Judith Ivory (30 page)

He jerked her hand upward and away.

“Well, I don’t know,” she said belligerently. “My stomach feels funny: Either I like it or I’m going to be sick, I can’t tell—”

“Good Lord.”

Her mouth opened at this blasphemy. He took his opportunity. A rich one, as it turned out.

After an instant of struggle, she allowed the penetration of her mouth. His senses reeled. He kissed her for some time—certainly a long time by his “adult” standards. They stood. They embraced. He shifted from one foot to the other. Adrien was never particularly aware of its being by design, but he eventually moved her around and over a few steps, putting them in a more sheltered position, behind some tall bushes.

Then, with a sudden brainstorm, he became aware—in a very conscious way—that if they lay down there, among the vegetation and statuary, they would not be visible at all.

She accommodated. In only minutes, he was on top of her. And in serious distress. The jaws of a paradox set themselves around him like a trap. Holding back. Pushing forward. It was making him dizzy. He was desperate to avoid any messy, humiliating finale. Yet with equal desperation, they were heading in a direction that offered almost no other end. He suddenly realized he had never intended to deflower his cousin, but meant sincerely to stop somewhere along the line. But where?

The springs of the trap tightened. The more he kissed her, the more wrong it felt. Which, in turn, God help him, fevered the act further. She was so completely forbidden—like a sister, it occurred to him—that no one had even mentioned he shouldn’t touch her.

“Madeleine, I—” He swallowed, trying not to breathe so heavily.

She attempted to pull his head back down to her.

He resisted.

“Oh, kiss me, please,” she whispered. “I didn’t know…It’s not at all like being sick—”

“It is. There’s a relief to the feeling. And I would show you that relief, only I think I should not.”

“I’ve displeased you.” Her eyes began to mist over again.

“No. The contrary.” He pushed himself from her, groaning at the frustration and discomfort of it.

“I have. I’m ugly.”

She was not outrageously pretty. Just outrageously attractive. Like a field of grass. Just so much green, like what one saw along the walks every day. Yet a whole field of green grass called one to lie down in it. And once down, the smell, the coolness, even the taste of a blade of it in one’s mouth…

“You’re not ugly.” He had to tense his muscles to keep from showing her instead of telling her.

“As ugly as Medusa. You’ve turned to stone.”

A little brutal to herself, he thought. He laughed at her. “Only part of me.”

She didn’t understand.

He didn’t mean to offend her. He pulled her hand to show what he meant. It seemed so natural.

She jerked violently away. Gasped. Then picked herself up and ran.

He was left rolled over on his elbow, feeling stupid. And somehow tricked—cozened, as it were: The imprint of her hand translated easily through his breeches. That small, light touch was to burn on his flesh all week; all year.

A mistake, he thought. A multiple mistake. He should have taken her deeper into the garden, spoken less, kissed her more, drawn her further into more liberties, then had her. It could have been done. He was sure.

Yet it was wrong; he knew that. She was his cousin, a woman of his family. He owed her his protection. From exactly this sort of thing. Still, this was a protection he was loath to bestow.

All week he wrestled with this dilemma and the
awful knowledge of how he wanted it resolved. Then a brilliant idea occurred to him. He could marry her. That would make it all right. And, thus, the seed was planted in his mind—an impregnation of a thorny, strangling idea, sown by his own contrivance to relieve guilt.

But watered and nurtured by circumstance.

A few days later, he had her cornered in the maid’s pantry, when Fate—in the form of Grand-père—stepped in.

Adrien was handled none too gently by the scruff of the neck, then browbeaten, in a long painful session in his grandfather’s library, about his duty to women in general and to his cousin in particular. But worst of all, Madeleine was sent from the house and from him.

And worse still, he saw her frequently. With a minimum of half a dozen chaperones. It turned the fever into a true sickness with real physical pain for which there was no relief, try as he might.

Adrien cultivated the friendship of Madeleine’s governess in the hope of paving a circuitous route around the obstacles springing up between him and his cousin. Only this became awkward when the governess proved to be a lonely young woman with romantic notions of her own. And more trouble. Adrien impregnated the governess.

