[Samuel Barbara] The Black Angel(Book4You) (17 page)

"I'm willing to gamble." His gaze flickered again over her gown. "And I will do anything to see the end of that… that… color."

She sighed. It seemed the fates planned to thwart her at every turn. "As you wish. But you needn't come along. I've already made arrangements to shop with Cassandra this afternoon."

"I think not," he said. "I trust her less than you."

Tynan was quite satisfied with the progress of the day, in spite of the way Adriana ran hot and cold with him, her moods mercurial and dizzying. One moment she flirted openly, the next she hid behind the haughty chin or tried to disappear into the dullness of her cloak. The sights and sounds of London excited her, and she could not keep the shine from her eyes—but the thought of her brother in the Tower sent her into darkest despair and regret. Her laughter was quick and deep, and it surprised her that he made her laugh so often—which made him want to see her laugh even more.

Mercurial.

He did not think he'd ever known a woman who so fascinated him. The quickness of moods might have tried the patience of another man, but he enjoyed the challenge of countering the dark moments and gloried in the bright ones.

The moments he most enjoyed were those when her guard slipped the tiniest bit and he caught a flicker of desire on her lips, and in her eyes a swift glimpse of hunger as her gaze flitted over his hand or his mouth. She liked his hair, he thought, and wondered how to use it to further his cause.

But slowly. There was no rush in this. He wanted her, all of her, when she came again to his bed. Wanted her willing and whole, with all reserve gone, and all the passion that lurked in her set free and focused without reserve upon him.

At the dressmaker's shop he sat in a comfortable chair and nodded or gave a scowl to the choices of fabrics and designs presented to him. Nay to the pale blue muslin and printed pinks and sunny yellows. Too pallid for her.

At last the dressmaker began to comprehend his wishes. While Adriana stood still in the middle of the small room, Madame bustled into the back and returned with two bolts of fabric in her arms, and she was followed by two assistants also carrying heavy bolts.

"Set them there," she fussed, and with a quick gesture tugged out a long length of deep maroon, patterned with stripes in cream and ivy-green. It was a simple sort of fabric, but the color and pattern draped over Adriana's body like a breath, and brought forth the color of her skin and hair and eyes.

Tynan inclined his head in consideration, and as if to urge him to approve, the dressmaker tugged the fabric tight against Adriana's body, showing the fullness of her bust, the smallness of her waist.

"Aye," he said. "That one."

They settled on several others, and then the dressmaker shooed Adriana into the back to be dressed in a particular style. While she was gone, the dressmaker smiled. "She is hiding, that one." She winked. "But you will see, my lord, what a magician I am!" She clapped her hands. "Hurry, girls!"

Tynan heard a cry rise in the back room, Adriana protesting—loudly—and he grinned. If she disliked it so, he would almost certainly approve. He crossed his arms in anticipation.

But even the protest did not prepare him for the vision of her in the gown she wore when she emerged. The fabric of this model was only a poor grade of muslin in a greenish shade, but it did not matter. The lines, too, were unusually simple—fitted long sleeves and a square neckline cut low, and a waist fitted all the way to the hips.

Tynan was a worldly man. He'd lost count of the women he'd had, much less the ones who'd caught his eye for a moment or two, but in this simple, poor fabric model of a ball gown, Adriana put them all to shame.

It was, in part, the revelation of just what a glorious shape she hid beneath her badly made gowns—the beautifully lush breasts, the small waist, the surprisingly voluptuous swell of hips. Her arms were neat, her neck long and alluring.

But it was her skin that made him ache and shift, and wish there was no one else in the room. Skin as clear and smooth and perfect as a bowl of fresh milk, skin that glowed with an inner light, almost luminescent in the bright room.

He wanted to shed his shirt and press his chest to that silkiness. He wanted to lick it. And as he stared in pleasurable anticipation, letting his gaze swoop down her neck, glide over her collarbone, swell over that abundance of breasts that were near to spilling free—oh, lovely thought!—he noticed that her breath came faster than it should.

He lifted his gaze to her face, and there, in the company of the dressmaker and her assistants, in a public shop in a public square in the middle of London, their eyes locked. In hers, Tynan saw reluctant arousal, awareness of his perusal, haughtiness and need, all in a whirl. Her nostrils flared faintly, and she suddenly sucked in a deep breath and looked away to let it go.

The dressmaker, oblivious or polite, rushed forward with a new bolt of fabric. "Now in this you must trust me, my lord. We've said no pink, but this is—" She flung the edge of the fabric over Adriana, draped it close, tugged it close to her form. "—is different, no?"

"Ah," he said.

He did not know what name to put on the stuff, but he knew what it made him think of—fairy wings. Gossamer and pale. The color was pink, but only the faintest possible shade, the last moment of sunlight on a winter day.

Nor did he know why it gave her skin so much more luminosity, so much more power. Against that breathy shade, her lips darkened to a hot berry and her eyes glowed vividly blue, and Tynan, unaccountably, wondered if her nipples were pale or dark, rose or cinnamon.

