Dark Angel (19 page)

Adam felt again the horror that had gripped him in that moment. He had flung himself down on the ground beside her and gathered her in his arms. Caroline had opened her eyes and looked up at him, dazed but unhurt. Adam had hugged her to him. And then, for the first time, he had kissed her, overwhelmed by the pent-up longings he had scarcely acknowledged even to himself.

At first, Caroline had responded with an ardor nearly equal to his own. But when, knowing he would soon be unable to stop, he had ended the kiss, he had seen the passion in her eyes give way to confusion. Later she refused to speak of it, insisting on behaving as though nothing had changed between them. By the time he left Oxford the next year, she had become engaged to Jared Rawley. For the first time, it occurred to Adam that Caroline's confusion had really been fear of the force of their passion.

But the inexperienced girl of seventeen had grown into a passionate woman. Adam closed his eyes on the gloom of the barn and listened to the sound of small creatures scurrying through the straw and tried not to think about how he had planned to spend the night.

He wasn't successful.

Caroline looked from the robin's-egg blue of the sky to the hazy line of mountains in the distance. They had crossed the Duero without difficulty, the brawl at the inn in Norilla was a thing of the past, and all seemed calm and peaceful. Save for the sound, as clear and bright and cheerful as the morning, of her daughter chattering to Adam. Caroline subdued the urge to interrupt them as she had on the previous day. But when Adam burst into laughter, the sort of spontaneous laughter she had shared with him when they were children, she turned her gaze toward him involuntarily. His eyes glinted with amusement, his face was lit by a smile, his dark head was bent down to say something to her daughter.

Their daughter. An intense longing tightened Caroline's chest and brought a lump to her throat. She looked away, startled and unsettled. She wanted Adam and Emily to be friends. Until now, she hadn't realized how much she wanted it. But two days ago she had convinced herself that it would be better for all of them if she did not tell Adam the truth about Emily's birth. One night of intimacy with Adam didn't change her determination to give Emily the protection of a legitimate name.

Caroline shivered. Her night with Adam had given her renewed strength, a strength that was reinforced whenever she looked into his eyes, whenever he touched her in the lightest, most casual way. But her lie about Emily hung between them, a reminder of the past she did not want to think about and the future she refused to consider.

They were entering mountainous country again, though not as steep as that round Burgos. Adam had startled her that morning by telling a shepherd they met that they were bound for Zamora. Caroline had known enough to hold her tongue. When she questioned Adam about it afterward he said there was no point in advertising their direction. In reality they were riding southwest and would be near Salamanca by nightfall.

Caroline stole another glance at Adam, secure in the knowledge that his attention was on Emily. They would stay in an inn tonight. That meant she and Emily would have their own room instead of blankets on the floor of a farmhouse kitchen. And it meant that she would be able to slip from the room after dark and visit Adam's bed.

She felt hot, betraying color flood her face. She hadn't made up her mind, she told herself. She wouldn't even let herself think about it until she knew how they were situated. Perhaps Emily would be restless and she would be unable to leave her. Perhaps Adam would sleep in the stable or share a room with Hawkins. Perhaps they would not be able to find an inn and would stay at a farm again.

She kept up this pretense of indecision through the rest of the day's ride; through supper at an inn in the town of Bunedo, some twenty miles from Salamanca; through saying goodnight to Hawkins, who was to sleep in the stable and keep watch on the horses, and to Adam, who had a room upstairs, two doors down the narrow passage from her own chamber; through tucking the covers round Emily and watching her drift off into a deep sleep. Only then, as her body began to ache with anticipation, was Caroline forced to admit that her decision was no decision at all.

She hesitated a moment outside his door, then raised her hand and knocked. To walk in unannounced would be to assume a degree of intimacy they did not yet have between them, however passionate the night they had spent together. Adam opened the door almost at once. His eyes raked her face, blazing with hunger, but he said nothing, merely stepped aside to allow her to enter the room.

While he closed the door Caroline had a moment to note that the room was larger than the one he had had in Talcona and that there was a bed rather than a pallet. Then Adam turned and met her gaze. She saw longing in his eyes, and relief, and a mirror of her own uncertainty. If they put one foot wrong they could go crashing through the web of happiness they had spun for themselves into a dark, angry abyss.

Adam started to speak, but Caroline walked forward quickly and placed her hand over his lips. "No words," she said. "We don't need them."

His eyes not leaving her face, Adam pulled the pins from her hair and let it drift slowly through his fingers. The feel of the strands falling against her skin was like a caress. Caroline shivered and stepped closer to him, lifting her face. His hands stilled. His lips brushed against her temples, then her eyes, her cheek, and finally, when she thought she would scream with longing, took her mouth in a kiss of aching tenderness.

Warmth enveloped her. His lips were rough and wind-chapped. His mouth tasted of wine. He lifted his head, still holding her face between his hands, and traced her features, as if committing them to memory. Then he slid his hands down her neck and pushed her hair aside and found the strings on the back of her gown.

His careful deliberation stirred her and drove her mad. She kissed his shoulder and the angle of his jaw and the pulse beating at the base of his throat. He had removed his coat and his neckcloth, but there was still his waistcoat to contend with and his shirt. She pushed back the waistcoat and fumbled with the shirt and pressed her lips against the tangle of dark hair on his chest. And then she gasped because he had unfastened her dress and she felt the heat of his hands through the thin linen of her chemise.

Adam gathered her hands in his and lifted them to his lips one after the other, sending streaks of lightning through her. Caressing her wrists, he undid the buttons on her cuffs. She lifted her arms and somehow the dress was on the floor, followed by his waistcoat and shirt.

