[Samuel Barbara] Lucien's Fall(Book4You) (11 page)

Abruptly, she put the cat down and launched herself forward, moving over the grass in a blur, halting only as she came up even with him. Clutching her skirts, she said,

"Lord Esher! Wake up!"

He did not move. Not a muscle or a twitch of a finger. But his eyes opened. The color was almost green, the color of the sea, and the whites were bloodshot in the extreme. She noticed his flesh looked quite pale and was drawn tight over his cheekbones. Well she recognized the signs of debauchery on a man’s face— heaven knew, she’d seen it often enough as a girl.

"Get up," she said harshly. "I dislike drunks littering my garden with their foulness."

He still said nothing. Only gazed at her. It was disconcerting.

"Are you deaf? Get up."

Very slowly, he dampened his lips with his tongue. And in a voice rasping almost unrecognizably, he said, "I would love to oblige you, dear lady, but I do not believe it will be possible for me to move."

With a disgusted sigh, Madeline held out her hand. "I’ll help you."

"Oh, not even a hand will do." He had obviously aimed for an amused, sardonic tone, but the last words were a deep ragged whisper. He closed his eyes.

Madeline made a move toward him. He opened his eyes suddenly. "Please unless it is your pleasure to torture a man—do not put your hands on me."

She frowned. "Am I to leave you here to starve, then?"

"Your cook gave me a potion the last time. Ask her for me what it is."

"A cure for your excesses? You might simply try drinking less." Her gaze fell on his lashes, lying thick and black on his face. A hard line of tense muscle corded from temple to jaw, and there was a faint, unhealthy flush on his skin. He looked feverish and in pain.

Holding up her hand, she said, "I only want to touch your head. I’ll not jolt you, I swear." Without waiting for a reply, she gently opened her hand against his forehead. His skin felt taut and overly stretched, and she thought him a little feverish.

He tensed at first, but eased. She felt the tension flow from him. "The music," he said. "This is the price I paid for it."

"The music?" Madeline said, touching his temple, his cheekbone.

"Yosef told me it would ask a price." He lifted one hand and put it over hers, pressing her palm closer against his head. "Your fingers are so cool."

"It is a fever, Lord Esher."

"No." He opened his eyes, and for a moment, Madeline had the impression that light sharded there as if on Juliette’s prized crystal goblets. "No," he repeated. "It is my punishment."

"For overindulgence?"

He gazed at her steadily. She saw him swallow. Under her hand, the bones of his face seemed fragile. "Yes. The music."

Almost absently, he pulled her hand down and pressed a kiss to her palm, then tucked her hand under his chin. She felt the prickles of dark, unshaved beard against the back of her wrist, and the sensation was oddly, sharply erotic.

Violently, she yanked away. "I’ll go for the cook."

He moaned, and as if the motion had sent him completely off balance, he rolled to one side. His hair tumbled black and thick and glossy around his face, over his shoulders.

Madeline clasped her hands together.

As he slowly braced himself on the bench and struggled to his feet, she found herself staring at his legs, lean and long and muscled beneath the tight, dark breeches, and his buttocks, so firm and round, and his long, elegant back. With a sense of horror, she realized she wanted him with a surprising force. He seemed to know it. He found his footing and turned to face her. The cambric shirt gaped, open to the waist, and Madeline felt a blaze of shock jolt her at the intimate view of his chest and stomach. Her entire body reacted with a ripple of heat and longing.

His chin tilted sardonically, and even though his mouth was drawn in some pain, he was unbearably desirable, standing there like that. "It’s in your eyes, Madeline," he said, still with that ragged edge in his voice. "All that passion you want to deny. Do you think it would be the same for me to kiss you as it is with your marquess?"

She took a step backward and found the hedge at her back. Branches stuck her. "I should not forget, Lord Esher, that you still need my assistance to leave this maze."

"Do I?" The careless, aloof expression flickered, and Madeline watched as he lifted an almost involuntary hand to his head. His shoulders seemed bowed with the weight of his head. Still, his lips twisted. "I’ve practiced. I know how to get out."

Torn between wanting to help him and needing urgently to escape him, Madeline found her feet frozen in place. "Are you so sure?"

He moved with excruciating slowness to point vaguely at one of the openings cut in the hedges. "The
claire-voies
must stay to one’s left. The small rooms are always to the right."

