The Perils of Pleasure (35 page)

He was on the brink of the biggest decision of his entire life.

And then a streak of red heralded the appearance of Pennyroyal Green. For as was usual during summer in Pennyroyal Green, Sussex, nature had seen fit to lay a brilliant carpet of poppies all the way up the hill to Miss Endicott’s Academy for Young Ladies (or the School for Recalcitrant Girls, as everyone not so secretly called it), just in case the town’s curious boys needed help fi nding it. And as usual, the ancient stone church and the Pig & Thistle sat across from each other, as they had for cen
turies, in benign acknowledgment that each was critical to the spiritual welfare of the town. And as usual, the latest Eversea house, only a few centuries old, sat in red-brick grandeur surrounded by rolling land, grand trees, swan-dotted lakes, all of it visible from the far edge of town.

Home
.

Dear God, he had thought he would never see it again. And the answers to everything were here.

His heart began to pound with the knowledge, the enormity, of what he was about to do.

“My window is the one with the enormous tree up against it. Perfect for climbing in and out.”

As it was the first thing he’d said in nearly two hours, and Horace and Madeleine obligingly craned their heads for a look as Colin pointed.

One villager—Mrs. Notterley, Colin noticed— dressed in her best pink dress, was not quite running up the stone path to the church, her hand clamped on the top of her bonnet lest a rogue breeze take it off, as their carriage halted in front of it. She vanished through the church doors.

The streets of the town were empty. Everyone else was no doubt already lined up on the pews waiting to see their own Miss Louisa Porter marry their own Mr. Marcus Eversea.

And Colin and Horace and Madeleine all disem
barked from the carriage.

There ought to have been a blue sky for a wedding, Colin thought distantly, looking up. Instead, it was mottled, like a fading bruise. Rain hid in the darkest parts, and would come shattering down in a moment, and the road she traveled on would be mud.

At last. They needed the rain.

The church bell rang on. And Colin stood staring at Madeleine, and Madeleine and Horace stood staring at Colin, and Colin was astounded the pounding of his heart couldn’t be heard over the sound of that bell.

Then Horace cleared his throat. “D’yer mind, guv? I love a good weddin’.”

Colin gave a start, but didn’t even glance at Horace. “Of course, Horace. Go on in.”

Horace raced up the path with Snap, and he, too, disappeared into the church.

Colin reached up and lifted off his big hat, purchased from a drunk for a penny, so as not to obstruct the glo
rious view of Madeleine. She was wearing purple, he realized for the first time. She looked wonderful in it.

She must have seen something in his face, in his eyes, because all at once an uncharacteristic torrent of words poured from her.

“Colin, you’d best go in to the church now I’ve de
cided I really don’t need the money from your father as I’ve the money from Mr. Hunt and I’ll buy ship passage with that and—”

“Madeleine,” he said gently.

She stopped babbling abruptly. Her face was ashen. She looked . . . terrifi ed.

His palms holding his big hat were clammy, and his stomach was a cyclone. Colin breathed in, breathed out, and said the words.

“I love you.”

He’d never said that to a woman before in his entire life.

Madeleine hesitated. “I know. What of it?”

Well. A spear through the chest might have hurt more, though this was debatable.

Colin opened his mouth, only to discover that his voice had evaporated.

What a long silence followed. Apart, that was, from the clanging of the church bell.

“I don’t
want
to love you,” he continued irritably, finally. “But I do.”

At this she smiled a little. But said nothing.

“Well?” he demanded. He felt exposed, at sea, and increasingly surly.

Madeleine’s lips parted once; she closed them again, and gave her head a rough little shake. “So you love
me, Colin. And then . . . what?” She turned her empty palms up, as if showing him precisely “what.”

“And then . . .
we
make a life together.” His voice sounded rusty. He was improvising. In truth, “And then what?” was a very good question. He had lived accord
ing to one dream, according to one plan, his entire life, and somewhere during their breakneck carriage ride home he’d at last cut the dream free. It had been ballast, he realized, steadying him in some ways, but prevent
ing him from soaring. He no longer needed it. He was a man now, and he knew, at long last, his own heart and soul, and what he was made of. Because Madeleine had shown him.

He honestly didn’t know what to do from here. But he’d probably known from the first time he’d seen Mad
eleine that
this
was love. All his reckless, whimsical, sensual testing of the world throughout the years had been a search for what he knew with her. Passion
and
peace. Laughter and combat and friendship. God, but he loved her. It was an immensely humbling, enormous, radiant thing.

It terrified him, really.

And this didn’t seem to be going well at all.

“We had . . . an interlude, Colin,” Madeleine began carefully.

“No,” he said flatly. “I do believe this is permanent. The loving you.”

“A shared goal, then,” she amended a little too quickly. “And shared pleasure made our diffi cult goal more bearable. And that pleasure was heightened, per
haps, because of the danger. It
was
undeniably good, our time together, but now we shall shake hands, wish each other well, part as friends, and go on and live our lives. Go stop that wedding, Colin. It’s the life meant
for you, and you know it. I’ll go live the life meant for me.”

