Cates, Kimberly (28 page)

But the legendary wit Sabrehawk kept honed sharper than his blade had vanished, and he felt like a bumbling idiot, naked to the soul, vulnerable. For the first time in his life, Adam Slade didn't know what to say. It was a hell of a time to realize that, while the notorious Prince of Sin knew a hundred kinds of merry banter to follow a lusty bout of bed games, he had no idea what to say after he'd made love.

Juliet had left him so raw, so new, he felt as if he'd become a stranger to himself.

The sensation was far more terrifying than an entire rival army howling down on him in ambush. Bloody hell, it was an ambush. He'd just never expected it to come from his own wretched heart.

"Adam?" Her voice, silky warm against his bare chest. He looked up and winced at the sight of her—cheeks flushed, hair tumbled in a gold aura about her face, her eyes glistening and expectant. "Thank you. That was... I mean, your touching me was... beautiful."

Hell, he should be the one spinning out pretty words. But he lay there like a green lad, feeling as if his tongue were nailed to the roof of his mouth.

He'd tormented Gavin mercilessly for reveling in tales of legendary loves, passions so deep they were captured in the stars forever. Adam had put aside such romantic nonsense at the same time he stopped believing there were monsters underneath his bed.

But here, now, with Juliet cradled in his arms, Adam would have traded his finest sword for a handful of the poetical phrases Gavin uttered so easily. Juliet deserved perfect words spoken by her first lover, words she could hold in her heart whenever she remembered this night that had transformed her from an innocent into a woman.

He could tell she was waiting for him to say something, hoping, her head stuffed full of fairytale dreams. Yet, he couldn't even think with her draped over him in naked splendor.

"Are you all right?" The words sounded rough even to his own tongue. "I didn't break anything, did I?" He ran one hand down the slender column of her arm. "I mean, you're so damned tiny."

She drew away, crossing her arms over breasts still blushed from his kisses. "I'm stronger than I look."

Lord,
could he have bungled it any worse? He saw the glow in her eyes flicker, uncertainty stinging her cheeks. He remembered her pained confession of how sheltered she'd been at the vicarage, kept like a figurine of china lace locked up in a glass case.

"I just mean that I didn't intend to be quite so... uh, enthusiastic," he tried to amend.

"I suppose it's hard to be... enthusiastic when you're so accustomed to trysts like this." She was trying to hide her hurt, but it scalded Adam deep where no one could see.

"Hell no, I'm not accustomed to what happened here. Despite the tales you read in those blasted French novels, not all soldiers run about despoiling virgins." Perfect, Slade. Doubtless her vicar papa had kept a library of them tucked up on the shelf with his religious tracts. "What I mean is, you're my first virgin. I don't intend to make a habit of it."

He could have bitten off his own tongue when he saw the expression on her face. "Was it so terrible, then?"

"Blast, no! You were..." He swallowed hard. There weren't words enough to express how perfect she'd been. "What I mean is, it scared the hell out of me. Mating with a man means so much more to a woman like you that I—"

She was wilting like a new blossom too close to the sun, those huge angel-blue eyes looking up at him with no secrets, only stark emotion.

Silhouetted against the glass of the windowpanes, she was soft, vulnerable, wounded, every emotion naked as her slender body. "I told you from the first that I don't expect anything from you, Adam. Just because we—we made love."

"Love. That's the crux of the problem." But how the devil could he begin to explain. He jammed his fingers back through his hair. "Juliet, you have to listen—"

Bloody hell! All his words died as Adam gaped at the window, aghast, something fluttering past it in the darkness. A night bird? Or some creature searching for seeds or tender shoots to nibble on. God alone knew. The only thing that was certain was that Juliet was reflected back to him by the candleshine, every curve and hollow doubtless visible from the garden, and, possibly from the house itself, should anyone chance to gaze out at the night.

The knowledge that he'd carelessly left her so vulnerable cinched a vise of guilt and regret about his chest. "Here, angel, put this on." He retrieved her nightshift, thrusting it toward her.

She took it, pressing it to her breasts, and Adam wondered if he'd ever seen anything so beautiful. So beautiful that it hurt, way down deep in his chest. He grabbed up his breeches, dragging them on, then made quick work of his shirt, half hoping his actions could conceal the riotous uncertainty rending him.

