[Samuel Barbara] The Black Angel(Book4You) (36 page)

The inner door burst open, spilling a rather tipsy male voice and a low, knowing laugh from a woman. The two tumbled into the room before Adriana could think what to do. The woman carried a candelabra, and she halted instantly when she saw Adriana. "What are you doing here?"

The man was vaguely familiar to her, but Adriana did not know the woman. Her black hair was loosened, as if she'd just come from a fresh embrace, and Adriana blushed as she realized the pair had likely retreated here to make love. Self-consciously, she touched her hair, and wondered how badly her gown was soiled. "I must have drunk too much ratafia," she said. "I could not remember the way back."

"Mmm." The woman waved the man away, and with a scowl at Adriana, he backed into the hall. The woman closed the door and took up the candelabra, carrying it over to the table near where Adriana stood as if rooted, her toes still stinging.

The woman narrowed her eyes. "You're the one in the scandal sheets." The violet-blue eyes, so startling against her black hair, were frank. "Were you really as bold as they imply?"

Adriana considered her options and decided this woman, whether her motives were good or ill, was the only chance she had in this moment. "Not quite," she said with a sigh. "But bad enough."

"Was he worth it?"

"Is any man worth that?"

"Some might be." She poured water into the basin and dipped a cloth into it, then gave it to Adriana and gestured to the mirror over the washstand. "Your face is bruised."

Adriana moved, bending to see the damage wrought by Stead. "Dammit!" she cried, and realized she was not alone. "I'm sorry."

The woman smiled. "I don't think it was that glorious creature you're obviously so besotted with who did that. I suspect his hands are much more… delicate."

"It was not my husband." Adriana blotted the scrape on her cheek where blood welled out of a hundred tiny cuts, and saw that she would have a remarkably black eye by morning. Her glorious gown had torn in a short diagonal line between her breasts, too, and it made her furious. "But since I'm going to kill this one, it doesn't matter. He won't bother anyone else."

The woman laughed. "I'd like to see that."

Adriana turned. "We have not met."

"No," she agreed. "We do not travel the same circles, I'm afraid." But she did not offer her name. Instead she asked again, "Was your lover worth all you've suffered for him?"

Underlying the words was a plea, and Adriana countered with a question of her own. Looking at the door, she asked, "Is he the reason you ask?"

The woman crossed her arms. "Perhaps he is."

Adriana put the cloth down, and everything that had transpired over her involvement with Malvern rushed over her imagination. She thought of the first time he'd kissed her, and how the world seemed to shatter in its steps, remembered the first time he made love to her, with such skill and slow perfection, so she was not frightened, only desperate to meld with him. She thought of the headiness of those months just after, when he appeared so content with her and the fiery passion between them. "I thought so at the time," she said slowly.

"And now? If fate wiped your slate clean, would you do it again?"

Adriana thought of the duel that terrible morning, and the loss of her brothers and all that had transpired since. But most of all she thought of Tynan, bending his head to so sweetly drink of her lips, and the look in his eye when he joined with her.

"No. I caused my family terrible sorrow," she said at last. "And I don't know, even now, how I will put it all right again. But—" she touched her mouth "—I have found my own true love now, and wish I'd not given myself away so lightly before."

The woman, not much more than a girl, really, moved to the wardrobe and took out a cloak. "Wear this. Go to your left when you leave this room, and you will find a staircase that leads to the garden. There is a wall in the gate that will take you to your carriage."

Adriana put it on. "Thank you," she said simply, accepting her dismissal.

At the door she halted. "Will you tell my husband that I've gone?"

The woman nodded, her face sober.

Adriana paused, feeling she'd left something undone. "I am going to kill him," she said. "The one who did this. At Hyde Park at dawn." She slipped out, closing the door gently behind her.

The woman's directions had been sound, and she found the waiting carriage with no trouble. The footman, alarmed, handed her up and tucked a blanket around her. "Go in and find my husband," she said. "Tell him I am ill." Abruptly, she reconsidered. If he saw her in this condition, nothing she could do would halt him from returning to the ball to kill Stead. That could not happen. "No," she said. "Tell the coachman to take me home. Tell my husband I will see him there."