He was humble, contrite. Yes, he knew it led to children. Only it never had before. Of course, he would see to the child. For God’s sake, no, he didn’t want to marry a French governess. John, his English uncle, had some duke’s daughter mapped out—a small fact Adrien had hidden in the back of his mind until called to bring it forth for Grand-père.

It was a year of frustration, foolish mistakes; adolescence at its most painful. He was plagued with feelings of guilt and of impotence at the hands of others around him. There was only one truly beautiful night,
a few hours that lit his life before he was plunged even deeper into self-pity and disaster.

Madeleine’s fifteenth birthday. There was a huge ball, her first. They danced every dance together. She would have no one else. He felt like a king.

“Come out of here with me. We can get away, I’m sure.”

She gave him a shy look, just a slide of eyes to his face from beneath her dark lashes. “You know I want to.”

“But?”

“But Papa. He would be so disappointed. Already he’s displeased. I’m supposed to be finding a husband, not flirting with my cousin.”

“Perhaps you can do both.”

Her eyes came up more directly. Her gaze held on his face until she blushed in the realization of how long she’d stared. She looked down. “Don’t tease.”

“You would be a good match. My uncle could not disagree; he would only grumble at having to change plans.”

“He has someone else for you?”

“I don’t even know her name.” But he did. Georgina Kent, only daughter to the Duke of Wilsbury. Filthy rich. Pretty. But totally uninspiring. He’d met her twice.

“You’d flout your uncle and marry me?”

“Will you go against your father in favor of me?”

Her eyes slid up to him again. “I would. I mean I want to. I’ve thought of it so often. You can’t imagine—”

“But I can. I’m roasting in my own hell from imagination.”

“A nice place for you. Celeste”—her governess—“had a girl, I’m told.”

No comment. He didn’t know quite how to handle this area. He’d become a father the month before. An experience he hadn’t been able to categorize yet. He’d held the child, felt very strange at doing so, but wanted
to do so again. That part was unexpected, the wanting to visit a tiny baby. And that part was also private. For now at least.

“You have no defense?” Madeleine was being coy.

“What can I say that will sound right?”

“Repentance. Blind devotion. Sworn love.” Her efforts to be cavalier fell flat. She looked up again, in all seriousness. Then unwittingly said what would keep him flying—all the way to the altar—for the entire next year. “It doesn’t matter,” she spoke. “None of it matters. I love you, Adrien. I’d go to ruin—and may, it appears—for just a moment of your love.”

They slipped off to the carriage house, one at a time. They met, and there, between heated declarations of love and marriage, they consummated a year-and-a-half-long romance—in which they had been alone together scarcely more than a few hours all told.

It was, as deflowerings go, rather uneventful. Any pleasure she might have had was overshadowed by fright; just as his was overshadowed by an inept eagerness that simply couldn’t be stemmed. It was approached by both of them almost as something to be got through.

Darkness descended quickly on their sweet sin. She was taken from him again. He was, like a naughty child, sent to his room—on the other side of the world. He was sent on Grand Tour, dragooned out of the house. It seemed, then, he was perpetually being thrown out of places. And his one possession became worse than none:

Images of his cousin, the feel and look of her in the hay in the carriage house, haunted him across two continents. When he returned a month before the wedding, he longed to put an end to his torment and just take Madeleine off for an elopement.

But she was guarded like a relic of the cross. Everywhere, sober faces stopped him from even a private
word with his bride-to-be. He was stiffly put in his place: on the outside, a dark relative admitted only through convention. He felt not like the groom but a guest of the bride. The bride’s criminal cousin.

He saw his daughter again that month and was very much charmed by her. She walked. Celeste had shyly encouraged the child to speak one of the few words she knew—“Papa.” Insipid cuteness. He detested himself for being so pleased with the nonsense syllables. So pleased with a bastard daughter; two counts against her.

Looking back, he remembered feeling almost overindulgent toward himself then—and it was true; in many ways, he had denied himself nothing. But he did deny himself one thing, he decided as he stood there in the barn stall. Forgiveness. He never forgave himself for even the slightest error. A mistake was a mistake.

