[Samuel Barbara] Lucien's Fall(Book4You) (29 page)

Madeline left her alone. Her condition was improving, but Madeline didn’t want to risk tiring her with the exhausting work of fittings and tussling with the dressmaker.

Instead, Madeline took a plump maid with her on her errands, a young girl improbably named Electra. When Madeline asked her about the unusual name, the girl shrugged. "Me mum is a great reader," she said, obviously not indulging the same pastime herself.

For a while Madeline wondered about explaining the myth to the girl, but the task seemed unbearably wearying and she did not.

A light drizzle fell from a very dark sky as they set out for the dressmaker. "We’d best get back early," Madeline commented, eyeing the clouds. "I expect there will be more than just this muzzy rain before much longer."

"I expect yer right, mum."

Perhaps then, Madeline thought, she might be able to find an hour to visit Mr.

Redding, with whom she’d been corresponding for several years regarding her experimental plants. He had a great conservatory attached to his house and had extended a standing invitation to her when he heard she was in London— she was welcome to visit. He did his gardening in the early afternoons, if she’d care to come then.

She cared. The thought of going to the conservatory, even for a few hours, held promise of refreshment. A feeling of defeat dogged her days, and she couldn’t understand it. Hadn’t she triumphed? Wasn’t Juliette her real mother? Weren’t the gardens to be saved?

But from some hidden place a voice cried out,
LucienLucienLucien.
Madeline had given up on silencing it. All day and all night, it chanted there, a small voice crying his name. She had no hope it would ever cease.

As the carriage pulled to a stop in front of the dressmaker’s, Madeline saw from the corner of her eye a man who looked remarkably like Lucien. Her heart jumped and she turned her head quickly, peering into the milling crowd on the street, the men in their top hats, the women in their cloaks. A sea of umbrellas moved in the gray mist, obscuring faces. Madeline peered anxiously at them for a moment, but the man she thought had been Lucien did not appear.

Only her foolish imagination.

With a sense of loss, she allowed Electra to lead her into the shop. The last group of dresses was to be fitted today. At least there was that comfort—she needn’t be burdened with the task anymore.

As they were about to enter the shop, Madeline spied in the glass the reflection of a tall figure on a horse; a man with black hair pulled into a queue, his limbs lean and long, his face—

She whirled, but the man was gone. "Are ye feeling all right, milady?" Frowning, Madeline turned. "Yes, I’m fine." They went in. The dressmaker bustled over, exclaiming happily about the gowns. Madeline was led into a curtained alcove where two young girls stripped her of her day dress and settled a soft green baize over her body. The color lit her complexion, and the fabric felt pleasant against her skin. It fit exactly right, not too low at the bust, skimming her waist, clasping her arms. Examining herself, Madeline said, "This will do nicely, but you must remove these flowers." In illustration, she tugged at the silk flowers festooning the bodice and waist.

"But Madame will—"

Madeline had heard this before. She waved it away. "Madame may put flowers on other women’s dresses. Not on mine."

She didn’t miss the repressed smile one of the girls gave the other. Was she one of those horrendously bossy and difficult customers who’d so embarrassed her as a child when she’d tagged behind Juliette on fittings? No. What she’d not understood as a child was the great expense of such gowns. She had every right to see they were made to her exact specifications.

Beyond the curtain was a small stir, but Madeline paid it little mind as the girls carefully lifted the dress over her head and hung it up. One reached for Madeline’s wedding gown, a glorious creation of silk and beadwork, almost too fragile to be borne. If there were fairies, Madeline thought, allowing them to settle the gown around her, this was surely what they wore. Delicate beadwork edged the bodice, embracing her breasts with an elegantly seductive hand. Silk swathed her waist and tumbled over her legs. It was in the new style, not a saque or braced with panniers, but more closely fit.

It was more beautiful than anything Madeline had ever seen. As the girls tied the laces, Madeline touched the beadwork over her body, taking a strange pleasure in the cool glass beads over her warm flesh.

An alarmed voice from beyond made Madeline lift her head curiously. "Sir!"

cried Madame. "My lord! You must not go in there—"

Something hot and expectant whispered over Madeline’s heart and she turned.

