Cates, Kimberly (7 page)

"And God alone knows what will happen the next time that mob comes calling," Violet St. Amour warned. "I know Mother Cavendish. She's venomous as an asp when she's crossed. And that hero of yours made her turn tail and run."

"He's not my
anything,"
Juliet bristled, the thought of any part of Adam Slade belonging to her hideously daunting. "Certainly no champion! He's an overbearing, pigheaded, interfering barbarian!"

"You'd best pray he is!" Isabelle du Ville tossed her dark curls, casting a vaguely scornful look down her catlike nose. "He made Mother Cavendish lose face before that hellish coven of villains she led against you. It's a slight that vindictive old hag will never forget, I assure you."

In the three weeks since Isabelle arrived at Angel's Fall, Juliet had often felt that the fading beauty was mocking her behind her back. It had stung more than a little. But as those worldly-wise eyes met hers, Juliet couldn't quell the icy chill that ran down her spine. Mother Cavendish's thirst for vengeance was legend on the streets of London, and she had an army of minions awaiting her command. Kindred spirits who delighted in cruelty, and other, more reluctant allies, men and women she could twist to her will with the most horrible kind of blackmail.

Papa's sermons had been full of gentle warnings not to let hate take root in your heart, because it would spread, like vile weeds, crowding out forgiveness and compassion and love. The most villainous sinner had once been an innocent babe, the only difference that fate had shaped them with harsh hands.
"The most evil of all creatures grow afraid when darkness comes,"
he had said.
"If one should ever reach out in their fear, my hand will be there to hold."

The sentiment had seemed so beautiful, glowing in her father's ageless eyes. Never had she suspected the effort it must have cost him to cling to that belief. Until now.

Hate was a hard kernel in her heart. She could feel it chafing there, and it wore Mother Cavendish's face.

"I
think it was wondrous kind that Sabrehawk came to Juliet's rescue," Millicent insisted. "He could have merely walked away."

"I wish he had!" Juliet burst out. "He is exactly the kind of man I detest. One who tyrannizes over women, as if they'd no will of their own."
One with kisses so hot and fiery they'd made her very knees melt.

"It's only right that we should be grateful for what he's done," Elise said. What he'd done? Juliet thought. They couldn't begin to guess.

"Enough!" Heat spilled into Juliet's cheeks, and she raised a hand to her lips, feeling as if Adam Slade had branded whisker burns into the soft skin for everyone to see.

"All this blather is for nothing," she said, trying to ignore the keen-eyed stare of Isabelle du Ville. "Mother Cavendish will not budge me. And Adam Slade might stomp around Angel's Fall for a few days, attempting to drag me away, but when he sees how resolved I am, he'll grow tired of the game and storm back to wherever he came from. Men are notoriously short of patience."

"What do you know of men?" the Frenchwoman asked with a smirk. "You are innocent as a little nun. You know nothing! Nothing of a man the likes of this one. He is...
magnifique.
It would be as impossible for a
real
woman to resist him as it is for the sea to stop crashing against the shore."

"I had no trouble resisting him," Juliet blustered, then realized she had exposed more than she intended. Isabelle's feline lips quirked in the smile that had enslaved two dukes and a prince.

"Of course, my sweet. But you have not a woman's blood in your veins, only milk and honey and prayers.
Oui,
the only burning inside you is the desire to reform your fallen sisters. But how can you ask others to avoid the nectar of wine unless you have tasted it? How can you appreciate the suffering it takes to sacrifice a man's touch forever?"

"Isabelle, after what the gentlemen of your acquaintance have put you through, how can you have any regrets—"

"My dear little innocent, there may be pain in affairs with the gentlemen, but I assure you, there can also be pleasure, no matter how much dour-faced preachers would like to tell you otherwise."

It took all Juliet's stubborn will not to turn away from Isabelle, but the Frenchwoman's greatest joy since the duke had cast her out was shocking the vicar's daughter, and Juliet had resolved early not to give her the pleasure of seeing her discomfited.

God forbid that Isabelle ever get wind of the kiss that had transpired up in Juliet's chamber. What delight Isabelle would take in the kiss that had introduced Juliet to just how intoxicating a man's mouth could be, and how dangerous.

