[Samuel Barbara] Lucien's Fall(Book4You) (19 page)

No. That was too cowardly. She’d simply avoid him.

This sensible plan seemed reinforced when a footman gave her a letter as she entered the dining room. It was from Charles. Because it was still not yet eight, there was no one else about. Madeline settled in a delicate chair by the long Elizabethan windows, in the good light. The windows the hail had broken were now replaced, and the clear light coming through was ideal for reading. She broke the seal.

My dear Madeline,

I cannot express the Joy your letter gave. If it were my choice, I’d rush back to
you this very instant, instead of sending my man with this letter, but I fear I am obliged to
stay here. The hailstorm devastated our Fields, as well as many homes and other
buildings. I am quite desperately needed here for the moment.

If you were another sort of woman, I’d worry that you might misunderstand my
values, but you are too close to the Land yourself to hold this against my suit, Nor I think
would I be the man I am if I did not stay here. Unlike Lords Esher and Lanham, I have
already taken the reins of my Responsibilities and cannot turn my back on them.

As soon as my Business is complete, I will return post haste to Whitethorn, and we
can then discuss our plans for the Future.

Yrs ever,

Charles Devon

Blinking back stinging disappointment, Madeline folded the letter aright and stared dismally at the gardens. Behind her came the clink and shuffling of another breakfaster, but Madeline didn’t dare glance at whoever it was just yet.

Oh, Charles, she thought. I need your help!

She didn’t know why she was so reluctant to go to Juliette for assistance and advice. How difficult could it be, after all? She’d simply mention she didn’t care for Lord Esher, that she thought him a lecher, and Juliette would send him away.

And yet, Lord Esher had proved to be a most valuable draw, and the longer they stayed in the country, the longer they could avoid the horrendous expenses of London.

Madeline probably owed her stepmother that much; especially as she’d sold so many of her jewels to finance the clothes Madeline wore now, and to have these parties so Madeline might make a good marriage.

In sudden decision, she stood up, filled with purpose, and nearly slammed into Jonathan. "Oh, I am so sorry," she cried, catching his arm.

"Quite all right." He looked at her intently, brushing a scattering of fine crumbs from his satin sleeve. "Are you feeling well? You look a bit peaked."

"I’m fine," Madeline replied, as brightly as she could manage. Unaccountably, she held up her letter from Charles. "I’ve only just heard the marquess will not be returning to Whitethorn as soon as I’d hoped."

Madeline frowned. "Ah?"

Jonathan settled himself before he spoke, adjusting lace cuffs just so, crossing his leg—ankle against knee—pursing his lips as if he pondered the wisdom of his words.

"None of us have missed the way you look at Lucien, my dear."

He sounded like a man much older, as if he were gaining wrinkles in his smooth skin, losing the bright wheat color of his hair. Madeline knew he’d like nothing better, but that didn’t mean it was true. He was far closer to her own age than Juliette’s, however he tried to hide it, and she disliked the superior attitude he adopted with her.

"Is that so?" she said. "If it’s anything more than gratitude you see, Jonathan, I’m afraid your own love has clouded your vision."

"No, I don’t think so." He paused to eat a strawberry, freshly plucked from the kitchen gardens and dusted with sugar. "It’s nothing to be embarrassed about—I’m afraid the man has had more than his share of women since he returned from Vienna—but you should know he’s quite dangerous when he makes up his mind to have a woman."

Madeline narrowed her eyes. "What possible motive could you have in telling me this?" she asked. "I should think you a very poor sort of friend."

"Or perhaps a loyal lover." Carefully, he placed his fork on the china plate and dabbed his lips with a napkin. He looked at her. "A lover who most earnestly requires your help."

"Mine?" Madeline echoed. "I can’t think what I could offer you."

"Knowledge." His eyes were almost iridescently green in the bright cloudy light.

"I vow I am quite at my wit’s end to convince your stepmother to marry me."

Taken aback, Madeline said, "Oh, I see."

Jonathan leaned forward. "I warned you about Lucien with the most noble intentions, you see. He is my dearest friend, but I have seen him ruin many a maid—

noble and not. You seem so well matched with the marquess, I dislike to see you spoiled."

