"Is that what you do when you have a restless night, Adam? Run about kissing people until their hair ribbons melt?"
Not like I kissed you, angel, Adam thought. Never like I kissed you.
"Juliet, I'm sorry. I had no right."
"Perhaps God meant it to be a lesson. A warning. To show me how weak the flesh can be."
If it was such a demonstration of weakness, then why did the surging beneath the flap of Adam's breeches feel stronger, more undeniable than ever before? Why did he want to throw caution to the wind and drag Juliet deeper into the shadows, lay her down upon a coverlet of grass and kiss her until she was drowning in the taste of him, the feel of him, hungering for things she couldn't begin to imagine, things he could show her with his hands and his mouth.
Bloody hell, he'd never been the least attracted to big-eyed virgins. Truth to tell, they'd always scared the bejesus out of him. One slip of a man's tongue using a perfectly good Anglo-Saxon swear word and they'd go off in a fit of vapors, all that whining and waterworks. Then why was it he couldn't tear his gaze away from Juliet, with her quiet dignity that transcended mere innocence, her courage that outshone her naivete? Why couldn't he stop tasting the sweet blossoming of a woman's passion on her guileless lips, feeling the exquisite yielding of her soft curves against his hard planes?
"It's late," Adam growled. "Past time to get back to Angel's Fall. We'd best both forget this ever happened and take ourselves off to bed—I mean, sleep." His cheeks burned, and he groaned inwardly, aware this interlude would turn the sleeping arrangements at Angel's Fall into holy hell, yet he continued stubbornly. "But we have to reach an understanding here, lady."
"Obviously we cannot let anything like... like this happen again." Her fingertips fluttered to kiss-stung lips, her gaze fluttering away from his, fixing on the crumpled fall of his neckcloth.
"You're damned right. Not just this kissing insanity but this whole disastrous night. No more of this running off alone, stirring up catastrophes. You were completely vulnerable tonight." Yet wasn't she even more vulnerable when he was within arm's reach of her? A voice inside Adam whispered. The taste of her kisses still on his lips, the memory—no, blast it. He was a soldier, well schooled in enduring necessary hardships. He'd look at this relationship with Juliet as just one more battle.
"Promise me, Juliet, that you won't go running off without me anymore."
"But I... the ladies... I have to be a good example for them. Show them that a woman can be independent, strong. Fight her own battles."
"I've fought a hundred battles, angel. And no one—not even the strongest warrior ever fights alone. He carries with him the skill of every one of his teachers, the prayers of his mother and sisters and lovers. The one thing I couldn't bear is to have you on my conscience. If you were hurt, or lost, or—"
"Why, Adam? Because you gave my father your word you'd protect me?"
"Maybe at first. But now—" He turned away from her, feeling like a knight of old, stripped of his armor. Uncertain. Oddly defenseless.
"I won't lie to you, Juliet. My life has been hard-edged— swords and battles, death and blood for as long as I can remember. But through it, I've learned one thing. The world is a dark place. It would be a hopeless one except for a few people fashioned of light. My brother, Gavin, was the first person I ever knew that was all goodness and honor and nobility of spirit. You are the second."
"Oh, Adam." Her voice quavered and she shook her head in denial.
"Maybe I can never touch that light, Juliet. God knows I'm not worthy to. But I can use my strength and skill to protect it, guard it, shelter it."
A soft sob tore from her throat. "You're wrong about me, Adam. So wrong. I—I'm ever so wicked inside sometimes. I grow so impatient and angry with Isabelle, no matter how hard I try. And, though I know I should be forgiving, turn the other cheek like Papa taught, there are times I just want to bash men like Darlington with something far heavier than a parasol."
"That's only being human, sweetheart." Adam crooked a half-smile. "It keeps you from being a saint so the rest of us sinners can quell our impulses to string you up on Catherine Wheels and skin you alive and shoot you full of arrows and such like."
"But there's so much more. It was my wickedness that drove Papa out onto that Irish road to die. And Jenny... my poor Jenny. I failed her as well."
"Thunder and nonsense."
