Pride & Passion (26 page)

Lucy studied him. “You were branded.”

He nodded. “It’s the way of the Guardians. But I cried out, and my father demanded that I be branded again till I became a man.”

“Cruel, cruel man. You have suffered more than your fair share.”

“I have been given more than most, Lucy, and I shall never take it for granted. There is one thing that I am most thankful for—it led me to you.”

Reaching across the carriage, she grabbed his hand. “Yes, it did. Funny,” she said, smiling. “I distinctly remember telling Isabella at the ball, the night she met Black, that you were too ‘shiny,’ rather like a brilliant and pure archangel—and your name was really Gabriel.”

He laughed. “Imagine my horror when I thought how
easy it would be to stroll into the ballroom and claim you—finally. But you thought me cold and passionless. How that hurt, Lucy my love, because my gut had burned for you for so long, and my body—I ached with the want of you, and my heart…it was so full of love for you, that I could not countenance how you could not see it. How you could not want what I could give you.”

She gasped, and felt her eyes begin to water. Raising her gaze from their hands to his face, she whispered, “And is it still, Adrian? Is your heart still full of love?”

He pulled her to him then lowered her onto his lap. “Lucy,” he murmured as he tipped her back and stroked her cheek, “I love you more than life itself. You are the first thing I ever loved—you’ll be the last, too. I never knew kindness until I stood in your kitchen and you tried to make me feel welcome. I never knew what it was to crave another human being. I never knew that love could hurt like the devil until that day when I gave you back that scrap of lace and you declared me cold and unfeeling.”

She tried to talk, but he placed his fingers gently over her lips.

“I never knew ecstasy—or the deepest, truest meaning of the word
love
—until we made it that night. Do I love you? Yes.” He kissed her damp eyelids. “Yes.” His mouth moved to her cheeks. “A thousand times yes.” Finally his lips brushed over hers. “Forever, and always, nothing could change it.
Nothing
.”

“Promise me you always will, Adrian.”

“I promise, little love.”

He swooped down to kiss her, but she stopped him
with a hand over his chest. “Don’t you want to know how I feel?”

“I already do, I feel it in the way you touch me.”

She smiled. “Do you? Well, then, you don’t need the words.”

“I would die for the words.”

“I love you, Adrian. Not the duke, not the memory of the friend I once had, but the man you are, the man that is right here with me in this carriage—my husband.”

He kissed her, softly, lovingly, and when he pulled away, she looked at his eyes. “The ghosts are gone at last.”

“I’m glad.”

“It feels good to have the secret out. To know it is safe with you, and no one ever need find out. As far as society and Black and Alynwick are concerned, I’m the only duke—the true son of the previous duke.”

“Secrets are dreadful things, aren’t they?”

He nodded. “It’s cleansing, just talking to you. I don’t have to hide anymore. The words come easier now, because I don’t have to worry about mucking up things, or losing my accent and slipping back into my cant. I can just be me. There’re no more secrets, Lucy. Nothing between us. A fresh start, I think.”

“Yes,” she purred, “with my very own fallen angel.”

T
HERE REALLY WAS
nothing more revolting than Alynwick whispering to a lady, Elizabeth thought—and a married one at that. Something was going on with him. He’d been a constant presence at her side for weeks now since Sussex and Lucy had left for their honeymoon. She was coming to know him, his moods and his brooding presence in her salon. Tonight they were at the opera, and he’d taken her for a refreshment then promptly abandoned her to speak—no,
whisper
—with this other woman.

“You haven’t been to see me,” she heard the woman say in pouting tones. “I’m heartbroken, my lord.”

Alynwick’s reply was a mumble, intentional no doubt, for he knew Lizzy’s hearing was far more acute.

“Darling, you must come by the club.”

Lizzy’s ears perked up at that. What the devil was Alynwick up to? she wondered. Her brother should be informed. There was no telling what he might cause. And there was no denying that the marquis had been acting strangely—even for him.

There was a shuffling of bodies, followed by a demure little purr, and Lizzy was tempted to dump the contents of her punch glass over Alynwick’s head.

When he came back to stand beside her, she was positively fuming. “Take me home.”

“We just arrived.”

“I don’t give a damn, take me home.”

He heard the intake of her breath. “Lizzy, calm yourself.”

“I will do no such thing, my lord. How dare you make a mockery of me like this, talking to that…that woman.”

“That
woman,
” he hissed in her ear, “is Guardian business, and I need her cooperation.”

“I don’t care what you’re getting from her, take me home.”

“I think you do care what I’m getting, and perhaps giving,” he whispered huskily in her ear.

Pinching her lips together, she turned, sought to find a way out of this hell that was forming around her, but he was there, quickly latching on to her arm. “Where the hell are you going?”

“To the carriage. This was a mistake. I should have known better than to have trusted you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a rake, and a bloody heartless one at that.”

“When I agreed to allow you to help in this Brethren investigation, I assumed you were a brave enough girl for the task.”

“Brave, yes, idiot, no. You brought me here to flaunt your latest conquest in my face. She has nothing to do with Brethren Guardian business, and everything to do with slaking your lust.”

