Dark Angel (2 page)

She nodded. "They called it a great victory."

Adam shrugged. "Wellesley beat back Junot, and the French had to evacuate their troops. There were losses on both sides, that's the way of battles. One expects to be slaughtered by the enemy." He leaned forward, watching the surprise and incomprehension on Caroline's face. "What one doesn't expect is to be slaughtered by the incompetence and venality of one's own side."

Caroline's eyes widened. "I don't understand."

"Most of the cannon blew up in their gunners' faces," Adam said slowly, spelling it out for her. "How many deaths do you think that caused, Caro? We were fighting the French. These were English deaths."

"Cannon?" He heard the sudden intake of her breath. She shook her head as though she would hear no more and at the same time said, "Go on."

"Wellesley's force was gathered in haste, that's understood. Men, ships, ordnance. It wasn't all immediately available, and the Government had to let out private contracts for supplies. The contracts were lucrative, but in times like these, who's to care as long as the army has what it requires to do its work."

Adam stopped, reluctant to go on, but Caroline's eyes stayed unwavering on his face and he was forced to continue. "You know what I'm saying, don't you? Your husband would have made money in any case, but he made a great deal more by supplying defective materiel for Wellesley's expedition."

He sat back and closed his eyes, conscious of an intense weariness. "Go away, Caro. I can't help you. I can't help your husband. I'm sickened by the whole affair."

Caroline too was appalled, in the distant way that one shudders at the news that a ship has gone down or a fire has taken a score of lives or so many thousands have fallen in battle. But it had nothing to do with Jared. He was a partner in an iron foundry, but he did not manufacture the cannon himself. If they were defective, Jared had been cheated as well as the Ordnance Office that had bought them. And besides—"Jared was not the sole supplier of cannon, he was not even a major supplier. Besides, the fault doesn't lie with him, it lies with the ironfounder. Jared wouldn't have sold defective goods, not if he'd known. And he wouldn't know. He scarcely knows one end of a rifle from another, let alone a cannon."

"As I remember, Jared is a very fair shot."

"Yes," Caroline said, conceding the point. She knew that she was not making sense, but she had to make Adam see that Jared was not to blame. She owed that much to her husband because Adam, who had stood between them all their married life, was now his accuser. "Why are you involved in this, Adam? You have nothing to do with ordnance."

"Wellesley wanted the matter investigated. He asked me to come to London and see what I could find out."

"And you found Jared." She could not keep the bitterness from her voice. "You frightened him, Adam, without reason. He knows he did nothing wrong, and he doesn't understand what's happening." For a traitorous moment, Caroline wondered if Jared knew more than he had told her. Then she pushed the thought firmly aside. "If you accuse him, he'll be tainted. The suspicion alone will be enough to ruin him. And he's innocent, you know he is. Don't go to the Master-General."

She was on her knees before Adam, not knowing how she had got there. Her hands were resting on his thighs, and at her last plea she clutched them convulsively and felt Adam's sudden, instinctive recoil. Abashed, Caroline sat back on her heels, her hands clasped loosely before her. "Don't deny me, Adam. Please."

Adam pushed back his chair and strode to the fireplace, as though to put a safe distance between them. Caroline was forced to scramble to her feet, but she sensed it would not be wise to move closer. She had pushed him as far as she dared.

"You would do a great deal for your husband."

"I will do whatever I must."

"I'm sorry," Adam said, "I can do nothing for you."

Caroline knew that tone, and knew it was useless to argue. He had denied her plea without apology or explanation. Adam had spoken to her as he might to any stranger. It was that, as much as the knowledge of her failure, that now roused her to fury. "What do you mean, you can do nothing? You mean you
will
do nothing. I know what's going on in your head, Adam Durward. This has nothing to do with Jared. It's me you're punishing, isn't it? You're determined to even the score. And you will ruin my husband to do it."

Adam flinched. The memory of her hands on his thighs was a torment. Was she right? Had he fixed on Jared to exact some petty revenge? No, Jared Rawley was guilty. His behavior this afternoon was as good as an admission, and Adam could not let him go unpunished.

