He could not halt a small burst of laughter. "No. I am not violent and I have no mistress." He reached for her, a wash of dizziness on his spine as her scent filled his head. "Those things I promise," he whispered over her lips, and kissed her, knowing it was her weakness.
And it was as it had been the night before, a thick explosion of something carnal and yet deeper than that, enveloping them completely and mindlessly, and no more was said of his secrets at all. Not that night, or for several more.
* * *
With the trial looming so close, there were, suddenly, a great many things to do. Adriana and Gabriel met with barristers and others who helped them devise a strategy for the trial. On many things, they all agreed. Others, such as whether Adriana would be called to testify, were hotly debated. Gabriel was adamantly against it, insisting there were many others who could be called to tell the truth of events.
One afternoon, fresh from a rather heated session with the barrister, Adriana linked her arm through her brother's. He wore crisp blue satin, and the fabric was cool against her fingers. "You needn't be so fierce on my behalf," she said. "If I'm called, I'll manage."
"I won't have you dragged through it all again." His expression hardened, stubborn, and Adriana was reminded forcefully of their father.
She grinned at him. "You look so much like Papa when you set your jaw that way."
"Do I?" It pleased him.
"Yes. Stubborn idealism."
"When I was small, he was like a god. I wanted to be just like him. And then he went away for such a long, long time, and though Mama tried to excuse him, I was quite angry." The pale green eyes flashed with humor. "Then he came back and brought me so many sisters and even a brother!"
"Lucky you."
"Lucky you," he returned. "Who'd have taught you of pirates and swords?"
Adriana laughed, leaning into him fondly. The day was cold but bright, and the streets were full of traffic and noise and scents. Gabriel, so tall and graceful, exotic but obviously a gentleman, attracted attention wherever he went, and she basked a little in the shield he offered. Dressed plainly, with a hat to hide her hair, no one bothered with a second glance. "I did love pirates. I thought you'd grow up to be one."
He laughed. "Perhaps I have!"
"Ah! And what are you apt to steal?"
"Liberty," he said, lifting one heavy dark brow with a quick grin. "What say you, lady, will you take up your sword and join me?"
"My sword is a bit rusty these days."
"Well, then we shall have to practice. Will you spar with me?"
Happily, she lifted her head. "Yes! Oh, it would be fun! Will you come now? I've spent so little time with you, Gabriel."
"Of course now," he said, mockingly pulling up his chin. "One must always be ready."
"One for all…" she said, laughing.
* * *
They were in the back garden, warmed by their exertions, when Tynan found them. It was the sound of their shouts and laughter that drew him. A wide expanse of lawn butted up to the house, with doors to the conservatory and the back sitting room, and he went through the parlor.
At the sight that greeted him, Tynan paused, smiling. Gabriel was in his shirtsleeves and satin breeches and a pair of tall boots, polished to a gleaming shine. Adriana had shed her day dress in favor of a man's shirt and a simple skirt, and her hair was pulled back from her face into an untidy knot. They sparred joyfully, sister and brother, one so dark, the other so fair. Watching them, Tynan was struck by two things.
The first was that Gabriel was a remarkable swordsman, his rapier an extension of his athletic grace. He made a dance of it, thrusting and swinging back, tricking Adriana with sly feints and ruses, laughing broadly when he succeeded.
But while he enjoyed the company of Gabriel, who had somehow become his friend these past weeks, it was naturally Adriana who drew Tynan's eye. She, too, laughed and danced and thrust, obviously regaining a skill that had grown stale, and he saw yet another face of her—here was the wild child, the one who'd played happily with her brothers in a tropical world that retained its power to make her eyes grow soft even these many years later. Her expression shone, full of life and joy and exuberance, and he thought with an odd pinch of the woman he'd first encountered, bound up in black bombazine, hiding herself away.
Crossing his arms, he chose to stay back a little, puzzling over the seemingly endless facets of this woman. What about her brother brought out this side of her? This playful woman who cared little for fashion or vanity, who wiped sweat off her brow with a sleeve, attracted him violently.
