He crushed the sensation of empathy. This woman had been nothing but trouble from the minute he'd heard her name. He was going to storm her defenses, use any means in his power to get her delivered somewhere safe, and then he was going to wash his hands of her once and for all.
"I am most grateful for the chance to talk with you," he said with as much gallantry as he could muster.
She folded her arms across her breasts as if trying to shield something from him—perhaps too tender a heart? "This changes nothing, Mr. Sabrehawk," she said, meeting his gaze. "Nothing will induce me to leave Angel's Fall."
Adam's eyes narrowed. He'd been present at half a dozen sieges in his time in the ranks. Learned military strategy from the masters. No one knew how to storm walls better than Sabrehawk—be they carved of stone or stitched in billowing petticoats. A smug smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. A sheltered vicar's daughter was no match for him. Let the battle of wills begin.
Chapter 3
A battery of females peered at Adam as Juliet Grafton-Moore led him into her inner sanctum, Fletcher following like a puppy in their wake. Eyes of every shade from cornflower to violet to chocolate to amber—some long-lashed and darkened with soot—peeked from behind doors; others, tip-tilted and exotic, observed him from the bars of the stair rail.
These were the women she had gone out to defend? The whole lot of them had been hiding in here, allowing her to charge out alone into the street to beard the lion. The vicar's daughter might not have had any idea what the people she was confronting were capable of, but Adam was dead sure Juliet Grafton-Moore's fallen angels knew.
A wave of disgust washed over him, combined with an unexpected jab of protectiveness toward the woman who had gone out to batter back the dragons with nothing but a parasol and the white-hot fierceness of her own convictions.
He looked away, damned uncomfortable, his gaze colliding with those of the other women. The instant their gazes locked on Adam, he saw their eyes widening in wariness, mistrust, and an almost reluctant appreciation as they glanced from the crown of his dark head to the scuffed toes of his travel-dusty boots.
There was one woman in particular who captured Adam's attention—the woman who had unlocked the door to let them in. He was certain she'd once been lovely—hair the color of molasses and honey around a face that could have been carved into a cameo. Great dark eyes peered up at the two male intruders, reminding Adam of a wounded doe he'd once stumbled across, too delicate for the world beyond the doors of Angel's Fall.
"Miss." Fletcher's voice was low, gentle. "Now what would a lovely lady like yourself be doin' with that?"
"With what?" Adam's gaze flicked to her hands. Clutched in trembling fingers was a pistol. Hellfire, it was dumb luck she hadn't already shot herself in the foot!
"Elise!" Juliet gasped, her gaze snagging on the shining barrel at the same time. "Wherever did you get that? You know how I feel about violence!"
The cameo-woman seemed to fold in upon herself beneath Juliet Grafton-Moore's disapproval. Adam could only thank God there'd been one woman behind that locked door who wouldn't have allowed the vicar's daughter to be rendered limb from limb.
"It's obvious Sir Bonnet Brave-Heart, here, prefers whacking people with parasols instead of mounting a truly effective defense," Adam muttered wryly, hoping to startle a smile out of the dark-eyed young woman. But she only turned her face to Juliet's, lines of suffering carved deep about her lips.
"You want to know why I bought this thing? I found those threatening notes when I was mending your torn apron. Juliet, they frightened me."
"Threatening notes?" Adam cast a glare at Juliet. "What the devil?"
Juliet waved one hand in dismissal. "I could pave the road to Norfolk with them, I've received so many. They mean nothing. Elise, I've told you a dozen times that they're only a coward's attempt to scare me. Those who write such vile notes seldom have the courage to follow through on their threats."
"Are you insane?" Adam demanded. "Some might hope to scare you off with words, but I'm bloody certain there were plenty among that mob more than willing to escalate this battle further, take steps you couldn't even begin to imagine."
"The scope of my imagination has grown a great deal since I've moved here, Mr. Sabrehawk."
Adam wanted to snap at her, argue with her, bellow at her, but there was no point in doing so in front of all these people.
Instead, he turned back to the woman she'd called Elise. "You needn't fear me, madam. I mean no harm," he said softly.