With a laugh of pure, intoxicating happiness, Adam swept her up into his arms and carried her to the bed. It was softer than the pallet and he laid her on sheets, not blankets, cool, smooth sheets. She stretched up her arms and looked into his eyes, not dark now but alight and glowing. And as she did so, she had an image of Jared's twisted face, the day his father had come to the house and denounced him.

No.
Her silent scream echoing in her head, she drew Adam to her and buried her face in his shoulder. Jared was dead. She could no longer betray him. Joy and delight were here and now and she was determined to snatch happiness while she could.

Adam cradled her against him, seeming to understand her feelings if not their cause. The urgency that had gripped him two nights ago had given way to tenderness. It was more than she could bear. She didn't want tenderness, she wanted the feverish hunger that freed her from the need to think.

She drew his head down to her own in an urgent, desperate kiss. Adam shuddered and tightened his arms round her, straining her to him. But then, as if with conscious effort, his touch eased. His hands moved on her back in slow, soothing circles. He dragged his lips far enough from her own to murmur against her cheek, his voice caressing. "Caro—"

"No." This time Caroline spoke the word aloud. She pulled him down on top of her, tearing frantically at his clothes. Adam tried to be slow and gentle but she wouldn't let him. She moved impatiently beneath him, her nails raking his skin, losing herself in the feel of his hands and the heat of his flesh and the fire raging within her own body.

But still it wasn't enough. A terrifying welter of thoughts and feelings hovered just at the edge of her consciousness. Adam's skin was slick with sweat and his breathing had grown ragged, but when he spoke her name his voice held a tenderness that brought unbidden tears to her eyes.

Her throat tight with panic and need, Caroline tugged down his breeches and pulled him into her, crying out in relief as his body filled her own. Only then, when sensation drove out reason and all else gave way to the current that flowed between them, did she know any peace.

By now he seemed as desperate as she was. They moved together in a frantic, uneven rhythm until the fire consumed them both and she was lost in blazing, cleansing heat.

Afterward they lay still for a long time, his head on her breast, his body still buried deep inside hers. A sense of contentment filled her and wrapped itself around her heart. She hugged him to her. "Thank you."

Adam raised his head and looked down at her with a crooked grin. "That's an odd remark from someone who's just bestowed so great a gift."

Caroline felt suddenly embarrassed. There was no way to explain what their encounter had meant to her. Not without treading on waters they had determined to avoid. "Surely it's appropriate, when a gift of equal value has been bestowed in return," she said.

Adam's eyes glinted. He lowered his head and kissed her. A gentle kiss, but she could taste his longing. She felt him beginning to grow hard again and felt an answering tension coiling within her. Another moment or two and she would not be able to leave. And that mustn't happen. She couldn't risk falling asleep and spending half the night in his bed as she had at their last encounter. With the part of her brain that still allowed for rational thought she managed to say the word that would set her free. "Emily."

Adam nodded, withdrew from her body, and stood, naked and glorious. Avoiding temptation, Caroline turned her gaze away and searched for her chemise, which had been dropped on the floor by the bed. Adam helped her into her dress and between them they managed to gather up her hair pins. After one last kiss, which nearly overwhelmed all her good intentions, she slipped from the room and made her way down the corridor.

It was dark in her chamber and she didn't want to risk waking Emily by lighting the lamp. She closed the door carefully behind her and picked her way across the floor, relying on a faint shaft of moonlight that seeped between the shutters. She could see the outlines of the bed and, as her eyes adjusted to the dark, the empty space on the near side where she could slip under the covers. Emily must be lying in the shadows, which was odd. Usually she took up the whole bed when she had it to herself.

But as Caroline moved closer, the shadows dissolved into empty space. She reached the bed and felt across it. Her hand met nothing but rumpled bedclothes.

Caroline fumbled with the flint on the nearby table, but even before she had lit the lamp, she had forced herself to face the truth. Emily was not in the room.

Chapter Nine

It did not occur to Caroline to be frightened. What she felt, after the first flash of annoyance because Emily knew better than to wander off without telling her, was guilt. She had left her daughter to wake and find herself alone, in an unfamiliar room in an unknown inn in a strange village. And all because she, Emily's mother, could not control her carnal appetites. Caroline's body felt heavy, sated with lovemaking, but even as the thought came to her she felt the stirring in her loins that told her she had not had enough. If it were not for Emily she would be in Adam's bed still, with Adam still inside her.

Caroline left the room and went back into the corridor. Emily might have gone looking for Adam and, confused by sleep, mistaken his room. But if she had entered the wrong room she would have quickly backed away and tried another. And there was no sign of her daughter, nothing to be seen but closed doors. Not Adam then. Caroline made her way quickly down the steep wooden steps and looked about the common room. She called her daughter's name softly, then called it again as she crossed the room and pushed open the door to the kitchen. There was no answer and she did not really expect one. Emily sought people, not solitude. If she hadn't gone to Adam, she would have looked for Hawkins.

The warmth and smell of horses assailed her as she pushed open the heavy door to the stable. It was black inside, the only light coming from the waning moon that sent a faint shaft of light through a window set high in the wall. "Hawkins," Caroline called, moving toward the light. "Hawkins!" she called more sharply, for by now she was afraid. If Emily had come seeking her friend, Hawkins would not be hiding with her in the dark. Caroline stopped and listened to the stirring of hooves, then the whinny of a horse disturbed in its slumber, and above this the sound of an oath and a man stumbling toward her.