Gabriel seemed to make her remember, with great pleasure, the adventurous side of her personality. It was to Gabriel she'd gone to share her adventure of dressing in men's clothing, he remembered.
And who brought on the woman in black bombazine? The contrite, sorrowing woman who was ashamed of her passion? Was that Cassandra?
He crossed his arms. No, with Cassandra, she seemed to be striving for some standard of proper behavior as defined by society, which struck Tynan as a little odd, since Cassandra obviously cared little for the opinions of the vain and shallow set. She was too intellectual to be satisfied with that.
Phoebe? No, not her, either. Phoebe was kind and good and would never make judgments.
With a shrug, he stepped out into the garden, thinking perhaps Adriana simply punished herself. He would have to see what he could do to prevent that. "Ho! Swords!" he said.
"Spenser," Gabriel said with a nod. "Will you spar?"
He settled on a bench. "I'll leave that to the two of you." Lifting a wicked brow at Adriana, he said, "'Tis a pleasure to see a woman embrace a sport without wilting and whining."
Adriana, flushed, laughed. "No whining here. En garde." She feinted toward him, a smile quirking one side of her mouth. "We've uses for your ilk, mate."
The lovely, smoky blue of her eyes held a mischievous light. "D'you now?" he drawled.
Gabriel sat beside him, panting, and gave him the sword. "She's worn me out," he said with a grin. "Your turn."
Tynan stuck it in the ground, point down. "I've other ways."
Adriana sighed in exaggerated annoyance. "I was just regaining my arm!"
"No, my dear, you got your arm back an hour ago." Gabriel shook his head. "If it weren't for me, you'd be the best swordsman in England."
"I am the best swordswoman." But she gave it up and sat on the bench with them, and they traded tales of the business they'd all undertaken. Seated between them in the crisp autumn day, Tynan almost forgot the loss of his own family in the pleasure of finding a new one. Covertly, he touched her fingers, and with a secret smile she took it.
* * *
Adriana found herself loath to pursue the question of Tynan's secrets, for the golden spirit of this time seemed too precious to invade. And so she let it rest, undisturbed, thinking she would somehow breach it once the trial was done. There would be time enough then.
Behind closed doors, in the garden of his world, she discovered that he devoured her with the same intense and curious devotion he expended upon everything else. He seemed to never tire of discovering some new way to please her, and he was as eager to accept her own more shyly offered but no less enthusiastic attempts to please him.
She discovered that he teased unmercifully and laughed with great gusto, and that there was no more beautiful sight in the world than his eyes, glittering with pleasure and humor and appreciation when he was buried deep within her. And nothing more moving than his sober mouth when he slept, unaware of her gaze. His world, the garden of his mind, truly did bloom in greater vividness than did the rest of the world's, though the storms, it was true, were fierce and battering. Sorrow could flash over him, turn him darkly brooding for long hours—and it seemed to her only natural that such a thing should be true. How could there be a capacity for joy without an equal capacity for sorrow?
In those first breathless days, she allowed nothing to intrude to spoil her pleasure
. She did not ask herself if she was in love with her husband, simply allowed herself to feast at the banquet he offered. He, too, seemed content to drink of the cup that she offered.
On Thursday morning Cassandra appeared at the door to the town house as Adriana was taking her breakfast. A footman showed her into the dining room, and Adriana rose immediately, alarmed by the loose wildness of Cassandra's hair and the shock on her face. "What is it?" Adriana cried.
Cassandra wordlessly waved a letter, and Adriana snatched it from her. It was in Ophelia's unformed hand. The words were to the point:
Phoebe was thrown from her horse and she is in terrible pain. You must come.
Adriana raised aggrieved eyes. "Nothing else?"
"No." She swallowed. "We must go to her now."
"Of course." Adriana found her mind frozen, captured in a hurrying circle of what if? what if? what if? With a bitter sense of regret, she thought of the letter she had begun on Sunday and did not finish.
A fall from a horse could lead to a long and agonizing death, or only a simple bruise. What did terrible pain mean? She pressed a hand to her ribs, feeling breathless, and gulped in a lungful of air. It only helped marginally. She nodded vaguely. "Right. We must go. I'll leave word with the servants. Gabriel and Tynan must stay. The trial…"
"Yes."
