Julia London 4 Book Bundle (34 page)

And he called her darling; the word curled around her heart every time he uttered it. His darling demon, he whispered, his beautiful Princess Lillie. As he thrust into her, he murmured how beautiful she was, praised her wicked response to him. And when she was frantic for the eruption of searing heat inside her, he would murmur her name.
My darling Princess Lillie, come with me, come with me now.

In those magical moments they were one heart, one spirit, one body. In those moments her life with Adrian was better than she had ever dared to hope. Her soul was completely liberated in her love of him—she knew no restrictions but was free to be who she was, abandoning herself to the magic he had created for them. She was at long last soaring—in her heart, higher than she
would have dreamed possible, far above the earth and everything she had ever known.

Until Benedict would appear.

Which was too often to suit her. Privately, she resented his calls—she wanted Adrian all to herself. But even in her newfound freedom, she was still her mother’s daughter, and she greeted him with all the respect due a brother-in-law. What else could she do?

Adrian certainly did not seem to mind his calling—he was unfailingly polite to his brother. Certainly Benedict did nothing to earn her resentment, but she couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable around him. For one thing, it seemed to her that he was forever making veiled insinuations about Adrian. Nothing terribly blatant, of course, but enough to give rise to a feeling of protectiveness for her husband. One day, Benedict coaxed her into a stroll about the gardens and spoke plaintively of the rift between his father and brother. “Father has struggled to accept him, but Adrian has not made it very easy,” he said on a weary sigh. “He has always been so wild, you know—but I rather suppose that is to be expected, isn’t it?” He had left that question dangling in front of her, almost daring her to snatch it up and ask him what he meant by it.

Lilliana would not rise to the bait. “It seems awfully cruel to disinherit him then seek custody of his holdings,” she had replied with some bitterness.

“Yes, well, I am endeavoring to make sure that doesn’t happen,” he responded. “Trust me, Lillie. I will not allow Father’s actions to harm you.” With that, he had squeezed her hand and bestowed a tender smile on her.

That was the other thing she did not care for. He was
always
touching her, or looking at her in such a way that made her feel uncomfortably exposed. He would kiss her cheek and allow his lips to linger, or brush a curl from her temple with undue familiarity. And just when she thought she might explode and say something awful, he would smile and say, “I am so grateful you are happy
with him, Lilliana. If only Father could see how happy you are, he would drop his suit.”

It was all very confusing—at times she trusted Benedict, times she forced herself to trust him. If there was even the slightest chance he could influence Lord Kealing, she had to endure his attentions for the sake of Adrian.

Adrian endured his visits for the sake of mercy.

As much as Benedict’s presence irritated him, he was as deserving of mercy as Adrian was. And mercy had been granted to him; his sole regret was that it had taken him too long to see it. How long might he have drowned in his self-pity before he understood that the one person who could grant him the treasure of mercy stood before him?

Dammit, there was so much to Lilliana that he never saw before the accident, so much
beauty
that he had been too blind to see. The woman was very caring of others, and he had thought that a weakness. She was selfless to a fault, and he had thought
that
the characteristic of a country bumpkin. She was compassionate, and he had found that bothersome. God help him, he couldn’t see outward any longer, but he could certainly see inward, and he did not like what he saw. Not even remotely. He had been heartless, indifferent, absorbed with obsessions and blind to everything around him.

Heart blind.

Well, he now appreciated her qualities enormously and credited her with saving him from the edge of hell. The night she had come to his room and had quietly listened to all the reasons she should utterly despise him had left an indelible mark on his very soul. Not once did she raise a word against him, or cry out in revulsion, or voice a fear of the scandal in which she would undoubtedly be mired. His Princess had taken it in very calmly, had borne his trouble as her own, and then, astonishingly, had vowed no one would hurt him.
He
should have made that promise to
her.
And then she had humbled
him completely by showing him just how deep was her capacity to forgive.

That night, God had shown him the quality of mercy and given him a reason to live.

