Cates, Kimberly (39 page)

The earl, who had kept up lively banter to distract his brother from the pain, now prowled the chamber like a caged animal, his face grim, his gray eyes filled with sorrow. Fletcher, having delivered little Will to his mother's arms, huddled in the corner, face tear-streaked as a child, forced for the first time to acknowledge that even the greatest heroes were mortal. Juliet sat on the bed at Adam's side, holding his uninjured hand in both her own.

He feigned a carelessness, as if his whole identity did not hang in the balance. Sabrehawk—the sobriquet that had masked the hated label of bastard for so long.

Yet when the doctor spoke, Adam's fingers tightened around Juliet's.

"I'm so very sorry, sir," the gnomelike medical man said with a shake of his head. "There is little I can do. The tendons are badly damaged. Perhaps some day we'll have the knowledge to repair them, but now..."

Juliet's heart plunged, a thick knot of tears in her throat. Dear God, what she had cost him in that moment he'd plunged his hand between her face and Rutledge's blade. Had he known the sacrifice he was making even then?

A choked sob broke from Fletcher's throat, and she saw Gavin cross to his brother, one hand squeezing Adam's shoulder. There were tears in the nobleman's eyes.

"In time, you might be able to curl your fingers," the doctor said. "But as for anything as strenuous as wielding a sword—you'll never be able to exert that much force again."

Juliet's breast filled with unbearable grief, as if something had died,
someone
had died. She had cost Jenny so much, had sent her father out to die alone on an Irish road. Now she had cost Adam his sword.

She released his hand, stood up, and paced to the window to hide the tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Gav." Adam's voice sounded just a little tight. "You'll have to break out your finest bottle of brandy and send it to a Major David Weatherly with my compliments."

The earl turned to him, surprised, yet Juliet knew Gavin Carstares would send the man his last drop of blood if his brother asked for it. "Weatherly? Who is he?"

"The best swordsman I ever fought. Came damned near to beating me on more than one occasion. It's only fair to let the man know what he's just been condemned to."

"And what is that?" Gavin asked.

"A scourge more irritating than the Seven Plagues of Egypt. From now on I'll be sending all these brainless young fledglings eager to match swords with a legend to fight him."

"I'll see to it." The earl's voice broke over the words. "Adam, I..."

"I know." Pain, understanding, and gratitude were rough in those simple words. They pierced Juliet to the core.

She listened as the doctor left, the earl following in his wake. Fletcher drew near, anguish in the lad's voice. "You'll always be a hero in my eyes. After all you've done—"

"No, boy. All I want is to be your friend. That means more to me than any hero laurel ever could."

"You are more than that. The father I never had. I... love you. Is it weak of me to say it?"

"Loving doesn't make you weak, boy. It only makes you stronger. Juliet taught me that. I watched so many lads like you die. If only one could be spared, I thank God you were the one. Fletcher—
Kieran
—my sword is over on that table. I won't be needing it anymore. I would be honored if you would take it. After all, I won't be with you in the colonies to watch your back."

Fletcher crossed to the table, picked up the blade. And Juliet knew it was Adam's way of sending a piece of his heart with the boy he'd come to love as his own. A legacy of hope, of trust, of faith. Not the burden Adam's father had cast onto his two sons. "Now, get the devil out of here, boy, and give an old soldier some peace."

Fletcher peered down at Adam a long moment, a glance that understood all, forgave all. Then he walked from the room, leaving Juliet and Adam alone at last.

"Juliet?"

"I'm here Adam." She dashed her tears away with her knuckles and came to the side of his bed.

"Don't cry, angel."

"I can't help it. Your hand—"

Tears fell free, a hot ball of anguish in her chest. He smiled, but there was so much tenderness in it she couldn't bear it.

"I should never have gone back to the garden. It was just that when Elise told me what you were doing—that you were resurrecting Angel's Fall—I could hardly believe it. I wanted to find you, tell you how much I... oh, Adam, why? Why are you doing this for me?"

"I discovered I believe in you, lady. Too damned bad I didn't figure it out until after the fire, when everything was gone. The night we came here to Glenlyon House, I went to look at a portrait in Gavin's study. My mother, when she was sixteen—young and beautiful, full of hope."

