Cates, Kimberly (9 page)

He arched one dark brow, staring into Rutledge's wildly expectant features. "Waiting for the explosion, man? Sorry to have to disappoint you, but when you've been called
bastard
as many times as I have, the word loses its sting."

His mother's face, laughing and lovely, danced in his mind, and he wondered why the vile label
whore
never did.

"You find it amusing, do you? What an abomination you are?" Rutledge poked his bony nose inches from Adam's face. "You should be sickened by the tainted blood that runs through your veins! Animals like you destroy everything they touch, and now you've spilled your poison on an angel. Because of your interference, Mother Cavendish will make certain a special kind of hell awaits Miss Juliet. Even now, her beasts might be stalking Juliet, prowling in her garden, testing the locks on her windows."

The image speared icy slivers beneath Adam's skin, twisted his stomach into a hard knot of denial. But the image Rutledge painted was so clear—all the more nightmarish because it was anchored in a very real possibility.

Adam fought back the only way he knew how. His face contorted with raw scorn, mockery, the desire to lash back in him so thick and suffocating he couldn't resist it. "And I suppose
you
will prevent this disaster from befalling Miss Grafton-Moore?"

"I will do whatever I have to do to pluck Miss Juliet from the jaws of those demons. And as for you, you stay away from her, or else any horror that befalls her will be on your head!" The man whirled around in a sweep of crumpled frockcoat and a black haze of hatred.

And Adam cursed himself for his gift of reading emotions. Barnabas Rutledge might be a pompous fool, an enemy. But his warning about the dark fate that would befall Juliet Grafton-Moore had been the absolute truth.

Adam hadn't protected Juliet Grafton-Moore from danger when he'd driven Mother Cavendish's horde away. He'd brought Armageddon down on Juliet's head. He gave a savage tug at his neckcloth, feeling well and truly trapped. He'd had no choice but to interfere when the mob had descended on one lone woman. Blast, but he'd do the same thing again in a heartbeat. But there was no question he'd stirred the fires of violence hotter through his actions. Considering the damage he'd done, how the devil could he turn and walk away?

He levered himself to his feet, suddenly unable to bear the clamor of voices, the stench of unwashed bodies, the swirling thickness of smoke. He edged away from the table, his mind filled with images of an angel-face and a zealot's eyes, a flailing parasol and shining courage and the stark danger that awaited the woman who had owned them all. Danger deeper and darker and more chilling because of him.

One thing was certain. Juliet Grafton-Moore's enemies wouldn't wait long to close in for the kill. But when they struck, Adam resolved, he would be there, waiting. He had to get back to Angel's Fall before the unthinkable happened.

Growling an oath, he stalked toward the door. Adam didn't see the shadowy form steal up behind him, hear the barmaid's cry of warning. He only felt the skull-cracking pain as something heavy and hard shattered over his head.

Chapter 5

Juliet should have slept like a babe—she'd been exhausted for hours. And the confrontation with the mob had drained what little energy she'd had left after her busy day. But she lay for an eternity, hearing the tiny brass clock on the mantel tick, the spatter of rain beating on the roof tiles

She could still feel Adam Slade's presence, despite the vast city that doubtless now stretched between them. Despite walls of brick and the thick bolted doors that were supposed to block him out.

At last, she muttered the nearest thing to a curse she could muster, flung back the coverlets, and stalked to the windows beside her desk.

She should have enjoyed the rain immensely since there was a good possibility Slade was out in it. After all, she couldn't sleep, but at least she had the satisfaction of knowing that he was probably worse off, traipsing through muck and misery. But as she peered out into the night, she caught a glimpse of a little scullery maid running down the street under the meager shelter of a ragged petticoat.

Poor moppet, Juliet mourned, the child tugging at her heart. She must be chilled to her bones. More than one lady had come to Angel's Fall in such weather, led to the promise of a warm fire and a dry bed by the beacon that always glowed on the iron hook by the back gate. She hoped this child knew of the basket always sitting on the bench just inside the garden of Angel's Fall so she could tuck a warm bun into her pocket. Millicent had burned her finger baking a rather lopsided batch of them this afternoon.

