Authors: Julia Ross
Perhaps if he could only crack open the night
like a walnut, there would be a different, less cruel world inside? "I can
help, Ju1iet. You can't stay here."
Her eyes held no more expression than the tabby's
- a terrifying, animal blankness. "George called me a harlot, but he
would still take me back, even after I fornicated with you. Fancy that!"
"Whatever he called you, it is not
true." The words bit, like mad dogs. "Nor is that description
accurate for what passed between us."
"And what did pass between us? Another
conquest for the triumphant rake, to be boasted about and wagered over in the
coffeehouses of London? Well done, Lord Gracechurch!"
He knew she would flinch if he touched her. Damn
it to hell! He wanted to touch her.
"Curse me, if you like. But you must get to
shelter. Ι have a carriage waiting in the road."
"Ι can't leave." Her eyes
glimmered suddenly. "Abednego and Shadrach are still lost. My cats were
afraid of the nailed boots and loud voices and the crash of broken china. They
fled into the garden. George's men hunted them through my flowerbeds with clubs
and pistols. They thought it was great sport-"
His anger burned so clearly, he thought that if
he looked down, he might see it squatting in his palms, like a fiend.
"If Ι can find these men, Ι will
kill them for you."
She clutched Meshach till he yowled a little
protest. "Faith! How very like a man! Somewhere out there in that roaring
darkness two confused cats are cowering in terror, and all you can think of is
killing some stupid, ignorant louts."
"Ι am thinking only of getting you to
safety."
"Ι cannot leave my cats."
"Of course not," he said. "Ι
brought a basket for them. Ι thought they might not let us carry them in
the carriage otherwise."
Tears slipped suddenly down her cheeks. "You
brought a
basket?"
"Let me help you to the carriage. You can
wait there while Ι find Abednego and Shadrach." He tried to meet her
gaze with only the lightest, most noncommittal of glances. He didn't want to
panic her with his black rage. ''At least you found Meshach. Α tabby would
have been impossible to see outside in the dark."
She gave a small laugh, smoothing the striped
coat. "They won't like the basket."
"They will love it. There's catnip inside.
You will come, Juliet?"
Shadows traced over her face as she looked
directly into his eyes. "Pray, do not call me by my given name."
Absurd to
feel the impact of such a small
thing as if it were a death knell. "As you wish, ma'am. But you will come
with me?"
"Ι am not a fool, nor a martyr. Ι
would rather be in hell than come with you. However, you have a basket for my
cats and you owe me. But rest assured, my lord, that there will be very little
satisfaction for you in my company."
The flame went out, plunging the henhouse into
darkness. ΑΙden rose and looked out. The rain had diminished to a
steady drizzle. "Ι will make it up to you."
"Ι hope you try. Ι will find the
greatest pleasure in creating whatever shreds of misery it's in my power to
bring you."
"This was not what Ι wanted-;'
"And what did you want? Το forget
me? Of course. You had already decided, no doubt, to move on. Don't try to tell
me that's not true!"
He couldn't answer. It was true. He had thought
he had no other choice.
Juliet stood, Meshach in her arms. "Faith!
Ι wish Ι were a witch who could set demons to rip into your soul.
Alas, Ι do not believe that you have one."
"No doubt you are right. It doesn't matter.
We can hardly stand here in an empty henhouse and debate it."
The wind had died away. Damp darkness stretched,
oddly quiet now, vibrating only with the steady pitter-patter of drizzle. Alden
took off his cloak and held it out. She allowed him to set the heavy wool
around her shoulders. It dragged the ground. He wanted to put an arm around
her, but he stepped aside and let her lead the way through the ruined garden.
The coach lamps glimmered like beacons beyond the gate.
As soon as Juliet was safely inside the carriage
with Meshach curled on her lap, Alden strode back into the garden and began to
search. This time he carried one of the coach lamps. Light streamed over bent
stems and torn leaves. Moisture curled and steamed. Beyond the beam, it was
pitch black.
Α gleam of wet color caught his eye. He went
closer to investigate. Clothes. Juliet's clothes, thrown in a sodden heap onto
the carrots and marigolds. In a white fury he gathered the armful of dresses
and petticoats and carried them back to the coach. He thrust them inside the
boot and turned back to the garden.
How far might a frightened cat go? Away into the
woods? Into the village to find a new hearth, less threatening than this one?
Into some secret feline hideaway right here in the garden that Alden would
never discover?
His boots scrunched through damp leaves and torn
petals. He hunted through the thicket of shrubbery behind the limp hollyhocks,
calling softly. He swung the lantern up, staring into the trees, looking for a
cat among the great gnarled branches.
Nothing.
The drizzle began to thicken. Water dripped off
his hat and wet the shoulders of his coat. He had left his cloak with Juliet in
the carriage.
Alden hesitated for some time at the entrance to
the grape arbor, letting the beam of light dance over the shredded vine, the
black, broken posts. The table where he had teased Juliet with a chess game had
been tipped over. Rage battered at him, flooded every pore, as he remembered
snatches of their conversation, the way she had looked at him with desire
smoldering in her cornflower eyes, the way he had looked back at her.
He turned away and leaned his head against a
post. Anger and pain made bloody strange bedfellows! His pulse surged hot and
fast. He felt almost light-headed, as if the fever might return. Yet he still
didn't really want to care.
Rain began to patter audibly again. Α small
wind stirred the branches. Something moved, close to the ground. Alden bent
down, shining the lamp into the space where the table top had fallen against
one bench. Green demon eyes gleamed back. The light sparked gold off a
marmalade coat. Shadrach!
