The Black Angel (The St Ives)

by Barbara Samuel

  But the room was cold and her feet were bare, and delaying the inevitable would not make it disappear. Mouth tight, chin high, she marched across the room, plucked up the missive and broke the seal.

  My dear Adriana,

  No man (or woman) can serve two masters, and that is what I have tried to do these past months. It was my own recognition of that fact that angered me this morning. In your integrity, I saw my own lack. In your willingness to fight to the death for what you believed, I saw I have only gone half measures. In your full-throated devotion to your duty, and your desire to make an accounting of your mistakes, I saw that I have run from what I must do more often than I've accounted.

  Which leads me to a confession you are owed. A confession I should have given long since, one I must deliver in this way because I cannot bear to watch your face as my lie is exposed.

  I cannot write it in a letter that might go astray, for much rests on my ability to maintain this fabrication. Go to Julian. He knows the truth. Please accept my apology for it in advance. I am most sincerely sorry.

  It is time now for me to take up my own sword. I will await word on the method you choose for annulment of this marriage, for I wish to leave you free to pursue your own dreams and goals without the hindrance of a husband you chose in a moment of desperation. The funds, of course, will be yours to dispose of as you wish. I consider our bargain well-met, and release you from any further obligation to me.

  And at last, I will say only that you have enriched my life and leant a clarity of vision I had lacked till now. I have no regrets over our time together, and hope only that I have been of some help to you as well.

  Most sincerely,

  Tynan Spenser

  Adriana sank down in her chair and closed her eyes, as if to erase what she'd read. She sat there, breathless, holding it loosely in her hands. At last she raised her eyes to her reflection. Her face was bruised and weary, but in her eyes she saw the light that had been lost. On her mouth she saw strength where once there had been weakness.

  More than life itself she wanted to go after him, pack her bags and collect her maid and set off on a chase behind him, to convince him that her love was true and clear, and would weather whatever he thought threatened them. She thought of his face when he kissed her, thought of the unbearable tenderness in his eyes when they made love, thought of his easy laughter and zestful approach to living, and she knew she could not let him go so easily.

  But whatever faced Tynan and whatever she faced herself were nothing in comparison to what Julian faced two days hence. Because her brother acted on her behalf, because he needed her now, she would stay. She would testify if necessary. She would stand up for him and for herself.

  And then she would go to Tynan.

  First, she had to see Julian.

  * * *

  Winter hung with frosted threat in the day, and despite her layers of clothing, Adriana was cold. Beside her, Gabriel shivered even through his greatcoat, and Adriana glanced up at him. Below his dark hat, his face was shadowed, and she glimpsed revulsion on his mouth. "Are you freezing?"

  He shook his head silently, his gaze trained on the looming structure of the Tower. Ravens circled and landed, sailed off the ramparts and squalled in the dark day, lending gloom to the already threatening structure. "I hate ravens," he said. "So many ravens can't be good luck."

  "I think that's the idea," Adriana replied grimly.

  "Wait here," he instructed, and moved forward to talk to a guard in red and blue livery. Money exchanged hands and Gabriel waved her forward. She linked her arm through his elbow as they passed the gates and moved into the quiet walk beyond.

  "It's better by day than it was by night," she commented, but it gave her the same creeping sense of despair it had the first time. "Oppressive. Julian will have nightmares for years."

  "Ah, there are darker things in his memory than this," Gabriel replied.

  She raised her head. "Will the two of you ever share the full scope of those adventures?"

  He looked down, a sad smile on his elegant mouth. "Honestly? Not likely. I've no doubt you'll hear most over time, but never all. And do not try to dig out Julian's sorrow. He'll grieve a woman he met there forever, and it will be better to leave him to nurse that place alone."

  "Will you tell me, Gabriel?"

  "Perhaps." Then, as if he knew he'd grown too serious, he gave her a lively smile. "Buy enough port and I reckon I'll spill most anything."

  At the foot of the stairs Gabriel halted. "Do you wish to do this alone?"

  "No. Please come."

