[Samuel Barbara] The Black Angel(Book4You) (10 page)

Adriana reached out and lay a white hand on the velvet sleeve of her brother. He raised his eyes to her, and Tynan saw the bleakness there. "You left someone behind, didn't you?" Adriana said softly. "
There
is the tale I would hear."

"No," he said harshly.

Her voice was soft. "As you wish." Her hand stayed there, on his sleeve, but she suddenly looked up and caught Tynan's gaze. For the first time there was nothing but the true woman, shining from the depth of those very blue eyes. Her mouth was sober, and he glimpsed again the sharp intelligence. And he had the sense that she welcomed his attention to this, that he, too, had glimpsed the burden on Julian's soul.

Tynan inclined his head ever so faintly, acknowledging her worry. Her gaze lingered one more brief moment, then she turned her head to hear Gabriel's story.

After a moment Julian regained his poise and pitched punctuation into the tale of shipwreck and adventure, and none would ever have known of the breach unless they'd seen it.

Adriana tried to keep her eyes from her husband during the meal, but as if he were a candle burning alone in a dark room, her eye was drawn to him again and again. In his dark coat and black hair, he seemed the very opposite of light, till one caught the flash of his white teeth or the glitter in his eyes or the sweeping gesture of a graceful, open palm. Each time she glanced his way, sometimes covertly, sometimes under guise of listening to a comment he made, it seemed she captured him at yet another dazzling moment—savoring a mouthful of braised carrots, fingering curiously the pattern on the silver, swirling his wine to smell the fragrance of it. He listened with intent and curiosity to the banter around him, but seemed to have little need to draw the attention of everyone, like so many men she had known. He was, it seemed, content to observe.

When the party moved into the music room after supper, it was no better. Adriana perched on a settee, tensely wondering if Tynan would sit beside her. He did not. Instead, accepting a glass of port offered by a footman, he sat in a hard chair across the room, directly in her line of vision. Her eyes strayed to the length of his thigh beneath close-fitting trousers, noting the simple, luxurious play of a long muscle when he moved his foot to brace it against the other knee. He lazily, slowly, sipped the port, and Adriana saw the delight in his face when the flavor hit his tongue, watched with a helpless sort of fascination as he lifted the glass again and inhaled the scent, his whole attention focused upon that glass and what it contained. Then he tasted it again, letting it linger in his mouth before he swallowed, that arching top lip drawing her eye.

At once alarmed at her staring, she shifted her attention to the family. Cleo, who had been practicing, took up the harp, and Gabriel tried his hand on the violin, laughing at first over his clumsiness. Soon enough he rediscovered the notes and fingerings, and Cassandra swirled up to take a seat at the pianoforte, one of several instruments at which she was expert. Like their mother, she was especially musical.

The music was sweet and lively and haunting by turns. Gabriel quickly found his pace, and Cleo leaned deep into the harp, her head cocked prettily. The notes entwined, and Ophelia began to sing a ballad in her sweet clear voice.

A ballad that was interrupted. Their butler, Duggett, appeared at the door, and not even the hands tucked behind his back could allay the worry on his face. "Lord Albury," he said to Julian. "You have a caller."

Julian scowled, and sent a glance toward Gabriel. "Who is it?"

Duggett hesitated only a brief moment. "The village magistrate, my lord. He insists he has most urgent business with you."

Adriana pressed a palm to the suddenly empty place below her ribs. "The magistrate!"

Julian stood. "Please continue," he said to the musicians. "I'll only be a moment."

Left to their own devices, the siblings would likely have trailed at least to the door, where they could overhear what transpired in the foyer. As it was, Gabriel took the lead firmly and swung into a lively favorite, a challenging piece from Mr. Clementi.

But Adriana, as the eldest daughter, had a right to join her brother, and she did so, lifting her chin haughtily as she went to the foyer. Horace Howser, the magistrate, was a small, red-faced man carrying a flat black hat. His brow, despite the cool evening, was dotted with perspiration at which he blotted with a snowy handkerchief. When he spied her, he bowed faintly. "Good evening, Lady Adriana. I do apologize, as I was telling your brother here, for interrupting a happy reunion, and especially for this unpleasantness, but I was told—"

"Please," Julian interrupted. "Just get to the business so we may return."