A frission of irritation swept her nerves, but she stamped it down. "Have you offered for her?" she asked cautiously, knowing Juliette had little use for marriage.

His smile was self-mocking. "Oh, yes. More times than I care to admit."

"Well, she certainly can’t think you a fortune hunter."

"No." He shook his head. "Her only excuse is that she wishes no husband at all."

Gently, Madeline asked, "Can you blame her?"

He looked up, a little startled. "I had not thought. I am no man to bully her or make her choose some life she does not like—" He broke off and jumped up to pace.

Restlessly, he moved from doors to table and back again. "I cannot find a way to her heart, Madeline, and I am without shame enough to ask you if there are keys I’ve not yet thought to use." With a sigh, he paused at the window, glancing over his shoulder.

"Foolish, is it not?"

Touched, Madeline went to him, earnestly, putting her hand on his arm. "Oh, no. I am quite moved."

With a rueful smile, he turned to cover her hands with his own. "You’re an extraordinary young woman, Madeline. Do think on it?"

"Of course."

From the doorway came a voice, sharply sarcastic. "How quaint," Lord Esher said, coming into the room. "Doing mother and daughter both, Jonathan? No wonder I could make no progress with the girl."

In a blind flash of rage, Madeline crossed the small space to him and slapped his face. "How dare you!"

Lucien touched his face, his mouth hard, his eyes averted. Madeline saw fleetingly that he’d shaved properly and he smelled of fresh bathing instead of rain and port, as he had last night.

"Forgive me," he said in a low voice.

"He’s only jealous, Madeline. Not such a pleasant emotion is it, my friend?" With a quirk of his brow, Jonathan nodded at Madeline. "Excuse me." He left them.

Madeline waited, aware that her breath came too fast, that her cheeks were hot.

And Lucien did nothing for interminable moments.

At last, he lifted his head and looked at her. "I deserved that, as much for last night as this morning. I’ve forgotten how to behave like a man instead of some wild dog."

He reached for and captured her fingers. "Forgive me."

Before he could press his full, rich lips against her flesh, Madeline pulled her hand away. "It was nothing," she said. She gripped her hands together, tightly, and backed away, noticing with one tiny part of her mind that her finger marks burned red against his freshly shaved cheek. She hadn’t intended to hit him quite so hard.

But he had deserved it.

Only now did she realize how intently he gazed at her, how the dangerous light had brightened in his eyes. "I think," he said quietly, taking a slow step forward, "that you’d like better some other things than hitting me, wouldn’t you?"

Madeline panicked. Before he could take one more step, she bolted, running through the French doors and down the steps to her garden, heading for the maze. In her clumsy skirts and wretched corsets and panniers, she was hobbled. On a good day, in the right clothes, she might have outrun him in a footrace. Not today.

And it
was
a race. He loped behind her, as graceful as a tiger, confident of his conquest, noiseless but for the faint clink of coins in his coat pocket hitting against his thigh. He didn’t call out, and Madeline had no idea what he would do when he caught her—. or what she would do.

She ducked into the maze.

Kiss me, dear, before my dying,

Kiss me once, and ease my pain.

—John Dryden

The day was warm and overcast.
When Madeline turned into the maze, its silence engulfed her, and for one instant, she paused to catch her breath. A pain filled her chest, part feat, part exhilaration—she was on her own ground now. In the maze, she could outsmart him.

She took the left side, for it was more complicated, and Lucien could not know it well enough to find her if she chose her hiding place well. She’d find a place and wait him out. Soon or late, he’d tire of this strange chase, and she would sneak back to the house and hide in her room.

And pray Charles would soon return to Whitethorn.

Lifting her skirts, she kicked out of her slippers and started off at a quick run once again. She realized very quickly how loud the sound of her clothing was, brushing here and there against the shrubbery, the panniers rattling in their wooden harness; even her jewelry jingled on her arms. She halted, and began to move very silently through the narrow paths. Behind her, she heard Lucien call out her name, teasing and assured. He thought he had her trapped.

At the first
claire-voie,
she eased up to it and peeked around the edge—and a sword went through her heart, for there he was, waiting, as if he’d known she’d look for him. A cunning smile curled his beautiful mouth, giving his eyes an exaggerated slant like a big cat. He simply stood there, three small turns of the maze from her, watching her.