  So together they ascended the narrow, circling stairs, feeling the damp and cold seep in through the walls. The guardsman unlocked Julian's door, and Adriana was relieved to see a coal fire burning on the grate. The room was drafty, but no more uncomfortable than many of the medieval rooms at Hartwood. And Julian himself appeared in good spirits, his long golden hair combed back from his freshly shaven face.

  "Adriana, Gabriel!" he cried, and jumped up to embrace them, kissing his sister, punching his brother, and Adriana felt herself letting go of a breath. "What news have you brought me?" His brows beetled, and the effect was the same as ever: it lent his fair face a dark and dangerous angle. "What happened to your face, Riana? Did your husband beat you?"

  She and Gabriel exchanged a glance and both laughed. "We've quite a tale to tell," Gabriel said, and launched into the story of Adriana's encounter with an enemy of Spenser, and her subsequent duel.

  Julian looked disconcerted at first. "Why didn't you let Spenser or Gabriel duel on your behalf, Adriana?"

  She sighed and even resorted to rolling her eyes in exasperation. "I wanted to fight my own battle, and I did. Enough, please?"

  He shrugged, and Adriana pressed on. "I've come for another reason, Julian." She took out the letter from her husband and gave it to him. "What lie did he tell?"

  Julian read the letter and his face emptied of all expression. The gray eyes were mirrors when he looked at her. "Did he return to his estates?"

  Gabriel supplied the answer. "He has had periodic news of unrest during his sojourn here. Yesterday, a man brought the news that his glassworks had burned to the ground."

  Julian glanced at the letter and nodded. He gave it back to Adriana and tucked his hands behind his back. "It is not my place to tell you."

  She narrowed her eyes. "You will tell me this time, brother. I asked before and will not ask again."

  "Do you wish to use his lie to remove yourself from the marriage?"

  A pang of sorrow burst in her heart, and she put a hand over the place. "No! What could be so terrible that I would toss it all away?" Troubled, she looked down at the letter, at the scrawl of his handwriting over the page, and felt bereft.

  "He is Catholic," Julian said.

  For a moment Adriana waited for the rest, but when her brother only regarded her steadily, she cried, "That's all? He's Catholic?"

  Julian nodded. "But it is more than you think, that choice. And if any learn of his affiliation, he will lose everything."

  Still, Adriana could not quite take it in. "That is the secret. The whole secret," she repeated. "He's Catholic."

  "Yes."

  She made an exasperated noise and looked at Gabriel, who had a secretive smile on his mouth. "And this was so dreadful he could not tell me? And he left me, thinking I would reject him over that?"

  Now Gabriel spoke, and his voice held the round vowels of his lecturing style. "We spoke of the question you asked me about race last night," he said.

  She nodded, frowning.

  "The question of his religion goes much deeper than simply what customs you will indulge as his wife. Imagine instead that Tynan is of my own race, and going to him, standing by him, meant you were also transformed. The struggle you will face is that difficult."

  It was difficult to admit to such private feelings, but Adriana raised her head and met his eyes. "I was prepared to endure him only," she said at last. "And ins
tead, he stole my heart."

  "Can you stand with him, always? Take care in your answer, Adriana. He has endured much. He has given much, and will be asked to give more. His wife will be asked for the same courage." Julian bent his head and looked at his hand. On his third finger was the ruby ring that bore the family crest. "I was prepared to hate him on your behalf, and find I have grown to admire him deeply. I have not seen how you matured these past five years, Riana, but the girl we left would not be equal to being his wife."

  She swallowed, stung. "Thank you ever so."

  Gabriel took her hand. "You have been in here, Julian, but I've been out there. She is no more a frivolous, vain,—" He grinned at her puff of indignation. "—self-centered child. She has grown into a woman with courage and honor."

  Julian seemed to take that into account, and then he inclined his head. "Then you must go to him."

  She scowled. "Thank you for your permission, oh lord of mine, but I'd already intended to go to him as soon as the trial is finished. I do not need your instruction to make my choice to follow my husband. I only came to discover what secret so pains him."

  "You needn't stay, Adriana. I would not ask it of you."