They were outside now, and Lizzy felt a measure of relief as the cool air kissed her cheeks.

“I am through discussing this with you. Call for the carriage, if you please.”

“As your ladyship demands,” he said in mocking tones. “Waste of a bloody night.”

“I couldn’t agree more. We discovered nothing but the fact that your mistress misses you in her bed. Hardly a startling revelation.”

“Oh? Do you miss me in yours, Beth?”

She would not answer that. She couldn’t. “Perhaps in your fantasies, Iain,” she grunted.

“Isn’t that the truth?” he grumbled as he helped her up into the carriage and slammed the door. They were off, and the silence in the cab was overbearing. She couldn’t stand it, the way her mind kept drifting back to that woman, and her voice.

“I will check the locks and windows before leaving you,” he said as his foot slid across the floor of the carriage, coming to rest between her legs. “My gut is on the alert tonight. Something is in the air.”

“Yes, I smell it, too. It’s called unfettered debauchery.”

She could hear the grin in his voice. “Are you offering, Beth, because I would, of course, be more than happy to accept such an offer from you. You’ve turned into such a plump armful that I couldn’t resist.”

“Go to hell,” she snapped, hating how he made her lose her cool elegance.

“Already been, my dear. The service was not up to my standards.”

She ignored him after that.

When they exited the carriage, she barely waited for his assistance. When Hastings opened the door, Maggie
was there waiting for her, and she took her companion’s hand, anxious to be away from him.

“Well, how was your evening?”

“Insipid. Uninspired and downright intolerable.”

“Oh, dear,” Maggie whispered as she steered them to her chamber door. “As bad as all that?”

“And then some. Maggie,” she said. “Fetch the writing box. I have a letter to write to my brother, and it needs to be posted first thing on the morrow.”

The sound of the writing implements on the desk told her that Maggie was preparing for her dictation.

“Dear brother, something of alarming import has come to my attention. I need you to return to London posthaste, for Alynwick, that horrid man, is bent on destroying the Brethren.”

There,
she thought. That should get her brother’s attention.

L
UCY WAS LEARNING
what it was like to be a duchess—and a wife. The Yorkshire weather had cleared up enough that Adrian had taken her into the village and introduced her to the tenants. She had admired babies, visited the ill and took notes on the needs of the village. Her husband was genuinely well-liked and respected, and she couldn’t have been happier.

The vicar and his wife came over for tea, and some of the surrounding gentry came to call and to offer their congratulations. But for the most part, their days and nights were spent together, quietly—touring the grounds, or the house. Adrian was a patient tutor, helping her to remember names, and what rooms were used for entertaining for tea, or for reading.

“I don’t like to be such a stickler about such things, Lucy. I don’t really give a damn if you serve luncheon in the front room, or the back room. It’s for Lizzy’s sake, you see. She’s so damn insistent on being independent, but when things change, she trips, and could hurt herself.”

“Absolutely. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to her. By the by, has she written to you? What did she say about our puppies?”

He had frowned then, and murmured that he had not yet had a letter from her, and he was worried.

“Perhaps Maggie has been ill and has not been able to write it for her,” she had suggested. Adrian had nodded, but he remained quiet the rest of the evening.

Today they were strolling hand in hand down the long portrait gallery.

“I shan’t bore you with the names. My father beat them into me, and I thought it all rather useless. But there are a few portraits I would show you.”

They strolled a few yards more and came to a portrait that stared down at them. “Sinjin York—the infamous Templar.”

She smiled up at the man, thinking how Adrian had inherited his eyes—and perhaps his crooked smile. “He was a rogue, I can tell.”

“Yes. There is a rumor that he seduced the Marquis of Alynwick’s daughter, got her with child and promptly abandoned her. There’s a curse, they say, that it is forbidden for any of the House of York to take a lover from the House of Alynwick.”

“Or what will happen?”

He frowned. “I’m not certain. Locusts or floods or something equally horrifying, I think.”

She laughed. He had spoken a bit of his ancestors and only a touch more about the Brethren Guardians. Like Black, he was loath to involve her, but Lucy decided not to pry. He would tell her, in his own good time—just like Black had done with Isabella.

Tugging her along he brought her to the next portrait. “My father.”

Lucy could not hide the little gasp of shock. This is what her husband would look like in ten years. He was handsome, very masculine, but his eyes lacked the warmth of Adrian’s, and his mouth wasn’t soft and lush, but firm, pinched into a hard line.

“I have stood here so many times wondering how it could be that I have so little resemblance to the woman who bore me. It is as if he created me out of some black magic.”

“Adrian—”

“He made Anastasia into what he wanted for a mistress—something common to assuage his deep-seated fantasies, but something he could boast of to his cronies, someone who would flatter his pride. And he made me, too.”

“No,” she said, rising on tiptoes so she could kiss his lips. “He made you a duke, a Brethren Guardian. He did not make you the man you are. You did that, Adrian.”

Clasping her to him, he hugged her for a long while and she felt his guilt and fear subside. “Do you want to see something very special—something magical?”