She thought, too, of the rout tomorrow evening at the Duchess's invitation, and felt deeply torn. Tynan needed for her to be on his arm and would be terribly disappointed if she did not return. Hastily, she found ink and pen and paper and wrote a note to him, promising she would return by evening the following day if at all possible. She gave instructions to the servants, and gave another note to a footman to take to the dressmaker. The ball gown was to be delivered this evening, and Adriana wanted to make sure nothing had gone awry.
Then she and Cassandra, both silent and grim behind faces they attempted to arrange into calm masks, were flying toward Hartwood. Thanks to the recent, steady rains, the roads were in miserable condition, and after two hours they were still only halfway. Adriana's nerves were screaming.
"I can't bear it if anything happens to Phoebe," she burst out at last.
Cassandra leaned forward and took her sister's gloved hands in her own. "Do not worry just yet. Ophelia is prone to drama, you know. Phoebe as like as not is abed with a headache and bruised derriere, no more."
"Yes. You're right, of course."
"At the very least, there is no point in fretting now, whilst we still have miles to go." She settled back, and before she spoke again, Adriana saw the sharp glitter in her eye. "How is your husband?"
"Very well." She folded her hands, kept her face blank, and countered with a probe of her own. "And what has occupied you so deeply that you cannot even spare an hour for your sister?"
"Oh, Riana, is that how it has seemed to you?" True distress marked her tone. "I did not think—"
To Adriana's surprise, a buried flare of anger now blazed up in her chest. "How else could I have taken it, Cassandra? You well knew what I would face in London, and it was even worse than any of us anticipated. And yet when I sent notes around, you had no time for me. It was only when news came about Julian that you deigned to see any of us."
Cassandra lowered her eyes, and—most unlike her—went very still. "I did not mean to desert you," she said quietly. "I'm only… engrossed in troubles of my own." She pressed her lips together and raised her head. "I'm not able to speak of them, not now, but I swear, Riana, I did not mean to leave you so alone. Will you forgive me?"
Again Adriana realized how little she knew of her sister's life. Always she had been a most private person—but nothing ever stimulated Adriana's curiosity like an intriguing secret. "Can you not even hint?"
"No." There was no broaching the word. "I am assisting a friend, that's all. And I cannot speak of it, or chance risking my friend's life."
"Oh." Adriana blinked, then lifted a shoulder. Lightly, she said, "I do not particularly forgive you, since the fate of your sister should have mattered more to you than the fate of a friend."
Cassandra rolled her eyes. "Yours is a matter of pride, not your life. Forgive me if I cannot give homage to your vanity."
"Vanity?" Adriana narrowed her eyes, thinking of the look in Tynan's eye at the coffeehouse the day she'd dressed as "Linus." He'd been appalled at the level of the scandal. "Have you actually seen any of the scandal sheets, sister dear?"
Cassandra looked down her nose, the morally superior one, the sure one, the one intellectually so far above their trivial desires for social acceptability. Adriana itched to slap her. "No."
"When you return home to your safe tower of intellectual superiority, Lady Cassandra, perhaps you will prevail upon one of your lackeys to procure them for you. I do believe I've starred in a satire from the nastiest pens and most talented hacks in most of London." She inclined her head, a bitter edge to her words.
"My personal favorite showed me with my skirts above my head—by my own greedy hands, mind you—and twenty hands all reaching for that which was exposed. I suppose it was an offense to my vanity, you're right. Now that I think of it like that, I'll simply not bother my empty little head about it any longer."
"Oh, Adriana! I'm sorry!" Her sister bent forward, contrite.
Adriana jerked away. "Do not touch me, Cassandra. I would not want you to be soiled with my shallowness." To her horror, she promptly burst into tears.
Cassandra flung herself across the chaise and wrapped her arms around her sister. "Forgive me, Riana, oh, please. I'm so sorry. You are so intense and wild and sensual, you scare me to death." She clutched her closer. "I'm so sorry."