"I saw what you did for Juliet. I cannot thank you enough, sir. I don't know if I would have been strong enough to— to..." She glanced down at the silvery gun as if it were a snake in her hand.
Ever so gently, Adam disengaged the weapon from her fingers. He smiled. "It doesn't take strength to pull the trigger, Miss Elise. Only deep enough fear."
Gratitude flickered in those dark eyes, and Adam knew in that instant this girl had known deeper fear than any soldier he could name. He would have said more to soothe her, but she was nudged aside.
Adam was overrun by the mingling of a dozen expensive scents—rose water and lavender, gillyflower and violet, as he was enclosed by a wall of multicolored petticoats. Doubtless the other women descended because they no longer feared little Elise would accidentally bury a pistol-ball in their corsets.
A fine-looking woman with red-gold hair drew close to him. "I'd wager you've never been afraid in your life, sir. I was watching through the window! Saw how you sent that bunch of cowards running!"
"Just like one of the Titans!" a golden-haired miss piped up. "Or Zeus hurling thunderbolts!"
"Don't forget Zeus was usually bent on seducing some poor lass in a shower of gold," a woman whose large breasts overshadowed the rather understated beauty of her face said in quelling accents. "Perhaps instead of praising him we should be asking why he stooped to help us."
"It's a disagreeable habit of mine, stepping between brainless women and angry mobs," Adam muttered. "But believe me, it's a habit I intend to break!"
"Mr. Sabrehawk and I have things to discuss," Juliet snapped. "So if you'll excuse us?"
"Sabrehawk? Not the Sabrehawk?" Gillyflower exclaimed.
"I'm aware of only one," Adam said, oddly nettled by Juliet's curtness.
"I was mistress to General Haviland. I heard the most marvelous tales of your exploits! Is it true that you once fought off twenty Italian assassins with nothing but a rusted dagger?"
"Actually, it was closer to twenty-three, but the other opponents didn't put up enough of a fight to count."
"I was told you got the most dashing scar in the battle. Right across your left shoulder! I would pure perish to see it!"
"Marguerite! Absolutely not!" Juliet squawked, so emphatically that it was all Adam could do to keep from starting to unfasten his buttons. Lord knew, there was nothing he enjoyed more than tormenting prudish women with attitudes. But the last thing he needed was to get Miss Grafton-Moore's back up.
He did the next best thing. "Perhaps when Miss Grafton-Moore and I are done with our meeting, I can entertain you with tales of my adventures." He'd need something to do while the woman was packing, wouldn't he?
But he was met by the most implacable feminine disapproval he'd ever confronted.
"When our conference is over, I will escort you to the door at once. There are no gentlemen allowed in Angel's Fall, Mr. Sabrehawk. The reputations of my ladies must be protected at all costs."
"Their—their reputations?" Adam echoed, thunderstruck. "Isn't that a little like attempting to bar the stable door after the mare's had a wild gallop across the meadow?"
He caught a glimpse of the vicar's daughter. He'd seen warmer eyes across a dueling field.
"Elise, please show Mr. Raeburn to the library, where he can await Mr. Sabrehawk, and see that he has anything he might need."
She grabbed Adam by the arm, all but dragging him up the stairs.
"One more comment
like that, Mr. Sabrehawk, and I shall expel you from Angel's Fall myself. I'll not have past mistakes flung up to anyone here. Aren't there things in your past you wish you could change? Decisions you could make again?"
Adam laughed. "My life's been one long adventure. I've won a fortune with my sword, seen the world. What man in his right mind could have regrets for living a life like that?"
Yet even as those words tripped off his tongue, memories spilled in a burning wave into Adam's chest. The suffocating darkness of his father's bedchamber, the reeking stench of sickness searing the insides of his nostrils, the earl's once-powerful body wasted away, pale as a corpse, upon his bed. And Adam's half-brother, Gavin, his golden head bent over his father instead of his beloved books, enduring the old earl's constant scorn.
Join Adam, the earl's brittle voice echoed in Adam's mind, the crabbed hand clasping that of his only true-born son. For once in your life, Gavin, fight so you won't shame me! Be a man.