"Adam, you don't know me—the truth—"
"I knew you from the moment I looked into your eyes, Juliet, even though I tried to deny it." Adam touched her face, the warmth of that creamy satin melting into his rough fingertips. He'd spent a lifetime selling his sword to the highest bidder, fighting battles he didn't give a damn about—other men's battles, other men's wars. But never had a vow cut so deeply to the heart of him as the one he made now.
"I'll take care of you," Adam pledged, losing himself in those angel's eyes. "Let me take care of you."
She gazed up at him, a trembling goddess, her golden hair shimmering about her face like a holy aura. She slipped her hand into his. "I trust you, Adam." Such simple words. Such an impossible mass of feelings tearing at his chest.
He'd guard her with every breath he drew, every sinew and bone of his body. From the wolves that snarled outside her door, and, most valiantly of all, from the beast inside his own soul. The one that, even now, was raging, hurling itself against the bars of his own self-control, demanding that he take her into his arms and cover her with the shadows in his own soul.
Taking her hand, he led her back through the winding paths to where his horse was waiting. He lifted her into his arms and rode for Angel's Fall.
Back to the throng of women waiting there, the virginal bed where she slept alone, and the tiny antechamber where Adam knew he'd spend night after night wanting her.
Damnation, what was he going to do? Find some way to carry her away from all this madness? He'd tried to do so once before on a wild Scottish moor, scooping his brother out of harm's way. There was only one problem about people woven of light. They wouldn't stay safe in their ivory towers. God curse them all, they had to go forth to face the darkness.
Chapter 9
It was a wonder that Mother Cavendish hadn't just huffed and puffed and blown Angel's Fall down, Adam thought with a wolfish snarl as he put a new lock upon the front door. In the two days since the fiasco at Ranelagh Gardens, he'd flung himself like a fury into securing the premises— doubtless an instinct held over from the days in which he had to entrench his men in the most advantageous position for a battle.
Fletcher had pitched in with puppy-dog enthusiasm, gallumphing about fixing iron bars across the first-floor windows while Millicent and Violet handed him his tools.
The whole scenario might have been endurable if Adam had managed to get an hour or two of sleep at night. But no. He'd lain on his pallet in the tiny antechamber hour after hour, as wide awake as if every clang and crash of Juliet's ridiculous alarm were still battering his eardrums.
But she was tormenting him with something far more subtle now. The restless noises of her supple limbs shifting against the coverlets, the soft moans of defeat as she, too, struggled to sleep. The scent of her—meadow flowers and rain water and honey—teasing his nostrils until it took every ounce of will he possessed not to charge into her bedchamber and bury his face in the fragrant cascade of her golden hair.
Blast it, he was slowly going insane, Adam thought, tightening the heavy iron latch with ferocity. There were times when he was almost tempted to surrender, to acknowledge that London needed Angel's Fall, and that women like Isabelle and Millicent and—yes, damn it—his own mother needed a gentle spirit like Juliet to gather them into the warmth and safety of her arms.
But monsters like Darlington would never stand for it. Greedy animals like Mother Cavendish would do their best to destroy anything decent and good Juliet could build here. Perhaps she could survive if she had someone to guard her, a voice inside Adam reasoned. A strong man, a
good man willing to place his sword between her tender heart and those who would shatter it if they could.
But Adam Slade could never be that man. He was no selfless noble idiot ready to sacrifice himself on the altar of philanthropy. Especially when he spent every hour of the day reliving the moments he'd crushed her in his arms, kissed her as if her mouth held all the secrets of salvation. Tasted just enough of her astonished passion to drive him wild with the need to delve deeper, drink in more—devour all of her, from the tips of her rosy toes to the crown of curls at the top of her head, and everything between, branding it as his.
"Sabrehawk?" Fletcher's voice startled Adam so much he jammed the point of the awl into his thumb. Adam spat a rain of curses, sticking the gashed digit into his mouth.
"Hellfire, boy, don't you have anything better to do than torment me? I told you how to put those bars on the windows once, for God's sake. A child could do it."
