My Fallen Angel (24 page)

“Well,” the earl said into the silence which followed. “Since everything appears to be settled, I’ve suddenly been struck by an idea. In an effort to repay you for the risks you took on behalf of my son, I insist you take my yacht to Scotland. ‘Twill be quicker than returning to London, for as you know, Selborne is only a few miles from the coast. My ship can be ready to sail within the hour.”

Stunned silence greeted his words.

“That’d be mighty sportin’ of ya, guv,” Tom announced.

The earl looked pleased by his son’s response, saying, “I do have one request.” Lucy nodded encouragingly. “I would like for Tom and me to accompany you.”

Tom’s eyes widened before he rushed across the room and into his father’s arms.

They arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland, an hour or so before dusk, and Lucy was so excited she could barely stand it. She had spent the day in the main cabin due to her aunt’s dire murmuring about bad luck for the bride to see the groom before the wedding. Lucy hadn’t minded too terribly much. Salena, Beth, and her aunt had kept her company, but she would have liked to observe the voyage from the main deck, not the earl’s plush cabin. Thank goodness they’d arrived quickly.

“You look gorgeous,” Beth murmured, stepping back to admire the sight of Lucy in Salena’s wedding gown.

Her aunt, who was busy making last-minute alterations, pushed herself to her feet, her bones creaking nearly as loudly as the ship. “You’ll do,” she pronounced.

“You look wonderful, Lucy,” Salena seconded.

“Yes, but I
do
wish you had more cleavage, Salena,” Lucy murmured, glancing down at herself. “I dare say

I’m about to burst out of this thing. Not only that, but this dress is
heavy.”

Salena laughed. “’Tis the pearls.”

Lucy glanced down. Pearls, pearls, pearls, she thought. Hundreds of them. The were on her puffed sleeves, on the skin-tight fabric at her wrists, on the bodice, and around the heart-shaped neckline. The gown was so heavy she felt as if she were dragging around the entire crew with her when she walked. She wouldn’t be at all surprised if a whale mistook her for a giant clam.

A knock at the door interrupted that dire musing; she heard Adrian’s voice saying, “The coachman has returned. Garrick has sent him to fetch you to the chapel.”

“Good,” her aunt called back, the skirts of her deep blue dress rustling as she cast one last, critical eye over her niece. “We shall be out in a moment.”

She turned and grabbed the bouquet of orange blossoms and roses that the duke had been sent to get.

No doubt Adrian had paid a small fortune for them, but Garrick had insisted on roses. Lucy smiled and inhaled their sweet fragrance, sure that for the rest of her life the smell of orange blossoms and roses would remind her of this day.

“Well, are we ready then?” her aunt asked, her eyes suspiciously bright.

Lucy’s own eyes welled with tears as she reached out and hugged her. “Oh, Auntie. This is the happiest day of my life.” She pulled back and smiled mistily at her friends, the blue dresses they wore shimmeringthrough the wetness of her tears. “Nothing could spoil it.
Nothing.”

He was going to die. The thought kept pounding into his head with the force of a thousand anvils. Tonight would be his last day on earth. His last day with Lucy.

Garrick stood before the altar of the church, brow beaded with sweat though the day was cool. The black jacket he wore felt tight, and the white shirt beneath it seemed to squeeze the life out of him, as if each breath he took grew shallower and shallower, until at last he would take none at all. But he mustn’t think of that. Mustn’t think about how horrified the priest behind him would be were he to find the man who stood before him had sold his soul to the devil. Mustn’t think about how lately he’d felt a blackness creeping upon him. Most of all he musn’t think about
her.
About Lucy.

“You look nervous, my friend,” Adrian whispered, his voice echoing off the beams of the ceiling some one hundred feet above.

“A touch,” Garrick murmured, hoping Adrian would leave it at that.

As it turned out, he needn’t have worried. A door to their left opened, precluding the duke from saying anything further. It was Lady Cornelia.

“She’s waiting outside the chapel door,” she whispered, darting a glance at the priest, then at Adrian, who stood next to him. “You look nervous, young man.”

“He is, a bit,” Adrian answered for him.