Caroline was suddenly before him, her hands beating futilely upon his chest. "How long have you waited for this moment, Adam? How long have you waited to destroy me?"

A quarter-hour since, Caroline would have summoned tears if she'd been able. Now they raced down her cheeks, unbidden, uncontrollable. Adam grasped her wrists and held her off. "Tears, Caroline? That's unworthy of you."

Caroline wrenched her hands away. "How dare you." She was breathing rapidly, her face hot with shame because her body, against all reason, had responded to his touch.

"Give over, Caro." She heard the weariness in his voice. "I cannot protect your husband."

"For God's sake, why not? He is innocent, you know that, and if he is not, he is only weak. What will it serve you? What do you have to gain?"

"You would have me abandon my honor?"

"You would have me abandon mine." She hurled the words at him, a bright empty flourish, knowing she had lost. There was nothing more she could in honor do for Jared, and honor satisfied, she must now take her leave.

Caroline felt empty and dissatisfied and suddenly she knew that it had nothing to do with her husband. The knowledge that Adam had moved some place beyond her dominion brought her close to despair. For the first time she understood what she had been too blind to see at eighteen. In losing Adam, she had lost a part of herself and she would never feel completely whole again. Her tears welled up and spilled down her face in a seemingly ceaseless torrent.

"Why do you cry? For Jared?"

"For us," Caroline burst out, her voice stripped of pride and artifice. "What's happened to us, Adam? Why are you so unforgiving? Why am I so cruel?" The tears would not stop. She heard Adam move, and then suddenly his arms were round her and he pulled her to him, holding her gently, as a friend.

"I don't know, Caro," he said in a soft voice which brought back heartbreaking memories of a time when everything was simpler. "I don't know."

Caroline felt curiously reluctant to leave the safety of his arms. In time her tears passed and she became aware of the warmth of his body, not as comfort but as something more. Disturbed, she pulled away. He held her still, but lightly, and the face bent down to hers showed nothing but concern. "I would not hurt you, Caro," he said, "not for all the world."

Caroline looked into Adam's eyes and knew that he had given her something far more important than her husband's safety. They were bound together, she and Adam, in a way that was beyond understanding. A few moments ago, she had thought that bond irrevocably broken, but now, to her joy, he had reclaimed it. Trembling with happiness and relief, she moved closer into his arms.

Without thinking, Adam drew her to him. It was a moment of reconciliation, no more, but it was a reminder that something enduring stood between them, something he thought he had lost. The knowledge was bittersweet, but to be prized for all that. He might never see her again.

He should let her go. This brief moment of accord should be enough. But it was not. Adam felt his body stir against her own and knew he must be careful. He kissed her gently where the hair feathered away from her temple, then kissed each eyelid, and then, to make it clear that this was not to be taken seriously, kissed the tip of her nose and put her from him.

Even in the candlelight he could tell that her skin was glowing with the first flush of pleasure. He felt a stir of triumph at the knowledge that she had responded to him.

Caroline's eyes widened and in their depths he saw surprise and a kind of wonder. "Adam?" she whispered, and the fragile sound beat like a drum in his head.

Adam's breath caught in his throat. He was conscious of the scent of her hair and skin, the warmth of her breath. There had never been another woman for him. Caro was his sun. Only she could make him whole again. He closed his eyes, blinded by her light, then opened them to drink in her warmth. He was a moth beating out his life against her brilliance. He could not retreat. He would die, but he would possess her. With a great cry of longing he seized her and drew her to him, his mouth seeking her own.

Caroline froze in his arms, paralyzed by shock. This was not the gentle kiss of friendship. Adam had changed the rules. She was being swept away by a force she did not understand, a force that surged within her in response to the touch of his hands and the pressure of his mouth. She wanted to run from the terrifying welter of feelings that coursed through her. And she wanted even more strongly to lose herself in his arms.

She found it suddenly hard to breathe. Her skin burned from his touch. As if compelled by the hunger in his eyes, she moved closer and opened her mouth to his. His kiss deepened and she knew it was her own hunger, raging with a force that would not be denied. She put her arms around him to still the sudden trembling of her treacherous body, astonished by the depths of her longing.

