Cates, Kimberly (16 page)

Slade's sensual lips curved in a smile dripping with derision. "I doubt we move in the same circles. But it's possible we've met, I suppose. Have you locked horns with my philanthropic half-brother, the Earl of Glenlyon? I recall dropping in to watch him battle the rest of the House of Lords on one or two occasions."

"Glenlyon?" Darlington echoed. "The traitor?"

"Not
the
Glenlyon." Miss Stonebridge asked, a fervent glow in her cheeks. "The gentleman who saved so many poor children in Scotland? He was pardoned for his courage."

"In case you've forgotten, Annemarie," the duchess said, "the Scots were in rebellion at the time. They brought Armageddon down on their own heads. Why, your own cousin was injured in the fighting."

"I know, Mama. But I hardly think the children had any choice in the matter."

Juliet found herself liking the duchess's daughter immensely as the girl braved her mother's displeasure.

"I was so glad to hear that some of them had been spared," Miss Stonebridge said with tender ardor.

"Annemarie!" Darlington snapped. "I will not have you conversing with this interfering scoundrel. Now, sir." He turned a scathing glare on Adam. "I asked you a question!"

"You might be careful of the tone you ask it in,
sir.
Since the most likely place you might have seen me is at a salon of swordsmanship. My name is Adam Slade. Otherwise known as Sabrehawk." Adam bowed with an elegant flourish and flashed his most diabolical grin.

What an unholy pleasure he took in seeing the reaction that name garnered, not just among a low-born mob, but here, as well, amidst the most powerful in the land. And, God forgive her, elation flooded her as well as Darlington's lips tightened, the other guests in his box gasping and murmuring recognition.

She had seen Adam Slade do battle before, but this time was different. The hard glaze on his eyes was fiercer, his mouth the feral slash of a warrior defending something precious. Or
someone
precious. The notion thrilled her, stunned her, terrified her.

"Adam, please!" she said, grasping the iron-honed muscles of his arm. "There is no need to pursue this further! I wish to leave! I—I want to see the fireworks."

"Astonishing." He slanted her a glance beneath lashes as thick and curled as a child's, made all the more dauntingly masculine on that rough-hewn face. "You create so many wherever you go, I'd think the fascination would have palled. However, I am at your service. But before we go, I wish to make something clear to His Lordship, here."

Dark eyes pierced Darlington's arrogant mask, searing him with a warning so intense it made Juliet's knees quake. "I am a particular friend of Miss Grafton-Moore's. And of Miss Elise as well. I will consider any further harassment on your part a personal affront. And I can assure you, I have no aversion to wetting my hands with an enemy's blood, should the need arise."

"I would not lower myself to shed my blood over a harlot and a whorekeeper." Darlington sneered. "But it's no wonder you're neck deep in them." A cruel spark lit the backs of the nobleman's eyes. "Ah, yes, Slade. I remember you now, the stories about you and your sordid origins. A harlot's blood flows in your veins."

Adam didn't flinch, didn't move, but Juliet felt a jolt of emotion shooting through his body, savage, tearing, fierce—anger, and yet something more.

Pain?

The possibility slayed her, left her bleeding for him.

Lord, was it possible that proud, fierce Adam was the son of such a woman? If so, it was a gaping chink in Adam Slade's emotional armor, one Darlington had pierced with a poison-tipped lance.

She wanted nothing more than to get Adam away from this place, to shield him—of all the ridiculous, impossible urges, that she might be able to protect this strapping mountain of a man from biting words.

"Adam, please," Juliet said, her voice trembling at the force of emotion she sensed in him. "Please."

His eyes cleared just a whisper, those dark depths glancing down at her. And she perceived in that instant that he wanted to fight his lordship. Fight to obliterate whatever dark emotion had engulfed him in that moment. Fight forever to keep it at bay.

She reached up, laying her fingertips upon that stubborn jut of jaw, her thumb skimming the faint scar that marred his face. A scar that hinted at one she sensed cut far deeper.

He jerked a little in surprise, then stilled, like a wild thing experiencing its first fleeting communion with another creature. And in that instant, she sensed him wrestling his demons under control, and knew somehow that she had won.