At home Adriana struggled out of her gown on her own, washed her face and hands, and examined her body carefully for marks. The bruises appalled her—the brand of fingerprints around her upper arm, a red mark where her hipbone had struck the wall, the black eye and scrape on her cheek. And, across her breast, the dark imprint of rough fingers. It made her furious, and she clung to that fury, for she would need it.

But it made her dizzy to imagine Tynan's reaction. She'd seen, in bits and pieces, the anger that lurked in him. He'd told her more than once that his temper was his greatest vice. A temper roused by his enemy's hands on his wife, kindled all the higher with protectiveness and jealousy—she sucked in a fearful breath. No. He could not be allowed even a hint of knowledge until she had finished it.

And how would she keep him from her when he came home? He would be angry that she'd left him at the ball, and perhaps worried. Could she darken the room, receive him without light, into her bed?

But then how would she slip out at dawn?

No. She could not see him until after the duel.

From without, she heard the approach of a carriage and four. With urgency, she donned a wrapper over her nakedness, pinched out the candle, and rushed from the room.

"Oh, God, let him forgive me for this!" she whispered as she padded barefoot down the hall and into her father's room, closing the door behind her. She listened carefully, hearing him enter and speak with a servant. Then his feet on the stairs, two at a time. She ached at that urgency, and the happy way he said her name when he got to her door.

Then, with a sense of utter disaster, she remembered the dress she had tossed on her bed in her rage. The beautiful dress that had been soiled.

And torn across the bodice.

She wanted to rush out of the room, explain everything, explain her absence and the tear, explain why she'd left him alone at the ball. Explain…

But to save her brother, and herself, and Tynan, she forced herself to sink down on the floor in the dark of her father's dusty room. She clutched her knees to her chest and ached too deep even to weep. Here was her chance to make amends—to all of them—perhaps the only one she had. There was nothing for her to do but accept it.

Even if it meant losing her husband.

Tynan smelled the distinctive odor of a candle just pinched out as he entered Adriana's chamber, and with a grin he moved to the bed. He'd been more alarmed than Anything when first the girl with the enormous eyes, then his footman, had delivered the news that Adriana was ill. He wondered, with a pierced heart, if someone had been cruel to her and she was retreating.

But no matter—they had accomplished much, and if her courage gave out at the end, she'd earned that right. His fingers were untying his neckcloth as he called her name softly in the darkness. He tossed it off and started on his shirt, anticipating the fulfillment of his involved fantasies. "Adriana," he called, and suddenly worried that she might really have taken ill. The whole village had been ill with a fever, after all.

He touched the bed.

Empty.

Dread rose in him, that dread brought on by the cursed magpie on the doorstep this afternoon. There was a flint and matches on the bureau, and he lit the candle with a shaking hand and turned.

Empty. The bed had not been touched. But there, across the foot of it, was the gossamer gown, flung there in a tangle. He smiled, suddenly realizing she had likely gone to sleep in his bed. Picking up the gown, he let a wicked scenario roll out in his mind. He'd ask her to put it back on, and then he'd take it off.

But she was not in his bedroom, either. Flummoxed, he sat on the edge of the bed and put the candle down. The dress slithered over his thighs in a whispery rush, and with a pang he picked it up and held it to his nose, smelling the notes of her skin in the fabric.

He lowered it again, feeling foolish. And saw the tear at the bodice.

His whole body went cold.

Adriana was afraid to sleep, for dawn was not so far away. She waited until she heard Tynan leave again. Going where? she wondered, but could not linger on the thought. A little later there were again footsteps on the stairs, and she identified the lighter step of Gabriel. She breathed a little easier, knowing he was here.

She lit a candle in her father's room and riffled through his clothes once again. This time she did not bother with frivolity, with anything but clothing in which she could move easily and that would keep her warm. In preparation for kicking off the too-big shoes, she donned a pair of woolen stockings, and to afford freedom of movement, she bound her breasts with a strip of linen, then fastened her sleeves carefully. Over the simple linen shirt and brown woolen breeches, she donned a long waistcoat that left her arms free and would help keep her warm when she shed her coat. In it, she tested feints and swings. Perfect.