"I know." The smug smile more than one man had tried to wipe off Fletcher's face with the point of a sword tickled the corners of the youth's mouth. "Unfortunately, a child could get past that lock you're putting on the door as well."
"The devil you say! The smith vowed to me this was the sturdiest lock he'd ever forged."
"That may be true, but you've put it on so the latch is on the outside panel of the door. Of course, it would work perfect if you wished to keep Miss Juliet and her ladies locked inside. Is that your goal?"
"You flaming idiot! I can damn well put a latch on a door—" Adam glared down at his handiwork, sputtering a denial. But his tirade died the instant he saw that the boy was right. He wanted to throttle Fletcher as a chorus of giggles erupted behind him.
"I wish every woman in creation was at the bottom of the infernal ocean," Adam growled with abject sincerity. "But the well out in the garden is deep enough to serve my purpose. If the lot of you don't leave me in peace, I vow, I'll stuff you all down the shaft—and Fletcher, you'll go first!"
"That would be most unchivalrous," Fletcher observed with a chuckle. "Ladies should always precede gentlemen."
The glare he shot them should have sent his tormentors careening away in a panic. Fletcher knew him well enough to beat a hasty retreat. But the ladies merely flounced their petticoats and sashayed away, their laughter filling the entryway.
Grinding his teeth to dust, Adam began the insufferable chore of removing the latch, thinking it would be far more satisfactory to take an axe to the door and turn it into kindling. These women would be the death of him.
Adam had been around plenty of women, and had experienced his share of sexual escapades. He'd been chased out of more bedchambers by jealous husbands than any officer in the king's army. But what of love? Turn all pale and miserable chasing after one woman?
He'd only been fool enough to dip his toes into that quicksand once, and the spritely Miss Adina Neville had driven some sense into his thick skull straightaway, bless her. She had informed him that it would be far too humiliating to marry a bastard. No, she would marry a baronet, thank you very much, but she and Adam could still be lovers.
Adam squirmed under the memory, thanking God he'd been able to shrug off her rejection with a laugh. Hell's bells, woman, you didn't think I was serious? Me, tie a female millstone about my neck when there are hundreds of sweetmeats to sample? It was a jest. Only a jest.
A green lad's first heartache? Some would say so. But he couldn't even recall the woman's face. There hadn't been months of anguish, only the resounding certainty that she'd told the truth. Bastard was an ugly word. No man should willingly saddle a wife and children with such a legacy of shame. For while Adam could shrug off the label, lash it into nothingness matched against his prowess with a sword, it had been far more difficult for his mother and his sisters to escape the repercussions of their birth.
Hellfire, what was he doing, standing in the doorway like a dolt, dredging up such ancient memories? So, he desired Juliet Grafton-Moore. He was a man, wasn't he? And despite all the wounds he'd sustained over the years, that particular part of his anatomy was all in one piece and fully functional.
Juliet was a beautiful woman, with the added allure of being far different from his usual fare. To make matters worse, she was sleeping barely five steps away from his bed every night, doubtless wearing that nightshift he'd seen her in the first night they'd clashed in the garden.
Even now he could recall with absolute clarity the lush promise of breasts straining against the nearly transparent cloth, the shadowy triangle of curls at the cleft between her thighs just visible enough to tease a man's senses to madness.
He ground his fingertips against eyes gritty from lack of sleep. Blast, he'd always known he was a blackguard, but he'd never expected to sink to such depths, entertaining the most carnal of fantasies about a woman like Juliet.
Did she have the slightest idea of the kind of roiling need she stirred up in the most primitive part of him? Or that she increased the potency of her spell a hundredfold when her cheeks stung pink with remembrance every time their gazes locked across the dining table, across the drawing room, or, worse still, across the tiny bedchamber before they both made the futile attempt to sleep?
Adam shook the thought away, appalled to feel himself harden at the misty images that danced across his imagination. Perfect. A wreath of golden curls and pansy-blue eyes had reduced the notorious Sabrehawk to having all the finesse of a blundering seventeen-year-old about to shed his virginity.
