[Samuel Barbara] The Black Angel(Book4You) (31 page)

"Yes."

She thought, too, of the rout tomorrow evening at the Duchess's invitation, and felt deeply torn. Tynan needed for her to be on his arm and would be terribly disappointed if she did not return. Hastily, she found ink and pen and paper and wrote a note to him, promising she would return by evening the following day if at all possible. She gave instructions to the servants, and gave another note to a footman to take to the dressmaker. The ball gown was to be delivered this evening, and Adriana wanted to make sure nothing had gone awry.

Then she and Cassandra, both silent and grim behind faces they attempted to arrange into calm masks, were flying toward Hartwood. Thanks to the recent, steady rains, the roads were in miserable condition, and after two hours they were still only halfway. Adriana's nerves were screaming.

"I can't bear it if anything happens to Phoebe," she burst out at last.

Cassandra leaned forward and took her sister's gloved hands in her own. "Do not worry just yet. Ophelia is prone to drama, you know. Phoebe as like as not is abed with a headache and bruised derriere, no more."

"Yes. You're right, of course."

"At the very least, there is no point in fretting now, whilst we still have miles to go." She settled back, and before she spoke again, Adriana saw the sharp glitter in her eye. "How is your husband?"

"Very well." She folded her hands, kept her face blank, and countered with a probe of her own. "And what has occupied you so deeply that you cannot even spare an hour for your sister?"

"Oh, Riana, is that how it has seemed to you?" True distress marked her tone. "I did not think—"

To Adriana's surprise, a buried flare of anger now blazed up in her chest. "How else could I have taken it, Cassandra? You well knew what I would face in London, and it was even worse than any of us anticipated. And yet when I sent notes around, you had no time for me. It was only when news came about Julian that you deigned to see any of us."

Cassandra lowered her eyes, and—most unlike her—went very still. "I did not mean to desert you," she said quietly. "I'm only… engrossed in troubles of my own." She pressed her lips together and raised her head. "I'm not able to speak of them, not now, but I swear, Riana, I did not mean to leave you so alone. Will you forgive me?"

Again Adriana realized how little she knew of her sister's life. Always she had been a most private person—but nothing ever stimulated Adriana's curiosity like an intriguing secret. "Can you not even hint?"

"No." There was no broaching the word. "I am assisting a friend, that's all. And I cannot speak of it, or chance risking my friend's life."

"Oh." Adriana blinked, then lifted a shoulder. Lightly, she said, "I do not particularly forgive you, since the fate of your sister should have mattered more to you than the fate of a friend."

Cassandra rolled her eyes. "Yours is a matter of pride, not your life. Forgive me if I cannot give homage to your vanity."

"Vanity?" Adriana narrowed her eyes, thinking of the look in Tynan's eye at the coffeehouse the day she'd dressed as "Linus." He'd been appalled at the level of the scandal. "Have you actually
seen
any of the scandal sheets, sister dear?"

Cassandra looked down her nose, the morally superior one, the sure one, the one intellectually so far above their trivial desires for social acceptability. Adriana itched to slap her. "No."

"When you return home to your safe tower of intellectual superiority, Lady Cassandra, perhaps you will prevail upon one of your lackeys to procure them for you. I do believe I've starred in a satire from the nastiest pens and most talented hacks in most of London." She inclined her head, a bitter edge to her words.

"My personal favorite showed me with my skirts above my head—by my own greedy hands, mind you—and twenty hands all reaching for that which was exposed. I suppose it was an offense to my vanity, you're right. Now that I think of it like that, I'll simply not bother my empty little head about it any longer."

"Oh, Adriana! I'm sorry!" Her sister bent forward, contrite.

Adriana jerked away. "Do not touch me, Cassandra. I would not want you to be soiled with my shallowness." To her horror, she promptly burst into tears.

Cassandra flung herself across the chaise and wrapped her arms around her sister. "Forgive me, Riana, oh, please. I'm so sorry. You are so intense and wild and sensual, you scare me to death." She clutched her closer. "I'm so sorry."