She would not wear a wig, which could slip and blind her. Instead she wove her long hair into a single long braid and tucked it inside her waistcoat. When she was ready, she made her way silently down the halls to Gabriel's chamber and scratched on the door to gain admittance, hoping he was not asleep. His low voice called admittance, and Adriana slipped inside.

He sat at his desk in his shirtsleeves, his long hair tied into a queue at his nape. He put down his quill when she came in. "So, it's true," he said, and there was a weight of weariness in his voice that gave her pause. "You're going to duel."

She moved closer, into the light, so he could see her black eye. "I am."

Gabriel lifted a hand, as if to touch the place, and muttered, "Bastard." His mouth tightened. "I suppose it is impossible to persuade you this is madness."

"Yes." She lifted her chin. "I spoke in anger when I challenged him, and perhaps it
is
a fool's errand, but as the hours have passed, I can see that Fate has put me here to fight for myself. It may be madness, Gabriel, but I can see no other way to put all this right. If I'd allowed Tynan to see this—" She shook her head. "And then we'd all be lost, wouldn't we?"

"Allow me the honor, then, Adriana. You know there are none who can best me at swords. I'll unhand him and be done."

"No." She lifted her chin. "When we were children,
I asked you once if you minded that your race would prevent you from inheriting what should have been yours as eldest son."

Gabriel's face stilled. "I remember."

"And you said God must have had a reason for making you as you were. God gave me, mere woman"—the words were heavily ironic—"two strong brothers to teach me how to fight for myself. And yet, what have I done? I stepped back and let the pair of you take the punishment that should have been mine." She paused. "It's time I fought my own battles."

For a long moment he only looked at her, the uptilted green eyes very sober. "So it is." He smiled, and kissed her forehead. "I won't let him kill you, and I won't let you kill him." He crossed the room and took up his sword, which he carried back and held out to her on open palms. "Allow me to present you with my own weapon, my lady."

"I'm honored, sir." She smiled at him. "You can't be my second, you know. He would insist that you fought in my place. But you will come?"

"Of course."

She glanced at the window. "In an hour, then."

Deliberately, she set out on her horse, riding astride as she'd learned in childhood. The predawn air was light and cool, and stimulated her dull senses. She delivered a note to Cassandra's butler, giving explicit instructions that the note was not to be given to her sister until first light, but then it must be done.

Then, head high, she rode for Hyde Park.

Tynan was half mad with a mix of emotions he could barely untangle—worry and jealousy and fear mixed with anger and a sense of betrayal—and all of them were underscored by the sense of impending doom he could not shake. He could not find Gabriel, and Cassandra's butler insisted the woman was not in, nor had he seen her since early evening.

He decided Adriana must have gone to her sister for comfort. And since there was nothing else for him to do, Tynan sought comfort of his own. Knowing it might come to this, he'd tucked his servant's garb into a cloth bag, and just before dawn he stabled the horse, changed his clothes, shivering in the cold morning, and set out on foot for the church where the old priest sang an early mass every morning.

As he made his way through the dark but stirring streets, he found himself fingering the carved wooden rosary beads in his pocket. They had belonged to Aiden, and Tynan kept them safely hidden away, for when he held the beads that his brother's fingers had worn nearly smooth, he felt Aiden's presence more clearly than at any other time. And as he walked, he probed the foreboding he felt, trying to find some cause for it. Julian? What could have changed his fate? No. Could it be Phoebe's injuries were more serious than they knew? Perhaps.

Within the church he dipped his fingers in the font of holy water, and was about to move into the comforting, if cold, interior, when an urgent sense of warning made him halt. The foreboding was so powerful, so intense, that he whirled in his tracks and ran from the church.
Adriana
.

Adriana.

Bewildered, nearly strangled with the sense of worry, he ran back the way he'd come, covering the distance to the stable in minutes. Without bothering to change his clothes, he tossed a shilling at the stable boy, mounted and rode into the street.