Julia London 4 Book Bundle (36 page)

The rare heat of shame crept under his collar as Adrian held her in a tight embrace.

And then she abruptly jerked backward to gaze up at him with eyes filled with wonder. “
When
? Did you just discover it, just now? You … you just opened your eyes, and it had returned?” she asked breathlessly.

Oh God, he wanted to tell her that was
exactly
how it had happened. “Not precisely,” he muttered. “Actually … it’s been several days now.”

Her eyes widened; that luscious mouth of hers fell open as her hands slowly slid from his neck and fell heavily to her sides. “Several days?” He nodded. She continued to stare at him, apparently unable to fathom the fact that he could see. But then her breast began to rise and fall, and she deliberately stepped back, slipping out of his arms. She could fathom it, all right.

“I can explain—” he said hastily.

“You
lied
to me!”

Adrian winced; he looked to the lake, to where the dogs were still sniffing about. “I didn’t
lie
to you. I just wasn’t certain.”

“You weren’t certain?” she asked, her voice full of disbelief.

I wasn’t certain the peace would not end.
“I … I wasn’t certain it was
real.
It came back in pieces, really, and I wasn’t … I had to be certain it was real,” he said, cringing at how ludicrous that sounded.

“B-but … can you see? I mean, can you see everything?” she asked, clearly confused.

“I can.”

“Your sight is fully restored? You have no question of it?”

“None.”

“And you’ve been able to see for several days?” she asked, her voice falling to a whisper.

He hesitated. “Yes.”

A range of emotions flicked across her eyes before she abruptly pivoted on her foot, marching for the blanket she had spread. Adrian quickly followed, feeling awkward and guilty. “You weren’t certain it was
real
?” she shrieked, and bent, grabbing a corner of the blanket and jerking it upward. Bread and cheese went flying into the grass along with two crystal goblets and a wine vessel. “What were you unsure about, Adrian? Was the grass not green enough? The sky not blue? You see the entire world around you, and you are not certain it is
real
? I cannot
believe
you would hide this from me!”

Adrian grabbed her wrist as she tried to fold the blanket. “You think that is so ridiculous?” he breathed. “Do you know what it is like to lose your sight, Lilliana? Have you
any
idea what it means to be thrust into total darkness, to be forced to learn how to live again? My sight came to me gradually, in pieces—and as ridiculous as you may think it is, I could not be completely certain that my mind wasn’t playing some cruel trick on me! I had to be certain!”

Lilliana jerked her wrist from his grasp and wound
the blanket up into a big ball, which she promptly tossed aside. “I can understand how shocking it must have been to regain your sight!” she said, fighting mightily to contain her composure. “But what I cannot understand is how you could keep that from me! And for so long, Adrian—days? Pardon, but it feels like
you
are playing a cruel trick on
me!
”

“No, Lilliana,” he said evenly, and reached for her hand.

She lurched backward, out of his reach. “How many days? How many days have you watched me, pretending to be blind, knowing that I would give you my eyes if I could? How long have you known?” she demanded hysterically.

Dumbstruck, Adrian blinked. He had no good answer for that, no way to explain how his lie had spiraled out of control, how he had looked for the perfect moment to tell her, knowing every hour that passed was damning. “I have known it was real for at least four days now,” he admitted. “Maybe five.”

Lilliana gasped. Raw confusion blanketed her eyes as they wildly roamed his chest. “Five
days
?” she squeaked. “Oh no. Oh no … do not tell me you could see … the other night, when I was bathing.…” She looked up and peered helplessly at him, her green eyes wide with mortification. Adrian had never despised himself more than he did at that moment. He did not dare to answer. He did not
need
to answer. Her cheeks blushed furiously as she dropped her gaze. “And in the orangery, I suppose,” she muttered weakly. When he declined to answer, one fat tear slipped from her eye and trailed to her mouth. “Did you enjoy yourself?” she asked hoarsely.

“Oh
God
, please let me explain,” he moaned.