“Hmm. Don’t blame you. I’d be nervous too, if I was marrying my niece.”

“Let us all thank God you are not,” Adrian joked. Cornelia smiled, then turned and sat next to the earl.

The chapel door opened and Tom poked his head in. “Are we ready?”

“Aye, young man,” the priest answered.

The boy nodded, dipped back outside and said something, then swung the chapel door wide open, latching it into place. When he was done he practically skipped to his seat, looking every inch an earl’s son in his dark gray jacket and off-white trousers. The moment he sat, Salena walked through the doorway and the look of love she exchanged with her husband sent a shaft of poignant longing though Garrick His hands clenched by his side. God forgive him, but he wanted to run, to escape the pain that assailed him.

But he could never escape.

His breath came in ragged gasps as he struggled to contain the multitude of emotions slamming into him with the force of a tidal surge. Longing. Dread. But most of all, fear.

Salena smiled, apparently oblivious to his pain as she took her place next to Lady Cornelia. Beth entered next; the ceremony would be small, but all the more poignant for its simplicity. All too soon the church quieted, so much so that Garrick could hear the priest shift upon his feet; his black robes rustled, the pages of his sermon crinkled.

And then he saw her.

She stood in the doorway, a sudden beam of sunlight emerging from the clouds to illuminate her form. His breath caught. The dress she wore glowed, the pearls luminescent and almost seeming to have an energy oftheir own. Her hair caught the light, the long tresses hanging loose down her back like a wall of molten flame. Emerald eyes glowed.

Those eyes were filled with love and happiness as she gazed down the long aisle. The narrow, oblong widows lining the walls lit the way like a giant carpet of light as she made her way toward him. Automatically, he held out a hand to her. And the moment she touched him a cloud dipped in front of the sun. Everyone blinked. The priest shifted. Garrick ignored the ominous sign and clasped her hand in his.

“Come,” he said, his voice deep and filled with aching tenderness, with the longing of a man who knew he was to die.

She nodded, then followed him to the altar and knelt beside him. From that point forward, Garrick concentrated on speaking the words which would bind her to him until midnight. Every word he spoke was torture, every vow filled him with regret and anguish. And when it was over and he glanced into her loving eyes, he knew with a certainty she would never love another.

“Garrick,” Lucy called laughingly after giving her aunt one last tearful hug good-bye. She smiled at her friends, all of whom stood waiting for her and Garrick to climb into the carriage. “Salena and Beth are threatening to sail back to Cardiff with us.”

“Are they?” he asked softly.

“Exceptin’ we’re afraids the ship’ll be rockin’ too much ta get much rest.”

“Thomas Tee,” her aunt cried. “What a perfectly crass thing to say.”

The others laughed, including Lucy, who allowed Garrick to hand her inside the carriage. It took a moment for her to arrange her tentlike skirts and then for Garrick to settle in next to her. With one last wave they were off, back to the earl’s ship, which had been graciously loaned to them for the trip to Cardiff.

Pellets of rice rained down upon the carriage like a winter snow flurry. Lucy laughed and waved good-bye to her friends and family one last time. As they faded from view she leaned back and happily gazed up at Garrick, who stared off into the distance as if trying to peer into the future.

“Good heavens, Garrick. You look so glum.”

He glanced down at her, apparently startled by her observation. “Do I?” he asked sharply.

Lucy tilted her head at him. Something bothered him, she was sure of it, but what it was she had no idea. “You seem so quiet.”

He stiffened. His face became unreadable, as if someone had drawn a blind over his features. “A lack of sleep, no doubt.”

“Are you worried about our wedding night?” she teased.

It was as if someone had struck him a physical blow. Lucy was startled to see a brief flash of pain cross into his eyes. She reached out to clasp his hand. “Garrick, what is it?”

“Nothing, Lucy.” He squeezed her hand back. “I’ve merely a lot on my mind.” He looked away, his eyesfocused on the passing scenery, but Lucy could tell by his rigid form that all was not right.

“Do you know how much I love you?” she said softly. He flinched, flinched as if she’d suddenly pinched him. It sent fear cascading through her veins. “Garrick, what is it? Please, please tell me.”

