Cates, Kimberly (6 page)

Most women he knew would have dealt him a stinging set-down for his obvious insincerity. Juliet's slender throat constricted, as if she were swallowing what? Tears? Her voice quavered. "You were a friend to my papa when he was alone, Mr. Sabrehawk. You may call me anything you like."

That was a damn dangerous prospect. Adam wondered how many shades of pink the woman would turn if he launched into a litany of the sobriquets he'd laid on her during the past hellish months. He'd bet they'd sizzle her soft little ears right off.

"Juliet, you must allow me to—to fulfill my vow to your father. Whatever went awry between you—I'm certain all is forgiven. The man loved you to distraction."

"He loved me to his death." Droplets clung to her lashes, Adam was in abject terror that they'd fall free. It was acceptable to pretend there was something in a lady's eye, a stray lash, a speck of dust, as long as tears didn't go drizzling down her cheek.

"You are in danger here. Terrible danger. You are not so blind you don't see it."

"I accept the risk." That damnably sweet chin was tipping up again. He'd better stop it before she straightened her spine or all was lost.

"Juliet, your father is dead. His final wish was that you be safe, protected. Don't you owe him that much at least? Peace of mind? It seems little enough to ask. Especially if some misunderstanding between you had some part in sending him to his grave?"

"His death must count for something."

"And your death? What will it count for?"

Juliet's lips wobbled into a smile that tightened a fist in Adam's throat. "I'm not going to die. I intend to minister over Angel's Fall until I'm as old and toothless as Mother Cavendish."

"That harpy was born to this life, this world. While you— blast it, you cannot even fathom what horrors await you."

"Can't I? These women you think are so coarse, so hardened to their fate—I've heard them at night, weeping like desolate children into their pillows, but they would die before they let me comfort them. I've heard them cry out in nightmares, caught glimpses of happenings so horrible they make me sick to my stomach, and so very angry that I wish—wish I could take my parasol to the breech-flap of every man who ever breathed."

"Then I suppose I should be grateful your aim was so bad." The corner of Adam's mouth tipped up. "Juliet, I am a rough old soldier—weaned on battle-cries, and rocked to sleep to the lullaby of cannonfire. I wish to God I knew the right way to express how I feel, to make you understand. If I roar at you, it's because I fear for you. If I'm obstinate and bullheaded and sharp-tongued, it's because I know those 'cowards' who stormed your door tonight far better than an innocent like you ever could." It was damned uncomfortable to realize that in his attempt to charm the woman into acquiescence, he'd cut so close to the truth.

He battered back the jab of panic, his jaw clenching. This could be damned dangerous—the only saving grace the certainty that within a few days, a week at most, he would put a bloody ocean of distance between himself and those melting summer-sky eyes.

"They will hurt you, Juliet, if they get the chance."

"Then I shall have to lay up a great supply of parasols and consider boarding up the windows on the east side. Glass is so abominably expensive."

"Damn, lady, listen to me! There are things beasts such as those can do to a woman, things worse than death."

He cursed himself for resorting to such a dark weapon against her when he saw the darting of raw terror in the depths of her eyes.

"I think I am quite safe from their attentions. I'm not the type to stir men to passion."

"Some men would call you beautiful." What the blazes roughened the words in Adam's throat? Why was he suddenly staring into the creamy oval of her face, aware of the rose-silk gloss of that prayerful mouth, the lush curl of her lashes, the shadowy hollow of her throat, where he knew the most feminine of scents clung to tantalize a man.

For a heartbeat, just a heartbeat, he saw a question as old as Eve shimmering in her gaze. One it seemed even a vicar's daughter couldn't resist asking.

Do you think I am... beautiful?

Did he?

The query echoed back. He'd skewer his own hide before he explored that minefield. It was all he could do not to shove her away and scrub the feel of her off his hands. But he'd been schooled from the time he'd been a raw recruit to press his advantage. And at the moment, he definitely had the advantage. One little nudge, and the vicar's daughter would tumble into his hands.

But what could he do to push her over that edge? How could he entice her to fall?

Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips, and Adam's gaze fixed on the curves of her mouth, tempting as if it were spangled with sugar. He sensed her pulse quickening, her breath catching.