Blast! Juliet flattened her palm against her aching brow, remorse a dull throb in her temples. For the first time in nine months she hadn't left a light burning, nor the basket of food tucked beneath a stone overhang for those who were hungry. And it was all because of that insufferable Adam Slade. He'd made her so angry, it was a wonder she could recall her own name.

She ground her teeth in irritation. Oh, well. It was too late now. She'd locked the back door, leaving strict orders it was not to be opened.

If, by some chance Slade had lingered, spent hours sleeping on marble benches or pebbled paths amid a miserable rain, he might storm his way into Angel's Fall and refuse to budge. Not to mention the fact that there might be other, more dangerous things lurking in the night, things promised in the scrawled notes that had haunted her nightmares.

She was tempted to crawl back between the covers and drag the pillow over her head. Far better to pretend she'd never thought about the basket than risk confronting Sabrehawk or some other enemy. But duty and guilt had been schooled into her at too young an age, and the little maid had looked so small and cold and hungry.

Merciful heavens, Slade was probably clear across the city by now, a flagon of ale in his hand, some lovely tavern-wench cooing and simpering over him like a ninny. And she doubted even Mother Cavendish could induce anyone to go stalking on such a dismal night.

Grumbling, Juliet gathered up a soft gray wool shawl that had been Elise's first effort at needlework and wrapped its folds about her shoulders. Propriety demanded that she should drag on her dress, but the thought of tangling with a mass of laces when her nerves were already so frazzled drove her to madness. She'd merely gather what she needed, slip out into the garden. She'd hang the lantern, leave the basket, and scoot back inside. She was being absurd. Between Slade and Mother Cavendish and the threatening notes, she'd soon be seeing maniacs behind every copse of shrubs. There was far greater danger of Isabelle catching her and giving her no peace for breaking her own edict.

Smiling ruefully at her own silliness, Juliet crept down the corridor, carefully avoiding boards that creaked, slipping past doorways where the rest of the ladies slept.

The stairs were trickier. At one deafening squeak, Juliet nearly jumped out of her skin, glancing over her shoulder as if she were indeed stealing out for a forbidden tryst. To meet with a lover...

She swallowed hard, a wistful sting of remembrance twisting inside her. There had been a time she had been like a sea of other girls, dreaming of just such romantic folly, pulses tingling at wondrous possibilities. Before she'd stepped out into the world beyond the vicarage at Northwillow. Before she'd realized that dreams could turn into disasters, that lives could be shattered, and that innocents could pay a price beyond imagining.

Jenny had run away, certain she was in love. But she'd given her heart to a man not worthy to touch the sole of her slipper. A man who had promised to wed her, but left her pregnant and alone, penniless and too ashamed even to seek shelter again at the vicarage.

After all, if Jenny's own parents vowed never to forgive her for the shame of kissing her dancing master, she couldn't have known Juliet and her father would welcome her back to Northwillow, swelling with a bastard child.

She couldn't know how desperate they'd been to find her, or how hard the vicar had searched.

It had been months after Juliet's father died that she got word of Jenny from a chimney sweep she'd helped. Jenny had died in childbirth in a rat hole like the one Mother Cavendish ran. And it had haunted Juliet's dreams, knowing that Jenny had suffered, afraid and alone, swallowed up by the city of London.

She'd seen a dozen Jennys since she'd arrived at Angel's Fall, and what she'd discovered since that time had made her certain of one thing. She never wanted to tangle her fate with that of a man. No grand adventure, no wild, romantic folly was worth the aftermath that could follow.

Besides, she told herself, she had not the slightest interest in Adam Slade
that
way. There was no reason to get all fluttery in her chest, no reason to dread one of the ladies discovering her on this late-night foray. After all, they knew the ritual with the lantern as well as she did.

She slipped into the kitchen, saw the banked coals glowing on the hearth. She drank in the scent of scorched bread that accompanied cooking lessons. Bending down, she lit a bit of straw upon a glowing coal and touched the tiny flame to the candle wick in the pierced-iron lantern. Dropping the straw onto the hearth, she shut the tiny tin door of the lantern to guard the flame, a pattern of dancing lights from the pierced pattern of holes darting like a bevy of fairies across the room.