“You already have,” she said bitterly, and stooped to pick up the basket. “You have explained quite clearly, actually.” She dropped the basket and pierced him with a scathing look. “You didn’t trust me enough to tell me
the truth. And you
spied
on me, Adrian! How could you? How
dare
you?”

“Take a deep breath, Princess,” he said frantically, “try to be calm.”

“Don’t you
dare
tell me to be calm!” she shouted, and whirled away from him. Picking up her skirts, she began running for the house, oblivious to the dogs nipping playfully at her hem.

Lilliana ran, blinded by frustration and shock. Turbulent emotions roared through her heart—the joyous relief upon realizing he had regained his sight warred with a cruel sense of betrayal. How could he have kept this from her? After everything they had become in the last two months, how could he have so ruthlessly
spied
on her? Those moments she had thought she was private, when she believed she soared—he had been
watching
her!

She ran until she reached the manor grounds, stopping just below the gardens to press her hand to a stitch in her side as she tried to catch her breath.

“Lilliana? Are you all right?”

Oh God, not now, not today.
Lilliana turned reluctantly toward the sound of the voice. “Benedict,” she gasped. “We weren’t expecting you.”

He came forward, his hand falling on the small of her back as he leaned over to peer in her face. “What have you done, run from the lake?” he asked. “What on earth is the matter?”

Perhaps it was the concern in his voice, or maybe just the need to hear the truth spoken out loud. “It’s … it’s Adrian! He can see!” she said, and instantly pressed her hand against the stabbing pain in her side. “Everything! Every blasted thing around us, he can
see!
” She caught a sob in her throat and swallowed hard against the emotion boiling within her.

Benedict did not immediately respond. His hand slipped around her waist, and he attempted to pull her into an embrace, but she resisted. He settled for stroking her arm. “There now, Lillie,” he said softly. “This is
wonderful news. I should think you would be happy for him.”

“I
am
happy for him! I am ecstatically happy! God knows how I have prayed for such a miracle!” she cried.

“Then what has you so upset?”

“He didn’t tell me! He has known for days, and he didn’t
tell
me!”

“Do you mean to say …” He paused. “Dear God, he didn’t
tell
you? I thought surely … But never mind. The important thing is that he
has
regained his sight.”

He thought surely … 
what
? Lilliana snapped her head up to look at him; Benedict’s brown eyes flicked to her lips. “You thought surely what?” she demanded.

He shrugged; a queer smile snaked his mouth. “This is wonderful news, of course—”

“You thought
what
?” she demanded again, and slapped his hand from her arm, stumbling backward.

“I thought surely he would tell you before now,” he said slowly.

Impossible! Adrian had told
Benedict
? He had confided in his brother when he had last called, but not his wife? Painful fury shot through her. “Would you have me believe you knew?” she asked, her voice breaking.

“Ah, Lillie, I hate to see you so distraught.”

“Did you know?”
she shrieked.

Benedict shrugged helplessly. “I am his brother.”

That was it? That was his explanation for Adrian’s lie to her—that he was his brother? By God, what was
she
? Some country bumpkin who happened to live at Longbridge? What a colossal fool she was! AH those nights she had lain in his arms convinced that he loved her as much as she loved him! She
knew
better than to believe a leopard could change his spots!

Infuriated, she began marching toward the house.

“Lilliana! Wait!” Benedict called. “Believe me, I have tried to tell you!”

That brought her up short. She jerked around and raked a scathing glare across him. “You have tried to tell
me
what
?” she snapped. “That my husband could actually see me when I thought I was private?”

“I tried to tell you that he could not be trusted,” he said gruffly. Unwilling and unable to hear his insinuations now, Lilliana rolled her eyes and continued toward the house. Benedict caught up to her. “I tried to tell you, but you would not listen! Lilliana, I have known him all my life! Adrian thinks of no one but himself—he cannot be trusted, he has alienated everyone who ever loved him, and he will lie to you without thought or reason!”

“What in God’s name are you doing?” she exclaimed, and halted midstride to face him. “Why do you seek to denigrate him?”

