The Black Angel (The St Ives) Page 6

  For a little while they followed the slim path that led over the crest of the hill into a small copse of hardwoods. Again the simple act of moving seemed to dissipate the tension Adriana felt. She squared her shoulders. "It is not my usual way to indulge in insults. I do most sincerely apologize."

  "Accepted." A beat of hesitation, then: "Will you tell me how it happened with your lover?"

  "How it happened? I made a fool of myself with a rake, and when he put me aside, my brother killed him in a duel."

  "Not that." He looked at her. "Did you fall in love?"

  She felt his eyes on her face and lifted her chin, "I thought so at the time."

  "And is it, perhaps, that wound that still lingers a little?"

  "No!" Adriana exclaimed. She hated the tiny, knife-thin slice that went through her at his suggestion. "What pains me," she said clearly, "is the utter disregard I displayed for my father, or the repercussions my actions would have upon my family. I acted heedlessly, selfishly—and hurt a great many people that I love in that heedlessness."

  "Mmm."

  He didn't speak again for several long minutes, and Adriana found herself watching him. He walked tall and straight, with a certain jaunty set to his head. As they went along, he touched things they passed, trailing his fingers over the delicate head of a foxglove, across the bumpy bark of a tree, along the crumbling edge of a brick wall, left from some unimaginably distant time. And as he touched, he looked. Looked up to admire the fading leaves of an arching oak, to watch a sparrow sail through the blue sky, to glance back over his shoulder at something his fingers had not quite absorbed.

  It was a curiously appealing habit, one he evidently carried on as he thought, for next he said, "I'm not entirely clear why your brother would face a trial. Men are killed in duels monthly."

  "Yes." She sighed. "Unfortunately, Malvern was the son of the King's brother. His mother is… well-known to men at Court and in Parliament, and she's been quite insistent that the crime should be tried."

  "Mmm. I see." He cast a single raised eyebrow toward her. "A pretty mess."

  Riana suddenly imagined how it would go, the scandal sheets and the wags and the gossip at court. She squeezed her eyes shut and stopped, giving out a little moan. "Oh, God! I am so glad to have them home, but it has been so peaceful here—"

  "St. Bridget!" he cried out, and took her arm. "What a selfish little twit you are! I'd expected better of a daughter of James St. Ives."

  She looked up, startled.

  His eyes narrowed. "Imagine what he'd think of you now! You're whining about scandal and embarrassment when your brothers have rushed home to try and save you from a marriage you evidently did not want. They slayed your lover at the risk of their own necks, and now again will face the repercussions of that act, and you snivel here about—frivolity."

  It was not only her ears that burned now, burned red as berries by the feel of them, but her cheeks and forehead and chin. She yanked her arm from his grip and bowed her head in shame. He was right.

  But she could not seem to find words to give him that, and only put her hands on her cheeks, faintly amazed when they did not seem hot.

  Tynan stayed where he was and did not speak.

  Finally, Adriana captured the racing of her heart, smoothed her skirt and turned back, lifting her chin. "You've a very sharp tongue," she said.

  He had the grace to wince a bit. "Aye, too quick at times. I'd have said it more kindly if I'd stopped to measure my words," he added, his gaze direct, "but I'd have said it."

  "It needed to be said."

  "Will they hang?"

  A quick terror pressed through her, and she raised her face to him. "I don't honestly know. It's more likely they'll be transported if they're found guilty." She swallowed. "Is that your wish?"

  "I wish no ill on anyone, save the—" His mouth tightened and he halted. On his face Adriana again saw that fleeting, dark despair, and wondered what caused it.

  Before she could begin to form opinions, he said gravely, "In this I offer my most earnest promise, my lady: I wish no ill upon your brothers. I will do nothing to harm their case, and all in my power to assist them, if you will but assist me."

  Adriana met his eyes, searching his face for hints of duplicity. "I don't know why, but I believe you." She shook her head. "Though I cannot think what will be gained by my appearance in London. Seems it will only stir the gossip to a higher frenzy."