  Gabriel grinned, that rakish, mischievous grin. "Oh, but I think she shall, brother." From within his coat he took a thin sheaf of papers. "For she's become a hero."

  "What?" Adriana saw what they were and moaned. "Oh, not more satires!"

  Julian laughed aloud, and behind her Gabriel joined him. She snatched the papers from Julian's hand and glared down at them.

  "Madame Chevalier! Madame D'Artagnan!" Julian said, and laughed again.

  Adriana gaped. There were three drawings, and all were equally flattering. In one, more skilled than the others, she was drawn straight and tall, her long braid suggested, her feminine curves downplayed, her sword arm graceful. And her opponent was sketched as a lascivious sort, eyes bulging. The caption read,

  The lout learns a lesson.

  But Madame Chevalier, in spite of its greater crudeness, pleased her ever so much more. It showed her as an avenging angel, a woman dressed in man's clothing and wings, her hair streaming out behind her, and a small army of women, some in various levels of dishabille, descending from the heavens behind her. Adriana's sword was set to strike down a cowering crowd of terrified rakes.

  She, too, laughed in delight. "This is priceless!" she cried. "I wonder who drew it?"

  "The style is not familiar to me."

  Gabriel frowned. "It is not signed, but I recognize the style. Whoever it is has a taste for radical politics."

  Still smiling, Adriana imagined framing the thing, for the sheer pleasure of remembering that morning. And then a brainstorm took her. "I have an idea!" she cried, and grasped Julian's arm. "I know how we can put this all to rights."

  * * *

  The morning of the trial, Adriana carefully adorned herself. "Be ready, Fiona," she said as she patted the last curls of her hair into place. "I do not wish to delay until morning."

  "Yes, milady."

  The carriage arrived to take her and Gabriel, dressed as finely as his sister in wig and powder and the finest of morning suits. "Madame," he said, handing her up into the carriage with a wicked glint in his eye.

  "Sir," she replied archly.

  There was a crowd gathered before Parliament, of course. Adriana wondered if her mysterious satirist was among them. Gabriel had asked about with no luck; the artist was very careful.

  As Adriana stepped out of the carriage, a cry went up, and startled, she paused, looking out. The crowd waved and called to her, "Lady Chevalier!" and some even tossed ribbons and flowers toward her. A man's handkerchief, starched and monogrammed, stuck to her sleeve, and a velvet ribbon landed across her shoulders. Instinctively, she took the standards and kissed them, grinning and waving back at them.

  Gabriel offered his arm, suppressed laughter making his eyes starry and liquid. "What a fickle lot," he murmured. "One day harlot, the next heroine."

  "Heroine is ever so much more enjoyable."

  Within, however, her nerves came back. It was a thin crowd of Lords who gathered here today, but in their wigs and sober faces, she felt intimidated enough. In the spectator's boxes she spied Malvern's mother, her mouth pinched in a drawn face. She intended to win here today, no doubt.

  Gabriel leaned over to whisper, "None of her lovers are here!"

  She scanned the crowd and discovered it was true. In excitement, she squeezed his arm, willing herself not to smile. They'd obviously chosen to opt out of the process.

  The trial proceeded smoothly. A statement of the charges, along with a long, emotional oratory by one of the members about the scourge of dueling and the cost of it in terms of young men's lives, and the need to halt it, for good. By the time the speech was finished, impatience was rife—the members wanted to be done with this spectacle. The case against Julian was presented straightforwardly, a cold-blooded murder, this, since Malvern himself was very drunk and the duel should have been avoided.

  Then Julian's defense was presented. Malvern had grievously wounded Lord Albury's sister, publicly bragging about his sexual exploits with her. What man would not take up that challenge?

  Finally, Adriana was given a chance to speak. She stepped up to the box, hiding her trembling hands in her skirts. For a long minute, intimidated, she could not find her tongue. Then, at a frown from Gabriel, she lifted her chin. "Gentlemen, I would like to offer an alternative to these proceedings."

  A murmur went up. The judge raised his hand and gave Adriana a nod.

