Lucien's Fall Page 3

  It might be his most splendid adventure to date.

  A pang of conscience touched him as he looked toward Madeline—for she’d have to be publicly ruined if Lucien’s father were to learn of the debauchery. A pity he’d have to do that.

  As he looked at her, his headache swelled suddenly, sending a swift, sharp pain through his brain. And behind it, like a wisp of wind, Lucien heard a faint, disturbing bar of music. He shut it away, fiercely, along with his conscience.

  Lucien would be doing Madeline a favor by seducing her. She deserved a taste of the sweeter pleasures before shackling herself forever to the doughy marquess—if he’d even have her when the scandal got out. Lucien rather thought he would as long as his pride were not too injuriously marred; if marquesses only married virgins, there’d be no little marquesses about at all.

  Under the table, Lucien felt a kick. He glanced up in surprise to find Jonathan glowering at him across the table. With a quizzical smile, he lifted a brow.

  All was fair in love and war. And this, it seemed, was going to be both. For a moment, his headache eased a tiny bit.

  Ah, yes. The weeks in the country this year would be splendid indeed.

  * * *

  Madeline tried to ignore Lord Esher, but he made it difficult. Throughout supper, he watched her with the relentlessness of a cat stalking a songbird. It was a little unnerving, but Madeline had the marquess to think of.

  To her relief, Charles Devon was not an unpleasant companion. He seemed to feel no need to grope at her, as was so often the case with such beefy, rich men; nor did he bore her with stories of the hunt. Instead he had a rather charming fondness for archeology, a subject in which Madeline had no particular interest, but no particular objection.

  Nonetheless, she was glad to escape him after supper, ducking outside to one of the small terraces that edged most of the rooms on the lower floor of Whitethorn. A sliver of moon hung above the trees in a clear night sky. Scents of yew and moist ground reached her, and she breathed them deeply.

  It was only then, under the narcotic spell of the night, a night that seemed especially designed for lovers, that she let despair invade her. How could she possibly marry the marquess? Listen politely to him forevermore, her heart permanently boxed and put away? It seemed a gross violation of what love should be.

  Pulling her shawl around her shoulders more tightly, she walked toward the stone balustrade edging the terrace. She wasn’t at all like the other girls she knew—dreaming of some great love affair. She’d seen all too many love affairs in the salon of Whitethorn. They seemed tawdry and untidy, and love rarely outlasted passion.

  Or so she had believed. Tonight she realized she’d harbored those same silly dreams herself.

  At the edge of the terrace, she paused, leaning her hip against the balustrade. From this vantage point, she could see the formal gardens, the maze and topiary, the beds planted in patterns of lace. All of it desperately needed her attention, her time, and money she simply did not have.

  With a sigh, she knew she could marry to save it. She would.

  Behind her came footsteps, the sure strong footsteps of a man of some height. Madeline smiled, unsurprised. "Join me, Lord Esher," she said without turning.

  "How did you know it was I without looking around?"

  Madeline looked up at him. "I think there must be a book of rake’s etiquette," she said lightly. "First rule is one must always follow one’s prey into a moon-swept night."

  To her surprise, he laughed. "Well done." Inclining his head, he asked, "What then would be my next step?"

  Madeline straightened, knowing she must not show any hint of shyness or of blushing sensibility. If she were to put him off properly, he had to understand she knew well any technique he might attempt. "That would depend upon the woman, of course, and the rake." She frowned, inclining her head. "You don’t have the same look as some of the men from London, so I’d guess you were educated elsewhere."

  "Good—you’re right. How will that influence my choices?"

  "Well, since you haven’t a clue of what sort of woman I am yet, I expect you’d choose flattery first."

  A crooked smile caught half his mouth. His voice dropped a measure. "Oh, but I do know a little of you, my lady."

  "Do you? Pray tell, then, what tack you’ve chosen for your foray into my seduction."

  He chuckled, low and deep, the sound almost sinfully rich against the flitting notes of a minuet in the salon. "Are you absolutely certain I’ve chosen to seduce you?"