  "'Twill serve them by reminding all you are no harlot, no scarlet woman, but a lady of good standing who was ill-used. It will show the true devotion that lives between you and your siblings." His lips pursed momentarily, and a shrewd expression came into his eyes. "And in truth, dear wife, I require your assistance in my own task."

  In the distance a bell on the village church tower rang four times. Adriana looked up, startled to discover so much time had passed. "We must start back, or be late for supper." She lifted her skirts. "Come, tell me this task as we walk."

  He joined her, lacing his fingers behind his back. "I have thought long on this today, and have devised a new plan."

  "Yes?" She couldn't help smiling at his wish for prompts, and to her surprise, he smiled back as if in acknowledgment of his weakness.

  "What did your father tell you of my plans?"

  "Nothing, particularly. Only that you were ambitious."

  "I've been thinking that with the right influence, perhaps I might locate a seat for purchase in the House of Commons."

  "He did mention that. It's political power you wish to secure?"

  A shrug. "Aye. What else?"

  She considered. He was obviously well to do and did not need money. "But don't you already have a seat in the Irish Parliament? Why would you wish to secure a seat in the English as well?"

  "A new mountain to climb, I suppose." The words were light, and Adriana knew instantly they were pure fabrication.

  "I see." They passed, single file, through a narrow bit of the path, and when he rejoined her, she said, "It is not an impossible task, though I doubt I will do much to further your cause. You keep assuming there is some value to my name, but all was erased—" She sighed. "—with the scandal."

  "Leave that to me," he said, and smiled.

  Perplexed, Adriana stopped for a moment. "What a puzzle you are." She scowled and moved on. "How came you to have such a fortune in such a beleaguered land, sir?"

  "Well, I can tell you it isn't the land," he said grimly. "With the trade restrictions against our natural crops, linen and wool, we've had to be clever to find a means of feeding our people. My father built a glassworks that has grown quite profitable." He gave her a sideways grin. "I seem to have a knack for business. In the past decade I've built two more sites, and we employ nearly an entire county."

  "Glass?"

  "Aye, crystal and china. The very finest. I'll have some sent to add to your table."

  Adriana realized suddenly that she rather liked him. Dangerous. "As you wish," she said, and determined to ignore him the rest of the day.

  Chapter 5

  Tynan dressed carefully and simply for supper. His man, Seamus, had brushed his coat and put a burnished gleam on his boots. "Wish me luck, Seamus, old man," Tynan said, tucking Julian's ring in the pocket of his waistcoat.

  "No good ever came of the English," the old man muttered.

  "Not yet," Tynan agreed. But he whistled as he moved through the passageways. His rooms were in a spacious corner of the keep, and he took the narrow, winding steps to a newer wing, mulling his plan for this evening's meal.

  A servant in the foyer directed him away from the simple room where the brothers had eaten this morning, and he entered a formal dining room. It was a dark room, a darkness exaggerated by heavy furniture in ebony and mahogany and even teak. Though long windows gazed toward the open expanse of lawns to the north, autumn was full upon them, and with it, an early sunset. To offset the darkness, embroidery in bright colors enlivened the seat cushions and side-boards, and an
enormous chandelier blazed overhead, all the candles in it lit. The light caught on the cut crystal, the fine place settings, and the snowy white cloth. Everyone but Adriana had arrived.

  "Good evening," Phoebe said warmly, coming forward.

  He bent over her hand. "Good evening."

  She smiled and directed him to a seat to the right of Julian, who nodded politely and without warmth. "Spenser."

  Gabriel held the other end of the table, which had been much reduced in size for the small group. Monique sat to her son's right, a red-patterned turban covering her hair. As if she felt Tynan's eyes, she swiveled her proud head and gave him a slow, calm nod, accompanied by the faintest of smiles, as if she understood his surprise. She seemed to occupy a strange position in this house—he'd thought her at first a servant, but she came and went as she wished. He wondered which side of the stairs she slept on.

  "So," Ophelia said, lifting a goblet of wine. "Will you entertain us with stories of your travels, brothers?"

  Indulgently, Julian smiled. "What would you hear, my pretty?"

  "Everything!" she cried.

  "Wait!" Adriana sailed into the room, breathless. "Do not begin without me." She rushed to take her place, directly opposite Tynan, and he found himself dazzled once more by yet another face of his bride.