Juliet's spine stiffened at the image of Isabelle bending close as Adam Slade whispered of the incident into her shell-like ear, the two of them laughing at the saintly little nun's fall from grace.

"Juliet, you look positively wretched." It was Elise, her trembling hand curving over Juliet's arm. "And Isabelle is teasing you terribly. But I know you're afraid of Mother Cavendish. It may be true that no one before has escaped her wrath, once she pointed that finger of doom. But now that Sabrehawk has become your champion—"

"For pity's sake! All of you are driving me mad!" Juliet's temper snapped. "I intend to go up to bed, and I'd advise the rest of you do the same! And just so there is no question, Sabrehawk is not to be allowed inside this house on pain of death, do you understand me?"

Isabelle let out the trilling laugh that had made a duke her slave. "You think a man like that will spend the night standing about in the rain like some green lad,
ma petite innocent?"

"He's probably halfway to The Fighting Cock already." Millicent sighed.

"Juliet, he just rescued us from that mob—" Violet insisted, tossing her curls. "How can we abandon him in the rain?"

Juliet cast a glare about, saw mutinous glimmers in a dozen sets of eyes.

"That door remains locked even if the house is afire," Juliet snapped, praying she'd put down the rebellion as she turned and stalked up the stairs. But in the little time since Adam Slade had charged into her life, she'd begun to feel hopelessly outnumbered. Like other brilliant strategists, he was building his forces from inside the fortress he had under siege, buying the ladies loyalties with his
heroic deeds.
With her luck he'd be storming the ramparts before breakfast.

No. She was being absurd. Doubtless Isabelle was right. Slade had stomped off, consigning her to the devil. There was a good chance he might return. If he did, she would merely send him packing as she had tonight. She would put an end to this nonsense, and then things could get back to normal.

Normal. A strained laugh escaped her lips. Rows of shattered windows, ugly mobs, anonymous threats that turned every shadow darker, every creak in the night more sinister. She gritted her teeth, shoving back that subtle cloud of dread, focusing instead on the nefarious Adam Slade.
He
was a foe she could battle face to face. One not woven of mists and possibilities.

Inside her own room, Juliet slammed the door with a thud loud enough to rattle the prisms on the crystal candlestick in the hallway below.

She expected to leave the madness behind, bar her door against it, and find the haven, the sanctuary that had always awaited her in this quiet chamber. But the room had been changed forever. The pale rose-colored walls seemed to have shrunk. The furnishings, dwarfed by Adam Slade's presence, suddenly appeared to be fragile as a doll's.

It seemed as if he'd burned himself into the room's memory—the worn rose-flowered carpet was shadowed where he had stood, as if he'd branded his image in the fibers. The scent of him clung to the dust motes illuminated by candlelight—foreign, masculine, musky, not the metallic tang of ink-smears or the musty odor of books, but rather, horses and sweat and leather, along with the wild tang of Slade's very own, gathered on his numerous adventures. Spices from the far east, dark scents from Italy, a subtle layering of lavish elegance from France, all sharpened by the man himself, like the weapon he had wielded against the mob.

Every crag and line in his arresting features, each scar and honed muscle whispered of violence, a terrible grace that could deal death with a flick of his wrist.

He was a man who had challenged the fates countless times, against appalling odds, and emerged triumphant. A man who had decided with that same implacable will that he was taking her away from Angel's Fall.

She'd seen the hard light in those Stygian eyes when she'd evicted him from her house. He'd gazed at her with the menacing indulgence of a jungle cat letting its prey squirm free for just a heartbeat, just long enough for the shivering quarry to feel a surge of hope that they might escape, while the cat—the cat always knew escape was impossible. The prey was there for the taking whenever he tired of the game.

He had nailed Fletcher Raeburn in a barrel when the poor boy defied him. A tyrant, bending him to his will. But Slade would not batter her into submission. He might have more brute strength than she, but she had far more determination. She would outlast the barbarian, and then, word of honor or no word of honor, he'd tire eventually and go off, seeking adventure. And she would still be here, the doors to Angel's Fall wide open to any woman needing sanctuary.

She would outlast him, and pray that she could keep the ladies at Angel's Fall from taking up his cause in the meantime.