Giggling she whispered, “You already showed me that this morning.”

He swatted her bottom. “Minx! Not that!”

Following him, Lucy gave him her hand as he guided her from the portrait gallery, to a maze of corridors with stone walls and doors. “If you take that door, it will lead you to the cellars and a way out over the moors. There is always a horse there, ready to be ridden. Only the groom knows of it, and he takes excellent care of it.”

“I can picture it now, a knight in armor with his Templar tunic riding hell-bent over the moors with his sacred relic.”

He laughed. “What a romantic dreamer you are, my love. It makes me want to wake you up in the middle of the night and put you on horseback and take you riding over the moors beneath the moon and stars.”

“And what of the chalice, your grace? You have forgotten an integral piece of the story.”

It was dark. How he could even see to lead her, let alone where she stood next to him, Lucy could not believe. But he found her, pressed against her. The cool stone wall was suddenly against her back and her husband was pressing up against her.

“I haven’t forgotten the chalice. I would take care to fill it,” he whispered wickedly, “to put my lips to it and savor what flows from it.”

It aroused her, at the same time it made her laugh. “That is a very naughty analogy, your grace.”

“I’m a gutter rat,” he whispered against her lips. “We’re known to be crass and licentious. Shall I show you?”

“Not in here,” she said. “I fear this is a wonderful place for spiders, and I’m not fond of spiders.”

“And I thought you an adventuress. What of your séances and the occult, there was no fear then, and a little spider saps the vinegar out of you?”

“Indeed.”

“Come along then,” he said on a sigh. “If we cannot dally here, we will where I take you.”

They climbed a set of steep stairs—in utter darkness.

“How the devil can you see?” she asked.

“My father’s training. He made me learn how to get around in the dark—a Brethren Guardian task.”

“The man sounds perfectly horrid, Adrian. I thought my father cold and uninterested, but I have learned that I have little to complain about.”

“He taught me things I would never learn otherwise. In a way he proved useful to me.”

The door creaked open, and Lucy found herself in a tower. It was medieval in design and smelled of mildewing artifacts and dusty antiques.

“The only way up here is through that tunnel. There are never torches in case the place gets invaded—by whom I haven’t a bloody clue, but there you go. It’s a virtual castle, and you, fairy lady, are the princess, caught in a marauding knight’s lascivious hold.”

“I wonder if I should scream?”

“Only in wicked delight.”

“I thought you had something to show me?”

“Later, I think. I’d like to show you something different now.”

“And what would that be, good knight?”

“How much I love you,” he said, pulling her to him. “How hard I am,” he whispered wickedly.

Adrian captured her face in his hands and brushed his lips softly against hers. Her lips parted beneath his and her soft breath caressed his mouth. He kissed her, long and slow and thoughtful, showing her without words how he felt about her.

Lucy moaned and wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing him against the little mounds of her breasts. His body tightened and he brought her closer as he deepened the kiss. His fingers skimmed along her bodice to brush his thumb against her hardening nipple.

She tugged him ever so slightly closer to her and before he realized it, he was closing the door. Their kiss was unbroken and he felt Lucy’s body restless against his. Her fingers were clenching in his hair in an eager, almost wanton fashion that made him long with a desire that burned deeply in him. He would never get enough of her—never.

The kiss, despite his best intentions, turned more carnal and Lucy returned it with exuberance, matching his rhythm and allowing her tongue to playfully dance with his. His finger traced the delicate line of her collarbone and shoulder. Without thinking, he lowered one sleeve, exposing a small perfect breast to his hand. He cupped her, skimming his thumb along her hard nipple. She moaned into his mouth and he broke off the kiss only to slide the remaining sleeve down her shoulder, revealing her fully to his gaze.

She was perfect. Filling his hands with both breasts, he watched the expression of pleasure cross her face. Their eyes met and he very purposely skimmed both thumbs across the taut, dark nipples. Holding her gaze, he went to his knees, all the time watching her, seeing
how she followed him with her beautiful green eyes. Unable to resist the temptation she offered when she filled his palms with soft flesh, he pressed forward, nuzzling the valley of scented skin with his lips.

She whimpered and clasped his head to her chest and for a second he was content to press the side of his face between her breasts and listen to the rapid rhythm of her heart. Then he flicked them with the tip of his tongue, first in short flicks, then in slow, languorous circles, relishing the taste, liking the way her nipples puckered for him.

Her knees gave out and she slid to the floor in a puddle of blue watered silk. He held her tightly, stroking her nipple, feeling it firm and quiver beneath his fingers.

Then he was laying her back onto the floor, raising her skirts. She was spread wide and inviting, and Adrian closed his eyes, as he plunged deep inside her.

She arched perfectly, taking him all; he never wanted to leave. “How perfect you are,” he said as he reached for her hand and brought it over her head. Their fingers were locked, and he watched her body accept his. “Perfect,” he thought. This was a marriage in the true sense of the word, and when he finished, he lay with her, entwined in her arms, listening to her heart beating rapidly.