Adriana hunched away from her, squeezing as close as she was able to the side of the carriage. A draft chilled her neck and the side of her face, and still she leaned away from the fierce arms of her sister, who was abjectly sorry, and Adriana knew it. Somehow, she could not simply let it go—the wound had gone deep, not just Cassandra's cavalier dismissal of what had been one of the most difficult challenges she had ever encountered, but the fact that Cassandra had put someone else ahead of her family, at a time they most insistently needed her.

The power of her anger was surprising and appalling. "Cassandra, please," she said, lifting a hand against her. "I am truly wounded just now and cannot—"

Cassandra pulled away, stiffly. "You will not forgive me?"

"There is nothing to forgive," Adriana said quietly. "You must serve your own life, as I must."

"Riana, what must I do? I am truly sorry to have been so selfish!"

"Nothing, Cassandra. Do nothing." She relented a little and took her sister's hand. "I forgive you. But I admit I am hurt in a way that simply needs—" She wiped her face. "—to be left alone for a little."

"As you wish." Cassandra moved to her own side of the carriage. Both of them fell silent, staring out at the wet landscape. The trees had lost their leaves now, and Adriana thought it looked dreary. She wanted to go back to London, to the conservatory. To Tynan, who made the world bloom no matter what the weather.

Just the thought of his face eased her heart a little. Last night he'd come in late and a little tipsy from drinking with Gabriel, and had been particularly demonstrative. There was about him such a passionate gentleness that it made her hips a little weak even to remember. Softly, she smiled, thinking of how lovely it was to kiss him, and meanwhile she absently stroked her face with her glove.

"Oh, God, Adriana!" Cassandra said. "Tell me you're not thinking of him right now."

And this was why she'd avoided Cassandra. The avoidance had gone both ways. "Let's not speak of that. I'm sorry I was so evil just now."

"Oh, we will talk. Have you fallen in love with him?"

Adriana let her hands fall to her lap and looked directly at her sister, who bristled all over like a porcupine, disapproval making her back a stiff rod, her shoulders oddly fragile in their bitterness. "I don't know," she said honestly.

Cassandra let go of a little cry of frustration. Melodramatic, Adriana thought. "Have you learned nothing?"

From a place deep within her, Adriana spoke with sudden clarity. "Yes. I have learned not all men are of the ilk of Malvern and your husband. Some are kind and good and honorable." She paused. "Julian, for example. And Gabriel."

"There's the trouble. Our father and our brothers left us expecting too much." Genuine pain showed in her dark brown eyes. "They did not properly prepare us for the world as it is."

"Oh, but they did, don't you see? They gave us a powerful standard of goodness, to which few men can measure. Therefore, we do not settle lightly, and demand the best."

"And I suppose," Cassandra said dryly, "that Lord Glencove is such a man?"

"I don't know," Adriana said slowly, honestly. "He might not be the best of husbands. He will, I am quite sure, be tempted to the arms of other women." She smiled with regret. "They do fling themselves in his path. But his heart is true to those things he believes. He is a man of honor. And great loyalty, I think."

"How can he be true of heart and faithless to his wife, Adriana?"

"Is the only measure of a man's goodness his ability to be a true husband to a wife he marries for political gain? I did not agree to marry him for any noble motive, as you well know. I traded my help for his funds to save our family. If we are able to find some harmony along the way, is that such a bad lot?"

"Yes!" Cassandra cried, and in her fierceness, took Adriana's hands tightly in her own. "Think of Papa and Mama. Think of him with Monique. Think of that laughter, that passion. How can you ask for less for yourself?"

A vision of Tynan's eyes, glowing green and blue with that light of passion, rose before her, and a depth of emotion she did not care to identify washed over her. "I have found what I want," she said quietly.

"Oh, look at you, Riana! I know that look. It's the lust in you that makes you assign high motives to men who please you physically. Good sex does not equal true love. I have no doubt Spenser is a magnificent lover—he has that air—and I'm sure you've quite enjoyed him." Her eyes went hard. "But do not give away your heart."

"You have not heard a single word I've said, have you?"

"I've heard your delusions. And I'm telling you to keep yourself safe."

"I do not wish to be safe," Adriana said, and the sense of freedom the words gave her was like a marvelous bird taking flight. "I am far more satisfied with reckless joy."

"What of your little fantasy, Riana? That fantasy of growing roses and taking tea with your friends?"