Then, most unforgivable of all, Adam's own voice... Ride with me, Gav—
He crushed the memory—the horror that had followed. He'd lured his gentle brother into hell, and learned from Gavin the meaning of true courage. Gavin had forgiven him, but if he lived for eternity, Adam would never forgive himself.
Resentment welled up in him at the woman who had loosed those demons on him yet again, demons he'd battled for years to bludgeon back into the dark recesses of his soul where they couldn't tear at his sleep with their vicious teeth. Damnation, if she'd unleashed the nightmares again...
But she knew nothing of nightmares—not this woman, with her petticoats flowing about her waist, her straight back, the delicate hollow of her neck exposed where she'd tried to catch her curls up in pins. Her hands were so slender and pretty, so pristine white—clean in a way Adam's hands could never be again.
She ushered him down the corridor, past the open doors of rooms bursting with feminine fripperies, rainbows of petticoats and bodices cast across beds, ridiculous bonnets draped across every surface. Even the narrow tables that flanked the side of the hallway groaned beneath the weight of abandoned fans and parasols and pearl-buttoned gloves.
Juliet fumbled with a door at the end of the corridor and opened it. Adam followed her inside. The room was as tidy as its owner—every book in its place, a cluster of tiny portraits on the mantel. Tucked into an alcove at the rear he could glimpse a narrow bed. No danger of the vicar's daughter entertaining any gentleman here, Adam thought. Unless that gentleman was the size of a pug dog, he'd never fit upon that mattress.
But it could be a lot of fun trying... a voice in Adam's head whispered. His mind filled with images of big blue eyes peering up at him, the dove's-breast softness of skin no other man had ever touched.
Adam brought himself up short. Where the blazes had those thoughts come from? The vicar's daughter and a man like him? She wasn't even his type! He liked them eager and laughing, well-schooled in the arts of pleasing a man. Not trembling and awed and looking for a hero.
At that instant, she turned to face him. His cheeks burned as if she could peer into his eyes and see the lewd thoughts that plagued him. "Mr. Sabrehawk," she said, knitting her fingers together in a white-knuckled knot. "About my father. I want to know everything you can tell me."
No, angel. You don't want to know how desperate he was, how he cried out your name. You don't want to know the terror that stalked him. Damn. Gavin had always been the brother best at dealing with tragedy, understanding the tenderest reaches of the human heart. Adam had always raced off on horseback until the weeping was done.
But Gavin wasn't here. And Joshua Grafton-Moore's daughter was staring up at Adam, dread in her eyes. "How did my father die?"
"Your father had a fever. When I found him it was too late. He'd had it for two weeks, he said. But there he was, wandering around the country road in the middle of nowhere. It had been raining but he... he said he couldn't stop searching."
The words were like hot knives in Juliet's chest. He could see the pain in her as they twisted deep, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
"I don't know what he was searching for," Adam said, "but he asked me to tell you that he was sorry he didn't find it."
She turned away, her spine rigid beneath the softness of her gown, her shoulders almost painfully square. He knew how much the effort cost her.
"Strange, Papa traveled all over Ireland—ran himself to death searching, and I came to London and stumbled by accident across the truth...." Her voice cracked. "How could I have been so wrong?"
"Wrong?" Adam battled a sting of reluctant curiosity. "What was it you sought?"
"Someone dear to me. Someone I failed miserably."
A lover? Surely not. Adam recoiled from the possibility with an unaccustomed twinge. Then who? Blast it, only an idiot would ask. He didn't need to know. That was always the best course—don't listen to heart-rending tales, don't learn people's secret sorrows, don't allow yourself to be vulnerable to pain—anyone's pain—because if you do you might stumble across your own.
"What's done is done," Adam said gruffly. "Raking yourself with guilt will change nothing. What matters is where you go from here."
His sister, Christianne would have rounded on him in a tearful tirade, while the youngest, Maria, would have clasped his reprieve to her bosom with fierce delight, then skipped off on her way with a careless toss of her head. Juliet raised her gaze to his with such indescribable sorrow it caught like tenterhooks deep in his chest.
