[Samuel Barbara] The Black Angel(Book4You) (22 page)

The temptation to make Gabriel laugh was too great to resist now, and she headed purposefully toward the cheerful window, carefully keeping her eyes averted from the pamphlets and cartoons posted in the window of the bookshop. If Gabriel was not here, she would depart immediately and return home.

And besides, she was curious.

The room was hot and large and not nearly as dark as she had imagined, for tallows guttered in sconces all around, and oil lamps lit darker corners. There were not many people about at this hour of the day. A pair of merchants ate a supper of mutton pie and ale, and a cluster of middle class youths bent over something, their cups shoved aside.

"What can I do for you, sir?" the proprietor asked from behind a corner bar. He was a tall black man with golden freckles. "We've mutton pie tonight."

"I'm seeking an associate of mine," she said in her huskiest tone. "Gabriel St. Ives. Have you seen him?"

"I have." The dark eyes were measuring, but evidently he found nothing amiss. "I'll give your name."

She settled with an elbow against the counter. "His cousin, Linus St. Ives. And bring coffee," she added. Carelessly, she removed her hat and put it beside her, turning with what she hoped was idle curiosity to scan the other patrons.

No one at all seemed to notice her. A very good thing. The tightness in her shoulders eased the slightest bit.

From a room at the back, Gabriel emerged. The gold embroidery on his coat gleamed even in the darkness. The proprietor came behind him.

And after him, Tynan.

He saw her at the same moment she saw him, and at the rage in his eyes, Adriana very nearly bolted. She stood up, a tremor deep in her belly, and schooled her face to maintain the sleepy, lazily alert expression she realized in that instant she had taken from her husband.

"Linus," Gabriel said, holding out his hand. "So good to see you here."

Adriana gripped his hand. "Gabriel," she drawled, nodding.

"I haven't had the pleasure," Tynan said.

Gabriel's nostrils flared with amusement, the only betraying sign as he turned. "Of course," he said smoothly, "this is my cousin Linus St. Ives."

Adriana extended her hand. "Just in from India."

Tynan's hand enfolded hers, hot around her cold fingers. His thick lashes hid whatever expression might have shown in the low light, but she didn't need to see anything to sense the danger rolling from him. "How do you do."

"We were about to have some supper, Linus," Gabriel said. "Join us, will you?"

"Be honored."

Gabriel led the way back to the room from which they'd come. Adriana had assumed they were participating in a meeting of some sort, but although the room would have held a dozen, they were alone. The roof was low, held up by dark timbers, and a mullioned window looked toward what appeared to be an herb garden. She spied the rain-silvered fronds of an overgrown lavender. Within, candles supplemented the last dying rays of day.

Gabriel gently closed the door and turned to Adriana. "What possessed you?"

At the same moment, Tynan exploded, "Are you mad? Do you want to ruin your life, and mine with it?"

Her feminine self might have been cowed by their tone. Oddly, the young man she'd been all day only lifted a brow. "I was bored. Stuck in the house without a companion or a task. I thought I would lose my mind." She lifted a shoulder. "I tried one of Fiona's gowns first, but this worked better."

Tynan's eyes burned a hot blue against his dark face. She noticed for the first time that he looked drawn, and a wisp of hair had come free from the queue. "I saw you, walking past Barclay's this afternoon," he said, his mouth tight. "I knew it was you in a moment, though I couldn't catch you." He picked up a handful of pages and flung them across the table at her. "Have you seen what they're saying?" His lilt grew more exaggerated. "D'you have any idea?"

Stung by this abrupt intrusion of reality after her escape, Adriana shoved them back at him, sending papers flying into the air, onto the floor. "And haven't you learned yet that I do not care? Didn't I warn you?"

He slammed his hands down on the table and leaned over it, fury plain on his handsome face. "No! You've never given me the tale, only hints, and in those you make yourself so innocent, Riana! Bad luck, bad timing. A wolf stalking you."

Every word fell like a razor against her heart. She stared at him, more wounded by his rejection than she could possibly have imagined. His eyes burned with censure, and she looked down at the scattered papers.