One of the girls dropped a scissors and she stooped to pick it up; a shoulder of the dress fell down Madeline’s arm.

"Sir, I really must insist—"

The curtain was flung aside. Lucien stood there, holding the fabric parted like a conquering captain. He wore a black cloak and dark breeches, and his hair was damp from the rain. His boots were muddy. Madeline stared at him, her heart pounding, and curled her fingers into her palms so she would not reach for him.

He stared at her, and there had never been such a burning in his eyes. They seemed to glow with some unholy light, the color a blue so vivid it almost pulsed. He had not shaved in a few days, and the grim shadow of a beard added to his rakish look.

Hollows marked his eyes and the space below his cheekbones, and Madeline thought wildly that he was dying.

LucienLucienLucien
said the voice. Madeline backed up a step.

"My God," he said, dropping the curtain to move toward her. With one hand, he touched her ear, and with the other he reached for her. She jerked away, but not quickly enough; his palm fell on her bared shoulder and the stunning pleasure, the weight and heat and size of his hand on her skin, nearly made her swoon.

Unable to speak, pinned to the spot with his loose grasp of her shoulder, Madeline stared at him. Her hands were curled at her sides, tight enough to hurt her wrists. He drank her in with his eyes—there was no other word for it—his gaze washed over her face, over her breasts, her hair and hands, with a devouring intensity Madeline had never known. Her breath came quickly.

"You are light itself, like the moon," he said, and gently touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "So uncommonly beautiful one cannot even find the words to express it."

With a wild sense of the absurd, Madeline wondered why no one moved. There were five women, only one man, and yet they were all as frozen as Madeline. He had cast some spell, that was it. A spell to capture them all in his web.

He kissed her. His mouth, so dear and lost, shattered her terror. She opened her mouth to him, hearing herself make a soft, low noise as his tongue swirled against her mouth and within.

LucienLucienLucien

A joy as thick as honey moved in her, and she touched his face, touched his hair, kissed his neck. It was his groan that brought her around.

"No!" she cried and broke away. "No, I am engaged!" She backed into the wall, grasping the skirt of her dress in her hands. "This is my wedding dress!"

Lucien only stared at her, his breath coming hard. Brilliant lights played over his jeweled irises. Emotions stirred on his mobile mouth. Madeline thought he was going to leave her.

But instead, he made a sudden move and snared her in his arms. "No, you will not marry."

He lifted her easily, and Madeline wanted to weep at the pleasure of his touch, at the mastery in his command, but she knew, too, that she was wrong to go with him.

"Lucien, no! Juliette will kill you!"

She struggled hard and he nearly dropped her. It seemed to inflame him. With an abrupt turn, he pushed her against the wall and kissed her again, using his knee and the wall to brace her so he could hold her chin. "Tell me you do not want me and I will let you go," he said, and kissed her again. "Tell me."

He tasted of loneliness and forgotten songs and rain. She alone could ease that sorrow—not to save him, but to ease his descent. She closed her eyes. "I cannot."

Noise broke behind them, and he shifted again, stalking with her through the shop. As he flung open the door and carried her into the rain, Madame and her girls and even Electra—the spell broken with Lucien’s departure—cried out behind them.

Setting her atop his waiting horse, he mounted behind her. He clasped her into his lap with one strong arm, and flung his cloak around them both. Thus enveloped, they rode into the dark rain.

And with his breath on her ear, with his arm around her body, Madeline knew a terrible thing— there would be no other man in her heart. Not as long as she lived.

Lucien Harrow had claimed her the first time he looked at her, and she would forever belong to him. She turned and put her face against his neck, breathing in the precious scent of his skin.

Once they were out of the teeming streets of London, he rode beneath the sheltering arms of a birch tree and lifted her face and kissed her. And on his lips she tasted his love of her, his need that was as wild and great as her own.

"This is wrong, Lucien," Madeline whispered. "I am promised to the marquess."

"Yes." He clasped her face. "But the music is in me when I hold you," he said, and his voice seemed unutterably tired. "I only need to hear it one more time."