But he had never really
looked
at her, and now all he had was the fading memory of her face. He was left to imagine her painting in one of his best shirts, splattering little drops of color on it. Or throwing a stick into the lake for Hugo to fetch. Or laughing with the cook as they perfected the puddings she devoured, and frowning at Max with those sparkling demon eyes when he complained of Mrs. Dismuke’s high-handed ways.

He could even imagine the face of determination when she strung those cords about the house, or the devilish glint in her eye when she tied the bells around the necks of her dogs. In his mind’s eye, he could see her twirl about the orangery as she hummed an old Gaelic tune and the way her eyes sparkled when he had danced with her. She was alive, he realized, more alive than he had ever been in all of his thirty-two years, and the life in her was contagious.

Just the sound of her musical laughter sent a shiver down his spine. Her chatter, which he had once feared, was now a source of great comfort to him. He suddenly found himself well versed in every aspect of Caroline’s adoration of Horace Feather; the exact day, down to the likely minute, her family would return from Bath; the dozen things that separated her two mongrels from all the other dogs in the world; and the hour Mr. Bottoms’s recent fever had broken. She brightened everything around them, and the sound of her breathless voice as she eagerly described things she saw to him went straight into his heart. Incredible though it was to him, he realized he actually
could
feel the sun fall down around him when she was near.

His parish princess was terribly bright, too, had quickly understood the accounting principles he used, rapidly learning everything he could teach her about the books. Honestly, he could leave the management of
Longbridge in her capable hands, something he never would have even contemplated before now.

Longbridge … now there was another great error on his part. His mindless drive to build an estate to rival the grandest of Europe had been an act of jealousy. Nothing he might do to Longbridge would ever restore Kealing Park to him. But amazingly, he was coming to understand that he did not
need
Kealing Park—whatever solace he had once thought he could find there had faded long ago. His solace was at Longbridge now. With Lilliana.

Yet her face haunted him as he struggled to remember it. It seemed the only place he was free of that struggle was in his bed. He did not have to see her there; he could
feel
her. Her passion reverberated around them; her sensuality searing him every place they touched. Her hands, her lips, her hair, all enveloped him in a surreal seductive dance that catapulted him to the heavens on wave after wave of sheer pleasure. In his bed he breathed her in, from the rosewater in her hair, to the scent of the dampness between her legs. He felt her, every beautiful, lissome inch of her, with his hands. He tasted her, from the hollow behind her ear to the tender skin behind her knee.

And his heart came near to bursting when she whispered her love.

Even he, the master of suppressing all emotion, could see what was happening to him. As guarded as he was, as hard as he strove to bury his emotions, he had come to care deeply for the unremarkable little Grange Princess he had married—so deeply, he was afraid to even attempt to put a name to it. All he knew was that she had, miraculously, lightened his soul. For the first time in his life, he felt at peace.

How odd that it should come now, with the loss of his sight.

———

It had been two months since his accident; the weather had turned warmer and the sun was beginning to stretch longer into each day. On the terrace one morning, Adrian relished the feel of the sun on his face, the cool, crisp sensation of rebirth evident in each breeze as he sat listening to the tinkle of dog bells and Lilliana’s laughter. Smiling warmly, he shifted in his seat so that his face was directly to the sun. How strange, he though idly, that he could almost
see
the light.

His heart suddenly lurched in his chest.

Impossible!
He
was
seeing light! Adrian quickly shook his head at that mad thought, blinking rapidly—imagining things again, he thought bitterly, imagining that he saw light, as he sometimes imagined he saw Lilliana’s eyes. In a moment the darkness would return, just as it always did.

He waited, fidgeting impatiently with his neckcloth. The light, though an obvious figment of his imagination, was oddly disconcerting. When would the darkness return, the state of being he knew so very well now? He blinked again, but if anything the light seemed to grow brighter. Adrian’s hand began to shake, and he suddenly lifted it, waving it in front of his face. No, he could not see his hand; of
course
he could not see his hand! Then how could he see light?