The fact that he really was quite ill finally penetrated her selfish, inward conflicts.

"Oh, by Jupiter," she muttered, moving toward him. "Put your arm around my shoulders and we’ll get out of here."

"No." His voice was harsh. "I’ll walk."

"Very well." He was the most exasperating man. "Do as you wish. Charles is leaving this morning and I must return to bid him farewell."

He said nothing. Madeline headed for the outlet. As she turned the corner to leave him, he said, "You’ll be thinking of my mouth when you kiss him good-bye."

She didn’t pause, only clutched her skirts and kept going. Let the black hearted wretch starve to death out here.. How dare he?

How dare he?

… dying is a pleasure

When living is a pain.

—John Dryden

Juliette and the countess
of Heath had been friends since both were in their early twenties. Both prided themselves on their independence in a man’s world, the independence to choose their lovers and lives the same way a man would do. Both had used beauty and a talent for the bawdy to work themselves up in the world.

Both were now facing the slow, steady downward spiral toward middle age. As they sat on the terrace underneath a carefully draped fabric designed to shade them from the harsh sunlight, eating sliced strawberries and fresh bread, Juliette thought she was aging rather better than her friend. Likely, Juliette thought, because her own husband had obligingly passed on, while Anna was forced to manage her dull, dowdy country earl with cunning and deftness.

Still Anna was beautiful, as dark as Juliette was fair. Juliette enjoyed, as always, the contrast between them. It had served to set each apart all the days of their friendship.

"How is the campaign going?" Anna asked lightly, buttering a roll. "Will we be hearing wedding bells this fall?"

Juliette licked a sprinkle of sugar from her index finger. "I think so. Charles is quite besotted, and Madeline is a sensible girl. She’ll do what’s best."

As if on cue, Madeline wandered out to the table, her hair brushed and neatly arranged, her skin glowing with the health and clarity only youth could boast. A deep, sharp pride ached in Juliette’s chest—her daughter was by far the most beautiful of all the girls this season. And she was brilliant, as well. In a rush of fond feeling, she touched her hand. "Good morning, dear heart! Will you have some strawberries?"

"Please." She looked around. "Where is Lord Lanham?"

"I’m sure I don’t know. Why ever do you ask?"

"I thought I saw him come this way," Madeline said with a shrug. "Must have been mistaken. Perhaps he’s gone riding or something."

"Speaking of Jonathan," Anna said, leaning forward, "it was wicked of you to invite me here while Lord Esher stays under your roof."

"What? Why?" Juliette frowned. "Have I made some dreadful social error?"

"My dear!" Anna laughed. "You mean you don’t know?"

"Evidently I do not."

Madeline spoke, reaching for cream to pour on the strawberries. "Do tell, Countess."

Juliette looked up at the odd tone in her daughter’s voice. A drollness was not uncommon on Madeline’s sharp tongue, but there was something else here now. Juliette frowned.

"Well," Anna said, blotting her lips, "there was a terrible scandal. I can’t think how you missed it, unless you were on the Continent at the time." She inclined her head.

"Yes, perhaps you were. The summer of ’73. Or perhaps ’74."

Juliette knew it would only lengthen the story if she attempted to rush it from Anna’s mouth. With a soft, slight sigh, she folded her hands. Madeline caught her eye and gave her a slight, wicked wink.

"Lord Esher was only a youth, perhaps not quite twenty. I met him at a ball, and he pursued me relentlessly. At first, I resisted—I’d had other lovers by then of course, but none so young as he, or quite as forceful. I think," she said with a conspiratorial laugh,

"he frightened me a little."

A footman in livery put a fresh basket of bread on the table and whisked away the old. Madeline motioned for more tea.

Anna continued, "Well, one thing led to another, and we became"—she smiled coyly—"intimate. He was quite passionate, even composed music for me."

"Music!" Juliette interjected. "How quaint."

"What sort of music?" Madeline asked, and Juliette saw a strange, intent expression on the girl’s face.

"What difference does that make?" Juliette said. "Go on, Anna."

"Oh, I think the music mattered rather much to Lucien," Anna said. "He studied in Vienna with the masters until his mother died—she was Russian, and you know how the Russians are!" She tittered. "I gather his father was not quite as supportive of his composing."