  "Yes, though you didn’t make up your mind until supper."

  This time, he did not smile. The artfully wrought lines of his face grew still. Madeline knew she’d scored a point, and the slight, growing apprehension in her shoulders eased a little.

  "I believe you’ll be more of a challenge than I thought," he said quietly. "All the better, of course."

  "Of course," Madeline replied. "Not that you’ll succeed."

  "Well, that’s the test, isn’t it?" He leaned on the balustrade, and his elegant, sinuous form took on a lazy grace. For a moment he looked at her musingly, and Madeline forced herself to look evenly at him in return, showing no quiver or disturbance.

  At last he spoke in an intimate voice, low and rounded. "I think my first step will be simply to look at you."

  A prickle touched her spine, and Madeline clutched her shawl more closely in her fingers. "Simple," she said, but the word was breathier than she would have liked.

  "Yes." Infinitesimally, he leaned forward. "I think you haven’t been gazed at enough."

  Madeline didn’t move, but the prickle under her skin spread. A breeze came from behind him, carrying notes of the garden, and stealing notes from his flesh to fling against her. It was a man-scent of perspiration and musk and horse, and something else, like hay in the sunshine. She dared not breathe it deep.

  "When I’m gazing at you," he continued in his slow, quiet voice, "I’ll be touching you in my mind. Your nose and hair, your throat. And I’ll be thinking you are ever so much more beautiful than Juliette, who has stolen your light for far, far too long."

  She hid the trembling of her fingers inside her shawl and managed to say calmly, "A good choice, sir. You are very observant to have seen so much in so short a time." Her courage ran out, and she turned from the balustrade. "Amusing as it’s been, I must return to my guests."

  "By all means do not neglect your marquess." He gave her a short, stiff bow.

  Madeline hurried away, relieved when she was again safely within the brightly lit salon, embraced by the frivolous notes of the quartet. Lord Esher frightened her.

  And yet, she had no choice but to meet him toe to toe. Otherwise she’d disappear as certainly and quickly as claret on a gamblers’ table, lost to the extraordinary appeal of him.

  She had no choice but to fight him—on his ground.

  * * *

  Lucien went to sleep well enough but awakened sometime before dawn, in the blackest part of the night, haunted. Music rang in his head, shattering sleep and thought, riding on a sharp blaze of light-struck pain.

  There—there were the oboes. He winced and blinked, trying to push them away. But in came the cellos, the drums, the clarinets. They crowded in, triumphant in spite of the port he’d drunk, the food he’d eaten. They came, his demon notes, to haunt him.

  Over the years, he’d learned that there was only one cure for them, one way to drive them from his mind. In his nightshirt, he stumbled from the bed and lit a brace of candles. He flung his hair from his eyes and began to write.

  When he was finished, he burned the pages completely, thoroughly, to curled black flutters.

  The headache ceased.

  Lucien slept.

  Chapter Three

  I dare not ask a kisse,

  I dare not beg a smile;

  Lest having that, or this,

  I might grow proud the while.

  ~ Robert Herrick

  Madeline, dressed in an old, worn g
own, made her way to the gardens long before the rest of the house stirred. Dew clung to the grass, wetting her slippers and dampening her hem. A blackbird sang from some dark and hidden place, the sound wistful in the still morning. As she walked, she pulled on cotton gloves that cost the earth, and yet were necessary to help protect her hands.

  Thin mist clung to the landscape, and Madeline felt a catch in her chest—she had missed this place! All through Europe she had hiked, visiting out of a sense of duty the main sights thought to be suitable for a young woman. In truth, she’d gone for the gardens—and everywhere had found people sympathetic to her passion, those willing to share it by showing off their own gardens. It had been singularly pleasing. Sharing those well-loved places, Madeline had finally come to a clear sense of herself as apart from anything anyone else expected of her. And in this garden, she would please her own expectations.

  Basket and shears in hand, she knelt in one of the small wing gardens that offset the maze on all four sides. Each plot had once been designed to illustrate a different sort of lace, but at the moment, most of it was unrecognizable for the weeds and overgrowth.