"Er, yes. Quite right." He twisted the brim of his hat in his hands, wiped his forehead once more. "I've been told to arrest you, sir, on charges of manslaughter." His face, already persimmon, deepened to a remarkable tomato shade. "Er, not that I'll be enforcing arrest, of course not, but I'd hoped you would spare me the necessity by agreeing to turn yourself in at London."

"Of course. It is not unexpected." Julian clapped him on the shoulder, cleverly turning the magistrate to the doors. "I'll send word we've arrived, and you needn't worry any more about it at all."

"Very good. Thank you. Good night." He bobbed his relief like a little fat duck. "Thank you."

And although the small man appeared much relieved to exit without his burden—arresting a lord had to loom as the most terrifying of provincial magisterial duties—Adriana felt that someone had yanked the ties of her corset another notch.

As Julian turned, he met her eyes with a forced smile. "You needn't look so doomed, Riana. We've known it would come since we arrived. Better to get it over with."

"I just did not expect…" She sucked in a breath. "I did not expect the summons to come so quickly."

"Nor did I," he admitted, and for a moment the gray eyes turned silvery hard. "But we'll set out tomorrow. Sooner tended, sooner done." He offered his arm and gave her a smile, lifting his chin in an exaggerated way to encourage her. "All that's to be done is to put a good face on it. We don't want to worry the girls, now do we?"

"No. Of course." She took his arm and let him lead her back into the room, but she perched uneasily on the edge of the settee, trying to breathe, while he made light of the summons to the others. In a moment Ophelia took up a ballad of lost love, as if to express the unspoken.

The melancholy tune triggered a wild emotion in Adriana. Not the lost love, only the sad, sad sound of the notes, a sound that reminded her of all the long days she'd missed her brothers. Now here they stood: safe and whole and unbearably dear, but only for tonight. In the morning they would depart for London, and their fate.

Between one moment and the next, a violent mix of thankfulness and regret rose in her throat and she stood up in a panic, excusing herself hastily as she blinked back tears. She slipped through the long doors to the east, out to a small promenade that lined that side of the house, and took in a great gulp of cool air, struggling to rein in the overwrought tears.

Too much. There had been too many surprises the past two days. That's all it was.

A booted heel on the stone promenade alerted her that she was no longer alone. "Are you ill, my lady?" Tynan asked in his soft brogue.

Brushing her hands over her cheeks hastily, she turned and smiled brightly. "Oh, no! I'm fine, thank you."

He lifted a thumb to wipe away the tears she'd missed. "Weeping for joy or sorrow?" There was in the gesture such gentle soberness, such unthreatening kindness, that Adriana felt the tension in her neck ease suddenly.

She sighed. "A little of both, I'm afraid." Shivering in the chill air, she crossed her arms and focused on the shadows of the hills surrounding them, and the heavy cloak of stars above them. "I am so grateful that they've returned home safely to us. It's been so very, very long. And yet, if not for my foolish actions, they'd never have had to flee at all." She looked at him. "How does one undo such a wrong?"

His voice was low. "I have no answer for that."

"An honest answer, at least."

"Do I strike you as a dishonest sort?"

She raised her eyes, and after a moment, shook her head. Rake or no, he struck her as a man who spoke his mind.

"A beginning, then."

Adriana heard a soft rustle, and then he settled his coat about her shoulders. It was warm from his flesh and smelled almost overpoweringly of that distinctive scent of him, coriander and male and the faintest touch of something she could not name. "You'll be cold," she said in faint protest.

"Not at all," he said, offering his arm. "My blood is quite warm in the presence of so alluring a woman." His eyebrows rose. "I'd suggest if you'd like to be a help to your brothers, you'll leave that gown at home when we depart for London."

"This?" Adriana asked, looking down. "Is it too much?" She brushed her hand over the skirt, loving the feel of the watered silk. "I had not thought it any more so than most of my evening wear."

He made a nose, half laugh, half sigh. "Perhaps I'd best examine your wardrobe before we embark, then, if you're so ill-equipped you cannot discern the difference."