He turned his head away from the sun’s rays; the light dimmed, but it did not go away. Oh Lord, there was light, a tiny shard of it knifing through the darkness and into his consciousness, playing havoc with his emotions. It was so baffling, he did not hear Lilliana come onto the terrace.

“Adrian? Are you all right?”

He jerked around to the sound of her voice. “Yes. Yes, of course!”

“Would you like to walk in the gardens?” As he lifted his face to the sound of her voice, the light brightened.
What was happening
?

“Adrian! What is it?” she exclaimed.

He suddenly grasped her hand resting on his shoulder.
“A bit of a headache, Princess—it’s nothing. I believe Lewis is due any time now,” he said, and stood slowly, fixated on the light. “I’ve some correspondence to review with him.”

Lilliana slipped her hand into his. “You look as if you have seen an apparition,” she said, the concern evident in her voice.

He
was
seeing an apparition. But he forced himself to smile as he felt his way up her arm and to her neck, then pulled her forward. “No apparitions,” he said, and leaned down to kiss her. As he slanted his lips over hers, the light faded completely. Just a cruel trick his mind was playing, his blasted imagination, a part of his brain that refused to accept his blindness. This had happened before—fleeting images that sometimes flickered across his mind’s eye, so real that he thought he had seen them. But those images were gone as quickly as they came—they never lasted as long as the tiny beam of light.

But when he lifted his head, the light reappeared and his entire body seized with fear. “I shall join you for tea,” he forced himself to say, and began to sweep the path in front of him with his walking stick.

Once inside the terrace sitting room, he brought his hands to his eyes, probing roughly. There was no light. Stunned that he was almost grateful the light had left him, a tremor of fear swept over him—what in the bloody hell was the matter with him? What if he
was
seeing light? That thought caused an odd wave of nausea to rumble in his belly. There was no plausible explanation—his mind was playing ugly tricks on him. How very rich—he was to lose his mind as well as his sight! But it was
not
light, he thought miserably, and started for his study, his stick banging on furniture and doors as he went.

The next day, however, he had no doubt he was seeing light. Lilliana had asked him to walk with her down to the lake. The light had come to him the moment they
had stepped outdoors, and grew brighter with each step. Faint as it was, his eyes stung and his head felt close to exploding. He made some excuse to turn back, and Lilliana had obliged him, unaware that each step sent a jarring jolt of pain behind his eyes.

The rest of the afternoon he spent in his study, blinking over and over again in a desperate attempt to bring back the light, but to no avail. By the time the supper hour came, he had once again convinced himself that he was imagining things.

Lilliana was already in the dining salon when he entered; he could hear her bustling around the table. “At last!” she cried happily.

“Hungry, are you?” he asked dryly.

“Famished! I climbed all the way to the top of the hill on the other side of the lake. Do you know the one I mean? It doesn’t look so very tall when one is standing in the garden, but it is
quite
tall! I thought I might very well perish before I reached the top.”

“You shouldn’t go off alone, Lilliana.”

“Perhaps I should have told Max, but he was engaged in a ridiculous argument with Polly—”

“Again?”

Lilliana laughed, a rich sound that curled around him. Gently, she took his hand and led him to the table. “A bucket, it seems, belonging to Polly was used … ah, well … 
inappropriately
 … by one of the footmen. Polly was quite beside herself, and Max felt compelled to defend the poor man.” She patted his arm, signaling him to sit. “You know how practical Max can be. He suggested to Polly that she clean the bucket with lye, but Polly took great exception, insisting she would
never
use that bucket again, and demanded that Max purchase a new one for her.”

Adrian turned his head in the direction of her voice, and in doing so, almost came out of his chair. Three pinpoints of light had formed in front of him. They were watery and faint, almost without form, but he could see
the light and the hint of silver beneath it! It was, he was quite certain, the candelabrum.