He frowned. What bloody nonsense. He didn’t think she believed it for an instant.

Colin drew in a long breath through his nose, re
leased it slowly. “So you’re content to never see me again, Madeleine.”

He waited. She gazed back at him, her features im
mobile. He saw it though: the terror fl aring swiftly in those dark eyes, then inscrutability again.

The church bells rang on. The first pin-sized drop of rain landed on Colin’s cheek, and he brushed at it impatiently.

“And you’re content to never touch me again.”

He saw her take in a deep breath. Ah, that one struck home.

So he drove toward her armor’s chink, marching words out grimly, as surely as though they were pris
oners he was leading to the gallows. He wanted her to feel every one of them, to see, to feel, what they would mean to her.

“You’re content to never make love to me again. To never hear my voice again. To never hear me laugh again.”

His reward was watching the blood slowly leave her face and the pinched look about her eyes as she took the blows. Good, and good.

And in the church tower, some enthusiastic boy con
tinued ringing the bell.

“You’re content to never wake up next to me again. For the rest of your life.”

And when he thought of that . . . the idea of never seeing her again . . . well, the sensation was familiar: as though he’d just been resentenced to death.

Colin fell silent. He was done. What more could be said, really? And he wasn’t about to beg.

“You’ll . . . you’ll go on, Colin,” she said softly. “You’ll be happy. You’ve a gift for happiness.”

Damn
her to hell.

“Say it, Madeleine,” he said, his voice low and furious.

She knew what he meant. “What difference would it make?” she said simply.

And then she angled her shoulders toward the car
riage, to turn from him. He touched his hand to her arm, stopping her.

She turned slowly back to face him.

“Say it. Say it to my face. And
then
walk away from me.”

She regarded him, unflinching. Oh, those eyes. Like midnight, like stars, like forever, like heaven, like ev
erything, those eyes. And he saw it in them before she said it, she allowed him to see it, and he knew it was true, as true for her as it was for him. And he knew it still didn’t matter.

“I love you, Colin.”

The feeling in her voice shook him. He dropped his arm from hers. He understood then.

“You’re so very brave, Mad.” He said it gently. “The bravest person I’ve ever known.”

It was his way of telling her it was all right to be afraid of something, just this once. And love was, of course, the most terrifying thing of all, as well she knew, having lost it before. Colin couldn’t find it in himself to mock her for wanting to run from it, or to punish her with words, or badger with her or reason with her.

So it was killing him. She had saved his life. And because he loved her, he said nothing more.

And Colin found he had too much pride to beg. A declaration of love rather stripped a man down to the bone, after all. He had done all that he intended to do. He would allow her to walk away; he would allow her, just this once, to be afraid.

His last gift to her.

Madeleine did look a bit uncertain for a moment. Her chin twitched upward almost defiantly. Her hand rose distractedly to push a stray hair away from where it was fluttering about her nose, having escaped from the knot at her neck. And then she turned the gesture into one of farewell, raising her hand to him, half in salute, and gave a crooked smile.

She turned her back and strode purposefully to the carriage.

The driver held out a hand to her, and he saw her dark-gloved hand briefly join those white-gloved fi n
gers, and the springs bounced a little as she boarded. The door closed on Madeleine Greenway. The rib
bons cracked, the carriage lurched forward, and Colin watched it roll away until it was just a distant speck on the road.

She’d never looked back.

Colin stood transfixed until he realized the bells were still pealing behind him.

And then he turned and ran like a madman for the church.

nm

t was a squat stone church with a tall elegant spire and several incongruously brilliant stained-glass windows added a full century after it had been built. To the unbiased eye, there was nothing elegant or singular about the building, but it was well used and well loved by everyone who lived in Pennyroyal Green.

Colin pushed open the doors as narrowly as possible and slid inside quietly.

Though the door creaked a little, fortunately no one turned, as their attention was engaged by the beautiful people aglow at the front of the church.

The vicar had just begun intoning the ancient words that bound men and women together for their lifetimes. Over rows of women from the fi nest families bonneted in their very best, over husbands and brothers and neighbors groomed within an inch of their lives, over the heads of people Colin had known since he was ca
pable of remembering faces, he saw his brother Marcus, who stood gazing down at Louisa.

Her hair was shining like the sun, and her face was luminous. Dear God, she was lovely. She created her own light, Louisa did. Her hands were in Marcus’s.

Not yet man and wife, then. But a few words from now they would be.

Colin hovered in the doorway an instant, pressed against the wall, and stared, his heart thudding in his chest like the clapper on that damned church bell.

And then Marcus—perhaps because he was one of the only other people actually
standing
in the church— must have sensed him, or seen him.

His posture betrayed no knowledge or surprise. But Colin saw the joy there. The humor. The dare.

And yes, he saw a hint of fear pass through his brother’s dark eyes.

Colin met his brother’s gaze evenly. God, but he hated seeing any sort of fear in Marcus’s gaze.