She ducked down and passed below the
clairevoie,
and lifted her skirts to run again. Lucien began to whistle, and the easy sound twisted and floated and broke eerily as she turned this way and that, deliberately taking a wrong turn into a dead end with a hidden bench and small garden of herbs. Ducking behind the wall, she pulled her skirts in tight and sat on the ground, forcing herself to breathe as silently as possible.

He would not find this place, she was sure. Not even Juliette knew how to find it consistently. It was Madeline’s own, hidden and cool, down a singularly slim path.

In a singsong voice, still teasing, Lucien called, "Oh, Madeline, where are you, love?" His voice carried easily, and it was impossible to tell by the sound of it just where he was. Not far away, but not very close yet either. "Come out, come out where ever you are!"

She hugged her knees. And waited.

Lucien circled through and through, wandering clear to the center the first time before he doubled back and more carefully sought Madeline’s secret spots. He followed the intricate turns in and back, whistling, calling out, teasing her. There was no response.

He had not really expected one.

By the third time through, there was a kind of madness in his blood. His frustration grew. He started back in and suddenly realized he would not find her by making noise.

He fell silent. This time he turned at each opening, following it clear to its dead end each time, peeking behind the false walls to the benches behind, taking care to keep his step light. Again, he wandered to the center of the maze without finding her, and with a curse, he slapped his thigh. Where the devil had she gone?

Faintly, he heard a meow, and lifted his head to listen. It came again, a faint, demanding cry. He smiled. Moving back the way he’d come, he stopped periodically to listen for the meow. It got louder, closer, the plaintive, chatty tomcat making conversation with the woman who cared for him.

At last, behind an illusory wall, he found an opening he’d never before seen.

Stepping as lightly as he was able, he moved down the path. The meow, satisfied now, rattled out. And at the end of the path, Lucien spied a swatch of pale blue fabric—her skirt.

In the path, he stopped, then doubled back the way he’d come and edged along the parallel way until he could hear her breath on the other side of the living green wall.

Through dense leaves he could see tiny swaths of her dress, a blur of darkness that he knew to be her hair.

Quietly, firmly, he quoted,

"’As the empty bee, that lately bore

Into the common treasure all her store

Deflowering the fresh virgins of the spring,

So will I rifle all the sweets that dwell

In my delicious paradise, and swell

My bag with honey, drawn forth by the power

Of fervent kisses.’"

He heard her quick, sobbing breath—a sharp intake of panic. But to her credit, she didn’t speak. He smiled, opening his hands to touch the leaves that separated them.

Quickly, for he wished to take her by surprise, he ran to the end, and down the short path to the hidden bench. Deliberately, he put his foot on her hem, and spoke from behind her,

"I’ll seize the rosebuds in their perfumed bed,

The violet knots, like curious mazes spread

O’er all the garden, taste the ripened cherry,

The warm, firm apple, tipped with coral berry."

A soft, tiny cry sounded in the stillness behind his low recitation. Lucien peeked around the wall. Madeline clutched her skirts in her fists, and her eyes were closed, her head thrown back so that the whole of her white, smooth throat showed. Her breast rose and fell quickly, and he knew she was as aroused as he.

With a deft, practiced movement, he captured her in his arms, finding only token protest. He pulled her into his lap, against that roused and aching place, and she molded to him as if she were made to his specifications. "I’ve come for my kiss, Madeline," and opened his mouth over the sweet plumpness of her innocent lips.

She gave a low cry, the sound deep in her throat, and her mouth opened to his, hot and fluid, her tongue seeking his. Lucien pulled her closer and groaned.

He held her, his hands open against her long, slim back, and kissed her. Kissed her as he’d been dreaming of kissing, wet and sliding kisses, deft and nibbling, slow and twirling kisses. His head was filled with music, clear and distinct, as it never was unless he was drunk. But perhaps he was drunk now on Madeline, on the nectar of her flesh, on the smell of her hair, on the tiny aroused sounds that fell from her lips. He felt swept from himself, and he spoke her name, and the word was ragged. He kissed her collarbone and the upper swell of her creamy breasts. He opened his eyes.