Mutinously, she picked one up, and spoke in a low, mocking imitation of his Irish lilt. "Wounds your pride, does it, Lord Glencove?" She felt Gabriel's hand on her shoulder, but shrugged it off. "Maybe you shouldn't have reached so high above your station, then."

With a soft cry, she scraped all the papers into a pile and grabbed them, tearing them into pieces. Gabriel reached for her again, but she flung all the bits of paper at Tynan and whirled away, ready to stalk out.

Gabriel stopped her, putting an arm out to hold the door closed. Burning with humiliation and an anger wilder than any she'd ever felt, Adriana slammed the flat of her palm against his lower arm, hard. But he didn't budge. A hand came up and pressed against her neck. "Riana," he said quietly.

She raised her head. "All of you can do anything you wish, and nothing ever happens. How many lovers do you suppose Malvern had before me? A dozen? A hundred?" She turned. "How many did you have, Lord Glencove, when you were sowing your wild oats in town?"

The men exchanged a glance, an unreadable, manly
expression that professed ignorance. She gritted her teeth. "I had
one
." The cursed tears welled in her throat and she frowned to force them back. "One," she repeated. "It was foolish. I was heedless and headstrong, but I think I've paid
enough
."

"You have," Gabriel said gently. He put an arm around her shoulders, and gratefully, she rested her forehead against his chest. "You should never have paid at all."

He was so familiar, even after such a long time away. So familiar and dear. She leaned against him, as she always had, her hand gripped around his strong swordsman's arm, her forehead against his chest. And from him, from the brother who'd allowed—nay, encouraged—her in every endeavor, she drew strength. After a moment, she took a breath, blew it out, and straightened.

Tynan slumped in a chair, that loose lock of hair making him seem somehow vulnerable. It fell, dark and glossy, across his cheekbone, drawing attention to his uncommon nose. For the first time since he'd ridden so dashingly into her life, he looked… defeated. As if he felt her gaze, he raised his head. There in the aquamarine eyes, so clear and troubled, she saw regret.

But he did not speak, only looked away, a ruddy color coming into his cheeks, and Adriana realized that she, too, owed an apology. She'd forced one from him often enough. With a sigh, she took the wig from her head in a single gesture and stood there as herself. "Tynan, I spoke in anger. I apologize."

He nodded. "As did I," he said wearily, and rubbed a hand over his face, then dropped it. "Come," he said.

"I think it's time I heard the story of Malvern, whole and unvarnished. Can you do that?"

Adriana hesitated, then nodded. If he meant to be married to her, he might as well hear it. "It's not particularly pretty."

He gave her a wry expression, then looked to the scattered, torn paper on the floor. "So I gathered."

"The man will be bringing a supper soon," Gabriel said. "Put the wig back on. He's discreet, but it's better to go by the book when we're able." He cleared his throat. "They've set Julian's trial, Riana."

"When?" She fixed the wig, tucking hair under it where it had come loose.

Gabriel reached up and straightened it a bit, and tucked a stray wisp of blond into place. "Tuesday a week. It seems your husband met up with an enemy of his who gloated over it. He threatened to vote for hanging."

"I'll lie," Tynan said grimly. "Tell him that I stand to inherit if Julian hangs."

"Inherit?" Adriana frowned. "You know that's not possible."

"What difference, if it tempers his desire to hang your brother."

"Have you any other enemies we should be appraised of?"

"None I can think of."

A knock sounded, and a servant entered, bearing a platter of cheeses and meats and pickles, along with a fresh loaf of brown bread. Gabriel asked him to bring ale, and they occupied themselves with the food until he returned. When he had again departed, closing the door behind him, Tynan prompted, "Tell me of Malvern."

Adriana glanced at Gabriel, who gave a slight nod. She plucked out a chunk of cheese and took a bit of it, then began. "It was the first year I came to London, five years ago. I was presented to the King and Queen. Malvern was there."

She told the story simply, hesitantly at first, then with more courage. Malvern, glimpsing her at Court, had pursued her relentlessly for months. Each time she attended a rout or a ball or open days at Court, he appeared. He flattered her, charmed her, professed love upon sight.

For a moment she paused, examining an olive as she remembered all of it. "I resisted very prettily for the longest time," she said, "but he was very… persuasive."