  "Thank you." She took a breath. "My brother acted as any gentleman would have. He defended me, his little sister, by challenging the man who insulted my honor. However—" Her hands stilled their trembling and she let them relax at her sides. "—I did not conduct myself in a manner befitting my station and breeding.

  "Many of you knew my father, and you know that he took the death of my mother in a most grievous fashion. We all went to Martinque to be with him, and comfort him, and thus, those years when I should have been learning to walk correctly and speak correctly, I spent running the beaches with my brothers, playing pirate."

  A red-faced man she did not recognize stood up, "What has this to do with—"

  The judge held up a hand. "Continue, Countess."

  Adriana smiled faintly. "My error was in my belief that I was set apart from other women by my adventurous heart. If my mother had lived, she would have gently steered me in the right direction, but she did not. I learned to fight like a boy, and my heart was too lusty."

  She had rehearsed this speech a dozen times before her mirror at home, and now bowed her head meekly. "I am ashamed of my willfulness in taking a lover, and I am even more ashamed that I did not insist upon dueling Malvern myself. If I wanted to play the man on one level, then I needed to be a man on all levels. As some of you have no doubt heard, I have chosen to defend myself in recent days, against the bold actions of a man who wished to explore the truth of my scarlet reputation."

  Suppressed smiles appeared here and there. Adriana waited.

  "Are you finished?"

  "No, my lord. I should like to offer myself as the object of transportation, to take Julian's punishment on my own shoulders. I ask to be transported to Ireland, and there live with my new husband, where I will be no offense to English Society." She stepped back, then found Malvern's mother in the gallery. "And I do offer my most sincere apologies to Mrs. Pickering on the loss of her son."

  * * *

  Judgment was swift and relieved. The Lords agreed to transport Adriana to Ireland, where she was to remain for a period of two years, effective immediately. In two years she could again visit her family and ancestral home, but if she ever took up a sword or was discovered in a compromising situation, the banishment would be extended to the whole of her lifetime. Julian was free.

  * * *

  They gathered in the drawing room some hours later. Adriana and Fiona were dressed a
s men. In this instance it was not nearly as unusual as in some cases. Women traveling the dangerous roads often donned men's garb to make the journey, and Adriana had insisted Fiona do the same.

  She felt equal parts apprehension, excitement, and sorrow as her brothers stood to bid her farewell. She hugged Gabriel first, smelling the oil in his hair and the spicy water he liked to wear. His lean, long body was not nearly as thin as it had been only a few weeks before, and his arms were fierce as he embraced her. Tears gathered thickly in her throat, and she put her forehead against his shoulder. "I've only just got you back, and now I must let you go again," she whispered. "Write to me often!"

  "Yes," he whispered, then let her go, and from his pocket took a fistful of wildflowers, only slightly crumbled. "I did not forget."

  Tears spilled over as she accepted the offering, then clutching the flowers in her fist, she turned to Julian, feeling somehow shy with him. They'd barely spent a day's time together in all of this, and she felt his secrets and sorrows still buried in a tight little lump within him. "As soon as you are able, please come to Ireland. I have missed you."

  And Julian, who had always been careful to reveal as little as possible, flung an arm around her and hugged her so tight she thought he would break her neck. "I will," he said. "I promise." Against her hair he whispered, "I'm so proud of you, Riana. And so glad you've found your love." He pulled back. "I am here now to see to our estates and our sisters. Go to your husband."

  She nodded and stepped back, looking around her one last time.

  "It isn't far," Gabriel said. "We'll come stomping around in such numbers and so often you'll be glad to be rid of us."

  * * *

  It was a long and arduous trip to the ferry at Holyhead, and took three days instead of the two the coachman had promised, thanks to the wheel-sucking mud. But at last they were aboard the ferry, on a sea that was calm in spite of the threatening clouds.

  Adriana was stunned to discover how much she had missed the taste of sea air, and spent the long afternoon hours on deck, watching the waves spread away from the ferry in long, triangular swaths. Beneath her fingers the rail was crusted with salt, and by evening her own skin was similarly thick.