  As the sun rose and the mist burned away, she clipped lavender borders and dug out the tiny paths between clumps of flowers to illustrate the lace pattern. In two hours, she managed to remove enough debris and unruly growth from a three-foot section so that it at least began to resemble the pattern. Rocking back on her heels to admire it, she wiped the back of one hand over her forehead, and felt a gritty mark streak her skin.

  Yes, it would take some time, but she would restore the gardens at Whitethorn. They were her legacy.

  Perspiring and hungry, she picked up her basket of tools. Shaking her skirts to loosen the grass and leaves clinging to it, she looked up and was astonished to see Lord Esher approaching. It couldn’t yet be eight, and yet he was immaculately dressed in a dark blue coat and breeches, his hair neatly queued and tied with a bright ribbon that fluttered on a current of wind. On his feet were tall black boots.

  A quiet stir touched her blood at the way he moved, so loose and free, and as he came closer, she thought of his wild leap over the hedge yesterday, of his rich shout of laughter as he reached the very height of the jump. He could not have known, in that moment, whether the horse would find its feet— whether he would live or die. It hadn’t seemed to matter.

  There was no hurry about him. When he was a few feet away, she slapped her gloves together to shake some of the damp earth from them. "Rare for a gentleman of leisure to rouse himself so early, sir."

  "I like to ride before the day is too long." With the insouciant ease that marked his every movement, he glanced around him. "It is unfashionable, but I find I enjoy the morning, before the tedious noise and babble begins." He smiled to take the sting from his words.

  Madeline smiled. In the kindly light, he looked far less dangerous than he had the night before, his eyes clear, his complexion hale and healthy. She shifted her basket on her hip and used her scissors to cut a late blooming rose for him to put in his lapel.

  "Yes," she said, handing him the flower. "I can’t stay in bed past dawn most days. I’d rather be out here."

  He smiled, tucking the flower into his coat. "Beware," he said, "you’ll give me tools to aid me in my seduction of you." But his smile was rueful, self-mocking, and she took the words as the light jest he intended.

  "So be it." A tangle of weeds had grown around the rosebush. Fronds reached strangling arms clear to the top. Madeline frowned and set down her basket so she could wrestle the vine from the bush. "It would be impossible for you to stay long at Whitethorn," she said, "without learning my primary interest is in gardens."

  "Ah." He looked around him. "It would seem you have quite a job ahead of you."

  "You have no idea." Madeline dropped the uprooted woodbine to the ground. "If I were to do nothing else, just the maze would take me a year."

  "It alone looks well tended. Surely there isn’t that much work to be done."

  "Looks can be deceiving." She hadn’t intended the double meaning but heard it as soon as the words left her lips. She cocked her head toward him, grinning.

  "Truer words were never spoken." For a moment he gazed at the maze. "Will you show it to me?" A glittering challenge lit his eyes.

  "Another time," she said, lightly. "I’m afraid I’m quite famished."

  "Pity." He lifted one perfect brow. "I have weakness for these old gardens and would have enjoyed a tour."

  "Leading a rake into the maze, Lord Esher? Alone? The rake’s book of rules would surely insist that such a gesture is an invitation to certain ravishment."

  "You speak boldly."

  "It saves time."

  "Yes." He lifted his hands as if in surrender, and backed away with a short, quick bow. "I’d hoped for a narration of its virtues, from someone who obviously loves it well, but perhaps you’re right. I’ll go alone."

  "Impossible. You’ll be hopelessly lost."

  He gave her the faintest hint of a smile. "Then I suppose you’ll be rescuing me before supper tonight."

  Madeline hesitated. She genuinely loved the gardens, and as anyone did, loved to share her knowledge. Was his interest genuine, or a ruse to lure her into a secluded place? She didn’t know. "Most find the old style of formal gardens a bore nowadays."

  "Yes, I know." He clasped his hands behind his back, that restless gaze traveling over the ragged topiary all around them. "My boyhood home had formal gardens of this sort. My father had them razed and replanted in the new style after my mother died." He looked at her. "It was a gruesomely destructive act."