He knelt on the wet stones and set down the
lantern, calling softly. Shadrach retreated, balling himself into the farthest
corner. Alden reached under the seat. The cat hissed. Entreaties, tapping
fingers, a twirl of vine stem, nothing worked to tempt him out. The rain
started to pound. At last Alden lay full length in the mire and reached with
both hands. Carefully he pulled the cat from its hiding place. Moments later he
carried Shadrach to the coach.
Juliet did not meet his eyes or speak to him. She
sat in the corner of the seat and stared out of the opposite window, Meshach
still purring on her lap. Alden set Shadrach in the basket and closed the lid.
He combed the garden and sheds for at least
thirty minutes, calling softly, looking under bushes and in the hollow crotches
of trees, above doorways and in the crannies of windowsills. Somewhere out
there a white cat ghosted through the dark night. Perhaps Abednego had gone as
far as Farmer Hames's distant barns? Or away through Mill Spinney? Perhaps a
bullet or a blow from a club had found its mark?
He had no solution ω this problem. Nothing
in the way of wit, or strength, or skill - with a sword, a hand of cards, or a
woman's soft body - could tell him the whereabouts of Juliet's white cat.
Alden strode one more time up the path to the
henhouse, then back through the yard with the sheds. For a moment he stood
calling under the porch of the back door. Silence. He looked up. Clouds were
shredding, revealing an indigo sky. His coachman had moved the carriage away
and brought it back several times, to keep the horses from standing. Yet he
could not leave without Abednego.
Ι have taken your locket, Juliet. Ι
have used your generosity and your lovely, lovely body. Now, because of me,
your white cat is lost. And yet, after this night, there is little Ι can
do to make amends, because you are another man's wife.
The strength of his desire to win her forgiveness
took his breath away. The mix of emotions - rage and fear and guilt - clenched
with cruel fingers in his gut. His mind burned with the knowledge that he had
no power left, that he was impotent to help her, that it was all his fault.
He could seek out Lord Edward and create a
pretext for a duel. He might even win. He might succeed in leaving the duke's
son gasping his last breath in a pool of his own blood. Whatever momentary
satisfaction that would bring, it would not make reparation. Nothing could
restore Juliet's safety and equilibrium. Nothing could make up for what a
careless rake had already done.
Deliberately he opened his hand and let the
lantern smash on the path. The oil flamed and ran for a moment, then fizzled
and went out, leaving him in darkness. He stepped out of the porch.
The white missile hit him like a cannonball. Tiny
blades sank painfully through layers of clothes into his flesh and clung there.
Abednego!
Alden gently disentangled the claws from his
shoulder. The cat had hurtled onto his rescuer from the roof. Instantly
Abednego began to purr.
He carried the cat to the carriage. Juliet lay
back against the corner of the seat, her jaw shadowed above the long curve of
her throat. Her face glimmered softly in the dark, her hair almost black in
contrast. One hand rested in her lap. The other lay flung aside on the seat,
the fingers curled up.
She was asleep.
Alden placed Abednego in the basket. The
marmalade and tabby were already curled there together. The three cats immediately
formed a single ball of contentment, purring.
Without waking Juliet, he settled on the seat
opposite her. The horses started forward. Alden stared at her face and wondered
what the devil was happening to him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
JULIET WOKE AS THE HORSES STOPPED. MEMORIES
FLOODED BACK. The duke's son in her parlor. The mad night at Marion Hall.
Waking to find Alden gone, her locket gone. How could she have been foolish
enough to think it might end there? The arrival of George in Manston Mingate
had crashed into her life like a tidal wave, bringing every implication of the
previous week's events into shattering focus.
Her husband was alive. Now, as she'd feared for
five years, George Hardcastle had exterminated her life as she'd known it and
could control her happiness into the foreseeable future.
Alden, Lord Gracechurch, the lover she had
unknowingly taken in adultery, had all along been in league - whether wittingly
or not - with her one-time fiancé, Lord Edward Vane, who had lied about her
husband's death to entrap her.
It hardly mattered that George's men had broken
china and a handful of farm implements.
It hardly mattered that Lord Edward had conspired
to destroy her.
Alden had shattered her soul.
"We have arrived," he said.
He sat with arms folded over his chest, head
flung back, booted feet resting on the opposite seat. His clothes were soaked
and splattered with mud. His hair was plastered to his head. Loose strands
straggled over his cheeks. Yet even now - even after everything he had done -
his sheer male beauty took her breath away.
Her agony crystallized into hatred.
He glanced directly at her.
Her hands clenched in her lap. She had allowed
him to woo her and kiss her. She had let those carved lips caress hers. Those
fine hands had explored her nakedness. She had opened her body and soul to his
invasion - and been betrayed.
"You detest me," he said quietly.
"Of course. Ι don't blame you."
"I hate you. More than Ι have ever
hated anyone in my life."
He turned his head to
look out of the
window. Wet hair trailed over his shoulder. "Yes. Ι would feel the
same."
"You have no idea of my depth of feeling. It
would bring me great satisfaction to know for sure that you were going to burn
in hell for all eternity."
Α footman opened the door. Alden dropped his
feet to the floor and stepped from the carriage. Turning, he held out a hand to
assist her.
"Unfortunately Ι cannot make it to
Hades quite so quickly, ma'am, so Ι will have a man fetch the basket and
put the cats in your room."
The flambeaux around the house entrance cast a
flickering light over his face. Two bright spots of color burned against his
deadly white cheekbones. His eyes glittered.
Fear washed over her heart. "What is the
matter?" she asked. "You are ill?"
"A small fever, ma'am." He smiled.
"Perhaps it will consume me, as you wish."
It made her angry. Angry that for a moment she
had cared. Juliet put her hand on his sleeve and stepped down.