Scooping up the basket she'd packed with buns and gingerbread, cheese and apples, earlier, and tucking a bit of canvas atop it to keep it dry, she slid back the bolt on the door.

Her fingers hesitated on the door latch for a moment before she steadied them in annoyance, and opened it. She'd planted every flower or herb that blossomed along the meandering paths. She'd fashioned nooks of bushes into quiet refuges where her ladies could go for self-reflection. She'd nurtured the most woebegone buds to show how they could blossom if given a little light. And, most cherished of all, she'd planted a knot-garden filled with herbs said to cure everything from heart palpitations to headaches to broken hearts.

The garden was as familiar to her as her features in the cracked surface of her mirror when she scrubbed her face each morning. But tonight, just the slightest possibility that Adam Slade might be prowling in any pool of shadow made it stranger, wilder. It took more effort than she could have imagined to step out of the warm dry kitchen onto the crushed-pebble path.

The storm was drifting away, back over the distant ribbon of the Thames river, the sky above sullen and bruised, growling distant thunder. A last smattering of rain dampened her face and chased a chill beneath her skin, a puddle splashing muddy water between her bared toes. She wanted to behave like a child, bracing herself to race to her papa's room after a nightmare, tucking the skirts of her nightgown up and pelting toward the back gate as swiftly and silently as if there were an entire battalion of dragons laying siege to the pathway.

But she steeled herself to walk with rigid dignity—no small feat considering she was already drooping and damp, spattered with raindrops the wind shook down from the trees, her feet clammy with mud. She was grateful it was no longer pouring, but it was just wet enough to make her miserable—a fitting punishment, no doubt, since she'd called the rain down on Adam Slade's head.

She grimaced. How ironic that would be, if Slade were warm and dry and drowning his frustrations in a flagon of ale, and a brace of Mother Cavendish's cohorts were skulking about.

"Fool," she muttered to herself, trying to hush the crunch of her footsteps against the pebbles. "Stop this nonsense at once. There is no reason to be imagining brigands behind every clump of gillyflowers."

Yet as she wound her way deeper into the shadows, she couldn't help wondering what lay beyond the wavering circle of light. Her pulse thundered by the time she reached the black iron gate, slick with moisture. Someone had locked it. Strange. Her brow furrowed. The gate had never been locked before. It had always been open to let people in. There could be two reasons to lock it—to lock enemies out or... to keep anyone inside from escaping.

A chill scuttled through her. No, she was being ridiculous. One of the women in the house had stolen out to bar the gate, nervous after the house had been stormed by the mob. Maybe Elise? Even if it were, it was impossible to scold Elise, what with the reflection of so much nameless terror in her doelike eyes.

Juliet tucked the basket into its sheltered nook and hung the lantern. With rain-slick fingers she wrestled the iron bolt, gritting her teeth at the squeal the hinges issued in protest as she swung the gate wide.

She heaved a sigh of relief until she turned to retrace her steps. Darkness. Thick. Impenetrable without the lantern. She curled her fingers so tight the nails cut into her palms. So what if it was dark? She knew the way back. She needed only to reach out her hand, search for familiar landmarks by touch. Casting one last glance back at the street, she began her trek, fingertips gliding over wet tree bark and trimmed hedges, the sides of stone benches and rather risque statues the house's former owner had left behind. Statues she'd draped modestly in togas of bedsheets.

She turned a corner, catching a glimpse of watery golden glow against the darkness, the subtle light from a hearth fire. It should have made her feel better, but it didn't. Alarm trickled down her spine. Was someone watching her?

Sabrehawk? Or one of Mother Cavendish's vile henchmen? No one in the house knew she had stolen outside. If anything should happen...

She hastened her step, bit her lip to keep from crying out when her bare toe smacked into a stone. Her hand sought the familiar roughness of a hedge row, then groped for the next landmark, a stone bench. Sensitive fingertips skimmed the surface, then collided with a beard-stubbled jaw. A scream froze in her throat as something sprang from the darkness, driving her off her feet.

She flew backward, struggling to scream, to escape, but an iron-hard claw clamped about her throat. She crashed to the ground, the beast landing atop her, something hard and pointed driving square in her chest, hammering the breath from her lungs in a desperate croak.