"I should think not," Juliette said. "An earl who composes!" She laughed. "The singing earl! Can you imagine?"

"Quite," Anna said, and they laughed together.

"But what
happened?"
Madeline asked.

Anna lifted her shoulders in a single shrug, the motion brimming with ennui. "I tired of him and broke it off." She leaned forward, pausing dramatically. "Do you know, he challenged my husband to a duel!"

"No!"

"He did! Called him out, and poor Harry was really bothered by it, poor thing. He didn’t want to hurt the young man, but after all he’d had a commission in the Navy and was quite deft with his weapons."

"I should think so."

"But Lucien was insistent, and Harry dutifully met him at dawn one morning.

Harry only nicked him, and Lucien was humiliated, but everyone thought it just the bravest, most romantic gesture, and they all invited him to their parties after that."

"Though all have been careful to do so when you are not there," Juliette said, and gave Anna an apologetic smile. "I’m so sorry, my dear. I’d quite understand if you returned to London just now."

"And what of his music?" Madeline asked.

"Oh, I wouldn’t think of leaving!" Anna said. "It might prove most interesting, after all these years. He’s grown into a rather fine man, hasn’t he?"

Madeline leaned over and put a hand on the countess’s arm. "What of his music?"

she asked again.

"Madeline!" Juliette admonished.

Anna smiled. "He said he’d never compose again. I laughed at him, you see." She sighed. "I didn’t really intend to wound him, but I was young then, too. Other men were bringing me jewels and furs and exotic fabrics. Lucien brought a sheet of music and a violin."

"How quaint," Juliette said. "It’s hard to imagine the present Lucien as such a callow boy."

Madeline stood. "It’s a terrible story," she said. "I hate the way you use people so freely, as if they were handkerchiefs to be tossed aside when soiled."

A gleam of amusement shone in Anna’s eye. "Ah, to be so young and passionate again," she said dryly. "Do you remember, Juliette, when you vowed never to use a man for your own ends, but only to be with one for love?"

"I was never that young," Juliette said, and was embarrassed at the edge in her words. She gestured. "Oh, Madeline, do sit down. It isn’t as if Lord Esher never recovered. He’s this very moment fleeing a difficult mistress, hiding here until her new lover calms down."

Madeline shook her head slowly. "That isn’t the point, Juliette. It is dishonest, the way you live—taking lovers as you will, discarding them as you wish, taking them back up when it suits you."

The girl was staring rather pointedly at Juliette, and she frowned. "What is this about?"

"Why do you think I’m speaking to you?"

Just enough anger edged the words to let Juliette know Madeline was indeed speaking directly to her. "We’ll discuss this later, shall we?"

"That won’t be necessary." She flicked her skirts from the table. "It won’t make any difference what I say anyway."

Anna laughed. Juliette frowned, watching Madeline walk away, her head high.

There was something Juliette ought to be noticing, something just out of reach.

"Oh, don’t look so worried," Anna teased. "She’s only earnest with youth."

"Yes," Juliette said slowly. But she wasn’t entirely sure. She must be very alert over the next few weeks. Madeline was not a malleable, biddable creature— never had been—but Juliette would hate to see her make some terrible mistake out of a misguided and naive sense of righteousness.

Shaking off the mood, she looked at Anna. "Did Lord Esher really compose for you?"

…

Madeline left the countesses, feeling a strange disquiet. Part of it lingered from the upset in the maze a few hours before, when Lucien had put his mouth on her palm.

She’d heard women say they could still feel the imprint of a man’s lips hours or days later. Madeline only wished that were true. Instead, what she felt was that bright, hot shock of arousal all through her every time she thought of it.

She’d been very angry with him when she left him in the maze, and now she wondered if he’d got back all right. He’d been ill, after all. Perhaps she ought to check.

It was crushing to hear that story of his youth—it had almost made her cry to listen to the peacock countesses laughing at the earnest youth he’d been— in love enough to compose something, and then to have it flung back in his face. In love enough to call out her husband, knowing the scandal it would cause, and then be humiliated by an experienced soldier who "pitied the boy." She could just hear the earl saying it in his bluff, hearty drawl. Oh, it was excruciating to imagine it. How much worse it must have been to be a prideful, emotional young man and live through it.