"I do not think that will be necessary." They strolled toward the gardens, and Adriana considered the matter of her evening clothes. Had she not admired the way the dress fit her, the way it made the most of her bust and skin? Still, he did not need to know that. Now that she thought of it, she ought to be embarrassed that she'd bothered.

No. Lifting her chin, she met his gaze. "All right, I knew it was a rather more flattering gown than some others I might have donned."

"Dangerously so."

She smiled. "Perhaps."

"I suspect you are a more dangerous woman than most credit you with."

"Ah, no," she said with a sigh. "Indeed, it is quite the reverse. Cassandra's little set think I'm marvelously heedless, when in truth what I said to her this afternoon is quite true: I only wish to have an ordinary life."

"Mmm."

She raised her head, and again she was impressed by his height. "You sound as if you do not believe me."

"No." He glanced down and grinned. "No. I rather fancy you more as a lady pirate."

She laughed. "You would!"

"That gown is more to the taste of a lady pirate than a lady about town."

"Perhaps." She smiled and inclined her head, unable to resist a small bit of banter. He'd raised her spirits with his attentions, letting her lose her regrets for the moment. "There is a bit of me that longs to be the pirate, I suppose. We do not entirely ever leave our childhoods behind us, do we?"

"If we are fortunate, we do not."

They paused on the edge of the garden, Adriana because she didn't wish to go into the depths of that scented darkness with a man who moved her far more than he should have. And perhaps Tynan sensed that, for he released her and captured his hands behind his back, standing a respectful distance from her.

"Pirates seem popular with the lot of you."

"I suppose they are. We were terrified of them when we were children—they were known to sail the islands, looting and killing and…" She did not finish.

Tynan lifted one arched, dark brow. "And ravishing unsuspecting women asleep in their beds?"

"Well…" She shrugged lightly. "At any rate, we found the tales of them romantic. Gabriel swore he'd known a famous one as a child, and wears a necklace the man supposedly gave him. He fed our imaginations with tales of dashing sword fights and women swooning for the virile criminals."

"And you, Adriana, did you swoon?"

"Oh, no!" She drew herself up and took a fencing stance. Swiping the air with an imaginary sword, she said, "I preferred imagining myself in trousers, with a red scarf tied about my head."

"Indeed," he said dryly.

"Is that shocking?"

He shifted, inclined his head. "No." The vivid eyes met hers. "'Tis only my rogue imagination that makes it so."

Realization dawned. "Oh! I'm sorry."

He laughed. "Do not be. It was a rather… delicious picture."

How did they seem to find themselves wandering this path over and over? She cast about for some way to shift the conversation.

"Are you a swordswoman, Adriana?" he asked.

She straightened. "A bit. My father was quite liberal when we lived in Martinique, and my brothers were mad for it. Gabriel is a master. No one can best him."

"And Julian?"

The lump of regret and worry that had landed in her belly at supper now returned. "He preferred pistols, always." She sighed and moved away a little. "I fear he is much changed."

"Aye. There is grief there."

"Yes." And she remembered now the darkness on Tynan's face when he'd spoken of his twin this afternoon. "You recognized it, owning it yourself, did you not?"

It was his turn to shift his face away. In his waistcoat and shirt, he presented a profile as lean and graceful as a cat, and Adriana found her gaze sliding with approval from the broad shoulders down his long back to the finely made hips. When she realized what she was admiring, she jerked her eyes back to his face. "It has only been months since my own brother died," he said.

"Your twin."

A nod.

Adriana clasped her hands below her chin, wondering suddenly if it were wise to follow this path now. He was dangerous enough—how much more so would he be if she learned the shape of his heart?

The sleeves of his coat brushed her chin, and without thought, she bent her head a little more so she could put her nose close to the wool, to breathe that scent in more closely. It was done without thought, the way she would pluck a rose to breathe its perfume, but Tynan chose that moment to turn, and Adriana knew her error in an instant. It was part of her failing that she could not seem to resist smelling, touching, tasting with vast enjoyment, and there was something about it that captured a man's attention.

Just as Tynan's sensuality over dinner had captured hers. A sense of danger rose in her, but with a wild rush of heedlessness, Adriana didn't move.