And he was looking at one right now. God, Madeleine looked so much like he remembered. And it felt so much the same: With Christina in the house, it felt devilishly wrong to be out here, alone, with Madeleine….

The woman before him was babbling happily in heavily accented English. “Adrien! I wuss so afraid you wairn’t here. Or woo-dunt agree to see me. And Thomas wuss so nasty and
secret.
…” Her words seemed to open up and come at him, like a torrent. The English seemed doubly strange. He had never heard her speak it, and what he heard now was awful; the accent held as if for beguiling effect.

“Adrien?” Her voice held a quiver in it.
“Tu vas m’aider, n’est-ce pas?”
When he didn’t answer, she repeated the question in English, “You are going to ’elp me, aren’ you?”

No, he thought, he was going to turn his back on her exactly as he should. But he couldn’t. He came forward and began letting her free.

She smelled sour; a mixture of too much perfume and the cold sweat of fear. Why, he wondered, hadn’t he recognized this before? The red scarf. The perfume itself had been unfamiliar, but the smell of the woman mingled with it, along with the tendency to use too
much, had been well known to him. He should have known….

Her face was an inch off his chest as he reached over her head to untie her. It was a warm sensation feeling her breath there. And her breath had that peculiar, sweet quality; always so, like a young child’s. Despite everything, he realized she was not repulsive to him. Adrien found himself looking to the door. Like a guilty man.

Pure foolishness, he told himself. He jerked his eyes back to the knot that was proving so difficult. Even if Christina walked in—which she had no reason to do—what did it matter? Being caught in the same room with Madeleine was no crime.

He closed his eyes, yanked at the stubborn rope. No, it only felt like a sin. It always had; that had been part of the fascination.

He heard her slightly wicked laugh. “Nervous,
chéri?
You used to be much faster at getting things undone.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked gruffly.

She purred a laugh. The last binding gave. And she engulfed him. Arms, hands, mouth went at him in an attack he didn’t want, yet seemed to have no defense against. His memory played havoc with him. Her touch, the feel of her, her smell, taste, the movements of her body, these all seemed so familiar, yet experiencing them remained bizarre.

Over her shoulder, his eyes flicked toward the door again. Guilt. Lord, he must be steeped in it. Could he honestly imagine poor, pregnant Christina traipsing a hundred yards in the cold snow….

He freed his mouth from the onslaught of affection. He tried to set Madeleine away from him. But she drew his hand to her breast and pressed it there. A little charge went through him. God help him, he remembered what her bosom looked like naked. Small, per
fect, high. With dark pink nipples that stared like blank eyes…

“Madeleine, don’t you find this just a little—fast?”

“But I understand you play very fast these days.”

He gave an uncomprehending blink.

“I’ve kept track of you a little,” she explained. “And though you were devious and hard to discover in France, in England over the past year you have been quite visible.” She paused to look at him, smiling. “And ‘fast’ is kind. I have never seen such a long or ever-changing parade of partners,
chéri.
What’s wrong? Can’t you hold one woman’s interest longer than a few months?” Her laughter purred again. So appealing. So unnerving in its easy, teasing quality.

Before he could disengage himself, she’d kissed him again. And again he allowed it. Only for a moment. But she recognized the victory before she suffered the setback of having her arms removed from him completely.

He took a step backward, feeling truly out of his depth. Some perversity in him was perfectly willing to be kissed by her. Some piece of the old, eerie attraction to her was still very much intact.

He heaved a labored sigh. “Thomas said I was to find a woman here that has caused me a great deal of trouble. And I find you.”

She cocked her head and smiled mischievously. “And you find the woman, I’m afraid. As if I hadn’t already caused you enough.” She giggled, full of girlish charm. Her blue eyes challenged. “Can you laugh at it all yet?”

“No.”

She lowered her eyes and grew serious for an instant. “Nor I. But I can make a good show of it.” Eyes bright again, “And I rather backed into causing you more trouble.” Her face flashed into a charming smile. “And did
an
excellent
job of it.
De première classe!
You are, how they say, in the soup, dear. Very much thanks to me.”