She shook her head. "You knew when I uttered it that I did not mean it. I was allowing my fear to cow me." The giddy sense of recognition and joy in her was impossible to measure. "I will not live that way, hiding and fearing and ducking. They've already done their worst to me."

"Have they, Riana? Have they really?"

But Adriana did not answer, understanding at last that Cassandra, who seemed so wise and brave and free, had built a wall of her own, just as she herself had. With her salons and scandalous company and bluestocking ways, she appeared to be worldly and experienced and in control. But she only maintained that control by rejecting any hint of emotion. No love, no passion, not even anger or joy were allowed entrance to her garden.

The coach hit a rut and flung them dangerously out of kilter for a minute, eliciting from the sisters small cries of distress. Across the carriage, their hands met and clung, in case all was lost.

Then the driver gained control, and through the windows, Adriana saw the dear, golden walls of her childhood home. Where Phoebe lay, hurt by her fall. Suddenly, all the petty hurts shrunk to nothing. "Cassandra, let's not fight. You mean the world to me, you know."

"And you to me," Cassandra said, and hugged her.

Adriana swallowed the sharp rise of apprehension as they stepped out of the carriage, ducking their heads against the rain. She offered a vehement prayer to the heavens, "Please let her be all right!" then they were hurrying up the wide stone steps.

The door was flung open and Cleo stood there.

"Oh, thank God you've come!" she cried, and burst into tears.

At the sight of her, Adriana's heart pinched violently. Cleo's hair hung in tangled curls down her back, her gown was soiled across the front, and her eyes were swollen with weeping. Behind her, Ophelia appeared, similarly disheveled and distraught. Cassandra and Adriana hurried up to meet them.

"How is she?" Adriana asked, unfastening her cloak and tossing it off. "Where is Monique?" She could understand the girls falling apart, but not Monique.

"She has a fever!" Ophelia cried, with all the unfairness of such a fate in her voice. "She tells us what to do and we do it, but Phoebe needs you."

The two elder sisters exchanged a glance. "I'll see to Monique," Cassandra said.

Adriana nodded. "Go have some tea made for us," she said to the younger girls. "Wash your faces and hands, and we'll have tea as soon as I've seen Phoebe. Has the doctor come?"

"He saw her early this morning. But this fever has stricken the entire village and he's on his rounds. He'll be back later."

"Ophelia," Adriana said in her most sensible tone. "What did he say about Phoebe?"

The girl's eyes filled with tears, and she shook her head. Cleo spoke. "He said he cannot tell what damage there is until the swelling has gone down. She broke her leg, but it is her back that is the worry."

Her back. "I see." Gently, Adriana touched an arm of each sister. "See to our tea, my dears. And wash your faces. It will make you feel better."

Ophelia nodded, and Cleo flung her arms around Adriana's neck. "We have been so lost without you, Riana! We missed you terribly."

Pierced, she hugged her back, and then gently moved toward the stairs.

The house seemed unnaturally quiet as she moved down the halls—the pall of illness. What fever? she wondered. And wasn't it always the way that things came in bunches—no, in threes. Things came in threes. With a ripple of superstition, she worried about the third one.

She sighed, trying to brush the thought away. Fiona was having a bad effect on her mental processes. Still, she could not quite quell the worry about it. Julian's trial—

No. She would not think of it. Squaring her shoulders, Adriana swept into Phoebe's room, and halted.

Her sister lay deathly still in her bed, her dark hair loose on the white linen pillowcase. A young maid jumped to her feet. "Lady Adriana! She's been calling for you."

"Riana!" Phoebe opened her eyes and held out a hand.

Relief, cold and shattered, swept through her. "Oh, Phoebe, you terrified me. How are you?" She clasped her hand, used her other hand to touch her brow. "Does it hurt terribly?"

Phoebe managed a wan smile. "It is not nearly as terrible as the girls made it sound, I'm quite sure." The smile faded. "Still, it is bad enough."

The young maid dragged the chair over for Adriana to sit and hold her sister's hand. "I'll nip out and see about some tea," she said.

Adriana nodded. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"My horse shied. I've no idea why—but I managed to pull him back under control, and he bolted again, and put his foot in a rabbit hole. I was thrown off." Her fine dark eyes were full of sorrow, and Riana saw there was a blue and yellow bruise along the right side of her face. "He had to be put down, you know."