[Samuel Barbara] Lucien's Fall(Book4You) (32 page)

"As was I." She lifted her head.

Slowly, reverently, he kissed her. "I love you, Juliette. I want to marry you.

Please."

Overcome, Juliette could only nod.

Jonathan said, "There is one more thing."

"What?"

"Ask Lucien Harrow to visit your daughter. He is most desperately in love."

Juliette pulled away. "Never."

He took a breath, and unexpectedly, sighed. "He’s one of the richest men in England, my love. He adores your daughter with a passion only equaled by mine for you.

He’s writing music and will likely be England’s next great composer." He took her hands. "What more can you ask of a man than that?"

With a snap, Juliette actually heard her long grudge break. "What more indeed,"

she said. There was so little time—she might as well use what she could for spreading joy.

…

Madeline loved the autumn. It was by far her favorite season, and this year was no exception. She was, perhaps, even happier than normal with it, for her garden was finally and truly on its way to being itself again.

In the chilly fog of an October morning, she clipped dead roses and pinched out buds on sunny orange and yellow chrysanthemums, humming under her breath. It was

"Lucien’s Song," as she thought of it—that concerto of such beauty that he’d written and given to her. In time, she would like to learn to play it. For now it was still too painful to think of.

She wondered with a little pang what he was doing just now. Riding?

Breakfasting? Had he forgotten her?

They’d heard the tale of Lucien Harrow’s Great Transformation. That was how Madeline always thought of it, in capital letters, because the change was so large. He had ceased his round of parties and seductions and retired to the country where he tended his estates with an even and sensible hand.

She knew she’d had a part in that transformation. That Lucien had sought something from her, had taken nourishment from the love she bore him, and been healed.

If she were another sort of woman, she supposed she’d be content with that.

Unfortunately, she was not. She grieved for him. It stunned her how he’d infected her life in a couple of months. His presence was everywhere: in her gardens and the maze and the music room; in her bedroom and the salon and on the drive. She thought of him when she rode and when she climbed the castle tower and when she wore her green dress.

Yes, she grieved. To her surprise, the things she remembered had less to do with his lovemaking— though she had to admit she thought of that too— than with his irrepressible spirits. His teasing. His buoyant energy. His sharp, witty observations. He’d become her friend during his time at Whitethorn, a fact she hadn’t realized until he was gone.

With a sigh, she cut loose a pink rose and lifted it to her nose. The edges of the blossom were slightly blackened—not many frostless nights left. Soon her gardening would all be indoors.

She bent to pick up her basket, and a soft sound on the air caught her ear. She lifted her head. There it was again—music. It sounded like music.

With a puzzled frown, she moved toward it, thinking it came from the maze.

Outside, she paused, listening, certain for a moment that she’d utterly lost her mind.

No, there it was. A little clearer, now. She thought it was a violin. Her heart jumped, and she very slowly entered the maze.

And once within, the fog obscured all directional clues. She moved toward the center, hearing now that it was a violin, but not where it came from. Streamers of ground mist tangled around her ankles; she drew her shawl around her more closely.

Now she could hear the music clearly. It was the piece Lucien had composed here, then at Rosewood, the one she thought of as a tribute to Pompeii—the first part so light and free, as Pompeii must once have been. She thought of Lucien jumping the hedge the first day she saw him. So free.

She stopped, listening to the strange echoes, the muted singularity of the instrument in the fog. She smelled the faintly spicy odor of the box leaves, and damp, bruised grass. From the hidden place, Lucien played the second movement of the piece—

Vesuvius stomping down, crushing the lightness, transforming and smothering everything.

And she thought of Lucien, so haggard, throwing his composition into the fire.

She thought of him with his bruised face, making love to her, with such yearning and despair.

With sudden insight, she lifted her head. As he headed into the third part, the cacophonous, wild noise she’d thought represented the explosions of Vesuvius, she thought of him storming the dress shop and carrying her away. She lifted her skirts and began to run, toward the middle of the maze.

She rounded one wall and another, listening to the crescendo build, to the crashing terrible climax— And then there was a sharp, pregnant, expectant pause. As she rounded the last corner, into the center, where he stood in a dark blue greatcoat, his hair caught back, Lucien began to play very, very softly the refrain from the first movement.

His eyes glowed turquoise against the dark of the day, against the dark of his hair and his coat and all the darkness and dankness around them.

But Lucien’s face was full of light. And the shadows had gone. And he played for Madeline the sound of his fall, with a smile on his beautiful mouth. She stopped, listening to the soft sound of that golden day he’d ridden up the drive, and tears welled in her eyes.

When he finished, he lowered the violin.

"I thought it was Pompeii," Madeline said, aching with her love for him, for the beauty that had been unleashed from his soul.

He nodded. "As did I." His smile was rueful. "Instead it was my fall to love."

Madeline covered her mouth. She didn’t know what to say, how to express the enormity of emotions that swelled in her just then. She couldn’t speak. She felt frozen.

With uncharacteristic hesitance, Lucien put the violin on the stone bench and straightened. His cheeks were extraordinarily red from the cold morning. He touched his chin, looked at her. "Will you have me, Madeline?" he said, at last.

The simplicity of his words took her aback, and she didn’t know what he meant.

"Have
you?" she echoed. She gave a little laugh.

And something in her burst. She didn’t care how, she didn’t care when, she didn’t care about anything except that he was standing there in front of her, whole and sober and strong. So far he’d come to meet her, so carefully he’d planned it. With a cry, she launched herself over the grass and ran to him. She flung her arms around his neck and felt him catch her up with a soft groan.

"Madeline," he said into her hair.

She caught his face and kissed him. The taste of his mouth was like crisp apples, like October evenings, like all the dearest parts of morning.

"I love you," he whispered. "I could not say it before, because I said it when I didn’t mean it, and then there was no way to call the words back. But there are only those words to say it—I love you."

"Yes, I know."

He clutched her close.

He opened his mouth to speak and Madeline kissed him. "Stop talking," she said.

"Just stop talking and love me."

"Oh, yes," he breathed. "Yes that I can do."

And he kissed her, deeply, sweetly, like a husband and a lover, not a rake at all.

Madeline knew a wild dizzy sense of rightness, that it should be this man, with all the music in his soul, who would give her children to raise to love the maze and gardens that would be part of their legacy.

He lifted his head, and a strangely bashful expression was on his mouth. "I wonder if you might come to London this week with me."

"Why?"

Now there was undeniably a creeping color in his cheeks, not caused by the cold.

"The symphony is to play my concerto. I’d like you to be there."

Madeline kissed him, long and hard. "It would be a joy." Seriously she touched his beautiful face. "I love you, Lucien Harrow."

The old devilish grin flashed on his dark face. "You can’t help it."

Madeline buried her face in his shoulder. "You’re right," she whispered.

Then she let him go. "Let’s go tell Juliette."

Together they left the maze and wandered out into the open ground, hand in hand.

###

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