“You were in England last May?”

“March, April, and May. I took on a silly task of trying to locate some Englishman there.” Her eyes teased. Her lips smiled as if this were some wonderful game. “So I could more easily spy on my husband, you see. You might know him. Tall. Dreadfully handsome. Hair about this long.” She reached out and gently tugged at the hair curling over the back of his neck. “About this black.” Her nails combed through his hair at the side. “A long, straight nose.” Fingers lightly down his nose to his mouth. She whispered softly, “Lips, warm, smooth, a very handsome mouth that gives kisses—”

She had worked herself up against him again. He stood immobile. “I’m not your husband,” he contradicted.

She pulled a pouting face. “I keep forgetting.” She smiled, rolled her wide eyes at him. “Let me see,” she continued, looking down at her hands now resting on his chest. “Where was I?
Ah, oui,
I was very patriotically researching for my country—I had a friend of some influence here; he and I, well, it was a favor to him—while I was very surreptitiously checking on one Earl of Kewischester when,
tiens! Devine!
The paths started crossing and falling into a pattern. You must know the rest. You knew there was someone onto your game. I realized who I’d discovered and buttoned my mouth. I told my friend it was a blind alley. Really, dear, I was so touched in those three months. There you were, unable—in ten years—to form any sort of bond with a woman, then off to the rescue of aristos,
my
relatives. It was a touching tribute.”

“They were mine as well.”

“Yes.”

He frowned, confused again. She had lent the word a kind of open, incestuous implication….

She squeezed his arm. “Mmm. More muscled at thirty-four than at twenty-four. No, thirty-five; you had a birthday in December.” She was opening the buttons of his coat, sliding her hands into it, taking his shirt from his pants.

Her hands moved lightly and deftly. Some part of him hung on the depravity of allowing her one moment at a time. Like allowing one’s murderer certain liberties.

Her hands slipped beneath his layers of clothes, under his shirt. He went to stop her, but succeeded only in having his hands caught, then led around to rest on her buttocks. He swallowed and shot another look at the door.

“If you look at that door one more time, I shall slap your handsome face. That door is getting more attention than I am. Don’t worry, dear. Thomas promised me…”

She went on, but Adrien’s mind froze on those last words. Thomas. Reason, not guilt, kept the image of Christina coming through that door. One person had a great deal to gain by sending Christina across a hundred yards of snow. If she didn’t barge in, and soon, he would eat his…

“Adrien.” Madeleine’s voice was a little breathy, a little irritated. “I am asking you to make love to me.” There was a pause. “Now, don’t pretend you don’t want to. Let’s bury the past.” Her voice rose slightly; more irritated. “Well? Will you?”

He flashed a smile at her, felt her relax. “Not this instant, no. We have a few points to settle first. For instance, Thomas seems to feel that I have you to thank for my current dilemma.”

“I told you, you do.”

“Would you be so kind as to explain? Why, if you didn’t turn me in last summer, would you turn me in now?”

“Well.” She put on a coy shyness as she cuddled up to him again. “It’s so embarrassing now. Now that I see the full effect I have on you.” A sly look up. “Tell me you don’t want me right now? Just as always.”

“I can barely think of anything else.” This wasn’t entirely true, but it would suffice.

She cackled quietly. “And that you don’t love me.”

That, he could have told her. With amazing ease. He felt light and buoyant in that knowledge. But he was silent. He put on a sulking face. He didn’t hate her, he realized. Because he didn’t know her. She was a composite, the oddest juxtaposition of strange and familiar. Everything about her—her movements, her stance, her voice, her expressions—all seemed familiar. Yet the final impression she left was that of a stranger.

She laughed once again in solicitous confidence, touching his face endearingly. She puckered her mouth and spoke in his least favorite mannerism of hers, a sort of affected baby talk. “
Mon minou.
Do I tease you too hard? What is my penance to be before the way is clear?”

He had to stifle a nastier reply. Instead: “Just tell me what happened. What do they know? And, for curiosity, why, for God’s sake?”