This
was a language he understood. In that instant, he knew what card he needed to play to gain her surrender.

A rush surged through him, the sensation that gripped him in the heartbeat before he plunged into battle. As if gripped by a sudden impulse he couldn't control, Adam drove his fingers into her curls and lowered his mouth to hers.

It was all part of the battle between them. That was the only reason he felt this fierce urge. He wanted to kiss the bejesus out of her, drive the starch from her spine, the stiffness from her knees, until she melted against him, unable to fight his will. He wanted to play her with the exquisite skill of a master violinist with a familiar instrument, leaving her throbbing and humming and trembling with the chords he'd strummed in the very heart of her woman's core. And he knew how. Hell's bells, Sabrehawk was an able swordsman upon the dueling field and in the bedchamber as well.

Yet never, in scores of years of carnal delight had he ever tasted anything so sweet.

Warm, so warm, her mouth yielded under his, and he captured her stunned gasp in his mouth. Of its own volition, his tongue stole into the honeyed cavern beyond, tasting her with practiced fervor.

Her hands flattened against his chest, then curled into the fabric of his midnight-blue frockcoat like kitten paws as he sent her equilibrium winging off its axis just as he'd expected. What he hadn't expected was that his own thick-muscled legs, hardened from hours of bracing themselves against the onslaught of sword and dagger, would suddenly feel unsteady.

Blast and damn! This wasn't in the battle plan! Adam grasped Juliet by her upper arms, and broke the kiss, his breath rasping in his chest, his gaze burning, hot with accusation on her face.

She staggered back a step. Her fingers pressed against her lips, her eyes so wide he was dead certain he'd just given the vicar's daughter one hell of a first kiss. "Wh—why did you... do that?" she demanded, breathless.

Because I was insane. Because it seemed like the thing todo at the time. Because I made the first mistake I warn my students against when tutoring them in swordsmanship—I vastly underestimated my opponent.

But there was no way he would admit such a thing to this terminal do-gooder with her trembling lips and such incredibly sweet confusion clinging to her lashes.

"Now do you see how much danger you're in?" Adam growled in self-defense. "If I was moved to kiss you, who knows what the men in that mob might be plotting. How many times have they watched you, swooping out into the night like some guardian angel? Untouchable. Innocent. Defying them. Villains cut of that cloth don't tolerate a woman's defiance. They'll use any weapon at their disposal to teach her her place."

He was suddenly aware of Juliet's intent gaze on his face, something disturbing washing over those celestial features. The kiss-blush had been driven back by an intellect surprisingly keen in such an angelic face. Her expression left Adam feeling as exposed as the time a rival officer had ordered his aide de camp to purloin Sabrehawk's breeches the morning of a duel. Adam had stalked to the rendezvous point with nothing but a bedsheet knotted about his waist.

"Is that what you were doing when you kissed me?" she charged, her fingertips touching her lips. "Teaching me a lesson?"

Adam sputtered a denial, but heat stole into his cheeks. Might as well have flown scarlet banners of guilt and chagrin and outright anger at being bested by such a slip of a girl.

She drew herself up with icy dignity. "Mr. Sabrehawk, there is nothing more loathsome than a man who preys on those more innocent than he is."

"It was a kiss! Just a kiss! I hardly stole your virtue!"

"No. But you stole something precious to me. My good opinion of the man who aided my father in his last hours. You see, I'd colored you quite a hero. Not the kind you would favor—racing about battlefields blazing in glory. But one who stopped at the side of the road, seeking no glory for himself, seeking only to ease a stranger's suffering."

"Well, that's what I did, didn't I?" Adam blustered. "I stopped. I sure as hell didn't get any glory. And I chased halfway across the world after you because of a promise that infernal old man wrenched out of me. I—" Nothing like flinging away one's advantage by losing one's temper. Adam brought himself up grimly, folding his arms across his massive chest. "Listen to me, lady. I'm no hero. But right now I'm all you've got."