He glimpsed Juliet pulling her own nightgown over her head, covering her full breasts, tiny waist, the fabric ending in a thin puddle of linen about her slender legs.

"Adam?" She peered up at him as he yanked on his boots. "Did I do something wrong? The way you're looking at me...

"Everything's wrong. I'm babbling like a candidate for Bedlam. You're looking so damned bruised." His boot heels thudded on the floor as he levered himself to his feet and sucked in a steadying breath. "Juliet, listen to me. I want you to know that I..."

"You didn't break anything. You didn't mean to be so enthusiastic—probably bored with the bunglings of a virgin to dispose of. And you'll never try despoiling one again, isn't that what you said?" Her gaze was fixed on her slippers as she put them on, her face half hidden by a veil of golden curls, but he could feel the hurt she was trying to hide as if it were lodged in his own chest.

"I said a damned sight too much, and none of it came out the way I meant it to," Adam ground out hopelessly. "I'm a soldier. Not some blasted poet used to laying my heart open for the world to see. All I know is—" A hundred painfully emotional declarations hovered at the tip of his tongue, trying to find voice. He grasped her hand, pressing it to his heart, as if he hoped she could sense by touch all the things he couldn't say.

He felt as if he were teetering on a sword-blade, that if he lost this moment, it would slip through his fingers forever. "Juliet..." Her name, so soft, so tentative it might as well be woven of angel's wings. He knew he should look into her eyes, but the feelings were too intense, terrifyingly so. He turned his gaze toward the window, color burning into his cheeks as he tried to frame the words.

Marry me, even though I don't deserve you.

Be my wife, even though I'm not worthy to touch your hand.

Bear my children and I vow I will love you for eternity.

He sucked in a steadying breath. "Juliet, I—what the hell?" His passionate declaration died on his lips as his eyes locked on the window of Angel's Fall.

The glass that had gently beckoned with a soft glow when first he'd entered the garden now shone with feverish brilliance, its subtle gold intensified into hot color.

Juliet caught at his arm, alarm replacing the hurt in her eyes, her face ice-white at his expression. "Adam, what— what is it? What's wrong?"

"The house!" Red-orange tongues of flame leapt and writhed in the window of Angel's Fall just as the dreaded words tore from his throat. "It's on fire!"

Chapter 15

The door to Angel's Fall crashed against the wall as Juliet flung it open, horror and smoke clawing in her lungs, stinging her eyes. The magic of the time in Adam's arms, the confusion and hurt that had followed, vanished as she plunged into the kitchen, struggling to see.

Fire writhed like a hell-born beast beyond the wide open doors of the drawing room, lashing out in whips of flame, coiling and striking and devouring everything it touched.

A silent scream of denial lodged in her throat, Adam's curses battering her ears, furious, hopeless as he charged after her.

Desperation mingled with terror as she raced toward the stairway to awaken the women slumbering, oblivious, above. Heat, seared her face, penetrated her thin nightgown.

Then pain suddenly exploded through her as a black-cloaked figure charged from the drawing room, slamming into her with bone-cracking force. She flew back into Adam, the two of them crashing to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. Her eyes locked for a heartbeat on her attacker escaping through the garden door—a malevolent phantom, the embodiment of every nightmare the threatening notes had conjured up these endless months.

Rage screamed through Adam, so potent she could feel it in her own flesh, every instinct in his body urging him to give chase. Instead, he scrambled to his feet, dragging Juliet up. "Get out, I'll get the others," he rasped, but Juliet was already bolting up the stairs, shattering awareness pounding in her head.

While she'd been pleading for Adam to make love with her, someone had crept into Angel's Fall. While she'd cried out and sobbed in ecstasy one of her enemies had set the fire on purpose to... what? Burn everyone alive as they slept?

The knowledge was too hideous, too evil, the guilt too crushing. She couldn't grasp it, couldn't bear it.

Cries of alarm tore from her smoke-raw throat. By the time she reached the second floor, women were already spilling into the hall, mob-cap-framed faces stunned, fearful as the smoke cast its suffocating blanket across them. The women choked, coughed, mass confusion taking hold with the same fierceness as the flame.