He sucked in a steadying breath, his voice a low growl as he turned back to the nobleman. "It seems the lady wishes to escape your company. Don't forget my warning, Darlington."

"I'll try to remember, Slade." Darlington scowled at Adam, then Juliet felt the nobleman's gaze fix on her, cold, arrogant.

"Miss Grafton-Moore, don't forget my promise."

Juliet shivered, all but hauling Adam to the door. But even as she stepped into the night, she could still feel the hot press of Darlington's eyes upon her back.

Chapter 8

Night air struck Adam's face, cool and scented of wind and dusk-shadowed blossoms from the gardens just visible by the light of colored lanterns. He sucked in a deep breath, but it did nothing to soothe the raw places the encounter with Darlington had raked open somewhere beneath the crusty layer of warrior he fought so hard to hide behind.

He held Juliet's hand tighter, so tight he almost feared he'd bruise her. But he couldn't will himself to let go. He had to cling to something, someone, had to clutch tight to safer forms of anger so that the true reason for his rage could stay where it belonged. Buried in the deep hole a boy had dug inside his heart years ago.

"Adam, please. I can't keep up," Juliet cried, stumbling. "I know you're angry, but—"

"Angry? I'd like to wring your meddling little neck! How the devil am I supposed to guard you when you go racing off in the middle of the night like some accursed crusader? Attacking someone like Darlington, for God's sake. And you didn't even bring your parasol to spear him."

"I agreed you could stay at Angel's Fall. I didn't agree to allow you to interfere in my work."

"And what I just witnessed was your
work?
It's a miracle you've survived a year! Blast, do you have any idea how far- reaching Darlington's power is? Someone like Mother Cavendish and her surly mob might be swept up by the authorities and tossed in prison for harming you, but Darlington—he could have you destroyed with a snap of his fingers and no one—
no one
—would dare bring him to trial—that is, if they could even catch him."

"He's nothing but bluster. Preying on the weak. Something I believe I showed him that I am not."

"No, you just raked up all that muck in front of his betrothed—his very
rich
betrothed. Made things dashed uncomfortable."

"I hope Miss Stonebridge refuses to wed him! The girl would have made a grand escape."

"Don't hold your breath. Marriages in the aristocracy are planned out like the siege of a fortress, down to the tiniest detail. Properties, dowries, and matching the appropriate bloodlines are far more important than such trifling matters as being a cruel, stinking, cowardly son of a bitch who preys on women. The duchess will have her daughter hustling up the aisle with Darlington before the year is out. It's just that the poor girl will know earlier than most what a villain her husband is."

A gasp from a gaggle of passersby made Adam glance over to see that they were once again the center of attention. Growling an oath, he hauled Juliet across the grassy lawn to where a towering oak spread a canopy of green, a brace of colored lanterns bobbing from low-hanging branches.

"You were every bit as outraged as I was on Elise's behalf, Adam Slade. I could hear it in your voice, see it, sense it. You wanted to fight—"

"Of course I wanted to fight. I adore fighting. Have since I was a grubby-faced boy. Nothing more fun than bashing and thrashing. And God knows, no one's better at it than I am. Made me a bloody fortune."

"The question is, what are you fighting for?" She peered up at him, eyes huge and earnest in the lantern light.

"I just told you. Money. Perhaps a little fame."

"Or perhaps there is another reason."

Adam squirmed inwardly, pinned by the solemnity in that soft oval face. "Bloody hell! Don't you dare start trying to unscrew the top of my head and peer inside, madam. I'm not one of your fallen angels."

"But your mother could have been."

Adam felt the blood drain from his face, forced himself to release her hands. "Blast, my secret is out." He struck his brow with bitter sarcasm. "It's true. I'm a bastard— by birth as well as by temperament. Conceived in sin, born on the wrong side of the blanket. Are you shocked, Juliet?"

He'd wanted to disgust her, to knock the compassion from her eyes, but her gaze only darkened with understanding.

"I don't mean to judge, Adam. I'm just saying you bear no fault in your birth. It was your mother's choice—"

"My mother is doing just fine, thank you very much. She's the mistress of a large estate with so much wealth she couldn't spend it in three lifetimes. I hardly expect she'll be showing up on your doorstep anytime soon."