"You're right, of course. I'm glad to know that you understand why I have to stay here."
Lines of frustration and anger furrowed Adam's brow. "Why—hell's bells—the point is you can't stay here. Your father would go mad with worry if he knew you were in such danger." Sweat beaded his brow from the effort it took him to gentle his voice. Remember—charm her... disarm her... but the rest of the bawdy soldier's rhyme spun out in his head... bed her, but flee before you are made to wed her...
Adam felt hot blood surge to his cheeks. "Juliet..." Using her Christian name was supposed to whisper of intimacy, of kindred spirits, one more weapon against the naive. The name wasn't supposed to ripple from his tongue with the sweet taste of music.
He reached out, clasped her hand in his two strong ones. Her fingers were so small and pale, the tiny calluses so oddly endearing he didn't have to orchestrate the hesitation in his voice. "May I call you Juliet? After listening to your father speak about you, and worrying about you for so many months myself, I feel as if..." He chafed his scarred thumb over her knuckles. "As if I know you well. But if you think me too forward—" Damn, that was troweling it on a bit too thick.
Most women he knew would have dealt him a stinging set-down for his obvious insincerity. Juliet's slender throat constricted, as if she were swallowing what? Tears? Her voice quavered. "You were a friend to my papa when he was alone, Mr. Sabrehawk. You may call me anything you like."
That was a damn dangerous prospect. Adam wondered how many shades of pink the woman would turn if he launched into a litany of the sobriquets he'd laid on her during the past hellish months. He'd bet they'd sizzle her soft little ears right off.
"Juliet, you must allow me to—to fulfill my vow to your father. Whatever went awry between you—I'm certain all is forgiven. The man loved you to distraction."
"He loved me to his death." Droplets clung to her lashes, Adam was in abject terror that they'd fall free. It was acceptable to pretend there was something in a lady's eye, a stray lash, a speck of dust, as long as tears didn't go drizzling down her cheek.
"You are in danger here. Terrible danger. You are not so blind you don't see it."
"I accept the risk." That damnably sweet chin was tipping up again. He'd better stop it before she straightened her spine or all was lost.
"Juliet, your father is dead. His final wish was that you be safe, protected. Don't you owe him that much at least? Peace of mind? It seems little enough to ask. Especially if some misundersta
nding between you had some part in sending him to his grave?"
"His death must count for something."
"And your death? What will it count for?"
Juliet's lips wobbled into a smile that tightened a fist in Adam's throat. "I'm not going to die. I intend to minister over Angel's Fall until I'm as old and toothless as Mother Cavendish."
"That harpy was born to this life, this world. While you— blast it, you cannot even fathom what horrors await you."
"Can't I? These women you think are so coarse, so hardened to their fate—I've heard them at night, weeping like desolate children into their pillows, but they would die before they let me comfort them. I've heard them cry out in nightmares, caught glimpses of happenings so horrible they make me sick to my stomach, and so very angry that I wish—wish I could take my parasol to the breech-flap of every man who ever breathed."
"Then I suppose I should be grateful your aim was so bad." The corner of Adam's mouth tipped up. "Juliet, I am a rough old soldier—weaned on battle-cries, and rocked to sleep to the lullaby of cannonfire. I wish to God I knew the right way to express how I feel, to make you understand. If I roar at you, it's because I fear for you. If I'm obstinate and bullheaded and sharp-tongued, it's because I know those 'cowards' who stormed your door tonight far better than an innocent like you ever could." It was damned uncomfortable to realize that in his attempt to charm the woman into acquiescence, he'd cut so close to the truth.
He battered back the jab of panic, his jaw clenching. This could be damned dangerous—the only saving grace the certainty that within a few days, a week at most, he would put a bloody ocean of distance between himself and those melting summer-sky eyes.
"They will hurt you, Juliet, if they get the chance."
"Then I shall have to lay up a great supply of parasols and consider boarding up the windows on the east side. Glass is so abominably expensive."
"Damn, lady, listen to me! There are things beasts such as those can do to a woman, things worse than death."