She unfastened her gown with so much energy that stitches popped, then, casting a cascade of petticoats and bodice onto the chair, she jerked on her prim nightgown and crossed to the window.

A thin cold veil of rain glistened beyond the jagged points of glass that still clung to the wooden windowframe, the dampness turning everything muddy and miserable. She felt a sinful surge of pleasure, knowing Adam Slade was out in it. She flopped down on her bed and pictured water drops running down beneath his collar as he stomped down London's streets, but her stomach heated at the knowledge that the path the drops took was traced by the corded muscles of his neck, the shaggy thickness of hair dark as midnight.

She imagined him swearing as rain trickled into his mouth, but that was more dangerous still as his tongue swept out to swipe away the cluster of drops on his lips.

There was something wickedly delightful in knowing he was furious. Anger, never acceptable in the vicarage at Northwillow, was oddly pleasurable in the dark of her own bedchamber. But not half so pleasurable, Juliet realized with a shiver, as Adam Slade's mouth, hot on her own.

Rain. It drenched Adam—cold and miserable as he stalked down the London Street, Fletcher all but running to keep up.

Blast that woman anyway! He'd fought off assassins and rival armies, battled enemies so dangerous they'd make an avenging angel tremble.

But never, in all his years as a warrior, had Adam contended with a foe who fought with a vindictive little prayer—one that was answered so swiftly he'd barely been a step from the door before the rain began to fall.

Hell, he supposed he should be grateful the spiteful little witch hadn't called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse down on his head. He'd already come face to face with War. Doubtless, she'd have sicced Pestilence on him. Aye, that was what she might have prayed for. A cluster of lovely boils blossoming on his body. He grimaced. Considering what a man-hater she was, he knew exactly where she'd have instructed God to put them.

"Sabrehawk! Sabrehawk, wait!" Fletcher's strident voice grated across Adam's nerves, and Adam caught a glimpse of the youth, elbows and knees pumping, red-faced and breathless, with all the desperate determination of a little brother trying to keep up with a pack of older boys.

But a single glance at the Irish youth's eyes made Adam lengthen his stride in a vain effort to escape. Censure. Disapproval. Confusion clouded Fletcher's features.

Adam gritted his teeth. Damned if he'd be raked over the coals of guilt by an empty-headed stripling like Raeburn.

But before he could dodge around a copse of roving sailors, Fletcher launched himself, catching Adam's arm with surprising strength. "Confound it, you can't just leave Miss Grafton-Moore like this!"

Adam rounded on him, rain streaming down the rigid muscles of his face. "In case you didn't notice she threw me out of her house and slammed the door in my face. I've already had my nose broken three times, boy, and I like the angle it's bent at now. I have no intention of letting Miss Prim and Proper smash it flat."

"You gave her father your word of honor you'd protect her," the boy asserted stubbornly.

"Blast it, I chased all over England after that infernal wench. And I
did
pluck the vicar's daughter out of that mob when they looked ready to dangle her by her corset-strings from Tower Bridge. In case you didn't hear, she wasn't overwhelmed with gratitude. She swears she's not leaving that Angel's Hell of hers. I considered nailing her in a barrel the way I did you, but I'd have to let her out sometime. And the instant I pried up the first nail, she'd be charging back into this mess, parasol waving. So I might as well save myself a hell of a headache and just leave her be."

"She's in danger. Desperate danger. And she's helpless against it, despite her courage."

"Courage
is another word for
idiocy.
My brother, Gavin, taught me never to stand in the way of someone anxious to get their head blown off for a righteous cause. They'll just keep sticking it out there until you get yours blown off, too. God forbid that I stand between Miss Grafton-Moore and her chosen martyrdom."

"You don't mean that." Fletcher went ashen in the light of a coach lamp passing by. Disillusionment haunted the youth's features. Adam should have rejoiced in it. He'd been waiting to see it for almost a year. God knew, he'd never wanted to be anyone's hero. Why was it that Fletcher's expression jabbed at him, making him squirm inwardly?

"Fletcher, she flung me out of her house and prayed for rain. What do you expect me to do? Stand guard all night out in her garden like a bloody fool?"