“’Tis nothing, Lucy.” And when he turned back to her his expression was washed carefully clean. She wanted to believe him, truly she did, for the alternative—that something was truly wrong—was too horrible to contemplate. But she knew he lied. She knew him too well to tell when he wasn’t being completely honest with her. Still, she let the matter drop, convinced that whatever it was, he’d share it with her when he was ready to.

Reaching up, she gently touched the side of his face. He closed his eyes at the contact. She could feel the stubble of beard which grew upon his face, his skin hot beneath her touch. He inhaled deeply, and when he opened those sea-blue eyes of his, so much love filled their depth that Lucy felt her breath catch with the wonder of it.

“I love you, Luce,” he said, gazing down at her as if he never wanted to stop.

Suddenly she reached out and hugged him, burrowing her face into the crook of his neck. The carriage dipped into a pothole, a streethawker cried out his wares, but Lucy hardly noticed. In her eyes there was no one in the world but them.

•  •  •

It was evening by the time they cast off. The moon, no longer full, was still bright enough to light the coast and the ocean between them as they sailed toward Cardiff. Garrick sighed. The sight of the waves sparkling nearly as bright as the stars above, to Garrick’s mind was almost as beautiful as the woman who awaited him in the cabin below. Pain washed over him with the sting of hot pitch as the thought penetrated that his was this last night with her. The fact was undeniable, and though over the preceding hours he had grown somewhat numb, he was determined to prove to Lucy just how much he loved her, would never stop loving her even when he was gone.

He found her in the cabin, the multitude of candles she’d lit setting her skin aglow as she lay atop the brown coverlet, its folds alternately shielding and revealing her perfect, naked body. He stopped midstride, his mind focused only on her.

“I promise not to catch the cabin on fire this time,” she teased impishly, breaking the spell.

Garrick remembered the night he’d called her a trollop. What a fool he’d been. If the pain she felt that day was a tenth of what he felt at the prospect of leaving her tonight, he deserved his fate.

“Garrick” she whispered softly.

He wouldn’t do it, wouldn’t dwell on the fact that he’d sold his soul. He’d done it for her, her reminded himself. He’d do it again. Swallowing his anguish, he forced himself to walk toward her, though he lacked the strength to muster a smile. Forced himself to undress, though he wanted nothing more than to hold on to herfor dear life. Forced himself to act as if he was a man sailing toward the rest of his life, not one fated to “die” at the stroke of midnight.

She smiled and opened her arms, the fabric of the coverlet parted to reveal her white breasts. Garrick needed no further urging. Even so, he took his time, preferring instead to study her as he would always remember her: hair tousled from their trip to the dock, the dusky contours of her body. Like a man in a trance, he slowly moved forward and when he could stand it no longer, lay down beside her. Savoring each moment, he allowed their lips to meet. This, too, he memorized. He kissed her gently, lovingly, longingly. Her lips parted for him, and Garrick closed his eyes and savored the taste of her, the delicious, achingly sweet taste of her own desire.

It was Lucy who broke the kiss, Lucy who drew back and framed his face with her hands, gently stroking back the hair which she’d released from his queue. For the longest time she simply stared at him. Desire flickered in her eyes; it lingered, then was replaced by a look of such complete and total love, Garrick’s breath escaped in a rush.

A coldness settled around his heart, a coldness borne of pain. He tried to keep it at bay by covering her lips with his, then assaulting the sensitive cords of her neck, his tongue gently licking the salt from her skin. He tasted her, relished in the spicy scent of her.

One last time.

She moaned, a deep moan that sent a streak of longing through Garrick. He would spend the rest of eternity remembering that sound. He wanted her, hardenedwith anticipation, wanted her even though it was all he could do to keep the agony at bay.

“Garrick,” she moaned.

But he would not rush this, would not spoil her first time because of his nearly uncontrollable need. Even with the heat of her body nearly scalding him, he refused to give in, preferred, instead, to lap at her ear.

She writhed in his arms—he could feel her toes curl, her legs brush against his—but he held back, some inner strength forcing him to take his time, to worship her, revel in the power of their desire for each other.

For the first time and for the last time.