"So he led you down a merry path, did he?"

Adriana glanced at Gabriel, who gave her a secretive little half smile, his tongue firmly in his cheek. "Well, not exactly," she said, and closed her eyes. "I was… headstrong."

"Were?"

"Am." She raised her eyes. "I am headstrong. Perhaps it was losing my mother so young. Perhaps it was Martinique. I let my senses carry me away." She paused, unable to look at either of them. "And once the breach was crossed… we… I…" She winced. "I lost my head."

Tynan listened without expression as she talked, at first hesitantly, then with more certainty as she told a tale much like he'd expected. A debauched rake intent on having his way with a young virgin. Malvern had pursued her relentlessly for months, appearing at every rout and concert, finding ways to discover where she would be every moment.

But even as he listened, Tynan found his attention more on Adriana herself than upon the tale. It was odd to look at her in a wig and coat. As much as he disliked admitting it, even to himself, she mocked men very well in it. The dark wig gave her a pallor much as the black bombazine had, and underscored the shadows beneath her eyes, making her look the young rake who spent too many nights gaming and drinking and wenching. Somehow she had managed to hide her beautiful breasts beneath a buttoned waistcoat that was too large for her.

The biggest surprise was the way she had shed all the small, betraying gestures of a woman, the delicate nibbling of a corner of bread, the graceful tilt of a head, the careful, self-aware mannerisms of a sex that were constantly examined. As if the coat carried some magic, Adriana moved with long strides and her gestures were wider, and she bit with gusto into the meat, tearing into it without self-consciousness.

It was only her hands that would betray her. They were long and white and graceful, so delicate of bone that they could only belong to a woman. He did not know why, but found himself oddly moved by the sight of them, draped in lace, moving so beautifully as she talked. He did not think he'd ever noticed them before.

She paused in her tale, closed her eyes, and continued. "I will not lie to you, Spenser," she said quietly.

"When at last I fell to his charms, I no longer cared for the opinions of the wider world. I thought only with my senses."

"Did you believe he would marry you?"

She peered into the distance, face sober. "No," she said, and met his eyes.

A pain, one for which he could not find a source, burned in him at that. "I see."

She sighed. "You asked for the story. If I am dishonest, what point is there?"

He nodded. "How long did this go on?"

"A few months." She reached for Gabriel's hand, and he gave it easily.

Again Tynan felt a sense of loss for his own brother, and he was glad, however he felt about his wife, that she had her brothers to stand for her.

"And there it went very sour. He was not content to simply move on. First, he cut me very publicly, to embarrass me, I suppose. And then he—"

"And then he bragged," Gabriel said. "Julian heard him and called him out."

"And killed him," Tynan concluded.

"Yes," Adriana said.

Silence dropped, a very loud silence, it seemed to Tynan, echoing as it did with that very dramatic season five years before. He could not look at them.

It pained him to imagine what his mother would have made of all this, and what Aiden would have thought of this story.

He wrestled with his shock over marrying such a woman, and with the shame of finding he was not as forgiving as he'd always believed. If, by some miracle, he found a seat in the Commons to buy, how could he hold up his head in the company of those men? How could he sit at the head of a table full of guests, and wonder what lay in the minds of the men as they looked at his wife?

Ah, pride. A deadly, deadly sin.

"If you wish to annul the marriage, sir," Adriana said quietly, "I would not stand in your way."

He jerked up his head. She reached up and slid the wig off, as if removing all masks, and met his eyes with composed dignity. "I would prefer it to the grim prospect of sharing my life with a man who holds me in contempt."

He did not speak immediately, and suddenly all the confusion of the day's events cleared away. "No annulment," he said. "On the contrary, Lady Adriana, I was blessed to have fallen into your realm, so I might be taught the smallness of my own nature." With as much dignity as he could muster, he rose. "Excuse me."

He left them without looking back, walked out of the room and out of the shop, into a night as cold as winter on the sea. Through the dark streets he strode, remorse in his heart, strode past small fires burning in dark little squares, past alleys that would have made a much larger man tremble in fear. He sometimes heard the scrabble of footsteps and half hoped a thief or cutthroat would dare tackle him, for he would welcome the relief of a physical scuffle.