He swallowed, surprised at the fever of his thoughts. With a wry smile, he nodded. "Yes. That one, definitely."

Adriana looked mutinous. "I shan't wear it," she said.

He grinned. "Oh, yes you will."

The door to the shop suddenly swung open, halting any reply she might have made. Tynan glanced up, curiously, and saw a woman of some wealth, attended by a footman. The matron wore an enormous hat trimmed with feathers and fruit, and her wig was so tall she had to duck under the doorway. Her face was aging, but Tynan could see the beauty she must once have been.

Adriana made a curious little noise, and both Tynan and the matron turned to look at her—which was evidently exactly what she did not want, in spite of the noise, for she was struggling to turn away, while Madame struggled just as intently to make her stand still so the gossamer fabric did not tear.

"Well well," the matron drawled, "if it isn't the Lady Adriana."

Pinned where she stood, Adriana looked down, turned her head as far as she was able.

But the woman was not about to be deterred. She moved with the practiced glide of a woman who knew her power over men, her skirts bobbing on their panniers in a way that made a man wonder what lay beneath. "I hear your brother is in the Tower, my dear. What a pity."

Still Adriana did not respond. She seemed to be shrinking into herself, as if willing herself to disappear, and Tynan wondered if he ought to go to her rescue. Instead he waited to see how it would unfold, looking for clues to the scandal, and to Adriana's heart.

"Have you come back to London to whore around a bit more?" the woman inquired.

Adriana's head snapped up and Tynan saw the blaze of fury in her eyes before she shifted, pushing the dressmaker—shocked into muteness—away. She turned away, head high, and carried herself with dignity into the changing rooms.

Having lost her primary quarry, the woman turned to Tynan. "Is she your slut now?"

He stood, and his height put her immediately at a disadvantage. "She is my wife," he said in a low, dangerous voice. "And I'll thank you to hold that evil tongue."

"Oh, how divine!" she cried. "A bloody Irishman." She gave a mean laugh. "Who else would have her?"

He raked her with a cold gaze and tucked his hands behind his back, glancing toward the dressmaker, whose face burned with the horror of this scene. "What shrews old, faded women become in the presence of youth and beauty," he said smoothly.

Leaving the shrew to splutter, he moved to confer with Madame. "Do what you must to have the gowns ready posthaste," he said, and tucked a guinea into her hand. Raising a brow, he smiled. "The ball gown first."

"Ball gown!" the shrew cried. "As if any door will be open to you!"

Tynan gave her his best, most wicked smile. "Oh, I think you'll be surprised." He exaggerated his accent, rolling the r's and the lilt. "I've prettier manners than you, and an ever so irresistible smile." Lazily, he crossed to her, letting his eyelids drop suggestively, letting his eyes scrape over her powdered bosom. He knew his power, and it lay in sex, a subject he suspected this witch knew all too well. "I'll be welcomed."

She glared up at him. "Not if I have anything to do with it."

He shrugged lightly. "Do your worst." Adriana, garbed in the mustard cloak, joined him, and he put his arm about her protectively. To his surprise, there was a tremble in her shoulders, and she kept her head lowered. "Good day," he said, and departed with a slow, precious dignity.

On the street he turned Adriana to face him, leaving his hands on her shoulders. "Why didn't you slap her?"

Now that there was no need to control her expression, Adriana's face collapsed into misery. "That was Malvern's mother." She lifted those deep blue eyes. "Now do you see how it will be?"

And Tynan, for all his bravado in the shop, did see. He would have to work quickly. "Let's get you home."

She nodded, an expression of such defeat on her face that he could not bear it. More than anything, he wished to take her into his arms and hold her quiet and close, to ease this shame—but in this public street, with the sting of insult burning still, he thought it unwise. Instead he took her hand and placed it on his elbow jauntily, keeping his other hand over hers.

Adriana retreated to the conservatory when they returned home. A long narrow room that ran the length of the building on one side, it housed an enormous collection of plants, most of them tropical specimens that Leander had gathered on his travels. There were exotic flowers and vines climbing posts, and greenery with enormous leaves. Many of the plants she remembered from Martinique, for while most of the children had taken shells and rocks as mementos, Leander had spent two weeks carefully settling various slips and cuttings in pots. He spent the entire ocean voyage hovering over the collection and worrying about it, but nearly all had survived.

Adriana's father, indulgently, had the plant house built as a surprise for the youth. Now many of the specimens that had made that journey were almost a decade old and dripped blossoms from the ceiling, and cast shade on sunny days.

It was one of Adriana's favorite spots. It smelled of earth and dampness and hints of sweetness from the flowers, and the agreeably dense warmth of the air made her forget her troubles in ways she never quite understood.

This gloomy afternoon, she carried a box with her. It contained the pages of her journal and a freshly sharpened pen, as well as ink, a set of watercolors in cakes, and brushes. Hidden from the world behind an overgrown pot of fatsia japonica, sat a wide wooden table, painted annually to keep the moisture out. It was here that Adriana settled. The glass walls rose from the ground to a point far above her head, and on such a cool day, condensation covered the panes, effectively blocking out the world.