  Tonight she wore ruby silk, pattered in some way to make the light move in swirls over the fabric. It fit closely over bodice and waist, revealing her smooth shoulders, and it was cut low according to fashion, so swells of white breast crowded into the square neckline. A single red ruby lay upon that abundance like a drop of blood. Her hair had been swept into an elaborate coiffure, laced with jewels, and her cheeks were flushed, making her eyes seem deep and smoky.

  She looked, he thought, like a masterful courtesan, like a woman ready to tumble at a moment's whisper into a bed, into wild kisses and wilder embraces. A woman who would drive a man mad with her abandon.

  Here was the face that had captured her lover—the ill-fated Malvern. Tynan would lay money upon it. No man could look upon her in this mood without feeling the same surge of pure lust that filled his loins in this moment. He remembered the soft, protesting sound she'd made as she fought herself last night, remembered the feel of that flesh against his palm, and he wanted like the very devil to squander the ninety-nine kisses left to him upon those breasts.

  Phoebe, sitting next to him, said, "A thousand faces."

  Tynan blinked and forced himself to look away. "Aye."

  "Now," Adriana said, addressing her brothers, "tell us what happened to you after the uprising. We thought you dead! Where did you go?"

  Julian smiled. "We sailed by night on a fishing boat, right out of their clutches."

  "A fishing boat!" Cleo exclaimed, wrinkling her nose. "How ghastly!"

  "Better than the alternatives, love. They'd have been happier with no less than our heads."

  "How did you live?" Adriana asked.

  "For a time," Gabriel said, "we simply wandered, taking whatever work we could find to put food in our bellies."

  Julian held up his hands, callused and tough. "These hands have not known a gentlemanly day in three years."

  "What sort of work?" Cleo asked. "Were you soldiers of fortune?"

  "She reads too many novels," Cassandra said with a snort.

  "As it happens, Cleo my sweet," Julian said, "we did have that chance for a bit. It wasn't quite the romance you might imagine, since we only defended a dairy farm, from soldiers from the colonies."

  "And then, " Gabriel said, eyes shining as he smiled at his sister, "we lived with Indians. What do you think of that?"

  "Savage red Indians?" Ophelia exclaimed. "Weren't you terrified?"

  "Not savage," Julian said, and Tynan glanced at the Earl in surprise, for there was a harshness to his pronouncement. "Far more civilized than we in many ways."

  "Careful how you say that, Julian," Ophelia said, aiming for a light tone, "we'll think you've gone native."

  A heat and bristling rolled from Julian, distinctive as a perfume. Tynan narrowed his eyes, intrigued.

  "Perhaps I have," Julian said. "Or perhaps I only wished to." He reached for his wine and drank it in a single gulp.

  "Ah, but we left them soon enough," Gabriel said, leaping gracefully into the sudden silence that threatened to engulf the table, "and had far more rousing experience—a shipwreck!"

  His words had the desired effect. The occupants of the table swiveled their heads to listen to him give tale of the grand and terrifying adventure. Tynan watched Julian instead, who bowed his head under the cover of the shipwreck tale. His fists tightened and his mouth grew hard, and even his jaw grew rigid, as if he were fighting some terrible vision.

  Adriana reached out and lay a white hand on the velvet sleeve of her brother. He raised his eyes to her, and Tynan saw the bleakness there. "You left someone behind, didn't you?" Adriana said softly. "There is the tale I would hear."

  "No," he said harshly.

  Her voice was soft. "As you wish." Her hand stayed there, on his sleeve, but she suddenly looked up and caught Tynan's gaze. For the first time there was nothing but the true woman, shining from the depth of those very blue eyes. Her mouth was sober, and he glimpsed again the sharp intelligence. And he had the sense that she welcomed his attention to this, that he, too, had glimpsed the burden on Julian's soul.

  Tynan inclined his head ever so faintly, acknowledging her worry. Her gaze lingered one more brief moment, then she turned her head to hear Gabriel's story.

  After a moment Julian regained his poise and pitched punctuation into the tale of shipwreck and adventure, and none would ever have known of the breach unless they'd seen it.

