hair into her cap, she went to the door and scratched it. He called out for her to enter.

  The room occupied an eastern wall, and was bright with morning. Tynan stood in gold-edged silhouette against one long window, facing the gardens.

  "Phoebe said you'd asked for me," she said.

  "Aye," he said without turning. "Please close the door."

  There was something odd in his tone, and Adriana felt a small quiver of nervousness, but she did as he asked. Then, a queer anticipation leaping in her veins, she moved to the middle of the room, uncertain what to expect. She folded her hands.