Adam drew back from a heady exploration of her mouth and looked down at her with a longing that was the twin of her own. "Caro," he said, his breathing ragged, "it's not too late."

Late? Of course it was too late. She would die if he left her now. "It is, my love," she said, "oh, it is."

"Dear God in heaven." For a moment Adam stood absolutely still, her face held between his trembling fingers. Then with a groan he pulled her to him, his lips taking her own again, his hands roaming frantically over her body, as if he feared she would melt away if he did not claim every inch of her with his touch.

Any lingering fears Caroline had of the force of his passion were swept away by her own need. Once she had fled from Adam's arms. Fool, why hadn't she known that she had fled from paradise? She had come home at last.

Stumbling and laughing, they found their way to the couch. Adam fumbled with the laces on her bodice, and Caroline drew him to her, cradling his head on the haven of her breasts, feeing a great wave of protectiveness for the man in her arms. If I had a child, she thought, I would hold it thus. But in the next instant his mouth found an aroused nipple and his tongue, warm and skillful, chased all thoughts of children from her head.

When Adam had given her breasts their due, he kissed her wrists and the curves of her elbows and the hollows beneath her arms. Caroline held him close, running her fingers through his thick hair, her mounting excitement mingled with tenderness for the urgency of his need. His mouth found her throat and the space between her breasts and the swell of her belly, but when he would have gone farther, she stopped him, breathless, and pushed him back. "No more, Adam," she said, her hands fumbling with the folds of cloth round his neck. "Not till you remove your cravat."

Adam's eyes gleamed with laughter, and for a moment he looked no older than his twenty-five years. He stripped off the offending cloth while she worked at the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt, and when those too were removed he would have pulled her to him again, but Caroline stayed him. "No, let me look at you. I haven't seen you like this since you were fourteen." She reached up to touch him as she would not have dared to do in the past, tracing the line of his ribs, one by one, brushing her hands over the hard nipples half hidden in the dark hair of his chest, feeling the breadth of his shoulders. "You've grown."

Adam smiled. "I would venture you've grown, too, though you have the advantage of me. I've never seen you thus." The smile vanished suddenly and he grasped her hands and pulled them down to her sides, his eyes filled with an unbearable longing that went beyond desire. "Oh, Caro," he murmured, "you could teach torches to burn bright." As if the intensity of the moment was more than he could endure, he pushed her back against the couch, his mouth and hands eager for her once again. Matching his urgency, Caroline let her own mouth and hands do their work. And when that was no longer enough she lifted her hips so he could pull down her dress while she struggled with the fastening of his breeches. When their clothes lay tangled on the floor, Adam stood above her, feasting on her nakedness with wonder in his eyes. Caroline felt a great pride that this beautiful man, this man so breathtaking in his arousal, should want her so. With something like reverence, Adam leaned over her and ran his hands slowly down the curve of her hips, then parted her legs and traced the sensitive skin on the inner length of her thighs.

The touch of his hands was a flame, and she would be consumed. Caroline seized his hand and helped it find the burning source of her desire. Adam. The name repeated itself over and over in her head. Or perhaps she was saying it aloud, a prayer, an invocation, a demand. It was suddenly more than she could bear. She pushed his hand away and drew him to her, wanting him inside her when she climaxed. This was where she belonged, where she should have been years ago if she had not been young and foolish and afraid of her own desires; if she not allowed herself to be swayed by the wishes of her family; if she had not been dazzled by the life Jared could offer her. As Adam joined his body to hers, Caroline gave a cry of joy, and then she was lost in a dizzying spiral that went on and on and on and mingled with the awareness of his own cresting.

Adam shuddered and groaned and at last was still in her arms. Caroline lay quiet beneath him, savoring the weight of his body and the feel of him inside her. When, slowly and reluctantly, he began to withdraw, she pulled him back, laughing and kissing his face till he was still once more. After that she must have slept, for when she opened her eyes, feeling a drowsy contentment, she saw that he had left the couch.