  "My stepmother would do the same here." Somehow, they were walking slowly toward the entrance to the maze. "It would be a tragedy. This hedge is nearly a hundred years old."

  "Show it to me," he said again. "I vow the place will be your ground only. Within, I’ll be only Lucien, your friend."

  "My friend." She drawled the words with as much skepticism as she could muster, stripping her damp gloves from her hands. "All right," she said. "If you misbehave, I’ll simply leave you in there to starve."

  His crooked smile flashed. "Very well."

  "Choose your path."

  He considered and pointed. "The left."

  Together they entered the hallways of green. Immediately all sounds were muffled. The sun had not yet warmed the paths here, and shreds of mist clung to the ground and hung in streamers around the small, secret beds planted here and there.

  "Do not attempt it alone," she cautioned seriously. "Once, there were markers to help the alert, but most are overgrown now. The right side is better, more easily navigated."

  "Why is that?" Lazily he plucked a bud from a clematis vine and lifted it to his nose.

  "The first earl of Whitethorn had a passion for puzzles. The two sides meet at the center, but it’s impossible to get from one side to the other except there. On the right side, you alternate turning first left, then right."

  "But how does one remember?"

  "Carefully."

  "And on this side?"

  Madeline gave him a smile and tapped her forehead. "The pattern must be memorized."

  "And you have?"

  "It’s been my retreat since I was a child." Here, on her own ground, in the one place on earth that belonged to her, Madeline felt calm. Lifting her head, she inhaled the scent of the yews, and the damp, bruised grass under their feet. It was longer here, unkempt, and her feet were quite wet before long. As they rounded a corner, Madeline gave him a secretive smile. "The claires-voies in this maze are extraordinary," Madeline said. "There are more than twenty of them."

  "Claires-voies?"

  "Yes." Madeline lifted a hand to indicate he should precede her around a corner, and he did.

  There, framing a view of great expanse of the wild gardens beyond, was a window cut into the hedge. Lord Harrow paused midstep. Madeline thought he looked almost stricken before he recovered and glanced down at Madeline. "Breathtaking, isn�
�t it?"

  She looked at the view, painted pale gold with the soft fingers of morning, the greens in hues from gray to yellow, the stillness unbroken but for a cluster of ravens, shiny black, picking in the grass for breakfast. "Yes," she replied. "The whole maze exists only for the sake of beauty. It’s extraordinary."

  He lifted a brow. "You strike me as a woman who’d find beauty for its own sake a wasteful thing."

  "No. Oh, no," she said, and let her gaze touch the exquisite view framed by the claire-voie."Is beauty not the easiest of all things to claim? It’s there for anyone."

  Madeline felt his restless body quiet. In a resonant voice like a cello, he quoted:

  "Full many a glorious morning have I seen

  Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,

  Kissing with golden face the meadows green,

  Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy."

  Shakespeare. Madeline recognized it immediately, but in his mouth, the sonnet sounded unlike it had in her own mind when she read it. He somehow gave the words a life and music she’d never uncovered. The lyrical rhythm stung her.

  With a sharp breathlessness, Madeline looked at him. His head turned and their gazes collided. In the good, gray light, she saw that his eyes were quite remarkably beautiful, dark blue studded with sparks of yellow and green that seemed to have their own source of light.

  Jeweled.

  Abruptly, she turned around and started walking the direction they had come. Foolish of her to think there was any hope of resisting a man as accomplished in the art of seduction as Lord Esher.

  "Lady Madeline! Wait! Why do you run?"

  She whirled. "It was unseemly to bring you in here. I was wrong to do it."

  "I’ve frightened you," he said. "I vow that was not my intention."

  "It is difficult to seduce a terrified woman," she said acerbically.

  He touched his chest and held out his hand in a gesture of sincerity. "Nothing I did here was for intent." He glanced over his shoulder and back to her. "I swear by my mother’s grave I’ll not try to seduce you here."

  Again he looked back, toward the path leading inward, to the heart of the maze, with a yearning Madeline recognized on some wordless plane.