Adriana hunched away from her, squeezing as close as she was able to the side of the carriage. A draft chilled her neck and the side of her face, and still she leaned away from the fierce arms of her sister, who was abjectly sorry, and Adriana knew it. Somehow, she could not simply let it go—the wound had gone deep, not just Cassandra's cavalier dismissal of what had been one of the most difficult challenges she had ever encountered, but the fact that Cassandra had put someone else ahead of her family, at a time they most insistently needed her.
The power of her anger was surprising and appalling. "Cassandra, please," she said, lifting a hand against her. "I am truly wounded just now and cannot—"
Cassandra pulled away, stiffly. "You will not forgive me?"
"There is nothing to forgive," Adriana said quietly. "You must serve your own life, as I must."
"Riana, what must I do? I am truly sorry to have been so selfish!"
"Nothing, Cassandra. Do nothing." She relented a little and took her sister's hand. "I forgive you. But I admit I am hurt in a way that simply needs—" She wiped her face. "—to be left alone for a little."
"As you wish." Cassandra moved to her own side of the carriage. Both of them fell silent, staring out at the wet landscape. The trees had lost their leaves now, and Adriana thought it looked dreary. She wanted to go back to London, to the conservatory. To Tynan, who made the world bloom no matter what the weather.
Just the thought of his face eased her heart a little. Last night he'd come in late and a little tipsy from drinking with Gabriel, and had been particularly demonstrative. There was about him such a passionate gentleness that it made her hips a little weak even to remember. Softly, she smiled, thinking of how lovely it was to kiss him, and meanwhile she absently stroked her face with her glove.
"Oh, God, Adriana!" Cassandra said. "Tell me you're not thinking of him right now."
And this was why she'd avoided Cassandra. The avoidance had gone both ways. "Let's not speak of that. I'm sorry I was so evil just now."
"Oh, we will talk. Have you fallen in love with him?"
Adriana let her hands fall to her lap and looked directly at her sister, who bristled all over like a porcupine, disapproval making her back a stiff rod, her shoulders oddly fragile in their bitterness. "I don't know," she said honestly.
Cassandra let go of a
little cry of frustration. Melodramatic, Adriana thought. "Have you learned nothing?"
From a place deep within her, Adriana spoke with sudden clarity. "Yes. I have learned not all men are of the ilk of Malvern and your husband. Some are kind and good and honorable." She paused. "Julian, for example. And Gabriel."
"There's the trouble. Our father and our brothers left us expecting too much." Genuine pain showed in her dark brown eyes. "They did not properly prepare us for the world as it is."
"Oh, but they did, don't you see? They gave us a powerful standard of goodness, to which few men can measure. Therefore, we do not settle lightly, and demand the best."
"And I suppose," Cassandra said dryly, "that Lord Glencove is such a man?"
"I don't know," Adriana said slowly, honestly. "He might not be the best of husbands. He will, I am quite sure, be tempted to the arms of other women." She smiled with regret. "They do fling themselves in his path. But his heart is true to those things he believes. He is a man of honor. And great loyalty, I think."
"How can he be true of heart and faithless to his wife, Adriana?"
"Is the only measure of a man's goodness his ability to be a true husband to a wife he marries for political gain? I did not agree to marry him for any noble motive, as you well know. I traded my help for his funds to save our family. If we are able to find some harmony along the way, is that such a bad lot?"
"Yes!" Cassandra cried, and in her fierceness, took Adriana's hands tightly in her own. "Think of Papa and Mama. Think of him with Monique. Think of that laughter, that passion. How can you ask for less for yourself?"
A vision of Tynan's eyes, glowing green and blue with that light of passion, rose before her, and a depth of emotion she did not care to identify washed over her. "I have found what I want," she said quietly.
"Oh, look at you, Riana! I know that look. It's the lust in you that makes you assign high motives to men who please you physically. Good sex does not equal true love. I have no doubt Spenser is a magnificent lover—he has that air—and I'm sure you've quite enjoyed him." Her eyes went hard. "But do not give away your heart."
The Black Angel (The St Ives) Page 21