  * * *

  Adriana tried to keep her eyes from her husband during the meal, but as if he were a candle burning alone in a dark room, her eye was drawn to him again and again. In his dark coat and black hair, he seemed the very opposite of light, till one caught the flash of his white teeth or the glitter in his eyes or the sweeping gesture of a graceful, open palm. Each time she glanced his way, sometimes covertly, sometimes under guise of listening to a comment he made, it seemed she captured him at yet another dazzling moment—savoring a mouthful of braised carrots, fingering curiously the pattern on the silver, swirling his wine to smell the fragrance of it. He listened with intent and curiosity to the banter around him, but seemed to have little need to draw the attention of everyone, like so many men she had known. He was, it seemed, content to observe.

  When the party moved into the music room after supper, it was no better. Adriana perched on a settee, tensely wondering if Tynan would sit beside her. He did not. Instead, accepting a glass of port offered by a footman, he sat in a hard chair across the room, directly in her line of vision. Her eyes strayed to the length of his thigh beneath close-fitting trousers, noting the simple, luxurious play of a long muscle when he moved his foot to brace it against the other knee. He lazily, slowly, sipped the port, and Adriana saw the delight in his face when the flavor hit his tongue, watched with a helpless sort of fascination as he lifted the glass again and inhaled the scent, his whole attention focused upon that glass and what it contained. Then he tasted it again, letting it linger in his mouth before he swallowed, that arching top lip drawing her eye.

  At once alarmed at her staring, she shifted her attention to the family. Cleo, who had been practicing, took up the harp, and Gabriel tried his hand on the violin, laughing at first over his clumsiness. Soon enough he rediscovered the notes and fingerings, and Cassandra swirled up to take a seat at the pianoforte, one of several instruments at which she was expert. Like their mother, she was especially musical.

  The music was sweet and lively and haunting by turns. Gabriel quickly found his pace, and Cleo leaned deep into the harp, her head cocked prettily. The notes entwined, and Ophelia began to sing a ballad in her sweet clear voice.

  A ballad that was interrupted. Their butler, Duggett, appeared at the door, and not even the
hands tucked behind his back could allay the worry on his face. "Lord Albury," he said to Julian. "You have a caller."

  Julian scowled, and sent a glance toward Gabriel. "Who is it?"

  Duggett hesitated only a brief moment. "The village magistrate, my lord. He insists he has most urgent business with you."

  Adriana pressed a palm to the suddenly empty place below her ribs. "The magistrate!"

  Julian stood. "Please continue," he said to the musicians. "I'll only be a moment."

  Left to their own devices, the siblings would likely have trailed at least to the door, where they could overhear what transpired in the foyer. As it was, Gabriel took the lead firmly and swung into a lively favorite, a challenging piece from Mr. Clementi.

  But Adriana, as the eldest daughter, had a right to join her brother, and she did so, lifting her chin haughtily as she went to the foyer. Horace Howser, the magistrate, was a small, red-faced man carrying a flat black hat. His brow, despite the cool evening, was dotted with perspiration at which he blotted with a snowy handkerchief. When he spied her, he bowed faintly. "Good evening, Lady Adriana. I do apologize, as I was telling your brother here, for interrupting a happy reunion, and especially for this unpleasantness, but I was told—"

  "Please," Julian interrupted. "Just get to the business so we may return."

  "Er, yes. Quite right." He twisted the brim of his hat in his hands, wiped his forehead once more. "I've been told to arrest you, sir, on charges of manslaughter." His face, already persimmon, deepened to a remarkable tomato shade. "Er, not that I'll be enforcing arrest, of course not, but I'd hoped you would spare me the necessity by agreeing to turn yourself in at London."

  "Of course. It is not unexpected." Julian clapped him on the shoulder, cleverly turning the magistrate to the doors. "I'll send word we've arrived, and you needn't worry any more about it at all."

  "Very good. Thank you. Good night." He bobbed his relief like a little fat duck. "Thank you."

  And although the small man appeared much relieved to exit without his burden—arresting a lord had to loom as the most terrifying of provincial magisterial duties—Adriana felt that someone had yanked the ties of her corset another notch.