“
Denigrate
him? Are you truly so naive? I am trying to keep you from hurt! My only hope is that you will understand him as I do so you will not allow yourself to be hurt by him! Lilliana,
think
about it! He has never been truthful! Do you know why he married you? Do you
truly
know why?”

She faltered, ashamed to admit that she did.

“It was sick revenge,” Benedict continued hastily. “A strike against me because Father had disowned him. Oh, I am sure he has told you that Father is overbearing, distrustful, and God knows what else! Believe me, I have heard it many times! But on my honor, my father raised him like his very own son! He gave him every opportunity, every chance to be his heir, and Adrian squandered every one! It was
he
who caused the rift between them,
not
Father! It was
he
who had a quarrel with Rothembow, not the other way around! He will twist everything to suit his own ends, including something as tragic as his blindness! Why do you think he didn’t tell you?”

“I … I don’t know,” Lilliana stammered helplessly.

Benedict grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “For chrissakes, Lilliana, open your eyes! Why didn’t he tell you? To keep you exactly where he wanted you, don’t you see that? He
needed
you! If you left him, Father’s chances in the courts would be much improved, for what
wife would leave her husband? It is unheard of, and it would prove he cannot provide as he should!”

No!
This was too fantastic, complete madness—she shook her head, but Benedict stubbornly dug his fingers into her shoulders. “Appearances mean much to the peerage, Lilliana. He needed you by his side for the sake of appearances. Nothing more!”

Everyone around her was mad, she thought frantically, and something … 
something
did not make sense. “If you care so much for me, why didn’t
you
tell me?” she demanded.

Benedict immediately let go, frowning at her. “Because he told me in the strictest of confidence, and I am a man of my word. Besides, you are
his
wife, not mine,” he ground out. “It was not my place.”

There was something in the way he said it, a twinge of bitterness that did not ring true. “Excuse me.” She stepped around him and hurried on to the house, suddenly sick to death of the Spence family and their mysteries.

Their mysteries kept her pacing in her rooms for the better part of the afternoon. Twice she turned Adrian away, too confused and hurt to speak to him. Frantic, she tried to find a plausible reason why he would keep his sight from her, trying gamely not to think about other secrets he might have kept from her. And then there was Benedict—as detestable as his words were, could he be telling the truth?
The truth is that my father raised him as his very own son.
Could Adrian lie so easily?
Adrian is not to be trusted.
She could not help herself; she questioned everything he had ever told her. The sad tales about his mother, about Phillip Rothembow. Was any of it true?

One of the Spence brothers was lying to her.

All right, all right, she had to
think.
One of them was lying. Certainly Adrian was—his so-called blindness was a testament to his lies. No,
she
was the one who had been blind to everything around her.
She
was the one
who had stupidly married for freedom and the chance to soar. But marriage was not about freedom, it was about honesty. And loyalty and commitment—concepts that had never crossed her mind until now. These concepts struck at her with a vengeance now because she understood she had signed over her fate to the notion of
amusement!

Well, there you had it. Everything that soars must eventually come down. She had come down, all right, like the little sparrow that had plummeted to earth in her mother’s garden. Adrian had lied to her while garnering her deepest sympathies. And in the course of it, he had blithely enchanted her, had made her fall hopelessly in love with him.

Oh, and there was Benedict, too, always charming, always
present
, doing nothing that would suggest he would be lying. But something about him rang false. Could it be Benedict’s own need for revenge had caused him to try and poison the well of her feelings for Adrian?

And swirling in the middle of it all was the question of Adrian’s birth. His birth was the very root of dissension between the two brothers, the very reason Adrian had married her to avenge the loss of his inheritance. Yet even here—there was something about the supposition that Adrian was illegitimate that did not seem quite right. It was nothing more than a vague intuition that had been bothering her, but—

Polly.

It was Polly! Lilliana suddenly realized. Adrian had said his mother was an only child. Polly often spoke of the
girls.
Lilliana suddenly pitched for the door of her rooms and went in search of her lady’s maid.