No, the possibility was as remote as Adam himself, arriving at the manor house at Strawberry Grove.

"You're right to be annoyed with me. It's none of my affair. It's just—I hurt for you when Darlington was so cruel."

"I don't give a damn what that fop says." Adam gave a harsh laugh. "Juliet, when you're born a bastard, you have two choices. Go into a towering rage every time you hear the word, or laugh in people's faces when they fling it at you."

"But you weren't laughing inside, Adam."

He should have roared with laughter, should have cast out some witty, biting words to distract her. But her perception lanced through the hard shell of mockery, cynicism, years of denial, leaving him stunned. Only one other person in his life had realized that truth, slipped past his guard to discover the raw place, the vulnerable place he'd struggled so hard to conceal.

Gavin—his half-brother, the boy who had been his nemesis, the youth who had been his conscience, the man who was the person Adam loved most in this infernal world. Gavin, who had seen but never spoken about the pain, the hurt, the isolation of bastardy, any more than Adam had spoken of Gavin's secret pain—the fact that their father had quietly despised his true-born son.

"Adam?" Juliet's hand, angel-soft, warm, curved over his jaw, her thumb tracing ever so delicately the ridge of the faded scar. His jaw knotted beneath her touch, a touch so searingly tender his chest ached. "I don't mean to poke about in something painful. It's just... I want you to know that it doesn't matter to me that you were born out of wedlock. It can never change the man you are."

"What's this? The bright angel granting me absolution?" He should have laughed at the absurdity. Might have, if it weren't for the strange tightness in his throat.

"Juliet, Juliet, don't bleed for me. My life was far better than most. My father loved my mother, and they raised a batch of children together. There was always plenty of coin—a stable full of horses, presents and trinkets, the best to be had—to make up for the fact that we didn't carry his name. And I was the luckiest of all."

"How?"

"I was the earl's favorite."

The knowledge should have given him some sense of satisfaction. Why was it then that the thought of his father made his stomach burn? Burn with frustration and anger and a hundred issues that could never be resolved between them.

"You must have loved your father very much."

"Too much." Adam closed his eyes against a hundred memories. How many times had he all but broken his fool neck in an attempt to impress the earl? Sometimes, when a sword flashed toward him and death glinted on its tip, he wondered if he was still trying to reach his father beyond the grave.

"It isn't a sin to love."

"The love between my parents was. But why did God plant such a raging seed of loving in their hearts if it was such a vile sin? For the entertainment of watching them suffer an eternity, not able to touch each other, possess each other the way their souls burned to?"

Juliet's cheeks flooded with color, and Adam wondered if this bright angel with her loving heart and generous spirit had any idea of the kind of passion that could exist between a man and a woman—hot, raw desire flaying to the very bone. Obsession so deep every breath drawn echoed in their beloved's heart. No, her one taste of physical passion had been the kiss he had forced upon her. But, God, the temptation to teach her...

"I don't pretend to understand the reasons why God gives us the challenges he does. But my papa—"

Adam shoved back the unexpected haze of need that tightened his loins, grasped bitterness and cynicism and safety. "Yes, your papa, the vicar. I'd wager he had all the answers. Our vicar certainly did. I remember the old curmudgeon letting loose a particularly nasty sermon on sins of the flesh one Sunday when my father wasn't at Strawberry Grove. My mother and all the rest of us children sitting there in the pew, while he rained fire and brimstone down on our heads."

He should have stopped, withdrawn, brushed her aside with a laugh. God alone knew what power goaded him to go on sharing things he'd never shared, speaking of things he'd never voiced even to his own brother. "The villagers looked down their noses. The only time they dared was when Father was away. They knew my mother would say nothing to him. She always did her damnedest to hide that kind of ugliness from him. That Sunday, she didn't turn so much as an eyelash. And after the service, she bid the vicar farewell the same way she always did, with a radiant smile."

"The vicar's cruelty must have hurt you very much."

"Hurt me? Bah! I've never believed in wasting time being miserable. No, I spent the whole service plotting vengeance—a much more productive business." A faraway smile nudged the corner of his mouth.