There was only one thing to do. Make dead certain nothing could happen between them again. He'd not so much as brush Juliet's fingertips with his while passing the biscuits at tea. And then, he'd think of some way to resolve this tangle without making a complete ass out of himself before it was too late.
His mouth twisted into a sneer. Blood and thunder, he'd willingly trade a year of his life for one good set-to with swords to rid himself of his frustrations. But there hadn't been any sign of Mother Cavendish or any of her crew since Adam and Juliet had returned from Ranelagh. Adam sighed. Typical. When a man wanted a little peace, the bushes were fairly bristling with assassins. But if he wanted to fight, there was not a decently wielded sword in five counties.
Grabbing up the pieces of the latch, he eyed one of the iron spikes that had anchored it to the wood. Frustration burned in him, so hot the metal should have glowed red. The infernal thing had cracked off in the middle. He could only pray there was another one left in the mess of accoutrements he and Fletcher had spread out on the bench in the garden house.
He stalked through the interior of the house to the rear door. Sunshine struck his face as he stepped out into the garden, the musty scent of herbs and the rich odor of flowers and freshly turned earth mingling in his nose.
He wanted nothing more than to retrieve another nail and return to his hellish task—without running into anyone who giggled or flirted or dithered about. But he'd barely taken three steps when he saw her.
Garbed in coral pink, a sheer white linen apron about her waist, Juliet knelt beside a clump of green stuff, the cloth at one shoulder drooping to expose a pure curve of pale skin. The sunshine of her curls played hide-and-seek with the edge of a delicate white lace cap just visible beneath the broad brim of a straw hat with cherry-colored ribbons holding it in place. A beatific smile curved her lips, and her eyes purely shone as she tilted her face up like a blossom to the sun.
It would have been hard enough on Adam's pulses to see her thus, but the fact that she was casting that smile up at another man yanked at the most primitive part of Adam— the secret corner where knights still made war on those who dared so much as touch the hems of their ladies' gowns.
At that instant, Juliet tucked a sheaf of flowers into the crook of one arm, brushed the dirt off her fingers, and offered her hand to the figure, rising to her feet. Blast her innocence! The gate was wide open again. And the man who had entered by it could have a slaughtering knife tucked up his sleeve! Not that it would matter. She'd probably still be o
ffering him tea and biscuits!
Adam bolted toward her, his fingers tightening on the pieces of the lock he held as the vaguely familiar-looking gentleman swept a low bow and raised Juliet's dirt-smudged hand to his lips.
Shifting the pieces of iron into the crook of his left arm, Adam snatched Juliet's hand out of the man's grasp so suddenly she gave a startled cry.
"Adam, what—"
The man turned, and Adam felt a jolt of recognition. Barnabas Rutledge. The idiot from the tavern come to irritate him again. That was what came of not slitting an imbecile's gullet the first time one had the chance.
Rutledge looked as stunned as if Adam had just cleaved him down the middle. "What is this—this person doing here? Miss Grafton-Moore—"
"What the blazes is he doing holding your hand?" Adam countered, scowling at the crow of a man. "I was informed that such attentions from a man are not allowed at Angel's Fall."
"Mr. Rutledge is not a man!" She flung out the questionable defense hotly. "I mean, he's not that kind of... of threat!" she stammered, drawing a pointed chuckle from Adam as he cast a scathing glance the length of Rutledge's form. Color flooded her cheeks, outrage sparking in her eyes. "He is our dearest neighbor, and great friend—and you will apologize to him this instant!"
Adam felt hackles of something damnably like jealousy rise at the back of his neck. Her dearest neighbor? Great friend? Pink-cheeked grandmotherly ladies who should fill that role must be in short supply.
He glared at Rutledge—the man looked as if he had gruel for blood and there was something about the way those beady eyes regarded Juliet that made Adam want to clobber him with the pieces of that infernal lock.
All things considered, Adam would sooner swallow a ball of fire than say he was sorry to the wretch. "What the devil is your neighbor doing wandering around in this garden? It's forbidden, isn't it? The blasted gate should be locked tighter than the portal to the Garden of Eden. We agreed—"