"She was on a swing," Juliet said softly. "Laughing. I saw it when I asked his lordship for a horse."

"She loved my father to desperation, and I suppose the fact that she'd lay with him was inevitable. But I kept thinking that afterward, after my father had bent to his family's will and married Gavin's mother, after my mother's family had disowned her... that maybe, if she'd had somewhere like Angel's Fall, where she could go to think, to be safe, she could have found the precious gift you've given me. A second chance."

"Oh, Adam—"

"Maybe she would still have chosen the same path. Maybe my father's love was worth all the scorn and pain from the rest of the world. But I would have liked her to have that choice. And I realized that she did not. Once my father had taken her to his bed, she was completely in his power. And even with the greatest love, that is a terrifying thing."

Juliet touched his face. "I'm just so sorry. I—"

"No. No more tears, no more regrets. Don't you see? I might never wield a sword, but I can still touch you, feel you." Adam looked away. "Of course, if you have to mourn something, you might just think what you've done to my reputation."

"I—I know, I—"

"Oh, not the Sabrehawk nonsense. My reputation as a hell-raising rogue. It's in tatters. No self-respecting scoundrel will ever speak to me again. I've betrayed them most dreadfully."

"Did you?"

"Falling in love is unconscionable. I fear there's no help for it. You'll have to marry me."

Joy leapt in Juliet's heart, then her brow creased, troubled. "Adam, you don't have to. Marry me, I mean."

"It's the only way I can think of to keep you out of trouble. Not enough room for both of us in a barrel, and as often as I plan to make love to you, I prefer to do it in the comfort of a bed."

She wanted so much to kiss him, to bind him to her forever, her most fervent wish come true. But she couldn't bear the thought of doing so if it would somehow imprison the spirit of this wild reckless wanderer. "But you've spent a lifetime adventuring, traveling the world. I couldn't bear it if you were unhappy, tied to one place, and..." He could never know how much the next words cost her. "And to one woman. You might get bored, weary."

"Bored with you running amok?" Adam's chuckle choked off in a gasp of pain, and he clutched his healing ribs. "My love, I've been on battlefields that seemed downright serene in comparison to the last few weeks under your roof."

The words stung just a little. Heat flooded her cheeks, and she looked away.

"Juliet." He rasped her name with infinite tenderness, catching up her hand in his uninjured one. "I'm a soldier. Gruff and hard-mannered. I've spent a lifetime hiding my feelings behind a jest. But that doesn't mean the feelings aren't there, beneath. I love you, angel. Want to be your husband. I want to make love to you every night and fill you with my babes. Babes I'd never even dreamed might exist until I saw them smiling at me from your eyes."

"Oh, Adam! But are you certain? I mean, just because of your hand... do you... I mean, are you—"

"So that's what you're afraid of. Juliet, I'd decided to lay down my sword before I faced Rutledge. In the new place I've bought for Angel's Fall, there are two houses and I'm having a sheltered corridor built between. One for the ladies, and the other... I'd hoped, dreamed that if you could ever forgive me—" He swallowed hard, his voice rough with emotion. "I want to build a home there. I want to lay down all my anger and bitterness and build something real and lasting."

His good hand cradled her cheek, ever so gently.

"I ran away to war, wanting to forget. Who I was, what I'd cost my mother, even the resentment I felt toward the brother I loved more than anyone else in the world. But every time I swung my sword, it was still there. The enemy wasn't at the opposite end of my sword, it was inside me. There was no escaping it."

His eyes burned with love, stripped bare, all the more precious because she knew what it cost him to reveal it to her. "For the first time you've given me something I want to remember. You loved me. You, an angel so far above my touch it seemed almost sacrilege to dare to love you, let alone seek a future with you."

"I'm not an angel, Adam. I'm a woman, one who loves you so much."

He tangled his fingers through her hair, drawing her mouth to his, taking her in a fierce hungry kiss that told her a thousand things he could never say. "Marry me."

"I'll marry you this minute if you want me."

"And deprive your angels of fitting you out as a bride? I may be notorious for my courage, but even Sabrehawk isn't
that
brave. Still, it's a relief that you love me, my angel." He grinned, pulling her down into his arms. Twin devils danced in his eyes. "After all, a man can't spend his whole life living in sin."