"I am to be married in three weeks," she said, but didn’t turn her face from his touch. Her heart swelled near to bursting when he bent and touched his lips to hers, gently, and his eyes closed. A soft sigh came from his mouth.

"Only come with me a little while," he said. "Only a little while and I vow I’ll not bother you again."

"Yes," she whispered.

With an exhausted sigh, he pulled her close and bent his head to put his cheek against her neck. "I have missed you." His fingers tightened on her back. "So much."

"Yes," she said again, and they rode on.

…

"What?"

Electra, the little maid Juliette had hired to be a companion to Madeline, stood by the hearth, shivering in her wet clothes. "He just took her, mum. There wasn’t anything we could do."

Juliette had been strong enough to sit in the salon downstairs most of the day. The crackling fire gave cheer against the dark day, but now it seemed extraordinarily loud.

Juliette could not quite take in what Electra was telling her. "He
kidnapped
her?"

A troubled frown flickered over the girl’s face. "I don’t know as I’d say so exactly. She went willing enough."

Juliette let go of a wordless, furious cry. Then she called the housekeeper. "Mrs.

Reed!"

She flung off the blankets she’d been wrapped in and stood up. For a brief moment, blackness fuzzed the edges of her vision, but it cleared quickly. Anger, she thought, was a very good cure.

The housekeeper came in. "My lady! What are you doing?"

"My daughter," she said distinctly, "has run off with that bloody rake Lucien Harrow, and I mean to find her and drag her home—by the roots of her hair if necessary."

She straightened, coughing only a little. "Don’t just stand there, Electra. Help me upstairs—I must be dressed. Send another girl to help us, Mrs. Reed, and see that my carriage is brought around immediately."

"But, my lady—"

"Do as I say."

She was dressed in record time, a wig covering her hair, a quick dusting of powder obscuring the hollows under her eyes. The dress she wore was too loose across the bust and in the waist, and Juliette simply shrugged off the corsets. They made it hard to breathe anyway.

Outside, in the dark day, she had one spell of coughing she thought might never end. She clung to the door of the coach, unable to catch her breath for long moments. The housekeeper stood nearby, wringing her hands. "My lady, let me send someone else!

This’ll be the death of you."

"No." Juliette straightened with as much dignity as she could muster, "I must do it myself."

Mrs. Reed gestured to a footman. "Stay with her."

He stepped forward. Juliette accepted his strong assistance with gratitude and settled in her velveteen seat, smoothing her skirt. To the driver she gave Jonathan’s address.

At his house, she paused a moment, nerves shivering in her limbs. She had missed Jonathan most desperately, and didn’t know how she would feel, looking at him again.

As she stepped out of the carriage, she saw the draperies in an upper room shift, and a quiver passed through her. Nerves and fury and longing tangled so tightly she thought she’d swoon. For a single moment, she clung to the footman, steadying herself.

Then she donned her haughtiest attitude to confront the butler, a pinch-mouthed man she’d never liked. "I must see Lord Lanham," she said. "Now."

"He is not in, my lady. I will tell him you called."

"This will not wait," she said, and pushed by him. "Jonathan!" she called from the central hallway. Stairs circled overhead, five flights up. "Jonathan, I must speak to you regarding Madeline and Lord Esher!"

"My lady!" the butler protested, taking Juliette’s arm. "I tell you—"

She shook him off. "Jonathan!" she cried. "He’s kidnapped her!"

From above came the sound of a door. Juliette gave the butler a triumphant little smile. Jonathan appeared on the second floor, leaning over the balcony. "What are you yelling?"

Juliette looked up, and her heart caught. His thick butter-colored hair was loose on his shoulders, shoulders that were bare, as were his feet. He wore only a pair of very wrinkled breeches, and bore around his mouth the very distinct look of a man engaged in sex. Juliette felt weak, indeed, and for the beat of a few seconds, she could not think why she’d come. "Jonathan"

His lips pursed. He bent over the rail and leaned his arms on the railing. "What do you want, Juliette?"

The posture put his arms into high relief, showing the curve of bicep, the concave stretch of stomach, the firm round of his hip. "I, er. . . I came..."

She felt dizzy and without breath. With one gloved hand she touched her forehead, trying to pull herself together.