"You're wrong. I have Angel's Fall, and Elise and Millicent and a dozen other ladies here safe tonight instead of in the clutches of men who would use their power against them. I have my faith that something good will come of my work here. I know that I am doing the right thing, even though it's not the easiest course. Despite what you think, I don't need your help. I have angels fighting on my side."

"I didn't notice any of them swooping down to bang Percival in the head with their harps when that mob was about to tear your hair ribbons off!"

"Go back to wherever you came from, Mr. Sabrehawk. I promise you, if my father had had any idea what sort of man you were, he never would have sent you to find me."

"Next time he coerces blood vows out of unsuspecting strangers, perhaps he should demand references. Unfortunately, this time there's not a damn thing either one of us can do about it. I gave him my word I'd see you safe, and I will, even if it kills me."

She stalked to the door, flinging it open. A half-dozen eavesdropping women scattered, rubbing reddening bumps on their curious little noses. Adam stormed after her, the tramp of masculine boot heels echoing down the hall.

"You're not getting rid of me, lady."

"We'll see about that," she said, charging down the stairs, hurtling through a sitting room where Fletcher Raeburn was ensconced on a wing-chair, ladies clustered in the far corner of the room, whispering as if the Minotaur had been dumped into their midst.

"Sabrehawk?" Fletcher piped up, red as a brick from his neck to his hairline as he struggled to his feet.

But Juliet didn't even flicker so much as an eyelash. She merely stormed into the cozy kitchen.

"I hope you enjoy sleeping on the cobblestones, Mr. Sabrehawk."

"The—what the devil?"

She flung open the door at the rear of the kitchen. "You insist you're staying put here. I've told you, no men sleep in Angel's Fall. I'd hardly make an exception for a man bearing the shameful label of Prince of Sin, now would I?" She leveled him the quelling glare governesses had been terrorizing schoolboys with for a hundred years.

Adam gaped at her, aghast. The woman was flinging him out of her house? If he hadn't been so furious he would have roared with laughter at the absurdity. Juliet Grafton-Moore, every Angel in her house, and the dray horses in every barn on the street couldn't budge Adam Slade unless he damn well wanted to be budged.

But the woman's back was up enough after the disaster of that kiss. One more blunder of that sort and he would have to nail her in a barrel to get her away from here. Considering how that tactic had backfired with young Fletcher, he dared not take the risk. The thought of Juliet Grafton-Moore emerging from the barrel professing undying devotion was enough to traumatize Sabrehawk for life. No, there had to be another way.

At that instant Fletcher stumbled through the door, the youth looking glaze-eyed as a schoolboy who'd got himself sick on a surfeit of bonbons amidst so many women.

"What about Fletcher?" Adam demanded, taking one last shot at female soft-heartedness. "You've seen how devoted he is. You know he won't leave me. Are you going to make him sleep on the stones as well?"

"Of course. But I'm certain he'll be much more comfortable."

"Why is that?" Adam demanded, aware of every old wound, every dull ache in a body that had once been tough as oak.

She smiled at him with grim satisfaction. "I'm going to give
him
a blanket."

Adam gave a gruff bark of laughter and stepped out into the night, Fletcher following in his wake.

"If you think you're going to drive me off this way, you're sadly mistaken. I've slept like a babe in far worse places than a lady's garden," Sabrehawk taunted. Then his brow furrowed as he noticed Juliet's lashes drift to half-mast, those lips he'd kissed murmuring something unintelligible.

He hoped like hell she was swearing under her breath.

"What are you doing?" he growled, scowling.

"Praying," she said, flashing him a heavenly smile.

"For the redemption of my sin-scarred soul?" Adam sneered.

"No. For a lovely cold rain."

Adam sputtered an answer, but it was too late. Juliet Grafton-Moore shut the door in his face just as the first fat raindrops began to fall.

Chapter 4

From the time she was a babe, Juliet had been taught to eschew violence. But as she watched Adam Slade tramp about the confines of her garden, she could barely resist the impulse to knock his head against the stone wall. She threw the bolt across the back door, releasing a general outcry from the assembled ladies.

"Juliet, how can you treat him so shabbily?" Millicent Hampton asked. "I know he's a man, but he saved you from disaster! Heaven knows what would have become of all of us if he hadn't come to your rescue."