“All right. But don’t be angry now. Promise. I’ll stop the moment I see your temper.”

“I won’t be angry.”

“Well, this morning—no, I suppose it was yesterday morning now—I went with my, ah, friend to do his boring morning routine. Which has included, from time to time, the questioning of a man of yours. A M. Cabrel, I believe. I had been through the whole silly business a dozen times. Heard the monotonous story. But yesterday morning, M. Cabrel added one phrase more: As he described again each man he could remember, he ended the list with ‘and a black-haired man with the clinging
wife.’ Wife, mind you! I asked a few pointed questions and assured myself he was talking about you. But he would not yield on the point that you had brought some sultry young doxy over with you. And cared for her most lovingly—carrying her to a room you shared with her, stroking her hair, cooing at her. Ick! Well I’m afraid I saw red. An hour later, I suggested that—though I should never want to appear vindictive, the horrible divorce and all—my ex-husband might just possibly be the Madman everyone was looking for. God help me for sounding like a woman scorned, I told him, but so many of the pieces fit—I had only held my tongue because it sounded so preposterous and jealous, but I could be silent no longer. It didn’t take my friend too long to lap it up, and, voilà, sweet revenge. Poor dear, how I wish I had thought it out more. They found the scarf, you know.”

“What?”

“My red scarf. It was in your apartment in Paris. You kept it, you dear. But how in the world did you get it? It’s caused me terrible trouble. My friend is convinced now I was seeing you.”

“You’re not working for the committee anymore?”

She laughed. “Decidedly not. They’re ready to wring my neck.” A pause. “They know I protected you, Adrien. And I’m glad I did.” Lower. “There’s no other woman, is there?”

“No.” Adrien found he could smile at her, fully, eye to eye. “Only one.”

She smiled back broadly. Her mouth was made for smiling. Wide, feminine, appealing. At thirty-two, she was still at her peak of attraction with that smile. She would be attractive at forty because of it. And survive; she and he were both survivors, he thought. He would help get her away, then be done with her. Forever. Adrien sighed at this wonderful realization.

A movement beyond caught Adrien’s eye. The barn door opened. A wide-eyed Christina came hesitantly in, stopped cold, then seemed about to speak.

Adrien pulled Madeleine into his arms, turning her back fully to the door. Over Madeleine’s shoulder he looked directly at Christina, motioning with his eyes for her to leave.

Christina at least had the decency to be speechless, but she stood staring at him.

“And that was all?” he asked, determined to keep Madeleine occupied and Christina unseen by her.

“Almost. M. Cabrel gave a good description of your—companion. I gave a brilliant description of you, right down to this”—she touched the thin scar at his lip—“where I bit you. Do you remember?”

“Yes.”

“We used to fight at very close range.” She whispered. Yet her voice carried on the crisp air. It carried too well. “It was dangerous,” she added.

“Yes.” He sighed.

“Where is she?”

“Who?”

“Your woman. There were rumors that La Chasse kept a woman somewhere—”

“Oh, she’s gone.” Adrien looked pointedly at Christina, making a small hand gesture signifying that she comply with his words.

Christina stood saucer-eyed, glued to the spot.

“Adrien? Is something—?” Madeleine was alarmed by his sudden movement behind her back. She was about to turn.

He could think of no other way out. He kissed the woman in his arms. She groaned, then wrapped herself into it.

Adrien stared hard at Christina, all the time that he kissed Madeleine. Then, slowly but very definitively, he bent his wrist and pointed his finger to the
door. Leave, by God, Christina, he wanted to scream at her. She doesn’t know; no one has a better picture of you than the one Bertrand Cabrel was able to give six months ago when you were nothing but scared and seasick. My God, they think you’re pale, sickly, subdued—and
thin!

From across the barn, he could see the robust, pregnant young woman’s eyes mist. Her lower lip quivered. Christina turned and slipped away, quickly and quietly. The opening, where she had stood, was a void, a slice of pitch-black night. As if there was nothing, less than nothing, beyond the dimly lit barn. Then a flurry of snowflakes contradicted this, blowing in on a gust of wind. It had begun to snow again.