Only Isabelle maintained her usual calm, sweeping into her chamber to fetch her jewel case, while Millicent and Violet and the others bolted down the stairs in panic.

"Forget about your fripperies, Isabelle," Adam bellowed. "Damn it to hell—"

"Where's Elise? I can't find Elise!" Angelina cried, flinging open yet another door.

Fletcher crashed into her, charging from his attic room, sword in hand, ready to fight. But nothing, no one could battle the dragon unleashed upon Angel's Fall this night.

It would devour its prey until nothing remained of the house, her dreams, her last link to her father. Was this her just punishment for what she'd done in the garden house? To lose everything she loved?

Soul-killing despair lanced through her. Lord, she had had so little from her childhood anyway—only her mother's necklace.

Her mother's necklace! It was in her desk. Suddenly it seemed as if everything she loved were captured in that delicate wreath of golden lilies.

A cry of surprise and pain jabbed her, and she wheeled to see Elise, crumpled on the floor at the foot of the attic stairs, grasping her ankle. "Juliet, help! I fell..."

"Adam!" Juliet screamed for him, and somehow he was there, gathering up the fragile woman as easily as if she were a babe.

"Hurry, damn you!" Adam roared over his shoulder as he carried Elise down the stairs. "The whole place is going up!"

A sob choked Juliet, terror almost overpowering her as the fire leapt hotter, wilder, below. But to let her mother's necklace burn was unthinkable!

She wheeled around, running deeper into the house, weaving through the winding corridor in an effort to reach her bedroom. She stumbled, fell, her lungs screaming for breath. Embers filled the air like fireflies, singeing her hair, burning her skin.

She was almost to the room, when a giant seemed to grab a handful of her nightgown, yanking her off her feet. She crashed to the floor, scrambled around half expecting to see some monster woven of glowing flame. But it was Adam, rising out of the smoke like a pagan God of fire, an inferno more powerful than the one destroying Angel's Fall flaring in his eyes—rage, white-hot, terrifying.

"Have you lost your mind?"

"Let me go! I have to get—"

"Whatever the hell it is, it's not worth your life!" Adam scooped her up in his sinewy arms and turned, running down the hall. Juliet fought against him, certain in a heartbeat she would have had the necklace in her hand, loathing him and herself and the treacherous feelings they'd unleashed in each other.

But when they reached the top of the stairs, she gaped down in horror. Flames were weaving around the banister, climbing up the bottom step.

"A-Adam!" she croaked. "Can't get out that way!"

"It's our only chance." He charged into Isabelle's room, dumping Juliet on the bed.

"What on earth are you doing?" she choked out, but he was already swathing her in suffocating folds of coverlet. Her air-starved lungs protested, her head swam, as Adam hauled her back into his arms.

"Hold on, Angel." She heard his assurances, muffled through the cloth. "I'll get you out."

But Juliet knew he'd wasted precious time protecting her. When he charged through those flames, God alone knew what price he'd pay for it.

Juliet heard his curses, oaths or half-formed prayers? Felt herself plunging downward. The fire roared, blotting out all sound, until she only felt the sharp gasp of pain that rocked Adam's chest. Intense heat seared the last wisp of air from her lungs.

Red dots whirled before her eyes, unconsciousness sucking her down, down, only the jarring of Adam's desperate stride keeping her from total darkness.

Then he staggered, fell, and she tumbled from his grasp. She expected to be plunged into flame, but instead of the hard wood of the floor, she landed on something far softer.

She clawed her way out of the coverlet, felt other hands helping her. She emerged, a wave of fresh air slamming into her with the force of a blow as she sucked in a tortured breath.

The garden—she was back in the garden, crushing a bed of heart's ease, while Adam knelt on all fours, his face soot-blackened, choked coughs all but shattering his ribs.

"A-Adam... Juliet, are you all right?" One of the women asked.

"I'm fine, blast it," Adam choked out. "A little singed around... the edges. But I'll live. No thanks... to her." He cast Juliet a fulminating glare. "What the... blazes were you... doing?"

Anger sliced through her, fueled by poisonous guilt. "Why didn't you leave me alone? I could have... could have gotten it out!"